Annoyed Part 6

So I was looking forward to tomorrow a lot.

Now I'm just annoyed. Everyone in my family just seems to be totally against the idea of simple. They have a tendency to make simple things very difficult.

It's just a BBQ. In essence, it consists of very little.

1. Shop for stuff to BBQ.
2. Prepare the stuff for BBQ.
3. BBQ the stuff.
4. Serve and eat. Arguably could be split into two steps.

There. Four, possibly five if you want to be pedantic about it, simple, self-explanatory, easy-to-follow steps.

Not so, according to my family.

"How will you cook the stuff? Who's going to look after the dog? Women's finals is on tomorrow night!"

I've cooked BBQs before.

The dog can look after itself.

Ok, so the women's final was a slight oversight, but not really my fault. It was either make it a school night, which I got told not to, or tomorrow, or like a month after my birthday. See the conundrum? Who watches women's tennis anyway?

Also, they don't seem to find it one bit awkward, them being there at the table with my friends. It's not like I mind them being there. I love my family. It's just with that many of my friends there, I don't know what they'd do with themselves. My friends and my family. It's like, what we do is different to what they do.

They were supposed to clear the house. But now, after they've used those above arguments, it doesn't look like happening. I should've just made it a dinner in the city or something. Much simpler, less time consuming, less frustration-inducing, almost makes more sense economically, don't have to take care of the dog, get table service, can actually do stuff afterwards. Problem was, I expected a lot more people to turn up. Who knew that half my friends would be overseas?

In summary, this is way more trouble than I bargained for. I just hope it somehow works itself out. If not, I guess my friends will just have to talk to my parents. What should've been a rollicking event has just now pretty much turned into 'meh' at this stage. I hope events tomorrow conspire to change this. Please.

Also, I hope that my friends like sitting outside eating, mucking around with a guitar, drinking, talking and/or listening to music. Because that's pretty much what's going to be going on, seeing as the TV will be taken by women's tennis lovers.

I guess it was a bit jinxed from the beginning. I don't know. I just had this feeling. Sometimes I get this feeling. I think it's called anxiety.

A while ago, I was in a happy state. And I also said that things could change in an instant and screw you over. This seems to be that time. Things just start accumulating and before you know it, nothing seems to be going right. I'll just hang around until the next upswing. I'm good at doing that. Most of the time. Or I could go back to my old habit of punching a wall. There may still be that hole from when I punched it last. Guess I'll just have to find another wall.

Word of the Day: BBQed

Another thought

A thought just occurred to me. This seems to be happening a lot. Spontaneity for the win.

Unless I'm mistaken, this concerns all of us. We, as humans, are preoccupied with the reason behind something. Always. Someone's late. Someone's broken a promise. A coconut falls from a palm tree and hits someone on the foot.

Knowing the reasons behind these things doesn't change the fact that they did happen.

However, something else just occurred to me. I mean, literally just now. We want to know these things because we want accountability. We want to be able to be angry, or at least rectify the problem. We want to make things better, or, at the polar opposite, cut it off completely.

What a stupid thought.

Banh's Australia Day shindig was quite awesome yesterday. The food was very nice, and the company, as always, was excellent. Well, most of the company consisted of my friends, so that's understandable really.

Anyway, the food was quite creative more than anything. Seared lamb gyoza, salmon rice paper rolls, puff pastry with hoisin sauce, and black forest trifle for dessert. I have a feeling that I've left something out, but that'll do for now. Sounds delicious enough as it is.

I also watched most of the Nadal loss there. Most saddening.

These things are awesome. The shindig, I mean. Not the Nadal losing. Takes my mind off things. Not that it's on a lot of things. Just a few things which I get overly stressed by.

Word of the Day: Australia Day

Negative parabola?

Ok, so some of my friends have either forgotten that I exist, are ignoring me, or just don't rank me high enough in the grand scheme of things to give me even a courtesy call.

But that's ok.

I've tried. Many times in some cases. Sometimes I find it hard to come to terms with the fact that effort doesn't always yield results. Actually, this occurs quite often. I have a bad habit, or a good habit in some circumstances, of believing that you can almost fix anything if you put enough effort/time/money into it.

But over time, I've sort of become more and more accepting of effort not equating to results. I've come to accept that you can't really do much more than try your hardest. In the case with relationships and friends, trying hard without seeming too pushy/annoying. Once you get to that annoying stage, where the other person has nothing but contempt for you, you should've stopped trying earlier, because that's the point where you've tried your hardest. It's like a negative parabola.

In other news, I worked for my dad again today. Man, his work has a lot of variety. The other day, it was putting cement sheeting on walls. Lots of the time it's tiling walls or floors. Today, we were jackhammering mud and concrete, and I was shoveling it out of there. I really empathise with the guys in that book I read in Year 8, Holes. It's about these guys who have to dig a five foot by five foot hole in the desert every day at this illegal camp called Camp Green Lake, ostensibly as punishment for their crimes. It's a great, great book, but I just felt first hand how tough it would be to dig a hole that big every day. In the desert. I mean, I was digging for like, 40 minutes, with mini-breaks, in Melbourne weather, and my fingers and knees were killing me by the end.

I also drove there and back. I'm starting to regain some of my skills in driving. Some. My close control has gotten a lot better already. Or maybe it's just my confidence.

Saturday night was a good one. Best work people reunion dinner ever. Basically it turned out being the people that I hang around with at uni, and happen to be some of my closest friends. Oh, and Kira. Looking forward to Banh's Australia Day shindig tomorrow. Should be a 'stoking' good one. Sorry, in-joke.

Word of the Day: Ditched

Rationalise this!

Rationalising things hurts my head. Often there is no rational explanation for why people do the things they do. You try and rationalise, and often, you just end up going in circles.

So from now on, I'm keeping the rationalisation to a minimum. I'm just going to go with the flow. Stop trying to read other people's minds. Hopefully.

It kind of comes second-nature to me though. I just realised the other day that I have a very deep interest in analysing things, trying to see beyond the obvious or the exterior. Trying to see through all the hocus-pocus and lies. It's like a game I play. It's just fun, deconstructing things mentally.

But deconstructing people is a whole different ball game. Language and situations are alright. People are very, very difficult. Especially girls. If you try and deconstruct the way people act, you'll drive yourself nuts, like me. So no more. Hopefully.

Word of the Day: Deconstruct

Spur of the moment

I'm feeling an acute sense of rejection right now.

Maybe that's just how the rejector normally behaves. I have no idea anymore.

Now that I've gotten that out there, I can (try) to get back to doing something constructive, instead of having this weigh on my mind.

Word of the Day: Reject

*Half an hour later update*

Defying my promise to do something constructive, I found an awesome song on YouTube. Legend by name, legend by nature.



I think I heard this song once before, but I found it again on a whim. I have no idea why. It just seemed like the right thing to do in accordance with my mood.

Fishy business

So here I am, back home from a 3 night, 4 day journey to Metung.

Well, what can I say. A lot happened. I'll try and pick some highlights.

I failed to catch any fish. Over 3 days, I failed to catch one fish. At all. The reasons, I believe, are varied, and all of them are quite plausible.

1. I suck at fishing. We'll start with the least plausible explanation. I can fish, being the hunter-gatherer that I am. However, the other times may have just been sheer, dumb luck, so we can't rule this explanation out.

2. My inner peace was unsettled, and this was picked up on by the fish. The most plausible reason out of all of them, I believe. What happened was, my friend, Orrin, tells me on Monday night that he had received no transfer offers from anywhere. None. From anywhere. After having applied in a range of courses as broad as my shoulders, from Arts/Commerce to hairdressing in Bundoora. And he had a D average. After consoling him for a quarter of an hour, and scratching my head as to why he didn't at least get a transfer into Gardening at Peninsula, he calls me 15 minutes later to tell me that he had actually gotten a transfer to Arts/Commerce at Clayton, which was his first preference. And he had the nerve to complain that I didn't congratulate him, even though I did. But he didn't even deserve it. Apparently he only checked the paper, and not the website.

Can you congratulate me or something, man?

Yeah, congratulations on the monumental stuff-up Orrin.

So for the next couple of nights, no fish.

Just to illustrate the validity of this reasoning, everyone else but me caught at least one fish. And, just to top it off, after Linda texted me last night, I almost caught something. Good luck charm right there.

3. All the fish have moved to Sydney.

Hmm. That's about all there is to mention really. Pictures on Facebook soon hopefully. Oh, and I didn't get to buy any souvenirs, owing to the fact that there are hardly any shops that sell souvenir-y things. Forgive me, friends.

Word of the Day: Metung

There are many things that I, would like to say to you, but I don't know how

I normally don't really give a damn about what people think of me.

But this case is different. It's consuming. It's actually a full-blown anxiety. I should probably ask the person in question sometime in the near future what they think of me. But then, that would require courage, something which I lack when it comes to things like this. There's just too much room for awkwardness.

In a very, very twisted way, I think that her getting mad at me is sort of a good sign. Like, she notices me enough to be properly mad at me, if that makes any sense. Very, very twisted.

Lakes Entrance tomorrow for my near-annual retreat with my family. As always, should be good. Except for the forecasted lack of sun. I was hoping to tan up a bit too. Stupid cloud cover.

Word of the Day: Consumed

Everything's coming up roses

Things are quite good now. I'm in a happy period of my life. But, from experience, things come crashing down pretty quickly. Happiness is quite a fickle friend most of the time. So I'll enjoy it to the fullest while it lasts.

I can see trouble on the horizon already. Valentine's Day, and what I should do. The very thought of it makes me shake with nervousness. So many things could go wrong. Rejection is a big one. I hope not. But you never know. As I've said before, I try to stop from getting too optimistic about things, but I think I'm a natural optimist, and I can't really help it. I try to keep it under control, but it just seeps through the cracks of the mental barriers that I put up against it.

But this is a sort of happy problem to have to worry about in the future. Another one that I can see, and that could potentially do so much more damage to me academically is Financial Accounting. It's also so much less likely to induce any kind of happiness. More like relief upon passing it, at most. I still don't understand why you'd make a unit so hard.

I'll talk about something concrete now, instead of projecting my nothing thoughts into this post.

Last night, I went to Orrin's New Year's BBQ. Apparently that's how they do it in New Zealand. Like, a month after New Year's.

Anyway, nothing much happened, apart from this girl at his shindig having a mental breakdown after drinking too much. According to Meng, it was alcohol-induced paranoia. Quite unnerving at the start, insofar as "What the hell are we supposed to do? Is she alright? Should we call someone?" After that, it just got a bit awkward, because you can't really have a good time while something like that's going on. So you want to keep at it like nothing's happening, but the human in you can't. And that's the end of the story.

Today, I had brunch at about five different places with Linda.

Ok, slight exaggeration. It was two places. Only a slight exaggeration.

She's awesome. And that's the end of that story. Man, I tell good, detailed and in-depth stories.

Word of the Day: Happiness

Car-ed

At long, long last, I have obtained a vehicle.

Yes, this time around, I have really obtained it. It's sitting in my newly-cleared-out garage right now.

The Corolla (I really need to think of a more creative name for it. 'My car' doesn't really quite cut it either) accelerates like a beast. Or as beasty as a small car can get. It's has absolutely no problems accelerating.

And the colour. Oh man. I'd forgotten how good the colour was. During this past week, I'd been sort of regretting choosing this colour, even though I didn't have much choice. It was either black, or this, which is a no-brainer. Black cars get dirty and hot very quickly.

Turns out I'd remembered the colour wrong in my mind. I thought it was a lot darker. Turns out it's more of a light silvery blue, rather than the dark blue that I had remembered. It's so mad. So classy, yet so much more exciting than silver.

Bootspace is massive. Like, you could fit two of me in there probably.

And best of all, I can plug an iPod in there. Oh yes. My whole music collection. None of this CD shuffling.

I'm kind of scared of driving it now though. I have no idea why my parents bought a new car in the first place. Not that I'm complaining. But insurance is massive, until I'm 25. Which I thought was a bit extreme. I mean, I'm a late starter, but I would've been driving for five years by then. But, as my father says, they clearly don't value customers in our age bracket.

But the fact still remains that I haven't driven for about 10 months. So it'll be a while before I'm burning up a street near you.

Word of the Day: Corolla

Definitely not cool

Yes, the weather wasn't very cool today.

In fact, one could go so far to say it was very hot.

I was outside for about 15 minutes watering the cabbages around noon, and I swear my skin got three shades darker.

Banh and Nigel intelligently came over in the afternoon, bringing food of course.

Days like this make me feel sort of guilty. Like, if I don't leave the house, I'm fine and cool, because we have fairly good air-conditioning. But there are a lot of people who are not so fortunate. I actually recognise the fact that the surroundings that I live in are fairly upper standard.

It's a trade-off really. I mean, I meet a lot of people that wear really nice clothes, and have a lot of them, but their houses are very run-down. A lot of the time, I guess it's all dependent on where you put your money. Sometimes I wish I had a more varied wardrobe, although I definitely don't think it's too shabby. There's just not a lot of overly expensive stuff in there. Which is good.

But then you meet people, and by people I mean most of my friends, to which your varied wardrobe doesn't matter all that much to them. And that makes me realise how much cooler it is to have a nice house. Not that I dress like a slob. Most of the time. I have standards too.

But yeah, next time a day like this comes around, I should invite more of my friends over to avoid the heat. Seems like the right thing to do. But they must bring food. Or drinks. Either's fine.

Word of the Day: Heat

Mighty Morphin' Power...Andrew

While working for dad today, I observed the difference that attire and hairstyle can make to how people treat you.

Today, I wandered into Macca's with my dad for lunch. I was dressed in a faded old orange Reebok t-shirt and my artistic paint-encrusted track pants, and not wearing my customary watch. Oh, and I was wearing my old sneakers with the bottom falling off. Not that the girl serving us at the counter would've seen that.

Or maybe she did as we were walking in. She looked like she had an attitude problem anyway. We ordered, and she looked as though she didn't want to even look at us. Understandable, which is the point I was trying to make. It kind of didn't help that my hands had grime all over them.

We then went to the house of my dad's next client. Their daughters pretty looked down their noses at us. Even after we helped them with the door and luggage and all that, which is so not part of our job description. Also, I believe it may also have to do with the fact that I was virtually mute there. I think they were very surprised when they heard me speak, and found out that I actually spoke literate English.

I'm not suggesting that I'm the most alluring male on Earth. God no. Far from it. But I'm sure that if I were wearing something half-decent, and didn't have my hands covered in a substance resembling sewer gunk, I'd have at least gotten a smile, or something similar. Well, I usually do in similar situations anyway, if I'm not wearing my tradie clothes.

Yes, when I'm all casual, or semi-formal, people treat me almost normally. However, when I'm in a suit, it goes to a whole new level. Ah, then, I start getting more - as they say about websites - 'hits'. People take more notice. And, for some strange reason, I'm more likely to be called 'sir'. Or maybe that has more to do with the places that I go when I'm in a suit. Speaking of which, I should probably take my sleeves up on my suit.

I'm not suggesting that everyone is as vain as I paint them to be. Some people actually understand why I'm dressed the way I am, and may not take me for an illiterate person just because I'm not speaking. But most people form a lot of their opinions on appearances. I think we all do to a certain extent. But I think a lot you good people tone it down a bit.

On a side note, the first client that we visited today said I had a tinge of an American accent in my English. Not 'typically Australian' English, apparently. I think it may be because I was speaking in my 'polite' accent. I do it subconsciously, in an attempt to sound less bogan. But I'm not unused to this. I've been told that I sound like a wog, sound like someone with a permanently sore throat, sound like my dad. The whole gammut. I don't know about you, but I think I sound like me.

Word of the Day: Tradie

Vehicle for awesomeness

At long, long last, I have obtained a vehicle.

Well, technically, I haven't obtained it yet. And 'I' didn't really obtain it. Actually, that whole statement was a falsehood. My parents actually signed a contract for the purchase of the vehicle.

This purchase was fairly unplanned. The plan was to get a price from Lane Toyota and squeeze the guys in Footscray. Then we got roped into getting last year's model for a better price.

No more of this 'Hey man, can you drive me down to...Wodonga? Yeah, thanks man.' I hate being a burden on people. The worst part is asking for a lift. Hopefully I can repay the kindness and putting-up-with-me-ness that my friends have shown, now that I can finally give people lifts instead. The best part is I'm off red Ps in two months.

Said vehicle is a spankingly brand new Corolla hatchback in silvery-blue. Should be awesome. Better than red or black anyway.

I'm actually really happy. I just have problems showing my happiness when other people pay for it. But my parents know I'm happy, and that's all that matters. At least, I hope they know. I should probably tell them, just in case. Now all that's left to do is re-learn how to drive. Shouldn't be too bad. I've only not driven for...10 months.

This whole happy episode was slightly soured by me being late to a scheduled 1 o' clock lunch with Linda and Imesha. I think I made it up by shouting. Not in the literal sense. You know, as in, the bill-paying sense. Never mind.

It was good. So relaxing and harmonious. And it's all happening again next Tuesday. Well, maybe with a little less car buying and more of the lunch-on-time part.

Word of the Day: Vehicle

A beach of a promise

Not even a day after my resolution not to do stupid things that could jeopardise my safety, and there I was, a couple of hours ago, jeopardising my safety with not a care in the world.

We (being Chen, Kylie, Rui, Kanji, Simon, and Hayley + extras) went to Frankston beach around midday today. Which wasn't safety-endangering in and of itself. It was actually quite nice.

It was the part where Hayley + extras bailed, and after us leftovers had eaten dinner, where I felt that hanging around Frankston at night was maybe not such a good idea.

Ok, maybe I was exaggerating a bit. I mean, it's not like Frankston is New York in the 60s or anything. Or like Footscray at midnight. Or like the toilets at Melbourne Central. And on the upside, we had Cold Rock. First time for me. A tad overpriced, I thought, but worth it for novelty value.

So yeah, Simmo, Kanji and I trained it back to our respective homes, with me imparting my limited, albeit first-hand experience of Guangzhou upon Simmo, prepping him up for his trip there. Talk about safety-endangering.

Word of the Day: Safety

Sobering

I have now taken up another resolution.

My resolution is to not cause my family, or anyone close to me, any pain, through any stupidity on my part.

What I mean is, I don't want to do anything stupid and destroy my life, or possibly lose it, and cause heartbreak and pain for anybody that cares about me.

It's saddening, and slightly scary, how quickly life can be taken away from a person, especially on the roads. The worst thing is that, even if you're driving under the speed limit, not in anyone's way, something could still happen to you.

Recently, I witnessed first-hand how much the death of a person could hurt those close to him. I don't want to hurt my loved ones in this way, if I can help it. It hurt seeing the pain of those people. I can't imagine how much more acute that pain would be if I were experiencing it.

It starts with me. By minimising the instances where I take stupid risks. Not that I take a lot of stupid risks. In fact, I'm fairly risk-averse. But just the next time I think about taking one, I'll think more carefully about it, hopefully.

Word of the Day: Sobering

More like Frank Lamp-ard

It has just occurred to me that I have not written anything of real quality in quite a while.

The stuff I've written lately has seriously been below the standards which I know I can reach. Probably due to the fact that I haven't been really out in the world much as of late, but also due to slackness.

The stuff hasn't been very funny, or very sad. And not a lot of it really makes much sense or reason. But that will hopefully change sometime in the future.

Anyway, today, I finally bought two lamps for my room after about two months of having a lampless room. See, what happened was my bedside table one just stopped working. Then, a couple of days later, the light on my desk that I'd moved about a week before suddenly collapsed, missing my head by millimetres. So yeah. That broke. So today, I got a red lamp and a yellow lamp.

It's so awesome. I must have subconsciously picked the colours to co-ordinate with my room. My room is now decidedly split into two halves. Well, it was originally, but now the lamps just accent the grouping of colours in each half of the room. I'll show you if you happen to come over. Words cannot describe the awesomeness of the colour scheme.

For someone who's often described as overly ice-cool, sometimes I get way too excited about things. But I challenge you to find me something as awesome as a fluke/subconscious matching of colours in one's room.

Word of the Day: Lamp

Happy New Year 2010

Happy New Year to you all. I don't know about you, but if this year can top the last one, it will really be something.

Stuff to look forward to:
- Hopefully Commerce ball
- Hopefully a certain someone will grace me with their presence more.

And that's pretty much all I can think of as real highlights for the year ahead so far. They're not even real highlights. Just something to keep me going. God knows that I'll need it after this list of things to not look forward to:

- Financial Accounting. Apparently I'm going to get chewed up and spat back out by this subject, with it's saliva running off my back, in front of a million people. Humiliating.
- Winter without the scarf that I bought last year.

And that's pretty much it so far. Ok, so not that bad. But I think Financial Accounting pretty much outweighs all the *potential* positives.

Anyway, hope this year treats you well. May everything you do be a great success, and I hope to spend many days of the next year, and beyond, with you.

Word of the Day: 2010