This is what they need to be learning at school

domestic violenceIt’s become almost just words now we hear it so often. 31 women killed in Australia this year, 32 women killed in Australia this year – and now we are at 33. April has not yet ended.

It’s not the total amount of women that have died in Australia, it’s not the number of people dead from freak accidents or hideous diseases. It’s the number of women killed as a result of violence inflicted on them by men, sometimes their partners, sometimes strangers.

It was in March of this year after Masa Vukotic was stabbed to death in suburban Melbourne that Victorian Homicide Squad Inspector, Mick Hughes told Fairfax “I suggest to people, particularly females, they shouldn’t be alone in parks.”

Of course there was an outcry. Why on earth should women have to live their lives any differently than men? And why is it their fault?
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Mentally ill or evil?

I am no Pollyanna, everyone who knows me knows that . I am the master of thinking of and fearing the worst possible scenario in my head, I am a nervous worrier and I often experience hideous anxiety. Especially when I watch the news. Or listen to people talk about the world.

Because of this lovely, sunny natural disposition of mine I have had to build up a few defence mechanism – ignoring people, changing the subject, crying to my husband and er, swallowing pills. Perhaps the way I perceive the world is another one of these defence mechanisms.

For instance when I hear that someone has done something heinous I assume (and I believe rightly) that they are mentally ill. Not in a “depressed” or “anxious” way but in a “completely out of touch with reality” way.

I never thought of it as a defence mechanism until I really spoke about it in some detail with Kerri.
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Take a look – Kerri feels very differently to me. For a change. Please watch the video so that you can see I REALLY don’t believe everyone with a mental illness commits evil acts (in fact I know that not to be true).

What do you think? Can people be evil or is it a mental illness?

What I wish you knew about teachers

In a previous life, many incarnations of Lana ago, I was a primary school teacher. Not a “big school” teacher but an infants teacher – I loved (still do) little children and could think of no finer way to get paid then to spend all day with small kids.

Young kids are so much less complicated then their adult counterparts, they are innocent and honest, mostly loving and kind and so open to the world. Being a teacher seemed like the perfect occupation, if I got to avoid the staff room drama I would get to spend time in the company of really good people.

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The compromising photos we probably shouldn’t see

You know that a post may be terribly misinterpreted when you start to write the disclaimer before you’ve even really clarified your thoughts… but here it is. This post is not meant to stand in judgement of anyone who reads it, it’s my view which may be different to yours at best or wrong at worst.
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A fate worse than half picked nails

There are few things I find as tedious as having my nails done. I know it’s a real first world problem but right now I am on holiday and trying to immerse myself only in the problems of the first world type (although to be honest I find it hard to stop thinking about asylum seekers and Kenya, and innocent women murdered and the Nigerian girls who were kidnapped nearly a year ago today – but that’s just my brain).

Before I arrived on holiday I had my nails done and sat through it in much the way I sit through everything that I find excruciating – I counted. It’s much easier to get through the nail painting if I think it’s only ten times four (ten fingers, 1 base coat, 2 colour coats, 1 top coat). What I hadn’t taken into consideration is that I find going on holiday can be a little stressful at times what with saying goodbye to the dog and flying. So naturally by the time I arrived in beautiful Port Douglas my nails were hideously picked (reference this video for a reminder of that “gorgeous” habit I share with my friend Kerri).
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5 minutes with Kerri and Lana: The birth experience I never had

A couple of weeks ago there was a ridiculous meme making its way around the Internet written by an almost hilariously ridiculous group who are clearly either attention seeking, satirical or downright bonkers.

5 minutes with Kerri and Lana

The meme that caused the big stir was accompanied by the words “Pregnancy is a beautiful thing as it is the zenith of a woman’s role in a moral Christian society. If God has decided to call you home, it is not up to you or a doctor to reject Him. You may find yourself cast into the lake of fire for doing so. God’s Peace.” I laughed at the angst in that post but when I saw how much media attention it was getting I felt slightly uncomfortable that someone with clear issues was getting so much time in the limelight.
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I’d be really grateful if you read this

I loathe self-help books, I don’t like to be told how to feel and process things – especially by people who don’t know me or what I have been through. I don’t believe in many alternative “new-age” ways of thinking, mainly because I fiercely believe in science and I am not the kind of person who can gaze at my naval and contemplate. In fact I can’t do anything that involves concentrating on breathing because as soon as I even think of the in and out mechanism of breathing I forget how to do it.  You don’t want to sit near me in a yoga class when they do breathing exercises – I will trample you in my hurry to leave.

Being told that I can manifest good things if I just think positively is one of the worst things you can say to me – I wonder if people who say that to me would say the same words to a child born and living in a rubbish dump in India. Or to a child suffering from a terminal disease. Or to a family fleeing the war in Syria. I could go on for days. Ridiculously bad things happen to extremely good people and extravagantly good things happen to hideously bad people. Life can be awful and wonderful and it’s very, very random.
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The real reason I will never be a fashion blogger

The other day I was having lunch with some friends when they asked me why I was making videos with Kerri. Not why in a mean way, but rather in a “to what end” kind of way.

I stopped to think.

We first kind of decided to make the videos on a whim mainly because we have so many bizarre and hilarious conversations together we thought we should record some. But we never really had an end in mind. We just wanted to have some fun. And laugh with people who take fashion too seriously like in this episode. (That said we would never laugh at other people as much as we laugh at ourselves).
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Have you ever “accidentally” worn the same thing twice? Do you wear “outfits”? Do you notice other people’s clothes? Do you wear the same outfit to school drop off and to work? Do you have advice for Kerri to wear on a first date?

Is it cheating if you’re not actually reading the book?

My hypochondria started when I was young and I blame the radio. And those awesome little cardboard dolls came with outfits made out of paper that you had to cut out with great precision and fold the tabs over the doll to dress her.

paper doll

You see when I was a little girl and I got sick my mother would buy me one of these doll/clothes combos and leave me to lie in bed with the radio next to me. It’s not that we were anti-technology or that I was too ill to go to the lounge to watch telly, it’s just that TV hadn’t yet made it’s way to South Africa when I was a child. Shocking, I know but it developed in me a mighty fine appreciation of the radio.
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When do you just let things go. Also known as the end of the thermomix wars

It feels like the whole of Australia knows that I have “issues” with my Thermomix given the absolute huge amount of traction my humble little blog gained when I wrote simply that the Thermomix was not everything that I had expected it to be. News.com.au contacted me to ask me if they could republish it and the next thing I knew I was, for want of a better phrase, going viral.

The post started popping up everywhere and I was hugely impressed and delighted with how many people agreed with me. I wasn’t a leper after all. Many people find that they are not using the Thermomix as much as they thought they would. The comments on my own blog were beautiful, smart and very considered. Even the people who didn’t agree with me.
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