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.

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 an ant nest in my laptop/ Christmas Eve.

I think the title really say it all.  It's Christmas Eve, I'm bored out of my mind, so I go to turn on my laptop, and as I go to get my power cord since the battery is dead, I notice that my laptop is crawling away in a million little pairs of legs.  I don't know if this is just one of those things that come with living in the Australian tropics, but whenever it rains (as it does over Christmas) ants tend to nest in strange places, wherever is warmest for them.  This means they go straight for the electronics.  Last rainy season it was the printer.  Now its my laptop.

Of course, the last thing you ever want to do is talk to the Cleaning Nazi about how you've been sheltering a jolly bunch of critters in your bedroom for the past month or so.  And you REALLY don't want to tell her this on Christmas Eve, where she is frantically trying to learn how to correctly fold napkins in time for the family breakfast tomorrow morning.  I had to though.  I got the usual "well you're obviously a disgusting animal who doesn't clean their room" lecture, but other than that, she left me alone because she had better things to do.  I looked in my room, and there's no food or anything in there, except for a sealed pack of gum that seems to have never been touched by ants. So I assume its the warm and dry aspect of my laptop that makes it so appealing to ants.

Other than the ants, I don't have much more to say.  I've been working a lot, yet I am still broke because I've been buying Christmas presents for everyone.  Got all my shoppping done fairly early, except for one person who already knows what they're getting, and we'll just go to the alcohol place together to get it when we buy drinks for New Years Eve

That's about it at the moment.  Merry Christmas/Happy holidays for those who aren't into Christmas.  Have fun, keep safe, and try not to blast the crappy carols too loud.

18th of November : What day is it?

Now, this whole "new day begins at 12:00" is confusing the shit out of me.  I believe my most recent post was titled 15th of November.  Except I thought I wrote it yesterday, or the day before.  I don't fucking know anymore.  NO WAIT.  I started writing it on the 15th, and midnight came around, and it ended up being finished and posted on the 16th.  Now, my dilemma is, where the fuck did the 17th go?  Or the 16th?  I lost a day somewhere.  Is it actually the 18th today?

HOLY SHIT.  It's past midnight.  That's why it's the 18th.  Right, I've got it now guys.  Don't worry.

Now that I know what day it is (I believe it is currently Thursday) I can continue on with the bits and pieces of my last few days that I actually remember.  Now, a disclaimer.  You may read this, and assume I did some silly things under the influence of alcohol.  I was drunk, but not once did I lose control of what I was doing.  The days and times are just jumbled up because I don't pay attention to it anyway.

Now.  Let's start with Monday night, or what I shall refer to as Monday night.  I was talking to a person over facebook chat.  He was a guy who I sort of knew from years back.  He was a few grades above me in high school.  I added him to seee if he would accept.  After seeing the friend request, he sent me a message asking if I knew him.  I did what any decent internet stalker would do, and I avoided all direct communication.  I'm a stalker, not a talker.

So I ignored this message, and completely forgot about it.  He added me anyway, about a week later.  Monday night, he starts talking to me on facebook chat.  It's basically just me saying "oh, no I don't know you, I just stalk you, but not like hardcore stalking, since I don't know anything about you".  I think he was dissappointed at my fail-stalk.  I don't really have much to add, but I'll keep you all in the know.

What else happened?  Monday night... Tuesday comes next I think.  So I do nothing for most of Tuesday.  I decide that I'm going shopping for booze and shoes (booze and shooze?)  So I text people, and they're all lame and doing exams and other stuff that responsible people do.  Fuck that.  So I go to the bus stop, and I wait.  I get on the bus, off the bus, and I start shopping.  I don't find any decent clothes, so I look for new shoes to go with my old clothes.  Unsuccessful.  I get gel inserts for my old shoes instead.  I also get a new town-bag.  Town-bags have some pretty specific requirements.  Has to have a long strap, not be very big.  Has to match outfit and shoes, MUST have inside zip pocket.  Anyway, I got one.  So I've got my shoe stuff and a bag, so now I need booze.  I go to Dan Murphy's, the alcohol grocery store that I may have mentioned previously.  I buy my drinks, totalling $136 (to be fair, $100 of that was because I wanted cash out).

After that, I catch a bus home, and get in the shower.  The Cleaning Nazi comes home and screams at me about going to the dentist.  The appointment was at 4pm, and it was about 3:15pm at the time.  So I screamed back.  I got ready as fast as possible, and she kept screaming, until she realised me were going to be 45 minutes early.  We go to the dentist, normal dentist stuff happens.  They say I have crooked teeth, and that I should go to the oral hygienist, but I can't get an appointment until next year.  Oh well.

Go home, and I do my hair and makeup.  I put on outfit 1, then outfit 2, then back to outfit 1.  I show the Cleaning Nazi, and I get the thumbs up.  Then she does some weird gesture towards my breasts, so I change to outfit 2.  She tells me she likes outfit 2, but 1 was better.  So I change again.  Then Dad comes home, and there's more breast gestures, so I stick to outfit 2.

I get ready, and we pick up the friends and go to one of their cousin's friend's place.  So, a friend of a friend of a friend's place.  I didn't know any of them.  My solution?  Get drunk.  And so I did.  There were faces being made at me, but I was drunk, so who cares?  I know what they were probably thinking, but oh well.

I was talking to some guy about his tattoos.  On one of his arms he had a sleeve of norse mythology symbolism.  At the top near his shoulder, he was telling me the wolf was Thor.  Now, I may have been wasted, but I knew damn well that the wolf in Nordic mythology is Fenrir.  I just hope he knew that, and was simplifying it for me.  He then told me about the tattoo on his chest.  He reckons it was a Nazi symbol, but it didn't look like any kind of Nazi-related imagery I've ever seen.  Just the term "Nazi tattoo" had my friends wide-eyed with horror.  I wasn't fussed, since he was full of shit anyway.  He also had an Autobots symbol on the back of his neck.  Now that's just lame. 

Autobot symbol from Transformers

When it got to around 9 or 10 at night, the maxi taxi turned up.  I didn't want to waste drinks, so I sculled a few and shoved one in my bag before I left.  We got in the taxi, and went to town.  We went to Cactus Jack's, a mexican themed bar and restaurant.  They have $9 jugs.  Of course, this asks for many jokes about how I don't need their jugs, I have plenty of my own.  I was talking to some guy called Grant I think.  He was 28, and a former geography teacher, now a union representative.  Weird, I forget that 28 year olds are still young enough to go nightclubbing.  In any other situation, 28 is not old at all.  In night clubs, its just weird that I socialise with people 10 years older than me, and they aren't condescending douches to me.

Anyway, we meet up with a bunch of physiotherapy students (the friends I'm with are physios).  They go about their usual business, and I try to learn their names.  That goes fairly well.  I also start feeling bad about the fact that I never mentioned my plans with the bf, so I do a bit of drunk dialling, and he knows exactly what's up.

Now this is about the point in the night where I stop taking note of the order of events.  We leave Cactus.  I see a bunch of people I know, and one of them has a pair of dice (die?).  One of them has an action (tickle/rub/kiss etc) and the other has a body part.  I rolled them, and got an ear massage.  Nice.

I ran into that crazy guy I talked about AGES ago, the one who started crying when I left to go home.  He tried to get me to go inside with him, but I had to find my friends, who I had somehow lost.  I found them again, then stuff happened.  I don't even know.  There was a guy called Troy with a lip piercing, and he asked if my boobs were real.

Skip ahead in time, and my friends are getting pizza.  I find the guy with the dice again, and I hug him as if I hadn't seen him an hour earlier.  There's some old guy called Gino talking to me.  I'm not very nice to him, but he's like 50-something.  I don't have to be nice to old guys hitting on me and trying to buy me pizza.

Then I don't even remember what comes after this.  Not because I was blind drunk, just because all the clubs are pretty similar, and I haven't been going long enough to tell the difference.

Somewhere around this time, my friends are trying to get into contact with Danique.  I may have even called her, and I called her a pussy.  Quite a lot.  Because she refused to come to the other side of the street, where all her friends were.  Pussy.  She went home at like 1 I think.  That's what she said in the message she sent me.  I think.  I may not have read it. But anyway, I last until 3, when we all pile in the designated driver's clown car and go home.

I wake up this morning, and I stumble around as if I'm still drunk.  I can't feel my toes.  Other than that, I feel pretty good.  I get on facebook, and everyone else who was out that night is doing the same as me.  Assessing injuries and eating strange things for breakfast.  I do pretty much nothing for the rest of the day, until 6, when I go to work.  One of the girls I work with was out in town with me, and I saw her a few times.  Apparently I kept telling her about how the gel inserts in my shoes were falling out.  Sure enough, I went from 4 at the start of the night, to 1 at the end.  So I wasn't doing any drunk rambling.  It was all true.

Now, that pretty much updates you from Monday, all the way to now, which is very early Thursday morning.  When it's daylight, I think I'll go shopping again.  Thursday night, I believe there may be some sort of a plan for going to a tavern, or the uni club or something.  I don't know, but I'm all for it, since I'm not working.

Now, it's like 1am.  My parents aren't too happy about my weird sleeping pattern, but who cares.  I get enough sleep, just not at the same time as them.  As long as I get to work, I don't think it should matter what I do for the rest of the time.  I'm going to end this here, since I can barely keep my eyes open.

This post's word count = 1744
Total November word count = 26, 922

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

9th of November: Must....Keep...Goingggggg

I really don't want to blog today.  At all.  Unfortunately, I was too tired to continue yesterday, so I'm behind on yesterday too.  Over all, I'm still ahead on my total word count I think, but I'll soon be behind.  I think after today, if I don't make the word count, I'll be behind.

I have my criminology exam today, at 6pm.  Because of this ridiculous time, I had to tell work I couldn't do tonight's night fill shift. So there's a good $70 or so gone from my potential bank account.  Oh well.  I'm still working about 24 hours this week, so I'll be well on my way to saving up for that car.  I'm obviously not looking for a new car, because my price range is around $2000.  Once I drive around an old shitbox for a while, and I get my license and everything, then my parents have promised to buy me a decent car. I don't know if they will, but I'll harrass them anyway.

BUT

There was an interesting discussion last night on Facebook last night, about a certain New Zealand expat/deserter who was bagging out the county she has lived in for about 6 years now.  And as a strong patriot of the country she lives in, I had to blog about it.

NOTE:  As with many things I say, it's not personal at all.  I object to what a person can SAY, not the person themselves.  It's all intended to be in good fun.  Some parts may seem racist, but no harm is intended.  I don't believe that some of Australia's actions against Aborigines were right, but we've been trying to fix it for god knows how long, and it just keeps going.


She started off by talking about how she couldn't enter a competition because she wasn't an Australian citizen.  I'd say that's fair enough.  If they wanted someone from another country to win, they would open the competition to that country, right?

Some comments are made along the lines of "ha ha, suck shit".  She continues on to say that she doesn't want to be an Australian, and she feels sorry for us all.  Now, what the hell.  She's the one who left her country to come to this place.  And I'd like to point out that you only ever hear about people from New Zealand coming to live in Australia, never the other way around.  And the majority of these New Zealanders are taking advantage of our lax immigration laws so they can escape debt. Australians go over there for holidays, then come back after about 2 weeks.  A month at the most. Hmm, I wonder why?

When people start telling her to leave, she backtracks and says its a nice place, with some nice people, but it has no culture.   Now, you can't throw around words like "culture" and expect that everyone agrees with you.

Since I'm lazy and went to wikipedia, here's a few definitions of culture.

The word "culture" is most commonly used in three basic senses:

• Excellence of taste in the fine arts and humanities, also known as high culture
• An integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon the capacity for symbolic thought and social learning
• The set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution, organization or group

I know that this particular person is referring to the first definition, and I suppose she has a point there.  But she needs to take into account that our country has only escaped British rule in the last 100 years.  We've had 100 years to form our "high culture" of fine arts, and Europe, which you keep comparing us to, has had got at least 900 years on us.  I don't think any comparison should be made.  Come back in 900 years, then we'll talk.  Considering the fact that we're so far behind on European culture, I'd say we're doing damn well with what we've been given.

Now.  Here's the tricky bit.  As Australians define our "culture", it would be most in tune with the third definition of shared attitudes, values, goals and practices that define us.  In that sense, I don't think there's a single country on Earth that has MORE of a culture than us.  Australian patriotism is unbelieveable.  It's everywhere.  People bag out the guys with Southern Cross tattoos, but you can't deny that it stands for something.  Even if the constellation is visible to the entire southern hemisphere, it's still considered a symbol of Australian patriotism, and of Australia itself, due to all of our Aboriginal stories that incorporate it. 

I think that the backbone of Australian culture comes down to war.  Our country has one of the best armies on the planet.  We may not have the best numbers, but we have the attitudes and mindset for it.  Our soldiers are famous for their efforts at Gallipoli.  Yes, I know that ANZAC stand for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps.  which is exactly why I'm surprised that a New Zealander has the balls to have a go at a country so historically linked to her own.

In case you don't know about the story of Gallipoli, here's a summarised version.  The British sent boatloads of Australian and New Zealander men to land on a certain beach at Gallipoli.  Of course, the British were being complete twats and dumped them on a beach with a massive cliff on it.  And the enemy was on top of the cliff.  With machine guns.  Good job, Brits.  Our soliders failed their mission over all, since they were pretty much slaughtered whilst climbing that cliff.  BUT.  Quite a few survived, and they stuck it out, despite the war conditions (duh), the rampant disease and malnutrition, and the unsurmountable odds.  They eventually got the order to retreat, and they came up with an ingenious plan that meant that their escape was completely unnoticed.  They rigged up some machine guns, and sent out a group to play cricket in an a spot where the enemy could see them.  While they were playing cricket, and the enemy was watching the game, the ANZACs took off.  They packed up their game, and went home.


Since then, the Aussies have always been proud of their war efforts, and the virtues displayed by our soliders is something that all Australians, even now, nearly 100 years later, try to reflect.  Even apart from our history of war, our families all come from labourers, famers, miners, and other kinds of working men.    On my mother's side of the family alone, we have found the stories of several men who embody the sought after characteristics of the Australian man. 

My mother is right into doing family history stuff with my great Aunt, and they've found some interesting stuff.  One guy, I don't remember his name, but he was a soldier.  He went to war, and eventually got kicked out of the army for too much drinking, fighting with other soldiers, and promiscuity (and for having gonorrhea).  Now, how Australian is that?  Another one of my relatives, Albert Vollenweider, discovered copper on Mt. Garnet, and was eventually ripped off by a business man who took all his ownership rights in the 1800s.  Vollenweider's diaries about what he found are still being held by this business man's relatives, who are desperately trying to fend off my great Aunt from getting them back. 

At this point in the thread on Facebook, its a bunch of people having a go at her about how her opinions are based on blogs and the history channel.  Which is entirely true. I'm pretty certain that she too will admit that.

Someone else brings up our history and racism.  What they're referring to is our on-going issues with the Australian Aborigines.  Back when we were still British,  they dumped their convicts here, on a massive desolate rock (which happened to be a great place for farm land, mining and city expansion, with the best beaches in the world, the British clearly didn't think it out too well).  There just so happened to be some native people already here.  What was the response of the British?  Kill the fuckers.

When you're opponents know the land like the back of their hand, it's not always a good idea to kill them all.  Anyway, many spears were thrown, guns were shot, and a lot of people died on both sides.  This continues on, and many different policies were used to try and settle it all down.  It didn't work.  Even today, people still have issues with it all.  Yeah, all right.  The Brits stole your kids and tried to make them live in the British way.  That's kind of because you had 40,000 years (yes, forty thousand years)  in Australia, and you couldn't get your shit together and progress past the tribal stage. 

Now, as for present day racism.  Yes, we do have some issues there.  As do every country in the world.  In Townsville, we have the particular issue of racism against Aborigines.  Now, it's important to note that no one has an issue against the ones with an education, jobs, and a respectable way of presenting themselves.  It's the ones that are drunk, on drugs, with six kids, no job, and they hang around the mall screaming and urinating on bench seats.  It's not because they're black.  It's because they're drunk, on drugs, with six kids, no job, and they hang around the mall screaming and urinating on bench seats.  Regardless of the colour of their skin, anyone who does that is trash.  There was a story in the news paper the other day about an Aboriginal woman who was drunk outside a fancy cafe.  She picked fights with everyone who walked past, until she found another drunk Aboriginal lady.  They proceeded to fight, fall over, strip their clothes off and scream on the ground until they were arrested.  Black or white, that's no way to behave.

Now the Aborigines may be all hung up about the Brits invading their country years ago, but that's no excuse to do what they do.    Are they singling out every single white person and giving them individual pay back for someone else's actions, hundreds of years ago?  Did my mother get attacked by a young Aboriginal kid because she was white?  Did I get sexually assaulted by an Aboriginal man in broad daylight simply because I am on his ancestor's native territory (which is now a busy main road)?  Does that give them the right to do whatever they like, to who ever they like for no apparent reason?

Australians don't hate Aborigines because they're black.  We hate the jobless, drunk, uncivilised, rapists, regardless of race.  The majority of them just happen to be Indigenous.  We hate the white ones just as much.

Another racism issue that happened a few years ago is somewhat similar in result.  The Cronulla race riots.  Even though it may have looked like a Australia vs. Lebanon free-for-all battle royale, originally it was something very different.  It started off when large groups of young men (who just so happened to be Lebanese) began raping and brutally bashing our women, terrorizing our neighbourhoods, and destroying our cities.  Even if they were white, people would go out and stop these monsters, because these sorts of things just aren't cool.  Since the actual perpetrators were Lebanese, the police didn't want to get involved because of racism issues.   So the Aussie guys from that area wanted to stop them instead.

It was originally to go after that particular gang that did all these horrible things.  Then, when the Lebanese community banded together and started burning our flag, in our own country, all hell breaks loose.  After that, any person, Australian or Lebanese, innocent or not, was in danger of being killed.  It's not like it was just Aussies going out and beating up poor little defenceless Lebanese people.  They disrespected our country, our land, our property and our women.  Of course Australians will retaliate.

As for our racism compared to the rest of the world, particularly Europe?  Do I really need to say anything about the Holocaust?  The Crusades?  I'd say those things are far worse than anything Australia can mange.

And of course, there's racist people in every country.  It's not neccessarily racism, but the French are world famous for being intolerant assholes to anyone who doesn't speak French fluently. And Aussies are world famous for how laid-back and nice they are to people of all cultures (unless they're alcoholics, rapists, or flag burners, I'd like to see a country that DOESN'T hate that).

Now, enough about racism.  The image that we're undereducated.  Seriously? 

Watch this, and tell me Australians are the uneducated ones.

Nothing against Americans, of course.  But I'd say that the education problems over there are far worse than anything we have over here. They still manage to be the greatest political power in the world, even with all their issues.

Also, the guy who invented Gardasil, the vaccine that prevents Cervical Cancer, he was an Aussie, you know.  Just throwing that out there.  We can't be too uneducated if we have people who have developed things that prevent cancer!

I'm getting sick of talking about Australia.  I haven't even gone on to the country itself.  Eventually, I'll muster up some more passion and keep on going about this.  For now, I've done today's word count, and I really need to study.

Once again, don't take it personally.  This isn't a serious post.  It's all absolutely true, but I don't intend for it to be taken as something mean, or hurtful.  I'm just defending the country that I love.  But we Australian don't take kindly to foreigners bagging out our country, especially if you've been living in it for years.  It's a given that we're going to dish out a smart-ass, tongue-in-cheek response about our patriotism.

Word count for this post = 2348

Word count total for November = 17, 612

5th of November: There's two types of people in the world, those who finish their sentences and those who

I think I'll do another list, since I don't have much to say about any one topic just yet.

1.  I feel like I've got a hangover.  But I don't, it just feels like it.  My eyes hurt.

Last night, a bunch of crap happened.  I don't even feel like explaining it.  My cousin came over, talked and talked and talked.  He went home, the family went out to find some house that the Cleaning Nazi wants to buy.  It was really dark, but we found it anyway.  Went home, had dinner. Got a text message, and my friend came and picked me up.  We went and picked up another friend who just finished work.  We bought her dinner, then went back to her house (God I hate going to people's houses).  We watched TV until 1am or so.  The entire time I was dropping hints about how it's getting late, and we better go to bed etc.  She (the one with the car/my way home) wasn't getting it.  So I waited and waited and waited.  Then I went home and died.  

Today, I feel like I had a pretty wild night out, when I didn't. 

2.  I know what my second point is, and I can't think of how to start it.  So, I'll start it as far back as I possibly can.  I know that I've expressed my feelings about visitors in my home, and in my bedroom, onto this blog.  I think it's probably the first three or so posts.  But I don't like visitors.  My home is a physical manifestation of my mind, personality etc.  I don't want people looking at it.  People being in my room is even more personal, because it's made up entirely of items that I used my own hard earned money to buy.  Everything in there is a small piece of me, that makes up my identity.  Unfortunately, the BF understands this as well, even if I haven't discussed my own views on it.  Only yesterday, he said "I like looking at people's book collections, it tells me a lot about them".  Well,  you're a bit too late, aren't you.  About a day before he came to my house for the first time, I went on a massive "spontaneous" clean-up of my room.  Everything but my uni books went into the garage, in those sealed plastic containers.  I had to do it anyway, because I had no space on my bookshelf for uni stuff, but I also did it because I don't want him to judge me. I know people probably think that it shouldn't matter, and his opinion of me shouldn't change, because my possessions ARE a reflection of who I am.  I'd just rather that he base his opinion of me on what I do, and how I act, rather than what books are on my shelf.  

Anyway, my point to that is, after he sort of examined my room again the other day, he made fun of the fact that I'm hooked on the Sims 3. The next day, he sends me a message saying he was having dreams about the Sims, and that he wanted to borrow it.  He says he's bored of it already, but I think he's addicted, which is why I haven't heard from him since I gave it to him.  It's kind of good for him to have it for the next week or so, because it can't distract me now.

 

3.     I sit down to continue this blog post, and a very weird feeling comes over me.  I don’t know why, or what triggered it, but I just felt unsettled.  I decide to move around a bit, try and shake the feeling.  I go into the bathroom, wash my hands, and come back to the computer.  In the corner of my eye, I notice something.  My dog.  Staring intently at me.  I’ve never seen him so focussed in his life.  It was strange.  If bigger dogs stare at you, you can sort of tell if they’re angry or whatever their emotion is, but Butters is too small for that.  I can’t read his facial expressions and body language as much as I’d like to.  There’s videos on Youtube showing dogs “talking” to their owner, and they seem to be obviously upset or happy or whatever.  But, with my dog, he just seems frustrated.  When the boyfriend came over, we were outside and I was holding Butters.  We were talking about my boyfriend’s dog, and other dogs that talk and do tricks and stuff.  Then Butters starts going on the dog equivalent of a rant.  He won’t be quiet. And he sounds like a gremlin.  And kind of looks like one, which doesn’t help. He went on and on and on, and I felt bad because I didn’t know what he was saying.  Maybe he was just joining in on our conversation, because he didn’t seem to be very emotional.

I have Butters on my lap right now as I type.  He rests his head in the crook of my elbow, and just looks sad.  I don’t actually think he IS sad, I think it’s just his face.  It’s all innocent and wide-eyed and when I try to get a reaction out of him, he licks me on the arm.  He seems pretty intent on staring at the washing basket though.  I wonder why?

I find Chihuahuas to be a very interesting breed.  Even though people say they’re dumb, or useless rats, they really aren’t.  They seem to have far more personality than any other dog breed I’ve encountered.  They’re the smallest breed of dog, and I was told once that they would be the considered the most vicious breed, if they had any size to them.  I could believe that.  You’ve probably never seen it, but a Chihuahua has a very specific way of dealing with threats. Kind of like in this video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKGPvul8FXc&feature=related

They scrunch up their face, show all of their teeth, and have their tongue out.  It sounds and looks ridiculous, but I’ve seen it in action and it works.  I took Butters to puppy school when he was about 3 month old I think.  He was the oldest dog there, but half the size of the smallest one.  They had like 10 minutes at the start where they could all play together and get used to each other.  Being the smallest, they all ganged up on him, and he got really scared at the start.  I was told to put him in a playpen until he calmed down.  When he realised they were just playing, we let him out again, and he started doing the attack thing I was talking about whenever the bigger ones got too rough.  They got the hint, and the bigger ones left him alone, and the little ones played nicely.  Then a new guy came, with his French bulldog called John.  Of course, John went around, scaring the crap out of every dog there in turn.  He got to Butters, and he did his little growly thing.  John promptly rolled over, showing submission.  Everyone thought, “oh good, the little one isn’t going to be eaten”.  Then, Butters surprises everyone and starts humping John.  As you can imagine, I was mortified.  It got worse, when by the end of the night, he had humped EVERY DOG THERE!



4.  Every now and then, I go and have a look at the NaNoWriMo forums.  As much as I'd like to take part, I'm not doing the real challenge, I'm just doing the word count.  I find it really weird how motivated people are on these forums.  There's all the different genres of writing that people can talk about, there's a board for the overachievers, the people who need ideas, people who want to ask questions, it actually seems like a really good, supportive forum of like-minded people.  

Right now, I'm looking at the overachievers' forum.  It's all these people talking about how they did 75k last year, so they're going for 100k, or they did 200k last year, and they want to do that again this year.  It's a bit scary how much these people can write.  There's also people aiming for 50k in 2 weeks, which they are well on their way to doing.  Each forum post has the person's word count next to the name, and most of them are 25,000 words or above.  Now, Morgan, Dani-Q and I are all struggling a bit.   Or I know Danique is, I'm not sure about Morgan, but she seems to be questioning the very fabric of our existence, so I think she's going a bit loopy with all these words we try to do.

I've lost track of the numbers, and I don't know if this counts as a new number, or a continuation of the last one.  Whilst trying to spell "continuation", I completely forgot what I was going to say.  So I'll keep going.





5.   I hate my neighbours.  So much.  This will probably come off as a bit racist, but it's not intentional.  I don't hate my neighbours BECAUSE they're Indian, I just happen to hate them, and coincidentally, they are Indian.  I hate them because they have about 3 million kids.  Or maybe one VERY loud one.  I don't know, but there's at least one kid, making more than enough noise for many kids.  And it's constantly screaming about something.  I don't know what exactly, because it's screaming in Indian.  The father also has a strange fondness for power tools.  So I find it a bit suspicious when there's children screaming at the top of their lungs, then the father starts screaming in Indian, and then a power saw starts up, and there's more screaming.  At this very moment, the father is starting up a chainsaw.  Any minute now, the kid will start screaming.............. There we go.


6.  Just out of curiousity, I just tried out something called Write or Die.  The results were strange.  Here they are below.

I'm trying out this thing I've heard about called Write or Die.  It should be interesting if it works.  I think  the idea is that you set some word goals, for example, I have set a goal of 500 words right now to test it out.  You set the goal, then a time limit.  And how strict you want it to be.  I'm on the hardest setting right now.  Fuck, I'm worried.  I don't actually know what's going to happen in 8 minutes, since it's been 2 minutes already.  I think its an alarm or something.  Either way, I'm trying to type so god damned fast that I'm spelling everything wrong because my brain moves faster than my fingers.   AAAAAAAH 7 minutes!  What do I write about? 

Holy shit.  I stoped typing for like 20 seconds and shit started flashing red.  Doesn't look very fun, but I suppose it will work.  It's not giving me any inspiration though.  I'm just typing and typing, and nothing is coming to mind.  Fuck fuck fuck.  What was my word goal again?  500?  I don't remember.  I'll tell you about my love of energy drinks, to make me talk about SOMTHING

I drink lots of energy drinks.  I love them.  But I only drink certain ones.  Like Monster, the green and yellow ones.  Not the low-carb bullshit.  That's crap.  I tried Mother or whatever its called, and that tastes disgusting, I hate it.  Escpeicaly the orange one.  It makes me sick.  Once I had 2 within about an hour of eachother, and I was all over the place.  I actually took the dog for a run, that was several kms long. It was weird, consideing fat people usually dont like to run.  But I ran with my dog, and i couldnt stop smiling the whole time.  i wasnt really happy, i just smiled, and my face hurt, it wasnt too fum.  I have like 2 minutes left, and 150 words.  think i can do it?  I dont.,

Anyway.  I only drink monster.,  havent tried rockstar, but i think i might.  apparently it tastes better than monster, but the person who said that is probably lying.  theyre supposed to be bad for your teeth, and my teeth are gjhbjk siodjfo o xalready shit as it is.  theyre gross and i dont like them.  i need braces, because theyre gross as .  5 seconds hoigrnw;og r sfjco;eq ewfcojcoper;j copjodv pogvjopskjrp.




Now, that probably didn't make much sense.  You set a word goal, in my case 500 words, then you set a time limit, which for me was 10 minutes.  Then you type as much as you possibly can before the time is up.  I had heard about this, last time I tried to do NaNoWriMo last year, but I never got around to using it.  I needed some motivation for today's post, and I come out with a garbled mess.  Don't worry, I don't normally type like that.  I was in a rush, and hitting the backspace button took up my precious seconds.  So rather than editing, I just started the word again.    When I stopped to think for a little while, the screen started flashing red.  I panicked, and kept typing, even if it was crap.  


http://writeordie.drwicked.com/


This is the website here.  Ignore the crap on the front, the important part is on the right hand side.




My fingers are tingling now.  Weird.


You know, I'm completely awake now, and my eyes don't hurt any more.  


I'm going to take a break, then start a new blog post, this time with a topic.

4th of November: It's nearly Christmas!

Now, as most of you know, I work at a toy store. Ordinarily, people go "OMG cool" or "it must be so fun to work there".  No.  Think about it.  There's fun stuff freakin' everywhere, and you can't play with it, you have to get as much of it out of the store as possible.  That being said, it's still more fun than wherever you work.

Since it's approaching Christmas, we put out our 45 page catalogue yesterday.  It's not even the Christmas one.  It's like the pre-Christmas one, and its 45 pages.  It ends on November 16th.  What a waste of paper.  If it lasted to DECEMBER 16th, then yeah, that could work.  It probably takes until December to go through the whole bloody thing.  Anyway.  The topic of today's post is "Stupid shit that parents buy for their children".

I started thinking about this last night, when I was doing night fill.  Night fill is when a pallet of boxes, stacked higher than your head, is dumped in an aisle, and its your job to get them on the shelves.  If they don't go ON the shelves, you stick them on top. In stacks that, once again, go much higher than your head even if you're on the top of a 12ft ladder.  Yeah, I was doing night fill last night, in our Fisher Price/ Bruin aisle.

One of the items you typically find in the Bruin/Fisher Price aisle

It's all items made for kids from the ages of 6 months, to maybe about 3 or 4 years.  Playmats, rattles, activity walkers, that sort of thing.  It's not a bad aisle.  The boxes aren't too heavy, not too small that millions of things can fit in one box and you unleash hell when you open it.  The boxes are still quite big, and mostly square/rectangle.  They go on the shelf easily (yes, this is how toy store employees judge whether or not they like a toy).

Anyway, this aisle occasionally has some really stupid shit on sale.
Like a plane.

Technically, it's a Bruin Light and Sound Jet Ride On.  Who the fuck buys their kid a ride-on plane?  If your kids runs up to you saying "Mummy!  I want a plane for Christmas!"  You tell them to piss off and ask for something more realistic, like a job in a sweat shop.

I see no problem with my 3 year old being here

The plane is pretty cool though.  You can't see it in the picture, since it's in motion, but the rotor thingo at the front lights up and spins and makes noises and shit.  And it plays music and stuff.  Pretty cool.  I'd buy it, if it weren't made for people 50kg lighter than me.  And if I made more money.  And if it wasn't such a stupid thing to give a child.  I mean, if you give them a ride on jet one Christmas, what will they ask for next?  How do you top that? Give them omnipotency?

See, if I had a kid, and they wanted a plane for Christmas, I'd tell them that all their hopes and dreams are stupid, but I'll get them the next best thing.  A letter box.

 It talks!  And it sings, and it counts to ten.  At that point, I lost interest in what it did, because its a freaking letter box.  I really doubt that it can do anything cool.  Now really, toy manufacturers, a letter box?  What sort of messed up child do you think is going to WANT a letter box for Christmas?  Oh, that's right.  Toy manufacturers don't make toys for KIDS, they make it for the lazy-ass parents who can't be fucked finding what their kid wants.

I almost see where Fisher Price is coming from with the letter box.  Its bright, it has heaps of shit to pull on.  It sings, it counts, it has plenty of detatchable parts to choke on.  But I think the main part of its appeal is that fact that children go through a certain stage in psychological development (can't remember when, or what it's called.  What?  Don't ask me, I'm a psych student) where they find that putting stuff inside other stuff is really interesting.  They think that if they can't see it, its not there.  That's why they lose their shit in a game of peek-a-boo.  Just when they thought they got rid of you, you're fucking back again.  But I think that the letter box is aiming for that age group where boxes and closing doors and stuff are a novelty.  Who knows?  I may be wrong.  If I am, then it's just a letter box, being sold for the hell of it.


Now, another toy I don't get is Zhu Zhu Pets.  They're guinea pigs, which buttons on their noses, and wheels or some shit where their feet should be.

There's about a million varieties, even green ones.  I don't know why there's green ones.  But they sell for like $20 each.  An actual living guinea pig is about $10.  And if it were a real guinea pig, your child would not want more and more and more.  They would be content with the one they have.  Or, if you buy them a second one, they can be content with the millions of baby guinea pigs they will soon have.  But buying them a toy guinea pig is strange.  I think you're supposed to buy them a track and a play set so they can roll around the track or something.  I don't know, I've never seen it in action.  I have seen a note saying "do not place near head or hair" attached to a box.  I found that interesting.  I'd like to think that out there somewhere, a poor little kid had to cut a toy guinea pig out of their hair.

These Zhu Zhu Pets are a nightmare though. They have a fairly small designated area on the shelf, and you can fit millions on there because the boxes are so small.  But even with millions on the shelves, there's still millions more that need to go somewhere.  So they go on top of the shelves.  They spread lie a disease, even spilling across to overstocks in other aisles. It's ridiculous.  Also, they have now made a version for boys.  Kung Zhu Ninjas, and Special Forces Hamsters.  WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY


I'm running out of the will to type, so I'll talk about one more toy before I either move on to something else, or I give up entirely.

These are Sing-a-ma-jigs.
I don't really know what they're supposed to do, but I think they're supposed to be very popular this Christmas.  We have heaps of them in the warehouse.  I played with one.  They sound pretty weird.  I can't even explain them, but you can change the tone and pitch of their voices and god knows what else they do.  Their mouths consist of those really low quality hair bands I used to use when I was little.

I just looked on youtube for them.
This is what I found.

I think the creepiest part is that they have teeth.  Quite sharp, pain-causing teeth.  You can't see it, but behind the mouth are two little white plastic teeth that you don't notice until it closes around your finger.  And it hurts like a bitch.

Now, on to some less freaky topics to fill my word count, and update you on my daily life.

-Just as I stopped typing to give myself a bit of a break, I noticed that the palm leaf with the bird nest in it has fallen into the pool.  When you have a look, the spawn of satan baby bird  isn't in there.  Strange.  Mum thinks the dog ate it.  I don't think he would, but who knows?  It had to go somewhere.

-Last night after I got home from work, the BF came over to pick up his wallet, and to discuss a plan I had come up with while I was putting ride-on Jets on shelves all night.  I was thinking that in January, if we're still together, it will be our 1 year anniversary (holy shit that year went fast).  I suggested we plan to do something romantic awesome.  Like hire out a hotel room and chill out for a day or two.  By January, he should have a steady job and some money, and I'll be drowning in cash because of Christmas.    And it's not even that expensive, like I expected it to be, if you take into consideration how nice the place is.  We would have to have a balcony overlooking the Strand, obviously.  That view alone is worth the price.  Look at it!

I'll make sure I bring my white dress, so I can look in amazement in the opposite direction of the beach like this chick.

Nothing's set in stone, since I only came up with it last night.  But now I really want to do it.  I mean, even if we break up, I'll get a few friends to take his place, and we have a wild weekend in town.  Sounds good to me (the BF, on the other hand, suspects that I want to steal his kidneys).

Partly, I want to do it because it's an awesome idea, and I'll need a break after Christmas.  But the main reason is because I'm 18, and I want to use my 18-ness to do things I couldn't do before, like buy alcohol, and book hotel rooms without parental permission. I've been 18 for like 3 months now, and I still feel like I shouldn't be in 18+ places, doing 18+ things.  The novelty probably won't wear off for a while.

-Today is the second day of almost constant rain.  It's supposed to be Summer here, or at least approaching Summer, yet it's freezing cold because of the rain and overcast weather.  I'm actually considering putting on a jumper (sweater for you Americans)! The downside to rainy Summer weather in this part of Australia is the fact that we get cyclones.  It's really hot and humid (sticky and damp like a sauna), and the cyclone develops, and it destroys everything.  Fucking sucks man.  This Summer is supposed to be a really busy cyclone season, unfortunately for us humans.  Cyclones only come into contact with towns pretty rarely, but when they do, they fuck shit up.  A few years back, cyclone Larry hit a town near where I live, and all of Australia had a banana drought.  That sounds weird, but we had no bananas.  That's weirder than the term "banana drought".

Right.  I've made the minimum word count for today.  Now I just have to make up for yesterday's failure.  To do this, I shall talk about how screwed up the NaNoWriMo word count statistics are.  They're very discouraging.  Last year, when I attempted it (and failed about 2 days in, after 2000 words) they had a very basic statistics screen.  It said your goal, how many words you did today, and your total word count.  Now it's all about how many "successful" days you've had, how many days in a row, all that sort of stuff.  Even if you do a massive word count one day, then a slightly smaller than average one the next day, you're still ahead, but the website counts that as unsuccessful.   It was doing it to me yesterday.  I did about 3000 words one day, then 1240 the next, and even though I was below my daily goal, I was still good for the total goal, yet I was "unsuccessful", apparently.   It really sucks for the people who have school and stuff, who do the 10,000k weekends.  Because the website says they have 5 day "unsuccessful streaks".  That's really very discouraging for people, especially if they're actually ahead of their goal.


I just had a look at yesterday’s word count, and realised I have to do another 700 words or so to make up for yesterday, if I want to hit my total goal of 9000 words by today.  How about I do some study, and I'll type a small-ish blog later this afternoon/tonight. 

My total so far is 8415.

2nd of November, part 2: Oh dear God, we have maple syrup!

That's pretty much what I said as I went through the cupboard looking for breakfast.  There's a reason for this.

I'm allergic to honey.  Or I'm allergic to something that's in honey, and honey-like substances.  As soon as it hits my mouth, I'm reaching for the nearest sharp object to scratch the inside of my throat with.  It makes it so itchy, and it feels like my skin is crawling with bugs.  However, maple syrup doesn't do this to me.  Actually, when I had a mouthful of straight maple syrup, I wanted to claw my throat out, but in small doses, its fine.

So of course, I guard the maple syrup jealously.  My sister is allergic to cow's milk, so she has soy milk.  No one touches that other than her, so I should be able to have my fuckin' maple syrup.  Especially since we have honey and golden syrup and all this other crap I can't have.  But no, maple syrup has to be the hot commodity in my house.

So that's why I was surprised to see that we had it.  Awesome, we have maple syrup, now I'll find some pancakes and have breakfast.  Guess what?  No fucking pancakes.

Nevermind, I'll make some.  So I'm cooking, and its not working.  I've discovered that our non-stick pan is no longer non-stick.  Every pancake I try to make ends up looking like a scrambled egg, so I give up.  The dog had a pretty good breakfast this morning, and I settle for a glass of milk (and a whole lot of crap to clean up).

So that's been the last hour or so of my life.  Now, I'll continue on from where I left part 1 of today's post.

Now, I was talking about the Sims.  When the first one came out, all my friends played ti all the time, and I didn't really care.  After everyone was over it, and it was in the clearance bin. I got it, and played it. And loved it, I think.

Same deal for the second one.  I couldn't afford it until it was on sale, which was like 2 years after everyone else got it.

The third one, however.  By this point, I was working at a toy store (I won't name it, just in case. Bad things happen when you say where you work). So I got to pre-order it, getting a staff discount on it.  It was supposed to come out in like February 09 or something, and it got delayed about 3 times.  But when it eventually DID come out, I got my copy.  Since I pre-ordered, I got a special edition, that came with a plumbob USB.  The plumbob is the little green diamond thing over the sim's head, in case you don't play the game.

That's the whole package.  It came with the game, USB, and other free shit that I pretty much ignored.

And that's the USB.  The crystal part is like the lid of the USB, and the actual bit you stick in the computer is the pointy bottom part.  It's so cool, that people are amazed by it, even before I show them it's a USB.  The bf was talking with Dani-Q about a movie once, and I put it on this USB to put on her computer.  When she saw it, I thought she was happy that I was giving her the movie... No, she was amazed by the USB itself.  She didn't even know it was from the Sims 3, she was just amazed at how cool it was.  I get that reaction a lot with this USB.

Anyway, the post today wasn't about the USB, it was about the Sims in general.

For those of you who don't know, the Sims is basically a life simulation.  You make a family of Sims (people) and build them a house.  They get jobs, fall in love, have kids, die. All the usual things people do in real life.  They gain skills, which make them better at their jobs, they get more friends, and all sorts of stuff happens.

The games have made a huge jump in quality from the first game to the third. The third one has added in personality traits, such as kleptomania (where your sim steal stuff from other sims), charismatic (where all their social interactions are better recieved by other sims), and all this other crap I can't think of.  But it's always fun to put really strange combinations of sims together in a house.  You can get evil kleptomaniacs, who walk around talking to themselves, stealing, and scaring people.  You can make fitness freaks, who constantly work out.  Any combination of traits, you can make it. 

I can understand why people don't like the games.  They probably think that rather than sitting at home, making little virtual people exercise, why not go out and exercise, and socialise, and live yourself?

It's all about CONTROL.  I play because I can't go out and do this myself.  I can't build the perfect house, force my perfectly crafted family to do everything according to my plan, I can't even just go out and get a job like they do.

I like the fact that I have complete control over these virtual people.  They do whatever I want.  They only live as long as I want.  When I'm sick of them, I just put them in a room with no door, and they starve to death... Ok, I haven't done that yet, but I've been tempted.

Honestly, the actual game isn't the best part for me. The reason why I keep coming back to the game is the house-creating aspect.  You build the house.  You choose the floor coverings, the wallpaper, where the lights go, where the doors and windows are. You put in all the furniture, you decorate it with paintings, ornaments, or even art that your sims did themselves. You can put in pools, gardens, playgrounds, balconies, all sorts of stuff.  You can even put in stairs and build multiple levels.  I love it.  I build houses, then save and quit the game even before my sims live in it.

I was the same with Rollercoaster Tycoon, another game I was addicted to.  I didn't like the actual playing part,of getting my guests to ride on the rides I built.  I just liked designing the park itself, and doing the pathways, and creating perfectly symmetrical garden mazes and making food courts and stuff.  Then, I would just demolish it and start building again.

I'm a bit of a perfectionist like that.  I don't know why, since I don't have any interest in designing houses or theme parks or anything like that in real life.  I just do it in computer games.  That's why I should never get my hands on Sim City.  I'd spend the rest of my life trying to create the symmetrical, most efficient city possible. I saw a video about a guy who did that.  He called his attempts at the perfect city by different Latin names, and his video has  weird chanting music.  It's pretty creepy.  I think if I was given the chance to do something like that, I totally would, and no one would ever see me again. I'd barricade myself in my room, and my parents would have to create a flap door they could slide a food tray through, otherwise I'd die and my room would smell bad.  I don't think that would be good.

I just did a word count of today's posts.  I'm currently at about 2700, counting both part 1 and 2.  And it's only 11am.  Sweet.   I'll go for 3000 for today, then give it a rest.

I was just made aware of the fact that it's Tuesday.  I don't know about anywhere else in the world, but in Townsville, Tuesday = Cheap Tuesday.  Or for some people, it's Cheuesday.  Che-Uesday, in case you couldn't work that out.  Cheap Tuesday means that all the young ones go into town and get smashed on $9 jugs of Fruit Tingle (Blue Curacao liqueur, vodka, lemonade, raspberry cordial and ice cubes, according to google), then they party on down to the places with $2.50 cocktails.  Considering the fact that drinks are normally $5 or more, this is a pretty good deal.  It's also the reason why Uni lectures are mostly empty on Wednesdays.

So, yeah.  I just realised it was Tuesday/Cheuesday.  I'd love to go out, but I think my friends are pretty intent on pretending to study.  They don't actually study, they just say they do, and end up watching Glee and coming with my friend and I on Maccas runs (yeah, you know I'm talking about you).

Well, I'm approaching 3000 words right about now.  So far, November has been easier than I thought.  Maybe it's the fact that I'm in competition with one of the most competitive people I know, Dani-Q.  Especially since I'm challenging her in a domain that up until now has been exclusively hers; blogging.

This brings my November total so far to 5130.