Relationship material

Been thinking about relationships recently. Been joking about finding a boyfriend recently. Been very very tempted to grow a boyfriend/girlfriend out of super absorbent polymer and a bathtub of water, dress them in blue overalls and elope on a romantic beet-farming adventure.

I remember in high-school I was very stricly anti-relationship. This was back in high-school mind, with my fiercest argument based off the imperative of knowing oneself before intimately knowing another. Besides, high school was for fun! It was also for education, for making bonds, for learning to develop one's own sense of security and identity without the feeling of judgement, or the constance of living for approval from an external party.

Looking back, I would've rathered I just let people do whatever the hell they wanted.

I suppose the same still stands for myself now, except I'm open to a relationship for nothing less than the reason of having some fun.

Shallow? Possibly. Waste of money? Supposedly. Emotionally destructive? Definitely.

And maybe in 5 years I'll look back at when I was 18, and proudly tick off "utterly wasted by a frivolous relationship for the lolz" on my bucket list.

So what now? Stay tuned for Amy's Hot List: Platonic or Potential!

So far, so good

University was once a far away spectacle, a landmark in the long winding, on the slowly unreachable desert drive.
University was once too big, too smelly, too hostile.
Too fast, too forward, not sweet enough.

But give everything a pinch of time, a mix of friendship, another shake of cynicism with the tertiary education system,

and it's so far, so good.

Tonight

Tonight, it's not about the lonliness.
It's about the fear of having to entertain myself, to replay a thousand times the scenarios I fear the most, over and over in my mind
It's about getting away from myself,
as far far away as possible

Seeing the finish line

Having 3 more tests to go, I, along with tens of thousands of other students across New South Wales are nearing the end of our 4-week HSC ordeal.

 I wouldn't call myself liberated though, because while the HSC process has been gruelling, challenging and many times cruel and unforgiving, it is an experience that has played an albeit minor, yet still significant role in shaping who I am and what I stand for and what I believe 'education' is and should be.

So I will miss the routine and stability of the HSC, but I won't be left longing for it.
I did enjoy the HSC, but it did not make me happy.

Still in the HSC

It's 2:08am, Extension Engish is technically tomorrow and I thought I'd type up something quickly.

I just finished watching all 8 episodes of Chris Lilley's Summer Heights High, and it had me thinking about the state of government-funded public schools. More specifically, thinking about Lilley's character Jonah, should academic excellence and intellectual progress be prioritised above an individual's emotional and social development? Does one lead to another? And why does the same schooling system produce different students?

I need pizza right now

So there's this thing I've wanted to do for a while

Day #3 of Jillian's 30 Day Shred

So I've been doing this workout program for 3 days. It's 30 minutes of Jillian Michaels shouting at you to keep jumping and squat lower and push harder; I like it because I think her voice is sexy and also because I like imagining myself as a 200 kilogram Biggest Loser competitor about to break their ankles from all the butt kicks and jumping jacks (she doesn't call them 'star jumps', possibly because of its juvenile sounding name- I have a theory you burn 27% less fat doing star jumps than jumping jacks)

I know my body well, and I put on muscle easily (though it's possibly more MuscleBob BuffPants, less Popeye), with the ensuing result being more muscle mass around the biceps and thighs - this is perfect for that S size bodycon I bought off the internet!
Just kidding, I don't buy bodycons off the internet.

I think if you've done Blogilates, Level 1 should be a breeze.
We'll see how I go

Day #8: She crumbles in my hand

The other day, as opposed to just the day, I ventured out on a school night, and found myself in a reclining sofa sitting next to my elusive cousin in a dimly lit gold-class cinema.

Being the first-world, gold-class snob that I was raised to believe that I would never be, I ordered a heap of gold-class food in the belief that I would get ripped off. Over-ordering was be the answer to under-providing.

Who knew that the amount of food you recieve is proportianate to the amount of food you order.

After a main course of lots of fried food  and a weird stinky blue cheese dip, dessert sundaes arrived, as promised, "half an hour after the main course, please". They were the size of my stomach. They were the size of two of my stomachs, if you ripped them open and placed them side by side, stretching them so that they covered as much surface area as possible, like if their stomachy life depended on it they could stretch to cover the universe in dark coverings of never-sun and stomach acid.
They were big.
And we ordered two of them.
And I sat in the dark cinema, trying to spoon moist chocolate brownies and vanilla bean ice cream and candied walnuts and chocolatey choclate ice cream and the richest fudge sauce I've ever tasted into my mouth and down into a stomach already bloated with sweet potatoe fries and buffalo wings.
And my mouth said no.
It was strange.
So strange! I've never said no to food!
I was always disappointed when people said they were too sick to eat something; I've always assumed they had tiny stomachs or were cowards. (Being craven is a big thing in Spartan society okay).

But I felt sick halway through the sundae. I felt sick two-thirds through the sundae. By the end of the sundae, I stopped feeling things.
Just finish it!
Never!
Just do it!
It's too much!
You're a wuss!
Your mother would be disappointed!
By the time I left the cinema, I left a slice of brownie and two wafer sticks floating in shallow pool of melted chocolate mess. I left with my head down and ashamed, walking quickly so that the waiters who cleared the plate wouldn't look over and hiss at me and shoot at me shame rays through their sharp red eyes. But no waiters came, and I left the cinema with a mournful look and raised eyebrows, and I whispered to the sundae,
I'll come back for you.

Should I feel bad for leaving uneaten food?
Doesn't the argument go that since the food is already dead, it's okay to waste it? Because it's already dead? Why not waste some more!

The foods for thoughts never left my mind; even after a few days, it sat, heavy, lonely, annoying, in my mind.

Day #9: Tats

It began in the junior years.
My last name, badly drawn in an poor-effort calligraphical style on my left wrist.
My Chinese last name, scribbled hastily, missing a stroke. Making it not really my last name, but a weird derivative of it. So it really wasn't my last name.

And so I picked it up again. Diamonds was my first idea. The shiny ugly diamonds, with lots of thick lines in black.
Then faces with their tongues sticking out, proper patterns too big to fit onto my wrist.
The next day, I kept the ugly diamond design. Each day I kept it, it got uglier and uglier. I liked it like that, when I looked at it, woke up in the morning, it was there but ugly, almost-permanent and ugly.

So when I tried washing it off, I don't know why I wasn't surprised when I found faint blue lines that refused to slide off my wrist, even with the scrubbing of soap and blasting of hot water.

I guess real tattoos are harder to wash off.

Welcome back!

It's 1:05am and my History Extension exam is tomorrow, but I felt the sudden late-night urge to open up my old blog again. 

I'm fighting the urge to delete my old posts and to start anew, but there's something so poorly written and pathetically funny about them that I've decided against such action.

Dammit if this is Normal font size, then it's too small. I have the inner workings of a cranky 70-year-old. Or a 4 year-old, depending on which one is more tolerable and will make you more money as they age.

And so having gotten a few things off my chest, and my pride and curiosity satiated, I leave with this:

Today today

Watching them.
Watching them together.
Watching them acting like minded, intelligent, self-absorbed, addictive, taking in each other's presence, soaking in each other's presence, swapping presences, unaware.
Unaware of being watched.
Watching them builds up a slow emotion inside, watching them eat lunch, swap lunches, eat lunch, swap back again.
Watching them brings another persona, fitting me nicely, draping her velvetty, itchy drapes over me, heavier than a drape and lighter than silk, still fitting nicely.
They are addictive.
Watching them is addictive, as I, in my consciousness, conjure up their conversings, their laughs, unspoken hate.
Everything unspoken between them is loud, clear. I see it in their faces, the way their lips twitch, the way they don't try to hide the expressions that their eyebrows give away.
I should stop watching them, I say to myself, rolling the words over my tongue. I should stop watching them.
But I need them, just how I don't need them, but still do, I tell outside services.
But the outside services are them.
They wouldn't know.
They don't know. 

It's raining again

                                                       Happy songs #1 in my ipod


It's only so funny how my mood changes within my context, circumstance, environment.

Today, I watched a girl cry.

Face crinkling, tears raining down her face. Tears of hatred, frustrations, tears of pure and concentrated liquid unhappiness ceeping slowly down her soft cheeks, clawing skin, leaving a slimy train.

I didn't wake up in the morning for this, she muttered. Her breathing got heavier, chest heaving, mind heaving, eyes clouded, judgement clouded, no longer thinking. Just... tried not thinking. The more she thought, the harder and faster and heavier the tears flew down.

Why was she crying? Why are you crying, I asked. What's wrong? You can tell me. I can keep secrets. There's nothing to be ashamed of. Look at that flying money wearing a black, starry witches hat! Don't bottle it in. Vent it out. It's okay to cry. Let it out. Here, have a tissue, blow it out.

And when I tried everything, her head turned towards me, and my eyes found hers, a messy, sad, dark abyss.

My head turned higher, and I looked at the sky. The sky was raining.

I looked back at this girl again. Her eyes were dry.

/Fin

This piece of writing came about as I was cleaning out and sorting through the inboxes of all my 9 different email accounts, a job which I thought would take me a few hours at the most, but which has actually taken me my entire weekend. I got to my last inbox, deleting all the e-newsletters from Microsoft and Westfield and Nyan Cats Anonymous when I stumbled upon two very old, very very old, old old old emails. The story picks up from there.

My cursor hovered over two grey checkboxes. After each click, a tick appeared in each checkbox, before my cursor moved to a small button with a trash can on it.
Click.
"Are you sure?
Yes/No"
A momentary hesitation, a million thoughts about what could've and would've and might as well have been rushed past my eyes, before I firmly pressed down on the mouse button.
Click.

I was exposed to Neopets in primary school, and it toyed around in my life. Then I started high school, and in and out it crept and jumped, sometimes lunging itself at me, other times it would curl and rub softly around my legs until I noticed it. I have never done drugs, but I imagine this is what drugs would feel like; being addicted and wanting more from it one day, over a few days, a week or two, sometimes even a month. Then more pressing matters would press unto me, and press they would until I was completely absorbed into these pressing matters and Neopets would fade into the gentle abysses of my mind, just sitting there, conversing with my ex primary school crushes and my favourite Bratz Dolls, waiting for a small row boat called Reminiscence to row past it and notice it. Then it would start again.

I'd log on straight after school. Straight after school. As straight as you could get after donning a change of clothes, a cup of tea and settling down into the soft, cool leather couch that clung to your skin like memory foam. The bright yellow homepage would greet me,
Welcome, super_evil_faerie!*
* You can still find my profile on the website, along with that_hyper_kid. Yes, I've been told that my usernames just screams maturity.

Then I would open a separate tab with The Daily Neopets on it and complete all the virtual tasks it had instructed me to do in order my maximise my Neopoints (virtual Neopet currency) for the day , as well as increasing my chances of winning the super-elusive rare paintbrushes that served no real purpose other that to "paint" my Neopet, thus giving them a new coat of colour, or pattern (A classic red Kacheek? How about a dark blue Kacheek with yellow stars?! Because having a Neopet that slightly resembled the night sky was real showcase of just how much I was to succeed in the real world).**
** I never got my hands on a rare paintbrush. Dam.

Cute but impractical. If I were a pirate I'd least put some pants on.

I knew I was addicted after logging in consecutively for a week, but there was nothing to reprimand me. I was still performing well in school, finishing homework and assignments on time, eating lunch with my friends, giving year 7s the massivest dirties I could conjure up on my tired face. If I'm doing so well, why should I stop?

My great realisation came in the shower (as they all do). Wait, what?! Neopets isn't real?! What do you mean after highschool I won't be able to work as a Kitchen Hand in my guild, Food for Thought? That when I actually get a safety deposit box, my highly prized plushie of King Altador won't be sitting there? That I don't actually have 31 million dollars in the bank?

This hurt me.

All that I had virtually worked for.

All of my virtual toys I collected, virtual clothes, virtual glass jars with coloured sand in them, virutal trophies I won, virtual shops I ran, virtual money I diligently collected everyday, virtual friends I befriended, virtual forums on secret methods of diligently collecting more money everyday, were virtually useless in the real life.And from that day on, I promised I would never work so hard for something that wouldn't directly benefit myself.

And of course I benefited from Neopets. I felt immense amounts of joy in collecting interest from the bank and seeing the number of Neopoints rise in my account, from noticing someone had bought an item from my 1NP shop, from reading a book to my Kacheek to see its intelligence rise. And my favourite joy of Neopets, the avatars.***
*** You get avatars from completing pre-determined tasks on Neopets. These tasks range from easy to impossible, from no NP to millions of NP.

Everytime I gained a new avatar, I felt a voice in my head say,
I'm better than the rest of you.
What was it about this virtual picture that I could display to others that made me so happy? I don't know. Maybe it's because I really was better than everyone else, and I just needed someone to tell me. Maybe not. Most probably not.

 
My current avatar. Yup. Still better than everyone else. 

I needed to move on. I have the HSC ahead of me, (or realisatically back when I played, year 9 yearly exams) which is a pressing matter which presses unto me like an iron press. As much as I enjoyed my time with Neopets, it's time to move on. Maybe I'll play again when I'm retired as ex-Prime Minister of Australia and living under the Harbour Bridge, but for now I have other hobbies that I'd like to work on. Such as making the perfect macaron, or juggling. 

And so I logged into my email address associated with my Neopets account, and found the two emails with VITAL INFORMATION Do Not Lose This Email! that I was looking for. One holding my username super_evil_faerie and its password, the other that_hyper_kid and its password.

I checkboxed the two emails, clicked the trash can. And as the previous joy of Neopets came flooding back to me, like a very quick flood, not the traditional slow-rain-let's-evacuate-the-town flood, more of a tsunami-wave-coming!!!-flood, I chose Yes.



Then I started discovered Sorority Life on Facebook.

That Awkward Conversation

I'm sure we've all had this: an awkward conversation online or face-to-face, where you feel the urge to say something to fill the w i d e n i n g awkward space, so it ends up something like this:

Online:

(awkward moment)

lol

(The conversation ends there)

Face-to-Face:

(awkward moment)

So... did you like that lecture on anti-semitism?

No, I'm Jewish.

Ahh...I see.

Oh my.

Would Anyone Like Some Henshaw?

After a worse-than-fail Co-Ed Day (don't ask) and an upcoming snooze fest (aka Presentation Day), my "I-Don't-Really-Care" level has risen to a point where I don't really care if I run around my brother school wearing nothing but a belt and a bagpipe, as long as my (very reluctant) brain can finally (very reluctantly) awaken from it's year-and-a-half (not quite reluctant) hibernation-squash time.

Of course, "negative" behavior like that can only mean one thing: a full hour-and-a-half speech from Henshaw about "the importance of one's self esteem" and "the importance of a counselor to discuss the importance of one's self esteem" and "the importance to come to me to discuss the all-important booking of an all-important counselor to discuss my all-important self esteem level".

Oh yummy, book me in straight away, please.

Move Like Albert Hitchcock

"He sees you when you're sleeping,

He knows when you're awake....."

Yes, the Christmas season is almost upon us! This Christmas is most likely just like any other Christmas some of you may have, but it's going to be different for me this year. For starters, my cousin is over from China, and they don't celebrate Christmas in China.

Shockgasphorror!

So I'm dressing this year's Christmas up in the traditional red-and-green Christmas, and we're finally taking out the Christmas tree (in one particular year, when I was actually bothered give a damn about a Christmas tree, I spray painted a branch white and stuck it in a decorated plastic plant pot. Look Mum, a White Christmas!)

I was quite appalled by the lack of festive spirit in my cousin that I decided to make up a checklist of thing's he has never done:

- never had a candy cane (I picked up a giant candy-cane in Big W, and the response I received was a non-verbal "What in the world?!")

-never put up a Christmas tree (and with that, I'm guessing he's never experienced that horrible itching sensation you get when you're setting up a Christmas trees)

- and last but not least (far from least...I'd say the most important...) he's never sent out a Christmas present (speaking of which, he's never received one either)

Don't go all human-rights on me; they give out

money at Christmas time (otherwise known

as Chinese New Year), so the children can

go out and buy whatever they want in China

(Oh, you spoiled brats!)

I need suggestions on how to make this Christmas Christmassy, any help?

Oh, Dam He's Hot (Ha Ha Ha)

All our major yearlies are finally over (yes, English, Science and Mathematics), AND the German yearlie was today (not-too-hard;it was a textbook test...). The History one is next, but that's nothing to worry about.

Recently, I've had a few of cringe-worthy moments, and I thought I'd share one of them.

(Cringe-worthy moments occur when you do something completely insignificant that affected absolutely no-body but yourself [the people around you may have not noticed], but you still feel as though you have completely screwed up your life [if "Oh-My-Goodness, I cannot believe I just did that" keeps coming back to haunt you, then that counts as Cringe-Worthy])

At Woolworths, I was waiting "in line" at the meat section(yes, the ticket system still counts as a line!). Now it seemed me to that only the adults ever bought the meat (my guess that everyone my age would be in the magazine section, or even worse, the Fro-gurt section), and so I straightened myself to look more mature, and when my number was called (46!) I stuttered out:

"Yeah, no, uhh....Yeah, ummmm"

A horrific silence pursued, followed by a

" Just a kilogram of those Ingham chicken drumsticks" at only a 1000 words/second.

"Oh-My-Goodness, I cannot believe you just said that!"

"Dude, you didn't need to say Ingham"

"You didn't need to say chicken either"

"You didn't have to jab your finger at the glass; you're standing right in front of the drumsticks"

"You should have said thanks at the end"

"Oh dear, who says kilogram these days? For your information, it's kilo"

"Oh and, you didn't need to look down at the drumksticks either"

"I don't think he caught that, you were a tad too fast"

Meat Man: "Anything else?"

Me: "Uhhh, no thanks, thanks"

"Naww, now you did it, you idiot. No-one says 'No thanks, thanks'"

"He now thinks you're a real blithering psycho, ya brainless fud"

"Did you just say thanks, thanks?"

"The woman next to me must think I'm some tourist. A tourist! In my own country!"

"On second thoughts, the woman next to me must think I'm just plain dumb"

Anyone else in the same situation?

Phone!

I recently acquired a new phone, the Nokia 6700 Classic. It's slim, heavy, and very cool to the touch. It's a rather neat little thing, apart from the fact that it DOESN'T have Global Bloxx (the most addictive Tetris-type game ever)

I've been Googling Nokia themes for my phone, and I decided to try Googling Global Bloxx (obviously, I failed...Global Bloxx is a game only for the Nokia E63)

But nonetheless, if anyone shall find a downloadable copy of Global Bloxx, please, link me!

Ciao;

1 down, 5 to go

That's one yearly exam down, 6 more to go.

Oh yes, I'm very pumped.

Wind Ensemble (the band I play in) are going on tour soon, all the way to Port Stevens (absolutely, very far away...!) Our band conductor chose the dolphin watch over sand-dunes boarding, and decided to play at retirement villages rather the local town square, but I guess thats what I deserve for going to an all-girls wuss school.

Also, for my food-technology class, we have to film an advertisement about a party planning company (that we created). My whole group is totally ready (that was dripping with sarcasm). I had probably better leave a note on her desk, to thank her for her support:

Thanks A Lot Ms Banks For The Shorter-Than-Yesterday's Notice! We Are Definitely Going To Be Ready, Especially if You Give Us Less Than 12 Hours Notice To Create A Full-Scale Advertisement, WITHOUT Your Help!

*lots of kisses from me*

Yours truly,

Amy.

Studiously Studying

While browsing Facebook (yes i know, I should be studying) I came upon a rather amusing group;

"Studying Is Student and Dying Put Together"

I have to applaud whoever came up with that one; Genius, really.

I'm ready to pack up my English homework.

I have been sitting at my desk the past hour

re-reading the one question about the

characterisation of Portia, and silently

swearing to myself to not take English in

senior school. And I haven't written more than a phrase.