School Daze

Found myself thinking about school today - probably after reading Jr's post - and since things are relatively quiet at the mome I thought I might talk a bit about it.

I went to school in two places - Primary at St Mary's Public School, which at that stage (I feel old just saying that) was something like four demountables around one permanent stone building. With fans rather than aircon, so it was usually pretty warm - but we got used to it in the end. We'd have morning classes in our rooms, then when it got hot in the middle of the day we'd all go into the central building and 'nap' (read: lay down and whispered to each other, pretending to be asleep when the teacher wandered past) for an hour, then head outside and have lunch. Afternoon class was outside on the grass - I guess they knew us well enough to know that there'd be no way they'd get us back into stuffy demountables once we'd escaped ;)

Biggest thing in the six years (apart from my friends and I deciding each month or so that a different boy was the cutest alive and we'd just die if he didn't ask us to the end-of-year dance or whatnot) was the end-of-school play. Each year our Year Six (last year in primary here in Oz) put on a production that the rest of the school got to see - in our year it was 'Oliver'. All sixty of us were given one part or another - there were a teeming host of urchins/townspeople/chorus - and only a very few of us wound up helping with lighting and moving such props as we had. I actually wound up playing The Artful Dodger, which was pretty neat. For those of you who haven't seen the musical, Oliver is basically the Dickens story of Oliver Twist (which I'm embarassed to admit I've never read) except with more singing and choreography. Artful Dodger is a boy (yes, I know - wound up having to put my hair up under my top-hat) pickpocket who corrupts Oliver and helps teach him the art of theft.

Hence the name I guess.

Anyway we finished our year, dragged various struggling boys onto the dancefloor and the end-of-year-gig, promised one another faithfully that we'd always keep in touch and then (as primary school kids are wont to do) never spoke to one another again, except in passing.

Other than Lovergirl that is, who came to the same High School (secondary school?) with me. So that was Kingswood High, home of completely different uniforms (grumble grumble). From brown and green to blue and... other blue. Tartan skirt, sky-blue polo shirt with sleeves and white socks. In theory we were meant to wear stockings too, but except for formal things I don't think anyone ever did. Well, most of us didn't, anyway.

High school was definitely a revelation in many ways - we were actually expected to think for ourselves for a change, we moved from room to room, we had more time to hang around and with a small shopping mall just five minutes away from jumping the back fence, the freedom to develop a personality and self-image our very own. Not that we ever cut class. No. No. Of course not ;)

In looking back I have to say that me and mine weren't exactly in the 'coolest' crowd, but we were in the same orbit I guess. Probably because we were a little outspoken at times - which never hurts in school - which meant that while we weren't exactly sycophantic enough to be 'in' with the queens of the school, that attitude tended to help as well. Of course, it didn't hurt that we tended to be friendly enough with anyone - including certain members of several sports teams. I mean, I like sport as much as the next girl (who's laughing at me from the chair in the corner) but what is it about popularity and sports?

Maybe I should be asking Shane Warne? But anyway.

Did the usual thing and started work with McD's when I was fourteen to pick up a little extra cash - that lasted all of a month or two, then I moved onwards and upwards to be a check-out chick on the weekends, swiping an endless line of barcodes for the greater good. Mind-numbing, but at least I didn't get grease all over my fingers. I ditched that job too when I was fifteen, actually did a little bit of modelling for the occasional catalogue (a friend of a friend) but stopped that after a little incident when I was sixteen. Which got even worse a month or two after. Dropping the job and the boyfriend like hot potatos, I put my mind back to school and somehow managed to scrape through the exams that year. Two more years of high school with retail work, then took a year off (well and truly sick of education by then). So this year I'm doing a Bachelor of Communication of all things, and agonizing over a major...

Wow, that took longer than I expected.

Be well.

Doing the Bad Penny thing

Welp, I'm back.

I never planned this to be a daily thing - but then I definitely never meant to be gone for this long. Let's see, where to begin... Sunday?

Okay, Sunday morning is officially the Asylum's morning of making-the-place-livable-again - unfortunately since we're all lazy bums (to varying degree) and since most of us are out Saturday night (not me this time) we love to sleep in. Which means 'Sunday morning' started at about noon, and I fled the scene around two for an afternoon/evening shift at work. Oh yes, I work - didn't I mention that?

I work at a menswear store, alternating between being asked by guys which outfit makes them look their buffest and resisting the impulse to hide in the back of the store, put my head between my hands and whimper. It's not that I don't like talking to people (I do) it's just that there's only so many identical convos I can have before my brain starts dribbling out my ears. Even the weirdos we get sometimes (the price you pay for working evenings alone in a store some distance from most evening traffic I guess) are a blessing. I mean yes, they're sometimes a bit odd but at least they're different, you know?

So I was at work, doing worky things: hanging out new ranges of shirts, hanging around the counter, serving the occasional customer, being obscenely bored - the usual. Strangest guy of the day was the man who came in, took his time picking his clothes (less than fifteen minutes from when we close - 7pm) then asked me if I wanted to help him try them on. Told him it was against company policy (always a safe answer - I mean, who seriously is going to be bothered leafing through a hundred-odd pages to prove me wrong?) and closed up the store as soon as he left. From there to the Emster's 20th in the city (by train), which was in a hotel. Neat thing about this is that you can actually crash at the party instead of catching a taxi and going broke or wandering about public transport at all hours - which is doable.

So I got there a little late, hung around and did the meet-and-greet with friends and friends I hadn't met yet. Bumped into a friend of Em's other half (Josh) named Kyle who has the most amazing eyes and was great fun to talk with - eventually Lovergirl had to come and nudge me to go and get changed for the party (no way was I wearing my party stuff to work).

Anyway, the party was spectacular (that's Em on the left by the way), what with forty-odd people squeezed into a hotel suite (which seemed much bigger in the morning) there was quite the range of drinks to choose from, as well as a choice of company. Em paid me out about it after, but I wound up spending most of the evening hanging around with Kyle, then haunted her for a bit before heading off to rescue Lovergirl from some friend of Tripp's.

Long and the short of it? Party started winding down about three or four and my weekend finally caught up with me - crashed on a couch and was only woken up around ten when the hotel was wanting their room back. Spoilsports.

Wandered off into the city, had brekky with Lovergirl, Em, Kyle and the rest, did some shopping and had the best Hot Chocolate ever - which is Lindt by the way - then finally started heading back homewards. Made it back around three, showered changed and went out to do another shift which I remember practically nothing about (being still tired I guess?) then went to bed early.

Tuesday? Caught a movie with Kyle, went even more broke then usual (actually owe some money) with some bargain shopping... then did some getting ready for today and class. Actually started writing this then, only I was falling asleep on the keyboard and the other Inmates noticed and piled me off to bed.

Feeling better now, and it's good to be back.

Note: The pictures aren't loading for some weird reason, so I'll publish this and try to edit them in after.

Note pt2: Pictures are back! Therefore, bonus pic. Which couldn't possibly be me, and so must be my evil twin ;)

Panda Band!

Yes, that's right - we got to see the Panda Band!

Music was great, crowd was rowdy (after all, we were in it), night was spectacular. Didn't get home until early (sevenish), since we wound up talking to them for a while after their gig. Didn't realise how big a group they were, but apparently they're APA winners and they're already working on their second album.

Which is pretty cool, no? Oh, and Jam? I know they're not quite Peter Frampton, but I couldn't resist dropping that line of yours - I think it went down pretty well ^_^

"Do you know who you are?" - fangirl style, naturally. Come to think of it, we might have actually acted the fangirls there. Oh well, they more than earned it with their performance. Good times...

So after we got up bright and early in the afternoon (around one), flinching from the evil daystar and sticking our tongues out at Duffy and Tripp - who were loving this - we finally got around to checking for messages. For Jess, who spent the night (fine, 'the morning') at the Asylum - but was Tim all apologetic and worried about her? We thought so at first too, but apparently not. Turns out he'd been planning on going out later that night, only since Jess had his car... not so much.

To make it even better, she'd gone and left the keys in her bag so she didn't lose them? So after he came over to yoink it back he could see it right there on the street, but short of hotwiring it there was no way he could pinch it.

Is it still stealing if he owns the car? Or at least, owns more of it than she does? Jess paid for one of the tires after ripping up the old one on a broken bottle back in June, so I guess that part's hers at least. Mental image of a divorce with a car being ripped apart ("Okay, we each get two and a half carseats, and I'll trade you my half of the steering wheel for the rest of the carbureter..." carburetor? Something like that. I think).

Anyway, not much after that. Aside from my brother arguing with his girlfriend (that time of year I guess) and Mum going through another of her why-can't-we-be-a-family-again phases. I mean, I've told her before that I think we just tend to work better with the occasional get-together, dinner or phone-call... but she seems to think that if she can get us all in one place long enough we'll somehow mend all our fences. Nice try, mum.

Though she is hinting at a parent-paid holiday in New Zealand.

Tempting...

No poetry today - instead something which may or may not become a Saturday regular depending on how predictable I turn out. It's...

What's going on here?
In which I put up a small image that amuses me and people talk about it. Or don't. If they feel like it.

A special thanks to Erik for helping me figure out how to put the Linkage part up (read: actually send me the exact HTML to cut-and-paste into the template window) ;) My hero!

On that note...

Later!

These boots are made for walking

Well, it looks like there'll be one more for the Panda Band tonight we'd just gotten home when Jess (in the green ;)) showed up, in a combination of tears and righteous fury after having a fight with her boyfriend, Tim (in the blue :P).

Seems he'd been late in picking her up for work to the tune of half an hour, then took her back to his place to make her dinner (both as a way to start the weekend and I assume as a kind of oblique apology). So they get home and he gets out the bread and the toaster...

To be fair, I think they've been having a number of spats lately. Love that word - just makes you think of sausages or somesuch landing in a hot frypan, doesn't it? But anyway, she flipped, he just sat there calmly - which knowing her, probably made her even more angry (sorry Jess, but it's the truth). So she storms out, grabbing the keys as she goes and drove over to my place to talk it out.

In his car ^_^

Later!

Naughty, Naughty

Someone's been a bad girl...

...me.

It all started when I woke up at ten this morning, still feeling kinda out of it from Thursday night. Thing that made this especially fun was that one of my least favourite lectures started at nine this morning, so by the time I walked across to Uni (two black coffees and a V later - I like to start my day with a bang) there was only another half hour left of it. Aaaand... that's when I remembered I had a class assessment due in the tutorial. Which started right after the lecture.

Did I mention I'm not the most organised person in the world?

Made a beeline for the nearest computer room and managed to put together a fairly impressive-looking reportlet (is that even a word?) from scratch over the half-hour, hit print, logged out and went down to the printer to collect. And waited. And waited. And the printer just sat there. Winking at me.

Took me another few to realise that the pretty blinking light was next to the always-ominous little word 'paper' - so then I rang my friend who works in campus IT, and got him to come and unlock (and fix) the printer for me so that I could finally get my report out, ran to class (only twenty minutes late)... and found a note on the door.

"Today's 11-12 tutorial will not be on, as your tutor is sick. All assessments will be handed in next week." Twitch. Twitch.

This sort of got me out of the educational mood, I confess. Soooooo... I basically spent the next two classes talking with friends and planning things - a good reason I guess, since it means I actually know what happened in the lecture and we know how we're getting to see the Panda Band tonight. Em's toyfriend (he hates it when I call him that) is driving us, for the promise of unspecified sexual favours - from her, naturally. Or for her? It gets kinda murky when you get into that area.

More later, but here's a poem I stumbled across that piqued my interest:

Where does all the time go?
It passes in a rhythmic flow.
You meet great people passing by,
But you must leave them soon - so tell a lie.
I'll see you then or maybe not,
We will never know until the earth stops.

When that moment finally comes, and you see those faces again,
You realize earth didn't stop - you are just in heaven.

Music soothes the savage...

...me ^_^

Big day today!

After much trial and error - and error, and error - I finally managed to save up enough to replace my old MP3 player! For those of you who don't know (most of you, I s'pect) that worthy met its tragic fate at the hands of my first time in a mosh pit - some months back - and I've been feeling the lack ever since. But what can I say? I suck at saving. I mean, I make these whole grand plans about setting aside $40 a week - yet I still spend most of my pay on the day I get it (Thursday) and there's always something I see that I just have to have. Then when the weekend comes around? Yyyyyeah...

Anyway, I finally succeeded (Lovergirl helped) so on my way back from having lunch with friends I roped Lovergirl and Em into coming with me to pick out the new one. For those of you technically inclined, its... hang on, lemme check. A Creative MuVo Vidz (if it has a number I don't know it) on which I'm listening to You Oughta Know by Alanis Morrissette at the time of writing. Love that song :) Took us something like half an hour and three salesmen to work out which one we were after - and the price was right since Father's Day is coming up over here and it was on discount.

In my defence I already know what I'm giving my dad, so there :P

It's late now, so I might do some skimming then crash.

Later!

Eye of the Beholder

Okayyyy... I wasn't going to do this yet since it sorta ruins my inspiration for my next post, but oh well. Remember how I mentioned my roomies in the small house in the small part of the small town? If you don't, just pretend you read my profile, 'kay? Much easier that way. Anyways, let's go on a little tour of the gang. With pictures! Which means I can even stick one in my profile!

I swear, I've got to learn how this blogger thing works. Or learn more. Either way.

Anomaly

Okay, this would be me in something of a mood - or trying to look loomy, which I guess is much the same thing. Believe it or not, I don't exactly strike terror in the hearts with this look (my other look, now...).

This is back at my parents' place - see the nice walls, furniture and stuff? Telltale sign. But its one of my saner moments, so it's the one I use more often than not. Most of the time. Some of the time.

Okay, okay - so it was just the first one I dug out. Moving right along...


Lovergirl

See? Told you I wasn't always so scary. That's Lovergirl on the left - she's actually smaller than I am!

As well as being smarter, funnier and a lot more organised. ^_^ If she wasn't such a great friend (and a life-saver more than once) I might even be jealous!

As is, she keeps me sane and I drive her crazy ;)


Two down, two to go!


Tripp and Duffy

Duffy's the big one, Tripp's the half-big one on the left - but don't tell him I said so! These two were already in the place when Lovergirl and I moved in, so they've had some getting used to us to do (previous tenants were guys - ask me sometime about the confusion when we moved in, 'kay? It's a neat tale to tell).

Party animals and occasional pill-heads, they're pretty cool peeps all up. Friends I guess, though I've only met them a few weeks back :)

And that's all she wrote - later!

The first thousand posts are the hardest...

All in all I s'pect I'll be having the most trouble with this one - no, that's not quite right. I guess the second one will be harder still when I don't have a handy intro to write as my post. A cop-out? I guess it could be seen that way. What would be incredibly handy would be if some kind and noble soul should just happen upon my blog and tell me what to write - but that sort of thing only happens in fairy tales. And fan fiction.

"Now... where to begin? Ah, yes."

I don't really know what sort of writings are going to go here - random musings I s'pect, though if I get any requests I'll likely be delighted to answer them. And not just as a sign that someone's actually reading this too (which could be good or bad - but I have comments for those). I'd like to get this up to a post a day or therabouts, but I think that's a little ambitious for me just now - not to mention that even the most devoted reader of all time would be bound to get bored of me sooner or later. Cue shameless plagiarism (from Jade in this case) as I frantically search for ideas to be my foundation:

1. I am me. I've had enough people trying to change me over the years, and if they've not succeeded you'd just wear yourself out trying - deal with me the way I am, love me and leave me, whatever.

2. Apart from the it's/its controversy, I know I write fairly well. I'm not being pretentious, it's just the way I write - any random driftings of grammar are probably entirely intentional.

3. Yes, I do tend to speak my mind. That's what these are for, no? Besides, I'd sound a right idiot trying to speak someone else's ;)

4. Any resemblance shared by any of the characters of whom I write with any offline figure, living or dead, is entirely unintentional. Unless I'm actually writing about you, I guess - though then you'll probably know me in person. Feel free to beard me offline if I've been particularly mean, 'kay? ^_^

5. Yes, I do like to chat. Don't take me not being on my MSN personally - unless you've been annoying me for weeks (impressive in itself) I'm not blocking you. I'm just out (Outside, out cold, something like that).

Well, how's that? I'll try to be more personal and rambly in the future, though if sympathetic peeps could throw me the odd meme, it'd be much appreciated.

Later!