Buttons, Parties, and Labels

I have new pretty buttons.

First of all,



and



and I also plan on this one



although shoes do make a suitcase a bit heavy.

There is also that countdown happening over there. If you're looking at the one at the actual BlogHer site and then getting confused, that would be because this one is counting down til I leave. Which is many many hours before I get to San Francisco, which is several days before BlogHer begins. (Now it's not confusing at all.)

Then there is



which is happening on the Thursday before BlogHer.

At the same time, I am supposed to be at the BlogHer Newbie Mixer, but apparently we're allowed to do both? (Why not just have one?)

And the next day, I will be at Ruby Skye, for BlogHer's Friday cocktail party.

Yo, girls: we need to plan some clothes shopping in between the Golden Gate Bridge and the really hilly streets. Seriously.

Moving on, there are now only five blogs at a time over there on the sidebar, and the archives are by year now. It's all so clean and tidy.

And in case you were wondering where all the tags went, I deleted them all. They were annoying me. And, as I'm supposed to be preparing my thesis proposal, deleting labels from 500+ posts seemed like a good idea. They'll be back. (Obviously. I'm still "supposed to be" preparing.)

I think I would have noticed

I had my six-month check-up thing for that whole boob lump thing. The lump is as much of a non-concern as it was back then, but it made for an interesting afternoon.

- Allow plenty of time. People feeling your boobs and pronouncing them lovely takes longer than you'd think.

- Assume plenty of people will want to get in on the action. Ultrasound woman, random woman who came in to let me know the radiographer hadn't forgotten about me, radiographer, the registrar, the doctor, and the med student who needs to work on both the blushing and feeling up.

- Those gowns come in different sizes. All that fresh air on your arse is a myth, at least in a breast clinic. And it really helps if you take off your bra underneath.

- Wearing the gown makes you chatty. Unless you are thirty years younger than all the rest, and also don't actually have anything wrong with you. You are a faker.

- Medical people are very trusting of patients. Seriously, I could have swiped all kinds of things. Saline 0.9% or xylocaine 1% or four different sizes of those glove things. What I really wanted to do was play with the ultrasound machine. I suppose they think leaving people half naked with goop all over their chest will prevent too much moving around/theft.

- Be worried if they don't know the difference between a mammogram and an ultrasound.

Front Desk Lady: They'll send you the bill for the mammogram...
Me: But I didn't have one.
Front Desk Lady: *checks with the woman who ticked the box on the form*
Me: *thinks I would have noticed if I'd had a mammogram*

Luckily, there's plenty more where that came from

A while ago, when we were coming home from the Adelaide Cup, in fact, we had a bit of a run-in with a ticket-checker guy, who was, to be perfectly honest, a total wanker. He refused to accept my international (as in, accepted everywhere in the world ever) student card, and threatened to fine The Pom.

Cut to yesterday morning. My multi-trip card has run out, so I put in four dollars (four dollars!) for a day trip ticket. Which the machine did not spit out at me. Whatever.

Cut to yesterday afternoon. No way am I putting in another four dollars for another ticket that I probably won't get. Of course, Wanker Ticket Guy chooses this day to be a wanker on my train. (Wankers On A Train: In Theatres This April.)

Essentially, he didn't believe I'd tried to buy a ticket, which, why should he? He pointed out that if it happens again, it won't look very good. Quite frankly, WTG, I don't care how it looks. The fact is (it is still a fact even if I can't prove it) that the machine was at fault, not me.

What really pissed me off was that he asked to see my student card (which I now have and would have been travelling on had the four bucks bought me something more than sweet FA and a headache), then kept it to copy down all my details. He demanded my address and date of birth, which, as I told him, I was not comfortable giving out. He couldn't give me a reason why I had to give it, instead asking if I was listening to him. Yes, Wanker, I am, but you're clearly not listening to me. More threatening of fines. In the end, I gave it to him, because I couldn't discuss without sounding like I was arguing.

I plan to keep travelling on multi-trip tickets, to avoid all this ticket-buying hassle. If, however, the machine doesn't work again, I will not be giving them yet another four dollars. If they ask to see my ticket, I will again explain the situation. If they don't choose to believe me, I will fight it. I am not going to be out $120 for something that was not my fault.

Bitchy McRant

Note: This would all be a non-issue if we could do private posts, BLOGGER.

Jollan and I were having a conversation the other day about whether you need to publish or just write for blogging to be effective.

I said just write but am thinking of taking that back.

I wrote a post last night that was never going to be published, but I find myself wanting to show you anyway.

I won't publish it. One, it's very bitchy and I don't feel the need to offend the person it's about. Two, it's highly irrational. I am very aware of this, but I can't help it.

If you want to read it, email me. It's not about you, so don't worry about about that, and you might find me being ridiculous entertaining. Or boring.

There, now I've blogged about it. The world is in balance once again.

Study Day

Once again, the internet is proving itself supremely helpful.



No shit, Sherlock. (Oops! Spoiler!)

By the way, I have an awesome routine going. TV, food, read blogs, write an essay, check a random definition, check blogs, check email, finish essay, TV, etc.

Incidentally, isn't it a worry when Hannah Montana is the best thing that cable TV has to offer?

Edited To Add:

10:33pm: Woohoo! I'm done! Four mini-essays written and handed in. I feel very on track over here, how about you?

Unsubscribe

The past couple of days I have been going through my Bloglines links and unsubscribing to the ones I don't read anymore, for whatever reason.

It doesn't mean I don't still love you! In fact, Bloglines won't let me stop loving you.

Everytime I unsubscribe, it asks me if I am sure. Yes, I am sure. I cannot get away with having a bajillion blogs to read when I am already documented as having study issues this year. Then the link disappears from Bloglines. Bye! I will miss you. But then it must have missed me too, because next time I go into Bloglines, probably five minutes later (I am trying to write an essay, after all), it will have reappeared.

Maybe I have to unsubscribe three times before Bloglines will believe me? Maybe these bloggers have put some magic Cannot Unsubscribe thing on their blogs. Maybe Bloglines put that Unsubscribe button there merely for decoration.

Which is all kinda cool actually, as long as they write my essays for me.

Idol

I gotta say, I am rarely impressed when people write about reality shows. People who don't watch it don't care, people who do already know this shit.

But I thought I'd share with you that I am really getting into American Idol.

When I started watching (two weeks ago? three?) I was not a fan of Syesha or Carly. But I thought they both rocked out last night, and I was disappointed they were in the bottom two this week. Any other week would have been fine.*

They did that to me before. The week whatever her name was with the horse left I kinda liked her.

Brooke is going to have a nervous breakdown. David Cook is hot. That is all.

*That shit with the t-shirt will never be fine. Neither will starting over, Brooke.

On Track

I did say I would get on track. And I always intended to. But today it has actually started.

I have been saying all along that "I am not good at uni anymore," which was true but irrelevent. If you're not doing it properly, how about you change what you're doing? (Or not doing in my case.) So I did. I sat down and wrote the first of four mini assignments for one of my classes. Pretty sure there's a major essay but whatever. Ignore it til it goes away. Just kidding!

ANYWAY, my big awesome discovery during that was this: remember the book I didn't read? Yeah, it's still not read. After reading through the questions (always helps!) I found not a single one based on that book. So I subconciously picked the right week to flake out, knowing that I didn't need to read it. Whoo!

(Shut up, Mr Improve Yourself Read The Readings Engage In Discussions.)

Now I am off to do yet more work. Uni work twice in one day! What is the world coming to?

Wardrobe Unfunction

Remember when I went to Oakbank?



Not really, I'm sure, cos I forgot to tell you anything about it, like the fact that I bought a yellow necklace thing.



While I was at work last night, I designed an entire outfit around this necklace. The outfit involved a yellow ribbon threaded through the belt loops in my shorts and tied around one of them. (It looked much hotter than that sounds.)

HOWEVER. Tequila shots + the 'once you break the seal' phenomenon + A FRICKING KNOT: how did this seem like a good idea?

The greatest moment of my week...

...was typing this to you.

From my internet, which is now no longer not working.

Three days is too long for you to take to fix some cable, do you understand?

Especially when I am sick. Luckily, I think I will be almost not sick tomorrow. Which means today I am almost almost not sick. It's a process.

Wah. Am Sick.

On Friday night, I woke up every two hours. Almost to the minute. Turns out if you can't breathe, you can't sleep.

On Saturday, I went shopping. I thought I would be ok, and fair enough I didn't die. However, I had a very "meh, it'll do, no energy to decide" attitude going on, which meant I bought pretty much everything I tried on. On the plus side, they are all hell comfy.

Today, I went to work at 1. As it happens, my shift started at 11. Oops, my bad. I was busy though. Those Sunday morning Friends episodes won't watch themselves.

The bottom line:
1 x Annotated Bibliography done and handed in.
5.5 x discs of House season two watched.
1 x sooky Missy.

Comment / Answer

Told you I'd be back. As you can see, we're getting there:



Anyway. To BlogHer! And beyond! No seriously. Let me explain.

Firstly, there's this site/organisation/community/thing called BlogHer. Go there, I'll wait.

And BlogHer has a conference thing every year, where they teach you stuff.

More importantly, it's where you meet a whole heap of awesome people and go to cocktail parties and things.

And finally, you visit not only San Francisco (where the conference is being held this year), but LA and Vegas and wherever else you can go before you have to get back home and write the second half of your thesis.

Holly, I'm not sure if that was helpful, but it got me out of doing my assignment for a while so I'm happy. Any more questions, send them over. You know I'll take a break just for you!

Comment / Question

Holly said...
Ok, I've never even heard of that before...enlighten me?

Now here is the thing. I never know how to reply to people who ask things in the comments. Firstly because I can never tell if you (not you personally Holly, just you the world) actually want an answer. But mainly because I don't know if you want an email, or a reply in the comments, or a whole post.

I know some of the "big" bloggers make a practice of replying to every comment by email, which ... dude, that's a waste of energy. And I know some who reply to every comment in a comment. And I know some who ignore comments like "Oh wow" or "That's so funny!" or "Me too!" which is exactly the response that is required.

So that is part one of this topic: if you ask a question in the comments, do you expect a reply from another commenter? Or would you like a comment / email / post from me? What is it that you want?!

(Holly, we'll get to your question in the next post. Now I have to go and do another third of my assignment.)

Countdown!

A HUNDRED DAYS! OMG! How exciting is this?!

I am very excited. I am convinced this is going to be totally awesome.

And GUESS WHAT I HAVE!

TICKETS!

Plane tickets! And a ticket to BlogHer! Hotels don't give out tickets or I totally would have got one of those as well.

Point is, it is for sure for real. Like, it's actually going to happen! BlogHer08 is going to happen, in San Francisco, and I am going to be there.

Tell me you will be too.

Don't leave it all to the last minute

How many times have we all been told that? And I even believe that it's good advice.

But it is Wednesday night, and I am two-thirds of the way through an assignment I just started today. I figure another third when I'm done here, two thirds tomorrow, and hand it in on Friday morning. I'm hoping all that adds up to one awesome assignment.

I am so not happy with the way my Honours year has been going so far. I would love to say it's all going to be great and this will never happen again. But I would be lying to you. And I don't do that. Cos I love you.

But dude, this will happen again. I will be busy lazy all the time. I am just almost kinda caught up, but I will be behind again in about 2.3 seconds.

Next semester will not be any better, I can tell you that right now. I will get back from BlogHer a week or more into semester. Behind, again, some more.

I am not particularly happy with myself about this whole thing.

HOWEVER, this blog is not meant to be all angsty and shit. Exciting post coming up!

No, really?

I just wish someone had told me this beforehand.

Just Friends

I feel ripped off when the drum claps do not match up with a character's actions.

Is this just me?

Back On Track

Last Friday, shitty day that it was, may have actually been a good thing.

Call it a wake-up call or whatever, I plan to do better from now on. Well, maybe from tomorrow or Thursday on since a certain awesome person has sent me movies and episodes and I will be quite busy for some time.

In aid of all this betterness, I am back to my usual checklisted self.



Isn't it pretty? I feel more in control already. Plus, I have a meeting with Supe, my as yet unmet supervisor, on Monday, which should make the whole thesis thing less vague. So really, it's all going to be ok. I may even cross some things off of that pretty list thing up there. (Shush! No! Don't want to hear it.)