| Wednesday, March 29, 2006 |
| Temporary postponement of the fulfillment of Doug's tag |
Boo came online today while I was at work and said that she had run into Stefanos, who is both her local corner store guy and going out with a girl we were friends with at school
* Stefanos has been offering for ages to set Boo up with a "nice Greek boy" and she jokingly agreed to it today and then asked if he knew Deo, my sometimes occasional undefined boy. Being Hobart and them being the same age and Greek, of course he did, in fact they used to kick around together until a few years ago * Oh, and he'd been invited to Deo's birthday but had been at work so hadn't been there. Then he wanted to know how Boo knew him and when she mentioned that Deo and I were a sometimes occasional undefined thing he wanted to know whether I'd been at the party. When she said that yes, I had been, he sort of nodded and said "ah, I know who she is then" or some such * Yeah, turns out that the fuckwit perverts who'd watched Deo and I fooling around at his birthday - when it was NONE of their GODDAMN FUCKING BUSINESS, the pathetic losers - had also fucking FILMED IT and it's on one of the cretins' camera phone, able to be forwarded anywhere and watched by anyone * Imagine you're me. How are you feeling at this point in time? |
posted by Bug @ 10:41 pm  |
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| Monday, March 27, 2006 |
| Hobart waterfront that Sharlie fell in |
(photo from www.cdesign.com.au) |
| posted by Cecilia @ 4:07 pm |
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| Water immersion |
A little bit of water dunking has been occuring in my life over this weekend. Not directly to me, but to those around me. Last night I went to my friend's baptism. Actually, her second baptism. After being baptised a Catholic as a baby, she has recently joined the Christian City Church (called the CCC, which I think bears an unhealthy KKK connotation) and was baptised a born again christian yesterday. She was baptised in a total body water baptism, which involved her sitting into a deep, long, rectangular metal bathtub and being pulled backwards until she was totally under the water by two of the chuch people by each arm, after she accepted that 'God sent his son Jesus to die for our sins.' Then one of the women spoke for ages (well, it felt like ages to me, but was probably only about 7 minutes or so) about what a great person my friend is and what a difference her being baptised is going to make in her life.
I must admit I got a bit emotional and shed a few tears. I blame the fact that I'd had no sleep at all Saturday night or Sunday and was still revved up from the redbull I'd consumed during my night Out on Saturday. Plus I was proud of her for getting her life back together somewhat, and was hoping that what the lady with the microphone was saying was true, that her being baptised a 'born again' will make a big change for the better in her life. My friend has severe depression, and sometimes I just can't handle it. In the past year she has sent me messages saying that she's having a bad time and she wants to die, or rings me up and tells me she wants to die, or that she's locked herself in the toilet with the telephone so she doesn't 'hurt herself' (probably one of the worst moments of my life) and that her daughter would be better off without her. I have felt so helpless as there is absolutely nothing I can do to help (she refused to go to any of the help/support groups I found for her, after she went to one and found it full of 'crazy old people') and to make her feel better and stop her crying for days on end. She's been improved recently (no more suicidal messages, at least), to the point where she's got a job again, and a lot of that I attribute to her newfound religion (even if they do teach about how bad the catholic faith is during their 'bible study' classes, and I get sick to death of telling her that Catholics are Christians too) and her church 'family'.
So, off the topic of depression and born again Christians, and on to the nice enjoyable topic of a Saturday night out 'on the town'. It was one of my work girls birthdays, and she was having a joint 21st birthday party with one of her friends in the function room of a highly popular Hobart pub. After some enjoyable pre-party drinks at one of the girls houses, we cruised on down to the party, a mere 2 and a half hours after the official starting time. At about 10 pm, three of our other work friends arrived. This was Carey and Jim (dating) and Sharnie, who have just all moved in together. These three are known to indulge in a bit of recreational drug use, 'popping a few eees' on occasion. And after the entrance Jim made (he entered the room dancing and then stood dancing whereever he was - he literally couldn't keep still) and the strutting in of Sharnie (who becomes even more enamoured with herself and convinced of her sex appeal when under the influence) within 10 seconds of them entering all those who knew them were pretty sure they were on a high. Plus Sharnie was unable to operate her mobile phone, or even keep it in her hand. Oh, and she fell on us when she stood up. After only half an hour, Sharnie departed the party. Didn't think too much about it - everyone was wandering between the function room and the actual pub. About 45 minutes later Carey comes and asks us where she is. We didn't know, so she and Jim leave the party, I guess to find Sharnie. A couple of hours later, as the party was finishing and we were leaving the function room, Jim and Carey return. Sharnie had fallen into the river. Now, this is not a nice little blue river weaving its way about the pub. Hobart is a port city, and the 'party district', where the popular pubs and clubs are, is on the Wharf front. She'd fallen off the wharf (sheer concrete wall rising from the river with no easy way out if you happened to fall off the side) into the highly polluted and not exactly shallow river. In her inebriated state, potentially a death sentence. Carey said that Sharlie had been throwing up in the river and then fallen in (ew, she fell in her vomit!). Later, John told a different story, that Sharlie had been twirling round a pole then fallen in. I don't know which one is true. Luckily, she'd been fished out by some gallent young gentlemen. Rather than going home (which is about 10 minutes fast walk from the wharf) she'd gone back to John's house which is even further away (remember John, that horrible male specimen who dumped the sweetest girl in the world then told his current shag, who also worked with us, all about their sex life together?), to 'dry out'. As they've had a bit of chemistry simmering for ages, we kind of thought that they'd finally have a bit of a shag or whatever. Although given Sharlie's state, there was a bit of contention over whether or not Carey had 'done the right thing' as her best friend in allowing her to go to John's house. This was brought up by Carey herself, who had had second thoughts about John and Sharlie alone at John's house, with Sharlie presumably naked but for a towel. My personal view was the Sharlie has been flirting outrageously with John for about two years (even when he was dating the nicest girl in the world), and if she wanted to go back to his house, how the hell was Carey (off her head as well) supposed to stop her?
Anyway, the party is over, my work girls and I move on to a nightclub. Carey and Jim head off in another direction, possibly to John's house to get Sharlie. A couple of hours later, as we're heading up the stairs of the nightclub who should come shooting down them but Sharlie (still completely off her nut). Apparently she'd dried her clothes out in front of the heater at John's house (must be a bloody good heater seeing as she'd had a full body bath in the river), put them back on and headed out again. Carey was there too, and as her speech was now incoherent maybe a little bit more pill popping had occured in the interium.
While everyone else was pretty disgusted that Sharlie had been so out of it she'd fallen in the stinky and very polluted river, dried her clothes out and put them back on and then gone back Out, I was rather impressed. What dedication to partying that displays! Although, surely the smartest idea would have been to go back to her own house (located conveniently close to the wharf, like, 15 minutes walk if you were strolling along admiring the pretty streets), have a shower and put on fresh clothes and then go back out?
Anyway, all in all, must say Saturday was a grand night Out. I didn't return home until 4 am, which is amazing because whenever I've gone Out in the past few months (oh, about 3 times!) I've been incapable of staying out so long. My work girls and I were simply amazed at how many people are Out on Saturday nights! Don't these people have to work like we do?! |
| posted by Cecilia @ 3:10 pm |
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| Tuesday, March 21, 2006 |
| This made me giggle |
This is an email I received regarding the printer in our resource centre. It made me giggle quite a bit.
Printer is apparently hibernating/on strike/on holiday/dead as a
doornail (choose any) - I don't know when it will be fixed. Cheers, Anne. |
| posted by Cecilia @ 11:39 am |
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| Thursday, March 16, 2006 |
| Focused on higher things |
| Signs have appeared in the School of Maths and Physics building. These signs inform you of highly important things. The one I just read said "You are on Level 2. Level 3 is one level up." Such illuminating signs are on the stair-landings of all the levels, and by the lift as well. Now, if you are intelligent enough to have to attend lectures/classes in the Maths & Physics building, you would think you are intelligent enough to work out that if you are on level 2 you have to go up a flight of stairs to get to the third floor! Maybe the students are all so highly intelligent they don't bother wasting any of their thinking power on the little things in life, like working out how many flights of stairs you must go up to get to your desired level. |
| posted by Cecilia @ 3:06 pm |
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| Sunday, March 12, 2006 |
| No title can describe it |
Madre? If you happen to come across this? GO AWAY NOW!!! DO NOT READ! * So the new potential guy? The cute one from work? The one I was snogging a bit a few weeks back? Yeah, it was his birthday yesterday (actually it's not till the 16th but he had his party last night) and I was invited so Louise (my closest workie) and I went (after getting a bit lubricated first - turning up to a party's scary!) * (damn that's a lot of parentheses) * At first I didn't talk much to him but then we passed each other in the corridor and he pulled me into a stairwell and started kissing me and then we ended up outside (hidden from sight). I'm not going to be too descriptive cos I don't think you want that but while I didn't sleep with him, we were fooling around * After a while I looked down and realised that we were both covered in blood. There was a LOT of blood. I have NO idea why, although we did work out that it was his blood, not mine * We ran to an outside tap and washed a bit of it off but we had to sneak back inside and dash to the loos to clean ourselves up properly, which involved sneaking past the party. I went into the ladies' and washed my face and then he came in too (why could he not go to the mens'??) and then we heard the outer door open so we ducked into a cubicle and shut the door and tried to be really quiet. But being on a bit of a merry plateau, we ended up snogging again and then a bit more until we realised that we'd better go back to the party, since we'd been gone for a bit under an hour at this stage * As he walked out the door, I heard applause and cheering so mortified, I stayed in the loo for a couple of minutes, made sure I was clean (although my top had blood on it, goddamn, covered that up with my jacket) and then went back to the party too * And then his best friend, who also works with us, came up to me and said something asinine like "thanks for putting on a show for us" and when I asked him what he meant, he told me that there had been about six guys there who had snuck into the loos and took turns looking under the cubicle door. When I asked him how much he'd seen, he said "well your skirt was down and his pants were up so I didn't get to see much", the jerk * Beyond mortified now, I grabbed my bag and went to tell Lou that I was leaving, only to find her snogging the DJ, who also happened to be my boy's older brother. I asked another girl to say goodbye for me and went outside, all set to go home * But I was sitting downstairs having a smoke (I was STRESSED!) and I could hear the music and I didn't really WANT to go, I just couldn't bear to stay, if that makes sense. And then Lou sent me a message asking if I was ok and when I said no she came and gave me a huge hug and a kiss and told me that it'd be alright and took me back upstairs and the DJ brother let me sit in the booth with him for the rest of the night (he was even going to put on New Kids on the Block for me but he couldn't find it) until people left and I could show my face again * By the time we were kicked out at 5am, it just Lou, the brothers and I left. Lou and the brother started snogging outside so to give them some privacy, my boy and I went and sat in his brother's car and talked. Then we started kissing and then we moved on a bit (or a lot). I remember my boy putting his jacket around my shoulders cos I was cold and me lying down next to him (as much as you can in the backseat of a Lancer) and then it was 7am and we were woken up by Lou and the brother getting in the car * I got dropped home and passed out from exhaustion but only slept for about 2 hours (it was STICKY today, who can sleep when it's hot and muggy?) and when I woke up, I realised that the clothes I'd been wearing were really bloody, much more so than they'd been earlier in the night (or morning) * I put them in to soak and they'll probably be ok but I'm just so... why is it ME this sort of shit happens to? This is a guy I really like, who appears not to hate me, and it all seemed to be coming together and then... BLOOD! Not the sort of memory anyone would REALLY want for their 25th birthday, and not the sort of memory that anyone could really DISassociate from the person who kind of (I assume) caused it * Am I always going to be "the girl who accidentally and mysteriously made me bleed"? * And what the HELL kind of reply is it, when I message this morning to say "hope everything's all better, how scary was that, blah blah blah" and he replies "going to have nightmares from the blood memory. One to forget. Was good to catch up with the guys at soccer today for story-telling" * At first I was worried that it was the pervy cubicle-peekers who'd be saying shit about me at work, but it looks like the boy may be just as bad! And I have a gossipy work, sex lives are CONSTANTLY discussed * Oh god, when am I going to get something right? I'm so ashamed |
| posted by Bug @ 10:33 pm |
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| Monday, March 06, 2006 |
| Whaaaaaat?? |
THIS girl just won "Australia's Next Top Model". She's from my city, a capital city, but the second smallest in Australia. I think she looks vaguely terrifying! TELL me there's a chance she didn't REALLY deserve all that crap... * 
* ...skinny cow. I like my men and women upholstered. I really, really don't get it |
| posted by Bug @ 11:14 pm |
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| Sunday, March 05, 2006 |
| Ouch, my ovaries! |
So I was at EΣTIA today (the Greek festival that we have once a year here) and I was with my madre and my brother and we were watching everyone going mad and dancing, ouzo being splashed EVERYwhere, and I started to suffer ethnic envy. I love my family, they're weird and semi-alcoholic and perpetual drunken singers and they're fun, but your bog-standard Irish/English white Australian just doesn't have the same interesting background as a Greek or an Italian or a Pole or whatever. It would be SO great to come from a background with hundreds of years of tradition and culture and a strong identity, don't you think? * But my biggest pang of the day came when we were leaving and I ran into the new guy, the cute-but-arrogant-but-oh-so-cute guy who I've not really talked to in a fortnight (who, being a fulltime member of the Greek Club - which the street party today was held in front of - had been one of the organisers), and he was holding his toddler nephew's hand and carrying his toddler niece, having just gone on the jumping castle (well, inflatable donkey, really) with them * I swear on my love of all things fizzy and alcoholic, I've NEVER been a maternal sort, never had a desire for kids. I like them well enough, have lots of younger cousins who I love playing with and hanging out with, I've just never wanted kids of my own. But seeing him being so... SWEET with his nephew and niece (and especially carrying his tiny little niece around), I wanted his babies. I've been pretty good (well, ok-ish) about suppressing my crush but goddamn, that brought it back in full force * It was just so LOVELY! |
| posted by Bug @ 10:29 pm |
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| Wednesday, March 01, 2006 |
| In defense of Strathgordon |
I was bush for two days. Two very beautiful days of breathtaking scenery, huge craggy mountains and lots of pretty water. Every time I thought 'gosh this is boring' I'd just stop and look around at where I was working and think 'at least you're bored in a gorgeous place. You could be bored on a slope of mine tailings.' On my first day of field work I turned off the main highway (main highway as in there were about 6 cars on it in four hours. And no, this is not an exaggeration) down a dirt road to get to my first study site of the day, and what should be on the road before me but a very bold wallaby. So I decided to whip out the camera because such opportunities to photograph wallabies standing stock still in front of your ute don't happen every day. I took my photo, and then drove forward a few more metres, took another photo. I was seriously only about 15 metres away when this photo (look down below folks) was taken. I don't know why the wallaby is so small. So, here are some pictures.
This one is a pretty view from one of my sites
And here's a cool liverwort I found. I think it looks like worms.
I stopped at the Lake Pedder lookout (or as diehards like me like to call it 'Lake Pedder DAM lookout as that the eighth wonder of the world, the REAL Lake Pedder lives on beneath this fake one created by two dam walls and then flooding the valley, the real lake and quite a long way up the mountains) at 3 pm for a bit of lunch. Given that I'd seen hardly any cars driving past on the highway all day, I was anticipating a quiet bite to eat while looking at spectacular scenery (even if it is the fake Lake Pedder). This was not to be the case. I'd no sooner unwrapped my roll when a campervan pulls up, and an older man gets out, complete with socks pulled up to his knees and boat shoes. His wife stayed in the van. He has a bit of a look at the information boards telling of the fight to save the real Lake Pedder, and then the creation of the dam, then turns to me "Have you been here before?" he asks in a highly aggressive manner. "Yes, many times." I answer. "Really?" "Yes." I say, somewhat aggravated. I am driving a very new huge duel-cab ute with about four uni logos on it and wearing obviously hiking clothes. I have the look of a seasoned outdoor professional.
"Why would anyone stay at Strathgordon?" he bellows at me "There's NOT EVEN A SHOP!!!"
Now, Strathgordon is this little town just before the Lake Pedder Dam. It consists of a 'Lake Pedder Chalet' for tourists and hikers to stay in and that's about it. I was highly annoyed by this very rude tourist. I had not told him to visit Strathgordon, let alone try and do some shopping there.
"For hiking," I tell him. "And for those who want to come and look at the Lake Pedder." I didn't add anything about fake and real lake pedders. He was obviously irritated enough without listening to a 'damn Greenie' like me prattle on. I decide to carry on and defend poor little Strathgordon. After all, it was once a bustling town with hundreds of people. It deserves a little respect.
"Of course, Strathgordon was the base town for the hydro workers when they built the dam. There's no reason for anyone to live there now."
"WHAT DAM?" he yells, highly suspicious and belligerant.
"The dam we're looking at right now." I tell him, waving my arm at the huge expanse of water before us and feeling somewhat bewildered.
"Show me on the map," he orders me, moving over to the information boards where there's a map of the area and the dams. It's beyond my comprehension. There's a giant lake/dam before us, the result of the building of two concrete dam walls across valleys and he can't seem to see it. So I show him on the map, and also the location of the two actual dam walls, and move away.
Honestly, what did poor little Strathgordon ever do to him? It's not its fault that once the dams were built there was no reason for anyone to stay so they didn't, the town was pulled down and the bush grew over the sites of the houses. It's in the middle of nowhere, for heaven's sake!
Things have really hit the bottom of the barrel with Mia, my officemate. We now say 'morning' and leave it at that. I don't even try to make conversation anymore. I have no idea why it's so bad. Maybe she found this blog, worked out it's me (anyone in the department who stumbled over this could work out who I am in about three seconds) and read the bad things I've said about her. Like that she's unfriendly and doesn't shave her underarms. Not that not shaving is a bad thing - I respect that it's her choice and she's happy and accepting of her body the way it is. But today she smelled bad. Quite bad indeed. The office door was closed and when I walked it it was like 'PHOOOF!' with the smell hitting me. After ten minutes I'd gotten used to it and it wasn't so bad. Present, but bearable.
I was catching up on blogs today and I stumbled across this on Léonie's blog with a comment from Doug saying 'what would Bug and Cec say?"
From Léonie's blog: Other people who DO NOT UNDERSTAND (often Australians) always complain about 'tube faces': the sullen refusal to make eye contact or forge any interaction with strangers. Well, that is just how it works.
I simply HAD to respond to this. Léonie, don't you realise how ABSOLUTELY AMAZING it is to ride in the tube? It's SO MUCH FUN, and SIMPLY THRILLING. You Londoners have lost your wonder at the truly awesome thing you get to do each day (if that's how you get to work every day, that is). Perfectly understandable, given that you're now risking death every time you ride on the tube. But if you forget about the possibility of terrorists, and pretend that you've never ridden on the tube in your life before and have heard and read about it your entire life, I'm sure that you will get so excited that you can forget about tube faces and just want to grin like a loon at everyone. Like I may have, when I first rode on the tube. Well, may have, for the first WEEK I rode on the tube. Then it wears off, and it's tube faces all round. But then, I am the girl who was so happy she cried when she walked on Tower Bridge for the first time, so I may not be the best judge of how exciting the tube is. |
| posted by Cecilia @ 1:24 pm |
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