I guess a lot of people look back on their childhood and think they were fairly bad behavedly. But, yeah, I was practically devil spawn. As an example, once I threw a knife at my mum, I threw scissors and my grandma. That kind of thing. I was eventually put on some super natural diet where I wasn’t allowed colours or preservatives and food was typically crap. This came from getting referred to some hospital and get allergy testing done and the, perhaps overzealous, doctor gave my mum a list of things I couldn’t eat and things I was allergic to which would stop me misbehaving. Of course, this was probably two years before Ritalin hit its prime in Australia, so I’m lucky I dodged that pharmaceutical bullet. In the end, I had low dopamine levels. But I spent a year or so with no artificial colourings (yes, Binkas lollies and lemonade was splashing out). In the list that my mum was given, I was supposed to only drink boiled water. Water from the tap had to be boiled to eradicate any nasties. So, on this medical advice, every night, mum would boil the next day’s water. What a crock.

Also, apparently cow milk was dodgy, so they recommended goats milk. Yes. That didn’t work too well. Mum tried to put it in my cereal one morning before school. It seems that, on other occasions, I’m not all that great at picking up when people have put stuff in my food (apparently they also suggested putting phenergen in my nightly milk to make me sleep – as a side note, FAIL). But this time I distinctly remember telling mum that I wouldn’t eat the cereal because it smelt like goats. And, as a result, tasted like goats. She made the mistake of not believing me and so I challenged her to try some. The end result was the dismissal of goats milk from my diet. It did, in fact, taste like goats.

Why am I recounting this here? There is a point. Apart from the fact that I would have been easily classified as ADD as a child (and probably still have many more ADD traits than would be ideal), I remember that one of the things I used to have was some Pebbles and Bam Bam cereal. I think it was from the health food aisle – and from memory it tasted abysmal, so that lends support to that idea. I vaguely recall that it was some kind of berry/chocolate flavouring that mixed horribly with the milk (actual moo juice though, as a positive). I really felt like a bowl of that heinousness just before. And it made me think just how many foods that used to be available in my childhood have disappeared from Australian shelves. I remember when it was no trouble to buy American brands here – Crazy Clarks was selling poptarts for ages. Coles used to sell Reeses up until around 2001 because I remember buying some for a friend’s birthday. Why did they all disappear? So many good brands and yummy foods.

I miss Muncharos. Poptarts. Chickadee chips. Wave iceblocks. Those traffic light ice blocks that had lemon and orange and strawberry shapes. Kool Chocs. Full Monty chips. The promotional foods from Maccas when a movie came out (does anyone remember the Monsters Inc blue Big Mac and sundae?). Sigh.

You should know that I’m a person whose brain seems to thrive on the stress that comes with making what it sees as momentous decisions. I’m always teetering on the brink of making a decision but never quite tip myself over the edge. I’m a shocking decision maker. I decided to buy a new computer in November and have saved the computer to my cart multiple times since then, but still haven’t bought it. As of Thursday, it jumped in price by $100. Thx so much, Dell.

Why do I tell you this? Well, my current obsession (when I say ‘current’, read since August last year) is thinking of a PhD topic that I can stomach for 3 years. I have had multiple ideas but the problem is either finding a suitable supervisor or it being a dead-end topic with little chance of publication or relevance to anyone. But damn, I’d enjoy them. There are really two areas at uni that I could go. One topic seems to push me in one direction, but that’s really not where I want to be. There are kind of two PhD cultures in this area and I’d very much like to stay in the faculty area that I’m in. There’s essentially no difference, except in my mind. But, you know, that’s really enough for me to not want to go there. I’m not going to burn any bridges, but I can’t really see my attitude changing in the next six to nine months (which is when I’ll have to start drafting applications).

Some background. I had organised a great topic last year. A supervisor that was really interested in my ideas and contributed some of her own. One of my failings is that I can be relatively easily swayed by something if quite a few people say it. Every person I spoke to about having this supervisor rolled their eyes and sarcastically wished me luck. Which really made me think twice. I hadn’t stopped to think of the future of the topic. Yes, it was interesting. And she was interested. And it’s a pet area of mine. But it had no future. I love the developmental area, but I…just don’t know. I need something that has a future and doesn’t stamp me as a ’soft’ family-oriented researcher. That’s really not what I want to be (of course, the problem is that I know what I don’t want to be, but I don’t know what I want to be). Anyway, the next semester, I ran into the lecturer that was going to be my primary supervisor and she didn’t even recognise me. I mean, people always recognise me. Even when they don’t know me. So I’m glad that I didn’t end up jumping feet first into the idea last year. I definitely think it would have been a mistake.

My main problem is that, if I’m looking to do a PhD next year, shouldn’t I already have some idea where my interests lie? I have a list of about 40 research areas that I’m interested in. Shouldn’t there be something specific that really drives me? One of my main reasons for wanting to do a PhD is because, when I think about anything else that I would do, I draw a blank. I cannot see myself anywhere else. Maybe in the future, I can see myself teaching (probably primary), but right now? The next five years? I just don’t know. Research is just what I do. But I’ve been spooking myself by reading all these things about PhDs online where you have absolutely no time to do anything else and if you’re not 100% into the topic, there’s no point starting. Then I’ve read some responses saying that it’s the process of getting the PhD that is more important and your area can change. To view it as more the start of your career than the end of your education. I’m hoping it’s the latter. From memory, most scholarships allow 8 hours work a week? Because the PhD is the equivalent of fulltime job. But I’m wondering if anyone has ever managed to get their PhD done in the recommended time while following a 9-5 structure five days a week…is it even possible?

I found a bunch of old journals in my room and I’ve been going through them to try to think of ideas. I’ve come up with some ideas that I really like. But I’ll probably leave them behind in a month or two. I’m restarting a list of PhD ideas as of today and hope that I can develop an idea that I love and can find the right supervisor.

This started out as a post with a terrific point, but I got distracted and now I can’t remember what it was. I suppose I was hoping to get reassurance. Did anyone else go into a PhD because that was the only thing they could see themselves doing? Did you still manage to have something of a life? Did you enjoy it? Could you manage to do it in the 35-38 hours a week that I’ve heard suggested?

I suppose I had a far easier ride with my Honours than other people in my year. I didn’t have any late nights. There were a few teary days, but no breakdowns. I don’t know if it was organisation, my supervisor or good luck. I’d love to keep my current supervisor, but her interests are on the opposite end of development. The ideas I have could see her as an associate supervisor, so I’ll try to wing that.

I was never a Hanson or a Backstreet Boys fan. I became a Spice Girls fan a while after they came out. I feel I may have to justify my position to you. I was, for a time, a Madison Avenue fan. So, we can see that I may have some questionable taste.

So it is following this information that I can say without shame that I was a huge Sweet Valley fan. First, I was Team Elizabeth. Then I switched to Team Jessica because Elizabeth irked me. But that’s not the point. I had almost every SVH book, most SVU and Sweet Valley Twins. I didn’t really get into Sweet Valley Kids when I was younger – I was more of a Babysitter’s Club Little Sister kind of girl.

‘Where is this leading?’, you may ask.

I got another case of the ‘irrational nostalgic excitements’ when I read today (okay, so I may be a little behind, considering there seem to be reports from back in 2007, but shut up, that’s not the point) that Sweet Valley would be making a comeback. Pause with me. NEW. SWEET. VALLEY. BOOKS. Sweet Valley Confidential. They’re supposed to be set 10 years after they spent an eternity in high school, when the girls are 26. They formed such a huge part of my preteenage/teenage that I’d love to know what happened to them. Just like I’d like a followup to Gilmore Girls, but I digress.

My only cause for concern…the earlier Sweet Valley books were awesome. The later ones, not so much. Junior high schools merged into one? Then two senior high schools merged into one? No. Leave the formula alone. And Elle likes book series to be in chronological order. And the London ones? Again, no. Can they recapture the awesome that was the earlier series?

Please note, this is not the kind of book I would read on the bus. I save my intellectual books for the bus and my trashy books for home. The release of this/these books would definitely be home reading. But I would almost break my neck to get my hands on a copy.

Then I read that they had reissued the earlier Sweet Valley High books. I can’t remember if I had already mentioned that I sold all my books, but I believe I kept a couple of them and I think the first one was one of them. Anyway, the problem is that they’ve changed them slightly, ‘modernised‘ them, but enough to make me not at all interested. Sweet Valley is built on nostalgia, not cell phones and blogs. Elizabeth worked on a paper, not a blog. And that makes me cranky. Grr.

Then, following cranky time, I see that they’re looking to make a Sweet Valley movie. Yes please. If I can line up to see Twilight and New Moon, I can line up to see Sweet Valley. Especially because they’ve got Diablo Cody in mind to write it.

And in conclusion, I may love the person that wrote this blog.

So, the database that hosts this blog is getting uppity and keeps telling me that it is uncontactable. But, really, it lies. Just a heads up, if this happens in the future to you, just refresh the page and show that database who is boss.

After my last thoroughly coherent post, I’m struggling to think of all that much that I’ve done lately. On a personal note, I haven’t done anything very exciting beyond shopping yesterday. And shopping can be very unexciting…except when there are bargains that make your head explode. Yes, explode. As in, I found a dress that I absolutely loved (INMYSIZE) and that I hadn’t seen all season marked at $89.95…which scanned at $25. Bang. It doesn’t take all that much to get me excited nowadays. I got excited about Hershey’s last night. Le sigh.

Over the 08/09 summer holidays, I’d been compiling a bit of stats guide book. I don’t know if it’s shooting too high to believe that it could help anyone else. I’d love to see it out there, it’s kind of in a half-finished state at the moment with the more advanced statistics still to be added, but thesis last year just took it out of me and it’s far too hot to think about anything that complex at the moment. I am counting down to winter. Even if it can’t help anyone else, I think it’d be an awesome help to me when I do my PhD (hopefully next year). Also, as a result of a sleepless night, I’ve got a half-written guide to honours theses that I would have loved to have had at the beginning of last year. Then my laptop battery died, so that kind of took the wind out of my sails. Thanks for the awesome battery life, Dell. I only really thought about the idea that anyone might like to read the stats thing the other day when a friend mentioned they were looking at publishing something independently. While I’d love to see my name in print, I’m thinking the cost would be above what I’d be interested in. Eventually, I’d like to get my stats book hardbound, but it’s quite thick – I can’t quite remember, but it’d be over 150 A4 pages when it’s done. It’s probably at that stage now with many diagrams and step-by-step SPSS guides to go. I’m hoping that the fact that I’m taking this year off will mean that I can give it another go – I’m thinking I’ll have two days per job. Stats ahoy. Motivation plus.

Another thing that I thought about yesterday (a big thinking day, clearly) was laser eye surgery. I always thought it was expensive beyond a point that I’d be willing to pay. But I could get them done for around $5000 for both eyes. In my mind, it was over $10,000 for the procedure. But $5000. Wow. Now that I’ve gotten myself all excited about it, I’d be devastated if I wasn’t a candidate for it. I need to be. Please, Lasik/Lasek gods. As usual though, Brisbane is dearer than either Sydney or Melbourne. The reasoning, I know not. Last night, within an hour of deciding I wanted it done, I had picked the place I wanted it done and who I wanted it done by. Unfortunately, the clinic is in North Sydney. Which, itself, doesn’t worry me. I’d be more than happy to go to Sydney to get it done…in fact, I’d prefer to get it done in Sydney. In my mind, Sydney just seems more trustworthy and more experienced than Brisbane. And the guy was super-experienced. But the followup appointments make it not totally feasible. Bum. Then I learnt that there is a tax rebate of 20% that you can claim if you spend over $1500 in a year on medical expenses. I can’t seem to find any strings attached to that.

I got woken up ridiculously early this morning, so I’ve been up for two hours and haven’t eaten yet. So much with the hungry. If only I liked cereal or toast. If only toast didn’t have crumbs.

Okay, so my grandma wished dengue fever on me because she pronounces it wrong. The reasoning is flawed and she denied she said it. But what the hell? Who, after going on and on about how bad it is, says I hope you get dengue fever to their granddaughter. Nothx.

I had something enormously valid to talk about here, but I’ve forgotten. Which is a pain. So I’ll waste a bit of time by talking about the book I’ve just finished reading. It’s a big deal because I haven’t been able to properly read in years because of uni/thesis. And I’ve read like two books this month. First one was Pledged. Loved it. Alexandra Robbins is brilliant. I love everything that she’s interested in and it’d be a dream job to do something like she does. I have bought all her books, so I have a couple sitting waiting to be read (including Secrets of the Tomb).

Anyway, Ozzy Osbourne’s autobiography. Ozzy just fascinates me. There’s just something about him. He’s so vulnerable and complicated and such a normal person to have lived an amazing life. He freely admits that there’s no way he should still be alive after all the things he has done, but what came through the strongest in the book for me was what a good hearted person he was. He knows he made mistakes and he regrets them. But at the same time, he’s has been treated badly and says there’s no point holding onto grudges. I’m a grudgy person by nature, so that kind of thing fascinates me. I’d read a previous Ozzy Osbourne biography and loved it. I love the crazy things that he ended up doing and the innocent things he did that turned out to be disastrous. Buy it and read it.

I have a midgie flying around me (and it has been all day, but it’s just before four o’clock and it has driven me to the point of insanity) and I probably need to go before I turn into the Hulk. I’ve already been yelling out things like ‘Elle. not. happy’ and ‘Why. you. hate. me?’ and things like ‘Diiiiiiiiiiiie’. So the people in surrounding offices possibly aren’t charmed. Elle out.

Am I the only one that is a little bit weirded out by the idea of another PeeWee Herman movie?

I will raise my hand and admit that when I saw BigTop PeeWee when I was…seven-ish…it was awesome. And when I found it online for under $10 a couple of years ago, I instantly had to have it. But it has sat in my DVD shelving ever since. Because I don’t think I can bring myself to watch it. And it’s not because of the child porn arrest thing. But that probably does add to the creepy, innocent or not. Odd thing is that when you hear something like that when you’re growing up, it tends to take the shine off someone. Especially someone that weird anyway.

Maybe the reason that I don’t want to watch it is because it was such an awesome part of my childhood that I don’t want to watch it now and realise that it’s crap. While we’re into confessions about childhood movies repurchased on DVD, I loved Olsen Twins movies. So I bought them a couple of years ago, probably in the same shipment. Postage was supercheap and I needed (yes, needed) to get my hands on a copy of To Grandmothers House We Go after someone pointed me in that direction. Then, for a couple of dollars more, why not get another movie that made my childhood excellent, Double Double Toil and Trouble. I am ashamed to say that both of them are just like I remember them.

A while ago, I’d bought a Return to Oz DVD. I’d seen it when I was probably eight and it scared the hell out of me. Those Wheelers haunted my dreams for years. So, I bought it to see if it was just as scary as I remember. And, no, it wasn’t. The rest of the story was good though, but the Wheelers were really just men on all fours with wheels as hands. Their laughs were still unnerving, but it dispelled a whole childhood memory.

The scariest movie of my childhood, I still haven’t been able to watch. I also have that on DVD. But I haven’t watched it. Everyone makes fun of it. But I couldn’t sleep in my own room for months because of it when I was five. Dot and the freakin Kangaroo. The bunyip scene destroyed at least part of my soul. Supernatural, dreamtime things, no thank you. I have watched parts of it on YouTube. The bunyip scene is still hella scary. It still taps into a part of my mind that is easily freaked out by that kind of stuff. But the reason that I can’t watch that is not because of the freaky bunyip. No, it’s because of Dot’s voice. Like nails on a blackboard. Like Blinky Bill. And I can’t watch Blinky Bill. The Christmas specials? They get turned off straight away. So I’m going to have to pick a day when I’m super tolerant to tackle that baby.

The movie that really got me on this tangent was The New Adventures of Pippi Longstocking. I think that was probably my favourite childhood movie. I watched it a couple of years ago and…fark…most annoying movie ever. I persevered with it, but it drove me insane. The songs I loved were screechy. The charming and plucky Pippi was just an obnoxious child that had no boundaries (oh no, I swear I’m only 23). And the one part that I thought was dramatic as a child was brought on by her own stupidity and it destroyed a fantastic childhood memory. And made me cranky.

So, in a round about way, I’m not sure why I haven’t watched my PeeWee DVD. Maybe I should watch it soon. But the movie has been soundly criticised by members of my household, so I’ll watch it when everyone’s out. Maybe in Winter. Watching movies is always better in Winter. A Heroes marathon is already planned for some point in Winter.

Someone at work recently came back from a month long holiday in America and said she ate most of her meals in IHOP. Until now, I’d never had the urge to look it up, I mean, I knew what it was and that I’d end up going there whenever I go to America. But omgwtfbbqz.

I want IHOP now.

And, as I was talking with family last night, I want a supersized Diet Coke. I am such a freakin pig.

I’ve had this headache on and off for about two and a half days now. And it’s starting to get old. I was barely upright when we were shopping yesterday. Then I totally totally felt like a spearmint thickshake at Wendy’s. The only place I can find spearmint thickshakes. Too bad about the tool of a manager. Wendy’s sent out discount vouchers at the beginning of summer that are valid until February to the mailing list subscribers and he refused to honour it. Just like he refuses to honour just about everything else. Back when they had that Chocollo offer (I think they were free icecreams on washing powder boxes or something), the Chermside Wendy’s had a sign up saying they were out of chocollo in the last couple of weeks of the promotion. I still kind of wanted to try it but couldn’t get to another Wendy’s so sent an email to the main Wendy’s office saying something along the lines of that it was a pity I couldn’t try it and, as a lovely gesture, they sent me out three vouchers for Chocollo cones in place of the then-expired promotional vouchers. When I went to redeem them with my mum, he actually grilled us about where we got the vouchers from and why we would have them. When I didn’t want to directly say that I’d contacted head office because his machine was constantly out of order, he got all sarcastic and was like ‘Oh, what’s that? Can’t remember?’. Piss off, little man. So, I normally try to avoid Chermside Wendy’s, but I still think that spearmint thickshake would have done wonders for my headache. Ibuprofen knocked it over for two hours or so, but blah. The bit that irks me the most was that the girl serving had to go to the back of the store and ask him and he wouldn’t come to the front (she said she had to ‘call him’, so I assume he was hiding. Yes, I saw your leg, manager man). So, you know, I’m a naturally cranky person, so I’ll send an email to Wendy’s telling them that their ‘all store’ promotional offers are not welcome at Chermside. Poo. At least the Toombul store is good, although I’ve seen the manager working at that one too a couple of years ago, so I kinda think he owns that one too. Pity.

I’m getting a little emo at the moment with a couple of things stressing me out which is possibly to blame for this enormous headache and sore tummy after every meal. I’m going to say that everyone’s entitled to a bit of emo every now and then. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it. I just thought I’d share that whinge with everyone because I can’t really mention it anywhere else.

Through my headache yesterday, we went and saw Old Dogs. I’ll lay all my cards on the table. I have an undying love for John Travolta, so keep that in mind. My childhood was shaped almost single-handedly by Robin Williams and Jim Carey. I loved the trailers, but assumed that as it was a kids movie, it would overstretch the jokes. Either they didn’t or my brain is far more immature than I had thought. It was light, totally thought-free entertainment, which is probably good considering my head couldn’t deal with anything more intensive than grocery shopping off a list. Bahaha, little Seth Green. I laughed at the gorilla scenes and the penguin scenes and the golfing scenes. And there are lots of little parts in it that actually had the whole cinema, granted a good portion children, laughing out loud. I didn’t click until afterwards that the mother is John Travolta’s wife and the little girl is his daughter. I have a short attention span and my mind didn’t wander for the entire time. Normally, I get distracted in a movie. Go see it.

So, I got my first comment today. But it was spam. The spammer was apparently quite taken by our goat friend. And with good reason.

I’m actually supposed to be working at the moment, but the system I use seems to have gone bellyup and I need my boss to fix it because I have no idea what it’s doing. It keeps telling me that I need to have something in this field but won’t give me time after I click Okay to let me enter anything before popping it up again. Die.

And I’ve had a crap nose practically all day. I keep sneezing now but for hours, my nose has just been running with no reason. Just to be annoying. But, anyway, today was my last day of research assistantness. We ran participants through the physical tests and I thought we were supposed to do a debriefing from the psychological side (and the participants asked me about it), but it doesn’t look like that’s going ahead. I get quite attached to my participants, so it’s a little bit sad to see the project end. At least this time I had longer with them than the participants in my actual thesis – it was only three sessions long. This one was about seven in total. I’ve still got to work out my actual hours over the past couple of weeks with data entry. I think data entry actually took longer the second time around because I had to check back to see what each code was. But that’s boring, you don’t want to hear that.

Oh, what’s odd…so odd…is that every Thursday when I go to work, my hands smell like oranges. Not on any other day. But all I can smell are oranges. I wonder if BCC cleans their buses with orange oil or something because otherwise I have no explanation. I don’t really eat oranges. I don’t touch anything orangey. We don’t have oranges in the house. So it irks me to the point where I’m considering emailing Brisbane Transport to see if they do use orange oil. Psycho.

There’s a man who sells the Big Issue at the top of the busway every morning – well, every morning that I know of. And super kudos to him for picking such an unserviced high traffic area to sell. The thing is that it makes me feel really bad. I’d probably like to buy one, but I don’t really buy that many magazines anymore. Even though I know this one is procrastination for a good cause. But whenever I walk past, I try to give him a small smile, not so big that he thinks I’m going to buy one because that’s awkward, but just a smile of acknowledgment. A smile kudo. But it’s still awkward. And I don’t want to look in my bag when I go past so that the awkward smile isn’t there because then it might look like I’m getting money out. Yes, I’ve given a great deal of thought to this. Maybe I should buy one. If I wasn’t so freakin stingy, everything would be much easier. I tried to make that something of a new years’ resolution but it didn’t work and it’s not going to work, so I guess I should just give up on it.

I’ve decided I’m just going to shut the damn system down whether it has saved the data or not, so I’d probably better get back to work.

This article irked me so much that I have to have my say. Joshua Crouthamel writes

An American lawyer on holiday with her toddler in WA decided to take 14 adults-only resorts to the Equal Opportunity Commission to protest their ban on child bookings, according to the West Australian. Kane Randal, owner of Chimes Resort in Denmark, WA, has been denied an exemption from the commission, and as such has to open his resort to all ages.

Almost every comment supports the owners decision. And the article makes reference to how great it would be if there were child-free airlines. And it would be awesome. Naturally, I come into this with the opinion of a non-parent. I’m actually a little scared of children, haha, but they are somehow drawn to me. Like cats. I had a toddler come up to me at a busway and wrap itself around my legs. And I had absolutely no idea where it had come from or what to do with it. Sigh. It’s so unnerving that kids can see right through you when you pretend you know what you’re doing.

Anyway I’m not sure that I’ve ever had a great flying experience with a child behind me. I’ve heard stories about kids getting bored on international flights and running up and down the aisles. Which, for someone who doesn’t like any extra movement in a plane, would be stressful beyond reason. I can imagine that, while discriminatory, an airline like that would get heaps of business. I haven’t really had an upbringing where I’ve been around kids for any period of time and have an incredibly low tolerance.Without exaggeration, I don’t even think I had tolerance for children when I was little (meh, normal children are overrated, I guess). I mean, I can admire a quiet child, but you see five children with dirty faces hiding in clothes racks for every well-behaved one. I guess Westfield Chermside will give you that.

I’ve also floated the idea of housing estates without bogans. These kind of ideas are really only justified when coming from someone who lives in a bogan neighbourhood. I’ll give a recap. We’ve lived here for nine years (oh god, we’re never getting out). We have House A to the left, House B to the back and House C to the right.

House A, for probably eight years, was owned by a Chinese family who were nice except for the fact that they had positioned their piano directly next to their open sliding door that faced out onto our bedrooms. After dinner, they would then get their two young daughters to play the piano (I think one after another) for hours. Sometimes I was trying to go to sleep and they were playing. The girls weren’t very good which meant that I could hear the same bar over and over and over again over my TV on the other side of the house. Some consideration would have been lovely.  They also never cleaned their bin and their food went directly from their plate to the bin. Which was left against the fence probably a metre away from my bedroom window. Yumm. And they’d cook garlic on an outside stove and the wind always went directly into our windows and so the ‘Garlic Alert’ was born.

Last year, they were replaced by, I guess, an Asian sharehouse. I’m not harping on the nationality, it just makes any communication very difficult. They had two dogs. One barked constantly. They’d leave it in the house for a day or two at a time with nothing to do, but they’d have the sliding door open with the security screen locked. It was a high pitched yappy little thing (they had a chihuahua and a chow, so I’m not sure which one caused me such grief) but all you’d hear was this grating high-pitched  ‘bu-wow-wow-wow’ for hours on end. It would go through the night. They’d never stop it barking even when they were home, so god knows how they actually functioned. But then they left and the house went up for rent, so we went and checked it out. They had had to replace walls in the house because they were covered in scratches and dog poo. There were holes in the wall. There were scorch marks on the laminated benchtops. The carpet had to be totally replaced. What the hell? They spend six months there and the place almost needs to be gutted?

Now, the current Neighbour A is, for all intents and purposes a reasonable neighbour. Sort of. Except, again, they must be living in an estate for the first time. They watch movies almost constantly but they have them so loud that you can hear them three houses away. And their TV is, again, facing our bedrooms with probably two or three metres between their open sliding door and our windows. And, again, with all windows shut (in summer, srsly) we can’t actually hear our TV at its normal volume. Even when we can, we can still hear the other TV perfectly. He also has a thing for Asian karaoke…you know the Asian versions of songs. Particularly a fan of love songs and power balads. No wonder his young teenage son is singing Celine Dion and Whitney Houston in a soprano. They used to have their church choir practice at their house. They weren’t great (and, I swear, if I hear the words ‘One-two-three-four’ one more time, I’m going to crack it) and they brought their kids over and then disappeared inside for singing practice. There would have been at least 20 cars, so god knows how many kids. They were so so noisy (because no one was keeping an eye on them and they weren’t allowed to go to the park two houses away) and then they kept throwing the ball over our fence. We gave it back a couple of times, but I think we’d asked the father to keep them quiet (that was at the time the terrier was super sick and we didn’t need her getting overexcited by noise). He didn’t and they threw it over again and, when we didn’t answer them yelling out to throw it back over, they came over themselves. Through a locked gate. It appears that when there’s a lock on the gate, you may be too heavy to stand on the gate if it actually buckles under your weight. Whichever tub climbed the fence actually made the hinge slide down an inch on thick wood. Then they took the ball and left. The father refused to accept that his kids would have done it because he’d told them not to go into our yard again. Now the gate won’t shut. Yeah, cos we don’t have a dog, aholes. Then, this morning when I woke up, all I could hear was them making breakfast (it seemed they needed another lemon??) and ‘da-ling’ repeated innumerous times at increasing volume. I wake up and have to put my pillow over my head every morning. I’d love neighbours as quiet as we are.

Neighbour B (and, my, isn’t this turning into a rant) were okay first off. They would have weekly parties and get completely sloshed and he would spit into our yard, but they said some funny stuff when they were drunk, so that got them my partial support. They built a deck that wasn’t approved by the council and completely stuffed up the drainage into our yard, so now, whenever it rains, our yard gets a flood. But, probably five years ago the CUBS moved in. Loud, cruel to their dog and their kids, constant yelling, you get the idea. But they’ve improved. The daughter is older, so doesn’t sit at the fence and look through to see what we’re doing. Or sit on top of the fence and ask if we have visitors. Granted, they leave the mowing until the grass is almost waist height (never mind about the poor dog) and just run over anything in the way (and their reactions to it are quite funny). But, they’re essentially harmless now. They’re still bogans, but they’re not intrusive and that’s all I can ask for.

Neighbour C has had quite a few tenants. I can’t even remember the first ones. I think they overused spray deodorant. And for probably ten minutes after they’d had a shower, everything smelt like cheap mens deodorant. Then some people moved in who put up dark curtains, listened to freakin John Butler Trio’s only album constantly and never came outside except for frequent visits to the shed. Now, I’m not making any conclusions about that. Then a family moved in. And I thought Great, they’re going to be normal. No, not with two young boys. One was probably preschool when he first moved here and the other was about Gr4. The older one made friends with the creepy older kids (high school and, actually, you know, probably beyond high school) who taught him to swear. Excellent. And they’d stand outside our house for possibly ten minutes (without an exaggeration) bouncing a basketball. Constantly. If there’s anything more soul deadening than listening to the sound of a basketball thumping against pavement every second or so for that long at a time, please let me know. The younger brother didn’t really talk (except to swear) but he spent a good portion of his time barking. He rode his scooter (which was just the right type of sound to drive my terrier spare, haha), swore like a wharfie and barked. Not bad for a kid not even in primary school. Now, we have our normal neighbours. Most of the time I don’t even know they’re there. Granted, the grandmother did spit on our driveway, but I’m dealing with it gracefully and clinging to a hope that it wasn’t just dirty, that there may be a level of cultural acceptance for it where she’s from. Their only annoying habit is more annoying because I can’t figure out what it is. Every now and then, particularly in summer, they do something that hisses. It hisses like gas being let out of a bottle. And it goes for ages on and off. And I’d just love to know what it was. What could make that noise?

That was cathartic. Probably boring for you to read, but in this time, my nail polish has dried and I’m feeling better about my bogan neighbours.

Because who doesn’t love goats?

Yesterday, I spent most of the day unpacking my stuff and removing sticky dots and sticky tape from the walls in my new office and it looks awesome now.

We won a family pass to Le Grand Cirque, so we went last night. I read some reviews and wasn’t expecting all that much. OMG. It was awesome and the time flew by. If we ignore the fact that there was this family with BO in the row ahead that was three rows back from the front of that section and they kept climbing over the seats to get back to their seat. This was a mother and two teenage girls. But whatev. Actually, no, they were annoying because they kept looking at me. Stop looking at me. You smell and you’re wearing thongs. That sounds super snobby but they were looking back at us on and off for half an hour before the show and then on the bus on the way home (yes, they were on the same bus and they sat just across from us and it was still smelly). I get annoyed really easily when people keep looking at me. It wasn’t even the smell that bothered me (I have a pretty bad sense of smell), but the looking. Go’way.

I’m one of those people that gets super tense listening to people sing. Australian Idol is not a relaxing experience for me. I don’t know these people, but I’m on eggshells. I think I actually hold my breath through each performance in case they hit the wrong key. It’s actually quite traumatic, so I guess I’m lucky it’s not on this year. And that’s nothing much. These people could really hurt themselves. I spent the whole time torn between ‘OMG, they’re going to kill themselves’ and ‘How would you ever discover you could do something like that?’. Kind of like, hey, I wonder if we can possibly stick a guy on a single upright ladder (that it, there was no support for it) and stick two girls on top of him (I think one was standing on his head) and then get one of those girls to hold onto another two girls that are boosted up to her. Um, no.

There’s definitely a gap between when people see something and when they get what it means. Like there was a guy doing something, I think he was in the sitting position (how people do that without a chair?) and then a girl was laying across his knees, perfectly straight. People were just kind of meh and then they realised just how much strength that would take. I’m definitely one of those people. There was one section that I was getting a little bored. It was kind of a ballet section and I’m just watching away and then something in my brain registers and starts screaming ‘OH MY GOD, SHE’S STANDING ON HER POINTS ON HIS SHOULDERS’. It was like a little siren in my mind that wouldn’t stop. Then she went onto one foot. One foot. In a point shoe. On his shoulder. That actually hurts my brain to think about it.

Earlier, there was an awesome section with this girl in gold who was super flexible. She was balancing stuff (possibly candle things) on her feet, hands and face. Then she flipped over with them still there. And then I realise that, as she brings them all together, she’s lying on her stomach. On her stomach and her feet are touching her hands and her face. And her body was a U. I spent a good portion of time trying to reason the moves out in my head. It wasn’t working. And there was some drunk guy behind me who kept sneezing without covering his mouth/nose. And something touched the back of my head. And that was scary. Then he was drunkenly rambling about him being someone’s teddy bear. And I wanted him to shut up so badly.

See, I’m reasonably happy with my minimal talents. I always crack (and separate) an egg perfectly. I can kill flies in one shot. There’s another one, but I can’t remember it. And then I go and watch something like this. Where these hugely talented people are, essentially, rubbing their talents in my face . Yes, elle, you can crack eggs, but can you bend like this? Or can you use a skipping rope on the outside of a wheel of death thingy. Oh, no I can’t. Sucks.

I did take pictures, but since I’m replacing my computer in about a month, I see no point in installing the photo software just to uninstall it soon. I will update with them though. Wish I wasn’t so lazy. But here are some pictures I found online that show a bit of it.

Reese’s Pieces are freakin awesome. Thanks frusc .

I think I’ve been lazy. But in my defence, I had the dentist on Monday and spent the rest of the day packing up my office. Yesterday, we spent most of the day moving and unpacking. So dusty.

I have this thing about the dentist. I don’t know whether it’s the close proximity or the small talk or the potential for needles or the awful tasting fluoride. Probably a mix of the above and my incredible social awkwardness. But, yay, no fillings. Then he decided to take an xray (because I haven’t had enough of those in my life) and one of my teeth is stupidly crooked. After two lots of braces, it’s still stupidly ridiculously crooked. The roots are at probably a 45 degree angle – it’s almost horizontal. WTF. Then he showed me these shadows in my teeth that will turn into holes if I don’t pull my finger out and floss more. Freaked me the hell out, they seem to be everywhere. But my argument is (and I’m sure that the pre-cavities don’t really care for justification) that my teeth are super close together and, in quite a few cases, I can’t actually fit floss between the teeth. And if I do, the floss tears. I’ve got big teeth for a small mouth. I didn’t mention anything to him because I thought my mind might be exaggerating it. No, tried it again last night. Fail.

Oh yeah, but I should qualify my issue with needles. They never used to bother me and I kind of thought that people with a fear of needles were wussy (although, from when I was really young, I’ve always had this huge fear of syringes). I think I was 11 or so when I was preparing to get braces. I had too many teeth for my mouth and I still had quite a few baby teeth. I had to get six or so baby teeth and two adult teeth removed by a dentist. And I rolled with the punches. I was a pretty plucky little 11 year old. The needles didn’t bother me and I could ignore the sounds. Well, why do the sounds haunt me now? And why do needles freak me out the way they do? I think I had two sessions of tooth removal and there were so so many needles. I hate nerve blocks, but I hate the ones that go into the front of your gum. That’s just not okay. So since a while after that, there’s been that needle fear. I’ve had too many needles in my mouth. Oh and it’s not so much needles in general, more just needles from a dentist. Yucky.

But, as a plus, the fluoride is no longer orange. Which is the worst flavour in the world to add to anything. It turned my stomach every time. It was so revolting. But now it’s mint. I spent ages wondering why it wasn’t bothering me this time. Okay, observation is not my strong suit. But yeah, now I’ve had some Milo and between two teeth is hurting. If I can’t get the floss there, how am I supposed to make sure they don’t get worse!

I found this somewhere online (I saved the text/pictures but lost the link – there are some watermarked on the pictures though) and thought it was something I should share. It’s gorgeous and heartbreaking. But I loved it.

The text that I’ve used is directly from the site that I had visited, but I’m fairly sure that that was a direct repost from another website. Don’t know how factual the details are, but I’m going to take it at face value.

Swallows.

Here his wife is injured and her condition is fatal. She was hit by a car as she swooped low across the road.

Here he brought her food and attended to her with love and compassion.

He brought her food again but was shocked to find her dead. He tried to move her…a rarely seen effort for swallows.

Aware that his sweetheart is dead and will never come back to him again, he cries with adoring love.

He stood beside her, saddened by her death.

Finally aware that she would never return to him, he stood beside her body with sadness and sorrow.

Millions of people cried after watching this picture in America, Europe and Asia. It is said that the photographer sold these pictures for a nominal fee to the most famous newspaper in France. All copies of that famous newspaper were sold out on the day these pictures were published. And many people think animals don’t have a brain or feelings…

I spent most of yesterday/today battling with my computer. Yes, it’s slow. Painfully slow. It has Vista Basic, 2.37GB RAM and all of 5GB free (omg, that would be the reason). I ordered it not long after Vista first came out – I’m in my own little world, so hadn’t even really heard of Vista until it was released. Looked good, so why not wait an extra week or two and get that on my computer instead of XP (not really an XP fan). So I bought it from Dell with 512mb RAM. Let’s stop and think about that. Vista. On 512mb RAM. No wonder it took forever to do anything. About 6 months later, someone (and, you know, I think it was a Dell rep) said that they should never have sold it to me with that low amount of RAM, but as I knew nothing about Vista (or its resource hungry nature) and the Dell rep said it would run fine on the lower RAM, I just went with that. Plus, the fact that it’s an AMD processor always gets the Dell reps to whistle through their teeth disapprovingly. So I got another 2GB RAM put in and it’s still painfully slow, but I assume that’s because there are only 5GB left. I think today will be spent moving the files off my computer and on to my other hard drive. Note, it also has, in total, 64GB of usable space. I thought that would be plenty when I bought it. The next baby is going to be 500GB.

So anyway, yesterday afternoon was resume time. I haven’t done a proper resume since the end of 2004 (Year 12), so it was a little shabby. And while I wanted to keep my OP in there, I’m going to take a punt that no one cares. Four pages later, I think it’s pretty awesome, if a little long. I know most want two pages, but the uni careers office went on about all this stuff that you have to include and stuff that is/could be relevant to the stuff that you’re applying for. I’m applying for research, but there are still the people skills, there could be cashhandling or budget things and, plus, they’d probably wonder why I only had a job title there and no skills or duties underneath it. One of my jobs, I cleaned books over the summer. I don’t think I learnt any skills from that, but I guess it shows that I could do two or three different jobs simultaneously – which I will hopefully be doing this year. It took like four hours to do. And I rediscovered about five short-term jobs (< 6mth) that I’d forgotten I’d done which made it far longer than I wanted (’Hey, do you remember when I worked at…?’. Sigh).

And Wordpress has been giving me le shits for the past couple of days. I tried to install some kind of stats thing and it wouldn’t let me. I installed the main Wordpress.com one and it says it was active, but it just wouldn’t play. I got someone to visit my site from another city and it didn’t register. So I spent a good portion of the night trying to figure out how to get the Google Analytics code to work on the stupid thing. Inserted the code. No go. It says it was active, but again it was coming up with zero visits (even when I visited myself – and it’s supposed to count your own visits). Then I tried to install it automatically. It wouldn’t recognise my username/password. Um, I think I know my username and password. Double checked…no, I was right. Still wouldn’t let me access it. Then I realised I could do it manually. Ah. That’ll do it. Stupid Google. And I found out comments weren’t working (thanks mneme!) because I cleverly changed something that said ‘DO NOT DELETE THESE LINES’ and, as it turns out, editing is as good as deleting. So now, you can expect to find the odd German word around this site because it’s built into the design and it won’t let me change it. Embrace the German.