Indolence Lass

Being home is fun. Being lazy is also fun. Being at home and lazy is so much fun it makes me feel guilty and start to wonder what I should really be doing. So sometime soon, I'll probably get started on the 08 Vacation Bible School planning, when I've got definitive word on a theme. Apparently, we can't to pirates because pirates are evil.

No one knows what to get me for my birthday. I don't know what to get me either, so I'm no help.

Left Brain, Right Brain

Forgot I was going to link to this. Check it out.

I can't make her go not clockwise.

Country Town

I love living in a country town. Especially on the day of the Christmas Parade. (i.e, today.) Partly for the floats full of schoolchildren, partly for the numerous Caledonian/Pipe bands, partly for the spectators. Because spectators are fun. Tiny children in their tiny folding camp chairs, waiting for Father Christmas. Underwhelmed and unimpressed babies and teenagers who seem to have discovered "scene" about three years after city folk, and are probably still calling it "emo." Parents on tartan picnic rugs, fags dangling. Also, friends in clown costumes and sparkly vests, and my brothers playing mini-boings and a glove-a-phone in the Funky Junk Band.

I had to drop out of a sims2 competition for the first time today, which makes me bad a bit. Because a commitment, no matter how trivial, is still a commitment, yes? But, obviously RL comes first. And I wasn't going to submit rubbish. And my comp was just too slow to get anything like enough of it done in time. So meh. Oh well.

Am slowly readjusting to there being people around me, all the time, which is probably a life skill.

she's baaaack...

H'lo. I'm at home! No more uni for me until March. (That is happiness.)
Flew home yesterday, via Adelaide. The airport is new and shiny, but utterly boring and ultimately, bland. Yeah, not huge fun for a four-hour stopover. But did I mention I'm home now? *squee*

All the math and english and other bits and pieces are finished, bar maybe having to e-mail my English course convenor because - I got 39/40 for my English Unit of Work! Chances are, I complained about it somewhat here while I was writing it, but the hard work and grumbling seemed to pay off.

So today, I need to buy a pillow, and see my friends' baby, and get started on some pics for a sims2 competition I really don't want to have to drop out of. I love to-do lists like that.

Sleepy. Borked.

Hiya folks. I managed to use up all my internets again, so I don't know how much I'll be posting this next few days.

I've had an interesting day. The maths exam was kinda fun this morning, actually not scary, which was nice. Had cake after with a friend, and was feeling all nice and relaxed and lovely. But then I got on the net this afternoon, and it turns out someone I know is having drama. Which is a bad thing, and makes me feel all yuck. Oh well. Having rational, non-involved friends is a plus.

I think I might go to bed now, and try to sleep. It has been a long day.

The Maths - it eats my brain...

Maths exam tomorrow morning. At eight thirty. Just give me a minute to stop screaming.

My dad forwarded a link to the blog readability tester and lo:

Which deeply worries me, because doesn't that basically mean no one but me has a clue what I'm talking about? Either that or, if you are reading this, pat yourself on the back. You are a genius. (Reassuringly, my grandmother's blog is apparently also genius level. For a minute I got very suspicious that it automatically rates all blogs as genius, but it doesn't.)

In other news, my computer could not be freaking me out more if it suddenly grew legs and started dancing the cancan.

Hi. Bye.

This is a blog post to say dinner was nice, but I'm not doing a blog post tonight because I have hella cramps and are going to bed. Sometimes I hate being a girl.

Laundry, Hearing Voices

Today, I did some laundry, and not much else. I'll start studying for the next exam tomorrow, but today I was tired.

My conscience has a voice now. Whenever I subconsciously feel I'm doing something particularly foolish, I hear my ringtone. That sounds weird. I shall explain. My ringtone is my cousins, calling my name in a sing-songy, impatient manner. I can hear them calling me, and they are now the voice of my conscience.

200

This is my two hundredth post, and I have nothing special for you at all.

I had an exam today, bleargh. One down, two to go. My hand hurts a bit, because I don't tend to write a thousand words in forty-five minutes very often. I don't *think* I've failed the subject, though. Which can only be a good thing.

I wrote the (not-really-a) word "xclooosiv" so many times today I think I've forgotten the actual, real-word spelling. Darn running jokes. But I shall never use it again for a while now, 'cause the joke be over, so that at least is probably nice for the English language, which I'm sure spends a lot of time with it's metaphorical ears bleeding. Or eyes, in this case, as I was typing.

Also I am obsessed with orange juice. Happens every so often.
And I clipped my fingernails reeeally short - like just short of bleeding - and painted them that's-not-black-it's-dark-purple.

Shiny Things!

Birthday presents! Still early yet, but folks up here are getting things done before I go home.

From L&C:
From the Grandparents:

From J & C:

Captive... captivated

I did mean to post, yesterday, but I was captive within a book - New Moon, by Stephenie Meyer. It was rather good, and altogether unputdownable. I did get some study done, and I did mail my parcel, but the vacuuming fell by the way.

This afternoon, I was taken out and was bought a watch. (For my birthday.) I did some study, went for a very quiet dinner at the cousins', and after that, when it was cool enough to use my computer (as opposed to the grandparents') I tore my hair out a little trying to nut out how to blend skintones for the Sims2. By the way, I need a new computer - the current one dislikes immensely being asked to do anything at above 25 degrees celsius, or at any temperature, anything requiring ordinary amounts of RAM. Which kind of sucks. Mainly because there's no way I'm getting a new computer, so looks like I shall be doing stuff a) at a snail's pace, b) after dark, or c) on someone else's computer. Of course, the whole situation will be greatly improved by my going home in a week or so, where the temperature won't rise above 25 degrees until February. Mary says I should ask for one for my birthday, but somehow I can't see my folks giving me an 2000 dollar laptop for my 21st...

Tomorrow afternoon, I am being taken out by an aunt and bought something else for my birthday. I'm quite looking forward to it.

Interlude

Quiet day today. Long, and hot. I did things like church, and laundry.

Sunday School was lovely today - my students insisted we read the Bible story three times (there was a game involved in the telling, and they all wanted to be Paul.) I wasn't about to say, no, we cannot read the Bible at Sunday School, so we kept doing it, which was a) fun and b) kind of sweaty and exhausting, because it was so humid and hot today.

Tomorrow, I shall post a parcel, vacuum my room, and study. Ah, the quiet life :)

Things I have Learned Today:

• It's really hard to lurk in a forum when your friend from another forum keeps sending you PMs saying things like, "I seeeeeee you..."
• If you don't clean your room for a couple months, it gets dusty. You can't actually see the dust while the room is messy, but when you clean up it will make you sneeze, stick to your feet in an uncomfortable crust, and give you a headache.
• Even the people you admire have times when they feel like nothing they make or do is any good, but also, this feeling always passes.
• The first season of the Powerpuff Girls is better than I remember.
• This lady would probably make my mum laugh.
• On the other hand, you have different fingers, and if the world didn't suck, we would all fall off.

Truhope

Just a quick post to say, I forgot to tell you, but my grandma just started her own blog, here. Go visit, and leave her a comment!

Spookityness

Halloween at Movie World was kind of awesome yesterday. The Movie World people wandering around in spooky costumes were awesome (Spike, Elvira, and the Addams Family were all there,) and the clouds of fog and mist were freaky cool. There was too much light to be really scary, but yeah, what would you expect from a family night at a theme park.

Highlights: after waiting in line for an hour and a half (I do not tell a lie) to go on the Superman Escape ride, getting to the very top of that first huge curve and seeing all of Surfers' laid out like a diamond necklace. Singing along to the Ghostbusters theme song (as performed by Bugs and Daffy, piped in very loud all over the park.) Watching ghostly figures emerge from the mist in the Main Street. Spiderwebs. Children looking adorable in costume, teenage and middle-aged people looking much less adorable in costume, and those terrifying people you really hoped were wearing a costume but you somehow doubted it...

I brought home two mallow-pops, a Batman one and a Superman one. Here they are before I ated them.

Also a Batman plushie. I knew it had been a good night when I woke up the next morning, still clutching my plushie.

Catching Up

Well, I had a bit of a holiday from blogging, lazy me. But it just didn't seem like fun. Inspiration is a strange thing - sometimes I have it in buckets, other times not so much. And I'm terrified of the 'not so much' times - one of the reasons I'm not in a creative industry is that I can't abide the thought of building my life around inspiration only to one day, wake up with no ideas.

I enrolled for next semester's uni courses this morning, in an incredibly painful forty-five minute session in their online enrolment doover. I groaned, I wailed, I said "bugger." Not fun, kids.

My friends had a baby yesterday. Squee much? I went and bought him a book, and I'll probably mail it to them tomorrow, even though there is no way he'll be wanting to read it in the next two weeks before I get home and see them in person. It's a very cute book about puppy dogs. Also bought my littlest sister's Christmas pressie, but must be all shh on that front because it is a secret.

I'm hurriedly finishing this up now, because in about five minutes people will arrive to take me to Halloween at Movie World. Despite the fact that Halloween was actually yesterday. I'm sure it will be fun nonetheless. As far as I know, and despite my aunt's crazy schemes, we're not going costumed. Thank goodness.

Ooh, before I go, here be the cutest website in the world - the eLouai Doll Maker. I maded some dolls. It's addictive.

Not a post

Just a YouTube video.

Shh

Today I did some pottering around, bought a birthday present for a friend's party, and went to uni. Nice quiet day. Eh, I shall talk more another time.

Not dead. (well, just a little.)

Hiya. I'm not dead, I've been doing a math assignment. Which is finished, hooray, but at this point I've been awake for 35 hours in a row, excepting a half-hour nap about 7:30 this morning. I'm gonna eat something, then I think I shall go to bed. Have a good one, folks.

My Huckleberry Friend

Howdy. Today I have "Moon River" stuck in my head. Possibly because I've spent the day dressing my self-sim up as Holly Golightly for a Halloween contest. It's fairly amazing sometimes how much custom content there is out there for the Sims2. And then, of course, it's always fairly worrying how much of that custom content there is on my computer...

Also, do you have any idea how hard it is to find a decent picture of the Tiffany's windows? Very hard indeed, as it turns out. You wouldn't think so, but it is. Oh well.

I forgot to say yesterday, I went to see Evan Almighty with relatives. It wasn't too bad. Well, towards the end they were trying to tell us that the reason God sent a devastating worldwide flood was so Noah could spend more time with his family, which I don't think is quite right. Plus it trivialises the Ark story to an insane degree. Still, there are nice moments. Like when Evan is outlining his plan for his life to "god", and god falls into helpless laughter. "Sorry... 'your plan'..." Eh. Plus it is good for some kind of understanding of just how crazy people must have thought Noah was.

mmmm.... math

Hi! Today was full of math. Chance and probability experiments with jelly beans and M&Ms, so what do you know? Math really is delicious.

H'lo

H'lo. Maths today, then Louise and I went to the flicks and saw Stardust and Ratatouille. Which was fun-a-riffic. I like Stardust, especially Robert DeNiro, better every time I see it. I never noticed Bernard sitting next to Cap'n Shakespeare at the coronation before, it's nice to see he got a happy ending.
But goodness gracious I'm getting sick of the trailer for Fred Claus. Feels like I've seen it about seventeen times. Ugh. Still, there were new trailers today - 10,000 B.C. which was a pretty boring preview, something about the Loch Ness Monster which looked too cutesy, and Mr Magorian's somethingarather which looked pretty cool.
I love movie trailers.

Bowling

Went bowling tonight. Bad food, bad music, bad at bowling, but all in all -- brilliant.

Lazy Friday

I spent today doing not a lot, which is nice because I've been working pretty flat-out on yesterday's workshop all week. Er, and because I always like doing not a lot.

Spent five or six hours working on one picture for the final round of a sims 2 contest. Hopefully the rest of them won't be so time consuming, but that seems likely as none of the others will involve constructing chain-mail underwear from pictures of swatches in photoshop.



Also reading more of Lirael and also the first volume of the Jack of Fables TPB. So, good day.

Er, I have come back to talk to you once more

Howdy. What've I been up to?

Did dinner at the cousins' on Tuesday night. That was fun - watched 'em play the Sims Bustin' Out on PS2, watched Epic Movie (crapfest) and Clockwork Orange.

Did huge amounts of tedious prep for a workshop presentation thingy at uni, which was today. It went off though, so all was worth it.

Am re-reading Garth Nix's Old Kingdom Trilogy - done Sabriel, halfway through Lirael. They are such awesome books. Anyone who can bring a new feel or new perspective to the fantasy genre gets my tick of approval, and people like Garth Nix and Isobelle Carmody who do it every time they start a story - well, I am in awe. Gives me hope in a world full of Harry Potters and Eragons.

Odd (in a good way)

A rather odd, terribly flattering sensation: someone tells you that in their sims game, your self-sim is pregnant. Ladies and gentlemen, Buffy's Alleliua is expecting... :)

Cool thing!

I just (in the last few minutes) learned to make animated avis! Go me! (Emma's a sim I've got entered in a contest at the mo.)

Good things

The dreaded English unit is handed in, and I went and bought a bag to replace my current one which was falling apart. Grandpa approves of the new bag, so I think it's a sensible buy.
Work is done, and it's playtime, so I'm off to the Sims2.

Endings

Finished and handed in the Indigenous Studies essay today. English tomorrow. I'm really looking forward to those two being over. Really really.

I was thinking today, for no particular reason, of songs I'd like played at my funeral. Morbid, huh. The list:

• Amazing Grace, preferably with bagpipes
• Because He Lives
• Before the Throne of God Above
• Listen to my Prayer, Lord (Bec's version)
• Into the West (yes, from LOTR. It's my funeral, and I'll fangirl if I want to.)

As far as I know, I'm not dying anytime soon. But it's good to have these things sorted out.

I'm posting a lot today, huh.

Do you know what? Writing 2000 words is just writing 50 words 40 times. And writing 50 words is easy. I can write a sentence 50 words long, for goodness sake. Not that I would in an assignment, though. It seems like every time I check the word count (ie, whenever I finish a train of thought) I've written another 50 words. So at the moment, with research to hand and outline detailed, writing is somewhat like driving along at 100km an hour. With cruise.

Freaky Awesome

Front Sketch Furniture: freaky awesome.

Bleagh - Grr - Squee!

So. All teed up to do work at uni this morning, but the intranet doover won't let me sign in, so I can't access any of the information I need. Bleargh.

Last night at church we sang "Recieve the Glory." Which is fair impressive, for my dark-ages church. So yeah, they're pretty game. We even sang all the verses! (ie, both of them.) Chopping verses out of hymns is one of my pet hates. Grr.

Bestest. Lolcats. Ever: i can has cheeseburger? Squee!

English = Boring

Hi. Didn't do much but English today. Which is boring. Oh well.

A Little More Stardust

Grandma and I set out this morning to see Stardust at Southbank, but as I stood in the ticket line the screening SOLD OUT. Go figure. School holidays, PG rating, all that jazz. So we went over the river and had lunch in the city, and saw Stardust at the Regent. She likes it and approves it for 71.5% of her grandkids. I liked it even better than the last time I saw it.

Real Beauty

Is it just me, or is this deeply scary and unsettling?

Hi!

So today I did some English and I watched a movie and I went grocery shopping for vegan wholefoods ingredients. Hooray!

wisdom, and kidnappings

Questionable Content was awesome today.

I'm back from being kidnapped! No worse for wear, except I watched Eragon (..ghh. The books were bad enough in the first place.) But also saw Ratatouille! Which is really good and kinda gross, in the way that most truly excellent stuff for kids is. Which isn't totally unexpected, coming from the director of The Iron Giant, which is one of my very favourite movies of ever. Except I was really underwhelmed by the Incredibles, which was the other thing Brad Bird did.
Anyway, shopping with the shopping-obsessed cousin was welly fun, watching old X-Men cartoons with all three cousins was shiny too, except I can't out-comic-geek the eldest one. But that's kinda refreshing in itself. Plus, we all gossiped about my sister.

Then on to dinner at other cousins, for more gossiping about my sister, being flogged at Dance Dance Revolution, arts and crafts, hats (a Bunnings hat with aforementioned arts and crafts stuck to it, and a hard hat which was my DDR lucky hat) jumping on the trampoline of death, and running around giggling. Also cream buns.

Someone tell Rach that after she told me to, I tried the Showtime/Fun Fair Skittles or whatever they're called, and she's right, they are very yummy. The popcorn flavour ones are the best!

And... Dun Dun Dah... I HAS GETTIN MOAR INTERNETS!!11!oneone1!
(so I don't have to trek into uni every day of the holidays to work on my assignments, and poor Grandma and Grandpa can use the internet too.)

Books

The internet hates me. Aaargh.

The google "word of the day" is daiquiri. Which made me grin as I cannot but think of Nanny Ogg and her banananana dakrys from Terry Pratchett's Witches Abroad, which is a book I'm quite fond of.

Have spent the weekend engrossed in my English assignment. Let us say no more of that.
Time not spent engrossed in English has been spent in marvellous books. I'm about halfway into Neil Stephenson's Quicksilver, which is quite a feat as the book is about the size of two bricks. It's very good, spanning England, the Continent, and the Colonies, with people like Issaac Newton and Charles the Second running around.
I'm also about three-quarters of the way through After Dark, by Haruki Murakami, because I read all of his stuff I can get my hands on. It's compulsive reading, with that strange dichotomy of dreamlikeness and sensibility he does so well.
I finished The Man who was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton last week, not sure if I told you all about that one. Seriously awesome roller-coaster of a book and also hilarious. I like Chesterton's sense of humour :)

So. I'm being kidnapped this afternoon, so shall bid the farewell.

I see Stardust

Howdy. I haven’t posted the last couple days, sorry ‘bout that; I very cleverly managed to run out of internet at home and at uni simultaneously. And much drama ensued.

Yesterday, I went to see Stardust! Err, twice.

It was good enough the first time to make me want to see it again in short order, and I liked it even better the second time. Robert DeNiro was *awesome*, and I’m kind of in love with Charlie Cox, and all in all, it’s a funny, cute movie that y’all should go see.

(Paragraph has very low level *spoilers*) There were only two things from the book I missed, and it wasn’t the tree or the Lion/Unicorn battle. It was Yvaine’s very quiet profane reaction to being knocked out of the heavens, and the fact that Tristan didn’t free her from the silver chain willingly (if stupidly.) But if that’s the price to be paid for all the good new stuff, so be it.

If there’s any way of managing it, I prefer to go to the cinema alone. In spite or perhaps because of this, I love watching other movie-goers, and the people who saw Stardust were fascinating. The folk at the Regent in the morning were an interesting bunch (like the red-corseted girl who juggled plastic rings in the theatre waiting for the show to start, and *aww* the three generations of women from the same family who came along together,) but the people at Garden City in the evening were more fun. They were the ones who laughed in all the right places. Judging by both screenings, Stardust is the Gay Teen Date Movie of Choice (unless it has become the fashion for all teenage boys to wander around in pairs holding hands.) And you know how when you walk into a movie there might be a bunch of pensioners, or a bunch of twenty-something couples, or a bunch of teenagers in packs, or a bunch of families with kids? Stardust had no ‘or.’ Probably the most demographic-crossing movie crowd I’ve seen.

The trailers were cruddy (Fred Claus, Enchanted, something with the Rock) except the Golden Compass, which I’d be going to see even if the Fabulist didn’t say it was cool, and one of my favourite artists wasn’t doing conceptual work for it. I think I may pick up the books sometime between now and December, also.

I think I might go again next week sometime :)

Mean Reds

Don't you hate it when you're so tired you're antsy and agitated all day? I do. Feels terrible.

Da da da! Your problems are over. The cure - go walk around David Jones for a half hour. It's a very calming department store. The lighting feels golden, and you're not tempted to spend money because you can't afford anything anyway. The piped music isn't all that excreble, and if you don't look posh the staff don't bother you. Heaven :)

Holly Golightly had Tiffany's. I have David Jones.

Sigh.

The Face that Launched a Thousand Ships

I entered a "Greek Mythology" picture-taking contest for the sims 2.

I entered Helen of Troy. My fave pic is this one, of the sack of Troy:

Did you just say "thoom?"

Check out Sugarshock for Joss Whedon e-comicy goodness. Woo! Woo!

Current here.
Back issue here.

Amazing

Went to see Philip Yancey talk tonight.

Amazing.

Am falling-asleep zombie girl right now. Goodnight.

Stuff of today(ish)

Yesterday was kinda fun. Went and wandered around the city after my lecture, and bought a can of cherry coke. Collected four huge doorstoppy-type books from the library. Watched the Spicks and Specks, and the Chaser. Read book. Slept.

This morning I have spent making a sim (for a prize in a friend's competition.) I'm fairly happy with her; she favours who she's s'posed to, but still looks simmy.

I'm gonna go to uni soon, then to a Philip Yancey thing.

Today, of all days

Hmm. Today. Well, my alarm didn't go off this morning, but I made the seven o'clock train nonetheless, albeit without breakfast (I only just barely remembered shoes.) Luckily, the cafe at uni does yummy apple muffins, because I'm one of those people who needs breakfast.
Handed in maths games, and early indications are that I've done reasonably well on them.
Was zombie-like throughout the day, split a sushi lunchbox for lunch, drew a harlequin buccaneer instead of listening in the english lecture.
Came home, washed my face, went to tea at the cousins'. Which was nice. They-all were tired to, so we're having an early night.
I've got about two pages left in Thursbitch, which is what I'm reading right now. (It's kind of like Krispy Kreme donuts: underwhelming at first taste but compulsively addictive. Except not trashy.) I'm prolly going to finish it before I sleep. Next book is Lian Hearn's The Harsh Cry of the Heron, which I promised myself I wouldn't steal from my cousin 'till the midterm round of assessment was done. And now it is, so I have stolen it... hehe.

I has finished the maths games!

Woot! *does happy dance* The evil fearsome maths games are finished!

And I know I've been all "ZOMZG they is hard!!!11!oneone" so sorry 'bout that.

And they're done! Huzzah!

Pictures:

Heck, you can have all five of them for your very own if you want :) (That's a zipped file uploaded to Zoomshare, fyi)

*happy dances*

If you are like me, you will love this comic from xkcd.

Ooh, and this one.

I am resolved

As of now, I am saving for a graphics tablet.

Maths Games again

There are 14 animals in the barnyard. Some are cows and some are chickens. I counted 34 legs in all. How many animals are chickens?

There are 15 animals in the barnyard. Some are cows and some are chickens. I counted 38 legs in all. How many animals are cows?

There are 16 animals in the barnyard. Some are cows and some are chickens. I counted 42 legs in all. How many animals are chickens?

There are 17 animals in the barnyard. Some are cows and some are chickens. I counted 46 legs in all. How many animals are cows?


By Tuesday, I shall surely have gone mad.

procrastinations

This morning instead of yet again working on maths games, I painted my fingernails black and found a blog full of big fat wonder woman pictures, here. I really like it - the BBWWs are entrancing.

Books and Movies

Thursday. Hmm.

I went to the library and put a bunch of books on hold - I haven't read anything not uni-related or on a computer screen for much to long, which is unlike me. So after hurriedly scribbling down Susanna "Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell" Clarke's list of favourite books and "If you liked this then try" from somewhere, I went looking for them. (One was actally on shelf - a rarity for my hopeless library - it's called Thursbitch, and the first chapter is interesting so far.)

Hopefully by the time I hand in my maths games on Tuesday, there'll be a book or two waiting for me at the library.

The Empire magazine Stardust verdict: Starbust. I was sad.
But then, they gave that Earthsea movie four stars, and I really wanted to like that movie but it deserved two and a half at best. So one never does know.

It's Windsday, Rabbit!

Today: maths exam. Wasn't worried at all. Did really well except for stupid mental blank; completely forgot what a histogram was. Had studied that exact thing on the weekend and this morning. Just one of those times when your brain mutinies. Ergh.

What I am worried about: Maths Games. The physical deadening in the pit of my stomach has arrived as of yesterday, and I'm not expecting it to leave 'til Tuesday when I hand the games in.

Happier: The Fabulist has a mix tape. New music to get excited about!

Squee!

Had a couple of fangirly moments today. Firstly, there was a humongous Stardust poster on the back of the bus that took me to uni this morning.
Secondly, Will Eisner was referenced in my English Ed tutorial this arvo. That's never happened before, and I rather doubt it will again. Pretty cool. Am inspired to add some Spirit stuff (and, incidentally, Tintin) to my unit of work on detectives and detective stories.

More on Stardust: check out today's post at Neil Gaiman for some awesomeness from the "Stormhold Tourism Board."

Monday agains

This morning Louise and I agreed that
a) we should be studying for Wednesday's math exam, and
b) we were going to Garden City instead.

So we did. We looked in bookshops. It was fun.
The rest of the day was consumed by maths games. Bleh.

Aaargh.

Maths Games. Aaargh Aaargh Aaargh.

Bat for Lashes

I'm slowly becoming enamoured of Bat for Lashes. See awesome video clip above.

Feels kind of like a dodgy horror film, but made with good sense and good humour.

Look! It's Alleliua!

I'm not using the internet at home at the moment in an attempt for my grandparents to have internet of a decent speed 'til the end of the month. And can I remember to blog at uni? Well, how many posts have I posted this week? That'd be no, I can't remember.


I won a sims2 competition! Go me! I had completely convinced myself I was going to place last.
(That's my avi as proof.) This is my fave pic from the entry, except the one in the top right of this page. And let me tell you, I'm proud. It took some photoshoppin', especially her waist and feet. (Hopefully you can't see it, though.)So. This week I went and ate Dad's Famous Lentil Patties at the cousins', and hid out in Stu's room while he and Trent played... umm... forgot name of 'puter game, and I started reading Lian Hearn's The Harsh Cry of the Heron, but I left it there on purpose because I've got maths games to be a-making.
Also
I desperately want to see Once which is out in cinemas today - I've had some music from it on my MP3 player for months which I really like - but I'm too poor. So I'll have to wait a whole week and pray it doesn't disappear.

long day but ok

Today was handing in and finishing assignments day today, which always feels good.
(Smile)

Getting ready for stuff

Today I got five songs ready for Sunday School, which involves:

1. Pestering my dad for the midis and PowerPoint files.
2. Making sure the midis match up with the PowerPoints, everything has the same chorus/verse arrangement, etc.
3. Re-recording the midi files as mp3, using a program that basically records whatever comes out of your computer speakers.
4. Turning the PPts into overheads (it's like travelling backward in time, I swear.)
5. Printing out OH masters to be photocopied onto transparencies.
6. Burning mp3 tracks to CD.
7. Writing what's on the CD on the CD and jewel case.

So that's what I did.
Incidentally, did you know that there are like four hundred different versions of Arky Arky (Rise and Shine)? Every site I went to looking for lyrics had a different set, and some were, well, odd. Animals in threesies with chimpanzeesies? I don't think so. Really.

Also I did some math. Math is delicious.

What I have been Doing

I know I'm bad. Two days in a row with no post. Sorry.

Wednesday: Uni (lecture and making tesselations in Illustrator,) Dinner (which involved losing at pool to Stu, drawing a lady on their fridge with whiteboard marker, being chased around the house giggling by Kirra, and watching the Annoying Devil,) sleep.

Thursday: Shopping (black shirts, the Sims 2 Fashion stuff - yay Gametraders!) Uni (Boringest. Tute. Ever,) My Sims Game Dying (lost all saved games and *sob* my carefully constructed collection of downloads,) sleep.

Friday: Going to Uni (and getting there and then being cancelled on and coming home again,) Studying for Uni (mainly maths,) Kid Thing at Church (they were feral,) Sims 2 (I miss my custom eyebrows,) Blogging, sleep (or so I presume.)

Cute little alien sim.

Wet and Bedraggled

Aaargh. Between God's gift of rain, and the way the world seems to segue into slow motion whenever I'm in a hurry, today has not been a particularly fun day.

I forgot the one dollar bag of popcorn for my English presentation this morning - left it at home on the bedroom floor - so had to run (really, run) from uni to the shops a half hour before our presentation started and spend eight dollars on more. Because if I went to Woolies there was not a chance I was getting back in time, but Kernels was empty. As it happened, I made it back with five minutes grace. Phew.
Longest. Twenty-five. Minutes. Of my life.

Aaaand my umbrella broke. Because today God's gift of rain came wrapped in cyclonesque winds.


(Sorry. I was boring yesterday and today I've just complained. Promise I'll do better tomorrow.)

err, nothing much

to talk about today. Sorry. I'm freaking out a little about my English workshop tomorrow, but not too much. Other than that, umm, not much happening at all, really...

Sunday School Machinations

Sunday School meeting today. It was interesting. All the people there who were my age basically looked like they'd rather have that thing with the bamboo shoots and your fingernails done to them than be in any way helpful. (Okay, hyperbole.) Which makes me feel:
a) doubly determined to be useful and do Stuff, and
b) really daggy.

Also was disappointed that we only got to sing three verses of a hymn in the middle of the service this morning. It was "Come We That Love The Lord" (I think that's what it's called,) which has the chorus that starts "we're marching to Zion" and is awesome. By the end of three verses you're barely warmed up. But our pastor wanted the extra sermon time, and the sermon was really good, so, I mean, one can't have everything. Oh well.

The guy who runs some stuff at our church has got me doing a talking thing at their VBS meeting because I did wintery decorations for my home church's VBS last year, and they're doing an Arctic theme.

The assessment thing is starting to happen at uni. Bleargh.

Also, my grandparents are buying a car. Go figure.

a note and a picture

Note to self: do not ever listen to Mika whilst shopping.

Because dancing in the supermarket is well daggy.

My favourite new Sims picture:

The Bayeux tapestry

Neil Gaiman linked to this, and I watched it, entranced. It's awesome.
Yay for history.

Eh...

Today I did studying. Now I'm sleepy.

Also I made brownies.

Yum.

Monkey on the lam

Tacos at the rellies last night. Tall cousin has got himself a Very Fine Hat. I checked out Stu's oral on 'The Picture of Dorian Grey' (snaps for using the word 'decadent' in the first twenty seconds) and we watched the Colbert Report and had a money fight (with, not about btw.)

As of last Thursday when I finished reading Eric, I've read every single one of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels, from The Colour of Magic to Wintersmith. There's over thirty, so it feels like an achievement.

Also, random Sims skills are relevant to the real world: taking good screencaps and knowing about online file-hosting are both going to be very useful for my next assignment (a group presentation on digital stories.)

take my life but not my books

I'm never shopping at Angus and Robertson again.

May who is not a vampire

Today I did some studying and made a new sim named May.
I was aiming to make a vampire, but that didn't work out.

Today's Questionable Content made me laugh.

Brain, come back... please...

Aargh. I've been a space case all day today.
I studied for four hours this morning, but only actually studied for about two. The rest of the time I was looking up Regina Spektor lyrics and thinking about making a Rose Walker sim. (My conclusions: I really, really want the Soviet Kitsch album, and will have to learn to recolour sim hair.)
Then this afternoon I missed the bus stop for uni. It's a really obvious bus stop that I've never ever missed. I wasn't even on the wrong bus.
When I actually got to uni, and got into my tute, I had a minor panic attack because everyone was already in groups for our group assessment task, and I didn't have a group. Except I did. I signed up in the first week.
Aargh.

Today I did

Okay, today I did the uni thing from eight 'til six, then went to the cousins' for tea. Long day but a good day, except for English. My tutor is almost exactly Professor Umbridge (from Harry Potter) except not evil, as far as I know. She looks exactly as Umbridge is described in the books, and even does that 'hem, hem' thing when she wants attention. It's really disturbing. But the main problem with English is that no one knows what's going on. I hate new courses, when my cohort is the guinea pigs. It sucks.

Dinner was nice, good to see everyone. Then everyone wandered off and I watched Firefly until it was convenient for me to be dropped home. I love spending quality time with folk, but if folk have other things to do I'm happy to spend quality time with the cable tv. But it was really great to chat to everyone for a couple hours.

Much Uni Today...

... and tomorrow too. But that's life. Spent some time today working out what studying and such I have to do this week - there's quite a bit of it. Also had a massive lunch at ten-thirty in the morning and then was full all day. It was tres fun. Am working on analysing the results of my group's survey for maths. We surveyed people's fruit eating habits.

Also a little bit of Stardusty goodness.

not good with women, apparently

Of all the cast of Serenity, I am most like Simon Tam and Shepherd Book (equal 70%.)

Which Serenity Character Are You?

Amazing Sizzler

Hiya! Today I went to see Amazing Grace with the grandfolks and it was... er... amazing. Y'all should go see it. I walked out of the cinema feeling quietly uplifted.
Strangely and hilariously, they played the trailer for Evan Almighty before the flick. Go figure. Looks like a mildly fun movie though.

Also went to Sizzler for the cousin's birthday, which was entertaining. My taller cousin has Jesus hair but not in a cool way. Sizzler has artichokes, hurray! and also jalapenos and coffee. Birthday cousin and I spent much time laughing quietly at the ridiculousness of his brother's conversations. Grandma bailed someone up for calling her a 'nanna' not a 'grandma.' Good time had by all, in fact.

Magazines and other things.

It's August. That's seven months since I made my new year's resolution to stop buying trashy magazines, which around March became diluted to 'buy magazines that are less trashy less often.' About three times I tipped over and bought Cleo or Cosmo, but on the whole I've done pretty good. I buy Frankie compulsively, but that's still one mag every two months, as opposed to two mags every month, and every now and then I pick up Empire. But they aren't trashy so they don't count. Not a hugeous failure as new year's resolutions go.

Today I went to a math lecture and mailed a birdy present (that's birthday present in sane people language) and tomorrow it's Cousin's birdy so we're goin to tea.

Math is delicious

There's a fat yellow moon tonight, like a demon baby. Or some such.
Today was a long day at uni. Many many hours, three of them lectures/tutes for a subject that doesn't make much sense and everyone wants to argue about. Which should count as at least six hours, I feel. I was so sick of it I made a pretty picture instead of doing the readings. I'll do 'em tomorrow when I'm less grumpy about the whole shebang.
On the bright side, since my tutor showed us, I am vair vair smart (as Kat would say) and can do year eleven algebra. Multiplying and dividing... er... polynomials I think. Sweet huh. Someone had the bright idea of laying it out in an array so I can see the problem. Even negative numbers give me no pause, mwah hah ha.
That's enough bragging for now.

Pretty Picture:

Penguin hehe

Much math today. Also Louise brought me a cupcake! I have luvverly friends!

I detest the cutesy animal Optus advertisements, except this one, which I quite like. Penguins hehe.

Church-Day

Howdy, all. The weekend has been pretty quiet. I did some grocery shopping and some sleeping, and some reading. Today has been church day, with church and Sunday school and singing practice and church. All of which were good. We're gearing up here for a family concert next weekend, in which I will be singing and squirting people with a spray bottle but not at the same time.

Spider-pig, spider-pig...

Simpsons Movie this afternoon. It was - um - big. Like a really, really big episode of the Simpsons. And yes, I do understand that's basically the concept. Just I can't really say whether it was good or bad, although it wasn't bad, it was just - big. Not poorer, not better than the Simpsons generally are. Pretty good way to waste a couple hours.

Hiya!

Well, I shopped today. Not spending money I didn't need to spend, just mostly buying stuff like textbooks and binders, and birthday pressies, and new earphones for my MP3 player 'coz the old ones is borked. Also went to a tute, and bought a ticket to the Simpsons Movie for tomorrow. (Okay, maybe a little bit of money I didn't need to spend.)
Grandma's a bit sick, got a buggy thing. Not good. So am putting my spectacular hunter/gatherer skills to use and feeding myself. Which I am rather ashamed to say, mostly involves subsisting entirely on toast and rice crackers. And orange juice. If I bought some pot ramen I could live like any other uni student...

Huh.

That uni thing happened again today. Go figure.

Uni

I'm thinking of all the fun uni- words today could have involved. Unicycle. Universe. Unicorn.
But no. I get: University.

Which was not completely un-fun, what with the seeing people, and the thing where your brain actually has something to do for a change, and the coffee. I was like totally wired for two hours after espresso. The kind of wired where you say to people things like "Yes. No. Wait, yes. No, wait, I just did that." Hmm, or the kind of wired where you use the phrase "like, totally."

The general Mathiness of Math was a downside, but on the upside, there was geometry, which is practically art (especially in primary school.) When your assignments are on stuff like the Golden Mean and symmetry, life ain't too bad.

Church etc.

This is a little post to say that today I went to 'my other' church and saw everyone and that was fun. The pastor's on leave, so the session clerk gave a message about our God-given duty to support our pastor. Cute.

Everyone likes my haircut. (Squee.)

I've lost my place in Orthodoxy for the third time, and always takes me forever to find it again. Sigh. One would think that I would learn.

Also for the first time ever I entered a Sims 2 contest at one of the forums. My sister sighs as I sink to new depths of obsession. Here's one of the pics from my entry. I give you Mindy. (The comp was alien-themed.)

All About Harry

This morning, I got up and went to be at The Big Shops at 09:01, to count from ten and pop the party popper and have store attendants blow catch-a-bubbles on me while I stood in a line. And it was naff-but-fun, which was exactly what I was expecting. And this afternoon, about five-ish, I was finished a Harry Potter for the first time for the last time. And it totally wasn't worth the hype, but the hype was fun and hilarious while it lasted.
As for the book itself, I'm not too sure, other than Woot-woot-Neville-yay and err... if that's going to be your epilogue, why even bother? and Teddy-squee and the fact that not one of the deaths in the book was given the respect it deserved. (Paragraph designed to contain few spoilers but also, unfortunately, completely lacking in any kind of sense to those who haven't read the book.) It's a bit of a pity that Jo Rowling stopped writing books after about number four or five and started writing movie treatments. But still, I laughed out loud and sobbed and gasped and read with a hand over my mouth and was properly grumpy when people tried to distract me for no good reason. (I was not grumpy at Grandma, who had a good reason.)
And, really, by the seventh book a series will probably be flagging.
The Last Battle, anyone?

She's Baaaack...

Well, I'm back in the city ready to start another semester of uni on Monday. Flew outta Tullamarine yesterday, got here mid-afternoon and was fairly amazed by the bright shining thing up in the sky. Northern winters are ridiculously un-wintery :)
Reading Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton, which I got at Koorong yesterday (11 dollars! Yay cheapness!) It's rather challenging and occasionally hilarious, which are both good things. Read Terry Pratchett's Wintersmith yesterday. I was on the holds queue at the library for ten months, and knocked the book over in five hours, but it was good nevertheless.
Tomorrow I'm reading... can you guess?
a) The Ultimate Guide to V8 Supercars
b) Watching Paint Dry and Other Amusing Hobbies (Possibly to do with Gardening)
c) Girly Girly Bad Chick-Lit
d) Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Hmm...
Judging by the fact that last night I went out to The Big Shops to buy the most expensive piece of dark blue paper with stars on that I've ever owned, but that's okay because tomorrow they're going to let me swop it for Harry, I'd probably go with d).
Not that there's anything wrong with V8 supercars, paint, or gardening.
(Bad chick-lit is bad chick-lit, I'm afraid.)

:(

Sorry no posts. I on hollydays.

Stuff I have been Doing

Aaargh! It's Friday, and the last time I posted was Tuesday! And it's not like I've been busy or anything. Rather the opposite, in fact. So rest assured you haven't missed out on much. But today, I drove in the rain! For the first time properly! Much excitingness! It was all rather flustering, actually. Plus, I forgot to put my glasses on so I couldn't see much at all. Whoops. Trials of a learner driver.
Other than that, I have been doing random things like listening to Regina Spektor and Mika while cleaning the kitchen most mornings, (I am all-of-a-sudden re-obsessed with Regina Spektor) and reading The Voyage of the Dawn Treader because I'm kind of supposed to be writing a VBS (vacation bible school) program around it right now, but I can't figure out what we need to teach these kids from it, so also praying about that, and I'm up to about question 73 or 74 on the Impossible Quiz, and I'm turning into a Harry Potter conspiracy theorist (I'm completely convinced Aberforth Dumbledore is the barman at the Hog's Head, and almost completely convinced Mundungus Fletcher has at least one Horcrux in his posession.) Also I found a necklace I need to buy. And today I'm getting a haircut.

I looooove being on holidays.

Ninjawords

Ninjawords is an online dictionary I was pointed to this afternoon by Jonathan Carroll's blog. I like the idea of a fast-like-a-ninja dictionary, but don't think I will find it particularly useful - I tested it out and it knows 'chicken' and 'dark' but not 'pedosphere' or 'hebetudinous'. So that-all's a bit sad, and I'm sticking with Answers.com for now. I do heart ninja stuff, for example this song.

AAAAAAAAAGH!

Today I had a driving lesson. Nobody died.

Rassum frassum right hand turns...


(It wasn't that bad really.)

Things I did yesterday

Well, yesterday was so full I really had no time to post. The ministry conference basically went off: I had fun, learned much and came away really encouraged, and I think mostly everyone else did too.
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers was good fun; I sat through it with the biggest stupid grin on my face.
And cooking in the evening was mainly all right, except for icky-sticky jam drop mixture, and a chocolate caramel slice that shall be known henceforth as Disaster Slice. (The caramel didn't set.)

Bless your beautiful hide

So these were the days of playing sims, reading Harry Potter in preparation for the dun-dun-DUN last book, and battling evil roundabouts. Gnaaargh.
Tomorrow is full of cooking, ministry conference, and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, not necessarily in that order. Should be well shiny, yay!

Went to bible study tonight. Man oh man have I missed bible study. The one in QLD died toward the end of last year, and I've been without one for three months or so - the uni semester. But now I'm home and, my, does it feel good. I mean, I do the church and the devo things, but you really NEED Bible Study, don't ya? I muchly do.

My brothers are just home from the basketball and will be psycho. Yuk.

Cool Blog

This site, on my desk, is awesome. Really really awesome.

indie indie coffee coffee

I've been really enjoying doing not much the last couple of days. It's luvverly.

My sister and I have been looking at hideously expensive indie design baby paraphernalia from all around the web, mainly using indie fixx as a bouncing-off point and spiralling ever onward through various linkages. (We're looking because our friend is expecting, not because we're random and strange. Although we are random and strange.)

Tomorrow I'm looking forward to having my first coffee at my fave coffee place at home, where I haven't had a coffee for months and months because I've been in the good old QL of D. Yay coffee!

My sister and I made donuts tonight. They were yummy.

End of Construction

This quote was in our church bulletin yesterday and I was quite taken with it.

" I saw a sign on a strip of highway once that I would like to have copied on my gravestone. It said, 'End of construction. Thankyou for your patience.' "

It's from Ruth Bell Graham, wife of Billy, who passed away quite recently. Good reminder that God's changing us every day we wake up in this world.

love gonna get you down

My sisters and I have been dancing around to this song all morning - it's pop, and seriously good pop at that. Mika is hella shiny!

Journey

Huzzah! Am blogging from my sister's (extremely messy) bedroom! Because I am home!

Mostly okay trip, except the egg (that's my suitcase, named for its hard shell, smooth curves, and extreme fragility) got cracked in transit - again. This was the replacement egg I got after Quantas killed the last one, and they did it again. This time I'm prepared to just let it go and not worry about another one. Time for a new suitcase, one that can withstand the burly (I'm assuming they're burly) domestic baggage handlers.

Also, the airport coffee was foul. Bleagh.

Shoesday

Today was the day of the valiant quest for birthday presents and yellow shoes. The birthday presents will not be further mentioned, as the persons recieving them read this blog, even though they both already know what they're getting.

The yellow shoes were found and duly bought, plus some red ones which were dead cheap and well cute. Yay shoes! (The photo of the yellow shoes is a pretty spot-on representation, but the red ones are darker and shinier than they look here. Also if you look closely you will see that I have big feet.)

Tomorrow is getting-on-a-train-and-then-a-plane-and-then-another-plane day. Which should be fun, and means I now have to go pack.

Random Craziness

I am the cleaning NINJA!

So. Yesterday was Science day, as in studying and then exam. Today was the day I did a Hannelore on my bedroom, yay! Cleanliness! Woo!

masquerade madness

So. Have been kidnapped, fed far too much chocolate slices, and forced to watch Battlestar Galactica (tough life, I know :))

Then this morning my cousin and I watched MirrorMask, and then got all inspired to make masks of our own.

Here's mine:

Here's hers:

Aren't we clever! and stylish, and crafty, and elegant, and cool...

tiny tiny tarts

Here are some of the caramel tarts I made yesterday. I'm being kidnapped later, and taking the tarts with me. (Kidnapped by my aunt and uncle, not the scary kind.)

just Sims 2 snapshots

Sims 2 - the perfect way to relax after stressful studying. Here's the twins from my current favourite family.

100 100 100

Welcome to blog post 100! Yay!

Am planning on spending the afternoon making little caramel tarts, and possibly Paneer Butter Marsala, which is like Butter Chicken but lacking in chicken. And also getting my Sunday School stuff in enough order that I can hand it over to the next teacher with a minimum of confusion.

I feel like this post needs something exciting and special because it is the hundredth, but here's a picture of some balloons instead, that I took with my phone.

And a slightly fuzzy picture showing how adorable my clock looks in a hat.

Friday Things

This is the first day it's been cold enough up here to wear a winter coat - and I'm ecstatic. Walking to uni this morning in the sunshine and freezing wind, wearing my Favourite Purple Coat and listening to Regina Spektor, made me so happy I could feel it physically - that sharp, joyful constriction under the rib cage that makes you feel like you're about to lift off the ground.

I heart winter so so much.

Have finished assignment, but forgot integral pen-to-write-on-the-CD, so I'm stuck here till the bookshop opens at 2. Then I'll hand it in and go home and only have a science exam and freaky airport dreams to worry about.

I spent a very happy half hour last night playing the Impossible Quiz. So far I can only get to about question 52, though.

Sawyer Sawyer Locke

I'm consoling myself.
The Sawyer Song

Ugh.

Ugh. Forgot to enrol for next semester this morning, and am now saddled with a pretty ugly timetable. Yes, this is still the day enrolment opens, but everyone has got in at 7:02 this morning. Ugh.

Overcast and Nightmaring

Well, it stopped raining, but the sun isn't shining either, so kind of the worst of both worlds, especially since the entirety of my wardrobe has been sitting on the clothesline since Tuesday morning (we don't have a dryer.) If it's still wet Saturday, I'll ring my aunt and see if I can borrow her dryer for the morning.

Nothing much happening my-ways, just assignmenting and Simming and reading-Harry-Pottering. My toddler twin sims grew up last night, and they make for very cute kiddies. The boy looks rather effeminate. I want to take piccies if I get enough of the behavior management assignment done first. I've got time to kill till nine-thirty tonight - stupid Channel Seven putting Heroes on before Lost rassum frassum.

I've had bad dreams about being stuck in Tullamarine Airport twice this week. Dreams about running from one end of the place to the other, sorting out baggage and flights and broken suitcases and delays - like all the worst airport experiences I've ever had put together. I'm not sure why. Usually if something is freaking me out, I lose sleep over it, rather than nightmaring. Also not sure why the whole thing is troubling me in the first place - I'm not expecting to have any difficulties, and even if I do in my experience the airplane people are pretty nice about fixing them up - either it's because I did actually end up missing my transfer and losing my luggage last time, or because I'm flying Rex the second leg of my journey this time, after I've had a year or two to get comfortable with O'Connor.
Sometimes I hate how the littlest things can throw me for a loop.

Rainy Rain

Still raining. yay.

Also realised that it's actually been three months since I started blogging, not two. Man this semester went by fast.

rain

I'm sitting in the back room, at the computer, listening to the rain filling up the water tanks. It's nice. My umbrella and I had a cheerful and somewhat damp walk home from the train station, so my nice clothes are in the laundry basket and I'm wearing my somewhat dilapidated PYV tee-shirt instead.

I love it when it really rains.

a random little chat about clothes and films.

Snap. It's round-abouts my blog's two month birthday. Happy birthday, blog. That should actually probably be anniversary, but oh well.
So today was the day I finally went to see Pirates. It was better than the last one, but I'm not sure it needed three whole hours. The bit in the whirlpool was good. Also, Orlando Bloom's role could have been played with more flair and aplomb by a sock puppet, but then all the preteen girly-types would get mad.
The thing I love about summer (well, winter here) blockbusters are the big-budget trailers, but I didn't get to see anything wonderful. Just a Harry Potter trailer that made me go 'wow, that was confusing' and a Transformers trailer that managed to make Transformers look about as fun and exciting as a movie about tax returns, which is really a sad state of affairs.

I saw a skinny girl in Queen Street wearing a full-on corset. I sighed and wished that I could wear a corset without looking like the kind of fat girl that wears corsets. Drastic weight loss is really my only option, which is a depressing thought to have after scoffing take-away for dinner.

word, work

Gotta love that funky word of the day thingo. A person who plays the vibraphone is called a vibist. Who knew! Well, other than the vibists themselves, close friends and relatives, etc...
Have finished writing the Introduction and Rationale for this art assignment. Which basically means I've done all the work. Another hour and I'll have it knocked over and e-mailed off. Which will be nice.

Communion yesterday. My church up here only has communion quarterly; it's so nice when it does finally come around. At home it's monthly, which is really nice, alternating between morning and evening services. Good to be able to share communion at my home church more than once a year, which is what it would be if they did the quarterly thing as well. Good to be reminded a little more often - I don't think about Him as much as I should.

you don't know the half of it

This made me giggle helplessly for some minutes, unfortunately.

mmm... lazy saturday

Spent today doing much of nothing in particular. Caught up on the week's taped television (on Lost, someone - Sawyer - finally asked the question I've been asking all season), discovered the word "contumely" from my Google page's word of the day (I like it for being a noun that ends in ly), never quite got around to painting my toenails, read some Ultimate X-Men, and generally gave my brain a holiday.
Tomorrow will get down to the serious business of cleaning my room. At the moment it's only River Tam walking in there - if you don't move elegantly, like a dancer, feeling your way, carefully placing the balls of your feet, you hear crunch and have broken something, or you slip on something, or you stub your toe. Which I can just about live with - I've tolerated it for the last fortnight or so. But today I needed to go out and had a one shoe bonanza. One runner, one sandshoe, two thongs (both left). I had two ballet flats, one for each foot even, but one was black and the other was gold and sparkly.
I am going to clean my room. And find all my shoes. And put them away.

and then it was June...

...and I had survived. I had passed, and I had learned.

elephantine, flummery

I'm still meandering through xkcd's archives.

Here is an alphabet's worth of favourite words.

addlepated, biomechanisms, charismatic, drear, elephantine, flummery, gavotte, harken, indignant, judicious, kindle, launder, meridian, noisome, owlishly, pedant, quinquireme, rondel, squiffy, twill, untainted, 'verse, woundrousness, xenophobic, yearning, Zoroastrian.

Oh, and prac was okay. Last day tomorrow.

Forgot Something Again...

I'm finding it amusing now.
Last night, I woke up (after being asleep) terrified that my sister had been asphyxiating herself, oil-painting with turps holed up in her room for hours on end. The facts, as I saw them, were:

• It's freezing cold and raining all the time at the moment, where my folks live.
• My sister spends all her time in her room when she's not on the computer. She does all her painting in her room.
• My sister's room is likely to be all shut up against the aforementioned cold, and is not really well-ventilated at the best of times.
• My sister was all excited about doing oil painting for the first time.
• Mineral turpentine is integral to oil painting, and should not be used in unventilated areas.

Facts that unfortunately did not occur to me:

• I love mineral turpentine with a fierce, longing love. My sister has never shown any indication she feels the same way.
• Just because I'm dumb enough to give myself migraines via low ventilation does not mean my sister is.
• My sister is not an idiot.
• Even if she did hole herself up in her room with the fumes and make herself sick, she'd never do it again. Never never three days in a row.

So I tried to ring her. Then when her phone was turned off, I sent her a text message three text messages long about the dangers of turps fumes.

She definitely is sitting at home, thinking I'm a psycho.

I'm a psycho.

Grandparents: run away, run away

Was Grandparents' Day at school today. Am exhausted. Was ostensibly teaching middle and afternoon sessions, that's after the big event, but didn't do much. We just went outside and played all middle session. Which was really good for me, as unlike the teacher-aide's grown-up kids, I didn't have the option of going home at lunch time because I was too tired to stay. And really good for the kids, as they had had to sit through an hour of upper-school performances before their two-minute song, and missed all their outside time in the morning.
I was okay. Am hoping I shan't crash and burn too badly tomorrow.

Am beginning to suspect I may be able to do this teaching dealie, eventually, with practice.
It's a God thing.

My tally is up to 8 cans of V energy drink disgustingness (4 sugar-free, 4 with sugar in), but only 3 cups of coffee.
Two days to go. Am teaching all day tomorrow.

Got the letter with all my aeroplane flying details, so now I've got my trip home all sorted. Home! Hooray! For a month!!!!!

not christmas

um. so. two Good Days in a row. Am terrified, and will now run away and hide under the bed, or at least I would if it wasn't quite so crowded with boxes and suitcases and shoes and dust bunnies and such. Teacher said this was the best day I've ever had. Have got a terrible sensation of impending doom re: tomorrow, although I don't know how bad it could really be - we're making gingerbread men. Yumm. Speaking of, here are some donuts I didn't eat this afternoon except for one.

And here is a tower made of blocks.

And also I got an assignment back with an A+ grade. So, in all, good days. (That's plural because I got the assignment back yesterday.)

Must ask my mum very sweetly to book some driving lessons for me now that I know when I'm going home.

La la la.

and I forgot

That riding an excercise bike thing on Saturday went well and my legs didn't even hurt the next day. Hooray.

Garfield was wrong...

...Mondays rock. Had a great day today at prac, and it was the same last week and the week before. Mondays are easy, because you're rested, and you've had all weekend to prepare. Mondays are about fresh beginnings, untainted by last week's woes. (My grandfather is listening to 'Teenage Dirtbag' on TV for some reason. It's freaking me out.)
Have so far consumed 1.5 coffees and 2 cans of V energy disgustingness (Student: I love that lemonade. It makes me hyper.) Am expecting tally to escalate as the week progresses.
Tomorrow am teaching all day and so far, I'm not terrified. Which may be a bad sign, Tuesdays so far for me have all been about a false sense of security.

even the math

(click for larger)

Much, much cooler than Explosms: xkcd.

Bleh.

No post yesterday, sorry, I got distracted playing around with Meez in Photobucket. I made this one, inspired by (but bearing no actual resemblance to) my sister.

Today, I feel bone-weary in my bones. I should be preparing for next week's teaching (3 half, 2 full days) but can only lie in bed, feeling not great.

Will go ride an excercise bike for Jesus this evening.

Moon Corner

So this is what I've been doing all week.

Argument

THE ICECREAM TRUCK IS MY FAVOURITE SHOP.

no one was interested, but anyway

Five minutes on IMDb confirms that Nathaniel Parker is indeed both Inspector Lynley and Dunstan Thorne. The younger Dunstan Thorne (Ben Barnes) is Prince Caspian, strangely enough.

http://www.stardustmovie.com/

I did teaching in front of the vice-principal today, and I did it well. So that's good. Makes everyone happy. She even changed the time and came an hour and a half earlier, and I still did it well.
I am at my wits' end as to how to keep a cardboard spaceship in one piece - have gone out this afternoon and bought a twelve-dollar roll of gaffa tape, and if that doesn't do the trick I shall be vexed. (I spelt gaffa like that because that's what it says on the packet. Otherwise I'd have spelt it gaffer. Odd.)
The new Stardust Movie site is up, with enough shiny new things to make waiting for September really hard. It looks to me like Inspector Lynley is going to be Dunstan Thorne, but it could just be an uncanny resemblance in my head.

beginning of the rest of my prac

Monday was good. Except for before I got to prac, and during the interview with my uni supervisor, when I was a basket-case, leaking tears. But the actual teaching-y bits were good. So keeping that going is the trick; this morning I didn't start so well, but pulled it together during outside time and kept the enthusiasm going until the end of the day.
Tomorrow will be a good day. I promise.

please not trepidation

Getting ready to face up to prac tomorrow. Am looking forward to most of it, just not the bits that involve people judging me. Or me talking about the problems I'm having.
Quite a large part of me wants to make it the teacher's fault. Which is definitely not the case. So I just have to remember to say how I feel and not blame her because she's not to blame. It's all yukky.
Am trying to have impeccable preparation and lesson planning, so at least they can't fault me for that. And we'll see how I go.
Had a great Sunday School lesson today, and Heather F rang this afternoon and we chatted, which was good. I needed a teacher's view.
People keep telling me they're praying.
Hopefully I'll get some sleep tonight.

God can do this.

Keeping on Going

Have spent the day re-thinking lesson plans and amassing resources and generally trying to lift my game. Can think about the whole thing without crying now, which is at least partly to do with the precious comments left for me after my last post - thanks again. I'll slam-dunk my Sunday School lesson tomorrow, which should help. And I'm praying and praying. Can you all please continue doing the same? :)

Alleliua is a crappy teacher

No blog post yesterday or the day before, Blogger wasn't cooperating on Wednesday and I was too busy on Thursday.
I've been classified as 'at risk' on my practicum interim report. Which is bad. And it feels stupid, because I've been nervous and unsettled and not doing things I know to do. So am spending weekend working my butt off trying to do all the things my prac teacher says I need to do. And when I do them she'll point out a bunch of other things I haven't done. She doesn't seem to like telling me about what I should be doing until I haven't done it. Oh well. I'm just sad because I thought I could do this. I thought I was good at it. But I'm trying and trying and she's still worried, and I just can't seem to get things right.
Plus I have a cold. I'm going to bed.

Going to Bed Now

I got home from prac at three thirty and from then 'till now, bar a half hour to eat tea in, I've been doing preparation for tomorrow. Kill me now. Or possibly, since I'm finished, just let me go to sleep...

wellity wellity wellity

In a major break with the tradition of the last few posts, amazingly, my feet don't hurt, I have no headaches, and I'm not bone weary. In fact, after coming home from prac this afternoon, I had the energy to devote another three hours to preparation and organisation for tomorrow and beyond. I think I'm adapting, which is a nice feeling. Or it could be Kat's Lethal Iced Coffee. You never know.

Prep is doing the letter 'a' this week, as in 'a says a-a-a'. Tomorrow I'm doing an activity with them, so I think we'll be astronauts, and moonwalk around a big letter A on the floor. I have the Star Wars theme at the ready. Much more difficult to find is a sound effect with a countdown and rocket blastoff, for free on the net. So eventually I settled for just a rocket blastoff, and we'll D.I.Y countdown.

otherwise known as Skuzz

The Garden Party. Which began with one of the lesser Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Treading In Dogshit, and did not greatly improve from there. I developed one of the worst headaches I've ever had, mostly from the glare. And of course, I was running around on gravel paths with no shoes as a result of the aforementioned horseman.
But the girls from the singing group outdid themselves, and the food was well yummy, and the customers seemed to enjoy themselves (customers isn't the right word, but I can't think of what is.) And the lady it was held to benefit, I think, benefited. So that was all okay.

Even so, I'm sure one of the circles of hell is a garden party.

the mother of all parties...

Today at prac we had a Mothers' Day party in the evening, which we were preparing for all day. Psycho mess, I swear. My head hurts and my feet ache, but the mums all loved it and a good time was had by all, which is the Main Thing.

My phone is not currently recieving text messages, which would not normally be a problem, but of course whenever my phone is out of commission everyone wants to talk to me. I should get to be nearly popular in the month it will take me to save for a new phone.

Tomorrow my prac supervisor from uni comes out for a meet-and-greet, which I'm a little apprehensive about, considering I've been doing too much actual work to get a lot of the rubbishy paperwork done. Oh well. I'll see how I go.

This week in the evenings after dinner and before 8:30 or so, I've read the first and last volumes of Dave Sim's Cerebus. The first was considerably more fun than the last. Gigantically more fun, really. I'm not even sure why I read the last one, actually.

just me wittering on again

I feel like a zombie. And as far as I can tell, that's not going to improve anytime soon. The weekend will not provide a reprieve, I've stuff on. Oh well.

I got stickers at the cheapo shop today, hippo ones that say 'Hip Hip Hooray' and dinosaur ones that say 'Dino-mite.' They are for Sunday School - the children's church type thingy at the beginning, not in my class. My Sunday School class this week is the story of Naaman, as told with red sticky dots and a spray bottle of water.

Prac was good. I know nearly everyone's name in my class, and all the troublemakers from the other Prep as well, which comes in handy. Generally they are the names you need to call out in a stern voice.

Also, yesterday I bought glitter hairspray.

PRAC

My four weeks block prac began today. It was a reasonable beginning. I don't know how I'm going to survive the whole thing; by lunch-time today I was ready to fall on the floor in a heap.
Spider-mania reigns in the prep classroom at the moment. Four-year-old children are telling me about Norman Osborne's brutal demise. None of them have even seen the third movie, but the first two have been on telly over the last couple of weekends, and they've all seen the movie promos around the place. They run around and one of them is black Spiderman and one of them is red Spiderman and one of them is Hobgoblin and, generally, one of them is a tiger.

catches theives, just like flies

Today I went to see Spiderman 3. It was mostly good, with bits that make you laugh (admittedly, mostly Emo Spiderman) and bits that make you cry and bits that make you gasp. So there were only two things I really didn't like about it. Number one was Gwen Stacy telling a crowd of people "I'm here today because I fell sixty feet and someone caught me," which seems a bit tasteless, since the reason Gwen isn't here today is that she fell and somebody caught her. The other sucky thing was a very very lame, badly acted Stan Lee cameo (he actually said 'Nuff Said.) All the things I like, I can't say because they would mostly spoil the movie. But I do heart Harry Osborne.

Tops Again

Like pretty much anyone, I go through cycles of confidence. After my third lead-in day at prac, I was sure I was going to be the crappiest teacher in the world. I was no good with kids, I can't teach, etc, etc.
Today is the opposite. Had to do a Sunday School thing on the fly, and survived (with Joel's help) - I'm going to be an excellent teacher, hooray. But that could just be the adrenaline speaking.

Our student pastor did a children's talk with shoes this morning, that I immediately wanted to steal. I'd love to do it as a team talk with my sister, actually. Between us we could come up with a reasonably entertaining variety of shoes...

whew. it's over

So. After handing in art assignment yesterday, I finished off behaviour management and started printing out and putting together, only to discover I'd left my reference list on Grandma's computer. So, instead of wasting two hours going home and getting it and coming back, I wasted four hours putting it back together from in-text citations, often muttering things like "Barkley? Who on earth is Barkley? And where did I find him?" And the uni internet server went down. For an hour. So I couldn't access digitised readings I'd cited. And of course I had off-line copies of them - at home. Grr.

So after I handed that one in, I felt completely ready for something fun. So I went to see Tales from Earthsea at the Dendy - that's the new Studio Ghibli film, which unfortunately rates somewhere down in the Pom Poko doldrums for me. So disappointing, after Howl and Spirited Away. Not that it was bad - it just wasn't excellent. And I've read the books - I have a sneaking suspicion it's a lot less fun if you haven't. It didn't entirely make sense as it was.
But the ending wasn't entirely un-awesome.
Oh well.