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 :)

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.

Days of Ugliness

I had an Ugly Day today.

I consider this profoundly unfair, as I already suffered through an Ugly Day yesterday, but it looks like that maybe Ugly Days, like many things, come in threes.

For the perpetually beautiful (and thus ignorant) people who have never had one, an Ugly Day is when you get up and look in the mirror and something akin to the monosyllable, "BLEEEAAARGH!!!" bursts forth upon seeing your hideous visage.

Then you close your eyes for two seconds.

Then you crack one eye open, just to make sure that what you saw wasn't a sleep-deprivation-induced hallucination.

If you still look horrible, then yep, it's an Ugly Day.

It's a combination of factors- bad skin, bad hair, bad make-up, painful application of corrective lenses, your favourite top is in the wash...and all you want to do is hide under the covers and shout a muffled defiance at the world.

So I had one yesterday, but luckily all I had was Torts (where I sat right up the back by myself in a little huddle where no one could look upon me and be turned to stone, Medusa-like) and my Spanish cultural class, which is generally in a darkened theatre.

I then went home, where Dad was setting up digital set-top box #2.

Except he didn't have any spare RF cables. I found that a bit hard to believe, considering the jungle of cables he keeps around. And Dad being Dad, just said: "Why don't you go and get me one now?"

Two main things wrong with that:

1. I was having an Ugly Day
2. There's nothing more loser-ish than going into work WHEN YOU HAVE A DAY OFF

Except I didn't really want to explain to Dad that I was having an Ugly Day, because in my opinion, Ugly Days are a purely feminine concept, and men just don't get why you're hiding in the house with your trackies and ugg boots all day and hissing at the prospect of human contact. Plus, men just go out and get things done regardless of whether they look shit or not.

But after 40 minutes of discussion, we finally settled upon getting a 2.5m cable and some spare TV coax solder heads, just as backup. Plus, Dad agreed to teach me to strip and solder coaxial cable, and we still haven't tried out his newest toy, a temperature-controlled soldering station.

After a really nasty bout of Daphne v Foundation, in which the defendant, Revlon Flex, would not apply properly to the plaintiff's face without drying it out, I slunk off to work. Looking like someone had rubbed sand on my cheeks. If I'd been able to sue a semi-liquid inanimate object, I would have cited emotional trauma.

After the initial "What are you doing at work on YOUR DAY OFF?" from the girls, and after "giving shit" to my boss, as he likes to call it, I got the RF plugs and cable and went home. But not before browsing for some new glasses frames, which was even more humiliating, as 99% of the frames looked like they were attacking my face instead of helping my little eyeballs see clearly.

Oh, the horrors.

Not to worry, I thought. Because tomorrow is a new and exciting day!!!

To quote Borat...

...NOT.

I woke up this morning- actually, strike that, it was sometime in the afternoon- padded to the mirror, and internally, I screamed.

That stupid healing purple spot on my forehead had decided to reverse the healing process so it looked like someone had squashed a munted blueberry on my face and stuck it there for all posterity. To add insult to injury, it had somehow procreated overnight and so I had two matching companions for the damn thing on my left cheek, and oh, what I would've given to have Photoshopped my face right then at that moment.

OK, Daphne.

We are not going out today.

Luckily, it was 'Reading Week' for English at uni. Which is pretty stupid, because I only have TWO CONTACT HOURS a week for that subject, so I just don't understand why a Reading Week (read: Bludge Week) is required. Not that I'm complaining, because I got to stay home and bemoan Ugly Day #2.

I was making a pumpkin soup in the afternoon, and I'd got it all nice and blended and smooth when I realised that I was missing cream.

"Dad, I need cream. And we're out of milk."

"Why don't you go get some?"

"Because it's an Ugly Day."

"It's a beautiful day outside."

"No, I know the weather's nice. But I am having an ugly day. I refuse to go out."

(Dad didn't really have a response for that. Probably too befuddled as to the illogical workings of the teenage female mind. Plus he'd already commented on the hideousness of The Spot earlier in the afternoon, so he probably did understand.)

"Awwww come on Dad. I went and got your RF cable for you yesterday didn't I? Your turn."

So Dad went and fetched my cream and my milk, and that was that. I am currently holed up at home until soccer tonight, but all of my friends there have seen me at some stage in my little pink and blue bunny pyjamas and if that isn't a trial of friendship I don't know what is, so I never really feel self-conscious around them at all. It's quite liberating.

I even think that I radiate some kind of negative electromagnetic energy on Ugly Days, like Jack Black in Be Kind Rewind- my phone froze when I tried to answer a call and I had to hold down the off button until it blinked off, and the home PC froze up completely last night as well and had to be manually shut down.

Even technology doesn't like reflecting my face in its LCD screens.

Oh, and you know what was playing as I got into my car yesterday?

"Unpretty" by TLC.

And that, Ms Morissette, is irony.

Honesty. Brutal, brutal, honesty. *Rant Warning*

I shouldn't have picked up the phone.

There was a call flashing on my mobile- a private number- and even though I had misgivings, I figured it might be a friend or family member calling from a foreign phone.

So I picked it up.

Unfortunately, the voice on the other end was the one person I've been trying to avoid- and had been successfully avoiding, I might add, for about three months.

To put it simply...I am a bitch.

I could've probably said, a long time ago, that I didn't really want to be friends. I could have just stopped it then, but I have problems with saying 'no'. Instead, I took the 'bitch' route, where I just ignored every e-mail, call and SMS, thinking that maybe this would just cut this person off from my life. Person in question is...I'm not sure what to call him. A friend? An overzealous acquaintance? Whatever he is, I suspect him of wanting more than a friendship, although I'm so inexperienced in these matters that I really can't tell. I suppose repeatedly inviting me out for a drink is a symptom of that. But the last time this happened with someone, I kept ignoring it until I got a text suggesting a movie and dinner, and then I freaked out completely, snapped off a quick and apologetic "I-had-no-idea-you-wanted-a-date-', received the most lovely and courteous response, and never heard from him again.

And you know what? I felt like a bitch.

Saying 'no' to anyone is hard. I can't possibly imagine how hard it must be to ask someone out, so it tears out my guts to say 'no' to a guy (thankfully it is VERY rarely that I get asked so that's OK). But going back to this phone conversation, he did ask me whether or not I was avoiding him, given that I'd ignored every single attempt at communication for three months.

And you know what I did? I lied.

I couldn't face the thought of hurting anyone's feelings that much, even though I probably deserved to suffer that, so I lied. Lied lied lied. No, of course I wasn't avoiding you. Yes, I rarely use my phone, and don't check my e-mail. You know, work and all has been so demanding for, y'know, the past nine weeks...

And that's what's so difficult about relationships of any kind. At my workplace, I have several colleagues- and even though I truly do not like several of them, I keep up the pretense that I do. Again, a lie. However, I am somewhat excused by the fact that I work with these people day in, day out, and it IS imperative that I get along well with them. Which I do. I just don't like them.

There is one person whom I work with who I particularly do not like- I refuse to expend any energy on 'hate' because it is an unproductive waste of time and emotion- but I dislike her for the fact that not only does she have an inferiority complex which makes her constantly talk herself up all the time, she is also jealous of me (or my position, although WHY you would covet being in my work role is a mystery) and that simply annoys me.

Fine, honey, talk yourself up all you want, but if you constantly hang over my shoulder trying to point out mistakes and undermine me, THEN I get pissed off.

And yet, she believes that we are friends. I have never given her reason to believe otherwise. Which makes me quite the hypocrite.

It's all about the masks we wear, the varied fronts we present to our friends, to our family, to our colleagues, even to customers. I think sometimes I can get a little too manically happy-looking at work whenver I present my 'HELLOOOOOOO CAN I HELP YOU?' front, which collapses as soon as I get in the front door at home and put my feet up. But whenever I see my friends, it's always a huge mood lift.

As my friend Kris so eloquently put it, there are people that you are sure that you will love for the rest of your life. To me, there is nothing sweeter than finding a friend with whom you can share exactly what you are thinking- unfiltered and unedited. Blogging is personal, but in a way it's also contrived in that you can twist your words and hide behind the shield of language. My favourite bloggers (Rosy, Kris and Jenai) are wonderful because they tell their own stories in a unique way, with everything included, nothing left out. As someone once said (George Orwell perhaps?), beware the man who writes his autobiography with no accounts of his own failure, humiliation or shame.

Although I love going to meet people in groups, it's the one-on-one outings that I also treasure. Most of them involve coffee or chocolate of some kind- and that, in my opinion, is one of the best ways to get to know someone. Because there's no one else around that would cause you to put that front up- the only thing between you and that other person is a sweetened latte.

(Or a chocolate lick. And a croissant. And an Italian hot chocolate. And maybe some gourmet handmade chocolates to boot.)

I guess there's a time and place for honesty. And thanks to that guy's phone call at 10:30 p.m, I now have lost precious sleep time. I have half a mind to send a brutally honest e-mail tomorrow, just because I don't think I can keep up the pretense of this any longer.

I feel morally pathetic. And sleep-deprived.

Tomorrow, I shall face the world with a giant vat of sweetened barista coffee, which always does wonders.