Basic info is in my profile and various other facts can be gleaned by reading through my survey answers (under my original username). Some expansion is provided here for general reference...
a) My name is Nina. That's not the name I was born with. I didn't like my given name and 'Nina' did not fit well with my birth surname so I changed both first and last names when I turned 18. My middle name, which was bestowed in honour of my maternal grandmother, remains.
I'm Australian - born here, lived here all my life. Both my parents were born here, too. Ethnically I consider myself a second-generation Chinese Australian although there is also Slav on my father's side and Irish and German on my mother's. This makes me a half-breed of convoluted lineage - but I don't have a problem with that. :)
My birthday is February 11, making me an Aquarius, although I don't believe in astrology. While on the subject of beliefs, I'm also an atheist: I don't believe in God, Heaven, Satan or Hell. I accept Jesus as a historical figure only.
b) I have two older siblings: Alice, with whom I have a good relationship, and Carl, with whom I have no relationship at all because he's a jerk. Both are married - Alice has three children and Carl none (yet). My parents separated in 95.
c) I have a boyfriend who is referred to in my entries as "H". He's a couple of years older than me. A sanitised version of our history can be found in my second entry.
d) I don't work. I quit my last job, in 99, because my depression and other mental health problems made me a prime candidate for Least Desirable Employee of the Year; I quit rather than be fired. I tried going back to work in 00 and 01 but both times failed spectacularly. Now I subsist on medication and therapy and my income is pitifully small (but that doesn't stop me from spending like a lunatic when the urge strikes me, hence I am usually in debt).
e) I don't usually mention this but I've been asked about it, so here we go: when my parents split up my father surrendered one of his rental properties to each of the offspring (me, Alice and Carl). This means we each own a house. Therefore I don't pay rent. My house is a two-bedroom "worker's cottage" in Sydney's inner west. It's not flash but it's very nice. End of subject.
2. THIS DIARY
a) Rather than confuse myself I'm using real names of people I mention, except when I think it would be better not to - hence the use of initials for some.
b) Regular entries have filenames that reflect the date, eg "20030325.html" means 25 March 2003. If I write more than one entry a day (and usually I do) I append "a", "b", "c" etc to the end, eg "20030403c.html" means the fourth entry for 3 April 2003. Other entries, like this one ("info.html"), get a name that indicates what's on the page and that it isn't a regular entry.
c) This diary is public and it's online so people can read it and hopefully benefit from it in some way (even if only by finding it entertaining). Having it online also gives me the motivation to keep writing. If I was only doing it offline I would lose interest after about a week. This is my track record with diary-keeping, unfortunately. :(
There will be a very few private entries - under my original username (neeena). All public entries live here (zero9). Please do not ask for the user/pass combo for private entries.
Navigation - for the most part it should be self-explanatory but I feel I should explain why there is no "previous" link: if you're gonna read please read entries in the order they were written (ie earliest to latest). I put thought and care into my entries and the idea of being read backwards really pisses me off - therefore no "previous" link.
d) I am honest in my diary. I might be cryptic sometimes or refer to things of which my readers have no knowledge, but that's not being untruthful, merely me writing in a way that only I understand. If there are things I don't want to share with anyone at all I won't put them online (not even as a private entry).
e) I don't tell RL people about my journals online. My feeling is that if I felt able to be that honest with them I'd just tell them in the first place (duh), but I don't think they expect me to be that honest IRL, so why do people expect others to tell all online? It's silly, and disrespectful. I will reveal what I'm comfortable revealing and any hateful mail or notes or whatever I get telling me how stupid I am for being this way will be ignored. (And if you do know me IRL you know how I feel about you reading this diary, so proceed at your own risk.)
3. SPECS
a) All design and coding by me (I use Notepad to write code, an rgb colour wheel I bought in an art shop to pick colours, and Photoshop to manipulate images). Please do not take my layout. I made it for my own use only, it's not public domain, and stealing is wrong.
b) I work with IE5.5 and 1024x768. Even if one of my layouts should happen to look fine in 800x600 or inexplicably work in Netscape 4, it's accidental, so if the next layout doesn't, sorry, but I design for me and me only, and you'll just have to live with it. ^_^