Mush

After the rather tumultuous events of last week, my brain has decided to counter all that over-stimulation by only absorbing happy squishy stuff that doesn't require hard thinking. Or any type of concentration.

Don't get me wrong, I had a most excellent week- I got to achieve my dream of eating a grilled rump steak for breakfast, was almost suffocated on a dancefloor with shirtless guys slicked in foam, played with a heck of a lot of glowbands, failed an extremely important pre-requisite subject, drank an espresso martini on fake grass, had a lovely Devonshire tea at a friend's place, was woken up by a mighty rendition of My Humps (AGAIN), woke up almost screaming from a nightmare in which I was pregnant with Kevin Federline's third child (I CANNOT DESCRIBE HOW HORRENDOUS THIS WAS), watched Mulan at a video night and heard this young lady shriek with uncontrolled excitement when a two dimensional cartoon cartoon character took his shirt off, and I worked four shifts and was forcibly reminded of why I HATE SELLING IPODS.

Oh, and the morning after the foam party I was woken up by the sound of a chainsaw next door.

Anyway, my brain has decided that over-stimulation and little sleep makes Daph a very very crazy girl. So you know what I've been doing to recover?

I've been reading teenage romance novels and listening to The Love Album by Westlife.

Oh, Daphne, how low you have sunk.

It's Kris' fault, really. She recommended Twilight. You know that series which teenage girls (and as one journalist wrote, "women who should know better") are all obsessed with? It's about a teenage girl who falls in love with a vampire. It's about as badly written as you might expect and full of bizarre subliminal messages about the virtues of abstinence...but it's also very very easy to read and requires very little thinking. Furthermore, the guy the protagonist falls in love with is like the vampiric equivalent of Mr Darcy...all moody and broody yet female readers cannot help but swoon over him.

If it lessens the disgust you must be feeling, I really am only listening to the one track on the Westlife album (All Out Of Love) because their rendition of Total Eclipse of the Heart made me want to scream and smash the disc into tiny pieces. And it's the property of my local library so I can't.

In an effort to dispel this mushy, swoony why can't I find unconditional love without the vampirism crap, I went and borrowed the DVD for the ULTIMATE ANTIDOTE to the lovey teenagey-ness of Twilight.

I borrowed Blade II.

I'll be back after I've watched Wesley Snipes decimate a whole lotta shit.

Are You Still Having Fun?

I just failed Property Law.

I think I'm still in shock. That's another $1200 I need to raise to pay for it, it's another semester tacked on to an already lengthy degree, it means I can't qualify for two of my chosen electives next year and most of all, I was pretty sure I'd done okay. I wasn't expecting a particularly good mark but I thought that I had at least passed.

I'm still in a kind of shock. I've just been too tired to be bothered crying over it, and my self-esteem was already at quite a low so I don't think anything can really drag it down further. Luckily, I was out with friends last night when results came through and I refused to look at my SMS results until I'd had at least three standard drinks. So when I actually did look at my phone I spent the rest of the night downing even more alcohol in an attempt to cope with it.

And hey, it helped...in a head-pounding kind of way.

See, I deserved to fail Torts. I did nothing for that subject, I skipped almost all my classes. Conversely, I went to almost every single one of Property, did all my readings, took copious notes. Yet I passed Torts and failed Property. Not sure how that works, but there you go. Life is cruel. Crueeeeel.

I suppose the shock of it will hit me later, and I suppose the inevitable bout of tears will hit me at some point...probably when I've been given the 50th conciliatory sympathy speech, because I actually feel strangely calm.

But a big part of this goes to my friend Kris, who was just so wonderful about the whole thing and knew exactly what to do to make me feel better. Besides making me down a few buckets of water to balance out the alcohol, she went out in the morning and got me a Sausage and Egg McMuffin, a hash brown, and what has to be one of the best coffees I've had in ages.

(Dude, you're the bestest.)

So...time to get on with it. I think I might actually do that Honours year in English now, if just to take a break from the horror that is law school.

And if I guess I had to repeat a subject, I'd rather it be Property Law because I did actually quite enjoy it, failure or no failure.

But if anything ever mentions the word 'caveat' within my earshot they will get brutally stabbed with a pen.

*Insert Witty Burn-Related Song Title Here*

For the first time in a very very very long time, I have a rather prominent swathe of sunburn on my back.

And of course, ths WOULD be at the start of summer- when 80% of what I wear consists of backless tops or dresses.

My skin is already quite dark, so it takes sunburn a little differently. There's no prominent red patches or anything, it just turns incredibly, incredibly dark.

Today at the gym, my friend exclaimed with a gasp, "Your back...did you get sunburn? It's like chocolate."

(When I said I wanted to be cool and black, this is not what I envisioned.)

However, as I pointed out rather ruefully to my mother, the one bright spot is that the sunburn has actually spread itself out across my back in what I think looks like a kick-ass Phoenix pattern. Jean Grey, eat your heart out.

I actually got the sunburn two weeks ago at the races on Oaks Day. I didn't even realise that I got burnt until the day afterwards when I glanced in the mirror after my shower and went, "Oooh boy." The little dip between the Phoenix wings, so to speak, is where I slapped on some sunscreen with my palm. Proving that sunscreen really does work.

My back currently looks angry. And peeling slightly. I have a party on Friday night so I'm hoping that the mottled did-you-just-melt-the-milk-into-the-dark-chocolate look sort of fades a bit by then. If not I'll just have to wear my hair down and hope for coverage of some sort.

Let this be a lesson both in vanity and sun safety.

Slip, slop, slap.

Therapeuticness

Yesterday I decided to get a massage.

Fifteen weeks of hunching over a computer, study, stress and sitting cross-legged on my bed with an XBox controller have not helped my back muscles any.

I decided to try an Eastern health clinic, just for something different. One of those places which does acupuncture and stuff like that.

Of course, being an Eastern health clinic, they don't really speak English.

So I started reading the signs out the front, and within five seconds I had encountered what I call the 'Hopeful Asian Expression' sales tactic. It simply consists of an Asian person standing in front of you with a hopeful 'you buy?' expression of his/her face.

And dammit if it doesn't work a charm every time. (I should try that in my own sales pitches.)

The Hopeful Asian Man had already pushed a brochure into my hands so I chose a neck, shoulder and head massage for 35 minutes. The place was very professional and had the cool weirdo beds and curtains and stuff, but I had one of those "Gee, I wish I spoke my ancestors' mother-tongue" moments when the two guys started going a mile a minute in Mandarin. It's sort of awkward standing there when all you can hear is a rapid-fire mix of something that sounds only vaguely like "Nizhixinwoyoumeibuzhi...ahhhh...."

Then they showed me to a cubicle and pulled the curtains shut with absolutely no instructions.

So I stood there for a moment, not exactly sure what to do. I assumed I was meant to get undressed, except was it just my top? Could I leave my jeans on? What about my bra?

No information was forthcoming.

However, I heard an equally bemused voice from next door call out, "I've never done this before...what do I need to do?" This was followed by a brief, "Take top off," so I followed suit and shucked my shirt into the plastic bucket.

The guy came in and said something mostly unintelligible, so I said, "Pardon?" and he repeated, "I give you little bit extra," and at this I said, "PARDON?!" and he explained, "Other masseuse running late so I give you more time."

(Phew.)

Anyway, I'm still not sure whether I like massages or not. They tend to be therapeutic rather than relaxing, and I can safely say that the Western ones hurt- the last one I went to was actually quite painful and the one I had at the physiotherapist left my skin raw. The Chinese one that I had today was actually not too bad. The 'little bit extra' that I got was an extra ten minutes- not anything else suspicious thank you very much- and they threw in a back massage as well as neck, shoulders and head.

I could definitely have done without the butt-kneading (what the hell that was about I will never know) but it was okay, although I ended up smelling suspiciously of weird Chinese massage oil for the rest of the day.

I think that's enough of a foray into alternative therapies for me.

The Election Post

Welcome to my obligatory post on the U.S election.

Judging by the number of jubilant Facebook status updates mentioning either 'Obama' or 'yes we can!' I figured it was the topic du jour so I might as well jump on the bandwagon.

Unfortunately, I'm like the yokel who's just clambered onto the bandwagon only to realise that it's full of intelligent people in suits tapping on their iPhones while I'm holding my pitchfork. In fact, sort of like Sarah Palin dipping her moose-killing toes in the big great ocean of world politics...ouch, that was wee bit harsh.

If you asked a normal person why they were supporting Obama, they'd probably tell you that the man represents hope. He represents change. He's breaking down barriers and taking one huge step forward for the civil rights movement and African-American citizens everywhere.

However, if you asked me...I'd have to be honest and tell you that I'm supporting Obama because he's cool and black and he likes Jay-Z. Plus his stepfather is Indonesian and he used to live in Jakarta...so he's cool and black with Asian ties. And for me, this is HOPE that this goes both ways...perhaps I can be Asian with cool and black connections! Hope is not lost in my quest to be cool and black!

Furthermore, John McCain can't use a computer properly. And if you're going to be leader of one of the most important countries in the world, you sure as hell should be able to open your Hotmail without a community volunteer gently guiding the mouse over your shoulder.

So.

If you were looking for an insightful view into the U.S election...this ain't it.

But whether you love him or- well, like him because nobody seems to actually hate Obama- just be happy that the citizens United States of America have elected a President that isn't a pretzel-challenged dimwit.

Is they learning?

Yes.

Let's Go Stalking, Stalking, Stalking...

If you've ever Facebook-stalked somebody just because you met them once and you thought they were kinda cute, say 'aye'.

Aye.

*tumbleweed rolls past*

Right. Now I feel like a total absolute stalker.

And he wasn't even all that cute. In fact, his Facebook profile is really not very encouraging. So now I am wondering what my own Facebook profile says about me.

Probably nothing very flattering.

In fact, judging by my applications and info you'd think I was some kind of Jensen-Ackles-crazed anarchist nut.

Oh wait...

Damn you Facebook.

Exam Ponderings #1

Picture this: you're walking along on a happy sunny day, and out of the blue, a cricket ball hits you on the head.

The normal reaction would be to swear. Maybe get an ice pack.

Of course, you could also sue. Dragging it through three courts and setting a very irritating legal precedent for generations of law students to come.

All because some dude hit a six in a cricket game.

I hate Torts.

Hark! The Builders Have Escaped!

THE BUILDERS HAVE GONE HOME.

Thank the Force.

Until 3 o'clock today, I had to suffer impromptu renditions of classic rock hits being butchered (LOUDLY) by the builders next door.

There's nothing wrong with singing. Except there's a time and place, and some things are better behind closed doors. With sound-proof walls. And preferably without an outdoor radio. And frankly, if you have no rhythm you shouldn't be shouting it out to the entire bloody neighbourhood BECAUSE I AM TRYING TO STUDY AND I DON'T WANT TO HEAR YOU MASSACRE DURAN-DURAN AT A VERY UNPLEASANT VOLUME.

It's incredibly hard to focus on the irregular Spanish verbs of the preterite tense when you can hear someone yelling, "Are- you- gonna- be- mah- girl?" followed by some very loud hammering, some even louder drilling, and then a lovely duet of profanities between two other builders.

AARGGGH.

I rang my boss this arvo, and he said, "How's the studying going?"

"GAAAAAH."

"I take it...not so well."

"There's workmen next door. And they're singing along to Jet and Wolfmother."

"That's not good...did you tell them that this isn't a bloody neighbourhood audition for Australian Idol?"

At which point I had to crack a smile.

"Tell me," says my boss, "Do you have a lemon tree in your back garden?"

"Yes."

"Well," says my boss, sagely, "This is what you need to do. Go to that lemon tree, grab a whole lot of lemons, and start throwing them randomly over the fence next door. You might even hit a few of the builders."

Had they not gone home at 3, I might have actually taken that advice and started readying an army of citrus missiles.

If they start up again tomorrow and subject me to six more hours of Triple M played full blast, I'm going to bring out the big guns and hook up my iPod to the amplifier.

Let's see how much they like my Ultimate Girlband 90's playlist raping their auditory canal.

But I said, "No, no, no..."

Tomorrow, I am doing a little moonlighting as a computer technician.

Actually, 'technician' is the wrong word. 'Technician' would be implying that I am actually competent in that field.

And that is a LIE.

So let me rephrase that- tomorrow, I am masquerading as a computer technician.

So this could go down very, very badly.

And this is why I should just keep my mouth shut.

So why take on the job, you ask?

Well...let me tell you a story...

When I was but a lass of seventeen, I was desperate for a job. Even McDonalds didn't hire me, so I really only had two choices- prostitution or telemarketing...cos really, those are the only two careers where you don't really need experience to get a foot in the door...

...needless to say, I chose the latter :P

Please not that I really only suffered through five days of telemarketing, only two of which were on the phones. It was, quite frankly, "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short," with emphasis on the 'short' part. I actually did quite well, but I hated it with such a passion that I quit immediately after I'd finished the five-day training sessions.

Except...my mother was deeply affected by my plaintive tale of telemarketing woe. So much so that now she actually exhibits sympathy for telemarketers. In fact, she now exhibits sympathy for anyone trying to sell her anything. As she said to me, "Oh, but I was thinking, 'This could be Daphne' and I felt really sorry for her..."

"Mum, I only did five days of telemarketing. Not even that- only TWO days on the actual phones!"

"It doesn't matter, I still thought of you with your little childish voice asking for donations..."

And that mentality has just made her WEAK.

Let me just cite three examples off the top of my head:

The first incident happened when she got a young girl on the phone asking her to sell tickets for an epilepsy raffle. "I thought of you in your telemarketing days," says mother, and so she caved.

Now, the Epilepsy Foundation will not leave us alone.

Secondly, one day she returned from shopping with a bizarre chicken strudel.

"This is random," says I. "Why'd you get one of these?'
"They're new. The girl at Lenards was trying so hard to get me to buy one. I thought of you trying to get a sale and I felt really sorry for her."
"Right. So you bought a strudel."
"Yes."
"Oookay..."

Probably the most impressive one was when she was swayed by the over-eager desperation of the commission-based World Vision girl at a shopping centre- "She was so desperate, and I thought of you trying to get a sale..."

So she adopted a child.

And now I have an adopted little sister in Bangladesh.

Anyway, the point of my story was this- I've been ridiculing her for this weakness, but today I was coerced into saying yes simply because the desperate woman in front of me was my Mum's age, also Asian, and completely hopeless with computers.

Just like my Mummy.

And I thought, "What if it were my Mum seeking out computer help and everyone wanted to charge her $98 just to look at her PC?"

So I caved.

Sigh.

Anyhow...from what I gathered, her computer just seems to be low on virtual memory. So I figured that all I have to do is delete some shit on her hard drive and browser cache and increase the size of her paging file.

I think.

I mean, if it turns out to be anything harder than that I am royally, royally, screwed.

At any rate, it wasn't just the fact that she reminded me of Mum that made me say yes...she also looked at me desperately and said, "I'll pay you whatever you want. Anything!"

And y'know, that might have swayed me.

Just a little.

Awake is the New Sleep*

It's 1 a.m in the morning and I am about as sleepy as a squirrel on Red Bull.

I'm not a morning person. This much is obvious from anyone who has seen me in my tousled, bunny-pyjama-clad, squinting glory at any time before 10 a.m. In fact, I once frightened our local Avon representative when she dared disturb my slumber at 9 a.m in the middle of my summer holidays.

I opened the door in my pyjamas and blinked half-lucidly at the horrible sunlight behind her head.

She didn't come back after that.

I've often wondered if my morning beauty would be strong enough to repel a Mormon.

Anyway, Daylight Savings started on the weekend, and I'm still fighting to adjust to having that extra hour of daylight. It would normally be midnight right about now, but of course, it's now 1 a.m and I am still absolutely awake.

However, I am also quite cold right now, so I might attempt to grab some shut-eye before I frighten my Torts tutor with my scowling visage tomorrow morning.

I also plan to get some decent coffee. Ever since I stopped part-time work, paring it down to 4.5 hours a week, I had to make certain sacrifices....and the coffee was the first to go. I've been living, albeit miserably, off instant cappuccinos and Jarrah and Robert Timms instant granulated, and it just isn't the same.

Four weeks. Four weeks until I finish exams, four weeks until I recommence part-time work dispensing tired advice, four weeks until I get that part-time income back and I can get access to my caffeinated precioussssss...



* kudos to Ben Lee for the blog title

Daphne and Lee Go to the Airport

Today, I drove to the airport for the first time.

It was horrible.

I wasn't alone- I had my mother with me, and I had Lee- but it was still a stressful driving experience.

Lee and I have been together for two weeks, but I really can't imagine life without him now. He's always so calm, so collected, he never, ever yells at me, and he's always there to steer me back onto the right path whenever I freak out.

But today, we had another argument.

I suppose it was inevitable- it happens in every relationship, but I thought...I thought we were solid, you know? But no...Lee tried to tell me to take Citylink despite the fact that I didn't want to take a tollroad. I suppose it was faster, but I wanted to take the freeway- it being FREE and all- but Lee wouldn't have a bar of it and kept whining on about it for six kilometres.

I told him to shut up but I couldn't really take my eyes off the road while I was driving.

My mum was of no help whatsoever as her sense of direction is worse than mine- which is really saying a LOT- and at the third intersection from home, we'd already had a massive argument and so she stayed snarky and silent at me for the whole trip.

I took umbrage at that fact that she cried, "Stop stop STOP!" when I moved the car forward in the 'hover' lane to turn right, despite the fact that it was pretty damn OBVIOUS that I wasn't going to jump out into oncoming traffic and was bringing to the car to a stop.

Furthermore, she leant forward and blocked my view completely so I cried out, equally panicked, for her to sit back.

I pointed out that (a) I was not an idiot; and (b) she didn't have to shriek like I was some kind of moron.

She said, "I didn't yell 'stop stop stop!' I said to you, 'There's a car coming.'"

Uh huh.

It's like the difference between going, "Hmm, that Jensen Ackles is rather a fine specimen of male," and going, "DAMN IT HE'S HOT!"

Luckily, my Rihanna CD is rather good at breaking awkward silences, and Lee chimed in every so often. Mum didn't trust Lee at all.

However, I realised after detouring through the city, that something was wrong. Lee still kept insisting we take Citylink, until at the traffic lights, I checked his setttings and found out THAT HIS DEFAULT SETTING MEANT THAT HE WASN'T AVOIDING TOLL ROADS.

"Aww, Lee honey, no wonder you got confused."

"Recalculating," Lee said, and off we went again.

Not a peep from him about taking the tollroad. He got me to the airport (although it took extra due to the fact that I didn't realise he wasn't avoiding tolls until we were like 45 min into our trip) but my Dad's flight was 40 minutes late.

After a long time circling and waiting for my Dad to call, I finally went, "I'M PAYING FOR PARKING. BLAAAARGGHHH AAAAAARGGGHHHH AAARGGGGGHHHH."

(Well, words to that extent.)

And you know what? When you hook up my Nokia 6300 to Lee, both support voice-activated dialling.

So I said, "Dad."

"Dad," Lee repeated, and it DIALLED.

COOL.

I introduced Dad to Lee. Dad didn't really say much, but I get the feeling that he didn't disapprove. He even got him to navigate for the last ten minutes, just to put him through his paces.

So Lee and I cleared things up. We've had a couple of minor disagreements and few hurdles, but I'm sure that if we spend a little more time together, things will be smoother.

Cheers to all non-tangible male electronic voices everywhere.

So Much For My Happy Ending...

I'm not a huge fan of chick flicks.

Watching a shallow, vacuous but ridiculously attractive woman stumbling to find love through a series of comical escapades does not exactly spark my interest. What WOULD interest me is if the woman, stumbling to find love through a series of comical escapades, also happened across a giant Autobot and got caught up in an epic alien battle of good and evil.

(However, the obligatory 'James-Marsden-in-a-wet-shirt-scene' would still have to be retained, even if Optimus Prime was stomping all over him.)

But I'm beginning to appreciate the sugary value of chick flicks a lot better now...because you're assured of a happy ending. I used to find the predictability of chick flicks annoying- the girl always gets the guy, they live happily ever after...but now, it's an expectation I'm growing to depend on, against the tide of realist literature and cynicism burning away at our concept of the happily-ever-after.

At the moment, I'm studying both Romantic and Renaissance literature. I thought it would be a nice foil to my law subjects. And it is. Except that almost all of my texts are extremely depressing.

Doctor Faustus makes a pact with the devil and goes to hell to burn for all eternity.

Frankenstein creates a monster which then murders everyone that his creator holds dear.

Macbeth ends with the protagonist's head being waved around as a lesson to those who commit treason and regicide.

Wordsworth's The Ruined Cottage tells of a war widow eventually pining away until she dies.

Blake's The Book of Urizen tells of an alternate creation and the bastardisation and dumbing down of humanity.

Yup. Laughs all round.

I was up until 2 a.m the other night, finishing For the Term of His Natural Life, a novel about convict Australia. It has been on my 'to read' list ever since Year Nine history, but I'd heard tales of how long and boring it was. However, ten pages in and I was absolutely hooked. I kept reading and reading and reading, through pages and pages of convict torture and lashings and betrayal, hoping to get to the end where sweet redemption hopefully awaited.

The truth it, sweet redemption was not the lot of Rufus Dawes.

Which made me extremely sad. And frustrated. Especially because the sheer brutality of the book makes you hope against hope for him to be pardoned and live happily ever after with the golden-haired young nymphet of his dreams.

The man who wrote Atonement, Ian McEwan, also wrote a novel called Saturday. I'm not even going to get into my rant about Atonement- you can see it here if you have a particular hankering to revisit the depressingness- but Saturday was a particularly interesting book. I remember reading an interview featured Ian McEwan, in which he noted that many people hated the protagonist of Saturday because he was happy. The protagonist has a loving wife and a wonderful relationship with his grown-up children. He finds his job stimulating and enjoyable. He plays squash every weekend. He revels in the comforts of domesticity.

And readers DIDN'T LIKE HIM.

So do we resent happiness in others? Or, perhaps, do we hate being presented with the arguably false hope that there is always a chance for a happy ending? I had a chat to a friend several months ago, and she was just so happy at that point in her life that she seemed to almost hesitate when she said it out loud. And that's the strange thing. Much like C-3PO, we're always quick to whine and complain about our lot in life, but less inclined to tell the world if we're happy. It's almost as if we're ashamed of our happiness when so much of the world is still living in shades of grey, or if we're afraid that people will resent us for it. We're all too quick to criticise, yet never give credit where credit is due.

I don't think it's unusual to resent happiness in others. I guess it works much like material jealousy, except instead of eyeing the wealth of others we covet that which is so much harder to obtain.

But alas, I think this girl doth protest too much. Lack of sleep of my part generally results in drowsy introspection. Also, this has helped me somewhat in nutting out the subtext of Doctor Faustus, so if you have anything to add, please do.

And if you haven't already, go out and get yourself a copy of Disney's Enchanted. It'll make you believe in happy endings again.

(And if you got the blog title reference, I do apologise. I will refrain from using Avril Lavigne lyrics in blog posts in the future.)

The Filler Post

It's 1:18 a.m.

And I am still awake. Very very awake.

I blame my friend. I blame my friend and her wonderful coffee machine. I blame my friend and my friend's wonderful coffee machine and the fact that when my friend makes a mocha, she uses chocolate and cream instead of powder and pours freshly ground and brewed coffee over it all.

I also suspect that she may have given me a double shot of espresso as I am wide awake and blinking at the screen in the early hours of the morning.

*taps fingers*

But mostly, this is just a filler post- I apologise for the lack of blogging, but uni's started up again and I'm knee-deep in constructive trusts, negligence, the preterit tense in Spanish, and the works of Shakespeare and Wordsworth.

And oddly enough, lovin' it.

I'd also like to say that I've tried cutting down on coffee for the past two weeks. It's made me utterly miserable- and since there's a Coffee HQ on the university basement level, I've had to put up with people gliding up and down past me on the escalators with little takeaway cups of molten espresso heaven, the smell of roast coffee beans wafting past me as the escalator makes its inexorable way up to Level Four...

(Screw coffee abstinence.)

I make an exception on Sundays, where the time seems to slow to a crawl on work shifts- and in the morning, my voice is reduced a series of guttural grunts unless I get some form of caffeine in a little takeaway cup.

Oh coffee, how I love thee.

On Broadway

Earlier tonight, I went Broadway Dancing.

Like Jane Austen's Mr Darcy, I don't often dance. I don't think moving my feet on a Dance Dance Revolution gamepad or jamming to MC Hammer in the privacy of my own home counts- so it's been a while since I've submitted myself to public humiliation of the dance-dance kind.

My friend Kris had gotten us a six-class pass from a silent auction, so off we went to the dance studio for a class of Broadway dance. We figured it wouldn't be too challenging as compared to say, Argentinian tango- surely Broadway just involved some mild clicking of fingers and stepping of heels?

WRONG.

We went at Beginners Level. Y'know, the EASY level. I hate to think of what intermediate, let alone advanced, must look like.

As soon as the class started, the entire group of 40+ people suddenly launched into an explosive, maddeningly fast routine which involved not just finger-clicking, but stepping and swinging and pointing and oh dear God, we were terrified.

Swing, step.

Fuuuuck.

Swing, step, cross, lift, point, step...

(Woman on my left glares at me as I almost swing into her)

Step, up, step back...

(Kris, from my right: "We're dooooomed....DOOOOOOMED....")

Our instructor was a short, perky blonde thing with too much rhythm and too much bare midriff.

Kris and I somehow stumbled our way through superfast routines involving Cabaret, A Chorus Line and Saturday Night Fever, whilst all the practised members of the group glared at us (possibly because after screwing up the moves, we went into fits of quiet wailing.)

Oh, and they made us pretend to have a bowler hat and do chorus line dancing, which was exceptionally bad as it involved flailing of arms and it took everything in my power not to injure any other innocent dancers in the vicinity.

Next on our list is hip hop/funk. Surely pretending to be cool and black will not be as hard as pretending to have a imaginary bowler hat in a chorus line...

Detoxing Is For Chumps

I got back from Sydney earlier tonight, after one week of sunny bliss, massive overspending (mostly on copious amounts of food) and the company of two very, VERY patient friends.

And yes, I should probably be sleeping but today they had this COFFEE FESTIVAL at the Rocks. They had Segafredo lattes for only ONE DOLLAR. ONE DOLLAR!!!

(Thus, why I cannot sleep.)

Anyway...I will not regale you with the full details of my trip tonight, because I probably need some measure of shut-eye (I'm going for a Broadway dancing class tomorrow night...I haven't taken a dance class since my early attempts at hip hop in second year so this is going to be highly amusing...) but there is just one aspect of my trip which I just had to share.

Our 'detox'.

On Friday night, the three of us (myself, Kris and Katherine) hit the streets of Sydney. We went for cocktail happy hour first (two for one!) then trotted off to this pizzeria/gelataria where we had some Baileys and Kahlua, then ate our way through two pizzas and then one extremely large Kahlua soaked gelato sundae each.

Anyway...after our sundaes we made a slightly drunken pact to detox for 24 hours. This was probably not the smartest idea in the world because we cut out every single food group from the food pyramid except the fruit and vegetable part. Oh, and salt. In fact, this was a stupid idea, period, except we shook on it and agreed not to renege on the pact unless it was a mutual, unanimous decision to break it.

To use the old defence, it seemed like a good idea at the time. We had been eating pretty badly for the past five days, and ingested quite a lot of junk and a fairly decent amount of Strongbow. AND IT WAS NOT MY IDEA. Never promise to do anything without:

(a) being 100% sober
(b) clarifying on what exactly the pact entails

(Are we beginning to see why I almost failed Contract Law last year?)

Anyway, we met up with one of Kristine's friends in the city afterwards. We celebrated our last detox-free hours by shooting tequila. As the clock ticked into 12:01 a.m into the first minute of our detox, Kris' friend sat there with a giant brownie sundae calmly digging in with a spoon. (To be honest, our massive dessert at the gelataria meant that we weren't tempted anyway.)

The next morning, Katherine and I decided that the best way to cope with our self-imposed detox of stupidity was to sleep through as many hours of it as possible. We woke up at 11:30 a.m. Kristine had already gone to breakfast with her cousin, and faced terrible trials of self-restraint (which I am sure she will cover in her blog at some point) and came back with fruit. Lots of fruit.

We each had a lovely little fruit salad for lunch. It wasn't exactly the same as ripping into a steaming hunk of meat but we coped quite nicely until we wandered down to the markets, where they were selling hot waffles, hot dogs with fried onions and fresh pastries.

This was the first test of our detox.

The only thing we were able to eat at the market was corn-on-the-cob. This was safe as it involved no dairy, no meat, no salt and no sugar. Although we could have probably chowed down on some vintage threads...they probably would've been full of fibre. We ordered three corns-on-a-stick:

Woman: Would you like butter on that?

(Dairy was forbidden. Thus, so was butter.)

Us (somewhat morosely): No.

Woman: Would you like salt?

(Salt was also forbidden. In fact, anything that made FOOD WORTH EATING was forbidden)

Us (even more morosely): No.

Woman: Would you like pepper?

Us: No.

(This was merely a taste preference. Pepper was allowed.)

Kath and I were so grateful to have something that wasn't cold, or fruit, that we went back for another one.

We last five and half waking hours into the detox.

Then we cracked.

At the bus stop, we formally reneged on our pact, with the words 'screw this' featuring prominently. Food was made to be ENJOYED.

Detoxing is for chumps.

I broke my detox in spectacular fashion. It involved fries, schnitzel and cream sauce. Kris had been fantasising about bacon for the past 15.5 hours so she broke hers with that. Kath had raisin toast with butter and jam. On the way home, we picked up another bottle of Strongbow. So in the end, we broke our detox in STYLE.

Hours spent in detox: 15.5
Hours spent awake in detox: 5.5

Conclusion: Detoxing sucks balls. We only did it as a little personal test, because we've never ever dieted at all and we wanted to see if we could get through 24 hours of excessive-veganness without breaking it or stabbing each other with forks.

And in the end, we could not.

Sometimes, failure is a very, very good thing.

Jerks and Dickwads

"Well, animals are not like people, Mrs. Simpson. Some of them act badly because they've had a hard life, or have been mistreated...but, like people, some of them are just jerks."

Today, I was forced to serve a pompous jerk of a customer.

Firstly, let me just say this- I have a lot of respect for the elderly. Really, I do. And yes, calling an elderly person a pompous dickwad really does not sit right with me, but in this case I think I was somewhat justified.

So this man comes up to the counter, and wants to get a personal digital recorder. Fair enough (except I hate digital recorders with a passion. For some reason, that sale category just seems to attract morons and incompetent people who CANNOT READ INSTRUCTIONS. Even when the manual comes in seven different languages.)

Anyway, I try to open the cabinet- but the work cabinets often stick and they're difficult to get open. The old pompous guy stands behind me and says something like, "You shouldn't force it, you're young, you should know better."

Meantime, I'm pushing at the glass door thinking, "What the fuck is he on about?"

(Had this been spoken by my 3IC, it would have probably devolved into an extremely immature conversation about sticking things into slots.)

Then later on, as I'm asking him whether he wants the extended warranty, he says, "You've got to be kidding me about that stupid marketing bullshit."

I said, very politely, that I saw no problems with extended warranties and that I actually do take them out myself. Which is absolutely true- they're brilliant for iPods, and I bought one for my Xbox 360. They are a total waste of money on stuff like small radios and printers, and if you get one on a television that doesn't cover dead pixels you're practically throwing your money away...but they come in handy for other things. The XBox warranty was actually a tactical decision- I figured that if anything went wrong, the replacement might end up being an XBox Elite. Tee hee hee.

Anyway, the old guy's response was something along the lines of, "Well, then you're a gullible idiot for falling for that marketing crap."

This made me a little pissed off.

I take very, VERY badly to people insulting my intelligence. I also take very badly to people who address me in an extremely rude fashion. And I can make my own damn decisions, thank you very much. Especially when it comes to the electronics industry, which I have worked in for the past two years.

Except that I work in the retail part of this industry. And you have to be nice. So I pointed out, POLITELY, that I have a sharper marketing sense than that. What I wanted to say was something along the lines of I'M DOING A FUCKING LAW DEGREE YOU ASSHOLE, D'YOU RECKON I CAN FORM MY OWN BLOODY LINE OF REASONING?!

He also read my name badge and said, not in a particularly polite way, "You don't look like a Daphne."

Which coming from him, sounded fairly perjorative, with possibly racist undertones. In my old branch, I used to have to put up with moronic dialogue like:

"Daphne...is that your real name?"
"Yes."
"No, is it your REAL name?"
"YES." (Are you an idiot, woman?)
"No, but is it the name you were born with?"
"YES. IT'S ON MY BIRTH CERTIFICATE, I'D SAY IT'S MY NAME." (Politely.)
"Because sometimes Chinese people come over and take a different name..."

AAAARGGGGHHH.

Born. Here. In. Australia. Get. Over. It.

Do I SOUND like I'm fresh off the boat? Nooooooo.

Except I bit my tongue and said, "Well...that's the first time anyone's ever said that."

(YOU MORON.)

I don't care what race you are, how old you are, what religion you are...a jerk is still a jerk.

On the other hand, towards the end of my shift, six hours later, a Chinese man came in with his little three year old girl, clinging to his leg. When it was time to leave the counter, I waved down at her. She stopped, then smiled, and waved back. (My heart melted. Right then and there.) But she didn't stop there- after another moment of deliberation, she smiled shyly and blew me a kiss. I blew her a kiss back, in front of the entire waiting queue- because if a gorgeous little child like that can show such affection for a complete stranger, the dickwads and jerks of this world have a lot to learn.

And you know what? I don't have to even think about work for the next week. As of tomorrow, I'm on ANNUAL LEAVE.

No customers for an entire eleven days.

Off to sunny New South Wales, then four glorious days off for sleeping in, coffee-drinking and relaxing.

Current mood? Happy :)

In A Perfect World...

...all guys would have a ten-minute conversation disclosure on the existence of a +1.

(As in...I would not have even thought of jokingly flirting with you if I'd known you had a girlfriend.)

You could've, y'know, mentioned her at least once in the past three months.

That is all.

Ye of Little Faith

I officially finished exams yesterday morning (woot!) so in the afternoon, I hopped into my little car and drove off to visit a friend who lives about ten minutes away. It was the first time I'd ever been to his house, but I checked whereis.com.au before I went and the route didn't exactly look like rocket science.

Twenty minutes after I set out, I called my friend.

"Hello!" said I, brightly.

"You're lost," said he, matter-of-factly.

It wasn't a question. It was a STATEMENT. Somehow, he knew.

I honestly wish that I could have taken umbrage at this...unfortunately, he was absolutely correct.

(I did get slightly lost. But in my defence, I was only 1 1/2 streets away. Let's not even go into how I parked 2 feet from the curb. And couldn't reverse out of the driveway properly.)

I don't know what's wrong with my spatial skills. It's not like I can't read a map- I can do so when I'm stationary, sitting calmly at a table without a steering wheel in front of me, and carefully turning the Melway upside down at each turn.

But when I'm driving? Different story.

I like to blame the Asian-Female-Driver-Gene.

Otherwise, I just have to admit to my own basic incompetence....

SWOTVAC LIMERICKS!!!

AN ODE TO INANIMATE OBJECTS!!!

(It's 2:30 a.m...am feeling the panic starting to build...)


There once was a laptop computer,
Who wanted a fine-lookin' suitor-
And one day she fell
For a slim notebook Dell,
Who had to run Norton to root her.


There once was a hot water bottle,
Whose rubber was starting to mottle
So he found a car dealer
And bought a four-wheeler
And raced off while pumping the throttle.


There once was a pair of pyjamas
Who flew off straight to the Bahamas.
She met on the plane
A singlet from Spain
Who said to her, "Como te llamas?"


(In case you couldn't tell, I'm sitting at the computer hugging a hot water bottle in my pyjamas trying not to think about my Spanish exam.)

love to y'all.

xox

SWOTVAC HAIKU!

I think the multiple coffees I had at work have KICKED IN!!!

An ode to Victorian legislation everywhere!!!

Domestic stapler
Has met unstapleable foe-
Transfer of Land Act.

Forestry Rights Act!
Printing you destroys good trees
This is ironic.

The Sale of Land Act
Is irrelevant to me-
I'll live in a tent.

New laser printer
Sounds like a TARDIS humming
(No sexy doctor.)

The Mysterious Allure of André Rieu

A funny thing happened at work today.

An elderly man came in wanting to swap his faulty DVD player for a better one. "No worries," says I, "Try this LG one if you want to play DVD-R discs."

Elderly customer would like to test out his DVD-Rs (which he has conveniently brought into the store). The LG player was set up next to this massive 50" Samsung LCD in the front window. It's a beast of a screen...and he tested out a burned copy of André Rieu in concert.

Yes. André Rieu.

André Rieu is a concert violinist. I'm not sure how or why he is so popular, but every woman above 65 seems to think he is sex on legs...sex on legs with a fiddle. (I use the word 'fiddle' in the most literal sense.)

As soon as I popped in the disc of André Rieu, every elderly person in a 10m radius GRAVITATED towards the screen like moths to a flame. Flies to a honey pot. Me to a stocktake sale.

And they just stared.

Stared at André Rieu waving as he wandered his way up to the stage. Stared as he flashed his pearly whites and waved once more. Stared as he started to play.

It was really odd, watching all these elderly people standing transfixed in front of the screen.

Especially because André Rieu is just. not. attractive. (dodges barrage of flying handbags and walking canes)

Especially not when his image has been upscaled in a most unflattering way on a large television.

Strange. Very, very strange.

The Magic Pudding

My dad just exploded a pudding in our kitchen.

Literally, it looks like a pudding bomb has gone off in spectacular fashion- our entire stove is coated in brown debris and the roof is charred black above the stove where the pudding blew up.

(This, incidentally, is what happens when you leave a tinned pudding boiling in hot water on a stove at high heat, and you forget all about it and leave it there for two and a half hours.)

Unfortunately or fortunately, I was in the shower at the time of the explosion...in hindsight, maybe this was a good thing, as I didn't really fancy having to explain pudding-related burn lesions on my face at work tomorrow...

At any rate, downstairs now smells entirely like fragrant, albeit charred, brandy pudding. I just stood there and laughed, then finally offered to clean the walls .

(I also took some pictures of this momentous occasion...it's not every day you get an edible re-enactment of Pompeii in your humble household.)

I couldn't get a very good view unfortunately- I had to lean over the bench to snap some shots because the floor was covered in three millimetres of pudding crumbs...

It's all Spanish to me...

I slept in until 1 p.m this afternoon.

Most of this can be attributed to the fact that I've been sleeping at 3 a.m for the past few nights, thanks to that stupid essay. I finished writing it and realised that I'd just written a 1, 500 word babbling exegesis that made absolutely no sense and was completely non-cohesive, and furthermore, I'd just written 1, 500 on a fiction piece about a romance between a gay Russian and a gay Englishman that also MADE NO SENSE.

See what stress does to my brain?

Anyway...my studying habits are shocking. So far, in my second day off, it has been:

Sit at laptop. Type. Wander off for a snack. Sit back down. Stare at screen. Wander off to make instant coffee. Sit down. Type. Get up to check e-mail. Go on Facebook. Check other people's blogs. Get on Facebook chat. Get distracted. Get another snack. Look at the paper...ooh, it's already afternoon. Get back and type. Get on Blogger. Get another snack.

And the vicious cycle continues.

I was wandering through the house at 11:30 p.m the other night, wondering at how little television I watch these days. Which is actually a very good thing. I couldn't remember the last time I had sat down to watch something stupid and mindless without feeling guilt, so I flicked open the Green Guide to see if anything was on at 11:30 p.m besides Lateline.

And lo and behold, there was a random Spanish film called Buena Vida Delivery on SBS.

I figured that I might as well grab a beanbag and watch it, since my voluntary exposure to foreign language films has thus far consisted of Godzilla and Gamera marathons on SBS as a kid, and you really don't pick up much of the language at all when all you hear are terrified Japanese people screaming "GOD-ZILLA!" and "GA-ME-RA!" while running for their lives from a giant radioactive fire-breathing turtle.

So I sat down to watch this Spanish 'comedy', hoping that this would broaden my horizons.

It's not uncommon to automatically lump the term 'foreign language film' with 'arthouse'. They're not synonymous at all, but in this case, I had the same reaction to the end of the film as I would to an arthouse one:

"What the f**k was that?"

I just sat there as the credits rolled at 1 a.m in my little bunny pyjamas feeling rather un-cultured and wondering whether or not I had gotten the point of that film.

Most people would have viewed it as a black comedy cleverly satirising the state of the Argentinian economy in that particular period of history, but I saw it as a depressing exploitation of other people with not one blackly humourous moment in it.

I understood, on a purely objective level, what they were trying to say. I appreciated the cinematography, the cleverness of the repeated dialogue...but I just didn't connect with it. It was like when I read Chekhov for the first time, and I just sat there blankly wondering why it was left open and struggling with the lack of a finite conclusion.

(But then again, maybe some things are better left open-ended...like that awful epilogue from the seventh Harry Potter book which read like a snippet from a 15-year old girl's fanfiction.)

I got to read Chekhov again this year. In fact, I cannot actually escape him- I always end up studying The Lady With the Dog in some form. This was the third time I'd done it, and admittedly, it has grown on me the more I've read it. True to life, there are no definitive conclusions (except, as the old saying goes, death and taxes) and having grown up watching happy Disney films where everyone lived happily ever after, it was a bit of wake-up call.

(At this point, I must cite Pocahontas as breaking the trend. They had a slew of Disney movies on TV earlier this year, and I disconcerted my entire family by singing along somewhat loudly to Aladdin, so much so that when I left the room to do some work, my Dad called me on the intercom to tell me that they'd reached the flying carpet Whole New World part so I could flounce around the room doing my best Lea Salonga impression...anyway, the fact that Pocahontas gave up John Smith almost made me weep with frustration. Hot blonde English chappy who can sing like Mel Gibson? What is wrong with you, woman?!)

Back to whatever original point I was waffling on about...

Realism, and surrealism, are basically reflections of reality, although surrealism likes to pick out the more grotesque aspects or twist them in some way. Surrealism unsettles me, but it makes me think. Realist material is difficult, it's slow-going, but at the end it always reveals something to you...like chewing very slowly on a hard caramel.

(I felt this way while reading Love in the Time of Cholera and 100 Years of Solitude...but in the end, seeing the entire book as a whole, you realise what a beautiful, albeit pathetic, love story it is.)

As you can see from this fractured post, my brain is somewhat muddled at the moment. Expect a more cohesive post in the not-too-distant future, and stay away from foreign movies....

Rub It in, Why Dontcha?

There is always a little ad box on side of my Facebook page. They rotate the ads regularly, so I often I see ads for hair extension or Nandos or whatever they decide to throw on, but the most common one keeps trying to get me to join whatever dating site they have set up.
They are actually bluntly cruel about it- there's always a '20 AND STILL SINGLE?' and a picture of an extremely frightening male that I probably would happily stay single NOT to date. Like this one time there was this a picture of this guy with tattoos who looked kind of Chopper Read-ish.

Anyway, I was on Facebook just then and the stupid ad was there...

...but it had JENSEN ACKLES.

SERIOUSLY.

Don't believe me?

Here's a screenshot grab:



See, I thought they were just posting photos of random everyday people. But I guess they're just scrounging the net blindly collecting random male images.
If I could meet Jensen Ackles by joining SinglesNet....hell, I'm there.

Unfortunately, I doubt that the gorgeous picture of Jensen is actually representative of their true clientele. More's the pity.

Ah, well. I still carry him around in my handbag as the background for my phone.

Obsessive fangurl? Not moi!

No Milk Today

It's 11:52 p.m.

I have a 2, 500 word assignment due tomorrow that I am currently utterly f**ked for.

I have already established that I am going to be pulling an all-nighter, because unfortunately, exegeses do not write themselves. Thank you to the incredibly intelligent and considerate person who decided to make my 35% essay due in the week AFTER the final Week 13, and the other assessor who figured they'd make another one due IN THE MIDDLE OF THE EXAM PERIOD.

(Really. That was awfully considerate. Perhaps I can repay your kindness by gouging your eyes out with a spoon.)

Anyway, my laptop screen was playing up so I reset the entire computer and wandered off to the kitchen to get supplies for this horrendous essay-writing extravaganza. I wanted soup. So I went to the fridge...

...and there was no milk.

Normally, the lack of liquid lactose-based products in the fridge would not send me into a homicidal rage. However, it is now 11:58 p.m, my local Safeway obviously does not hire 24-hour-party-people so I cannot sneak out and get milk (at any rate, I'm wearing pyjamas and an oversized Oxford hoodie and that's just not a great look at any time of the day or night) and I have also just realised that THERE IS NO BREAD.

At least I have water.

But the urge to smash something is rising.

Unfortunately I was working all weekend, as is my wont, so I was unable to detect this LACK OF BARE BASICS until now.

I.

Want.

Milk.

NOW.

I'm beginning to see why everyone thinks we're the 'instant gratification' generation. But obviously these generational sociologists have never been trapped in the house without milk.

DAMN ESSAY. DAMN LACK OF MILK. DAMN LACK OF SOUP.

*sobs and pounds keyboard*

To make matters worse, I am also out of instant coffee sachets. Which means that if I want coffee, it will be, sadly, sans milk.

AAAAAAAAARGGGGGGHHHHHH.

I think that if a Scientologist approached me with an e-meter right now, my emotional levels would blow it up.

I promise that the amount of hysterical pre-exam posts will drop down after June 24th. Until then, I am going to be doing DAILY MILK CHECKS OF THE REFRIGERATOR to ensure that terrible incidents like this never happen again.

Pre-Exam Period

I have never been this stressed out.

OK, I take that back.

I HAVE been this stressed out before, but I've conveniently blocked all former periods of anxiety from my mind, repressed it deep down inside where it will never bother me again (points if you can recognise the Simpsons episode with that quote).

It's like childbirth. If women remembered the horrendous, terrible pain, we'd all be only children. And if we could properly recall the horrendous, terrible pain of bi-annual exams there'd be nobody enrolled at universities.

Except for that irritating know-it-all who seems to pop up in at least one of my classes (whether it be English or Law) every semester, and who would probably happily camp in the law library cuddling all five editions of Australian Real Property Law to soothe himself to sleep with sugarplums and legislation dancing in his head.

And no, I'm not at all bitter with having to put up with him in my tutorial this semester. Nooooo, not at all.

My exams this year are Spanish (oral and written), Torts, and Property Law.

Property Law has a 30%-40% failure rate.

My tutor explained this in a cruel and matter-of-fact fashion in my first tutorial.

And she wasn't exaggerating.

And I am VERY far behind in everything. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGGGGGH.

Not to mention the Spanish film essay that has to be done with a partner. And we couldn't get the film we wanted today in reserve so we ended up watching this black-and-white 1961 film called Viridiana which one critic called "the ultimate feelbad film" of all time.

So not only was I slightly DEPRESSED at watching the nun get almost-raped for 91 minutes on a small TV with MONO SOUND, I also had a major headache.

Now I have to write 1500 words on it. Relating it to Franco's regime.

And submit a short story with an exegesis of the writing process next week.

And do the cultural test.

And try to not fail my third year first semester of law.

And for once, coffee has failed to calm my nerves.

Oh sweet, sweet caffeine, why hast thoust forsaken me?!

Bleeding Love

It has come to my attention that along with that dude from One Republic, Jesse McCartney was also responsible for penning Bleeding Love.

I am...not exactly fond of Bleeding Love.

I am possibly the only person on the continent who is not in love with that song, but to me it's just four minutes of a continuous, unchanging percussive beat with Leona Lewis wailing over the top. About her heart. Bleeding. Over and over again. And I get grossed out every time I hear the song because of these particularly graphic lines:

"My heart's crippled by the vein that I keep on closing/you cut me open and I/keep bleeding."

Keep, keep bleeding.

She keeps bleeding love. Or so the girl claims. From watching three seasons of House I'm pretty sure that if you cut a vein open blood comes out. Otherwise we'd just have love transfusions instead of a blood bank and they're be none of this O/A/B blood type stuff. Unless of course, everyone had certain TYPES of love that they could only accept in their veins, so say, you couldn't transfer maternal love to a patient who needed an urgent transfusion of unrequited love.

(Sometimes I think too much.)

Anyway, back to the Song-of-Much-Gruesomeness, I also realised that she makes a pun in the first verse:

Closed off from love
I didn't need the pain
Once or twice was enough
And it was all in vain

In 'vain'. Get it? Hah hah hah. Oh, Ms Lewis, you joker, you.

Still, I was shocked to hear that Jesse McCartney co-wrote it. As if I couldn't find enough reasons to bag out the pre-pubescent, helium-voiced lad.

And for me, the credibility of Bleeding Love sank even lower when I heard that little tidbit of information.

This blog post was also a good way for me to get all that Bleeding Love frustration out of my system, because when I was in New Zealand they were very fond of playing it. And when I got back to Australia it had somehow hijacked every radio station and every single work shift I was forced to listen to it until I wanted to scream. And then I'd turn on the radio when I got in the car and THERE IT WOULD BE.

And that's when I gave up radio and started listening solely to my own mix CDs.

Oh, and just in case you were having a nice evening, I am now going to ruin it for you by linking to Jesse McCartney's very own hideous helium-voiced version of his LET'S-REACH-FOR-THAT-BATHROOM-RAZOR song:

Listen to the horror.

Worst. Morning. Ever. (A Comedy of Errors)

Today was a truly bad morning.

One might even call it a truly shit morning.

In fact, one might go as far as to say that this morning sucked balls.

I woke up late this morning. Again. This in itself was not breaking news, as I'm pretty much late to every single class five days a week, but this was especially bad because out of 18 lectures for Tort Law, I've only ever been to three this semester. I really shouldn't have picked the 8:30 a.m time, it's pretty much all my stupid fault for having too much faith in my own moral and physical stamina.

Anyway...I figured I'd still have time to get to my all-important English tutorial, as this week the entire class was dissecting my crappy little short story and humilating as it was, I was required to be there to receive feedback and be assessed (and probably humiliated). So off I trotted to open the garage door.

I pressed the big green button.

Silence.

Pressed it again.

Nothing.

Tried the other remote.

Nothing.

There was this little blinking red light on the so-called 'automatic' door system, a little blinking light saying, "Hah! You're trapped! I've got you my pretty, and your little Yaris too!"

(insert cinematic cackling)

I was already running late. But as I kept poking desperately at the door control, I tried to keep my panic under control. Never mind that my car was effectively trapped.

Okay, Daphne...don't panic. You're a thinking woman. Not one of those helpless little damsels in distress...c'mon, you work with electronics, what's the first thing you should do?

Aha! The manual override!

Manual override was duly executed, but during this whole ordeal, I still hadn't put on my little black boots, and I'd just scuttled around in a festy old pair of blue garden scuffs. I ran to put the alarm on, totally forgetting that I didn't have shoes, and then I locked the door.

It was then that I looked down and noticed that I was still wearing the festy pair of blue garden scuffs. And these slippers, aside from being totally old and dirty and hideous, were also five sizes too big as they belonged to my dad.

No problemo. I'll just get my house key and open the...

...oh.

Bugger.

I had left my key in the house, and LOCKED MY SHOES INSIDE.

Idiocy could go no further.

In my defense, I've been sick for the past few days (like pretty much everyone else, really) and was extremely tired and stressed and wasn't thinking straight at all. However, I do concede that there was a fair amount of sheer stupidity inherent in the act that wasn't sickness-related at all.

I stared down at the horrible pair of garden slippers, which clashed hideously with my hipsters and jacket, and decided that life was indeed, terribly cruel. I couldn't DRIVE with them because they were too big (I ended up having to press the pedals in my besocked state) and I certainly would not be caught dead at uni with them, and I couldn't also go up seven flights of stairs without tripping over my own feet.

And because I like to keep up my own running internal commentary to stop myself from panicking (I also talk out loud to reassure myself while driving), the inner monologue continued...

Okay, Daphne. Calm. You have a mobile phone.

So I rang my mother.

Unfortunately, my mother does not have a mobile phone. (This is all going to change tomorrow night, when I will forcibly drag her down to my workplace and I will personally buy her a cheap prepaid phone so that this does not happen again.)

Anyway, I figured that if I rang her I might be able to stop into her office and pick up her housekey. And then drive back and rescue my shoes. Unfortunately, she has the most useless receptionists ever.

The first one said she'd put me through.

Then she hung up on me.

The second one said dismissively, "Oh, I'll send her an e-mail and tell her."

"But it's URGENT-"

"I said I'll send her an e-mail."

Funny, last time I checked, my Mum's office WAS THREE BLOODY DOORS DOWN FROM RECEPTION. SURELY IT WOULDN'T KILL YOU TO GET UP AND PASS ON A FREAKING NOTE?!

So I sat there for fifteen minutes in the driveway. In my car. Alone. (It would have been nice if there'd been pouring rain and some atmospheric symphonic music, resplendent with doleful violins, but y'know, you can't have everything.)

And then the cat got her revenge for me neglecting to feed her that morning, and so jumped up on my car bonnet and stared at me through the glass.

I was meant to go shopping with a friend at 11 a.m, but obviously plans had changed- so I rang her and offered to pick her up from the station, as I was sick of just sitting there in the driveway watching my cat groom herself on my pristine metallic paintwork.

I told her what had happened. She said, "Wow, I'm so glad that I'm not the only one who's done that."
"Really?" said I. (I felt a sense of camaderie at the thought that at least someone else had locked themselves out shoeless at some point). "Oh, I don't feel quite so loser-ish then."
"Well, granted, I was quite drunk at the time..."
"Well, I'm plain cold SOBER and I still managed to do something this dumb."

I picked her up and decided that we'd go shopping- well, that I would shuffle into Chadstone as quickly as possible in my ugly hideous never-meant-to-see-the-light-of-day 'shoes' and buy new ones. So we ran into K-Mart and she kindly started seeking out Size 8s for me to try on.

You know how they say 'beggars can't be choosers'?

Well, they can.

I COULD have purchased $8 ballet flats in a hideous shade of plastic royal blue with BOWS, but I figured that if I was going to spend $40 on emergency shoes they might as well be decent ones...so we scampered upstairs to Target and I grabbed a pair of brown boots and bought them on the spot. Then I tottered out and we got a coffee.

And then to cut a long story short, we both shared a plate of dumplings from the food court and got food poisoning.

So after we met up with some friends at Camberwell, I had to scurry her back because she was literally about to throw up in my car.

I offered her the bag with my stupid garden shoes in it if she needed to hurl, because frankly, I couldn't have cared less if they'd been coated in vomit. Stupid shoes.

And that was my day.

On the upside, when my sister came home at night after a long day at the hospital, she had stopped in at Safeway to buy me a 'cheer-up pie' as she had gathered from my hysterical SMS that morning that I was having a shit day. So at least there was the comfort of apple berry crumble. I love having siblings.

I thought the trauma of the day was over, until I realised that I had lost the sore throat from last night and developed a cold instead. So now I have no sense of taste and I sound like a human foghorn.

On the upside, I just realised that in my congested state, I can do a really bitchin' Tracy Chapman impression.

Like, a really good one.

I think I'll just spend tomorrow doing Cher impersonations.