Oh, cruel world

So I'm choking half to death on the kitchen floor, and the input that I get from my family is something along the lines of:

"Man up!"
"Why do you have to be so disgusting?"

A little sympathy towards this damaged soul wouldn't go amiss, I think.

Well, there you have it. Now you understand why I turned out the way I am. Family.

Ok, so I choked on a can of Solo. Ok, so it might be funny if it doesn't happen to you. But that feeling, when you're drinking soft drink, and somebody makes you laugh - it's like a form of torture. And all I get from my family is "Walk it off." Cruel, cruel people. And one of these family members caused this laughter as well, which makes it even more abhorrent that sympathy was not forthcoming. Boo.

Word of the Day: Solo

Ah, political correctness. Gets me every time.

Before writing this up, I thought that it would be cool if I were to sum up our GMC shenanigans in one word.

I came up with one.

Then I decided that I should probably keep this thing PG-rated. I mean, it's already bad enough that this placed is laced with sarcasm, cynacism, and God knows what else. Teaching kids that could potentially be reading this would just take this blog beyond decency.

So the substitute word that I came up with was 'Debacle'. Pretty cool, huh? And to top it all off, it actually means something. I would look it up for you, but my Internet's capped. So I'll just grab the definition off the dictionary on my phone.

n. an utter failure or disaster.

The definition is as eloquent and succinct as the word itself. How poetic.

This journey started off in a positive fashion, and I found it amusing, if somewhat predictable, that the tapering off of effort followed a trend with respect to time and people.

The first meeting went cool. But cracks were beginning to show then, to be honest. Meng turned up to the first meeting drunk. I mean, I have no real authority, so I can't really discipline him, but I thought it a bit indecent to be drunk at uni anyway.

Second decision date, Meng went AWOL and Anna was working during our normal accounting lecture (as in, working working). But it was all good, cos my homie James still had my back, and I could then punt it to Anna to have a look over.

Third meeting, Meng was still AWOL. I swear, every time I talk to him online, he disappears just like that. Now, I can't really blame him for that, because 98% of the people I know do that to me. But three times in a row gets a bit too uncanny for my liking. Even Superman isn't super-stitious enough to believe that this could happen that many times. But more about that later. Yeah, so the third meeting, we decided to do this thing over FB. It kinda worked, everyone except Meng had input, and we submitted the thing. James did most of the hard slog, Anna and I debated with him sort of, and yeah. Yeah.

Fourth decision was basically me and James over MSN, and Anna verifying our perfection. Now, Meng and I were having this comment volley on FB, as you do. I'm sure you've done it before. You know, instead of talking on MSN, you pick some random thing on FB and start talking in the comments. Anyway, we're talking about something completely pointless, and I write, as a half-joke, "Hey, I'm gonna start talking about GMC stuff now, but I know I probably won't get a response from you, because you'll probably log off when you see this." Didn't get a reply. Still haven't. So yeah, in my terrible anger and rage, I screwed up one of the entries, and we made a loss instead of the profit which we were supposed to make. Not that anybody noticed or cared, except for James and I.

Fifth one, which was today, was just me. Quite interesting actually. Took a considerably shorter time, and I don't even have to deal with the pain of seeing the consequences, because the website won't even do me the courtesy of telling me where we came.

I actually learnt a lot from this saga, which is weird, given that it was one of the most nuff-nuff things I've ever done in my life. I think I often care about something, and I think other people do too, but usually their care factor is significantly less than mine, approaching zero, or even possibly negative. I also think a major, major flaw of mine is caring about things too much, but not actually doing anything to fix the problem. I'm too nice to people sometimes too. Seems weird, huh? Sardonic Andrew being nice. Maybe I just think I'm too nice. That's got to be the reason that people don't take me seriously. But, the paradox is, and I think I've stated this before, is that people take me too seriously when they shouldn't, and they don't take me seriously when I'm being serious.

See? It's ironic. I'm caring too much again. And I should probably stop talking about it here. But it's like an addiction. It's like a Pensieve in Harry Potter. Siphon my thoughts off and forget about it.

Thanks for the effort team. I mean it. The varying degrees of effort you put in was very much better than giving me nothing, and in some cases, was a whole lot better than what I put in.

Now, onwards towards exams! This is the time of the year when we make our mark on the world, when we show our true selves, and prove those doubters wrong.

Fo shizzle.

Word of the Day: Debacle

Wishful thinking episode 1, 076, 980

It was a glorious day. The sun, glittering through the leaves still wet with morning dew, made the air warm, but not scorching or humid. A slight cool breeze was slightly perfumed with the smell of newly-bloomed flowers, with a hint of the earthy smell of trees. The birds sang sweetly, and the bees were buzzing busily about their business. In other words, a day perfect for sitting under the sun on a patch of grass and reading, or listening to music, or just sitting and chilling. Perhaps with a drink in hand.

__________________________________________________

As you may or may not have guessed, the day described is today. And the day before. And the day before that.

It's a shame really, but one can't really study for exams in the garden. If only we didn't have exams.

And who needs them anyway? Useless things that they are. Alternatively, instead of moaning and complaining, I could construct a table outside and study there. Yes. Because I'm really good at constructing tables. Of the outside variety. In one day. Good idea again Andrew.

Word of the Day: Garden

Recommendations plox

So I've just spent yesterday morning obtaining songs, and so far I've got more Maroon 5, Alicia Keys, John Mayer and Lily Allen. It's weird though. Some of the songs on the albums don't sound as nice as the dodgy singles I had before.

Which other artists' songs are good? I've been out of the loop for quite a while. The most recent artist I have in my music collection is Lady GaGa. All other songs that are new that I have are by old artists, if that makes sense.

Yeah, I dunno if anyone's heard any good music lately. Or from whenever. Suggestions. I'm almost getting bored of my new 100 or so songs already, and I haven't even listened to 90% of them. And I'm open to all genres. Except maybe hardcore techno and metal. I like nice music. If that makes sense.

Word of the Day: Pirate

Last Official Day Of Uni 2009

Oh my, it's the end of the academic year already, bar my French oral on Friday.

I'm sort of bittersweet about this semester ending actually. For parts of it, I've had a torrid time. Floods of work, assignments and other issues on the one hand, but I've never had so much fun on the other.

Thus, it was very fitting that today was a day of academic extremity.

My French listening test went fine and dandy. Possibly the easiest shot at 10 per centing I'll ever get in my life. Hopefully I don't jinx it.

Then, I went and go my French culture essay back with a P+. Ah, that plus made it so much better. And I thought, "That's what you get when you cobble something together in 45 mins." Not exactly an unexpected mark, considering how I randomly spoke about segregation in America with no sources at all.

The cobbling theory turned out to be untrue. My 3000 word Management essay, which cobbled together in two nights, got returned to me with a 61 on the front. Which I was quite satisfied with, considering the effort I put in. But then, I turned to the last page, and there was a HD. Quite scary, the stuff you can produce in two sleep-deprived nights. I think it's to do with the fact that I sound smart when I write essays, because I deconstruct the essay topic and take a new vantage point on it that I don't think anybody else does. And I think one of the strengths of my essays is the fact that it links back to the questions and links all the elements of the questions together. Because it was a fairly hard topic, as it drew on three different areas of the stuff we're doing. So yeah. It's not really to do with my skill at management, but more to do with essay writing.

But the bad thing about that is that every single time I do it, it feels like a fluke and I feel like I don't deserve it, because I see people that actually time-manage well, and work really hard, and yeah. It just doesn't click for them.

Also, today I think I made up with people that had felt the brunt of my tetchy mood yesterday. Hopefully I've made amends. But I swear that door to R1 is ridiculously light. I did not mean to rip it from it's hinges. It's made of paper or something. I swear.

Anyway, enough language analysis and moping. Time for some irony.

So I separately tried to arrange to catch the bus home at the same time with two separate people, those people being Grace and Banh. I got rebuffed on two separate occasions by two separate people. Grace is all like, "Oh, I never actually go home after uni, I'm more of a club person," and Banh's all like "Uni's for losers. *Sleeps*". End result: solitary journey home. Story of my life.

Word of the Day: Cobble

D'you Know What I Mean

Ahh, you can tell summer's just around the corner when a big fat fly divebombs you inside the house.

Also when your skin feels like it's on fire after spending more than 2 mins outside.

Today wasn't a bad day, except I randomly got into a bad mood. Sorry people who felt the brunt. Except for the people who it was intended for. It was kinda reflected in the change in weather. You know, how it was all sunny, then...shazzam! all cloudy.

Ah, how stupid of me to think that football season starting up again would take my mind off things. It's funny how I laugh at naive people. Actually, more like ironic.

Sometimes, I have no idea what I'm talking about. Or why I'm talking about it. This would be one of those times. I call it poetic nonsense (c). You heard it here first.

Word of the Day: Naive

Bleugh

You'd think that the test today would be the end of it, wouldn't you?

No siree! Work never ends in the life of Andrew!

French listening test on Wednesday, and French oral on Friday.

French overload?

Very much so, considering that I've barely looked at French during the semester.

I think 'screwed' pretty much sums up this week, and probably this semester.

Oh, and to cap it all off, I'm kinda half sick, and for some inexplicable reason, people are hating on me again. No idea what I'm supposed to have done wrong. But hey. What's new?

Now to drown my sorrows in a cold cup of...water. Ah, the hard stuff always works the best.

Word of the Day: Screwed

For once in my life (ok, maybe this isn't exactly the first time), I hope I'm wrong

I'm so bored. I have no idea why. It's not like I don't have work to do. I'm always wanting to talk to people, but no-one seems to be available at the moment.

I don't even want to talk about anything in particular. Just shoot the breeze, as they say.

I think the problem is that I really too much on Internet communication aka. MSN. It's because my phone bill takes a hammering whenever I call anything but Optus.

I can't find the motivation to do work either. That's a real problem of mine. I have willpower to do anything but work. Very strange.

Maybe it has something to do with this onrush of assignments that I've just completed. I just finished doing my 800 word French culture thing in 2 hours last night. I think I may be burnt out, for once in my life. Having said that, I'll probably be better again tomorrow. Have a good night's sleep.

It's alright being bored after exams. I mean, then you can just call up anyone and like "Hey, let's go somewhere," because nobody else is doing anything anyway, and chances are they're even more bored than you are. But doing that right now is just insanity.

To show you how bored I was, the highlight of my day was submitting the GMC stuff forty seconds before cutoff time. It kept telling me that I hadn't put something in, which I couldn't find. I fixed it with forty seconds left. They had this fully sick countdown timer thing going on as well. Phew. Stuff that gets the heart pumping.

In other news, the weird girl in my French tute is at it again. She's like "Can I draw a heart on your arm?" So I say, more than slightly bemused, "If it makes you happy, go for it." And she does. Now I have a heart on my arm. I still don't know what's going on there. We barely even know each other. We don't even say hi.

I've come to the conclusion, and I very much hope that I'm wrong, that she might be slightly autistic. I'll apologise in advance to her, even though she doesn't know, if I'm wrong. But yeah. He conversation and stuff is generally outside of the realms of normal conversation norms. And she doesn't seem to know that some of the stuff she says may offend people, and she doesn't seem to know that some of the things she does is not considered within the boundaries of normality. Maybe I'm the strange one. Who knows.

It's not like I have a problem with it. In fact, I find it quite amusing and slightly, in a very strange way, endearing. I'm just curious. But one doesn't really go around asking people if they're autistic, do they?

Word of the Day: Boredom

By popular demand

It was a cold and blustery day outside. Ben Niles walked into the Curry Corner at the Matheson Library. A few moments later, Imesha followed in his wake. Ben plonked himself down on a chair, and began nonchalantly chewing on the apple that he'd procured from his bag. He looked at Imesha, and a spark of lightning *zap* sprung between them. It was electric. I could almost feel the electricity lifting my hair up, and it seemed as if the very air was infused with a mosaic of colours stemming from this spark. Twas a happy spark, full of joy and wonderment, suffusing the very fabric of space and time with awesomeness. The Matheson would never be the same again.

__________________

So the challenge was to fit Ben, Imesha, apple, lightning and mosaic into my blog post without making any of it up. It's not half bad, is it? None of it was made up, maybe just slightly embellished and exaggerated. But I thought it was pretty decent, considering I've had 4 hours of sleep and have been pretty flat out since last night.

I worked until 1 last night (this morning, if you want to be pedantic about it) on my International Studies essay. Wrote up all 1500 words last night. Surely that's how masterpieces are created. Woke up at 5 this morning to start and finish French homework, which I miraculously succeeded in doing in the hour that I had. Then I went swimming and got asked for my student ID because I clearly look 50 years old with these glasses. Went to uni, started an essay-fixing session at 9, printed essay off, handed it in, went to Management tute, got bored, talked to Grace on MSN, laptop died, tute finished half an hour early just like every other week, moseyed down to the Law Lib. Finally, I stopped for half an hour and just absorbed the ambiance of peace and quiet. Then, it started up again. GMC meeting.

I think I was the only person there with a functioning brain, which tells a story of its own really. Andrew and functioning brain generally cannot be used in the same sentence. However, in this case, it's a comparative term. Between a person with 0 hours of sleep, an alcoholic and a Tamiflu snorter, I think I emerge as the winner of the Sanity Battle. It turned out well, capped of by Ray actually believing that Anna was tired from a 7 hour GMCfest. You a funny man, Raymond.

And it doesn't stop there. Oh no. It never does stop there in Andrew's life. There's more. French culture assignment due on Friday, which I have not started, and International Studies test on Monday. Oh, the joys of pre-exam period. But I have a masterplan worked out. Not that my plans usually work to the degree that I expect them to, if they work at all, but I feel more secure about myself with a plan up my sleeve. It usually makes the fall of the plan harder to take, but I'll take it nonetheless.

Word of the Day: Flat

I wish I had a lightning-shaped scar

It's really sad, but I'm actually jealous of a fictional person's love life.

That's right, who else but Harry Potter.

See, what I find amazing is that the most he has to worry about is whether Ron would be upset about him going out with Ginny. He doesn't even have to entertain the possibility of her not liking him. He realises that Ginny and Dean have broken up, and the only complexity he worries about is whether her tool of a brother approves. And then he even bypasses that by acting on his simmering, growing passion.

I dunno about you, but I reckon that the other problems can be dealt with later, so long as the person likes you. But not so for Harry Potter. He assumes that the person likes him, and deals with the other problems first. Which is much easier, and of which I am very jealous of.

Just in case this is confusing (which most of my posts seem to be), I'm not on to someone's sister. Well, not a friend's sister anyway. And I don't have anything against Harry Potter. Probably because he doesn't actually exist. I hope.

Yes, I realise that most people aren't like Harry Potter. And that he is a fictional character. And I realise that Hogwarts is too far away from my house to travel to every day...I mean, Hogwarts doesn't exist.

Word of the Day: Potter

I thought about becoming an actor...

And then, I acted in two things this semester, and became thoroughly sick of it.

Earlier this semester, I told y'all about that disaster movie that I had a part in. Well, the finished product which came equal second in the voting is up on YouTube. Here's the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1yFftvzEso&feature=player_embedded

As you can see, my acting abilities are clearly superior. My expression of the fear that is gripping all of us is very obvious and well-conveyed. That's my scared smile you're seeing.

And today, I was in a French roleplay, which, unfortunately won't be uploaded. Not because it was sooooooo awesome that YouTube can't handle it, it's more to do with the fact that our tutor's concerned with our privacy. Pfft. Privacy. Who needs it anyway? Invasion of privacy is good practice for when you become a celebrity.

Anyway, it was a shambles. Forgot half my lines, and all that jazz. It's weird. I don't actually feel nerves, but I must have been nervous, otherwise I wouldn't have done that badly. At least my pronunciation is fairly spot on.

Word of the Day: Acting

Clarification/apology

I apologise for the confusion caused by my last post. Our group is not called Shift 6, or other variations of that. Shift 6 is a Facebook group.

The GMC team shall remain nameless due to its embarrassing nature, unless we somehow make it to the finals, whereby I would be more than happy to divulge the name of the group, as a matter of pride.

Let's put all that unpleasantness behind us.

And move on to more unpleasantness.

So I just had Round 2 with the physio. Man, when he was electrocuting that right quad, it felt like someone was digging a blunt knife into my leg. I hope this, coupled with swimming and leg exercises, works like it should. I'm itching to get back on the field and kick some balls.

Dot dot dot.

Word of the Day: Unpleasantness

Shift 6 for Sarcasm! Our GMC team is the greatest^!

I have heard tell of a group called Shift 6.

See, the basic premise is that in text, to indicate sarcasm, you hit Shift + 6 and insert a '^' sign. Like so:

"wow, i am so cool^"

However, I believe that there a number of problems:
1. Sarcasm kinda doesn't work when you explicitly tell someone that you're being sarcastic. I would know.
2. Those Fobanese kids always put these signs all over the place. ^^. Look familiar? They'd be indicating sarcasm everywhere.

Believe me, I wish one could convey sarcasm over MSN and such in a less obtrusive way. I think I've offended half the Australian population because they've all taken something I've said literally, when really it wasn't meant to be taken that way. For some strange reason, it's usually girls that get offended. Maybe it's because of the charm that I exude^.

See, it doesn't have the same zing when you add the ^ in. What's the point of sarcasm if you have to telegraph to everyone that you're doing it? It's pretty self-defeating, like...ovens made out of chocolate. As in, you destroy it when you use it. But I admit that my rate of offending people would drop significantly.

So back to the present, or very not-so-distant past. I think the GMC meeting today was as success. And don't let anybody tell you otherwise. I think that our team (Anna, James, Meng) has a certain synergy to it. Well, maybe because I get along with them quite well. Don't know why that would be, seeing as we barely know each other.

See how much more zip that is without the ^? Point made.

Word of the Day: ^

Block-a-choc

Yes, I've been choc-a-block busy this past week.

After attending some seriously stimulating Ambassador workshops last Wednesday, I decided not to attend the Friday ones for fear of over-stimulation. I felt really bad for doing so, but really could not be motivated for another day at uni.

So on Saturday, Imesha had her 21st, which was pretty awesome, except for the birthday girl turning up late. Actually, that was good in a way, except that everybody bar me was starving to death. That's why I have secrets to save me in these situations. All around, a very good gig to go to.

On Sunday, I had to skip Yvonne's 21st due to my commitment to my Accounting group. We had a group assignment due on Monday. I don't think I'll ever hear the end of it. After apologising many times in many varied ways, I still get harangued for not going. What's a man to do? Buy another present?

Tomorrow, meeting with my GMC homies. Have a very vague idea what's going on, and I hope that someone else will clarify. That will be the agenda for the meeting.

Word of the Day: Workshops

Banh-becue

Yes, Banh had a barbecue on Tuesday.

Yes, I'm blogging about it now because my Internet was fdjsak;rnekvn capped.

So here I am. With uncapped Internet.

Anyway, the BBQ was good fun. It's great to relax after surviving 77% of a very difficult semester, and to catch up with friends who I haven't seen for ages upon ages.

The program was basically eating, mucking around with a ball, eating, drinking, and eating some more. Way better in real life than it sounds in words.

Oh, and acting like five-year-olds on the play equipment.

Then acting like 6-year-olds with the flying fox.

Then, for added entertainment, you get two soccer balls.

And you try to hit the moving target! The moving, human target!

The mud slippage was only funny because it didn't happen to me. Embarrassing for those that it happened to, because the wet mud on the back of one's jeans looked somewhat suss.

The park was also quite nice. Very nice actually. I've actually been there before. I didn't know until I saw Lily in that Koala bouncy thing. I remember how I used to love that thing. And you don't have to pay to use the barbecues, which I found amazingly generous.

Videos and photos will be uploaded soon i.e. when I can be stuffed.

Word of the Day: Barbecue