The Life and Laughs: Revenge of the Laugh

Oh, subscribers, are you still there? Are you surprised to see me again?

As of this moment, I have finished all the assessment tasks for my university degree. There is the small matter of handing it in and, oh, passing, but I have confidence that I will receive a high enough score to get me the certificate.

So, where I left you last.

I was about to start my two-week internship, which turned out really interesting. I found out lots about myself in those two weeks – how quickly I can really write, how to self-edit, how to take criticism (although, the sub-editor who sat me down and went through my work was very nice about correcting my mistakes, much nicer than my actual class teacher), how to make phone-interviews.

I also learned how much I hate journalism. Well, not all aspects of journalism – but I wasn’t a fan of slow moving, methodical get-the-interview-and-write-it journalism. I’m not knocking it, I just guess it wasn’t for me!

I also did some tough interviews for a writing class, since the assessments needed us to go interview complete strangers. I interviewed two research professors, and a few of my friends. For one article, I chose to interview April and Bianca about their personal lives. They were toughies, I had to fight to keep tears back with Bianca.

Overall, I did pretty well in Semester 1. Of course, I knew Semester 2 was going to be a bitch and half. But before that…

I went on the SAMA camp. SAMA is the Monash Anime club, which Mela is a part of. It was in the middle of July, so it was cold and wet – and the place we went to seemed to be creating mud out of every crevice. As the club is a nerdy one, most nights were spent playing Mahjong, watching anime or horror movies. The last night, however, saw everyone wanting to get rid of all the alcohol that was brought. Much drunkeness and throwing-upness occurred. Cindy drank til she was a bit beyond tipsy (we thought she was outright drunk, but a few weeks later we saw a video of her being actually drunk and talking in an infectious British accent). And my girl? Well, she went much beyond drunk – bashed through hilarious drunk by hugging everyone and telling them she loves them, and then crashed into bad drunk and threw up what smelled like pure alcohol. The next day, suffice to say, she suffered.

There was also the SAMA Social Night, which happened in August. I was forced to go, and went through a horrible process of trying to find clothing for the formal event. In the end, I put together some dodgy looking pieces, fixed with the bowtie that Amelia gave me for my birthday (oh, did I mention? I turned 21! I got loads of presents, but Amelia’s was the best: the bowtie, a great scarf, and a crap-load of Nerds lollies). I ended up winning best-dressed male. Clare, who went, could not stop smiling at me when I was up on stage. If I could have melted with embarrassment, I would have.

Semester 2 was tougher. I had 3 subjects again, but all requiring research, and none were creative. One was a whipping 8000 word mini-thesis. Amusingly, the other two subjects overlapped each other almost completely in content, simply from different ends. And so the first six weeks saw me learn a whole load of new information, and the last six saw me revise it in the other class.

Annie and I worked very hard, for once…and the last time. We holed ourselves up in the library every day we were in (which was, granted, around twice a week), for a whole month, and worked our asses off while we were at home. We did up to 20,000 words of research for a 2,500 essay, and sure we laughed about it later, but at that time, it was horrible. I once wrote so hard that my arms cramped, something I haven’t really encountered since VCE exams.

I also got a new laptop! A Samsung Series 9, which is as light as an eyelash and about as thick. It’s a beautiful machine, and I want so much to keep it beautiful I haven’t taken off the plastic cover on the front and on the wrist-rest.

Amelia bought me tickets for and attended with me Maroon 5. It was a shocking concert – although there wasn’t a mosh, and we sat further back than we thought we would, they made up for it with their relentless energy. I did not stop dancing the whole time they were on stage, and neither did they! Jen and I shouted ourselves hoarse (we both wanted to go, and dragged our other halves with us).

Amelia turned 20, and I took her to the Conservatory at Crown. It was a bad start, because I got lost and was late to the restaurant, but Amelia ate a massive fill from the buffet, and I gorged myself on the chocolate fountain. The food was very good (considering how much it costs), but the thing that got me the most was the service. First-class waiters and waitresses were patient as hell, despite covering about two dozen people each.

We also celebrated our 1 year anniversary (yes, it HAS been that long!) but, unfortunately, on the day I had classes I had to attend. We delegated the celebrating to her birthday, since they’re both very close to each other. Amelia also held another birthday dinner at Paesano’s at Knox O-Zone, and so many people showed up that we had to get two massive tables and squeeze together.

Meg, Amelia’s dog, has gotten extremely cute – and much bigger! Although she is still quite small, she no longer fits just on one arm, and I need to carry her with both. She’s not gotten much smarter, but she’s very loyal, and the other week when I visited her after a long break, she was so excited, she peed! I love Meg very much, and I can’t stop talking about her when I’m with other people. I think it annoys them but if they were loved by Meg, they’d do the same.

And now, I’ve finished all the assessments for my university schooling. I’m not going back to class next year, nor have I a job lined up. I was hoping to take a year off and see what my options are. Perhaps I can pay Amelia more attention too, as I have neglected her a lot this past few months.

I’m about to go to China for a two week holiday, by myself. I’m utterly terrified, because I’m about as good a flyer as a rock, and I’ve never had to go by myself before. But, hey, I’m 21 now, I should learn how to hack it.

It also means that, despite this lengthy and vigorous attempt to revive this blog, I will not be blogging for the next 2-3 weeks, because WordPress is blocked in China. But I will strive to come back.

So, Revenge of the Laugh! The Life Returns. Etc.

Alex.

/edit: Also, Brendan happened. He had to carry my drunk girlfriend since I couldn’t, and she kept on thinking she was flying, causing him to nearly drop her a lot. (This was at SAMA camp by the way.) Also a bunch of other stuff including him took place, like um. I don’t know. Also he got a new girlfriend.

She’s A Runner, Rebel And A Stunner

[Dani California – Red Hot Chilli Peppers]

Today was my bowling party of sorts at Strike. It was originally going to be paintball, but that fell through like an elephant in a paper building, so instead it got changed to bowling.

Took the train up to the city with Swang, April, Annie, Whitty, YL and Jac. On the train, I got my presents from YL and Whitty (I specifically told everyone not to get me anything, but pretty much no one listened. So now I feel guilty) which turned out to be, firstly, a bogus present which was this book of Justin Bieber photos, facts, and poster (Swang loved it, being an avid Bieber-fan), but then came the real cool present, which was this UNOFFICIAL GUIDE TO GLEE! I haven’t read it yet (I got home at around 10:30) but I do plan to, along with HP7.

(Oh, note, for now there is no pictures of everything because I haven’t had the time, but when I do I will come back and put pictures in for all the wonderful stuff people gave me, and so this note will disappear. But for now.)

Then I got to Melb Central, where we waited a bit. Sam came along first, and then Jen and Ash. Jen and Ash got me a picture book, titled “Tales From Outer Suburbia” by Shaun Tan, which I have yet to flick through (I want to look at the pictures really closely so I will do it when I have at least 30 minutes to spare). Then Joshanna came along, and I gave each of them a huge big hug, because I hadn’t seen them in over a month, which I wasn’t used to.

We went to Strike, and started the games. I was a shoe size 4, FYI. There, Joshanna showed me the present they got me – a freaking Tiffany’s sterling silver ring. I’m shocked that 1) they got me such a high-brow gift and it was my first Tiffany’s ever and 2) they found my ring size. Swang refused to let me see what she got me, and it turned out that it was a card from both her and Steven, and Steven was late.

He was so late in fact, that we skipped him in his game, and in the end he had to play 7 rounds by himself to catch up with everyone else.

Mandy and Dot came in halfway through – I love you Dot, and I am so so sorry for you-know-why. They both got me a wonderfully soft and comfy hoodie, because I’d commented that I liked Mandy’s hoodie. I love it when people remember stuff I forgot I’d said. They stayed long enough to watch Swang embarrass herself in bowling, but then sadly had to go. I was so proud to introduce Dot to my other friends, because Dot had been my friend since Gr 3. That’s special, dude.

I also got a present from Jenny through Swang. It is a lovely and sexy-as looking jacket.

Ash owned everyone hands down in bowling, and Sam came in at a close 2nd. I wasn’t…bad, got myself a few spares and a strike! Jac made me laugh hard, because she would just drop the ball to the side of the lane, let the gutter guards throw it around, and hopefully hit something. Swang made me laugh harder, because she picked up a heavy bowling ball and as she was walking up the lane nearly fell to the ground from its weight.

Josh had to leave early to work, and Ash followed him soon after. We played a bit of pool (Swang, once again, provided much mirth in her attempts to be coordinated) and then headed off to lunch. We had lunch at Dessert House near Don Dons, and I accidentally fed Jac some chilli without her realizing it. She wasn’t too pleased with me. Anna, having just met Whitty and not even knowing his name, dared him to eat a whole spoonful of the very potent chilli oil. He was not too pleased with her.

After lunch, Jen had to leave, but the rest of us went up to Melb Uni so to let Annie and Swang sort out their time tables. After that was done, and the light was starting to wane a little, we went to Josh’s work at Southern Cross Starbuck’s.  We sat around for ages just chatting and laughing, and I got picked up a fair bit for my shortness – despite the fact that YL is shorter.

Suddenly, it was 5. Everyone began the ritual of leaving, and Brendan warned there will be a storm incoming. He wasn’t wrong. As Jac and I took the tram down to Elizabeth to meet up with Dani, Andrew, Dani’s roommate Theresa and Leanne, it started pouring in earnest. At around 5:40 when we were heading up to Crown for dinner, it was pouring cats, dogs, meese and some pretty pissed off livestock.

Theresa, by the way, is from Norway, and shares my birthday.

We went to a restaurant near Kitchenworks (the buffet from last time with Mandy) where they had a $15 steak meal with complementary wine. I was rather pleased, because I like steak, and also because it’s the first time Jac is drinking outside of her house. Andrew ended up cutting up my steak for me due to my lack of culinary skills, and Jac ate more than what I thought was possible. It was fantastic to see Dani again, because it seems everytime we see each other, no matter how much time passed, we just get along just like that again.

It’s a pity she’s going back to Canberra tomorrow.

Well, I have to cut a long and fantastic day short, because it’s nearly past midnight (according to WordPress, it is past midnight I should probably change the daylight savings setting…), and I have yet to shower for tomorrow. Another day out tomorrow!

Thank you, EVERYONE!

Alex.

P.S. I forgot to mention the fact that Annie pinned a “Birthday BOY” badge on my hoodie for the day.

The Way You Move Ain’t Fair

[Hey Soul Sister – Train]

Happy birthday Jac!

Today (but because of one reason or another, WordPress has time-stamped this for Wednesday. Today I meant by Tuesday) was Jac’s long awaited 18th birthday, and I think it was rather a successful day.

Starting with the awful weather, it went uphill from there. Took the train up with Mandy and Dot cos we ran into them, then Jac and I went to Journal Cafe near City Library.

Jac got this creepy text message asking if she was at Flinders, and it was from an unknown number. That number never texted back again…

Had lunch (or rather, I ended up eating most of her food anyway) and then we went to Melbourne Central because we wanted to see Toy Story 3.

But, it was getting really full, to the point where the only seats left were in the front. Jac doesn’t like that, so instead we went to State Library and went to the Games Room.

UNFORTUNATELY, it was full due to school holidays, so after some random presentation started, Jac and I went to play pool at RMIT. At first we didn’t realize that if you paid the money, the white ball would roll out, so we sat there dejected until someone else came along and did it.

It was a tight game, and ended with Jac’s victory, because I’d mistakenly stuffed and set up the black ball for her. Oh well, it’s her birthday anyway.

After that, we went BACK to State and watched some guys play on the Guitar Hero for a while, then decided to walk to Crown for dinner. That girl walks so slow that it got to the point where she had to drag me to slow me down – and it was VERY slow walking.

The thing that she didn’t know, and the reason I’d wanted to walk fast was that we were meant to get to Oriental Express by 6, where the others were waiting to surprise her. Because of her slow walking and my inability to find the restaurant, we ended up being 20 minutes late.

The fun part was that she didn’t suspect a thing! I was glad that my subtleties seem to have worked.

Dinner was sushi train, and it went by without a problem, and then it was time for cake. Now, I’d asked Nash to get a Black Forest Cake but apparently there were none left, so, being the awesome boy he is, he got a cake in the shape of a dog:

It was particularly funny because I’d always called her my puppy. And the restaurant people sang and everything, it was excellent.

And it was proven that we argue a lot when, on the train back, Yeleng and Aym- both decided we were the on-board entertainment.

I love you, Jac!

Alex.

P.S. The guy in the soccer ball is still in there.

If It Never Ends Then When Do We Start?

[The Sweetest Goodbye – Maroon 5]

How I kept myself entertained for 10 minutes tonight: While on webcam, I tried to use the lag to my advantage. I tried to zip up my jacket fast enough so that the lag skips over my hand zipping it up, thus making it look like the jacket zipped itself up.

It was so much fun, I did it again and again and again.

Alright, so what did I do yesterday?

I had enough brain to try to beat the rush hour traffic, and got driven to the Glen early. What I didn’t realize that Jac didn’t have the same thoughts, and she arrived later on a bus, 14 minutes after I started waiting for her by the station corner. It was rather windy and cold.

To my order, she dressed rather well – but didn’t bother doing her hair – and thankfully she wore the pair of boots without heels, thus not rendering her TOO much taller than me.

We took the train up, having nicked an mX off one of the seats. Now, how does someone not know the word “hangar” but know the word “geyser”? I ask you this, and Jac probably should know – it was her.

We got to Southern Cross, and went to the apartment building where Hungy lives. Incidentally, it’s the same apartment as where Bel lives – they don’t know each other. When they all came downstairs, I saw that our company for the night would be Sting, Hungy, Bill, Cle-, Jacky (or, as we had to refer to him, Mandy’s Jacky), Mandy, Jac (my Jac, for the night) and of course myself.

We took a tram up to Crown, where M’s Jacky directed us to Kitchen Workshop, a buffet. At the counter, we each got a card which entitled us to a complementary half-kilo of prawns for the night. None of us liked prawns – or so I thought.

M’s Jacky ended up eating his entire half-kilo. Hungy had 4 servings, as did Cle-. Bill had half of his half-kilo. Mandy tried out all of her Jacky’s desserts, and I made Jac eat, which was miraculous.

The dinner table conversations weren’t the highest of the brows. I suppose I should admit it was partly due to my fault. APPARENTLY I am sick-minded.

After dinner, we walked to Flinders St station via Southbank, as I always like to do. It was really windy, and Mandy and Jac were starting to shiver a little. We walked past a guy who was living in this room for 28 days just watching the soccer. It was so weird (and cool at the same time).

The train ride back was pretty normal, except for Mandy’s twitching when she sleeps, and her left eye being bigger than her right one.

Stayed up last night watching the Spain VS Switzerland match. Dude, GG Spain, not getting a single goal in, AND losing to Switzerland.

Made Jac stay up til 1 am haha. I do feel bad about it.

Alex.

My Lungs Refuse To Breathe The Air Without You Here

[Without You Here – Pensive]

Hello Winter! Hello another 3 months of song titles.

Yesterday I went to dinner with April, Simon, Oli- (April and Soph’s older bro) Soph, Erh-, Kud, Andrew and DANI!!! (Left the best part ’til last.) Yep, Dani was in Melbourne, so we all went to dinner.

We went to Sante’s at Crown, which I realized upon getting there that I’d actually gone there before, for Gina’s birthday back in Yr 9 or 10. I was immediately relieved that my starving myself earlier in the day paid off because Sante’s is an all-you-can-eat buffet!

Dani gave me this really really awesome book which is titled The Ants Are My Friends, by Martin Toseland. It’s about “misheard lyrics, malapropisms, eggcorns and other linguistic gaffes”.

And we laughed and laughed and laughed at just about everything. Dani, Andrew and Kud were finding it hard to eat their fill because they had a huge lunch.

April ate food!

I had a huge plate (with lots of coleslaw haha) and then I ate a 2nd serving…OF PRAWN CRACKERS! Let me tell you now, Prawn Crackers with mint sauce is a-may-zing.

Also, I discovered crackling pork through Soph. I like it, but I think it’s really fatty so I didn’t have more.

On the train home, I introduced Wutinie to Fruit Ninja and suffice to say, they are hooked. Dani and I (unsuccessfully) tried out hand at Sudoku and Crossword. I used to think I get words fast at the Word Scramble, but that was before I had to go head-to-head with April. Crazy April.

So far I’ve finished 2 out of my 4 subjects. Now I have to start on my two 2000-word-essays. I dread it.

I hope to visit Canberra this winter. Hope. Hooooope.

Alex.

Dive In And Swim Away

[This Is The Future – Owl City]

I JUST REALIZED! I never wrote about Jen’s birthday. I feel so ashamed.

Alright so I’ll write very quickly because I have to write about today as well.

So I went up to Crown on Jan 1st, which is Jen’s birthday, and I wore my nice blazer that everyone seems to love (yay). Got to the Village Cinemas, and found SonJ.

Chris, James and Ray were there too, and Chris gave me a shirt that has Jen printed on it (as in, various pictures of her face) so we all wore that. Jen arrived, hug hug hug, we went into The Pub (where we ate after Valedictory and which SonJ had once described as “the place with people, the chairs and tables”). We went to get some drinks (BECAUSE EVERYONE WAS OLD ENOUGH!). I felt short at the bar, but thank God there was a bar (aha) where I stood so I can look tall-ish.

Ordered food (the Asian chick who served us was nice, which worked out well later on). Then when we sat down I noticed this table placement thing that said “If you book for a birthday, you receive complementary wine and cake”. I was like, get out no way. So we agreed to get SonJ and Ray to go up to the Asian chick who was previously nice and asked that though we didn’t book can we get a cake for Jen? They were so nice that they went to get a cake from somewhere else ‘cos they didn’t have one in the back.

Go The Pub.

SonJ is awesome in this respect: when she tries to explain something she starts with the broadest meaning. So in this instance she was trying to get a word like “testimonial” and she started with “you know when people write something about something?”

After dinner we went to the bowling place, but it was chocked full (duh it was NYD) so we went to Fusion bar. Paid, got stamped, and then there was no one inside (and a small bottle of Mount Franklin costs 5 bucks WHAT?!) so after a while we danced in the middle of the empty floor like douches, and then I had to leave.

Okay it doesn’t sound EXCITING when I say it here but the night was really awesome. Just talking nonsense with friends. Awesome. Better than NYE I suppose.

Alright, now I gotta go write about today!

Alex

Suit up and grab me some boobage

On Wednesday it was dress signing day. And after that was the valedictory.

I couldn’t find my school dress so I nicked a huge bunch of papers from the library printer and got everyone to sign on them, the papers, instead. Thus I didn’t have any Sharpie marks on my skin during Valedictory (here’s looking at you, Julia), and people wrote nicer messages. I still haven’t had the time to sit down and read them yet. (AND CARMAINE! You never got to write a message.)

I signed Spanna’s right boob as a joke from the previous day. In the previous day I took a picture of Spanna’s generous cleavage and told her I’d tag one boob as me and one boob as Julia. Which is why I signed the boob that is me on Wednesday.

When I got to school, I noticed that Dani’s left boob got taken by Andrew already (‘cos that’s where her heart is. Wtflux? Don’t ask.) so I got her right boob with “this is mine mine mine mine mine – Alex”.

That started my mission to get as many right boobs as I can with “this is mine mine mine mine (the number of ‘mine’ depended on the size of said breast) – Alex” as possible. I actually managed about maybe over 100? Hehe.

When the boob was taken, I took the crotch.

When both was taken, as in the case of Anto-, I took the bum. That one was actually surprisingly embarrassing.

During recess, someone boarded up all the windows in the common room and we had a rave party. Loud music, people jumping. It was fantastic.

After Legal (during which we did no work but sat around and were happy and took pictures and hugged Nik-) and our last class ever, Dani, Zara and I went to Dani’s place to get ready for Valedictory. I played with the new kittens (these are much smaller than the ones from last year) and they gave me confused looks. (By the way, I tried uploading photos but it wasn’t working.)

Got all my clothes ready, and Andrew came home, changed, and we were off to the Crown Palladium.

When we had finger food (well, it was MacRob, people were fighting for food) we camwhored and everyone remarked how tall the heels were and so forth. Met Spanna’s mom, and a man who I thought was her dad but turned out to be Chez’s dad. That was bloody embarrassing and not my fault.

Sat down for speeches. Trying to fast forward this because I haven’t had breakfast yet…

Had some great speeches from everyone, and it was quite funny when one half of the room’s lights began to turn on and off. Frank and Caro- performed their song and it was quite heartbreaking and caused quite a few tears when Frank started crying halfway through.

Then came the time for everyone to go up and get their stuff. When I went up I called out Clarkey’s name and gave him a high five. It was awesome (despite my mom telling me that I’m an idiot for it later on. I’m not going into that, by the way…)

After Valedictory BRuCE, Fel and our respective parents and the odd sibling or two went to dinner at The Pub at Crown (I finally went to the place SonJ had so much trouble explaining before, she said “the place with tables and chairs and music and people”). I ordered a steak and chips, and it was tough but very delicious.

Went home. That was a disaster. For the 2nd time in a row we had to catch a replacement bus because they were obviously doing something to the tracks at night. Mom felt too sick to stay on the bus and demanded to get out at MT WAVERLEY where we stood around at 11:40 at night in the cold. Couldn’t get a taxi, so had to call a family friend to come up. Parents argued for so long as to who to call that by the time the family friend came up to Mount Waverley from Wheelers Hill, the next replacement bus had come and gone and it was past midnight.

Got driven back to the Glen where our car was parked, and mom proceeded not to drive and just sit there for the next 2o minutes. Finally got home, and had to do all the other things like shower and clear memory space on my camera, so that when I went to sleep it was 1 am, and I was waiting for a 5 am wake up to get to school for early breakfast.

Now you understand why I was tired.

Otherwise, though, the night was incredibly fun, as was the day.

The next installment, which is our “muck up” day, will be written about tonight.

Alex.

Pilin’ boxes at the door, tryin’a block it

I can’t believe I actually forgot to update today. So this is a rather late entry for today.

Well, I was right yesterday, we stayed home today. I went online but of course no one was really on because, come on, it’s Boxing Day, everyone’s gone shopping.

I’m going out tomorrow, though, because mom still has to return a pair of shoes she bought. Well not so much return as exchange…because the clerk gave her two right feet. I don’t know. It’s just one of those crazy stupid things that are done by the same kind of people.

Hopefully tomorrow we will go to a good Yum Cha place for lunch. I haven’t had Yum Cha for a while, even though I have had my fair share of dumplings recently. We made a huge batch of them, ate them for nearly 2 weeks, and besides that Carmaine and Bee had wanted to go to a Chinese restaurant on the last day. So. Lots of dumplings.

I remember going to Knox’s (or was it Chadstone?) Myers on Boxing Day 2004. It was boring and we only managed to buy a toy bear, Patrick. I think that day was rather overshadowed in my memory by the fact that we had that tsunami in Indonesia and whatnot, and my friend was holidaying there at the time.

I also remember, it must’ve been 2001, because summer of 2002 I went back to China, or was it 2000? Anyway, I remember in the summer of 00/01, my cousin’s family from Canberra came over, and we went to the city on Boxing Day (now, back then, city was like, an awesome place you go to every once in a while for a treat. Unlike now. For school. And for general living.) and a few shops were closed but we went to Crown and we must’ve walked down Southbank (I didn’t know at the time, it was all a blur to me, basically in my head, Flinders St station was next door to Crown and Exhibition Centre). I was on the tram, and my cousin Julia (different Julia to the one I usually mention who is from my school, of course) was trying to explain what Boxing Day was, but I don’t think she knew it either. Seriously, what the hell is Boxing Day?

Speaking of Julia, I remember on the train back that day (now, it had to have been 2001, because that year we went to Melbourne Zoo. Why the hell do I sound like an old grandma recollecting childhood memories?) it was one of the old ones, I think they all were the old ones back then, and the driver for some reason kept on sounding the horn so Julia and I sang along to that. Okay we were numbskulls. I was also 10. Back then we lived near the Glen, so it was a walk from dinner on Kings Way. We went to Rock Kung (I remember for the following reason) and Julia and I took home the refresher hand towels. We pretended that the air was poisonous and we had to cover our mouths with the hand towels, and we made a racket walking home screaming to each other “NO YOU HAVE TO KEEP YOUR MOUTH COVERED!”

See? Good memories. I think the last time that Julia came over was just before I started MacRob, so summer of ’05. I haven’t seen her since then. I kind of wish they’d come over again (‘cos like hell I’m going to Canberra. If they met us halfway at Sydney maybe) but apparently mom and Julia’s dad, mom’s brother, are having some kind of misunderstanding that Frank, Julia’s dad, doesn’t know about. I mean, it’s stupid because our house is actually rather large now (the last time they came over Julia and I slept on the study floor. While we still don’t exactly have enough beds, we have more bloody room). But I guess it’s all for the best. I mean, what is the kind of person I am now, if family comes over they’d just complain about my hair in my eyes, or the way I talk, or whatever.

Well this turned out to be a long blog.

Hey, a small bit of info about me you might not have known: I love stuffed animals. Soft fur, huggable, either small enough so I can make it a puppet in my hand (small) or large enough to bear hug. I don’t want any hard limbs, I want the really soft kind, with an open and cute face. I have 3 teddy bears (as well as a tiger, a rattlesnake, a dog, a Tassie devil, a Toyota penguin, a very large duck and of course the dog that Viv gave me this year. All of the abovementioned animals are named after their specie, ie Tiger, Snake, Dog, Taz, Toyota, Duck, and I called the new dog Andrew…guess why. And the bears are Patrick, Ranger – being a ranger bear – and Bear).

Wasn’t that edge-of-your-seat-interesting?

Hey, whoever comments, tell me something about yourself that I don’t know.

De Fluffe, Out.

“That one there makes a triangle…”

Today is Dani’s 17th birthday so everyone, go on her blog on my blogroll (Danse Macabre) and shout out a happy birthday to her!

Yesterday, to celebrate, I took her out to the city. Except it was 33 degrees and the pollen count was apparently high. So she had hayfever, as well as the start of a cold, and it was hot.

I took a very early train, and met up with her at Southern Cross. We went to Crown, where she had Maccas for breakfast (boo for your cholestrole) and we walked  to this place which sold icecream (thinking back, all we did was go from one food location to another). It was just past 9 in the morning and we’d started eating ice cream. Then, with nothing to do, and lots of time, we went down to Galactic Circus.

They’d just opened for the day. In the sense that when Dani was eating Maccas it was still closed. And they were testing out the machines to see if they were all functional. That meant that nearly every machine with tickets had two or three ticket poking out of them. So Dani and I spent maybe $10 (was it?) in 20c coins, went to all those machines, and got about 259 tickets, 50 of those had to be “free tickets”. There was a whack-a-hippo game where one of the hippo’s head was cracked. I’d hate to have been around the person who did that.

We were late to our movie, which was Sex Drive, a teen movie. We sat down, and there was one other white guy in the audience two rows behind us. What a premier for the movie. But the thing is, while not being particularly deep or substantial, and being rather predictable, it was funny, touching, and it had Fall Out Boy in it. And they made fun of the Armish (sp? You know the people who don’t believe in technology). Even though Poor Dani was sniffing throughout the whole thing from her cold, I think she managed to enjoy the movie. I laughed particularly hard when, at the end, the protagonist Ian was in his Donut suit (he works in a donut shop and it’s a mascot) and the police came as Ian was holding a gun to the guy who was trying to steal his brother’s car, which Ian stole. The police tried to taser Ian but the suit was made from foam so nothing happened, then the police tried to capsicum spray him but the cop pointed the spray in the wrong direction and sprayed himself in the eyes.

I love slapstick shit like that.

After the movie we took a tram back to Dani’s apartment, where I nearly fell on some poor lady sitting down, due to the tram’s breaking (Dani laughed and called it Karma just because I said it was Karma that made her have a cold) and one someone’s Nokia ringtone went off…

Marco, Dani and I went to Nandos for lunch. I had the extra hot chilli sauce, and Dani had ketchup (weeeeeeak) and she ate more chicken than I did which is good because I wanted her to get nice and fat. Like Gretel from Hansel and Gretel. Because then I could “eat her”. I forgot to call Jen to tell her I couldn’t make Strings rehearsal (not that I planned to in the first place). We went back to her apartment where she and I napped (I tried to nap but I don’t sleep well in heat and someone else’s bed). She took some cold pills and got a bit mental. Actually that part was great. You should see Dani when she’s gotten a bit funny from cold medicine. Dani had stuck glow in the dark stars onto the mattress of the bunk above her, and we layed there trying to find shapes in the stars, and we found a lobster, and “that one there makes a triangle…”

After spending 2-3 hours just lying around (and yes Dani, I agree, we should spend more time while we can, just lazing around not actually doing anything but just enjoying each other’s presence. I did that with Bee and with you, and it was probably more relaxing than going to places and doing stuff. Don’t get me wrong, I still think bowling would kick ass) we got up, and Dani went to have dinner at this place on Clarendon (didn’t catch the name) and I had to leave halfway to go to the MIddle School Soiree.

That went well, despite being a huge waste of time. Unlike the Senior School Soiree (haha D.P.) we didn’t stuff up and everyone heard us (plus Mr Male my teacher played with us, and we were in the theatre). When we were waiting outside for our piece to start, Jen and I were sitting on the picnic table and it must’ve been maybe 6:45 – 7, because literally in 1 second, the heat was gone and the cool change settled in. I blinked and the weather changed. It was gorgeous. Fat, wet-smelling raindrops, the cool air that dried the stickiness off me, just running around the courtyard going for a drink and letting off pent up energy…on the way home I was at Domain Interchange and two druggies stood too close to me for comfort, so, ditching all efforts to be subtle, I moved to stand closer to this Asian family – it was Information Night for next year’s Year 9’s. Missed a train so had to wait another 30 minutes for the next one, dozed on the train, came home and just crashed.

But of course it was well worth it. I’d rather spend a whole 24 hours without sleep and with my friends than spend half a day at home by myself. I got up at 12 to text Dani happy birthday – a la me – and at past 6 a tremendous crack of thunder woke me up. I was a bit awake because the lightning flash had gone through my closed eyes, and then CCCRRKK-BOOOOM and then Bee called me while I was drifting back to sleep. She asked if the electricity had gone out at my place. I rolled out of bed, went to the light switch, flipped it on, looked around, flipped it off, crashed back into bed and said, “no the light still goes on”. After that i couldn’t sleep no matter how hard I tried, so I got up and here I am.

The rain is nice. I wish I could go have a walk in it but it’s actually rather cold.

De Fluffe, Out.