Things that are awesome

A list of things that I discovered were awesome in July.

1) Black Milk Wet Look Black Leggings - these I've had for awhile but they definitely deserve a place on this list. These are by far the best quality leggings that I have ever worn as they don't sag or fall down, they're flattering, super comfy and warm enough to wear in winter (at least in an Australian winter!). They're sturdy enough to wear on their own so to speak with a long enough top/jumper, although I know that people wear them unashamedly 'as pants' with short tops and the like. However, for me, despite the superior quality of Black Milk leggings I still can't help but feel that they look like they forgot to put something on.

2) We need to talk about Kevin a book by  Lionel Shriver - this book was recently made into a film directed by Lynne Ramsay starring Tilda Swinton. I haven't seen the film but the knowledge that one was made based on it caused it to catch my eye when I was looking for a book to whilst in Melbourne. I wasn't entirely sure that I would like this book as I am an unbelievably picky reader and I wouldn't have normally drawn to this type of book. It centres around the main character Eva whose son, Kevin was the perpetrator of a high school shooting. The story is told through the letters that she writes to her ex-husband in retrospect about how Kevin and his actions before and after the shooting affected her life. I really enjoyed the structure of the narrative and found that it was an incredibly moving way to tell the story bringing an interesting perspective on such a tragic event.

3) Tom Ford Ultra Shine lip gloss in Peach Absolut - I bought this lip gloss whilst in Melbourne mostly for two reasons, 1) the only places you can buy it in Australia is at David Jones in Melbourne or Sydney and 2) The Tom Ford lipstick I bought from the first beauty collection that Tom Ford released is possibly the best lipstick I have ever tried and I heard the lip gloss was of the same calibre. It was because of these two reasons that I shelled out the $60 (AUD) for this lip gloss which, let's face it is beyond ridiculous (the lipstick is $65, if you're wondering). But I felt like treating myself and I was not disappointed. I don't normally wear lipgloss because it's sticky and more often than not has glitter in it, which I hate. But this is perfect, its formula is non-sticky, non-drying and it has no glitter just a natural sheen. The shade a bought is a perfect peach shade, pink with a decent hint of orange which is one of my favourite shades to wear on the lips.

4) Travalo Refillable Perfume Atomiser - this is a refillable, travel-sized perfume spray-bottle that you buy empty and fill up with your own perfume so you can take it anywhere. This is possibly one of the greatest inventions of all time for perfume lovers such as I. There are no more words needed to describe the awesomeness of this product.

This is a pretty short list but nevermind, I tend to go for quality over quantity anyway.
Have a great weekend!

More like Smelbourne

I just had the presence of mind to check the 'To-Do' List that I had created for this holidays (which end on Monday FYI). I was pleasantly surprised to find that even though I had not glanced at this list since the holidays started some 4 and a half weeks ago I had completed almost all of the tasks with others half completed. It was a nice affirmation that despite the fact that quitting my job had dialled down the busy-ness of my life I had still managed to be somewhat productive. However, I am still have trouble getting acclimatised to this almost unlimited amount of recreation time. It's just kind of weird have time to think about what I want to do instead of having to think about what I have to do.

Among the things that were fulfilled on my list was a trip to Melbourne! I had a great time there with my boyfriend except I was struck down with an almost crippling cold for most of the week that I was there. I still managed to soldier on and inject quite a bit of money into the retail and hospitality sectors of inner-city Melbourne. Below is some photographic evidence of this economic stimulus. 

This is Mr. Pipe, a necklace I bought from Monster Threads

This is a pretty cappuccino that I had in Melbourne 

An assortment of clothes and accessories purchased in Melbourne

So there you have it photographic evidence of my productiveness on holiday but also a reason for the steep decline in my bank balance! Totally worth it, though. That's pretty much all I wanted to share.

Except of course, for this...

Watchu lookin' at?

"Are you here to solve my ketch up/catsip problem?"

Ok, it's not that late at night. It's only 11.43pm but I am blogging because I wish to be sleeping but I cannot seem to fall asleep and I have some abstract notion that writing a blog post will allow me to sleep.

I'm sorry if this post is not interesting but if you follow my blog or read it with something approaching regularity I figure you must have already realised that I really only blog for my own amusement and do not have any kind of grand design or purpose in writing it.

It's wintery outside, keeps raining in rather heavy spurts just like if someone was throw a bucket of water on my window in maybe a diagonal motion.

I haven't blogged in over a month, what have I been up to? IT'S LIST TIME.

- Written three major essays for uni, handed them in.
- Worked A LOT
- Had a drivers license for a whole 2 years! I am no longer required by law to display 2 green 'P' plates on my car indicating that I am a probationer driver as I am no longer a probationer driver.
- Almost finished a semester
- Resigned from work (Oh how I'll miss you 20% discount)
- Attended to a Nutrimetics party that my friend organised (that's a cosmetics brand kind of like Avon if you're not aware)
- And some other things

I have ringing in my ears, I feel that this is a bad thing. I should probably stop using earphones. I think my use of earphones is to blame. Not that I use them that often, but still they are not particularly conducive to good hearing. I should get some good headphones for my computer maybe. And just not listen to music on my phone. I don't really like listening to music on my phone it's too fiddly.

Raining Again.

I'm not sure what else I should talk about. Perhaps I should end it here.

ANZAC Day.. or my excuse to do be unproductive and do nothing

I had neither work nor uni today. This is something that does not happen often. Only every second weekend actually but today was the exception because it was ANZAC Day. ANZAC day is a public holiday where most things are closed including my university and my place of work. Which is great because it means I can stay home ALL DAY. Which is what I did.

My boyfriend made me bacon and scrambled eggs the way that a French lady taught him.
We watched the 2nd and 3rd episodes of the new season of Game of Thrones.
Then my boyfriend left because he had study to do which left me to procrastinate all by myself.
I discovered that I still have a whole bunch of msn conversations saved to my computer from 2010. Awkward. I'm not sure whether I should delete them because it seems completely pointless to keep them now. They don't serve a purpose and aren't particularly entertaining. I mean, you wouldn't   want to relive every mundane conversation that you've had with a person whom you're usually only talking to out of politeness or out of boredom, would you?

At the same time though I have posts on here that date back to 2008/2009 (I think). Most of which I've typed out of boredom too. I wonder if I printed off all the posts on here it would make an adequate memoir? Could I publish it and make lots of money?

I seriously doubt it since I think a spike in viewership on here is when I get 8 viewers a day on the whole blog.

I think I have become a shopaholic, I never used to shop but now it seems I can't stop, I'm currently waiting on two parcels in the mail. Maybe it's just a mood that has grabbed me or because I am currently working in a department store surrounded by a whole bunch of shiny new stuff and people wanting shiny new stuff. Only the catch is none of the shiny new stuff is stuff I want or need to buy. So it seems I take it out on the internet armed with my paycheck and the ease of button clicking.

I can't wait until the holidays when I get to go to Melbourne. It should be great. Not really for the shopping so much as the great feeling of being in a different place and seeing things I don't normally see everyday. It sounds like a huge cliche nowadays, but I do love to travel.

Lazy Saturday

A photo I took today after cleaning my room. The Chloe bottle is round the wrong way. But oh well. I like the way my perfume and lipsticks look lined up on my chest-of-draws. So I thought I'd take a picture of it and put it here.

Google is watching you

Oh Hai There. I was just reminded that I had this blog when I went to comment on someone else's blog and it came up to sign in as my google account. I was thus reminded that google controls everything and is soon to control my life with Google Glasses which seems to be pitched basically as the ultimate handsfree smartphone. Although personally all I can see it doing for me is making walking into solitary objects more often. Although it will allow me an plausible excuse for when I talk to myself ('I was just trying to video call my mum! I'm not crazy I swear!'). 

Although this is just a project and won't actually be a product for awhile, it does seem pretty cool that we're getting closer to all be living in a scifi movie. On the other hand though, WHERE ARE THE JETPACKS??

Surely that's worth investing in, Google.

Untitled

I only just noticed that I have posted 150 posts on this blog (well, now 151). I for some reason thought it would be less than that.

I don't really have much that I would like to say today, except that exams are over and I will soon be going on a short holiday. That's really all I have to say right now.

Lots of Uni work makes me something something

Go crazy? Maybe.

I've had an average of one assessment due every 2 days since the end of last week and this trend will continue until the end of this week and because it's the end of semester all of these assignments are big and important which makes the whole study thing more difficult.

The past few weeks have been pretty stressful because of work I've had little time to plan or do anything properly and as a result of that a lot of assignments haven't been as good, or won't be as good as I would like them to be. Which is generally pretty frustrating because I had a pretty good average in most of my units beforehand and it's going to suck if those good marks suffer because of this pile of work and because of my new (now non-existent(I quit!)) job. Oh well, in the great scheme of things i still have 3 semesters to make up for any potential bad marks. Hopefully, I avoid failing anything though. I just can't wait 'til it's all over, I'm pretty stressed out more than usual and it's beginning to show because I keep having assessment related nightmares. Sigh.

Only a few more weeks to go until Uni break!

Historical Linguistics

Today just became my only full day off for the rest of the week, seeing as my new job started yesterday and now I have 3 more shifts this week. I'm incredibly glad they're only short. Yesterday I was at work for 9 hours! And now I'm exhausted and suddenly have no time.

But anyway, on to more interesting things. Today I also realised that I had quite a lot of reading to do for uni and that in fact I couldn't really do anything more productive than try and get some reading out of the way. So this morning I have been reading my Historical Linguistics textbook because I have to for an assignment only to find that it is actually quite interesting to read. The author seems to be fond of adding quirky (I only use the word because I can't think of another way to describe it) afterthoughts. Like for example when talking about the semantic change of car from meaning a cart pulled by animals to meaning an automobile (originally called motor car) the author adds;

"today no English speaker who hears "I've just bought a new car" is going to expect a a shiny new oxcart with antilock brakes and a built-in MP3 player" Trask's Historical Linguistics (2nd Ed.) pp 44


A hilarious image if nothing else. Linguists seem to love making jokes, but then again if anyone could create a perfect pun it would probably be a Linguist. It's just a shame that a lot of the time they're jokes are a little lame. Clever, yes but also lame.

Also I guess you may have noticed that I spelt Linguist with a capital 'L'. It's not a proper noun so I'm not using 'correct' grammar. But I'm a Linguist so I know there is no such thing as 'correct' grammar (Ok, well at least not in the traditional sense). There's actually no particular reason why I've been typing Linguist as such, it's probably just because I've been doing a bit of writing in German and they capitalise their nouns.

A note on capitalisation, since I've brought it up, my friend mentioned that Google was (supposedly) bringing out a laptop which had no caps lock key because of the trend to stop using capitals, probably brought about by the rise IM/SMS-ing general internet/technology. Anyway, studying German as I am my immediate thought was "but German capitalise nouns and personal pronouns (in letters/email), isn't that important?" For some reason I thought this was a good enough reason for capitals not to be dying out. The other day, though I found a blog written in German that uses NO CAPITALS AT ALL, once again reminding me that traditional/prescriptive grammar is only useful if you are trying to learn a 2nd language but not entirely relevant/not at all important if you're a Linguist. Or anyone in the real world at all.

Welcome to my life

BEDA has been an official fail. I haven't even gotten into double digits for the amount of posts I have posted this month. Oh well, it's not like I had any expectations of actually writing a post a day. I have actually been way too busy in the last week to achieve such a desirable goal.

This week I have;
- Gotten a new job
- Finished my first even essay written in German (or any other language other than English)
- Finished my second Grammar assignment
- Fallen even more behind on lectures than I already was
- Spent an awesome day/night with my friends from uni and had breakfast at McDonalds
- Cooked a three course meal for my significant other
- Been to church on Easter Sunday
- Ate lots of chocolate
- Been really exhausted

Tomorrow I'm going to a Wine and Cheese Night.
We so Excited.

Just Stuff

I feel since I haven't blogged in almost a week I should probably write a token blog. Just to see if I actually can make it to double figures this month. I had a pretty productive day on friday; I woke up, went to a job interview, went home, struggled with the Grammar assignment that will never end, made avocado dip, watched Star Trek. After struggling a bit more with my Grammar assignment I then headed into uni to see a friend's band play at the tav. They were good but about three quarters of the way through the set the only people left watching them inside the tav were their friends. They were just too loud!

After that I went to see Karnivool. It was a really good concert, Ian Kenny (the lead singer) has such a expressive voice and is so entertaining to watch. They played a good range of songs and I was up the front on the barrier so I had the best view and didn't get ridiculously squashed in the mosh pit.

Tonight I'm going out to dinner and a movie with the boy I have mentioned before in my previous blogs. Hopefully, this date goes as well as all the others. I'm pretty excited because I have not seen him for a whole week!

Textbooks Galore

I decided that I should probably write a blog to justify all the time I have been procrastinating this afternoon.

It's fair to say that BEDA is about quantity, not quality.

Today I went to the Co-op bookshop which is the textbook/book/stationery store on campus because I needed to buy some new pens. I also then remembered that I needed a small note book and some small post- notes. And THEN as I was lining up to pay for my purchases I remembered that I wanted to buy a German Grammar Study guide that was unavailable on the Book Depository so I went and got that one too. So even though I aimed to go into the Co-op and spend aprox. $7 on 2 new blue pens I came out having spent almost $60. Which is kind of lame but it was all stuff that I needed so I guess it's not too bad. I have bought a huge amount of textbooks this semester seeing as in History of Political Science we are required to read heaps of historical political theories by Hobbes, Plato, Machiavelli and so on. They are pretty cheap books but still I'm running out of space for all of them! And I just placed and order for another three books.

I'm reading so much political theory that I barely have time to read anything else. We actually have midsem on Thursday which I need to study for but I'm procrastinating because I haven't thought of an efficient way to do so yet. I also really have to start my Linguistics assignment which will probably be done mostly on the break.

My cat

My cat's name is Nico. He's pretty adorable and mostly well behaved but lately he's got into the habit of coming into my room in the middle of the night and demanding attention. This would be expected if my bedroom door was left open but it's not. It's always closed. So somehow my cat has figured out how to open the door so there is no way I can ignore him as he simply jumps on my bed and walks all over me whilst I'm trying to sleep. It's a bit annoying but I forgive him because is actually just that adorable. He's sleeping on my bed just now, looking very cute.

Other than the antics of my cat I have little else to say. Yesterday I cleaned my room so now you can walk from the door to the bed without stepping on something like a coat hanger or a book. At the moment I am still unemployed so I have a lot of free time on my hands. It kind of sucks because it means I have more time to procrastinate doing stuff and I hate procrastinating. Hopefully, I'll get a job within the next month or so. I've had a couple of interviews but none of the jobs have been suitable. I'm jealous of my friends who have cushy, well-paid admin based jobs which they get decent pay for not-so-strenuous work and don't have to work weekends. I doubt I'll be so lucky to find a job like that.

Tomorrow though I'm going to see the boy I mentioned in my last post for coffee.I'm pretty excited. I hope it goes as well as our last date.

I can't be bothered writing much else

I went on a date yesterday! That's pretty exciting and it went pretty well. Not gonna lie. We went out for lunch to a decent Italian restaurant and then we just sat and talked in a park which had some very lovely views of the river and then we went back to his house and watch some tv before I went home. It was fairly lovely, I'm going to see him again on Sunday I think so Yay!

And I'm already behind.

It's only the 4th of April and I have already missed a day of BEDA. No surprises there really.

I don't really have much to say at the moment. I had a pretty quiet weekend this weekend which was really awesome. I was just searching through my saved posts from this blog and realised that I have quite a few posts that I never finished writing and that I never published. Most of them have fair uninteresting and outdated ideas in them, which is probably why I had decided not to publish them in the first place. But there are a couple that COULD present some interesting, still relevant blog posts. I think I may set myself a challenge. For at least one blog post this month I will resurrect on of this unfinished blog posts and finish and publish it for the benefit of my lone 3 followers and my sister, who I know also reads this blog.

I hope you all had a great weekend!  

Random thoughts

I started following a German blog which is what I assume a fashion/lifestyle blog done by teenagers. Maybe? I'm not really sure owing to the fact that it's all written in German and I can't really understand a lot of it. It looks kinda cool though.

I'm really excited that I'm not going out at all on the weekend nights this weekend. I'm actually pumped to stay home, sleep and try desperately to feel like I beat the major urge that I have to procrastinate and do something constructive.

I've sent about 50 texts messages in the last day or so. I think that's a record for me.

I really need to clean up my room.

BEDA begins.

If you (or anyone) reads this blog you'll probably have been introduced to B(log) E(very) D(ay) (in) A(pril) before. If you didn't know it's where you blog every day in April. Clear? Yes? Good. Now every other year that I have attempted BEDA I have pretty much failed. This year will probably be no different but you never know, my life might get so exciting and I might suddenly have the urge to write it all down for the interwebs. 

But anyway I am going to kick of this month by stealing someone else's idea, so thanks owlssayhoot!

1. I play on an all-girls indoor soccer team made up of people from my last workplace, it's a lot of fun but yesterday I fell over and bruised my knee so now it hurts. It also always reminds me that I have to do some more exercise, because I'm so unfit.

2. I have had a thing for perfume since I was able 13 or 14. I've been trying to collect all different types that I like but the problem is there always so expensive! At the moment I have Marc Jacob's Daisy, Chanel No. 5 and Chloe.

3. I hate wearing jeans

4. I really enjoy Grammar, that's Syntax aka the structure of language. Not your primary school definition of 'correct' grammar or anything like that. Being descriptive is more fun than being prescriptive 

5. I bought a whole bunch of books recently both for uni and quite a few when I was away in Germany and I have absolutely no where to put them. My room is too small!

6. I actually enjoy living in Perth. It's not always that exciting and I know I'll probably live in other places when/if I get the opportunity. But I don't subscribe to the Dullsville hatin'.

7. I have a subscription to frankie magazine. Possibly the most accessible and relatable magazine I've read. They write about anything and the layout doesn't feel like your senses have been assaulted. There is only so much graphic design you can fit on a page. Also they feature a lot of local and independent creative types which is great.

8. I have an adorable cat called Nico, who enjoys waking me up at 5.30. Which for me is not so enjoyable. But he's cute so I'm okay with it. Kinda

9. My ex-boyfriend's best friend asked me out yesterday. That's the first time I've actually been asked out by a guy amazingly. Guys are just so lazy.

10. I have a mid semester the day after Prosh. If you don't know what Prosh is, it's a fund-raising event for charity that starts with a rave at UWA and then all the students go out into the city/the greater area of Perth selling newspapers filled with (supposedly) satirical, topical articles whilst dressed in fancy dress.

Human vs. Zombies

This week on campus there is the Human vs Zombie competition which basically means that people wearing green armbands and Nerf guns (Humans) get chased by people with red arm bands that want to tag them (Zombies). If a Human is tagged then they become Zombies have to stop using their Nerf gun and go around with a red armband trying to tag other Humans. It's actually pretty intense. The best way not to get tagged by a Zombie is to walk around in groups so there are groups of people walking around carry Nerf guns at the ready (socks as grenades is also an acceptable form of ammo to use of Zombies). If a Zombie gets hit my a Humans Nerf bullet before they can tag them they have to relinquish their Zombie powers for 15 minutes. It's fairly entertaining to watch the people who are stealthily trying to get to class without being tagged.

In other news I have a cold and it's currently preventing from attending uni and being a functional and productive person. I have quite a bit of stuff to do too. It's annoying I was being so on top of everything and then I had to go get sick which makes everything harder. Growl.

The cold is making me this blog entry lame also. Growl.  

Sometimes I wish I was a fashion blogger

To counteract the dullness of the previous blog posts on here I thought I'd post some pretty pictures of pretty things. Namely pretty clothes. These a from an absolutely gorgeous hand-made collection by Nadinoo for Autumn/Winter 2011.  If I had unlimited funds I would purchase at least half the stuff that is in the collection. I'm especially tempted because navy blue is my favourite colour to wear and it features a lot in this collection. It's often so hard to find quality stuff in colours that I like to wear! Not to mention getting the right size, but that's another rant for another day.

 Alas, I remember I am still unemployed and can't really afford to buy any more clothes at this point. *sadface* Lucky there's no price on ogling the pretty!

I'm back!

I've been back in Perth for just over a week now and it feels kind of sort of like I never went. Kind of. Only in the sense that I've gone back to uni and nothing seems to have changed too much. I still hang out with the same people, in the same places, have class etc. etc. Not that I mind at all, I enjoy uni and all the classes that I take and all the people that I see and hang out with (I am also exceedingly grateful for the warm weather here!). It does however make me realise, however, that I'm probably not going to go to all that effort to try and go on a longer exchange programme because I really think that the best thing for my degree is to stay in Perth. I don't want to have to change my major or anything and I would probably have to do that if I go on exchange.  Hopefully though I can find a different reason to go to Germany, I may even look at doing some post graduate study abroad. My under-grad degree is so jam packed that I'm crossing my fingers and hoping that they will still let me do all the units I want to do.

Other than that I don't have much to say at the moment. I enjoy being home it's excellent not to have to live out of a suitcase anymore. I also enjoy being able to see all my friends and attend events and things again. Also being fluent in the official language of the country that I'm in is good too.