The Four of Us

The Four of Us

Went over to Christine's house today. April and Claudia were there too. Amelia had other plans. We played board games (April and I lost terribly to Christine and Claud in Pictionary). However, I did win the game about who tells the best lies. No surprises there. I'm an expert liar.

We ate a lot of junk food. We talked a lot and had a great time.

It'd be a lot harder to have days like that next year when some of us will have full-time jobs. (Hopefully, I'll have a job.)

Childhood is slipping through our fingers too fast.

Other People and Life Mistakes

Other People and Life Mistakes

Had a nice day in the city with April, Claud and Christine. We went for lunch at a very quirky place because we are trying to taste every international cuisine there is. Next to us sat a group of young women who reminded me of the 'girls' from "Sex and the City". They were all tall, dressed very metropolitan and talked about their relationships (as April told me since I couldn't really hear them).

And there were four of us who looked like kids (and I sure felt like one too). Maybe it's because I know my friends since high school that I always feel like I'm a high school student whenever I'm around them. The only thing that really changed is that now we don't eat at McDonalds every time we go out. Other than that, we still act silly and talk about movies and organising our next get-togethers.

In front of me sat a middle-aged couple who I'm certain were having an affair. I could tell this by the way the woman stared dreamily at the muscled guy (with grey hair) who I'm sure looked gorgeous when he was younger. The way the woman kept flicking her fake blonde hair. The way the man couldn't keep his hands off her. The way they were trying to look like teenagers. It was plain gross.

After our lunch, April and I went to watch "Suddenly Thirty" which was VERY enjoyable. April and I couldn't control our laughter. Sadly, we could relate too much to the pain the 13 year old girl was experiencing. But I'd like to point out, that we NEVER went as far as she did. Just so you know.

The movie made us think if we could change anything in the past what it would be. April apparently wouldn't change anything. People say that they don't regret mistakes because of what they learn but I'd rather not make mistakes because I could've not been where I am today if I didn't make them. Like my Dad says, "It's better to learn from other people's mistakes" and I totally agree.

Although if anything was too different, I might've never met April and I don't know what I'd do without her. I always get the best stomach workout laughing with her.

Perfect Friend

If you feel like your friends are not how you want them to be, think about this:

"When your looking for a friend don't look for perfection, just look for friendship."

The Worst Habit

The Worst Habit

There’s a girl in my course who hasn’t talked to anyone for the last two years and only last week decided to try and join in by having lunch with us. I tried to make her feel welcome (‘cause it can be quite daunting to try and join a large group of people who all know each other). I started talking to her but I couldn’t understand a word she was saying because of her very strong accent. That made it very difficult because I couldn’t reply to what she said but just sat there, smiled and nodded. And every time, she’d look at me questioningly, I felt really bad for seeming so snobby to her.

She was also talking while she was eating and she had all this food stuck in her teeth and she was chewing really noisily and spitting. It was so gross, especially that one thing that irritates me above all else is people eating loudly, making that smacking, chewing and gulping noise. (Just that day, a girl behind me on the train was eating so loudly I had to restrain myself from turning around and telling her to shut up).

Even after that girl was gross, I invited her to come along for our yesterday’s outing. She came which surprised the others and afterwards they said it was nice that she did. I tried to talk to her again because most people were ignoring her (not because they were being rude but because she wasn’t really joining in) and I have to say that I’m over trying so hard to make her feel comfortable because she was spitting when she was talking and I couldn’t understand what she was talking about. I try not to feel sorry for people but it was a bit hard with her.

Which habit irritates you the most?

An Outing Causes Reflection

An Outing Causes Reflection

I think my private blog with April is making me write less in here. For example, I had a sorta interesting day today but I can't really write about all the details in here 'cause I'm too paranoid someone I know might recognise me. It's just easier to only tell April about it.

I went out with some uni friends and amazingly had (I'm a bit afraid to say this) a BETTER time than I usually have with my high school friends. Never thought that could happen. Now, what made it better?

Firstly - guys. Even if none of them were my type (or anywhere even close) but it was nice to hang out with not only girls. Secondly, I loved how everyone was a lot more outgoing which made it easier to not worry whether everyone was having a good time. And it was easier to have a good time with relaxed social people around.

It's weird how although I act the same with my high school friends and my uni friends, people have quite different perceptions of me.

I also got thinking that not only can't we choose our families, but we also can't choose our friends. If I could pick people I'd want to be friends with from the entire population, I doubt I'd choose the friends I have. Except a few.

The Death of a Blog

The Death of a Blog

I was just reflecting on the fact that I've had this blog for a year and a half. That's kinda long. There have been a number of blogs that I found to love but then their bloggers decided to stop writing. There was madpony, Anna and me and now Belle de Jour has decided to end hers. I wonder if I'll ever get sick of writing here. Somehow I doubt it.

Today, I accidentally stumbled on another great blog. Lisa, the blogger from New York, is the type of person that I'd want to be friends with. She's positive and funny and interesting so her blog is great to read. Hopefully, she won't stop writing in it so I can enjoy it for a while longer.

Can't wait to go to America. I might start to count down the days soon!

Invitation Only

Invitation Only

Now that I have a Gmail account, I feel like a part of an exclusive society. I had it since last week (I think...) and I have to say that it's definitely a great innovation on the ordinary email. The 1Gb of email space is fantastic as well as conversation like emails where the replies to a certain email do not litter your inbox, but are added to the original email. So there's no need for ">>>>" that show which email you're replying to. This probably won't make sense if you don't have it, but trust me, it's great!

A Good Boring Day

A Good Boring Day

This semester, I'm not having any exciting days like in previous ones. Here's what happened today:

• Did a presentation which made my tutor laugh. That never happened before, but I was quite pleased.
• Got my essay back and got a distinction - very unexpected since I haven't written a proper essay since high school. (My course is mostly project based.)
• At the station, bought a return ticket to the city so that I could go and fix my plane ticket but it turned out the guy gave me a one way (even though I paid for a return). I got quite annoyed when the ticket gate swallowed my ticket.
• Couldn't find the travel centre so went into a bank to ask. A cute guy was there who actually came out with me onto the street to look for house numbers. Obviously there weren't any, since I already looked before asking him. I asked him to ask other people who worked at the bank. One lady knew and told me.
• Fixed my plane ticket after a debate about whether the lady could do it. Felt good about changing her mind, and saving $100.
• Got on the train and listened to young high school boys talk about movies and girls. It was very entertaining.
• Got off a station before mine and walked home. (I decided to lose weight for my end of the year formal and since there's not much I can change about my diet which is pretty healthy, I've decided to exercise more.)

Teenage Dramas

Teenage Dramas

Everyone seems to be really rapt in The OC, except me. The show just seems to be a new generation of Dawson's Creek, but in my opinion not as good. I don't know, maybe I've just outgrown angsty teenage dramas. But somehow I don't think that's the reason for me not liking it.

I think the difference between The OC and other shows (that I've watched) that it's been compared to (such as Dawson's Creek, Felicity and Party of Five) is that in The OC, I don't like the characters. It's not even just that I can't relate to them (like I could with Joey, Felicity and Claudia), but I genuinely don't like them. They bore me. Seth (played by Adam Brody) is the only one that seems to be interesting but in this show, his character is lost and downplayed by teenage guy fantasy storylines.

The girls in the show seem to be completely two dimensional and are there only as objects for the guys to drool over. There's the "girl next door" who can't even be compared to Joey (even when she did get annoying), there's the "straight-forward flirt" and the "nice blonde". Their stereotypes all add to the ingredients of the typical teenage soap-opera.

Turnaround

Turnaround

I got another tutoring job and it made me think how many kids I tutored. And they are all so different, with their distinct personalities.

The guy that I tutor now, Aidan, started off as someone I thought I could really make a difference in, but then progressed to me just wanting to get through the lesson any way possible, but today something clicked and I actually thought that I quite liked him. He wasn't a lost cause after all. He was bright (which I always knew) and this brightness wasn't just his brains but his personality too. At first I thought he was some kid on drugs with a big attitude problem who was too lazy to use his brain, but today I realised that he was a very friendly person who was creative and clever, but just lived in an environment that wouldn't let him be confident enough to use his brains. He even told me that the reason he didn't want to do too well in tests was so that he wouldn't be the top student, because that was a bad label to have. And that's quite sad.

Maybe I should've been a teacher, as I wanted to be until about year 11. Hmm.... Maybe not, I should just stick to tutoring.

Book End

Book End

It's so annoing when a book is very interesting and then you get to the end and it has the cheesiest conclusion.

"Geography" by Sophie Cunningham is a perfect example. It's about a woman telling her story (about how she got obsessed with a man who was just using her) to a young woman she befriends on a holiday in India. Stop reading now if you don't want to know how it ends. As soon as the young woman turns out to be gay, I was hoping that the author wouldn't resort to the older woman falling in love with her. And when throughout the book, nothing of this sort happens, I got quite happy that a story can be about a close friendship between 2 women (one of which is gay) without them falling in love with each other, but then the author had to go and ruin everything. In the last few pages, the older woman (who was completely obsessed with a man throughout the whole story) goes and falls in love with the young gay one. I was so disappointed that it had to have such a predicted and corny ending.

Now I have a major dilemma: should I reduce my originial rating of 4 stars to 3 stars on Amazon just because of the ending? Decisions, decisions.

Surprised?

Surprised?

Can't say that I'm surprised that I was the only one turn up to the dancing class. I didn't even care as much as I did last time. I was beyond caring. I got the lesson for free, even though it was cut in half. Oh well. I'll go next week again. The instructor (who seemed only a few years older than me) said that some of her workmates will be coming next week. I'm not counting on it.

Another Try

Another Try

I decided to give dancing lessons another try. I found an ad in the paper about new ones that are located only 2 suburbs away from mine. I called the place and the lady sounded nice (which was a change from the dancing studos in my suburb). And they are not expensive, like the ones in the city. My only hope is that I won't be the only one to turn up like the last time. Really hope nothing goes wrong.

Without My Brother

Without My Brother

I saw "Marty's and Jess's Outback Wedding" and although I didn't think it was as good as Trista's Wedding, one bit brought tears to my eyes. When I heard that her brother died in the Bali bombings, I just felt so extremely sick because I couldn't stop putting myself in her shoes and imaginig what it would be like without Andy. Even after it finished when I'd think of it, I'd get all teary.

I guess what made me so sad was the fact that Andy and I haven't spoken to each other properly for a month now because he's really mad at me for losing my temper really bad and going a bit insane. Even though he provoked it, but it's no excuse. I tried to talk to him but he got mad that I was pretending like nothing happened.

I decided to be mature about this because life is too short for fights like these and wrote him an apology (since he wouldn't talk to me).

I hate not talking to him so much because he's my favourite person in the whole world (even at his worst) and the thought of him not being close with me makes me so upset that I don't want to waste a single moment being like we are now.

I realised a while ago that I love my parents because they are my parents but I love Andy not because he's my brother but because he's the best person I know.

Pop

Pop

Yesterday when I saw the last 5 minutes of "Australian Idol: The Unforgettables" or whatever it was called, I felt like Matilda did when she saw dollar bills being stuck to a guy using honey (or whatever it was) and broke the TV using her brain power. Unfortunately, I didn't have that much brain power and I love the TV too much.

But seriously, it made me sick that people's stupidity was exploited like that. I felt the performers' humiliation for them, since they obviously didn't understand that they were being publicly made fun of. Reminded me of primary schools when kids who didn't know any better were made fun of and they thought people actually liked them.

I guess I should try not to feel too bad for them since the performers actually enjoyed the spotlight and being part of the show (even if they didn't understand what it really was about).

What is really disgusting though was that a show like that could actually make money. It was something that could've been written in a fiction book satirising pop culture. But it was actually real. How very sad that television has to sink down to this level.

My Grandparents' Quirks

My Grandparents' Quirks

My grandparents crack me up.

When I went to visit them today, somehow we got talking about TV and my grandma asked, "What's with the ad that has a girl turning around and dropping her skirt?" Since my grandparents don't really understand English, I had to explain to them about the Miss Universe incident and that it was no ad.

My grandma then said, "She wasn't even wearing underwear" and my grandpa said that she was. My grandma then waved her hand and said, "Yes, she was wearing some stringy thing. Is that supposed to make people think that she's wearing underwear? Is it just a string at the front as well?".

I couldn't reply because my stomach was hurting from laughing so much. I tried to calm down by telling them that Australia won Miss Universe (because it turned out my grandparents didn't know) and my grandma said, "I didn't see her face but her butt wasn't bad".

Memory Prevents From Enjoyment of Song

Memory Prevents From Enjoyment of Song

Every time I see/hear Thirsty Merc on TV/radio, I can't take their song seriously because all I can think of is when the lead singer made out in front of me at the Maroon 5 concert. And how short he was.

And the song sounds nice (if only a little bit off).

Personal Reminder

Personal Reminder

Starting to talk to Max again was supposed to be something extra to spice up my life, not the ONLY thing to make my life interesting.

MUST NOT get into the old cycle of obsession. Must pretend that everything is the same as it was before I started to talk to him again. So he's just a small part to make things fun, not the ONLY fun thing to be exaggerated and taken out of proportion. NOT the centre of my fun.

Must stop thinking up of endless scenarios involving Max. Actually came up with what I can say to my friends about how I met Max, without lying, and without telling the real truth. God, I can be so manipulative. Although it might not go the way I'd like. I guess I don't really have to think about it just yet, anyway.

TAFE Assignment: Supporting Role Played By My Blog

TAFE Assignment: Supporting Role Played By My Blog

I was checking my blog statistics today and saw that I was linked to what looks like a tafe assignment.

As I read it, I couldn't help but think that my blog was an example of a mundane blog that the author of that page talks about (since the other 3 examples look like very popular blogs (especially dear_raed.blogspot.com, who most bloggers know about).

It also said that "Anonyminity can also reduce the credibility of the writer if they are making comments but not taking responibility" (a spelling mistake in an assignment!) which is a bit hypocritical since I couldn't find anywhere on that site where it said who its author was. (Although if I had to do an assignment that I had to post on the internet, I wouldn't write my name either.)

Not that I'm certain about this, but it's kinda funny if my blog was used as a bad example.

TV

TV

Watched so much TV today in the morning. Probably to make up for how much I haven't watched in the last few weeks.

I taped "Joe Schmoe" and "Playing It Straight" since I'm addicted to reality TV shows. Joe Schmoe is getting quite suspenseful since it's getting close to when the guy finds out that the other contestants are actors. Have a feeling he's going to cry (judging by how he started sobbing when one contestant that he liked got voted off). Seriously, get a grip, it's a TV show!

"Playing It Straight" I just had to watch. The guys that got voted off I thought were gay. I always liked to think that I can read people pretty well so it's a bit disheartening to realise that I can't. The way one guy (that got voted off) said, "Ohmy Gawwd!!" I thought was a sure sign that he was gay, but how wrong I was.

Oh and I saw "The Practice" this week and I'm hooked.