wafblog v3.0

I’m sick. I hate being sick. I feel like, my body has failed me or I failed it. Possibly the later. Fueled by idiocy and alcohol. Mainly the latter. Need to cut back on the alcohol. My hip pocket’s feeling it. As is my waist line, my body and at some level, my own sense of worth. I know I drink a lot when stressed. I drank a lot last year when going through applications for grad positions. On top of the relationship situation and thesis, I think I just needed the out. I had my drinking buddy and together, we drank each week (sometimes more than once) and stumbled around the city in a drunken state. It was fun. It still is. I guess I just need to stop using it as the out. Because it amplifies your emotions and right now, I’m stressing about a lot of things and a lot of people. I don’t think I can be what they need if I’m not at the top of my game. The out I’m looking for, shouldn’t be alcohol. It should just be time out. For me to be me.

Friday night was CNNN2. It was pretty good, except for the last bit. I will remember not to invite randoms next time. I enjoyed spending time with my friends outside of work. I think most of us are getting to that stage where we’re no longer just ‘work mates’ and we’re actually friends. Of course, you’re always going to be closer to some people than others, but that’s just the nature of friendship isn’t it? In any case, I like the way it’s going – because I’ve never really had that before and I hope that even if we don’t end up working together for the rest of our careers that we’ll still keep in touch and stay friends. It’s a comforting thought I guess.

Saturday was fun… went to dentist. Got another filling. Cost me lots of money :s Then met up with old workmates to grab lunch and see Fantastic Four 2: Rise Of the Silver Surfer. It was good to meet up, I haven’t seen them since I left in January, and I always enjoy catching up. Sometimes I think it always amazes me that life goes on. You go and do your own thing and everyone else does as well. It’s odd. Anyways, was rather impressed with Silver Surfer. I was under the (mistaken) impression that they had made Silver Surfer a bad guy… which, if you’ve read the comics, he is not! He is the herald for GALACTUS!!!!!!! Yeah ok. So only I’m excited about that. They kept to the comics, and the story didn’t turn out half bad. Although Jessica Alba’s makeover did. I think, like the other Marvel movies, the sequel is better than the original (=

Went to Manda’s for Korean BBQ dinner afters because her friend Ying was visiting. There were quite a few of us there. I always love going to Manda’s. There’s always more food than you can poke a stick at, and I leave feeling like I’ve eaten enough for the week. We watched a little bit of ‘Full Metal Jacket’ which I’d picked up on DVD for $10 from the cheapo CD store on Pitt. Apparently Kirsten’s never seen it! And was amazed that ‘Full Metal Panic’ fully ripped off half the scenes LOL. Didn’t get to finish it (had to turn it down cos it’s weird eating to gunshot sounds…). We watched ‘Shaun Of The Dead’ after dinner. I have never watched a ‘spoof’ horror movie before. I was pleasantly surprised :D It wasn’t scary, and I laughed like I haven’t laughed in a long, long time. There was one part I had to look away (too much gore >.<) but besides that, awesome! I might have to re-adjust my thinking on scary movies. Of course, knowing me, I’ll go watch one and not be able to sleep for a week again. I also have to check out ‘Hot Fuzz’ now.

I’ve spent the last two days at home cos I’ve got the flu. I was happy yesterday though, because the games I ordered from Play-asia arrived. Only took them a week, I’m so impressed. Anyways, I got Dialhex and Boundish, both by bit generations and for my GBu. Travis intro’d me to Coloris last weekend, and told me that they have like a whole series of games, so had a look at their site and thought I might try a couple. Dialhex is a bit like hexic, and Boundish is like a warped sort of pong. Both very addictive, and means I will now pop my GBu into my handbag so I can play on the train. Went back to work today, but took it relatively easy. Think I should be able to finish my stuff on time. Just need to make sure I get lots of rest. So yeah. Gonna go rest.

So, this will probably be the last post for the year. Not a lot time to reflect on the year that has passed, as I’m actually busy at the moment installing new wardrobes in our guest room to hold all our clothes. LOL.I think tomorrow we’ll be going out to the city to hopefully see the fireworks for NYE, which should be awesome as Mike’s never been before. I’m looking forward to it cos I haven’t been out to city in quite a few years.

So, like, last Friday week, I met up with Manda and Travis for ‘gift giving day’. They gave me the totally awesome Customisable Marvel Heroes Monopoly set.

You can see me here holding it up (=

So, other than that… 2006 has been a pretty good year. I will always be able to look back and say it was the year that I got Manda to come to the Easter Show AND Homebake. And lots of big ‘life’ things happened too. I finished uni, graduated, I’ve got a job lined up for the new year. Right now, I can happily say that just about every aspect of life is good. I think that’s all that you can really ask for at the end of a year – that you end it better than you started it.

I’d like to thank all my friends for their support and friendship throughout the year. I’m sure some of you didn’t even realise you were helping just be talking or meeting up or whatever. But you were, and I’m grateful for it. I hope I was able to do the same for you. Have a great New Year’s everyone, and all the best for 2007.

Whoops. I had a draft sitting in WordPress since Thursday that I’d forgotten about. I’ve published it ‘as is’ cos I don’t even remember what else I was going to say. Plus, lots of other things have happened since then.

I graduated on Friday :D I shall be posting photos up soon. Turned out to be a rather hectic day – mainly because I slept in a bit (yeay!) and then mum made us late. But, I still made it to uni in time to get my gown, take a few photos and make it into the hall with time to spare. So that was pretty good. I also didn’t fall down the stairs after collecting my degree, which was a relief. It rained a little bit before the ceremony so we were quite worried that we wouldn’t be able to take any good photos, but afterwards the sun was out in full force. Quite lucky I must say. Also glad the ceremony only went for an hour so didn’t have to try to stay awake. The quote the guy used at the end was pretty amusing too – “Remember to always be yourself, after all, everyone else is taken”.

Manda, Mike and I headed off to the Arthouse to meet up with M1ke who also graduated on Friday in an earlier session. He was only here for a few days and I wanted to meet up with him before he went back to Japan forever. Didn’t end up staying there for long and not that many people turned up, but it was nice anyways. I’d organised dinner with my uni group and this had caused major heartache just planning it. I don’t really wish to rant about it again as I’ve ranted about it more than once now to several people and it’s out of my system. I am still a little disappointed but it’s ok, I’ve learnt my lesson. I enjoyed the meal at Macchiato and it was great to catch up with everyone. It’s difficult to organise those sorts of group outings now as everyone’s working and very busy in general so definitely nice that they made effort to come. After dinner, a couple of us went up to Danny and Cherryl’s office. Played foosball for a bit (lots of fun, but I’m so crap) and then ended up going to Pancakes with the others. I doubt I’ll be going back to Pancakes for a while. I should also note that of late, I’ve found service in the restaurants to be absolutely appalling. In Tony Romas they totally jipped us, in Macchiato it was just slow (and wrong) and in Pancakes it was also slow. For restaurants that are generally considered to be good this was rather frustrating.

Met up with Manda and M1ke for Thai on Saturday. I survived, so I’m happy. Of course, eating fried rice every time I go to a Thai restaurant could become boring very quickly. Plus, to me anyways, Thai food seems like Chinese food with chili and more oil. Neither of which I actually like. Didn’t do much else until the arvo, when Manda finished class. We decided we’d ‘wing it’ for once, and not plan out our entire day. So we made little paper thingies to choose our activities for us. This turned out to be ‘Zoo/Manly’ and then dinner at Kansai (all you can eat sushi for $25!). All you can eat sushi was awesome :D Although the sake was not so awesome and I am now all sushi’d out LOL. We ate quick enough to have time for a ferry trip to Manly and back, which was heaps nice. I think growing up in Sydney, or even Australia for that matter, you’re surrounded by water and beaches so there’s a great appreciation for those sorts of activities. I haven’t been on the harbour since the Anime Christmas Cruise about a year ago…

Su’s back from Singapore, but only for a week. It was her birthday yesterday so we met up and did a few things. I’m amazed at how much we managed to fit into the day. I woke up at (what felt like) the crack of dawn to be at the Archery Range in Olympic Park by 9:15am. I haven’t done archery since I was in year 4 at camp. Needless to say, just getting the arrow to hit the target was considered a triumph. There’s so much to remember when preparing for your shot. You have to turn your elbow out, drop your shoulder, only use three fingers to pull the string back, close your right eye (if you’re left-handed) and then look through the sight guide to aim. After my first shot I remembered the turn my elbow out every time as I’m now sporting a very colourful bruise from the whiplash the string gave me. I forgot however to use only three fingers, and one of the instructors came up to me and was like “are you an accountant?” LOL. That was kind of creepy. But rather funny as well. The only other thing I kept forgetting was to close my right eye instead of my left. I missed quite a few shots because of that. One of the instructors seemed quite amused, because I’d line up my shot, and remember everything but still miss and then he’d be like “wrong eye”. LOL. Whoops. Oh wells. My dreams of being a modern day Robin Hood are now completely dashed.

After our huge lunch, four of us went bowling at Enfield. I’m really crap at bowling, although I enjoy it immensely. There’s something to be said for rolling a heavy ball down a lane to knock out a bunch of pins. It’s oddly therapeutic. I still can’t bowl correctly, and my arm hurts like hell today… but I’d go more often if I could actually afford it. Some of the animations on the screen were rather amusing as well. The best one was when you got a strike, and then they’d show the pins as dinosaurs and the bowling ball would come and squash them flat and green blood would gush out of the pin. Hum. I really wonder what that says about me. But it was very funny anyways.

I suppose it wouldn’t have been a proper day out without some LANning. As I’ve mentioned before, I don’t find LANning as entertaining as I used to. I’m not sure if it’s because I’m sick of playing WC3, and I was never really into FPS. This time was pretty good as we played Need For Speed: Most Wanted. The main drawcard to playing the NFS games is that you can ‘drive’ cars that you would never normally drive in a manner that you would never normally do. There’s also the rockin’ soundtrack and the thrill of destroying the surrounding scenery. The NFS games have certainly become more pretty since the last time I played (NFS:UG) but I found it very hard to control the cars using a keyboard. It was however, quite fun to do donuts in the corner and run through the toll booths without affecting the speed my car was going at. I think this is more a reflection of the fact that I’ve been playing Burnout Legends of late but I now have the urge to install NFS:UG/UG2 and take them for a spin using the gamepad. I doubt I’ll actually have time for it though. Actually, they’re both also available for the GBA… now that’s something to think about. Will have to check that out this arvo at EB.

Nobody could decide where to go for dinner, so we ended up at Tony Roma’s. I was really disappointed with it. Last time I went was for Frankie’s 21st, and I remember it being a great place with good service and good food. This time, the service was appalling (thank-you FOB waiters) although the food was ok. I don’t think I’ll be going back there ever again as the price didn’t really justify the food we got either.

All in all, it was a fun (but expensive) day and it was good to see Su again. I’m glad we managed to fit in so many activities and everyone enjoyed themselves. I’m kind of waiting for a nice lazy weekend at home, but that won’t be happening till after New Year’s I don’t think.

The weather’s been crazy lately. I think Mother Nature is being extremely moody or something. It was quite hot the other week, and now it’s like, sunny then raining then sunny all in one day. Today it’s like gale-forced winds with heavy rain. And up in the mountains it’s snowing and then bushfires. Crazy. We’ve been told to expect more of this sort of weather though – thanks the all that climate change and what not. And of course, this means insurance premiums will go up to cover the increased risk of flood/fire/hail/drought.

Liddle Fact #60: Dim lights reduce your appetite.

Not sure about that one – sounds like a fun experiment though. I wonder why that is. Is it because you can’t see your food? But I remember Manda showing me this restaurant where you eat entirely in the dark (which wasn’t appealing to me) so I wonder if they have smaller servings there :P

Met up with Manda yesterday, checked out EB to see what games they have for the PSP. Already planning my next purchase LOL. Apparently I’m not allowed to go into JB Hi-Fi for the next month. Also went to the Arthouse for drinks, which was fun cos we haven’t done that in a while. Trying to organise which day we can meet up each week was kind of hard. I can’t believe how much I’ve got on in the next 6-8 weeks, and with all the other stuff that I want to do plus all the stuff that she’s got booked in… will have to make sure I find the time. Also have to make time for phone call to Su at least once a week. This is a little harder considering the time difference is now 3 hours, but again, I want to make the time. I’m all happy to play things by ear but I suppose it’s easier if you have a regular schedule so you know to plan around things. *pokes people living in other time-zones*

Other than that, not much to talk about. OH. I played violin the other night. I should be proud. Except for the terrible ‘noise’ I was making. Definitely cannot be called music yet. If I’m a good girl I’ll play again tomorrow night. I am however, pretty impressed with the fact that once I get started I can still remember most of the song that I’m playing. Some of the fingerings and movements I’ve forgotten, but the actual melody I can still remember. Considering I haven’t played some of these songs for like five years… I guess there are some things that you just don’t forget.

Firstly, apologies to Billy for my accidentally deleting your comment when I was trying to get rid of spam. Thanks for the well wishes (:

I had a pretty busy weekend. Well, Saturday mainly. Managed to fit in lots of things, and was out pretty much from 9:30am to 1:00am the next morning. Had to get out early to train volunteers for Animania. That was pretty fun, and I’m going to miss the general madness that is Animania weekend. We went to karaoke afterwards, not at the usual place though. This one is slightly seedier and the videos are rather more eighties-like. It was lots of fun though. It’s always interesting to see what songs people pick and who knows them. It’s also fun to belt out such songs as “We Will Rock You”, and for the more adventurous “Bohemian Rhapsody”. Unfortunately, I think the only people capable of singing it are Queen themselves. Mae put on “American Pie”, I think both of us pretty much lost our voices singing that one. The thing with karaoke is that you never notice how much time has passed and you keep putting more songs on the list until there’s like 15 minutes to go and you have to cut each song halfway LOL. Still, as long as I get to sing “Lemon Tree” I’m not going to complain. Heh.

My (lack of) planning skills meant that we didn’t get a table at the Japanese restaurant in Hurstville. We did however, make our way down to this Chinese restaurant that I know is pretty good. I think by the time we arrived there, all 8 of us were starving, so it was good that they had fast service :D Admittedly, sitting underneath the air-con vent was rather chilly but once the crab came out we (or I) barely noticed it LOL. So yes, YEAY! for crab. I didn’t realise how expensive it was, but then, they cooked it up nicely and it had noodles and everything so it was worth it. The good thing about being real hungry is that you eat real quick so there’s enough time to fit in dessert as well. Brighton seems like it’d be a great place to have dinner during the summer when it’s warmer. But then, I said the same thing about Bondi. You gotta love the names they give cocktails – I picked a ‘love in the mouth’. Which was extremely sweet and pink. I always forget that cocktails tend to be really sweet -_- But that’s probably cos I don’t drink them often. It was great to see people before I go, and I had lots more fun than I’ve had in a while so I’m quite happy (: I was also quite amazed I didn’t get in trouble from my mum. I got home a little after 1:00am and all she said was “that was a long day” :o!!! Yeap, amazing huh.

Other than that, I spent Sunday cleaning my room. I’ve now chucked out like 5 trees worth of paper. Still got to find room for some of the stuff on my desk. When I get back, I may have to do proper cleaning where I chuck stuff out. But it’s sort of against my nature to throw things away. I’m a hoarder, and it seems wasteful to throw things out even if I know I’m not going to use them again. We’ll see. Hopefully I can clear up all the little knick-knacks tonight. I need to start properly packing for the trip or I really won’t get any sleep on Friday night.

Other than that, I’m guessing everyone’s heard about Steve Irwin. To be honest, I didn’t like his shows AT ALL. But I think he made a tremendous contribution to conservation of wildlife in Australia as well as the tourism industry. For that, I salute him and I hope he rests in peace.