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
Showing posts with label fear. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fear. Show all posts
Saturday, April 16, 2011
Monday, February 7, 2011
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.
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.
Saturday, January 22, 2011
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.
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.
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Last Night's Dream.
Now, normally my dreams don't bother me. I have pretty average dreams, like a jumble of the events and thoughts from that day. Like, I bought face wash once and I had a dream about it. That sort of thing. But last night's dream was a bit different, because it sort of means something to me. And not in the way that I had to use a dream dictionary and pull out some ridiculous Freudian interpretation. I woke up and thought it was a nightmare, for reasons that I will detail later. But the more I thought about it, I realised I was actually the bad guy in my dream, and I realised the effect that my real life actions may be having on other people, even if my subconscious presented it to me in an exaggerated fashion.
I realise I may be completely wrong about this interpretation, but it doesn't hurt if I change my ways for the better because of it.
Now, there's quite a few aspects to this dream, but from what I remember, there were 3 main parts. They mostly revolve around me, my boyfriend, and a select few friends.
The first part I remember is that I was in a lounge room, on a couch with some friends. We had guns, and we were shooting people rather nonchalantly. We saw them as the bad guys attacking us, so we had no problem with these bodies piling up around us. Then the boyfriend comes towards us. He's not angry or anything, but I shoot at him anyway. He still doesn't get angry, and I keep shooting until I rum out of bullets. By now, he has a massive hole in his chest. Right in the middle. A big, gaping hole right through him where his heart should be. It doesn't bleed, and he's still not angry at me. My friends chuck a few insults his way, and he comes a bit closer. Of course, we're terrified. I thought he was going to hurt me, that he wanted revenge because I put a hole in him, or maybe I just made it bigger?
But he didn't get revenge on me. He took me by the hand, and we went to the movies. Some different friends were there, and they told us they were seeing a different movie, but they were in the same cinema, sitting next to us. Some women sat behind us, and my friends were talking to them about the movie they were going to watch. They mentioned the name of it: "Differentiate". It's a ridiculous name for a movie, but that's what it was. So my friends are chatting away, the boyfriend is sitting there happily and quietly, still with a hole in his chest, while I'm crapping myself, thinking he's going to kill me any second.
I don't remember exactly what happened next, but the dream changes settings. I'm with the BF on a grassy hill. There's heaps of people around, like there's a concert or something going to happen. We're sitting there, and he's just talking casually with me. I ask him if he's angry at me, and he couldn't understand why he would be. I'm still terrified.
It changes again, and it's night time now. I'm in a car with people, I don't know who, and I don't recognise the car at all, but in the dream it seemed normal to me. We were going to a water tower, or some sort of man-made structure. I think it was near a farm or something, but we were trespassing on someone's property, just to carve a message onto this wooden tower thing. I don't remember the message or anything, but it had something to do with graduation.
The rest of the dream is fuzzy, but I went to different places, carving a message into things. The whole time I was worrying about the BF, and what he was going to do.
When I woke up, I was still terrified. Not of my boyfriend, but the fact that my subconscious could generate feelings of terror at his image. I don't want to be scared of him. It's the opposite, I want to be with him as much as possible. So why was I dreaming about this?
I originally took it at face value, that I dreamed about shooting people, and them having ridiculous injuries. I googled "hole in my chest dream interpretation" and nothing came up. I kept thinking about it. Normally I don't bother thinking about something apparently meaningless, but the emotions I felt that lingered after I woke up were really disturbing me. So I thought about it.
Now, you may need a bit of backstory for this part, but it's kind of personal, so I won't go into depth. Anyway, my boyfriend isn't the most emotional person. There's a reason for that, but it creeps people out so you don't need to know. But he's not as deeply affected by emotions as other people. His mother died almost exactly a year ago, and from what I saw, there wasn't much of a grieving process. He told me he didn't even cry at her funeral. But I'm thinking (I haven't spoken to him about this, just my thoughts) that the emotions are there, but they're just internalized. So it's not that he doesn't have them, he just doesn't show it. And that's what the hole in the chest is about. He has all these emotions eating him away on the inside, and my disregard for his feelings (the bullets from my dreams) is tearing him open until it's all laid bare. The friend who was helping me shoot him in my dream is also known in my circle of friends as the loud/brutally honest/uncivilized one who speaks her mind. Especially in relation to my boyfriend. They tease each other and stuff, but sometimes the things she (and all my friends) says to me about him gets to me. It goes beyond joking around, and gets quite hurtful, and even if he doesn't know it, and he wouldn't care, it still hurts me.
Anyway, I found it interesting that she was the one there helping me hurt him.
Hmmm, what else. I think the movie part was just provoked by the fact that we went to the movies together a few days ago, and that I made him choose, so that I knew we were watching what HE wanted to see (I didn't tell him that I'd already seen it until after we got out).
But it's just little things like that that trip me up. I forget that even if he doesn't have the same sorts of emotions, he still has likes and dislikes and wants and needs, and I feel absolutely terrible that I've never really thought of him in that way. I haven't done anything bad to him, that I know of. I haven't hurt his feelings as far as I know, I just haven't really taken them into account. Just because he hides them, doesn't mean they don't exist. I feel so bad. And I think the fear from my dream is not because I think he's going to seek revenge or anything, it's that I'm afraid of what will happen to me when we break up. I know he won't intentionally hurt me physically, I'm just worried that the pain is going to cause a metaphorical hole in my chest to match his. He may not intentionally get revenge with malicious intent, it might just happen along the way.
I realise I may be completely wrong about this interpretation, but it doesn't hurt if I change my ways for the better because of it.
Now, there's quite a few aspects to this dream, but from what I remember, there were 3 main parts. They mostly revolve around me, my boyfriend, and a select few friends.
The first part I remember is that I was in a lounge room, on a couch with some friends. We had guns, and we were shooting people rather nonchalantly. We saw them as the bad guys attacking us, so we had no problem with these bodies piling up around us. Then the boyfriend comes towards us. He's not angry or anything, but I shoot at him anyway. He still doesn't get angry, and I keep shooting until I rum out of bullets. By now, he has a massive hole in his chest. Right in the middle. A big, gaping hole right through him where his heart should be. It doesn't bleed, and he's still not angry at me. My friends chuck a few insults his way, and he comes a bit closer. Of course, we're terrified. I thought he was going to hurt me, that he wanted revenge because I put a hole in him, or maybe I just made it bigger?
But he didn't get revenge on me. He took me by the hand, and we went to the movies. Some different friends were there, and they told us they were seeing a different movie, but they were in the same cinema, sitting next to us. Some women sat behind us, and my friends were talking to them about the movie they were going to watch. They mentioned the name of it: "Differentiate". It's a ridiculous name for a movie, but that's what it was. So my friends are chatting away, the boyfriend is sitting there happily and quietly, still with a hole in his chest, while I'm crapping myself, thinking he's going to kill me any second.
I don't remember exactly what happened next, but the dream changes settings. I'm with the BF on a grassy hill. There's heaps of people around, like there's a concert or something going to happen. We're sitting there, and he's just talking casually with me. I ask him if he's angry at me, and he couldn't understand why he would be. I'm still terrified.
It changes again, and it's night time now. I'm in a car with people, I don't know who, and I don't recognise the car at all, but in the dream it seemed normal to me. We were going to a water tower, or some sort of man-made structure. I think it was near a farm or something, but we were trespassing on someone's property, just to carve a message onto this wooden tower thing. I don't remember the message or anything, but it had something to do with graduation.
The rest of the dream is fuzzy, but I went to different places, carving a message into things. The whole time I was worrying about the BF, and what he was going to do.
When I woke up, I was still terrified. Not of my boyfriend, but the fact that my subconscious could generate feelings of terror at his image. I don't want to be scared of him. It's the opposite, I want to be with him as much as possible. So why was I dreaming about this?
I originally took it at face value, that I dreamed about shooting people, and them having ridiculous injuries. I googled "hole in my chest dream interpretation" and nothing came up. I kept thinking about it. Normally I don't bother thinking about something apparently meaningless, but the emotions I felt that lingered after I woke up were really disturbing me. So I thought about it.
Now, you may need a bit of backstory for this part, but it's kind of personal, so I won't go into depth. Anyway, my boyfriend isn't the most emotional person. There's a reason for that, but it creeps people out so you don't need to know. But he's not as deeply affected by emotions as other people. His mother died almost exactly a year ago, and from what I saw, there wasn't much of a grieving process. He told me he didn't even cry at her funeral. But I'm thinking (I haven't spoken to him about this, just my thoughts) that the emotions are there, but they're just internalized. So it's not that he doesn't have them, he just doesn't show it. And that's what the hole in the chest is about. He has all these emotions eating him away on the inside, and my disregard for his feelings (the bullets from my dreams) is tearing him open until it's all laid bare. The friend who was helping me shoot him in my dream is also known in my circle of friends as the loud/brutally honest/uncivilized one who speaks her mind. Especially in relation to my boyfriend. They tease each other and stuff, but sometimes the things she (and all my friends) says to me about him gets to me. It goes beyond joking around, and gets quite hurtful, and even if he doesn't know it, and he wouldn't care, it still hurts me.
Anyway, I found it interesting that she was the one there helping me hurt him.
Hmmm, what else. I think the movie part was just provoked by the fact that we went to the movies together a few days ago, and that I made him choose, so that I knew we were watching what HE wanted to see (I didn't tell him that I'd already seen it until after we got out).
But it's just little things like that that trip me up. I forget that even if he doesn't have the same sorts of emotions, he still has likes and dislikes and wants and needs, and I feel absolutely terrible that I've never really thought of him in that way. I haven't done anything bad to him, that I know of. I haven't hurt his feelings as far as I know, I just haven't really taken them into account. Just because he hides them, doesn't mean they don't exist. I feel so bad. And I think the fear from my dream is not because I think he's going to seek revenge or anything, it's that I'm afraid of what will happen to me when we break up. I know he won't intentionally hurt me physically, I'm just worried that the pain is going to cause a metaphorical hole in my chest to match his. He may not intentionally get revenge with malicious intent, it might just happen along the way.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
15th of November: I'm behind!
Well, I haven't posted for nearly 2 days now. That means I'm about 4000 words behind. Which is terrible. One I'm in the hole, I don't know if I can find my way out. A word-hole, of course.
This is the NaNo website's record of my achievements thus far. Looked pretty damn good until the 13th. In fact, it looks like it's somehow started going down slightly.
So I haven't really done much in the last few days. Mostly working. I've saved up $800, and I only finished uni 2 days ago. So I'm well on my way to buying a car, as long as I don't do any ridiculously expensive impulse buys. Like, one time I was buying shampoo or something, and I saw a catalogue while I was in the checkout. There was an iPod advertised, and quick as a flash, I ran off and bought a new iPod touch. This was a while ago, mind you. I haven't done anything that silly in a while.
Change of topic right about now.
For the month of November, I have this massive list of blog topics, so I could write about this stuff, and not be desperately reaching like I am now. The thing is, I honestly can not be fucked to do it. I don't even want to look at the list. Instead, I turn to my list of labels (basically rehashing shit I've already spoken about before on here).
Accents - It's always so easy to tell when a band/singer on the radio is Australian. They have this ridiculous accent. It somehow becomes more noticeable when singing. As an example, look up the song "Revolution" by The Veronicas.
Alcohol - I'm going alcohol shopping tomorrow. We have a store here called Dan Murphy's. It's basically an alcoholic grocery store. It's awesome, and overpriced, but so is all alcohol. Anyway, tomorrow is cheap Tuesday, or Cheuesday, as I have previously referred to it as. This means that my friends will accompany me to the local nightclubs, and we shall become incredibly intoxicated. In theory. I also have a dentist appointment, so we'll see how that goes before I start drinking.
Aliens - A friend of mine says that my bf could never shave his head, in case of an alien invasion. She thinks that the aliens will take him home with them, mistaking him for one of their own.
Allergies - Despite my allergy to honey, I tried to eat a cereal composed of mostly honey and wheat. It wasn't too bad. It tasted like honey, but without the swelling and itchyness.
Anatomy - I still don't have my results back yet. Makes me sad. I'm sure the results will make me even more sad.
Anosmia - I attempted to make hamburger patties. When I cooked them, Dad ran out asking what that smell was. That smell was the patties. Because they were a year old...
Assignments - Even if my uni is over, I still continue this personal assignment of 50,000 words. Idiot.
Australia - See accents.
Birthday - It was such a massive build up to all my friends turning 18, and now some of them are nearly 19. Well, that's a bit of an exaggeration, but it's been ages since everyone's birthdays.\
Blogging - I blog enough about blogging. I don't need more.
Celebrities - Not really related, but I was watching Beauty and the Geek the other day, and it was the makeover episode, where they all shave their neck beards and take off their COD shirts, and put on normal clothes. The first guy to come out looked idiotic. The people on the show turned him from a nerd, to a tracksuit wearing, bleach blonde wigger. His hair was white. From behind, he looked like an old man in a tracksuit going for a run. 2 of the other guys though, actually ended up REALLY hot! Like, one of them looked amazing. Like, he could easily be a model/actor. And the other guy had really long hair and a beard, and when it was cut off, he was hot too. Not like in-your-face "hit it and quit it" hot like the other one, more like a "I could marry a guy like this" kind of hot. Which isn't bad at all.
Childhood - I try to block it out.
Christmas - Not long now. They'll start playing Christmas carols at work any day now.
Cleaning Nazi - Today, she came home and agreed to take me to the boyfriend's house. I told him I'd be there at 4pm. The Cleaning Nazi says to me, "Hang on, I'll just clean all the ceiling fans in the house first". She also doesn't understand why I was annoyed at having to wait for over an hour. Apparently, she doesn't think that turning up an hour late is rude at all.
Computers - I don't know if I've already blogged about this, but I went to Officeworks and bought a lap-desk. It's pretty much a flat piece of wood that you can use as a desk. It has a curvy cut out part so it fits nicely against your stomach. It also has a cushiony bit on the bottom to make it comfortable on your legs.
Dogs - I'm cuddling my puppy dog right now. He's being incredibly loud with his groaning and moaning and gremlin noises.
DVDs - I'm considering buying my sister a DVD for Christmas. Problem is, I don't know what she has and doesn't have. I'm thinking maybe Beauty and the Beast, she only has it on VHS.
Emotions - Umm. Emotions got a bit out of hand tonight, when I was at my BF's house. Simply because of Call of Duty: Black Ops. I swear, the moment he's not gazing lovingly at it, I'm going to break it. I already laughed like a maniac when his internet connection dropped out.
Energy drinks - If I have more than one within six hours of eachother. I have a very interesting reaction.
Exams - Fuck that shit.
Fear - This blog is taking so damn long, simply because I'm discussing Dani-Q's love life with her, and her fear of dying alone and unloved. I'm also attempting to explain the concept of kissing in nightclubs. She's not getting it.
Food - I've been eating so much junk food lately. I feel bad about it but it's so much more convenient that making my own, because I have to constantly watch what I'm cooking, since I can't smell the house burning down.
Hair - My hair is hideous at the moment. I need to do something with it. After my old hair dresser told me to piss off, I haven't had the time to get my hair done.
Injuries - Apparently, riding a bike while high is a bad idea. It results in bandaged arms and possible stitches. Don't worry, it wasn't me. But I drove past them several minutes before they did it, which I find hilarious.
Love - Such a silly thing.
Magic - I don't remember what post this label was even referring to. So I don't know what kind of magic I was talking about.
Nightclubs - I've been having a massive D&M with Dani-Q about nightclubs. It's frustrating.
Party - I haven't been to a decent party in so long.
Patriotism - I patriotism-ed myself out the other day. I don't even want to think about it.
Psychic - In my post about my visit to a psychic, I mentioned that she said the law would catch up with someone. They did. Hard. Like, fines, possibly a court date, and potential jail time if things go really badly. It wasn't about stealing though, so she wasn't really right about anything.
Psychology - You know, when I meet people, after they find out I study psychology, they ask me if I can read their mind. No, no I can't. I'm a future psychologist, not a psychic.
Stupid People - A friend of a friend added me on facebook. He's the type who has a really clingy girlfriend, and they break up and get back together all the time. Like, once a week. At least. Not even an exaggeration. And it's all on facebook.
Tarot Cards - See psychic.
Text Messages - My phone goes weird sometimes, and I don't recieve text messages. Then, I get them all at once, a few days later. Last time, I got about 60, mostly facebook notifications.
The Future - I don't even want to think ahead. Anything past January is unplanned at the moment.
Toys - The list of blog topics I have is mostly talking about toys. And I don't want to write it. Those posts are better off for when I've finished work and I'm pissed off about it.
Twitter - Another dodgy phone moment = There's a Twitter application you can download. It worked fine, then stopped for like 2 weeks straight. It's fine again. Very weird.
University - The one I go to is shit. I hate it.
Water - I don't drink nearly enough. I tried drinking the reccomended 2L a day, and I couldn't sop peeing.
And I'm too lazy to talk about work, writing, and zombies. I'm sure you can all come up with you're own ideas about what I would say.
I have more to say, but I'm too tired to put the necessary level of thought into it, so this will have to be the end for now.
Word Count for this post = 1604
Total November word count = 25,178
This is the NaNo website's record of my achievements thus far. Looked pretty damn good until the 13th. In fact, it looks like it's somehow started going down slightly.
So I haven't really done much in the last few days. Mostly working. I've saved up $800, and I only finished uni 2 days ago. So I'm well on my way to buying a car, as long as I don't do any ridiculously expensive impulse buys. Like, one time I was buying shampoo or something, and I saw a catalogue while I was in the checkout. There was an iPod advertised, and quick as a flash, I ran off and bought a new iPod touch. This was a while ago, mind you. I haven't done anything that silly in a while.
Change of topic right about now.
For the month of November, I have this massive list of blog topics, so I could write about this stuff, and not be desperately reaching like I am now. The thing is, I honestly can not be fucked to do it. I don't even want to look at the list. Instead, I turn to my list of labels (basically rehashing shit I've already spoken about before on here).
Accents - It's always so easy to tell when a band/singer on the radio is Australian. They have this ridiculous accent. It somehow becomes more noticeable when singing. As an example, look up the song "Revolution" by The Veronicas.
Alcohol - I'm going alcohol shopping tomorrow. We have a store here called Dan Murphy's. It's basically an alcoholic grocery store. It's awesome, and overpriced, but so is all alcohol. Anyway, tomorrow is cheap Tuesday, or Cheuesday, as I have previously referred to it as. This means that my friends will accompany me to the local nightclubs, and we shall become incredibly intoxicated. In theory. I also have a dentist appointment, so we'll see how that goes before I start drinking.
Aliens - A friend of mine says that my bf could never shave his head, in case of an alien invasion. She thinks that the aliens will take him home with them, mistaking him for one of their own.
Allergies - Despite my allergy to honey, I tried to eat a cereal composed of mostly honey and wheat. It wasn't too bad. It tasted like honey, but without the swelling and itchyness.
Anatomy - I still don't have my results back yet. Makes me sad. I'm sure the results will make me even more sad.
Anosmia - I attempted to make hamburger patties. When I cooked them, Dad ran out asking what that smell was. That smell was the patties. Because they were a year old...
Assignments - Even if my uni is over, I still continue this personal assignment of 50,000 words. Idiot.
Australia - See accents.
Birthday - It was such a massive build up to all my friends turning 18, and now some of them are nearly 19. Well, that's a bit of an exaggeration, but it's been ages since everyone's birthdays.\
Blogging - I blog enough about blogging. I don't need more.
Celebrities - Not really related, but I was watching Beauty and the Geek the other day, and it was the makeover episode, where they all shave their neck beards and take off their COD shirts, and put on normal clothes. The first guy to come out looked idiotic. The people on the show turned him from a nerd, to a tracksuit wearing, bleach blonde wigger. His hair was white. From behind, he looked like an old man in a tracksuit going for a run. 2 of the other guys though, actually ended up REALLY hot! Like, one of them looked amazing. Like, he could easily be a model/actor. And the other guy had really long hair and a beard, and when it was cut off, he was hot too. Not like in-your-face "hit it and quit it" hot like the other one, more like a "I could marry a guy like this" kind of hot. Which isn't bad at all.
Childhood - I try to block it out.
Christmas - Not long now. They'll start playing Christmas carols at work any day now.
Cleaning Nazi - Today, she came home and agreed to take me to the boyfriend's house. I told him I'd be there at 4pm. The Cleaning Nazi says to me, "Hang on, I'll just clean all the ceiling fans in the house first". She also doesn't understand why I was annoyed at having to wait for over an hour. Apparently, she doesn't think that turning up an hour late is rude at all.
Computers - I don't know if I've already blogged about this, but I went to Officeworks and bought a lap-desk. It's pretty much a flat piece of wood that you can use as a desk. It has a curvy cut out part so it fits nicely against your stomach. It also has a cushiony bit on the bottom to make it comfortable on your legs.
Dogs - I'm cuddling my puppy dog right now. He's being incredibly loud with his groaning and moaning and gremlin noises.
DVDs - I'm considering buying my sister a DVD for Christmas. Problem is, I don't know what she has and doesn't have. I'm thinking maybe Beauty and the Beast, she only has it on VHS.
Emotions - Umm. Emotions got a bit out of hand tonight, when I was at my BF's house. Simply because of Call of Duty: Black Ops. I swear, the moment he's not gazing lovingly at it, I'm going to break it. I already laughed like a maniac when his internet connection dropped out.
Energy drinks - If I have more than one within six hours of eachother. I have a very interesting reaction.
Exams - Fuck that shit.
Fear - This blog is taking so damn long, simply because I'm discussing Dani-Q's love life with her, and her fear of dying alone and unloved. I'm also attempting to explain the concept of kissing in nightclubs. She's not getting it.
Food - I've been eating so much junk food lately. I feel bad about it but it's so much more convenient that making my own, because I have to constantly watch what I'm cooking, since I can't smell the house burning down.
Hair - My hair is hideous at the moment. I need to do something with it. After my old hair dresser told me to piss off, I haven't had the time to get my hair done.
Injuries - Apparently, riding a bike while high is a bad idea. It results in bandaged arms and possible stitches. Don't worry, it wasn't me. But I drove past them several minutes before they did it, which I find hilarious.
Love - Such a silly thing.
Magic - I don't remember what post this label was even referring to. So I don't know what kind of magic I was talking about.
Nightclubs - I've been having a massive D&M with Dani-Q about nightclubs. It's frustrating.
Party - I haven't been to a decent party in so long.
Patriotism - I patriotism-ed myself out the other day. I don't even want to think about it.
Psychic - In my post about my visit to a psychic, I mentioned that she said the law would catch up with someone. They did. Hard. Like, fines, possibly a court date, and potential jail time if things go really badly. It wasn't about stealing though, so she wasn't really right about anything.
Psychology - You know, when I meet people, after they find out I study psychology, they ask me if I can read their mind. No, no I can't. I'm a future psychologist, not a psychic.
Stupid People - A friend of a friend added me on facebook. He's the type who has a really clingy girlfriend, and they break up and get back together all the time. Like, once a week. At least. Not even an exaggeration. And it's all on facebook.
Tarot Cards - See psychic.
Text Messages - My phone goes weird sometimes, and I don't recieve text messages. Then, I get them all at once, a few days later. Last time, I got about 60, mostly facebook notifications.
The Future - I don't even want to think ahead. Anything past January is unplanned at the moment.
Toys - The list of blog topics I have is mostly talking about toys. And I don't want to write it. Those posts are better off for when I've finished work and I'm pissed off about it.
Twitter - Another dodgy phone moment = There's a Twitter application you can download. It worked fine, then stopped for like 2 weeks straight. It's fine again. Very weird.
University - The one I go to is shit. I hate it.
Water - I don't drink nearly enough. I tried drinking the reccomended 2L a day, and I couldn't sop peeing.
And I'm too lazy to talk about work, writing, and zombies. I'm sure you can all come up with you're own ideas about what I would say.
I have more to say, but I'm too tired to put the necessary level of thought into it, so this will have to be the end for now.
Word Count for this post = 1604
Total November word count = 25,178
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
9th of November part 2: I think an update is in order.
I had my criminology exam today. Or tonight really, because it was at a pretty stupid time. All day, I was pretty stressed out about it, thinking about the pitiful effort I put into doing the readings, and gaining the "in depth" knowledge that my lecturer wanted from us.
The exam itself was 100 multiple choice questions. The questions were all taken straight from the text book. Literally. We just had to insert the missing word. To make it even easier, we were told what pages in our text book to study, and the exam questions were grouped together, chapter by chapter.
My uni has a policy of allowing students to leave the exam after one hour, or they can stay for the entire two hours if they choose. The majority of the class left at the one hour mark, all incredibly pleased with themselves. I was pretty worried that I was going to fail that class, but I have no doubt in my mind that I'll be fine now.
I only have two more exams left for 2010. Anatomy, which is tomorrow, and anthropology on Saturday. Then nothing until January. Thank God. I just need to suffer through the next few days. I can do it.
I felt like a change, so I played with the settings for the blog. Changed the background from a cook top to tomatoes. With a title like Dynamic Bicycle, I want vibrant, loud but not too loud that your eyes die, colour. And I think the new red tomato-y goodness brings that. I spent a lot of time on changing the text colours and stuff. Once again, I don't want to be responsible for the death of anyone's eyes.
Morgan, one of my challengers for our little NaNoWriMo competiton, has done a few parts of a story on her blog. Then Dani-Q was telling me about how she wants her novel to be done by Christmas. She wouldn't tell me what it was about or anything, so I can't pass judgement. But since it's coming from her, I think I have a pretty good idea. Hearing about all these other people, and their ideas for stories and novels really made me think about how different people really were. For example, I couldn't write a story about Hawaii, like Morgan. My writing falls more under the genre of sci-fi/action with elements of steam punk. So Hawaii isn't really my cup of tea. I can tell Danique's writing will have plenty of romantic tension and love triangles, and other various things that get her juices flowing (ew). While some of that can be incorporated into my writing (after all, lust is quite a realistic motivation for characters), I'd rather stay away from the sappy stuff. It's just cool how people can have such drastically different ideas in their head, yet they can still get along in a discussion about their daily lives.
This is only going to be a fairly short post I think. Not much to say, I just wanted to get a couple hundred words out before I call it a night.
Total November word count = 18, 138
The exam itself was 100 multiple choice questions. The questions were all taken straight from the text book. Literally. We just had to insert the missing word. To make it even easier, we were told what pages in our text book to study, and the exam questions were grouped together, chapter by chapter.
My uni has a policy of allowing students to leave the exam after one hour, or they can stay for the entire two hours if they choose. The majority of the class left at the one hour mark, all incredibly pleased with themselves. I was pretty worried that I was going to fail that class, but I have no doubt in my mind that I'll be fine now.
I only have two more exams left for 2010. Anatomy, which is tomorrow, and anthropology on Saturday. Then nothing until January. Thank God. I just need to suffer through the next few days. I can do it.
I felt like a change, so I played with the settings for the blog. Changed the background from a cook top to tomatoes. With a title like Dynamic Bicycle, I want vibrant, loud but not too loud that your eyes die, colour. And I think the new red tomato-y goodness brings that. I spent a lot of time on changing the text colours and stuff. Once again, I don't want to be responsible for the death of anyone's eyes.
Morgan, one of my challengers for our little NaNoWriMo competiton, has done a few parts of a story on her blog. Then Dani-Q was telling me about how she wants her novel to be done by Christmas. She wouldn't tell me what it was about or anything, so I can't pass judgement. But since it's coming from her, I think I have a pretty good idea. Hearing about all these other people, and their ideas for stories and novels really made me think about how different people really were. For example, I couldn't write a story about Hawaii, like Morgan. My writing falls more under the genre of sci-fi/action with elements of steam punk. So Hawaii isn't really my cup of tea. I can tell Danique's writing will have plenty of romantic tension and love triangles, and other various things that get her juices flowing (ew). While some of that can be incorporated into my writing (after all, lust is quite a realistic motivation for characters), I'd rather stay away from the sappy stuff. It's just cool how people can have such drastically different ideas in their head, yet they can still get along in a discussion about their daily lives.
This is only going to be a fairly short post I think. Not much to say, I just wanted to get a couple hundred words out before I call it a night.
Total November word count = 18, 138
Friday, November 5, 2010
5th of November, part 2: Unjellied Hell
Good old phrase generators. Not only did they create the title of the blog, but this post. In fact, I think I like Unjellied Hell better than Dynamic Bicycle, but oh well. I don't even know if "unjellied" is a word.
I don't have an incredible amount to say tonight, but if I'm not really doing anything, I might as well add to my word count. Which will either be very close to, or over, 11,000 after this post. Now, I don't know about you, but I see this as an achievement. 5 days in to my challenge, and I'm 1/5 of the way to the finish. It's not even the word count that I'm proud of, its the fact that I've stuck to it for 5 whole days now. For me, that's pretty good.
I had to work tonight, and I started thinking about my exams next week, and how I'll be working (and earning money) all Christmas. I haven't gotten any results back from my assignments, so maybe I'm feeling just a little discouraged. But I was considering what I would do if I failed uni this semester. I hope I don't, but I really have no idea where I'm sitting at the moment. So it's a possibility. In the case of anatomy, a very REAL possibility. We've done 60% of assessment so far, and I'm sitting on 30.6%. Not even 36%. THIRTY POINT SIX PERCENT. Sometimes I amaze myself at how damn mediocre I manage to be. It's a skill.
But because I haven't received any of my results, I don't feel very motivated to study or anything. And now, I'm at the point where I'm planning what I'll do after I fail.
I would work full time for a few months, long enough to get my car and license. Save up a bit more money, then leave Townsville. Float around in all these little towns, stopping at the big ones along the way. I wouldnt go down south straight away, I'd go through Mt Isa, Camooweal, up to Darwin, then across to WA, then down and across. Do that until I'm 21, then move to America, and live in one of the Southern States. Yeah, I know it's not a far stretch from the Hicksville I'm in at the moment, but at least it will be a bit more interesting. But that's years away. And that's only if I fail, which I may not. Purely hypothetical.
As much as I want to go to uni and learn, and get a good job and all that crap, I'm really getting tired of it. This is my 13th solid year of impossibly high expectations, and I'm sick of it. I want my parents to leave me alone, and let me make my own life choices.
Well, I should stop thinking about all this, or I'll make myself want it even more.
This post is 496 words. My total for November is 11, 208. Fuck yeah.
I don't have an incredible amount to say tonight, but if I'm not really doing anything, I might as well add to my word count. Which will either be very close to, or over, 11,000 after this post. Now, I don't know about you, but I see this as an achievement. 5 days in to my challenge, and I'm 1/5 of the way to the finish. It's not even the word count that I'm proud of, its the fact that I've stuck to it for 5 whole days now. For me, that's pretty good.
I had to work tonight, and I started thinking about my exams next week, and how I'll be working (and earning money) all Christmas. I haven't gotten any results back from my assignments, so maybe I'm feeling just a little discouraged. But I was considering what I would do if I failed uni this semester. I hope I don't, but I really have no idea where I'm sitting at the moment. So it's a possibility. In the case of anatomy, a very REAL possibility. We've done 60% of assessment so far, and I'm sitting on 30.6%. Not even 36%. THIRTY POINT SIX PERCENT. Sometimes I amaze myself at how damn mediocre I manage to be. It's a skill.
But because I haven't received any of my results, I don't feel very motivated to study or anything. And now, I'm at the point where I'm planning what I'll do after I fail.
I would work full time for a few months, long enough to get my car and license. Save up a bit more money, then leave Townsville. Float around in all these little towns, stopping at the big ones along the way. I wouldnt go down south straight away, I'd go through Mt Isa, Camooweal, up to Darwin, then across to WA, then down and across. Do that until I'm 21, then move to America, and live in one of the Southern States. Yeah, I know it's not a far stretch from the Hicksville I'm in at the moment, but at least it will be a bit more interesting. But that's years away. And that's only if I fail, which I may not. Purely hypothetical.
As much as I want to go to uni and learn, and get a good job and all that crap, I'm really getting tired of it. This is my 13th solid year of impossibly high expectations, and I'm sick of it. I want my parents to leave me alone, and let me make my own life choices.
Well, I should stop thinking about all this, or I'll make myself want it even more.
This post is 496 words. My total for November is 11, 208. Fuck yeah.
Monday, November 1, 2010
1st of November (at least, it is in Australia)!
Note: If you want to read about my personal challenge for this month, read on. If you want to skip to the proper blog post, skip about 5 paragraphs.
Today I begin my challenge. It’s entirely self-inflicted. No one’s making me, I just wanted to make life a little bit harder for myself. Today, the first of November, is the start of NaNoWriMo. National Novel Writing month. I know it’s not a novel, it’s a blog. I don’t care. Anyway, my goal is to write 2000 words a day, every day for the month of November. The proper goal is to reach 50,000 words, but breaking it up into a smaller goal helps. Really, I could do 1700 words, and still reach the goal, but I’d have to stick to it religiously. Aiming for 2000 words a day means I can take some days off, not that I’m going to plan for that.
Before I get too serious about all these promise I’m making, I think I need to set a few things straight. 2000 words a day doesn’t mean that its 2000 words that you want to read. I have like 3 people who read this blog, so its not like I’m letting them down much. Just saying, it might be the most boring shit ever. But as long as it hits the word limit, it’s all cool with me.
It probably won’t be 1 massive blog a day. Or it might be, who knows. Depends on how I feel, what I’m doing etc. It also depends on how well the topics flow together. Ususally there is no flow whatsoever, so I do a numbered list of what I want to talk about.
Anyway. As much as I’d like to finish this, and do 50,000 words on here, I don’t know if I’ll stick it out. I hope so though.
I found a list of blog topics to talk about. While they are not from a list that I wrote personally, they do have some good topics. I won’t divulge the entire list, otherwise you’ll know what to expect. Some of them, though, I’ve wanted to blog about anyway, I just haven’t gotten around to doing it.
My topic for today: Things that scare the shit out of me.
I never really thought about my fears until somewhat recently. I didn’t really have any. Lots of people are deathly afraid of spiders, snakes, homosexuals, etc. I never had a problem with that sort of stuff. I’ve seen plenty of my friends scream and run around like idiots because of tiny little bugs. In situations like that, I’m pretty cool, calm and collected, but it scares me when everyone else starts screaming and looking at me, because I apparently have a bug near me. Why do you scream if it’s not on you? Its on me, and I’m not screaming, so why are you? It makes the whole situation seem a lot more terrifying than it is. It’s like when I come around a corner, and nearly walk into the Cleaning Nazi (my mother). She screams ( OH MY GOD WHAT IS MY CHILD DOING IN THIS HOUSE THAT WE SHARE!?) and I end up more startled than anyone else, because there’s people screaming at me. I don’t even understand how people scream when they’re scared. When I’m startled, the first thought in my head is to emit a piercing shriek. I have to work hard at that, so why would I do it every time I’m surprised? How do people do it so quickly?
Anyway, I was never really afraid of anything. I’m still not scared of anything, in the sense that I would scream as soon as I saw something I was afraid of. Probably because the one thing I’m kind of scared of is massive. Like, covering 70% of the planet kind of massive. I’m scared of the ocean.
Now, I used to be a decent swimmer, but after a few years of not swimming, I can pretty much say I can’t swim. I nearly drowned in the ocean once, on a school camp type thing, but it was before I was afraid of the ocean. If it was after I developed my fear, I would have drowned, no doubt about it. We went out on a boat to some shitty little island to go snorkelling or some crap. We got there, and the “island” was a bunch of crushed up coral that you couldn’t walk on without shoes. We got into the water, and it was the full on cut-up-your-limbs coral that gives people infections and attracts sharks. Not the best place to dump a bunch of 16 year olds.
They kind of pushed us in the water to swim, even though it was freezing and not safe to swim in. We all went in anyway, and the current was too strong. So there’s like 30 kids drowning simultaneously. Not because we were bad swimmers, but because the water was too cold, fast moving, and if we touched the ground we’d lose a leg or two. Someone had to get into a canoe and rescue everyone. I was hit over the head with the canoe, and pushed under the water by it before they realised I was there, and then they rescued me. It wasn’t pleasant. They people who didn’t go in were worse off somehow, all crowded around one guy who got a massive chunk of coral inside his big toe. He had to peel back a layer of skin and rip it out. Poor guy.
My other important experience of the ocean was also before I was afraid of it. I went on a cruise ship around Vanuatu and New Caledonia. It was a good experience, but I’m never going back to those places, I’ve seen it once, don’t need to do it again. But yeah, stuck on a massive boat for 10 days. I got a bit freaked out when I stood at the front of the boat (as far to the front as passengers could get) and saw that I was completely surrounded by ocean, nothing else on the horizon, with civilisation days away in any direction. But that didn’t cause my fear of the ocean.
It was a picture. Not even like a photo. A sort of cartoonish representation of how deep the ocean is, in comparison to other things. The deepest part of the ocean (that we know about so far) us called the Mariana Trench. I googled it to find out more info just before, and the wikipedia page is scaring me. Mostly because it has a map of where it is, and it’s WAY TOO CLOSE to Australia for my liking. It’s closer to Japan/China etc. but still. Too close for me. (Knowing its location, I now understand why Asia cops all the sea monsters in movies)
Anyway, this picture is scary. It starts off showing the ocean, with a single pixel to represent a 6ft tall man. It shows the size of a whale, and says that it can dive to 350ft maximum, on this picture, that’s nothing at all. It shows where the Empire State Building would go up to if it were completely submerged. Now, I’ve never seen the Empire State Building, but I know it’s fucking huge. BUT we’re still only at the very top of the picture, at 1250ft deep.
At 3280, light can no longer penetrate the ocean at this depth.
Skip down to 13,120ft. The beginning of the Abyssal Zone. Apparently, this is where the freaky shit lives. Like an idiot, I continue to scroll down.
20,000ft. It’s called the Hadal Zone, where pressure is 1100x more than on the surface. My brain can’t handle imagining numbers this big, especially in distances and pressures. Apparently, there is STILL life at this depth.
31.000ft. The height of a commercial aircraft. Except underwater. In complete blackness. With stuff living down there. Oh Jesus.
36,000ft. The Challenger Deep. Lowest known point in the ocean so far. Only 10% of the ocean floor has been mapped though. Kill me now.
Let’s give you an idea of what sorts of things are down there at the bottom of the ocean. Remember the anglerfish from Finding Nemo? The scary looking thing with the light on its head? Stuff worse than that.
Like the Viper Fish.
The Fang Tooth.
The Dragon Fish.
The Gulper Eel (you need to see a picture of this before you realise how messed up it is).
The Giant Isopod (it looks like a Pokemon, but scary)
The Vampire Squid.
The Coffinfish
The Yeti Crab (Ok, it’s not scary. More funny than anything else, but it’s still a scary thought that animals like these are only being discovered now)
Did you notice that these names weren’t particularly flattering? They aren’t called the Cuddly Snuggle Monster, or the Honey Bunny Squishy Pie. They’re likened to fucking vampires, vipers, dragons and coffins! While they have cool names, you get the picture that you don’t wanna fuck with these things.
And THAT is why I am afraid of the ocean.
I’m also scared of ET. The wrinkly little alien thing with a massive phone bill. I’m not sure why I find it so creepy, but I just do. One of my earliest memories was hiding behind the couch at Granny’s place because the movie was on tv. Even now I can’t watch it. I try and laugh it off, and just say its boring and make a joke about how I used to be scared of it. Really, I don’t watch it because I sit up for hours that night, thinking about it. I have an unhealthy interest in aliens/space/that sort of stuff. But, I’m afraid of it. Not nearly as bad as my fear of the ocean though.
Put it this way. If I was given the opportunity to go into space, land on an alien planet with the expectation of making contact, I would do it in a heart beat. I’d be afraid of running into aliens, but I wouldn’t let it stop me. On the other hand, if I was asked to go to the bottom of the ocean and see what sort of life was there, no fucking way. Even if I know that logically, nothing larger than bacteria can survive at the very bottom, I’d still never do it. Ever. Just because you could get to the bottom, look around a bit, and realise that the ground you’re standing on is fucking Cthulhu’s face?
I did a word count, and I’m not quite at 2000 words yet. Currently at 1750 or so. Really, I’ve done my necessary amount of writing for today, but I’ll keep going to 2000, because I know I won’t be able to keep this up for an entire month, so every word I write now will help me later. After finishing all that, I went to the NaNoWriMo forums, just to see how other people are handling their 1st of November. Its strange how much effort people put into this sort of stuff. I used to be like them, with all these story ideas that needed to get out of my head and on to paper. I’ve run out of the time and patience needed to write fiction anymore. I kind of miss it, but I know I really don’t have the time to do it. I’ll get around to it eventually, probably later in life when I take long service leave, or I’m pregnant or something. It sucks to put off something like this to an indefinite date, but I just don’t have time anymore.
Now that I’m at uni, I find myself counting. Counting the dollars in my bank account. Counting the number of hours and minutes left in my work shift. Counting the number of days until my assignment is due. Counting the days that I’ve stayed home and relaxed. Its ridiculous. Not long now though. I only have to wait until November 13th, when uni is finished for the year (for me, anyway). Then I’ll be on holidays, and back to the way I was living after high school. Working whenever I was bored, shopping just about every day. Not worrying about hangovers. Spending guilt-free time with the boyfriend. I know on the holidays that I’m going to miss being at uni, and having something to pass the time, but at the moment, I can’t wait to get out. Good news, everybody, I’m over 2000 words now. I’ll finish this on exactly 2100 words. Done.
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