And then side A clicks over, and the beat resumes.

Oh Herro internet, my oh my (coffee and pie) it certainly has been many a moon since i have taken time to write you. I'd like to say that i have been busy, but then i would be lying. I have much time on my hands which i am finally learning how to use effectively. Its quite the rush.

As you may or may not know dear stranger, i have recently deferred from my university career in order to pursue other avenues of my interests. I like to think that this will help me grow a bit. I think i need to grow a bit. I didn't want to just cruise through my uni life just kicking it without proper motivation after all. The thought seems somewhat empty to me. I mean, i'm not doing the most intensive course; i'm doing arts. The whole idea with such a degree is you only really get something out of it if you put in. Towards the end of last year i wasn't really putting in that much. I felt that this was reason enough to take a sabbatical and regroup, kind of re-motivate myself for my course.

I think its working, too much so. I really just want to go back to uni now. Like RIGHT now. I'm in the mood for a night perusal of the library and reading a few texts. I guess you can take the boy out of the study, but you can't take the study out of the boy now can you? HUH!?! This is pretty much why i've spent the past week doing about as much study as i would at uni - reading up on the beat period of 1950's - 60's America and digging alotta Ginsberg and Kerouac and Burrough. I don't care what anyone says, this knowledge is fundamental stuff, and its the kind of influential literature that i think everyone needs to be privy to.

BUT HEY!! THAT'S JUST ME OPINING RIGHT HERE GUYS!!

Yet, despite such fundamental studies, i have decided to continue with my deferral and not instantly re-enrol in my course haphazardly (it almost happened when i tried to swindle LaTrobe out of a concession card. HONESTLY, how could that rather mature woman resist my charms!?) as some kind of decisive action. I figure its time to make one of those in my life. Again, the need to grow up deal still kicking it.

Such thoughts also inspired me to plan ahead of once, in terms of using my time off for my benefit and such. I got a new job as a support worker working with people who has the disabilities. I'm shitting myself. I can't deal with these kinds of responsibilities. My current employment history has me either getting fired, pouring boiling water all over myself or contemplating buying tequila at 8 am on a sunday morning to break the tedium of hospitality. How am i meant to support people for 8 hour shifts or work an all-night sleep-over deal? It doesn't help that i missed a day of induction and information in order to work at Soundwave (which was one of the most bangin' days i have had in a very long time) so i feel very under-trained and under-informed. Counting the positives, i don't start for another month, in which i have to organise two "shadow shifts" where i follow people around like a ninja (assumingly) and learn how things work. This is followed by another day of induction later this month. Which hopefully will help me feel a little more comfortable and not so oh-ma-gosh-stressed-as-fuck.

But, reading between the lines with this deal, i have a month with very little to do. So i'm looking to:

1. find the inevitable third job (i have a perspective cafe in my sights!).
2. Rock golden planes (featuring Pavement/Dinosaur Jr. & hopefully featuring Slappers, copious stimulants/hallucinogens and fun tiems)
3. Get ma friends piano/bass/buy an 8-track/learn drums moar/mebe record sumthinnnn.
4. read so mush more Ginsberg&Burroughs&Kerouac and do my soul some good.
5. Dig life, feel the beat and know time.

I think these next few months have potential. I think ups and downs will occur, and that's the best possible ambition i can have right now.

Until we talk again, MyKill.

Just kiss me in the morning in your dirtiest pants.

Flipping pancakes brings me a satisfaction with life I cannot get from most other things.

I'm sure I have posted blogs about the Small Pleasures of Life before, but this is one of those pleasures.

I worked this morning, and that is what I did. Flipped pancakes. And it was oh-so-satisfying to make each pancake. Watching it bubble up, and flipping it perfectly, and getting it a golden brown colour.
Of course... after that, I had to watch it be demolished and mangled by a small child with inadequate table manners and an inability to handle cutlery.

But it was nice to cook them, anyway.

Other simple pleasures: watching someone wrestle a large bunch of helium balloons into a small car, being the first person to use a new tube of toothpaste, writing on a banana, clean sheets, a big hug from a good friend, receiving a letter in the mail...

xx

i float

Hello internet. This week has been very serene. It's nice, if not particularly exciting. I went into recluse mode for a while (sorry guys, I still love you, I promise) after having a particularly awful night thanks to some wretched substances and subsequently spiralling into a deep pit of unrelenting despair for a number of days. On the plus side, that is now over and I find myself strangely numb. It's still not exactly pleasant, but at least I don't feel like I'm dying anymore, right?

So it's been a lazy week. I've watched a lot of hockey. I miss hockey. When I played my team was super, super terrible, but it was fun, I miss it. I cannot TELL YOU how excited I am about the Olympic hockey, you guys, oh my goodness. Now that Latvia's out (not for want of trying, I was honestly convinced that they were going to pull some Steven Bradbury bullshit and beat everyone, and it would have been AWESOME) I think I want the Swedes to win. Sweden is, after all, a peaceful nation. I think that the US and Russia and Canada are all so fierce about this that they're going to DESTROY EACH OTHER and then Sweden'll beat Finland because...well, because I like the Sedins.

THINGS I HAVE LEARNED THIS WEEK:

- My grandfather, my father's father, he was born in 1925. He came to Australia in 1949. I found that out from the internet, the emigration thing. I rang him up and used it to convince him to tell me things. That's how I found out about 1925. His name was Arthur, before I knew him. Before my father knew him. Before 1949, even. His mother's name was Maria. He doesn't talk about her, but I feel like I knew this somehow anyway. There aren't any photos of her. His father - I never knew this - was named Paulis. There are old photos of my uncle Jimmy, and one of my uncle Michael, in a little shoebox downstairs. The ones of Jimmy are marked "Jamie". He's two or so. His name isn't really James, so it's strange to me that he was Jamie even then. Why not just stick with one name, pleasekthanks.

- I watched I Am Legend. Why would they change the ending? It was the WHOLE POINT. Ugh.

- I wish I could spin wool from fleece. I wish I could weave. I think it'd be relaxing. There's something very calming to me about really honestly DIYing things all the way back. I want to be able to make a jumper from a sheep. If that's wrong then my goodness, I don't want to be right. I know a woman, Joy, who weaves tapestries for a living. She went on a holiday and wove the things she saw. This is how she makes her living. They're displayed in galleries and things. There's something lovely about this to me. Tapestries, in a modern age. I think it's because they haven't been embraced by the youth, you know? Everybody nowadays is an 'artist'. Very few are actually talented but the field's so saturated that the real gems don't get a chance. I think maybe there's a sort of magic in being talented at something like that. How do you even find out, I wonder? How does one come to the realisation that you're incredibly proficient at tapestry-weaving? Painting, photography, things like that, they're accessible, the talented people can find them (and so, too, the untalented who don't realise). It's strange.

I think I will spend tomorrow in libraries. Museums, maybe, too. I don't have any money. I'm going to improvise. I can sew, you know. Sometimes I wish I could make money that way, over the internet, maybe; I hear Etsy's got a market for it. Unfortunately I'm not very fond of fussy and overly-precious and poorly-stitched. I like fit and finish. I like grosgrain binding, and French seams, and fabric that feels like heaven under your fingertips. I like seams that don't pucker, for god's sake, and super-structured jackets that nip in sharply at the waist, rows of pintucks. I really hate yards of tulle gathered on a waistband and called a "petticoat", and I cannot abide the thought of selling a corset - with boning! - that wasn't made-to-measure. There isn't really a market for that - not on the internet. If I was older I'd be a seamstress. I'd still like that. It's not really a part-time job, though. My grandmother was a seamstress. Maybe she'll teach me.




Sometimes I wonder why we don't get more time.

IN WHICH I AM CAPSLOCKY AND SLIGHTLY MANIC

Hey kids and kidlets, bros and hos of our readership:

The time is upon us once again! That's right, it's back to uni time. AWESOME. I am so looking forward to this. Not really though. Well, I am! But at the same time I am DREADING IT. Why am I dreading it, you ask? Because I am transferring midyear into a double degree, which I am :D about, but I have to have "a decent average" to do it. Which means credit or distinction. Which I totally would, except I failed one unit last year - my bad, and in my defence I redid it and got a distinction, so really I think my failure should be stricken from the record, I mean, come on - and now my average is totally tanked. AWESOME. So I'm all like "hey I'll actually submit assignments this semester and get HDs to pump up my average" which is an awesome plan, ok, but this semester I have to take this unit designated "MTE3541". You see that? You see that sneaky little 3? That is because it is a third year unit! I have to rock a HD in a third year unit, you guys, come on, I AM EIGHTEEN, THIS IS TOTALLY UNFAIR. AND it has a 6-hour lab. SIX HOURS. Tuesdays, 11am-5pm. WHAT. Is that even allowed? But that's according to allocate+. The handbook says there's only 3 x 3 hour labs all semester. That'd be fine. I dunno. I'm super confused now! Ugh you guys uni is hard to understand

ANYWAY the point is it's ridiculous, let's move on to the awesome parts, which are:
A) I get to do a design unit finally and
B) I AM GOING TO HAVE THE BEST COURSE EVER AFTERWARDS SERIOUSLY

I have to do a major sequence in science (I'm rockin' astrophysics, it's gonna be awesome) and a major sequence in maths, but if I do the maths major in just mathematics? (Instead of pure mathematics, like I was gonna) I CAN TOTALLY USE ASTRONOMY UNITS AS MY MATH MAJOR.

Do you know what this means I GET TO LOOK AT THE STARS AND IT COUNTS TOWARDS MY FRIGGIN DEGREE, HOW SWEET IS THAT

So basically I'm changing my course from The Joys Of Biplanes into THE COSMOS, AND: HOW TO GET THERE! it's gon' be awesome. ♥


NOW.
PART TWO: A PSA (FOR STUDENTS TAKING PSYCHOLOGY)
Boys and girls! I understand your love for psychology. Psychology is awesome! People are interesting! Freud was a freakazoid! ALL GOOD TIMES.

But! I feel I must take to the innernets to tell you an apparently super secret nugget of information:
Taking a psychology unit? In your BA? Or even in your BSc? Isn't going to lead you to a psychiatry career. I am sorry. You gotta go to med school, bros. If that's what you wanna do, you have to be a doctor and then go on to specialise in psychiatry. Sure, you will learn things that are Interesting and Relevant to the field of psychiatry. But, um, yeah. Srry guys, that's just not how it works. Also, if you wanna go the psychology route? You gotta take stats, so, just a headsup so you don't get blinded by that one.

WHAT ELSE? I had more to say. Oh yeah!


PART THREE: RUMINATIONS ON GOD (AND WHY YOU SHOULD SHUT UP)
Sometimes I talk about religion with people. I try not to, because I ramble, because I am unfortunately fascinated by God and the beginning of the universe and trying to reconcile what I feel instinctively (that is, there is no God) with what I know objectively (that is, we have no better explanation for the existence of the universe). I try not to talk about it, but it comes out sometimes, especially if I'm drunk, and especially if I'm talking to my dad (I believe Girl on the run has been privy to one of these slightly incoherent conversations once upon a time. My apologies)

ANYWAY the point is my issues with God - is he, isn't he - are myriad, and they are very very troubling to me, and I have Serious Deep-Seated Issues with his (non-)existence. Sometimes people - certain kinds of people - engage me in conversation about religion, and this happens:

Pigstilts: Yeah I have God issues, I don't know, don't talk about this to me
Random Person (Let Us Henceforth Call Him Esteban): Oh, well, you know God doesn't exist.
(Esteban waits, as if he expects this nugget of wisdom to trigger an epiphany within me. It does not.)
Esteban: I mean, you know that, right? (starts talking slowly) You know that God isn't real, right?
Pigstilts (probably slurring): YEAH WELL I dunno man! Existence can't be explained without a God right now. All those SCIENCE AND GOD ARE INCOMPATIBLE people are wrong sry2say, it's kind of a bummer (unsaid: please SHUT UP)
Esteban: Creationism is a pseudoscience!
Pigstilts: OK. Don't recall mentioning that, but hey, we coo'
Esteban: IT IS UNSCIENTIFIC FOR THESE REASONS: BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH EVOLUTION IS POWER
Pigstilts: I know, man, I-
Esteban (talking over Pigstilts): PRAISE BE TO DARWIN
Pigstilts: (A science conversation! THAT I can get behind. I love science!)
(I try to engage him in a Science Dialogue)
(Esteban proceeds to explain evolution/string theory/relativity/etc to me. Badly. He is woefully misinformed, probably self-taught from Wikipedia, and utterly convinced he has perfect understanding of 'string theory'. He does not.)
Pigstilts: Oh haha that's - that's not really how it works, man
(At this point, Esteban will smile condescendingly and maybe laugh a little): well I wouldn't expect YOU to get it

ESTEBAN
YOU ARE HATEFUL
GO AWAYYYYYYYY UGHHHHHHH

This started out as a section of the post on my God issues, but that's my crap, so you get a post on this instead.

My grrrrls out there in the readersphere? I bet they know what I'm talking about. The explaining simple concepts or things that we understand already. Or explaining something that they don't understand, when we haven't asked for an explanation (especially if it's something we actually *do* understand, seriously). When we try to correct them, or say WE ALREADY KNOW THESE THINGS, or smile and nod, they will KEEP EXPLAINING. Or they will say we're wrong when we aren't, or that we couldn't be expected to understand, or that there's just NO REASONING with SOME WOMEN (this is normally said to the room at large, with a grin, as if expecting surrounding people to voice their agreement with this sentiment.)

(At this point I tend to facepalm, if I'm not already. YMMV)

ANYWAY. Basically this is really infuriating behaviour and could you please stop it, Estebans of the World?

Pls and thank you.


PART FOUR:
I really need a job asfsgafehg it doesn't need to be awesome or anything! GDI I will file shit all day if I have to, or rock the service stations, why are people so reluctant to doooo this ahhh
(Although I did find one job ad that basically said "We need someone who is awesome at Connect 4, we will pay you $20/hr to play Connect 4, don't bother sending a resume just prove your Connect 4 skills", it was awesome. Unfortunately I - like Annahyde - am ineligible, but still)


PS hey so guys
who here has ever been to counselling/therapy/whatever
what's it like and um is it worth it
ITT: yo' therapeutic experiences, go

Cuddle Fuddle.

What do you want for Valentine's Day?
I want... extravagant cupcakes, and new shoes, and jelly made in pretty moulds, and an old film camera, and a bunch of irises, and love letters from secret admirers, and french toast in bed, and a hot air balloon ride, and kisses, and dance lessons, and high tea, and a vintage animal belt, and strawberry daiquiris, and glitter, and balloons, and mix tapes, and to go to the ballet, and a new dress.
But.
I don't have a Valentine.
So I think I'll settle for homemade cupcakes and wine and goofy photos, in a park, with three really good friends. I reckon I can probably deal with that. I think it will be completely wonderful.

Have a good one. xx