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.

It's been a while,,,

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

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

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


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

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

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.

8th of November: Things I'm going to do when uni is finished.

Good news everyone!  I got my psychology lab report back today, about 20 minutes before I walked into today's exam.  It was about the Stroop Effect, where you have to read words, colours, then the colour of words.  It was pretty boring.  I got 92% though, and combined with my 77% on the last quiz, I didn't even need to turn up to the exam and I would still pass.  That meant that I went into the exam feeling pretty good.

Anyway, the list of things I'm going to do when uni is finished.
1.  Work, and save up for a car.

2.  Work on getting my driving hours up.  Even if I forge my remaining 40 hours, I still can't drive a manual.  I   need to fix that.

3.  Go shopping with the friends, and actually have fun, and not feel guilty about wasting study-time.

4.  Join a gym of some sort.  I know I have all these walking tracks (with lovely named areas such as the "Rape Tunnel") that mean I should be walking my ass off, literally, but I'd rather not walk, then get tired, then find myself several kilometres from home.  If I get on a treadmill or exercise bike, I don't actually travel any distance at all, and I stay in a safe environment.

5.  Spend time with the BF.  Like, real time.  Even though I've spent a bit of time with him lately, it doesn't feel like we're as close now, because we never get time to be together in privacy.  I don't even mean that in a sexual way.  We don't have the privacy to sit and talk without being interrupted by someone.  After uni finishes, I won't really have time constraints, and the issues on his end will be close to resolved, so we won't have all this unnecessary stress.

6.  Go into town and actually get drunk.  I don't remember the last time I was properly drunk.  I know people act all disapproving about people drinking, but clearly these people have never been drunk.  I didn't think it was particularly appealing, until I tried it.  I didn't realise until then how many social restrictions I placed upon myself.  I'm not saying I go out and drink until I pass out.  I've never done that.  And if you don't remember the next morning, you've obviously had too much.  But yeah, getting drunk made me realise that I didn't need to be all uptight.  I could have fun, and talk to strangers, and make friends with people I wouldn't normally look twice at.  It's about life experiences.  How can you say you know yourself until you've experienced yourself in every state of mind available to you?  After I began drinking (note:  I am now legally an adult who can legally consume and purchase alcohol), I learned a lot about myself.  I knew when enough was enough, I knew how much I could handle before I started doing potentially regrettable things,  and I knew that I still had the ability to say no to anything and anyone.  Now, if people want to still go on about how silly drinking is, maybe they should try it first (with an open mind and a positive attitude, of course).

7.  Continue on with NaNoWriMo, until the end of November.  Hopefully, I won't just go completely lazy and sleep all day and ignore my personal goals.

8.  Read some more of my psychology text book.  It's not just a temporary thing, where I learn it for exams and forget it instantly.  It's full of the knowledge I want and need if I have chosen psychology as my profession.  Everything in it is beneficial to me, and I find it very interesting when I don't have anything in particular pressing on me.  The minute I have to read it for study, I want to burn it.

9.  Chip away at my "Sci-Fi Movies to Watch" list.

10.  Try and meet some new people.  I'm running out of friends.

11.  Try and patch up some old friendships that have been dwindling because of uni.

12.  Get the Sims 3 off the bf, and keep playing it.  I"ll also start playing Spore again.

13.  Play my poor little PS3 again.  It's practically brand new, and I've barely played it.  I need to finish FF13, and properly START to play MGS4.

14.  Do my Christmas shopping.

15.  Do something with my hair.  Keep it maintained instead of letting it go wild.

16.  Buy some nice pairs of shoes.

Well.  It's nearly midnight and I have an exam tomorrow.  I'll continue this another day.

Current word count = 15, 264

6th of November: Catching up.

So, I kind of missed the 6th of November. 

I had to work, and it was so stressful that I've blocked the entire day out.  I'm beginning to hate Christmas.  A lot.  People seriously walk in, and don't look for their own stuff, they just grab a catalogue and point and grunt at us.  They might as well just make a list and let us shop for them.  It would be a whole lot more efficient than them pointing at stuff, and we have to run all over the store because they're idiots who can't use their own eyes.  But this is more relevant to today, because I was on the floor (walking around helping people find stuff).  Yesterday, I was on registers, and my god, it was the worst day ever.

We have this deal where if you spend over $100, you get a $10 gift card.  This doesn't seem too stressful, but you have to write down all these details, and stamp the receipt.  There's a bunch of other promotional stuff going too.  I"ll give you an idea of what happened with most customers yesterday.

*Customer walks up and dumps their shit*
Me: Hi, how are you?
*awkward silence as I put through their items*
Me:  Since you bought over $40 of Dora stuff, you also get a free trolley bag.
*Customer grunts*
Me:  You also spent over $75, so would you like one of these plush polar bears for an extra $5?
*Customer grunts*
Me:  Would you like to go into the runnig to win a $1000 shopping spree?  Just fill out your details and I'll enter you on the register.
*Customer grunts*
Me:  *enters email address*
Me:  Ok, that's $405096849.  Since your total was over $100, you get a free $10 gift card.  
*Customer pays*
*I frantically write down transaction numbers and total costs, tick boxes, stamp and highlight receipts, and tell the customer how to use the EFTPOS machine because they're retarded*
Me:  Here's your receipt and gift card, if you go to the website that I highlighted down the bottom, you can fill out a survey about the store and get a $5 voucher. Have a nice day!
*Customer grunts, looks at their receipt, and goes straight to refund counter to grunt about being overcharged*

So yeah.  Registers suck when it's busy.  When it's not busy, it's boring as shit.

Floor is pretty much the same.  Boring for the majority of the time, but when it's busy, there's people everywhere coming at you.  Not cool.

When I woke up this morning, I had a massive headache, which was a continuation of the night before (no alcohol was involved).  I took some painkillers, then went to work.  I felt pretty good, until about 20 minutes in, when I had a really bitchy customer.  I was running around all over the store for her, and when I was helping her with easels, she dropped one on me.  On my head.  Bitch.

After that, I made an unbeliveable amount of dumb mistakes.  As I said on Facebook, I need to dye my hair blonde to match my actions today.  

Well, I'm finished work, finally.  Now I have to revise for my psychology exam tomorrow afternoon.

 Since I'm seriously far behind on my word count (not really, but I want to stay ahead)  I may as well revise by teaching my readers what I've learned in the last few weeks.  It's kind of interesting.  I've found that psychology is mostly giving names to things that you understand, but don't have a name for.

Currently, I'm on the week 6 lecture: Socical Psychology.

Soical psychology is the study of how the thoughts, feelings and behaviours of individuals are influenced by the actual, implied or imagined prescence of others.  According to Gordon Allport.

Fundamental Attribution Error is the general tendency to wrongly attribute people's behaviour to internal dispositons, while underestimating the effects of social and environmental errors.  An example of this is when someone bumps into youand knocks you over, and they hurry past without apologising.  The fundamental attribution error is when we assume this guy is a complete asshole who doesn't care about other people, etc.  We assume it's part of his internal disposition, or personality, when he could be rushing off to help an injured person, or stop someone from stealing, or he may have to be somewhere very urgently.  But ususally, people ignore the environmental factors, and assume he's an asshole.

Asch's Studies of Conformity:  The participant is in a room with other people (who are actors, pretending to be participants).  They get shown pictures with 3 lines on it, labelled A, B and C.  They are asked which one is shortest.  It is no question about which is the shortest, but the actors all say the wrong answer and seem very confident about it.  The participant gets confused, and may stare at the image, wondering whether he isn't seeing something.  Eventually, he agrees with the rest of the people by saying the obviously wrong answer.  It shows that people will go with majority influence, rather than their own perceptions.  What's interesting though, is that if one of the actors is told to be defiant and go against the group, then participant will almost always side with the defiant actor.

Milgram's Studies of Obediance:  This is a pretty famous one, used to justify the actions of soldiers in war, Nazis in particular.  A participant is placed in a room with an authoritative person, who says they are connected to Yale University or somewhere of similar prestige.  The participant is told that they are to ask another participant (who is an actor, located in a different room, but still able to be heard) questions.  If the other person answers incorrectly, the participant is to administer electric shocks, increasing in voltage as more incorrect answers are given.  Every time an electric shock is given (not really, but the participant thinks so) the actor screams, and pleads them to stop.  Guess what?  The participants didn’t stop, even when the shocks were supposedly lethal.  A few (maybe 1 in 100 or so) got upset and refused to continue, but not a single one tried to check on the person that they thought they were shocking.  This study is sometimes used to justify people’s actions in a war-scenario, where people are told to kill under orders of their superiors.  They don’t kill because they’re terrible people, but because of the authority figures standing over them, demanding they continue.

Bystander Intervention:  The more bystanders around witnessing an event, the less likely a person is to interfere. Everyone assumes “oh, someone else will take care of it”.  This can potentially be very dangerous.  I’ve seen videos on Youtube testing this out, where a child actor is told to scream and cry when another actor attempts to “kidnap” the child.  Most people didn’t do anything, especially women.  They looked uncomfortable, but looked the other way and hurried off.  A few men stopped to help the little girl out, and the situation was immediately explained to them by the experimenters.  The best response by far was the massive gang of black guys who went to beat the shit out of the acting kidnapper until the experimenters ran out trying to stop them from killing the poor actor. 

Now that I think about it, a lot of these things make sense.  Even if you read it and think “I wouldn’t do this.  I would never electrocute someone to death, and I would intervene if I saw a child being kidnapped”.  But the truth is, you probably have already been in this sort of situation, and you HAVEN’T helped.  I know that I’d like to be able to say that I wouldn’t do this, but I would, because I have.

 In school, or even in any social situation, if someone is being excluded from a group, you would rather stay in favour of the group’s leader (or in the experiment’s example, the authority figure) rather than try to help the  person being excluded (or given electric shocks).  This is natural, because humans are far more concerned with preserving their own well-being and social standing, rather than risk it for someone else.

In the bystander intervention example, I’ve recently been in this situation as a bystander.  I was in a little café thing at uni, just having lunch.  A special needs boy came in, with his carer.  The boy was walking along behind the carer, before he started acting strange.  He eventually collapsed, and started having a seizure in the middle of the café.  The carer was there, helping him.  The girl that worked there came out, and wasn’t sure what to do, she got the boy a glass of water, and just sort of hovered around anxiously.   I sat there thinking about bystander intervention statistics, and thinking about why I should or shouldn’t help.  I decided that if I did try to help, I would probably get in the way because I didn’t know the slightest thing about seizures, and I would just be in the way.  Even though I knew I was just conforming to previous studies, I didn’t help because I thought, as I’m sure many participants thought, that “someone else will take care of it”.  Anyway, the kid was fine within a few minutes, and he walked off with his carer to have lunch somewhere.

Well, that’s all of Week 6 for you.    I’ll spare you all the rest.

Word count =  12,796. 

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.

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.

3rd of November: Hmmm

What am I going to blog about today?

I consult my list of blog topics, and none seem particularly interesting, and I don't think I could squeeze 2000 words out of any of them.  The list I've been getting some ideas off has ideas like "Things that scare the shit out of me", which I have done.  Another topic is "My First Kiss" and "My Worst Kiss".  Not sure I want to talk about those.

My first kiss was when I was drunk at a party, with a friend of mine.  After that, it's been VERY awkward between us.  Especially since my friends don't let it go.  It's not even that embarrassing, but everyone else tries to MAKE it embarrassing.

My worst kiss?  It was a strange night.  Once again, I was drunk.  For those of you who know me, all I have to say is "New Years Eve", and they know exactly what I'm referring to.  For my newest follower, Hed from Hed Down Under, this happened at your beloved Magnetic Island.  Anyway, I was drunk, and instead of wobbling around like the drunk girl I was, I had my hand on the shoulder of some guy, so that I could keep myself upright.  I don't know what happened, but next thing I know, he's kissing me, and he's got his hand up my skirt, trying to tell me I had a fantastic ass.  That didn't work well, because... You know.  Have you ever TRIED to compliment someone while your tongue was halfway down their throat?  Bit difficult.  I said to him, "Excuse me", I turned around, and threw up everywhere.  I didn't stop for a few hours.  And that's why I will never, ever, mix vodka and rum in my stomach every again.   I still feel queasy when I see Captain Morgan rum.  For days afterward, I couldn't drink anything without feeling sick.  It was still the best party I've ever been to.  I think my drunkenness ruined it for everyone else, but I had fun.

So there you go, my first and my worst kiss.  FYI, my first SOBER kiss was with the guy I'm currently dating.  But THAT story is not going to be posted for all the internet to see.  It is quite embarrassing.

Speaking of the guy I'm currently dating, he left his wallet at my house.  It has no money or anything in it.  Just a $2 coin I think.  And a very silly looking school ID from 2009.  I find it funny that he takes such pride in his hair, no matter what it looks like.  In this ID photo, the best way to describe the hair is like a shorter, modified version of Russell Brand's hair.

Kind of like that.  Except his was straightened at the front, and a teased-to-hell rat's nest at the back.  Weird.  Sometime between that photo, from start of 2009, and when I decided to randomly talk to him after 6 years of no contact in January 2010, he cut it so it's shortish, spiky, and highly styled.  No matter what his hair looks like, he's still in love with it.  It's like his prized possession.  I'm not sure what would hurt him more, throwing his last pack of cigarettes into a pool (as Dani-Q once threatened), or shaving his head.  Either way, no one will survive.

But yeah, he left his wallet at my house, under my bed.  I don't have a clue how it got there, considering he put it on my desk, which is on the opposite side of the room.  I tried texting him about it multiple times, but I haven't heard from him.  You would think that he would want it back, but nope.  He doesn't ever have his bank card or anything, so I suppose he doesn't need it.  It just means he'll have to ask for it back from me if he wants to go into town, because his 18+ card is in it.


Well, I managed to ramble on about that for longer than expected.

I have to go to work this afternoon.  I don't fucking want to.  I hate working late, because it means I sit around all day, not doing anything because I don't want to waste my precious free time.  If I worked in the morning, I could go to work, and I'd have all this time afterwards to do whatever I felt like doing.  But working at night, you just wait.  If you go out before work, it feels like you don't have enough time, and you constantly check the time, and you end up late anyway.

I'm supposed to be studying for exams this week.  I only have 2 night fill shifts (putting new stock on shelves), so nothing to worry about there.  Next week, I have all four of my exams.  I also have like 4 night fill shifts, 6pm to 10pm.  Why is it that I get heaps of work when I shouldn't be working, and I get pretty much nothing on the week that I have no uni.  It's the same as when I had all my assignments due about 2 or 3 weeks back.  I worked about 3 times during the week, when I shouldn't have been working at all.

Stupid work.


I can't really think of much else to write at the moment.

OH.  One last thing.  In the backyard, next to the pool, we have all these gardens, all with palm trees in them.  Birds make their nests in them, and the silly birds always choose the palm leaf that's turning yellow and is about to fall off at any second.   It doesn't happen very often, but for the last week, we've had a nest out there.  Two eggs hatched.  One day, my parents witnessed a hawk take one of the babies, and the hawk sat on the pool fence and ripped the baby to shreds, in front of them.  So there was one baby left.  Mum and I expected this baby to be cute, so we went to take a photo of it.

The original photo we took was just a tiny little head sticking out between two palm fronds.  But something wasn't quite right.  We zoomed in on the camera to look at the head, and it looked quite strange.  So we uploaded it on the computer, and I've zoomed in, and cut out all the extra crap so you too can see what I see.

FUCKING LOOK AT IT.   THAT'S SOME MOTHERFUCKING SCARY-ASS SHIT RIGHT THERE.  IT'S BEEN WATCHING ME FOR A WEEK NOW!

It's fuckin' angry.  I can tell.







You know what the scariest part is?  It's gone.  Not in the nest anymore.  I can just tell.  One day I'm going to be home alone, and I hear a strange noise.  I'll turn around, and that THING will be looking back at me.  Possibly holding my dog's severed head.  Now that I think about it, I haven't seen my dog all day....







I guess today can be counted as my first unsuccessful day of NaNoWriMo.  I'm not going to be able to make 2000 words today, since I don't really have a topic.  Lucky I did 3000 words yesterday, I knew it would come in handy one day, I just didn't realise it would be today.  Well, I made it to 1240 words, I might be able to come up with something after work.  My total for November is now 6370.

Also, I've found some pictures from that Zombie Walk that I didn't end up going to.

Makeup by Veeutiful, Photo by Hiroshima Photography.

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.

2nd of November, part 1: Halloween

This is supposed to be my 2^nd of November post.  However, since I got November 1^st done so quickly, I went straight on to the next day.  Technically, this was written yesterday.  I left it for a few hours, so I cut it a bit short, and just saved it in a word document to post it later. I didn’t reach the goal, so I’ll have 2 posts for the 2^nd of November.
As most people know, it was Halloween recently.  As an employee at a (US owned) toy store, it wasn’t a very fun time for me.  Mostly because of the costumes.

That Baroness one in particular.  Now that I look at it, what the hell happened to that chick’s feet?   And her mouth, too.  I think in this case, its one of those “bad photo quality makes things a lot scarier” problems.  We have a lot of those at my work.

Back to costumes, we had an entire wall covered in Halloween stuff, including costumes.  Generally, they were $50 to $80, which is reasonable for Australian prices.  There were a lot of witches, devils, angels, ninjas (which were freakin’ cool), princesses, Grease characters, and a weird white hooded cloak thing.  So there were heaps.  And as expected, the popular ones, that every customer wanted to buy, didn’t scan.  When you work on the registers, you can’t leave the registers.  And the non-scanning Halloween costumes were about 3 metres away from where we stand.  But we couldn’t just walk over.  We had to call someone from floor staff to check it for us.  And when they did check it, guess what?  It has no price tag, because it doesn’t scan.

I wanted to strangle someone.

On the Saturday (30^th Nov), we were doing Halloween activities.  All these kids showed up dressed in costumes, and most of them were variations of Batman.  One girl had like this black and red gothic angel/demon thing with huge wings.  She was about 5 years old.  Why was I not an awesome gothic angel/demon thing when I was 5?  She won our best dressed competition for the girls, and one of the Batmen (Batmans? What’s the plural of Batman?) won the boys’ competition.

 I wasn’t involved since I wasn’t cool enough, but I got to wear a witches hat.  It certainly made the shift more interesting, until someone liked it so much that they bought it straight off my head.  So I was hatless for the last part of my shift. 

After I finished, I had like a million missed calls from various people trying to make plans for that night.  My original plan was to go watch the Zombie Walk on the Strand (the beach) with Dani-Q and the boyfriend, then find a party to crash.  Then the Cleaning Nazi chucks a spanner in the works by announcing that we were going to the casino for dinner.  Now my meticulously thought out plan is destroyed, and I reschedule with everyone, since I’ll miss the Zombie Walk if I go to dinner.  I go home, have 15 minutes to get ready, leave the house looking like crap, go to the casino, and wait in queue for a good 20 minutes to get served.  We have dinner, I try the pokies for the second time in my life (I googled pokies to put a picture in here, and all I got was pictures of nipples) and I won $15.  Not as good as the $68 I won last time.

We leave, and rush off to the bf’s house, pick him up, rush off to the other side of town for this party, and get a message saying “don’t come, they’re kicking everyone out”.  We go anyway.  There’s heaps of people out the front, mostly slutty little 15 year olds, puking and going to the toilet in the gutter.  Classy. 

We knew that the party was hosted by 2 guys I knew, and some other guy that we didn’t know.  The one letting people in happened to be the one that we didn’t know, and the bf was (accidentally) quite rude to him.  My friends came up, and handled the situation, and we were let in.

There were more 15 year old skanks inside.  Apparently they were glaring at me, god knows why.  I’d like to think that it’s their normal faces.  More skanks turn up.  It’s the usuall Halloween costumes, black lacy bra, tiny shorts and a pair of ears and a tail that makes them some sort of animal apparently.  They were all wearing massive heels that they couldn’t walk in.  It was quite funny to watch.  They were all there for some guy, who hadn’t arrived yet.


He turned up a bit later, with a smoke machine, and some crazy lights thing.  It was pretty cool, until smoke alarms started going off.  It got really, really hot, so we went outside.  Suddenly, a bunch of 15 year olds run out to a car, open the boot and pull out a black case.  Back inside, they open it up, and it’s a disassembled stripper pole.  They spent most of the time trying to set it up.  They had a bit of a dilemma when they realised it had to be screwed into the roof.  We were the only ones sober enough to do it, and we sure as hell weren’t going to give up the entertainment of watching them try.  Everytime they thought they had it done (but still not attached to the roof), someone would put the motor bike helmet on and jump onto the pole.  It collapsed every time, and broke about 3 tiles by the time we left.


We were going to wait for them to finish, then watch them faceplant on the ground, but they took so long that it lost its entertainment value.  We went to McDonalds, and chilled there for a while.  2 people went home, and my friend dropped the bf and I in town (we call the local nightclub strip “town”).  It was full of zombies from the Zombie Walk that we didn’t get to go to.  It was also full of slutty playboy bunny costumes, slutty Alice in Wonderland, slutty soldiers (camo bra, camo undies, facepaint and thigh high boots), and a variety of angels, devils, and princesses.  Most of the guys were zombies, vampires, or mafia people.  We didn’t feel like spending money, so we took a look around at the free entry clubs, and saw plenty of people we knew, but no one we knew well enough to hang around with.  We called our ride home, and sat outside the hotdog stand to be picked up. I just realised I wrote that sentence, and it seemed like it was a set-up for something to happen.  Nothing happened outside the hotdog stand.  We talked to some of the bf’s friends, but that was it.   We went home, end of story.


So that was my Halloween.  Or rather, it was the night BEFORE Halloween.  On the actual night, no one came to harass us and steal our sugary deliciousness.  Finally, people are recognising that Halloween has nothing to do with Australia, and so they don’t celebrate it.  Even though I’m pretty sure it’s not American, the celebration aspect of it is.  So keep it in America. 


It’s quite funny how involved Americans seem to get with Halloween.  Not sure if it’s just a media sensationalising of it, or whether people really are that hardcore about it.  It’s strange though.  In Australia, we don’t really go all out for our holidays.  We do all the Christmas and Easter stuff, but not much else.  Except for Australia Day.  Oh god, Australia Day.  Everyone sits around and gets pissed at a barbeque.  It’s awesome.  But we don’t do fancy costumes, or carve faces into innocent vegetables, we just get drunk and eat lamingtons.



  Fuck I love lamingtons. 










What was I saying?
I don’t remember where that was heading, so I’ll start on something completely different.  You know how I went to the psychic the other day, and they totally mind fucked me?  I told Dani-Q on the way home, that I was going to go home and play the Sims so I felt like I had some sort of control in my life.  Lucky for me, uni’s pretty much finished, because I am ADDICTED to Sims 3 again.  Honestly, I’m typing this as fast as I can so I can start playing again.  Hmm, maybe I should finish here, and come back to the rest of this blog later.  I might get some inspiration from my little virtual people.

Ok.  It’s about 12 hours later.  I wasn’t playing the Sims the WHOLE time.   Honest…  Since it’s so late at night, I can’t be bothered sitting here writing this when I have all day tomorrow to do more.  This can be part 1, added in the morning.  And I’ll add part 2 later, after I’m done with it.  This post is 1510 words, bringing my total to 3610.

Survived another day

Did my anatomy exam today.  Not sure how it went.  I think I at least passed, hopefully.  It always sucks when you think "well, I understand enough to get me through the exam" and then the exam doesn't ask you the important stuff, it asks you the bullshit questions that you were told not to worry about studying.  Last anatomy exam, we were told not to worry about the details of each of the layers of the skin.  Guess what 25 of the 40 questions were about?

I passed that one, somehow.  I also vowed to never get that far behind in my study ever again.  I kind of did, but I definitely felt like I learned stuff in this second half of the semester.  That's a plus, I guess.

I did the exam, went home, and tried to start my anthropology essay.   I didn't touch it, because I wasn't really in an African Witchcraft kind of mood.  Went to work, 4 hours of shelf stacking boredom, and I'm home again, still not in the mood for African Witchcraft.  To be honest, I don't think I've ever been in the mood for African Witchcraft.

I discovered that my lipstick (L'oreal Colour Riche, good stuff) has made its way into my bag, without a lid.  Not cool, lipstick.  Not cool.  Last time I had a makeup disaster, it was a  bottle of nail polish on the carpet, and the cleaning product made more of a stain than the original accident did.

Speaking of accidents,  something weird happened outside my house last night.  The dog started barking, and since his bed is outside my window (and I consider him my son), it is my duty to tell him to shut the hell up and go to bed.  Ususally he does, and he stays quiet.  Last night, he wouldn't be quiet.  Then mum heard the noise of our gates opening and closing.  A minute later, the sliding noise of a van door.  She freaked out and assumed people were in our backyard and woke up my dad.  I assumed the dog was being a retard and barking at our weird Indian neighbours (they aren't weird because they're Indian, they are weird and Indian separately). So I ignored it all.

My parents are walking around the house, checking out the shed to see if people were in the yard.  Then they heard voices out the front, and saw an ambulance driving away.  Bit weird, but fair enough.  We're surrounded by old people, someone probably hurt themselves.  Doesn't explain the dog barking, or the gates opening, or the BLOOD SMEARED ON OUR DRIVEWAY!  It seriously looks like something dragged itself from the neighbour's front yard, across the front of our house where the gate(and the dog)  is, across our lawn and onto the road, where it just stops in the middle.  But why did the gate open and close?  Why was there an ambulance further down the road, away from the end of the blood trail?  I'd like to think that my vicious guard dog attacked someone, severely wounding him.  But I don't think he's capable of hurting anyone when he looks like that (see below)

Or is he?

Look Alive, Sunshine.

It's only been a few hours since I finished my last post, but it's a brand new day, and everything starts fresh if I go to sleep. 

Firstly.  I joined Twitter a while back.  Not because I want to do all the twittering and tweeting and twatting and whatnot.  I just want to stalk some celebrities.  Some of them are celebrities I don't give a damn about.  Stephen... I don't even remember his last name, that's how much I don't care.  Stephen Fry!  I was told that he was witty and clever and stuff.  Not on Twitter, apparently.  He just goes on about all these absurdly British things, and how he goes to random interviews and concerts and his busy schedule and stuff that I don't care about.

I follow about 42 people in total.  Mostly musicians,  some joke accounts like Darth Vader, and a few friends.  None of my friends do anything on Twitter.  They realize that anything that can go on Twitter, can be put on facebook, and actually receive responses.  A few friends don't know that though, and that's why I didn't add them.  Just because we're friends, doesn't mean I care about you craving a muffin.

Secondly, Twitter has alerted me to articles about our new "alien ambassador".  Now that would be a cool job.  Unfortunately, its not real.  Let's pretend it is anyway.  Her name is Mazlan Othman.  Now why the hell did we (not really) appoint someone to represent humans, when their name is not even a vaguely human-sounding name.  Are we even sure SHE is human?  Is that how she got the job?  Also, she's apparently an astrophysicist.  Now, from what I've heard, astrophysicists aren't the most social of people.  They've got all this intelligence packed into one compartment, and nothing on the social side of things.  As my psych lecturer said only yesterday:  People can be "socially retarded".  Not saying my good ole' bud Mazlan is socially retarded, just sayin'.

Who would I prefer as alien ambassador?  I'd personally pick someone young-ish, mid thirties maybe, with some sort of political qualifications, who is a good negotiator.  He'd (yes, HE.  Like it or not ladies, men would be a better representative if we were to make contact with aliens.  It also represents our generally patriarchal society) have to have some sort position of power, not some douche off the street. 

I wonder what sort of qualifications were needed?  From what I read, Mazlan already had a job as Head of Space Affairs or something, and alien ambassador was kind of tacked on at the end.  But what if I wanted to apply?  An 18 year old Australian girl, with a quarter of a degree in something completely unrelated.  Previous experience in fast food and a toy store.  I'd say I'm more than qualified to represent the human race.

Anyway, like I said earlier, its not real.  Damn.  Dreams are being shattered all over the place here.

I don't feel very good.  It's about 9am at the moment, and I feel like I'm hungover.  I don't usually get hangovers when I drink, so why do I get them when I purposely AVOID drinking?  Energy drink for breakfast.  I know it's probably terrible for me, and I don't gain anything from it, but I drink them anyway.  I don't know if there's actually a major difference between energy drinks, but for some reason, everyone has a preference.  I like Monster.  My parents get this confused with Mother, so when I ask them to buy me Monster, they get Mother.  I drink it anyway.

I just opened iTunes to have some music playing while I attempt to pull shit out of my ass for this blog.  I need to work on writing 2000 words a day for November. I set the challenge, and other people are taking it on, so I can't just fail at it.   I've managed to write at least 1500 for the last few blogs, so I just need to build on that.  I don't know how I even manage that, since most of my assignments are 1500 in length, and I struggle with them for weeks.  But if I just dribble shit, I can do 1500 no worries.

Back to my point.  I put on iTunes to hear some music.  It wants me to download another update.  What if I don't want to?  Oh, is that right iTunes?  You'll stop working if I don't?  God damn it, I guess I will then.  I'm not happy about that last update.  I had my library all set out nicely, exactly how I wanted it.  I download an update, and its entirely different.  Now there's shit everywhere, and I can't get rid of it.  And the logo thing is different too.  Why change it?  They somehow managed to change it to be more generic.  Now it's not distinctly iTunes, it's more like iGeneric Music Player.  I suppose that works.  Apple likes monopoly.  They want their program to be the generic music player, so the average computer user won't ever use another program.


Speaking of monopoly, that reminds me of a topic scheduled for November.  Monopoly.  Stay tuned for that exciting one.

Back onto the topic of music.  Katy Perry's California Girls (Gurls?).  The song isn't that terrible, but maybe I'm blinded by my infatuation with her.  So blinded that I can't hear.  That makes sense.  I mean, look at her. (also, look at that halterneck! See what it does?)

  The song is the standard "let's party on the beach" kind of song.  It goes on about pretty girls, bikinis, beaches etc.  So you think the music video will be straightforward, and it will fit perfectly.  Apparently, Katy Perry is living in Bizzaro-California, some alternate reality where Snoop Dog is a giant, with an army of rude little gummy bears.  Its all candy and board game themed, because, y'know, the song is all about candyland board games.  Didn't you hear how many times she mentioned it in her song?


...

Clearly, this is an example of media misrepresentation.  I was lead to believe that California was an American state, known for its beaches, and slutty lay-around women.  Katy Perry has shown me the truth!  It's all a giant board game with cotton candy and tiny dresses, and no obesity or diabetes in sight (those pieces stay in the box) !

Don't worry.  I'm quite heterosexual, and I only obsess over certain females.  Namely you, "Ms OMG If you can find other females attractive, you MUST be attracted to me!".  Be at ease, you aren't my type.  My type  has stubble, a manly stench and a penis.  Or, since the people who know me are comparing this image to the image of someone else right now,  I'll settle for the potential for stubble, the stench of smoke (hey, I'm anosmic, but that's for another day), and a penis.  Not that penises are important.  It just makes them male.

Dad's home (I think).  So I'll finish this later.

The Phantom Corn Popper.

1.  I'm going to do a numbered list, rather than a proper, paragraph structured blog, because I don't really have much to say about anything in particular.

2.  I work in a toy store.  This may seem fantastic for all you non-toy-store-employees, but its not all that great.  Don't get me wrong, most of it is great, and I'm not planning on leaving any time soon.  BUT.  The store is seriously a death trap.  Here are some common occurrences:

-Crap falling from shelves on to heads, usually with the pointy bits hitting you in the eye.

-Random unsanitary goo finding its way into children's clothes.

-People (staff and customers alike) falling in every possible direction, such as down stairs, up ladders, up stairs, down ladders, over boxes/children/the occasional dog.

-Finding animals in strange places, like dogs in the warehouse, rats in the nursery, dead possums in bike shop, and these tiny humanoid creatures called children: we kind of have an infestation of the weird little buggers.

-Finding cuts all over your body.  I am covered in tiny cuts, and I am becoming immune to the pain they cause, which is good I suppose.  On a related note, I was on break today, and I felt something strange in my back.  I later have a look at where the feeling is coming from, and I have these giant cuts down the middle of my back.  It looks like I got raked (yes, raked, not raped).

-Some people believe that there may be some sort of poltergeist, due to all the random shit falling unexpectedly, lights flickering, strange noises in some parts of the store, and the fact that something raked me.

-Fisher Price corn poppers.  Google it if you don't recognise the name, but everyone's seen them.  If you put too many of them together, they somehow make a god-awful noise.  I don't know how, since they're made of plastic and styrofoam, but they create like a really high pitched whining sound.  So high pitched, that you can't really hear it unless you're in complete silence, for example, doing nightfill in that aisle.  Its so high, that you aren't sure if its real or you're imagining it, until you bump into them and they stop.  Either way, it scares the shit out of me.  Maybe we don't have a poltergeist.  It might just be a phantom corn popper.

Anyway, that's enough for number 2 on my list.

3.  My blog-writing friend (whose blog tempted me into starting this in the first place) has been nagging me all afternoon about updating, so here it is.  It may seem like I'm taking ages, but believe me, when I do update, its always long enough to satisfy you.

4.  Isn't it always fun to get text messages while you're at work?  I know you aren't supposed to have your phone on you, because you should be working.  But let's ignore that for the moment.  When you receive messages at work, its like it  affirms your existence.  It says to you "Yes, even if you are stuck in the one building for an ungodly amount of time, there is still life outside of its walls, and these life forms are taking the time to think about you".  I'm definitely overthinking this, since the messages weren't particularly deep and meaningful and life affirming, they were the sort that you wouldn't really want to show your grandmother.  Even if it was a bit crude, its still nice to know that someone's thinking about you.

5.  Some of my friends may be aware that I am completely in love with halterneck dresses/tops/whatever.  Sometimes I say I like it because it makes the wearer look classy and elegant.  Really, its because of its well known effect of making breasts look larger.  I like that.  Anyway, readers.  You may rejoice, I have found another halterneck dress to add to my collection.  I now have a black one, and a bright blue one, both of which look stunning.

6.  I have been doing a criminology assignment on the CSI Effect.  Basically, I've been trying to write 1500 words on how TV makes people stupid.  They watch CSI, and expect TV magic to happen in real life crime cases when they are part of the jury.  In my research, I have found some strange stuff.
  
     a.  A prison inmate was caught with drugs in his rectum.  The jury did not have an excrement sample to confirm that the drugs were indeed in his rectum, and not in someone else's.

     b.  In another prison, a syringe was found next to a note signed by a certain inmate.  When approached, the inmate had syringe marks on his arm, and admitted it was his, yet the police did not do a handwriting analysis on the note, so they would not convict him.

     c.  A man sped past police in a stolen car.  When he was arrested, the jury demanded fingerprint tests done on the car, to prove that he was in the car that he was driving (because, apparently, you don't have to be in the car to be seen driving it?).

     d.  A man was acquitted of an attempted murder charge because there was no "scientific evidence",  after hearing the good news, he promptly hunted down his girlfriend and repeatedly stabbed her to death.

The bottom line of my argument is:  People are stupid.

7.  I recently turned 18, as I may have mentioned in some other blog.  This means I can (legally) enter nightclubs.  And I have been doing so.  Anyway.  I was there the other night, sitting there casually while my friends were doing god-knows-what.  I already made a point of finding THEM males to use and abuse in whichever way they please.  I personally am already in a strange sort of agreement with a male, and so I am not even slightly interested in jumping through the hoops to get a new one.

Well, I was trying all night to find friends for my friends, but they were being all wishy-washy standard girl stuff.  They go to do something somewhere, and I am left sitting on a couch.  There's a guy with a bunch of other people about a metre to my left.  He beckons me over, and we begin to talk.  I'm thinking friendly chatting, and apparently he's thinking something different.  He seemed quite confident when he tried to kiss me on the hand/shoulder/cheek/lips, and I realised he never actually asked me if I was comfortable with any of it.  He never asked about any other people I may or may not be involved with.  If he had, I would  happily tell him that I was not looking for anyone, and that I was here for my friends.  But, for some reason, the topic never came up.

He asked me to go outside with him so he could smoke (LOLOLOLOL SMOKER) so I did.  Ah, fresh air, and a noise level suitable for conversation.  Still, the topic never came up.  I just thought, well, I'll give him some way to contact me, and I'll run for the hills so the awkward "I guess I've been leading you on by talking to you" conversation never comes up.  Guess what?  He has no phone.  How come everyone in the developed world has a phone, except for the people that I encounter?

Anyway, went back inside, saw pretty much everyone I know but don't really talk to (funny how people go "OH MY GOD I DON'T TALK TO YOU EVER BUT LET'S HUG ANYWAY" in nightclubs) and found my friends.  I'll skip over like an hour or so, since pretty much nothing happened.  We went back outside again (god knows why), but this time with my friends.  Finally, they were able to correctly identify my uncomfortable body language, and we left, after a very awkward "I'm leaving for no apparent reason" conversation with this guy.

If for some reason you read all this, and you realise, hey, this sounds exactly like me you're describing, then yes, it is you.  I used a lot of commas in that sentence.  Back on track, if this is about you, then I'm sorry about the other night, if you feel I may have led you on or anything.  It wasn't intentional.  You're a nice guy, but I'm not really emotionally available right now (emotionally available - sounds like something out of a dating advice column, but it means that regardless of my married/single/other status, I am personally not able to commit myself to a relationship with you).

I've kind of forgotten my point now.  Maybe there wasn't a point.


8. (I think this is 8, not really sure)  On my desk, I've created a sort of collage of photos from the last 3 years or so of my life.  I've seen lots of other people do it, and I've always looked at it, thinking "wow, this person has so many great memories with friends".  Looking at mine, yes, I have some great memories with friends. But these randomly pasted together images don't accurately reflect my life, because it doesn't show all the stress and pain of the parts in between.

For example, there's a photo from a sports day with people in costumes.  It looks all happy and fun, but leading up to that moment (and even after) there was plenty of arguments, tears, and dirty looks tossed around by all.  Another photo, from film and tv class, doesn't depict the race against time that came in the form of an assignment, which was being completed while the photo was taken. Another one is from a friend's birthday party, and everyone that night was angry at each other, because some chose to go to several other parties that same night, before eventually turning up around midnight.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining, because these experiences make me who I am.  But, never again will I look at a photo album of collage and ignore all the happenings between each photo, because what you don't see is just as important as what you do see.

9.  On a lighter note, I have been on lecture recess, and I will be until Monday (Its Saturday now).  I know that right now, I feel stressed and worried about uni, and I'm looking forward to this semester being over, so I get a break and have a chance to save some money (Toy store job + Christmas =$$$$$).  BUT.  I know once uni is finished, after maybe  3 weeks of holidays, I'll be sick of being at home or work all the time, and I'll want to go back to uni.  Oh well.

10.  I have a chihuahua called Butters.  Being a chihuahua, he is quite small, regardless of what size he believes he is.  This size can pose a problem.  He is not a guard dog, and if anyone comes into the yard to steal stuff, they'll probably take him too.  Anyway, we just have him because he'll bark at stuff.  And bark he does.  He's a good little alarm system.  The problem is, what he perceives as a threat is not actually a threat to anyone but him.  Namely, the possums that live in the tree near his bed.  I thought it was funny how they sat in the tree while the dog lost his shit, hopping around on the ground.  However, the other morning, I realized that this situation was far more serious than I thought.  The entire side of the house was a battlefield, and the possums were victorious.  Butters has a little igloo type thing with a dog mattress (which we call his hump rag) and all his toys in it.  The hump rag was over in a completely different part of the yard, and his toys were everywhere, including places that the dog could never reach.  Dog food was spread out all along the side of the house. I believe that possums have co-ordinated an attack against my dog... Bastards.

Well, that's about all for now.  I also have realized that I easily wrote a 1500 word blog post in one go, but I've been agonizing about my 1500 word essay for about a week now.