Betty Loves Blogging

From the category archives:

life

Mousemobile

July 18, 2010

Our family owns a little red Hyundai. For a while it was mine. I had it up in Sydney, zipping around to interviews and to take photographs, with my straightened newsreader cut hair in a snappy little outfit. After a couple of years in an office job where I never had to leave the office, [...]

Read the full article →

Nanna was a bicyclist

July 5, 2010

My nanna has dementia. It’s getting worse. Some days she is OK, some days she is terrible, driving my poor uncle, who is selflessly caring for her full time, understandably crazy. It’s a sad disease, especially when it impacts younger people. But it can also be oddly hysterically funny. It feels wrong to laugh at, [...]

Read the full article →

I’m baaaaaaaack

June 1, 2010

(My darling friend Ani at the left at her amazing 25th birthday bash) Swanky birthday parties in Sydney art galleries complete with drag queens. Fattoush and hummus and sausages and pies until one’s brain explodes. A whole aisle of cheese in the supermarket. Hearing my brother and dad talk footy while my mum watches Home [...]

Read the full article →

Bits and bobs

May 8, 2010

Contrary to popular belief, I am doing some freelancing on the road. It’s the type of freelancing I would class as “hardly investigative”, but it’s been keeping me occupied and badly paid, just like if I had a real journalism job. So here’s a few links to some recent writings. 1. Remember, ages ago, I [...]

Read the full article →

Don’t lie to me, mate…

April 2, 2010

It’s apparently against the law for taxis in Penang island not to use their meters. But they will always say they don’t have one and no amount of arguments will help you if you are a tourist. The other day it started raining and I was contemplating catching a cab because there was a rank [...]

Read the full article →

Homeless, but back in the Jak

March 26, 2010

Sometimes living here has felt like making spice paste… hard work but overall worth the effort. (random segue I know :p) So I’m back in Jakarta for a few days before flying out to Malaysia (if I don’t fly out soon, they’ll kick me out because my visa will be canceled). I don’t have a [...]

Read the full article →

Taxi wisdom

February 24, 2010

Writing this on my Blackberry so excuse the typos. I decided I wanted, nay, needed to go swimming last night and it was rainy all day, so I stubbornly decided I needed to go to the only Fitness First pool that’s indoors… Far away in Taman Anggrek. I impulsively jumped in a dodgy non-bluebird cab [...]

Read the full article →

Happy Valentine’s Day to my homies, wherever you are.

February 13, 2010

On the Hume Highway, near Wangaratta, June 2009 Just because I’m single (like usual) on Valentine’s Day doesn’t mean I don’t have people out there who I adore. Happy Valentine’s Day to: – The family who lend moral support to my madcap lust for adventure and being in far-flung places, even though sometimes I know [...]

Read the full article →

Jakarta… a love sick city?

January 24, 2010

I’ve been to lots of cities, many of them with reputations for romance. Paris, Rome, Florence… yadda yadda. I mostly just ate gelato or crepes there. But they definitely had the romantic vibe. But after more than a year in Jakarta, I have to say that I have never met a city so publicly wrapped [...]

Read the full article →

No time to be zen in 2010

January 20, 2010

It’s January 20. I haven’t written any resolutions yet or mused on 2009 or written about my hopes and dreams for the year ahead. Probably cos this year got off to such a crazy start. New Years Eve was lovely and fun and spent with friends during the day and night, but since then I’ve [...]

Read the full article →

The in-betweens.

December 9, 2009

I’m got a case of the in-betweens right now. That time after deciding “Ok, I’m kinda nearly pretty much done with what I’m doing right now” and before moving on to the next project or life step or whatever. The in-betweens are odd. Some people might think, hey, the in-betweens aren’t bad. You’ve decided what [...]

Read the full article →

Suicide reporting, responsibility and Twitter

December 5, 2009

Wow, I’m going to write something serious on my blog for once. About the media. WOAH. This week in Jakarta there have been three cases of suicide in shopping malls. Read here and here. One of the Jakarta Globe reporters wrote an opinion piece about the dangers of Twitter journalism, which you can read here. [...]

Read the full article →

Television: Is it a suitable guide for writing application essays?

November 28, 2009

So, the reason you haven’t heard from me for a few weeks is that I have been neck high in application essay writing, as well as moping and procrastinating. I still have some more stuff to do, but the worst of it is over. I don’t think I did a very good job, but I’ve [...]

Read the full article →

Hello, new peeps

November 5, 2009

It seems like I had quite an influx of visitors today from The Punch, where I had a piece up about fat hate in the weight debate. Read it here, if you like. So, if you’re newly visiting my blog, thanks for dropping by! I write about all sorts of things… travel, food, Indonesian life, [...]

Read the full article →

A piece of advice

October 25, 2009

Don’t get paratyphoid fever. It really, really sucks. You will feel absolutely horrible. You will lose a week of your life or more to it. For me, NINE DAYS OF ILLNESS, STILL NOT FULLY RECOVERED. You will have to go on nasty antibiotics that have terrible side effects such as “tendon pain” and “emotional instability” [...]

Read the full article →

← Previous Entries

Next Entries →