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.