*pokes head in door*

Hi! It's been a very very long time since I've been in here.

Last time we all met, I think I was around 100kg, living with my long term boyfriend and working at woolies.

Well, we broke up so many moons ago I can't even remember. I worked fulltime with unemployed folks, then I quit my job to go work in Iran for a year. While I was there, a combination of new diet and lots of movement saw me lose 20kg.

I returned to Aus 3 months ago, I've moved to Perth to start studying at Uni, this time a course that I'm really, really interested in. I bounced up 10 kg when I got home again.

Since moving to Perth I've joined a gym, and I've been vegetarian since I got home. Single, footloose and fancy free, I'm finally finding my place in the world.

How are you girls? I've wondered about you from time to time. I once wanted to pop in while I was in Iran, but the gvt filters blocked the url!!

Sending lots of love, and hoping you'll let an old friend back in the room.

Kylie

I'm still alive.

good to see u Lindor. Hope yr holding up ok xox

well its been a week since I started at the gym. I went for my first session on Friday - skipped saturday as I had done a night duty. but I went sunday, Monday, tuesday and wednesday. 5 days out of 7 and I have lost a kilo according to my scales woohoo. I slept stupid last night and woke with a sore back so was thinking of skipping the gym today, however I might take a nice warm bath and see how I feel.

I joined the gym today and went tonight at like 1030pm. It's great, there was noone there! Their motto is "judgement free zone" and it's very user friendly. I think I'm going to like it there.




Well... as much as you can "like" going to the gym haha.

Julia!

Tell us you are ok, and haven't been affected too badly after this mornings earthquake there?

Thinking of you!

Hi everyone, Lindor I'm fine but holy sh!t that was f***ing scary!

The quake hit at 4:35am and I woke up to the whole house twisting and shaking violently. My bedroom is upstairs so it felt even worse. It was pitch black, bookshelves and mirrors and ornaments were being thrown around the place so it was noisy with thuds and breaking glass and lots of shaking.

My partner and I leapt out of bed and got under a door frame and made sure mum was ok as she was in another room upstairs. We all went downstairs and listened to the radio for the rest of the morning. We had no power until mid afternoon and no water for a while. No damage to the house and very little damage to property, we were very lucky.

Looking around the neighbourhood there area lot of people with chimneys down and damage to rooftops. Quite a few local shops are destroyed and are cordoned off and will no doubt be condemned.

We are so lucky that this hit in the middle of the night when most people were in bed asleep. No fatalaties reported at this stage, 2 men are in hospital in a serious condition - one with major cuts from broken glass and one had a chimney come down on him.

I really feel for the elderley in the community who would have been alone when it happened. I was terrified and can't imagine going through it on my own. Heaps of aftershocks yesterday ... throughout the morning they were happening every few minutes, little rumbles.

We were very lucky has we (totally by accident) happened to have one phone in the house that wasn't a cordless which needed power and we had a radio with batteries in it. If we didn't have those things would have been worse - especially the radio. If you don't have a battery powered radio PLEASE GO BUY ONE!! With no electricity for about 10 hours that was our only source of information.

Will go back and read everyone's news when I have time. Hope you're all well xx

So glad to hear you are ok Julia! I've been through two very minor earthquakes and I thought them to be really scary...cannot imagine what it'd be like going through what you went through.

Looking forward to hearing how your holiday went too, although that probably feels like a life time ago to you now.

Well the building that my new office is in has sustained structural damage right above the office so I'm back in the city office for the next few weeks. We're one block outside of the cordon so are operating as usual. Shame really because it's a lovely day and I'd rather be at home!

The city is a mess and lots of our beautiful historic buildings have been condemned and are being torn down. No loss of life though and that's the main thing.

My holiday was mostly good but we didn't get to Mexico as we were booked with Mexicana airlines and they went down the gurgler the day we were meant to travel with them. It's unlikely that we'll get a refund on our tickets which is a US$300 loss per person and insurance doesn't cover an airline going bankrupt

I'm very thankful that I'm a travel agent and could easily think of alternative arrangements! We went out to Anaheim and checked into a hotel for 2 nights, spent 1 day at Disneyland and did a 1 day LA city tour and then flew to Rarotonga and had 3 nights there.

Home on Friday and the earthquake happened early hours of Saturday so things have been pretty hectic!! Still haven't had a chance to read much of what's been going on with you all but will endeavour to do that tonight!!

Have done some reading and Lindor I'm so sorry to hear about Mista. I agree with what everyone else is saying - please, please talk to someone about how you are feeling. I'm very worried for you.

Great to see so many old faces posting! So good to hear from you Kel and Kylie and Ani and Vonni. I hope you all keep coming back!

My uniform is just as tight as it was a few months ago so I'm getting ready to start over, beginning with weighing in at the gym tomorrow night.

Wow Julia -sounds terrifying! Glad you are okay. How sucky about the airline (especially the timing) but you are right - lucky you could organize something else on short notice!

I had a great weekend in Canada, did the whole Maid of the Mist boat and the walk under Niagara Falls, and we had a great view out the hotel window. Ate good things (albeit small amounts!) and walked a ton. Back to school tomorrow... got to unpack, do some reading for class and hit the hay early. Driving makes me tired.

Sounds like a great weekend Gen!

Well I decided against going to the gym for the moment. My gym is on the second floor of an older building and while it's been given the all clear, there's no way I'm going in while we're still having aftershocks!

The big quake was early Saturday morning and that day we had 35 aftershocks. 37 on Sunday, 33 yesterday and 11 today. One last night woke me up and had me running to the doorway. I'm ready for it to stop now!

I think running for the doorway each time there's an aftershock should count as your exercise for the day :P

Good point Summershine! We just had another big one, 4.1 and 5km deep. Felt much bigger and it had me in the doorway in a flash.

The worst thing is that the experts are still saying that we may have a really big aftershock - usually there is one that is 1 less magnitude than the original in which case we would have one at 6.1.

I think that the whole city is on edge waiting for that to happen.

Ugh, the shake this morning was actually 5.1. I'm on edge, just waiting for another big one to hit.

Congrats Gen on making the 20kg mark, that's awesome