Working it out

In a massive turn of geekism, I have decided to start planning my New Year’s Resolutions already. At this stage, 2009 is going to be full of win.

Still planning, of course, but so far I’m thinking:

• buy an apartment
• run (and I mean, like, RUN) the City to Surf
• win the [yet to be established] Pulitzer Prize in Blogging.

What do you think, team?

And, in an effort to get off to a running start (there is a pun there, too, just wait for it…) I started the “run 3 times a week” goal YESTERDAY.

I did the first session of DJ Steveboy’s Podrunner: Intervals First Day to 5K — a 10-week interval-training program that gets progressivly hardcore as the weeks go by.

The tempo of the music changes with a kinda comical hooter noise to tell you it’s time to speed up/slow down to guide you through the run, and I think I did alright for the first go!  I fast-walked and jogged on the treadmill with it pumping out my iPod nano for 30 mins and did nearly 3k! Hurrah!

I also signed up at http://www.gyminee.com/ but I do wonder how long I will stick with updating that. It is much prettier than the last social-fitness thing I played with (can’t remember the name) so that will help me be motivated to log on.  If anyone else is on there and wants to be a GymBuddy, let me know.

because this fairy tale still needs a happy ending

Dear Editor

I proudly subscribed to your publication last month. I looked forward to reading insightful pieces written by prominent Australians about our nation’s “Politics, Society & Culture”, as your tag line explains.

My excitement when I pulled my first issue out of the letterbox yesterday fell, almost with a thud to the driveway, when I saw the sparkling smiles of The Obamas dressed in their fairytale finery on the cover of this supposedly Australian publication.

However, as I do adore the Obamas and cheered the US election result with some vigour myself, I figured they probably deserved their place on yet another cover (The Monthly is among such friends as Rolling Stone and Men’s Health in picking the same cover star). Obama’s election matters to all of us and I do hope he’ll come visit us soon.

But when I read Galarrwuy Yunupingu’s utterly amazing piece about his life, his hopes, his disappointment, his frustrations and his visions for our country, my own disappointment and frustration led me to writing this letter.

Why was his story not given the pride of place on your cover? Obama is the World’s Black Man, yes, and we are all incredibly proud of him. But Galarrwuy Yunupingu is Our Very Own Black Man.

I normally hate being parochial, but I truly believe his piece should be read and appreciated and acted upon by every Australian, and it feels to me that by adding yet another smiling Obama to newsstands you may have missed a great opportunity to bring our country’s own healing back to the front page.

Yours sincerely
Sunili …

making us look bad

I have disliked The [not-so] Hon Julie Bishop for quite some time. Firstly, the wall outside her Subiaco office makes me want to gag every time I drive up Rokeby Rd. Then there’s the whole Liberal Woman oxymoron thing where she, like Gov Sarah Palin, takes the cause of women 50-bajillion steps back every time she steps out in her Linney’s.

As if her policies and incompetence weren’t bad horrible atrocious enough, she goes and does THIS during question time:

OH. MY. EFFING. GOODNESS.

And then —– and then her “justification” for this lameness (which will surely give me nightmares tonight; sorry for posting it, actually)???

“When people are carrying on in question time and getting really personal and vicious, it’s just a little thing that I do,” she said.

“It’s sort of suggesting that the girls should put the claws away.” [News]

It’s “A LITTLE THING” you do for “THE GIRLS”????????????

GREAT WORK, you pretentious brat, now everyone’s just going to say that female politicians can never rise above the petty squabbles they have across the leafy courtyards in their obnoxious private schools!!!!!  (The day I vowed never, ever, to enter politics was the day we had a fake election in Year 10 Social Studies. Oh, the humanity.)

There was a comment on the news article going “oh, right, so can guys punch each other in Parliament now”? And seriously, that’s what this takes us to. Redicularity.

I am so embarrassed I share the same two types of chromosomes with this person. SO EFFING ASHAMED.

Can anyone confirm that she’s actually a she? I still have hope. No honest woman would use that much hairspray and fanny about like THAT much of a queen, right??? Please? I’m begging.