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earthkissed

Just me and my thoughts, most of them silly.

Name:
Location: brisbane, queensland, Australia

I am a daughter, a sister, a wife, a mother, a friend. Sometimes I am good at these things, sometimes I am not.

Sunday, August 26, 2007

Acupuncture

I have discovered that acupuncture is probably not my cup of tea. When they suggested to us as part of our training course that we go to see an alternative therapist and then report back to the other Gp registrars on what we learnt and what it was like to be a patient etc. I looked at the list and thought "acupuncture, yep, people sticking needles into me, that sounds interesting and fun". Now some people have in the past told me you don't feel the needles going in. I'm here to tell you - you do.

In all fairness to the man giving me acupuncture, I did start to feel a bit anxious about the whole thing when he was putting needles in my back (didn't bother me when it was in my stomach, legs, wrist and ear). The ones in my back I felt - I really felt. He did lots of things like attaching electrodes etc and I do feel I didn't quite enjoy it as much as I thought I would. The next day I noticed I could feel a lump on my lower back, and it turns out I have a blue bruise. I guess he hit a little vessel. It is stilll there. Never mind.

One of the things I found interesting was the lack of medicolegal discussion. Were I to be doing a similar thing, I would be required to explain what I was going to do, explain the risks and benefits and obtain "informed consent" (verbally).

Enough prattling.

I hope when I next write that I will have many fun exciting tales to tell, as I am going skiing shortly. Will be offlline for two weeks. Talk to everyone next time!

Thursday, August 09, 2007

Cold Hard Seas

All day you look to me
But not for knowledge
You want
To hear the answers you want to hear
And, the disappoinment
Oh, the disappointment
When I give you an answer
That you didn't seek

Why come here?
Why sit in that chair?
Just to hear me voice your thoughts?
Do it yourself
Save yourself time (Don't waste mine)
Stare in the mirror
Tell yourself what you want to hear

But don't expect me to acquiesce
Don't think I didn't read the signals
I saw what you wanted me to say
And I steered clear
Headed instead
For the cold hard seas of truth

Wednesday, August 08, 2007

One of those days

I had one of those days today. You know the ones - where you realise your first mistake was getting out of bed? Matt had to catch the 6am train, and had forgot to enable his alarm. So he woke up at 5.45am and got ready very quickly, and sensibly asked if I could drive him to the station. I threw on some vaguely presentable clothes and obliged him, because it did seem a reasonable request. I came home and went to bed. My alarm went off at 7am. I pressed snooze until 7.45 because if Matt can be ready in 15 minutes - damn it, so can I! I was so proud of myself, got ready, watered the plants, made a cup of tea, grabbed some fruit to eat on the drive to work. I had all the various bits balanced in my hands and as I was at the door, the evil oscar did a plaintitive whistle at me. It sounded hungry. I had everything in my left hand, and my keys in my right hand. So I put them down, put some food in the cage (avoiding pepper who has a new trick of trying to bite when you feed her - otherwise she doesn't bite so much at all), and walked outside and slammed the door......

Keys locked inside house..... Oh Crap! I could see them. I tapped on the glass, but oscar did not escape his cage and open the door for me (bloody tease he is). This is the one day I couldn't just say, Oh well, I'll sort it at lunch time and walk to work. This morning I had to do nursing home visits (my nursing home pts are at 5 different nursing homes) - I needed my car!!!! I rang the real estate agent - they told me I could just walk to their office and get the keys, I tried to mention how late this would make me, but they were just like "you don't live that far away". So I left my cup of tea on the veranda (it would only slow me down), grabbed my bag and toddled off to the real estate agent, grabbed the keys toddled home. All the toddling left me sweaty and horrid, and all I wanted to do was have a shower, but seeing as I already leaving home about 30 minutes (I walked very fast) after I planned, I decided against this.

I drove to work - rang Matt and told him about it - got out of the car - was about to shut the door - realised in time - got my keys from the ignition (How dumb can I be in one day? - a new reality show) and went inside. Grabbed my gear, and rushed off to see the oldies. At the first nursing home, as I was backing out the drive, I swung the car a little further then normal and wondered why there was a funny grinding noise, so I turned my head back to face the front and realised it was probably my car on the stone wall. Drove forward a little, backed up. Tried to ignore the old man with the wheelie walker laughing at me. Drove to the next nursing home. Got out of my car, looked at the front of the car - Thank God for utes! only a small dint/scrape on the black part of the bumper thingy-m-doo. Did the oldies round. Went back to work.

10am and I realised, I just wanted to go back to bed!

The rest of the day was _reasonably_ uneventful.

Thursday, August 02, 2007

Petty?

To add to my blacklist of companies I think have treated me like crap, I now add HSBC. I know it's petty, but I hate it when big companies think it's okay to waste my time.

Here is the letter I sent them:
Initially I was cancelling my card because I am cutting back my lines of credit, not because I was unhappy with the service of HSBC. However in attempting to cancel this card I have met with some of the worst service I have experienced in the financial industry. For starters you website says in FAQ that to close my account I should call the 132 152 number. When I called that number they reported that I had to write a letter. So why doesn’t your website just say to write a letter? Why do I have to waste my money by phoning you?

Also when I attempted to complain to the girl on the phone about the fact that I couldn’t cancel my credit card by phone, she was rude, unhelpful and she hung up on me.

It is inconvenient and cumbersome to have to write a letter. Other credit card companies allow you to cancel by phone. If I rang up and said my card was lost or stolen it could be cancelled by phone. I see forcing people to write a letter as a deliberate act of obstruction when people want to end their credit card with you. It is also environmentally unsound.

I assure you, whilst previously were I in a position to require a credit card with you again in the future I would have happily gotten one, that situation has changed considerably. Word of mouth is a powerful thing and has grown ever more powerful with the advances in communication such as the internet, and I assure you providing poor customer service will certainly make many customers as unhappy as I am. I will certainly be quite quick and active to advise against HSBC based on my dealings with your company.