Mystery Illness

We're a healthy bunch, our little family of three. It's actually something we take great pride in, as if it's something we've achieved through our lifestyle choices (which is highly unlikely and much more likely the result of good genes and a whole lotta good luck).

We've been especially lucky with Gus. He skipped all of those ear infections, various strains of flus and other random illnesses that raged through his day care and schools. In fact, before last week we've only ever had to take Gus to the doctor once (aside from the usual routine check-ups and immunizations) when he was just an infant. It was because of a mystery red patch that appeared on one cheek. Our family doctor was confounded by it, as was the other doctor in her practice who checked Gus out to see if he could figure it out. We were prescribed the usual course of antibiotics, and the patch mysteriously went away, came back a second time and went away again, always remaining one of those mystery illnesses that most kids experience at some point.

And just to make sure we don't gloat too much about our good health, , we are now going through mystery illness #2. About two weeks ago, Gus developed a red bump on one of his toes. Vic thought it might be a bug bite, I was thinking that it might be a wart or a blister. When Gus complained about it, I told him to throw a band-aid on it (band-aids having fixed so many minor Gus-injuries in the past). This time though, the band-aid solution didn't work. The red spot got bigger and became more tender until it covered a good portion of the front of his toe and we decided it was time to find out what that spot was. Vic took him to a nearby walk-in clinic, the doctor declared it to be a staph infection, we were prescribed a course of antibiotics and told to keep an eye on the red spot. If it grew bigger or failed to get better, we were instructed to take him to the children's hospital.

Yeesh - maybe because we're so not used to illness of any kind, we were checking Gus' toe on the hour and while it didn't get worse, it also didn't get better. Saturday morning, we went into the children's hospital with Gus to get it checked out a second time. Luckily (for us), we were one of the only ones not suffering from swine or some other flu, so they shuttled us out of the waiting room quick and we were seen by this great nurse practitioner. She first ruled out a few non-bacterial possibilities (extensive history and x-rays to make sure it wasn't a foreign body or some kind of fracture), swabbed the red spot and made sure it would get plated up right away, and then went on to prescribe a more aggressive antibiotic. We're to follow-up with a doctor this Tuesday and in the meantime keep an eye on the toe to make sure it doesn't get worse.

We're back to checking the toe on the hour (which Gus is getting a little tired of) and I've even thought about taking pictures of it so that I could better tell whether it's getting worse or better. Next illness, I'm hoping for some good old fashioned chicken pox.

Boomerang, anyone?

A couple of weekends ago, we spent a Sunday afternoon celebrating Canada Day with the Canadian-Australian club on a floating restaurant at Darling Harbour. It was a gorgeous sunny day, and as always, it was so comforting to hear the sounds of Canadian accents. At our table was a woman who had been in Sydney for 24 years. She had this very romantic story of meeting an Italian guy and sailing from Italy to Australia where they ended up staying and raising a family. At one point in the conversation, I told her about how we're heading back to Canada soon for a visit and asked her if she had any tips for Australian souvenirs to bring back for our friends and family. Without hesitation, she told us that on the first visit back, you must bring back all the Australian kitsch that you can stuff in a suitcase.

Heeding her words, yesterday we went to Paddy's markets to load up on boomerangs, cane toad wallets and kangeroo furs. We were totally overwhelmed by the sheer amount of stuff, and ended up with gifts for only a fraction of the friends and family we're planning to visit. We're thinking about going back for a second run, so all you Canadians out there, here's your chance: if you're at all interested in a koala backpack or kangeroo claw backscratcher (we saw one, and it's just as gross as you would imagine), now's your chance to let us know.

Here's some pics of Gus being a goofball for the grandparents, taken on the floating restaurant where we celebrated Canada Day.

All together now

One of the things I'm really enjoying about Australian TV right now is MasterChef. Love it! And I love that it's on almost every night of the week, so that you're almost forced to watch it. This also means that just about everyone else in Australia is watching it at the same time too, and everyone's talking about it. I'm not sure I have the right words to describe it, but it's like it's building community through a TV show, which I know sounds pathetic, but I think it's nice.

For those of you not in Australia, Masterchef is a reality TV show involving everyday Joes with a passion for cooking who are battling for the title of Masterchef. But the difference is that it's actually quite nice to watch, probably because there's none of the bitchiness of most other reality TV shows, and everyone is quite decent and supportive towards one another. The other great part is that it's all about good food. Every once in a while, they'll give lessons on some of the basics, and last Sunday, they made scones. mmmmmm, scones. There's lots of scones in Sydney, and they are freakin delicious. I tried out their recipe for date (they love dates in this country) and lemon scones last night and they were as easy to make as in the show and they came out perfectly. Do it! Make them! When they're done, enjoy them with jam, cream and a cuppa and you'll feel just like you're in Sydney (if you're not already in Sydney).

Scare tactics

Australian public health campaigns rely heavily on scare tactics. The commercials warning about the dangers of smoking, crystal meth, too much sun exposure, and binge drinking are at times downright horrific. The other day, the "everybody knows" anti-smoking commercial came on while Gus was in the room and I made him close his eyes through all of it just to make sure he wouldn't have nightmares that night. Here's a link to the commercial, but I'm warning you - if you have a weak stomach, don't follow the link!

Interestingly, for any public health geeks out there, there was a famous campaign in the late 80s, called the "grim reaper campaign". And if you talk to Australians, they all remember these commercials and will swear to you that the campaign was incredibly successful and resulted in Australia's current low HIV rates, at least among heterosexuals. I have no idea if that's the case or not. I do have a vague memory from a course I took ages ago (in psychology? sociology? public health?) that scare tactics do not work in changing people's behaviour, it just grosses them out. But, I don't know...I think I'd be giving up the smokes pretty quickly after I saw some of those images in the "everybody knows" commercials. Also, someone recently made the point that if nothing else, these commercials are good at getting people to talk about these issues. This much, I can vouch for!

I can't help myself

This past week we finally bought a new car. When we first got to Australia, knowing we were only going to be here 3-4 years, we had a decision to make...buy a cheap old car and run it to the ground, or buy something more expensive that we could sell right before we return to Canada. Well, Vic heard several stories from backpackers and expats who went the cheap old car route, drove the hell out of it all over Australia's outback, and who strongly recommended that option to him. So we bought the lemoniest of cars for very little money. And what happened: well, it broke down about a week after we bought it, and continued breaking down on a regular basis since then.

In fact, the car's been steadily running worse and worse, to the point where we've been sticking close to home in the past month for fear of it breaking down and being stranded far from home. But last week, we finally got rid of it, and bought a much improved, dependable car. And what did we do the first weekend we had it....go to the Blue Mountains, or the Royal National Park or to the Northern Beaches??? No, no and no. Instead, I insisted we go to Ikea, which is way in the West of Sydney, about a 45 min drive from us. We hadn't been to Ikea since shortly after we got here, and I've been suffering from withdrawal from being able to buy cute stuff for our apartment, cheap.

In trying to avoid the insanity of Sydney traffic, we ended up spending absurd amounts on tolls, but for me, it was totally worth it. I love Ikea! Once there, we bought hot dogs. We had to, because Ikea is one of the few places in Sydney where you can buy hot dogs that actually taste and look like the hot dogs that we're used to. In other places, the hot dogs are an odd orange or bright pink colour and the inside of them is a yucky mushy texture. eww. The calzone (tomato and cheese) in the pic below is mine (have I mentioned I've been seriously off meat lately?).



We went with the intention of buying a shower curtain, and came back with an armful (and let me tell you, I had to restrain myself from buying many, many other cute things). Ikea's swedish ingenuity never fails to impress me. Check this out. A solar powered lamp (perfect for our small apartment that has limited electrical outlets), AND for every one that you buy, they donate one to UNICEF. We had to buy it, not just for us, but for the children. Also included in our purchases was a pepper grinder (I cannot believe I've been without for almost a year) and matching spice jars....and the grinder part of the pepper grinder comes off and can be screwed on to any of the matching spice jars. Genius! And of course, a fleece blanket to replace the sleeping bag we've been using as a third blanket to keep warm on the colder nights.


On our way out, we HAD to test out the ice cream machine.

Eyes rolling back into head. mmmmm, ice cream.

Things I wish I had known...

Oh yeah, there's lots I wish I had known before I moved to the other side of the world to start this PhD almost a year ago. Here's one of my top ten: being a phd student is lonely! Before I started the program, I had read about the sense of isolation that most PhD students feel, but I ignored the warnings because I like to think of myself as immune to all those wussy feelings. Well, turns out those PhD blogs and websites were right, and it is indeed an isolating experience, especially if it's something you're doing full-time, like I am.

Here's a picture of the post-grad room, where I spend most of my weekdays reading and writing. My desk is the one in the left corner by the window, with the heater in front of it. Sometimes there are one or two other students in the room with me, but we're all working on our own thing, hence that isolation thing. The other six or so students that have desks in this room are MIA, which is not unusual in PhD by research programs.


Gone are my public servant days of working as part of a team, and consulting with everyone and their grandma before taking a step. Now it's just me and my research, which is sort of free-ing, but also a little scary.

Here's some of the stickers on my filing cabinet left behind by the last student. Is it any wonder that I'm feeling a little off meat these days?!?

A warm salad

Last night we ordered pizza and I was looking around in the fridge for something healthy to eat with it. We had a big bunch of romaine lettuce that I was thinking about turning into a salad, but it was so friggin cold in our apartment that I couldn't bear the thought of eating something cold. So I decided to take a page from Kath's blog and make kale chips. This was the first time I had made them, and I was doubtful that kale could turn into anything tasting remotely like potato chips, but they were really, really good, and as an added bonus, I'm sure they cancelled out any unhealthiness from the pizza.

Here's the recipe (taken from Kath's blog): Take a bunch of kale, wash it up and rip into chip-size pieces, and lay them out in a single layer on a cookie sheet. Sprinkle with olive oil, salt and parmesan cheese and bake for 15 min at 375, until edges are browned. Easy peasy and delish!

Our crust supreme, soooo good with a combo of sweet pineapple and salty black olives, and other yummy toppings.

Kale chips (they taste better than they look)