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As I mentioned in the last post, our gas-operated hot water system had broken down so we had ordered a new one on the net, which we did last Friday. Gori had told me that the seller said it would take about 3 to 4 business days to deliver the product, so I had been counting days, longing for its arrival. It's quite inconvenient not to have hot water, you know. Obviously you can't have a hot shower or bath and of course you can't use hot water when you are doing the washing-up. Luckily, Gori's mum and dad are living very close to us, we had been using their shower since this incident happened. It's OK and we should be very appreciative of being able to have a shower but to be honest, it is a bit of a hassle. Having a hot shower every night plays a big role in my life, because without it I can't sleep well, which can affect the next day's productivity and suffer from backache, which makes me feel soooo down...


Anyway, I had been waiting, waiting, and finally the day when the new one was supposed to be delivered had come! I was sooo excited! I hadn't done any exercise because I couldn't have a shower in my own good time. 6 days had already passed without any exercise so I was itching for it. But...you know what?? it didn't come. ... So I thought 'OK, don't get upset yet! Probably it will come tomorrow.' And the next day,,,,, it didn't come, either!! I was running out of my patience!!

Guess what??? Yesterday when Gori came back from work, he broke a news of a bad bad thing, which was he had received a phone call from the seller and they said they had not been able to identify our address so they hadn't even sent the thing yet!! Hello~~?? We ordered it a week ago!! They could have called him to check on the address a long time ago! Obviously Gori got angry to hear the terrible news on the phone so he accused them why they hadn't called him much earlier. And you know what?? All they said was ’We've been too busy to ring you up.' It's outrageous!! No wonder that I got soooo upset and very grumpy to hear the news. Gori and I even had a bit of fight over it, which was totally unnecessary .

It's very upsetting and extremely disappointing but we've already paid for it and now we know that it's on the way here. It should be here by this coming Tuesday. All we have to do is just to grin and bear it. Oh boy, what a bummer!!!

Our gas-operated hot water system is out of order again! This thing is very temperamental and has acted up every once in a while, which is extremely annoying! But this time it seems like it's finally had it, totally.

As you might know, Gori is a gas fitter so he has been looking into it to find out what was wrong and after his attempts and efforts, he diagnosed that it was unfixable(^^;) However, I was not convinced by his diagnosis because he hadn't taken the system apart, so I insisted (or maybe begged him^^;) that we should have a very close at it by taking it apart as much as we could. He agreed with me, saying' We've got nothing to lose. '. He looked into each part of the system one by one very carefully. And me? well, I tried my hardest cleaning up the clogging in the burning part while he was at his inspection. He found out a cause-could-be so I got very excited. But he said ' Don't get your hopes up too high, just yet.'

After we finished all the cleaning and stuff, Gori put the system back into one piece and we turned on the hot water. I was very excited! But....unfortunately, nothing happened....
The system didn't come back to life....

Well, I was disappointed at the result but we have done everything we could so I am content. Oh boy, having said that, we'll have to go up to his mum and dad's house to have a shower for a while until a new hot water system comes ( he ordered a new one online yesterday). I hope it comes very soon. I really need to have a hot shower every night to have a good night sleep and my back gets tight and sore without it!

There is one thing that I have been trying to stay away from....that is a lemon cake!! I love this lemon cake for which I got the recipe at Cook pad, a cooking website. But the problem is that once I've baked one, I can't stop eating it! It is very fluffy and moist. And it has got a taste similar to cheese cake. Oh my god! I am working up a craving for it! I haven't got lemons so I gotta go and get some from the dam, which I told you before has got a long steep slope to get there. Probably if I go and get some lemons myself, I might work off the calories that I am going to get by eating the cake!(LOL)

I am sleeeeeeeepy! I wonder if I have caught a cold or something?? I have got a lot to do but I can't bring myself to do them. (^^;) Maybe I am wearing too many clothes. It's beautiful outside, nice and warm. OK, I will pull myself together and work on the stuff I want to do! But first of all, I'll have to shake off this drowsiness! What should I do??

Oh boy, my back is tight. The reason, you ask?? Well, I have to admit that I got a bit carried away when I was doing my regular exercise on the treadmill two days ago. Usually I start with 400m walk as a warm-up and do some jogging for about 200 to 400m and then I walk for around the same distance. I continue this cycle over and over again until when I get sick of it or when I have hit 4.5km to 5km mark in total distance. But two days ago, I was feeling good and very motivated so I jogged for about 800m straight during one cycle! And now I have got a bit of relapse of my backache^^; I should take it easy for a while, shouldn't I?? I have got a lot that I'd love to do but I shouldn't risk it by pushing myself too much!

Good morning. It's been nice and warm around here recently. Today, I am going to have another language exchange session on Skype. I hope she shows up on time. I have been pretty busy doing a lot of things so I haven't been able to get around to twittering on this blog. At the moment I have got a lot on my plate, which are very important issues for me. I can't say what they are now but I have been working hard to solve these issues and I am just about to finish.

Hello, there. Today I had my first language-exchange session with the Brisbane girl who stood me up last Monday(^m^). She apologized me for not turning up last time. She said she had forgotten to write about our appointment in her diary. Anyway it's water under the bridge. We should move on.

We started our first session in English first. I was totally taken aback because she spoke extremely fast!! I don't know anyone who speaks as fast as she does!!! She speaks very quickly and she doesn't stop!! I was very busy trying my best to keep up with her but I think I understood about 70% of what she said. After the session I said to her how fast she had spoken and she apologized for it. She said even her Aussie friends complain about her speaking speed and tell her to slow down. Well, I was glad to know that I was not the only one who had trouble understanding her. She asked me to tell her to slow down a bit if she is speaking too fast,which made me felt better.

To be honest, I was a bit disappointed at today's session because I couldn't get to talk as much as I wanted but I should try to look on the bright side, shouldn't I. This will be a great training in terms of improving my listening skill and improving my cutting-in-on- a-conversation skill, you know what I mean?(^m^) And if I can make a conversation as much and fast as she does, that means I will achieve my goal!!

Hi there. My English study has been going pretty well today. So far, I've done three 50-minute sessions. My mind became much clearer after I posted the last tweet. I want to have anther English study session before Gori comes back home. Speaking of Gori, I've baked lemon cakes for Gori. He loves the cake. He has been flat out working this month and plus he didn't give into the flu so I think he deserves a little bit of treat. I hope he enjoys the cake. By the way, I have let my exercise slide for the last 4 days so I WILL jump on the treadmill in the daytime today!!

There is some issue that has been bothering me for a while. I am dying to sort it out but I don't know how to do it because it is a very sensitive issue. I would have confronted it ages ago if it wouldn't affect many people. Maybe I am being paranoid but I hate having this kind of pent-up emotion that seems to be going nowhere. Anyway, I feel a bit better now, I really needed to let it out otherwise I wouldn't have been able to concentrate on my study and other stuff today.

Did anyone watch the State of Origin game 2 last night? I did and I have to say that it was pretty boring!! Of course, I was happy to see the Maroons thrashing the Blues but honestly it was not something that I had expected. I expected it to be more exciting, a neck and neck battle between them. I have watched State of Origin twice so far but even I with little experience could tell that the Blues were no match for the Maroons. 'They are not a team.' , this is what Gori's sister said very disappointedly. ( She was supporting the Blues because she was born in NSW.) I totally agreed with her. They didn't have any strategies or plans, I even felt that I wasn't sure whether or not they really wanted to win!! It must have been extremely humiliating for them to lose 5 Origin series straight. I do feel sorry for the players because I think they could have played better if their selectors hadn't swapped some of the players at the last minute! They shouldn't have done that! Their fan must be devastated or even sick of it now. Anyway I had a good time last night, having dinner with Gori's family and the lamb roast was very yummy and tender, the upside-down cake with ice cream that we had for dessert was gorgeous and most of all, Gori and his dad were chuffed about the victory.

Hi, there. Today I attended another Skype English session with my friends. We discussed Japan's increasing divorce rate and same-sex marriages. I think I handled pretty well with the former topic but I was kind of struggling with the latter one. The reason why I struggled was simple; I hadn't prepared it well enough to express my opinions about this touchy and controversial issue. I have been studying English using this text book called Opinion 1400 by Z kai and it carries articles about this topic. I have studied these articles for quite a long time so I thought I'd done enough but it turned out that I was wrong. I have been slack in terms of digging into discussion topics and studying them. So I've decided to turn a new leaf and plug away at this area, too. Now I've got lots to do regarding English study, so I will tackle them one by one and little by little so that I don't get overwhelmed by them.

It was nice and warm this morning but it's getting colder and colder. Today I have done 2 sessions of English study but I have been easily distracted by my thoughts, which rarely happens to me. There are a lot of things I'd love to do, for example I want to make new entries on my Japanese blog, to work on writing draft of my English learning method and to study English by a different approach and more! I am so pumped up that I find it difficult to concentrate on one thing!!

I've spent a lot of time on the Virtual English Club forum again! Today I devoted myself to creating my own signature that I put at the bottom of my posts in the forum.

I had heard someone talking about this 'signature' thing before but I didn't have a clue what that meant. Well, I had been wondering how other members in the club had been managing to put up a notice of their blogs' URLs at the bottom of their each and every post. I had thought that they had been putting up those information every time they had made a post, which was extremely time-consuming and irritating task to do. But now I know that what was behind it! They had been using a signature function and had created their own signature, well.. it's not technically a signature, it's more like a notice of their blogs and twitter IDs and every time they've made a post, the signature shows up on the post automatically! How handy is that !! I can't believe it took me such a looooooong time to make this fantastic discovery!! (^^;) But now that I've got my own signature, which took me hours to complete, I can enjoy activities in the club in more relaxed way.　

By the way, our club has been getting several new members recently, which is great! I hope they enjoy their activities in the club and improve their English skills as much as possible!

＊大過去（had ＋past perfect(V)）がいまいち曖昧。後でゴリちゃんに見てもらいます。

My hands are so cooooooooold!! Should I put on gloves?? No way! I wonder how I can warm them up. Maybe by soaking them in hot water or something? Well, it's not cold outside but I DO feel cold inside the house. Why is that?? Oh hang on, I didn't have a foot bath last night, did I? That may be it! Should I have one now?? Well, anyway, I will set about studying English shortly. I am pretty motivated about it!

Good morning. Gori is working today. He is still fluey so he took some flu tablets, just to be on the safe side. He has been taking every single remedy to get over the flu, for example, wearing a sweater, ugg boots, scarf around his neck, and even a beanie. He has also been taking some echinacea, which is a health supplement made from herb called echinacea. They say it's effective against colds and flues. Gori absolutely swears by it. He's also been taking enormous amount of vitamin C tablets which I think he should have taken as a precaution BEFORE he caught this flu(^^;) Anyway ,I am pretty impressed by his actions to fight against the flu this time. I can tell how serious he is about this. After all, he can't afford to lose his teaching contract coming up this Thursday, so he has to get over his flu and he is the only one who can do it, not anyone else, including me. What I can for him is nothing, compared to what he can do for himself, do you know what I mean? Oh well, I might sound a bit harsh on him but deep down, I am very happy with his attitude!! Good on him! I hope his efforts pay off and he shakes off the flu very soon.

*I am going to write titles of my tweets in Japanese from now on. This way, I thought might be more appealing to readers(＊＾＾＊)

I have been wrapped up in writing articles on the Virtual English Club forum. Today I have incorporated a new roll-calling system into our Skype English session team. The system is actually a website called 出欠党幹事長 and It's really convenient and easy to use. All you have to do is just to fill in details of your meeting and make a URL of attendance chart by a click. And then you just post it on your website or send it to people. The good thing about it is that everyone can check attendance charts any time. I hope it works well for us. I am a bit tired. I need a break!! 出欠党幹事長 website? Click here

Gori has been fluey recently. He has got a runny nose and a bit of sore throat. Those symptoms are not serious so he is working on his radio-controlled airplane now. I hope he will get rid of it soon because he has got a teaching contract with his school and it starts this Thursday. I should keep him nice and warm and make some nutritious food for him. And most of all, I should try not to catch his cold.

Oh well...My language-exchange partner didn't show up, I mean she didn't get online(^^;) Today is a pubic holiday( Queens Birthday) in Queensland and I guess she has forgotten about our session because of it(^^;) I was kind of toying with the idea that I should double-check with her beforehand but I didn't. Anyway I was a bit disappointed but this kind of thing happens sometimes. I will snap out of it and do things I want to do(^^)

I've just finished the housework. Today I hung some of the laundry in our bedroom. It's cloudy outside and the humidity in my district is about 70% at the moment, according to a weather forecast website. Oh, look at the time! I gotta go and get my Skype online for my first language-exchange session! Wish me luck!

Good morning. I am feeling good this morning although I was kind of expecting some muscle pain in my legs and back since I had walked up the steep slope and exercised on the treadmill yesterday. There is a little pain in my bottom but this is nothing. OK I will finish up the housework and get down to English study and other stuff I want to do. By the way, I am going to have a Skype language-exchange session with an Aussie girl who lives in Brisbane at 10 a.m.. I have never done this before so I am a bit nervous but also excited.

I've just done 3.5 km on the treadmill. I feel refreshed. I think that those remedies for humidifying the rooms have already been working. It could be my imagining thing, but it was much easier for me to jog on the treadmill tonight. Up until yesterday I became out of breath easily and I also felt some kind of uncomfortable pressure on my chest when I was exercising on the treadmill or even just lounging around in the room. But tonight, I feel much better, even rejuvenated. I became happier and more pumped as I was jogging on the treadmill. I definitely feel that the air in the rooms has more moisture now. It was cloudy today so it could be a reason for it but I think those remedies are working, too.

I like this smaller font better than the previous large one. I wonder why I had been using that one without any doubt for such a long time. It's too large and clumsy to read, isn't it? I am happy with this present one.

Gori and I walked down to a dam in his mum and dad's property . There is a bush lemon tree near the dam so we went there to get some bush lemons. To be honest, I was kind of reluctant to go there because we had to walk down and up the very long and steep slope to the dam. I had done that before and I had had to rest at least 3 times so I had got totally knackered..But to my surprise, I was able to walk back up the slope without any rest this time!! I was amazed! Seems like my exercise on the treadmill has been helpful for building up my strength! Well, my legs are a bit wobbly at the moment but I am proud of myself and I am glad that I've done it. Now I am baking a lemon cake. My mind has changed from bread and butter pudding to lemon cake.(^m^)

I made a potful of bolognese sauce this morning and Gori and I had it with spaghetti for lunch. Feels like I've eaten a tad too much.(^^;) I hope I don't get sleepy in the afternoon. It's cold today. I want to eat something warm for dessert such as bread and butter pudding. But I know it is not good for me because it has got a big calorie so it affects my waistline ^^; and since I use white bread in it when I bake one, that could bloat my stomach and make me sick. But I do want to eat it.....What should I do?? Do you think I have got a strong willpower to resist this temptation??

It's been sooo dry recently. My skin is dry and gets itchy. And of course, when it gets cold and dry, you have more opportunities to encounter this,,, that is...to get a bloody shock of static electricity! This is sooooo annoying and I am pretty much paranoid about it! Every time I have to touch metal parts of furniture or something, I get scared(><)

I have got to do something about it!! I have made up my mind to address this issue, which is humidifying the rooms! I've been using a spray bottle to spray water into the air for a while. Well, it seems to be working but having said that, I use a dryer to dry our laundry so the air gets really dry very quickly so I think this remedy is not good enough. I needed more effective way of humidifying the rooms. An idea popped into my head was to buy a humidifier from shop but these things are pretty expensive and we cant afford it. And anyway I learned that some times humidifiers' filters get moldy and that could cause some allergy or breathing problems so I gave up on the idea and looked for another cheaper ways.

Then I found that putting a glass of water in the room is also effective and growing plants in the room has got a similar effect in terms of increasing humidity in the room. Hanging laundry inside is also a good idea but I don't have enough space for it and after all hanging the laundry in the room doesn't look pretty, does it?

These three remedies are very easy to implement, aren't they? I've already put a cup of glass of water on the kitchen bench and hung a wet towel on the steel bar on my treadmill. As for the plants, we have to go to town to buy one but it's Sunday today so the shops are closed. We will have to do it some other time. I hope these things work.

For more information: Click here

Gori has been watching Rugby Union Test match on TV. I really don't understand it (^^;) I definitely prefer Rugby League (NRL) to Rugby Union. I don't even understand the rules of AFL,either. I like NRL because its rules are very simple and straightforward. Having said that, I don't get one of the rules which is forwarding or something. Speaking of footy, State of Origin game 2 is coming up this coming Wednesday, which I am looking forward to. Of course I am on the Maroon(Queensland)side.

Hello, everyone. My stomach is not still 100%. I had some hard jubes last night and then I had trouble sleeping because I had a funny pain in my stomach. I don't feel appetite for some reason but I try to eat because I feel lethargic without it, don't I? By the way, Gori has been working on building a new veggie patch for me. It's very nice of him to do that. I want to grow some veggies there. To repay his kindness, I am going to bake a chocolate cake for him with extra chocolate flakes. I am short of vegetable oil so I will use butter instead. I hope it turns out OK.

Because I was sick when coming back from Japan, I was expecting an E-mail or phone call from my mum to know how I was doing. (She cares about me all the time.) But in spite of my expectation, I hadn't heard anything from her for 4 days since I came back to Australia, which got me worried. She never misses this kind of thing, so I thought something must have happened to her. So I rang her up on Skype to find out what was going on. Yes, my hunch was right. She had come down with a flu after Gori and I left and had been suffering from a terrible cough and high temperature, which were exactly same symptoms as my flu. Well, obviously I am the one who gave it to her! Poor mum... I hope she gets better soon.

Gori's gone to Brisbane to take his final course to become a gas fitter. He got up at 4:30 this morning and drove down. He will come back this evening. I had a good chat with my Skype session friends in Japanese this morning. I feel a bit tired physically but I feel like doing something, something productive. I am toying with the idea of making my new English study strategies. What can I do? Planning is fun, isn't it?

Hi, there. Gori and I came back to Australia 2 days ago. Our one-month stay in Japan passed very quickly. To put it simply (and honestly) it was pretty hard for me. I was sick most of the time during the stay. Having said that, it's not that my stay in Japan was a total disaster, there were some good things, too. I had a nice time with my family and got to catch things up with my friends and I learned a lots of things from this trip. Anyway I am still not 100% healthy so I should take it easy for a while.

Oh no! A huge cyclone has developed near Queensland's coast line! I wonder if it will affect our flight back to Japan! I hope we are going to be OK.

Today Gori and I went to town to do some shopping. My purpose of it today was buying some chocolate as souvenir for my family and friends. I bought a lot of boxes of Lindor chocolate and lots of kinds of Tim Tam. Lindor is not technically Australian, actually it's from Switzerland but it's very tasty so I bought them. As for Tim Tam, I know Japanese people are very familiar with getting Tim Tams as souvenir of Australia ( or even sick of getting ones^^;) but usually those Tim Tams are original Tim Tams with milk chocolate. So I bought different kinds of Tim Tams even though I have never tried any of them (^^;) I hope they are yummy too!

I made custard this afternoon. It was the best custard that I've ever made. Gori said it tasted very similar to his mum's, which is really really nice! I am going to make some for my family when I get back to Japan too!

I've spent so much time and effort on planning a trip for Gori's mate and his girlfriend. Well, acutally I've done that for Gori because if I hadn't done that, I knew he would be in a big trouble and extremely stressed when he was going along with them on their trip. Because they don't speak or understand Japanese at all!

But now I think I've wasted my time. I am not sure yet but I think they are not going to go on the trip any more. We sent the final detailed plan of their trip a few days ago and they started whinging about it. Yes, I admit that I've made a little bit of changes with the first plan so if you have trouble with them, I could change them back in your way, which is fair enough. But things are a bit different with this one; YOU had agreed with the first plan which involved 3 domestic flights and that's why we booked the flights and have bought the tickets. YOU agreed on it ! You CAN'T say that that was not what you had been expecting at this point! It's too late, mate! We've already bought the tickets! If you had had trouble with it, you could have said it when we showed you the first plan or even more, you could have made a plan yourself!! You didn't even bother to book the flights or doing anything!! You can't just whinge, with not doing anything! We are not your submissive travel agents!

Now things have become very complicated and awkward between them and us. I really feel that I shouldn't have started this planning thing in the first place. I wouldn't have done that if it wasn't for Gori and if driving was not involved. I am really really regretting this because after all, this is THEIR trip!!

Now I really hope that they are not going anymore. I am just sick of mucking around sorting out information about hotels and other stuff for them. I've just had it.

Sorry for whinging. But I really needed to let it out.

I haven't made an entry in this blog for a while. That's simply because I have been too busy to get round to it(^^;) Ever since I decided to go back to Japan, there have been a lot of things to be done so I have been wrestling with them. Now I have a week to go before the trip. I am very thrilled and looking forward to it.

The share market is deteriorating again! One of my favourite shares has gone down lower than its support level! Thank goodness that I didn't buy in yesterday. I could have been stopped-out and had to deal with the loss! There must be lots of investors and traders that have been having a hard & stressing time recently. You really can't guess today's market, can you?

Well, I am getting sick of just watching my trading platform and not making any action. The shares that I've keeping an eye on are very close to their buying points but just not yet. One of them has hit very close to its support level, so I could buy in at the price but there is also slight possibility that it might keep going down like one of them did a few days ago. I was feeling dilemma whether I should buy in now or not, but this time I had decided to play it safe so I resisted my urge again! I will wait, I have to wait, which is soooooo frustrating. I hope the shares make breakthroughs very soon! By the way I am still not feeling 100 %. What's going on with me??

Yesterday I had another Skype English session. We discussed pets( Are you a dog person or cat person?) and animal abuse & cruelty( battery hens and animal testing). The last two topics were very controversial and tricky topics to discuss, but I enjoyed it. I went to bed early last night because I felt a bit sick. I think I've had more than enough sleep last night but I am still tired(^^;) My head is fuzzy. By the way, this tweet entry is the 100th one!! Good on me!!

Yesterday I was wrestling with my black printer ink. Its ink had run out so I refilled it and put it back in the printer like I usually do but it didn't work yesterday. I tried many times but the printer didn't recognized the ink for some reason! It was frustrating! After a while I came to the conclusion that we'd been using the same cartridge for more than 2 years so it had just had it so we would need to buy new original one, which cost us about 40 bucks( very expensive, isn't it?)It's typical! This kind of thing( unexpected expense) happens when you need to save money. I really didn't want to spend money on it, so this morning I tried it again with a little bit of hope of miracle. And guess what?! It worked! This time I found the cause! There was a piece of tape caught between the ink cartridge and its lid! I didn't notice it at all yesterday! I am happy that I got to save money!

The share market has been going up and down recently ( it happens even within a day!)Thank goodness that I am not in it at the moment. There are some shares that I've been watching very closely,but none of them haven't reached the point at which I want to buy in. There were some moments when I feel like jumping on them impulsively , but luckily my educated guess and senses resisted the urge. All I have to do is wait a little longer.