New Year's Eve/Studio 10 appearance

We're two days into 2014 now. Do you say "two thousand and fourteen" or "twenty fourteen"? How was your New Year's Eve? What did you do?

Mine went a bit like this :

In the morning I was interviewed by Ita Buttrose!!! (And Jessica Rowe, Sarah Harris and Joe Hildebrand.)

Studio 10's producers emailed me last week inviting me to be on the show. I was a little apprehensive - truthfully, I am emotionally exhausted from the Reddit situation. But I wanted a chance to articulate my thoughts verbally, and I knew that Studio 10 is a new audience for me to reach and spread awareness about ichthyosis and visible difference. It was a way of telling my story in my own words and quashing the assumptions and ridicule.

So I got up early and headed to Channel 10's Melbourne studio where I did a live cross to the hosts in the Sydney studio. I wasn't nervous, but it was hard looking at the camera and not seeing the hosts, just hearing them in my earpiece. And I almost had an Anchorman situation with my green floral dress and the green screen, but fortunately the producers could do without and just have the newsroom in the background.

The hosts were so supportive and lovely, I am glad I did it. That morning I woke up and said to my boy that I was scared of what might be said about me on the Internet. He told me to only read the good things. And I checked Twitter to find lovely tweets from Sarah Harris, plus more nice words from my Twitter friends. People are so genuine on Twitter.

And the support on social media after the interview was so amazing too. As I said to the Studio 10 hosts, the positives to come from the Reddit drama is that the good people have outweighed the nasty ones, education and awareness about ichthyosis has increased so much, and many people with the condition have contacted me to say they're more confident about their skin because I've told my story. That's worth something big.

Studio 10 termed me as a sufferer of ichthyosis. A few of my friends have commented on this - knowing that I don't suffer. I live.

After the interview, I headed back to the city, not at all feeling like I'd just done a live interview on national TV (actually I was worried I'd trip over running for the train!) and met my friend Dane and his partner who were in Melbourne to celebrate New Year's Eve. I first met Dane in March last year (see this blog post) after knowing him through my day job for years. It was so good to see him in person again. I hear he had a very good New Year's Eve.

Then my boy and I went for lunch and a spot of shopping, and he surprised me with another bunch of red roses (he said because he thought I could do with some more. Awww!) (And check out the awesome work he did choosing my Christmas present - that bow necklace! Love!)

We spent New Year's Eve in - I dressed up and threw together an antipasto platter and then a paella - all fresh ingredients from the Vic Markets. Delicious.

Music was played, wine was drunk and while we hoped to see the city's fireworks, I was asleep by 11.00pm. Fortunately we took this selfie to remember the night by.

And how is it being back at work? I went back to my day job today, after almost two weeks off. I went with the optimism that my overseas trip is less than three months away. So close!

I'm pretty sore at the moment so I'm glad this work-week is a short one. Lots of rest needed.