the whimsical verbiage of a lovely chicken marengo

 so on friday dingo and i went to see the fratellis at the uni bar. it was a last minute decision i made to go, because i really wanted to go out that night. anyway, there's me all pumped up to see the fratellis and sing and dance along to the fun bop-along music, with my girlie by my side.

alas, i had forgotten that being at a university venue during O (orientation) week, the gig would largely be attended by very very young university kids, with no sense of decorum, or, god forbid, any desire to attend a music show with the intention of actually watching and appreciating live music. while trying hard not to lose my balance and end up in a crumpled heap on the floor, due to the pushings and shovings, i had also to contend with a man who insisted on pressing his crotch up against my bottom and then jumping up and down, despite me elbowing him in the ribs three times. i also had to deal with a man who, albeit unintentionally, elbowed me in the face twice. i then decided i'd had enough and moved to the very back of the room where i was able to watch the band properly and had heaps of room to dance (simultaneous leg and arm movement included).

the worst bit was that the fratellis did a really good show, but i missed most of it, and by that point was to annoyed to stay and watch the cassette kids. boo.

 so i know i've been silent for ages, but this is because i was internet-less because........(drumroll please) i have moved into craig's!!!

yes, it's true. craig's house is now my house too, and his room is our room now and all sorts of nice things. only we had no internet, but now we do, so all is even better than before. moving in has been quite an adventure. lots of adjusting to each other and much less space, but it's been good and fight-free so far. 

the month in sydney has been very busy!!!!!! we went to big day out, and danced our tits off to the prodigy, which is up there in one of the best live music experiences ever; we had a chinese new year and australia day barbeque, which was a great success; i've been to karaoke for the first time ever; we've been watching buffy the vampire slayer like fiends (but not like the fiends on buffy. nice looking fiends) and all sorts of shenanigans.

i guess there's not much else to say for now, but there will be soon, since i will actually have the internet at my constant disposal to facilitate the telling of such things. 

 so i am back in sydney after 6 weeks of holiday. normally i'm really depressed about going back to australia, but this year i was ready to, and looking forward to it. which of course, is resulting in me experiencing several different forms of guilt. but ah, well.

anyway, my trip home was one of the best ever!

highlights were (in random order):
retta's 21st birthday, which was just so amazing and wonderful and manic and every good thing.
bangkok with three of my favourite people. BEST.HOLIDAY.EVER.
drunkenness at prince of wales after watching paul's band for the first time in about 3 years.
the unrestrained shopping, which resulted in the purchase of, amongst other things, five dresses.
the pretty much fight-free drives and chats with mum.  i have a new, very profound, and absolutely unshakeable respect for my mother. and if i could be a fraction of the woman she is, i should be very pleased indeed.
having the people i love most in the world all with me, in one country, under the same roof. it was the luckiest i have ever, ever felt.


and sydney shall be very exciting as well! craig and i have commenced our buffy marathon (opening with the original Kristy Swanson film); we are going to Big Day Out (squeee!!!!!) on friday, and are throwing an australia day-chinese-new-year-irishman-farewell barbeque on sunday! yay!!!

 as of right now, i have everything i need.

there is no way i could be any happier than i am at this very moment.

so this christmas, craig won the ballot allowing him to buy a pair of big day out tickets (big day out sold out in like 20 minutes or something), and he's bought them, and that's my christmas present!!!! he is giving me Arctic Monkeys, The Prodigy, Cut Copy, Youth Group, The Grates, Birds of Tokyo, Tzu, The Drones, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand a 90-minute Neil Young set. Neil Young, guys!!!!! oh my god. 

i have the best boyfriend there ever was.

today was noelle and paul shopping day!!! we battled crowds in orchard, and then moved on to yell at badly behaved children at vivocity. while we paused for one (three) beer(s), we decided that we should start a band of just us two. we are to be called Gift - Wrapped & Tagged. Our first album is to be called 'Eye Haychu'. Here is the tracklist:

1. Eye Haychu (Like A Muggy Day)
2. A One-line Christmas
3. Shopping Overload
4. The Solace That Is Beer
5. Godchildren
6. Unexpected Incidents
7. A HARD Man Is So Good To Find
8. iHeart iMac
Bonus Charity Track: Oh, Those Aren't Cigarettes; That's Rubbish!

a second album is in the planning stages.

as of typing this, i will be home in 32 hours, 43 minutes and 50 seconds.

i have made the official switch from Yahoo! to Google. my homepage, my default email address and everything are now all about the Google. i'm already liking it better because its prettier, and Google does better searches afterall.

also, it is time to plan my annual summer reading list (having a reading list for the second consecutive summer affords calling this list an 'annual' one, right?). this year, i am encouraged by the Penguin reprints of classics with the old and beautiful orange and cream motif/style/whathaveyou. this is printed on the back of each book: "...quality books published passionately and responsibly make the world a better place." yay!

so anyway, here's the list:

1. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
2. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
3. Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
4. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
5. Northern Lights by Philip Pullman
6. Porno by Irvine Welsh
7. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

i think that shall suffice for now. any other ideas, though? 

today i handed in my final final essay of the year! oh, thank christ. i think it's the worst essay i've ever written, but at least it's done. huzzah! just one postmodernism exam to go, the preparation for which involves rewatching trainspotting and hot fuzz, and rereading fight club. i think i might be able to manage that.

also, yesterday was one of the best days ever, because Ronan Keating was on Rove! yes, it's true; Ronan Keating was in sydney and was on tv! he was witty, and funny, and really, REALLY sexy. even dingo agrees, though she may deny it now. and then, to top it all off, it turns out that Boyzone is reuniting for a tour! they have a new single called Love You Anyway, which is a godawful song, but they sang together, and did synchronised dance, and it was just wonderful and nostalgic and every good thing. did i mention that Ronan, now aged 31, is really, REALLY tasty?

also, Bones is the best show ever.

what an exciting week!

respect, admiration, and just as many kudos as this young lass can carry to the american voting public, not only for actually voting this election, but for making what i believe will be a choice that will change the world in the best possible way. i don't think i have ever felt as hopeful as i have in my whole life watching Senator Barack Obama make his acceptance speech. and i am in complete awe at having watched history take place.

i know you have incredible amount of pressure on you, and that you must be feeling rather stressed. but i also believe that you must be feeling very, very grateful at having been given the chance to change everything. and i believe that you will.



in other news, i am completely and utterly in love with Ringo Starr for being so inspired by the habits of octopi that he wrote this lovely song:

I'd like to be under the sea
In an octopus's garden in the shade
.
.
.
We would be warm below the storm
In our little hideaway beneath the waves
.
.
.
We would sing and dance around
because we know we can't be found
.
.
.
We would shout and swim about
The coral that lies beneath the waves
Oh what joy for every girl and boy
Knowing they're happy and they're safe
.
.
.
I'd like to be under the sea
In an octopus's garden with you.

AND i have now completed two of my final essays. one essay and one exam to go and i am done for the semester. so so so close. huzzah!

so to avoid writing the next essay i have due, i shall write a little tale about the one i completed last night (a whole day early, no less!)

the subject was renaissance drama, the work was arduous, and the readings were just pretty damn gruesome. in addition to the many incredibly interesting things i have learned about post-reformation england this year, i have also learned exactly how macabre people were back in the day. i mean, i always knew there was a penchant for and fascination with the morbid in 16^th- and 17^th-century england, but it was a few lines in two of the plays i read this semester that made me go, “Wait, what?”

first, from the anonymously written Arden of Faversham:

Black Will: Mark my device: place Mosby, being a stranger, in a chair, and let
                   your husband sit upon a stool, that I may come behind him cunningly and
                   with a towel pull him to the ground, then stab him till his flesh be as a
                   sieve. (XIV.128-133)

then, from John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi:

Ferdinand:                                                 I would have their bodies 
                    Burned in a coal-pit, with the ventage stopped,
                    That their cursed smoke might not ascend to heaven.
                    Or dip the sheets they lie in, in pitch or sulfur,
                    Wrap them in't, and then light them like a match:
                    Or else to boil their bastard to a cullis;
                    And give 't his lecherous father, to renew
                    The sin of his back. (II.v.66-73)

i mean, seriously?

also, i am so fucking homesick i can't even believe it. 33 more days!

 

 

pardon the bragging, but

these are the marks i have received for this semester so far:

Drama Essay - 77%
Postmodernism Annotated Bibliography - 76%
Postmodernism Essay - 72%
Words and Pictures Across Cultures Presentation - 82%
Love in Different Languages Presentation - 77%
Love in Different Languages Essay - 72%

which makes the lowest mark i have gotten this semester a 72. which is amazing and unbelievable and just plain brilliant of me. i am feeling very, very pleased with myself. i have one more essay to get back, before i start on exams and stuff, but i think a couple of distinctions are definitely in order. they must be. yay for me.

it is also dingo's birthday today!!! to commemorate the day of her birth, she has a new study buddy to keep her company when she is up late doing those inexplicable architectural type things on her computer that she so enjoys. 

happy birthday girlie!!!!!

craig and i finally watched Shortbus last night. it is one of the best and most honest films i have seen in a very, very long time. it was the perfect mix of harsh reality and whimsy, and it was just wonderful and now i want to go to Shortbus too. it's banned in singapore, but get your hands on it, if you can. because it's amazing.

it is now 46 days till i get home, and i can't wait! only 6 weekends left in sydney, which is scary because that means i have only two weekends left till my exams are over, and the studying and the preparation has not really kicked into full gear. but it will. i have a plan, and i shall see it through. i will get at least one distinction this year, gosh darn it!

back to studying then. but 46 days, whee!!!!!

the weather has gone from being too cold to sleep, to being too hot and humid and horrible to do ANYTHING. seriously, being outside is like walking around in a big swamp of vapour that makes you sweaty and smelly and all those lovely, attractive, damp things. today was Walk to Work Day, and i woke up an hour early this morning, all set for a 45-minute walk to work. but then i had a shower, realised 10 minutes after finishing my shower that i already needed another one, and thought to myself, "i love the planet, and all, but no fucking way am i walking 45 minutes at noon in this ridiculousness."

anyway, i just wanted to vent. i wish my bedroom had more vents. then maybe i wouldn't be so cranky. gah.

dingo and i have developed a new and unhealthy addiction to Beauty and the Geek. and now we've got craig hooked as well. when we watch it, it makes us feel angry and fat. but we watch it anyway, because sometimes it makes us laugh. like when one of the girls said she didn't know what a kayak was, and when one of the guys was described as being "in a star wars band". craig has decided he wants to be in a star wars band, too, but i have forbidden it, and lynette is lending support as well. anyway, it's just an awful show, but it's so bad its good.

only thing is, now we are upset because we were all set to watch the makeover episode last night, and it wasn't a makeover episode at all!!! it was still funny and bad, but it wasn't the makeover of the year we were promised. then today i found out that they show Beauty and the Geek on thursday AND tuesday nights, but channel 7 neglected to tell us this last week. so now not only have we missed the makeover, but we have to commit two hours a week to this trash. bollocks.

tomorrow i am going to a party dressed as a Cosmopolitan. that's right, the cocktail. it shall be fun. if i could only find a pink dress...

yes, it's true! single-digit temperatures and wind chill factors will soon be gone forever!!! or at least for 6 months. i can't wait, and today i spent all morning in just a tshirt to celebrate the fact that summer is only three months and three days away.

in other news, i am currently in the middle of reading Trainspotting, which is turning out to be one of the best books i have ever read. i tried reading it once when i was 14, and gave up, because it was too difficult to get around the scottish. but now it's easy! and it's fun! it's an amazing book. it's one of those books where none of the characters are particularly likeable - in fact, they're mostly all vile - but you still find yourself rooting for them. yay for postmodernist literature. and yay for Irvine Welsh!

so on top of having what is probably the worst flu i've ever had, on top of sliding down the stairs and bruising my tailbone for the second time this year, on top of aaaaaaall that, i now find out that Ash will be performing in singapore in october. Ash. fucken Ash. i've waited my whole life for Tim Wheeler. my whole life. and now i am finally old enough and i won't even be there.

this is just the most unfair thing that could ever have happened. ever.

i need to listen to them play girl from mars. like, i NEED to.

oh, tim. i will always remember the day i found out that you wrote your first album the year of your A Levels, and how amazed and impressed i was. i shall always think of you as a seventeen-year-old.

i have just booked flights for me, my sister and paul to bangkok, where we shall rendezvous with craig!!!!!!!!!!!! a weekend in bangkok!!!!! huzzah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

there shall be much drunkenness, hungover shopping, perving on flexible thai ladies cavorting onstage, drunkenness, and some drunkenness too.

yay, i can't wait! i love bangkok! and i love retta and craig and paul! it will be the best weekend ever!!!

we have tickets to We Are Scientists!!!!!! wheeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!