Do You Speak Ice Age?
“On Monday, researchers at the University of Reading in the United Kingdom announced the results of a new study that they claim traces hundreds of modern European and Asian languages back to an Ice Age-era “mother tongue.” The study, which will be published this month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, has identified nearly two dozen words that make repeated appearances across several language groups, previously thought to be unrelated, hinting at one common ancestor for human vocabulary.“
This is a wonderful article, and I actually can’t believe how excited I am about this!! Guess I do like linguistics!
Check out the full article here, copyright to the History Channel
*bloop*
- Bandit
The Terrifying Accuracy of the Stars
Not really an entry so much as a post about something that fascinates me. My wonderful lovely Swedish darling linked me to an astrology site that gave you a reading of – essentially – you. And I know astrology doesn’t hold much ground with people, but I’m open-minded to things like that. I don’t base my entire life on them but I find them to be very interesting and sometimes quite accurate.
Sometimes, scarily accurate, like my reading from this site. Feel free to not read any more if you dislike the whole concept, but… it’s freakishly cool. If you wanna get your own, just fill this form in, it doesn’t require much beyond your birthday, birth time if you know it and the timezone you were born in.
March 6 1990
12:00 PM Time Zone is BAT
Kiev, UKRAIN
Rising Sign is in 00 Degrees Cancer
Very sensitive by nature, you prefer to be in your own familiar surroundings. Cautious and conservative, you make changes in your life only very slowly, if at all. You do not open up easily to strangers. Friendships are made for life, however — once given, your trust is forever. Your mother, your home as a child and your early family life in general are very important to you. You are also very sentimental. When you feel self- confident, you are gentle, giving and protective of the needs of others. But when you feel insecure or threatened, you become overly sensitive to criticism, shy, withdrawn and moody. You have a strong need for security — in the sense that you are being loved, nourished and protected.
Sun is in 15 Degrees Pisces.
Extremely sensitive and emotional, you absorb the emotions of others (whether positive or negative) like a sponge. Emotionally vulnerable, you are easily upset and tend to cry readily. You are at your best when you can structure your environment in such a way that you are surrounded by positive, upbeat people. You are very helpful and understanding of the needs of others. Indeed, at times this can be a disadvantage, because you can be a sucker for anyone who needs help. Shy, dreamy, romantic in nature, you delight in retreating into your private fantasy world. Just be careful that you do not get lost in it! Trust your intuitions — you may be quite psychic.
Moon is in 14 Degrees Cancer.
For the most part, you are very strong and secure emotionally. You intuitively know what to do to make others feel comfortable, loved, accepted and needed. You naturally enjoy feeding and taking care of others. Be careful that your mothering does not turn into smothering. At times, you tend to feel that those to whom you are attached can never do anything without your assistance and support. Extremely sensitive by nature, it hurts you deeply whenever anyone criticizes you. You have an almost desperate need to be loved and wanted and needed by everyone with whom you come into contact, and you go out of your way to be accommodating to them.
Mercury is in 04 Degrees Pisces.
Your ideas and thought processes do not come to you in an orderly, logical fashion. Instead, you think with your feelings or with images produced by your rich and fertile imagination. A very subjective person, your dreams and fantasies are very important to you. You trust your intuitions and tend to reject ideas that are based solely on logic. Very impressionable, you are sensitive to the moods and emotional states of those with whom you come into contact.
Venus is in 01 Degrees Aquarius.
You are a friendly and outgoing individual, but close relationships are difficult for you to maintain due to your fear that they will cause you to lose your freedom. You attract friends and associates who are exciting, different and sometimes a bit odd. You are popular with others and enjoy working within a group toward group goals.
Mars is in 26 Degrees Capricorn.
Extremely ambitious, you are willing to work very hard to reach the goals you have set for yourself. Very practical, cautious and conservative, you demand tangible results for your efforts. You need to excel in whatever you do, and you have the required sense of responsibility, dedication and self-discipline to bring it about. Beware of your tendency to judge others only by their degree of status and prestige, or by how well they will be able to advance you in your climb to the top.
Jupiter is in 00 Degrees Cancer.
You must be emotionally secure in order to grow and develop. You are happiest when your family and community support and nourish you and boost your morale. Whether your childhood experiences of love and emotional dependability were positive or negative will set the tone for your emotional growth and stability as an adult. When you feel at ease with yourself, you are able to offer assistance to those who need a helping hand.
Saturn is in 22 Degrees Capricorn.
Very serious-minded and mature, you have the ability to take on responsibilities and to carry out important duties. You can also be trusted to be extremely practical and thrifty. A good organizer, you are the ideal one to be counted on to take a clearly defined project through to its logical conclusion. An achiever, you pride yourself on your ability to focus your attention totally on some worthy goal and then attain it.
Uranus is in 08 Degrees Capricorn.
You, and your peer group as well, seek out practical solutions to a changing society’s attitudes to customs, traditions and authority structures. Your logical and orderly manner of dealing with these matters will result in permanent and carefully planned, but sweeping, reforms.
Neptune is in 14 Degrees Capricorn.
You, and your entire generation, will idealize work, practicality and the ability to attain reasonable goals. But, because you will also stress the need to be selfless and giving, you may find it difficult to attain your goals unless you have lowered your expectations on all fronts.
Pluto is in 17 Degrees Scorpio.
For your entire generation, this is a period of intense research and discovery in areas that were heretofore considered mysterious, remote or taboo. The root causes for many complex occurrences will be unearthed due to the intensity and thoroughness of the search.
N. Node is in 16 Degrees Aquarius.
As long as someone else (or a group or organization) appeals to your intellectual sensibilities, you’ll try to ally yourself with them in some way. You may find that you always seem to get involved with many wide-ranging groups — so much so that you find it difficult to fit them all into your busy schedule. Your many friends and acquaintances provide you with needed stimulation. You’re loyal and fair-minded — you try to spend time equally with all your friends, never concentrating on just one or two for any length of time. Although probably quite conservative yourself, you’re attracted to those who are a bit offbeat or eccentric — you enjoy watching their minds work.
Parallel
I was about to take a nap when I saw that chair. I fell a little in love with it actually and couldn’t take my eyes off it so… Here we are!
All photos were taken with and edited on the Samsung Galaxy SII. Edited with Aviary.
All photos are mine, feel free to use but link back to here if you do (I want to see where they end up!)
Bandit, out.
A Quick Note
It’s nearing 7am and I have been up since 4:30. Mostly because I was awake to catch some friends overseas before they had to go to college for their day, but also because I feel like death warmed up and am feeling somewhat sorry for myself.
I was also thinking of entering this competition, but not sure if my stuff is good enough to even consider. I’ve been pretty happy with some of the photos I’ve taken and put on here for my mini series of photos, but not sure if that’s just me being proud of the product of my own boredom or if they’re actually any good. If I were to submit a photo (and it would only be one since I can’t afford another… I can’t even afford one but let’s not go there right now) which would you recommend? At the moment I am tempted to go with either the door from the last series or the close up of the rusty handle from the St Paul’s series.
Beyond that I met up with a friend who I hadn’t seen in a long time on Tuesday. It was good to see her again, we have far too much in common to not see each other often. In fact, weirdly, I’ve become a lot more social again. I meet friends on almost a daily basis between classes, either by accident or by planning, and it feels good. It feels nice being able to have a quick chat – or a long one – with someone about anything and everything. Especially if they’re friends from different times of your life and with different experiences.
On the downside, my headaches haven’t decreased in frequency nor in pain level, which sucks. Also the nausea thing is still getting to me. Although I have to say, the nausea pills are a gift from God or something… they work quickly and effectively and I could very easily get addicted to the things coz they don’t taste bad either. Which, now that I think about it, is not a good thing to say.
Other than that, nothing new with me, hence this is about 1/3 the size of a normal entry; I don’t actually have much to say this week I’m afraid. I think I’ll have a little more another day, in which case, watch this space as per normal.
Bandit, OUT!
Forgotten Worlds
Found a few undiscovered worlds on my way to a job interview this morning, before uni. That door, in particular, intrigues me. It’s very “Neverwhere“.
All photos were taken with and edited on the Samsung Galaxy SII. Edited with Aviary.
All photos are mine, feel free to use but link back to here if you do (I want to see where they end up!)
Bandit, out.
Not Quite Sure
I’ve been thinking this a while, and I’m not sure how to approach it beyond just outright asking. It’s not a delicate question so much as a fascinating one. To me, anyway. I’ve read about things like this before and I never thought it would happen to me.
Guess the first thing to say is what it is I’ve read about.
I don’t even remember what magazine it was in, something silly like Cosmopolitan, years ago now when I used to actually buy the thing (and be able to afford it). It was a small article about someone who claimed that every man she ever dated would change for the better when they broke up with her. That… came out wrong. Basically what she meant was she felt like she had groomed those men into the perfect men. They had manners, they were kind and generous, funny and dressed well, because she’d made the effort to help them do so. And she was saying how every relationship the men had after they had broken up with her (most of the breakups were friendly with no animosity from either party, by the way) had turned out to be a fruitful one, one man got married to that woman, the others had kids or just very happy long-term relationships. She ended the article by hoping she would stop being the in-between person and meet someone who loved her and who she could have a happy ending with.
My situation, I feel, is somewhat similar. I’ve had it happen a few times to me, and I will not name names here, but if those people were to read the entry they would know who they were. In case they do read the entry, I am not trying to demean you or make you out to be the bad guy. You’re not. This is just how I feel and since I’m not naming names, no one will know who you are anyway. Feel free, however, to comment – anonymously, if you must – and tell me what you think if you recognize yourselves in the entry.
Basically… I feel as though I am the in-between person for productive people. Not to say they weren’t productive before, but there are certain things that I would have suggested when we had been friends that these people brushed off as silly, or pointless, or useless, and later, when we stopped being as close or lost touch completely, would take up or use and enjoy. As I said, I will bring about examples, because otherwise it’s just me ranting and getting upset. And I am upset, I won’t lie, certain things that the people have gone on to do now were things that I truly believed from the heart they would have liked, or benefited from, and when they brushed me off it hurt. And it hurt so much more when later I learned they had taken my advice and my suggestions had turned out as I had told them they would: well.
Person 1 was a while ago. Say two years now. They were shy and quiet and very talented in a certain area, which I encouraged them to explore and they did. But there were things they didn’t do that I thought they should have. For instance, they decided not to do higher education, didn’t want to get a cellphone even though it would have eased their communication with friends, family, me… they didn’t want to make the effort to get a job or make friends in their neighbourhood, and I kept encouraging them to try. Every day. Eventually, Person 1 and I grew apart, it happens. We never fought, there was no big blow up, we just stopped talking and never picked up again.
But what hurt was that they now have a cellphone, and not just any cellphone but an iPhone, which they claimed they would never get since ‘a phone should just be for ease of communication and not so fancy’. They went to college, or a technical institute to hone their skills. Which is great, but they claimed for so long that they didn’t want to that it was a complete punch in the gut when they did go. They got a job, they started actually planning things instead of imagining them going well just on a whim. They made friends close to home, went out more, had fun… and they did it after me.
Person 2 was a little more recent, and the person I think is more likely to read this entry than person 1 is. This person and I agreed on a lot more things than Person 1 and I did, we got along well, we shared a sense of humor. Still do, really, we just don’t talk as much anymore. The thing we disagreed on was the idea of watching television or films in general, and going out. I suggested, since one of this person’s passions was acting, that they watch more films, get inspired, play out scenes. I would only suggest movies that I knew they would enjoy, and while, yes, I pushed a few, the rest I left alone, and waited. Unlike with Person 1, Person 2 and I did have a falling out. It was due to a huge collection of factors that I won’t get into, but we didn’t talk for a while, and they were angry at me and I at them.
But of course as soon as we weren’t as close, Person 2 started watching films. And television shows. And what hurt the most was that they were the exact ones I had recommended, and told them they would love. And they had watched them, and enjoyed them with someone else. They also became less shy about their acting, going on more projects, taking part in film sets, wanting to go oversees to study acting after their degree…
And don’t get me wrong, I am happy for them, for all the people who have moved on from me and gone away doing things I had told them would be good for them. I am jealous, sure, but I’m happy that they finally listened and chose to try something and found it to be good for them. But I just want to know… why me? Why did it have to be me? Why couldn’t they have moved on on their own, kept me in the loop, kept me as a friend? Why did my leaving have to be a catalyst for their good fortune? Am I bad luck? Am I just the person that absorbs their procrastination and when they leave it allows them to go on with their lives and DO something with them?
As I said, I won’t lie, it really truly upsets me! It hurts that the person I suggested a job to brushed me off and then went and got one when we no longer spoke. It really hurts that the person I suggested those films to refused to watch them with me and enjoyed them greatly with a mutual friend of ours. It really, really hurts.
And it gets me thinking, when will I find someone like that for me? When will I be able to do something that makes me happy? Because recently life has become really, really shit. It has become almost painfully difficult and I hate it. I hate the person I am in it, and as much as I want to change I am stuck in a place where I just can’t. I have no means to. I can’t change or quit my job because I have nothing else to fall back on. I got called by the student services of this country the other day telling me I had some allowance repayments due and asking if I would be able to pay them back. They put me through the student hardship questionnaire and at the end of it the lady on the other end of the phone asked me if someone was helping me with food and fuel because she couldn’t fathom how I was making ends meet, and I’m not. I’m struggling and I need help.
-sighs- but… enough about that. The entry’s over. Not much more to say. I guess the point that I was trying to convey was that I feel like I am a road marker at a crossroads for a lot of people, and I wish I wasn’t. I wish I meant more to people than that. And I wish I could find someone who could help me move on in my own life and my own choices, and that I wouldn’t have to sacrifice them and leave them behind to move on.
Hmm… what else. Beyond the fact that I am struggling, I am trying to get out of that pit. I’ve started freelancing on a site called Elance. So far, I’ve been hired as a transcriber for an international online company. It’s hard work, and I’m scared as hell that I will screw it up, but it’s something. If anyone has any suggestions, please, let me know how else I can make more money. It’s gotten to the point where it’s to make up rent, not for personal spending.
I’ve also finally opened up an AO3 account, for all my writing. I won’t link it on here because I don’t want some people to get their hands on it. A lot of my fic is on there and a lot of it is slash, and as much as I respect choice and opinion I do not want people demeaning my work when it means so much to me. If you want the link, ask for it, and I will consider giving it to you.
Other than that.. that’s me for the month of March. Till next week then, lovelies.
Bandit, OUT.
St Paul’s
The bus never came today, so I had an hour to kill before the next one. It’s interesting what your brain thinks of to do when you’ve missed the bus, forgot your book and have no food to snack on at 6pm. This church stands between the University of Auckland and AUT in the city center.
All photos were taken with and edited on the Samsung Galaxy SII. Edited with Aviary.
All photos are mine, feel free to use but link back to here if you do (I want to see where they end up!)
Till next time the muse takes me,
Bandit, out!
Carnival of Rust
Just a small photo series I did when out with Q and some people over from New York. This is Takapuna Beach on the North Shore of Auckland in New Zealand.
All photos were taken with and edited on the Samsung Galaxy SII. Edited with Aviary.
All photos are mine, feel free to use but link back to here if you do (I want to see where they end up!)
I might start doing these mini series to see what I can see in the monotony of my life; thanks Q =)
Bandit, out.
It’s Time To Begin
I have been AWOL for almost exactly two months, and that’s been for a number of reasons.
First and foremost, and this seems to be my most common reason for not writing on here as often as I’d like, is that I had absolutely nothing to say. Yes, life’s been tough, yes, life’s been boring, work’s been hard, friends have both picked me up and shoved me down, situations screwed me over, issues arose, blah blah blah. We all go through that enough in our own lives to not want to read it on a blog.
Course it could be argued that since this is my personal blog and people just occasionally show up on here to read stuff or revisit old articles (my most popular one is still, weirdly enough, Knight In Shining Armani) I should be able to post whatever I want on here, and that’s true. But at the same time I don’t want to be going back through old entries and seeing just angst everywhere.
That’s not to say, of course, that anything in particular happened lately that I have a reason to blog about, I just felt that 2 months was too long to leave AWT without an entry.
Second, I have had very little time to blog in the last little while. As I said, I had work, I took on extra hours to get more money before uni started and then all that promptly went on uni itself and bills and rent and bills again. Besides work, I started uni again on the 4th of March – two days before I turned 23, how exciting! – and I promised myself that this semester would go better than the last did. It just… it has to. Last semester was one of the worst of my life and I don’t want to go back there again.
Guess all that leads up to why I haven’t blogged… but as mentioned before, there’s not really a reason I’m blogging now beyond the fact that I want to break the AWOL streak with something.
It’s been an up-and-down few weeks, both emotionally and financially, and I won’t lie, I’m feeling somewhat trapped inside four small walls that are just pressing into me. I’ve been tired, I;ve been unwell, when I went to give blood today they told me my iron levels were 18 points too low to donate… I don’t even know.
I’ve been writing a lot more, I’ve been RPing with my friends, I’ve been plotting older stories, reworking newer ones, still planning more on The Watcher for later. I started editing again, for Holmes’ upcoming birthday, first time in over a year that I’ve even opened Sony Vegas.
I had a wonderful birthday with a great day and wonderful people and thoughtful gifts. My phone died that day but miraculously I got the thing back exactly a week later and didn’t have to suffer with a piddly little just-talk-and-txt phone for longer; though it did feel kinda nice to be able to use buttons on a phone again and to hear that little clicking sound as the buttons were pushed down.
Oh God what else…
I’m taking only three papers this semester, four the next. Computer science (for my general ed requirement), syntax (apparently it’s a requirement for my degree and I happened to fail that paper last year) and conversational analysis, which I fought tooth and nail to get into and kinda adore. It makes me feel like a mix between Cal Lightman and Spencer Reid when I’m analyzing a transcript. Also I’ve caught myself viewing normal everyday conversations through the CA filter and it’s utterly fascinating.
Beyond that I’m reading a very good book, The Dirty Streets of Heaven, by Tad Williams. I’m very happily obsessed with the band Imagine Dragons (It’s Time, Nothing Left To Say and Radioactive in particular). I’ve been watching Criminal Minds season by season and swallowing anywhere between three and eight episodes a day and loving it thoroughly.
Beyond that… nothing new with your humble narrator (Christ, now I know it’s late when I quote A Clockwork Orange) except that she hopes to write more frequently in the next few weeks. Things may be happening and it might be note-worthy to mention them.
Then again, maybe not.
Till then, though,
Bandit, OUT!
Five, Four, Three-two-one…
Welcome to 2013! Dunno about you guys, but so far it’s been a good year for me. Three days in and I’ve only had one day at work, no bitchiness and actual healthy sleep. And also one migraine that floored me but I’ll let that slide for now. We’ll talk later, migraine, you know what you did.
I was on Tumblr just before and came across a rather fascinating post. For those not aware, Tumblr is a blogging site. It’s instant blogging, meaning you can post things to your page from other blogs or make up your own posts very quickly. You can reblog, like, and comment on posts too; to be honest, some of the best posts are those that have let comments take over them. The one I want to talk about was titled “if a clock could count down to the moment you meet your soul mate, would you want to know?” the comments that followed were anything from “wow that would be fantastic!” to “yes. So I know when to shave.” which made me giggle a little. Someone even wrote a short one-shot story involving the concept.
And it got me thinking… what would I do if I knew when I was to meet my soulmate?
Firstly, I would be painfully happy to know I HAD soulmate to look forward to… being single for a long time really takes it toll on you if it’s not something you chose for yourself. After that, laughable as it may be, I would take measures to make sure I looked freaking spectacular for when I finally met my soulmate. I would give myself ample time beforehand and lose weight, take care of my skin and hair, get beautiful clothes, shave (hehe) and just go about making sure I feel amazing before I met the person I would love (and would love me) forever.
But then this also brings about an interesting thought…
We’re taught in movies and books that soulmates are always beautiful and successful and loving and – in a word – perfect. Of course, in books and movies more often than not the character to whom this perfect soulmate will belong is also successful and beautiful and loving, so that makes sense. Unfortunately, in life things aren’t always that good; in my case things are rarely that good, if ever (if the last year was anything to go by). So imagine this:
There IS a clock that counts down to when you meet your soulmate. You know for a fact that you will meet them in five seconds time. And you’ve dressed up and done your hair, and have thought about what you’re going to say, or how you’re going to tilt your head when you kiss for the very first time… and then you see before you someone who is NOT the epitome of the book or film soulmate, but a normal person. What do you do then? I mean, the clock’s ticked down, you have no longer to wait, this is it. What do you do? What do you do if you blatantly do not find the person attractive, or they you, or you’re afraid of them (say they’re a wanted felon) or you simply dislike them (your school bully perhaps)? What are you supposed to do then?
Films and books don’t explore this option nearly as much as they do the “perfect couple” option, and because of this a lot of the time we’re really disappointed with how life IS because it’s nothing like the movies we watch or the books we read. It would be very interesting to see a film where the main character is an overweight girl who has only a few close friends and one outfit she feels spectacular in, who finds her soulmate in a beautiful actor, or the opposite: a nerdy, quiet, shy guy with acne finds that his soulmate is the most beautiful girl at school. Sure, movies explore the concept only to a point, where the “ugly” one in the pair “shapes up” and becomes what the “beautiful” person has wanted all along… that’s kinda sad right?
Not everyone can change to be suddenly beautiful, some people are just NOT, no matter how they try. It could be physically or inside, but some things you just can’t change. Ever. No matter how hard you will them to.
Guess what I’m trying to say in a round about way is that I would both want and not want such a clock to exist. I would want it so that I knew, for a fact and with complete certainty, that I would not be alone for the rest of my life, that I would HAVE someone to call my own who would love me. But at the same time, I know that as much as I want to proclaim myself a saint and promise that appearances don’t matter to me… we’re all shallow, and I would be outwardly disappointed if my soulmate ended up not being Lee Pace or Tom Hiddleston. I think we all would (replace the aforementioned actors if you don’t find them attractive, you oddities).
But some days… I really, really, REALLY wish I had the guarantee that I would find someone and not die alone and lonely. I’ve had my time being “happily single”, and I’ve had my pathetic attempts at internet dating, and going out to parties (weirdly, it’s the party experiences I find more pathetic, not the internet dating) and I just want to get lucky just this once and have someone come up to me at a book shop or in a cafe and talk to me about something obscure or interesting, and smile at me, and ask me out. Is that really so much to ask for??
In other news… Jack and I have started a writing challenge for each other that can be found here. Alternate Beginnings is a mini challenge we have going where we pinpoint each other’s weak points in our writing and set challenges to work on improving in those areas. So far we have only one story up each, but we are – as I write this – working on our second challenges. They should be done by the 5th and will be posted as soon as they’re proofed and critiqued. I’ve left the comments open on the pages in case you guys have feedback too, we really want to encourage it so we both get better and maybe find what else it is we need to work on individually.
Other than that… nothing else new. Now that New Years is over, I can start planning my time around work, cleaning out the old house and meeting up with friends. I want to get into a few more hobbies that I won’t mention on here till I actually start them in case I jinx my tentative attempts. Other than that, there are exactly 2 months till uni starts… so hopefully I won’t bore you all with weekly posts of “what I did over my summer”. Because honestly? I don’t go out much… summer for me is like winter for me.
Also, trying out this new poll feature on the blog, if you have a second, vote for me? Firstly to see if this works, and secondly so I can get some feedback :)
Till next time,
Stay awesome!
Bandit, OUT!
And so…
It’s that time again when the year is nearly over and we all wonder where the hell the time went since weeks dragged by like machine guns through autumn (kudos and cookies to those who get this reference) but the year apparently flew right on by.
I’m going to do a very cheating post and copy what I did last year. That is, make resolutions and list the things I learned this year. Boring, I know, but quite frankly I have been so busy lately that I have no ideas at all for good, interesting and interactive blog posts. I doubt I’ll be able to write before the new year, so the only time I can really do the resolutions is now.
So… here goes I guess!
|| The Dresden Files is officially becoming my favourite book series of all time ||
|| Mumford and Sons was the most incredible concert I have ever been to ||
|| The apocalypse was really quite underwhelming ||
|| Just because a house looks good… doesn’t mean it’s safe, well-plumbed and comforting ||
|| Sometimes customers at Whitcoulls return Hobos instead of Kobos ||*
|| Season 7 of Supernatural never happened. Season 8, on the other hand, is fantastic ||
|| Moving house twice in the space of two months is exhausting, expensive and only worth it in the end ||
|| Indian accents express every emotion ||
|| Never goad a snowstorm in the South Island ||+
|| “If there is a key then there must be a door” ||
|| Everything passes ||
2013 PROMISES TO KEEP
|| …I’ve miles to go before I sleep ||
|| Read as many Top 100 books as possible before uni ||
|| Actually give a crap about uni ||
|| Pay back debts and refrain from making more ||
|| Look into this whole ‘you’re actually a girl so dress like one’ business ||
|| Dye my hair blue even for just a month ||
|| Write, write, WRITE ||
|| On that note… complete the edit of The Watcher and send it out to publishers ||
|| Endeavor to live in the moment ||
|| Learn to shoot a gun ||
|| Finally watch Lawless ||
—~+~—
That’s all really. Sadly not much else I’d like to add. I know it’s a very short and boring entry but like I said, I have been so busy these last few weeks (1am closes, 6-day weeks…) that I am beyond caring. I think I might post this entry, set my phone to Pandora radio (the Sounds from the Ground station) and attempt sleep.
Before I go, though, I want to wish everyone a good and safe new year. Personally, 2012 was crap for me. A lot of things went wrong, I made a lot of bad choices and have regretted quite a few of them. Some I can repair, others will take time, and yet more may never be fixed. I want to start 2013 with an open mind and a clear conscience, and hope to hell that’s enough to get me through. I will attempt to blog more next year, make my entries more varied and exciting, and take time to enjoy the little things.
I wish you hope and peace and love. I wish you a great night on the 31st, whether you’ll be partying the night away or sleeping right through the dawn of the new year. I look forward to seeing you on Angels and Wrong Theories next year, and thank you so much, again, for sticking with me as long as you have.
*tight hugs*
Till next year,
Bandit, OUT!!
*Brave will understand this, everyone else can just ask.
+Z and Neems will understand this, everyone else can read this.
A Million Little Pieces – OR – The Five Levels Women Communicate On
My entire life is currently between three locations. I’m sleeping in one of them, my actual bed is in another and all my things that make me ME are in yet another. To top that off I have a very bad cold, I have three weeks ahead of me that – if they don’t kill me – will certainly not do a good job making me stronger, and among all the crap, I am reading the most spectacular book.
Going to actually write about that this entry as opposed to the other stuff since I honestly feel like I’m about to either break down or laugh hysterically or curl into a ball and die in one of the locations with my stuff in it.
I’m currently reading Cold Days, which is the latest (14th) book in the Dresden Files series by Jim Butcher. For those who know me, I’m a little late on the Dresden bandwagon. It took Jack and Master Four years to get me to read the series, but once I started I devoured the series in about two months. So I was stuck waiting with them for the 14th book for about a year and feeling the angst and pain that came with the anticipation and excitement. It finally came out on the 27th of November and I’m still waiting for my paper copy, but in the meantime I decided to heck with it, downloaded the Kobo app on my phone and got the eBook.
I honestly believe that this is the only series I have thus far read where each book gets better and better as the series progresses. I adored book one, I remember it well and it got me hooked right off the bat, but every book (bar one, which I think is his weakest but every amazing writer is allowed a weak book) that came after has been better and better. Small Favor onwards are so charged that I have cried in pretty much every single one of them for one reason or another. I adore Jim Butcher, I think he’s probably the best writer out there currently. Yes, I am much more than obsessed with his books, I’m in love with them.
I won’t go into detail about what this book is about – for those who haven’t read the series, this won’t make sense and for those who have… you’re all mostly spoilerphobes so I won’t bring that hell upon me – but I can tell you that this one in particular came at the right time with all the crap happening in my life. There are so many things with it that ring true, help me fight on, help me think situations through more carefully, or consider them from another angle… and reading this book again I feel sane and HOME for the first time in a long time. Also a couple things in it made me almost painfully happy.
I’m currently about 3/4 of the way through and two things made me squeal for joy so much I scared my dog into frantic barking. One was Dresden’s true and logical and beautiful account of how sexuality doesn’t matter (for the fangirls, this isn’t related to him) and the other was the comment that there’s an article out there that explains that when men talk they hold one conversation, the one they’re holding directly, but when women talk they hold a conversation on five separate levels:
“They follow the conversation that they’re actually having, the conversation that is specifically being avoided, the tone being applied to the overt conversation, the buried conversation that is being covered only in subtext and finally the other person’s body language.” – Jim Butcher; Cold Days 2012
It’s absolutely fascinating to me that this is the case… because it’s true! Not to say that men can’t hold a conversation on more than one level, or that women prefer to communicate on just one, but I notice myself that when I talk with anyone I watch their body language (I rather hate speaking on the phone for this reason) and facial expressions for cues as to where the conversation is going. I listen to the conversation itself, I understand the one that’s being avoided or unspoken and steer away from the topic while being fully aware of what’s technically being UNsaid… it’s completely brilliant.
I heard once that no matter how many years you may study a language, live in the country and assimilate, unless you understand the humor you will always be a foreigner. Maybe this is the same thing? Maybe in some cultures it’s important to hold the conversation on just one level specifically to pay it attention and give it your undivided concentration, however in some cultures it’s more accepted to hold these UNspoken conversations and take more meaning from them than the actual conversation one is holding.
…is it just me or did that sound very Jack Sparrow?
I remember in linguistics, actually, we were studying the concept of conversation, and how when people communicate they do so while being aware of the person they’re speaking to, the people who could overhear, the person who is potentially listening in and the person who is mentioned in the conversation even though they may not be present. It was always so weird and awesome for me to think that people talk – just every day TALK – while being simultaneously aware that others may be listening and thus adjusting our conversation accordingly. I think after a while – and if it’s in your first language – it becomes almost second nature and eventually a reflex, like breathing. You’re occasionally aware that you’re doing it but you don’t stop doing it if you don’t expressly think about it. You gotta admit that’s pretty damn cool.
I was actually having a conversation with a friend of mine – she might come into my blog often… I’ll call her Brave for now on account of her Princess Merida hair – while at the work Christmas function about fanfiction, and either she was completely comfortable about speaking aloud on the topic or I was excessively aware that many people could overhear, but I was paying almost painfully close attention to what we were saying and how we were doing it. I was aware that next to us Mack and Holmes were holding their own conversation, that across from us someone’s wife was within close hearing range, and around us the serving people were bustling and doing their job.
It felt strange… usually when I talk about a culture people don’t know much about – yes, fanculture IS a culture, thank you very much – I tend to be discreet about it. I make euphemisms, circle around ideas without expressly stating them… I honestly don’t know why I do it. I’m not in any way embarrassed about being part of this culture or knowing a lot about it, but I feel that it makes others uncomfortable to hear about certain aspects of it. Kind of how I don’t talk about the BDSM culture in public places since many aspects of that culture disturb or disgust people even though they utterly fascinate me.
It was an interesting experience talking to Brave about it, because she seemed to have no such qualms. Or maybe I was paying too much attention to everything yesterday; I’ve been almost painfully hyperaware of everything lately with all the things going on and it’s giving me a headache. Countless headaches.
…wow I overwrote my personally-set word count for the first time in a long time with an actually INTERESTING entry. Holy crap, is this the start of a new era? Is Bandit finally writing good posts again that aren’t about angst?
We shall see, ladies and gentlespoons, we shall certainly see.
Tune in next week! Bandit, OUT!
Movie Night In – Girly Movies
Well… the last entry I said that someone had broken into my car. The week following, someone broke into our house. I won’t go into detail, I’ve told the police and my workmates and friends already, but let’s just say that I haven’t been able to sleep well since. It’s not nice to wake up to someone standing over your bed taking your stuff. In fact it’s downright terrifying.
Anyway.
Today with Holmes and Mack we got bored – eating pizza on the floor of the living room as you do – and decided to look up silly girly movies to see if we agreed with the lists. It amused me how so many movies we see as iconic girly movies didn’t make the cut. In later lists that weren’t considered the ‘major and important’ links on google there were some of the movies we all loved, but not in the most commonly searched.
This got me thinking… if I were to compile a list of girly films, which would I put in there? To be honest, I know that by the time I finish the list I’ll find many more films I wish had made the list but by that point it will be around 3am and I will really REALLY need to attempt sleep again. So I guess if we start now… we can only go forward!
No hate, please, I know we all have different tastes, since this is my blog these are my choices. If you want to suggest others, you got for gold y’all! I’d love to see them in the comments!
[more updates about life and stuff at the bottom for those who care]
In no particular order, just the order I thought them up in
1. Ten Inch Hero
This movie actually made no lists that we looked up, which I find atrocious. Sure, it’s not a particularly well-known film or one that hit it big in Hollywood but it’s amazing. It’s fun, perfectly cheesy, and has a scene in it that made me cry and feel weirdly cathartically happy at the end. Jensen Ackles’ presence is surely helpful, of course, but this is really one of my all-time favourite girly flicks. Check it out.
2. 10 Things I Hate About You
This movie does not get the credit it deserves nowadays. I remember not liking it very much the first time I saw it, I can’t even remember why, I think I was in a prissy stage where I refused to like stuff because other people liked it. Whatever. This movie… is a movie I quote pretty much on a daily basis. I adore it. The fact that it’s a loose adaptation of a Shakespearean play (Taming of the Shrew) just makes it even better. This is one of those movies that if you have guy friends over for your girly night (coz who wouldn’t, really) will please them also.
3. She’s The Man
Another loose adaptation of Shakespeare (Twelfth Night this time) and a movie that I know a lot of people dislike. I dunno why, but this film makes me so happy and makes me feel so damn good about myself I can’t even begin to explain it. Also I grew up with Amanda Bynes (Amanda Show anyone? No? Am I showing my age?) and her everything is to be envied. Basically a brilliant film about girls kicking ass as badass hunky dudes who like to talk about cheese.
4. Bend it Like Beckham
What a way to segue into something huh? Look at me pulling out – potentially wrongfully spelled – words at 2am. This film is a film I quote a little too much. Usually in an Indian accent, which I have gotten very good at recently. Another good film about girls kicking ass and showing their families that they can do what they want if they truly believe in it, as well as being able to make round chipatis. This highly amuses my Indian friends so I’ll assume it’s not an offensive movie. I can honestly say that it made me want to play soccer… and I don’t like sport. Ever.
5. St. Trinian’s
I can almost guarantee that people reading this blog have either a) not heard of this film or b) seriously dislike it. Believe me, I know this is a terrible film. I understand it completely, from the stereotypes to the script to the costuming… but I adore it. I adore it beyond words. If there is any film that makes me feel empowered to be a woman, different, quirky and crazy, it’s this one. Every time I watch it it makes me want to dance on a table singing into a hairbrush. It’s the ultimate girl power movie for me, because – unlike a lot of “girly” films, this one doesn’t have the end game of the main girl getting a guy. It has the endgame of the main girl learning to be awesome in her weirdness and standing up to bullies. Also the theme song makes me very, very happy.
6. Bring It On
The fact that this film only made it into ONE list of the ones we trolled through really disappointed me. This, to me, is one of the ultimate girly movies! I swear my generation grew up on this. AWESOME, OH WOW, LIKE TOTALLY FREAK ME OUT I MEAN RIGHT ON! It’s fantastic. Makes you both hate cheerleaders and love cheerleading as a sport. Before I discovered St. Trinian’s, this was my go-to super powerful girl power movie (mostly thanks to Eliza Dushku and her amazing… everything).
7. Love Actually
This movie… is the only film I watch as a tradition. Every Christmas since it came out, Q and I will curl up on the couch at home with bad food – preferably chocolate – and watch this. It is poignant, it is funny, it makes us cry and it is PERFECT for Christmas eve. After this came out, tons of others tried to copy the idea, like New Year’s Eve, and none have ever lived up. Something about Love Actually is just so special, and so, so British. This movie, also, in my opinion doesn’t get the credit it deserves. It gets beaten out by ‘newer’ versions of the same thing, but to be honest, newer, in this case, does not mean better. Love Actually is unparalleled.
8. Moonstruck
Jewish and Italian families are too similar. Trust me on this. Another film, like 10 Things, that I did not like very much the first time I saw it, but now adore and seek out. I can’t even explain to you why. Maybe I grew up enough to understand the humor? Who knows. All I do know now is that this film has to make my list. You can’t have a girly night without Moonstruck and Cher’s amazing hair and unbelievably perfect family. No, really.
9. Keith
This film isn’t easy to describe. The poster makes it look horrific and a lot of people are put off by Jesse McCartney being the main male lead, but believe me when I say this is one of the most powerful and unforgettable films of all time. And hey, at least one weepy movie had to make it to the list right? What’s a girly night without clinging to each other and weeping into a bowl of chocolate covered strawberries? Trust me on this. Keith. Watch it. You won’t regret it.
10. This Means War
A new movie and a brilliant one. I won’t lie, I saw it for Tom Hardy, just like Holmes saw it for Chris Pine, but it is a truly brilliantly funny film. Honest. I loved how immature I felt giggling about Klimt apparently painting with sticks and when he couldn’t find any using his… yea. I know, I know, shut up. But it is a brilliant piece of work. A strange film in that I was rooting for a different outcome and yet was very satisfied with how it turned out in the end. More proof that amazing actors like Reese, Tom and Chris can be versatile and do silly lighthearted films like this as well as their usual Oscar-worthy work.
11. Little Miss Sunshine
This was an accidental find, one of those films I saw with a friend ‘because it was the only thing on’. I had no idea what it was about, nothing to go on when I went to see it, and I loved it. It still stands as one of the only films to make me cry one minute and laugh out loud the next. It is touching and real and unforgettable. Sadly, this film rarely makes girly sleepover lists, and it really should.
12. Dakota Skye
I still think this is one of the most original films in a long, long time, and a really beautiful love story about trust and respect and fear of the unknown. It also has, without a doubt, one of my FAVOURITE confessions of love in any film ever. I love Pride and Prejudice, I really do, but Jonah’s speech to Dakota blows it out of the water for me, I’m sorry. It’s just so beautiful, and so truthful. Ah! I love it. Like Ten Inch Hero, this film doesn’t get the recognition it deserves because it never ‘made it big’. But it really should.
13. 27 Dresses
I feel like I just found out my favourite love song was written about a sandwich. The single most amazing quote in film comedy ever. At least I think so, anyway. This is the atypical girly chick flick that, weirdly enough, doesn’t annoy the shit out of me. I like the main character, she doesn’t get on my nerves for being weak or stupid… because she’s not. She’s an accomplished woman who has a sheltered life due to being busy with things she loves and… obsessing over someone who doesn’t love her back. Been there. We all have. Sadly, not all of our lives end up as good as hers but hey, what’s entertainment if not to inject some magic into our lives?
—
In other news… uni is over for another year. I had a bad year, I won’t lie. I am not happy with my grades or the time I spent there or even the classes I took. I didn’t like it and it’s very difficult to even want to enroll into the next year, but hey, what can I do. I changed my degree again, English and English Linguistics now. Useless in the long run but it means that I can go for a masters in creative writing if I want to later.
Been applying for jobs back and forth, not because I want to leave the book store so much as I genuinely need more money to live. I have tons of debt, I have a student loan bigger than waves in South Africa and, quite frankly, I would like to have more than $20 a week on everything. Fingers crossed for one job in particular, will certainly keep you posted on the progress of that one.
Actually, my getting or not getting the aforementioned job will potentially dictate my very near future. Many plans, none finalized. But it’s possible I may be leaving Auckland to live in Wellington for a while, transferring my studies to Victoria. Still in the works, but in a rather pointed way, the way a spanner is not. There are many things wrong and perfect about this plan, so until I have more to tell you, I won’t mention it again.
I finished NaNo this year, woohoo!~ Just need to start retouching it from the beginning and seeing how people react to it when I give them random chapters to read. Fingers crossed, though, this is the one I want to make it big. And hey, you never know, if shit like 50 Shades of Gray can get published, my work certainly can (speaking of which, I read a wonderful essay on how 50 Shades doesn’t show the BDSM lifestyle but a lifestyle of abuse and what the difference is; made my sex history brain tingle with happy. It’s possible I may have a blog entry about it later)
Other than that… it’s 2:30am and the cats are making noise in the laundry and I am terrified to sleep. Good thing I made a list of movies to watch huh…
Speaking of… should I make more of these? I can make em genred or general… I can talk about movies all day, but will anyone care to listen?
Bandit, OUT!
My, My, My, My…
Hoooooly damn it has been an insane week. Good and bad in pretty much equal degree but DAYUM it has been crazy.
Let’s just make a list and elaborate on it as we go shall we?
On Monday morning I walk out to the car to find it broken into. Back window smashed, radio removed and all the wires hanging out into the car proper looking like guts, the entire interior turned upside down and, as I found out while trying to keep a cool head and just get to my destination and think on the whole break in issue later, the battery. Which meant I COULDN’T drive anywhere and forget about this because there was nothing to power the car.
Not gonna lie, I got quite upset by it. It’s strange, when you think about how it’s JUST a car and it’s JUST a radio in that car… I mean it’s not something you need for your every day well-being and survival and yet when someone violates even that tiny bit of something you thought was yours it feels so wrong.
What was worse was that I actually had somewhere to be that day. Two appointments at the same place, which happened to be a 40 minute drive from home and… it was 40 minutes until the first appointment when I had found the car and had my little panic moment. Awesome.
Cue amazing friends who shout you a taxi ride and calm you down on the phone when you’re blubbering like an idiot. Thank you Q. Although after that particular day I don’t think I’ll ever take a taxi again. Not that the driver was bad, he was lovely actually, lived very close and was on time and friendly and kind, but the fare was INSANE. I dunno how people can shout for taxis often when it costs like $13 to go up the road. Seriously.
Anyway I made the appointment on time – mucho gracias to the driver for getting me there with time to spare – and found that having to talk to a psychologist after your car has just been broken into is not the best way to spend your Monday morning. It’s very difficult to keep calm and not cry when you’re being forced to go to dark and very unhappy places when your head isn’t on straight in the first place.
Oh well. At least we got somewhere.
Then of course I had to wait for the other appointment. Two hours after the first one. Which was all well and good I guess, I holed up at a cafe with the tiniest “small mocha” I had ever seen and a good book and let time pass me by. Second appointment was late, went well enough, and I was lucky enough to be picked up and dropped home by Master Four.
After all that, I couldn’t make the supervisors’ and managers’ meeting that afternoon. I basically came home and collapsed into bed with a migraine.
On Wednesday, same week, the flat turned itself upside down almost literally. House stayed the same way up but the rooms within it changed.
Basically, before the change, I lived upstairs in a room that took up literally a quarter of the house. I have a lot of stuff, sure, but I had enough room to do yoga in that place. Not that I did yoga. But you get the idea. Anyway, downstairs there are two small bedrooms that turned out to be a little too small for the flatmates living in them, so the idea came about that they would share my huge room upstairs and I would take both the little ones; one as my bedroom and one as my office.
Spent most of the morning cleaning up around our new areas, Mack was home so she was upstairs getting her area sorted, Holmes will do the same when she gets home from work. Neems didn’t move so she’s happy in her old room being awesome.
Not gonna lie, though, it’s kinda lonely being downstairs all by myself. Although I can pretend that I have my own apartment and that no one lives upstairs… which is one of those careful what you wish for things since I wanted to live alone for a very long time. Anyway… I just get scared easily and when the abundance of lights we have in the house cast multiple shadows of you you feel like you’re being stalked. I didn’t sleep well. Cats howling outside my door all night – and I WON’T let them in, one loves company so much she will literally parade over you in joy so you will never get sleep, and the other I’m allergic to so there is no way in hell he’s getting into my room or my office – and people walking above my head which I am not used to… just wow, so much stuff. All new. I don’t do change well.
OH! We also got a treadmill on Wednesday – yes, moving Wednesday – and had to find a place for it. Mack’s on it now, talking to me and unable to hear my replies, which I find both funny and really quite useless. I do love her though, she gets to excited about running and tries to get me excited about it too. Won’t work but it’s sweet to see someone to enthusiastic.
This has been probably the most boring entry ever, holy crap. Busy week so far, yes, but for those that don’t live my life I doubt you’ll care much. I’ll see if anything exciting happens for the next week; the flatmates and I want to go to the Gypsy Fair this weekend, so maybe something from that.
Till then, NaNo is going and going and going… slow and steady and not quite finished. I doubt I’ll use a lot of what I’ve written in my notebook but hey, at least it’s written right?
Bandit, out!
Don’t Hold A Glass Over The Flame
Someone told me, ages ago, that you haven’t been to a concert properly unless you’ve been in the mosh pit, four people from the front, sandwiched between some guy’s backpack and some girl’s front, jumping with the crowd because you have no choice BUT to jump.
Well… they’re right.
Last night, Holmes and I went to see Mumford and Sons live in Auckland city.
It was, to date, the best experience of my life. It was beyond WORDS how incredible that concert was. I’ll try my best, though, to put it into words considering this is a blog and I can’t just stare at it and have you see what I saw and feel what I experienced last night.
Holmes and I got to the arena 2 hours early and lined up to buy merchandise. Honestly… I now own probably the most expensive shirt ever, but it is beyond worth it. After, we had to fight our way with about 50-odd people to the front of the stage. We managed to get a good enough vantage point about four people from the stage, sitting with the rest of the early-comers, eating our pre-packed candy and talking.
I won’t get into detail about the opening acts. They were good but to be honest I couldn’t care less. A few people behind me were, by this point, very drunk and rowdy and completely inappropriate and crude and I hated them. We had to wait for ages for the sound crew to prepare for Mumford on stage, and they sang anything from Christmas carols to really bad renditions of Coldplay. I wanted to smack them in the face, each and every one of them.
But finally, though, after forty minutes of waiting for set up, Marcus, Ben, Winston and Ted walked on stage to the sound of thousands of people screaming. I think we overwhelmed them with our response, they looked very amused by our screaming and clapping and foot-stomping. The first song was screamed by the entire arena, people pressing close and closer, egging on the musicians on stage. After the first minute there was no fresh air. After two, sweat no longer belonged to any one individual.
It was both very claustrophobic and unbelievably… uniting. The entire mosh pit was a single body, jumping and writhing together for our favourite band, screaming their lyrics and raising our hands to them.
See? I told you it was hard to describe; it probably sounds really irritatingly boring on here, but it was unbelievable. Even the people who were pissing me off before Mumford took the stage were jumping up and down next to me now, every so often grazing my elbows and me not caring. It’s weird, I remember reading about crowd mentality in psych and on the internet, and I always thought it would be a scary thing. Don’t get me wrong, it is a scary thing, the idea of a crowd having a mind of its own due to movement and the feeling that you don’t NEED your own mind or decisions… urgh. But here, a concert crowd is an entity in itself… it BREATHES the music, that’s the best way I can put it really, it breathes to the beats of a song, it moves towards new cords and dances around them, it reaches out to stroke the melody with its fingers as it sweeps over it and out the door to dissipate in the cool evening air…
A concert crowd is a force of nature. And I was part of that for just under two hours.
Holy crap, I got breathless writing that and had to ask Mack if it sounded douchey. It probably does, but I don’t care, it’s the only way I can describe it. Marcus broke three guitar stings and a drumstick during the concert. IT WAS UNREAL.
*cough*
Right, so… I can’t go on about their songs forever – lies, I could do it for forever and a day – so I’ll talk about their lighting and stage setup.
They had a generic band set up on stage, four of them in a row at the front (keyboard and accordion, lead guitar and bass beat drum, second guitar, bass (guitar and giant-violin-variety)), their brass section just behind them on level with the drumkit, piano and fiddle player. Behind them was a backdrop that changed three times (first it was an image of four horses with blinders running, then a logo of two gentlemen and then another image of horses running) and then LIGHTS. Their light show was fascinating to watch, because it had so many components to it. They had spots on either side of the stage (three apiece), spots above them, rotating light wheels and an intricate set-up of strings of lightbulbs that hung over the entire stage and over the entire arena floor. It gave the room the illusion of a carnival. It made it feel very intimate.
Interestingly, they used blue lighting for fast-paced songs and red lighting for slow songs.
All of the band members were so into the music, it was beautiful to watch and be part of. I can’t believe it’s over, I can’t believe I experienced it, I can’t believe that I was LUCKY enough to. Crushed between people I didn’t know, gripping Holmes’ sweaty hand tight so we wouldn’t fall as we jumped up and down like maniacs, howling the lyrics to Dustbowl Dance and Thistle and Weeds and I Will Wait and countless others…
I could barely walk after that concert, three hours jumping up and down in heels. Oooooowwwwwww.
Anyway.
Best night of my life to date. Wow. Still breathless and slightly tearful from how absolutely incredible it was. In a heartbeat, even less, I would shell out for another concert. Please, please come back. If just so I can grab Mack and take her with us.
That’s all for this week I think, guys. I have two exams left till the end of this academic year. Next year I plan to change my degree – yet again – and hopefully finish uni with something. Soon. I also plan to work and do many more exciting things (like go to Comic Con hopefully) but more on that later, it’s very late here and I have to sleep before work.
OH YES. One more thing… I’m participating in NaNoWriMo again this year with my Watcher story. Feel free to send me a note or just check on my progress here. Also, if you want updates, comment on here. I wanna see if it’s worth me making a page for Watcher on here or not. Up to y’all, those who are betas are already betas.
Mucho love, guys!
Bandit, OUT!!~
Armageddon
Sorry this is coming so late; I’ve had a few drafts in the works but I also have exams this coming Monday so I’ve been studying for those. Currently on a break from said study and I thought I’d use the time productively to tell y’all about the amazing weekend I had last week!
For those who don’t know, Armageddon is the NZ version of Comic Con for America, or Supernova for Australia. It’s a fan convention where people dress up (if they want to) and play games pre release, shop around for merchandise from their favourite shows or films or games, hang out with awesome people who share in their fandom and get autographs and photos with invited panelists.
I haven’t gone for the last few years because there hadn’t been anyone of interest at the con for me; I missed Mark Sheppard last year which I was really gutted about but otherwise no one else had really peaked my interest at all. This year, however, there were five people from Supernatural at panel. Five.
For those wondering why this is such a huge deal, let me put it into perspective. Most people in this country have no idea what Supernatural is. And those who do, don’t exist in my vicinity at all. Once in a while I’ll find someone at uni who knows of the show, but they just KNOW of it, they’re not fans (one exceptional example, however, was Mack, who I met and became friends with due to our mutual love of the show. That ended well as we’ve been living together for just over a year now, only coz I was telling someone that their joke would be funnier in Enochian) and also, this country doesn’t GET interesting people coming here.
I thoroughly wish that the Hobbit cast had come up. I would have killed to meet Lee Pace in person, or any of the others. But the group of guys who came up for Armageddon for Supernatural were all ones I was interested in meeting.
Firstly, there was Aldis Hodge. Most people don’t actually know or remember him very well. For those who follow the show like I do, or at least know it well enough to remember things, he played Jake, the man who killed Sam at the end of season 2. I like him, always have, and I’ve seen him in Leverage too, so it was wonderful for him to come up. No photos of him, unfortunately, but there are of the others. Kudos and mucho gracias to Neems for her photography skills.
Then there was Jim Beaver who plays Bobby. I had met Jim in Melbourne when Holmes and I had gone for the All Hell Breaks Loose II convention in May 2010 and he is lovely, so it was good to see him again.
Next up was Sebastian Roche, who plays Balthazar in season 6. He was an interesting one; on stage he plays up being sexual and stupid and swears at least thrice per sentence, but when you get to see him off stage, he is soft spoken and clever, wanting to return to the stage and do Shakespeare. He told me he’d auditioned for the main role in my favourite play (The Pillowman) in New York but didn’t get it. I liked talking to him a lot more than I enjoyed watching him on stage.
Then of course there was Mark Pellegrino, who played Lucifer from season 5 onwards. He was lovely. His panel was… highly embarrassing. I wanted to shoot most of the little fangirls around us who claimed they were fans for asking the most stupid questions. “Which pairing do you ship more hehehehehe” “what happened to Sam in the pit hehehehehehe” it was HORRIBLE. To his credit though the man played up all the silliness and was very quick on his feet. He also has an incredible singing voice. More on Mark later, actually, he has an interesting part to play in the weekend.
Finally – and this was the reason I got so excited for this con – there was Christopher Heyerdahl. For those who watch the show, he played Alistair. The main Alistair that Sam kills in season 4. He. Is. Incredible. And his panel I enjoyed immensely because the crazy fangirls didn’t seem to know much about him to freak out over him as they did over Mark and Seb. I loved his answers, the fact that he did his Alistair voice on request and that he didn’t stay on stage but instead walked around on the ground in front of it so he could be seen by the fans.
Besides the panel (and photos and autographs and Neems giving her SCRIPT to MARK PELLEGRINO COZ HE ASKED FOR IT I mean what) there were also the stalls, the people and the atmosphere. It’s great being in a place where people are dressed up as their favourite characters and willing to talk to you about them, and discuss plot points in movies and shows… it’s just fun!
I also went on a bit of an Avengers frenzy, trying to find things for my room. Ended up getting a little Loki POP vinyl bobble head. Online those things are rare as hell and go for about US$99, I got my boy for $25. His horns are crooked, I love him. I also got a Mjolnir USB (8GB) because I freaking could. But the thing that really made my life complete was that I met a Loki cosplayer, a good one, and got a photo with him. Funny story with that actually… I saw his staff that he’d made for the costume and vaguely said something like “oh hey, Loki cosplay,” before my vision went swimmy and I nearly fell over.
He. Was. Incredible. Hell, if you don’t believe me, look for yourself:
And he’s a lovely guy too, I became online friends with Kyle after, he cosplays often. I can’t wait to see him at another con!
BONUS!! Thanks to Hilary, I have no seen this glorious man dance to “I’m Sexy And I Know It” and I can’t not share that. Seriously. His hips do NOT lie, they do EXACTLY what they say on the tin.
To be honest… that’s all I can say about the weekend. We ended up going for all four days instead of just two like we thought we would, and it was tons of fun. Good ol’ flat bonding!
Next week the entry will be late again, I can tell you this in advance, because I will be going to see Mumford and Sons in concert on Friday night. I am beyond excited by this, there are actually no words for how happy I am to be going. They are probably my favourite band on par with Massive Attack and their music makes me weep happy tears.
Till then, lovelies.
On Clichés and Sunny Days
You know that lovely cliché people use all the time that goes something like “be careful what you wish for”? Yea. Kinda true. WEIRDLY true. Gonna use this and another quote as the basis for the entry, because really, it’s both fascinating and unnerving.
The other quote is one from Avengers that goes something like “do you know what it’s like to be unmade?”
Guess before I dive right on in I have a few things to say:
1) Sorry I’ve been AWOL and only posting Press This articles for 2 weeks. I’ve been busy. More on this in the entry.
2) Even though it’s sunny outside it is DAMN COLD and my heat pump LIES when it claims it’s 22 degrees in my room currently. Need new batteries for the remote too.
3) The reason I’m writing about this is because this is MY blog. It’s a rather personal entry and I was actually considering putting it under private or password protected, but changed my mind. Feel free to ask about it if you like but I won’t guarantee answers, just promise to do my best.
So. Onwards.
The last while I’ve been feeling very unwell. Not physically – besides a few more points of acne and hateful, HATEFUL weight gain my body is just fine – but mentally. I haven’t been sleeping at all recently, I’ve been irritable and snippy, I’ve been very hard to be around and my flatmates are actually saints for dealing with me without decapitating me.
Basically… I feel the same way I felt when I was 15 and was depressed for the first time. So… logical brain said that I was depressed this time too. After a minor intervention – and by minor I mean it only involved one person speaking on behalf of the others, not that the content was minor at all – from my flatmates I called someone for help.
He is a doctor recommended to me by my mum and in turn he had been recommended by a friend. What’s interesting about him is that he is apparently not a typical doctor; he has methods that the medical community sort of blink at and then glance away awkwardly because they’re both odd and they work. Well, apparently. So I went to him, expecting a quick referral to an EEG scan (which I never got, but hey always next time), some blood tests (right on the dot, this one, I have the referral on my other knee as I type this) and advice to “go take a panadol” for my migraines.
What I got was a very quiet, very calm interrogation.
Put it this way, in 20 minutes the man knew my history not by asking me but by telling me. He could read it off my face, off my body language, the way I replied, the tone of voice… He did the usual poking around that doctors do and within 5 minutes determined that a few of my organs were weak and needed checking, that my glands may be putting out more hormones than they need to be, and that I needed more melatonin to sleep, no sleeping pills.
I am actually not sure how I held out not bursting into tears when he told me certain things – mental, in this case, not physical, oddly enough the fact that I have a “weak liver” didn’t scare me at all – but I most certainly cried my fill when I got back to the car. My hands were shaking for a few hours afterwards.
Let me explain.
I’ve been putting up walls for most of my life. No idea why or how they got so damn high, maybe due to bullying in primary (grade, for Americans) school, maybe something else, I don’t even know anymore. But if you’ve been putting up walls and hiding behind them as long as I have, and manipulating them so people can’t SEE you or your pain or fear, and suddenly you get a complete stranger seeing right through them and tearing them down to get to the soft vulnerable flesh of the “you” you’ve been walling… it’s really, REALLY unpleasant.
And now we come to the quotes that I introduced the entry with. Let’s go with the second first.
After yesterday, I feel like I know what it’s like to be unmade. Considering I’ve been using these walls to make myself who I am, to project a certain personality type, a certain confidence and nature, to have someone tell me they are what they are – nothing but walls; fake – is like someone telling me that I am not who I am. And in a way, he did tell me that, asking me gently if I even knew who I was anymore because of how long I’ve been hiding. It’s scary. Maybe not to you as you read this, maybe you don’t hide behind walls and you know who you are, but believe me when I say that it was like having he ground yanked up from under your feet and replaced with very thin ice.
The first quote – now second – applies in a much more ironically amusing way. Careful what you wish for.
After months of watching Lie To Me, and REWATCHING Lie To Me, and wanting, hoping, praying that I could be psychoanalyzed by Cal Lightman, I now understand that I really, truly never want to be. Let me reiterate that it. is. thoroughly. unnerving. to have someone see through everything you put up against being seen. I think if I were ever to meet Paul Ekman (the man Lightman was based on) I would walk very pointedly in the opposite direction after shaking his hand and proclaiming my undying respect.
But I digress.
I was referred to counselling and guided meditation (imagine your pain as a white ball of healing light) and given tart cherry juice to drink for sleep (and damn that stuff tastes amazing) and sent on my way with the calm advice of “you have to decide what you want. YOU have to decide. If you don’t know, figure it out, you’re young, you can afford to. But you have to do something. And you have to do it for you.”
So… I’m thinking. I’m making a list in a private entry for what I want and what I can do to get it. And hopefully… I’ll have something to aim for next year. I won’t lie, I am deathly scared that I could lose friends over some of my choices but… I was told to think for ‘me’, and to be the one to dictate my own life so… I will do that. And see where it leads me.
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IN OTHER NEWS Armageddon is this weekend. Yes. End of the world. Tell your friends. It’s gonna be big. If you can name both references used in that line above you will get a cookie. A real one. But no, not the end of the world, but the New Zealand slightly sad version of Comic Con. For those who recall, Neems and Dove and I drove to Hamilton in April for a slightly smaller event in Hamilton, maybe 2 hours out from Auckland. And now, Armageddon is on our home turf right here in Auckland. Yay!
Quite a few Supernatural stars out this way this year, so very exciting. I will *hopefully* meet and get autographs and photos from Mark Pellegrino (Lucifer/Nick), Christopher Heyerdahl (Alistair, I am BEYOND excited), Jim Beaver (Bobby Singer, I met him in Melbourne a few years back and he is LOVELY), Sebastian Roche (Balthazar) and Aldis Hodge (Jake from season 2) and hang out with cool people dressing up and being awesome. I dunno if I’ll dress up this time; I didn’t put much thought into costuming. I know that out of my flatmates, Holmes is going as old school Lara Croft *shrug* maybe I could go as someone from the Night Circus, or a Winchester (that would be entertaining for photos and such with Christopher especially) or something. We’ll see. Next week’s entry might be more exciting and most certainly more jovial than this week’s.
Also, I have started an Archive page for all my fics. This has been a long time coming and will be a long time finishing, but I am literally coding every single fic I have ever read and want to recommend to a series of pages. Started with one fandom and working my way to others. All the pages beyond the Archive itself will be password protected and you will only get the password once I’m happy with the coding. But yes, I will soon have an entire archive of all the fics and fandoms I love on here. Easy access. Good times.
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Mucho love to y’all. I will try to get better, but stuff like this takes time. Expect more Press This articles throughout the week, I’m on a bit of a roll, and feel free to request articles or blog content for later.
We’ve Found Neither Reason Nor Rhyme
It has been two weeks since I posted, so I’ll try to make this as entertaining as worth the wait as possible, there is a lot to say after all so here goes!~
So, as you know, Holmes, Mack and Neems and I now share a two-storey brand new flat together out east. It’s turned out great so far, we’re comfortable in the house, it’s quiet, it’s warm and all the fittings are new. Every once in a while one of the showers will complain or the toilet will throw a fit but otherwise we are finding damn near nothing bad with the place.
Moving in was quite an adventure in itself. Holmes couldn’t make it on moving day, so it was Mack and myself at the old place and Neems at her home, waiting on the moving guys to show up and collect our heavy and bulky things.
They were late.
By no fault of their own, I might add, but that’s not the story. The story is that they had to pick up things from four different places before they arrived at the new house and began carrying it all in. Neems and myself have the upstairs rooms – they are the biggest because we have the most stuff, and my room has access to the balcony from it – and BECAUSE we had the most amount of stuff the moving guys eventually got used to the fact that most everything went upstairs.
“Up and to the right” became code for anything Neems owned, which, to be fair, from the truck was probably about 80% of the stuff. Whenever we told them to take it upstairs and straight through they would laugh at the novelty. Downstairs became a party in and of itself, the guys wouldn’t have to tackle the stairs then. The issue came up – after we’d given them mugs of steaming coffee for their trouble – when both mine and Neems’ mattresses couldn’t fit up the stairs and we had to figure out how to get them up there.
The solution came quickly, though no one really knew how it would work considering the railing is made of glass; haul the damn things over the balcony.
So… we did.
It was an exercise in teamwork and giggles, let me tell you, but I want to give serious kudos to the guys who helped us move, they were INCREDIBLE and considerate and wonderful workers and I hope they got a good night sleep and a Christmas bonus or something for helping us with our epic move.
We told them to leave the things in the rooms so we could arrange them ourselves and sent them off home. The arranging took hours and we were in fits of laughter for most of the night. Neems and I, being obsessive about our stuff as we are, set out things out fully that night, going to bed approximately at 2:30am. Mack has still to unpack her things. But hey, it’s a considerate flat and a fun flat and I think we all love it here more than any of our previous living arrangements.
It’s also a much more social flat than what I’m used to. For those aware, I lived with Mack for nearly a year before we made this move, and the last flat and her and the other two girls we lived with are the only comparison I can logically make. I liked the other house, but we rarely did things as a flat. I think the issue was that we were all a little too different to find an activity that we all wanted to enjoy together. Here, it’s pretty much the exact opposite. So it’s weird to me to bring my laptop down and hang out in the reading corner (we have a reading corner. With fairy lights and a Grecian pillar, no joke) instead of locking myself in my room to do the same thing. Someone will be in the corner with me, someone else in the kitchen making dinner or a snack, and the last person opposite them at the breakfast bar.
It’s both weird and refreshing and I’m still getting used to it.
Considering this is a flat of creative people, many things happen that don’t usually happen in “normal” flats. Such as, for instance, one of the flatmates coming downstairs with the casual remark of “hey, I found that body bag I was telling you guys about.”
This led, of course, to much discussion and developed into an idea for the “flat family portrait”. Mack and I had wanted to do one at our old place but could never get everyone together at one time to do it. Here, however, we were all together, the house is still slightly boxed up and not yet unpacked so many walls are bare to shoot on, and so we set up a crime scene and started firing away the frames.
I will make it known that I was actually quite actively excited about wearing a real-hair stick-on mustache. Apparently I look a little like Jude Law… opinions?
(From dead to right, Holmes, Neems, yours truly, Mack)
Much wine was consumed that night and I don’t think I ever want to smell latex again ever. Urgh. Like dirty diapers, not even kidding.
I guess the only other adventure worth noting is the one that Mack and I experienced yesterday afternoon. Besides the four of us, we also have two cats sharing the flat; one is my girl named Elwen, she’s a Russian blue with only one eye and I’m apparently the only human she has ever ‘adopted’ and not actively tried to massacre for coming near her. And the other currently living here (but not the one that will be staying) is Frodo. Frodo… is a special cat. No, really. He’s medically mentally retarded. He thinks he’s about the size of a glove when he sits pretty at nearly eight kilos. And it was with Frodo that the adventure happened, actually.
We don’t let the cats out of the house. We need them to get used to living here, to know that this is their home now, so that they don’t run away and get hit by a car and die. We live fairly close to a major highway and it would be stupid to let them roam before they know where to return to. Because of this, they currently live in the main bathroom downstairs. They don’t mind, we let them out around the house when someone’s home so they can explore that way. I currently have my girl purring at the foot of the bar stool I’m sitting on.
So it was strange when Mack found me at home yesterday afternoon and asked if I had seen Frodo. I hadn’t. I had seen my cat who had greeted me in the morning but I hadn’t seen the other.
And so began a 25-minute search for the cat. We checked everywhere, and I’m not kidding when I say this. We checked the fridge. The rubbish bin. The dishwasher. Every cupboard and bookcase we had in the house and then some. No cat. We tried to recreate our movements of the day to see if we had left the door open somewhere by accident where he could have run out and neither of us had noticed. Nothing. The cat had vanished through a portal in the downstairs bathroom and that was that.
So, vanquished, I go to use the bathroom before picking Neems and Holmes up from work, and hear a strange sound like someone is shuffling bottles around. I look down and Frodo is calmly making his way out from INSIDE A NEARLY FLAT SHELF FILLED WITH THINGS next to the sink. He gives me an innocent look and I thank HIS lucky stars that I am somewhat unable to throttle him to within an inch of his life.
This cat… will be the death of me I am not even kidding.
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Phew, that’s about it for the week guys. Hope the entry was worth waiting for, I’m sure there’ll be tons of exciting things on here now that I live with these insane people. We have a flatwarming this coming Sunday, so, as they say in Brick, “call for details” if you have the folly of youth upon you, Keep in mind, however, that if you don’t have the right invitation the correct details will not be issued.
Till next time lovely readers.
And So It Goes…
So these last few weeks have been interesting to say the very least. A lot has happened, and to say all of it has been good would be a blatant lie. So let’s just go in as much order as we can, shall we?
One of my closest friends in the world, Jack, has been in hospital for nearly two weeks and I’ve been… a little worse for wear. Time difference is a bitch, let’s just say. And with a 19 hour difference, it makes getting up in the morning a whole new boardgame. So I’ve been up at 4am (my time) a lot so I can talk to her, and txt her and email… and all I wish is for her to get better and to go home.
That’s the reason I haven’t written for a while, actually, I’ve been worried and tired and just completely out of it. Only reason I’m writing this week is because there is literally so much going on that I don’t even have the excuse of ‘nothing happening’ to hide behind anymore.
So, I guess, after explaining my absence, I should elaborate on all this ‘stuff’ that’s happening yes?
One of the things was that Mack had a very interesting assignment for uni. She had to make a 5 minute video for her editing class and she chose to do a music video to a song by Poets and Pornstars called Earthman. And she asked me to be a part of it. I won’t lie… it was epic fun. I had to be a character who looked rugged on the outside but inside was a calm and quiet person who enjoyed painting late into the night. Also… I was the only one she killed off. I take that as an honor badge and I don’t care what anyone says.
For those interested… here it be! For those even more interested… Mack is the boss at the beginning :)
Next up, and this is the event that is in no way entertaining or fun… I gave my cat up to the SPCA for adoption yesterday. It had become very hard to look after her and I didn’t want to do her a disservice by keeping her in a place where she would potentially be unhappy. She’s had all her shots up to date, was fixed and microchipped… and not even a year old. The staff at the SPCA fell in love with her and were certain she would find a good home soon. I do hope she does, she’s not a bad cat. It was harder than I thought to give her up… I’m not a cat person at all but I had spent 9 months with her constantly, and it feels strange not hearing her howl outside my door anymore.
I guess the final thing that’s made this week both hectic and exciting is that I’m moving house. This weekend. Yep.
It’s hard to explain without giving a long-winded history of nearly everything but in short, Holmes needed to move out of home quickly, Neems decided she was due for a change, and Mack and I tagged along because the prospect was just very fun-sounding at the time (and because I’ve wanted to flat with the three of them for months now).
We looked for ages, we pretty much scoured Trademe until there was nothing left in our area and price range… and then, miraculously, we found one. On Tuesday.
We took it on the spot.
We’re moving in tomorrow night.
It’s a two-storey place that looks like a house on the outside but lives like an apartment on the inside. It’s incredible. We’re so excited it’s actually still quite comical. It’s gonna be awesome.
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And that’s… pretty much it really. I honestly have nothing more to say. I’m exhausted, and sleepy and bouncy and most likely not all there right now.
Till next week :)
Take My Hand, Rescue Me
Title from Burden of Sacrifice by Full Blown Rose
This post is inspired by a conversation I had with Holmes the other night while we were taking my cat over to her place to teach her how to socialize and make her understand that she’s not the alpha cat in the damned household.
It started simply enough, I was telling Holmes how the development of technology nowadays is freaking me out. Not the technology itself in come cases but more the speed with which we are developing, and more the fact that no one else seems to be worried about this development, and embracing it or (worse) taking it for granted and into stride.
I’d walked into JB HiFi the day before just to browse and not buy, and found myself facing a “new generation” Smart TV. What this thing does, is allow the viewer to voice-command it to change channels, get to the internet and dictate a search (among other things like volume control and display adjustment). It also allowed hands-free motion control for internet searching… so you would only have to hold your hands up in the direction of the screen and move them and the mouse pointer/TV selector would follow you along.
The ad for it, obviously, was very excited about this new development, citing how it would make life so much easier for viewers because they wouldn’t even have to get up off the couch to change the channel or even more their HANDS TO THE REMOTE ON THEIR BELLY to select something.
To be honest, it freaked me out so much I left the store.
I think I’ve written an entry on here before about how I am very empathetic when it comes to technology… two months ago actually, almost to the day. Wow. Anyway, this is sort of related to that only it’s less my empathy towards machines and technology and more my fear of the apathy people feel towards it and each other due to the new and “easy” developments.
Call me paranoid, but I am scared of technology. More specifically, I am scared of what technology can do. When people preview new robots on the internet or show them on the news and sound so excited when the robot shows facial expressions, or can mimic a voice, or can reply with coherent and thought-out replies… I get very, very nervous. Yes, it’s most certainly a development for our era and our age, but why do we need it? I understand why we develop machines for medical research but why do we need robots that can mimic the expression of fear or joy? Why do we even WANT that?
Maybe it’s because I was raised on science fiction stories and ideas, but it worries me that people are getting so obsessed with technology and taking advantage of it. Yes, I have a laptop, yes I own a shiny mobile phone and a large TV, but I own them for the purpose of using them for their intended purposes. I have a laptop that can write, go on the internet and edit video and photos. I’ve had it for a few years and once I replace the battery I think I will have it for years more, because I don’t NEED a new one for all its shiny accessories. It wigs me out when people buy an iPad 3 after having owned an iPad 2 for the 6 months it took to develop the third one, simply because it’s NEW so it must be BETTER. My phone is my communication device, it txts and calls and emails and that’s what I need to stay in touch with all the people and societies that I work with and for. My TV has the ability to connect to the internet, but why the hell would I NEED that??
Every time I see new things being developed “just because we can” it makes me think of Gamer, or Prometheus, or The Matrix or Equilibrium… we are losing ourselves to an obsession and it’s terrifying.
Holmes mentioned, after that entire rant was delivered by me in a slightly high-pitched voice, that what scares her is not the same aspect of this as what scares me, but a similar concept. What scares her is how apathetic people are towards each other BECAUSE OF technology. Because now we have cellphones to txt on, and Skype to chat on and emails to let people know what is what and where and how. We no longer call on the phone unless we have to, and we rarely make time to see people if we’ve talked to them on the internet or over txt recently.
She mentioned how when her mother was at university, students would rally together over issues; over the Vietnam war, over animal testing and inappropriate treatment in schools… people would go out and fight for something they believed in, or at least make an effort to have themselves known… and now we have “like this Facebook page if you agree”. One click, one action, solved. Apparently.
It’s really scary. There are so many things that we should be protesting about and trying to change and yet no one is doing anything because no one seems to care enough. Or know about it. Once in a while you see flyers up around uni about some protest or other, but very few people show up. Now people either don’t show up to uni period, or they have class and don’t skip it for a protest. I remember one time, one, at this uni where enough students protested for it to be known and remembered… Mack and I tried to get in on the protesting too but they stopped letting people in. Yea. For a student protest they weren’t letting students in. Well played, uni life, well played.
I’m just worried that eventually we’ll get to a point where Facebook will have an option to say you’re chronically ill or dead and people will “like” the status and not realize what it means.
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In other news, I’m stuck at uni waiting for the very first LSS (Linguistics Students’ Society) meeting this evening. It should be interesting, I’m in to work as webmaster for that (meaning I’ll run the blog, Facebook and Twitter pages) and also helping with organizing talks and special guests for later in the semester. If you’re at Auckland uni and in any way interested in linguistic things, sign on up! It’s going to be awesome.
I’ve also started an extra page on here called The Top 67, which is a collection of my Songs of the Day that I started a week ago. It’s actually quite fun to do, so feel free to start your own. I’ve linked all the songs I’ve used so far off the page so you can find them and listen for yourself.
I’ve also completely finished chapter 1 of The Watcher. Wondering if I should post it online as I go or just wait and post in full, but you tell me. I’ve done tons of planning on it and now it’s just down to Holmes and I doing the research and sending out paper copies to my six-odd beta readers. Much love and support to y’all for that, you know who you are.
And with that… see you next week :)
Developments of the Potentially Exciting Nature
A lot of stuff has been going down lately – which is quite usual for me – and it’s made me think about a lot in my life, and change some things in it.
I wanted to take a gap semester in order to save up for Comic Con ’13 in San Diego, which has been a dream of mine to attend since God only knows when (plus, in 2013 all the films and shows I love will be at SDCC and I can meet my Top Eight all at once) but, that turned out to be a bit of an issue with people who I am really close to. So I decided to take a step back and analyze the situation a little more.
I am currently in my second year at Auckland Uni, I recently changed my major and minor study – by recently I mean this semester – and because of this I will not only have to do summer school for two years to catch up on all my classes, but I will also have to potentially take an extra semester before I can graduate with a degree. Believe me, I’m not jumping for joy at this either. However, I realized that were I to take a gap semester I might quite easily lose all motivation to study when I get back, and potentially never finish my degree.
That being said, one of the issues that came up was that I wanted to take the semester gap to work as well as write. For those who know me well, you know writing is pretty much the only thing that keeps me sane. For those who don’t, but read my blog anyway, I write a minimum of 1,000 words per entry and I make up for lost entries by writing longer posts. Writing is the only thing I have never given up, it keeps me going. So I won’t lie when I say I got very upset when someone inferred that if I really wanted to be a writer I would be taking time out of my life to write on a daily basis.
I write a minimum of 10,000 words a week, sometimes more, purely for myself because otherwise I go out of my mind and my hands start shaking. I also study full time and work part time, I do both things well. Last semester was a bad mark on my GPA and not the best time of my life either, so this time I am making a full effort to get my grades up. That means I’ve done all my assignments not only on time, but also at least a week early.
I was told that if I wanted to go to SDCC, I had to earn it. I had to earn my grades, earn my money and earn my privilege to go on my own. I get that, really I do, but at the same time it was damn infuriating being referred to as a child.
However, like I said, I took a step back and thought this through.
In that time, I have picked up extra hours at work – I now work actual part time hours, maybe more than usual part time hours, instead of my short “casual hour” weeks – I have sent my writing off to half a dozen magazines for publication approval and I am still on top of my study.
To be honest, I think I’ll burn out pretty quickly, but I’m not going to drop it or give up. I’ll probably take a roadtrip if things get completely mental; Holmes and I need to visit the west coast of the country at some point and I would actually love to go up to Reinga again.
All that being said, I still have no idea what I want to do with my life of where I’m going with it. Yes, I’m studying for a degree, and I love my major so much that I may actually consider post grad in it, but at the same time I have no idea if I will ever use it in my life. Sometimes I really wonder whether or not it was worth going to university and accumulating so much debt that will tie me to this stupid country until I pay it off, and then I remember that I said the same thing about taking the I.B. program instead of NCEA (for those not sure what NCEA is… it’s crap. That’s pretty much all you have to know) and now, having graduated with I.B. I am very proud of myself for doing it and sticking with it. That’s not to say that I wouldn’t change a lot that I did at that school and at that time – like maybe drop art and take comp sci instead? – but I am still pleased that I opted for the harder option and reaped more rewards because of it.
So maybe I’m overthinking this as I tend to do with a lot of things. Maybe, because I’m in the middle of study, and trying hard to figure out my way in life, and how to stay afloat and alive and vaguely sane, maybe everything seems worse than it actually is and I’ll find that going to university and taking these subjects was actually the best choice I ever made for myself. Who knows, could happen. I’ve already proven to myself that I understand and like philosophical logic a lot more than I thought I would – and a lot more than Master Four and Mack did when they forewarned me about how boring it would be – and I’ve become a lot more active with linguistics and the department this year.
Who knows, who the heck knows.
Right now I’m stuck in a weird sort of limbo, where I like certain days and hate others; look forward to work for the people but hate it for the hours; write as much as my mind can take and get on average 4-5 hours of sleep a night if that…
I have no idea where I’m going, how fast, or why. But I do know that I’m going.
…and I am definitely going to Comic Con.
Guess that means something, right?
Also, finally, a huge thank you to Holmes, Neems, Jack, Mack and Q for their unending support. If not in some things then in others. It really means the world to me. Thank you. By popular demand, much love and hugs to Master Four for his support also. Although he got cupcakes already.
A Serious Experiment
This entry is brought to you by the combined efforts of Mack and Bandit, and was due last week on Thursday but time constraints and general laziness prevented it from being written. Also I had assignments and many will agree that albeit boring, an assignment takes first priority. Sadly. Such is life.
Anyway, onwards!
On Wednesday last, Mack and I shared a four-hour gap between our classes and the class of a friend of ours with whom we were carpooling. In that time we decided to perform a replica of an experiment that we had seen done by a very interesting man named Derren Brown. For those who don’t know, in summary, Derren is a psychological illusionist. Honestly, I could go on – or Mack could, she knows a lot more about him than I do – but it’s probably safer to read his “about Derren” page. Safe to say, though, that the man is mindblowingly awesome.
While watching his show Trick of the Mind with Mack one evening, we saw an experiment that involved no speaking whatsoever, or, technically, active participation. The experiment went as follows:
At 10am, Derren placed a wallet with money (he made sure it was visible, though the wallet was closed) on the corner of a busy intersection in London. He drew a circle around the wallet with yellow chalk and set up a camera nearby to see how long it would take someone to pick it up or snatch it. The wallet was left untouched and unstolen until the late evening, when Derren returned to claim it and calmly walk away with his money.
Being poor students, Mack and I couldn’t afford to place real money into the wallet we’d acquired at the local thrift store, so we bought some monopoly money and placed them, with a note, on the corner of a busy – but not the busiest – intersection in the Auckland CBD. We took a seat very close to the wallet in the local diner – where the view of the street was at eyelevel – and waited to see how the experiment would go.
Mack predicted that, like in Derren’s experiment, the wallet would remain on the intersection for as long as we chose to leave it there.
Bandit predicted that in the shortest possible time, someone would either pick it up or take it outright.
After ten minutes, my hypothesis was proven. Within the first seven minutes, a family of three – father, mother and a baby in a covered stroller – picked up the wallet and opened it to find the note and fake money. They read the note carefully, or at least we thought so, because they were staring at the inside of the wallet for a long time, before calmly taking it and PLACING IT OUT OF THE WAY OF THE STREET and moving along.
Now, the notes states that this is a social experiment. Sure, it’s not planned properly or monitored like it should be but it’s a freaking experiment anyway. If you read that you would most likely return the wallet to where you found it and move on, since it’s an EXPERIMENT. But no, they chose to move it away from its circle, thus fucking up the experiment and forcing Mack and myself to reset it. Kudos, guys, really.
So I go out to replace the wallet – under the pretense of tying my shoe – and return to the diner. It takes only two more minutes before a young Islander girl, somewhere between 12 and 14, walks by and casually swipes the wallet, walking away without a backward glance with the thing under her arm.
Experiment over then.
But why so quick?
We pondered this for a while, actually, while walking back to the car and hoping our carpool buddy hadn’t drowned in the rain. Derren had placed the wallet with real money in the middle of a busy LONDON intersection… we had placed our wallet with fake money in a much less busy intersection in Auckland city. What the hell?
One theory that we thought of for Derren’s experiment to work was that the more people that are in an area, the less likely someone is do to something, be that help someone in need or grab a wallet full of money. It’s a psychological thing; people instantly assume that the more people there are around, the more likely someone ELSE is to do something. So maybe that’s why the girl swiped the wallet pretty much under our noses as we calmly ate our wedges and chicken curry pie at Ronnie’s; there were so few people around at the time that she thought maybe no one would notice?
Another idea we had was that the yellow circle had something to do with it. We bought chalk in different colors but decided to start with yellow, like Derren’s had been. Maybe it was something about the color? Maybe the circle itself? Once we got back to the car we actually asked Z whether or not she would be more likely to pick up a wallet in a circle or a wallet on the ground without a circle. She said that she would assume that the circle suggests some form of test or experiment and she would avoid it. When we asked our flatmates, they said the same thing: the circle is a deliberate thing, it doesn’t naturally occur in yellow on the pavement, so therefore it’s been drawn for a reason and a wallet within it is thus there for a reason also.
Ok. So again, why did the family pick it up, READ THE NOTE THAT EXPLAINED THAT THIS WAS AN EXPERIMENT and then proceed to fuck the experiment up by moving the wallet to the windowsill of the diner?? Why did the young girl blatantly grab the thing and run? Maybe we didn’t ask the right people whether or not the circle would be deterring, maybe the people we asked just naturally like to leave things alone?
The last thing we thought of was that maybe it was just a cultural difference. Z never lived in London, but she has been there, and apparently strangers on the street don’t even make eye contact, it’s considered very strange. You don’t even look at people on the train. So… maybe it’s a cultural thing to assume that if someone dropped their wallet they would come and pick it up again on their own? And if the wallet was dropped into a conveniently drawn yellow chalk circle then all the better, they’ll find it easier that way.
In New Zealand, apparently, if a wallet’s on the ground you have to pick it up. Luckily, we witnessed both aspects of human nature during our ridiculously short experiment: a family who were trying to do good by setting the wallet aside to be out of the way and out of potential stealing territory, and the thief who took advantage of a quiet street and an easy mark. Strangely, when we asked our flatmate’s boyfriend – he’s French – he said he would have picked the wallet up too, maybe tried to return it to someone on the street if he’d seen who dropped it, or set it aside as the family had done. So maybe it’s the cultural aspect that worked against us?
Either way, safe to say that Derren’s experiment worked wonders and our fell flat. But it was still a fun way to spend a four-hour gap between class and carpool.
I know I usually don’t ask for comments on here because the people who read it and enjoy it are amazing and I know who they are, I would rather comments were genuine than for the sake of a comment count, but I would love opinions on this entry. Would you pick up the wallet? Why or why not? Why do you think we failed (beyond the obvious lack of research or preparation for the experiment) and Derren succeeded?
Anything and everything, really, we’d love to know.
This has been Bandit and Mack bringing you: a serious experiment.
