When you think about it, that catchphrase is pretty disturbing. You’ve got to be made of Milo, and then they would like you to buy Milo, so if you are made of Milo and then consume Milo, doesn’t that make you a cannibal?

Milo advocates cannibalism!

I am having trouble concentrating on this, since I’m sitting in the living room and Tim is sitting next to me on the couch playing GTA4, my train of thought is constantly interrupted by police sirens and random soundbites of NPCs.

I’m going to interview Tim about various aspects of our holiday, just for a different point of view. He has trouble doing two things at once. I wonder how irritated he gets by my questions.

What is your favourite purchase from the US?
Tim: GTA4
Originally, Tim’s answer was “Lucky Brand Jeans”, but I reminded him that he bought those in Canada, not the US.

What’s your favourite souvenir from the holiday?
Tim: I think maybe that skull thing mask that I got for Dad.
This is a small, dark brown tribal mask he got in Canada.

What’s the thing you missed most while you were away?
Tim: Po
Po is our cat. He stayed with Lauren and Nathan (sister & brother-in-law) while we were away.

What’s the thing that you missed the most about Australia?
Tim: Driving on the left-hand side of the road.
Me: Really?  
Time: No… I don’t know how to explain it. Just the way it feels like home here, the atmosphere. I don’t know if that’s a good explanation or not.

What did you like most about the US?
Tim: The Oregon Coast

What did you like least about the US?
Tim: Um.. Some of the people. Like, some of the sales staff and that were a bit brusque.

What was the best food you tasted in America?
Tim: Probably that steak at the San Francisco mall.
To explain – that steak was “Char-roasted Sirloin Tri-tip” from “Buckhorn Grill” in the Westfield mall on Market Street in San Francisco.

What was the worst food you tasted in America?
Tim: Probably those french fries we got that night that were cold and… you remember? They had the skin on them and all that.
These were fries we got through a room service thing from a local restaurant. They were cold by the time we got them, and undercooked, and they had potato skin on them, and some sort of seasoning.

What are you going to miss about the US?
Tim: Being on holiday.
Me: I knew you were going to say that. It’s not really specific to the US.
Tim: I know. Um… Probably the views of driving up the coast.

What was the funniest thing that happened on the holiday?
Tim: When I gave the quarter to the homeless man, and he paid me out. No, I gave him the change I had, and he paid me out.
There were these homeless guys standing outside Subway, where we bought dinner. As we walked out, they asked us for money. I didn’t have any cash (I relied on Tim for cash, since my cashcard didn’t work in the US) but Tim dropped what change he had from Subway into their cup. The guy he gave it to then proceeded to complain about how little Tim had given him, and “you coulda at least given me a dollar”. Isn’t there a saying that beggars can’t be choosy, or choosers? Gosh!

I thought I’d transcribe my diary entry from today, because I probably would have just posted this had I had internet access at the time. Anyway, you should know by now that Tim and I are back in Australia, safe and sound.

Tim and I are in the Japan Airlines “Sakura Lounge” at San Francisco airport (SFO) while we wait for our flight to board. It’s around 8 PM now, and our plane starts boarding at 9:40PM I think.

I have to note down before I forget – Americans call their main meals “entrees” and their entrees “appetizers”. I wonder if they get confused when they come to Australia… It’s not like it would be that difficult to figure it out.

When we went through security my bag got searched because I forgot to take my swiss army knife out. The lady seemed surprised when I declined her suggestion that I could go back out to the entrance area and organise to send it to myself at home. I said, “I don’t need it that badly.” Someone is going to be stoked with their new toy. It was a genuine Swiss Army Knife. Oh well. I was just sick of waiting to get through the gates. We had been waiting at the airport since around 3:00PM to check in, which we couldn’t do until 6:45PM. 

We got here so early because there wasn’t much else to do, hanging around in the city. We went to Union Square and I laid in the grass under a tree and Tim sat on the verge and couldn’t get comfortable. I was very comfortable. It’s so nice laying on the grass on a coolish day with just enough sunshine to keep you warm. You close your eyes and experience the sounds and smells of the city. San Francisco sounds like wind blowing through leaves, fire engine sirens, cable car bells and cables humming, and quiet conversations. San Francisco smells like green grass, dirt, exhaust and cigarettes (at Union Square, anyway). 

It’s not entirely unpleasant, the smell of the grass, dirt and sunshine mostly overpowers the other smells, and the strong gusts of wind blow everything away anyway. Things feel so fresh when there’s a cold, gusty wind blowing. San Francisco felt that way a lot of the time. 

Sometimes you will walk past a grate in the road and it will smell of sewage. In the evenings and when it is really cold, you can see the smell that rises from those grates like a malodorous fog.

23rd May 2008 

Back on Australian soil. Tim and I are sitting in the Qantas Club Lounge at Sydney Airport, waiting for our flight to Brisbane.

Tim is eating toast and other things on offer at the buffet table. I had some toasted Turkish Bread, which was delicious, and some white goop that I thought was yoghurt but now I think it was actually cottage cheese. It tasted horrible. I don’t really understand why they would put a big bowl of cottage cheese next to the muesli and fruit salad. That’s why I thought it was just natural set yoghurt. I also had some pineapple pieces that I picked out of the fruit salad, and they were okay. 

The “granola” that was part of the continental breakfast on the plane was crunchy and yum, but a little too sweet. It tasted sort of like Crunchola, which I used to get all the time and it was really good, but after a while it made me feel sick because I liked it too much. There can be too much of a good thing. The name “Crunchola” makes more sense to me now that I am aware of the existence of granola, and what it is. I hadn’t made the connection before, not having knowledge of what granola actually was. 

I am not able to eat a hot breakfast on a plane since Lauren and I flew to London on Royal Browneye and I ate some of the hot breakfast but I felt sick afterwards and still now when I think about it, it makes me feel a little queasy. 

In some of the hotels we stayed at in the US, at the breakfast buffet they had covered, metal trays with what looked like thin meat patties in one tray, and puffy yellow circular shapes in another. Tim says the yellow things were eggs, but I can’t make the connection between those uniform, pale yellow circles, and what you get when you crack open an egg. 

I forgot to describe the sickening Royal Browneye breakfast… it had a gelatinous, quivering mound of dimpled yellow stuff that was supposed to be scrambled eggs, a pale orange, soft tomato half, and a pink shiny sausage that looked like they had made it by cutting off some small animal’s dick, peeling the skin off and then boiling it. 

GROSS!!!

More later – we are heading to the gate…

…….

I just used my ATM card again for the first time in a couple of weeks. I had tried using it while we were overseas, but it let me get all the way to choosing an amount to withdraw and then told me it didn’t have authorisation to process my request. I didn’t check beforehand if my Suncorp card could be used overseas, it just seems like such a basic feature. Just another way Suncorp sucks I guess. I mean, seriously, get with the program Suncorp. Every other bank has had the whole “cirrus” or whatever symbol since forever. Since I got my first ATM card from Commonwealth Bank. God. Suncorp’s like that electronic store in Yamba that stocks record players but not MP3 players. Suncorp, you SUCK! I must remember to transfer all my banking business to ANZ. I was going to transfer everything to St. George, but now it looks like they are going to be taken over by Westpac. I feel a bit sad about that, St. George has always been my favourite bank, and they’re merging with one of my least favourite banks. I have little to no faith in Westpac’s customer service capabilities, not to mention that they’ve never impressed me with their product portfolio. Suck suck suck.

Apparently the woman at immigration here in Sydney didn’t stamp our passports to indicate re-entry to Australia. So I guess according to our passports, we’re still in America. 

It’s going to take me a while to get used to walking on the left side of footpaths, escalators etc. If I don’t concentrate on it, I find myself gradually drifting to the right-hand side. I don’t think Tim will have this problem, because he never really made a huge effort to walk on the right-hand side anyway. I would hold his hand and slowly drag him over to the right. He said, “Why does it matter?” And I said, “Because you’re messing with the natural order of things and confusing people.” I guess it doesn’t matter that much, and I’m not sure that Americans would make a similar effort to change sides were they to visit Australia.

What makes that whole exchange between Tim and I even stranger is that when we first arrived, Tim was the one reminding me to move over when we were on escalators. It didn’t seem like anyone was all that worried about rushing past us on the escalators anyway – not like in Australia. If you leave a gap, you can be pretty certain there’s going to be someone that the escalators just aren’t going fast enough for. In America, people seemed content to wait, and I guess they’re better shoppers in that sense because they don’t have to hurry through everything.

The boat that Tim and I went out on in San Francisco for the tour of the Bay was called “Golden Bear”. I like California’s flag – it has a picture of a bear and a star. The bear looks like he doesn’t realise he’s on a flag. 

The froghurt in America tastes like regular vanilla soft-serve ice cream. I didn’t like it because I don’t like vanilla ice cream. To me, vanilla always seemed like a crap flavour. It’s so boring and it just tastes like you’ve taken the base product and added loads of sugar. 

Tim was reading over my shoulder and shook his head at my opinion on vanilla. I knew he wouldn’t agree – he likes vanilla. He’s not very adventurous though. He said I was speaking through my ass, but it’s just an opinion, so with his reasoning everyone is constantly speaking through their ass, and they would make special microphones that go down the back of peoples’ pants. 

What? It’s not summer yet? How come I have to put up with this unbearable heat then?

What? You say it’s not unbearably hot? Yes, it is. GOSH.

It’s too early for me to think of decent things to post, but the “Press it! I stole the internets!” button keeps looking at me whenever I go into my Bookmarks, and so it has become a duty that I can’t ignore. Don’t get me wrong – I love posting blogs as much as the next person writing overly long and pointless blog posts, but not having the internet for a week made me apprehensive about the amount of posts I would have to do to catch up.

Stuff it, I’m extremely effusive, and who cares what I say on here anyway? Well, I guess Suncorp used to care, but not so much any more because I’m no longer associated with them. If I had a bad experience in one of their branches or with their internet banking or phone banking or whatever, I’m more than entitled to post the facts here. It’s free speech. So get lost, censors.

Yesterday was Noelle’s birthday. We had drinks and tapas at Jorge on George, and then made our way down to Parliament House. We had been planning on hanging out in the bar at Parliament House, but it turned out that pretty much everyone had left by the time we got there, the teetotallers. We visited Helen’s mum in her Office, and she shared a really nice Queensland red from the Granite Belt with us. I had to leave in the middle of our quite interesting conversation to go home (Tim, who wins the Best Boyfriend Award, picked me up out the front of Parliament House to make sure I got home safely). I had a really good time with Noelle, Brea, Helen & Renaye.

The new house r0×0rs, btw. As does our new lounge. Check it out (These photos are from a few days ago, when we had first moved in, so our new lounge isn’t in them, and all the boxes and stuff are still everywhere. Plus it’s still messy. I’ll take some new photos today of our nice, clean, tidy new house, and our awesome new lounge):

So, the last few days have been pretty hectic.

Thursday I spent the day at mum’s place packing the final miscellaneous items that I had left behind without realising it (I actually just didn’t pay that much attention to the contents of the cupboards & drawers in my room when I moved out). On our way home, on Kelvin Grove Road, we were involved in a car accident. Nothing too serious, no one hurt (as far as we could tell). The damage to Tim’s car is minimal, but the car behind us and the car behind the car behind us wasn’t that lucky. Well, I guess being that he was the one who caused the accident his damage should be more, but that could just be me being ignorant to cause & effect with relation to car accidents. Needless to say, I suppose, by the end of the day I was in considerable pain, and muscle spasms in my back and leg prevented me from getting to sleep when we got home.

Friday we had settlement of our new house (which we now own! For real!) at 2:15pm, then a dinner at mum’s place as a small farewell to my cousin Hugh, who jet-setted off to Heathrow last night at 11:45pm, and also to transport some furniture from mum’s to our new place. Rosie, Lauren & Nathan were there, and Trevor up from Yamba, Helen & Tony down from Townsville, Cherie, Reg, Georgia, and a couple of Hugh’s friends up from Lismore, so it ended up being a pretty fun little gathering. After dinner, we loaded up the truck with the furniture for our new place, and headed over. So far we’ve got the spare fridge in the garage, and a couple of mum’s paintings on the walls in the living area. So far it looks awesome . Next weekend, Tim and I will probably get a new lounge for our new house.

Today, Tim and I were up bright and early to help mum load the two hire trucks with her furniture and other belongings. Physically, I wasn’t able to help at all (which I never know how not to feel bad about – see if you can make sense of that sentence!) but I did hang around and try to provide comic relief (which probably wasn’t all that welcome in the end anyway…) and also indirectly berate the new owners of the house for trying to make mum feel bad about not paying extra to get the carpets machine-cleaned. The vacuum cleaner is a machine, isn’t it? Grow a brain, and buy a skirt that at least covers your ass! (Quite a few people who saw her thought she was wearing little short-shorts, but when it’s at that point I could say “what’s the difference?”) And also I would have loved to tell her that her face wouldn’t look like it was melting if she didn’t wear so much heavy foundation in such hot, humid weather.

I’m so catty at the moment, not sure why… it could just be that I feel very protective of mum. Yo momma jokes are all fine and dandy, but if anyone ever hassles my mum, they got me to deal with! Probably not that daunting in my current crippled state, but I could still go a couple of rounds of a walking stick challenge.

*Whew!* back on track, tonight we had Thomas & Seona over for dinner. The menu was a bit last-minute, because I only decided on what I was cooking just before we went shopping for the ingredients at lunchtime today. I ended up making lamb steaks baked with rosemary & garlic potatoes, and served with honey carrots, spicy fresh green beans, and a mint & whole seed mustard sauce. Thomas and Seona brought a pavlova for dessert, with fresh fruit and ice cream. Then we played Texas Hold ‘em poker, and I lost all my money. At least I would have were we playing for real moneys. I’d never played before, by the way.

Now I’m going to sleep! Or something. Maybe I’ll watch TV or whatever.

Eat some real Italin pizza and gelati, because it’s really delicious.

There is a man who sells strawberries who comes to our work every now and again with a big tray of strawberry punnets on it. I will usually get some, because they are nice. This week they were especially nice. Did you know that the part of the strawberry that we call the fruit isn’t actually the fruit? It’s classed as an “accessory fruit”. I looked it up on Wikipedia to be sure my mind hadn’t made that up, but it’s true! The actual fruit of the strawberry plant are the little seeds which are on the fleshy receptacle (the red part of the strawberry).

I finally got my other group certificate in the mail today. I’ll do my tax return sometime over the weekend hopefully. Tim and I are going to his friends’ place for dinner on Saturday night, and we’re bringing dessert so I will cook that on Friday night (tomorrow night).

Tax breaks came into effect 1st July, so this months’ pay is going to be more money than I would usually get. That means that I should be able to get my ninjapass for my DS. I’m really looking forward to that.

I’m on mum’s computer at the moment, because I left my laptop at Tim’s place, and the TV is on in the background so I’m having trouble concentrating on this.

I give up!

I’m pretty happy right now. You know one thing that could possibly improve on my happiness? If I had a pet rabbit in the same colours as Napoleon, and they kept each other company all day while I was at work, then when I got home they both greeted me at the door. That would be the epitome of awesomeness.

Here are some shiny things:

* Only four days until Tim gets back
* Pay day tomorrow
* Napoleon
* A rabbit the same colour scheme as Napoleon

I know that the last one is not something I actually have, but I just like imagining it.

This pay period I am not going to buy any clothings. I have far too many bills to pay! Maybe I will get a couple of pairs of tights (because it’s getting colder), but that’s it. My goal for this pay: to be good and stick to my budget! I’m pretty sure I can do it. It will be an interesting experiment. I think the main thing is to cook lunches for work, so that I’m not buying overpriced food that tastes like crap anyway. I did mean to do some sewing last weekend, but never got around to it. I won’t be doing it this weekend, that’s for sure. I wonder if I’ll get time during the week?

Hi Tim! I know you will have played at Glendalough by the time you read this. How was it? How is Ye Olde London Town? I always used to say “Ye” as in how it is spelled, until I read somewhere that in the olden days, Y was the symbol for “th” sound. Therefore, “Ye” is atually just “The”. I kind of liked “ye” better. It’s like how Conor used to speak on the net, “how ar’ ye!?” and it made me think of the sea captain from the Simpsons (arrr, ’tis a shame that).

I feel like going to the movies. Anyone wanna go see a movie? Or something? Or maybe I should use this extra time to do some sewing. I have a few things that need mending.

I’ve been watching Lost most of the afternoon. Right now, an episode with Desmond as the focus character has started. This is awesome because Desmond is probably my favourite at the moment. I love his accent, and he has the power to see into the future randomly. But then there is this side-story running throughout that is like the “Final Destination” movies so far (it might develop into something more impressive, but for now it’s not all that amazing) whereby Desmond sees Charlie dying in various ways and accordingly prevents his death. Plus i just realised why Desmond calls everyone “brother”. I was wondering about that.

The people next door are having arguments again. They yell really loudly, and because I went down to put the garbage out (good timing!) I could hear quite a lot of what they said, but I still couldn’t understand what they were arguing about. Mum thinks it is the 15 year old boy who lives there that was yelling. He apparently plays “that stupid game” in his backyard (which is how mum described it) which Rosie elaborated upon by saying, “yeah, I know what you’re talking about, he has a stick and waves it around like Star Wars, and runs up and down the yard and does noises and stuff.” Lol!

Noelle and I had our picnic at Roma Street Parklands today. As you can see, the grass really is greener… over there. There’s one big expanse of grass which has dried up and died, but the rest is still alive and well. Noelle and I had wheat-free bread (super dense but yum) with cream cheese, tomato, lettuce, jarlsberg and also some chicken from a chicken salad that we got from McDonalds at Roma St station, seeing as there were no real shops open today (Noelle said, “Those labour day sales adds were misleading! They’re the reason I thought shops would be open today.”) We also had some watermelon and some rice crackers, and pineapple juice. It was a lovely picnic. Dumb ibis.

One bad experience of the day was public transport. Brisbane Public Transport SUCKS! Allow me to explain: Noelle’s bus came fifteen minutes late, so when it arrived, another one arrived at the same time. Once Noelle had arrived in the City, we walked down to Central Station. After viewing the timetable tvs, we found a Roma Street Train would be leaving Platform 5 in approx. four minutes – plenty of time to get down to the platform and get on the train, right? Well, in any other universe but this one apparently. None of the escalators providing access to platforms 5 & 6 were going down – they were all set to go up. So, not a big problem, we hurried down the stairs. We struggled through a throng of people exiting the train we wanted to board, and just as we got to the yellow line, the doors closed – right in the face of some foreign guy who shrieked and jumped backwards. With over two minutes until the departure time scheduled on the screen, the train pulled away from the platform at the signal whistle from a QR employee. We spoke to this person, who became defensive and indignant. It wasn’t her fault she blew the whistle, apparently. She can’t control the train timetables. She doesn’t have to take this. I said to her, “You are a representative of Queensland Rail – in fact, the only one that I can see this minute. You are the person we’re speaking to about it.” Noelle said “You blew the whistle for the train to go!” But apparently this logic was too obvious for her, and she walked away from the discussion muttering under her breath.

Queensland Rail could benefit from some customer service training for their staff.

Whenever mum calls out to me, no matter what she’s saying, it makes me feel like I’m in trouble for something. This is especially true if she’s calling up from downstairs. She says “Hey Cass…” but the tone is like a warning sound, and I respond warily with “yeah….?” slowly. It’s either going to be a random question about something-or-other which I won’t know the answer to straight away anyway, or I’m going to be berrated for not wiping the bench down properly or something.

Well, I’m tired and have a headache. I’m going to go to sleep so that I’m at my best for work tomorrow, and so that I don’t seem “not myself”. Who am I if I’m not me? Someone less likeable perhaps… Sorry everyone! Here are some pictures to make up for it:

Current song playing on repeat in my head is “Say Hello to the Angels” by Interpol. I can’t find a music video for it. Maybe there isn’t one?

Current song actually playing on WMP is “Change in the House of Flies” by Deftones. I don’t have the entire White Pony album, just this one song. I remember Lauren talking about an album of the Deftones where they just played all acoustic stuff. I’d like to hear it, but I can’t remember what it was. Anyway, the whole entomological theme reminds me of “The Metamorphosis” by Franz Kafka. Reading that book made me feel vaguely uneasy. I could place myself in Gregor’s skin much too easily, so I guess that in that way the writing was effective. But still, (to use an entirely banal expression) it really creeped me out. I very much like the song though.

I’d love to learn German. I never used to think about the career prospects of study (it was always just knowledge for knowledges sake) but now, every time I think of something I’d like to study, the thought comes hand in hand with “and where would that take me? What would I gain from that?” The obvious answer is “Knowledge”, which used to be the most important thing to me. Maybe I’ve started to be more practical… or boring. I don’t know. I was also thinking about the things I want to study, if they’re not going to lead into an external career, then I could just keep studying and researching until I become an expert and then I could be a university lecturer or even just do research for the universities. If I was a washed-up action-hero movie star with a German accent, I might even receive an honorary degree or two. That’d be awesome.

I am so tired. I’m at that point where my eyes are closing by themselves, or they’re telling me they want to close. Last night, Nathan and Lauren came over and they had a bbq, which Chris and I missed most of because we went to the supermarket. Later on, Chris and I got dressed up and went out in the Valley. We got called emos. We drove around for a while, made a video (which is on Chris’ computer so I can’t post it yet), and then went home at about 11:30pm. I didn’t end up going to bed until about 1am though, because as soon as I get on the computer I hang about for ages just doing nothing. Maybe looking at ImageChan (it’s less annoying than sifting through all the crap at 4chan to see some vaguely amusing photoshopped image) or just clicking the StumbleUpon button a million times.

This is not Sparta, this is me dressed up for Friday 13th. Today Chris and I went into the Valley and had yum cha (which was really expoola because we just kept getting plates of crap and not eating them!!1) and then walked around the markets for a bit. I purchased some jewellery and other stuff, as did Christopher. This afternoon we went out to Stafford and saw “300″ at the cinemas there. It was a really cheesy movie. Phillip said that it was really gory, but I didn’t think it was. There was a bit of cartoon blood splatters, and a couple of corpse piles, but nothing that offensive.

Oh btw, it’s my birthday on the 23rd (that’s not this Monday coming, but next Monday). My birthday celebrations, however, will be on Saturday 21st April starting at around 7:00-7:30pm at my house. It’s a BBQ so byo meat, or whatever. Some alcohols and foods will be provided. Others you will have to hunt and gather yourselves. We have several houses surrounding ours, which may or may not be ideal places for scavenging. Not that I am suggesting nor condoning that sort of behaviour. No siree.

I thought I would write a birthday wish list, if anyone who is buying me a present is having trouble figuring out what to get me:

* jewellery
* make-up (only for those that are sure they know what I like!)
* tetris for DS
* tickets to something good
* subscription to Frankie magazine
* noo shoes
* something mybestest branded
* a monthly two-zone translink ticket
* something lovely and surprising and thoughtful

And I could probably name a few more things once I’ve been into the city. I’m going there tomorrow afternoon after work. I’ll keep you posted.

I told a lot of people that I had seen a fox jumping on a trampoline. In case there were any doubting thomases out there (why i oughta! do these look like flesh wounds to you?) here is the proof:

If I ever opened a trampoline store, I don’t think I’d call it Trampoland, because you might think it was a store for tramps, which is not the impression we are trying to convey with our store. On the other hand, we would not prohibit tramps from browsing or testing the trampolines, unless a tramp’s gyrations seem to be getting out of control.

Lol. A random quote from Nathan which I wrote down in my phone for some reason: “The worst thing about being a rollerblader is having to tell your mum & dad you’re gay.”

I haven’t been able to access my Gmail account since day before yesterday, and it’s starting to annoy me. It’s very inconvenient. The odd part is, I can see the summary of my inbox on my personalised Google homepage, but as soon as I click on any of the links to access it, no dice. I did a google search for “gmail down”, and came up with a google user group which was set up to let people know when Gmail is down so that they don’t go crazy and think it’s them. I could access this site yesterday, but today the page won’t load. Several other possible links that I might like to view for reassurance are also not displaying. I’m wondering what’s going on. Anyone have any idea?

On a brighter note, this long weekend has been FUN. Friday I hung out with Tim. Saturday afternoon Ro & I had breakfast in the Valley with Chris & Doonz and checked out the markets. Saturday evening, dad came up from Yamba and we had Indian take-out from Scheherezade Restaurant in Morningside (they are really good), and then we went out to John & Pai & Dan’s housewarming. It was really good to catch up with Pai (who I haven’t seen in aaaages) and John, and meet new people etc.

We left the party to go to Lolly’s bday celebrations in the Valley at about 12:30am. These had started off at Mustang Bar, but by that time had migrated to 299. I’ve been to 299 a few times, and the very first time we went (around the time of my birthday last year) it was so much fun. The next couple of times I went there, however, the only music they played was dirgy crap (I am very aware that it’s an emo club). This time though, it was more of how it had been that very first time. They played lots of fun songs. As we were leaving, “Take Me Out” by Franz Ferdinand started playing, and Lauren, Nathan & I went back upstairs again to dance .

I, as per usual, drunkenly stated my intention of walking home rather than wait in line for a cab for an hour. Nathan & Lauren ended up convincing me to go back to their place and stay in their spare room, since we would be going over to their place for lunch Easter Sunday anyway. So, we got back to theirs at about 3:00am, and didn’t end up getting to sleep until 4:30am, because we started playing Singstar and I guess that time flies when you’re drunk and having fun doing stupid shit. (I will almost never play Singstar when I am sober – it’s about as awkward to me as watching Mr. Bean. I’m not sure why…)

I woke up at about 7:00am feeling tired but otherwise fine (I love my liver). Lauren was fine too, but Nathan was pretty sick, and didn’t make it to church with the others. Dad ended up coming over and picking me up so I could go home and get changed into fresh clothes, and maybe have a nap before lunchtime.

Lunch was nice. Lauren made caesar salad, Glynis cooked a quiche and potato salad, and also cheesecake for dessert (I can has cheezcake?). We went home at about 2:30pm. I had a shower and laid down on my bed to read for a bit, but fell asleep almost immediately and didn’t wake up again until 6:30pm, when Dad had already left to drive Rosie to work then head back down the Coast. I’m a bit sad that I didn’t get to say goodbye to him before he left.

Ever wondered what a melted wheelie bin would look like? While on our way from the car to the mall for breakfast on Saturday, I spotted this in a carpark beside the footpath, just down from the Tibetan kitchen. “Those beers are from my work!” Rosie said. “Someone got drunk at my work and then came here and set this bin on fire!”. That’s lame.

This is the little gingy cat that lives in Abuklea Street, near the Wilston train station. I usually see it on my way to the train in the mornings, and sometimes in the afternoons. In the afternoons, it is on the other side of the road. It’s smart because it knows which side of the road to be on at which time of day to get pats. It’s really friendly. If you go near it, it will miaow and wait for you to pat it.

So now it’s Monday. I’ve got quite a bit to do today (washing, cleaning etc) before work tomorrow. I think I should get started. I’ll probably post some more later today, but for now I’m going to put some laundry on

I’ve been a bit lazy with my blog entries lately. Here is an update of things that have happened…

Friday morning, our cousin Laura arrived from Adelaide to stay with us for eight days. Christian drove us out to the airport (to de aaeee paaaart) to collect her. Friday night, Christian’s mum took us out for dinner at Jupiters to thank us for helping with the moving and settlement of their house. The food was delicious, and the drinks were cheap. What more could anyone ask?

Saturday night, Chris and Willy had drinks for Willy’s birthday. Originally, these drinks were supposed to happen at Chris’ old place in New Farm. But since they felt they couldn’t really have a good time with Chris’ housemate’s furniture all over the place, it was changed to be at New Farm Park. Then, because it might rain, and also because no one could drink in New Farm Park, Chris and Willy decided to rent a room at the Formule (it’s for mules, Willy, for mules!) 1 motel just up the road from us in Windsor. $65.00 a night – cheap cheap! Chris was embarrassed because he was wearing black & white checkered shorts, and he didn’t realise that he looked like an Indy girl and he was staying at a racing motel. All the complications and decisions and revisions aside, and despite the fact that the room smelled not-so-faintly of old man and urine, it ended up being a super-fun night, with lots of exploring the hallways that reminded us of The Shining; throwing cheese squares; Willy dirty-dancing with the bunk-bed; Willy thrusting at Noelle’s face; Lauren and Noelle trying 20-second poses competition; and the squashing of cheese into the floor which was the only way we could tell which room we were in when we got drunk and went exploring.

Sunday, feeling none too worse for wear, found us getting up early for a day at Caloundra. We got there mid-morning and went straight in for a swim at Bulcock beach. It was a perfect beach day. Christian showed us how we could swim and not get anywhere because the current was so strong. Clare showed us that sand is a good exfoliant by surreptitiously putting handfuls of it down everyones’ swimmers. We had a picnic lunch a bit further up, in a nice grassy area near a playground. Then we went for a final swim in a beach that had some small waves which Christian tried, somewhat unsuccessfully, to bodysurf, and then packed up and headed home.

I’ve got really bad sunburn. Sucks to be me!

The drive home was interesting. Laura went completely hyper and provided entertainment for the trip, with her hatred of station wagons somehow providing a new, more logical name for them: “dick-shaped cars”. Eg. “Hey Kirsty, wanna have a razz in the back of my dick-shaped car?” (Razz=root in bogan Yamba vernacular).

This week has been fairly hectic for me. I’ve had a couple of agency interviews, my CV has been sent to numerous jobs on Seek, I’ve typed, Worded, and Excelled my little heart out, and I’ve been plagued by an indecision that’s threatened my sanity (though it’s not hard to threaten that. I seem to have such a tenuous grip on reality that even a kitten shaped like a drum kit could send me over the edge).

My favourite job agency so far is Davidsons. The consultant I’ve been dealing with, Krissy, is quite possibly the nicest, most supportive I’ve ever dealt with out of any agency. I’m currently waiting to hear back from her on a couple of possibilities. I hope that I find employment through them because they are an excellent recruitment company to deal with.

Apart from the job interviews, the work situation has been pretty stress-free this week. Apart from today, that is, but I’m not even going to open that can of worms. I think the reason I haven’t been as stressed is because I can see the end from here, I can see all of this no longer being an issue for me. Before it seemed I was just treading water, and I’d continue doing that until I exhausted myself and drowned. I was sure that this was going to be my last week of work. I was sure that I was going to just say, on Friday, “Today’s my last day. Thanks for the opportunity, but I won’t be continuing my employment here.” I’m hesitating because the future is unknown, and the unknown is scary, especially when the past tells me that I might have to wait three weeks to get another job. I don’t think that will happen, because there’s so much temp work out there that, even if I don’t find another job straight away, I shouldn’t be without something to keep the coffers filled until I find that perfect role (it’s never gonna happen, Cass!). Well, perfect for now anyway. I’d like to be able to respect my employer, because I find I am able to work much harder for someone that I respect. And I feel that I will never be able to do that again where I am now. There’s a lot of lost faith, a lot of resentment, and a lot of bitterness. The only thing that stops me from regretting ever accepting the job in the first place is the people that I’ve met there. My friends. Ben, Calum, Mel, Nic, Aileen… all very important to me, and probably the one thing that’s stopped me from going insane lately. Thanks for being there to commiserate. I will miss you lots.

Okay, so up to now. Last night, we had a Thai food & DVD night at ours with Lauren, Nathan, Christian, Clare, Noelle, Laura, The Baby, & me. We watched Clerks II, which Christian and I had already seen but enjoyed it so we didn’t mind watching it again. It’s a pretty good movie – not as angsty as the first one (according to Nathan. I can’t really remember, I watched it that long ago.) All i remember from the first clerks is…

BIG AMERICAN PARTY!!!!!!!!!