2010

2009 was an interesting year. A lot of firsts for me. First year of uni. First year of admiting that it's okay to change your mind. First year of dropping out of uni. First job. Second job too . First time I was completely happy with an artwork. First complete manuscript.

For all my grand plans and resolutions made this time last year, I only met a few. Almost every art goal fell into the abyss of stress that was my first year of uni. Writing ditto. I did manage to complete a grand total of two artworks - one in Feb, and one in late October. Another has been sitting on my workspace in the 85% complete stage for the last two months. My grand and spectacular plans for writing were also demolished. However ... I did return to NaNoWriMo this year, and unlike last year, I finished it. I wrote a novel. Yay! One goal met, a few months later than expected, but in hindsight the goals I had set myself were just a tad unrealistic. As always.

So onwards to 2010. I've transferred to a uni and course I like much better than the last one. I have grand (and actually happening) travel plans for July. I have more travel plans for the beginning of next year, or the first holidays at least. Planning big I am. I have new art goals and new writing goals, that are hopefully more achievable this time around. I've got work, which is always useful, and I'm venturing out a lot more in getting experience to further me in both the writing and art worlds. And I have a new computer named Fred. What could possibly go wrong?

I am looking forward to 2010 with excitement. My grandfather has already deemed it my 'lucky year', and I am determined to work hard to be able to stand at the end of the year, look back and think 'Look at how far I've come.' I'm gonna prove my Papa right.

Ridge to Bridge and other Miscelaneous Jitterings

Despite the order of the title we're going to cover the Miscelaneous Jitterings first. Or at least part of them. I have always had a fear of not living up to expectations, or disappointing people. To some extent, this has carried over to my creative work. I hate sharing anything I've written, or even drawn, with the fear that it's not good enough. Which is why it was so nice to open my inbox this afternoon and see that I have a host of emails from Fiction Press regarding the second chapter of a story I posted last night. Amoungst several reviews, I had a couple of people who'd added it as 'Favourite Story', and even one who'd labelled me a 'Favourite Author'. But it's the reviews I love most. To see people getting excited about something I won't even post under any aliases I have, let alone my real name. I honestly squee-d and bounced around because I was so happy. I can't even begin to describe what this means to me. And it's only on a second chapter of a story that wasn't really going to be continued. I still have no idea where it's going, but people are connecting with it, and right now, to me, that's all that really matters XD.

Okay, now we've gotten the emotional out of the way ...
Ridge to Bridge was last Sunday morning. It's an event that all the local fire brigades participate in, and since I joined up in time for this years, I went in it too. Basically, the Ridge to Bridge is walking through the bush on trails often not really trails down hills and up hills from the Cowan fire station to the Brooklyn fire station. Lots of very steep parts. I believe my dad measured it at being around 15.5 kms. Some people ran it (silly crazy people ... like my dad *shakes head in disbelief* - I barely made it up one of the hills) but most walked. I believe my team was the first walking team from Cowan to complete it. We did it in just over 3 hrs, which was largely due to my inability to climb rocky hills with speed. Despite the fact that the giant-steep-hill-that-just-kept-going-and-going seriously made me want to stop, I finished it, and I'm glad I did. It's actually a nice walk for the most part, and mostly downhill. Makes me realise how unfit I've become. I did mean to write about it on Sunday night, and now I've forgotten most of what I wanted to say, but there you go.

Uni started back on Monday. I'm used to it again so quickly it's scary. Unfortunately I have to get up at 5:30 4 days a week for 8am lectures, but it means I get home earlier so I don't mind too much. I'd rather have it that way around, there's more time in the day then to do other things. Like writing. I did the chapter last night, and it came really easily, which is even nicer. I got my influx of cash from ASG which is nice. It's more than double what it was for semester one, which is even nicer :).

My Living Systems biology course this semester is so much better than last semesters Concepts was. We're doing animal body plans and function at the moment, and the lecturer is a zoologist, so I'm in heaven, especially since she believes heavily in the wonderfullness of pictures as examples. On the slightly downward side of that however, is that we disected a locust for prac yesterday. Normally I'm sort of okay with disections, and I'm better when it's the whole animal and not just some random organ, and locusts don't smell when you cut them up .... but we had to pin them in the disecting dish. I am entirely against pinning insects, so to have to do it myself was not okay. I know why we did it, and I agree it helped, but that doesn't mean I have to like it. Once the pinning was done, it was really fun though. We cut off the exoskeleton, and then submerged the entire insect in water. Basically the entire back two thirds of a locust is made up of it's reproductive organs, and they're bright yellow. Seriously. And they kind of went all wispy in the water. It was actually kinda cool, until they kept getting in the way. They also had a wolf skull for us to draw and label (we had to do that with the locust too), which was also cool. I think we'll shut the weird zoology nut up now. My Greek Myths and Legends class looks to be really good too, and the focus is totally on the myths themselves; the people in them, the events, symbolism etc.

Anyway, that's my rambling for the evening. I have to start making my notes for my units. If I don't start now, I won't at all, and then there shall be trouble. I keep telling myself I'll do it on Friday however ('Cause I get home at 11:45 <3), so we shall see.

Short but Sweet

Look! Second post in two weeks! There must be something funny in the water :P. Back in Sydney after a week up North with family. We had a great time the rest of last week. We went to the aquarium and Luna Park on Friday, and met some of our other cousins there. All of us ended up feeling very sick :P, although someof us (i.e. me - I was already feeling sick) skipped the Rotor (big spinny tube where you get stuck to the walls 'cause of the centrifugal force and all that). And then we went on other spinny rides after that.

I was glad we got to go to Winterfest. Luckily for me my aunt likes that sort of stuff. My cousin, not so much, but she had fun anyway :). Drove up to Ballina Sunday morning. 7 hours. Fun. We did lots of beaching and laking and general nothingness. We went to see the new Harry Potter on ... um, some afternoon. Not sure which. There didn't seem to me to be that much going on. I liked it, but not much seemed to happen, except the very end.

And we left Ballina this morning and got home about 2ish. Katherine was crying when we said goodbye. I hate that she lives so far away! I've decided I'm definitely going to England in my winter holidays next year though, and then she and I are going to go to Venice. And other random European cities/countries.

Back to uni on Monday. I have to get up at 5:30 every morning now *whimpers*. No fair. 8am lectures are only okay when teleportation is invented. This is short because I'm tired and I need to go get dinner. I hope people had a nice week.

We All Live In A Yellow Submariiiiiiiiiiine

I think the problem I have with keeping a journal is that I'm not really the type of person who talks a whole lot about how they feel. I have made several attempts to keep some sort of journal or diary over the years, and I think the longest lasting (besides LJ), lasted me a month and a half. I think I end up giving up because I think that there's not much point.

Not much has really been happening. I managed to scrape a pass in first semester Chemistry. And I literally mean scrape. 51%. Yay me :). Virtually nothing has happened in writing or art terms. My big painting is only slightly more sketched than it was a month ago. I think my problem there is that I expect to be able to do it right the first time, which is totally unrealistic, and when I can't I give up for a while. Luckily, it's only the sketching that takes a long time. So once I eventually get this done, it'll be finished nice and quickly. Or at least that's the plan.

My aunt and cousin are in Australia for the next 5 and 2 weeks respectively. They're staying with us for a week, then we're all going up to the grandparents. We don't get to see them often. Denise (my aunt) comes out generally once a year, but I haven't seen Katherine for 3 years. I haven't seen my uncle for at least 6. (They live in England). I am seriously thinking about going to England this time next year though. I already have enough money for a ticket. I do need to get a passport though. I think they're around $200.

My brother recently introduced me to Matthew Reilly's books. (Actually, he's been bugging me to read them for over a year, but I never really liked the blurb on the back ... how wrong I was...) I love them. Very fast paced, action filled books. Particularly though, I LOVE 'Seven Ancient Wonders' and 'Six Sacred Stones'. Very awesome books. I'd so love to do that sort of thing, though maybe without the being killed option.

We went to visit family with Denise and Katherine last night and ended up staying for dinner. It was nice 'cause we hadn't seen them in a while. They were coming to the airport but Ben had a seizure so they took him home instead. We watched Step Brothers, which was just a little bit stupid. I didn't like it that much, but Will Ferrell singing at the end was okay. Dave was wearing a pink towel around his dreads to help them dry. I made fun of it and he reckons he's gonna target me to get some, because he 'sees potential in my hair' lol. I think I'd prefer braids, but dreads would be fun for a while :). It'll never happen.

I want to learn to fly light aircraft. I imagine it's kind of expensive though. I know my uncle learnt on a school teachers salary though, so it can't be too bad. I've also decided I want to live in Canada for a while. And I want to go see the flooding plains in Africa that were on 'Nature's Great Events' on Sunday that I can't remember the name of.

And next time we may or may not get a more concise post rather that lots of random thoughts jammed together. Good luck with that :)

bab⋅bling - NOUN - 1. foolish or meaningless chatter; prattle

I love Tobi when he preens himself. He's all fluffed up and gorgeous. And then I get his bits of fluff all over my knee (or whatever else he happens to be sitting on). I saw Star Trek last night. It's an awesome movie! I haven't really seen any Star Trek before, but I really like it. The effects were good and I loved Spock. And Chris Pine is gorgeous I want to go to space. I hope we find other inhabited planets in my lifetime, or they find us :) That would be amazing.

I need a bigger bookcase. Just on a side note. I have too many books - half of them are living under my bed because there's simply not enough room for them on my bookcase. Of course, I don't exactly have room for another bookcase either. I think when I build my desk that we're going to put boxes along the back underneath though. I wanted some for uni stuff, and it'll help with supporting it too. So that'll be nice. I'm making a desk, did I mention? The one I have now is too small to do anything on so I never use it. The one we're making will be about 3m long and probably somewhere about 80cm deep for my computer, Tobi, and enough room for me to spread out my uni and art stuff. It'll run underneath my window, which will give it some nice light. Previously it was in a dark corner. I did work/painting etc on either my bed or my floor, which isn't the best way to do things :P

Uni is over. It went so quick! I have a week off, and then exams. I end up getting 5 weeks off after that before second semester :D. I am so ready for holidays. Uni is draining. I got my textbook for Greek and Roman Myth the other day. It's so pretty. I'm also looking forward to doing Living Systems for biology. Concepts was interesting, but I really don't like the molecular stuff, which is mostly what this course dealt with. The genetics and Ecology topics were good though :) I have to do Chemistry and Maths again :(

I broke the mask I made. It was a bit stupid. Generally my floor is covered in clothes and paper and stuff, and because I don't use my desk, that's where the mask was. And I stepped on it. I glued it to the plastic mask I modelled it on and painted over it again and it's fine now, but I've put it away until I can paint it somewhere where it's not going to break. I have a background for something, but I think I've changed the direction for that, so it won't be finished for a while. I have an A2 sized work being sketched as well. Big is fun. That's sort of it.

On a quick side note ... whilst my blog here gets the same main updates as my livejournal, my livejournal gets some 'friends only' posts that I can't do here. It also used to get my twitter updates, though it doesn't anymore. My livejournal can be found here, and my twitter here. That is all.

Splurge

I hate sales. Really I do. There's so much temptation to buy (and of course I can't resist. Who can?). The wonderful Alexandra Sforza makes all sorts of wonderful things, including the most gorgeous old keys. (Thank you very much to starrydance for putting her keys up on her blog! Otherwise this source may not have been discovered *gasp*.) And she's having a half off sale! (Go check it out. Link up there ^.) And I just couldn't resist!! So I have bought these:


"Industry Halted
No matter how high we build, all the steel and glass we use, Nature will find a way. There is always a glimmer of green through the gold.
Beautiful green tourmaline against brass."

aaand

"Wings of Friendship
A funny little key, I don't know what it's from. It has the word "friendship" stamped into the metal on the other side. Cute! Pink tourmaline accents the idea of love and lasting friendship."

How beautiful are they?? And they were 50% and 20% off respectively!!!! (As 'Wings of Friendship' is a new piece, it wasn't included in the sale, but she took 20% off for me anyway, how nice is that?)

And now I have to wait for them to arrive *sob*. But they are so beautiful and I can't wait for them to get here!!

Mask

It's been awhile since I had any new art. I do have a couple of sketches lying around, but in the meantime, here's a look at my current project:


I've learned some interesting things in making this mask. The first being that I need a better (read stronger) base for it. I used a cheap platic mask to model my clay on, and it isn't really the right shape, but it has been bent by the weight of the clay, so it's too flat and wide. Not that it matters too much, as it was never intended on being worn, but it is a little annoying.

Also annoying is that despite that I only let it dry out really slowly, it still cracked. The paint covers most of it, but it's still really annoying. After I'd left it for a couple of weeks (mainly because I got lazy o_O) I took it out yesterday and started sanding it back. It's too lumpy to become truly smooth, largely as a result of the plastic mask base not being at all strong enough to support the weight of the clay, but also a lack of proper tools. So I left it kind of lumpy. Texture and all that. (EDIT: As I've been adding more layers of paint I've found that the clay not being 100% smooth has led to a beautiful texture being built up. I'll have to try and get a picture. It's starting to look more like leather than clay now, which is really nice.) A piece off the top right corner fell off whilst I was sanding it. It was cracked there, but it didn't look that big, so I was surprised when it fell off.

I've now sealed it all over, and then twice on the fron with sealer mixed 1:1 with paint. I've used a mix of burgundy red and bronze acrylics. I was searching though my mum's box of paints yesterday when I found them. She used to do folk art and has proper artists quality acrylics, as well as some other neat stuff. I only have cheap students acrylics. I don't use acrylics enough to justify buying expensive ones, but they do have such a nice depth of colour. As well as the burgundy, I also found bronze and gold paints (which have a much richer colour than mine), as well as a crackle medium. Fun fun. I'm finishing with the burgundy mixes now, before I start detailing in bronze and gold. I'll finish with the cracke medium.

I really want to learn to do this properly. Anyone with any knowledge on mask making want to share? I'm going to try and find some classes too :)

Happy Mother's Day!!

To my mum, and all the other mothers out there.

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!!

I hope it's filled with happiness and fun!

Rantamble

The problem with sitting down to actually post is that everything I was going to say goes flying out the window and I end up with a small post that doesn't really say much. The end of my laptop power cord has somehow melted, and it fell apart last night. I don't think I like computers very much at the moment. The screen on the one I'm on now keeps randomly dying. The power cord wasn't connected properly. I think it's okay now.

And now I'm actually on a different computer. Go figure.

I went to get the part I need for my power cable at a computer repair shop the other day and the guy wouldn't sell it to me without seeing my computer to 'check that it's right'. Despite the fact that I know exactly what I need. Stupid people. So now I have to go into Hornsby to get it there, instead of a shop conviently right near my uni. Hornsby is completely out of my way, unless I wanted to get off my train home and wait over an hour for the next one. I don't think so. *Grumble*.

The holidays were so short! Sydney Uni only has a week break mid semester. I believe it's because we start a week later and finish a week earlier than all the other unis. I'd rather start at the same time and have two weeks off. We had friends from Victoria staying with us for a night, and then we went up to Ballina to visit my grandparents. I came home early on the train, because of uni. It's actually a really nice train trip. Long, but less than half of what it costs to fly. I was going right next to the ocean at one point, and the country is beautiful. It's a totally different view than you get from the road.

I have a maths quiz and a biology quiz this week. Monday and Thursday. 15% and 10% respectively. I need to go study for that ... I dyed my hair last night. It's supposed to be dark brown but it's looking rather black this morning. I think I should probably have washed it out a little earlier than I did. It's cool though. Now my hair is almost back to normal. It was a much lighter brown after the red in the permanent faded. My hair is normally a dark brown, so once the colour fades a bit, it'll be all good.

I have a painting in the works! Yay. Much happiness will ensue. It doesn't have any people in it, so the sketch was much quicker this time. I hate drawing and painting people. I need to practice more! I made a mask yesterday as well. I'm waiting for the clay to dry out now so I can seal and paint it. It's very rough, because I mostly just wanted to DO something. I've had that clay for ages. Basically I was just putting clay over a plastic mask, to get the shape. I need a better base. Plastic bends too easily o_O.

I house sat at my neighbours over easter weekend. It was fun to pretend I had cats for a few days. I want a cat (and many other things, but we shan't start listing here). I don't think Tobi would like a cat too much. One of my friend's has gone to America with her family for four weeks. They're touring all the national parks. I am SO jealous. That is definitely on my list of things that Must be Done!!! On a travelling note, I was thinking of maybe going to South Africa at the end of this year. Aviva (www.aviva-sa.com) runs several volunteering programs on the reserves. I was thinking especially the Tamboti Reserve program ... but I think that I may instead save my money to do ... Summer School. Yep. That's right. But I like learning and there's only so much room for units in the semester. But then again I might get uni-ed out. The Tamboti program would still be learning ... This is what I get when I type exactly what I'm thinking, while I'm thinking it. Circles.

I Really Need To Think Of A Decent Title

I has new iPodness! It's shiny and black. Also ... it has colour o_O!! It's amazing! I've kept my mini going for so long now. It still works, but very sporadically and sometimes for a couple of hours and sometimes for a few minutes. It comes back from the dead too. If it dies because the battery is dead, and you turn it on again enough, the battery rises to half full and it'll last for at least an hour. But it is time for Lindsey's Amazing iPod of Awesome to be retired. Largely because I'll need music for about 11 hours in a row next Sunday and there is no way my mini would've made it.

I skipped out early on uni today. There are some days when you just can't be bothered ... Of course, it helps that all the lecture notes and often audio are posted online. And the particular lecturers we have at the moment are simply reading straight of their powerpoints...

I'm so excited it's almost Easter! I only get a week off, but it shall be fun filled and awesome nonetheless. Some family friends from Victoria are staying with us Monday night, and then we're going to Balina to visit my grandparents on Wednesday. Unfortunately I have to come back early for uni, but I'm catching the train, which'll be fun :). 11 hours .... now you realise why I need an iPod with a long battery.

As I write this Tobi has moved from my head, where he was eating some of the pictures on my wall, to my knees. I have no idea why he sits on my knees when I type, because my computer is resting on the same leg, so he's completely blocked off. Crazy bird. I bought him a new toy the other day - basically a whole lot of knots in a thick cottonish rope thing. He's scared of it at the moment. Poor baby. But he needs to get used to it and eat it instead of everything else that's lying around in my bedroom!

I believe we have come to the end of my random updatingness for today. Oooh. Except ... Dymocks have brought out a kind of notebook range called 'paperblanks'. They have the awesomest covers! Seriously, check them out. They're expensive, but oh-so-pretty. Most have lined pages. Mine is blank paged and looks like one of those old leather books. Very cool.

For lack of a better subject line ...

So You Think You Can Dance (that has to many capitals in too quick succession) was AWESOME! We were in the mosh pit-ish bit on the right, so we were right near all the action. Apparently we were in the background of most of the shots. Which was all some people cared about. Being on TV. BIG WHOOP. I went because I wanted to see DANCING. I spent most of the night stuck behind a group of really rude girls, who kept pushing other people out of the way and saving spots and such, but anyway ....... it was good. The dancers are really nice, and all the girls are really short! I got photos with all of them, cause I'm like that :P. The guys are all really muscly too :)

Work yesterday wasn't as bad as I thought it'd be on very little sleep and being sick. I did tins, but I didn't get sick like last time. I sorta kept the fan on. It gets so warm in there! I wasn't sniffly at all Saturday morning, which was great, because I probably couldn't've gone in if I was, working around food and all. I got offered to house sit for my neighbours over Easter weekend. I'm not sure. It seems a little pointless as I'll be coming home to do work around the house and borrow a car early in the morning. We shall see. They don't need anyone, they thought I might like to though, and they wouldn't mind the company for their cats.

I'm editing a romance for a girl on Fiction Press. I really like editing, although I feel bad at some points because I seem to be pointing out a lot of stuff (mostly the same thing). I know how it feels to be on the receiving end of editingness as well. But it is fun. I really like it. I've always enjoyed editing my own stuff, but editing other people's is cool too, although not as easy, because I don't necessarily know where she's going with some stuff.

I sketched out a tentative artwork this morning, hopefully it'll materialise! If it does, it'll be sort of a surreal piece, fantasy of course, probably A2 size. It will be fairly easy though. Probably intricate detailing, but no human figures etc, so I won't be able to get so nitpicky with what I'm drawing/painting. I also did a random sketch of Tobi. I think I need to get a sketchbook to just randomly sketch in. It wasn't as bad as I imagined it'd be, and I need to practice people more.

Oh ...

Happy April Fools!!!!

Random Catchup

I have been meaning to update, but lately everything I write sounds like I'm complaining, which I'm not. So we are moving on from that. Welcome to the short version.

• Uni is good. I've made some really good friends, and though I have yet to do much actual work, I'm finding it really good. In starting anew however, I've come to realise just how socially awkward I am. It may come as a surprise to some people, but I am extremely shy, and I don't really get people very well. I've realised over the past month that I probably seem rather rude to people I've just met, but it's really just because I'm shy! Must work on that ...
• I went to Wagga to visit Tina last weekend. We had a ball and it was great to see her. It's very different to suddenly not be able to see people every day anymore. The drive wasn't too bad, only 5 hours. I actually did it all, which was good. I'm used to travelling really long distances by car with minimum stops, but not actually driving them myself. I feel rather accomplished :)
• I haven't done anything creative in over 2 months :(. It's not for lack of inspiration or anything, simply lack of energy and time. I've been feeling rather devoid of energy lately. I'm fine at uni, but once I get home I just crash. It's not good and I think that I can probably put it down to a complete abscence of excercise, but when I don't have the energy/time to do the work I should be doing, I feel I can't justify the excercise. It's a stupid mentality I know, but it's there all the same. I think I need a pilates DVD or something, so that I feel it's not taking as much effort. My mind is strange.
• I'm going to see So You Think You Can Dance this Friday. My friend's sister got 4 tickets, and gave two to Vanessa. I think she needed an adult? Anyway, I'm happy :D

5 Things Meme

Comment to this post and I will give you 5 subjects/things I associate you with. Then post this in your LJ and elaborate on the subjects given.

Thankyou to Mef (Meg)! She gave me: sailing, high school, curly hair, friends, and toby

Sailing
I haven’t been doing any sailing lately *sigh*. Mostly because my boat is broken and my crew moved. So sad. If it weren’t for my laziness in boat fixing and crew finding however … I sail every Saturday from about August – March except for some weeks off in the Christmas holidays. My club sails a few different classes – Manly Juniors, Flying 11s, 125s and VSs in ascending order of size/speed/difficulty etc. The MJ’s, 11s and 125s are 2 person boats and the VSs are 3 person. I sail a 125. It’s pretty fun. I got into sailing from my dad’s side of the family. My grandfather sailed a bit and my dad has sailed all of his life. We also own a small yacht (an S80 in case you wanted to know J) that we keep near where we live. Quite frankly, sailing rocks and everyone should do it. Something I love about sailing is that even though I only really vaguely know what I’m doing, I generally manage to sail quite well. (Thanks for the genes dad!). Sailing iss definitely something I want to continue doing for the rest of my life. Sailing around the world is a dream of mine :D.

High School
Is finished! I kind of miss it. It’s very disconcerting going from a place where you know everyone and see your friends every day, to a place so huge there is no way you could ever know everyone, and see your friends very rarely. Only 2 of my friends go to my uni, and I don’t even see new friends who are doing my course every day. High school was also great for the teaching. In high school, the curriculum makes sure that everything is covered over an extended period of time. I just completed a terms worth of maths in two weeks o_O. I was great friends with my teachers, and they always checked up on how we were doing. Uni is so not like that. My high school was pretty green – trees and plants all over the place, and it was an all girls school. It was also very close to my home. And the library was all in one place. And they had fiction books in it. Uni isn’t like that so much. Sydney is a fairly green uni with trees and such, but the library is huge. And very confusing.

Curly Hair
Lol. I have curly hair. It’s short right now though L. Having curly hair is fun. Sometimes I wish it was more wavy, so it was easier to wear loose, but most of the time I love it. There are some definite awesome qualities to having curly hair.
1. No one can tell if it hasn’t been brushed/washed in weeks. It’s the curls. You just sort of put it up in the morning and it’s done. Total 2 second hair, but no one can tell. Awesome stuff.
2. For some reason people love curly hair. Which makes it a great conversation starter. I’ve made a couple of friends at uni because we talked about hair. Weird, but useful.
3. I can do anything with my hair. Seriously. Anything. It’s very cool.
4. When I straighten my hair, it’s at least a quarter longer than it was curly. Which is awesome, cause I have an obsession with long hair.
Of course there are some bad things about having curly hair. People like playing with it, and often people aren’t very gentle. And it doesn’t always grow longer. Generally it grows curlier, and I don’t get any extra length. And when it does grow longer the curls relax, which is fine, but my hair starts going straighter on top, which is kinda blah.

Friends
I love my friends. I have 3 very loud brothers. I’m fairly loud and crazy myself. I love that I have a whole lot of people who accept me for me. I don’t usually make friends easily. I’m both painfully shy and terribly gregarious. I either open up to much and scare people off (lol), or I shut down and people don’t bother. I love that my friends understand that. I am getting better though. I am a very friend oriented person. In saying that, I guess I really mean that I need to know I’m appreciated. Whether it’s friends, family or even loving animals, I need the love. Which is why I was seriously considering going to Macquarie, simply because I wasn’t going to have any friends at Sydney. I’m glad I didn’t, but it kind of worries me that I might grow to depend on people like that. I’ve always wanted pets, and that’s really because I’ve never felt that I have a super close friend who completely accepts me and loves me unconditionally. I love that about animals. I find it hard to open up, and whilst I know that my best friends and family do accept me and love me, I have a mindset about animals. I spent a large part of 2008 convincing my mother to let me keep my cockatiel in my room. She wanted him out in the aviary, or around the whole family, but I needed him around me, to myself. I don’t know if that makes sense. I guess it’s because I needed to know that he was mine. That he was there for me. I’m not explaining this very well. Much love and ice cream to you if you get the gist of what I mean.

Tobi
I mentioned Tobi before. My cockatiel, Tobias, is my baby. I got him 4 years ago when he was literally a baby. We got two cockatiels, a grey and a yellow. Apparently the grey (which I wanted) was a girl and the yellow (my brother’s) was a boy. So the grey became Tobi, short for Tobiana (I have an obsession with weird names and spellings), and the yellow became Monty. As they matured, Tobi gained the male colouring and became Tobias, and Monty began to lay (infertile) eggs. After a snake got into our aviary and ate Monty, Tobi was moved inside. Following which I had a long debate with my mother about where Tobi would live. I love Tobi to death. He is the most adorable little bird. He hates fingers, and you can’t get your hands anywhere near him, but he is gentle with his warning bites unless you are too persistent. He hates being left alone, and will scream, but he doesn’t like other birds either. He particularly hates it when I leave him. He’s so sweet. He nibbles me ear in the morning and sings to wake me up.

Money

Money is a wonderful thing. Really. There are a couple of things I am really in love with at the moment. Of course to acquire said things, I require money. Most specifically in the form of a Visa or Mastercard. Thankfully, my Mastercard is set to arrive within the week, with enough money for me to happily buy my current fixations. Namely artist books. But there is a problem. (With money there is always a problem.) I don’t really need these books. I’d love them, sure, and they’d probably help me improve my art, give inspiration and solidify the motive for the Quest to Art, but I don’t need them.

Intensifying the problem is that there are a lot of things that I do need right now. Textbooks, most importantly. Biology and Chemistry textbooks will cost around $130 each. Maths I’m not sure, but I’m estimating at least $60. My Ancient History textbook will be around $60+, plus the ‘Odyssey’, which is probably at leat $20 (okay, that one is just a random guess). And on top of that, there’s a Biology lab handbook, probably around $15 (Chem lab book is free. Bio might be too, but I’m not sure) and an Ancient History readings book. I don’t know if or how much that will cost. Then I need a lab coat, at around $30, and safety glasses, which are around $3. Which is around at least $450. Unfortunately there are also ongoing costs, like the train fare ($22 weekly ticket) and if I catch the bus, it’s 90c each way. And however much money my parents and I agree I’ll pay for board. I have decided that University is an extremely expensive venture. Even if you’re on HECS. Oh yeah, and I want to go to Canada. Which I will apparently need $15000 for. By the middle of next year.

I do have a job, but the idea is to be earning money to save not to spend. Plus it’s not really much of a job. $90 max a week. But that’s supposedly Canada money. And board.

What I need, therefore, to justify this spending, is a solid incentive. Bribery is everything. And totally worth it. The fact that two of these books are on special is especially tempting, but, sadly, it’s not enough. Therefore I need a task for which I can be rewarded. Not anything that I’d already be doing. Something good and hard and totally worth it so that the satisfaction I feel when my packages arrive in the mail feels intensified and I feel like the expenditure was totally worth it. Something like committing to an artwork I’ve been dying to start for ages, or writing a certain amount of words for projects I’ve had running around my head for years. Or even just fixing my boat o_O. Either way, I need a task worthy of such excellent rewards. Because otherwise, the guilt may well overpower.

So, to avoid eternal guilt – use bribery! And whatever you do, don’t even think about ordering until you’ve completed your prescribed undertaking. Because the satisfaction of reward is so much sweeter.