Update!

So, it's been nearly two months since I've updated.  And even that update was pretty crappy. I can't remember that far back (who am I kidding, I can't even remember what I had for breakfast), so I'll just go through this entire year thus far.

Earlier this year, I was lamenting my joblessness after I quit at the toy store due to lack of hours.  I got a job at a truck stop as a waitress.  For American readers, this place was a bit classier than you probably imagine (but not classy enough to be called an actual restaurant).  I started back at uni around this time.  The job didn't really work well with my uni timetable, and my parents didn't appreciate the fact that I stayed back a few hours every night.  After having one too many coffees thrown at me, I quit.  I had only been there about 2 months, if that.

I had another stint of joblessness, but I used this time to try and focus on uni.  It was nice, but I was running out of money pretty fast.  I applied at a few places, got a few interviews, and finally got a job at a grocery store, as an online shopper.  Basically, my department gets the orders, and my coworkers and I go around and collect the order items off the shelves.  I've been there for about a month and a half I think now.  Still haven't got my discount card, but when I do, it will probably be one of the greatest days of my life.

I also finished the first semester of my 2nd year at uni today!  For the other semesters I finished, I was always so relieved it was over.  This semester went really quickly though, and I'm not sure if it was my improved time planning, or just a better course structure.  Whatever it was, I was significantly less stressed out this semester, despite a few disasters involving group assignments and stupid people. 

So now, I'm at home, lost and unsure of what to occupy my time with.  Currently, I'm experimenting with alcohol.  Green apple UDLs and Agrum taste surprisingly good together.    Probably won't taste so good tomorrow if I'm throwing it up.

Oh well.  It's not like I have anything I need to do tomorrow either.

This is going to sound ridiculous but....

There was an earthquake in Townsville.  In Australia.  Is that even possible?  Apparently so.

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Quakes/usc0002stu.php

It's such a bizarre occurrence that Mum and I jumped to the conclusion that the house was falling down before we even considered an earthquake. At first, I heard a scraping noise, similar to when a car does a U-turn outside our house.  When Mum started freaking out, I told her to chill out, because it was just a car.  Then I could feel the ground shaking, and everything, including me on the carpet, started wobbling.  It was over in about 15 seconds or so, and when it seemed to have stopped, I went next door and asked the neighbour if they felt anything.  They looked at me like I was growing horns (or maybe they didn't understand my English, they're Indian).  Or rather, they looked at me like I was talking about an earthquake in Townsville, which is roughly as likely as me growing horns, I guess. When they said no, it strengthened the collapsing house hypothesis. 

Back inside, I did what any teenager does, and I immediately check facebook.  Collapsing house hypothesis is chucked out the window when someone in a small town a few hundred kilometres away is talking about an earthquake.  As I scroll down, there's more and more about it.  There's even a group called "I survived the Townsville earthquake", which currently has nearly 3000 members.  It's kind of pathetic how everyone's immediate reaction is "TO FACEBOOK!"

Anyway, it's always fun when something that was previously labeled impossible happens.  I'll try and update about my personal life sometime soon, but no promises : P

It's been a while,,,

I think it's been like a month or so since I've last updated.  I'm not sure what made me think to come back, but there's been a lot of stuff I haven't said anything about on here.  Here's what's new.

    Last time I posted, I'm pretty sure I was still looking for a job.  Well, I got a job as a waitress at a truckstop, worked enough in the last month to earn myself $1000, and now I'm quitting.  I know I made such a huge drama about not having a job before, but honestly, I'd rather go back to that than keep working at this place.  It pays $10 an hour (as opposed to my last job paying between $15 and $21 depending on the day), I'm required to do a lot more hours, and during those hours I've been working a crapload more than I think I should considering the pay.  It also helps that they weren't too flexible about me working and going to uni.  So I've quit and my last shift is on Tuesday.

    I'm back at uni for my second year, and holy crap it's getting hard.  For example, my Tuesdays and Thursdays for the last month have consisted of being at uni from 9 to 6, the work from 6:30 to midnight.  Then back at uni the next day.  As a result of my tiredness, and the recent terrible weather conditions, I kind of ruined my bike.  The cars in my area kind of speed around corners, so when there was a speeding car approaching, he swerved his car, I swerved my bike.  I hit a gutter, destroyed the chain, tore off the basket at the back and twisted the handle bar to a 90 degree angle.  As for the damage to me, I got a face full of mud and slime (brilliant idea to break my fall with my face) and my clothes had to be thrown out.  Since then, I've had to walk to uni, which is 5 km a day (or about 3 miles for the Americans).  It's good exercise, but it just makes me so freaking tired that I don't want to go to classes.


When I do turn up to my classes, at least they're somewhat enjoyable.  Statistics (the teacher makes it interesting), Brain and behaviour, health psychology, and learning and behaviour.   It's going to be tough thins semester though.  They actually have fairly high expectations this year.  I may actually have to put some effort in.  Good thing I'm unemployed again.

What else?  Everything else is pretty much the same, I think.  I might try to keep up with posting a bit more, and actually have a topic to talk about.

The party (or rather, the horrific natural disaster) is over now. Lots of pics and videos.

Cyclone Yasi is over, and North Queensland is slowly getting back to normal. I'll start at the start.

Morning of Wednesday 2/2/11 = I was woken up by Dad, who told me that we would start feeling the effects of the cyclone within 3 hours.  He was right.  By about 10 in the morning, wind speeds were apparently around 40kph (25mph).  The sky was pretty dark, and my family was rushing around cleaning the yard and moving all of the garden ornaments and stuff.  My parents did a dump run, and left me to tape up all of the glass windows and doors.  While I was doing that, some random guy was on the news, telling us that the cyclone was category 5 (the most destructive category) and that our shelters only withstand cat. 3, so basically, we're all fucked.  He also said there was no point in taping windows, and no matter how much you try to protect your children, they will die anyway.  I was pretty damn angry at this guy, and the TV station for allowing this dickwad to stir people up.  If a place is preparing for a natural disaster, DO NOT TELL THEM THEIR KIDS ARE GUARANTEED TO DIE.   That's not very nice at all.  It's seriously the last thing people want to hear.  So I sat there, outraged with a roll of masking tape in my hands. I finished the windows and my parents came home.  I'll skip over midday, where my dog decided to be a naughty little shit and make everyone angry.  The video below is our backyard at midday, 12 hours before it hit.

Late afternoon of Wednesday 2/2/11 = The house was clean, important stuff was moved off the floor in case of flooding.  We were about as ready as we could get.  We decide to go for a drive around town, to see how well other places were prepared (stupid idea, I know.  But we were bored shitless!).  We got down to the beach, and the rain started.  We got a phone call from my Dad's cousin saying that her and her son were scared and wanted to stay overnight, and that they were leaving their house now.  So we went back home, and the cyclone was really starting to pick up.

Around 7pm on Wednesday 2/2/11 = We had found that all the wind was blowing onto one side of the house, so we closed the windows, and sat out on the patio and watched the storm.  Surprisingly, it seemed to be all wind and hardly any rain, which is kind of bizzare.  Typically, cyclones have destructive winds that rip off ceilings, then the rain gets in and destroys your stuff.  This time, it was mostly wind, and very light rain.  The news kept us updated on the speed of the cyclone itself, and the time that it was supposed to reach land got later and later,  which is bad news.  The slower a cyclone goes, the more intense it is.  Originally, it was supposed to be 9pm, coinciding with the high tide.  Then it was 11pm, then the news was saying midnight.


10:30pm on Wednesday 2/2/11 = We lost all power.  Since it was so late, and most places already lost power hours before, we assumed ours would last until we fell asleep.  So of course, we didn't have our radios, torches or candles ready when we finally lost it.  The first 2 minutes of blackout was a desperate scramble for something that emitted light.  When we found torches, we realised the radio batteries didn't work.  So we dug through our cupboards, and eventually found six C batteries.  We lit some candles, and sat around listening to the radio.  Towards midnight, something happened and the radio signal became a bit jumbled.  We picked up four different stations at once, and none of them were giving information.  We turned it off, and attempted to sleep.  The attempt wasn't very good.

1:23am on Thursday 3/2/11 (3rd of Feb for you Americans) = This is when the strongest winds were recorded.  I distinctly remember waking up to a very, very loud noise.  I checked the time, and looked on facebook to see how other people were doing.  Apparently, other people were also woken up by the noise of the winds, and some people were listening to stuff getting dragged across their roof.  A few days later, we bought the paper and it specifically mentioned this exact time as being the strongest point of the storm for Townsville.  Wind speeds were recorded at 130kph (80mph).  When I looked out my window, all I could see was the tree in the neighbours yard bending over and hitting my window (it's an incredibly flexible tree). Due to the lack of power and fans, I tried to sleep on top of my bed covers, but I decided to put my sheets over my legs because if the tree went through my window, I'd get a body full of glass, and that's not very nice.  So I suffered through the night with a closed window, no fans, and a tree tapping on my window next to my bed.

9am on Thursday 3/2/11 = I went out to survey the damage, and I took a video.  In total, 6 trees out of the ground.  One tree broken in half but still upright, as well as two broken gates.  The metal bolt thing broke off one of them, so it was wide open and flapping around in the wind.  On the other side, we lost a fence paling, which created a gap big enough for my dog to get through, as you see in the video.   I stopped filming because he ran straight onto the road and got attacked by much bigger dogs, who I had to rescue him from.  Notice the winds, still strong 9 hours after the cyclone crossed the coast.

8pm on Thursday 3/2/11 =Still no power, cooking by candlelight.  We lived like this with no power for about a day and a half, which wasn't too bad.

That's about it for my story, since after this it was all clean-up.  I'll put up some pictures from around the city.  The first one is just around the corner from my house.  30+ trees were taken out, all laying on the road and footpaths.

Below is a massive palm tree being held up by a power line. Very dangerous.

The weir near my house, and right next to a tavern. This isn't too bad compared to some of the other floods and stuff we've had, but look at that poor tree on the left :(

Another massive fallen tree covering the road.

Another suburb where most of the trees were upturned, with the roots facing the road.

KFC lost their rotating bucket.

The icecream place right on the beach boarded up their windows.  There were other signs about town saying stuff like "Kiss My Yasi".

Another view of that tree on the powerline.

As I get more photos, I'll keep adding them in new posts.

Just a quick update

This is a weather map from Townsville.  The black dot in the bottom left is Townsville.  The red and yellow thing to the right of it is Cyclone Anthony (category 2).  The massive red and yellow thing to the far right is Cyclone Yasi (category 5).  To give you non-Australians an idea of what's going to happen, category 2 cyclones like Anthony are wind speeds up to 130km an hour (80mph).  Last time Australia copped a category 5 cyclone, the speed reader broke at 300km (186mph).  WE ARE SO FUCKED.

Meth Teeth and Scary Music Videos

Today, I've pretty much been chilling out, doing nothing at all.  During my time doing nothing, I have mostly been surfing the internet, and testing my dog's problem solving skills.  Well, I'll be honest, that's all I've done.


I looked at my stats page earlier.  I have a bit of a statistics fetish, I love it.  That's why I kind of stopped blogging for an entire month; my stats page didn't work.  I lost all will to blog.  But now it's working again, and I've noticed something strange.  In the bit where it says "keywords" or whatever it is that shows you how people found your blog, is the term "meth teeth".  Now, people have been searching for "meth teeth", and coming across my blog.  What the hell.  Seriously.  Google meth teeth and tell me how it's related to my blog.  I'll save you the effort.  I did a post a while back about True Blood, the tv show.  I mentioned the horror that is Anna Paquin's teeth.  I also mentioned the meth panthers, I believe.  So that might be it. 



I've also been getting a few page views from a site called alphainventions.com . Never heard of it, but it's sent 18 people my way.  Thank you mysterious website, I may not understand what you have to do with me, but thank you anyway.


So other than staring at my stats, I've come across a few other interesting things.  This isn't new to me, but has anyone seen the short film "Runaway" by Kanye West?  I know he's a douche and all that, but for some reason this video is mesmerizing.   It's 34 minutes long, has all the music from his newest album, and it makes no sense whatsoever.  Click here for a link to the full length film.  I don't even like Kanye's music, but I just find this so interesting.


From what I understand, Kanye sees a fiery thing crashing to the ground while he's driving around in a forest.  He goes to check it out, and he finds some feathery phoenix-woman who has strategically placed feathers.

  It cuts to the woman freaking out about everyday household items, since she's from another planet or something.  Then she's crawling around on the grass.  Then she's dancing around the house.

No, she's not naked.  Don't worry.  Then there's some weird symbolism thing going on with a kid running around. Cue marching band and fireworks display and explosions and stuff.  Cut to the bird lady playing with a cup.  He then takes her to a formal dinner in a warehouse type thing.  There's ballerinas dancing around while Kanye somehow ends up on top of the piano he was playing.  Then a waiter serves a giant bird for a meal, and the bird lady loses her shit, which I suppose is understandable.

More scenes of grass frolicking and moody slow motion explosions.  Then there's a conversation between the two about how she can't stay in this world because she doesn't belong and stuff.  Some weird shots of the bird lady that sort of imply that they got it on (is that even possible?), and he wakes up on the roof.  More explosions, then it shows her flying off in flames, and him running through the forest like he was at the start.



It's so freaking weird, but I really like it.  Even if the lyrics are vulgar at some points, all of the music carries this atmosphere that really compliments the film.    You should check it out.


Anyway, other than that, I've been reading about a man called Josef Fritzl, the man who had his daughter locked in a secret basement for 24 years, fathering 7 children with her.  I think I've read enough about it that it could be a stand alone post, so that's most likely going to be next.


Lastly, since I only posted like a day ago, my actual life hasn't changed much.  I think I'm pretty close to getting a job at a service station, thanks to a friend's mother who runs the place.  So if I do, it shouldn't be too bad working there.

Also, I mentioned in the last post about my bf baking a cake.  I expected it to be an absolute disaster.  Apparently, so did he.  When I got there, he had so much cake mixture all over his shirt that it looked like he had thrown up on himself (he hadn't, thank god).  The cake was finished, and ready to eat.  He took it out of the fridge, and I witnessed, honest to god, the most homosexual looking cake I've ever seen.  It was bright pink.  With those candy butterfly things on it in cute pastel colours.  Seriously, it's gay-ness hurt my eyes.  It was just so pretty, it belonged at a four year old's princess themed birthday party.  Sometimes I really question his sexuality.  The pink cake, combined with his love of skinny jeans and hair gel, it makes me wonder...

Australia Day! Also, I have an award!

I've been given an award by Dani-Q, so I'll do that at the end of this post.  Here's a brief update on my life.  

Still no job, but the bag shop at the local shopping centre is apparently looking for casual staff to do 8-10 hours a week, which is perfect for me.  I spoke to the lady, and she seemed really positive.  So I went home, got my resume, and went back there a few hours later.  The lady actually recognised me, which was very encouraging.  I got an email back about a job at a grocery store, and they said their hiring process is on hold until mid-February, so that sucks. Other than that, nothing new.

WARNING:  THIS PARAGRAPH IS A BIT GRAPHIC.

I went to the doctors about my digestion-related problems.  He referred me to a pathologist, who had to take blood, urine and faeces tests.  The pathologist wasn't very nice at all.  But she had to deal with my faeces, so I think we all know who came out on top.  BUT, she told me the sample had to be frozen, so I had to do it all again.  Of course, I got stage fright  and didn't go to the toilet for 2 days after that.  I finally did, handed in my jar of poo, and the lady thanked me for it.  I laughed like a demon.  I know it's part of her job, but it must suck.

 Since it's Australia Day, and I am Australian, I took part in the customary ritual of consuming a shitload of alcohol.  Being sick to begin with, I didn't consume as much as what I planned, but I still attempted to have fun.  There were too many people in town, and line-ups of about 30 mins for each club.  One place had a line for about 2 hours, apparently.  Also, thank god we had a designated driver, because the taxi line went the whole way down the street.  No thank you.

But now, today actually IS Australia Day, and I'm not doing anything Australia-related for it. Oh well, I think last night made up for it.

Last thing before I do the award bit, I just received a text message from the boyfriend.  He is apparently making a cake. He won't tell me what flavour.  I fear for the world.  This will not end well.

And now for the award! 

 Life Is Good

Apparently, since I have been given an award I have to answer questions and pass it on?  I think I can do that.

If you blog anonymously, are you happy doing this? If you aren't anonymous, do you wish you started out anonymously, so that you could be anonymous now?

To be honest, it doesn't really matter to me whether I'm anonymous or not.  I mean, I haven't given away all the details to me life, so to the casual reader, I sort of am.  If you wanted to go all out stalker on me, it wouldn't be too hard to find me though.

Describe an incident that shows your inner stubborn side.

I continue to argue, even when I know I'm wrong.  Mostly with my parents.  And if my side of the argument is going badly, I blame someone else and they cop it worse than I do.

What do you see when you really look at yourself in the mirror?

I see a sack of flesh with limbs and a face and other appendages.  I also stare at my eyes until they look more grey than blue.  Then I notice my terribly shaped eyebrows and run away before I'm tempted to shave them off.

What is your favourite summer cold drink?

I liked Pepsi Max, until I realised that it was one of the things that makes my digestive system do weird stuff, so I'm trying to cut down on it.

When you take time for yourself, what do you do?

I have very long showers.

Is there something that you still want to accomplish in your life?

Of course!   I haven't even had a real job yet!  Let alone a life, proper relationships, kids, etc etc.  All that normal life stuff people do when they have lives.

When you attended school, were you the class clown, the class overachiever, the shy person or always ditching?

Depends on the class really.  And who was in the class.  But I was usually seen as the overachiever, but only because I consistently turned up for class, and did the work (never the homework though).

If you close your eyes and want to visualize a very poignant moment in your life, what would you see?

When someone I was very close to was drunk, and said some very hurtful things that they didn't mean.  Even though they apologized, we were both hurt by the end of it, and it started the decline of our friendship.  We don't even talk anymore.  It sucks, because they were one of my best friends, but that incident brought out all the problems we had ever had. And don't worry, people who are reading this.  It's none of you.  You don't even know this person.

Is it easy for you to share your true self in you blog, or are you more comfortable writing posts about other people and events?

I share my true self I guess.  It's sort of a shallow picture, because I try not to name too many people, but what I do tell is like the top layer of my true self.

If you had the choice to sit down and read a book or talk on the phone, which would you do and why?

Read.  I can't talk on the phone.  I hate it.  My grandmother told my mum it was like talking to a rock when you're on the phone to me.  I'm a little bit better now, but I still hate it.

So that's it for the award bit.  I have to give it to other people now?  How about Morgan from the Adorkable Ditz' Missteps.  She always reads my posts.  I like her.  She's nice.

There's something living in my roof.

Before I start, I'd just like to explain my absence from blogging as much as I used to.  For some reason, my computer hates the Blogger website.  It just DOES NOT WORK.  And just as I type this, I notice my stats page is working again, for the first time in 3 months.  Weird.  It's like it knows I'm trying to complain about it, so it makes me look like an idiot.  I'm also pretty sure I said I was going to change my layout.  I tried, but it wouldn't let me.  I'll try again today.

Here's an update on my life:

1.  I no longer have a job.  Really, I'm still employed there, but I haven't been given any hours since Boxing Day.  I'm down to about $300 in my bank account, and I'm trying to keep that for phone bills only.  If I don't get another job in the next 3 months, I'm fucked beyond belief.  I've resorted to scavenging coins from my drawers/closet etc.  I took everything I found to the bank, and dumped it in their coin counting machine.  I had $40 worth of silver coins (silver coins are below a dollar in value, so I had a shitload of coins).  I've been applying for jobs, and the one I'm hoping to get had it's applications close yesterday.  So hopefully, I hear something next week.

While searching for a job, I've been considering "alternative" careers, such as a Hungry Jacks (The Australian Burger King) Bandit, Wet T-Shirt Competition Queen, and selling out-of-date Ritalin tablets to addicts.  All of these could net me at least $1000 within a month, but there's the whole illegal and/or "come back and bite me in the ass" factors to juggle.  So, I'm going to stick with the normal job application process, and suffer out being broke for a while.

It may be bad for my mental health though, because the pressure to find a job is unbelievable.  The Cleaning Nazi has been pushing me about having money to pay the phone bill, and getting a job so I'm not so fat and lazy at home.  My friends have organized this big trip, and I agreed to be in on it about a day before I had been officially told I was no longer going to get shifts.  So, if they can't find anyone else to take my ticket, I'm going to be selling it on eBay, along with most of my other possessions.  I have a list of stuff I'm going to sell if I'm desperate.  And no, my body is not on there.  I also have some debts to collect.  About $75 from the Cleaning Nazi, because of those "If I buy it can you pay me back" deals I'm always making.  And roughly $30 from the BF, but since he only gets paid once in a blue moon due to being new at his job, I doubt I'll see it any time soon.

Unfortunately, when I'm under pressure about certain things, I stress about it.  Then I become obsessed.  Then I cry in the shower.  Then I have a public meltdown.  Then, the next step is psychotic break, I presume.  Just a warning, if I lose touch with reality, it's just because of money.  I'm only temporarily crazy.

2.  I can't remember if I've blogged about this before, but I've been having phone trouble.  It was turning off, deleting my stuff, not reading my memory card etc etc.  Basically being a piece of shit.  I've been trying to get the plan cancelled, but Telstra keeps saying they need to SEE the problem before they can cancel it.  Now that they've SEEN the problem, they have to email everyone under the sun before they can cancel it.  Now that they've run out of people to email, they've decided they're just going to string me along for 6 months until my contract runs out.  I suppose it's OK, because even if I did cancel the plan, I couldn't sign up for a new one due to my financial circumstances.  I really do want a new phone though, but I just can't do it right now.

3.  I still have a month of nothingness until uni starts.  I've been obsessively checking the bookshop website to see when textbook lists were updated.  They weren't, so I just went in there anyway, and got the parental units to buy my books for me.  Now I've done the first week's worth of study for all my subjects, and I don't want to be too far ahead, so I've stopped.  This semester, I'm doing Statistics, Brain and Behaviour, Learning and Behaviour, and Health Psychology.  I'm excited, but I think it's only because it means I have something to do with my life.

4.  Since I'm about a month ahead on uni, I've been doing my usual "I'm going crazy with boredom" routine I do every year.  It's strange.  It starts with Christmas, where I'm stressed out beyond belief due to work.  Then it's New Years Eve, where a lot of alcohol is consumed.  Then nothing.  Everyone's broke, and no one wants to do anything due to a lack of money.  Then I do all my uni work early.  Then when I finish, I start playing Pokemon games on my Gameboy Advance (it's about 10 years old now).  I want to buy a DS so I can play the new Pokemon games, but considering my lack of money, spending $300 on a DS is taking the Pokemon thing A LITTLE BIT TOO FAR.  So I'll be content with my GBA and Pokemon Crystal.  Then, when the Pokemon thing get's old, I start watching TV shows, several seasons within about 2 weeks.

One year, it was Seinfeld.  Another year it was Supernatural.  Another year it was My So-Called Life (90s teen drama).  This year, it's Community.  And luckily for me, I started watching at the right time.  I watched the first season, and half of the second season.  Right as I finished that, I found out the show was on an 8 week holiday break, and it started back on the 20th of January.  So, I didn't have to tolerate the 8 weeks of nothingness like other Community fans had to.  But now that I've caught up, I have to wait a week for every new episode like the rest of the world does.  And that sucks.  I saw a group on facebook that fits my situation.  I can't find the exact title, but it's something like "Finishing an entire TV series, then wondering what to do with your life".

Then, while the Pokemon/TV thing is happening, a friend of mine announces suddenly that they're moving away, and not coming back any time soon.  Then we all frantically arrange to do something, and it all falls through until there's some last minute plan that saves the day.  My friend Alice has decided to move to Brisbane for uni, and she leaves on Monday.  Today is Saturday, and we haven't got a solid plan yet.  Right now, it's looking like a dinner and movies night tonight at another friend's house.  I hope this happens, because it means I have something to do with my life for a small period of time, even if it's to celebrate one of my best friends leaving.

5.  I need to go to a doctor.  This might get a bit too TMI if I go into detail, but it's digestion related.  And it fucking hurts.  I've booked into a doctor, and hopefully there's something that can be done about it.

6.  There's something living in the roof.  It's a rat or a possum or something.  Or, as I like to think, my evil twin begging to be let out.  But  after my restless sleep due to being sick, I woke up this morning very tired, and very pissed off.  There was this weird scratching noise.  I checked if it was my blinds grating against the wall. Nope.  The dog scratching at his bed outside my window? Nope.  I even went into the next room to see if the Cleaning Nazi was doing something to the other side of the wall.  Not that either.  I went back to my room, and concentrated.  It was definitely coming from the corner of my room, where the wall meets the roof.  I decided it was time to get a second opinion.  I went into Dad's room, and he was fast asleep.  The Cleaning Nazi saw me walking around, and asked what was wrong.  We both went into my room, and sat on the bed.  When we turned the ceiling fan off, the noise stopped for a minute, and I began to fear it was the onset of a psychotic break where I was hallucinating.  But no, it started again, and it was definitely coming from the roof.     We opened the manhole thing that leads to the roof. and checked it out with a torch.  Nothing was sighted, but all our ducted aircon and insulation has been chewed on.  Then I realised how horrific it would be if there was a rat in the aircon.  It would mean that if it chewed through the pipes, it could drop into any room of the house without warning.  So I refused to go back to bed in case a rat fell on me.  I tried to watch a movie with my sister, but I felt too shitty, and just went back to bed.  I haven't heard any scratching again, but I heard a screeching noise earlier.  It may have been something else though, so I don't know.  I just know that I don't want it anywhere near me.


Well, that's about everything that's been happening in my life right now.  I'll try and keep you updated on my visit to the doctors, as well as this thing in the roof that's terrorizing me.  Also, I finally updated the layout.  I hope it's not too hard to read.

I'm back! (and talking about handbags!)

Sorry, guys.  I know I haven't posted since last year.  That makes it seem like a lot longer than the week or so that it actually has been.  I think my last post was Christmas Eve or something.  For the new year, I think I'll change up my blog a bit.  New background and colour scheme or something.  I've made some changes in other aspects of my life too.

I have a new hair colour!  I'm going to try blonde this year.  Yesterday, I had Dani-Q and another friend called Alice come over after an impromptu shopping trip to dye my hair (and Alice's too).  We put a blonde dye in, and we weren't entirely sure how it would turn out.  Dani-Q seemed to expect my hair to actually go blonde after just one dye job.  Half way through, she predicted it would go darker, just like my last attempt.  I expected it to either stay the same, or go bright orange (as it sometimes does when I dye it).  We had a bit of a panic when the dye turned from a weird grey-ish brown while it was in the bottle to bright blue while it was on my head.  I wasn't too worried though, since hair dye is always a weird colour.  The end result is a weird in-between shade.  I guess it could be called "Strawberry Blonde" or as I like to call it, "Debatable".  Some could call it ginger, some could call it blonde.  A certain someone will call it "OMG what a patchy, shitty job just because Dani-Q was involved, you should have let ME do it because I dye my hair every second day so I'm an expert at killing hair".  That being said, Dani-Q DID tell me she sucks at dying hair, and I really didn't expect much from them.  It turned out better than I thought, except for the rather large un-dyed part of my hairline that's RIGHT AT THE FRONTTTTTTTTTTTT

Other than that, I'm quite happy with it.  I'll have to wait a week or two, then I'll hit it with some more dye.  In fact, I'll wait for the Cleaning Nazi to return from Tennant Creek (a small hole of a town located in the centre of Australia, with predominantly Indigenous residents) and she can fix up my hair for me.

Also, another change in my life (even if it's a relatively minor one) is my bag.  As any girl will know, a handbag carries a girl's entire life with them.  It contains wallets, phones, keys, iPods, cameras, makeup, sunglasses, pens, bus timetables, sometimes work or school schedules, sometimes spare clothes and shoes, random spare change, and a shitload of receipts and rubbish.  It often has several compartments, with at least one of these being a black hole that devours anything that comes into contact with it.  Only a day ago did someone tell me they lost their sunglasses, bought now ones, lost them too, then found both of them in her bag, next to eachother.  I personally have a habit of losing my phone in my bag.  Black phones seem to dissapear in black bags.  I spend, on average, an hour a day looking for my phone in my bag.  And my keys are even harder to find.  But at least they jingle when I shake my black hole of a bag, so I know they're in there SOMEWHERE.  And get this, I only use one compartment out of the three in my bag.

So, I got sick of having this massive bag where I lose everything.  So I decided to get a new bag.  It's fairly small, with only one main compartment.  So it's not a serious, heavy duty bag.  It's more like a "running out of the house with the bare essentials" bag.  And by bare essentials, I mean everything I listed earlier, except for the spare clothes, shoes, and the rubbish.  By having this new bag, I feel slightly different.  My handbags seem to define me a little bit.   Mine defines me to the point that my boyfriend's FATHER noticed when I got a new bag, and even questioned whether his son got a new girlfriend, because of the new bag.  I suppose, everyone's bag defines them in a way.  Unless they're a brand whore, who was a new Guess bag for every outfit.  Nothing wrong with that, but they don't seem to have the same sort of familiarity with their possessions that other people do.

Let's look at some of my friends and their bags.

Me - I had the sturdy black leather "bottomless pit" bag.  I would liken it to a magician's hat.  Anything that was needed could be found in my bag.  I even went to a party once, and someone said "I need double sided tape and something to cut it with".  Everyone laughed as if to say "Who in their right mind would carry that with them".  They stopped laughing when I pulled out double sided tape and a knife.

Dani-Q - Her old bag was massive and colourful, and she lugged it everywhere until it broke.  People, including her parents, used the colourful bag to recognise her from a distance.  That really says something about how it defines her.  Her current bag is like my old one, a bottomless pit bag, except with bulkier stuff in it.  She carries deodorant cans, hairspray, several books, and a laptop on top of all the essential stuff.  It's a light cream colour as if to exude the air of a person who is light-hearted and casual, but still has a crapload of baggage to lug around.

Alice - She often has many different bags.  Like her, they are (usually) from overseas, but not the expensive designer brands.  They are quirky, oddly coloured and different to what people expect.  I don't know what she carries, but they seem like "action bags", that fit quite a lot of stuff, but aren't overflowing with crap like most people's are. 

Ashleigh - The designer brand lover.  A different bag for every outfit.  From memory, I'd say her most used bag is a giant green tote bag, Guess, if I recall correctly. I don't know what's in it, because it's a bit of a mystery to me, but I don't think there's a massive accumulation of shit in it, since she swaps bags nearly every day.

A certain loud friend of mine - Another owner of a bottomless pit.  It's so bottomless that she loses stuff for weeks at a time.  In fact, her house and car are like that too.  She carries all sorts of random stuff in there.  The essentials, deodorant, dry shampoo, even little disposable toothbrush-like things that freshen your breath, and about 20 pairs of sunglasses.

Other friends of mine, who I won't go into much detail about, have tiny bags, with only money, keys and a phone in it.  I don't know how they do it.  BUT, they also tend to forget things, and leave them at home when they need them, so maybe that's how they get away with it.

Well, I think there's enough about bags.  Time to move on.

Christmas this year was the same as usual.  Christmas-like, somewhat boring, but the good food made up for it.  It rained quite a lot, and our laundry drain started to overflow, which is a bit weird.  Because of the constant rain, the yard was very muddy, and Butters the Chihuahua also got very muddy.  There were pawprints everywhere.  EVERYWHERE.   I can't even wash him, because he'll run straight into the mud again, so he has to stay dirty for a while.

New Years Eve was a bit weird.  I went to Magnetic Island with friends, got a bit drunk, and went to a Full Moon party.  It was overcrowded, and people were accidently punching eachother, pouring drinks on eachother etc.  I got sick of it, and sat outside for a while talking to some random underage guy who snuck in by an ingenious plan.  So yeah, that was New Years Eve for me.

The few days after have been fairly uneventful.  The boyfriend has been out of town, and he's  seemed pretty miserable about it.  He's back now, and I haven't had the chance to see him yet.  I go to Cairns (a 4 hour drive away) on the 8th, so I'm just saving money for a decent shopping sale up there.

I've been reading the book Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare.  It was reccomended to me by Dani-Q.  I'm not too keen on it.  I don't like the author's juvenile writing style.  The concept is fantastic, but the writing, and characters are terrible.  Worse than Twilight.  To give you an idea, on the back of Harry Potter books is a recommendation by Stephen King.  On the back of Cassandra Clare's books is a recommendation by Stephanie Meyer, author of Twilight, an author famed for being a terrible writer (and all-around terrible contribution to society).  So that sort of gives you an idea at how bad this is.

And this particular book is supposed to be set a hundred years or so before another series she wrote, and its all supposed to link in together.  It links in all right, because it's the same fucking book, just set in a different era.  She's changed the names and hair colour of the main female, and made the main male character MORE of an asshole (I didn't realise that was possible). They're going to fall in love, even though he's a complete c*** who chases anything with a vagina.  He's supposed to have some deep down secret, that turns him from a c*** to a tragic hero, because in book-world, having a secret is a free pass to asshole land.   There's some other characters, like the generic nice guy who's like a brother to the asshole  In one of the books, the character is gay, in the other, he's addicted to demon blood or something.  Apparently, this is supposed to make the character deep and well-developed.  Y'know, he's almost on the same development level as a minor character from a decent book.  Almost.  There's also the snobby pretty chick, who's a badass in one book, and a fucking pussy in the other (who is clearly going to become badass as her character develops, if you can call it character development).  There's other characters too, but I don't care enough to actually remember what they do.  Oh, there's another character, who is actually the same person.  As in, he's immortal, and is in both books.  Somehow, he manages to have a completely different personality, and sexuality.  It confuses me.  She (the author) can't make new characters, but she changes the ones that SHOULD be the same?

Well, I'm tired of ranting.  Happy new year, etc etc. 

(Also, my stats tab STILL isn't working.  WHY MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE??????????)