It’s like a fruit salad, except sans fruit
14 Sep 2010 Leave a Comment
in Personal Tags: 35 days, flow of consciousness, more awesome than you can handle, shiny, sleep deprivation, writing
Before I begin, I would like to share something AWESOME with you (and this here is a pause in which I accidentally go and take interest in other things on the net before I realise that I was making a blogpost, oops):
After seeing and laughing at this video last night some three times before I went to sleep has caused the peculiar effect that every time I think or say “awesome,” it’s now sung by that guy. I also know that I endorse consumerism on a grand scale by saying this (hey, what’s wrong with a little indulgence every now and then, anyway), but I really want this shirt. And, well, since I got the ball rolling, I also want this (Bite Me! is an awesome vampire comic, by the way, I definitely recommend checking it out — otherwise I wouldn’t be contemplating buying it, right?), this (and the season after that, too) and an assortment of other stuff, too. And I’m not entirely sure why I’m complaining about it instead of actually getting all this stuff — might be because I’m rather conscious of the fact that I don’t have a job at the moment and that I would probably have to use some of my money on schoolies and on other, unrelated summer activities.
Which will probably mean that, come summer, I will actually have to go back to work again. I was planning on turning down the job re-offer when the new place opens (I mean, we’ve been pretty much guaranteed a spot at the cinema I work at that closed around June for renovations, but I guess that you can’t always be too sure), but I might have to accept it instead. I’m pretty certain I’m going to get a new job next year anyway, but before I find one, I’ll have to stick with making popcorn, then selling it (while enduring complaints from people that it’s entirely too salty/expensive/something else) and then cleaning it off floors when people are unable to aim at their stupid mouths.
Ah, retail, how much I hate you.
Um. I had a whole lot more to squeal about, like, how much I loved that it was all sunshiney today and it smelled like spring again and EVERYTHING was flowering in trees and in grass and it was warm and pleasant and then there was the little girl on the bus who sat next to me and brightly talked about her Tinkerbell all the way from the stop at the mall to my stop — she was incredibly cute, even though I only understood a half or so of what she was saying. Oh God summer is so close and I can’t be bothered beginning to study for exams and I sure can’t wait ’till exams are over an I wish they were over now because SO MUCH EFFORT and ahhhh, at least summer is here soon, and I can wear t-shirts (woah, I totally re-read this bit just now and accidentally read “wet t-shirts” and I’m like NOW THERE’S A DIRTY GIRL) and other colourful stuff. And short shorts. Mwahaha. And flowy skirts. And no shoes.
I love summer. I can’t wait for summer. I want the exams to be over already so I don’t have to get stressed about them. D: I’ve been relatively un-stressed for these two days that have made this week, and since I’m not going to school tomorrow to be pestered by my literature and English teachers, tomorrow, I think, will be a stressless day, too — I’m really finding that I like this stresslessness, was what I was trying to say with that.
I’m kind of getting tired. Does it show?
Day 25: Your favourite part of yourself
My ability to speak languages, I suppose. I thought this would be a difficult one to answer, because there are lots of parts of me that I like, and lots of parts of me that I don’t — and sometimes the two different categories overlap for different reasons. I think I’ve expressed my distaste for questions like these before, the sort of picking out simple things about yourself and then evaluating them. I still don’t think that it’s necessarily possible to pick apart a human being and say what is most important about them, what makes them who they are (because, whatever I may say, I think I do like who I am). However, I think I can also safely say that what I think one of the cornerstones of myself is my ability to comprehend and learn different languages.
This is because I love writing, and like I’ve probably expressed plenty times before, I think that it’s essential for a good writer to know their chosen language forward, backward and then upside-down. My writing process always begins with a feeling or a meaning or a gist of something I want to express, wordless in my brain — most of my thoughts are wordless, really, and only sentiments, and hence can be expressed in all of my three languages — which will then be expressed by picking the right words to correspond the nuances of that idea or feeling or whatever it is that I’m writing down at that moment. I love being able to do that, and I love knowing all these words with their precise, subtle connotations that mean exactly what I want them to; I love understanding how to do all of that. I love writing clever little sentences and I love thinking about people reading them through again — never mind the language I’m writing in.
Now I just wish that I could do that verbally, too, but I suppose that no-one can do everything, right?
Day 26: A picture/description of one of your scars
Day 27: The most stupid picture you’ve ever seen
Riighty-o. I’m sorry that this post seems rambly and doesn’t appear to have a lot of substance at all — ironically enough, since I felt like today I would’ve actually had stuff to talk about. Well, one can’t really do anything about one’s tiredness, can one? I’ll just say “one” one more time to annoy you. Ha. One.
Peace and spring flowers, dearies~
This title was already here before I decided on it
13 Sep 2010 Leave a Comment
in Creative writing, Personal Tags: 35 days, Following the Gay Umbrella, revelations, stories, writing
Er, hi. I’m sure you know me, I’m the girl who runs this joint. … Yeah, no, I haven’t been around for a bit, but I can explain that one — you see, there were things that came up and … Ok, look, it doesn’t really even matter; I have toe-socks, and hence any argument you can present on the subject of me having to have posted in this blog instead of doing whatever it is that I have done last week (mostly very unexciting stuff anyway, like trying to not die and having vigorous moodswings) is invalid.
See? Totally compels anything you can propel at me. … Yeah, I’ve even descended to the realms of cheap humour.
Who am I kidding? I was in those realms to begin with, ha! So, hi. I’m back now. And I’m going to pretend that last week didn’t happen, blog-wise, incidentally — because I find that when I’m feeling somewhat calm (if tired; but that might be because I didn’t sleep overly much on the weekend and DID sleep well last night, ironically and incredibly annoyingly enough, since I had to get up this morning and it was ANNOYING; maybe I could try to trick some sleep into me by telling my body that I have to get up at seven on a morning when I can sleep in after all, huh) and un-stressed, I don’t exactly want to begin doing something that might bring that back upon me. I’m going to do the daily challenges probably on a day-to-day basis from here on, again, but I won’t account for any lost days. Sorry! And welcome back, by the way.
Last week was both eventful and uneventful. There were many SACs and a practice exam from English — the latter of which was actually a pleasant surprise for me. I’ve never before been able to plan and write three full essays in three hours (and I even had half an hour to spare!), and I was kind of worried about that, to be honest. I suppose that you really don’t know what you can do before you try… It’s weird how, even when you haven’t done it before, somehow your mind (or at least mine does) accommodates to the present circumstances and copes with them, if only you have enough skill to pull it off. So weeeird. I don’t know if this is common for a human being, but I’ve rather recently (meaning in the past few years or so) become increasingly aware of how many things I actually do subconsciously. My discoveries almost frighten me, because it seems as if consciously, there is precious little I can do — whereas my subconscious is probably the most brilliant thing that exists on this planet.
So this is totally an exaggeration, but so what? I like my subconscious (ha, I just totally wrote “subsconscious” — I suppose that that scone I ate today totally left an impression on my brain as it did in my stomach [and my tastebuds, my dear GOD], too), and I also like finding out things that my subconscious had already figured out far later. Does anyone else do that — like, totally have this massively awesome solution to a problem, go back to whatever it is that they were having problems with and realise that, without actually noticing it, they had already begun applying the solution to the problem? I do this in writing SO MUCH that I don’t really even pay attention to it anymore.
Who am I kidding, it’s so fucking freaky that of course I pay attention to it all the time, probably fail and rant at my amused significant other for a while, after which he pats me on the shoulder and tells me that he knew it was going to happen all along. Seriously, this happened with one of my characters, in my novel (which I haven’t been writing for aaaages, but then again, I haven’t been doing much fun stuff for ages, either). Somewhere around chapter 20-ish, I had the abrupt realisation that he was gay (just a bit of background information: this wouldn’t be necessarily a surprising thing, considering that this is me, and I’ve been a major fan of slash [google it, I dare you], though it’s kind of dying now; however, I wasn’t necessarily PLANNING on making the guy gay, since I already have Dee, who is as omnisexual as can be). This was before my significant other had stopped reading the new chapters of my novel, and he just smiled at me and said “oh, I saw that one coming.” And it’s not a one-off thing, either: I look at some of the other things that I’ve decided to implement only later in the novel, then go back to some of the earlier chapters and realise that I was dropping hints about it along the way.
It is MASSIVELY freaky, and simultaneously incredibly awesome. That thing they say about stories writing themselves? SO TRUE.
Speaking of which, I’ve left myself a note in my phone asking for me to write a blog-post about language and sentence-structure. Since I’m feeling kind of happy and light-hearted today, I don’t think I’ll launch into a full discussion about what language means to me and how much I love it, but I might mention how much it annoys me every time my English teachers ask me to write shorter sentences. In fact, the whole premise of the English exam annoys me for the same reason. The best example to explain this is probably to use the context task (remember that essay I posted? That same task). The task is to write a piece reflecting on your ideas and viewpoints on the prompt by using “big ideas” from one of the texts we’ve studied specifically for this task in English. However, that’s not really the gist of the task — the gist of the task is to make it incredibly clear that you are a good writer and you have clear, understandable ideas; and, of course, to make it relatively easy to follow your logic. This infuriates me, because sometimes I feel like I somehow have to dumb down my ideas — or make them “more complex” deliberately, because saying stuff like “everything is real” is too simple for this task, as is grouping every nuance of a reality under one simple banner (which is something I am wont to do). Anyway, this means that I’m not allowed to express myself as I would LIKE to express myself, or to the extent that I’m able to express myself.
Along the same lines, my writing style uses a lot of long sentences and brackets (as I’m sure you’ve noticed), because that’s how I think — I think in looong thoughts, beginning at one point and then following through, sometimes making notes on the way, to the logical end of that sentence. Sometimes I let the sentence run long only because it would sound … the opposite of fluent (what the hell is that, anyway?) if I just cut it off there. I’ve always been taught that long, complex sentences are a sign of a good writer — though I do agree that if all sentences are long, the whole thing might be rather difficult to follow, and that less experienced writers (hell, I do it sometimes, too; and I’m not really _THAT_ experienced — I’m just saying as a general rule, not compared to myself) can’t always pull it off coherently.
Eh, well. What can you do?
Ok, I noticed that I’ve answered Day 21′s prompt and added that to the beginning of the previous post just to notify of the filling of that. I also decided I’m skipping Day 22, because I’ve got no very old picture of me on this computer, and I REALLY cannot be bothered booting my pc up for the sake of one blogpost (and I still want to go play Kingdom Hearts: BBS for at least an hour before I go to bed and pass out).
Day 23: Three things you want to do before you die
I suppose that this is another one of those prompts that ask you to be all epic and reveal all the grand masterplans you have for life — but like you saw in the whole prompt that I described the apartment I want to live in (day 10, I think — I’m not sure), I don’t exactly have any really cool plans for my life. And that’s really the way I like it — I don’t want to visualise this epic life for me, who really doesn’t want it. I’ve never wanted to be an astronaut, though I’ve loved looking up at the stars and studying the constellations. Well, that’s not entirely true, when you talk about it as a metaphor: I do have a lot of ambition, but I think that most of that ambition actually stems from my understanding of my own skill; I believe that there is much that I can do, and since I have the ability, I also have the partial responsibility to do as well as I can. Also, there is a certain satisfaction you get from succeeding…
But that wasn’t the prompt at all. Three things I would like to do before I die… I want to go back to our summer cottage in Finland, because that’s one place that I miss, back at the freezing country with its even colder people. Sometimes you need to surround yourself with nature, and I find the Finnish forests and lakes beautiful and well-suited for that task. Plus, I associate that place with warm summer rain, summer vacation, saunas, peace, midnight sun (oh GOD I miss that — it seems like the summers here aren’t just quite light enough)… pokémon, oddly enough. It’s just somewhere that I like and want to be.
A second thing I’d like to do before I die.. I suppose that I’d really like to publish a book. I just love it when people read what I write and tell me what they think about what I write, even if they don’t necessarily think too highly of it. I love to share what I’ve made, just so that I can see people reflect it, and… Hell, I just really like it when they come to me and tell that they’ve read what I’ve wrote. I’m not exactly certain what it is about that that I really like, but meh.
Oh, the third thing is probably far simplest — I want to own a cat. In the coming years, this space might become occupied by “I want a child”, but as of yet, I’m not quite ready to think that sorts of thoughts. I’d be fine with a kitty-cat. Do want. Stupid allergic sister & mother.
(I’m skipping 24, because it’s another photo-prompt, and I already know I’d just make up some excuse not to do it)
Day 25: Your favourite part of yourselfDay 26: A picture/description of one of your scarsHoly mother of pineapple but that became a lengthy post. I’m sorry. I suppose I had a lot more stuff to say than I thought, when I finally got the ball rolling.
I’m sure you all missed me terribly, and won’t mind, hee.
Love and orange-flavoured lollipops to everyone~
The distasteful rediscovery of music television (and other things, of course)
30 Aug 2010 Leave a Comment
in Personal, Thinking aloud Tags: 35 days, enthusiastic rambling, feminism, ponderings
Ok, so right now I should be both reading through my 30 pages of chemistry research for the industrial production of ethylene and doing math — probably simultaneously — but I decided that I’m going to write another blogpost instead. And eat snozzberries. I like snozzberries. Omnom. … Refer back to this post, if confused (hint: they’re red and taste like strawberries).
Anyway, so shortly after posting my previous post, I complained to mother about how I never seem to get school off my mind and that I don’t really even dare to try, because I seem to have to know and remember so much stuff at once — and she giggled a bit, called me silly and said that I should relax a bit, so I did. And ate most of a packet of chips. I have a Smith’s addiction, don’t judge me. Or, well, feel free to judge me, because mentally, I’m this huge fatty, but because of my overactive saliva production (just ask my boyfriend, he knows aaaaall about that one — mostly because in biting him, I rather drool all over him) and my otherwise active metabolism (translated to “I need to pee often”), I’m not, physically. And yeah, recently I’ve started going to the gym at least once a week, but that couldn’t have had much of an impact just yet — since I’ve only been doing it three weeks in a row. But still (I realised that I’ve been starting pretty much every sentence of this post with some sort of a conjunction; what’s up with that?), it seems like every time I go, it’s a bit better than the last. I’m BRIMMING with energy at the moment — something that frustrates my mother, who, poor being, is forced to keep up with my speed and rolls my eyes at “OH I COULD DO SOME MORE NOW” when I recover fairly quickly. I think I’ve discovered the gist of breathing and not wearing myself out too quickly (something I, as an ex-synchro ice skater [how do you even formulate that expression? o_O] have had some trouble with — I actually was forced to quit after ten years of ice skating because of various breathing problems): just keep my pulse under 180 — around 175 — and I’ll be perfectly fine for as long as I need to go.
Along with getting embarrassed at the noises some of the machine thingies made when I totally failed in using them (hey, no-one’s taught me how to!), I made some pretty interesting observations about the “wonderful” world of music television, something I haven’t had to endure for a veeery long time, mainly because I keep pretty far away from my TV, unless it’s connected to a DVD player or my darling PS3 (that I haven’t had time to play, either, sigh). I noticed that Justin Bieber (no, I didn’t actually have to listen to his whining, thank GOD FOR THAT) makes those same, overly dramatic hand gestures that people in music videos make when they’re being, well, overly dramatic in driving their deep and meaningful point (I think I recall that the name of the song was something like “Never going to leave you” or something similar — very deep and meaningful, eh?) across. They’re always the same gestures — the hand waving in the air before the singer’s face, said person looking away from or directly at the camera, usually leaning against the wall or something, with hardly anything in the background so that the viewer can concentrate on Justin Bieber’s terrible haircut — I mean, the way in which the artist just can’t seem to rein their feelings in. MUST. EXPRESS. SELF. PHYSICALLY. It’s quite silly, really; especially since the “artists” always seem to take themselves perfectly seriously when gesturing wildly like that.
Not that I can talk; signed, miss I-wave-my-hands-in-the-air-when-I’m-not-too-sure-of-what-I’m-saying.
Also, not that the other, common-for-music-television variety of music video is much better, really. There’s the RnB or rap or WHATEVER (I’m sorry, anyone who’s a fan of those particular genres — I’m more of a metal girl myself, and painfully oblivious to other genres and sub-genres of music) person — usually a guy — dressed in his overly huge clothes with their overly obnoxious logos and colours, with a matching backdrop, probably another guy or two — and some dozen scantily-clad women swaying tantalisingly in the background. I only caught a glimpse of this one, because I was pretty quick to look away, knowing how very worked up I get myself over music videos like these — I mean, the point where the camera first took a close-up shot of this girl’s CROTCH when she was wearing these short short short shorts (not that I have necessarily much against that, mind you, but CROTCH-SHOT?), that was when I decided that I should probably just concentrate on what I’m doing (cycling, at that point) instead of getting worked over something I can’t necessarily change.
I just want to clarify that I don’t necessarily get worked up over those music videos over the blatant objectification of women — instead, I get pissed at the women who allow themselves to be portrayed in such a way. As a long-time text roleplayer (it’s kind of like communal storytelling, just from a certain character’s perspective) in an environment that consisted mostly of teenaged boys, I’ve been subjected to a lot of “go to the kitchen and make me a sammich, bitch” and “you’re a woman, hence you suck.” However, I never allowed comments like these, and I’m very good with establishing what I want and what I don’t want said to myself. It didn’t take entirely too long for me to be established as an equal — or even superior — to most of the male roleplayers in that particular environment. And thus I had no sympathy for girls who would come along later and whinge about how they were treated badly, either offgame or ingame. I firmly believe that you’re treated just as you allow yourself to be treated — and I believe that the objectification or sexualisation of women is also the fault of the countless women who allow themselves to be objectified. We’re not allowed to go to men and growl about being treated like a pair of tits and a nice ass, if some women carry themselves like that. Do women with an ounce of self-respect a favour: smack a slut (unless it just excites them more).
Uh. Well, I’m glad I said that, in any case. I hope I didn’t antagonise any women who might be reading this post — I’m not necessarily saying that it’s ALL women’s fault, either, but I’m just sayin’ that sometimes feminists who are a little trigger-happy, or so to speak, don’t really consider this point of view.
ON TO HAPPYLAND, now — let me answer you a prompt.
Day 20: Objects or things that are in your bed
Oh, hell, I was going to take a picture of the plushies in my bed for this one.. *glances over to bed with its messy covers, and then back at laptop* Uh. Will you forgive me if I simply describe the different plushies I have there, instead of actually having to go through and sort them out — I’ll tell you what, if I can be bothered, tomorrow, I’ll just take the picture then and then update this post with it, right? Right!
It’s nice to ask these questions when writing this to myself, since I’m always right. Hee.
UPD 1-Sep-2010: Alrighty, after wrestling with my iPhoto a bit, I finally got the images to prance merrily into my mac. Geez. Apparently it’s a known issue, though; something they should fix at some point. ANYWAY. Here’s the furry things:
You might notice that there’s a few cows there — and I can tell you, there’s even more of those stowed away in my closet, waiting for me to get my own place and fill it with cow plushies and then eventually choke on lint and dust, because I’m too lazy to clean them out properly. Few of them actually have names (shock and horror as it is): the cow to the front right, she’s called Moo-Moo (originally enough; but hey, I was like 10 when I got her), and she was my first cow plushie, before I started actively collecting them. The bear at the front is Chocolate Bear, an indication of its colour, and of the fact that he was bearing chocolate when I received him for my eighteenth, and as a reference to Scrubs. The mushroom to the left is just a mushroom, but I had to mention it because it’s awesome and people have weird obsessions to it. Also, you can see Mr Epilepsy Pillow in the background. I love him. And, of course, the most important one who doesn’t actually live in my bed anymore, because I’m concerned for his frailty, but whom I had to include in the picture: the worn-looking elephant just left from Chocolate Bear is called Clever Elephant, and he was actually my first plushie ever. First, as in my parents had just brought me home from the hospital and had him and a few other plushies in the crib so that it wouldn’t feel so huge and I cuddled him close first. He’s seen a LOT, that one; and now he’s also become a character (albeit slightly altered) in my ongoing novel. :3 End of UPD
Aaaanyway, my bed contains pretty much everything. It’s an Australian double-sized bed (I don’t know how that corresponds to European or American sizes), which is pretty much big enough for me to sleep curled up, or diagonally, as I am wont to do. It’s a nice bed, and it has an electric blanket for when I get cold (I have talked about how I’m cold-blooded and my body seems to adapt to the heat of my environment and hence I get really cold in the winter, right?), so that makes it even nicer. I hardly ever make my bed, because that’s some extra effort in the mornings for a decidedly non-morning person. Besides, I’m pretty much the only person who lives in my room (my significant other doesn’t count, nor does the monster that lives in my closet), and I don’t mind it being all messy, so why should anyone else?
Also, during the day, or when I need to use my desk, I usually just brush everything off it and on my bed. If I’m in my office chair, I’m not in my bed — and so the stuff I don’t need or the stuff that’s in the way, like the keyboard to my desktop, is put on my bed, along with any piles of schoolbooks that I may need. Yeah. The short answer for this prompt, too, would’ve probably been “everything,” and if I was feeling really cheeky, I might add: “that’s on my bed.” Hee.
Day 21: Something illogical that you think or do
Day 22: A very old picture of you
Hey, that was the first time in some time in which I actually posted in two days in a row! I’m very proud of myself, even if I procrastinated my math homework for doing it. Well, my justification for that one is that currently, I’m only two exercises behind — and, at times, I’ve been about five. It’s really not a biggie, and I’ll be able to catch up (hopefully) after this whole Chem SAC thing is done. … That’s likely just wistful thinking, because I see more work looming in the horizon, but hey, one can have irrational dreams, right?
Peace and love and unicycles for everyone, and sorry about the rather word-heavy post. I was a bit enthused there. <3
In our series of sleepy shenanigans
29 Aug 2010 1 Comment
in Personal Tags: 35 days, pseudo-philosophising, shiny
There I was, merrily searching for apps again (I seem to be doing it, like, every second day or so, as a reward for myself for being productive [more on that later] — I’ve become smarter than I was at first, though, and I hardly ever buy any apps if I haven’t tested the lite versions out, first; aren’t I a good girl?), when my significant other logged on after being away for the entire day, and pretty much the… tenth thing he said to me was “there’s no new blog post!” There is seriously something wrong with your relationship if your boyfriend monitors how much you post on your blog and seems to be significantly upset when you don’t. It’s like we never communicate “in real life”!
… Of course I’m kidding, and I sort of love him for reminding me about my blogging responsibility, because I really do love blogging. Sometimes I just feel like searching for apps aimlessly would be more fun, or that I can’t be bothered moving enough to get a post started, or that I really don’t have anything to write about, but if I’m nudged a little, I suppose that it always turns out that I actually do and that I can. Sometimes I just need a kick (ha, Inception reference) to remember that. :3
And yeah, I’m feeling significantly better today. The morning was pretty terrible, with my half-blocked nose (I have this weird history of pseudo-allergies — I always get this weird spring half-flu, or something, but I haven’t actually ever been diagnosed having pollen allergy, and even if I do, it’s such a mild, irritating case that it could very well be just the SPRING SNIFFLES) and aching head and jaw (what’s up with that?) and everything, but after I omnom’d some pancake (PANCAKE, not pancakes, you heretics) — nah, I didn’t get French toast, I’ll just try to burn some by myself on wednesday — and painkillers and allergy medication, I felt a lot better. Not necessarily more awake, just better. But seeing as it’s Sunday (I just totally wrote Saturday) and tomorrow’s a school day and there’s only three weeks left of this term (holy FUCK YES), I had to start doing some homework regardless.
Four hours and thirty pages of research later, I was a third into my Chemistry research project thing. I’d forgotten how much I really love doing chemistry — I was perfectly entertained for those four hours — and yes, I know that I’m a freak of nature and everything, but I just enjoy my sciences. And knowing stuff. Especially knowing stuff. Oh, and rubbing it in your face when I know stuff and you don’t. Ha. … Uh, what was I saying… Oh, and then I did the valiant effort of actually writing up a poetry analysis. Here’s the perfect opportunity to go on a rant about how my Literature teacher sucks, but frankly, I’m a little too well-humoured to be bothered.
AND I applied through VTAC (Victorian Tertiary Admissions Centre) for a few university courses, and got horribly excited. I really, really can’t wait for holidays, and after that, I really can’t wait for uni. It’s supposed to be really awesome — and I’m reeeally hoping that it’s going to be. Imagine that! Studying something that you really want to with people who want to study it, too, as taught by people who know what they’re doing in this huuuuge area with lots of buildings and opportunities for getting lost. Guh. I am so sold.
So anyway, I’ve had a pretty productive day today, but otherwise it hasn’t been really interesting. My brain’s been pretty empty of any sorts of thoughts or ideas or anything, and I’m feeling kind of mellow, but at the same time, extremely uninteresting (everybody totally feels extremely uninteresting a lot, right? It’s normal, right?). In fact, so extremely uninteresting that I really don’t have anything more to add (yes, yes, I know, Inception, but I’ve not been thinking anything for the entire day [I suppose I'm still rather tired], and I really can’t find myself really interested in thinking about/writing about that movie right now, however much I liked it; sorry), and will just go ahead and catch up with the prompts that I’ve missed. I answered wednesday and thursday’s yesterday, so I have… three more left to go. Right? Right. There’s no-one there to tell me how wrong I am, anyway, so NYAH at you.
Day 17: Something you don’t want people to ask you about
Oh, I generally love answering questions that people pose to me, because I really like talking about myself. In fact, I’m a lot better at answering questions than I am at actually coming up with things to tell about myself on the spot — but if you go deeper than just the sort of “I like to talk about myself, hence I like answering questions,” it’s not actually about me being extremely open to everyone around me at all. On the contrary, it’s a sort of a self-defense mechanism: if I wait for someone to ask something about me, I know what they’re expecting (and that’s mostly why I’m so good at school — I usually know what questions mean and what they’re asking for and what information teachers wish me to give), and I can shape my answer accordingly. If I am to actually offer any information, it’s completely different — I won’t know how it’s going to be received, and I risk getting hurt by getting a negative reaction.
It seems kind of ridiculous and that I’m uncertain of myself — and, well, I suppose I kind of am — but sensitive people get hurt by the smallest things (I’ve learnt this the hard way), and we’ve got to protect ourselves some way.
Day 18: A daily ritual/routine
Waking up, eating breakfast, having a shower, getting dressed, leaving for school? At the moment, I don’t really have any interesting daily rituals, because mostly my days consist of getting up, going to school, coming home from school, lying in the bed dead for an hour or a few (sometimes, in the gravest of situations, falling asleep), having dinner, frantically doing homework and then going to sleep again, after getting thirty minutes of Chuzzle (this adorable game on my iPhone — I really can’t be bothered looking for a link for you right now; you should find it if you google it, it’s pretty popular and ADORABLE and addictive and all other praise that I can’t think of right now) or some other superficial relaxation in. Lather, rinse and repeat.
I wish my life was more interesting and quirky and I’d have something more to tell you about. Next year — or during the holidays (even though those will be mostly “get up in the middle of the day, have brunch, study, have dinner, study, sleep”, I suppose) — I hope.
Oh! Well, I have a few WEEKLY routines, like every Wednesday and Saturday (except the next ones, sadly), my boyfriend and I go and do something together — usually come back to my place, because it’s closer to the school. Sometimes he stays for dinner. It’s not really a ritual, though, because we don’t exactly have this certain way of doing things. We like not to fall into a routine.
Day 19: Five things you like about yourself
I despise listing questions like this. I’ve never been able to work out three or more things that I like (or don’t) about myself. What do you classify as a trait that applies to this? If I say “I like that I’m pretty,” is that too, well, arrogant, for one, and for another, is it too broad a topic? Shouldn’t I be saying something like “I have a cute nose” or “I have a pretty smile” or “I have a good sense of balance” (you’d not believe that one, though, from the amount of times I report having walked into a doorframe or a wall or something, but it’s true!) or something like that? How about personality traits? Is “I’m generally happy” one that applies, or should I specify why?
The problem is that as much as you define yourself, so does your environment and the people around you. I like myself when I’m surrounded by the people I love, who complete me and who understand me, and I don’t necessarily have to try to work myself out or explain myself to myself, because whatever I do, I know that I’m loved and I know that I’m understood. I’m too important to be broken up into five simple things about myself — I’m too much of a complex character to even begin stating only five different things that make me the awesome person that I am (because I think that everybody should be entitled to think that they are awesome, because to them, they are) — I’m too much loved. And so is everybody else.
Day 20: Objects or things that are in your bed
Day 21: Something illogical that you think or do
Yep, that’s me finished. I’m sorry I’ve been so tired or empty or out of it so as to not be very interesting. I promise that when I manage to get some relax-time or sleep in — but I expect that to be at the time of the holidays, because I have that huge chemistry report due on friday, and I’ve got 30 pages of research to carefully look through before that, and then to write the whole thing up (though it’s supposed to be only 1200 words — how in HELL will I be able to do that?), and the following week I have the English practice exam that I need to do some work for, and for the following week, the last week of school, I anticipate at least three SACs (math, literature and chemistry, the remaining three SACs)… So I’ll be fairly busy. … So! During holidays, I promise that I’ll not spend TOO much time being comatose or panicky, and at least some time being interesting for you guiz, because you’re speshul.
Peace and pancake, duckies!
Crash and burn and crash again
28 Aug 2010 Leave a Comment
in Personal Tags: 35 days, frustrations, ponderings, sleep deprivation
To start things off, I’m going to offer you a bit of visual aid in order for you to understand why I’ve been a bad, bad girl and not been posting at all for the past few days. This visual aid refers to what’s been going on in my life for those very past few days (and at the moment, but I’ll get back to that), and that, of course, is this:
Well, it was kind of coming, seeing as I was already passing out on a tuesday afternoon. It just makes sense that everything would turn to shit before the end of the day. Mostly, I think, this is just the pure mental exhaustion that I was talking about back in the previous post — and since mind and body are so closely connected, it translates to me walking into walls and hitting my head on things a lot. This, of course, combined with the slowness of my problem-solving skills in academic work makes me frustrated and upset, and the more frustrated and upset I am, the more energy I use in being frustrated and upset, the more tired I become, the more frustrated I become and so on, to eternity.
So, simply put, nothing really works this week. Or maybe it hasn’t been an exceptionally bad week, per se, but since I’ve been already upset and emotional, I’ve just been picking up the worst things about it; like how childish some of my classmates can be. How is it, that teenagers always sound so bloody arrogant? I know that I am eager of giving my opinion on all things from elephants (seriously, ever since Arthur, in Inception, said “don’t think about elephants,” that’s all I’ve been able to think about) to history, but at least I THINK I’m rather like my father in the respect that I will give my strong opinion on only things that apply to me in a significant way — otherwise I’m usually (meaning when I’m not so tired) rather diplomatic and willing to listen to other points of view. Maybe not because I’m willing to shift my opinion accordingly to what other people think, but because I like hearing what other people think, and I think that everyone does have a right to voice their opinion — however silly or overstated that opinion may be. People don’t always see their own thoughts objectively, so they really can’t be blamed for their silliness.
That, however, doesn’t mean that it doesn’t get really fucking annoying. This brings me back to my original topic: the childishness of the late teenagers who share the privilege to call themselves last-year high schoolers with me. I could start exploring reasons for why it seems to me that I am sharing this privilege with a rather narrow-minded group of people (though I highlight that I don’t necessarily blame them for that), but most of them would seem rather too arrogant for me to feel comfortable writing them down. What I am going to say is that it is ridiculous for anyone in our year level to accuse anyone else of having an arrogant attitude toward answering questions or stating their own knowledge as facts, when contradicting someone else’s assumptions — I really would hope that people would grow up to realise that in accusing someone of being a “know-it-all,” all they express is jealousy and the very same arrogance they are accusing that other person of having. Hypocricy is a wonderful thing, isn’t it?
I’m going to seem excessively arrogant, myself, when I’m saying this, but what the hell, I’ll just go forward and let anyone I know hate me for it: sometimes I get tired of waiting for people to stop staring at their own fucking navels and growing the fuck up.
There’s a thousand and one other things on my mind at the moment, but that’s perhaps the main reason for not being able to form those thoughts coherently. It’s difficult enough for me to follow one strand of thought at a time, not to even mention this jumble of emotions and thoughts and ideas that are filling my head in this huge mess of thought-yarn at the moment. I’ll see if I can sort them out for next week, or tomorrow, or whatever (except tomorrow I’ll have to go back to homework — I hope that focusing solely on one thing, like I do, will let me stop feeling like everything’s just tumbling on around me and I’m having great trouble keeping up), and maybe then I can share. I doubt it, though, so don’t get your hopes up.
As you might guess, I have many of these “35 days” prompts to fill, today, so I’ll try to keep my answers as short and sweet as possible.
Day 15: A movie that made you cry
All of them.
No, I’m not even kidding — there’s been very few movies that I’ve seen that have not made me cry, and even in some of those, I would have, if I hadn’t been biting my tongue hard as hell. I cry in sad movies for the obvious reasons, and in happy movies because I’m so happy. Yeah, I cry at both extreme ends of the emotional spectrum — and swing between them every five minutes or so. Such is the life of a sensitive human being.
Day 16: Something you’ve procrastinated doing
… Would you let me off the hook if I’d answer “everything” to this, too? Well, the worst thing that I’ve procrastinated doing in the last week or month or so, is the posting of a birthday present to my beloved friend in Finland. She turned 18 in the beginning if July, and I bought her a present just a few days after that — the thing only got mailed some days ago. I know, I’m a terrible human being, and I’m also very efficient with this whole procrastinating thing.
I actually really hate procrastinating, as good as I am with it. For some reason, I have this thing they call a conscience, which is the main reason for the volumes of homework that I complete — if I wouldn’t have it, I probably could trash a few of these tasks of mine and be a lot less stressed. You see, I hardly ever want to/have the energy to do excess schoolwork anymore (shock and horror as it is), and hence I put it off — procrastinate, if you like. But at the same time, I feel so bad for not doing what I’m supposed to be, meaning that I can’t even properly enjoy the time in which I’m not doing anything. It’s the worst sort of hell, that one — you don’t have the energy to move a finger, and yet you can’t go do something stress-relieving or fun, because you SHOULD be doing your homework, and you’re not allowed to have fun until you’ve done your work. Which means, of course, as I have amounts of work that I’m not technically even SUPPOSED to finish, because there’s just so bloody much of it — which means that I never have any fun anymore. Boohoo.
… You know what, I’m getting so tired at the moment that I don’t think I’m making much sense anymore, nor being particularly exciting. Tomorrow, I’ll post the answers to the rest of the prompts I’ve missed — if I’m not submerged in schoolwork, that is (or comatose in my bed, which is, realistically, the likelier option) — and maybe some more interesting talk about, you know, what is going on in my head and maybe about Inception. If I can be bothered. Or am conscious enough.
Peace and soft, fluffy pillows, you kiddies.
A tired play that takes place in my brain
24 Aug 2010 Leave a Comment
in Uncategorized Tags: 35 days, authors and books, brain activity, reading, suspense, writing
At this point in time, I’m seriously beginning to think if I’ve somehow “calibrated” my sleeping times in a pattern that comes, not only after 10 pm (seriously, precisely quarter to ten, my body begins going “oh, it’s almost ten, we can start relaxing now — unless I’ve been to the gym, that is), but immediately after school, too. This was SO not the first — not even the FIFTH time in which I’d come home from school, eaten lunch (because I even had a short day!) and then thought that I’d relax a bit in bed by reading Cracked (ok, I understand that it’s beginning to get pretty much pimping right now, but I really, really, really love Cracked) before heading to do some hardcore math and chemistry homework, for my plan to be foiled by my drooping eyelids, difficulty to focus on what I’m reading and the eventuality of falling asleep.
To understand my bewilderment, you have to consider what I revealed in my previous post: even the Goddamned lunar cycle makes me sleep worse, which means that I’m an incredibly light sleeper with a super-efficient bodyclock that has the incredibly annoying tendency of waking me up some ten minutes before my alarm goes off. Also, I wake up to the softest sounds and never have to be shaken awake, if I know I have to be somewhere the next day. And I don’t sleep in cars or planes or anything that moves, unless there’s some sort of a horizontal plane that I can use and if it’s quiet and dark. This aforementioned piece of information about not sleeping in moving vehicles became especially bitchy to me during the, what, 30 hour (including the times we spent waiting on assorted airports) flight from Helsinki, Finland to Melbourne. I think I slept like 4 hours during that entire span of time, and that was only with a pillow on those tray things that you lower from the backrest in front of you, me bent over it all weirdly and in pain after it.
So, I’m quite at a loss as to why I’ve suddenly began to crave sleep as drastically as I have. At this moment (with my eyes still pointing in separate directions and my brain feeling like the slow mass of grey goo that it is [very good time for updating my blog, isn't it?]), I felt as if it could’ve been my subconscious complaining about the dreariness that is the routine that I’ve been subjecting it to for the past countless weeks. Like this:
Me: [Goes through weeks with only doing anything apart from schoolwork and occasional chats with her Significant Other on one day of the weekend; otherwise procrastinates by reading Cracked.com, an assortment of other websites, and does her homework like the good little fuck she is.]
Brain: BRAIN NO LIKE MONOTONE. BRAIN DEMAND ACTIVITY. [Awaits for some change maliciously]
Me: [Is rather oblivious to the demands of Brain, and hence continues with the dreary, exhaustingly boring routine]
Brain: BRAIN GAVE YOU WARNING AS PER USER AGREEMENT. BRAIN TAKE ACTION NOW. [Angrily and abruptly ceases all activity]
Me: Blblblblgrbl? [Falls asleep]
But then again, considering the amount of learning and activity that I am actually forcing my brain to do, actively, every day — with all of my subjects, really — the absorbing of new information and feverishly trying to remember at least the main idea of old lessons and still trying to keep thinking about the plot of Inception and witty comebacks to pseudo-assholes at school, it would be perfectly reasonable if the scenario went more like this:
Me: [Constantly learns a lot of new things and goes back to revise old things, and while she seems to be resting at certain points by, for example, reading Cracked.com, she is really reading fascinating notions about pop culture and, well, culture in general, which make her generate her own opinions about it and consider the different aspects of those; etc.]
Brain: [Wheezing] Brain… can’t — do it! Brain not very good multi-tasker; Brain need time to sort it all out. Brain fascinated, but getting a little scared! [Rushes off to put out a sudden fire in one of the overflowing archives, looking distressed]
Me: [Is somewhat aware of Brain's pickle, and feels sorry for it; but keeps on reassuring herself and Brain that there's only so much of it left and after that, they'll embark on a lovely intellectual adventure where stimulus will be specific and hand-picked]
Brain: BUT BRAIN CAN’T DO NO MOOOORE! [Throws a tantrum, begins sobbing and takes an axe to the bleeping dashboard thingy]
Me: Bbhhhh– [Falls asleep]
Either way, it’s some four hours ’till my sleepy-time, and I still haven’t begun doing any of my math and Chemistry homework. It’s relatively alright, because the chem homework due date was shifted forward to Friday — and yet, I’m feeling rather skeptical for my physical & mental status on thursday afternoon, since I’m already falling asleep on bloody tuesday afternoon. Oh GOD but I am in need of a holiday. On the summer holiday, in which there won’t be any homework, this’ll be my brain activity:
Me: [Engages in pleasantly stimulating leisure activities whenever the fuck she wants, changing activities when the older one becomes unnecessarily boring]
Brain: [Excited] Ooh ooh ooh Brain want read now! Brain want beach now! Brain can’t decide — can read on beach now?
Me: [Smiling slightly, obliges to Brain's wishes]
[EVERYONE lives happily ever after]
*sighs* I can’t WAIT. But before that — I am so sorry, Brain — there’ll be a hell of a lot more studying and revision and practice and doing questions after questions after questions, and oh God that report SAC on Ethene production that is due in in less than two weeks’ time that I have no clue how long it will take…!
Day 14: Your favourite book
I like this question. As you may have realised by now, I have a sort of a passion with writing and reading. Sadly, I haven’t been able to do much at all of the latter, and very little of the prior that has nothing to do with schoolwork or this blog (but at least the blog keeps my creative demons from howling and rattling their cages too much), this year — that’s for perfectly understandable reasons. Also, I try not to agitate my brain further by giving it “useless” information to digest, along with the things it NEEDS to know for the exams around November. It was a sort of similar situation last year, and hence my bookcases — there’s three of them — have been collecting all these books that I haven’t yet had a chance to read. Below, you can see a picture of my bookcases (there’s actually three individual ones of them), a TV that is not connected to anything and random crap that I have stored there (the picture in the lowest right shelf is the “evolution of me”, as visualised by a friend of mine), and my books (yes that is the Twilight series — I USED to like it [but never thought it a literary wonder, mind you], got sick of the hype and now refer to it when intellectually discussing the Twilight series and its merits and faults): 133 to date. Some of them are missing, as they’re scattered around my room, and at least one is in my sister’s room. MOVING ON.
For as long as I’ve had at least 75% of the brain power I harness today (well, not so much to say about that, after explaining why the hell I’m developing some sort of a mild case of narcolepsy), I’ve refused to name my favourite book. There are so many different books out there that speak of so many different things, in so many different styles that explain things in so many different ways that offer so many different opinions and revelations — it just seems sort of blasphemy to pick one out of all of them and parade that around and say “this is what is most important to me, because it’s most awesome of them all.” I may be exaggerating what the whole concept of a favourite book entails, but that’s how it comes across for me. In fact, in relation to the context essay thing that I posted yesterday, I might add that the reading experience of each book becomes significantly enriched by the books you’ve read before that. Prior knowledge and understanding of language and ideas and how storytelling works, for example, give you a heightened insight to how some clever author is attempting to bring his/her ideas across.
And that is why you don’t give university-level novels/other works of writing to high school-level students, bloody VCAA. No matter how intelligent we are, we won’t have the necessary skills/experience to actually pick all of that apart.
But I do freely admit that I have favourite authors. As with music, my favourite authors are simply authors from whom I can read any books or other bodies of writing and enjoy them all almost equally. It doesn’t necessarily mean that I like their books more than I like the stray book from another author that I have liked a lot and placed in my bookshelves, but it means that whenever these selected authors publish new books, I am thrilled and excited and hardly ever disappointed. These authors, who have gained a special shelf in my bookcases, are Robert A. Heinlein, Neil Gaiman and Mika Waltari (a great Finnish author — and, incidentally, the only Finnish author that I like, to date). Check out any of them — I personally think they’re rather awesome.
Day 15: A movie that made you cry
Day 16: Something you’ve procrastinated about
Yep, that’s the sound of me heaving a huge sigh and helplessly glancing toward my math books, so peacefully lying on my bed. How darling they look when they’re closed like that! And what horrors those seemingly innocent, blue covers hold within them! Wish me luck; I hope I’ll still be alive when the schedule for sleeping rolls in, eh?
Peace and mushrooms (have I wished that already? I think I may have); take care of yourselves, and don’t get hit by a lighting. That’d just suck. Or be awesome. Regardless. Don’t do it.
She’s not a maniac, she’s a lunatic; get it right!
23 Aug 2010 1 Comment
in Personal Tags: 35 days, music, seasons
Oh, I know that I was going to do a whole music post today, but seeing as I already posted a huge wall of text, I’m determined to keep my blog at least a BIT reader-friendly, so maybe I should keep this post short and sweet. Ironically, the chaos that was the previous sentence would’ve already disproved any reader-friendliness the length of the post would’ve been striving for and hey, you know me, I enjoy writing entirely too much to write a blogpost that is less than a thousand words. Maybe I should challenge myself! But that means that I’ll have to postpone the whole music post. Besides, I’m too dazed to write it right now, anyway.
That’s mainly because my mother is a funny little creature who decided that since she dragged me to the gym once last week with this visitor card that she had gotten from there when she had been friendly to the receptionists there (lesson of the day: be nice to people, they give you free shit), she should totally sign me up for a two-month concession membership (it’s usually three months and a lot more expensive, but she’s awesome like that). So now I’m a member of a gym. I would like to make a HUUUUGE point of how she didn’t actually consult me at any point of this process, a fact that I still find so hilarious that I’m grinning like a loon (it did happen, even though I have no pics); but maybe I should try to content myself with “Mother Knows Best”, especially since today was fun and me and my slightly less crazy mother drew a loooot of weird looks as we giggled uncontrollably for a reason I can’t quite remember for the entirety of the hour and a bit we were there.
This manic energy I have right now might be because of that, or maybe because of the full moon that was last night and that will still prevent me from sleeping much/well today, because I’m a lunatic (c wat I did thar) like that. I really have no idea what it is about me or the moon that makes us not play very well together. Does anyone else have any sorts of problems with the moon, like that? With me, they’re specifically usually that I can’t sleep, no matter how tired I am — and it’s not a light issue, either, because most of the time I won’t even know that it’s full moon, until I go and check it somewhere and then go “oh, so that’s why I didn’t sleep last night.” I can’t really describe the feeling as anything else but feeling jittery — like, your body knows that it’s exhausted, but your mind keeps on racing at 100mph, even though you try your best to just calm down and… you know, sleep.
OH, and it was sunny today again, too! My weather app (I’m sooo addicted to those things, but surprisingly, I haven’t used any money on them since… the last time I did [very convincing, isn't it]) told me that it’ll rain on wednesday, and I’ll be very disappointed then, because today it was SUNSHINY and that meant that I could wear only four layers of clothing with my sleeves rolled up, no scarf (mother bought me a new one, since the last one became a black hole somewhere) and no delightfully rainbow-coloured gloves that my sister fixed for me (I don’t shop and I don’t mend my own clothing; I smell a failure as a female!). And and and it was nice, for a change. AND IT SMELLED LIKE SUMMER AGAIN. :3 See how happy it makes me?
I know that talking about the weather all the time may seem a little retarded, but I’ve always believed — and know — how profoundly the different weather and seasons can actually affect your state of mind. If it’s sunny, it makes a lot of sense for me to be happy — and if it rains for months in a row, I am going on a murderous rampage, after which I will probably attempt to shoot the clouds away.
Anyway, I’m beginning to get tired, so I should try to sum this thing up.
Day 13: A song which describes your current emotions
The short explanation that lyrics are usually very important to me, basically because I’m a writer, is rather necessary, when considering the types of songs that I might link. I haven’t quite decided yet… So I might link a few.
Feel absolutely free to disregard the video for this one, and listen to just the music. This one is because I never stop being madly in love.
This one is because I’ve recently been listening to this sort of juvenile argument about politics that is going on generally within my age group because of the recent Australian election; most of them seem to be very impassioned about their own points of view, and similarly uncompromising toward each other. I think this one always sums up my feelings about such situations.
For this one, specific lyrics aren’t as important as the general sentiment of it. It’s kind of distant, kind of dreamy, and it’s still the sort of soft, fortifying song that Poets of the Fall likes to finish their albums with. I love the “here and now” of it, and the “all dreams realised” — it’s a good song to show how fucking happy I am about everything right now. I wasn’t kidding about that grin before — I can’t get this smile off my face, and I really don’t want to. This song encompasses everything without having to be specific about it, and it manages to sound very simply good while it does.
Day 14: Your favourite book
Day 15: A movie that made you cry
Yep, that’s the sound of me being done and going to brush my teeth and then to brush everything off my bed (I don’t know why, but stuff has this weird way of accumulating on my bed) to try to go to sleep. By the way, I didn’t make it under a thousand words. I think it’s somehow impossible for me. Reader-friendliness — ha! Who needs it, anyway?
Love and pineapples to you determined people who have read this far today. <3
They told me that I talk too much, but I wouldn’t listen (doing some frantic catching up)
22 Aug 2010 3 Comments
in Personal Tags: 35 days, enthusiastic rambling, future, seasons
Now we shall begin by pretending that the last two days didn’t happen, because otherwise I will have to answer three — or four? it’s getting too late for my partial sleep-muddled (to which I will return shortly; I’m not AS sleep deprived as I was during the last post) brain to actually process how many days it’s been since my last post (or maybe I just can’t remember and aren’t man enough to admit it) — prompts in one post, and I don’t think I have patience enough for that. Also, the past two (yay, I remembered!) days were rather uneventful in themselves, so they don’t really carry that much relevance at all — unless, of course, they want to hear how I went to my significant other’s home on saturday and hang around with the curtains closed WATCHING STARDUST (which is a beautiful movie made out of a beautiful novel, by the way; I need to read that one again so that I can rave about its amounts of sweet and yet, awesome), which I’m just going to go on a limb to assume that you won’t, since I simply cannot not mention my bloody boyfriend every Goddamned post because I’m so much in love.
Hi, sweetie.
But today, which is a sunday (I emphasise this for clarity), I was forced to wake up rather early to go to this French morning thing for school, where they would — and did — go through pretty much every aspect and part of the exam, since there’s an overwhelming FOUR of them. Ok, so it was at least moderately helpful, and I now have a clearer understanding of what I’m supposed to do, but it’s just a trend that I’m noticing in almost all of my subjects (except ones with competent enough teachers, like Chemistry; or with subjects where we don’t have enough time for such nonsense, like math), now that the exams are getting closer: the teachers, ESPECIALLY in English, are very fond of going over and over and over about the exam, restating things that they have told us some hundred million times. I’m not saying that it’s solely the teachers’ fault, either, because every time we start going through the English exam — which also has three parts, two of which have two allocated texts each that we’ve studied this year — there seems to be some major confusion about which part is which, which text goes to which part and so on and so forth. I can’t understand how difficult it is to… understand, ironically enough. We’ve gone through it a million times!
The off-tangent rant aside, and even though I’d be rather reluctant to admit, this whole French morning thing (even though it DID rob me of some significant hours of sleep) helped clarify to me what I still need to study for the exam — and how I need to do it. I feel like I’m on top of my French studies for the first time in the entire year — and that’s a feeling that might just be taken away by our last SAC, on tuesday. But let’s try not to be TOO pessimistic about it, shall we, especially since the day looked like THIS:
YES, that is actually the SUN! I swear, this was the first completely sunny day in AAAGES — at least the first sunny day for which I was actually outside for most of it. Also, I really love Melbourne, as you would know if you followed my Twitter feed (which can be seen to the right — I’ll just assume that it has some sort of a link to link to the actual profile; I haven’t checked). I also love my phone (which still hasn’t been named, I’ve just realised; everything has to be named. The laptop I’m typing on is called The Terrifying Noveling Machine in honour of my first NaNoWriMo year and victory last year), which totally enabled me to take that brilliant pic of the city that is present in a Tweet about how much I love Melbourne as you would know if you followed my Twitter feed (can you see the pattern emerging here? I’m having fun; and I really love brackets). I’ve not been to the city in aaaaages,and that’s some ages waaay too long. I think it’s a good thing, though, because I barely resisted the urge to saunter down to Minotaur. I love Minotaur to the point where going there unemployed is a bad thing, because if you are able to walk into Minotaur and walk back out without having spent at least SOME money, what the hell are you doing reading my blog anyway?
I’m just kidding. But there’s a lot of awesome stuff down there, like a wall full of Sci-fi (I just refuse to call it Syfy — whose Godawful idea was that, anyway?) and fantasy novels and Hayao Miyazaki movies and and and MERCHANDISE, I’m such a materialistic bitch. But it doesn’t count if it’s books, right? Intellectual property and all? Right? *makes puppyeyes at you*
So, to recap my day: waking up so early was terrible, French morning was productive but boring at times, and a sort of unwanted wake-up call for how much I still have to do before the exams; the food & Boost I got were good, the sun was nice and all in all, being in the city always gives you this feeling of peace and being a part of the world. I really don’t get what people always say about how soulless big cities are — at least Melbourne is FAR from it. I love you, Melbourne, for so many reasons. I hope I will never have to part from you.
Day 10: Something you want from your life
Ok, so this is more of a short-term than a long-term thing (because I’ve just barely decided what I want to study next year, without actually deciding on a career or anything yet; and I always try to do the whole carpe diem thing of living in the now instead of trying to constantly envision the future), but I’ve always wanted to live in a small apartment. I very vaguely remember living in a block of flats with my parents as I was a teeny tiny little child, but most of the time, we’ve lived in homes big enough for all of us. A lot of space to clean, you know — a lot of space to organise. Currently, our four-person family is actually living in a house far huger than it would really need, just because we can afford it. … Well, it’s technically not ours, but anyway.
Don’t get me wrong — I do like the space and all; but I’ve always been the kind of a person who likes herself some organised clutter. Just look at all the houses I create in Sims 3 (yes, I freely admit that I play Sims 3 and I’m not even ashamed of it, you rude people of the internet): there’s always JUST the right amount of space, and not one square too much. And something about living in an apartment, maybe by myself, maybe with someone else (would have to be a hand-picked someone I knew I could live with, and wanted to live with, though — and I’m not ready to make such evaluations of all the people I know over the internet) just allures me. And maybe that’s not a dream as far away as it may have seemed, some time ago…
Day 11: A book you’re going to read during the next month
Realistically, this prompt should be “A book you’re going to begin reading during the next month, but which you will not have time/effort enough to finish”, because that’s been the ongoing trend for the past two years or so. I’m really hoping that I’ll be getting back to reading books once this whole academic pressure that is the bullshit that is VCE is over, because I really do miss it — and I think that my writing could do with a bit of reading as a manner of, uh, research into writing styles or whatever, too.
But if I had all this extra time on my hands, I would go and finish re-reading Robert A. Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land, finish off Eoin Colfer’s Time Paradox (I think — I’ve got the Finnish version, and that’s what it’s called, and I’m just too tired to google at the moment), re-read Neil Gaiman’s Stardust (just ’cause I feel like raving about it), and then tear into the accumulated works of various authors that have ended up in my bookshelves without me reading them. Yeeeah. Books. *gazes longingly toward bookshelves*
Day 12: Your favourite item of clothing
Uh. I don’t place so much value on clothing, you know, at all… And I don’t necessarily have any one item of clothing that is any more important to me than others. I do like clothing that is loose, comfortable and colourful. I like summer clothes a lot more than winter clothes, if only because they are usually a lot more colourful than winter clothes (and I always wonder about that — who in hell decided that “oh, it’s the darkest season of the year, maybe we should make all the clothes dark too, so that the people who look at each other and see everyone wearing this black and gray bullshit will feel even more depressed about the dark as they did before”?), and lighter, and hence more comfortable. I’m Finnish, and you should know that Finns are very comfortable with being naked (at least usually — don’t know about silly teenage hens [or hens/cocks of any other sort; I don't discriminate by age, I can't afford to], because they’re always the same, different nationality or no); just look at our saunas, and our national tradition of swimming in our lakes naked. I’ve always thought that clothes are to protect you; you’re not there to protect your clothes.
Day 13: A song which describes your current emotions Day 14: Your favourite bookThat’s all from me today, folks. I’m sorry this stretched out to be one monster of a post, but that’s what you get when you allow prompts to accumulate on themselves and let me start ranting on about things like that. You brought this upon yourself, you did! Another final note: I think that, in light of tomorrow’s prompt (hoping that I’ll be more awake tomorrow than I’ve been during these past afternoons), I might do this entire post about what music I listen to and why and what it means to me, tomorrow. There’ll be a lot of linking to youtube, if that goes ahead (assuming something drastic and life-changing will happen tomorrow — or rant-worthy, but hey), so please bear with me.
Love and snozzberries:
Are there even any creative ways to express sleep deprivation?
19 Aug 2010 Leave a Comment
in Personal, Sort of a review Tags: 35 days, seasons, shiny, sleep deprivation, slight angst, suspense
And yet another day of neglecting to update my blog. Sigh! I can say that it’s because I haven’t been sleeping a lot lately — which is kind of fine, seeing that I’m not actually feeling too bad at all and can function normally (except for the whole, you know, deteriorating coordination thing that makes me hit myself and walk into things a lot), but it also means that I don’t have enough energy for extra stress (which is a good thing) or any additional effort, like writing a blog — which is a bad thing, I suppose. I’ve never really been good with this sleeping thing, though, not even as a tiny little kid. Mother always tells me how I was an exhausting child, since I never slept any during the day.
It also showed in school, when I burst into tears in French, since my mind completely blacked out and my teacher is very good with making things stressful, especially when we’re supposed to have a conversation with her, completely in French. Speaking was never my forte, not even in English — so I hate that I’m expected to express myself orally in the end-of-year exam. It’s not that I don’t understand or know the language, I just can’t speak it, just as I can’t speak anything else!
Ok, so my oral skills (ha) have improved consistently since I actually started talking, unlike your average Finnish person, but hey, if I want to cling on to my perception of my personal problems when there are really none, I will! … Because that totally makes a lot of sense.
So, my excuses for not writing a blog post is that precious little has actually happened (since precious little ever happens at school — also, you’re probably sick of me mentioning my significant other every two lines or so, so maybe I shouldn’t talk about how we went and had lunch/coffee [iced chocolate -- Gloria Jean's, I love you so] and it was very, very nice), I am tired to the point where it has turned from beneficial in reducing stress to stressful, and I am addicted to my iPhone.
Well, it was kind of expected, wasn’t it? I mean, it’s shiny, it’s got cute and addictive games on it (like ROBOT UNICORN ATTACK), and heeeaps of useless apps that are just shiny enough to pique my curiosity and have me spending loooots of money on them. Sigh. Welcome, bankruptcy, I wish I still had my job…
Anyway, since my few days have been rather uneventful (on the sort of let’s-tell-the-world-about-it scale), I’ll go ahead and answer the prompt I missed, along with today’s prompt:
Day 08: Your favourite fruit
I know that it isn’t (or may not — ever since grade 3, it seems to have been some sort of a competition between everyone on how to classify fruits, vegetables and berries and so on and so forth, you know, to the tune of pineapple being a bunch of berries) necessarily a fruit, but I love strawberries. A hell of a lot. I mean, they’re reeeed and juicyyy and kind of sweet without being too sweet, retaining that sort of a tangy flavor sensation. I’m not too good with sweet things, so anything that’s sour goes, pretty much. Hence I also like pineapple, green apples (that bright green, sour kind), etc.
Day 09: Something that you’re really waiting for
SUMMER. You’ve heard all about this, but I want it to stop being cold (it’s not been too bad the past few days, actually — I’ve almost felt my toes for the first time in a few months, even though yesterday one of my fingers swelled up with warmth once we got home, that’s how cold it got outside), dark, grey and rainy. I’m perfectly ready to be complaining about the hot temperatures and the piercing sunshine again.
And holidays, of course, with the passion of one who hasn’t slept well for a week and will have to get up tomorrow to go to school, and on sunday morning to go to a bloody French thing where they dissect the exam so that your studying is made easier for you. I mean, it’s incredibly useful, I suppose, in terms of exam strategies (like my English teacher likes to say) and knowing what the hell I’m doing for once, but AT 9:30 ON A BLOODY SUNDAY MORNING, IN THE CITY, TO WHERE A TRAIN RIDE TAKES AT LEAST 30 MINUTES? I’m already sacrificing my whole bloody week for this insanity, and most of my sleep and my life and my.. sanity, AND NOW THEY ASK FOR MY SUNDAYS?
… I need a holiday.
Day 10: Something you want from your life
Day 11: A book you’re going to read during the next month
You kiddies try to sleep a lot more than I do, ok? Accidentally banging your head against everything that remains immobile (because the mobile things know how to dodge me already, lifeless or no) is really not fun.
p.s. I might not update tomorrow because of a severe case of tired (or of shiny), but when I do, I’ll try to give you some picshars of/taken on my shiny gadget thing. Just for shits and giggles, you know?
Turning software into hardware is impossible, thank you very much
18 Aug 2010 Leave a Comment
in Uncategorized Tags: 35 days, late at night, shiny
(psst, the title is a reference to the geek joke/pick-up line “you turn my software into hardware, baby” — I just thought it went well with the general feeling of the post)
Good evening, you generic kiddies whom I always seem to write to — it’s been a rather busy day for me, and if it wasn’t for my oh-so-great significant other, who took it as his job to remind me that I DO have a blog to write and that the 35 day prompt challenge thingomajig is a 35 day prompt challenge, and not a challenge that I’m allowed to stretch out when it’s convenient for me. I found this preposterous! … and yet, here I am, so what can I say. In Finland, we’d say, literally translated, that I’m “beneath his slipper” — to which I believe the English equivalent has something to do with toes and wasn’t significant enough for me to remember it.
Anyway, why the big day, you ask, since today was one of those days in which I only had four periods of school and was RATHER free to ignore all necessary homework (despite there being a literature SAC tomorrow — but I’m fairly sure I’ve expressed my sentiments on that before) and do whatever I wished, which mostly consists of me lying in my bed in a comatose state and surfing the vastness of bullshit that is the internets. I assure you, even that vastness of bullshit can be quite entertaining when you know where to look.
Regaaaardless, my day was significantly brightened by the announcement made by my father that the iPhone 4G that I had acquired in principle, but not in practice, as a present for my birthday a few weeks prior had finally arrived in store. It was simultaneously dulled by how my old phone decided to pick this very day to screw itself up completely, so that I couldn’t actually transfer any contact details from a phone to another. But how shiny is this thing! *gazes at phone in awe* It’s all black and sleek and black and sleek and… sleek. Quite classy, I must say, while managing to be shiny and awesome at the same time. As you might have noticed by now, I’m not exactly the most technological person around, since I’m not gushing over… whatever it is that tech-oriented people gush over when they get to hold something technologically awesome (and when everybody else decides that the least awkward approach would be to just ignore that stain at the front of their pants). Not that I’m saying that this phone here is technologically awesome — and yet, not that I’m not. All I’m saying is “I’ll be fucked if I know” and go play Bejeweled. Oh, and Robot Unicorn Attack.
As you ALSO might notice, you Apple-haters out there, these are not exactly qualities that are solely associated to Apple products, so don’t get all butthurt over me getting a brand of smartphone instead of another. I could go on and on about why it’s unnecessary for people to be so hostile over such a small, and somewhat ridiculous thing as operating systems and hardware, but I suppose that first world people have to have their problems, too. *snortgiggle*
Another thing is that I’m not as acutely stressed as I was before — might be because I decided to go “fuck it”, might be because I don’t have to worry about my old phone giving in on me (I was kind of getting annoyed at it recently), might be because mother dragged me to the gym she and father are going to and made me exercise (gasphorror — not really what I imagined of an afternoon of lying in bed in a comatose state and surfing da interwebs) for a solid 45 minutes. Or it might be that I’ve only got English and lit tomorrow, three periods of school in total, and I only need to start worrying big time on thursday. I mean, tomorrow, for thursday.
I’m not sure it’s entirely possible for me to ever write a post that doesn’t somehow relate to stress or schoolwork. Hey, I’m just ecstatic that there’s so little of it to go, relatively (and yet, every moment now feels like it’s deliberately dragging itself out into one painful torture of .. something, I suck at analogies), and very bad with dealing with stress. So deal with it. Ha! I told you!
Um, right, and now the primary reason I’m here, you sneaky little thing:
Day 07: Something that turns you on
I could really answer this in one word and then go toddling off, but I suppose that that’s not really the point of it, so I’ll start by a rambling preface: I’m the sort of a human being who doesn’t notice the most blaringly obvious things that manifest around her. I know I’m female and everything, but I hardly ever notice if someone has recently had a haircut (unless it’s, like, fire-engine red), is wearing new shoes or something. Hence, appearance really doesn’t matter that much to me — it’s more how you use it, how you carry yourself and project yourself to everyone else.
In other words, I’m extremely attracted to confidence. Any sort of a confidence, really. Not the sort of cocky “oh-look-at-me-look-at-how-well-I-can-drive-this-bike-into-that-wall-and-then-set-it-on-fire” sort of attention-seeking, but a quiet confidence of knowing one’s own strengths and one’s own limits and having no doubt about either. This is very likely born of my own, occasional unsureness and almost constant need for reassurance — –
I just realised that this explanation is becoming kind of moody and dark and more of a what-I-need-in-a-relationship-and-why sort of a self-examination instead of a lightly humorous recounting of what turns me aaawwwnn. Might be the time, might be that I really can’t think of a simple answer to that. A lot of things turn me on, if they’re done right — but mainly it’s the answer I gave before. Confidence is fucking sexy, just ask anyone. Confidence, but also a certain humility, impulsiveness and creativity.
Ultimately? Ask my boyfriend.
Day 08: Your favourite fruit
Day 09: Something that you’re really waiting for
Ok, that’s my disjointed obligation of today under my belt, I’m going back to bed to play Bejeweled. I mean, to sleep. Of course. To sleep. … Ha.
Peaceful mushrooms for y’all~
