Long-winded Blog

The Reality Kick

2012-01-23T19:18:00.000-08:00

So I've been engaged now for 21 days and after the first two weeks of going over all of the ideas that I've had in the last few months, I've started to realise that my wedding will never be the dream wedding that I want it to be.

I've always had visions of what my dream day should look like. I know the sort of fabric I want for my dress, I know what I want the centrepieces to look like, I know the sort of venues I like. But I've never really considered who would be there apart from "everyone". And I've never really considered who I'd have in my wedding party.

Back when I lived in Tassie it was simple. "Everyone" would be able to come and I'd have my three best female friends, Lucie, Laurel and Alice in my wedding party. But I live on the opposite side of the country now and I've grown apart from my best friends. I'm not even sure if Laurel and Lucie would come, and Alice has since ended our friendship. I'm not bitter or sad about any of that, I'm just a little bit confused as to what I should do. I dont feel like I know anyone well enough here to comfortably ask them to join my bridal party, and if I ask anyone from home it's going to be a symbolic role anyway. They can't possibly help me with planning from so far away, so I'm essentially on my own.

The obvious choice, as Ants pointed out to me when I raised some of these concerns, is to ask my sisters. But one of them in particular made me feel very unloved and unwanted before I moved over here, and while I love her and things have been good since I left, we're barely in contact and I suspect that's the only reason why we ever get along. I don't know if I could handle having somebody who told me she doesn't love me and doesn't want me around standing next to me on my wedding day.

To make matters worse there are at least three men that Ants would have on his side, and I can't balance out those numbers. My lack of close friendships has never bothered me before, and was one of the reasons why it was so easy for me to move away. But weddings are not designed for girls like me.

The second obvious issue is who I define as "everyone" who should attend. I was really excited in the lead-up to The Proposal because I'd been speaking to my mum's best friend while she was over here and expressed my concern that a lot of people wouldn't be able to fly over for the wedding, so I wanted a long engagement for everyone to have the best possible chance at saving the money to come. She told me that she thought I'd be surprised at who would come and everything would be fine. After that I was looking forward to the day when all of my friends and family would finally visit me over here. The people who matter most to me back home would actually be able to come and see my home and spend more time with my fiance who they hardly know, and see the life I'm setting up for myself. I'm really proud of myself and I thought my wedding would be the perfect opportunity to show everyone the progress I've been making and how happy I am, and finally feel like they're all still a part of my life.

Well, a few days after we told everyone that we're getting married, I was talking to my mum and the phone and she made some throw-away comment about how my grandmother and cousins and lots of other people wouldn't be able to come. I've been pretty devastated ever since. I honestly thought that a two or three year engagement would be enough for most people to plan to come. I really do understand how hard it is when we live so far apart, but I would always fly back home for a wedding or an important event. I had really, desperately wanted for everyone to be here with me.

Since that time I've had four different people tell me that I should fly back to Tasmania for the wedding. Or that I should fly back to Tasmania to have a Bachelorette Party. In fact I've even had a tonne of people tell me that we should throw our own engagement party. I don't want to plan a wedding on the other side of the country, I want to start our married lives together right here where we're building our future. I'm not made of money, I can't fly home constantly. My idea for a bachelorette (if I even get to have one) was to organise high tea on a date really close to the wedding so that most people could be here for both. And I don't believe in couples throwing their own engagement party. In the US, couples can throw their own enagegment party but they have a seperate bridal shower which is thrown by somebody else. In Australia, the engagement party and the bridal shower are the same thing. I can't imagine planning my own gift-giving event. As if to highlight that point, on the day that we got engaged somebody actually told me that if we threw a party they wouldn't bring a gift.

I'm just so torn up about everything now that I don't even know if I want a wedding. It's going to consist enitrely of Anthony's friends and family that I barely know, and hardly anybody on my side. It's going to cost me an absolute fortune, I'll have no one to help me, and to be honest I don't want a big wedding if it's not going to be equally ours. If it's not going to be our family and friends celebrating us together, what is the point?

So lately I've been thinking that I just want to elope. Run away to somewhere historic or exotic and get married and then honeymoon in Greece or something. But Ants wants the big at-home wedding with all of his friends and family. His attitude is that if nobody from my side wants to come then that's their loss. But it's my loss too. And then to top it off he wants to go somewhere cold to honeymoon.

How can two people whose relationship has been so seamless want such completely opposite things?

2012-01-08T17:49:00.000-08:00

I've set up a second blog to post all of my wedding stuff because I'm a little bit over-the-top and I'd like to be able to share it with my family back home. This one is a little bit more private and I prefer it that way.

I just wanted to write out some of the thoughts I've been having lately, because it's really starting to get to me. If I put it in writing then I'm hoping I'll be more inclinced to act on it.

I've always been a little bit angry about life. I think the whole birth/school/work-9-to-5/retire/die cycle is pointless and it's unfair that the majority of the world have to live that way. I always sort of assumed that when I found my place in life and started to settle down I'd feel differently. But as of tomorrow I will have held down my first full-time job for exactly one year. And guess what? I hate it so much.

It's not the job I hate. It's good work and regular pay. I like my co-workers and the office I work in. I like having sick leave and annual leave and the same pay-check every month. But I hate spending 71.4% of the days in a week at work. And I most definitely don't want to do it for the rest of my life.

Don't get me wrong, it's not the working that I mind. It's the working for somebody else. I respect authority and I like structure, and working full-time for a company is what I need right now to build a life for myself. But I'd much rather dedicate a larger percentage of my week to working for myself, working for my own profits and to my own set of ethics and standards. I dislike that my position is entirely dependant on if somebody else thinks it is necessary - and if, like has happened recently, one of the "powers that be" decide that my job is no longer necessary, I am required to perform a different role. One that I did not apply for and one that I would not be happy doing.

I want to decide how I want to spend the majority of my time, and I don't want to do it waking up at 6:30am every morning, an dgetting home at 5:30pm every night to cook and clean and sleep and do the same thing for five days straight. I want to enjoy my weekends and my weekdays and feel like I am accomplishing more than being a cog in the machine to help things run smoothly. I want to make a difference, I want to call the shots. It's my life after all.

The problem is, it's a really hard thing to do. I have no idea what direction to go in if the corporate ladder isn't right for me. And right now it is, it's the sort of career that lets me aim higher and better myself, while still getting that regular pay-check and being able to take holidays to see my family without going broke. But I know that I can't spend the next 50 years of my working life doing this. It won't fulfill me forever.

So what do I do? I need to find a way out of it, but what and how? I know I have things to offer the world but what is the thing that will feed my drive and help me to be as successful as I am capable of being?

I don't know. I'm so lost right now. Every morning I wake up and I'm no closer to working it out, and it's so depressing. I want to be actively doing something to fix this, but I have no idea what to do.

Anyone else ever feel this way?

I'm getting married!

2012-01-03T20:14:00.000-08:00

Just checking in to let you all know that Ants asked me to marry him on 2nd January 2012.

I am so incredibly excited. We're going to buy a house before we set a date for the wedding, so we'll have a pretty long engagement. I've been lurking on wedding boards for years and have my future wedding 80% planned in my head. I'll post my inspiration pics here as I go, seeing as Ants unsubbed forever ago.

I hope everyone is well and happy!

2011-12-04T21:22:00.001-08:00

2011-12-04T21:14:00.001-08:00

You know the hardest days of your new diet are over when the diet food that made you want to be sick suddenly starts to taste delicious...

2011-11-27T18:53:00.001-08:00

It's been just over a year since I moved away, and I realised yesterday that when I think of Tasmania I don't think of it as home any more. But even more importantly, I realised that outside of my immediate family, there are very few things about my old life that I miss.

I miss my family the most, of course, and I wish that I could see them more often, but the distance doesn't really bother me. Sometimes I miss my old co-workers - I definitely had a lot less "office politics" to deal with. Neither of these things are enough to entice me to ever move back. I know from when I visited for my birthday last May, there were more things that I missed about my home here while I was in Tassie than there are things that I miss about Tassie while I am here. I don't say that to offend anyone or to try to be outrageous - the simple fact of the matter is that I have a life here, and I never really did back then.

I always felt like I was alone. I'm sure that is a normal part of growing up, but the loneliness was always with me. I've always found it hard to open up to people, but when I did it never really seemed to help me. I have never had someone in my life that I felt like I could be completely open with. I've drifted from one friend to another, trying to find that bond that everybody talks about, and I've never really felt it completely.

I was the eldest of three daughters in our household, but I never really felt like my sisters looked up to me. My dad had a lot of time for me while I was younger, and used to spend hours teaching me how to spell new words, making up difficult equations for me to solve, or answering questions I had about the world in general; but as I got older all I can remember is dad working late and watching some tv with us while he was home. My mum and I weren't very close while I was a teenager, which is to be expected between mums and teenage daughters. My life at home was fairly normal, but I had a lot of internal issues and issues within my friendship group that I never felt like I could share with my family. I wrote poetry to try and explain how I felt but my parents didn't like the content so they sort of just ignored it. When I was 15/16 my mum realised that there was something going on, but her attempt at getting me help consisted of asking the school to arrange for me to talk to the guidance cousellor, and it never happened.

It wasn't until I was 19 and moved out of home that I started feeling close to my family again, but by then I'd learned to do things on my own. Even with the few serious boyfriends I had, I can't recall that I was ever honest with them about how I was feeling most of the time. I sort of just drifted through life doing what was expected of me, and keeping to myself. When I couldn't stand to be alone with my thoughts any more I'd throw myself into a relationship or a friendship until I started to feel better about things. This approach to life didn't always work out too well for me. I can't speak for anyone else. I'm not in regular contact with most of the people from back then.

After I moved out of home and started university, my life started to feel more normal. I got sick of the "club scene" fairly quickly and stopped going out with my friendship group, which killed my social life faster than anything else I could have done, but I didn't really mind. Having lots of friends has never really been a big priority of mine (what was I going to do, trust them all?) and the few good friends that I'd made stuck around so I was generally happy. Around the time I turned 20 I was still prone to fits of depression, and I still didn't want to talk about it, but I eventually opened up to my mum and she convinced me to go and speak to a doctor. I did, for all the good it did me. She basically just told me that I am this way inclined, as I'd been dealing with it so far I could take care of myself.

I met Ants and moved away and for the most part I've been happier than I've ever been. I think a lot of the things that bothered me about my old life were more to do with the environment I was in. Living in Tasmania is like sharing a bedroom with everyone you know. If you've done something you can guarantee that somebody is gossiping about it. People know all about you before you even meet them. Everyone knows everyone and it's hard to break away from people's expectations of you. You form poisonous friendships with people who bring you down with the best of intentions. Moving away from all of that was the best way of putting my life into perspective, and helping me to see the mistakes I'd been making.

I'm happy with the life I have now, and I'm steadily building a good future for myself, instead of dwelling on things but never acting on them, which makes me feel positive. In regards to the friends I had back home, I try to stay friendly to the ones who I've known for a long time, polite to the ones who brought me down, and I try to keep in contact with the ones who I feel are genuinely good friends. I know that moving away doesn't mean that you have to say goodbye to old friendships, but in my mind there is a clear division between who I was and who I am, and I know that a lot of people struggle to understand that.

In any case, this is the last time I want to dwell on my past. I'm not the same person I was a year ago. I just wanted to put it out there that I'm happy. I have no regrets. I stand by the things I've said and not-said, the decisions I've made, and the person that I am.

2011-10-13T20:00:00.000-07:00

I've been trying to plan a trip back home to visit my family. When I was back home in May, I promised that I'd be home for Christmas this year, since I missed it last year. I was under the impression that the office was closed between Christmas and New Year, so I could fly home for Christmas with no worries.

Then I found out that the office ins't closed, but everyone tends to take the time off and only one or two people stay in the office. After that I figured that I wouldn't be able to get the time off anyway. And then when I looked up flights, they were going to cost two or three times the normal amount. So that basically put an end to my plans to visit home at Christmas.

Then I thought, well if I can't go home for Christmas, I'll just book flights in mid-late January when the fares go back down, and maybe take two weeks to visit everyone back home. And then I thought to myself, I don't really want to go home for two weeks without Ants, but he's started his new job not that long ago and will be using most of his accrued leave on his exams this year. So he probably wouldn't be able to fly back home for one week, let alone two. So that sucked again.

And now one of my co-workers looks like she'll have to take leave around that time anyway, so I probably won't be able to go and see my family in January after all.

I've never felt especially close to my family, which might seem a strange thing to say, but it's true. I've felt the better part of my life feeling like an outsider, and it wasn't until I moved over here that I really felt like somebody wanted to try and understand me. When I had first moved here, my immediate and extended family would contact me quite regularly, asking me how things were. After a while they just stopped replying to my emails. The phone calls dwindled away. Now when I speak to some of my family I realise that I don't know how to speak to them any more.

I feel like if I don't visit home soon, there's going to be an even bigger rift between me and my family. I don't know what I can do about it. I don't want to move back there, I hated it there and I like my life here. It just feels so strange that my move initially made me feel closer to my family and now I'm not even sure how to communicate with some of them any more.

I suppose I'm not the first person to have this problem.

Things I Want To Do Before I Die

2011-10-12T18:31:00.001-07:00

1. Spend a Christmas in the snow in Edinburgh.
2. Spend a year doing volunteer work.
3. Write something meaningful.
4. Witness first-hand a significant world event.
5. See Versailles.
6. Take a cruise through the Greek Islands.
7. See the inside of an Egyptian tomb.
8. Have a family of my own.

Instant coffee

2011-09-21T01:17:00.001-07:00

Today I was sitting in Big Mug Cafe in East Perth, waiting for my chocolate milkshake when it occurred to me that I probably need to reassess my thinking.

One thing that never ceases to amuse me about human beings is that we often hold beliefs to be true when in fact we've been provided with no evidence to support them. I'm not talking about religion, I believe that those that do have faith in religion often find evidences which suit themselves. What I'm talking about is tidbits of information and ideas that we accept at face value and don't bother trying to ascertain the truth of them.

Like the whole "people only use 10% of their brains". I know people who are still surprised to learn that it isn't true. Or that eskimos have hundreds of words for snow (they have about as many as we do in English).

Well a few years ago I heard that you shouldn't pour boiling hot water onto instant coffee, because it burns the coffee and makes it taste bitter. So for the last few years I've been making coffee by pouring milk in first. I realised today that I have no idea why I took that factoid at face value. So I googled it, and guess what? Google has no problem with me pouring boiling water onto instant coffee.

My world feels all wrong.

RUOK? Day

2011-09-14T21:44:00.001-07:00

I wrote this post once and it deleted itself, so I've lost my furor and this isn't going to be as impressive.

Today (15th September) is RUOK? Day in Australia. Everyone is encouraged to ask someone if they are okay today, and try to prevent suicide etc.

Today on facebook, there has been an influx of status updates saying "Are you okay?" or "RU OK?". I can't see how this is helping anyone.

Not to mention that simply asking isn't always going to draw out the truth. In over six years of struggling with myself, I can't remember anyone once asking me if I was okay. But if they had I doubt I would have told them the truth.

The fact of the matter is I don't like opening up to people. And many other people don't either. Before I moved to Perth I used to think I had a few people I could talk to about my problems. I had three friends that I considered to be quite close, and a couple of family members I could talk to, and that was enough for me. Now that I've moved I've only really got Ants and I don't even always feel comfortable talking to him about my problems.

It used to be that I didn't like to share because I didn't see the point. I couldn't see how talking about my feelings would actually improve how I felt. Over the last year or so, I've slowly come around to the idea that getting things off your chest can sometimes help you deal with things. I used to use my blog for it, but sometimes, talking to someone you feel knows you can really help.

So my few close friends have always said that I could trust them and talk to them, as you would expect. But last time I tried to open up, this happened. As I don't want to give away the actual story, I'm thinking of a hypothetical equivalent.

I used to have a car. After I moved away, Friend A ended up with my old car. Now I had spoken a few times about buying it a new set of seat covers but I wasn't too keen on the idea as I wasn't sure I wanted to keep that car forever. It wasn't a very good car and after a couple of small accidents I was glad to see the back of it. Friend A told me after I moved that she was taking my old car for a test drive, and I told her that as long as she was really careful because the handbrake tended to come loose occasionally, I could be okay with that.

Next thing I know, Friend A has bought new seat covers for the car and has proclaimed that this is the only car for her, forever.

I wasn't too happy about the situation because to be honest, the car was pretty dodgy and I didn't think she'd taken it for a proper inspection before she'd committed to the car. But I didn't say so, as I knew she wouldn't want to hear it. I didn't lie and tell her it was a fantastic move either, because I'm not a liar. So I said nothing.

Friend B saw Friend A around this time, and Friend A told Friend B that she was unhappy that I hadn't told her how fantastic her new (old) car would be. Friend B told Friend A that maybe it was because I like to be more sensible, and when I bought my new car and was offered new seat covers, I decided to wait until I knew that it was a smart decision. This was untrue, but I didn't find out that it had been said until after the fact and to be honest I couldn't see the harm. The whole thing was too dramatic for me and I didn't really care anyway.

A few months later, I'd been thinking about my new car and had reached a point where I felt that I really wanted to buy new seat covers and settle in for the long haul. My car wasn't very keen on the idea and the new seat covers were just not going to work, so I had to wait until such a time came as I could find just the right covers for my car. I was quite upset about this and tried to talk about it with Friend C.

Friend C asked me why I was so upset about it, if I had already turned down the idea of new seat covers once. I said that I never had, and that Friend B had made that up but I didn't see the point in getting further involved.

Friend C promptly told Friend A, who told me what a horrible person I am and ultimately my life got shittier and I had no goddamn seat covers and none of my friends gave a damn anyway.

This is why I will never answer truthfully to my friends if they ask me if I'm okay. They'll either not listen, or use it against me to make the whole situation worse. Maybe I need new friends. Or maybe I'm just better off keeping it to myself.

Either way, if someone wants the honest truth out of me they better not ask me today, on the day that everyone is asking everybody and it's just a momentary thing. If you want to know if I'm okay, you have to be there for me on the days when I'm not okay, not just on the one day of the year when it's convenient for you. I'm not sure I know anyone who is capable of doing that.

Instead of asking if you're okay today, I'm just going to say this: I hope that you get through today, and I leave you with the knowledge that with every day you get through, you're one step closer to the day when it's not as hard any more. And when you reach that day you'll find a reason to keep on fighting through until there are more reasons to be here than not. Life can be really hard and really unfair, and sometimes it feels like nobody is there for you. Sometimes the people you want to turn to only care about themselves and their shitty cars. But inside all of us is the power to get through it. You don't need to get better or change the world or do anything ground-breaking. Just get through it. One day there'll be an answer, and I promise, the sun will shine more brightly than you ever thought it could.

And if you're anything like me, the knowledge that I am strong enough to handle myself is far more comforting than anything else.

Multicultural Tourism

2011-03-26T01:40:00.003-07:00

Australian Tourists

American Tourists

French Tourists

Japanese Tourists

Anthony the Tourist

New Developments

2011-03-09T17:23:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since I've done anything internet related, and I have a good excuse. I've gone off computers.

Since I work on a computer for most of the day the last thing I want to do when I get home is turn on my computer. Expect this to change over the next week, but only because I want to get my copy of Dragon Age 2 today, so I still won't be online much.

Ants and I are moving house this week which is a bit hectic but I'm so excited. Ants picked up the keys yesterday and we went around there after I cooked dinner, and I love the new place so very much. I can't wait until we're unpacked and settled in there.

I've been happy enough since I moved here, focusing on what I'm doing in the present and generally living. It's very easy to forget that things change back home. Since I've been speaking to my close friends and family, things obviously change, but nothing too drastic. My mum's thinking about moving, one of my friends is going out with my ex now, but other than that there's not going to be anything that different when I visit home.

I got a bit of a wake-up call when I got on facebook today and discovered that my ex-boyfriend is engaged (not the one that's with my friend). It's a bit of a shock, I never really saw him as the marrying type. In fact he never seemed to see himself that way either. It makes me think about how much has really changed over the last couple of years. When you're busy living your life it's easy to forget that you're not the only person who is making big changes to your life and to yourself.

Anyway I'm in a weird mood now, not really sure what to think about life, the universe and everything. Good thing I have DA2 to look forward to.

(Except I can't get that until tonight, we're moving all weekend and I have an essay on Beowulf due on Monday. ((I hated Beowulf by the way. What a load of tripe.))

The Social Network(s)

2011-02-08T23:40:00.000-08:00

I don't think Ants will mind too much if I talk about him a bit today. He hardly ever reads my blog anyway, he just added it to Google Reader for the look of it.

Ants has a bit of a destructive streak. He likes to build things up until he is satisfied with them, and then destroys it all spectacularly. I don't think he'd argue with me on that. This week, he decided he doesn't want a facebook any more. All of his friends use it, it's the central hub for everything he posts onto the internet, and as well all know facebook is basically central to the social lives of most people under the age of 35.

Despite all of this, Ants deleted his facebook. He informed me of this when I got home from work on Monday. We then had a conversation that went briefly like this:

Me: Why? Now nobody will know I have a boyfriend on facebook.
Ants: I was sick of it.
Me: Put it back.
Ants: No.
Me: What are you, like, 55?
Ants: Why 55?
Me: That's like the oldest person I know who doesn't have a facebook.

Everyone has a facebook. My parents, my sisters, my aunts and uncles. My grandfather just joined. In fact, I know very few people who do not have a facebook, or do not have access to a facebook account.

There is a lot of debate over social networking in the last few years (despite the fact that the world clearly has bigger fish to fry; Burma, Iraq, Haiti, Egypt, the list keeps growing). From what I understand of it, older people with outdated views on how the world should work feel that the technological social revolution has made socialisation lazy. People spend more time with their computers than they do real people.

I am obviously going to argue against this. Social networking is an integral part of my life. I would not be the person I am today without it. I will now explain why.

I met my boyfriend through social networking. We met first on youtube, which is a social network within the context that we use youtube. We became friends on facebook, which is that fastest way to get to know a person; or at least, to get to know what they want you to know about them (which speaks volumes anyway). Then we developed a friendship through Skype.

According to these older people, Ants and I spent the better part of a year talking to our computers, when in fact we spent the better part of the year talking to each other via Skype. We became close enough over this medium that he felt comfortable enough to invite me to stay with him, I felt comfortable enough to take him up on the offer, and eventually I felt that I knew him well enough to move across the country to live with him.

Now that I've lived with Ants for a few months, I can safely say that he is exactly the person that I have always thought that he was. We have a comfortable relationship, and we feel that it is made stronger by the fact that we spent so much time getting to know each other over so many different mediums. We had nothing to do but observe each other and talk. I talked a lot more to Ants on a daily basis over Skype than I do now that I live with him, because there was nothing else to do. In fact, I probably knew Ants better entering this relationship than I ever have a previous partner, despite not having spent much longer than a month together before I moved over here.

Then, of course, there is the fact that I now live on the other side of the country from my old life. Without facebook I would hardly ever speak to my sisters. I rely on Skype and text messages to catch up with my parents. I use email, text messages and facebook to keep in touch with my old friends (and snail mail, rarely). I've not seen a single one of them in person since I left, but I don't feel particularly disconnected from them. I may not see my baby cousin Asha every day, but I see her pictures on facebook and it makes it easier to be so far away. I cannot believe that if I didn't have these mediums available to me, I would have settled into my new life as happily as I have. They made the transition so much easier.

Social networking allows me to get to know people I meet now on a basic level before I decide if I want to commit to a real friendship with them. This isn't any more shallow than traditional socialisation. It makes it easier to find mutual friends and interests, meet new people, and catch up on what an old friend has been doing with their lives. This isn't lazy. Some of us dedicate hours every day to maintaining our online profiles. We want people to be able to see and contact us, and we want to be able to do the same in return.

Basically, what I'm trying to say is that social networking doesn't hinder our ability to socialise, it complements it. We have become more open with the world in general, and everyone mutually benefits from it. So what if "facebook makes people sleep with each other on the second date" or "people can go a few months without seeing a friend in person" because they've been talking to each other via facebook, Skype, youtube or any other social networking system. It is the same difference, if you ask me.

And you should ask me, I know things.

Ants reactivated his facebook on Tuesday, by the way. So I still have a boyfriend according to the world.

2011-02-03T22:03:00.001-08:00

A few people have been making comments lately about my lack of youtube videos. I've been feeling guilty about not making any videos since about 2 weeks after I moved to Perth, and the feeling is only getting worse. The reality of it all is that I don't actually have a program that I can use to film or edit video footage at the moment. I can re-install the program that I used to use, but I still don't have a video editor since I installed Windows 7 and lost Movie Maker. I hate the Windows Live Movie Maker and will undoubtedly find a new program eventually, but I can't afford to buy a new webcam and microphone either, so the whole endeavour feels a bit pointless right now.

I'm just finishing my fourth week in my new job and I enjoy it, generally. It's much better than working behind a cash register, dealing with customers all day. I do run out of things to do in the afternoons though, when I don't have any office work to help with and I've run out of things to read on Google Reader. If anyone has any suggestions as to how I can occupy my time now that I only play 3 games on Facebook, they would be much appreciated.

2 Minute Noodles

2011-01-30T20:43:00.000-08:00

Generic Brand 2 Minute Noodles in a Cup always* state on the package that they are a noodle "meal". Maggi brand 2 Minute Noodles in a Cup state that they are a tasty noodle "snack".

IMO, this is because uni students, who tend to live below the poverty line in the country, live on noodles. Everyone knows that. And in order to save money, uni students buy generic branded noodles, not maggi noodles. They are essentially buying a noodle snack, but the generic brand allows them to trick themselves into believing their lives aren't so sad as to be living on snack food.

When I was living out of home and living on 2 minute noodles, I bought Maggi noodles, but I also basically gave up on uni. Perhaps generic brand noodles are the secret to university success.

*Possibly only sometimes, though I doubt it

Not THAT word.

2011-01-30T17:36:00.001-08:00

At what point do people stop defining you as a child?

The world is a very frustrating and hypocritical place. That's nothing new to you, I suppose, but every now and then I think about things and they make me angry.

The night before I got on the plane to Perth, my parents had a Goodbye party at their home so that my family could all come and say goodbye. Most of my family showed up and we ate some things and drank a bit, and everyone was very sad that they wouldn't be able to keep in touch with me.

Feeling guilty about this, I gave everyone who knew how to access the internet my facebook details and email address.

I've been emailing some family members back and forth, which has been really nice, but a couple of months ago my grandfather joined facebook and added me. Since I live in another state, and am already friends with my parents, aunts and uncles on facebook, I saw no reason not to accept my grandfather's facebook request.

On Australia Day (26th Jan), I had a lot to drink and used the word "fuck" on facebook. This isn't the first time I've done it, and it was used in context; however, the next day my grandfather sent me a message on facebook, and CCd it to my email account, telling me off for using that "f" word.

For fuck's sake. I'm almost 21, I work a full time job, I am living with my boyfriend and am on the other side of the country.

I responded that my dad swears all the time.

Last week I was running late to get home and managed to get myself a seat on the train. I was wearing heels and my feet were killing me. As the doors were closing, a man in his fifties got on the train and was standing, holding onto a rail. A lady seated opposite me said very loudly, "For God's sake, let him sit down, geez."

I don't know for sure that the lady was referring to me, but either way, what right did she have? Perhaps standing for someone who needs a seat more than you is a mark of respect, but you can't force someone into doing so. Besides which, she was wearing flat shoes and had spent the afternoon shopping. I was in heels and had been at work. When someone got off at the next station, the man didn't take the seat anyway.

My point was, I don't know if the lady wanted me to give up my seat, but I shouldn't have felt like I had to. When I was a kid, and paid for a student ticket, I always stood for people who needed the seat. If someone had come on the train with a wheelchair or a baby, I definitely would have offered my spot. But I'm a working adult, a tax paying citizen, and I'm one half of a couple who is supporting themselves on their own with no government benefits. We take no hand-outs, we are both attending uni this year as well as working in order to better ourselves and contribute further to society. At what point am I allowed to feel like an adult?

I take the train to and from work every day, and I don't think it's unfair to say that a good 70% of seated passengers are men. I have never seen a man offer his seat to a woman. I'm fine with that, why should they? But that convention comes from the same moral highground which dictates that I should offer my seat to a fifty year old man, because he is older than I am.

What if I were pregnant? By rights, I should have the seat. But he wouldn't know, and I can guarantee not a single man on the train would offer their seat regardless.

Then again, the same lady who thinks that I should be morally obligated to offer my seat to an older man would probably be outraged that I was pregnant (in this hypothetical scenario, I am definitely not pregnant), young and unmarried.

Following this train of thought, I'm fairly certain my entire family would be horrified if I was pregnant. But my mother was married and pregnant at my age.

Like I said, none of this bothers me personally, but maybe one day soon it will. The hypocrisy of it all irks me. I've hit all of the required bench marks. I've finished highschool, finished college, I'm attending uni. I can drink, vote, have sex, get married, drive a car, buy a house. I work, I budget, I save, I moved away from home. At what point am I allowed to say "fuck"?

Anecdote #1

2011-01-26T20:14:00.001-08:00

My dad's best friend used to be a man who dad called "Nugget". Nugget was best man at my parents' wedding, and I vaguely remember going to visit him as a kid. He had a mullet. Dad hasn't seen Nugget in years, but every time he's brought up in conversation, I just picture Mick Jagger and figure it's close enough.

2011-01-23T19:59:00.000-08:00

Life is all about trying to prove to everyone else that you're just as outrageously awesome as you think you are.

The main reason why I love Ubuntu...

2011-01-19T23:24:00.000-08:00

... Is that it's so much better than everything else.

On my home computer I currently run Windows 7 and Ubuntu 10.10. I only have windows installed because I can't play Dragon Age on Ubuntu. I upgraded to Windows 7 from Windows Vista because Vista was taking 20 minutes to boot in. When you're a windows user, you don't realise how much time you spend waiting for your computer to loooaaaad.

So since I'm used to using Ubuntu, which is comparable to drinking a good bottle of wine when you've been living on goon, I am really having trouble adjusting to my work computer. Because my work computer is currently running Windows XP. And the only browser on this thing is IE.

It actually makes me eyes want to bleed.

Originally I wasn't going to write a whole blog entry on this, I was just going to make a passing comment on facebook. But IE crashed 4 times while I tried to update my status. So I opened blogger. It crashed as I typed in a title. So I'm saving this thing constantly, because when IE crashes it doesn't just freeze, it closes the entire tab and says "Oops".

Reasons why I hate using this computer:

1. If you print something, you have to give it a few minutes to think about what it's done before you close the print window, or the whole program freezes and you have to call tech support to log you off the server.

2. It takes about ten light years to boot in. And then when it finally does, it opens up a connection wizard. Every single time.

3. When I'm using IE with more than two tabs, every other tab flashes green at you, even if you've already clicked on them.

4. Everything freezes all of the time.

5. You can't change windows or alt+tab between them without everything freezing/crashing/closing.

6. The desktop is covered in shortcuts.

7. The colour-scheme is bright and offensive.

8. The colour and font I use for my emails changes half way through composing a message, or my signature on my emails changes with no known cause.

9. Microsoft Outlook's junk mail filter doesn't filter junk.

10. The splash screen is literally too large for the monitor. Which is a bit niggly, so I'll also add that there are 2 "My Documents" folders on here, one I can access and another one where everything autosaves to.

None of this would be an issue if I installed Linux. :(

2010

2011-01-19T19:50:00.000-08:00

I've recently started a new job working in an office. My boss has been quite busy since I started and has been training me whenever she can find time, which means that I have had a bit of down-time over the last few days. As I'm being paid to sit at the computer, I didn't want to spend all day playing flash games on facebook, so Ants suggested that I use Google Reader. Google already had 3 blogs to view which I am already subscribed to: Ants' 473mL Blog, a friend's blog which is no longer updated, and Charlie McDonnell's old blog which he abandoned. As such I've spent the last couple of days trying to filter through "recommended blogs" (which consist of computer programming, news on Apple, and people complaining about Android, which is what Ants mostly writes on) and the result is a very small list of blogs and the beginnings of a headache.

Most blogs that I have been reading have been reflecting on 2010, talking about the good points, the bad points, and where it will hopefully lead them. 2010 was obviously a big year for me, so I thought I might spend some time doing the same thing.

January: I spent New Years' Eve playing Resident Evil on the Wii with Dave, who I was living with at the time, and drinking wine. I worked four to five days a week and was anticipating beginning university. After a year of working and not learning much, I needed something stimulating to keep me going.

February: The lease in my flat expired, but as Dave wanted to keep living with me I applied to extend my lease instead of moving back in with my parents to save money, as I had originally intended. I started university, and quickly discovered that the only class I liked was Classics. I scaled back my hours at work to 2 - 3 days to focus on uni. I began spending more time with my friends from high school, whom I'd disconnected from during college, but were taking some of my classes at uni. This was a big plus for the year. Also in February, Adam suggested that I move to Perth. I insisted it was a bad idea, but thought about it anyway.

March: I broke up with Dave and reluctantly contacted my realestate agent to break my lease. This would mean I would lose all of my bond, but I couldn't afford to live on my own while I was going to school and only working a few days a week. My pregnant Aunt and her partner and daughter were living with my family as they'd just moved back to Tasmania from Queensland, and there was no room for me until they found a new place. I spent most of March living on 2 minute noodles and drinking cheap wine. I was quite heavy into youtube at this point and our collaboration channel was starting to fall apart. Ants found me on youtube and we began talking over facebook, which quickly progressed to Skype. 2010 would not have existed without Skype. I began planning a holiday to Perth to meet Adam and to see if I liked the city. I moved back in with my parents.

April: I had a hard time adjusting to living with my family again. My parents were happy to have me back and did their best to make me feel welcome, but my sisters and I didn't see eye-to-eye alot. I spent a lot of time in my room, on my computer, talking to youtube, friends, or Ants if he was home. The realestate company I'd been dealing with returned my bond, as my lease renewal had never been filed. I asked for time off work after university exams in June, and used my bond money to book flights to Perth. Ants insisted I stay with him. My committment to uni was mediocre at best by this point, and I picked up as many hours at work as I could, to save money for my holiday. My aunty had her baby, who happens to be the cutest kid in the world.

May: I had several assignments due at school, was working furiously and turned 20. Not much else of note happened in May, that I can think of.

June: The first part of June was incredibly busy, as I was studying for first semester exams, but also working every shift I could get to save money for my trip to Perth. Eventually, the wait was over and I boarded my flight to Perth (with several contact numbers in my phone for people I've never met but are friends of the family. "Just in case."). I stayed with Ants, which was nowhere near the shocking disaster everyone thought it would be. It was easy from the very beginning. I met Adam, which went quite poorly, and I spent the rest of my holiday with Ants. By the time my 3 weeks were up I desperately wanted to stay, and not just for the city.

July: I left Perth (and Ants) and returned home, there were many tears, and I announced to everyone that I was going to move to Perth after end of year exams. Most people said it was a stupid idea. Some people said they thought it would be good for me. I didn't care because I'd already decided.

August: Was a blur of working, saving money and hating school.

September: Ants came to visit during mid semester break. We went travelling around Tasmania and my family met him and had to admit that he is a nice person. He left and I spent the rest of September (and October) moping around, hating my life and generally resenting uni. Picked up more shifts and dropped 2 courses at school.

October: Starting organising goodbyes, booked my flights to leave and began thinking about revising for the 2 exams I would be sitting. My cat died, after being hit by a car one night. I was basically an emotional mess, trying not to let on. I confided in some of my co-workers who were so much more supportive than I could have imagined. Began organising rosters, work procedures etc for after I left work, as I love my old boss and wanted to make it relatively easy for her after I left.

November: Sat exams, went on a big drinking night with my friends to say goodbye, saw all of my family at a party at home before I left, then packed my bags and flew to Perth. Settled in with Ants straight away but got lonely and bored very quickly, so started looking for a job. Ended up finding work at a local Coles, working on a checkout, though I'd been applying for office positions.

December: I was very home sick through most of December in the lead up to Christmas. Moving to a new city was very overwhelming, I wasn't enjoying my new job or meeting new people as I'd hoped, and I missed feeling familiar. I was powering through Sex & the City though, and have had an unhealthy obsession with Vogue and Manolo Blahnik pretty much since I got to Perth. I began receiving Christmas presents in the post and I cried a lot. I got a job interview through a recruitment company for a position as an Office Junior, and had two subsequent interviews with the company. They offered me a job, which I accepted and quit Coles the following week. Christmas Day was lovely, we stayed at Ants' parents place, and they were so welcoming, I didn't feel sad all day. I got drunk on NYE, which I always enjoy.

Now it's a brand new year and I feel like a completely different person. Some time between now and the beginning of December I realised that even though I miss my friends and family (especially my mum) more than I can say, I don't want to be anywhere else but here. For the first time in as long as I can remember, I'm not worried about anything. Not a single thing. I'm just happy. I feel like I've found a place in the world where, right now, I fit perfectly. And I truly love this city. So as much as I reassessed my priorities last year, I think in the end I've done what I needed to do to be positive again.

I wonder what I'll be saying this time next year?

2011-01-02T22:52:00.000-08:00

Do you ever just want to give up on the internet?

Grinching it up

2010-12-16T06:18:00.000-08:00

I was at work today on the check-out, listening to everyone talking about Christmas. People are buying last minute tinsel and fairy lights, and are stocking up on ridiculous holiday food. I was already in a bad mood as I had to be at work, but it just made it worse every time the well-meaning girl on the checkout opposite said "Have a very merry Christmas!" when she finished serving every customer.

Christmas is usually my favourite time of year, but this year it's just not anything for me. I knew when I decided to move to Perth that Christmas this year was going to be tough. My first Christmas away from my home, my family, my friends and everyone I love was never going to be easy. But since I've moved here and my hopes of making friends quickly were dashed, I've got a job I hate and I'm predisposed to being unhappy, the last few days have been really rough. I don't anticipate it getting better until after New Years'.

After I finished work this afternoon I went to the post office and filled a post box with Christmas presents for my family. It's nice knowing that they'll still get things from me this Christmas, but it would be a lot nicer if I could be there to give them to them.

I know that a lot of the reason why I've been feeling so down today is because I spoke to my family on Skype last night, properly, for the first time since I've been here. Dad bought a new webcam because his laptop camera was faulty, so it was the first time I could talk to them and actually see them. And mum told me that they won't be visiting in February like I'd hoped. I've been really home sick basically since I got here, and I'd really been holding out for that visit. Now I don't have it I feel really lost. But I'll have to get used to that idea.

Anyway, I'm sure Christmas will be nice and everything this year, but I've never really been into it for the presents and food. I just liked that over the last few years, with everyone becoming adults and getting their own lives, we've still all made time to see each other on Christmas. This year I'll miss out on that.

Hopefully next year I'll be able to fly to Tassie for Christmas and I'll be able to be excited again. But this year, I just don't want people wishing me a merry Christmas. It just depresses me.

Julian Assange/Wikileaks

2010-12-09T07:47:00.000-08:00

Everyone is weighing in on the ridiculous Julian Assange "sex crimes", and I have been a little bit hesitant to give my point of view on the situation, as I think very differently about government than do the vast majority of people. I wouldn't want something I say here to reflect negatively upon me, and politics is the sort of delicate topic that you really shouldn't touch. That being said, I like to give everyone my opinions, so here we go. Lets have some back story.

In order to understand my view on society you need to understand my view of the world. We are all individuals in this world, and we choose to give power to other people to help us govern our way through life. That is to say, whatever chance we have at living a fulfilling life is whatever we make of our lives right now. In years to come, when we're all gone, the legacy of our collective power will remain. That's why we form societies and relinquish some of our control over our personal freedoms. Not just for companionship and security, but to help us make our mark on the world.

We live in a society which has consented to relinquish control, and allow our governments to act on behalf of us. We have done this so that they can worry about the things that we don't want to worry about, so that they can make the decisions we don't want to know about, and so that we can continue on in our lives under whatever happy illusions we can wrap ourselves up in. Our government helps us to deny some of the wrongs within the world, so that we can better seek out our own happiness.

It is wrong of us to give this power to our government and then condemn them for the information which they try to conceal. The system is set up not just to regulate money and take care of the needy; it's there so that we can keep ourselves in our safe bubbles of denial. We know this, on some level, we're aware that while we're meeting friends for lunch, making homes, studying, holidaying or spending days on end playing computer games, there are bad things going on in the world that we don't want to know about. And we don't need to know about them, our government acts as a nice barrier between the nasty reality of the world and the nice lives we cultivate for ourselves.

Wikileaks is admirable in its efforts to give the public information which it thinks the public needs. But the people at Wikileaks are not elected by the people for the purpose of looking after our best interests. When I voted for Labour last election, I didn't vote for them because I thought they were more honest, I voted for them because I can't stand Tony Abbott and the Greens didn't stand a chance. That's politics. I don't give a damn what the government chooses to tell me, knowing that people are being tortured in Iraq will not help me pass my exams or pay the bills.

Maybe that's ignorance. But the kind of ignorance which continues to deny that this is the way that we want our governments to act is much worse. You people who think that governments have no right to hide things from their people are denying the very fabric which our society is built on. We want to be ignorant. The reality is too cruel.

So this vendetta which everybody seems to have against Julian Assange at the moment is unfair, he's a man doing what he thinks is right, but it makes sense. He's stopping the people we elect to take care of unsanitary information from doing their jobs. The people who truly want to know what Wikileaks tells us will find out in whatever way they want to. The rest of us don't want it making front page news so that we're confronted with it when we're in line to buy our groceries.

Next time you want to have a whinge about conspiracies or government cover-ups, think about this: would you rather live in a world where the harsh realities were on full display, with no barrier between our happy lives and the grotesque reality of human nature? Would you like our children to grow up knowing that children in Africa starve every second because we ruined their economy, and now we choose not to afford to help them? Would you like the world to know that in order to protect our way of life we have to sanction torture? Would you like to know the exact figures of how many women and children are raped and murdered in areas of conflict?

The answer is no. Feel sorry for the world and the way it is, accept that this man will probably end up a martyr, and that free speech can only ever be an ideal; we don't want the world to be honest with us. We'll all just do what we do best: try not to think about it until it goes away.

The boy just got home

2010-12-02T21:22:00.000-08:00

I posted on twitter that I'd update my blog and then I spent so long putting it off and watching Sex & the City that Ants got home. Oh well.

So basically I tried to make a video twice today. When I tried to do it on the laptop the audio wouldn't work and then when I tried on the computer I forgot to plug in the microphone. Then I couldn't find the microphone so I gave up.

The reason I haven't made any new videos since I got here is because I still don't have my computer. I spoke to my dad last night and he said I should get it next week, so we'll see.

I can't think of anything else interesting to tell you. I want to play with my new Christmas Tree.

<3 Sorry.

Signs I Need Life

2010-11-30T05:48:00.000-08:00

1. Today I was more than mildly irritated when I realised that the Purex toilet paper which I bought on special yesterday comes in plain white, and not just the fun ocean print in which I purchased it. This annoys me as I only buy white Quilton toilet paper as a general rule, and find the print designs to be tacky.

2. Since writing my last blog post complaining about flash games on facebook, I have also taken up "Tiki Resort", "Island God", "Simply Hospital", "Nightclub City" and "Hotel City."

3. My most exciting prospect for entertainment for the next month consists of watching every single episode of every interesting television show my boyfriend has on his media centre.

Woo.