NaBloPoMo: Just Add Questions

"Nablopomo: Making blogs suck in October since 2006."

I have decided to join in NaBloPoMo, which means I have to post once a day, every day in November. Sometimes I think is no problem, as sometimes I can whip off two or three posts in a day. On the other hand, sometimes I go for like, a week, without posting anything (ok, I don't think it's ever been as much as a week. Has it?) and also, lots of people who've done it before seem to think it may become a wee bit tough.

So I am requesting your help. I realise this, which basically amounts to a de-lurking post, may be coming a bit soon after the actual de-lurking post, and that you may not yet have recovered from the stresses of that one, but I'm asking you to give it a shot.

Think of a question you want to ask me, post it in the comments, and hopefully I will be able to babble enough crap in answer to it to pass as a whole post sometime in November.

(Someone actually did this as their de-lurking post but I can't remember who it was. Thanks for this blantant ripoff of your idea, whoever that was.)

Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader?

Daylight savings confuses the hell out of me.

That is all.

Oh and also, this is what I spent my whole lecture puzzling over:



Who is Harry? I'm assuming it was all left over from some English class, and that therefore they're characters in a book/play/movie/poem/text of some description. But which one? Who are these people?

Shoes, as requested

Kelley demanded shoes, so shoes there will be.

The pretty pretty Hall Ball shoes are actually very well travelled. I first bought them for my friend Lolly's 21st. Or was it her Going Away? No, I'm sure it was her 21st. Anyway. She and I went out and bought pretty dresses and the aforementioned pretty shoes. And so, we were pretty.



Then I came to Adelaide, and bought a grey dress and decided I needed a non-existent shade of shoe to wear to Hall Ball. And of course, I couldn't. Not for want of trying mind you. Eventually I found a very pretty bag in a completely unrelated colour, bought ribbon in the same unrelated colour, attached it to my shoes and tied it around my ankles, and voila! Pink is the new imaginary colour.

AND THEN, there was another Hall Ball, in which my dress was pretty much the same as the colour of the bag I'd bought the year before, but the ribbon was no longer necessary as you wouldn't see my shoes anyway - the only requirement was high enough to keep my dress mostly off the ground, which my shoes definitely fulfilled.

Then I posted a post about Hall Ball, and Kelley demanded shoe photos, and I decided to tell the story of how I lost my pretty shoes. Which I haven't done yet. But it's coming.

One night, we lost our basketball grand final by one point. The mens team won theirs though, and since they were sponsored by the Cav, they got free drinks and so did we, for a little while. Then we got half-price drinks, which was good too. At some point we left the Cav and went to the Lost Arc, where we drank lots and lots of Skyy Blues. (Can I just say, ew.)



Then I remember being outside, not wanting a hot dog, but getting one bought for me anyway. There was a gutter in there somewhere too.

And then I remember being in my bed, waking up, and feeling like shit. Duuuude. Word on the street is that I woke the whole house up at 5am, coming in and um using the toilet. A lot.

Finally, here we are at the point of this very long and boring post. On Tuesday - and keep in mind the game was on Saturday - I found my shoes. (No, I wasn't aware they were lost.) They were in the front yard, where, I assume, I was also for some time during that memorable but not wholly remembered night.



And just in case that photo of shoes leaves didn't do it for you, here are the pretty shoes in all their prettiness (and 100% more blackness).

So that's what the kids are calling it these days

I really think that whoever came up with this idea should have used something that is not something that we might actually want to do.

Or is it incomprehensible that a girl and a guy could 'watch a movie' in one of their rooms without that meaning 'let's have sex'?

Where it is clear I am not a student of mathematics. But sometimes I pretend to be,

I handed my last essay in today. My last essay ever.

(It will be all ironic and shit if I have to, like, write a make-up essay because I fail one of tests next week or something. Yeah, let's not do that.)

It was originally a 3000 word one. Then she decided that she didn't want to read that many words so she made it 2500 instead. My total? 2495. Close enough, right? They're practically the exact same number. Except for the 4. And the 9. Oh, shut up. It's done and handed in. Whoo!

We did our Student Evaluations the other day. Mine was very predictable.

What could this lecturer do to be a more effective teacher?
Finish on time. Class finishes at ten to the hour.

Who didn't see that comment coming? Sometimes my lack of originality disgusts even myself.

Streamed Direct From My Laptop

I was a little sceptical about this 'Streamed Direct From The US' thing that all the tv stations are pulling. Obviously it's not "streamed" "direct." At one stage it was two weeks later that we got one show. I'm not complaining, cos that is pretty good compared to in the past, when we've waited years, or compared to certain other shows I could mention, that haven't appeared this season at all.

HOWEVER. Do not give me this 'we can't show you the preview cos the show hasn't aired in the US yet' shit. So what if the show hasn't aired yet? The preview has, duh. And that's what you need to show us mkay?

AND THEN. If we see House only one day (one day! how good is that?!) behind, that means the recap is not up immediately following the screening here.

Which means I have nothing more to procrastinate with. Oh wait, luckily Facecrack still wants to invite me to be a zombie, a vampire, and a slayer. Phew. Dodged a (n essay-shaped) bullet there.

Dear Microsoft

Dear Microsoft,

You told me to upgrade to Internet Explorer 7. Believing we were friends, I did as you advised. And now I see your advice has led me to a bad bad place.

I'm sorry, I know Explorer is your buddy. But I can't keep quiet on this. I don't like IE7.

The Home and Back icons are so small. There's no History icon that I can see. And most of all, the little Image Toolbar that appears on photos is gone. Apparently, you took it away cos "people really didnt like that." Hi! I liked it! I liked it a lot and now it's gone and I don't think we can be friends anymore.

Love and tears,
Missy.

Hall Ball Recap

Saturday Day: Get ready for Hall Ball.
Saturday Night: Hall Ball.
Sunday Day: Work.
Sunday Night: Bristol's 21st.
Monday Morning: Class.

Do you see the problem?

We'll start from the beginning. (This may be boring. You have been warned.) I don't have any photos of me (attempting) to curl my hair. Nor do I have photos of the curls that resulted, and I promise you there were some. Just not any that lasted til I got downstairs.



Anyway, me and my lack of curls made it downstairs in one piece, despite the ridiculously high and narrow heels I insisted (to myself) on wearing. Oh and my dress came too. Would you like to see it?



(Notice I am always in the middle. I am tall in my pretty shoes.) I'll show you more later, if you're very lucky. Then we stood around in the courtyard and took lots of photos. If you wanted to be in any of mine, it helped if you'd worn the same colour as someone else.



Then we got on a bus and drove to the city. So that was pretty boring. And hot - and not in a good way. Did I mention it was 32 that day? I'll take that as a Darwin shout-out, thanks weather! We got the Convention Centre and got to stand around and take even more photos.



This time they came with magical never-ending champagne, which was fun. As you can tell.



Then we went it to Hall E (geddit?) where we ate (or tried to - some of us had trouble working basic implements), DRANK, listened (?) to speeches (clearly, I'm a fan), talked, danced, and took and had taken lots more photos. No champagne was harmed in the making of that sentence. (Clearly, I've been writing essays too much (ha!) if I feel the need to provide references for every single thing I mention. Go on, check them.)



And I had the best moment of my whole entire time at the Hall. Seriously, ask Jess to sing the words to Greased Lightning. Dude, she doesn't know them. Yeah, you should be shocked. She knows the words to fucking everything.



Next was the After Party, by which point my shoes were kind of killing me. They are pretty shoes though. Then we got us some Maccas, and tried to get a cab. The line at one was only slightly shorter than the line for the other.



Finally, we got to the front of the never-ending line. Unfortunately, most of the never-ending alcohol had worn off by this point. Which meant that we were (I was) not amused by being told that NT stands for Naughty Territory and Darwin is a horrible place, especially after being informed that music costs extra. Don't think he was too impressed with my "SA = Sucks Arse" arguement.



BUT ANYWAY. Dude, we looked HOT. There was NEVER-ENDING CHAMPAGNE. I fit into my PRETTY PRETTY DRESS. The Scarlet Lady did EIGHTY on the way to work. Thank you and goodnight.

Best Wishes From Hall Ball

Hall Ball: The Dressening

I picked up my dress today. Are you impressed?



You bloody well should be.

Breakfast of Champions

Seriously, what? That's what happens when you give me a job and then expect me to be awake at nine in the morning. (Ok, so I was there half an hour early, meaning you didn't actually expect me to be up by nine, but that's beside the point.) I nearly got run over by a truck because of you, too.

And now I hear that you want me to miss Heroes for you. Heroes! Girl, please.

(Oh yeah: I got a job! And apparently it is a girl.)

Meanwhile, after a trip to Subway...

Gotta get this straight (get it?), guys. Get a pen. Write this down.

Shelle Number One gets Missy Number One.

Shelle #2 gets The Gun.
Missy #2 gets Shopping Boy.

Shelle #3 gets Jenni.
Missy #3 gets Johnny Depp.

Shelle #4 gets Band Boy.
Missy #4 gets the men from Grey's Anatomy.

Shelle #5 gets Hugh Laurie (on loan to Missy on alternate weekends in exchange for Johnny Depp).

Shelle #6 gets the vacuum cleaner in the library with the horse.

Clearly Missy is missing out on something.

Mwah.

PS No more Subway cookies for you. Who knows what they put in them.

Around The Interwebs

First of all, some very important information which could save your life one day, or at least prevent you from driving around the city for half to three-quarters of an hour: there is a 24-hour parking thing across the road from the Casino/Railway Station. It's down a one-way street (but that doesn't matter, does it Shelle?) off Hindley. You can thank me later.

I am spreading the blogging addiction around the Hall. One of my bestest friends has started a blog (and no, you can't blame me for any of it), so go check it out. Please? Go and look at her header at least. No, you should read the posts too. kthnxbye.

Moving on. Dude, do you remember A*mazing? (Sorry, Tiff, just realised this is another Aust-centric topic.) For those who had the unfortunate experience of growing up in another country or another time-frame, I am very sorry. A*mazing was the best show of all time. (In brackets we have my explanations that I realised I needed to provide for this to make any semblance of sense.)

Round One: I was always worried that they'd fall over. That keyboard looked hard to walk on.
(The kids had to spell out the answer to the question after they'd gotten it right. By stomping of the keys of a huge keyboard on the ground. The time left was how long they got in the maze.)

Round Two: The maze. Fricking brilliant. There was always one behind the cactus. How did they not learn that? I do remember one time a kid went straight to it. Clearly, he knew what he was doing in there. And the ones on the top of the entrance to the tunnel. Dude! It's right in front of you! And how did they always manage to not get the order of the monkeys right? I was sure I could do that part better. And haha on them when it took three tries and nothing was in there!
(The teams were sent into the maze to look for letters. Sometimes they'd pull out letters that weren't in their word - the answer to their question in Round One - which got them no points. The maze included a car (look in the boot!), ball pit, pirate cave, fireman pole, jungle walk, and mirrored doors. The Three Wise Monkeys flashed their eyes in a particular order, you punched their...stomachs? noses? in the right order and the stomach would open. Oh yeah, and when the kids got back, he'd tell them how many points they'd earned, and they'd do the high-five thing. Someone was always left hanging. I think they should've given points to the kids who did the best high-fives.)

Round Three: SuperNintendo smackdown! You could always tell who was going to win. Total gaming flashback. There's more at the A*mazing page on Wikipedia. Can you tell which round I was less interested in?

Bonus Round: The winning team went back into the maze one at a time to look for keys. One of them was the Bonus Key, which got them individual prizes (original Game Boy!). See: 'Round Two' for yelling and screaming, but so much more since we knew where the Bonus Key was and we knew when they missed it, the idiots! He would always psych them out with which one was the Bonus Key haha.



Man, A*Mazing was brilliant. And I kinda had a crush on the host, James Sherry. Bring back A*mazing!

And finally (god that was a bit much wasn't it), brought to you by Carla and Facecrack (haha that 'cracks' me up every time):



And PS. Dear Facebook: No, I don't want to join your Zombie Army. I don't want to take an IQ Test, and I don't want an Aquarium. Love Missy.

Denial

I live in denial.

I like my books to be happily unrealistic. Realism is shit. The world is dirty, unfriendly, and doesn’t always end happily. Or so I’ve heard. I wouldn’t know. I live next door, in Denialand.
There are a whole lot of things I simply don’t think about – death, disease, drugs, divorce, de future. (Today’s post was brought to you by the letter D.) Generally, I don’t think about these things because I don’t have to. I am innocent and ignorant.

Which, let’s face it, is fine by me. Some of you may be thinking, Here – have some of mine. No thanks. I’m not complaining that I’ve had a decent life.

Sometime, though, it was bound to happen. Something would yank me out, or at least knock on the door, of my little house in Denialand.

One of my friends lost one of her very close friends – perhaps her closest – to anorexia. My friend was about the only person who didn’t give up on her.

(On a side note: the system is faulty.)

We tease her that ALL her friends are crazy – which doesn’t say much about us now does it – but it’s kinda true. She says she’s a magnet for crazy people. I say they’re drawn together. People with shared experiences understand each other.

And I do not.

I want to help, but in a way I don’t. After all, I am quite happy over here in Denialand. I like being in control. I hate conversations because unless the other person is giving huge clues, I don’t know what to say, how to react. I love TV because it’s all so obvious. Who knows what I’d be forced to confront out there in the Real World.

My friend wrote a post to her friend. When I read it, I started to cry. No, it MADE me cry. It was that powerful.

I asked her if I could share it with you all, and here it is.

It worries me, it confronts me, it moves me. And then I retreat. This is not my world. And yet it is. But that passion, that willingness to fight for a friend even when they can’t and no-one else will – I think that is what affected me so much, and I hope that everyone, especially you Shelle, has someone that would do that for them.

Melissa.... my beautiful, beautiful Melissa........

So sad. I am so sad that my girl is gone, Slipped away in the night. It breaks my heart to think I was not next to you when you left.

Please remember... no matter where I am, no matter where you are, no matter what happens... we will never be apart... I swear

Remember the time I rang you in the night because I’d been thinking of you? You cried because you'd been thinking of me at exactly the same time. 4am, awake, just you and me.

We struggled long tedious days, months, years, battling on... until one day I took off, saw a light... I tried so hard to pull you out of the dark and towards the shine... so hard... holding your hand, edging you on to push through this fucked up barrier. This fucked up fricking deathly illness that shields you from feeling, from living, from being.

Some times were ok. Remember our ritual chats on the lawn under the sun? Two tiny mites sitting ... devising plans to fulfil in our lives, dreams, hopes, aspirations. We wanted to travel, to study...

But most of all we just wanted out of the torment that ever single god damn day would bring. People think anorexia is a choice. They think it is a decision. We know though hon. We know and don't worry... because this is my passion... this is what area I will specialise in with my degree... I will fight to help those with eating disorders.

I will help others win the battle that you fought so hard to get a grip of... but eventually let go.

It hurts, it hurts so so bad. My baby, I want you here. I want to make it right. I want you to realise that you do deserve to eat. You deserve love, you deserve, you deserve babe you do deserve please believe me

I want you to know Melissa

I want you to know also that you were soooo so amazingly strong.

You Melissa, are precious.

Without the pain and hurt you suffered in your dark life on earth, I know that you, my beautiful angel, will shine in heaven. I have no doubt that you are an angel.

It is all over now. You are free. Let go and fly away my sweet, fly awaaaay

God please, please let you finally have peace... xx

I would move out of Denial for you, if you needed me. If I knew how.

How about a list?

I wish I had been posting more lately. I wish funny/things were making their way onto my screen. Unfortunately, there are lots and lots of words that have to make their way to the stupid-ass drop box before a certain time, and I would like to blame that for my lack of interesting writing lately.

In the absence of intelligent/humour writing, how about a list? We love lists! Cool, okay, here it is: The Update (that really isn't) List...

- Thank you to all the people all over the interwebs who participated in the Great Mofo Delurk. It really was great seeing people not hiding on blogs all over the place. (My major? English. Why do you ask?)

- I actually only have two more essays to do. (And four tests and a website.) As I keep being reminded, there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

- In between all that I have/have had Formal Dinner: Wild West last Friday, Pub Crawl 2 this Friday, and Hall Ball next Saturday.



Drunken Missy at Formal Dinner. Please note the pink cowgirl hat that NO-ONE ELSE had. Also, Hall Ball from last year, in case you forgot.

- For this year's Hall Ball, I decided to wear my Year 12 Graduation Dress, as a nice kind of symmetry, what with this being my (hopefully) last year of uni. I had to get it altered, as it turns out I put on a bit of weight in the past five years. Whoda thought? I had the fitting for it today, and it looks pretty good if I do say so myself.



The dress in 2002. Also, further evidence that I was a skinny bitch back then. Who had no boobs. Ha-ha skinny me!

- House has new fellows! Lots of them! And there're new Heroes! And some other stuff happened, too. The new game plan is that I'm allowed to read the little summaries on the main page, but not the recaps. That's fair enough, right?

- I made a big huge list of things to do in San Francisco, LA, and Vegas. Once I clean it up a bit, it will become its own post. Stay tuned.

- Turns out it is possible to send weather through the mail. We had a lovely 30-degree day. Thanks V2! Also, photo/woodwork/pretty things/you're so jealous of me post coming up.

Basically, nothing else is happening. My days are spent at my computer, which would be very boring if I were not checking blogs every so often when I should be doing my essay. Actually, you guys don't post every minute of the day so it is boring. What's been happening? Most exciting thing that happened to you this week?

The last word on the subject

I got my biopsy results today. It is a confirmed fibro-adenoma. You can stand down from whatever level alert you had been placed on. But maybe you could still go buy some pretty pink things. Cheers.

The Bitching Continues

Research Essay
3000 words.
This essay will answer a question of your own devising on any aspect of
Australian Social History.

THAT'S IT? That's all you're going to give me?! Write lots of words on anything in the world. Dammit!

No, we do not want freedom to pursue our own areas of interest. We want a nicely constructed essay question where it is clear that there are main points that need to be mentioned in order to get a decent grade.

I DO NOT DO WELL WITH THE VAGUE.

A topic. Please. Somebody, anybody, give me a topic.

Grrrr

Hi, this is the Duty Tutor[Scum] for Friday night.

[Blah blah blah guests coming need carpark, move your cars.]

PS, this also includes scooters.

Oh, really? Like there's so many people coming that need the tiny space I steal between the kerb and the angle parking car space? So many important guest types drive scooters and I never even knew.

Piss off, Duty Tutors.

I have to think to come up with one, so no, you do not get a title

Blarrghhhhhhhhh. My brain has turned to a blobby mess of melted down ... something. (Ooh! Chocolate ice-cream! No! Stay on task!) Do not expect coherency. You are in the wrong place for logicality and also words that belong in the English language. That's not how we roll.

The two English essays due today? Done and handed in and crossed off my wall.

The Crime Fiction one had way too many quotes and way too few original thoughts (see above, where a title usually resides) but he gave me a 90 last time. (Don't you like how many times in the past week or so I have managed to work that 90 into posts about things entirely unrelated?)

The Web Publishing one. Hmm. Instead of a proper essay with footnotes and research from books and whatnot, I ... made a webpage. Not a fancy one or anything, just so that I could include ten bajillion links to blogs and newspaper sites (which coincidentally, are what the essay was supposed to be about) and journal articles (which they like if you look at sometimes).

They are either going to see this as completely brilliant or a total and utter gimmicky cop-out of actually writing an essay. I am seriously hoping it's the former.

Either way, the essays have disappeared into the assy drop-box and taken all of my brain cells with them. Which is fine, because me and my cowgirl hat don't need them for tonight anyway.

FORMAL DINNER TONIGHT + NEVERENDING ESSAY FINISHED = VERY DRUNK MISSY.

The Great Mofo Delurk

So, today is the 3rd of October, 2007.

Meaning ... hi everybody! What's up?



Possible topics for discussion:

1. I hate jeans shopping. Also bathers (swimmers? bathing suit?) shopping. And yet! I found a pair of jeans today! In size 10! That also fit me! (I did do a lot of the first two before the third happened, incidentally.)

2. My phone has shat itself. Again. (I have had it a long time, and I did make it ride on the scooter, which it seems to dislike.) What was the best phone you ever had? The worst? What is the bestest phone right at this moment that I should absolutely go out and buy right the hell now?

3. House is on tonight! And Heroes starts tomorrow! Grey's? Private Practice? Where are you? And Sea Patrol? What returning or new tv shows are you most excited about? And also, am I a horrible person if I've already read the recaps before the shows air here in Australia?

4. Or, you could just say hi. Please?

New Buttons, New Leaf

I have two new buttons in my sidebar.

The first one (that I'm talking about it, because it was neither the first one put there, nor the first one as you look at it, unless you are scrolling upwards) is for NaBloPoMo, wherein participants post a blog post every day during November. I was all set to start yesterday, but it turns out it's still October, and will be for about a month. So go join, the more posts you post, the more I can be not doing my essays!

The second one is for The Great Mofo Delurk, which is being held on October 3rd (which, as it turns out, is this month) which may be tomorrow or possibly the day after, depending on where you live.

Apparently, there is some interwebs-wide decrease in commenting lately. As it was pointed out, a decrease is a decrease, whether it's 500 to 250, or 2 down to 1, and I do think that commenters are an important part of a blog.

Unfortunately, I am shite at commenting, while still expecting comments from everyone who passes by this way. So there's that.

I think that feed readers may have a part to play - I know that I don't feel the post is as personal unless I actually go to the site. People put effort into their designs, and they are a reflection of their personality in a way, so although I am kind of in love with the immediacy of Bloglines, I do think it detracts from the enjoyment. Also, obviously, it's another click to actually post a comment. Oh, the effort!

What to do? If you only allow partial feeds, then I'm forced to visit your site. In this case:
- You have visitors actually visiting, not just readers reading.
- I am already there means I might be more likely to comment?
- You forced me to do something which means I'm not going to oblige you by commenting?

Personally, I don't like commenting for the sake of commenting, because I feel stupid saying 'good post' or 'haha'.* However, I personally would prefer that, someone saying hi! I've been here! I did read it!, to no comment at all. I think the feed thing contributes to this, in that I am reading every post as it happens (uni student with nothing but time on my hands here) whereas before I wouldn't be going to every blog every day. If there's a couple of new posts to read, then I am more likely to comment on one of them.

*The same goes for super-mega-popular blogs: how many times can commenters say OMFG Noah is the cutest baby EVER before it gets repetitive? And redundant. Not that he's not, but I agree with what everyone else said - what is the point in me saying it too?

HOWEVER. (God I babbled a lot of shit there, didn't I?) NO LONGER.

I will be a changed commenter. If I read, I will comment. I promise. Most especially on the 3rd of October, but for ever after as well.

More commenting, less mindless clicking on the next post in the feed.

What is your stance on comments/ing/ers? Am I just babbling shit? Will I keep up the more-commenting resolution? Am I only asking these questions to avoid essays? Only time (and comments) will tell.

Sick of my computer screen

That's right. I'm sorry it has come to this. But really, since I did basically nothing during the first one and three quarter weeks of the holidays, my last couple of days have consisted of the following routine:

- my alarm goes off.
- I hit snooze.
- my alarm goes off.
- I set it for anywhere between half an hour and an hour later.
- my alarm goes off.
- I turn it off.
- I lay in bed. I may or may not fall back to sleep but I sure as hell am not out of bed.
- I finally decide to get up.
- I turn on my computer and my Ikea lamp.
- I check my Bloglines and Television Without Pity and my email.
- I have a shower and get dressed.
- I re-check my Bloglines etc.
- I have a spoonful of Nutella.

THEN, and only then, can I start work on my essays. Which also takes place in front of my computer screen. My essay breaks? More Bloglines or TWOP or msn-ing people.

I AM OVER THIS SCREEN THING.

I would love to be at the beach, or at work back home, as long as I was outside, doing things. And also warm.

Saturday, Sunday, and today I did not go outside until the sun was down. Daylight? Never heard of it. (Well, certainly haven't seen it.) Luckily for me, classes start back up again tomorrow, something I can't quite get my head around. My head is going to have a hell of a shock when it has to go to FIVE CLASSES IN A ROW AND OH MY LORD SHE BETTER FINISH ON TIME THIS TERM SO HELP ME GOD.

I did finish an essay tonight. I wrote 84 words before I had to go to dinner, and when I came back I wrote the other 1916. I was finished by 11 o'clock. That's some mad typing skillz there. Unfortunately, the process I've gotten into requires way too much time organising beforehand. (It also requires me to actually do some work every now and then, but that neither here nor there for this discussion.) I really want to come up with a better system. I actually only have three more essays in which to perfect it though so I don't like my chances.

Next essay topic: blogging. No, for real.