Swine Flu!

Today I had to attend a refresher course/seminar on examination uploads. I'm pleased to discover that it hasn't changed much from when they were testing the new upload system in 1995 or 6 and I was a "B version" guinea pig. Not much change at all (same principles, just using an easier system).

At the seminar I was coughing and spluttering as I had to walk a distance (about a kilometre) up hill to the venue - the asthma has been playing merry hell with me lately and catarrh drives me nuts. The girl beside me seemed rather uncomfortable with my coughing (I was coughing away from everyone and into my hands, manners!), so uncomfortable in fact that she rather conspicuoiusly (while trying not to be conspicuous), was covering her mouth with the corner of her coat, when not covering it with her hand. All the time being very careful not to turn in my direction.... I don't sound sick, I'm not sniffling, I don't have a temperature; quite frankly she'd have more chance of catching any flu from someone she works with.

Where I work they're much more concerned with the pigs catching swine flu... although some people have been banging on about it coming to the campus.

Overblown.

Oh, and the other morning when it was frosty at home? It was -2 degrees C.

Rivers had a special on for four days this week, it started Saturday and finished today. Winter women's shoes for $28. I haven't bought new winter work shoes since about Christmas 1999 when I was in Sydney and bought them from a shoe shop near Roselands (Rima Shoes, they're gone now). Those shoes are wearing out I've already thrown out one pair which just fell to bits after nine years (they don't make anything to last these days!). These are the shoes I wear to work every other day in the winter. Oh wait, I tell a lie. I have shoes, but they aren't flat, and I really need almost flat, comfy shoes for work. And closed shoes for warmth. So I popped into the local shopping centre with a Rivers on the way home. I nearly left the shop with only three pairs, but found four I liked. Comfy! Warm! (At the counter, waiting to pay, I saw another pair I quite liked, the colour was chocolate, but I don't wear brown much... shame, I left them beind.) $300 worth of Rivers' shoes for only $112. YAHOO!

Since I've been working locally I've noticed how cold it gets out here. When I had to drive to Brisbane I'd get up before sunrise and be leaving the house before sun up in the winter, home again after sundown, and with the fire, heater in the car and aircon at work I wouldn't notice the cold - the only way I noticed a frost was seeing it as the sun came up, for much of winter sun-up was half an hour or more from home. I've had to buy a couple of warm hoodies, one to leave in the car and another to leave at work. Mum's found me a couple of warm fleece tops, too. Excellent.