Lost and Found

Eri knocks on my door. We're going to go down to the PANDA Awards barbeque. I give my lips one last coat of my favourite Cherry chapstick cos the air is dry down here and my lips don't like, then off we go to the barbeque.

A little later, as I'm sitting in the courtyard, I'm thinking I could have worn some jeans that come up a bit higher when I sit down. But these are my favourite jeans, so they get to stay.

It gets really cold so I go to my room to get my hoodie, and maybe another coat of the bestest lip balm in the world, but I can't find it easily so I go without.

Next day, I'm looking for some chapstick before I go to the debate, grab my inferior Strawberry Chapstick, and off I go.

A day or two later, I'm thinking this is weird that I haven't seen my Cherry chapstick for a while, so I go through my room, systematically throwing things around, but it was nowhere to be found.

Eri and I both thought maybe it was in a pocket, but my favouritest jeans, although they are my favourite, do not have any pockets, so it couldn't be that.

On Thursday, I finally got around to doing laundry.* I went down just before dinner to move my clothes from the washer to the dryer,** and guess what I saw, nice and shiny clean, on the top of the pile of clothes.

That's right.

What we had all forgotten was that I was originally wearing my denim shorts, for about ten seconds, before I decided it was too cold and went upstairs to change into my favouritest jeans. Unlike the jeans, the shorts have pockets, including the one into which I shoved the chapstick in on the way out the door.

Mystery solved.

*and I mean finally. Like, I was going to do it the Friday before. And like, my outfit on Thursday consisted of the clothes I never wear, so much so that everyone was all, "You're looking very dressed up today." So it was past time.

**because just like floor-to-cupboard, washer-to-dryer is not automatic.

Swotvac

Now apparently known as Swotvember!
It's not just a noise curfew. We all got these stress-buster kits, and there's lots of events on in November.

Here's what I got in my pack:
a pack of 2 minute noodles
a packet of chips
three teas, three coffees, three sugars
a museli bar
a cheese Snackabout
a box of sultanas
a lollipop
a Kitkat (have a break, get it?)
a stressball
a bunch of info on studying
a Swotvember calendar
an Area find-a-word

Here's some of the activities on offer to distract you from your studying:
hot breakfast every weekday
hot lunch on Wednesdays
games on the ovals
yoga and massage and nutrimetics
Melbourne Cup day
laser skirmish (paintball+Zone3)
afternoon tea at Bec's*
SwotVac Art Attack
karaoke, pool table, arcade games, in the Ballroom
board games and Disney in the Abbey
Rebel Yell for 5 minutes, 9pm every day

*which I went to, cos Jess told me to. She ambushed me coming back from the BA Office. Looong walk up a hill. Luckily there were drinks at the top. And lots of food. And I learnt how to play gin rummy. Kinda. And I was winning at this board game that we were playing, til everyone stole all my cards. So I ended up with a grand total of two. Woohoo!

Ok, study hard, y'all.

Oh, and noise curfew ends 9am on Saturday 25th. But people will be moving out (and hence vacuuming, packing, um moving) all that week - I assume. Good luck doing all that in silence.

Mix and Match

Here are my topic choices for next year. I will be doing two English and two History each semester (any one who still needs clarification on what I'm doing next year hasn't been paying attention).

What would you do? (Supposing you have to go to uni and haven't had your LAST. EXAM. EVER. already.)

ENGLISH MAJOR – 4 TOPICS

At least two group A topics:

DRAM2510 Comedy and Satire s1 s2
ENGL2112 Past Reading: Contemporary Historical Fiction s2
ENGL2260 21st C Literature: Texts and Contexts s2
ENGL2302 Fiction for Young Readers s2
ENGL2420 The Anglo-Saxon World s1
ENGL2508 Crime Fiction and Film: Poe to Postmodern s2
SCRN3008 Narrative and Storytelling s2

ENGL2101 Private Parts: Love and Marriage in 19th Century
British Literature*

Up to two Group B topics:

ENGL2110 Writing and designing for the web s2
ENGL2300 Writing for children s1 s2
ENGL2503 Introduction to creative writing s1
ENGL2507 Wish you were here: workshopping travel writing s1
ENGL2600 Publishing and editing s1

HISTORY MAJOR – FOUR TOPICS

AMST2004 American Century s2
AMST3009 Americal Civial War s1
CUTU2101 Museums and Exhibitions s1
HIST2023 Nazi Germany s1
HIST2037 Turning Points in World History s1
HIST2050 Themes in Australian Social History s2
HIST2052 The British Diaspora Since 1600 s1
HIST2054 Themes in World History: Globalisation s1
HIST2056 The Holocaust s2
HIST2059 Colonies, Empire and Revolution: North America 1500-1800 s2
HIST2060 India 1857-1947: The Road to Freedom s2
HIST2061 Imperialism and its Discontents: Empire Ancient and Modern s2
HIST2062 Body Politics in Australian History (finalising) s1
HIST3021 Culture in Victorian England, 1851-1901 s1
HIST3040 Change and Conflict in Russia, 1860-1930 s1
WMST2005 Sex, Gender and Indentities in Australia s1

WMST2006 Gender in Australian Culture*
WMST3004 Indigenous Women’s Voices*

*Available according to the 2007 Handbook but not according to the individual topic webpage. Don't ask.

So, what subjects would you do, what would you definitely not do, and which combination should I do?

Pointless

Apparently, all continuing BA students need to have an advice appointment with a BA person. This is vitally important, so everyone needs to sign up.

I go.
She looks at the piece of paper.
"So you've done some English and some History."
"Yep."
"Have you given any thought to what you do in second and third years."
Lady, I only have to do next year, I will do two English and two History each semester, here is a list I made up of the topics I can do, arranged by semester. Any questions?
"Ok, good luck. Bye now."
Gee thanks.

I did get a copy of the 2007 BA Handbook, which is good, as there is absolutely no consistency on the Flinders website, English online handbook, and individual topic sites.
I also found out that I only have to do two Group A English topics, which means I can do two Group B, if I want to, which is really good cos all the interesting ones are in Group B.

For all this I walked up a bajillion flights of stairs, not to mention had to shower, dress, eat, when all that time I could have been in my PJs, essay-writing in my room. Actually, when I put it that way...

Random Photos

Remember Harbourtown?




Remember PANDA Awards and activities?




Remember Hall Ball?




Remember Formal Dinner?


Remember Pub Crawl? (Good, neither does anyone else.)


Remember Toga Party?

And no, these were not the Toga pics I've been waiting for forever. They are lost. We should move on with our lives.

Basketball

Went to the basketball on Saturday afternoon. Gma and ALyn and Eri came along, with a lot more excitement by Eri than the other two.

Erin Phillips was back after missing last week's game, which I was happy about. I called that one didn't I.

The Lightning have lost a heap of players since we last saw them play, but they've got a good team and just need to start passing the ball to each other and making some baskets. How bout that girls? Bet you never thought of that!

Dandenong had some new people too, but Emily MacInerny and Caitlin Ryan were still there. They're still a bit short due to injuries I think but they have people coming back soon. As does Adelaide as well I think.

Bought our tickets. Had to buy 36ers tickets, then if you leave before the guys' game, you get a partial refund as the girls' game is cheaper. A weird system but one that makes sense actually. They wouldn't let us keep our tickets as souvineers which was disappointing, but since Gma had got a complimentary ticket from ALyn's voucher book, they let us keep that one, which Eri and I split.

After the national anthem, the Lightning girls threw drink bottles into the crowd. Guess who made the most perfect catch and scored herself one? No, not ALyn. And sorry kids behind me, but you only would've fought over it if I let you have it.

Game was really good. Reffing not too bad. At one point, some Dandenong chick had been in the key for about half a century.
Me and the kid behind me (in total unison): How LONG?!
Hehe.

Caitlin Ryan and Emily MacInerny had to go off due to 'injuries'. Bet Gary Fox was real impressed with that. But they both came back after a couple of minutes, just in time to LOSE to Adelaide after having led the first have and been incredibly close in the last quarter. But not close enough! Here's a thing I stole from the WNBL site:

Team Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 FT
Lightning 11 22 19 19 71
Rangers 18 17 14 19 68

I don't like that format though, so here's my version:

Team Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4
Lightning 11 33 52 71
Rangers 18 35 49 68

Wanted to get photos with the Lightning players for Eri after the game, but stupid Lightning girls did their warm-downs, then left. How rude.

Luckily, a couple of the Dandenong girls were standing around in the walkway to the changing rooms, and I secured us a couple of photos. With Ryan and Macca no less. Dude I'm good. Hope Ryan wasn't too insulted when I said I didn't a photo with her. I feel a bit bad now, but I'm she'll get over it.

***Photos will come***

Saturday morning

Saturday morning, I got up early (ok, like 9:30) and went to a debate over on campus. It's Flinders 40th Anniversary or something and this week/end is returning alumni week/end so there was a debate. One of the Hallies was in it, and I thought it'd kickstart my essay-writing day by getting up early.

Nice thought.

I'd organised to go with Tutor Cindy who was running a bit late what with all the washing and things we have to do when the clothes don't magically appear clean and folded back in our wardrobes. So I went to get ST Heidi who was also coming with us and we'd meet Cindy at the back gate. I knocked on the door and Heidi was clearly expecting Cindy who was, duh, overdue. The look on her face was great. It was like, "How fast can I get this student-with-a-problem out of my room so I can go and have a fun day with the other tutors?" Hehe.

Anyway, so Heidi and Cindy and me and some other tutor went to see the debate, which was mostly boring, especially at ten am. There was a cold breeze but the sea looked soooo nice that we wanted to go swimming anyway. But we didn't.

The topic, for those of you who are interested, was

University, like youth, is wasted on the young.

Feel free to debate amongst yourselves.

It's beginning to look a teeny bit like Christmas

Remember the Christmas Pageant? (Is that how you even spell pageant?) The clowns and the bands and the story-book characters and of course Father Christmas cos you couldn't call him Santa. And the Magic Cave at JOHN MARTINS. None of this Credit Union Christmas Pageant crap back in the good old days. And we always watched the video of it cos we were never down here to see it.

Except this year I was.

But I still didn't see it live, and I didn't even get to watch it on TV.

For some reason I thought it was on in the afternoon/evening, when I already had plans, so I couldn't go. Turns out it's actually on in the morning, so I really could have gone.

Maybe I can still go to the Magic Cave though.

PANDA Awards and BBQ and Open Mic Night

For a week or so there've been posters and phone messages* about the upcoming PANDA Awards. Basically, "There's gonna be PANDA Awards, go to the office for more information!" What more? You didn't give us any to start with! I was very confused. And most of the time it was all in caps, and I didn't know if it was some tricky acronym that I wasn't getting, but sometimes it wasn't, so there was some reference there that I wasn't getting.

I happened to go to the office (ok, it was to top up my internet ok?!) and there was a list of awards that you could nominate people for. But turns out that a committee (HC?) decides on the recipients anyway, so it doesn't really matter how many times, as long as you're nominated.

Friday night, the courtyard.
There was a "BBQ" but as it's the Hall and they feel this need to feed us proper food, it had to be a gourmet barbeque, with steak and veggie patties and chops and potatoes with tomato and cheese and these weird thick sausages that don't fit in a slice of bread and mushroom sauce which I didn't see and so didn't get any and these chicken satays that were really nice.

We all ate sitting around in the courtyard, then there was a short continuation of the auction they held on Super Dooper Sunday, at which I was sooperly studying for my history test. Then there was the PANDA Awards, ones like Best Water Savers, for people showering together, and some fast-food thing for people who survive on pizza and two-minute noodles. (Um, isn't that like everyone?) And then there was an Open Mic Night which consisted of theatre sports, stand-up comedy, breakdancing (except more dance than break) and a band or two.

This is the last Hall event before Swotvac (and maybe ever?) and it was a very nice, peaceful, community, KSA-on-the-Fourth-of-July, kinda event. And it was cold.

Swotvac officially started the next day which means there's now a 24-hour noise curfew, so shhh, y'all are gonna get me in trouble.


*remind me to do a post about the phones.

Last English Lecture

aka Last. Class. EVER.
(for this semester.)

Just realised I have to stop beginning posts with the word 'So'.

So.

Had our last English lecture on Thursday. It was one of the oddest classes I've ever been to.

The huge deal over this last lecture was that it would be all about our major essay, and we really really should come. At first it was fine, as she just babbled on about referencing and structure and all kinds of good hints to do with essays. But then it occurred to me - the essay is due a week from that day. What kind of lecturer basically says, "Don't start your essays yet guys, I haven't given you the all-important hints, so you should wait til there's less than a week to do it so I can fail your arses."?

And then, oh my god she is just in love with her tut group. Which is fine and all. I'm pretty in love with my tut group for that class too - the bowling one, did I tell you about that? We went bowling. Aw sweet. Anyway. The first in-joke was fine. Whatever. But after the twenty-seventh one, with the other tutors, including my own, and maybe a quarter of the class got, it was kinda annoying. Get over your class. They're over you by now, trust me.

So she was annoying, and so were some of the members of her class. Maybe it's contagious. They just would not shut up. What made it even better was that a couple of weeks ago, we had a discussion in our (bestest, wonderfullest etc) tut about annoying people who talk through lectures and how we reserve the right to yell at them for being annoying shits straight out of high school. Which Bonnie did, cos she's in our class, and we're cool like that.

And then the lecturer was all, "Let's go to the Tav and have drinks together! Cos I'm a cool lecturer! And all my students love me!" When Sarah and I wandered down there a bit later on, not a single lecturer, tutor, or student did we see.

Weird hey.

Meanwhile, Back in the Previous Posts

Some things that I wrote - oh my god, honestly. But that's not the point. I was going through all the old posts - all 100 of them! - and noticed that there were some things that required follow-up. Now I doubt that any of you were losing sleep at night because I'd left these unfinished, but as it's almost the end of semester and swotvac/revision week is next week, I thought we'd do a little revision of the ranch.

***

PHOTOS
Remember when I did a photo tour of the campus here and people were going to send me more photos? Well they didn't. I'm still waiting.

I have been bugging a certain someone to send me toga pics. I am losing hope that this will ever happen so y’all are gonna miss out.

I'm still trying to get photos from people from Hall Ball and Formal Dinner. Stay tuned but don't hold your breaths. Hopefully some of these will be full-length so you can see the results of the Great Shoe Search of 2006.

UNI STUFF
I posted a list of all the books I had to read for one of my English subjects. And I said I'd post a list of the other ones. Which I didn't, although I did add a list of all the books to the sidebar. I've been steadily crossing these off, and I've now read them all. Except Wide Sargasso Sea. And half of Pygmalion. But I've seen My Fair Lady, so it's ok right?
My DVD player is still not fixed and I have a list a bajillion ks long of movies to watch when I get home.

Remember all those poems that I never explained? That was my major 3000-word essay on those and Eve in Genesis. Well, I got a D for the essay, even though when I read it over again (unfortunately after I got it back) I realised it was a load of grammatical and sentence structural crap. Oh and Lisa thinks I have good ideas but no comprehension of how to write an essay which is just too funny.

Remember when I got a HD? I was right, it didn't happen again. Here's how it all went down:
ENGL1004
HD - Short essay (500 words) Black Chicks Talking
D - Short assignment 2 (1000 words) Loaded
Major essay (1500 words) Joe Cinque's Consolation and The Idea of Perfection
Workbook (11 worksheets)
ENGL1008
HD - Tut presentation
D - Tut essay
D - Major Essay
Exam (10 short ans and 1 essay)
HIST1704
C - Essay 1 (1000 words) French Revolution and Reign of Terror
Major essay (1500 words) Cambodia
HIST1802
D - Essay 1 (1000 words) Europe in 1989
C - Major essay (1500 words) European terrorist organisations

So, I never got another HD. Unless my yet-to-be-returned history one is but if you think so, you’re insane. However all my grades thus far have been Cs or Ds (as you can see duh) which I’m quite happy with.

Idiot did his presentation. He annoyed me with every sentence. Fortunately I asked a kickarse question which proved his reasoning and reading of the text was a load of freaking crap faulty, and Lisa agreed with me, so all was right with the world. Plus he wasn't there today, and me and the other smart people had a big chat with Lisa who was way encouraging about this whole Honours thing so it was a very lovely morning.

UNI HALL STUFF
Peer pressure is not enough to stop the stupid whore having sex with McDreamy while McVet was out there looking all hot. Stupid cow.
House is finished.
Grey's is finished.
The OC will be back on next week.

Remember when I said there was like a Uni Hall song/chant that they do at 'sporting' events? Known as the Double Blues Chant, here it is:

It's a grand old flag
It's a high flying flag
It's the emblem for me and for you. (woof woof (or some noise))
It's the emblem of, the team we love
The team of the old Double Blues.
Every heart heats true for the old Double Blues
As we sing this song to you (whaddawe sing?)
Should old acquaintances be forgot
Keep your eye on the old Double Blues

I mentioned Tutors Cindy and Amy whom I met at the new residents' dinner at the start of semester. They are both most excellent Tutors and Hallies, and Amy will be HT next year. I also accused my Tutor Adam of hoarding mugs and calendars - he actually did deliver them to my room as promised, so thanks Slug.

I was complaing about how breakfast is too early in the morning. Turns out if you go down to the dining hall at any time of the day or night (well, maybe not quite) you can make yourself some fruit toast and some vegemite toast and a spoonful of Nutella. Or whatever. Cool hey.

I haven't gotten any letters lately. Either people aren't sending them, or the mail room isn't delivering them. Incidentally, if any of you want to send me some Darwin tourist-type brochures, that would be really great.

On returning to the Hall: I have now been to Shags on a Wednesday, so I can come back like a good little drunken Hallie.

***

So there ya have it, hope that clears everything up for ya! A real post soon. I promise. Maybe.

Countdown

So I was rhapsodising about how soon I would be home and how much I was looking forward to it and I may have gone on about it just a wee bit too long, as one of my friends all of a sudden is like,

"Dude, don't you like it here?"

OF COURSE I like it here.
God, that is so not the point.
I like it here. However, I like certain parts of life at home that I'm just not getting down here.


* I miss my scooter. I miss riding it (her) and I miss being able to go places. RIGHT NOW.

* I miss my shower. I miss having kickarse water pressure and not having this affected if the whole Hall decides to take a shower at the same time as me.

* I miss the weather. Or rather lack thereof. I do not like having to check the weather site every freaking day. It's kinda funny how happy I can get when I see "Fine and Sunny. 27" scrolling across the bottom of the TV.

* I miss basketball. I am such a lazy shit down here. I walk up a bajillion stairs a day, so it's not like you won't be able recognize me due to all the fat I've acquired, but I really miss training. I could do without the hills also. But I do like the views.

* I miss my internet. Even though it's only dialup (we're gonna get broadband, aren't we dad?) I am so looking forward to having unlimited download. Like right now, I have 60 somethings (megabytes?) left. This is not gonna last me, but I'm gonna drag it out as long as I can and waste all of the library's download in the process.

* I miss the food. They cook us all kinds of nice fancy shit (and just shit) but I occasionally have a craving for a hamburger. Or a sausage in bread. Some crap y'know, but that doesn't taste like crap. And I'm kinda over ham and salad rolls for lunch every freaking day.


Ok, this is not a whiny post. If you read it in a whiny tone of voice, you're just going to have to go back and read it again. I really do like it here. But whatever else you think about it, Darwin has some kickarse qualities that I am soooo looking forward to.

Poster Post

There's a poster sale going on at Flinders at the moment, and since I've had people tell me I should do something with my walls, and even people decorating my door cos it was too boring, I thought I should buy some.

This is not actually a poster, but they're postcards you can just take from campus, so I have about fifteen of them brightening up my wall:
This isn't actually the right one, but it's close. Mine is a blue Ninja ZX-9R:
This isn't the right one either. Mine is just the Genie and the lamp:
These two are the actual ones I got. Don't give me crap about my television choices:
Don't tell me you don't love Aragorn:
And there you have it. My room, all nicely prettied up, just in time for me to take them all down so I can pack to COME HOME!!!

What's the time, Mr Wolf?

Hell if I know.

They have this crazy idea here that everyone should change the time around, and see what fun ensues when nobody knows when they're supposed to be. It's all very confusing.

And they had to do it the day before I have a major test in class. At a specific time. At a time at which they expect me to be there. I feel this will be hard for me to do if I don't know what the time is.

In case y'all haven't figured it out, I'm babbling about Daylight Savings.

I much prefer living in Darwin where we have plenty of water and daylight, and so don't have to be put on these twelve-step programs in order to conserve what we have left. Cos down here? I'm confused.

And late for class. Gotta go!

100th Post

So I was going to try and make the Hall Ball one the 100th post, but I think that it's actually better that this is it.

Me and five others were asked to stay after our English tut yesterday. And everyone's stressing, cos we were also getting our (3000 word) essays back that day. But, as I am very observant, I was able to let Sarah and Emma know that if they had a look at who'd been asked, it was all the smart people.

And of course, I was right (cos I am one of the smart people).

Lisa thinks that we're smart enough to be doing Honours English.
That's right, I'm smart.

Dude. Honours.

(Ok, so technically we're in first year, and like half the class was told this, so there's a really really slim chance that any of us would remember and still be smart enough in three years, but it's still kinda cool, right?)

Hall Ball

Shout Outs

I will get to the mandatory Hall Ball post a bit later on, but first I would like a shout out to:

Kayleigh, Social Sec and Hall princess, who managed to make Hall Ball brilliant and also be incredibly nice and friendly to everyone in the Hall.

and

Heidi, a most excellent Senior Tutor, who gives good advice and sympathy, even at three in the morning.

Hey Y'all, Guess WHAT?!

It's Hall Ball tonight.

Ahahahaha, betcha wouldn't've guessed that!

Ring-ring, Ring-ri--

We here at the Hall live in rooms roughly the size of those boxes that refrigerators come in. You do not have enough room to swing a cat - although can at FMC, right Cindy? You can roll out of bed and onto the desk.

Therefore, there is no reason why we cannot answer the phone within two and a rings. EVER. Except if we want to annoy our neighbours.

If we do not answer the phone within this time period, hang the hell up. We're not home. Otherwise, our neighbours will stab a pair of scissors through the wall of the box, and into your ear.
Mmk?

* If this post was slow appearing on your screen, it's cos I'm typing one-handed. With my left hand. What kind of idiot can burn her hand on a hair straightener? This kind, that's who.

Stupid Fashion Houses

Apparently greeny-bluey-aqua is not a trendy colour at the moment.
This time of the 'season' was not a good time to get my heart set on matching greeny-bluey-aqua jewellery, bag, and SHOES.

I have this top which is the perfect shade of greeny-bluey-aqua. Unfortunately, I got it about a year ago, no doubt when greeny-bluey-aqua was very trendy indeed (or had been the year before and I was just catching up).

At any rate, what I should have done then was think "I'm going to be going to Hall Ball in about a year. I'll need the perfect pair of greeny-bluey-aqua shoes to go with the dress I'm going to buy for my 21st. I really should start looking RIGHT NOW."

But I didn't. And so I am stuck with black, white, red, or blue shoes in every single shop. That's Marion AND Harbourtown.

We shouldn't be such slaves to fashion, people. Stock something unusual. Like some greeny-bluey-aqua strappy, high-heeled, stilettoish COMFORTABLE wedges. Ok? And before Saturday. I'd appreciate it.