A large part of my day today was spent at another mining conference. During break sessions, they had set up an exhibition as well as a mini aboriginal art gallery.

One of the stands at the exhibition was put together by one of the world's leading petroleum companies. As part of the exhibition booth, they had put up pictures, paintings, and drawings that little children aged 9-10 had done.

The theme was to draw a picture that showed how bad sniffing petrol was.... There were some very cute pictures with people on the floor, very bad spelling, some crazy robberies occurring.. then..slowly, i noticed something rather amusing (but very very indicative of racism at such a young age)..

... every single person that was depicted in the drawing as a petrol was coloured in .... (wait for it) ... BROWN or BLACK....

RACISM MUCH!?

s part of my job in health & safety, i need to be a qualified first aider. And so, my company sent me off to the St John's two day first aid course.

Today's lesson was the very important - DR ABCD - recovery position, and CPR. Whilst I have always learnt first aid on those special annie dummies, today I had to do my recovery position work with real life people.

Being small and the shortest person in the entire group of mining giants, I was naturally paired up with a super duper tall guy, who wasnt too skinny but not too fat (just... right.. + a little pudge).

Anyways, for the recovery position, you need to constantly check if that person is breathing by putting your head close to the nose/mouth area, whilst your hand is on their forehead and abdomen. And so there I was hand and head in the right area, when "poooo-ieeeeeeeeeee", i caught a whiff of the guy's really awful breath :S At first I thought, maybe it was just a whiff of something else, so i kept my head there, and again, i was mortified by the smells coming out...

And then i noticed the hand on his abdomen was getting a bit clammy - was i so nervous that I was sweating?? nope, it was his sweat purging through his polo... and again, when i had to turn him over to the side - besides the fact it took a little effort (but that's natural given most people are bigger than me), I had to put my hand under his neck to support it.. and ooooooph, it was sweating... EWWWWW

Poor me had to endure a day of this , plus when i attempted to avoid putting my head close to him, my instructor kept telling me otherwise..

so PLEASE PLeASE PLEASE - if you do a first aid course, please DON't RUN to the centre, drink water and eat mints...!!

Having grown up in the 90s, I admit to being a child of the hypercolour era but who could forget

It's good to have your friends experience certain parts of life before you do. That way, you can learn from them and find out things you never knew.

This week (and last week) has been filled with wedding related things - A friend of mine from Uni just got married today in a gorgeous little church wedding whilst my netball (sometimes) team member got engaged and had a little engagement party last night. And amongst the weddings and engagements, there has also been the experience of an ex-loved one (no, not me - a friend of mine's ex) leaving for good... and what have I learnt from all these?

* Do not allow little kiddies aged 1-2 years old to a wedding. They will make lots of noise and scream throughout the vows. If you need to bring them, take them out of the church/venue when it's time to exchange vows

* Never wear mascara to a wedding. You will look like an H-addict when the bride walks down the aisle, and you start bawling for no apparent reason.

* Always let your heart heal before moving on.

* Food and spending money makes the depressed happy (even for that short time)

* Friends make life all the more better

This month, I have been ultra good and have been trying to kerb my spending after a horror run of silly purchases :) Anyways, I did really well, and last night, received my credit card bill - $18.05 ... *Hi*5*

Unfortunately, with that credit card bill came a little letter from my credit card company...

"We have noticed that you have not used your credit card in some time. (In actual fact, I haven't used it for a whole two weeks...)

Whilst we understand that it makes a great coaster on your coffee table, we would like to give you the opportunity to increase your credit card limit from XXXX to XXXX , which we believe is the real reason why you haven't used it".

Did I miss something here? I havent used my card because I want to kerb silly spending, and they're offering more money? .. *ouch*.. someone's out to get me!!

In other news, I went to the Official Reception of the Japan-Australia Guest Nation thing for the Royal Show last night and met a sweet (and pretty good looking!!!) man who turned out to be the Managing Director of Japan's #1 Beer Company...

... too bad i don't drink beer :(