Hi. My name is Brucina. Nice to meet you.

Tomorrow is Australia Day and at 9.30am I'm officially becoming an Australian citizen by taking the pledge at a citizenship ceremony. After the ceremony, we'll come back to our place and have Champagne and homemade muffins and ham and cheese croissants. We'll probably move down to the little park between our house and the river to have lunch and drink more Champagne in the afternoon. I might also have a few gin and tonics. I consider it my duty as a new Australian to drink like one- of course.

It's half past one at night and I'm sitting at my laptop with earphones, singing the Australian national anthem. Only quietly, so as not to disturb anyone. I need to practise a bit before I sing it tomorrow. I'm so excited.

And here is a before and after shot of me. Before and after being Australian, I mean:

One of my friends has decided to start calling me "Brucina", now that I'm going to be Australian.

I'm a little bit drunk and I've got nothing to say.

But I thought I should post something anyway, just for the hell of it. Not quite sure why. Anyway. That's about all I've got for today. I know it's very lame. Sorry- to avoid further disappointement you might want to avoid this site in future.

Ok, it's official now.

I have, at best, a mild case of internet addiction. I'm in between jobs at the moment so have no access to the net at work and our internet at home was down for at least a couple of weeks. It was hell.

I don't even spend that much time on the internet, but I realised how heavily I rely on it. I couldn't find a job because I couldn't send any job applications per e-mail or call employment agencies because I couldn't look up their number on the net. I couldn't remove the rust stain from my yellow dress because I needed the internet to look up how to do that. I couldn't keep in touch with my family and friends overseas because my beloved Gmail account was not accessible. I didn't know how to get anywhere because I couldn't look up the best route on the net. I couldn't pay my bills because I use netbanking. I couldn't book accomodation or restaurants for our weekend away, because I couldn't look it up on the internet. My spelling and use of synonyms went downhill, because I couldn't use the appropriate reference sites. I didn't know what my friends are doing and couldn't see their silly photos because I couldn't access Facebook. I didn't know what was happening in the world because I couldn't read online news. My blog friends started to desert me and take me off their blogroll (wink, wink, SJ) because I didn't update my blog for a couple of weeks.

My life lost its meaning. But thank God my internet is back now and I can finally function like a normal person again.

I had the strangest dream last night.

I was standing on the bottom of a ramp leading out of a large underground car park. In front of me was a long mini bus which seemed to be somehow stuck on the ramp, with another car right in front of the mini bus. I was pushing the mini bus from behind, trying to stop it from rolling back into the car park. I seemed to be holding both the mini bus and the car in front of it, which had rolled back onto the mini bus. Someone else was watching me. Both of the cars seemed to be empty.

After a little while, I had no more strength to support the two cars and had to give up, let go and jump out of the way. I was stressed and felt scared about letting the cars go, but thought that I might be lucky and the cars would maybe only roll back a little bit into the car park and come to a halt. They did roll back slowly, but I realised that they rolled towards an expensive, yellow sports car, which was parked in the middle of the car park and was leaking petrol. Alarmed and petrified I looked at the person who was watching me and without saying a word, we both sprinted away from the scene as fast as we could. The mini bus had now reached the sports car and gently bumped into it at a slow speed. However, as soon as the two cars touched, they both caught on fire and a huge explosion followed, which turned both cars into a massive ball of fire and swallowed them up completely.

I was horrified and felt sick with guilt. I knew I had failed in preventing this terrible accident. When I woke up, I still felt guilty and had the same feeling in my stomach I get when I hurt someone unintentially.

How Bettina learnt a lesson from a little boy

I hate being unemployed. I wish I could get myself to enjoy the free time, but it's a struggle. Which is pretty strange, considering I usually value my free time like a precious treasure. But being on holidays is worlds apart from being unemployed. I feel like I should be job-hunting around the clock or else I feel guilty. I realise this is uncalled for and I want to hit myself over the head for being so stupid, but I don't think that would help either.

I went for a long walk in the rain this morning, which was lovely. It only rained a tiny little bit, which felt as if someone was constantly spraying a fine mist of water into my face and over my arms. Considering it's stinking hot at the moment, it was perfect. When I was almost back at my house, I walked past this older style house with a huge trampoline out the front. And there was this little boy, all by himself, in the rain, jumping up and down on the trampoline relentlessly, as if nothing else in the world mattered. He looked so happy and relaxed that I couldn't help but smile. I stopped and watched him for a while and when I continued my walk, I thought to myself, that's what I need to do. Live in the moment as if nothing else mattered. Because once the moment is gone, it will never come back. I shouldn't be wasting any of my moments with silly worries or wanting to hit myself over the head for no reason.

Maybe I should myself get a trampoline.

The times they are a-changing

Happy new year, my dear friends. Sorry I haven't been around much. I've been busy watching my life change. Over and over and over again.


My job of three and a half years came to an end just before Christmas, because the business was sold. It was a strange feeling- not only was my own job finished, but I also had to say goodbye to all my work friends and watch the premises being completely emptied. The business- a restaurant, where I've worked as the functions and marketing manager- had been in the same position and run by the same owner for 21 years. To see it being torn apart and broken into small pieces was quite emotional for me. And how ironic it was, that I, who used to pride myself that nothing at work could ever made me cry (and I have seen plenty of people cry there), cried a couple of big tears as I walked out of the door for the very last time.

I spent Christmas Day with my boyfriend's family, which was also quite the novelty, as it was the first time in three years I didn't work on Christmas (and could therefore not pretend that it didn't exist) and also the first time I celebrated Christmas with a family since my husband left me three years ago. It was a lovely and very relaxed day and we had a few good laughs. I think my personal highlight was when a present was called out as being "from Zac the dog and from Charlie the bird to mum". It was hilarious. I should maybe add here that Zac the dog is a litte white poodle which is extremely old and blind, and the fact that he still had the energy to get together with the bird to plan a present is quite admirable.

On the 26th of December, we took off early in the morning to go to a week long alternative music festival, as I have been doing for the last four years. I absolutely love it and cannot get enough of it. It is a truly amazing week of unbelievable freedom and happiness- so wonderful, that we all did not want to come home. Just like every year. All my friends and I are only now, a couple of days after we got home, starting to get over our serious case of "after festival come down".

And now I'm unemployed. For the frist time in friggin' God knows how long. It is not a problem at all and will no doubt not last long, but in the current phase of my life, I don't particularly enjoy the feeling of being unemployed. I consciously did not try to get a job lined up in advance, as I will just get a temp job for a couple of months before I go back to Switzerland in about March. I've got lots of qualifications, the employment market is very favourable and I'm not worried at all. It will just be a little temp job anyway. But even just a day of being unemployed makes me feel somehow useless. It's different from being on holidays. I feel like I don't serve a purpose. Which of course is a load of bull, but that doesn't change the way I feel.

Anyway. I didn't mean to sound like I'm feeling sorry for myself, because I don't. Trust me, I'm in a good spot and happy with my life. I'm just at one of those points again where everything in my life is changing and one thing has finished and the next hasn't started yet- and I'm standing in front of the hole and wonder where my life will take me.