Denial defined

Definition of denial:

I don't like her. What's she got going for her anyway?

I mean, ok, so she's pretty, smart, funny and intelligent. And she has a great smile, which, as I've mentioned before, I have a thing for. She dresses well. Like, not just brands. Clean, tasteful and understated. I feel refreshed just looking at her.

And she laughs at my humour, and I laugh at hers. She's unique and different. Like, with most other people, I feel as though I've sort of met other people that are like them. But not her.

And, ok, fine, she's deep as well. I can have an intelligent conversation with her and not bore each other to death.

And I think she sort of wants to talk to me. Sometimes. I hope.

But I mean, apart from that, she's not attractive in any way. At all. Not one bit. Ever. In the slightest. Plus, she's way out of my league. Like, you know, that quaint little movie that no-one watched called Titanic with that DiCaprio guy in it? Yeah, that kind of out-of-my-league. Although that worked out pretty well for him. Well, not really, seeing as he died a horrible death, but before that, it was working ok. But that's a movie. This is reality, which I find so much harder to script and play out.

I'm not in denial. At all. And there's no irony in that statement. Because I'm not in denial. For that statement to be ironic, I would have to be in denial. Which I clearly am not. At all. In the slightest. Not one single, tiny little bit.

Word of the Day: Denial

An excess of goodness

I think I can now form a rainbow with my casual shirts, which oddly enough, outnumber my business shirts. Probably because I'm more into casual exploits than business exploits at this stage of my life.

I have:
-one pink shirt
-one red checkered shirt
-two grey shirts
-one black shirt
-one black checkered shirt
-one blue one
-and I feel like I've left one or two out, and I can't be bothered checking.

Which begs the question: why do I keep buying them? I bought another two today.

The answer is, I don't know. Probably something along the lines of me liking colours and things on sale.

Word of the Day: Shirts

Red Bull...with free can opening service!

Even though I got free Red Bull today, I still feel discriminated against.

While Banh and Victor got free can opening services, I got mine given to me unopened, and suffered the confusing question of: "Which type do you want?" I said "whatever" in place of "I thought there was only one type." Which seemed like the more appropriate thing to do at the time.

And no. I don't have wings. Disappointing, I know.

As Banh so aptly declared, "We can now call this a good day," or something of that ilk (I also "stole" that word off him). Correct me if I'm wrong, Banh.

And as days go, it wasn't bad. Highlight of the day was meeting David Phan in my MGMT tute. That was awesome, and relieved my oh-so-acute loneliness in this dastardly unit. Shame he goes to the other lecture, but I guess one can't have everything in life.

Back to pool. I got thumped by both Banh and Victor. I'll get there one day. When my dad sets up the pool table in the basement, I'll practice and become pool king. But I don't think it'll be happening within the next five years. But one can always hope. Worst comes to worst, I'll just be a very old pool king.

Word of the Day: Pool

Yum Cha Library

Ahh, the familiarity.

I am, of course, talking about the Law Library. But the Law Library is not great in and of itself. In fact, I would contend that, by itself, it would be a terribly dreary place, as I found out exactly a week ago. The people make it great.

And people there were today. What a contrast. From nobody being there during my breaks last week (except for Banh, during my one o' clock break, and he's only going to be there every second week), to almost everybody you could imagine. Almost. But not quite. But the point is, it's starting to look like Yum Cha in there again. Just the way I like it.

A bit below the Yum Cha crowdage level is optimum. When it gets to "we have mooting tomorrow" levels, I get claustrophobic and run back outside. (It also doesn't help that they post "mooters get priority" signs everywhere).

Apart from a stimulating break time, nothing much else happened.

Oh, except for me running into James while he was holding a girl's hand. I wonder where his girlfriend was. Lucky she (probably) won't read this. Would be terrible for her.

Word of the Day: Law Library

A serious post for once in my life

Yesterday, I found out that a boy in my Year 7 class was autistic.

I admit I was getting a bit frustrated with him when I was teaching him last week. He doesn't talk to me. At all. Like, not even yes or no. It was frustrating because I didn't know if he understood anything I said. Apparently he does, because he does the work.

Yesterday, I was still getting frustrated, but I tempered my frustration with pity and empathy after I found out that he was autistic.

I've been informed by my sister, who is very reliable (yes, just nod), that autism impedes a person's ability to communicate in a socially acceptable manner. Hence, he doesn't reply to my questions.

It made me reflect on how lucky we are. There's so many diseases out there that you can get at birth. Then, there's so many hurts and ills we can get after birth.

I think that we're very lucky to be whole and pretty much perfect. I mean, the worst thing I have is hayfever, and I can even subdue that now. Most of the people I know aren't even afflicted by this. Well, right now I can't even walk properly, but that'll get better within a month hopefully. As far as I know, autism is pretty much incurable. Which means he'll never be able to communicate with anybody. I've always maintained that no matter how good you are at studies or whatever, if you can't communicate, it's going to be a struggle.

I don't know what I'm trying to say (do I ever). I think it goes something like treasure what you have, because a lot of people don't have it.

So that pretty much exhausted my Serious-O-Meter for the day. On to some more light-hearted, pink-tinged stuff.

Today, my sister bought an electric piano, and my other sister bought a trumpet (yes, they have names, but you wouldn't remember them anyway, and they don't crop up very often on this blog, so don't worry), and I bought a...nothing. Yayer.

So we went down to good ol' Forest Hill Chase, where I espied a male working at Wendy's. Either I never noticed before, or I associate hot pink uniforms with femininity, but I swear I've never seen a guy working there. Ever. In any shopping centre. Or anywhere else. Then I started imagining myself in a hot pink t-shirt. And I shivered. Possibly because of the cold, possibly not.

And my preposterous no-haircut declaration still stands. GFC, man. Gotta cut back on unnecessary spending. Incidentally, jeans are not unnecessary.

Word of the Day: Pink

A little perspective. Just a little. Please.

I had uni today.

Yay.

Nothing much to report on that front, except for me actually getting what John Gerrand is going on about. That's a first, by the way. Me understanding what's going on in Accounting lectures.

Anyway, what I really wanted to do was to express my disenchantment with some people in the beautiful game.

Actually, this disenchantment has been going for sometime, but has recently been reignited by Adebayor's transfer to Manchester City.

Although I say good riddance, because, in my opinion, he was never that great anyway, it's the comments that he's made after the transfer which irk me.

It goes something like this. "Yeah, sure, I transferred because they offered me more money. But tell me, which Arsenal fan wouldn't change from their 10 pound job to a 30 pound job?"

Football players have been accused of lacking perspective. I agree wholeheartedly.

How is a fan, who is earning 10 pounds (per hour, per day, per week, I don't know what Adebayor's talking about, but yeah, whatever) changing to a job that pays 30 pounds comparable to him? I mean, we're not talking in terms of being paid peanuts here. If you triple 10 pounds, and get 30, if we're talking about per hour, that's massive.

Now, with Adebayor, we're talking someone who's earning tens of thousands of pounds per week, even when he's injured and not performing well, switching teams to earn tens of thousands of pounds more.

His excuse is that he comes from a poor city and a poor country. I don't know about you, but that doesn't make much sense to me. It's not like he's feeding his country. Instead of buying a house per month, he can now buy a house every fortnight. Congratulations.

His nonsensical remarks are almost on par with Sep Blatter comparing Cronaldo to a slave last season, due to the fact that Man Utd wouldn't sell him to Real Madrid. I don't get the argument there either. Both parties signed the contract, both knew the terms when signing. Besides, I wouldn't mind being a slave if I got paid that much. Slave. Blatter is an insult to people who actually live on a pittance.

Just while we're on the topic of inane comments, Valdano, some head honcho guy at Real Madrid, recently responded to criticism from the Spanish Government with regards to their insane spending by saying this: "Sure, people need money, but football also makes them happy." Ok, I like a good game of football. But this is just way out of any perspective, and smacks of clutching at straws to justify a quarter of a billion Euros (and counting) being spent on transfers, while the people of Spain deal with double-digit unemployment. Football doesn't feed the people on the streets.

Well, anyway, this past weeks been pretty torrid, so I guess it fits that I end it by venting my anger at something that most people probably don't care about, and rightly so. Here's hoping that next week will be better.

Word of the Day: Perspective (or lack thereof)

I heart jolly good times

Day off today. And what does one do one their day off? Visit to the doctor's of course!

Yay.

Okay, I'll shut up now.

Anyway, I haven't been there for a while now. Well, at least not for myself. Pretty boring place, full of not-very-young people on weekdays.

Anyway, after bending my knee and putting me in excruciating pain, Mrs. Doctor gave me anti-inflammatories and told me to pray that I didn't rip my meniscus or cartilage or something like that to shreds, otherwise I'll need reconstructive surgery, which, I think, would not be very much fun. But it's not all doom and gloom. She says that I *probably* haven't completely screwed up my meniscus, even though I'm struggling to get up stairs, because I didn't do what footy players do - take a mark, twist and basically rip all the tendons in their knee, which she calls a triple tear. Mine's so much better, because potentially it's only a single tear. Only. Hopefully. I'll need to do an MRI or something similarly crazy to ascertain the extent of the damage if it doesn't get better. With no government rebate. So bye-bye new jeans if I need an MRI.

Either way, I'll know in five or so days, because if my knee keeps looking like a watermelon, that means that I'll need surgery.

So if you didn't understand the above, because I have issues expressing myself even in writing, the equation is as follows (assuming that you care):

knee size of watermelon after a week = most likely surgery.

In the meantime, I'm supposed to keep knee movements of the right-sided variety to a minimum.

It just keeps getting better and better, doesn't it?

Word of the Day: Funtime

The Fear

Dear Blog: A miserable day at uni to further compound my miserableness.

Had a 2.5 hour break. People wouldn't, couldn't or didn't pick up their phones, or they were in lectures, or they hate me a lot. Maybe all three together. Who knows. So I ended up being bored and depressed until Mark came along at 11:50 or so. Made me laugh for about ten mins, then he had a lecture. So I became bored for another hour and a half.

French workshop was boring and lonely. Management tute was boring, lonely and weird.

My whole body hurts. I think it's all linked to my knee.

I think that these are all superficial reasons for my unhappiness.

I think it's because, deep down, I'm scared.

I'm scared that I'll grow old, with all the money in the world, but no-one to share it with. I think that's my greatest fear, actually.

I'm scared that no-one cares.

Word of the Day: Scared

Thinking

I think that I need to improve as a person (again).

I think that I give off a very stand-offish, hard-to-impress vibe.

I think I've already made big leaps with my cutting back of sarcastic (but witty) remarks.

I think I need to be funnier.

I think I need to learn to laugh more.

I think that I operate better when people initiate conversation with me, because I get the feeling that they're interested in talking to me. It also gives me more to talk to them about, instead of brickwalling.

I think I need to learn to talk about things that other people talk about and understand, and not just things that I understand.

I think that the only solution, apart from changing me, is to find people who understand what I'm talking about.

I think there is a very slim chance of this happening, as people who I want to talk to and I think would be on the same wavelength aren't interested. Or at least I think so. Maybe they too give off this stand-offish vibe, because they are so much like me.

I think I have compassion, which is probably the only thing going for me. It seems too much to ask for care to be reciprocated when you care for someone. That just seems to be the way the world works these days. Take all you can, give as little back as possible.

I think that sometimes it hurts, so much that you want to cry, but won't, because there seems to be nothing to cry for.

Or maybe I just think too much.

Word of the Day: Thinking

Wow, no wind at all today

In a sudden reversal of normality, Monash wasn't windy while the rest of Victoria was being whipped by gale-force winds.

That's what I'd like to one day say truthfully.

In actual fact, while Victoria was being whipped by gale-force winds, Monash was caught in a TORNADO. I swear I'm still shivering from the cold. Maybe it was a stupid idea to wait outside the French room 15 mins early.

Uni was a lonely affair during my first break at 11 - 12. No one there. So I did something I normally don't do, because I consider it an utter waste of time, on par with sleeping. I stared out the window in the law library for at least half an hour. And I had my laptop on me as well. Just general ceebs I guess.

So it was that I went to my French room 15 minutes early in the the vague hope that Irene would be there early. Turned out to be a bad idea. Irene, like a sane person, turned up just when class was about to start, and I had been blown five metres from my original standing position by the ridiculous winds.

Reflections from uni today:
- lack of friends during break highlight how miserable uni would be without friends.
- friends seem to come in floods. I either don't see anyone for a whole hour, or I see friends from all different social groups in one place, whereby I have to talk to multiple people who don't know each other.
- Some one at Monash must have upset the wind gods once upon a time.

ANYWAY. In keeping my current fascination with time travel, I'm now going to talk about the dinner that happened last night.

Before that, I'm going to go on about my lost scarf for a bit.

So on Friday, I left my scarf outside Nando's at Melbourne Central. I called them a couple of hours later, told them I had left a black and white striped scarf out the front, they said no worries, we've got it.

I rock up there yesterday arvo, spirits sky high, then I get shot down because not only do they bring out a scarf which isn't mine, but it's a girl's scarf. I mean sure, it was black and white, but it was checkered. And girl-like. I knew I couldn't be so lucky.

So "Ambassadors" dinner, and pre-dinner snacks, and more pre-dinner snacks was a blast. It was so awesome. I dunno why. I mean, I could still barely walk.

What happened is as follows. James and I (yeah, correct grammar, take that!) caught the Glen line, headed out to MC and to Nando's (worst Nando's ever by the way). Scarfgate occurred, I had a sulk, hardened up, and we met Hayley up there. A few moments later, who did we espy but Elena and Stef with an F downstairs. They told us they were coming up. However, girls' attraction to shoes will never cease to amaze me. On the way to meeting us, they manage to stop off at a shoe shop and try some out. And we're all like, "Sooooo...where are they?"

We ended up looking for them, found them and walked to Myer so James and I could buy ice-cream (random much?) The girls then decided they wanted Max Brenner/Bubblecup/Grill'd, so where else but QV next. James, Hayley and I bought chips, Stef with an F bought waffles (I think) and some strawberry stuff with Elena, all of which made us very full.

AND THEN. Kevin Hu sneak attack! The guy full ambushed us in Grill'd. He just HAPPENS to wander into Grill'd. So we ended up having high times with Big Kev and the rest of us.

So back to Melbourne Central to meet with Kanji "I was half an hour late" Low and David "I'm twenty minutes away from MC" Meng. Meng ended up being about 20 mins off his ETA, while Kanji...met us at the restaurant.

AND THEN. The 5 billionth random thing of the day happened. Ran into Orrin and Cathy AND Tom at MC. They decided to join us for dinner cos their friend Kate didn't rock up.

So off to Chinatown we went. Meng and I got lost because Meng has no idea where he's going at the best of times, and I was following him. Also because we were seeing Kevin off while the rest of the traitorous scum left us. So after about 10 minutes sauntering (or, in my case, shuffling awkwardly) around the bad streets of Chinatown, we got there.

For some strange reason, there were stairs everywhere in that restaurant. Food wasn't too bad, we'll leave it at that.

Afterwards, caught up with Ray at Fed Square, and also met Seb. On the way, guess what, something random happened. Michael Phan popped up out of nowhere. Good times all around.

The girls wanted to go Maccas, Tom wanted to go Starbucks. We went to Maccas first, I entertained everyone with my trademark humour, then we went our separate ways because Tom has shares in Starbucks so he only buys food and drink from there. Bye Orrin and Co.

After chilling at Maccas, went to Flinders and randomly met Ray and Co there. All the cool people caught the Glen Waverley back (James was reflecting on whether it would pay more to bet on a triple in the dice game at Crown or me catching the Glen twice in a day), and more good times ensued, mostly due to Ray and his awesome English ("Wait...what you just said...was that in Latin or English?") If only more people had turned up *cough* not naming anyone because I'm a nice guy *cough*, would've been an absolute highlight of this half of the year...because it's been so long since this half of the year started.

I'm sure I didn't do the night justice, as I definitely left stuff out. Probably all my awesome jokes and all the bad ones that Meng made. Should do it again sometime, but not on a Friday.

Word of the Day: Dinner

C'est tres intéressant, non?

As the mid-sem break draws to a close, and another semester of uni looms before us, we (or just I) reflect upon this holiday gone by yet again.

It's been an interesting holiday. For instance, why am I awake at 7 after six hours of sleep?

A quick summary of holidays in chronological order, because you don't really want to read about the details, and they're not that important anyway: boredom, going out, boredom, boredom, sort of going out, boredom, making things, boredom, camp, knee, return from camp, boredom due to my disability, boredom, orientation day-chadstone-dinner-poker night (yes, all the excitement came in one clump), boredom, Harry Potter, boredom and going out tonight.

Camp was definitely the highlight in many ways. At the basest, it gave me something to do with my life. Met new people, did fun things together, had good times all around. Kinda missing it actually. No, it's not sad. Yes, I do have a life. Stop laughing at me. Please. You would be singing a different tune if you were there. Or not singing a tune at all.

I'm actually kind of looking forward to this semester. Which is massive, given that I usually don't look forward to a new semester at all. But this one should be good. But, as with all things that I expect to be good, they usually let me down. Please don't let me down, semester. Please.

I expect that I shall see my friendinhos back at uni. I better see you guys back at uni. Or there will be consequences.

By the way, I have no idea why I decided to bust out the French just then. I think, probably like most marketers, that when something sounds stupid in English, transcribe it into French and it automatically looks awesome. Or just slightly less stupid.

Word of the day: Réfléchir

Dumbledore dies...again!

Yes. Once in the book, once in the movie. That's twice.

Yesterday on the train, on the way to see Harry Potter at Melbourne Central, I discovered how annoying a train trip without an iPod is. The reason that I didn't have my iPod on me was that I didn't really expect Banh to catch the train half an hour after mine. So yeah. There were these kids that were, for some inexplicable reason, imitating baby noises for the whole train trip. There was also this woman who kept shouting down the phone in Cantonese. It was just so annoying and...annoying.

After I got to Melbourne Central and escaped the White Noise Vortex, I met up with my homie G dawgs (what you commoners call 'friends'). The simplified version was that we went upstairs to watch Half-Blood Prince.

All in all, a good effort. Much better than the last few. It was more like a real movie, in my opinion, and not just some dodgy spin-off. The acting, which was very weak in the first few, was much, much better. The whole movie was much more mature and well-shot.

After that, Nando's awaited. Funny thing was, Steven and Kishara asked me to come to this gig, and I barely got the chance to speak to them. They left when we got to Nando's. I left my scarf at Nando's, which I intend to pick up on Sunday.

Anyway. Even though I didn't get to talk to Steven and Kish much, or Orrin for that matter, Banh and I had a good chat about important life matters, such as whether a cake tin for $47 is too expensive, and how many times I've been into a cooking shop with a guy, or any person apart from my mother, and whether Flight of the Conchords Season 2 is worth downloading. Just for the record, apparently it's not, owing to the fact that it sucks.

Word of the Day: Dumbledore

Exam results...again

So for the third time in my uni career, exam results have come out.

Overall, I was pretty stoked. But behind each mark is a story, a story worth telling.

Marketing was a 74. This was pretty much the only slight disappointment in the whole package, due mostly to the fact that I got two HD's and a D during the semester. Well, one of the HD's was completely unexpected, but still. Should've done better I reckon.

Stats was a 65. I'm pretty damn happy about this, owing to the fact that my only wish was to pass this godforsaken unit. The only redeeming feature of this unit was the fact that the exam was, and probably always will be, dead easy.

French was an 80. I have no idea why. I completely expected to screw up my 1500 word culture assignment, which was worth 25%, owing to the fact that I did it in about two nights, one of which was used to watch the movie I was supposed to analyse, and the fact that I didn't use any sources, but apparently I got 70-something for that. I also completely screwed up the exam, but I guess my...um..."consistent application" throughout the semester helped.

International Studies was huge. What an effort (or lack thereof). I seem to have a magical affinity with this subject. As in, I always manage to pull off awesome waffle. I probably got 0 marks for participation, because Arts students like talking a lot and my group presentation involved a warped form of musical chairs. But then, I did get HD for the "midsem" test and first essay. But what was depressing was that my midsem test came back with one comment: "I suggest you seek help with your essay writing skills, or you may fail your final essay." I mean, not even a little praise, or a little "you did well in this aspect," and no consideration for that fact that I was under severe time constraints with too much to write. The more avid followers of my blog may remember me "harping on" about this a while back. I, being the proud, nay, arrogant (a person without justification for their pride), and deluded person that I am, did not seek help.

Anyway, I ended up writing up the final essay in one night (in fact, the night straight after the stats exam). I'd like to think that the "you should seek help" remark galvanised me, but I think it was actually the fear of failure which kept my up til 2 and woke me up at 5. That, plus adrenaline from the stats exam. I actually thought that my tutor would be vindicated in telling me to seek out help.

I guess they must have loved my waffle of an essay, worth 40%, because somehow I pulled of an overall 81. That's an all-time high by the way.

Hope to improve on this next semester, and hope y'all did even better in your exams. I'm sure your stories are even more interesting than mine, which is not necessarily a good thing.

Word of the day: Surprised

Obsessive

I'm become increasingly intrigued by time travel. Possibly because I have too much time to ponder things. I'm sure what I'm about to discuss has been done before, but still. I like to think I came up with these ideas.

It goes something like this.

Okay. So just say hypothetically you meet someone new. And it's just a random occurrence. Like, say you meet over lunch or something. Just randomly. It's interesting to think that about what would have happened if a friend or someone had talked to you for a minute or two about something before you sat down. Would the chance meeting still have happened? As in, is it destined? Or would it not have happened, because the situational factors would have changed?

If we take it that everything we do is destined, would that mean that anything and everything we do doesn't make a difference? But it clearly does. I could choose not to type this, and you would never see it. But I choose to publish it. But then, does that in turn mean that my typing of this post is pre-determined? It's so mind-boggling and cyclical.

The best way to think about this kind of stuff, I think, is to say: "meh." Which is probably what you're doing anyway.

Word of the day: Meh

Orientation Day 09 - Ambassadors ftw

Today, I, along with the other BusEco Ambassadors, showed students around during orientation.

Fairly unexciting stuff, bordering on boring you may think, but there was a twist.

See, I was doing this on my gimp leg. Which hurt like hell in the morning, but strangely got better progressively during the day.

We had a ball of a time. However, I do wish that I could mingle with everyone in the group. That would make it a lot more fun. Not that it isn't now.

'Mingle' was also an overused word today. 'Mingle' this and 'mingle' that. So sick of it. I blame Kanji.

Read on if you are prepared for a story of epic proportions.

Anyway, after this extravaganza, me and my crew, minus a few key people (who probably know who they are), headed to Chadstone for "shopping," which would eventually culminate in dinner at Clayton.

Shopping didn't even happen, because James was off buying his bento box (don't ask, because I wouldn't be able to explain), while Ray was trying out prescription glasses (why he had to wait until then, I don't know), and Terry and his mates were deciding on which movie to see.

After this, me and James found out that through an ambiguous SMS sent by the organiser of said dinner, we had actually been stooged, because dinner had been cancelled. So after some swift punching of walls and people, James and I got our act together and organised it.

So it was that our gang of NQT workers gathered in Box Hill (Davy being fashionably late, of course), and dined.

And then headed over to my house to play poker. Pleasantly surprised how well my parents took it, seeing as I randomly unleashed a group of hormonally-charged teenagers into their house. Just for the record, Davy won.

So even though the second half of the day seemed a total shambles, it still turned out good, which is better than nothing I guess.

Word of the day: Mingle

Respect to Adam Levine aka Maroon 5 man

There are two artists for whom my respect has just exploded through the roof for in the past two days.

1. Adam Levine. Vocal ability aside, he actually writes the songs for Maroon 5. That came as a big surprise. I have no idea why. I just didn't expect a band with such a poppy sound to have their songs written by their frontman. Bizarre.

2. Usher. Again, completely did not expect him to write his own songs. Ok, so their co-written, which probably means that he changed the "oooo's" to "ahhhh's", or something similarly lame. But still. I thought he never wrote songs.

I guess the moral of this story is to have low expectations, then you'll be blown away when you find out the awesome truth.

Word of the day: Musique

Joyjoyjoy

There are some positives that have resulted from the busted knee. For one, it's a good conversation starter.

"So, like, why are you hobbling around on crutches?"

It's kinda mean to reply "Because I love this mode of transportation," so I explain, which usually gets the conversation ball rolling. Because then it leads on to all sorts of other topics.

Okay, so maybe that's the only positive. Well, apart from sympathy, which I really don't see as a positive, seeing as it's not healthy or sustainable in the long run, and I would much rather be running around than me symped (?) over.

As you can probably envisage, there are many, many more negatives. One of the main ones is not being able to do anything. Except play clarinet and cards. And maybe a bit of PC. I've been playing a lot of clarinet these past few days, because there really is nothing much better to do when you're sitting down.

So the moral of this story (which here is pronounced "rant"): don't get injured.

Word of the day: knee

Ambassador Camp

Camp was excellent. But a bit cold. It probably also would've been better if I didn't rip my knee to bits on the second day, but that's hard to say. Still had fun being a cripple. Some fond memories:

- Waking up at 6 after sleeping at 4 in an attempt to watch the sunrise with James, Hayley, Stef (ha, no typo) and Elena. We missed the sunrise, got frozen half to death, but took some awesome photos. Was also a good bonding time. The cold built character.

- Big 2 Moments with Anna, Kanji, Ray/Rui and the Canto Crowd (man, I'm so awesome at coining new terms). It was so addictive, like...a drug. Wow, original analogy. Completely justified 3 hours of sleep.

- Mafia aka Killers craziness. It was madness. Have never played 20 person Mafia before. Probably due to the fact that I've only played it once before. But still. It was huge. Just remember, Terry is always the killer, Kanji never actually has the 7 of diamonds, and you shouldn't accuse me because I'm a cripple.

- The amazing help I received after doing my knee. Ali and the whole Purple Soup team were awesome about it, and props to all my pals (you know who you are) for helping a brother out. I find this hard to say in person, but I love you guys.

- Watching part of the Michael Jackson tribute at the hospital. Amazing how some good actually came out of the injury.

- Making new friends. So many cool people in one place. I betcha the camp showed up on one of those newfangled heat-seeking devices as sub-zero temperature, due to the combined effects of the weather plus the coolness of the people there.

- The Egg Drop was pretty intense. Great to see how all our hard work (cough) paid off.

- The game at the end was pretty ego-boosting. I thought we were supposed to remember how many and which touches we got, so I was struggling pretty hard. And those hard pushes to the head just gave it away. So much for anonymity.

So want to do it again. Thanks for the great time people.

Word of the day: Camp

A...musings

Some random musings for today:
1. I have something for girls with nice smiles.
2. Playing soccer on terracotta tiles is a bad idea when it's raining.
3. Camp at Portsea, which is essentially a beach, in winter, sounds like an interesting, albeit cold, idea.
4. Vegetarian pies should not exist. They're akin to...vegetarian sausages.
5. I must be more outgoing and overcome my severe (but often justified) rock-bottom low self-esteem in order to succeed in life.
6. Billie Jean is not my lover.

At least one of these musings was garnered from the meeting for BusEco Ambassadors today. As a side note, the meeting was good. I now know what I'm supposed to ambass.

This random imparting of experience and knowledge should be taken on board by you, the reader, for future knowledge. This wisdom is invaluable. For example, if some idiot asks you to play soccer with them on terracotta tiles in the rain when you're wearing dodgy shoes, you'll know to say "Get lost." Because, as you know, this happens on a frequent basis. To many people.