Friday, March 26, 2010

Pre-Flight Blogging!

I'm flying to Barcelona tomorrow.

Well, today really, since it's 12:17 a.m on what is technically Friday morning...but in approximately twelve hours I'll be grabbing my backpack and heading off to the airport.

It still hasn't sunk in yet that I'll actually be heading overseas for the first time since 2004- I did go to New Zealand in 2007 but I don't count New Zealand as exactly 'overseas'...it's more like popping across the Tasman to visit Australia's weird dorky cousin :D On that trip, I embarrassed my family by collapsing into a hysterical fit of laughter in the airport queue because the New Zealander who checked our passports said quite seriously to my American aunt, "Oh, you've come from the Oo-Iss?" and I ended up having to leave the queue because tears were leaking from my eyes and every second breath was being inhaled as a strangled, "Hee! Hee! Waaaaah hah hah hah....New Zealanders...funny....talk....funny....HEEEEEE!"

Don't even ask what happened at the supermarket when the attendant asked my Dad to confirm that he wanted 'six' slices of ham.

Anyway, I think that there's much more scope for potential humiliation in Spain, as my Spanish is nothing short of horrendous (as evidenced by what was possibly the most pathetic attempt at conversation I had the other day when I phoned our accomodation in Spain- I think I coughed out a 'Como estas?' in reply to a torrent of indecipherable Spanish before I blurted out the inevitable, "Usted hable Ingles?!")

Hopefully I'll get the chance to blog while I'm over there- tomorrow I've got the epic 22-hour flight extravaganza which will be alternately spent eating, sleeping, exhausting my inflight entertainment and fighting over what constitutes a legitimate word in travel Scrabble with my sister. (The Official Scrabble Dictionary would be too heavy to drag along in our backpacks :P) My long-suffering sister gets to put up with me in a confined space for 22 hours, and I'm pretty sure that at some point during those 22 hours the two of us will end up like this:



Catch y'all in Europe!

xox

Monday, March 8, 2010

Dresses and (Achilles) Heels

I'm meant to be doing adminstrative law right now- in fact, I have four subjects to catch up on and about 20 job applications to write- but unfortunately that all had to take a backseat this evening.

You see, the Oscars were held earlier today. And whilst I actually care very little for the Oscars (I'm probably part of the 1% of the population who thought Avatar was completely overrated) I do have a weakness for the red carpet fashions- and so it's damn near impossible to resist when presented with a link to an Oscars frock photo gallery.

Dresses are my Achilles heel. Well, one of my many Achilles heels- I suppose you should really only have two Achilles heels (one for each foot) so I suppose if I had to pick two, one of them would be food and the other would be dresses. I suppose if I had a superfluous third leg (and therefore an extra heel to be bestowed with Achilles-like properties) the other one would be lip glosses. I'm not exactly sure why I'm drawn to lip glosses as I don't really wear them all that often, but they're just so slim and pretty and well, glossy...and they're the first thing my hand snakes towards in the cosmetics aisle.

But with regards to dresses...I have about 20 formal dresses in my closet, which in my opinion isn't that many considering roughly 95% were purchased for $20-$50, with the median price probably hovering around $30. I have a strange ability to ferret out discounted clothes (I think it's encoded into my DNA at an Asian genetic level), so almost all of them went through a 70% markdown at some stage. My sister once suggested I sell a couple, but I felt a sudden rush of horror at the very thought. I have a connection to every item of clothing in my closet. If you point at any item, I can tell you where I bought it, how much I paid for it, and the shopping companion I was with at the time.

I liken it to the scene in Pocahontas where she's running around singing about colours of the wind and trying to explain the concept to John Smith (substitute my sister for John Smith, or any hapless male really). Or since this post is Oscars-related, probably also the bit where Zoe Saldana's Na'vi character in Avatar is showing Jake Sully how their world is interconnected with nature. (In fact, Pocahontas and Avatar are practically the same movie, so either analogy would be appropriate.) Because to an outsider, the connection that I have with my wardrobe is completely unfathomable. But I know every skirt and dress and T-shirt...has a life, has a spirit has a naaaaaame...

Of course, this connection means that I hardly ever throw anything out- I always feel a sudden twang of remorse that makes me clutch at that item of clothing (imbued with memories and probably several dust-mites) and place it back in the closet. I am planning a spring-clean eventually...but in spring. And since I'm in the Southern Hemisphere, I'm safe for a couple more months :P

But I had a look at this Oscars slideshow, and was struck again by how awesome Mariska Hargitay looks on the red carpet. All the time. I still remember the dress she wore to the 2008 Emmy Awards (again, I was procrastinating at the time) and she managed to pull off this amazing bright yellow dress which inspired me to go on the hunt for a yellow dress this summer (I didn't find one though.) Even if you Google Image her on the red carpet, she looks constantly impeccable- bright fuchsia, aquamarine, cream, pale pink- the woman just pulls it off with such elegance every single time.

And now that I've indulged in my celebrity gossip/procrastination/girly moment for the day, I feel that I can now go back down to the plain text drudgery of administrative law :D

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

B**tch, Run That

Job-hunting is driving me crazy.

Granted, quite a few things drive me crazy. Like double negatives, or triple negatives in the one sentence. Or how every Rob Thomas song that comes out sounds exactly like his entire back catalogue but with random concepts like mockingbirds and diamonds thrown in. Or the fact that some bitch today almost ran me over in the university carpark because she decided that because she was in a 4WD this somehow gave her the right to DRIVE OVER A NATURE STRIP PARKING DIVIDER, WITHOUT LOOKING (I feel the need to capitalise every single one of her driving transgressions) WHILE HOLDING UP A MOBILE PHONE TO HER EAR AND CHATTING AWAY, LIKE PLAYING CRAZY TAXI IN THE GROUNDS OF A TERTIARY INSTITUTION WAS A NORMAL EVERYDAY THING BECAUSE HEY, HEAVEN FORBID THAT YOU PAUSE YOUR ENGINE IN AN EMPTY CARPARK TO TAKE YOUR STUPID CALL.

And then the bitch smiles at me as she's bouncing down from the curb and I've stopped in my tracks with my mouth agape at her stupidity.

This is actually the second time I 've almost been run over at university- the first was a bus driver who didn't stop at a pedestrian crossing- and he had plenty of time to see me crossing with a few other students. Fortunately I saw he wasn't stopping in time, but one of the other students screamed out, "You could've killed her, you fucking idiot!" after it roared past.

Oh, and there was also the time where some creepy git hid under my friend's car- most likely waiting to assault her but there were two of us so he didn't emerge- so we almost killed him when we reversed over him. I saw his legs flailing under the car out of the passenger's side window and I thought we'd killed somebody- and that is an image that will unfortunately always stay with me. (He ran away though while we were completely freaking out, and I don't think they ever caught him, although I'm not sure whether the police would even bother to tell us anyway if he had been nabbed.)

Yes, my university is a lovely, safe place to be.

Anyway, I've wandered off topic...scrolling up, I believe I originally started off talking about job hunting.

Ah, yes.

I'm pretty keen to get out of university- not just because bad traffic-related things seem to occur in threes on campus, but because I've just started my fifth year and really, I'm sort of over the whole study thing. I've been trying to apply for graduate positions recently, but it's just form after form after form of questions asking me about times I've demonstrated leadership/teamwork/problem-solving/initiative...and then I have to figure out ways to tweak my CV to demonstrate these key skills without sounding like a tool.

Sigh.

I went to an information session today for a certain organisation that was recruiting graduates- and although the actual presentation was fine, everyone was schmoozing in the foyer afterwards with glasses of OJ and champagne and these weird little things that looked like retarded vol-au-vents, and I just felt distinctly uncomfortable.

I'm not a born schmoozer. I hate schmoozing. I'm one of those unrealistic, naive people who likes to have a conversation without a self-serving agenda. Which means, really, that I would be squished like a bug in the corporate world. I just happen to hate trite conversations that aren't genuine. So I chatted to a random Engineering student who was standing next to me like an extremely awkward statue, had a spring roll and an OJ, and wandered off to have dinner with my family.

So out of interest- any born schmoozers out there? Any anti-schmoozers? Or any tips on how to surreptiously stand in front of the good canapes tray without looking like you're monopolising it?

N.B- Blog post title is from M.O.P's 'Ante Up'...but I'm not normally that mean unless you try and run me over :P

Also, a shout-out to the lovely 'Anonymous' commenter who is reading through my old posts and leaving me feedback- thank you- your comments really make my day :)