Wu-Tang Clan aint' nuttin to fuck wit...

It just so happen's that I'm listening to 36 Chambers right now. Hardcore, man. Harcore in my Nudie jeans, newly-highlighted blonde hair & pandora bracelet I think not, but ya know.

Back from the dreaded Chaddy. God I love the place but it's really, really, really dangerous for someone like me. Thank god for a) my mother and b) the Commonwealth Netbank website being too complicated for me to work out how to increase my credit limit online. Hahaha. Shops I got stuff from: Gorman, Metallicus (x 3), Gap. Awesome. And lunch & coffee & some chocolates which I'm told are for my grandfather. Oh, and when I arrived home there's a note in the letterbox telling me to collect my postal delivery after 4pm. So my Polyester cds have arrived. Yay!!! Self-gifting galore, but whatevz, mother & I could only get certain things at Chadstone, and the last few years this is what my mother & I have done; go shopping the week before/of Christmas & buy me stuff which equates to my Christmas present. I feel quite guilty as we spent a fair bit of money; I made Mum decide whether we buy something because 'well you have to like it cos' you're paying for it' but it was Dad's money. Christmas day is generally boring but shopping is fun! I guess Mother & I haven't been shopping together literally all year & so I can sort of justify spending so much money on that point...enough guilt talking. I bought practical things I will wear (like dark brown clogs/heels because I have no summer heels that I can wear for day/sitting in bars/drive in, and a black cardigan).

I finished work placement, I have been to the gym once this week (good) and I'm under the illusion that I'll get back into exercise, listen to all my cds & read my pile of 25ish books & watch all my Dvds. Still don't know about New Years but not fussed.

New Years resolutions (perhaps a bit premature, but I'm in the mood)
- Learn how to turn left into a car-park
- Don't binge eat...no more than once a week
- Put things away in the cupboard after I wear them; avoid adding to the floordrobe
- Go to the gym for weight-resistance exercise (not cardio) at least twice a week. This can be Body Pump or Yoga or some sort of stretching class. i.e, build strength
- Spend a lot less time on facebook
- Don't hoard as many books & dvds.
- Be more sociable. Don't bail on events because I cbf to drive/too hard to organise.

On that front, I've binged once in five days (I tried on my black jeans, they fitted me on Halloween but not now. I'm sure if tried them on in the morning they'd be fine, AND I'm pre-menustral but still). I've finished 2 books since I last posted here (Her Fearful Symmetry and A Tiny Bit Marvellous) (but there's new books coming out by Markus Zurac or whatever his name is and such so I'll end up buying more at a rate much faster than I read, again, oh well), dvds I'm getting through & well...I don't think I can resist buying the new PJ Harvey the day it comes out. I've let myself off exercise for today because I did walk around Chaddy for 3 hours non-stop, but I am walking down to the shops to pick up my parcel because I absolutely cannot be fucked finding a carpark in this school-holidays Christmas rush. Nobody gives way to a green p-plater with blonde highlights in a black Audi. Still need to attach PBS sticker to car; will do this after when Dad takes car to factory for service, otherwise he'll rip off the sticker. All in all, not too bad this week.

and more soon!!! holidays = boredom = more posts! Yay get excited!!!

this is why i have too many microsoft word documents on my computer

I'm embarassed to say I relate to this, but...it's one of my favourite pieces of writing on the whole eating-disorder topic. Please note I have no idea where it's originally from, the ed_ucate community of livejournal tells me it was originally posted in a blog or a recovery website anonymously. So I'm guessing the person who wrote it never wanted to be acknowledged (which we all know, isnt uncommon on the internet). So, without further ado:


"I have an eating disorder. Not Bulimia or Anorexia but EDNOS (Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified). This means that I alternate between puking and starving. I also have rules. Bread has to be eaten in even numbers. Cake is evil. Carbohydrates are secretly plotting against me. Diet Coke is the elixir of youth and beauty.
My EDNOS is 19 years old. It started with Anorexia when I was fifteen. Then I progressed to Bulimia, otherwise known to some as a failed anorexic. You do the maths. I’m too ashamed to get my calculator out.

My weight fluctuates between slightly overweight, slightly underweight and somewhere in between. Which proves that my methods of losing weight aren’t that efficient, but this is not about logic. This is not about doing the right things like eating less or exercising more. This is not about being sensible or healthy or a shining example of mental health. This is not Jamie Oliver and his organic pig testicles.

This is not about looking good on the beach or wanting to be a supermodel. This is not about wanting the cute guy in the coffee shop to beg for your telephone number. This is not about sliding a pair of skinny jeans over your hipbones and laughing all the way to the checkout till.

This is not about wanting attention until complete strangers force feed you Black Forest Gateau and siphon double cream into your skinny latte. It is not about deliberately pissing off the nurses by hiding your peas under your fork and stashing butter in the bed pans. It is not about starving for all the children in Africa. It is not about reading the magazines and pining for the Body Mass Index of Paris Hilton’s pet Chihuahua. This is not a conspiracy created by the Patriarchal system to oppress women.

This is about having the self-esteem of a gnat’s arse. This is the polite way of committing suicide. This is about having no life because it’s impossible to order a bowl of dry cereal in a restaurant and ask them to hold the raisins. This is about weighing pasta, cereal, raisins and anything that passes your lips, including toothpaste. This is about secrets and lies and shame. This is about not wanting to admit that you need to eat. That you deserve to live.

This is about being scared. This is about being terrified. Of everything.
This is about control. This is about sex. This is about putting relationships on hold until your thighs don’t meet in the middle and by then you have no libido anyway. This is about hiding under layers of clothing that are mostly black. This is about “Please don’t look at me and cover all the mirrors with black crepe.” This is about avoiding the camera, even at your sister’s wedding. This is about intense self hatred.

This is about needing so much that you can’t stand it. This is about having emotions that bubble up and spill out all over the carpet and stink up the whole house. This is about having too many choices and too much pressure and isn’t it easier just to keep it simple and obsess about the amount of calories in a small cantaloupe? Instead of making big scary choices that might crush you to a pulp?

This is about wanting to be safe. This is about wanting to curl up in a nutshell like Thumbelina and ignore the big bad world that’s too noisy and dangerous and can’t be trusted. This is about not trusting anyone and relying on food (or lack of) to give you an all enveloping comfort blanket when the medication bloats you up like a corpse in a river.

This is about really crappy coping methods. This is about making a choice that will quite possibly kill you. This is about failed relationships, waiting lists, devastated families, waiting lists, becoming vegetarian, becoming vegan, becoming lactose intolerant, developing a wheat allergy and more waiting lists. This is about infertility, rotten teeth, and hollow bones. This is about cardiac arrest in a shopping centre. This is about being sick. This is about not being sick enough. This is about finally being sick enough for a bed in a unit until you drop down dead and you get a mention in the local paper for being such a model student.
This is not about food."

I think I've mentioned this song before (stop me oh oh oh stop me, stop me if you think that you've heard this one before...) but......

PBS, online shopping, Kettle Chips & the usual music/dvd update

1. I subscribed to radio station PBS a few weeks ago. I’m still waiting for it to arrive in the mail; but I’m pleased to have done this. I’m yet to decide whether I’ll put the bumper sticker on my car yet – I’m hesitant to ‘wreck’ the glass, but I like the idea of having ‘indy cred.’ In truth, I’m self-conscious about being female, having blonde highlights, green p-plates and driving a (15 year old) black, European, girly (its a hatch-back) car. To top it off, I’m not the world’s best driver (if you’ve read far enough back in this blog that should be fairly obvious, apologies I’m not snazzy enough with technology to be bothered to link back to posts featuring the topic ‘reasons why Liz is a shit driver’. I feel that if I was to put such bumper stickers on my car I would automatically be given more respect on the road. Currently I get little, depending on which suburb I’m driving in. Automatically my car assumes I’m a teenybopper, but I guess when I blast The Breeders – Canonball (8:30am this morning) or random Colombian music (2:30pm today) I confuse people.

2. I’ve discovered Etsy and the Polyester Records online store. I’ve finally got around to setting up my bank accounts in such a way where I can buy things online. I’ve always thought this was unnecessary, knew about all these websites but never looked because I knew I wouldn’t be able to buy anything anyway. So, in two days I’d subscribed to PBS online, bought a 60s red bag off Etsy (here’s hoping its good! It hasn’t come yet...) and some earrings last week and a bunch of cds off the Polyester site. JB doesn’t often have what I want these days unless its a relatively recent release (I buy back catalogue cds as much as I buy newly released ones) and I don’t currently have a lot of time to go to Polyester (not game enough to drive to Fitzroy, no time to get to city store/too stingy to spend $10 on a single daily train ticket to get to the city, ie doing a Masters degree = not eligible for concession = fml). My first ever online purchase arrived on Saturday (well I picked it up then), an old Boards of Canada cd I was omg so excited!!!

3.Kettle chips are amazing and Red Rock Deli will never be as good. Kettle Chips used to be even better, before they brought in the new packaging a year and a bit ago, because before the new packaging when I was more obsessive about food calories etc....did you know that since the new packaging started, they have 5-7.5g less fat? And not as crunchy? I actually noticed this when I had Kettle chips in the new packaging for the first time. Now they have roughly equal fat content to Red Rock Deli per 100g, ok so obviously this was so Kettle could advertise being 25% less fat than regular chips or whatever it is (seriously, I don’t know) but it pisses me off because I figure if I’m gonna go all out & have potato chips I want the fatty ones that taste better. So Kettle chips are still amazing and they were around before Red Rock Deli so I’ll always be loyal to Kettle over Red Rock Deli but I’m disappointed.


4. Secret Life of Us Season 1-4 on dvd! Yay for dvds coming out but booo for having no time to watch them


5. New Devandra Banhart cd; first cd where I’ve liked the second half of the album (usually the “filler” tracks) better than the first. Seriously. Tracks 8-14 are more my taste as opposed to the first half; even if the first half includes “Baby” and “Angelika” – the two singles I know of. The second half is more what I listen to Devandra Banhart for. Love him.

Random shit I found on my desk/phone

1. The Tony Gillard one, it originally comes from the Fast food chain 'Nando's' - it was in one of their advertisements & this is where I saw it first. I can't find it anywhere online but the mother did manage to cut it out of the newspaper. The newspaper cut-out is under the mountain, ie my desk, and in the process of organising this mess (creating piles, not actually sorting through it & getting rid of stuff) I found this.

2. I know I'm mentioning names, but I'm not offending anyone. I deleted this off facebook, but took a picture to save :)

*click on the images to see a bigger size, I cbf to go back & make them bigger. Sorry

quotes/sayings i've recently come across/like

1. Last Thursday night we had this customer at work that was wearing one of those t-shirts with a saying on it, you know, the kind of thing you get from Smokemart or a tourist shop. Anyway, I spent the rest of my shift wondering whether the t-shirt actually applied to him. The t-shirt read:

'I have no house, no car, no job, no money....but I'm in a band'
It was funny because this guy dressed like he was homeless, and so did the guy with him who I presume was his Dad. Their t-shirts were literally ripped and it wasnt a good look.

2. Yesterday: I bought this coaster at a gift shop (the initial plan was to search for further Halloween accessories) (I'd take a photo and upload it but said coaster is in the boot of my car: fail)

Drink Coffee: Do stupid things faster with more energy

3. A watched pot never boils
So unbelievably true to my life.

Current Top 5

Top 5:

highlights from cd commentary

Okay, so I made a mix cd for a lovely friend of mine from work who turned 21 almost two weeks ago. Here is the commentary for a few top picks:

Joy Division – She’s lost Control (Substance)
Lots of people who are significantly fucked in the head like myself are fans of Joy Division, especially if they’re female & like to pretend that ‘She’s Lost Control’ is a reference to themselves. Either way, I actually think it’s a good song too so it ended up on the cd. Please bare with me, it gets better.

Lior – Needle and the Damage Done (Neil Young Cover)
Okay so you probably think I’m on speed by this point but I promise you I’m not & I’m definitely not injecting heroin, so don’t worry. I feel guilty for saying this, but Lior’s take on this Neil Young CLASSIC is so much nicer to listen to. My kind of stuff I like to fall asleep too. Just don’t listen to it loud when other people (esp family members, I’ve found) are around because they’ll think you’re on drugs.


Michael Jackson – Butterflies (Invincible)
I only knew this song after Michael died, which is so sad. I think I first heard it in the car with my mother (her wizz bang flash car actually has a cd player), who, along with all the other bogans in the world, bought the rest of the Michael Jackson cds they didn’t have the week he died. That morning was a repeat of September 11, where I went downstairs to make breakfast only to find the tv AND radio on (this only happens in a terrible world event) and my mother almost in tears. Anyway, the song is my favourite ever, alongside ‘Jam’ off the cd Dangerous.

Nostalgia 77 featuring Alice Russel – Seven Nation Army (White Stripes Cover)
I first heard this song in a bar called the Croft Institute on my 19th birthday. I was quite pissed, my friend bought me this 17 dollar cocktail with double campari & vodka & tonic water & I can’t remember what else and it was an amazing cocktail I finished it in about 10 minutes. Anyway, Alice Russel has one of those voices I was mentioning before and this is a really funky twist on a song that to some extent confirmed the success of the White Stripes & showed off Jack Black’s guitar riffs.

Queens of the Stone Age – No One Knows (Songs for the Deaf)
An old rock’n’roll track to really bang your head to. The last time I blasted it on the radio it was 8 o clock in the morning, at the Highett Rd/Bluff Rd intersection and everyone was driving 40k because of school time and god it was awkward. Anyway. Enjoy. Let loose.

sleeping patterns & my croaky voice

Here I am posting again 2 weeks after my previous post. Feeling a bit sickly due to too much food (but what else is new), on placement, its 29 degrees, I'm bored, I have a handout on linking theory to practice & yet the internet is right infront of me so I can't concentrate. Today I've made a few phonecalls & sat in with FLAP but this is about it. The most interesting discussion was one between another sw student (female), a law student (male) and myself at lunch where we basically scared aforementioned law student into getting an STD test. Oh, and sleeping patterns/how well do you sleep with someone next to you. For instance, can you ever be throwing up & feeling like you're dying & literally screaming at someone who won't wake up? Or, in my case, sleep through a blaring smoke detector?

Okay so off-track & this is not what I wanted to post about...(the point) anyone who knows me knows that for a female, I have a really, croaky sounding voice. To the extent where lots of people often ask whether I'm sick or have a cold. It used to not bother me, but recently it has. It really has. The tradies at my house at the moment asked me, 50% of my customers ask me & say 'oh you poor thing you should be home in bed' BUT ITS JUST MY NORMAL VOICE. Argh. I'm not really a loud person, I'm not a crazy drunk who screams & screams; I'm fairly low volume but selectively high content, and the only times I feel like my voice isn't low-pitched & croaky is when I'm on the phone to someone & trying to suck up; i.e. faking. It's always amazed me how pretty much everyone in the world has a different voice (but siblings often sound the same but not THE SAME, ya know) & how we seem to be able to recognize so many different voices.

But yes. Ah well. I'm off. Need to look up how to get a credit card for online shopping yessssssss

similar sounding songs, MY BIRTHDAY

The second time I've updated on workplace computers, whoops. Today I'm amazed by the number of songs that sound a bit like they belong to another artist. In short, I've been listening to the Natalie Imbruglia album 'Left of the Middle' and there is one song that...if you replaced Natalie's voice with Beth Gibbons' voice, you could swear it was a Portishead song.



Oh, and the Kashmir song "Art of Me" could pass for something by System of a Down song:


Other than that, YESTERDAY WAS MY BIRTHDAY! I was lucky enough to go out for lunch with my fellow placement bodies, as well as for dinner with my parents. Ate way too much. Slept next to an ice-cream bucket due to excessive food quantity I felt like I could've vommed. Vegetarian Foccaccia, Oyster Salad, Tiramisu, Apple Tart. Seriously so full can't eat anymore! Back to diet! I got plenty of messages, and a bunch of flowers, too. Much better than my 21st, which I spent at work. My mother, as per usual, managed to come up with presents which I both want and need without going overboard (thank god; I have zero storage space & nothing I want except for books/cds/dvds/more time in life). I got some money/vouchers off a few relatives, which is lovely and all but it does make me feel a bit guilty. Is it just because my cousins have not yet reached 21 that they feel they are leaving me out if I don't get something? I'm 22? So now I'm at MOLS with a food hangover & wearing a skirt because I'm too scared to try on my jeans.

I have my iPod going & the plan is to work on my Masters' special work. Should I have gone on visitations with another student? And then gone shopping? Possibly. I need petrol, cash out and to go cd shopping. Yay for Melbourne Magistrates Court on Monday; the plan is to go city shopping in the morning YES!!!! So many cds I want, I swear I haven't been to Polyester in like a good 3 or 4 months & its becoming a problem. I hate not having time to listen to cds & read books; although I am very much enjoying The Good Parents.

There's nothing to do except reading which is really depressing. I was considering going to Clayton uni to do reading in peace but I'll probably just end up going to campus centre & walking around trying to find the library, getting lost & coming back to MOLS. I have lost inspiration for everything. AND there's no tv on because of the FUCKING Commonwealth games. At least I can catch up with Mad Men & Gossip Girl. eventually. Ugh. Herbal tea time.

crazy driving experience number 55 thousand

I'm still buzzing about the fact that I'm blogging on the computers at work placement. Oh yes, lots of fun. My extra reading/activities for Masters' students has been minimised & I'm sitting here with 2 other students, my handbag & notebook bag & on the other side, my gps, the gladwrap from my sandwich & my 2010 melways & my mobile phone. I am bored & I've already decided I'm leaving early because I wanna go walking and buy shit at the supermarket. This morning a friend & I travelled to Dandenong (I wasnt driving, thank god) to support a client in court & fuck it was a DISASTER. We didnt even realise we weren't on the highway until we saw a sign that said Emerald/Narre Warren and we thought shit, this isn't the way to Dandenong. For a trip that should've taken 15 minutes, it took an hour. Hilarious. Oh, and we missed our client's court appearance & so we went to Dairy Bell & got ice-cream (I had rocky road, but it seemed just like plain chocolate) and then went to Savers then walked around in circles trying to find the car. But, because some of the people we asked for directions werent exacly with it we struggled even with directions. My friend called her Mum & ended up hanging up on her because we apparently couldn't be helped if we didn't even know what road we were currently on. Fuck the gps, seriously. It dropped (or maybe I dropped it? hush) on the ground & then wanted us to go a different way to what we planned so we kept ignoring it but argh we fucked up in the first 100m so & it took us 10k's to realise we were lost. Most people reading this will think we're such losers but we were half stressed half pissing ourselves laughing. And our trip around Dandenong itself was not exacly fun either; a few people were threatening/yelling 'fuck you' etc etc so we had to walk the wrong way a few times. We went to Dairy Bell. So many potentially good bakeries.

Does this count as my reflective journal? I'm still deciding whether to go to the movies tonight because the movie is 'The Girl With The Dragon Tatoo' but I don't want to ruin the book as I'm intending on reading it when I've got through my current pile of books. And, I don't wanna go to the same shopping complex that I work at. I also wanna go for a walk & get home early so I can do this as well as go to the movies? Argh. funny.

Anyway........just got that out. Ta da :)

on being a journal-whore

So I'm thoroughly excited about the fact that I have to do a reflective journal while I'm work placement. Many people hate doing reflective journals/journals in general. Of course everybody knows that journals are a therapeutic exercise, but I seem to feel as though everyone thinks journals are for 'losers' or in other words, introverted intellectual fucked-up freaks like me. I'm happy that blogs have become popular - but the emphasis seems to be on pictures, or cartoons revolving around bagging the shit out of the government of the day. Most bloggers seem to choose a topic or a theme or whatever, and not many just write about one's day & one's feelings etc etc.

The fact is, I'm a chronic diary writer. This begun in primary school after I watched the movie 'Harriet the Spy' with Michelle Tratchenberg



It got to the point where I was hiding plastic mirrors in my dressing gown pockets & running around the backyard with a journal, writing down notes like the fact that the old couple in the house next door to us were watching tv. I should not be admitting this in a journal I post publicly. Anyway. I LOVED this movie, I wonder if I've still got it on video somewhere?

And so I've written journals daily ever since, up to about three years ago. When I stopped it wasn't a conscious decision, I actually felt really really guilty about 'not writing' as I had previously obsessively made time to make sure I wrote at least one page a day. Even if it was just a paragraph. I guess I just let myself off for a few days because I got home late, and then it became a pattern, and I don't feel guilty anymore. Whenever I go through all my stuff/shit I realise that I have so, so many boxes of journals scrambled around my room & I actually can't read anything I've written. But I'll probably never throw them out because they are too special.

And I guess the point of this post was to acknowledge to myself that yeah, I do miss writing journals & reading back on what I felt after a particular event or whatever. I'm much more honest and analytical these days though, so I probably should exercise some level of self-restraint. I've written two days of placement journal and I realised that I was writing things that actually had nothing to do with placement, and quotes people had told me and how I was amused by them. I. miss. being. a. chronic. journal- er.

Quote of the day: "Is it ethical to stalk clients on facebook?"

nb: obviously no names/agencies etc will be mentioned.

my inability to drive

I haven't posted for ages; my motivation is lacking. I've had a great time the last few weekends; even if this weekend I was a 'grandma' and attended pre-drinks, but didn't head all the way out to CQ because I'm lazy and busy and stressed. The latest essay is...in the progressing stages (75 words today so far wooohooooo), but I'm really intensely freaking about when the fuck I'm going to finish it; I'm working 55 hours a week (university placement + Big W) and I'm supposed to finish essays as well? FML. I'm going out in about an hour; the mother & I are taking a driving lesson to where my placement is (Clayton) & I am also tres stressed about getting there without causing major accidents. I have to cross Princess Hwy, SHIT SHIT SHIT I can't drive for shit & some days I think this problem of mine is getting worse. I'm at an age where my inability to drive is no longer acceptable, my group of friends and I are much more sophisticated and grown up now, we rely on designated drivers more often than public transport and taxi's, and driving to places an hour + away is no big deal. But I'm the little baby that needs to be escorted not because I'm an alcoholic & i want to drink (I very rarely drink) but because I'm not the slightest bit capable of driving anywhere more than 10ks away from my house. And, because I work Friday nights now, if I wanna go out somewhere afterwards...well, I have to drive and I can't so I can't go. I'm also really bad at driving in the dark and the rain (rain I can handle just not when its dark as well)...and I used to be fine with it. I've come to the conclusion that I'm not THAT bad of a driver (really, there are so many idiots out there and I'm rarely one of them; I don't ever do anything dangerous), I'm just an extremely extremely nervous driver and a shit parker. I'm actually a really confident driver when I know where I'm going & I blast the radio (especially PBS' hip hop/reggae/dancehall program on Saturday evenings). If you tailgate me I become petrified and probably drive way over the speed limit because I just have visions in my head of people running into me. But anyway. End rant. I have to drive 20ks this afternoon & hopefully I will be able to psych myself up for the trip tomorrow morning. I've borrowed a book on CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy) techniques for my latest assignment (topic: managing anxiety) and so perhaps I should apply some of these techniques to myself. I'm serious.

Wow, that was one serious paragraph in one. I really wish people would stop app earring offline on FB, I'm bored and want to avoid my assignment some more, talk to me? I also wish there was lots of posts on Monash Stalker Space to read. Because on the way home from Clayton we have to visit my Grandparents this means I can't go in my tracky-dacs which means I have to squeeze into my jeans again FML I have put on so much weight and I was in agony sitting down in these jeans at pre's. I really should stop making certain comments aloud and making people embarassed, "I can't wait to go home and take these jeans off" amognst other things. And now I have to drive in these jeans? Apparently I have skinny legs...not anymore. argh. Damn. But those multigrain cracker things were really good. Eggs on toast are AMAZING as are bega cheese stringers. Eggs on toast + dvd collection + Sunday Age magazines + herbal tea = ultimate Sunday afternoon fantasy. I wish my essay would burn in hell.

Okay I'm blabbering. Recent musical discoveries/re-discoveries:






The Virgins - One Week of Danger here


***(For the kids that like stuff similar to Animal Collective)

'smile when you do push-ups, it makes it easier'

*this is the reason why, if I do (very occassionally) go to Body Pump, I go to the 8:15am Thursday morning class. Despite being a bit of a guy/physically intimidating (not really, but if I did a 1:1 personal training session, I would be), with tatoos & muscles etc, this instructor actually explains the moves & does proper stretches. I tried so much harder than I ever have before (I used 1.25kg weights instead of 1kg weights, go ahead, laugh) and it actually hurts. My back is...aaaaaaow, i want to lie down but I have work. FML. I've done 300 words of my assignment (only 800 to write by Tuesday, yay!) and I've walked and managed to drive around the carpark at the gym without hitting another car and/or killing anyone.

In other news, I have to go and pay my Optus bill at the post office but I really cbf but the post office will close before the time I get to work. I have nothing on for the weekend other than work (Thursday night, Friday night, all day Saturday?) and uni work and most likely a few episodes of Gossip Girl on my lappy. Probs finish Season 2 this weekend.

I also need to stop eating the lemon slice in the fridge leftover from the 80th. It's rock hard now, but whatevz. It's amazing but a little tooo buttery (seriously) and could do with a bit more lemon flavour. It turns out the white chocolate & rasberry one has been in the fridge all along & I couldn't find it...argh argh argh. Nevermind. I haven't had nearly enough to make myself sick. Hopefully Dad will finish it asap. Why is it so hard to not over-eat? If only I felt sick straight away instead of a few hours later.

It's so fucking cold. I'm going to sit in bed & read David Pelzer 'My Story' - I'm up to The Lost Boy and it's so intriguing but a little...gruesome and terrifying and I wonder why I enjoy reading stories that are so...unpleasant. It's not a nice sweet story that's gripping and enjoyable, put it that way.

I've been listening to lots of Portishead (Dummy, old) & Kings of Convenience (Declaration of Dependence, new) & Taking Back Sunday (New Again, new) lately & I've been using iPod shuffle at the gym and remembered this song:

til next time kids.

I never imagined I'd be on the library computers at uni, blogging. Especially at 8:35am. I've written a few notes down & did some research via a few websites for an upcoming project (uni-related) but mainly I've since bought myself a coffee scroll (and eaten it, GOD), looked at the RRR website, the latest media release regarding Australia's Federal election and skimmed the Monash University Placement morning. My hands are freezing and I need to wee. I have 51 minutes to kill before class, subtract about fifteen so I can buy a soy cap & walk to my class which is so.far.away. dammit. MUST go to the gym after uni; must remember to bring sunglasses when I go out during the day. I decided to bring the leftover cous cous from Sunday for lunch today because I really don't need to keep picking at it at odd hours during the day (I eat the wierdest foods at 8am in the morning) & now it will be officially gone by the end of the day. Same with the musk sticks, which I ate yesterday morning on the train and everyone looked at me funny.

Argh. I hate preparing for stuff & I really hate Wednesdays. I hope the person in the computer across from me can't hear my Tegan & Sara song on my iPod. Time to scam Monash Stalker Space. Big mistake not bringing something to read off the reading list. Really cbf reading a random pdf file off a computer screen.

I realise I've just been totally rambling for this post & I've minimised the blogger bar about fifteen times so its time to stop. Maybe I should do a wee now. Okay bye xx

voting is a bit like getting married

Not that I've ever been married, but, its when you finally get your ballot paper, that ridiculously long white one for the Senate & the pale-green coloured one (a colour I haven't seen since weekly newsletters in primary school) for the lower house, that you think, shit, do I really want (insert party here) to win? So, I voted. Most people who tell me they've read this blog know the political values I hold (some, but I'm vague in defining why/specific policies). Basically it's 10 past 11pm & I've been out for drinks with the girls and I really should've had a glass of something alcoholic because Tony Abbott is going to become prime minister and I can't cope. I still have that bottle of vodka from Year 12 sitting on my desk and I really need to drown my sorrows. Okay, so if our own prime minister doesn't believe in climate change ("the climate change argument is bullshit") then how the hell can I refuse to hand out excessive plastic bags to customers?

I'm home & I can't watch it on tv because I'll awake the parentals up, 774 radio here we come? But I'm really enjoying listening to by latest Kings of Convenience cd.

Oh my god. Quote ABC News Website:
"Gillard gives a nod to Tony Abbott, saying they have different world views but he's shown he's made of strong stuff".

Jesus. Australia's gone backwards. Now I want to move to America to have Obama as the president. Or some Swiss country. Princess Mary has the right idea.
I still can't believe this is happening. I've been re-assuring myself all week that, you know, it'll be okay (the Australian spirit) Tony won't actually win, more people hate Tony than they hate Julia, really, it'll be okay, he won't get in. At LEAST its a hung Parliament so they can't rule completley. Argh I can't think.

So for the rest of the week I have
- to get through an 80th at my house tomorrow (shit)
- to fit into my jeans nicely again (shit) (stop eating chocolate blocks, muffins & coffee scrolls, Elizabeth)
- to finish my 2000 word assignment on borderline personality disorder
- get on anti-depressants now that Abbott's running the show.

personality disorders & strawberry jam (animal collective)

As the title implies, anyone reading out of a mental health textbook & listening to an experimental/psychedelic pop band at 10am on a Monday morning is just, well, cool. ie, I am uber cool. Anyway. The more I read of personality disorders the more paranoid I am about having one, because in only one summary (2 pages, with 2 columns of writing in really small font per page) have I been able to think to myself 'no, that's definitely not me'). Although I don't have any type of erractic/impulsive behaviour (well, yes to impulsive but not really, not more than the average person I think), I WAS a really strange child. But lots of people are strange without having a disorder? I keep mentally thinking to myself, 'relax, you wouldn't be able to study, get a university degree, or function in general if you had some sort of personality disorder.' Is the fact that I'm questioning my mental health something that happens to everyone studying the topic? FUCK. Then again, most people who study psychology are fucked to begin with (I know people personality, and, as the saying goes). But I don't even study psychology & I have no desire to, so that's something.

I have to add though, last semester my skills tutor mentioned that we shouldn't read all the checklists for mental illness' like depression and apply them to ourselves, seeing as everyone pretty much admitted to doing that & decided we all had, well, at least some days where we'd fit the criteria for depression. Alternatively, are we all just over-diagnosing ourselves so that the psychologists in the world can make money? And the drug companies? For entertainment (crime/police tv shows)? ARGH. WHY is this shit so popular?

atm I'm trying to find somewhere where I can illegally download the Animal Collective dvd soundtrack; I love livejournal for its communities and random cd mixes made by people I'll never meet. I feel a bit inadequate though, because most of the bands I've never even heard of before which is why I like being with a group of friends who are, for the most part, teeny-boppers: I like feeling like I am the most 'alternative', even if I'm not.

In other news, I got a new phone on Saturday. it's a nokia and I'm suddenly on an Optus $29 plan & I've never been on a plan before, so its all a bit scary. And its a touch phone! Which actually doesn't piss me off as much as I thought, because, OMG IT HAS A KEYBOARD! I suck at technology though, it took me a while to work out it didn't have a sim card in it (it was in the Optus pack, not the nokia box, I presumed it was already installed). Anyway. Back to work.

celeb look-a-likes

Today I just noticed: Willa Holland (Agnes, Gossip Girl Season 2, OC, Caitlin Cooper) & Kaya Sc_____(Brazillan, can't spell) look really, really alike if you squint. In fact, if you stalk their respective facebook fan pages, when they were kids they looked even more alike (Kaya had lighter hair & browner skin more like Willa).

I wish I had a name like Willa. Argh. I'm on a sugar high and as of tomorrow I am oing to the gym and losing weight like hardcore I swear, I am so sick of eating so much shit and too much in general and fuck after looking at these two skinny girls I feel extremely inadequate argh fuck Elizabeth you really need to get a life or at least do your homework.

So:

My new favourite cover/mash up:

Radiohead/Zero 7 - Climing Up The Walls


On a side note, I am so amused that the ABC, on the 7:30 Report last week, used music from the Trainspotting soundtrack to accompany their review of political campaigning. It was funny cos Mum made the comment "Tony Abbott looks like he's on drugs" and of course Trainspotting is all about drug addicts.

I survived a weekend of essaying & going to Red Bennies & my extended Monday was spent watching dvds (I know, 2 x episodes of Gossip Girl & 3 of Modern Family is not productive) and driving to St.Kilda & back to visit one sister & now I'm having a shower, washing my hair & settling in for an evening of educational programming courtesy of ABC1.

the big w soundtrack

I'm hoping that by blogging/writing I will be inspired to do my assignment. I'm listening to lots of calm music; Clare Bowditch & The Feeding Set, Explosions In The Sky & Cat Power, but it's not working. I'm BORED and I have to decide what to wear tomorrow night and get an online account & clean my room because it's impossible to walk in it. I want Mum to go out, to the gym or to do the groceries or something so I can quit pretending to do my homework & watch Gossip Girl, or Modern Family on the big tv downstairs.

In the last few weeks I've been paying a fair bit of attention to the songs that Big W radio play. I always complain about the terrible music, but it's really not that that bad. Highlights include:

- Jefferson Airplane: Somebody to Love
- Donna Summer: Hot Stuff
- Sia: I Go To Sleep
- Lily Allen: Oh My God (Kaiser Chief's cover)
- Rick Price: Walk Away Renee (memory flash: My Girl 2 Soundtrack!)
- George Michael: Amazing
- Joan Jett: I Love Rock & Roll
- The Beach Boys: Don't Worry Baby
- Tina Arena: Wasn't It Good
- Bright Eyes: Something off either Cassadaga or I'm Wide Away It's Morning. I think it was Four Winds but argh I only heard the first bit of the song and its really bugging me...just as well they have the same soundtrack on rotation for a week so I'm bound to work it out eventually.
- Interpol - Something off Antics or Turn On The Bright Lights. I'm dead certain it was old; it had the old feel.

ie, Nostalgia alert! I went home and pulled out My "My Girl 2" soundtrack & my old Interpol cds (fuck, how much can one love Turn On The Bright Lights? It's AMAZING.

But anyway. Just a little rant.
xxxxxxxxxxx

mocking the labour party

Sometimes I need to remember that people do actually read this thing. I had three people who told me this today. Shit.

Same old story, avoiding homework. I did this earlier, too, by going to work & buying 4 cds & a t-shirt dress from Sportsgirl. As you do.
CDS:
- Jonsi - Go
- My Morning Jacket - Z
- Belle & Sebastian - Dear Catastrophe Waitress (Can you believe I didn't own this?)
- Rufus Wainwright - the new one, I can't remember the title, I LOVE THIS MAN. Hopefully he's not gay, I just get him mixed up with Patrick Wolf because I swear if Patrick wasn't skinny with darker brown hair they'd look SO alike.

Various political commentary I've found amusing, ie. poking fun at the whole "Moving Forward" slogan:

1. The "Julia Gillard GPS"

2. Peter Costello's re-enactment (i.e member of the Opposition)


3. A Comment from my mother the other night:
"Do you notice that every baby she [Julia Gillard] cries?"
and then: "Julia looks like she's had botox"

and a few other funny things, again that only I will find funny

"my friends all just wanna go to Pony cos' its the only place they can get laid"
"We went to this place called Madame Brussels. It's supposed to look like a cross between Alice and Wonderland & Wisteria lane. It was a poor effort."
(the owners of these quotes both read this blog & shall remain anonymous...regardless, thankyou for adding some amusement to my day)

no more to add. Shower & read & sleep time, methinks. homework tomorrow, I SWEAR.

boring rant

- I feel really, really sick. Like having eaten too much & all I need to do is lie down.
- I have 1825 words to write, preferably the end of Monday, at last hope it HAS to be in by next Friday
- I have INTENSE back pain. Okay so it's not that bad until I move: can't bend/lean, especially to my right. Putting on clothes/socks/anything that involves bending = pain. Working 6 hours yesterday I think made it worse, by 5:30 it was hurting standing up & it wasn't hurting standing up when I went in.

- They've fucked up my rosters at work. Which is actually quite normal. I'm too scared to call back, whatever, I'm not spending my money to fix up THEIR mistake. So apparently I'm contracted for Friday - um no, they changed my days, but I never received a contract saying that in writing, and my pay-slip kept paying me overtime for working on Fridays, even though it WAS/is a regular shift. So last Saturday, the business (not service roster, which everyone goes by, but its not the "formal" roster - it's always wrong, but you can't dispute it) rosters me on Monday & not on Friday, and the service roster wasn't done yet. So, I ring up & check, yes I'm working Monday, and if my Friday shift isn't on the business roster, I don't have to come. I agree to come in on Monday on the premise that I don't have to on Friday (after calmly explaining that I am a master's student, I can't work all afternoon every weekday I have no classes, I do actually have to spend significant time writing assignments/being on facebook). So they call me up on Friday asking why I've written 'Liz N/A' at the bottom of the roster. I was told to hold on the line, then 'I'll call you back in five minutes' and I haven't got a call back. So totally cbf to deal with work politics/admin fuck-ups. Seriously. It's retail. Please. Get over it.

Rant over. I have so much shit going on to organise & I hate having to wait for other people to get organised first. I do have one little comment from the lovely Catherine which was possibly the funniest thing said to me Wednesday (not word-for word):

"I nearly crashed my car this morning...there was a really hot guy & I was looking in his window...though I guess if I crashed my car & he came to help me, it would have been SO worth it"

clubbing

Last night/this morning I went clubbing. The last time I did this obscene activity was...eighteen months ago? I guess I went along with the plans of the evening, convinced myself I'd have a good time (after one drink). As the last two sentences suggest: I hated it, what a waste of $10, with the exception of 'Finally' off the Priscilla soundtrack. Oh, and the car-trip (yes, we drove) to Chapel St & then on to South Melbourne. This crowded place called Marquee had mostly terrible music, and not just by my high standards either, I swear! They played 'All This Love' by the Similou & fuck it brought me back to schoolies when I had just turned eighteen. And two friends got hitted on & god, it really was like schoolies, where people fully 'go for it' in public - people who've never actually met before & are just going for the 'pash & dash.' Dear god, I used to actually do this. And then I ran into a guy I work with (2 years younger than me) & thought shit, is everyone here Psych Students from RMIT? Like undergrads? Communicating via text message (draft, not send) was also a completely new thing for me. Work guy to Liz: "Gonna be fucked tomorrow". Go figure.

I'd forgotten what it was like to watch out for your friends (the ones who need watching out for, anyway) & use tactics to rescue them from unwanted male attention. To use glowsticks & mobile phones as lights to find sticks of lipgloss in handbags. How to push through people assertively yet not aggressively. Oh, and the top level we went to had those flashing lights that people with epilepsy must avoid and this, combined with my eye-make-up (good pencil eyeliner but very, very old eyeshadow that should be thrown out) was hurting my eyes. Did I mention that our group were pretty much the oldest people there? And full of bogans? Either I'm really old or a serious snob/bitch.

A message I sent/showed to friends (including work guy): "I think all the flashing makes my eyes sore. Mayb I'm just too old. I'm ok, just a bit bored and the music is SHIT motherfucker.' Too fucking true. And one friend (the one who drove) later at Maccas: "Why do all the guys I dance with in clubs have to sing out-of-tune in my ear? It just makes me laugh"
Aforementioned guy to me later (after friend had deliberately disappeared): "Are you friends with ____? She's a nice girl. I'm not a sleaze*, I like her...I'll be over there"

*if you claim not to be a sleaze, automatically you are one

Ah well, I guess you go for the experience. I woke up at 10:50am (haven't done that in years either) and now I feel so, so guilty because I should have gone for a walk & done homework by now. All I've done is eat porridge, send a few text messages, eat fruit, read the back page of The Sunday Age & The herald Sun. And I have a dinner to go to. AAAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHH.

diagnosis: hoarding (is there any medication available???)

I've just created a lovely present to myself: a dvd draw. My top right draw is no longer filled with a few packets of pens, highlighters, page tabs, numerous waiting-to-be-opened pencils and gluesticks, faber-castel pens I can't bring myself to throw out, a box of derwent pencils I've had since primary school, shitty sunglasses (I've decided I actually like these 'cheap shit sunglasses to throw in the car glovebox', a pair of 'bumblebee' sunnies with brown not white rims which also slip right off my ears), a few old calculators and a compass. These have now been shoved on top of the stationary draw below it, full of (mostly unopened) notebooks and notepads, letter-writing sets and a 50 pack of envelopes. Yay for space! I have so, so, so much stuff. I have one friend, and whenever I go to her house I could almost cry. I want to pay this woman to organise my stuff. I'm quite sure she's got plenty of crap like I do, but her room/whole house (still living with the fam, but the kitchen & other bedrooms are no different)..literally OMG. it's like walking into a magazine shoot for Vogue magazine. I'm only 21 & yet I already own 350 cd albums and counting (cd singles from primary school not included, Spice Girls, Hanson & Backstreet Boys albums included), and 64 dvds. I know myself well enough to realise that I'll probably never throw any of these out till I'm dead. I'm looking forward to inheriting my Mum's books & the parental Six Feet Under dvd box set. But WHAT THE FUCK AM I GOING TO DO WITH THIS STUFF? Thankfully, the amount of money I've spent doesn't really worry me, yeah I should be saving it to spend on furniture, but what the hell, lots of people my age would have spent double the amount on alcohol by now. Cds & Dvds give me pleasure, ok? Oh, and thats not including my (fiction) book collection. University text books I'll probably never throw out either, if only to show off to my future children: (I hope I have some!) 'yes, Mummy was smart, wasn't she?'

There's some sheet music, some magazines (I've got quite good at not buying these though, I'm buying more books instead & "making my life more meaningful" etc etc lol JK my second favourite website is celebrity-gossip.net) and various photo albums too. A great idea would be to move out, and then I can start afresh at a new place & leave my parents to look after this stuff. Is it ridiculous to consider getting insurance on a cd collection?

aaaaaaaarrrrrrrggggggghhhhh. And speaking of dvds I had the girls over to my house last night & we completely fried our brains on The Hills. I'm so embarrassed for Heidi, OMG. Funniest. Shit. Ever. On a cold absolutely fucking freezing night, ugg boots, mini individual packets of popcorn & starburst babies & ducted heating on full blast & a licking hyperactive dog (mine) are the best thing ever. For about $2 absolute max per person, cheapest most amazing night ever.

In future: I have uni & therefore no life. Expect posts few & far between. (just quietly, 2 Distinctions & 1 HD this semester, haha I am wonderful)...

I've come to the conclusion that it's not only 'cool' to be up-to-date with movies, current affairs & the latest new 'indy' band, one should also have a vague idea of whats currently considered a 'good' tv show. Which means burning dvds for your friends & they burn some back, or going to each other's houses with a USB stick. Apart from the news & Masterchef (which I don't watch; I was absolutely HORRIFIED when my Mum started getting addicted 2 weeks ago...then some chick called Marion got voted out & we started watching the 7:30 report again THANK FUCKING GOD), nobody watches real tv anymore yeah? Apart from Gossip-Girl re-runs on Go. My guess is that dvds of tv-shows have gone up (in price as well as popularity), and so its not that uncommon to buy whole seasons of tv shows without even watching an episode.

In the last few years I've accepted that 'good' tv shows basically means anything on HBO: Sex & The City (the movies were obviously not crash hot, but remember the first few seasons when it used to be on Channel 9 after ER on Thursdays/Eddie bloody Maguire?), Weeds (♥ ♥), Entourage (I can't get into it, but its well liked), Six Feet Under etc are all on HBO. Because I'm a hoarder, and because I love having 'the whole set' and can't help but feel peer pressured into knowing what people are on about when the discussion turns to tv shows, I must confess that I've bought myself
- Season 1 & 2 of True Blood (haven't watched)
- Season 1 & 2 of Mad Men (haven't watched apart from 4 eps of Season 1)
- Big Love Season 1 (I started watching it Season 2, I love the show but find it really hard to understand & figure for free (buy 2, get 1 free at JB) I could do with some background understanding).

The pattern here is that I've basically bought all this stuff but have yet to watch it. Thankfully, I like Mad Men so far. It's a bit slow, but I love the characters & I remember Peggy from when she was in Girl Interrupted (like one of my favourite movies of all time). I've read the first book by Charlaine Harris so I'm totally clueless. However Mum was alarmed at the number of dvds I have in my room (because I keep them there until I've watched them, at which point they return downstairs to the family collection, which is basically my dvds + Dad's burned dvds of car races that the kids at work have given him) and reminded me that in 10 years there will be no such thing as the dvd, everything will be a different format etc etc & now I feel really guilty.

In short, uni starts back next week & I've got a shitload of dvds I STILL haven't watched. I aimed to read 20 books in the last five weeks off (I've read 4, and I'm on my third, the new Lionel Shriver book 'So Much For That'), I've added more cds to my collection that I'll never find the time to lose myself in and I've accumulated more dvds and less space.

Nothing particularly new in my life. I've nearly finished Season 4 of the OC & I've bought yet another dvd (True Blood Season 2) that I probably won't even watch for six months. The good news is, I've finally forced myself to learn how to park. Sort of. You know how at shopping centres & gyms & car-parks in general & you have to squeeze your car between another two cars? and how the the spots are really really ridiculously small? and how you get paranoid because shit the car next to you has, like, a MASSIVE dent in the side & maybe the owner is even worse at parking than you & WHADDIF THEY SCRAPE YOUR CAR? Especially if they don't leave their wheels straight, so the wheels of this opposite car are facing directly as if they'd smack into your car once reversing. Or, god forbid your park is really shit & you're too scared to fix it because what if you hit the row of cars behind you while reversing. FML. Haha.

three loves:



Tricky - Suffocated (there's not actually a video)


Funniest scene from Season 1 of Weeds.

i love books & ranting

I really do love reading. It’s probably about time I explained the title of this blog, ‘the perks of being Lizzy May.’ For starters, my first name is Elizabeth & my middle name is May. The rest is stolen from a book: ‘The Perks of Being a Wallflower’ by Stephen Chbosky. I can’t be bothered to explain the book write now so you can all go Wikipedia it if you’re looking for a good reason to procrastinate. In short, I seem to really fall for the ‘teenager in crisis/troubled childhood comes good’ genre. I’m really into autobiographies, and good fiction stories written in first person. I’ve kept personal written journals since I was 10, and although I’ve stopped that now, I still blog & livejournal. I will be honest and say that I DON’T like adding ‘academic references’ to university essays and/or writing university essays in general however I do love ‘reflective’ essays (most people I know hate them, or at least say they feel pretentious writing them). I love bullshitting on and on about opinions I don’t really have. . I love writing in first person (can’t you tell) and pretty much all my favourite books, with the exception of Harry Potter, are written that way.


One of my favourite books of all time is Marya Hornbacher’s Wasted. I’m quite embarrassed to admit this because the book is written as a memoir of anorexia, and while I relate to it and yada yada ya the way its written is fantastic. It’s an honest account, raw, not “set up” and full of bullshit. There was such a time when I read many eating-disorder related biographies/autobiographies/’memories” and there were some that were so fake and so “set up” and so fucking ridiculous (as an overall assessment) that I almost laughed. It’s so fucking sad for me to realise that some people read them & think they’re real. I mean, SHIT. These authors are doing a disservice to mental illness. DO they realise the young girls (and boys, maybe) reading them are at an impressionable age? That the people likely to pick up the book in first place may not give a fuck about how ‘true’ it is and just want something to trigger them? These books are what the pro-anorexic diehards read when they want to be seen reading something. Urgh. Sorry, but if journals are for letting it out, I just did.

FUCK I hate technology. Ironically, yes, I'm 'blogging' & therefore using the internet i.e. technology but seriously. Most of it doesn't work, or is just a massive, massive hassle. It's so HARD, even generation y's like myself. For example, tonight, I'm going out. I have numerous chargers/gadgets under my desk.

- Laptop power cord
- Stereo cord
- Desk Light cord
- Phone cord
- Mobile phone charger
- camera charger
- rechargable battery charger
- iPod charger.

Seeing as the phone, light, stereo & laptop occupy all 4 slots at once, how the fuck am I supposed to charge my camera and phone at the same time? Sit in darkness?

Oh, and there's the damn tIvo. Power outage? Completely ruins my tv schedule. The tivo has this annoying sound every time you press a button...it takes bloody ages to find the 'now playing' list and then IT DELETES THINGS WITHOUT TELLING YOU. I mean, if you don't set it to 'until I delete' it will delete itself. Too many menus & too many screens to get to what you want. AND the dvd player in the lounge room is so damn slow it takes at minimum x 3 'this disc could not be played' screens before the dvd will eventually load. Touchwood, I don't have any major issues with my laptop. Thankgod. Maybe a whole lot of the technology in our house needs updating, maybe I need to just get out more & not have a life revolving around technology, but whatever. Oh, and DON'T GET ME STARTED ON THE FUCKING SELF SERVE MACHINES AT WORK. I could write a thesis on how much I hate these things. Dumbest thing invented. If you ever head to a Woolworths-branded store, I STRONGLY ENCOURAGE you to boycott the damn things & see a person instead. Unless, of course, you're buying condoms & the prospect of facing a checkout chick is too embarassing.

What else can I complain about? More late.



Song of post: The Kills - No Wow

Um, so I just read up on how to actually post you-tube videos in these things we call 'blogs.' To celebrate this milestone, here is a select top 5, in no particular order:


1. Sorry, but it's still an obsession:


2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

(an extra for good measure, but it's not really a video just listen!)

quotes from the mother: stuff only I will find funny

Is it really sad that I save blog ideas as a 'draft' in my mobile phone?

Anyway, last Saturday night I went out to the Toff in Town again, this time with the Queen (i.e my mother) to see The Cat Empire. Dear mother has a slight obsession with the Cat Empire, we're part of the VIP club, get all the special offers, etc. We've seen heaps of their shows - I remember going straight to a Cat Empire show right after I got off the plane from schoolies almost four years ago.

Anyway, my mother whispered some absolutely funny shit in my ear that evening, even though it probably isn't funny to anyone else.

*List of comments I found amusing*

1. I wonder if Felix Riebel is gay?

2. Which then proceeded to an analysis of how many boys/girls were in the crowd. To me, I thought a reasonable mix of young-ish and middle-aged people, with lots of couples & a few groups of early-mid 20s guys. Mum's comment: 'Maybe they're all gay friends of Felix's? 'I wonder if Felix is gay?' (see above)? 'I must look it up on google/wikipedia tomorrow'

3. They're either bikies with beards, or Jewish people with beards

4. (Because we had to stand) I've got panadol in my bag if my back starts to hurt

5. I can go in the mosh pit if you like, I'll be okay. You might get picked up if I'm not with you. (Then, later) 'they look alright...actually, 3 of them have white shoes, so I'd rule them out automatically'

Gah. Going on a manhunt with my mother is so NOT what I want to be doing. NO, I don't have a boyfriend and YES I do need one but I certainly do not need to be on the prowl with my mother. The whole process is exceedingly uncomfortable. Mum, if you're reading this, take note.

dead rats in the house

Can I move into someone's house for the next week? Seriously? Because our house SMELLS.

Omg. We have dead rats under the house. About a week ago, Mum noticed rat/mice poo. So, we thought we had 'rodents' under the house. Dad & I just laughed and told the woman to stop being silly. So she chucks some poison under the house (the hole is too small to actually get into/under/out from). So, we've killed them. BUT THEY SMELL LIKE SHIT. We have to close every. single. door. I can't walk around the house, I have to hold my breath. Thankgod for working, at 5:30 it was like, nnnnoooooo i don't wanna come home, because my house smells. It's like smelling poo, combined with shitty useless deodorant, 24/7. My room is okay now that I've shut the door for over 24 hours but it's still bad. Dad think it's absolutely hilarious because HE CAN'T SMELL IT he must be mad. He is mad. Oh, ok, sure, it's okay for him, working 60+ hours a week, he's hardly home anway so it's all ok for him.

So, my action plan for the today:
Well I was gonna go to either Body Pump or Body Balance at 9:30am, but Mum has volunteered for me to go to yoga with her at 11:30, so

9am - Go for my 1.25 hour walk
10:15-11:15 - Read/get changed/read
11:30-12:30 - Yoga
12:30-2: Read. Basically stay in my room.
3-6:30 - Work. Then manipulate young kid into driving me to my car. Hope that car actually starts. Drive home
7-8: Wolf down some veggie burgers (courtesy of Sanitarium, quick meal before going out)
8:30pm > Cat Empire at the Toff with the mother. She's beyond obsessed, we're on the VIP list even! We get all the early ticket sales and such. I've decided I'm in love with the Toff as a venue. I also have the option of meeting up with girls who are out at the Deck for a friend's 22nd, but I don't think that's likely. I could only meet them for an hour or so & then it creates problems getting home so I doubt it will happen.

I've just realised that this is quite possibly such a boring boring post. So I shall be off trying on outfits right now...

celebrity look-alikes & a bitch about dead rats

For my own records, Kirsten Stewart looks a hell lot like Emma Watson & Dakota Fanning and Taylor Momsem are twins.


The purpose of this post was to try and teach myself how to upload photos. I did 3/4, then it looks shit and I cbf to resize photos and make them sit side-by-side so I backspaced all the html. Epic fail.

GOODNIGHT EVERYONE!

*Due to having our ducted heater on full blast & at the same time having dead rats/mice under our house, our house SMELLS LIKE SHIT literally. I tried to watch an episode of The OC in the lounge room but couldn't cope with the smell. So goodnight everyone else but heaven knows how I shall sleep tonight...

I've discovered looking up 90s music on youtube

I'm basically avoiding going to bed, because I have massive intense stomach pains again (I ate too much) and I know I won't sleep anyway. And there's a fucking storm. And I wanna go rescue Murphy because we have fucking rats/possums somewhere in our house (Mum's found rat/mice poo, eeeeeeewwwwww) and therefore we have poison squirted up under the house and we've found 2 dead mice/rats around the backyard and what if Murphy ate one? What if my beautiful angel baby boy died?

Nothing interesting happened today. According to my payslip I got paid for last Wednesday, when my car refused to start and text-messaged my supervisor 'my car is fucked....' I am so amused I got paid for this, even though I'm contracted. They never get the pay right, but most of the time they fuck it up in my favour, so whatever.

However I do pay attention to the music soundtrack at Big W, and I must say today was a massive improvement. 90% of the time, I swear I listen to Tina Arena's Sorrento Moon OVER AND OVER AGAIN, but today: Sia, Old Coldplay (as in like Shiver and stuff off Parachutes) and more Whitney Houston and Jeff Buckley! It wasn't even Hallelujah it was Dream Brother I think wow because Mojo Pin or Grace or Last Goodbye are so much more predictable.

Abby Dobson - Free As A Bird:


(I have loved this since the days of "The Secret Life of Us"

Tina Arena - Chains

I have too many jackets

in typing the title for this blog post i realised i have too many titles that start with 'i____'.

It's day 3 of my holidays. I literally spent most of today either lying down on the couch watching episode catch-ups of Brothers & Sisters (3), or 1 episode of The OC before I cracked it at the dvd player in the 'good room' (some kid I know who works in IT tells me computers have feelings and I should be kind to them, I thought that perhaps expressing my feelings to this magical silver box would improve our relationship, but we didn't quite get to the make-up sex part because the box wouldn't forgive me for my temper tantrum)...oh and I've nearly finished Anthony Kiedis' biography which is really depressing because now I have to start another book and we all hate starting new books. At some point I went for a walk & ran into a lovely friend of mine & her bf bike-riding, it's her 22nd birthday today, HAPPY BIRTHDAY girl.

So basically I am avoiding going to bed because I cbf putting the clean sheets on it. And we have critters in the wall and gah. I finished the peanut butter jar today & I'm feeling a bit sickly, I ate it out of the jar with a spoon and it's been a while since I've done that in excessive proportions.

Tomorrow as it's not a public holiday I will go to pilates at the gym & I shall walk & I shall clean up my floordrobe and I will catch up on some old uni reading. I've spent significantly less time stalking people on facebook in the last few days which is amazing because I thought I'd be right onto it once I finished this semester.

Okay I really should go to bed now. Perhaps I napped for 3 hours to catch up on the few weeks of going to bed after midnight? GOODNIGHT.

an excessively long summary of the last little while

There is so much I could write about in the last week;

1. I finished the uni semester! Probably failed the law unit but I did at least finish it!

2. Also managed to smash 'Leading Sustainable Change' essay out in 3 days!

3. Went out on Friday night with my uni buddies! Tried Nepalese food for the first time & actually liked it! Drank too much red wine for my little body to handle! Stopped at LJ's house on the way home & met her beautiful dog at midnight! So much fun!

4. Car totally fucked up on me on Wednesday morning! Was ten mins away from home, away getting coffee in order to power through essays till midnight for the 5th night in a row or some dreadful shit like that, car wouldn't start on way home. Called Dad = end result being no help. So, RACV came within half an hour & tow truck another TWO. HOURS. LATE. I wasn't too concerned about the car really, I was just FREEZING my ass off sitting in my car when it was like 5 degrees outside with no layers & no heater, and I wanted to do study before work & hence sitting in the car listening to the radio for 3 hours was totally unproductive. Fuck. Turns out the 'fuel injection' or 'fuel pump' or something was fucked. To be quite honest because I don't drive my car further than 15km one way, and it sometimes sits in the street for a few days, and this routine has continued for many years...well we've been waiting for something like this to happen. And now the thing (i.e, the car) has to go back to Dad's work, because the thing that shows you how much petrol in your tank is stuffed. I'm actually quite proud of myself for even noticing it was stuffed. God I am totally just NOT mechanical. According to a guy from work if my Dad is a mechanic I should know this stuff; god forbid I should even be interested in it, but NO.

5. Having a mechanic for a father & a screwed up fuel pump meant I had to accompany him to work on Thursday morning (6:30am, mind) to collect said baby car. The idea being that I would then drive car home where it belongs. In short, I should never 'wing' directions home from unidentified Greek suburb I'm not familiar with. Had to call father & complain that the GPS had been 'waiting for signal' for 20 minutes & I was somewhere near Dad's other factor for work & therefore wasn't far away. I think I drove around in circles a bit, I was vaguely where I used to go for driving lessons about 2 years ago, I knew I'd gone the wrong way but thought I could sort of work out where I was & vaguely recognize my way home. EPIC. FAIL. Dad eventually came in the ute & pointed me in the direction of Warrigal Rd. I may or may not have been on the mobile whilst driving in peak hour traffic (hush hush!). Took wrong turn, but did manage to use enough initiative to go around the block. I've learned my lesson, moving on now.

6. Lately, I've been reading 'Scar Tissue' by Anthony Keidis, the guy from the Red Hot Chilli Peppers. I'm roughly halfway through. He'd be an extremely good looking fella if he a) cut his hair and b) had less bloodshot eyes from drug use. I wasn't familiar with the extent of his/other band member's drug use until reading this book. I'm now wondering why, despite being an anti-drug, anti-rebel child, I get drawn to these autobiographical novels that are all about either depression, drug use or eating disorders? Why do I enjoy reading such miserable shit? Seriously? AAARRRRGHHHHh

7. Plans for holidays:
- Clean up the floordrobe
- Clean up the desk
- Do volunteering again
- Go to the gym x 3 a week, build up strength etc
- Read the 20 books I've been hoarding in my bedside table cabinet/shelf for the past year.
- Watch all the dvds I've also been hoarding for the past 6-odd months.

i resolved the peanut butter dilemma

Minor Update. I told myself I was allowed to procrastinate for 5 more minutes, so

- You know a little while ago I complained that my Peanut Butter tasted different and it wasn't salty and just wasn't the same? I figured out why. I bought the 'No Added Salt or Sugar' version. Damn. I thought the only difference was that I got a 500g jar, instead of 375g Jar. I mean, for someone who ALWAYS reads food labels religiously (a nasty habit of mine I picked up in my eating-disorded days), HOW DID I NOT NOTICE THIS? Because I would've chosen the normal version over what I bought. I've tried that 'Lite' peanut butter made by craft and it's SHIT.

- FRIDAY! As in, the day I finish all my assignments. Handed the law one in yesterday, quite honestly think I will fail because it wasn't at all coherent. And the lecturer is a tough marker. Please be kind, I've stayed up past midnight every night in a week and counting and it's not pretty. I have 1675 words to go, I want to make it to 2000/2500 words today but I'm struggling aaaaarrrrrrrrgggggggggghhhhh

- Need to find a way to manipulate the mother to drive me to & from Chapel St friday not. Alternatively, manipulate schoolfriends who might be going out that night to DEFINITELY go out Fri night so I can meet up with them & then go home with them. Because I really wanna go out for dinner with my uni darlings but the logistics of the occasion are always a nightmare when one has to travel alone at night, and driving isn't an option because I am an incompetent driver.

- This is made worse by the fact that all this shit has happened on the Frankston line. I went on this line yesterday, to get to uni to hand in my assignment, and then buy a Mama Dukes coffee. I arrived home to the mother standing in the hallway waiting for me, all nervous because people had been ringing up Jon Faine & sharing all their dreadful stories of the Frankston line & hence she was very relieved to see me home safe. Okay, so it's pretty bad, but you do have to keep in mind this is a minority of people.

That's it. Mum just got up and will probably duck her head in & see I'm not working, better open Microsoft word!

fights with customers over plastic bags, and the hills

It's Sunday morning, my facebook news feed has had nothing new for 38 minutes and I'm bored. I should just go for a walk, or go downstairs and eat and read the age, because I've only skimmed the entertainment section thus far.

I have 300ish words left of one essay and I'm stressing because it's shit and worth 70% and I don't think I did it right. The 'body' section of the Herald Sun (we get the Herald Sun delivered on Sundays, and Sundays only (for the mags), we're waaaaaay too well-educated to be reading the herald sun daily, got it?) has an article entitled 'why stress is making you fat' and i think it needs to be on my reading list asap.

Yesterday was gay, work was busy and it was raining and I parked next to L-plater and got driven to my car by a red-p-plater. One of my favourite pastimes at work is sitting in the lunch room, staring out at the window at all the people who can't drive properly/have road-rage fights/people backing into cars and driving off thinking no one noticed/people who park worse than me and those poor police officers that have to occasionally patrol the car park. Top quality entertainment. At the end of the day, Melbourne is over-populated, full of bogan people who have nothing better to do than shop at shitty chain stores/department stores, hence more cars, more shit, more pollution etc etc. On Friday I nearly got a fight into a customer about this(pollution): I HATE HATE HATE PEOPLE WHO WANT TO DOUBLE BAG THEIR STUFF OMFG IS IT REALLY THAT HARD TO BUY A GREEN BAG? This rant will not be repeated, however, it got to the point where she said 'do you want me to go somewhere else' and I was so, so tempted to say 'do you really think I give a shit' but lolz so funny I nearly slapped her in the face. I LOVE that when they ask me for a second bag I'm like 'oh...I just thought...it's just that we don't like to use too much plastic...' I'm so amused they think I'm trying to cover my back; really I'm trying to EDUCATE PEOPLE because I am a) much better educated and b) a snob.

I've also been up-to-date with The Hills, I read that Lauren isn't returning for the final I am soooooooooo dissappointed. Man. I'm not hating Kristen as much as I thought I would, I've recently decided that Lo is my favourite, she reminds me of Donna on Neighbours a bit. My other favourite was Holly Montag, I mean, I love how she just buries her head in her hands when Heidi & their Mum or Heidi & Spencer are fighting.

I'm disturbed I can write 500 words in <10 minutes blogging but it can literally take me days to write 500 words of an essay. Hopefully I'ma be a hermit until Friday then I am FREE and there will be no more complaining about essay writing until July.

watching glee with the parentals (you had to be there)

Oh my god, Glee is amazing. I might have achieved just a small number of things today
- 45 minute walk
- consuming half a packet of starburst sucks lollipops
- "working" for 6 hours
- parking my car
- watching 2.5 hours of television with my parents (Neighbours, ABC News, 7:30 Report, Glee)
- & Now I'm essaying, apparently.

I just love that my Dad doesn't get Glee, but still manages to enjoy it.

Dad: "These people are clever aren't they? How they can sing"
Mum: "They're clever because they can sing?"
Dad: "Just how they can...you know, 'feel it' like that..."

Next ad break

Dad: "It's weird this show, isn't it. I thought I could understand it, have a conversation about it but...I don't really have a clue what's going on"
Mum: "Oh, we know you don't get it John"
Dad: "But I can appreciate the skill that these people..."
Mum (interrupting): "The skill of breaking into song every five seconds?"


It almost topped his moment about 2 years ago, when he drove me home from work (I didn't have my license then), stating that
"See, watch, Elizabeth. I am at one with the vehicle...."


Later by Mum
"If I mention to the girls at work that I know who Sue Sylvester is they think I'm rrrrrrrrriiiiiiiight on it"


OMFG I CAN'T WAIT FOR LADY GAGA EPISODE NEXT WEEK!

placebo, analysis of songs/cd hoarding

Is anyone else a massive fan of Placebo? Yes? I've listened to Meds and their best of collection in the last 24 hours and am remembering how much I loved them. The fact that I love songs with fucked up themes/mental illness/drug addiction so much is disturbing...especially because most of these songs I loved before I even understood them.

For example:
Placebo - Special K (also Every Me, Every You)
Silverchair - Ana's Song
Alanis Morisette - Perfect & Mary jane, actually many songs off 'Jagged Little Pill'

all of these I remember loving in PRIMARY SCHOOL and it wasn't until my teenage years I realised how screwed up that was. Is it just that I'm a music freak/partially still screwed up that I try and over-analyse why I like such songs? Because I'm sure plenty of other kids my age (21) remember liking these songs as well, they just don't attach significance to it?

Yesterday I bought two cds, just two I've been meaning to add to my real (as opposed to iTunes) collection: Emilianna Torrini - Fisherman's Woman and Adele - 19. I'm disliking JB Hi Fi more and more every time I go there; they have half the stuff they used to, half their alternative collection is full of 'bargains' and the majority of their staff are....an interesting mix, but ultimately most just have no idea. Then again when I go to Polyester Records in the city I don't feel cool enough to be there, as though I'm trying to hard when I spend $200 in one transactions, and that the owner thinks I'm just trying to educate myself and actually know nothing about the cds I'm buying. Which is somewhat true, but, man, I'm a uni student, $200 is my weekly income, I wouldn't spend that much if I'd at least heard one song off the cd. Then again, I realised yet that it's an issue when one starts thinking to themselves:

'I'd better not buy that, because I'm not sure if I already have it at home'

I know it's old news, but I have 1800 + 2500 words to write. I have work from 11:30-5:30 and I need to book in somewhere to get my eyebrows waxed, pronto. And half leg. But that doesn't matter so much as I wear only stockings and full-leg pants. Fuck. Fuck. And I need to clean up my desk/floor. I think tonight calls for (after I watch Glee: it's worth me downing some long blacks and perhaps an apple & walnut scroll.

body pump made hilarious

In the last few days, there are two events to write about: 1. The Espy/Naboo, and 2. My joining the gym. I'm starting with number 2.

2. It's 11:30am & I've just got back from 'Body Pump.' I joined the gym on Friday, seeing as they had a new 2-for-1 offer and because dear mother bear is already a mother, effectively if I pay $100 admin and she pays $50 to drop down her fee, we both get ongoing full memberships for the price of 1. Now, I have endless essays and such to write, so to further procrastinate I thought I'd try out my membership, on a Sunday, when all the young groovy people I'd possibly run into are at home asleep (I'm not groovy, I was up at 6:30am) and it would be full of middle-aged ladies. The class is described as 'strength training class using gym exercises with barbells. No aerobics or co-ordination required - work at your own weight. Results are guaranteed. I thought it sounded like my thing.

So, I rock up, after fixing my as-per-usual carpark far far away from any other cars, and freaking out that the ignition was fucked again because the damn thing wouldnt turn on. Arrive, approach middle-aged lady who looked also to be attending the class, got shown how to set up my plank and where to find the clips for the bars and please realise here I have no idea what anything is called. Very nice lady. I've never been to a class, at a gym, on my own before, so I was terrified. Anyway:

- I used the 1kg weights for the entire class and it was very akward to look busy while most other people spent a good 10 minutes of the class making it harder for themselves.

- The instructer was STRANGE. She was one of those shit-skinny, body-builder types with pig-tails (pigtails in 30+ year-olds?) and bad lipgloss. It became obvious to me that lots of people were there because it was quite a good workout; not because they liked the instructor and felt some sort of loyalty towards her. At one point the song was JET'S 'She's A Genuis' and she was like 'this songs about me!' Nobody laughed.

- The class was very hard. Or at least, I found it very very hard and if my neck is hurting now how much is it going to hurt later?

- What I really hate about gym classes is the music. I hate that they fucking ENCOURAGE people to do movements when ITS NOT IN TIME TO THE MUSIC and gah maybe it's just because I'm a music snob, and I actually can play a musical instrument, but I just can't cope with doing lunges not in sync to the beat. Seriously. I also don't appreciate having the lift up weights in sync with 'go for gold' . It got a bit better when there was a mention of Black-Eyed-Peas - Pump It but that was the main highlight.

- I'm undecided whether I will go again?

angry girl music, the gym

The purpose of this post is to basically rave about how much I love Emily Haines of Metric. or at least her music, lol.

Emily Haines - Bore

Last night I was lying in bed, listening to my illegal copy of 'Cut In Half and Double' and I want the album so so bad but to do so i'm going to have to get a credit card & fight for it on ebay. It's not my fault I downloaded it illegally, I didn't know there was only a few hundred copies of the cd circulating in the whole world & that the album was actually never officially released. Hence, I didn't know how rare this stuff was when I downloaded it.

Basically, I think I've re-found my love for angry girl music ie. Le Tigre, PJ Harvey, Sleater-Kinney, and recently Sianna Lee.

Oh, and I got a gym membership! Mum is paranoid I will get obessive again. I find this hilarious really; I suck shit at gym and this is why I need to go. Saw 3 people I know in the space of ten minutes; glad I bothered with the concealer. My plan is to try out the classes and gain a) flexibility and b) some co-ordination wouldn't go astray either. I'll do weights, but I don't really intend on using the treadmill etc. because I prefer to power-walk crazily on my own and/or with dog.

Meanwhile, I've done everything except clean my room and do my homework. I have 5500 + 500 words to write in the next few weeks. Shit. And I'm going out tonight. I've just had coffee hence I'm shaking it's amazing. Monday is my last day at uni & it'll be my last trip to Mama Dukes for a while, absolutley DEVO I tell ya...

Anyway, I should go to work & battle it out with all the mothers at Sland car-park. Fun times ahead man!

It’s 10:30am on Sunday I’ve been awake for 3.5 hours and I have achieved pretty much nothing. Well, I’ve finished downloading the final episode of Season 3 of Gossip Girl (even though I’m only 5 episodes into Season 1), and I’ve written about 100 words of my assignment, I’ve had porridge and spoons of peanut butter (more about this later) and I’ve made my room like a sauna due to the heater, BUT. 400 words in a day is not much.
Five songs currently on repeat
- Sianna Lee: You Are The Sea (from Phoenix Propeller)
- Caribou – Found Out (from new album Swim)
- Hot Chip – Shake A Fist
- Sianna Lee – Molte (from Phoenix Propeller)
- Tricky – Puppy Toy (from Knowle West Boy)

So proud of myself that the Sianna Lee & Caribou songs have been released in the last six months so I can trick myself into thinking I’m up-to-date with music stuff!!!
So I bought a 500g jar of peanut butter a few weeks ago & I opened it for the first time on Friday; can I just say how disappointed I was? I haven’t had peanut butter in more than a year...I gave it up because I always ended up eating like half a jar in one sitting, and peanut butter is 1) quite greasy and 2) high in fibre thus I feel extremely sick eating it. However, I remember reading the nutritional information and it used to be 85% peanuts and now its 90% peanuts...which is all very good because the more peanuts the less sugar and it’s better for you and therefore its 90% healthy HOWEVER I’m not really tempted to consume spoonful after spoonful...because basically it tastes dry. Which I don’t get, the real natural peanut butter is runny and not salty, this new peanut butter is not really salty and isn’t as good. Maybe I’ll try some on toast later due the week and see if my opinion changes.
On a final note; without mentioning names there’s been about 4 or so birthdays in the last week so a big Happy Birthday to all those people. This resulted in me wagging work yesterday afternoon to attend a lunch in Richmond, which was quite painful to drive to (Mum drove, thank god) but my salad made up for it; it had walnuts in it! And prosciutto and pumpkin (I think it must’ve been sweet potato though)! And I learnt that salads are too salty and that I should never drink shiraz around young children! Because you lean over to pick a crayon off the ground and realise shit...I’m more tipsy than I realise...
My status update on facebook at 7-something this morning made reference to ‘that dreaded Sunday morning feeling when you realise you really have to get that assignment done today.’ I’m feeling it now, so, till next time...