People make mistake

Of course, people make mistake.

It's just not often that people make three mistakes of epic proportions, one after the other. 

First mistake

On Sunday, I told Banh that we'd be in the city by quarter to 1, when in fact, I meant quarter to 2. To make matters worse, he even confirmed it with me, and asked me why it was so early. And I thought nothing of it. Felt pretty bad afterwards. 

Second mistake

Drove to Irene's house today, thinking that Zara, her, and I were going for coffee at 2. Waited for half an hour, called and texted several times. Zara finally put me out of my misery by telling me that we had actually scheduled it for tomorrow. Went home and banged my head against the wall for a bit. 

I guess it was karma for my first mistake. 

Third mistake

The typo at the start and in the title. Gotcha! (Not giving Meng a wake-up call didn't count. He's 22. He can't seriously expect me to give him a wake up call at 12 noon. Most people grow out of that by the time they start primary school.)


I blame all of these things on the fact that it's holidays. And everybody knows that during holidays, you lose all sense of time and day. Yeah. That must be it. 

*******

Anyway, on to some decidedly error-free stuff.

Kylie's party on Sunday was quite fun. Even if you take away everything else, it was on a boat. I mean, how many twenty-firsts have you had on a boat?

Time to relive a classic

My only disappointment was the fact that she didn't think to invite T-Pain. Don't know how that slipped her mind.

Also, going to Gold Coast in February with my homedawgs. Yeeeeeeeeaaaahh!

Word of the Day: Mistake

I'm so happy, cos today, I found my friends. Or something like that.

Sigh. Uni resumes, and with it, all the fun and frivolity that normally comes with education.

So let us do another awesome rewind thing back to the start of the mid-sem break.

Friday
Went to see Nirvana with Zara and her friends. Quite a friendly bunch. Her friends, not Nirvana. Although I'm sure they're alright too. Or were alright. Whatever. Quite an enjoyable night out. Should do it again some time.

Nirvana was also good. Their gigs were...interesting. And loud. But mostly interesting.



Favourite song off the album.

Just got Nevermind today. Came included with the price of the ticket. Hence the extortionate prices.

Allow me to have a little rant about parcel delivery.

For some reason, despite there being people in my house 99.78% of the day, nobody ever seems to be able to receive the parcel.

I don't know what advantage they get from having me drive to the post office to pick it up, but it must be something, otherwise they wouldn't do it. I'll figure it out one day.

Also, Allmusic, or whoever it was that shipped it to me, is ridiculous. I ordered it on Saturday, they sent me an email on the following Friday to tell me that they had shipped it. It takes them a week to ship a CD. And then I have to go and get it on the following Tuesday. Almost a week-and-a-half to get a CD out to me. And then, it isn't even to me. I have to go get it. Which, if you think about it, is beyond stupid, because it's almost as inconvenient as driving out to buy it. It's slower too. And they wonder why people download music.

Saturday
Journeyed to the West Side with my loyal lackey, Banh, to attend Orrin's 21st. Was quite an enjoyable night. Orrin's girlfriend, Cathy, kept attacking me and imploring me to spin Simon Dinh's music, and not mine. She also found calling me Amy Huang hilariously funny. This is why you don't get drunk, children. Or, at least, if you're going to get drunk, make sure it's after a decent amount of alcohol, and not after 0.45 of a beer or whatever it was.

Also, don't be an annoying drunk.

Anyway, Simmo switched his music on, and, funnily enough, it was the same music that I had on. The min of a drunk person works in funny ways.

I also found out that taking photos at parties is great. It lets you slip away from people that you don't necessarily want to talk to, or if you just want a break, and to observe what other people are getting up to from a distance. Amazing.



Speaking of two-bob, Arsenal lost again. I'm getting pretty sick of us losing. I wish we'd win against someone decent once in a while.

Word of the Day: Frivolity

I wonder if lemons conduct electricity

When life gives me lemons...I play semi-nonsensical Oasis songs.

Today wasn't actually all that bad. Actually, it would've been positively good but for a few things that kind of tainted its goodness. That's the nature of things I guess. Only takes a little bit of badness to do a lot of damage to the goodness. 

Lots of people today just seemed to be in Annoy Andrew mode. Some people couldn't help it, I guess. You could say it's their default setting. In chronological order:

1. The student group politics/propaganda/whatever they are. Technically not just today, but whatever. They are absolutely the worst. Everywhere I go, I just get mobbed. Finally voted for them today. Irene had a genuinely brilliant idea to go vote and get 'I voted' stickers. It gave me an unprecedented amount of immunity. Some idiots still pestered me, but I showed them a thing or two. These guys are intrinsically annoying as anything.
2. The guys in my International Studies tute that kept saying nukular. As in nuclear. It was so bad, it even sort of infected my tutor. For these people, default setting. 
3. I think that's about it really.

And I realise how complainy my posts have been lately, so just to show you I'm not such a complainy person, good things did happen today. 

1. Irene bought me a mocha for about the 535083920th time. Made me unreasonably happy. I gotta get her a coffee or something one of these days. 
2. Got ambushed by James Cheng. Was pretty funny. Mainly because it was the worst ambush ever.
3. Sort-of-accidentally ran into Banh at the Campus Centre flogging tickets and got free Skittles. Most of the joy was from accidentally-sort-of running into him, but Skittles are good too. 

That's about it really. So most of the badness was really all in one of the annoying events. The other two were quite trivial, and one of them was actually semi-amusing. I'll let you sort out which. Until next time, go find your very own electric girlfriend. 

Word of the Day: Badness 

Masterdream

I had the strangest dream just then. Let's go through it.

So I was in Metung. For some reason, Banh turned up. He was waiting for his family to turn up. I was with my family. We were talking about fish or something. I think he was there to give me something, or something like that. He was going to leave, being all like "I can wait by myself if you want, I'll leave you guys along," being all mopey and suchlike.

So my dad, being the nice guy he is, says, "Nah, you can stay with us for a couple of hours." Naturally, Banh is delighted at this.

Fast forward a couple of hours.

We're on Masterchef. I don't know how that happened. Somehow, we got transported to Masterchef Metung.

I was stuck on a team with an Asian girl and some other dude that I can't remember now. I don't think I ever knew who they were. My other friends were there competing against me. James Cheng and Banh were definitely there.

So anyway, we kept losing, but none of the people there actually cooked anything at all. I just know that after every round (each round involved us sitting there for 10 seconds), the judges would give us ridiculously low scores. Like, 52% for me, and a few 40s for me other team mates. I knew that they were biased and out to get me. I mean, how is it even possible to get that low in cooking-but-not-actually? In the end, my whole team got put up for elimination. Then the girl in our team was punished with watching me and the other guy having to have a cook-off.

I was incensed. I had outscored both of them, but the girl got immunity (somehow I knew that that was immunity).

We went outside, and shook hands to say bye to everybody. Meng had suddenly appeared as a contestant, so I was shaking hands with him. Zara had just turned up as well, so we chatted for a bit. I think she wished me luck as well. I think she was the only one that knew I was up for the elimination challenge, such that it was. None of my friends who were actually there knew, but Zara did. Typical. I knew they didn't know, because they were all surprised when I told them, or my mystery friend behind me told them the reason for why I kept telling people I was nervous. "He's in the elimination challenge!!!" So, well done Zara.

I can't remember whether I kept saying I was nervous to just one person, or everyone. Whatever. Point is, I was nervous. "I don't know how to cook anything," I kept saying. Which, now that I think about it, is not true. But since when have dreams made sense? I just know that I kept thinking of what I was going to make for entree, and thinking that all I knew how to cook was tofu. Nice tofu, but tofu will only get you so far in Masterchef Metung.

It was at this point I woke up. I think it's because it just became way too unrealistic. I mean, me, not being able to cook? That probably created a hole in the space-time continuum of the dream. The other parts were zany, but that last part was just the proverbial straw the broke the proverbial camel's back.

Actually, it might just've been the alarm waking me up. I hate it when it does that. I was looking forward to the cook-off too, pitting my skills against an unknown foe, and ultimately overcoming biased judges. Maybe next time I'm in Metung.

Word of the Day: Continuum

Overstanding

Sometimes (often at the most inappropriate times), I understand things so well, that I could be said to be overstanding them.

For example, I now understand why people get so peeved when their boyfriend (or girlfriend, depending on what floats your boat, etc) doesn't call them at a predetermined time.

It's just dumb. It's like, if you call them, then it's like you're being annoying. But if you don't, then they're unlikely to ever call you. Or anything similar. Ever.

This isn't about a girlfriend (or boyfriend, for that matter). It's just a friend. I just don't know what I have to do for her to remember my existence. It's a bit weird. The only way to describe it is phase-y. Like, we'll be all cool for a while, then for the next while, it's like I'm invisible man. Or something even worse. Like Poisonous Man. Or something.

Anyway, I was going to talk about that Jessie J song, but it seems to pale into a bit of insignificance right about now. I guess we'll leave it for next time. Or the time after. Or whenever.

To finish on a bright note (which I like doing), it hasn't been all doom and gloom. Seems like I have friends (or miscellaneous activities) to occupy me most days.

For example, Banh's epic cookfest night thing that happened at some point in the last few days. Good stuff.

Or the impromptu hours-long supper at Max Brenner and some other random trendy cafe in Glen Waverley with James Cheng, Meng, Hayley and Lily. That was awesome. Massive talkfest about everything and anything, and a lot of nothing as well.

And a roadtrip to look forward to soonish. And Harry Potter movie and all. Would be an excellent holiday, if not for the fact that a) I'm quite worried about failing one or more units, and b) I don't have employment secured for next year, and people around me are talking about how awesome their jobs are/how awesome they want their jobs to be. But que sera, sera, and all that. I'll just give it my best shot, and if it's not enough, I guess I'll just have to give it my best shot again. I just hate letting my parents down, that's all.

But ending on a bright note, and all, good stuff to look forward to this holiday season.

Word of the Day: Phase

Happy Birthday Banh!

Just got back from Banh's 21st, and now I'm all sitting here, wondering whether to go to VIP night at Chaddy or not.

It was a good party. Good catchup with friendsies, and good food. Got slightly irked by fandroids selling their wares, but hey, as I've said before, fandroids always seem to feel that they need to justify the existence of their phones, so it wasn't a complete surprise to me. But it's still rather annoying. However, I have worked out what I'm going to do next time they start building up a rant about their phones. I haven't employed sarcasm and acid irony in a while, but I might just do so again if the situation crops up again.

Yeah. Be ready for that.

I also got Kanye's new album this morning. First impressions are that it's epic. Epic beyond belief. Apparently it's been getting rave reviews from critics. But I think music critics are mostly pretentious, bandwagon-jumping-on...people. I'll give it a good listen hopefully tomorrow, and see what else I can glean from it then.

Also, Arsenal. Frustration again. I don't get how they can suck that much, but that's the way the proverbial cookie crumbles.

Should probably head off soon. Starting work tomorrow. And I didn't end up going to Chaddy, because I figured that I'm probably looking for a pair of $60 shoes, and the savings on those would not be very substantial. And if you're wondering how I just got home from Banh's party even though I left hours ago, it's because I only just started typing again after leaving the post for a few hours. Just in case you're wondering whether you're stuck in some time bubble or something similarly crazy.

Word of the Day: Bandwagon

Pottering about (oh snap)

So being the geniuses that you all undoubtedly are, I'm sure that you can tell from the title that I did, in fact, watch Harry Potter today.

Not just any Harry Potter. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, to be exact. Part 1, to improve on this exactness.

And no, I didn't see it by myself. I saw it with Banh and Orrin, if you must know. But those are extraneous details.

We walked into the cinema, and Banh chose the seats that were not our designated seats, and were very much not next to the girls that we were supposed to be next to (damn). Then, while we were watching the movie, I discovered that they were big fans of laughing, giggling and generally making a big fuss every time Harry took his shirt off (well played after all, Banh).

Anyway. The movie.

Probably the best one so far, even though it's not actually a completed movie. Actually, the sixth one probably just shades it, but there's still a Part 2 to come (lame). It's probably a decent movie because, like I've maintained for many years now, the seventh book was written like a movie script. A bad movie script. A pretty bad book (bad, as in I think it would be classified under bad writing if it weren't a Harry Potter book), but it always had the potential to be made into a decent movie. Acting's slightly meh, but it's always been like that. I think the thing that really does it is how well it's filmed. Very thoughtfully produced, I thought, and beautifully camera-ed (yeah, that's a word. Or, at least, it is now).

Also, ending (or according to Banh, "The Halftime Break") = lame. Don't say I didn't warn you.

It's kind of sad though. The movie, I mean. In the literal way. Harry Potter really was the phenomenon of our time. Masterfully written, appealing to all ages. It brought reading back to the masses, and, in the words of some critic or other "permeated the public consciousness" to a level seldom achieved by books. I'll probably write a bit more on it after Part 2. Actually, I'll definitely write more about it.

Here's the theme, which I love.

It suits the film very well.

Alright, that's all for now. I'm off to read the new Ranger's Apprentice book that I didn't know was out, even though it was out on the 1st. Well, I'll start reading it if and when Sarah decides she should go to bed because she has school (or something) tomorrow, and decides to give me the book.

Word of the Day: Potter

Tell him he's dreaming

I had one of the weirdest dreams last night. And the weird thing was, it seemed like a recurrence of one that I had the previous night, but I'm not sure if I did. Weird.

Okay. Here goes.

For some reason, two friends and I (I've forgotten which two now. I think it was Victor and Banh.) were inside a top-secret-compound thing. Yeah. Crazy. And we're in an armoured car type thing.

Somehow, we find out that people are coming to get us. We hear them coming, so I get somebody (I think it was Banh) to shoot him through the windscreen. He duly obliges, and we hightail out of there.

However, like all good action movies, they're still after us.

Solution? We somehow end up outside of the car, and start running. We run into Rui (not literally. He just happened to be there), who was going to a movie with a girl. We tag along and pretend to be innocent citizens (what was our crime? What were we doing there in the first place? Don't ask stupid questions). We snuck into the cinemas, and successfully avoided them.

Whoever 'them' might be.

Mission accomplished. Immense feeling of satisfaction.

I think the dream I had the previous night (or it might even have been the same night) involved Banh shooting the guy, but that was that. We just moseyed out of there.

I think I have a great idea for a new blog that I'm going to start in the summer. Stories based on my dreams. The major problem with that, however, is that I don't have, or technically remember, many dreams at all. Like, optimistically (or pessimistically, depending on who you are), you're looking at about a dream a month. But I would like to do something with stories. Any ideas?

Word of the Day: Accomplished

Doo bee doo doo, doo bee doo bee doo doo

That's the introduction to 'Singing in the Rain'. Duh.

I don't know why I decided to virtually sing that. It just sort of popped into my head.

Moving on. A whole manner of things are annoying me massively at the moment, but I'm not going to write about them, because (a) there's not a whole lot I can do about most of them, and (b) I have firm hope that things will probably change for the better sometime soon, because these things are cyclical in nature.

I should probably write something about Nigel's 21st at Loop last night, but there isn't all that much to say, apart from the fact that I had a bourbon and coke. Or something. And it was fairly disgusting. I didn't think it could get any worse, but one sip of Banh's scotch and coke reminded me of how wrong I can be about things sometimes. We (being Pramuk, Rudra, Banh and I) had massive amounts of bread, due to the fact that a massive platter of it was placed in front of us.

The massive mountain of bread that us fellas powered through.

Good party as well. I wish they had a mic for my use during the speech-making though. Would've been easier on my voice, which is feeling a bit tender after a night and full day of intensive speaking. If you're good friends, you'll remind me not to attempt to shout louder than the thumping music with my tiny voice next time. Highlight of the night: random old dude who came in and started munching our food. I also think he started making inappropriate comments to the ladies after I left, at which stage Nigel got him kicked out. I'm also not sure that I wished Nigel happy birthday last night, so here it is, just in case. Happy Birthday Nigel!

Ok, so I did have a lot to say about it. But I didn't before.

Currently, I am getting quite the lonely pangs again. It's that time again where I wish I had someone to just randomly talk to at anytime about any number of random things, but that person doesn't exist for me, and I just end up blogging instead to siphon some of it off, Pensieve-style. Don't pretend you don't get the reference. I know you're all Harry Potter nerds.

I leave you with this song. And a great song it is. Listen to it when you're feeling a bit down. It'll make you feel better. Like eating chocolate after being swarmed by Dementors. Harry Potter movie reference this time. I think I have just out-lamed myself yet again.

Actually, any song from them is a pretty good pick-me-up. Anyway, I'll really leave this time. Nothing worse than drawn-out goodbyes.

Word of the Day: Pensieve

She wasn't black

The one thing that I gained from Ben's 21st last night:

In case you don't get it right away, I liked the bartender.

She was somewhat sultry, and looked like she had a bit of an attitude. I think she was half-Asian. Kind of ruined it though, what with the lip ring and all. I hate it when that happens. Someone looks awesome, then they go ruin it by doing something stupid like that. Or smoking. Either one is quite bad.

Newaiz. Double 21st yesterday. Kanji's in the arvo, took a carload of people with me, went home to get changed, and went out to play pool with him at some Korean pool place. I think it's a mark of how Korean it was that there were no markings on the tables. Quite confusing for a Westerner such as myself.

To be frank, I was quite disappointed. Many people who I was hoping to catch up with didn't appear, except perhaps for Meng and Vincent.

So after that, Banh and I moseyed on down to Ben's (where the bartender was, incidentally) Interestingly, I got on fairly well with Visa's girlfriend. Friendly type of lass. Good catchup session with some of the lads. Some awkward situations, but they're unavoidable if you're me.

I came home, and watch the Arsenal game. Boy, was that massively depressing. Seriously, games like that make me consider defecting to another team. It's very depressing watching players not even trying, and getting shredded by West Brom, of all teams. If I were Fabregas, I'd want to leave too. They played like utter rubbish.

Now to today. I watched West Side story with my sisters. Wasn't too bad, but I think a tad overrated. Les Miserables was a lot better.

And that's just about that for now. Not particularly interesting or invigorating, but that's life sometimes.

Word of the Day: Sultry

Negatron

It's only Tuesday night, and I feel as though it's been a really, really long week already.

I think that happy feeling I had a while ago has long since evaporated. I've been mad at people left, right and centre, for various reasons, most of them being rational.

My attitude right about now is a massive load of whatever. If friends don't want to treat me as any more than a second-rate friend, that's cool. I've got enough of them to be going on with anyway.

As proof of how bad it's been, friends have also had bad things happen to them this past week. Irene got a bad allergic reaction AND had her car hit, Banh got himself food poisoned, and Zara broke her toe. Oh, and mum's quite sick too. It's all been rather depressive and gloomy. I mean, there hasn't been proper sunlight for ages. It's all just rain and cloud, and more rain and cloud, with a bit of wind now and then to keep things fresh.

Despite all these negative vibes, there was a bit of respite this afternoon. In the library, while fruitlessly searching for books, I ran into John and Tamara. Good people, both of them. Then I ran into Meng, before Orrin finally got there for our hastily-scheduled meeting. That was good. Got some of the weight off my chest. Amazing how cathartic talking to someone is. It feels like a burden that's been halved. Or something. Although I had to suffer through Meng and Orrin geeking out about their Android megaphones and whatnot.

Hopefully all the negativity has now been spent, and a brighter next few days awaits. Here's to a happy last-few-days-before-not-very-mid-sem-break.

Word of the Day: Vibes

It was not a nightmare

Wooooo. Three days of ups and downs. One could almost say it's been hektik. If I were to sketch a graph about it, it'd be almost parabolic. Almost.

Okay, so slight exaggeration. But only slightly.

It started on Monday. Duh.

Because I apparently drive a yellow Ford Falcon, and because my name is apparently Sanjay (this is all according to Meng), I drove all the way to Clayton to pick Meng up, and then back my way to pick Vincenzo up to go to Linda's Ambassador reunion bash. I drove them down to Forest Hill for some last-minute shopping, which was a party in itself.

Arriving at Linda's street, I was all like "Why is this car stalking me?" Unbeknownst to me, it was Linda stalking us, in her stalkermobile. Mega confusion about house numbers, but we got there in the end.

And a quaint little house she has. It's of the warm and cosy variety, with a massive garden. Enormous garden. Could fit a circus tent there. And chickens.

Anyway, we finally got the oven going thanks to the genius of Vince, and other people started turning up. We ended up cooking lasagne, with Seb in charge. I learnt the well-guarded secret of how to make lemon and lime bitters. A secret which has been passed down the generations of the Gao family, and they guard with their lives. Kind of makes you wonder how I know it now.

We met Linda's massive brother, Jonath...I mean, Bill. He's in Year 7, and he's about a head taller than I am. We had some Wii fun. Well, they did. The irony is I never got to face off against Bill. He's pretty cool, by the way. We also had a bonfire and Mafia madness. I think there are some people who are still confused about the logic and object of the game, but what can you do? Run a Mafia seminar?

It was at this point where I was made to feel awkward. I made a gay reference in the presence of a gay person. Like, it wasn't that bad. It's not like I was insulting gay people. Or even laughing at them. But still, I feel kind of bad for doing it now.

We then played darts. Clearly, I'm awesome at that game. More like awesome at putting holes in the wall behind the dartboard!

Driving home was a bit scary. I ran a red light right outside the house, purely by accident, because it was an obscure red light, and there were no cars. The roads were actually empty.

Very fun night in all, apart from the no alcohol business, and the tactless gay reference. Not that I drink alcohol or anything, but a white wine wouldn't have gone amiss. Actually, I should have just had one. Stupid. Regrets. However, I did not turn a night out into a nightmare, so I did my parents, and the Government, proud.

Tuesday was more Wii fun at Banh's. Again, fewer people turned up than expected, but Linda's is the only thing I've been to that had more people turn up than expected. Like, ever. So it's really not that great a surprise. And it was still very fun. Well, I thought so.

From thereon in, it started getting bad. When I got home, my father was not a happy chappy. Some issues with relatives in that place called China. Not that that directly affected me or anything, but I just find it hard to be happy when people close to me aren't. Maybe I'm like some sort of reverse Dementor.

Then, the yesterday morning, Arsenal got thumped by a very good Barcelona team. I'm actually proud of the lads though. To get into the lead against Barca, even if for a few minutes, at the Camp Nou, takes some doing. Especially with five of their best players out, including their captain and best midfielder in the world. Playing against a team with a player like Messi. Absolutely majestic. You forget that he's only 168cm tall, or something like that. That's how scary he is. He just runs into the box at will, dragging you left, right, left, right. At pace too. And on aggregate, the Gunners scored three goals against the best team in Europe. Not many teams can pull that off.

Ok, so not much of a parabola. Told you it was a bit of an exaggeration. I should probably get some work done soon.

Word of the Day: Parabola

Oh snap

It feels so good when someone thinks you're wrong, and they're really convinced of your wrongness, and then you unequivocally prove them wrong, and that you are, in fact, right.

This happened in our accounting presentation today. I thought we'd screwed something up because this guy at the back of the room seemed certain that we had. Turns out he was very, very wrong, and very, very confused. What a reversal. From him thinking that he'd got us, and could laugh at us, to us getting him, like a rabbit caught in the headlights, and almost laughing at him.

It did, however, turn out that we had in fact done two things wrong, which were later picked up by the tutor. But the fact remains that nobody else picked up that we were wrong.

How petty of me. I'm usually not as vindictive as this, but I feel that way today. Just thinking about past events, and the vengeance associated with it. I'm trying not to seek revenge for anything at all, because I've found that it provides a kind of satisfaction for a millisecond, and then you feel worse than ever because you've done it. That's why Batman is a vigilante, not a...revenge-seeker. That reminds me of a conversation I had with a few homeboys last year.

Me: "What're we going to do for extra-curricular next semester?"
Meng or Banh (I can't remember): "Become vigilantes."
Me: "Oh yeah. The BatMeng."

Ok, so not much of a conversation. Still, it satisfies the criteria for a conversation. Not that I know what those criteria are, or whether they exist at all. I think they do. I'm fairly sure I learnt about that in linguistics. And it was funny.

ANYWAY. I don't know what prompted that rant. But I am now in 90% holiday mode. That's my last assessment for this...half semester. I'm trying to think of a better word for it, if you can call that a word at all. Term? Too junior. I'll think of something clever soon enough. Looking forward to tomorrow for various reasons. We'll see what happens.

Word of the Day: Vengeance

Quagmire

Life is a bit weird right about now. It just feels like I'm stuck in a quagmire, and it's really hard to get anywhere down any avenue right now.

I'm feeling quite down for various reasons. Firstly, I'm behind in almost everything, and my French has appeared to have regressed since last semester. Accounting is just messing with my mind right now.

Secondly, after speaking with Meng last night, I realised that we're both 20 and without girlfriends. It's almost sad beyond belief. Sad, as in both meanings of the term. We're trying to solve the puzzle, but it's like it's a cardboard jigsaw, and somebody spilt a lot of water all over it. The pieces don't fit together, and it's damn near impossible to find which pieces go where in the first place. Maybe we're just looking in the wrong place, or at the wrong jigsaw puzzle if you will. Whatever.

Even the KPMG interview, which I was looking forward to, I'm now feeling apprehensive about. Nobody else has really gotten back to me yet, so it seems as though everything hinges on this interview.

Missing out on Lady GaGa was also a big downer. I just want to hear her songs now, not in two or three years when they'll be all new and not good anymore. And her show most likely won't be as cheap, or good. The reason they're cheap is because her people are, for reasons unknown, underpricing tickets. Apparently. I want to see her live because she's one of those rare artists that actually perform. Also, she does awesome things to her songs live, like making them acoustic. There goes a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I do hate it a bit when I miss them. It was very nice for Linda to MMS me a 'teaser' of the show tonight, even though it mostly featured the very round head of a guy standing in front of the camera. Man, that guy's head was round. And shiny. I don't think I've ever received an MMS from a friend before. Thank-you, Linda. It's nice to know my friends remember me.

I like when people text me randomly about random things. I don't know why. It just makes me feel loved, I guess. And adds excitement to my day. The good type of excitement, which I crave.

Today was actually an alright day. Started off fairly averagely, then got better after another one of our French impromptu orals. Irene is brilliant at it. Ours was definitely the best this time, but mostly because of Irene. But she bounces her act off me. So it's really all me. She'd struggle if her partner was lightning quick like her. Who am I kidding? She's a natural at it. She pretends to cry, and she takes out a tissue. My reading is quite good, but my acting is mediocre, unless I am in a very comfortable situation. Which I was not. So my reading was quite good, but my acting was mediocre. The class loved it. Once again, I, or, in this case, we, created something that I didn't think was that funny, but everyone else did. Seems to happen a lot in our French workshop. Maybe because it consists of three guys and the rest girls. They dig my humour.

Anyway, she seemed to get happier after that, and easier to talk to. I went to find my homeboys and homegirls after that (homepeople? Will think about it some more), and she followed me. I then thought she would ditch me, but, not surprisingly, she didn't, as she does not find any social situation awkward, and handles them all with aplomb. She also never ditches me. Never. I respect, admire and appreciate that. The not ditching me part, and the handling of social situations. Especially considering how we have half our classes, and hence half our breaks, together. I just crawl out of social awkwardness. She then eventually did have to ditch me, to hang with another friend, the Matheson Computer.

So after that, I hung with Davy until our tute. A funny thing happened in the lecture after the tute. Davy was half-joking (I think). He had had an interview with Deloitte the day before, and he was all like, "Hey Andrew, let me sit on the outside in case I need to take a call." Two minutes later, call comes in from Deloitte, telling him he has an interview tomorrow. Or today, depending on how pedantic you are. Clearly he should say these things more often to me. Anyway, being the swell guy he is, he drove me home. In the process, we had a good ol' chat about everything, from future careers to missing Mai a lot. Thanks Davy, and gluck for tomorrow. Or today.

Banh gave me a fairly useless call, but it was still appreciated. I like hearing his voice in moderation. Thank-you also for remembering me.

And the random MMS at the end was just swell. Completed the day, really.

And now, after realising that it was actually a fairly good day, I don't feel so blue. Amazing how cathartic posting can be. I re-learned that word today. Cathartic. I re-learned it because I was fairly sure that this news website I was reading was using it in the wrong way.

Oh, also, on a finishing note, I sort of casually noticed three girls in the past week, but according to various sources, they've all been taken. They all have heart-melting smiles, which is kryptonite to me. It's the chink in my otherwise impenetrable armour (ha, I said chink). I promise to set my sights on girls that are very much less taken. Speaking of promises, I'm going to ease up a bit. Emo posts to funny posts ratio is going to decrease as of now.

Word of the Day: MMS

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

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

Une nuit de poker

Who would've thought that the French also call it poker. Gambling is universal, it seems.

Um. Bonjour.

So last night was poker night with the lads plus Kylie. Females reprezent. Despite my fears that not enough people would come, seven people seemed just the right amount. Any more and I would've just been making Martinis and apple ciders all night long.

So like, I expected James to be a massive poker shark and kill us all, along with his cousin, who're always like "Pokerpokerpoker, nownownow." It turns out that Kyle T is some hardcore gambler who eats people like James for breakfast.

One of the stupidest/funniest moments of the night, nay ever, was Banh's cooking misadventure.

Banh: "Hey, Andrew's mum, uhhh, why is your oven so, like, not hot?"
My mother: "Uhh, it's kinda, like, not on."
Me: "You couldn't have asked me, could you? You just had to wait until mother came home."

The tarts themselves were quite...interesting. Artfully done. See, they couldn't be eaten normally. You had to kind of...drink them. Yeah. Get your head around that. Tarts that need to be drunk. Didn't taste half bad. But apparently they weren't supposed to turn out that runny. Who would've thought it.

Yeah, I have issues with my poker playing. It keep getting into the last two people, then bam! It all goes downhill. It may have something to do with my opponent always having a mountain of chips, and me having diddly squat.

All in all, a fairly good do I thought. Next up, Wii night.

Word of the Day: Poker

Lip sinking

What's the big deal about Britney Spears lip synching? Like, hello, she's been doing it ever since her first album. She's never been a very good singer, so what's new? It's almost like going to a Michael Jackson concert and making a big deal out of him dancing and singing live and not lip synching. I won't say who cares, because obviously people do, but I just think it's been completely blown out of proportion, and the reaction has been way, way, way above anything that I'd have expected. It's like the people that paid for the tickets expected her to not lip synch. When I put it like that, how weird does it sound?

Last night, I went to the first of many social events lined up for me these holidays. Banh had his 20th, and it was Friday the 13th. Nothing bad happened, unless you count Victor burning the food a bit. Good food and cool people all around. Sounds like a party I went to once. Oh, and good music, once I changed it to Ursher.

The food was very good. Vast improvement from when I first ate it. Not that it was bad in the first place. Which makes the improvement all the more surprising. Yes.

Yes. I'm suddenly feeling all pops, to use Yvonne terminology. Which is a very, very foreign feeling. Apart from that, things are starting to look on the up, except for being jobless. I shouldn't have said that. Every time I do, my world falls to pieces around me. But I can't help it.

Word of the Day: Britney

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