I aten't dead

So I have a folder in my Feedly that titled "Possibly Dead". It's where I put all the blogs that I love reading and don't want to unsubscribe from, but which haven't been updated in over six months. And it's not that I assume the blogger may have died, because that would be creepy and wrong. No, I just assume their blog is dead.

I never used to understand how people could just stop blogging, particularly when they were bloggers who posted really regularly. Because blogging was such a huge part of my life and their lives and it seemed weird that they'd suddenly just...give it up.

And then I basically became one of those people.

I currently have 314 unread posts in my Feedly. And I haven't blogged in months (except on Snark Squad...). The main reason I stopped blogging is that I didn't have anything to say. Which is weird, because I've changed jobs and gone to VidCon and spent three weeks in the US hanging out with a lot of wonderful internet friends and become completely obsessed with Seattle and also Little Miss A is reading Harry Potter(!!!!!!!) and my YouTube channel has like 1,650 subscribers, which is at least 1,400 more subscribers than I ever had here.

I have half a dozen Classics Club books that need to be reviewed, and any number of other things that I could talk about.

And yet.

Admittedly, the main reason why I've been putting off reviewing the Classics Club books is that this is my 1,000th post. And I felt like it needed some kind of recognition. But it felt kind of weird to be celebrating 1,000 posts when my blog is basically on life support.

But finally, I'm doing the thing. Celebrating - albeit in a small way - the achievement. Flexing my typing muscles again.

I aten't dead, friends (yes, that's a Terry Pratchett reference). Blogging may not be a regular thing for me any more, but I *will* do my best to avoid ending up in your Possibly Dead folder.

K xx

Two years worth of randomness

I got a new phone over the weekend (fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinally!), and it wasn't until I opened the picture gallery and the text message inbox to find them both empty that I realised how weird it is that we effectively lose two years of our lives every time we get a new phone. Okay, so I didn't really LOSE the photos, because my camera was automatically synced to Dropbox. But there were some quality text message conversations in there that are now effectively gone forever. Womp womp.

Incidentally, this happened while I was getting my new phone: the girl who was helping me was all "Okay, so do you want Endless Talk or Endless Text on your new plan?" And as she was talking, she brought up the details of my existing plan and was like "Oh. You've made like ten phone calls this year. Endless Text it is!" YUP. There's a reason why I have an "I'm allergic to the phone" tag.

Anyway, in honour of my long suffering Samsung Galaxy S2, here are some of the incredibly random pictures that I now have floating around in Dropbox!

Apparently eight year old me struggled with the spelling of cooperation...

My bread had a face:

The eggs had a face:

Found at Target in Washington DC and immediately sent to Kim:

GIANT FORK OH MY GOD:

I still have no idea what the hell this postmark was, but it looks a lot like a ghost flying at me. Thanks, New Zealand:

I'm pretty sure this is the worst idea of ever:

I found Heaven. It's at Officeworks:

Yes, that's a Marvel onesie. Once again, sent to Kim:

Little Miss A decided she wanted to be Ned Kelly for a dress-up day at school. So we made her a costume:

Little Miss A was very unimpressed with my sneaky Battleship playing tactics and didn't understand how she hadn't sunk anything:

Yes, I own a Ghostface mask. And yes, a certain eight year old took it upon herself to model it on Halloween:

Nothing says "Happy Valentine's Day" quite like a little girl with murder in her heart:

MARVEL DUVET COVER OMG. Once again, sent to Kim:

Pirate Easter bunnies. On a supermarket shelf, not in an oven:

Limited edition flour is a thing?!?!:

I ordered a spinach, tomato and feta pizza on Saturday night. It was NOT what I was anticipating...

Please tell me that your phones hold an equally random collection of nonsense photos??

K xx

101 in 1001: the wrap up

As I mentioned on Monday, my 101 in 1001 finished yesterday. So let's wrap this thing up, shall we?! I figured the easiest way to do this was to dump the entire list in here, and deal with each item individually. Feel free to scroll straight to the bottom if you just want the final statistics part!

1. Visit a new country DID IT. New Zealand in November.
2. Visit somewhere new in Australia On the Not Gonna Happen pile.
3. Host a dinner party DID IT.
4. Live offline for a weekend HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. As if. On the Not Gonna Happen pile.
5. Make jam DID IT.
6. Watch the AFI Top 100 Movies (2007 edition) I managed 66 out of 100, which I think is pretty damned good, considering how long and difficult to find a lot of them were!
7. Go out for New Year's DID IT. Sort of...
8. Meet a blog friend in real life DID IT SO MANY TIMES OMG.
9. Write a short story/novel DID IT.
10. Read 100 new books (100/100) DID IT AND THEN SOME. According to Goodreads, I've read 435 books since starting this challenge, and that doesn't include the ones that I reread multiple times.
11. Get my own domain for my blog DID IT.
12. Jog every day for a week (0/7) Not Gonna Happen pile.
13. Move out of home again Not Gonna Happen pile.
14. Buy a 50mm prime lens DID IT.
15. Lose 5kg DID IT.
16. Eat at 20 new restaurants (20/20) DID IT.
17. Try a new recipe once a week for a month (0/4) I was so close to having this one done - I'd done three weeks out of four and then completely forgot. Womp womp.
18. Reach 100 blog followers (100/100) DID IT.
19. Reach 500 blog posts (500/500) DID IT.
20. Put away $20 for each completed task Not Gonna Happen pile.
21. Get a job DID IT. Albeit a part time, could-end-at-any-moment job...
22. Make a piece of clothing by hand I was planning on doing this over the summer, but somehow it never quite happened. Womp womp.
23. Paint a room Not Gonna Happen pile.
24. Go to the opera Not Gonna Happen pile.
25. Go to the ballet DID IT.
26. Go to the symphony Not Gonna Happen pile.
27. Sing karaoke Not Gonna Happen pile.
28. Attend a blog conference DID IT.
29. Go back to ballet classes DID IT. (And then quit again, but shhhhhhhh)
30. Take a cooking class DID IT.
31. Host a guest blogger DID IT.
32. Buy a piece of original art Not Gonna Happen pile.
33. Teach Little Miss A to bake DID IT.
34. Learn a new piece on the piano Not Gonna Happen pile.
35. Watch sunrise and sunset on the same day DID IT.
36. Ride in a hot air balloon DID IT.
37. Go rock climbing DID IT.
38. Take a photography class Not Gonna Happen pile.
39. Clean out my closet DID IT.
40. Go to ten new museums (11/10) DID IT and then some.
41. Document 'a day in my life' in photos Yeah, I was putting this off for a day when I was actually going to be leaving the house and doing stuff. Unfortunately, on the days when that happened, I never remembered to take my camera. Fail.
42. See one of my favourite bands in concert DID IT.
43. Give money to a street performer. Something else that requires leaving the house. Whoops?
44. See a new musical DID IT.
45. Go on a roadtrip DID IT.
46. Make a list of 101 things that make me happy DID IT.
47. Make pasta from scratch Kind of tricky, as I don't own a pasta maker, and also because I'd have to make gluten free pasta on account of Mum. BUT I might try my hand at some gnocchi in a week or so. Too late for the challenge, but I'll still do it!
48. Voluntarily add to my superannuation Not Gonna Happen pile.
49. Voluntarily pay off some of my student debt Not Gonna Happen pile.
50. Plan a weekend getaway with friends Not Gonna Happen pile.
51. Attend a midnight premiere Not Gonna Happen pile.
52. See Geelong play a game at Kardinia Park Not Gonna Happen pile.
53. Write a guest post for another blog DID IT.
54. Print out my photos DID IT. I'm not 100% up to date, but I'm in a much better position than I was when I first started the challenge, so I say it counts!
55. Keep a food journal for a month DID IT.
56. Buy a new laptop DID IT (twice. Whoops.)
57. Host a themed party You could argue that the dinner party I held (see #3) was a themed party, because all the food and drink was Mexican. But I didn't decorate the house with sombreros or pinatas or anything, so I think I failed on this one.
58. Plant a herb garden A big fat fail. Technically we have a planter box full of mint and strawberries that used to also contain parsley and coriander. But I didn't plant it.
59. Follow one new blog a month (34/34) DID IT. There's a full list on the 101 in 1001 page, although they don't have links and a bunch of them are now dead, so...yeah.
60. Take a self portrait at least once a month (0/34) I failed this so hard. Also on the Not Gonna Happen pile.
61. Finish my cooking challenge Oy. This challenge was so much easier when I didn't have like five recipes left... Maybe I'll aim to finish this challenge by the end of the year.
62. Send someone a care package DID IT. I neglected to blog about it at the time because it was a surprise, but I sent Sweeney a care package a month or so ago.
63. Document every completed goal on my blog DID IT. See all those links all over the place? Yeah.
64. Post a vlog DID IT times fifty.
65. Keep a plant alive for a year DID IT.
66. Make a filled cake DID IT.
67. Buy a leather jacket Not Gonna Happen pile.
68. Go hiking DID IT.
69. Have high tea somewhere nice DID IT.
70. Go to a cricket match at the MCG DID IT.
71. Buy a new chest of drawers Not Gonna Happen pile.
72. Celebrate my second blogoversary with a giveaway DID IT.
73. Design a blog banner Not Gonna Happen pile, on account of Kim made my blog all pretty and stuff.
74. Design a blog button One day, I'll get around to doing this, I swear...
75. Try archery I still want to try this. But my local archery club's open session is at 10am on a Sunday, and the chances of me being up and dressed and out of the house by that time are slim to none!
76. Finish Lego Harry Potter on Wii DID IT.
77. Get business cards made for my blog DID IT.
78. Get my eyes tested Oof. I should really do this at some point in the next little while. But EYEBALL PHOBIA OMG.
79. Buy an expensive piece of jewellery for my 30th DID IT.
80. Go to a farmer's market DID IT.
81. Create a Facebook page for my blog DID IT (although now that only like 10% of people who like the page see your posts, I wonder what the point is...)
82. Wear a skirt or dress every day for a week Not Gonna Happen pile.
83. Read a book in a day (at least 250 pages) DID IT.
84. Adopt a dog Not Gonna Happen pile.
85. Print and frame some of my best photos I bought the frame like 2 years ago. I just need to work out which photos I want to put in it and get them printed (because of COURSE the frame takes 5x7 prints, not the standard 4x6)
86. Watch two movies at the cinema on the same day Didn't happen thanks to there not being two movies that I wanted to see out at the same time. Although I'm kind of tempted to do this with Captain America: The Winter Soldier and the Lego Movie...
87. Go ice skating Womp womp. I thought about doing this when I was in DC last year, but we were told that we weren't allowed to... There are a couple of ice rinks in Melbourne though, it's just insanely pricey...
88. Go stargazing Another epic fail. I hoped that the clouds would clear when Ness and I were at Waitomo looking at glowworms, but I guess they don't call it the Land of the Long White Cloud for nothing!
89. Spend a rainy day watching movies in my PJs DID IT. I crossed off three AFI movies in one day thanks to this. Although one of them was Platoon, which caused immense trauma...
90. Influence someone to make a Day Zero list DID IT.
91. Make a list of 50 places I want to visit in my lifetime (50/50) DID IT.
92. Plan a kickarse 30th birthday DID IT.
93. Go to bed before 11pm every night for a fortnight (0/14) Not Gonna Happen pile.
94. Watch Doctor Who (the new ones) DID IT.
95. Make a playlist of 101 of my favourite songs (101/101) DID IT.
96. Save all coins smaller than 50c and go shopping at the end DID IT. You guys, I have $39.80. It's going to be the shortest shopping trip in history.
97. Take a picture for each letter of the alphabet (0/26) I had plans for like half the letters. I didn't once take a photo. Fail.
98. Go out for dinner to celebrate the end of the challenge (1 April 2014) I ate green chicken curry in front of My Kitchen Rules instead. Womp womp.
99. Try 5 new cocktails (5/5) DID IT.
100. Seriously investigate doing my PhD DID IT.
101. Donate $10 to charity for each unfinished goal Not Gonna Happen pile.

So, in total? I finished 58 of my 101 tasks, and have given myself a partial credit/"I'll do/finish this someday" for another 12. 25 of them ended up on the Not Gonna Happen pile due to changing circumstances or "WTF was I thinking??" or (mostly) a lack of money to actually be able to do them. Which leaves me with a grand total of FIVE TASKS that were a flat out fail. Which isn't too shabby when you look at it like that!

I'm still trying to decide whether or not I want to do another 101 in 1001 list. There were things that I really enjoyed about it. But I also ended up feeling guilty any time I went a month without crossing something off or when I knew something was going to be a fail. So I don't know. Maybe I'll switch to a Life List, like Deidre has, that can be constantly changing and evolving and which doesn't have a timeframe associated with it!

What do you think? 101 in 1001 or Life List?

K xx

The Bill Pullman School of Acting With Your Hair

You probably haven't noticed, but over the past couple of weeks, I've been going through all 775 blog posts and cleaning up the tags. Why? Because I had so many freaking tags that they were threatening to take over the planet. I had no idea what tags I had, I had no idea what I'd tagged and what I hadn't. The whole thing was incredibly half arsed. Not to mention the fact that I had 167 tags just for individual actors, most of which only had one or two posts attached to them.

When I started doing Movie Monday posts, I had this great idea that I would create tags for the lead actors in each movie, therefore allowing people to easily find all my Movie Monday posts for a particular actor. Except that I inevitably ended up tagging people who had really minor parts solely because I already had a tag for them, and forgetting to tag people who had major roles. Plus, it got completely out of hand with ensemble casts. I mean, where do you draw the line with something like The Avengers? Obviously, you list the actual Avengers, but then I had to tag Tom Hiddleston (because of reasons), which made me feel like I should also tag Samuel L. Jackson and Clark Gregg and Cobie Smulders. And then Blogger would start yelling at me because you can only have 200 characters worth of tags and ARGH.

In short, my tags were a ridiculous trainwreck. I had 12 posts with the tag "airport" and 14 with the tag "airports". I had about 10 things tagged as "cookies", 5 tagged as "biscuits" and several tagged as both. I had a tag for the Sydney Harbour Bridge. I had, bizarrely, a tag for "sarcasm", which had a whopping two posts under it. I had tags for magnets, mashed potato, fluff, old lady, linguistics, and 1993. I had, in what was quite possibly the most useless thing ever, a tag for food. FOOD. And of course, I'd used it in completely nonsensical ways.

ANYWAY.

It's still not perfect - I have to do a second round to clear up some stuff that got missed the first time around. But it's definitely a lot better. Plus, I've added new, important tags. Like The Bill Pullman School of Acting With Your Hair. I would explain it, but let's be honest: it's pretty self explanatory.

Source

Just look at anything Bill Pullman's ever been in. His hair has magical powers and deserves at least 50% of what he earned for being in the movie. Other graduates of this school include Orlando Bloom:

Source

Hugh Grant:

Source

And Patrick Dempsey:

Source

And now I have no idea how to end this post. Obviously, I've deleted my "vagueness" tag, so can't even use that. Oh well.

Who would you add to the Bill Pullman School of Acting With Your Hair? (This is by no means a sausage fest school. I just couldn't think of any ladies who fit the bill...)

K xx

Another year over. What?!

I honestly can't even begin to process the fact that it's the 31st of December already. RIDICULOUS. Anyway, instead of doing my usual year in review post with a million links to a million posts that no one will actually bother to click through to, I figured that I'd do this year's wrap up in vlog form.


Happy New Year, y'all. I'll catch you in 2014!!

K xx

Halloween? Pff.

So over the past month, I've had quite a number of tweets that were all "WHAT DO YOU MEAN AUSTRALIA DOESN'T DO HALLOWEEN/PUMPKINS/THING I CONSIDER NORMAL FOR OCTOBER????".

I was going to write a blog post about it, but then it all got too complicated and long winded and I made a vlog instead. I'm not sure that it really explains anything properly, but my brain feels slightly less rambly so I guess that's a good thing?

Aaaaaaaaand I just realised that I left out this entire spiel I had planned about how Halloween makes no sense here because a decent chunk of the customs involved date back to Samhain, which was all about keeping your family and livestock safe through the winter and holding back the darkness. OH WELL...



Happy Halloween, kiddies.

K xx

Sigh.

The past week or so has been...a wee bit trying.

Last week, I had a delightful cold in which my nose was simultaneously blocked AND running constantly, and went through three boxes of tissues in as many days.

Then on Saturday, I reached for a tissue and managed to knock over my water bottle. Of course the lid was off, and the contents went all over my keyboard. Of course my computer was ON at the time, and promptly shorted out. I've been using my dad's laptop since then (thankfully, my parents are in Vietnam at the moment so I don't have to fight him for it!), but it's incredibly slow and the mouse is indescribably sensitive - pretty much any time I try to move it to the right, it decides to adjust the zoom to 90%, and it has a tendency to hover over the favourites bar and randomly take me to other pages when I'm in the middle of doing something.

So on Monday morning, I phoned a computer repair place to get a ballpark figure of how much it would cost to fix. The answer? $44 to diagnose the actual problem, and then between $270 and $350 for the actual repairs. And that was just to sort out the motherboard. The fact that the battery light doesn't come on when I plug it in makes me suspect that there's something weird going on with the battery as well. So I think it's going to be more cost effective to go and buy a new one rather than repairing it. Especially seeing as it's been nothing but trouble since day one!

Then on Monday night at about 7pm, the power suddenly went out to the entire neighbourhood. I spent a good ten minutes wandering around the house by the light of the laptop screen locating candles and matches, and the following two and a half hours sitting by the light of about twenty tealight candles struggling to read my Kindle and dying of boredom. I honestly think the worst part was that I'd been planning on thawing something from the freezer for dinner. With the microwave out of commission, I had to change my plans a little.

A small selection of the candles I had on hand

Have you ever tried to make cheese sauce in the dark? For some reason, I decided that I should make macaroni and cheese, which turned into spaghetti and cheese sauce when I discovered that we didn't have any macaroni. Yeah, it was a terrible plan. Because it turns out it's really hard to make cheese sauce when you can't see what you're doing. It was probably a good thing that the lights were out, because I'm fairly certain it looked like vomit. Or Clag. Or both. It was lumpy as hell, at any rate. Plus, it turns out it's really hard to eat spaghetti that's covered in cheese sauce, because you twirl the fork and end up with the entire bowl in one big blob.

I had a job interview yesterday that I thought went pretty well. This afternoon, I got a rejection email. When I told my cousin, who's staying for a few weeks, she immediately decided that we needed to break out the ice cream and chocolate. I am one thousand per cent okay with this plan.

In completely unrelated news, I vlogged for the first time since finishing VEDA. I think we can all agree that my editing skills have improved as a result of making a video every day for thirty one days, yes?

This is random and filled with first world problems, and kind of has no logical ending. Sorry not sorry?

K xx

Real life hashtagging and shiny new toys

It's the end of another month, and that means it's time for yet another installment of Kirsti Makes a Fool of Herself in front of a video camera. YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY. Ish.

In other news, I'm pretty sure I should upload ALL my vlogs from uni, because this took 15 minutes as opposed to the TWO AND A HALF HOURS that the last one took.



I promise I'll tell you all about my birthday stuff soon. Sorry about the awkward cuts. My computer kept freezing whenever I tried to add a caption or a title screen and the only way to rectify the situation was to reboot completely......... *sigh* So it's a little crappier than it might otherwise have been. Hopefully by next month, my computer has sorted out its dramas and I can edit in a vaguely decent way again!

K xx

Socially awkward, party of one

So if you know me at all, you'll know that I hate the phone pretty much more than anything ever. Hello, I'm a blogger. I work best in text format, you know? Of course you know. You guys have seen my vlogs.

So today something happened that means I can show you how to react like a normal person, and not the way I did. It's for your own good. And probably mine...

Anyway, the phone rang while I was using the exercise bike this morning. I managed to actually get OFF the exercise bike, which was a step in the right direction because usually me rushing to do such things ends like this:

Source

So I get to the phone and this happens:

Me: Hello, Kirsti speaking.
Random Old Lady: Yes, I'm phoning to confirm a booking?

Now, this is the point in the conversation where any normal person would say "Um. Booking?". But no, not me. Partly because I was brain addled from staggering off the exercise bike and to the phone, and partly because my parents are going away this weekend, and I foolishly assumed it was in regards to the booking for their accommodation. So:

Me: Oh. Okay?
ROL: Hello?
Me: Hello.
ROL: Hello? Yes, I'm calling to confirm a booking.
Me: Right.
ROL: So what do I need to give you?
Me: Um?? Is this about [insert town here] this weekend?
ROL: Oh, no. The booking's for the 25th.
Me: The 25th? Are you sure?
ROL: Yes. And my name is [insert name here] and my insurance policy is [insert number here].
Me: Oh. Um. I think you might have the wrong number.
ROL: No. The card said to ring this number.
Me: Is it possible that you dialled wrong?
ROL: No.
Me: Well, you've phoned a private residence.........
ROL: Oh. It's not a hospital?
Me: No. No, it's not.
ROL: Oh. But I phoned the number on the card!
Me: What was the number?
ROL: [insert number that's out by one digit here]
Me: Oh. You've phoned [insert actual number].
ROL: I've phoned what?
Me: [insert actual number].
ROL: Oh. WHOOPS. Sorry. Bye!

So yeah. That happened. Public service announcement: when you get a strange phone call, don't just assume that it's relevant to you...

Who hates the phone as much as I do?

K xx

Goals and attempts at meeting them

So after posting the vlog that Lor and I made in January, I decided that it would be a good idea to make a vlog every month. And when I put this idea forward on Twitter, the general response was "YES OMG YOU HAVE TO DO IT."

Ask and you shall receive, peeps. Ask and you shall receive.



Links as discussed:

My goals
Vlogging with Lor
Clever Girl's Tumblr
Snark Squad

You're welcome, internet.

K xx

My life in numbers

Don't worry, I'll resume telling you all about meeting Sarah and catching up with Lauren and how much of a special snowflake I've been recently soon. But for the moment, I saw this over on Azra's blog and thought I'd give it a go!

-30: (degrees Celcius) Coldest temperature I've ever experienced.

47.6: (degrees Celcius) Hottest temperature I've ever experienced.

6.5: Number of years I will have spent at university by the time I finish my Masters.

12: Number of houses I have lived in.

175: Number of books I read in 2012.

24: Age I was when I started drinking.

6: Age I was the last time I got drunk.

15: Number of countries I've visited.

5: Number of passports I've had.

5: Number of languages other than English that I've undertaken formal education in.

1: Number of those languages I can vaguely understand now.

2: Number of siblings I have.

3: Number of cousins I have.

1: Number of operations I've had.

0: Number of bones I've broken.

2250: Number of songs in my iTunes.

111: Number of those songs that I actually listen to regularly.

7: Number of cities I've lived in.

38,000: (dollars) Amount of money I will owe the government for post-grad education when I finish my Masters.

1983: The year I was born.

2000: The year I finished high school.

5: Number of schools I've attended.

4: Number of universities I've attended.

565: Number of posts I've published on this blog including this one.

10: My favourite Doctor.

7: Average number of hours I sleep per night.

3-4: Number of times a week I should exercise.

2: Number of times a week I DO actually exercise.

0: Number of times I have exercised so far in 2013. WHOOPS.

324: Number of followers I have on Twitter.

252: Number of Facebook friends.

0: Number of times I've dyed my hair.

12: Standard number of hours between me painting my nails and chipping my nail polish.

So there you have it! What are your life numbers?

K xx

Epic vagueness

In all the "YAY I DON'T HAVE TO WRITE A BLOG POST!!!"-ness that inevitably follows NaBloPoMo, I slacked off a little bit more than I meant to. WHOOPS. I haven't forgotten about you all, I promise. It's just that I'm sliiiiiiiiiightly braindead, and in dire need of not having an alarm go off in my ear at 6.20am.

There's not really all that much of interest going on at the moment. But I shall bullet point it all nonetheless:

• I finish my internship tomorrow, and will be flying back to Melbourne tomorrow night. I have not yet packed on account of it takes effort and I'm lazy. I suspect it will end with me jamming everything into my suitcase five minutes before I have to leave for the airport. WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.
• I made my triple chocolate brownies last night. Turns out, they go FABULOUSLY with Connoisseur Raspberry and White Chocolate ice cream:

OM NOM NOM NOM NOM.

• This morning, I ate breakfast with my hair up in a towel turban. This is not at all unusual, but this morning, the twins were awake. And apparently they'd never seen someone with their hair up in a towel turban before, because their facial expressions were priceless. Clapton gave me the stink eye and a face that screamed "What the fuck is on your head, lady? Are you aware that you look like a COMPLETE idiot??", while Bowie's eyes got reeeeeeeeeeeally big and she stared at me for five minutes with a face that yelled "DUDE. THERE IS A THING ON YOUR HEAD. IT'S EATING YOUR BRAINS. SERIOUSLY. IT'S TERRIFYING. YOU SHOULD GO AND LOOK IN THE MIRROR. OMFG." It was kind of hilarious. 

(To clarify, Clapton and Bowie are NOT their real names. I just couldn't cope with the addition of two more Little Miss [Initial] nicknames!)

• I saw a truck this morning with a Montana licence plate. IN CANBERRA. I am still confused about this, twelve hours later.
• I just saw an ad for a Broncos vs Raiders game on TV, and my first thought was "It's December. Doesn't rugby season end like a week after football season?!?!?!". And then I realised it was the DENVER Broncos vs the OAKLAND Raiders, not the Brisbane Broncos vs the Canberra Raiders like my brain told me it was. 
• I have done precisely zero Christmas shopping. Whoops?
• I apologise for the fact that I haven't been replying to comments, or commenting on all your blogs. I *have* been reading them. I've just been reading them on my phone on the bus, and by the time I'm on my laptop, I'm back to being vague again. 

YAY, VAGUENESS!! 

How are you guys? Hopefully less vague than me??

K xx

Currently...

It's a millionty degrees at the moment (okay, that's a lie. It was 34 today, but it's due to be in the 30s every day this week, and EEEEEUW (America, that's in the mid-90s Fahrenheit)), and as a result, I shall quote Lolcats: I cannot brain today, I has the dumb.

So instead of thinking up a blog post, I figured I'd steal borrow an idea from Liz and do the 'currently' meme/blog post/thing.

Watching:
Right this second? Some documentary on the History Channel about Australian federation. I haven't really been watching a whole lot of TV since I got to Canberra, mostly because I've been going to bed at 10pm! I did go and see Skyfall last night with LB. I thoroughly enjoyed it - unlike Quantum of Solace, it actually had a plot (gasp)! I'm really looking forward to seeing where they take the Bond series in the future. Also, they showed the trailers for Les Miserables and The Hobbit, and I fangirl flailed in my chair, and wished Gina was there with me so we could squee together.

Listening to:
Mendelssohn's "Wedding March". It's playing on the documentary about federation. Also, crying babies. Babies do NOT like hot weather as it turns out. Interestingly, I've stopped using my iPod since I got to Canberra. I have no idea why. I think it's because the first day of my internship, I was wearing a skirt and didn't have a pocket to shove my iPod in. I'm not really missing it at the moment. Also also, one of the cats meowing in my ear. He snuck up behind me, the little urchin.

Planning:
My trip to the US in January. What I'm going to get people for Christmas (albeit in an incredibly half arsed way). Meet ups with friends before Christmas. What I'm going to do next weekend. Some baking. I don't know what or when, but it's been far too long since I baked any of my old favourites (namely brownies). My blog posts for the rest of November.

Thinking about:
My uni results. They're released tomorrow morning, and I'm kind of freaking out because for one subject I've only gotten a mark back for ONE assignment, so I have almost no idea how I've done. The email I just got from one of my uni friends in response to an email asking her where I could get a new brain because mine was full. Her reply? "573.86". I laughed far harder than it warranted. Librarians: we're big with the nerdy.

Looking forward to:
JANUARY!!!!!! Lor and Alice and Emmy and Gina and Eileen and Sarah in one month? I think I'm going to explode from the awesome. Seeing my BFF, Sara, in Florida. Les Miserables. The Hobbit. Seeing Pitch Perfect with Deidre. Knowing my results tomorrow. I HATE not knowing things, and am terribly impatient when it comes to things like this. Having ice cream for dessert. Christmas being over so I don't have to listen to the stupid songs any more.

Reading:
Cinder by Marissa Meyer. A cyborg retelling of Cinderella? YES PLEASE. I'm 26% done according to the Kindle, and I'm thoroughly enjoying it. I also just finished Patrick Ness' A Monster Calls. It was brilliant. I also have The Great Gatsby waiting in wings (I've never read it), but I've been reading so much YA in recent months that I'm not sure how I'll cope with it!

Making me happy:
The fact that I got a high distinction for my semester long group assignment. It was a LOT of work, and I'm thrilled that we pulled it off. Spending the weekend with friends. The fact that I'm not a total cripple after going to Body Step yesterday. I genuinely thought I would be. Playing with collection items at my internship tomorrow. Good friends, good food, good books, good movies.

How was your weekend?

K xx

I can has sleepy times?

The first week of my placement is over, and I'm staying with LB and her fiance for the weekend. We have all sorts of things planned, like brownie making, and a trip to the movies, and a Pump class tomorrow morning.

But for now, I'm insanely tired and very much ready for a good night's sleep. Also, my brain exploded a little bit, because Paulie is on a billboard:

Seriously, you guys. WHUT. 

Hopefully tomorrow I will be less brain dead and have something more interesting to say. But for now, I'm planning on watching the rest of The Decoy Bride, then reading the rest of Patrick Ness's A Monster Calls and sleeping forever.

Here's hoping y'all have more exciting Friday nights ahead of you! 

K xx

Canberra update

So Canberra is going well. I'm learning tons at my placement, and getting up at 6.25 in the morning is surprisingly NOT killing me!

Other things that are happening:

• The cats have stopped running away from me
• The babies have stopped giving me the stink eye whenever I'm in their line of sight
• I'm watching all manner of trashy TV (think Dance Moms and Toddlers and Tiaras), on account of I CAN.
• I stole borrowed my mum's Kindle so that I don't have to carry a bunch of books around with me. It's very convenient, but having to turn the page twice as often is INCREDIBLY irritating. 
• I have NOT missed Canberra's buses. Yesterday, a girl was talking on her phone and walked into the road without looking, and the bus driver had to slam on the brakes to not kill her, and a kid went flying into the front of the bus and had to be taken to hospital with potential broken ribs.
• I fell over when the bus driver braked, but didn't injure myself on account of falling on other people. YAY.
• Being a proper grown up makes me sleepy like whoa, and as a result, I've been in bed before 10.30 every night since I got here.
• It seems like my hair REALLY likes Canberra water. I don't think my hair has been this smooth and shiny in years.
• I HAVE ACCESS TO ZUCCHINI PUFFS AND PIDES AGAIN!!!!! Seriously, I don't think you guys entirely understand just how exciting this is. 

What's new with you guys?

K xx

Oh, hai

So I realised over the weekend that it had been a while since I talked to you guys properly, and I figured that it was about time I gave you a general update on life and stuff!

So. Um.... Let's see...

• Group projects are sent by the Devil to torment people.
• I had this Facebook chat conversation with my brother, who's currently in America:  

C: Guess who we met in LA?
Me: Who?
C: Josh Duvall!
Me: Who the hell is Josh Duvall?????
Me: Is he some music person that I'm not cool enough to know about?
Me: Wait.
Me: Do you mean Josh DUHAMEL??
C: Yeah, that's the one. Mr. Fergie.
Me: *head desk*

• I fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinally got the replacement for my 50mm prime lens today. HURRAH! There was this whole messy complicated thing where the guy at the camera shop said they'd courier it to me, but then someone else at the camera shop told him that I'd picked up the rest of my camera, and so I was obviously going to pick this up too. So they didn't courier it, and my poor lens was stuck sitting around the camera shop for an entire week.
• Uni is going pretty well. It's still kind of hard to tell, because we've only had one assignment back from each class. But I've got three high distinctions and one distinction, so I guess that's a good sign??
• I'm heading to Canberra for the weekend on Friday morning. Yay? It's for Emily's baby shower, and it will be good to catch up with everyone. But considering my entire experience of baby showers is the episode of Gilmore Girls where Rory and Lorelai go to Sherry's baby shower, I'm slightly scared that I'm going to have to shovel ping pong balls into a shoe box with a baby's face on it, or sniff nappies (American translation: diapers) with various smelly substances in them... 
• I'm over at Childhood Trauma today talking about which of The Avengers are hot (and, you know, other stuff about The Avengers) with some of the greatest girls you can find on 20SB: Lor, Nugs, Harley and Shelly. It's pretty hilariously awesome, and you should check it out. 

How are things with you guys? Also, what the hell happens at a baby shower??? Seriously. Help a girl out.

K xx

I'm going to Hell

So this afternoon, Nikki and I were texting (as we do pretty much every day), and we ended up talking about how we seem to be incapable of eating anything besides junk food this long weekend. I can't speak for Nikki, but there's a possibility that I had cookie dough and a mini creme egg for lunch on Thursday. [Oh. Hi, Mum. I had a salad sandwich and an apple. Yes. That's totally what happened.]

ANYWAY.

Nikki was up to her fourth(!) trip to the supermarket for the day (one of the downsides to not having a car) when she texted me with "BUBBLE TEA. And Tim Tams. I'm super healthy.". My response? "Screw healthy. It's Easter. Jesus takes the calories away, because they're sins!"

Yup. I'm officially going to Hell. (Will anyone be joining me there?! Incidentally, I've got a nice dose of blasphemy coming up for Movie Monday. It's only appropriate!)

Happy Easter, y'all!

K xx

Sculptures

I'm not a fan of modern art. Much like my complete non-comprehension over the appeal of poetry, I just don't get it. Pretty much anything that dates from after the Impressionist period makes me do a confused dog head tilt. And don't even get me started on paintings that are worth a bajillionty dollars, but which are a white canvas with two red lines on it!

One of the few exceptions to this rule is sculpture. I don't know what it is - probably the fact that sculptures are much less wanky - but I mostly just think they're cool. Or, as a guest lecturer said in class last night, "groovy". (Yes, we sniggered. No, I don't feel bad about it.)

All of which is a really long winded way of saying that about a month ago, we went on a walk around the Heide sculpture garden and neighbouring Banksia Park. And my trusty (now absent) camera came with me. OBVIOUSLY. And basically? Taking photos of different textures is fun.

Trees are deemed really old if Little Miss A can't get her arms around them.

Also? Banksia Park has a playground with a flying fox. Small children like said flying fox. See?

Random segue: have a good Easter, y'all! <3

K xx

Tag, you're it!

I've seen this little '11 Things About Me' meme floating around the blogosphere for a while. I've actually been tagged twice before, and each time I went "Oooooh, I MUST remember to do that!" and have then promptly forgotten. #eejit 

So when Emily tagged me this morning, I took the opportunity to actually follow through. And you're going to learn way more about me than you want to, because I'm answering ALL the questions from the three lovely ladies who tagged me! 

So here we go! 

Rules:
1) You must post these rules.
2) Each person must post 11 things about themselves on their blog.
3) Answer the questions the tagger set for you in their post, and create 11 new questions for the people you tag to answer.
4) You have to choose 11 people to tag and link them on the post.
5) Go to their page and tell them you linked him or her.
6) No tag backs.
7) No stuff in the tagging section about "you are tagged if you are reading this." You have to legitimately tag 11 people.

11 things about me:

1) I'm really awful at coming up with things to say about myself.

2) I went to primary school with Kate and Pippa Middleton. #oneandonlyclaimtofame

3) I went to the cricket last night, and we ended up on the big screen. #okayIhavetwoclaimstofamenow

4) My books and DVDs have to be arranged alphabetically, or my head explodes a little bit.

5) Life without chocolate is not worth living.

6) I have the exact same thing for lunch pretty much every day.

7) I am an EPIC procrastinator.

8) I don't remember what life was like before I discovered Quickflix.

9) I was perfectly happy with my piece of crap Nokia phone until my mum got an iPod Touch for Christmas. Now I really want a smartphone, and am actually leaning towards an iPhone, despite having said for years that I think they're overrated #gasp

10) A disturbing amount of my music collection is now made up of songs that are used in Body Combat and Body Pump.

11) I once hit a girl in the face with a hockey stick during an interschool game. (Field hockey) The teacher told me to keep playing when I stopped to apologise.

And now the questions from the lovely ladies who tagged me!

Emily:

1) Best 90's TV show? The X-Files. Which I've just added in its entirety to my Quickflix queue! 
2) That one toy when you were a kid that rarely left your side. My stuffed toy dog, Spot.
3) What is your order at Starbucks (or if you don't go there, another restaurant of choice)? Small skinny hot chocolate.
4) What book are you currently reading? Are you enjoying it? To Kill a Mockingbird, and The Edge of Darkness. I'm enjoying them both a lot!
5) What was the last movie you saw in theatres? Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows. GENIUS.
6) It's the end of the day and you just got done with class/work/etc. What's your routine? Possibly go to the gym on my way home, then come home and blog/comment/generally mess around on the internet while watching TV.
7) A big blizzard just hit and EVERYTHING is cancelled. What do you do with your day? Well, first of all, I'd panic because there's a blizzard in Melbourne ;) Sleep. And then watch Doctor Who.
8) When something BIG happens who is the first person you call? Sara. Except it's email rather than call, because she's on the other side of the world!
9) What is the one thing that can make you laugh EVERY TIME? The first episode of Black Books.
10) Your favorite part of the day? Sunset.
11) One fact you want me to know about you. I'm sad that we didn't get to meet when I was in Chicago!!

Vanisha:

1) When was the last time you fell down? When I went on a bushwalk with my parents and one of their friends up Mount Lofty. It was slick mud going down a hill, and I fell on my arse.

2) The last piece of mail you received (in the post) was from? Quickflix!!

3) Would you read the book first or watch the movie first? Definitely read the book.

4) The last place you traveled to? Internationally, the US. Domestically, Fairhaven.

5) What song have you got playing in your head? Rolling in the Deep by Adele.

6) Cupcakes or cakes? Cupcakes. There's a higher icing to cake ratio.

7) How do you spend your Friday nights? At ballet class!

8) Where did you meet your partner? (If you don't have a partner, where did you meet your best friend?) I met Sara in Guatemala, Ness at university, and Kat at Melbourne Airport on our way to Thailand.

9) Facebook or Twitter? Twitter.

10) What's for dinner tonight? I honestly have no idea!

11) What is your favorite piece of jewelry? My moonstone necklace.

Celeste:

1) What is your biggest goal for 2012? To get a job and move out of home.
2) What is your favorite colour of nail varnish? OPI's Bogata Blackberry
3) Who is your favorite character in Scooby Doo? I never really watched Scooby Doo. But probably the nerdy girl. Velma, I think?
4) Best book you read this year? As Celeste asked this in 2011, I'm going to take it from the books I read last year: The Hunger Games.
5) What is your favorite healthy food? Hummus.
6) What form of unusual transport do you wish we could use more of? (Eg. Unicycle, Hot Air Balloon, Gondola) And why? Zeppelin (filled with helium, not hydrogen!!). Because I always thought it looked really cool in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
7) Favorite brand of tea? I don't drink tea of any variety. Or coffee. My favourite brand of hot chocolate is Cadbury!
8) Do you know what Gallifrey is? Absolutely. Allons-y!!
9) What is your favorite Will Smith movie? Independence Day.
10) Favorite item in your wardrobe? Jeans. And my red heels.
11) Beauty product you swear by? Moisturiser with SPF.

11 questions from me:

1) What's your favourite everyone-I-know-must-watch-this movie?

2) What's at the top of your "places I want to go" list?

3) Where would you want to live if money was taken out of the equation?

4) What was the first CD you bought? (Don't be ashamed - mine was Aquarium by Aqua!)

5) What's your drink of choice?

6) If you had a time machine, where and when would be your first stop?

7) Mac or PC?

8) You can go to any restaurant in the world for dinner. Where do you go?

9) What's the best concert you've been to?

10) What's your favourite type of food?

11) Dogs or cats?

11 tagged friends:

Ness from The Teensy Tiny Insignificant Details

Kat from The Engineer's Other Life

Lauren from The Blog You're About to Read

Lozzz123 from Science, Spouses and Silliness

Gina from This Is Not Your Blog (and Fantasy Casting)

Deidre from Decoybetty

Lor from Late to the Party

Kim from Kim vs Paradise

Lissa from Take Me With You (and Lissa Writes)

Nikki from ca.pricio.us

Katie from Katiefoolery

Fly, my pretties! Fly!! *

K xx

* I feel I need to emphasise that I don't think any of you are flying monkeys. I just couldn't think of a better way to end this #brainnotfunctioningtoday <3

Random ramblings

It's been rainy and miserable since about 3pm today, and I've spent the past day and a half doing fairly mindless yet necessary admin tasks in the catalogue. So I felt the need to periodically scribble down random thoughts to entertain myself. Here we have the thrilling workings of my brain:

• Why is my office so damned cold?? Wearing two pairs of socks and a coat inside shouldn't be required in a building that has both central heating and back-up heaters that apparently kick in when the temperature INSIDE is between 6 degrees and 15 degrees...
• Why do the IT guys keep bringing fundraising Freddos to work? Don't they know I have no self-control when it comes to strawberry Freddo frogs?? *sigh*
• I'm digging a bunch of very un-me songs at the moment. Including, but not limited to, Hey Soul Sister by Train, The Cave by Mumford & Sons, Fill My Little World by Feeling, Nine in the Afternoon by Panic at the Disco, This Ain't a Love Song by Scouting for Girls, and I'm Not That Girl from the soundtrack of Wicked. All of which my iPod played during the admin-y boredom - for once, the iPod Gods have been on my side!!
• I'm disturbed that at Trivia last night I could identify Lyin' Eyes by the Eagles within two beats. More disturbed that I knew Stand By Your Man is a Tammy Wynette song. And most disturbed of all that I could identify Spandau Ballet's Gold when I've only heard the actual song once before...
• Series 3 of Ashes to Ashes may have been a total suckfest in my opinion, but thanks to it, Billy Joel's Uptown Girl will never fail to make my laugh hysterically...
• How did this list end up being so music-centric??
• The only thing that's going to get me through two hours at the gym tonight is the knowledge that it'll be Farmer Wants a Wife time when I get home. Woohoo!! Finally, Channel 9 has stopped screening reruns of tripe like Two and a Half Men and made a decent show!!
• It was so cold on my way to work this morning that in the 10 minutes it took me to walk the kilometre from my house to the bus stop, my entire face went numb. And no, I'm not exaggerating. There was ice on the perpetual puddles on my street...
• Screw this winter bullshit. Roll on Fake Spring!! [Canberra has a Fake Spring every year. It lulls you into a false sense of security with a spell of warm weather, and then hits you with a couple of extra weeks of arctic blasts and freezing temperatures...]
• I may have used my index finger as a knife to spread hummus on a rice cracker... It was easier than going to the kitchen and getting an actual knife. And I couldn't get the cracker into the corners of the container. No judging allowed...
• Why the hell is it dark at 4.50???? This. Is. Not. Cool.

And post-gym musings:

• Why did I just see an ad on TV encouraging people to drink chlorophyll for its toxin cleansing abilities?? That's just freaking weird...
• Why did I just see an ad on TV for a new fast-food breakfast wrap that used the word 'tortilla' pronounced tor-tiller???? Ew.
• Two weeks away from the Pump/Combat double was two weeks too many. It huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurts...
• This list is freaking boring, and if anyone actually reads this far, I shall be incredibly surprised.
• I should really go and pack, seeing as I'm going straight to the airport from work tomorrow night. And yet I'm sat here channel surfing now that Farmer Wants a Wife has finished.
• This is pretty much the funniest thing I've ever seen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj-x9ygQEGA

Oh, look. A reward for getting to the end of my spiel of nonsense!! ;)
K xx