Suprise Song Sunday: Where Are You Now? - Mumford & Sons

Where are you now?

Do you ever think of me

In the quiet, in the crowd.

Beautiful song. 

Work starts tomorrow. I think it just suddenly dawned on me today that I won't be having a weekday off for a while. And with that thought, I've started resenting shops and stuff that don't open on weekends. Or at least Saturdays. I can't actually think of any that don't open on either Saturday or Sunday off the top of my head, but when I do, I will resent them hard.

As far as pre-work-beginning weekends go, this one hasn't been bad at all. Or even a pre-work week.

On Monday, had lunch with Irene. Just like old times. We even visited uni for O-Week, to add in a bit of gut-wrenching nostalgia. 

On Tuesday, I got the more or less all-clear from the physio. So now my building of the muscle mass in the left leg is mostly up to me. 

Couple of days of not doing a great deal, then had pho dinner with honours friends. Good times, as always.  

Yesterday, played a bit of badminton with some mates, had a visit from an unexpected visitor at said game of badminton, played a bit of impromptu/unprecedented squash with said unexpected visitor, and had dessert with some mates.  

Today, went to eat pho lunch with family, then went to Vic Market. Finally got myself a double-sided sheep mug there, and got the craziest wooden turtle ever. I'd take you a photo, but it's too late. Got work tomorrow. I know, ironic. We ended by visiting Shoppingtown to pick Michelle up, and I stared at some awesome shoes in Aquila. Dinner was a delicious lamb fillet dinner cooked by my mother. Almost completely irrelevant, but whatever.  

All in all, pretty successful. Caught almost everyone that I wanted to catch before I started work. Hopefully I won't get busy too soon, and still be able to maintain a semblance of a social life. 

Time to become a productive member of the household, and the community. Yeah. Not pretentious or anything. 

Word of the Day: Resenting  

  

Last day of Undergrad (hopefully) Part III - The end of the trilogy - Momentous moments

So, the final part of this poorly-constructed and ill-thought-out saga.

Momentous moments at uni.

To be honest, most of the momentous stuff that happened at uni probably shouldn't be canvassed again, as they've probably been discussed to death already.

Here's a few to sate your appetite (in roughly chronological order).

Getting lost on the first day of uni and running into a fellow lostie. That person would later become known to me as 'Stef Lim'. She was officially the first person that I talked to at uni that I didn't know previously. Important for several reasons. Firstly, it made me realise that these mythical 'girls' that people kept talking about weren't all that scary.

I kid. I live in a house full of girls. But I guess it did show me that people in general weren't really all that scary.

Secondly, it showed me how big the uni was.

Gigantic. Enormous. To this day, I've probably only traversed about a third of the place. I thought Melbourne High was big. This was next-level big.

Becoming friends with Irene. She was pretty much the first friend that I made in Arts. Actually, close to the first friend I made at uni. I had a relative heap of friends brought over from high school in Commerce, and a few in Arts, but none in French. She was the first, and pretty much only, until I became friends with Zara. Kinda sad, now that I think about it. This was a year since I'd started uni. In between, I made friends with a couple of Arts kids.

Ambassador Camp. This was off the hook. Firstly (not necessarily most importantly), I busted my knee. It's still giving me problems. More so recently, but you don't want to hear about that.

More importantly, I met, and became friends with, many fantastic individuals, many of whom I count among my closest friends. I think it was here that I sourced most of my uni friends that I actually talk to.

Also during this time, James Cheng and Meng had to put up with me being a cripple. They helped me get places, and were just generally there. I don't really know where I'm going by bringing this up, but as I don't think I've mentioned it anywhere else, I'd just like to say that I was very touched by their help, and I appreciated it greatly, even though it didn't seem like a big deal. But let me tell you, it's a big deal when someone helps carry your luggage for you when you're struggling on one leg, like some kind of...one legged man.

Getting my car. Man, was that liberating. Still is. Cannot believe that I put up with catching the bus for two years. I felt like I had finally properly become a uni student.

Failing a unit. It sucked, mostly because I had to do it again, and overload the next semester, and went through the next exam period thinking I'd failed it again.

Passing said unit. Was pretty elated. Celebrated by going to a pre-booked U2 gig.

Passing the next semester's units in relative flying colours. Yeah!

I'm sorry if I've left any momentous people/events out. I kind of wrote this up in about 20 minutes. Forgive me. I'm sure I have left something/s out, but it can't really be helped, unless you want to remind me. Please do.

All in all, I find it interesting how, like high school, it's not the academic stuff you remember so much, but the other stuff that goes on. All the fun times, the bad times, the sad times, the good times. And the friends that you make and break going through all that.

To close this saga, I'd just like to say that it's been good. Apart from the unpleasant exams business, uni's been pretty fun and enriching. It's had it's bad moments, but I think they were more to do with life, and less to do with uni.

Anyway, I'll probably be back for more next year. So it's not really goodbye. But I just felt like getting something down for now.

So, next up, Occupy Melbourne. I'll talk about the Melbourne High School Asian Invasion a bit after that, because the former is of more pressing concern.

Until next time.

Word of the Day: Momentous  

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

Again, it made sense at the time

So, last night, I had a weird dream.

I jetted off to Russia, for some arbitrary reason. I ended up being in one building for the whole trip, answering music trivia questions. The questions were in English. In fact, so was everything else. The only thing that indicated that it was Russia was that I could see snow outside, which doesn't happen very often in good old Melbourne.

So yeah, I arrived in the morning (having left Melbourne that same morning). After spending the aforementioned few hours there, I left that evening and arrived in the afternoon of the same day (told you it was weird).

At Melbourne Central.

There, I saw Dr Dre. And I was all like, "OMG, it's Dr Dre!!!"

And then James Cheng appeared. And so did Andrew Chen, who was working at the cafe, the wall of which Dre was leaning on.

There is no underlying meaning to this dream. Or, at least, that's what I tell myself. It just seems to be an amalgamation of a few, seemingly fleeting, irrelevant, trivial thoughts that I don't even remember thinking. All in all, a pretty good dream to have. A good way to keep me occupied during my sleep.

Word of the Day: Amalgamation

Choc top bonanza

Just continuing on yesterday's theme/topic, it also annoys me quite a bit that I almost always have to organise stuff to do with other people, and it's hardly ever the other way around. So this lack of contacting other people is kind of my way of protesting against that. If they're fine and dandy without my presence, I'm fine and dandy without theirs too. It just annoys me how it seems as though I'm always wanting to catch up with them, but they don't really want to reciprocate that. Whatever.

Having said all that, last night was a fairly good night with friends, as far as nights with friends go. After having dinner with the James and Yvonne Cheng and family, James and Yvonne Cheng and I went on down to watch The Last Exorcism in Glen Waverley.

Movie was not my choice. Neither was the amount of choc tops we bought. Both decisions, in retrospect, were quite large mistakes. The movie was interesting for the first five minutes, then it was all like, "Why are these people so dumb? Just call the cops!" But it was a slash-and-hacker (a genre of film I detest, by the way), and they never really do make much logical sense. But I guess that's why I don't like them. The funnest part of the whole thing was James and I texting each other during the movie out of sheer boredom.

Also, I spent half the movie wondering where I'd seen the main character girl person. Then it hit me. She looks very similar to Linda Markov. Weird.

Anyway, good times. Hopefully this dinner thing that I'm organising (weird how these things happen, huh) comes off. Doesn't look like it so far, so I'll probably just end up trying to do something constructive instead. Like clean my room. Worst thing is, Sarah, my sister, is leaving for France tomorrow for six weeks, so it'll be like mass boredom when I'm at home and not out doing stuff.

Word of the Day: Dandy

Yesterday, when the war didn't began...I'm so funny

So yeah, I was going to talk about my stress, but it's self-inflicted, so I won't. I'll talk about yesterday instead.

Yesterday was a doozy. Managed to watch a movie, finish an assignment, study for a tad, and go to a 21st. Felt almost on top of the world. Almost.

It began like this. I met up with Irene at Glen Waverley Library to do our French culture quiz thing. We got that done in about an hour and a bit, and that was with constant interruptions about my financial woes over the phone as well.

We then had lunch, and studied for a bit. Well, it was more of her teaching me French than actual studying.

Anyway, after that, I went home and got changed into my suit to go see Tomorrow When the War Began.

Just kidding! I actually had James' 21st straight after that. You knew I wouldn't go to the movies in a suit.

Or would I?!

Moving on. Irene kindly came and picked me up at my house (15 mins early too. Silly duffer. Got the time wrong.) We met up with her sister, Elene, and the sort-of surprise guest, her mother (cue How I Met Your Mother pun).

The movie was so-so. The acting was quite forced at times, but the plot was good. My particular gripe was about the Asian guy. Oh my word. Could not act for peanuts, and stereotyped to the max. I mean, the guy has ninja reflexes. Seriously.

So after that, we said our goodbyes, and I moseyed my way on down to James' 21st.

I seriously ate comparatively nothing. I really regret it now. I think it was because I was so intent on talking to people, and doing this and that. The food was quite nice, but for the price, there wasn't a whole lot of variety.

Speeches were good. I didn't end up saying half the things I wanted to, but I'm sure James knows that I value him greatly as a friend, and how great a guy he is. The speech was slightly funny, which is the important thing.

Good night overall. Plenty of friends to catch up with, and good environment. Happy future birthday James.

Rain is falling outside. I was going to use that to do something poetic, but I can't be stuffed. I'm going to go downstairs to get a drink and de-stress myself.

Word of the Day: De-stress

Nelly I, love you

I was listening to this today.

Also, I have a dilemma. Well, not really. It's more of a problem. There is no dilemma, because there is only one solution.

See, I want to go see Tomorrow When The War Began with Irene and Elene on Wednesday. Problem is, the one they're seeing is at 3:30 p.m., and I'm supposed to be at James' 21st at around six.

Which would be fine, except I'm supposed to turn up in a suit. So I guess I could turn up to the film in a suit. Which is just a little bit dumb. In my defence, it's a pretty nice suit.

Anyway, I'll just see if we can see an earlier one. If not, guess it'll have to be another time.

Enjoy the music.

Word of the Day: Nellyville

My mind is numb

Oh my word.

This lecture is so stupifying on so many levels. I can't understand what he's saying, and, I believe that, even if I could, I still wouldn't understand it.

Uni in general has been quite underwhelming so far. Not as fun as it used to be. Maybe it's a result of the novelty wearing off, maybe it's the fact that I am overloaded (quite literally).

There have been some good bits, but it's kind of like the ratio between pork floss and bun in a pork floss bun from Breadtop, with the good bits being the pork floss. Yes. Now you have an accurate picture of what it's like. In your head at least. I can't really find a real accurate picture on the Internet.

I was actually reminiscing with James on Saturday about first year accounting, when we had classes together. And with everybody else. Everything seemed so good then. And it was.

Ah, I'm not even 21, and I'm reminiscing about old times.

I think this has been posted already. But it can never be posted enough.

Also, job interview tomorrow. Not feeling as syoopersonic as a week ago, but not feeling too bad either. A good place to be. Anyway, wish me luck!

Word of the Day: Breadtop

Omenzzzzzzzzzzz

A solid win from the Gunners last night hopefully heralds a good week to follow. This trend is usually followed, and let's hope it continues.

However, nobody knows better than I that trends can be broken (well, I'm sure there are people that know better than I. But this sounds better than saying "hardly anybody knows better than I"). But Arsenal win hopefully equals Andrew win. At least for this week.

In other news, I still haven't bought the other half of James' present yet. And I'm quite reticent to go out again to get it. Sighface. Let that be a lesson to you all. Think long and hard before you fail anything.

Word of the Day: Herald

Seven times three times a million

Hmm. That downing (it's like a combination between turning and down) point seems to be creeping up on me again. All the good stuff that's happened at the start of this week seems to be slowly evaporating. Like the last of the winter snow disappearing on the first day of spring sunshine. Except not in that kind of positive way. How apt that winter is ending soon.

Anyhow. My expected two interviews has now turned into a definite one. Which is a bit of a downer, as I thought that my 82% on the aptitude test was pretty good. Meng got 88, and he got a call, but I didn't. 82%. That means that, statistically, I am better than 82% of the people working in accounting and finance at analysing stuff and whatnot. And it still does not seem to be good enough. Still, I'm holding out hope that they'll give me a call on Monday.

Also, I have a lot of work due, I want to buy stuff but I've been forbidden from spending too much money, and I have a lot of twenty-firsts that I want to go to, but I can't because I'm a failure, so I'm going to have to pick a few. So here's the list:

1. James. Fo sho. It's been on my radar for a while, and he's in my top five friends. And I'm making a speech. Look out for it. (Also, the dinner should be really nice. Not that that influences my decision or anything).

2. Eugene's. Probably just going to go for an hour or so, due to my massive workload.

3. Rui's. This one, I actually want to go to (not that I don't want to go to the others), but it's quite a bit of money, and I have a vendetta against China Bar. But it's not so much those two reasons as me having a mountain of work to do.

4. Timothy's. Probably not. I don't really know him that well, and yeah. Work.

5. Ben Niles. Most likely, but still in the process of working out the logistics.

6. Linda's. Probably not. I'm fairly sure she doesn't want to talk to me anymore, and she's inviting me just to humour me. We haven't talked for about...I don't even know how long now. It's kind of sad. You know, you're getting along with someone, and, for some reason or another, it just dies.

And I think that's just about all of the one's on my list right now. I'm expecting at least about five more in the near future. I love how August/September/October always try and bankrupt me. Well, it won't work this time. I'm making money from different revenue streams. Except I still have to get a Father's Day present. And birthday presents for my parents. And presents for my imaginary girlfriend.

I seriously don't know how people with more friends than me (and I think that's just about everybody, especially with respect to Facebook friends) would cope in my situation. Probably just not go to any.

My birthday's awesome. It's during the holidays. See, that's how good a friend I am.

Word of the Day: Twenty-firsts

An expensive party

Davy's 21st on Friday night was the most expensive party I've attended to date. Mostly owing to the $70 parking fine that I incurred. Stupid double signs. 9am - 6pm: 2P. Above that, it says '6pm - midnight: permit parking'. James didn't read the sign at the top, and I didn't look at all. So pretty much all my fault.

Anyway, the party was quite good. Got to hang with friends who I hadn't seen for quiet a while. About half the people took a plus one with them, which made me feel sort of lonely, but it wasn't too bad, because most of the fellas I was hanging with didn't have one either. Maybe that's why they were hanging with me.

But yeah, once things got underway it was alright. We all had a few glasses of the hard stuff (lemon lime bitters...yeeeeaaah man), and, hey presto, everybody was talking. Vu and I, on the same team, lost twice, once because I sunk the black ball and 8 ball at the same time, and once because he did the same. What are the chances?

Bieber came on a bit later, thanks to the machinations of Imesha, but because of my prompting. I don't know why I do these things. I don't even like the guy in the slightest. Davy made me do the Bieber Dance, and I had to, because a Sicilian can't refuse a request on the day of his daughter's wedding. Or because it was his 21st. Either one.

This occurred during our highly intense game of Mafia. Yes, we played Mafia at a 21st birthday party. I think we should make it the official sport of NQT. And, just in case it's not sad enough, we'll make a team and participate in tournaments. We'll see who's laughing when we bring in the glory and the cash.

Speeches were up next. Although I royally screwed up Yvonne's part by interjecting at completely the wrong time, I saved it so well that it sounded like it was planned. Or it did to me anyway. I was treated like a bit of a celebrity afterwards, so it must've been alright. Hopefully videos up soon.

A good gig. A tad expensive, but not because of the person hosting. Hope you enjoy your present/s, Davy. And Happy 21st again.

Almost directly as a result of this, my good friend started having relationship/parent problems. I'm not going to go into it, because it's too complicated, and I don't want to publicise it everywhere. I just spent two hours with her by the lake on Monday. Half of it involved crying, and another friend being there, and the other half of it involved just me being there, and no crying. Funny how those two things positively correlate. Jeopardised my planned accounting midsem cram session, but hey, it's only 10%, and I probably wouldn't have gotten much done anyway. And my friends are more important than 10%. At least in times of crisis. I've already told her, but I'll reiterate it here again, and for everybody that feels that they are a close friend of mine: you can call me whenever if you just need to talk. I'm more than happy to do it. Talking is therapeutic.

Ironic how I spent two hours trying to alleviate somebody's relationship problems, but I have no clue what I'm doing with my own. Or lack thereof. Irony again. Hate it.

Yeah. Accounting midsem. Unmitigated disaster. Didn't expect to do that well, but that test was highly passable. If I'd actually studied. Procrastinated too much. Will start working now.

Word of the Day: Expensive

KPMGizzle

So yeah, I had Summer Vacation job interviews at KPMG today. Very enlightening experience. Surprisingly, turned out to be one of the best days I've had in a long, long time.

The day did not get off to a fantastic start, actually. Got up an hour later than I would've liked. I wanted to get up at 6, ended up getting up at 7, which was a miracle in itself, because I somehow innately realised that I was late. So I hurriedly got suited up, and dashed to the train station. In my car. If you can dash in a car.

On the train, I listened to Wonderwall, as is customary where I come from. Well, not really. But I like to think it is, and that it's not just some weird superstitious ritual that I go through before doing anything of even the most mild importance. But somehow, I doubt that people in Footscray listen to Wonderwall on their iPods before job interviews and exams.

This next part is just what happened at KPMG. You can skip it. Where you can start reading from again will be bolded too. It's fairly tedious, but I thought that I'd include it anyway.

Got there without too much fuss. Hung around and made awkward conversation with other candidates. The building was very nice. After that, went upstairs, chilled with employees of KPMG. There were drinks, which I didn't drink. In hindsight, this turned out to be a wise decision, due to what was to follow.

So first up, 45 minute presentation about themselves. After that, had an interview with a manager. It could've done better, and talked about more, but that's always the case. After that, break. Nothing to do, so drank a Coke Zero.

After that, another interview. This one was a bit more critical, but I think I went alright. I hope. After that, another break, another drink. This time a San Pelligrino.

After the drink, off I went to the written exercise. This was the one I was most disappointed with. I'm usually good at writing stuff. And I feel that the time given to me was ample. I just spent a bit too much time thinking every little thing through. Oh well. It was supposed to be fairly hard, and not very many people finished.

After that, another break, another drink. I think I had a Coke proper this time. Wandered over to yet another ability test. This was actually a fair bit easier than the online one. Just like the first interview, I finished way earlier than everyone else, which makes me worry that I missed something. Then we had a mini-lunch. It was a mini-lunch because I made it so. Didn't seem proper to eat a lot in those circumstances. And I drank another Coke.

You can start reading from now.

As soon as the opportunity arose, I scrammed from the building. Right on cue, Linda dawgz messages me for lunchez. Man, was I glad to get that message. I so needed a pick-me-up after that gig with quite a few obnoxious and in-your-face people. So, like the cool cat I am, I waited for her under the clock at MC. For about fifteen minutes. Couldn't contact her because she was shopping in the underground, and because her reception with Virgin is so awesome, she couldn't receive my calls. So I went to the toilet. I actually went to the toilet five times more than I usually do in a day today, mostly owing to the drinks that I had. If you think that's too much detail, too bad. Deal with it. Don't read it.

After I finally found her (she's a really hard person to find, and an even harder person to sneak up on. Amazing peripheral vision), we went to Vic Market for lunchez. I was amazed that she could talk, as she had just had her wisdom teeth removed. Amazing. Got lost on the way there, which seems to be a habit of ours. No wonder we got lost in Sydney. We can't even find our way around Melbourne. So we got to Vic Market eventually, and had barak (barack? barac? mince in pastry? arabic? dunno) and yet another drink. Went to a few stores, including a pet store (?). Kipped on home after that. Was a great, great afternoon. Laughed a lot more than I have in a while. I've had many good conversation days this week, this one inclusive.

After I got home, went straight to Knox with family. That was great. Had a Macca's dinner, and yet another drink. Also, we bought a new camera which actually takes photos with very minimal lag time. Amazing.

A big shout out to Imesha and Davy for messaging me before and after the gig. Good effort waking up that early, and an even greater effort to remember me. And thanks goes out to all my other friends who wished me luck. James Cheng, Orrin, Banh, Yvonne, Meng. If I've left out anybody, my excuse is that I only remember people that have said it within the last two days. If I have left you out even then, sincere apologies. Anyway, thanks guys. I probably place too much emphasis on people wishing me luck, but to me, it means a lot. It shows that people care.

Wonderwall may or may not have gotten me the job. But it did give me quite an unexpectedly fantastic day. I'm going to have another drink now.

Word of the Day: Drink

Also an Arsenal fan

Good to know that at least one of the teams I support is looking a good bet for the title. Arsenal are now top of the Premier League for the first time since probably the first game of the season. Sounds like another typical score-more-than-we-concede type performance, but nobody's complaining. Well, nobody except the fans of the other 19 teams. Good work boys.

Anyway, I'd like to reflect upon something. Yes, another random though occurred to me, when I'd be much better of studying or something.

Jealousy. Yes, I do feel it sometimes, although I am quite good at covering it up. Or I think so anyway. It's a very irrational and all-consuming feeling most of the time, and I feel quite ashamed of being jealous almost directly after feeling it. Most of the time I can't even pinpoint a root cause.

Anyway, that not-very-important thought aside, things are starting to look on the up again. Less of my friends are peeved at me now, as we have resolved our perceived issues. I'm not tooooo far behind my studies, some of the Accounting firms actually like me, and I'm going out to lunch with the James this arvo, plus some randoms. Hopefully they're pretty, funny, nice and generally awesome. Yep, sometimes I can be way too optimistic. It's sickening.

Word of the Day: Jealous

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

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

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

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