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

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

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