Koalas

"KOALA--Aboriginal name for native bear....
NATIVE BEAR--A small marsupial animal with grey fur and full expressive face (see KOALA)."
(From A Dictionary of Australian Words And Terms by Gilbert H. Lawson 1924)

I love Koalas, they're so cute. I had the great experience of getting to hold one in Townsville and it clung on to me like a baby.

"The koala is a fussy eater, only eating from several different species of eucalyptus (or gum) trees and very occasionally from some other trees such as wattles or tea trees. They will eat the leaves, shoots, fruits, flowers and even, at times, the bark from young branches. Koala bears (think Latin!) eat about 1 to 1½ pounds (450-680g) of leaves a day. That's about 10% of their body weight. The koala can usually get all the nutrients and moisture it needs from the oil in the gum leaves (have you heard of eucalyptus oil?) and the rain and dew which collects on them. Gum leaves are low in nutrition and contain certain chemicals which are toxic to most other animals. Koalas have special bacteria in their guts which enable them to digest these leaves."
http://www.squidoo.com/KoalaBears

A new fact every day/week

I have decided that everyday (or week depending on how much time I have) I am going to post up an interesting fact or tidbit of information or link to an interesting website. Today I have found an interesting site called Squidoo.com. It has all sorts of information on anything you can think of, written by all sorts of people. This will definitely be a useful site in future.

I'll start with an interesting piece from that site....
Tired of your plain old boring toilet seat?
http://www.squidoo.com/ToiletSeats

Tsunami

Today I've been denied yet another trip to Goat Island. We have been attempting to go there for weeks but something always happens the day we plan to go there such as colds, bad weather and now the tsunami warnings. The Tsunami warnings have come after there was a 8.8 magnitude earthquake in Chili. All the Auckland beaches have been closed and there have been various strange tidal surges around NZ. Apparently they could last up to 12 hours.

In happier news, I have my new tooth and it's straight and non-fat. So that's good.
But the best news of all is that a couple of weeks ago I went for an eye test to see if that had anything to do with headaches. I found out that I'm short sighted and I cant believe how much sharper things at a distance look with glasses. I had no idea my vision was so blurry. Since I've been wearing glasses, I haven't had any headaches! It's been such a relief! Having headaches everyday made me so depressed-just the thought that they could go on like that all my life... I cant believe I actually found the cure! I'm so much happier now not being in pain all the time.

Fat tooth.

Yesterday I got the prep for my crown (on my tooth). At the moment I have to wear a temporary one until the proper crown is made. The dentist made it straight in line with my other tooth so it's built up on the front to get up to that line. Unfortunately it feels annoying (because of the fatness) but hopefully I'll get used to it. Maybe the real one will feel different. Maybe I shouldn't have gone for the straight option, it doesn't look that different anyway.

How do I change fonts...

I'm not impressed that I cant figure out how to change the choice of fonts on here. Sorry but doing graphic design makes you pedantic about things like that. It was funny today on the way in to town (to collect my visual diaries from Natcoll and see about doing the internship at Creative Bite) there was a car in front of us and its number plate was Myriad and I was like Myriad! And because Steve was confused I had to mention that it was a Font. Lol. Its a sans serif, I use it quite a bit just for random stuff like eg: writing a paragraph like this (if I could actually change the default font. Because using default fonts is a no no.)
Anyway! Before I had the urge to write about the lack of fonts, I was going to say that I had less headaches this week and the few I did have were only 1/10 types. I have to score them on my headache chart from 1-10 (10 being really bad). I went to the physio and had my last acupuncture and massage from her for a while (I'll see how I go) and today I went to the osteopath again, and again got my neck and back clicked but he said it had loosened up a bit since last time. Apparently the back of my skull is pressing down on my two top vertebrae and causing them to push together. He said that after next week I shouldn't need to go back again.
I've still been getting a bit of pain behind my eyes and that could be to do with the vertebrae/muscles thing but it could be eye strain. Steve thinks I might have a lazy eye just because of the fact that I have trouble watching movies on the big screen. I looked it up and apparently lazy eye can cause headaches but it mainly happens in children and they have to wear an eye patch to correct the lazy eye!
Speaking of movies we saw Avatar in 3D the other day. It was really cool but even harder on my eyes with the 3Dness. I have to keep closing them and of course had a headache afterwards as usual.
So maybe I'll see the optician next...

Another Blog

I just started another blog....
http://kristenlearnsphotography.blogspot.com/

Yay for the Osteopath!

As I mentioned in the last post, I've been going to the physio to try to get rid of my headaches. I've had lots of headaches since I can remember but they have just been getting worse and worse and almost everyday. I go to bed with them or wake up with them or both. Sometimes I feel like I don't want to be alive if I'm going to be in pain all the time. So I decided that this year before I find a job I'm going to discover the cause of the headaches and treat it, no matter how much it costs and what I have to do!
Physio and acupuncture doesn't seem to be working the best and I happened to receive a free eco bag in the post from Blackmores (I'd got it off a freebies website)and a letter that said thank you for signing up to the website and here is a link to our online naturopath service. So I contacted the naturopath service about my headaches and they sent me a long email back about why it could be happening and what I could do. It was really helpful and said I should perhaps see another doctor, a naturopath in my area (they can do tests for allergies etc), an osteopath or chiropractor or an optician in case its my eyes. I looked up to see what an osteopath did (as I'd already tried a chiropractor and that didn't help)and decided to try them first.
So today I rang up and got an appointment and went along to the Osteopath. He checked my spine and neck and discovered that some of my vertebrae were locking together and causing my muscles to clench up, especially the ones in the area of my neck where I get the most pain. Then he did the dreaded clicking of the vertebrae back into place, first the ones on my back and then the ones in my neck (which made a HUGE crunch as several had clicked back at once!) and said that was causing a lot of the problems. So I should notice withing the next few days that I'm having no or less headaches. Two more appointments at the most will cure me! Yay!
So I really really hope it does help. I'll give you an update. If not the next stop will be the naturopath.
Until next time...