Almost floating.

After passing FIN, I feel like a massive weight has been lifted off my shoulders. There's no nagging feeling of anxiety in the back of my mind, no planning of doomsday hypotheticals, less random nights of sleeplessness, reduced bouts of random melancholy, and confidence slightly boosted. 

Yes, it was that serious. I was almost certain I failed. Always seems stupid once you've passed. 

To celebrate, I chanced upon a bar called 1806 - recommended by Liz. Evelyn was nice enough to join me for a celebratory drink. Highly recommend the 'Blue Blazer' cocktail. It looked freaking amazing. Just this blue comet falling out of the sky, trailing a blaze of fire behind it. Alien in its beauty, slightly terrifying to behold, and majestic in its countenance. 

No, I don't know what it tastes like. I'm sure it's good though. According to the bartender, it tastes 'nice'. 

Case closed. 

Afterwards, the grads and I attended my birthday dinner thing. Good times. 

And now I'm back into studying for Tax. 

Sighface. 

Word of the Day: Countenance 

Surprise Song Sunday: Charlie Brown - Coldplay

Great moment when this song was played on Tuesday night. Despite being in a cripple seat, by myself, in the cold, and initially feeling a little down in the dumps, the gig was awesome, with the centrepiece being this amazing song. A contradiction of emotions, fitting when I consider how Coldplay songs generally make me feel. A truly magical moment.

Word of the Day: Coldplay

THESES!

I somehow managed to hand in my thesis on time, and not be a loser. That is to say, I handed it in on Monday.

What a relief, more than anything. I'm just glad I'm done with it, and I somehow managed to get it down to a respectable word count of 19, 032.

So, a question that I naturally get asked by people is: what are you doing now that you have so much free time.

Well, on the night after handing the aforementioned document in, I went drinking with white people, being my Honours friends. It's not something I do very often, but it's fun in small doses. The funnest part is watching how people behave when they've had a bit to drink.

The not so fun part is having to contend with creepers that are out at 2 a.m. on a Monday night.

Next morning, after having slept about 3 and a half hours, we watched Cool Runnings at my friend Nonie's house (as you do). We then left for Brighton Beach, which was conveniently located a stone's throw away from Nonie's house.

Once there, we tanned, and Anna and I started ruminating about the future, life, the Holocaust, and humanity. (Yeah, Arts kids fo real, man.)

A good night, and an excellent morning. I've grown quite fond of a few of these Honours types, and I hope I keep in touch with them.

Afterwards, on the way home, I rear-ended a car. He ended up with a few scratches, while I was left with a towbar-shaped hole in my front.

I have no idea how it happened. I must've taken my eyes off the road at the vital moment, and he braked suddenly or something. It was pretty much at snail's pace.

Amazingly, he decided he didn't want to claim insurance for it, despite his initial rage. So I guess I'll just live with the towbar-shaped hole in the front of my car.

Oh, during all this time, my mum got sick, and the neighbour managed to run their car through our fence because they forgot to put the handbrake on.

Yesterday, my grandmother got hospitalised, so I've been in and out at couple of times visiting her, and picking up a little bit of the slack that mum leaves when she visits her.

And next week, it's my turn. My knee is undergoing surgery, which puts me out of action for the Coldplay gig and the annual roadtrip with my mates. Both frustrating. Extremely so, in the case of Coldplay. I hope I get a couple of visitors when I'm maimed. 9th of November. Mark it in your diaries, start visiting me from that date onwards. Please.

Today, I got a haircut, went to uni, ran into Meng, and gave my supervisor a bottle of the red wine in gratitude. Not a bad bottle either. For some reason, we always get into this philosophical discussions when we sit down together. Top supervisor, that Natalie Doyle.

So yeah. Despite being all done with uni, I've been fairly flat out doing this and that. Some of it good, some not so much.

Tomorrow, I'm off to buy stuff. Wish me luck.

Word of the Day: Theses

 

Surprise Song Sunday: Coming Home - John Legend

It feels like I've been everywhere,

But someday I'll be coming home.

In case you didn't know, I'm back! 

More on that later.

Word of the Day: Home

Who's minding the gap now?!

And so another weekend of football passes, and Arsenal find themselves now three points ahead of Spurs in third place. And to think, a few weeks ago, at the halfway mark in the match against Spurs, they were 13 points ahead.

I don't remember us winning a game this easily since Wigan last year. Or maybe it was West Brom. Someone starting with W, and not wearing orange. Good times.

Weather's starting to get a bit cold now. You know, just in case you hadn't noticed or something. So much so that I almost contracted a cold yesterday.

Apart from that, not much going on in my own life except for this thesis stuff sort of maybe starting to take shape. I shall continue to live vicariously through Arsenal for the time being.

Word of the Day: Ahead

What a win/loss

What a game today, and what a win.

Well, a loss really, in the grand scheme of things, but I'll take it as a win anyway, seeing as I'm such a positive person and all.

I had a funny feeling about this game yesterday. Funny, in that I had a feeling that Arsenal could actually have a crack at overturning the 4-0 deficit from the first leg.

We almost got there. 3-0 up, and

If it wasn't for this save:

who knows, we might even have made it into the next stage. No blame attached to Captain van Persie though. After all he's done this season, he couldn't be expected to never stuff up. But still, it was a little heartbreaking. 

The word that I saw bouncing around the most in the Twittersphere today when people were describing Arsenal was: 'Proud'. 

And proud is what the team should be, and proud is what I am. The team should be commended for having a real go at a very decent Milan team.

Onwards and upwards Gunners!

Word of the Day: Proud

New Years Eve 2011

New Years Eve, in case you hadn't noticed, and, I guess a recap of the year is in order.

I can't even be bothered going through everything that's happened this year, both on a personal level and more widely. All the disasters, the economy, job hunting, uni, exams, friends, jettisoning of friends, the passing of Steve Jobs, more music released from my favourite artists for me to enjoy, the departure of Fabregas, Sarah's outrageous ATAR score, and many, many, many other things besides, all added up to a year that had its moments, and had its bad moments. And, of course, it wouldn't be a normal year without Arsenal going another season trophyless.

It just occurred to me that this year, my girl problems seemed to have reduced drastically. I think it's mainly to do with the fact that the problems seem to resolve themselves, in that the girls I get interested in are usually taken, and the case is closed quicker than you can say 'sup', and the other ones are just me being gutless. The problems still exist, but I had other things that annoyed me more.

It's been a pretty good year. I mean, I don't think there's ever been a year for me which has been truly horrible. Obviously, it could have been a lot better, but isn't that always the case, to varying degrees?

A big part of this year has been photography. Thanks to my lovely friends gifting me a DSLR for my birthday, I've been able to go on photo rampages of fairly high quality. It's something that I'd missed, because photography with the old SLR was positively correlated to the price of developing photos. In human speak, film and developing photos got really expensive and inconvenient, and, as a result, I stopped using the camera that used film. I need to spend some money on some photography equipment, but that's another story for another time.

It's been a good release at times when I needed a break, or just to get away from things that were bugging me. Just a good opportunity to go and explore a little bit, look at things a bit differently, and it reminds me, whenever I hop behind the lens, that despite all the insignificant trials and tribulations that I have, and all the sadness and madness in the world, that there is so much beauty and happiness in the world, if only I stop to observe. And sometimes actively seek.

Finally, a shout out to my friends and family. My friends, for helping me with so many different things throughout the year. I've jettisoned a number of now ex-friends who were just terrible human beings, and some not so much jettisoned as distanced because they annoy me. Whatever. The thing that I am really thankful for is that I've gotten to be much better friends with friends that actually enjoy my company, and vice versa. Some (actually, most) of you, I've spent less time with than I would have liked to, but that's kind of how the cookie crumbles. You're all wonderful people. You know who you are. And if you don't, or you're uncertain, you're probably not one of them. Or you can just ask me to make sure.

Finally finally, my family. They've been there through my failures, and my semi-successes, and are always there, even when nobody else is. When I've expected them to be disappointed, they've been nothing but supportive. Of course, like with my friends, there are moments when we clash, but they're few and far between, and often quickly forgotten. I'm pretty glad that Sarah got the 99.85. Made everyone really happy, mostly because it was so unexpected, but also because it was so outrageously good, and kind of balances out my academic mediocrity. More on that in another post, I think.

So, friends, and family, I hope you have an even more fun, fabulous, fantastic, and fruitful year than the one that's just passed, and I hope to share many more happy moments, and be able to help you through times of trouble (hope there's not too many of those) in 2012.

See you soon.

Word of the Day: 2011    

Sometimes...

...I wish I didn't suck so much at life.

Despite that, I'm not actually feeling all that down about anything really.

It's been a pretty good week, all in all. Been having good times, spending too much money, moving firewood, so on and so forth.

But yeah, it's just always something at the back of my mind, which I think I've canvassed enough here. It's just really annoying. So much so, that sometimes I lose concentration at inopportune moments, such as when I'm driving, and end up doing something stupid like going over a roundabout instead of around. At least it wasn't a cat or something. That'd be really bad.

Then, after I do that something stupid, I berate myself, and tell myself to concentrate. Don't know why I've started doing that. It's just plain weird.

It always gets kind of like this during holidays for me. I think it's mostly to do with having lots of free time to think about random things that make me somewhat unhappy.

To finish on a random note, I need more business shirts. Actually, just shirts in general. But I am too poor/frugal to pay a lot for them.

In sum, woe is me.

Word of the Day: Frugal

Hmm

For some reason, I'm feeling a bit unsettled again.

Not unsettled as in I want to randomly uproot myself and relocate somewhere, just more not very happy with many things.

I don't know what it is exactly. I think it's a combination of things. All of which are too trivial to mention separately, but each of which kind of make me a little bit upset/melancholy/unhappy/blue, and all add up to one little pile of bleurgh. Friends, family, girls (or lack thereof), uni (even though it's not uni season), etc. Same old, same old. And yet, isn't it funny how it's always the same old problems that bug us? Or, at least it is with me.

There have, of course, been bright spots. It's just when I'm not within one of these bright spots, I sort of feel a bit blueish. Kind of like a pale blue. Or a bluey purple.

I also just realised that a month and a bit of holidays is not really all that much. It just sort of goes. Like a Ferrari. Or a G6.

Word of the Day: Melancholy

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

Many happy meetings

When I got home, I realised today was a good day, despite me still being a dud in many aspects of life.

I realised that the reason for it being good was that I ran into about a million and one people that I actually liked today. For the first time in a while, I ran into people that I actually wanted to talk to, and not people that I would rather avoid at all costs.

Upon arriving at uni, I ran into Irene on my way to class. After that, I went to aforementioned class, and felt like a dud all over again.

Then, on my way to my next class, while waiting for Yun, I ran into everyone's favourite white man, Orrin. Or, at least, my favourite white man. We had a good old chat about nothing in particular, and went our separate ways.

After our next lecture, I ran into none other than Ken, he of Vietnamese origin. We had a good old moan about uni, and away he went.

Then I ran into Davy. Funnily enough, Yun and I were discussing him about two minutes before, and how she couldn't get through to his mobile.

Then, I ran into Elene and Irene (again!).

Good times all around.

Now the bad.

I think I have a slight cold. Worst time to get it. And to make it worse (not that they're related or anything. At least, I don't think they are), I split off a bit of my fingernail from my finger when I was all gung-ho and opening a cardboard wrapping this morning. So now it hurts like hell when I try to type, so I'm typing like a guy who only has the use of nine fingers. Timing could've been worse. That's not to say I wanted it to happen, but it's not the worst time for it to happen. Should be healed by tomorrow, so don't worry too much. I know you're worried.

So, Osama bin Laden. My views. Yay.

Personally, I don't really feel anything massive at the news. I mean, I've always subscribed to the view that one man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter. American troops kill people, he kills people.

I know, I know, people are going to say, 'You'd feel differently if he'd attacked someone close to you.' And yeah, I know I would. But I'd also contend that you'd feel pretty bad too if an American soldier attacked someone close to you.

I understand why people would be happy that he's dead. Especially people that have been affected. I'm not demeaning the suffering that they've gone through by any means. But I think it's also good to remember that in the process of invading other nations, the USA has also killed a lot of fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters and friends. Many of them just as innocent as those that suffered in the terrorist attacks perpetrated by bin Laden.

I don't admire the man, but I do respect the fact that he turned away from a life of exorbitantly comfortable living, for an ideology. For something that he believed in. While I know that the vast majority of what he did was utterly reprehensible, I respect that one part of his character. Let me make it clear that I don't love the guy, or what he did, but I just think that the act of ditching billions of dollars for ideology is quite a feat.

Just so that I don't get abused, verbally or otherwise, let me make it quite clear once again: I have no love for the guy. I'm just not in the "Woooo, yeah, he's dead" camp.

Anyway, that's all. I don't think it changes much in the grand scheme of things, but it's good in the sense that it provides some sense of closure for the victims of his attacks.

Back to uni stuff discussion. It's still pretty hectic, and looks like being so for the foreseeable future.

Oh, and I'm getting panic attacks from doing uni work. And my finger hurts from all that typing.

Word of the Day: Osama

I think I don't watch enough movies

So I saw Tangled yesterday.

It is one of the better films that I have seen in the past few years. Again, it has that Disney ability to transport you into the world that it's set it, and it makes you feel something.

Although it does employ a lot of deus ex machina, and sometimes didn't make plausible sense, I felt as thought it didn't matter. Anyway, that's what all Disney films do.

Speaking of which, there were songs. Actual songs! I know, right?

I read somewhere online that it wasn't a very good movie for the 50th Disney feature film thing. I disagree. I thought, while it could've been better, it was very suitable. It was kind of an homage to all the old Disney films. The structure was similar and the songs kind of all lifted variously from these films. As like the old ones, the animation was superb.

Having said all that, the songs could've been better. They weren't particularly memorable, but they were pretty good nonetheless.

Definitely worth the money, and it actually looked alright in 3D. We didn't have an option, because we decided to visit the new Forest Hill cinema. Turns out not much has changed apart from external appearance - Knox had about fifty millions sessions of 2D, while Forest Hill had zero.

I'm in half a mind to see it once more. We'll see how it pans out.



Word of the Day: Tangled

Most excellent

The past two days (this one not inclusive) have been some of the best that I've had these holidays.

Well, it was more Thursday that was the great day. Went up Mount Dandenong with some homedogs that are close to my heart (awwwww). Once we got settled down for brunch and started, I laughed harder than I had for a long, long time. No, I'm not crazy. I didn't start laughing spontaneously. It was mainly to do with Rui being a clown.

So after eating, and laughing at Rui eating his scone like a sandwich (amongst other things) and roaming around the mountain like Asian tourists, we went to Cold Rock for dessert. I promptly got lost trying to get Kanji home. It eventually all worked out. The day had already seemed massively awesome up until that point.

Good times. It was like a week's worth of goodness, gloriously crammed into one day, spent with some of my favourite people.

And there will be more to come. Because yesterday, I sorted out the venue for my 21st. And I am so relieved just to be able to get that out of the way.

Hopefully I'll be able to organise some more fun times for next week.

Oh, also, Sarah's coming back from her massive holiday in France. All in all, good stuff.

I'll leave you with this song that I deliberately chanced on today. It fills me with a strong feeling of vengeance and bitterness. But it's such a good little song.

Tell everybody that you know
That I don't love you no more

Currently listening to: I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For by U2
Word of the Day: roaming

Teardrops on My Qatar

For some reason, Qatar has always sounded like 'guitar' to me. I'm sure it's not just me. It's just no-one else is brave enough to admit to thinking such stupid thoughts.

So yeah. About that Qatar.

Ridiculous. I wouldn't have been that peeved if some other more worthy nation got it. USA or something. Even Japan or Korea.

Apart from revenue and more convenient broadcasting times, I fail to see how Qatar has any advantage over Australia whatsoever. This is assuming that they will actually be able to successfully host the World Cup at all.

Which brings me to my next point. All the other nations, or at least the ones that I'm aware of, have hosted major sporting events. They already have facilities. They also don't have scorching heat, or lack of people and space. For revenue and broadcasting times to have an iota of relevance, the World Cup actually needs to function as an event.

To be honest, this whole voting process stinks. Who are these people, and who are they to decide where it's going to go? The votes are made blatantly without the interests of football as a whole. Even Australia, a nation who commentators have said are unable to be as dirty as other nations, bought pearl necklaces and other such things for officials' partners.

You've got a guy like Beckenbauer who, while he is a great guy, I believe is not exactly qualified to vote on things like these. It's not just him, but he's the most prominent voting member, apart from Sepp "female football players should wear more revealing kits" Blatter.

The problem is the whole process is open to corruption. You've got essentially random voting delegates, who are clearly not voting for the best interests of football, and a nation with almost limitless amounts of money and no defining advantage over the other nations, winning the right to host a World Cup. A little bit suspect, if you ask me.

Also, in English, the word 'Qatar' actually shouldn't exist. Lack of a 'u' and all that. I think that's reason enough to give it to someone else. It's still not too late.

More footballing stuff, to cap off what has been an unbelievable few days. To recap, I passed all my exams, went to the U2/Jay-Z gig, and my grandfather brought me back a brand new Arsenal jersey from Hong Kong. Arsenal being top of the league just seals it. What an amazing turnaround. Who would've predicted it, when we were millions of points behind Chelsea at one stage? Marvelous stuff, football. And Nasri is truly amazing. He reminds me of a ballet dancer. Except more masculine. Watch him here:

I love how he's making a habit of scoring goals from ridiculous angles. Or trying to score from ridiculous angles. I think it was against Sp*rs, where he tried it, but it got cleared off the line. But yes. He's becoming great.

The only downer is a slightly scratched my car yesterday while parking to have lunch with Victor and Meng in Glen Waverley. I still have no idea how it happened. I thought there was acres of space between the pole and my car, but apparently there wasn't, and I heard a sickening 'scraaaaaaaape'. But otherwise, the past few days have been some of the happiest few days in a row I have ever had. Thank-you to all who have been there, not only during these past few days, but the days before that, and before them as well, when I was struggling big time. Cheers.

Word of the Day: Qatar

I'm so happy to see U2 man!

I wish I'd seen someone at the concert last night that I hadn't see for a long time just so I could say that to them. Actually, I could've even said it to Orrin. But it's a moot point. I don't think I'd thought of it at the time.

That major disappointment aside, it was a fantastic gig. Two world-class acts, for fifty bucks. Value for money right there.

What gig, you may be asking? The U2 gig of course. The one opened the gates at 5:30, but didn't start until 7:30.

Jay-Z was the opening act. Jay-Z as the opening act I think speaks volumes by itself. Here's a clip:

In case my appreciation for Jay-Z has not been sufficiently communicated, I'll say it now: I have great appreciation for Jay-Z. He is amazing as a live performer as well. I reckon some of his songs sound better live.

Thankfully, no-one called him Jay Zed.

He rapped for about an hour, and the U2 decide to appear at 9:00.

U2 songs definitely, definitely sound better live. Much, much better. A lot of their songs, I listened to before going to the gig, and they sounded quite ordinary. But when it's all amped up, and loud, they're amazing. Also, the mass singing thing made me miss mass singing in high school, funnily enough. They were also amazing. I have a newfound appreciation for musicians. Or at least, this type of musician. Not only do they

have amazing musical ability, and write awesome songs, but they are able to take it up to the next level when performing. And to keep that energy up for however many concerts they do...spectacular.

All in all, a great way to celebrate passing exams. Australia not getting the World Cup marred an otherwise near-flawless day. I mean, I even bought a new pair of shoes. Here's another clip, by the way:

And a photo:

A story about this photo. Yes, I take photography far too seriously. But still, it irked me.

Anyway, the story. This awesome photo was the only good photo I took with the reject camera. What I did was, I put it on flash, which automatically reduces the exposure, because it tricks the camera into thinking there's now enough light, as opposed to before, where it thinks there is not enough light. Anyway, on the camera, it didn't look like it made that much difference, so I stopped doing it. And on the computer, it turned out to be one of the best photos I've ever taken. I really hate regretting things.

More about the World Cup bid fail tomorrow.

Word of the Day: Flawless.

Like a G6

I'm so stoked right now. It has been an amazing day. Australia winning the World Cup bid tonight/tomorrow morning would just absolutely make it.

I'm so stoked that I'm hoping this isn't a dream. We'll list things according to importance.

First up, I passed everything. I'm so unbelievably happy, mostly due to the fact that I thought I failed Accounting again for sure. But anyway, I passed, and I think I'm back on track. And I didn't have to disappoint my parents yet again. A big shout out to Eugene, who was there for me when the going got tough, more than happy to help me even though he must've been snowed under in study himself. A friend in need is a friend indeed. And Andrew does not forgot acts of kindness directed to him. He also speaks about himself in third person frequently.

Second. I had lunch with Irene, who I haven't seen in absolutely AGES. well, for like, a month. Which is a long time. Oh, and two friends-of a friend-of a friend Parisians were at the lunch too. Good times all around.

Best part was the train trip back. I miss train trips with friends. That was the best part of my day back in high school. Train trips after school with friends.

Anyway, we get off the train, head towards my car, and it starts absolutely bucketing down. This, while fun for a while, became not very fun quite quickly.

A quick recap of the weather. Rainy in the morning, eased up when I left the house, was scorchingly sunny when we got to the city and had lunch, became cloudy on the way back home, and started bucketing down while we were walking to the car. Which is where my story was.

I was absolutely drenched. I think the last time I was that drenched from rain was about two years ago, walking home from the tram stop for 20 minutes. I looked like I had swum to my car in my clothes. Irene, having good fortune as always, had to foresight to be wearing a big jacket.. The rain made her hair look amazing, whereas it made me look like a floundering...something. And she had the nerve to complain that she was soaked.

Anyway, the rain went nuts on the way to her house. Thankfully, it eased up when we got there, so I didn't have to take up space in her house and cause a disturbance sheltering from the rain. Would've been an interesting experience though. I've never been in there before.

I got home, dried myself off, and the sun came out about an hour later.

Third thing, Sarah finally called home from Paris. I got frowned upon (verbally) by the French dude on the other end of the line earlier in the day when I tried my French on him, so much so he decided to speak English to me, just so that I'd know that he'd identified me as phony phoreigner. Well done, Frenchman. But yeah, kind of thankful that I didn't have to go through that who rigmarole again.

And hopefully, a fourth thing, in a few hours, Australia getting the World Cup. That would be awesome on so many levels. As if give it to Qatar. Surely it's time Australia got a lucky break. And Arsenal won twice this week. Surely that's a sign of double the level of good luck.

Oh, and U2/Jay-Z concert tomorrow. Life is so good right now.

A song to sort of capture my mood at the moment (I've used Supersonic by Oasis too many times).

Word of the Day: Stoke

Nine out of ten

Wow. I just had a pretty good day today. Amazing, right?

It is when you're me.

Anyway. I scored a job at a family friend's accounting practice. Although she'll be paying me practically peanuts, I don't really care. I could pay her to give me the job and I'd still take it.

That happened at the start of the day.

In the afternoon, I found out that I got into the Leader's Program. Although I'm still not too sure what that entails, the fact that it was (apparently) hard to get into makes me somewhat happy.

Also this morning, Arsenal thrashed whoever they were playing in the Champions League AND Eduardo scored against his old club. Can't ask for much more of a perfect game than that.

Here's to more good happenings tomorrow.

Word of the Day: Peanuts

On the improve

Hard to believe, but this day was even better than yesterday.

It was particularly hard to believe this morning. The rain was pouring down, and I'd had a good day yesterday.

However, it turned out to be fully maddogz.

So the first lecture was boring enough. During French culture, talked to Monique a bit. Next lecture, sat next to my homedawg, Kanji, who I haven't seen in quite some time. Boring lecture, but at least Kanji was there. Then, during my European studies tute, I won an EU keyring for what effectively amounted to being awesome.

See, my other group members were harping on about something crazy that I had no idea about, so I just assumed that they were operating on a higher plane than me. So they'd all thought they'd found the thing which the tutor was after, and I just kept it quietly to myself, because I thought I was wrong. Turns out I was right, and I won my first something for a very long time. Yes, it's a silly little keyring, but I like silly little things. Also, one of my group members asked my name while I was leaving, which made me feel pretty close to spectacular. That hasn't happened to me in a long, long, long time.

If that all seems a bit confusing, it's because it is.

Then, in French culture (again), I managed to talk properly to Taylor Swift. Finally. Much less awkward than I had anticipated, owing to the fact that she wanted to talk to me, and that she was quite a nice person. Oh, and Irene of course. I like to think it was mostly me. Jaykay. It probably wasn't.

Or was it?!

And just to top it all off, the sun came out at the end of it. And my iPod played only happy songs on the way home.

Word of the Day: Improve

Many happy meetings.

Ok, feeling much better today. Much of what was troubling me has been resolved, or, in most cases, at least partially.

Last night, I had a chat with Linda over MSN, which I haven't done properly for a while.

This morning, had a fairly good hangout session with Irene, just shooting the breeze, which I haven't done for a long while.

Sunshine. I have not felt the comforting blanket of warmth it seems to produce since what seems like forever. If tomorrow is anything like today (weather-wise), I might just go to uni in a shirt.

And maybe some pants. Just maybe.

More specifically, jeans.

Amazing how most of my life revolves around shooting the breeze. Yet I'm not really one to make ridiculously long phonecalls, except to a few people. And that makes it all the more amazing that these breeze-shooting sessions make me very happy and content.

I was in such a good mood, I even managed to beast the International Studies presentation that our group was supposed to give with minimum fuss. Seriously. I'm so proud of how I did. I embellished it, made it funny, and improvised. All while I was reading off notes with incomplete sentences and points that didn't make sense. And I managed to make it sound like I knew what I was talking about. Amazing.

And on that note, I'd like to make a remark upon my group members. Three girls, three people doing Arts/Law, three Macbooks. Looks like my theory about the positive correlation between the amount of law students in the room and the amount of Macbooks in the room is holding true so far.

The sad thing is, the presentation/debate wasn't marked. And there aren't even any participation marks to be gained out of it.

A good day. Just in the nick of time too.

Word of the Day: Meetings

It's better than chocolate

Ah. Retail therapy. Nothing makes you happy/less mopey more quickly than retail therapy.

Yes, I bought my leather jacket. My wardrobe is close to complete.

Having my sister's French exchange student around - Marie is her name, saves me typing/copying and pasting 'my sister's French exchange student' - is also quite fun, as you're kind of always out and about. There's also a certain sense of satisfaction and zing that can be derived from seeing people find delight in things that we take for granted. Certainly takes the mind off things somewhat.

Maybe takes the mind off things a little too much. I also forgot to buy Lily's birthday present, despite my outing to Southbank today. And I had a whole plan hatched out about how to get it too. Sigh.

That was a little lie about retail therapy, by the way. There are many, many things that make/could make me much, much happier. With these things, there's no slight depression stage after the splurge involved. Depression brought on, after the purchase, by the realisation that you have to find a way to pay off this credit card debt.

Word of the Day: Southbank