Relief!

Typical reaction of a parent/ teacher/ sister for a child/ student/ brother in a music exam:

1. "Oh don't worry. You'll be fine."
2. "You can do it! Remember to smile and look confident! Just do your best!"
3. "Oh! The lady's here now."
4. Pray
5. Heart palpitations
6. Why so long? Is something wrong? Oh dear...
7. Double the palpitation rate
8. Panic
9. She's back!
10. "How was everything, darling? I'm sure you'll be okay."

I think the parents and teachers and siblings of the examination candidate go through more anxiety and nervousness than the student does in the case of an exam or eisteddfod. I have often found my hands sweating when my brother is the one going for the exam/ competition!!

My Students' exams are over. RELAX..... breath out.

The most ridiculous cases ever!

No wonder Nat told me to practice law in America. With people like them, there will never b a shortage of lawyers!

A must read... it's hilarious.

Time once again to review the winners of the Annual "Stella Awards."
The Stella Awards are named after 81 year-old Stella Liebeck who spilled hot coffee on herself
and successfully sued McDonald's (in USA). That case inspired the Stella Awards for the most frivolous, ridiculous, successful lawsuits in the United States.
Here are this year's winners (from 5th to 1st place)

2005 Stella Awards
5th Place (tie):

Kathleen Robertson of Austin, Texas, was awarded $80,000 by a jury of her peers after breaking her ankle tripping over a toddler who was running inside a furniture store.

The owners of the store were understandably surprised at the verdict, considering the misbehaving little toddler was Ms. Robertson's son.

2005 Stella Awards
5th Place (tie):

19-year-old Carl Truman of Los Angeles won $74,000 and medical expenses when his neighbour ran over his hand with a Honda Accord.

Mr Truman apparently didn't notice there was someone at the wheel of the car when he was trying to steal his neighbour's hubcaps.

2005 Stella Awards
5th Place (tie):

Terrence Dickson of Bristol, Pennsylvania, was leaving a house he had just finished robbing by way of the garage. He was not able to get the garage door to go up since the automatic door opener was malfunctioning. He couldn't re-enter the house because the door connecting the house and garage locked when he pulled it shut. The family was on vacation, and Mr. Dickson found himself locked in the garage for eight days. He subsisted on a case of Pepsi he found, and a large bag of dry dog food. He sued the homeowner's insurance claiming the situation caused him undue mental anguish. The jury agreed, to the tune of $500,000.

2005 Stella Awards
4th Place:

Jerry Williams of Little Rock, Arkansas, was awarded $14,500 and medical expenses
after being bitten on the buttocks by his next door neighbour's beagle.

The beagle was on a chain in its owner's fenced yard. The award was less than sought because the jury felt the dog might have been just a little provoked at the time by Mr Williams who had climbed over the fence into the yard and was shooting it repeatedly with a pellet gun.

2005 Stella Awards
3rd Place:

A Philadelphia restaurant was ordered to pay Amber Carson of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, $113,500 after she slipped on a soft drink and broke her coccyx (tailbone).

The beverage was on the floor because Ms Carson had thrown it at her boyfriend 30 seconds earlier during an argument.

2005 Stella Awards
2nd Place:

Kara Walton of Claymont, Delaware, successfully sued the owner of a night club in a neighbouring city when she fell from the bathroom window to the floor and knocked out her two front teeth.

This occurred while Ms Walton was trying to sneak through the window in the ladies room
to avoid paying the $3.50 cover charge.

She was awarded $12,000 and dental expenses.

2005 Stella Awards
1st Place:

This year's runaway winner was Mrs Merv Grazinski of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
Mrs Grazinski purchased a brand new 32-foot Winnebago (RV) motor home. On her first trip home, having driven onto the freeway, she set the cruise control at 70 mph and calmly left the driver's seat to go into the back & make herself a sandwich.
Not surprisingly, the RV left the freeway, crashed and overturned. Mrs Grazinski sued Winnebago for not advising her in the owner's manual that she couldn't actually do this. The jury awarded her $1,750,000 plus a new motor home. The company actually changed their manuals on the basis of this suit, just in case there were any other complete morons around.

Morons indeed... One would be lead to think that it is a strange Jury who would award even a CENT to this mindless doddering clowns... Perhaps the plaintiffs were way too smart for the defendants. In either case, it's ridiculous...!!

Sick

Ugh.

Sick again. After having the flu vaccine too. What earthly good is a flu vaccine if I still get the flu?!

First I get a sore throat. I pumped my self with double dosage of triple strength Garlic, Horseradish and Vitamin C twice a day. That's about 12 times the dosage! :D hehe...

After my sore throat, I get runny nose.

Now that that's gone, my nose becomes blocked. Grrr... I'd rather runny than blocked.

And my voice is gone too. However, I seem to be recovering pretty quickly. Perhaps the operation did help. :)

Got to sleep. I hate sleeping with a blocked nose for company though. For one thing, you make a wheezing noise everytime you breathe in and out. And for another, you can't breathe! If you have to breathe, (which I take it as compulsory) you have to use the only other channel available: your mouth.

In the morning, your mouth is all dry, parched and cracked. Your voice is gone too. *Sigh*

NEW!

An extremely important post I wrote today (just a minute ago) but under the February category: Stunned

Abbie

Scramble!

Whoah! For the whole of Sunday afternoon, I was stuck in front of a rectangle screen writing my LAW150 mid-semester assignment. During holidays! :O It seems that the Lecturers take advantage of student's holidays to jam in the assignments! Our 'holidays' have even been warped into 'study breaks'!!!

Ohhh please... Give us poor students an uninterrupted 2 week break. Take a break yourselves too for all we care. You most probably need it too!

So anyway, here I was stuck for the entire Sunday afternoon, trying to come up with something decent to hand in on tuesday! By dinner time, I had it all nice and tight except for one problem: it was WAAAAAY too long!

So I spent the rest of the night trying to mercilessly cut and chop my assignment into bits! And well, I did get it to less than 1000 words. (Amazingly!) Subsequently, I found out that I was allowed up to 1,100 words!! Argh...

So, last night, after teaching a tiring Childrens' Institute, I spent the rest of the night, up till 11:30pm (!!) proof-reading my work, trying to get it ready for this morning.

It so happens however, that I had totally forgot about the CI when I arranged the court 'watching' group today! humph... Had to catch the 9am bus at uni, so I had to meet as a group by 8:45am. However, not being at the uni for 2 weeks meant a whole pile of errands to run, so I had to be at the uni lastest by 8am! That meant that after sleeping at 12am, I had to get UP at 7am!

Ok, ok... this is probably normal for umm... doctors? But lemme tell you, it's plain impossible for me! I'm dragging myself out of bed to go traipsing around the city?! Ahem...

Anyway, I acheived the impossible, and got up, had my devotions in 5 minutes, skipped Breakfast (like a naughty girl) and rushed off to uni, posted my LAW150 assignment, returned due books, and inquired for a notetaker's position. (Not to mention the least of which was waiting for SOME people to appear at the meeting place!) Oh yes... I forgot. I had to check the Transperth Bus Route too. :D hehe... My VERY first time taking a bus in Australia without a family member... yes, you heard me right. It truly was my first.

And I didn't get lost! Well, for the most part, that is. :P And that was partly due to a very, very intelligent-in-bus-matters-friend. ;)

Everything in the city was ok, except that by the direction of a ahem... (shall we just say, certain person?) in our group, we ended up in the Supreme Court of WA instead of the District Court like I first intended and planned to visit!! He -ooops... this certain person- was so sure it was right too.

We ended up watching a proceeding about some armed robbery. A car driver stole a wallet from a guy at a Caltex Station in Perth, and scratched him on the left forearm with a knife at the same time too. Ohhh- for goodness sake. What a petty quarrel! I mean, there was only $250.00 in that wallet (maybe a keycard too, but you can block the card!) And to think this guy is willing to expend even more money on a thief by bringing him to court?! Think of the THOUSANDS of dollars spents! *rolls eyes*

The only other 'wrong' thing about the court was that the Judge's Associate had short cropped, purple hair!!! I kid you not.

Yes, so I treated myself with a 40 cents soft serve cone from HJs in the city. (Side-issue) :D

Got home, showered, and then zoom, straight off to Church Office. The IBLP team offered to drive me to Kent Street High School so that it saves my family time and petrol. How kind. :)

Well yes. Pretty much stayed there for the rest of the night too. Actually, come to think of it, we might as well have camped there: except that it was freezing. :D

So here I am, at 10 past 12 in the morning, recounting a day's (several days, to be more precise) scramble.

Good morning.