Forget Health, Planning a Funeral Intead

Posted on July 4, 2016 by admin

Perth funeral directorThey keep telling us to stay healthy, eat well and regularly exercise…and then they make it harder than ever to do so. By ‘they’ I’m talking about the government, of course. So much hypocrisy, because every time I try to eat healthy I’m given a rude awakening in the form of junk food being doubly cheap and triply easy to cook than anything healthy. What’s even up with that? And then you’ve got exercising, seriously…the nearest gym is a good 25-minute walk away, and then you have to pay to get in, and you end up all sweaty, and people judge you all the time. How is that easy?

So since the world so obviously wants me gone, I guess I’ll just start planning my funeral right now. I’ve taken all that time I would’ve spent pointlessly running nowhere on the treadmill and used it to find my perfect Perth based funeral director. I have a few options. At first I was trying to appease my super liberal family- maybe some kind of sky funeral where my body is given to Mother Earth and then everyone has to participate in a tribal song and dance to commend my spirit to the halls of Gladness- but then I figured, I’ll be dead. It doesn’t really matter what I think, how I feel, what they think, how they feel, or anything really. That’s the truly fun thing about death: a lot of things suddenly don’t matter anymore. Not even eating salad! ESPECIALLY not eating salad.

You know, I went into McDoogles yesterday, all intent on having some kind of ultra-wholesome meal. The tofu salad option (which I would’ve had without dressing) was double the price of a cheeseburger. An animal died to make that cheeseburger! Although it’s McDoogle’s so even that’s suspect.

Ah, it doesn’t matter. I’ll do my research, pound the pavements of Perth, cremations are common place, Only then will I be able to live my life however I please. Treadmills, seriously…no thank you.

-Wayne

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A Funeral and a Goose Day

Posted on July 4, 2016 by admin

funerals based in Perth We have a bit of an in-joke in my family. Basically, there’s this thing that we call a ‘goose day’. Me and my four siblings grew up on a farm in the middle of nowhere, so our Mum decided to home-school us to save on hours of travel. She took it very seriously, but thing was, she married into the farming business and wasn’t all that good at it. We’d have our lessons in the shed at the end of the lawn, renovated for our comfort, and Mum was super strict on that being our ‘learning environment’ (so, not the living room). Goose days were when the geese would waddle up from the lake and parade around on the lawn, all threatening. Mum wouldn’t let any of us go outside for fear of being…well, eaten or something, so those became ‘goose days’. Unexpected days off, basically. Then we started using it for everything.

Mum passed away recently, which devastated us all. Her funeral service was in Perth, which was a long drive. Everyone was down, slightly irritable from the long trip, and we’d all come from different places so for some people it meant flying. Not that those are excuses, especially for something as important as a funeral, but sometimes a combination of things makes certain events really hard. So we’re all there after the funeral, sipping punch and smiling at people when we really didn’t want to, when it happened. Right there at the family home, right on the lawn…there appears a goose. Look, none of us believe in reincarnation, but it was almost like Mum was back in the form of a goose to remind us of all those times. Those ‘goose days’ that we used to love, even though we all secretly loved learning stuff as well.

Well, this funeral director based in Perth had a great reputation and had seen a lot of stuff, but a bunch of bereaved children cracking up at the post funeral sandwich party was probably a new one. We didn’t instantly stop being sad, of course. But it’s not a moment we’re going to forget, either…and it made the whole thing so much more bearable.

-Adrian

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Wills and Testament, Opera Style

Posted on June 21, 2016 by admin

executor of willNot so sure about that new opera in town. My Grandad went to see it, having been a proud member of Melbourne last will and testament providers up until he retired, and he said that it butchers the profession.  It focuses everything on the love between these two people from rival companies and doesn’t seem to leave any room for the actual, beautiful process of crafting a will from scratch. There may have been a brief aria about probates and such, but it felt thrown in as a last minute thing. Or rather, that’s what Grandad said. He’s not exactly the musical type, but he sees through stories like no one else, so I’d trust his opinion. Although…a lot of his complaints were about how modern it was. Modern opera just sounds very odd to me, but I suppose operas are still around and they can’t ALL be from the 1700s. Maybe I’ll see it myself, just to be extra sure.

I suppose what makes them modern is that they deal with the concerns of here and now, rather than those of yesteryear. Rather than being based on mythology and olden day wars, you can actually write an opera about some estate planning and succession strategies. Imagine writing that sort of thing in the 1700s! I mean, they had their own rules about that sort of thing, but it was all in the family. The head dies, the next son gets all the stuff. If anyone besmirched the family name, they were stricken from the will. It was a much simpler time indeed. Then nowadays you actually have folks whose sole job it is to collate assets and all that. I suppose people just have more complicated stuff nowadays, so you can write operatic songs about who gets the stocks, or Grandpa’s old manuscripts, or what sort of executor of will does the best Melbourne based work. I should check this opera out.

-James

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Secretary at it again

Posted on June 21, 2016 by admin

dry needling courses AdelaideI have never been to Adelaide. I never planned on going to Adelaide. My secretary has booked me onto professional dry needling courses in Adelaide. When I first opened my chiropractor surgery I went through five secretaries in 12 months. They were all incompetent. One lasted four months and I was hopeful she would work out but she continually sent my wife flowers on my behalf even when I asked her not to. That’s just a little too far for me. Stacey has now been with me for two years and she is really something. The woman drives me mad but she does a good job and understands my eccentricities so I really can’t get rid of her. She constantly hounds me about expanding my treatment options, she says the practice could be so much bigger than it is if I dedicated some time to expanding our services. Against my wishes she has booked me onto a dry needling course so we can offer it to patients. She has done all the research and has left some studies on my desk outlining the effectiveness of dry needling at de triggering pain centres for a variety of issues. I can’t argue with the moan although I consistently ask her why she cares so much. Why did she get so worked up about my practice’s treatment options to the point of booking dry needling courses in Adelaide for me! She tells me it’s because she wants me to earn more money so I can pay her more but I know secretly it is just because she cares about me and wants to see me succeed. My wife insists on inviting Stacey over about once a month for dinner and they tend to moan about me right through to dessert after which I tell Stacey she needs to leave.

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Things Get Steam-Clean Intense

Posted on June 20, 2016 by admin

tile and grout cleanerI swear, if Week of Our Lives gets any more intense I’m just gonna have a heart attack, for real, no lie. I never thought I’d get hooked on some stupid show my Mum has been watching since before I was born, but the writers are geniuses, seriously. Seriously. This week had Ursula finally confessing to the face swap thing, which I don’t need to explain because anyone who’s anyone has been following the show. The thing that made my jaw drop was how Vaughn was involved. I mean, he saved that shoal of dolphins from that electronic shark that escaped the school science fair, so we all thought he was a swell guy!

And then just when we’re recovering from that, Stacey tells her abusive stepdad that she got a job as a tile and grout cleaner in Melbourne business that’s like, actually upstanding. And I was all like…whoa! You go, girl! Stacey’s stepdad is really high up in the dirt mafia, who are in cahoots with a bunch of domestic cleaners around Melbourne. His whole JOB is going around muddying carpets, dirtying windows and blocking toilets so that these crooked cleaners can come and perform high-priced janitorial services. He wanted Stacey to join the gang when she was old enough, since she’s really good with budgeting and paperwork, and Stacey has had to hide her neat-freak tendencies from him all those years. And now she straight up tells him that she wants to be a tile and grout cleaner, almost as if she’s pitting herself against him and his crooked line of work. Then the screen just fades out and I’m all like WHAT? I have to wait a whole 24 hours to find out what happens to Stacey!

I’m hoping her carpet cleaner boyfriend, Charlie, swoops in to save her. Charlie is actually an undercover cop and has been assigned the case of finding the crooked dirty mafia, so it’d be really ironic and stuff. Melbourne’s best carpet steam cleaning guy versus the literal dirtiest crook in town. I love this show!

-Darlene

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Surprises are a lot more work than you bargain for

Posted on June 15, 2016 by admin

power of attorney planningTo surprise my boyfriend, who’s been away on a family emergency all week, I’ve decided to listen to his lectures and jot down some quick notes. This whole time has been so hard on him and he’s so thoroughly stressed out about everything that’s going on (with good reason too, work has been an absolute nightmare about getting the time off) that I figured this is the least I can do for him. Besides, I’m a full time student anyway, so it doesn’t feel too far off my normal routine.

The problem is that the course has me utterly lost. My boyfriend is insanely smart – he’s working at a finance firm while re-training to get hired by this big law firm that he’s had his eye on for a while now. The thing is, I’m a science student. I don’t know the first thing about law and right now I’m basically drowning in it. The problem is, though, that this isn’t just some introductory course. Everyone else listening to the lectures know all about how to apply for a probate in Melbourne, and I’m sitting there, furiously looking up what a probate even is so that the notes make even an iota of sense. So what I thought would be a really sweet gesture that would only take up a little snippet of my time has been transformed into hours of background research to even understand what on earth is going on.

At the same time, though, I’m finding it a lot more interesting than I thought I would. Law has always seemed dry and arbitrary to me, I’m someone who wants to make a real difference, and I’ve always thought I can do that through science. Now, though, I’m not so sure. While trying to grasp the power of attorney in a Melbourne court still sends me into a panic, the broader sentiment of the law lectures appeals to my desire to help people. So even though it was just supposed to be an example of what a kick-butt girlfriend I am, I think this may all be appealing to me on a deeper level. It’s confusing, but I’m kind of excited.

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Macabre Apartment Hunting

Posted on June 7, 2016 by admin

evidence bagsApartment hunting in Melbourne is the worst. Is it my fault for being a single girl in her early twenties? Maybe they all see my application and decided that either a) I’ll be having wild parties with all my rebellious mates or b) I’ll be adopting 70 cats because I’m so single and lonely. I feel like writing in the ‘extra comments’ section of every application form: I HAVE A BOYFRIEND. DON’T LIKE LOUD MUSIC. MORE OF A DOG PERSON.

But whatever, they can say what they like. I have a stable job at a police station. I mean, I might not have a place to live, but I can still sort evidence bags like a pro. The worst thing about apartment hunting is that I often have to go to apartments or just residences that are part of crime scenes. I know I shouldn’t, but while I’m there, I can’t help but wonder about how they decorated, how much it costs a month, of the landlord lets them have pets…and it’s even worse when there’s been a murder, because then I know there’s a chance that the place will be available to rent soon. I’m trying to focus on putting the correct stuff in the correct evidence bag and all I can think about is how I can get the drop on whoever’s looking for this place. Terrible, I know. Last week I was investigating a crime scene in an inner city apartment, which was just plain gorgeous. I could never afford it, and my job isn’t even that close to the inner city (we were covering for another team) but I still got distracted, talking to the landlord. Got to keep my head in the game. Otherwise the tamper evident packaging is going to get back to the lab in a thoroughly tampered state.

Shouldn’t be too long now. I mean, it’s not like I’m this flaky with paying the rent!

-Abigail

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Battle of the Makeup Ideology

Posted on June 6, 2016 by admin

makeup brushesWow…never thought I’d see the beauty world split on such a hot topic. All the girls and guys in my diploma of makeup have picked sides in this weird war, seemingly all accept me. It’s a battle of ideologies. Finally, something genuinely exciting! That’s most of the reason I’m in this industry in the first place.

Okay, so…nobody can decide whether makeup is designed to make you look ‘better’, or just to make you look ‘how you want to look’. Are they the same? Are they totally different? Nobody knows! Or rather, nobody can agree. This girl who once took a beauty course and made the terrible mistake of testing chemicals on her own face is promoting ‘Wallflower’, the makeup line for the girl (or guy, whatever) who wants to fit in. You can go to a party with this on, look lovely, but no one will relentlessly call you out on it or give you unwanted attention. There are even stronger versions that help you blend into the background, because I guess makeup can do that now?

Meanwhile, this Vicki girl has blazed her way onto the Melbourne scene with her own concoction, ‘Firework’. It’s the makeup for the girl who wants to be SEEN, same basic principle but designed to be eye-catching enough that people will comment and flock around you with adoring glee. Whose ideology will win out? Like so many ninja stories, these are both students who have taken different paths. Currently, sales are pretty much even from what I’ve heard. Meanwhile, our makeup classes have split, some people are having fights, and you can generally tell who’s on what side by the makeup they wear to class.

Man, I never knew a diploma of makeup services, certified for Melbourne and its normally peaceful way of doing things, would be this exciting! I’m learning about beauty AND politics.

-Pam

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Maybe Entering the Makeup World?

Posted on June 6, 2016 by admin

My parents took me to see Cads! For my eighth birthday, and to be honest, I hated most of it. It’s like it’s pretending to have a story when it really doesn’t, and all the characters are just bad caricatures of subcultures that the writer thought existed. Not that I thought that at the time- little me was just incredibly confused by it all. I told my parents that I loved it, they seemed happy, we went out for ice-cream and it turned out to be a pretty good day. But something ate at me, the whole time. Their stage makeup was immense, bold, vibrant. I might not have enjoyed the show, but it was a sight to behold, how they went about their business on stage, looking amazing. I’d later learn that they didn’t just slap it on themselves; there was a person who actually specialised in stage makeup. Courses around Melbourne and everything!

Not that I rushed out to do one, but I was curious. You know how it is in early teen years…all makeup and boys and all of that, until you figure out that life has so much more to offer than acting like a stereotype. But still, I had a glancing interest in makeup, and how it can really transform people, especially on stage. And then something crazy happened: my friend got into short films, noticed that I do pretty good makeup artist stuff (thanks, Instant-Gram!) and wanted me to work on his film. Sure, it was a pretty small-time thing, but I got to be on set for a really fun day and use my hobby. He could’ve picked someone who’d done an actual makeup course, but he chose me, which was really cool. After that, I thought I might as well just go and get a diploma, because specialist makeup could be a viable career path. Maybe. Guess I’ll just take a bit of a leap of faith and see.

-Sara

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Weird Beauty Thoughts

Posted on May 30, 2016 by admin

diploma of beauty

I used to be in the army, and people sometimes ask me the biggest difference between real life and the there. There are so many to choose from…but I think I’d have to say the way people present themselves. It’s hard to explain, but in the army, everyone is just so…casual with their appearance, at least while you’re actually posted. There’s no such thing as a bad hair day, and if it’s looking bad nobody notices. You don’t feel the need to shave every day, you can get smudges on your face and it just isn’t a thing and even the women on tour are kind of just the same. It’s freeing, in a way, but I’m not criticizing how it’s done back home.

The I see people here doing an actual diploma of beauty therapy course. Like, people go to uni to learn that kind of thing. They actually spend time in classrooms…learning how to do beauty stuff.

It actually took me a little bit to get used to, people spending their lives in entirely different pursuits, ones that didn’t involve being shot at. Meanwhile, I had to get back into the habit of making my facial hair look acceptable, or not letting my hair get too shaggy (though shaggy kind of works for me, fortunately).

Anyway, nowadays I’m a lot more acclimatised. I get it, some people want to be birthday clowns or dance choreographers. They wouldn’t be all that good in a firefight in the middle east, but neither would I be all that great if you took me backstage and told me to make someone look like a cat. This is actual, real, non-army life where skills are diversified instead of being intensely structured. Not that I’m going for a diploma of specialist makeup any time soon. That’d be pushing it.

-Ian

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