On Top of the World

Today was very busy, but a lot better than yesterday. I was able to cross everything off my list, so now I just have to make sure I have everything packed, and do a bit of a cleanup around here before I go.

I am totally buggered, so I’m going to double check my luggage and then go to bed.

I might write a post before I head off tomorrow morning, but if not then I hope you all take care over the next month, and I’ll see you when I get back!

And now, it’s over to Fashmagslag!

Today sucked. So much driving around, trying to make sure that everything is done. I’ve got a list of things I have to do, but it seems to be getting longer rather than shorter.

Tomorrow is my last day to get everything sorted out and I’ll have to do it alone because M has to go to Canberra for work. So I’ll be getting up at 5am to take him to the airport, and then spending the rest of the day checking items off my list. I am soooo tired - I hope I’ll be able to sleep on the plane because if I can’t then I’m going to be absolutely rooted by the time I get to London.

I went to a PDA site today that I hadn’t been to for a while, because I wanted to see whether there are any new PDAs due for release soon, and they also have news about other new gadgets. Well, I wasn’t disappointed, because look what I found out about:

Excuse me for a second while I wipe the drool off my keyboard. The iPod nano has now moved to the top of my must-have list. Now I just have to decide whether I’d prefer a black one or a white one. I’m leaning towards black, but I don’t knooooow. What do you think?

*****

Groove’s coffee post inspired me to take some pictures of the coffee machine at my work. I was going through a phase where I was trying to cut down on my coffee intake, so I’d have one cup when I got to work, and another straight after lunch, and that was it, but that has sort of lapsed now. So I’m back to around 4 cups per day.

Anyway, here’s the beast (click photos for a larger image):

Making my standard “2 small cups”.

Frothing the milk.

A touch of chocolate, and voila! Cappuccino :d

I never used to leave the spoon in there, but there are a bunch of lazy people at work who don’t bother washing their spoons when they’ve finished with them, but instead leave them in the sink for someone else to clean up (when the dishwasher is right under the coffee machine). What often happens is that there are no clean spoons left because they’re all sitting in the sink. I figure why should I bother washing my spoon and putting it back in the drawer just so someone can use it and leave it in the sink, so I end up having to wash one of their spoons. Bugger them, I say. So now I just keep my spoon and clean it at the end of the day.

Absolutely nothing of note happened yesterday and Sunday - so I’ll give you a blow-by-blow account anyway. Heh. My mum came over on Sunday and we showed her how to use the security alarm for when she comes to look after our cats while we’re away, and we went into the city to try to find a camera for M and a video camera to take with us.

I was having a slight case of cold feet on Sunday night - I was sitting on the lounge watching TV, with Jack snuggled up next to me, and I started thinking about how much I was going to miss him and Frisky, and how much we were going to be doing while we were away, and how tired we were going to be. And I thought how much easier it would be to stay home.

I don’t actually not want to go - most of the time I’m really excited and I’ve been counting down the days for weeks (only 2 more working days to go until I’m on holiday!). But just thinking about stuff made me want to stay home. I think I’m over it at the moment though! Yippee holiday!

*****

I watched an interesting German movie on Sunday night called The Experiment. When I saw it in the TV guide I thought it was going to be a documentary but it was a movie. It was about a journalist who agrees to take part in a psychological experiment in a prison. Half of the participants are assigned to be prison guards, and the other half are prisoners, and the conductors of the experiment watch everything via camera, a la Big Brother, and just see how they behave in their roles.

The journalist, trying to get a good story for the paper he’s working for, provokes the guards, so it becomes a battle for control between the guards and prisoners, although the guards aren’t supposed to use violence in the experiment. Naturally, it wouldn’t be an interesting experiment (or movie) if everyone did what they were supposed to and then walked out the end with their payment, so the conductors tested the participants with stressful situations and naturally things went a bit pear-shaped. It was a good movie.

*****

Last night we went to buy a video camera. M got a really good deal thanks to his superior negotiating skills - he was quite pleased with himself.Now he just has to get a digital camera, which I’m probably going to pick up after work today. I don’t think my negotiating skills are as good as his, but I’ll try! I’ve always been too chicken to ask for discounts.

Fashmagslag here, just checking to see if this works. I’ll be guest posting for Jenny in a week!

Last night on the way home from work we bought a new scratching post for the cats. They took to it quite well! Of course I took some photos, so if you want to have a look at the album, click here. But if you can’t be bothered, here’s one of Jack showing his appreciation.

Oh, and there’s another theme in the sidebar if you want to have a look.

Tafe was a lot better last night than it was on Tuesday. I would even say that it was quite enjoyable. At the end we were practising signs for different things, and just generally learning some new vocabulary, which I enjoy, especially when they’re words I’ve wanted to use before but couldn’t because I didn’t know the sign.

Late Girl didn’t show up, which is maybe why it was better, but the girl I often give a lift home to, and who is often sick, turned up sick again last night. The only reason she came was to get some practice for the assessment we have on Tuesday, which is understandable from her point of view because she has missed a lot of classes, but I just couldn’t give her a lift home. I did feel a little bad about having to say no, but I don’t think it’s that unreasonable not to want to give a lift to someone with something contagious. I think if you’re really sick but you go to class anyway because of an assessment or whatever, you should organise your own way of getting home rather than hoping someone else will take you. Anyway, I did feel bad about saying no, but I think my reasons are justified.

I finally got my locks yesterday. I say ‘finally’ because I was told that they were sent on Monday, so I should have received it on Tuesday since they were being sent express, so when I still didn’t have them yesterday morning I was getting worried. Fortunately they turned up yesterday afternoon. It wasn’t without problem though - they weren’t sent express at all, which explains the delay, and the colours of the locks weren’t what I ordered. I sent a message to the guy explaining the colour problem, but I haven’t heard back yet. It’s a pain because there isn’t enough time to send them back and get them replaced before we go, so we’ll probably just have to use the ones we have. It’s annoying because if we’d wanted the colours we ended up with, we could have bought them at the shop, but the reason I went with the eBay person is because they had the finish that the stores didn’t have (and he was cheaper). Grrr.

And my final piece of news is that I heard on the radio today that a new Guinness World Record has been set for the loudest belch, which could be heard 30 metres away. Isn’t that a nice claim to fame?

Hoo-ha! I’m in, baby! And ready to rock. This is a test post from Steph, to make sure everything’s working as it should. Over and out.

Yes, it’s safe for you to come back - I’m over my stinking mood now!

Today was indeed a warm fuzzy day, with a temperature of 26°C - lovely! Unfortunately I spent most of it trying to sort out an SQL query. But it looked nice outside, and when I did leave it was still nice and warm.

It was pointed out to me (and I had noticed it myself) that the comments window was taking ages to load. I thought it may be browser-related, but I guess I’ll have to go back to the word validation thing for a while. I used to get comments from people saying they were having trouble commenting that way, too, so I really don’t know what to do - if all my test comments work, then I don’t know how to fix it So I’ll put the validation back in a little while, and if you have trouble leaving a comment, could you please send me an email and let me know? Bah, it’s a pain that we have to do this at all!

I got the batteries that I ordered for my camera from eBay, and I’m just charging one up now to see how it goes. I don’t have my locks yet though… I’m almost starting to get worried, but the worst case scenario is that I’ll end up buying some locally before I go, and get a refund for the eBay ones. Still, I was going to save more than $20, so I hope they’ll turn up soon.

We’re in the process of trying to eat all the food out of the fridge and freezer before we go, so we can turn it off while we’re gone. So tonight we had a healthy dinner of mini dim sims, party pies and party sausage rolls. Yum! I’m quite full now, but I may have some ice cream later. Purely in the interest of cleaning out the freezer, of course.

I’m feeling so narky tonight, all because of tafe. I don’t have one nice thing to say in this post, so if you came here looking for something warm and fuzzy to read, you’re better off going elsewhere. Sorry - maybe next time you’ll catch me on my warm fuzzy day.

You may remember the post where I mentioned being annoyed at people who turn up to school/work/whatever when they’re sick and end up passing whatever they’ve got onto those around them. Well I get to tafe today to find that one of the women (not the same one I mentioned in the previous post) turned up with tonsillitis. WHAT THE FUCK? She said, “Oh I wasn’t going to come tonight but I feel so bad about missing classes.”

This woman has a heart of pure gold, and I’ve never met anyone so genuinely caring and lovely as her, and I try so desperately to like her because of those very reasons, but again I say - WHAT THE FUCK? I told her to stay away from me, saying that if she gave me tonsillitis before I went away on holiday I would not be impressed. Fortunately she thought I was joking - although she did stay away! - but anyone with half a brain would have been able to detect the thinly-veiled anger, and total shock that she came to class, in my voice.

So that was the first thing.

The second thing was another girl in my class (who was perfectly healthy from what I could gather). She’s around 20 or so, doesn’t study during the day and doesn’t work, but always comes to class an hour to an hour and a half late (we start at 6pm). Goodness knows what she does during the day - people who work full time manage to get to class early, but obviously it’s too much for her to cope with.

Anyway, she’s an immature, thinks-anything’s-funny, look-at-me type person, who just spouts off crap as fact without knowing anything about what she’s saying. I think it’s just to get attention. One time I actually couldn’t help myself from laughing out loud at something she said, because it was just so ridiculous and false. I did manage to smother it a little, but it was just a totally involuntary reaction.

As you can tell, we’re not exactly friends, but we’re not enemies either. She probably knows I don’t like her, though, because I have the unfortunate character trait that if I don’t like someone, I find it very difficult to hide.

We usually have our break an hour and a half after class starts, and of course tonight she came just as we were all walking to the cafeteria. I was walking with someone, and Late Girl fell into step alongside me. She didn’t say hello or anything (which didn’t bother me), so the three of us were just walking along. Suddenly, Late Girl whacks my arm and says, “who’s that?”, pointing to a new girl ahead who joined our class tonight.

If it had just been the kind tap on the shoulder that you’d normally use to get someone’s attention I wouldn’t have minded, but it was of those flicks on my upper arm with the back of the fingers that actually quite stings. Given the fact that we’re not friends, I thought it was a pretty rude way of getting my attention (particularly since it hurt!), and I went from zero to totally ticked off in a split second, and before I knew it I said, “Do you always hit people when you want to talk to them, Late Girl?” When I said it I thought that it came out a little harshly, but it didn’t seem to bother her, just saying it was a ‘tap’, to which I replied that it had hurt, and demonstrated back on her (I couldn’t help myself). Anyway, I explained who the new person was, and later on Late Girl said, “In answer to your question, yes I do hit people when I want to talk to them.” I just said “So I gathered.”

I think she avoided me a bit for the rest of the class, but I don’t know. Ha, I’m such a friend-making machine. No doubt she’ll bitch about it later to her little buddy who wasn’t there tonight. Whatever.

That was the second thing.

The final thing was when I went to the carpark after class and found there was a car parked next to mine. No, ordinarily not something to be annoyed about. But you know when you’re sitting on a bus, and you’re the only one on it, and someone else gets on and out of all the seats on the bus, they take the one next to you? And you’re left to wonder why on earth they did that when every other seat, except one, was vacant.

I leave work at 5:30 to get to tafe, so when I get to the carpark, a lot of people are leaving for the day, so there are plenty of spaces. Whenever I park my car, I like to park it in a spot where there are no cars on either side of it (and preferably not in the near vicinity either), to reduce the chance of someone hitting my car with their door when they invariably fling it open without caring about someone else’s property. Especially when they drive a piece of crap that isn’t worth the paper their insurance policy is written on (if they actually have one).

So out of aaaallll the free spaces in the carpark, I come back to find a shitty Festiva parked way too close to my car. My car is difficult enough to get into anyway because it’s a two-door, sporty-type car and so the doors are quite long, needing more room than 4-door cars to get into and out of comfortably, so having to squeeze my svelte figure into it without touching their junk heap was not a pleasant experience. If I hadn’t been pissed off already because of occurrences earlier in the evening I proabably would have just grumbled to myself a little and gone on my way, but I was annoyed enough to contemplate leaving a note on their windscreen telling them to learn how to park. I refrained, and I’m glad I did because there was someone in a car nearish by that I saw when I was driving off but hadn’t noticed before.

So that was tafe today. I feel a bit better for having got all that off my chest. Actually no, I’m still fuming. But it is kind of therapeutic to write it all down. Warm fuzzy day tomorrow, here I come!