Currently...

Um. Hi. Remember me?

Yeah. There are times when I miss the days of unemployment, and blogging is a big part of that. Although given that I got my first full time pay cheque today, I can safely say that the money makes up for my lack of time to blog these days!!

So, rather than just disappear into a black hole due to lack of time and topics, I figured I'd do a "currently" post to give you guys a bit of an update on life in general...

Watching:
Essentially, the stuff I'm watching for Snark Squad - Dawson's Creek, Doctor Who, Supernatural - and occasional episodes of Criminal Minds and Bones. I desperately want to get back to watching Daredevil, but that means giving up something else, and...yeah. It just hasn't happened yet.

Listening to:
Shut Up and Dance by Walk the Moon is on INCREDIBLY high rotation. It's basically my time-to-start-my-90-minute-commute song, so I listen to it twice a day, minimum. And a hell of a lot of stuff that makes up Body Combat and Body Pump set lists, because I'm doing about three or four classes a week online.

Planning:
A trip to Dymocks tomorrow after work. WHEEEEEEEE, BOOKS!! Also planning a trip to Canberra during the July school holidays. Because, you know, the middle of winter is totally the best time to go to Canberra...

Thinking about:
How I should really be going to bed, but I really want to finish this episode of Criminal Minds. The fact that tomorrow's Friday. Little Miss A's birthday party on Saturday. How I really wish the vlog that's been uploading since 9pm would hurry up and finish so that I can go to bed when Criminal Minds ends.

Looking forward to:
Sleeping in on Saturday morning OMG IT WILL BE AMAZING. My little brother coming home for a visit at the end of the month. Orange Is the New Black season 3, although God knows when I'll have time to watch it. Going to Canberra, even though it's forever away.

Reading:
ALL THE THINGS, just for a change. I'm nearly done with Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel, and it's pretty damned fabulous. And this weekend, I'm planning on diving into the first volume of Matt Fraction's Hawkeye, which a friend very sweetly sent me for my birthday.

Making me happy:
The fact that I've lost over 6kg on the 12WBT. That it's casual clothes day at school tomorrow so I get to wear jeans to work. That there's a Lego game of Jurassic Park coming out. The forthcoming Jurassic World movie. The new display that I put up at work today. And my nightly hot chocolate. Sure, it's not as healthy as Greek yoghurt and a teaspoon of honey. But it's way too cold for yoghurt at the moment, so hot chocolate it is!

What's new with you guys?

K xx

Mysterious absences and what causes them

You may have noticed, friends, that I haven't been around these here parts as much as usual in the past few weeks.

The reasons behind this are threefold:

1. 12WBT
Sometimes I feel like exercising and cooking and exercising some more takes up all my time, and by the end of the day? I kind of just want to collapse in a heap and not use my brain.

2. VEDA
Yeah, I don't even know how this happened. I uploaded a video on April 1st, and then a bunch of my friends were all "WE'RE DOING VEDA!!" and I figured that I'd unintentionally started doing VEDA anyway, so I may as well keep going. Of course, given that I'm also on the Snark Squad channel every week for Segue Magic, this means I'm currently posting EIGHT videos a week. Hahahahaha ohgod. It's a lot of videos. And between shooting and editing and watching other people's videos? Yeah, it eats into what little time is left once I finish all that exercising and cooking nonsense.

(But, like, if you want to see me wibbling about books even more than usual, you should probably check out my VEDA videos...)

3. I GOT A FREAKING JOB!!!!!!!!!!
That's right, friends. I found the Holy Grail - a full time job in my field. Okay, so it's only a 12 month contract, but STILL. I start tomorrow morning, and I'm kiiiiiiiiiiiind of terrified because it's been forever since I've had to be a responsible adult on a full time basis. But it'll be FINE. In a terrifying but-I-already-don't-have-time-to-blog kind of a way.

And hey - I have an insanely long commute to get to work, so maybe if I can reach a point where my brain in capable of constructing sentences at like 7.30am, I'll write blog posts on my phone instead! Maybe. We'll see.

I'll get back into the swing of adulthood eventually, so this definitely isn't goodbye. Hell, VEDA will be over in another week and a bit, which will give me at least an extra hour a day to play with. But if I'm not around for a little while? That's why.

What's new with you guys?

K xx

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

I had plans for writing my usual weekly update on my trip today. But somehow the day disappeared into a time sucking black hole and now it's 10.15pm and I have to go to work tomorrow, so writing a proper blog post seems way too much like hard work right now. So instead, I'll just tell you that I broke 10,000 words in NaNoWriMo, which is further than I ever thought I'd get. High five, self. High five.

A photo posted by Melbourne on my mind (@melbsonmymind) on Nov 11, 2014 at 3:05am PST

So. What's new with you guys?

K xx

Update all the updates

Sooooo. It's been a while since I've talked about anything besides books and movies, huh? I guess that means it's time to give you guys a few updates on some stuff that's happening...

1. WE FINISHED ANGEL OMG
Yes, a couple of weeks ago, we officially posted our very last Angel recap over on Snark Squad. Since then, we've wrapped things up and, while I still have one more video to make on my own channel because Lor and Sweeney were dirty cheaters and changed the rules after I'd made my wrap-up videos, we are FINISHED with the Buffyverse. Which is crazy exciting.

But don't fret - you'll still see plenty of me over on Snark Squad. We're nearing the end of season 1 of Supernatural, and I'm working on TWO super secret projects over there as well. One will launch next week, while the other won't go live until October. But we've already started writing because we're weirdos like that.

2. I'M GOING TO ENGLAND OMG
That's right, I've booked a plane ticket and I'm heading to Old Blighty for three weeks in September! Well. More like two and a bit weeks in England and five or six days in Portugal, but whatever. It's pretty damned exciting either way. There will be all kinds of family shenanigans, and I plan on catching up with/meeting some of my favourite people. It's going to be pretty interesting, I suspect. Especially as I haven't been to the UK in 12 years, and on that particular occasion I spent all of about six hours in London!

3. I JOINED MEDIAVENGERS OMG
So after an increasing amount of weirdness and insanity on Tumblr, my BFF Kim decided that she was going to move MediAvengers to Blogger and reinvent it. And she asked me to join her, which UM DUH. So you can now find me over there on the regular, being all meta about the media pieces that Kim creates around Marvel Cinematic Universe events and characters wheeeeeee. No, but seriously. Check it out. It's pretty cool.

4. I'M GOING TO CANBERRA OMG
Not QUITE as exciting as some of the other news in this post, but Mum and I are heading up to Canberra next weekend for a few days to catch up with people and meet new babies and probably freeze to death. And to go to the bakery in Holbrook, because that's pretty much the only reason to spend seven hours on the Hume Highway...

5. I HAVE A JOB UNTIL THE END OF THE YEAR OMG
Admittedly, it's only one day a week, but that's better than zero days a week! And a year working in the one place definitely looks better on my CV than two months or four months, so YAY.

6. I FINALLY FINISHED WATCHING CHARMED OMG
It only took me the better part of seven months to get through eight seasons!! And one of these days, I'll actually get around to blogging about seasons 4-8 to fit in with the ones I've already done... But for now? I've very happily moved onto Friday Night Lights. Although I don't think I'll be sharing All The Thoughts about that one. Mostly because it seems far too much like hard work!

So. What's new with you guys?

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

Lists. Lists of things. Things and stuff.

It's no secret that I'm kind of obsessed with lists. If I can procrastinate actually doing things by making a list of the things I have to do, I will do it. And then redo it, with colour coding. I think part of the reason why the 101 in 1001 appealed to me so much was because it was a list. Ultimately, though, I wasn't so good at the timing thing. I have a tendency to do half a dozen things from any list I make, then become complacent over how much I've accomplished and promptly slack off for the next three hundred years six months.

With all of that in mind, I decided that rather than attempting (and inevitably failing) another 101 in 1001 project, I'm going to take a leaf out of Deidre's book and have a life list instead. Said list will no doubt change pretty regularly, with things being added and removed as I see fit, but for now? Here's where things are at:

I Can Show You the World (Travel stuff)
Visit somewhere new in Australia
Visit all seven continents
Visit Easter Island
See the Northern Lights
Roadtrip along the Pacific coast of the US
Go on safari
Fly first class

You Should Employ Your Little Grey Cells (Brain stuff)
Read 500 new books
Finish my Classics Club challenge
Finish the AFI Top 100
Learn a new language

Money Makes the World Go Around (Finance stuff)
Buy a house/apartment/unit/dwelling/thing.
Voluntarily pay off some of my student loans
Buy an original piece of art
Voluntarily contribute to my superannuation
Buy a leather jacket

What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Stronger (Health and fitness stuff)
Do the Couch to 5K
Try archery
Try Crossfit
Go iceskating

He Was A Punk, She Did Ballet (Cultural stuff)
Go to the opera
Go to the symphony
Go to the ballet
Visit 20 new museums

Singing Pork, Dancing Veal, What An Entertaining Meal (Food stuff)
Try 100 new recipes
Make pasta
Eat at a Michelin Star restaurant
Finish my cookbook challenge
Eat at 50 new restaurants
Learn to plate a dish properly

Open Your Eyes And Then Open Your Eyes Again (Creative stuff)
Complete VEDA again
Write a novel
Take a photography course
Sew a piece of clothing from scratch

I've Wrestled Crocodiles and Dingoes Simultaneously (Random stuff)
Have a herb garden
Give money to a street performer
Go to a convention (i.e. Comic-Con)
Go stargazing

Obviously, it's going to be a continual work in progress, but that's where things stand at the moment! What's on your bucket list? Anything you think I should add??

K xx

PS. Bonus points if you can tell me what each of the section titles is from!

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

Stuff. And things.

I had plans for writing a proper post today, but it's 7.10pm on a Friday and it was a million degrees today, so my brain has melted into a useless puddle. So here, have some random bullet points of stuff I haven't mentioned instead. YAY.

• I got to work this morning and the heel fell off my sandal. Thank God school libraries are basically craft supplies central, because it meant I could pull out the hot glue gun and fix the problem.
• You can now get a browser extension that replaces Tony Abbott's face with kittens. Not his actual face. Or actual kittens. (Which is highly unfortunate) Pictures of his face. Replaced by pictures of kittens. Whatever, it's genius. Now if only there were a puppy version...
• I've been watching Siberia over the past few days, and I genuinely can't decide whether it's genius or completely bizarre. 
• Little Miss A phoned me earlier to tell me that she's finished a 348 page book. I had to fight the urge to high five the phone, Barney Stinson style.
• We got a copy of the Thor: The Dark World novelisation at work today. It includes Thor and Loki bookmarks. Not gonna lie, my Library of Congress bookmark seems a little lame in comparison. 
• This morning on the bus, my knee got stuck to the seat in front, thanks to someone else's old chewing gum. I'm still a little grossed out. 
• I'm pretty sure R.L. Stine is just writing Goosebumps books for Tumblr based on this title:

"EVERYTHING was giant. I can't even".

• I've somehow been sucked into watching My Kitchen Rules. I kind of hate myself for it, because it's pretty freaking awful. But some of the contestants are so vile about everyone else's cooking that I have to keep watching to see them get torn to shreds by the judges when they inevitably make a trainwreck of THEIR dishes. 
• The National Multicultural Festival is on in Canberra this weekend, and I really wish I was there. Because OMG EAT ALL THE DELICIOUS FOODS. 
• We have a whopping FOUR EPISODES of Buffy left to cover on Snark Squad, and I am terrifyingly excited about finally being done. 
• Speaking of Snark Squad, this happened this morning. Excuse me while I use "Shut up, John Green said we're great" as a comeback to things for the rest of forever:

Tralalala!

So. How are things with you guys?

K xx

A most unfortunate curse

So Kat mentioned in the comments of my last post something that I'd completely forgotten about - that Bethells Beach wasn't quite as close to deserted as we would have liked, in that there was a man quite a distance down the beach wandering around on his own who proved, upon closer (but not too close) examination to be rather elderly and completely naked.

And this, in turn, reminded me of another incident - New Year's Eve two years ago. In case you weren't around in those days and/or are too lazy to click on that link, I'll recap. I went to Fairhaven with my brother and a bunch of his mates. We decided that we'd wander down to the beach for actual midnight, and watch the fireworks display from Lorne across the water.

Somehow, we ended up with a crapton of glowsticks and sparklers, and so were playing around with those as 2012 commenced. Shortly thereafter, an incredibly drunk and incredibly naked New Zealander staggered up out of the surf. Someone informed this random dude that he should be carrying a glowstick so that we knew where he was, and didn't have to see his junk. Upon which he grabbed a glowstick from someone, shoved it between his butt cheeks, and ran off down the beach.

He then bent down to pick up his clothes, causing the glowstick to fall out from between his butt cheeks. So he kindly picked it up and threw it back to us. You've never seen a group of people scatter so quickly as when the butt germs glowstick fell towards us.

ANYWAY. Apparently that incident served as a precedent, and now I'm cursed to see naked New Zealanders every time I go to the beach. Because I'm about 99% sure I didn't go to the beach at all in between those two random-naked-New-Zealander events. And there was a small naked child running around during the five minutes Kim and I spent at the beach while I was in Wellington.

At least now I have a good excuse not to go to the beach?? "Oh, I can't, sorry. I'm cursed, you see. If I go with you, a naked New Zealander will appear and everything will get slightly weird..."

Are you randomly cursed in any way?

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

Patience is a virtue

Patience and I have an all or nothing relationship. Waiting two years for a movie to come out? Sure! Fifteen hours trapped in a metal cylinder that's carrying me half way around the world by magic (and before you ask, no. I don't want to know how planes stay up)? Absolutely. Not a problem in the world. Be right here, watching movies and reading books and eating terrible food.

On the other side of the coin, if the tram is crowded? MUST GET OFF THIS TRAM NOW OMG ARE WE THERE YET. And basically the minute I order food, I start expecting it to arrive. I can watch the waiter/waitress walk away towards the kitchen and be like "OKAY. YOU'VE BEEN GONE FOR TEN SECONDS, WHERE'S MY FOOD???". Not that I would actually say anything because a) I'm aware that it takes longer than ten seconds to prepare food, and b) no one wants to end up on Not Always Right.

ANYWAY. One of the things I hate most is waiting to get assignments back. Because even though I've yet to get anything less than a distinction in my six and a half(!!) years at university, I still have a small inner panic attack that I'm going to fail every single time.

So obviously, handing in assignments electronically is ideal for me, because it means the lecturers upload the marks to the course website, and send us an email when they've done so. Getting assignment feedback that way is like ripping off a bandaid - over and done with in two seconds flat.

The situation I'm in at the moment is more like having your entire body wrapped in duct tape and the person who did it telling you that they'll be back in a week to take it off: incredibly irritating and more than a little stressful because you spend days building up in the pain in your mind.

In keeping with my theory that he's the ACTUAL WORST, I got an email this morning from the guy who ran the study tour. First of all, you should know that we handed in the last assignment for that class in EARLY MARCH. We have yet to receive any feedback. So my anxiety about my grades is worse than usual. Anyway, this email said several things:
1. That he's received our assignments back from the US.
2. That he'll arrange a time for us to collect them on Tuesday.
3. That he'll upload our grades at the end of next week.

So my choices at the moment are: a) rock back and forth in the corner biting my nails until Tuesday, then spend 45 minutes each way on public transport to spend 5 minutes at uni, or b) rock back and forth in the corner biting my nails until NEXT FRIDAY.

All of which is a really long winded way of saying AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH. And WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY????????? And also WHY DID I DECIDE THAT TAKING A BUSINESS SUBJECT WOULD BE A GOOD IDEA OMFG.

Happy Thursday?

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

Yay, filler posts!

I wanted to write a blog post today, but I had an assignment due, so a) didn't have time before now, and b) was brain dead about anything other than the history and function of archives, so instead of me writing something that requires brain ability, I figured I'd make use of some photos I took a week or so back and give you guys a tour of my book collection.

This is the bookshelf in my bedroom. It houses the top tier books - my absolute favourites, the ones that I would take to a desert island (yes, I'm aware that taking 117 books to a desert island is rather implausible). The top four shelves are fiction, shelved alphabetically by author and then chronologically within each series. If they're not part of a series, they're shelved alphabetically by author and title. The bottom shelf is nonfiction, shelved alphabetically by author, although recently I've been thinking that I should reshelve the nonfiction section by Dewey number, just because I can.

This is, at the risk of sounding like Dudley Dursley, the bookshelf in my second bedroom. Technically, it's the spare room, but it's the room I was living in when I first moved back from Canberra. And when my little brother moved out and I got my PROPER bedroom back, I moved my Canberra bookshelf up from the garage. These are the books that I still love love, but which don't QUITE make the "take to a desert island" cut. The first three and a bit shelves are fiction, and the bottom shelf and a bit are nonfiction. Shelved, as before, by author and series/title.

This is the first shelf of the cupboard in my "second bedroom". These are the books that I read from time to time, but which aren't important enough to me to warrant being on the bookshelves. They're stacked two deep on this shelf and are in pretty much no order. And the books you can see on the shelf below are picture books that I haven't looked at in forever.

This is the second shelf of that cupboard, which is mostly books from high school or first year English. They're only one deep here, hence the pile of odd books in front of them. And yes, that's a facsimile copy of Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management on the right. It's kind of awesome.

This is the top shelf of the cupboard, which is more odds and ends that don't fit elsewhere. As you can see from the fact that Jurassic Park and The Lost World are sitting at the front, I do read stuff from here occasionally!

Moving to the next set of shelves over in the cupboard, we have the back row, which consists mostly of books from my teen years, and the front row, which is mostly Janet Evanovich and the complete works of Shakespeare. Because you never know when you'll want to read Titus Andronicus?

And this is the shelf under that, which is another row of books from my teen years at the back, and the box set of Laura Ingalls Wilder books at the front. As you can see, they're rather well loved. Oh, and my poetry book from year 10 English.

And then there are several of these under my bed and the spare bed. I only pulled out the one, because they're really dusty and they make me sneeze. This is mostly books I haven't read since I was about 15, but which I can't bear to get rid of because I loved them so much as a kid/teenager.

Aaaaaand finally, we have this collection of text books from my undergrad degree, and some other random books about archaeology of the "found in the bargain bin at the bookshop" variety. Oh, and on the right are my high school year books.

Yeah. I'm pretty much a total hoarder when it comes to books. Just call me Rory Gilmore!

K xx

An ode to Google Reader

So today Google announced that as of July 1st, they're killing off Google Reader. I find this both incredibly perplexing and more than a little bit irritating, and I pretty much have my GReader open 24/7.

At least half of my Twitter feed is "...But WHY???" and "Does anyone have any alternatives?!". (The other half, obviously, is "OMG VERONICA MARS MOVIE KICKSTARTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!11!!!")

Based on the alternatives that were offered, I've signed up for Bloglovin', even though I strongly object to a letter being replaced by an apostrophe. We'll see how it goes. If nothing else, I should probably take it as a sign to remove the feeds to all the blogs that haven't been updated in two and a half years...

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Are you guys freaking out about this whole no more GReader thing? Or is it just me and Twitter??

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