wafblog v3.0

So, most of the time I’m on MSN and no one talks to me. Or there’s no one to talk to. Then there are the nights where you’ll sit down and start talking to someone, and then someone else will message you. And someone else. And someone else. And suddenly you’re managing 6 simultaneous conversations. Which is kind of fun and it is always great to talk to friends. I’ve got three different friends who are going away sometime this month, all three will be going to HK and two are then going to Europe. It was hard just to keep up with who was going where and for how long.

There was a fire drill at work yesterday which meant that I had to walk down 26 flights of stairs. It was a shame they picked the day I normally go to the gym – but I shouldn’t complain about getting more exercise I guess. It was a bit of a farce and nobody seems to take these things seriously, I’d be worried in a real emergency though. My arms are hurting from the gym yesterday, as are my abs but my legs seem fine. Guess the stretches have been working after all.

So, I told my parents about Mike last night. I guess if you know me, and my history with my parents you’d get the significance of this. I think I built it up in my head too much and maybe stressed over it more than I needed to. They seemed to take it fine, to the point of not really caring so that’s … I dunno. But hey, I was expecting them to be all against it so that’s better than I hoped for. Not too sure, I think I may have approached it the wrong way and maybe really should have just left it for them to figure out. But it’s done now, and I can stop agonising over it. My dad took it much better than my mum I think, but then she’s always been the one to watch out for. I guess I should just be happy it’s done and not make a big deal out of it.

Liddle Facts No. 82: Animal that lay eggs don’t have belly buttons.

I wasn’t sure whether to go “DUH!” at this. Damn orange juice facts.

I’ve been pretty happy lately, which is a nice change. I don’t think I’m one of those people that can stay happy for long periods of time. Not sure if that’s because I’m overly critical or it’s just some odd personality defect. Anyways, I find that I’m pretty content at the moment. Most aspects of my life have resolved themselves or are at a stage where I can’t do anything at the moment.

Mike and I are doing well. It’s still all a bit new, I guess. Obviously there’s familiarity there – considering how long we dated before. But it’s also very different. I can see we’re both putting more effort in, and we’ve both matured a bit during the time we spent apart which makes it much easier to communicate and put things into perspective.

We went to see ‘Children of Men’ on the weekend (I LOVE Clive Owen… he’s not like uber-hot, but there’s something about his gruff voice and the accent). It was a pretty good movie. Different from most futuristic movies. I think because of the way it was shot, it felt very gritty and realistic. In one of the fighting scenes, some blood splatters on the camera lens and they keep it there whilst Clive Owen is trying to not to get killed in crossfire. I thought that was a nice touch. It was kind of obvious what was going to happen at the end, but I did think it was a different take on the future. Usually there’s some sort of view that all babies will be genetically engineered a-la ‘Gattaca’ where as this explores a world where no babies are born. Scary. I like Alfonso Cuaron, although I have seen that movie that made him famous (I will…), he is the one that directed HP: POA so I think he’s brilliant.

Work’s pretty ok at the moment too. I’m still worried that I will become disenchanted with the rat race and after 5 years of slogging it out I’ll just quit and move to the country. Except I can’t move to the country because everywhere is drought affected. Anyways, work is alright. Nothing to complain about as such and I am looking forward to next year as much as I dread it being too challenging.

Parents have been pretty good lately too. It’s been good since I finished uni. I think they’re just relieved that I’ve finished and I’m now on my way to having a career and all that sort of thing. They can sort of sit back and relax. Which they are, as they’re planning for retirement now. (Gosh, retirement seems like a lifetime away from here…) I think they’ll start berating me to clean my room, play violin, go for more driving lessons.. etc etc soon but I kind of accept now that they’re just like that and there’s nothing I can do about it.

Met up with Manda for a coffee on Monday. Felt like a yuppie, but neither of us really felt like drinking. Or maybe that was just me. It was definitely great to see her though, catch up, check out her short hair :o and see how well she survived Animania. I was a bit worried things would change, but they haven’t and we easily just slipped back into our usual chat-chat-chat. Going for drinks tonight at the Arthouse so that should be fun too.

I thought I would really miss LJ, e-mail, ICQ and the like while I was away. Which I did, but I’ve found that since coming back I haven’t really felt the urge to go online much. It’s kind of odd. Like, I’ll go online to check my mail but I don’t read any of the groups that I’ve joined and I skim alot of the community posts on my friends page. I don’t think that I’m losing interest in them or anything, I’m still as avid a fan of x, y and z as before just that reading fanfic for hours on end isn’t very appealing at the moment. Maybe I just need a break from all the fanbitching and fanboying. In any case, once I get back into VM, GA and OTH we’ll see if I go scouring for stuff. I also have to make time to watch the ORIGINAL SW trilogy, cos the DVDs arrived while I was away. I have already recruited Mike to watch them with me, but maybe I’ll see if I can convince people to come and watch a marathon of all six.

I’ve decided that Tekken: Dark Resurrection is the best game on PSP. I haven’t played it since I got back but I was playing it religiously in HK. Unlocked a few bonus games like Tekken Bowl (ten-pin bowling with your Tekken character) which is rather hilarious. Trying to only work on one or two characters, and become proficient in them, before trying others. It’s too hard to remember all the combinations otherwise. Also finding it hard to use the directional keypad in fighting, but I don’t like the analog stick on the PSP, it’s too small and in an awkward position for my thumb. Plus my thumb muscles hurt a lot if I use it for too long. Current fave character is Steve Fox. He’s a boxer, so he can’t kick, but he’s amazingly fast at repetitive punching. It’s cool that you can buy different clothes and things for him with the points you accumulate.

Went to the gym yesterday. I’m not particularly unhealthy after my trip, although my legs seem to have lost some strength. That or they’re not used to being stretch the way my trainer stretched them. I was doing some lunges (2nd set) when my right leg caved in. It was a bit scary trying to walk down the stairs at Central station, cos I kept feeling like my knee would buckle and I’d fall down but I managed to get home in one piece so that’s ok.

The categories on here are very easy to use, so in the next few weeks I might be adding a few more just to make it easier to tag my entries. We’ll see. I don’t want to add too many though as it might become unmanageable.

It’s been a while since I last updated. But I’ve been pretty busy so haven’t really had the time. Met up with Shree last Saturday week (hrm, not sure if that’s the right way to say it) to go shopping for Vinci’s 21st present. It was heaps good to meet up with her, cos I haven’t really seen her since last December and we don’t really get a chance to talk much considering uni and all that sort of thing. It’s interesting because I think sometimes you end up just always speaking to the same people all the time. Like, you see them fairly often and they know what you’re up to on a daily basis so it’s much easier to arrange to meet up and do things. And even if you’re good friends with someone you might not see them very often cos you’re off doing different things and time just sort of runs away from you. Anyway, we found a cool present and now I just need to wrap that up, find a mask for the masquerade and find a top to match my skirt. Simple really.

On the Sunday, I went to see the charity screening of ‘Hoodwinked’, which I enjoyed immensely. The movie is hilariously funny (especially Twitchy the squirrel – “I don’t drink coffee”) and quite well animated I reckon. I love the style it used with telling the four different stories to give you the full picture of how the scene happened and the jokes were funny without being crude. Ben Folds did a great song for the soundtrack as well, which Manda and I found thoroughly amusing. This was probably one of the best movies I’ve seen all year, considering the number of flops/disappointments this year I guess I’m not too surprised. There’s nothing coming out soon that I really want to see. Although I’ll likely end up seeing ‘Snakes On A Plane’ just for the hell of it.

Had another session with my personal trainer… and he’s started me on these squatting exercises (“The King Of All Exercises”) which left my legs totally killing afterwards. I spent most of the Wednesday hobbling around the office because I couldn’t walk properly without my thighs hurting LOL. Hopefully tomorrow’s session won’t be as bad. I guess it’s good to know that I’m getting some exercise though and that I should be getting fitter. I have noticed that my breathing seems more regular when I run, and I’m not feeling as short of breath now either which is definitely an improvement. I should try to go swimming some time but I don’t like the chlorine or having to shower afterwards and there’s no pool near me either.

The weekend just past was pretty good too. Went bushwalking (bushbashing) in the Royal National Park with Alan on Saturday. It had been raining a couple of days beforehand so everywhere was rather muddy and it did sprinkle a bit while we were out in the bush. The river was flowing nicely though so I think it was good to go after the rain. I haven’t been bushwalking in YONKS and I thoroughly enjoyed being out in nature lol. Sure, the gym is great for training but you can’t really beat seeing real trees and hearing birds and things like that. I did however complain about the mud every 5 minutes or so, and Alan said I should’ve just been happy that I conquered the mountain which was really a hill… :P I’ve got some photos which I’ll have to post up later when I’ve resized them down from the 3MB files that they are now. We were going to go tenpin bowling afterwards because that’s what I wanted to do but the bowling centre was totally packed when we went (damn kiddy parties) so ended up just going home.

I ended up going to a show with my dad on Saturday night because my mum was sick and dad didn’t want to waste the ticket. I’m really glad I went. I don’t know what the show was called, but it featured accordian players who did versions of well known classical and pop songs. It was really awesome, some of the songs they played. It was quite interesting for me cos I can play some of the songs and hearing them on a different instrument is quite amazing. Some of the songs they had a singer as well and she sang really well! All in all, I kinda left wishing I could play the accordian even though it looks really heavy and I don’t think it has the same finesse as a violin. It does however, look like lots of fun and would certainly allow you to play a wide range of songs. I wonder how much one of them costs?

Didn’t really get up to anything yesterday. I got up late and had to cook breakfast because mum was sick. It turned out better than I expected although the bacon was a little dry and I forgot to put the olive oil on the tomatoes. Guess I’ll know for next time. I was supposed to clean up my room, but I kind of got distracted listening to music LOL. Pulled out all these classical CDs that I have and was listening to some songs I haven’t heard in ages. Also had The Clash’s ‘London Calling’ on a few times which is a totally awesome classic album. Might have to get their other album as well and have a listen to that, I did like “Rock the Casbah” which I’d heard but didn’t actually click that it was a Clash song LOL.

And why’d you say
It’s just another day, nothing in my way
I don’t wanna go, I don’t wanna stay
So there’s nothing left to say
And why’d you lie
When you wanna die, when you hurt inside
Don’t know what you lie for anyway
Now there’s nothing left to say

My uncle came over from HK and stayed with us from Thursday to Tuesday. I’ve spent most of the last few days going out to dinner and on Saturday we went down to Wollongong. The first three photos were taken from the Sea Cliff Bridge down near Coal Cliff. It was opened in December last year, the view is pretty amazing, because the bridge is off the edge of the cliff. It was a bit of shame that it rained while we were there, but it was a nice walk anyways. Only takes about 30 minutes to do a round trip, so that was my exercise for the weekend. The 4th photo shows the really disturbing view of Wollongong showing rather obscene amounts of smoke coming out from the stacks… I was pretty surprised when I saw it. I’m not sure if there’s a smelter/steelworks/coal factory there, so maybe that explains it.

We ended up going all the way down to the blow hole at Kiama, which was really awesome because the sea was quite choppy. Makes for good blowhole (= And because the sun was starting to come out, we got to see rainbow! In fact, in the next photo, there’s two (although the second one is very very faint). And the colours are reversed from the inner one. It was pretty cool to see the full arch of the rainbow as well, cos normally you only manage to see half. Of course, the camera on my phone just isn’t capable of capturing that sort of beauty… I really have to look into getting a decent digital camera.

On Sunday, we went to Bondi for breakfast (I had this big brekkie that I’m still trying to work off at the gym) and then went on to the fish markets. I haven’t been to the fish markets in AGES, but there were heaps of people there. Most of them looked like they were there for lunch… not that many people were buying seafood. Anyways, saw these two pelicans in the carpark.. they didn’t seem at all bothered by all the people and cars around.

Haven’t been up to much else. I’m kind of glad my uncle is gone as he is very tiring… he says weird things to me, and everything has to be perfect and people always have to be doing something. I like my weekends to be relaxing, not full of arguing with other people. *sigh*. Thank god I’m not going to work tomorrow. I can see now why people who work for the Government have an ADO every four weeks. After that much full time work, you need it! Otherwise you’ll go crazy or get grumpy and be unproductive. I am rather pissed though, that I get a 30 minute limit EACH DAY on accessing the SMH website. This makes it difficult to read the news and access other interesting things. I have discovered though that I can read my LJ friends page but they’ve blocked eBay again. It’s like some sort of random lucky draw. I’m going to try and RSS feed the news articles into one webpage that I can put on my server so I can access them from work.

Had another session with the personal trainer. He’s taught a few useful exercises. But, if I want to continue session it costs $35/half hour. That’s BLOODY EXPENSIVE!!! So I think I might just have one session a fortnight, which means I’m paying about $36/week for gym + training. I think that’s a bit more affordable and reasonable. Maybe I should become a personal trainer… seems like a fairly fun job.

Well for a lonely soul, you’re having such a nice time
For a lonely soul, you’re having such a nice time
For a lonely soul, it seems to me that you’re having such a nice time
You’re having such a nice time
Keane – Nothing In My Way

I’m so happy for you
I could cry
Yeah, I’m so elated
Cross my heart and hope to die

I don’t normally remember my dreams. Most of the time I wake up and I don’t remember dreaming at all. Other times, I’ll wake up and have a few lingering images in my head. About a week ago, I had the most bizarre dream. Someone I know (and I won’t name who), was trying to kill me. And it was in this weird stalkerish way. I was walking down the street with a friend and this person would come and taunt me. It wasn’t violent or gory, and I woke up before anything particularly unpleasant happened. I just feel really weirded out for like, the next three days. I think I’m *still* weirded out about it, because the person I dreamed was trying to kill me is someone I actually know and would consider a friend. I just found it really unnerving because usually I won’t remember what I’ve dreamed, and honestly, I don’t really remember ever having a nightmare like most people do. I’ve never dreamed that I was falling into a bottomless pit. This is the first time I’ve ever (remembered) dreaming about being chased like that.

But right now
Everything you want is wrong,
And right now
All your dreams are waking up,
And right now
I wish I could follow you
To the shores of freedom,
Where no one lives.

Onto more pleasant things, I had my first session with my personal trainer yesterday. My body is punishing me today. My arms/shoulders hurt from doing push ups (I only managed 8 proper ones \:) and my thighs hurt from the run. But, I did rightly guess that I could only make it 5 minutes running. The personal trainer seems pretty nice, and good at motivating people. However, his favourite phrase is “challenge your body”, closely followed by “overcome the challenge”. That is somewhat aggravating, but I get what he’s saying and what he’s trying to do. And honestly, I’ll achieve much more if I have some goals than if I keep going the way I normally do and don’t push myself. I just have to remember not to take the stairs the next day.

But right now
Everything is turning blue,
And right now
The sun is trying to kill the moon,
And right now
I wish I could follow you
To the shores of freedom,
Where no one lives

I’m sweating it out at the moment, waiting for my uni results to come out. The MyUni thing says that official results will be mailed out mid July. Well it’s mid July dammit, so why aren’t they at least online? So I am a little worried about my marks, but really I just want them back so I can move onto other things and know that uni is finished. I guess I just want to have one less thing to worry over. I must be one of the most impatient people around, so I hope they realise this and send my results SOON.

I wanna be the first to call and tell you
Yesterday I heard the news
I hear you oughtta be congratulated
So I guess that’s what I’ll do

I’m a bit confused at the moment. I’m not entirely sure I know what it is I want anymore. Or it’s like that work/love/house triumvirate thing is not all it could be. (If you don’t get the reference – watch ‘Secret Life Of Us’). I’ve got the work part, and it’s going well. Job’s good, a bit boring, but most days there’s something new and I’m not looking at exactly the same spreadsheet. The house thing is ok too. Parents are a little more relaxed than they were before, and I’ve got more freedom to go out and do what I want. It’s a really good feeling although I keep having this feeling that my parents are going to turn around and find some reason to stop me from going out and doing what I want. So that leaves the last part. I guess I just want concrete answers. I want to know where I should be heading, and what I should be preparing myself for. Everyone reacts differently, and everyone deals differently. That’s cool. I react by shutting down. Or annoying my closest friends with the incessant need to dissect everything into little pieces. I guess that’s just how it works. I don’t like uncertainty. It’s much much easier to make decisions if you know all the facts. Which comes back to Rosi’s current philosophy that you make your decisions based on what you know at the time and you have to be satisfied you made the right decision. That whole no regrets thing didn’t work out so well.

I don’t think about you every night
Before I close my eyes
I’m so happy for you baby,
I could cry.

is not that interesting. I’ve only been out of uni for a week and it’s not that interesting. I guess though, I don’t feel finished because I haven’t gotten my results back and I’m enough of a pessimist to not be relieved until I know for certain that I’ve passed everything. So it’s a bit of a waiting game at the moment.

I’m currently working full time for the trains again. It’s not bad, bit busy these couple of weeks (probably the whole month) because it’s end of financial year and there’s all this stuff to be fixed up and reports to be created. It’s good to be busy though and I do enjoy what I’m doing most of the time.

I’ve not blogged much lately because I’ve either been out or watching Grey’s Anatomy. It’s a really great show, been a while since I’ve been so sucked in to a show. My love of The O.C is waning because it’s getting tiresome this break up, get back together, break up, get back together thing. It’s kind of the same for One Tree Hill. And I just haven’t felt like watching Lost because I got the feeling they were just dragging everything out for too long. So yeah, Grey’s has been a bit of fresh air. It’s funny, but not comedy, has a lot of drama but enough soap to not feel like it’s overly anything really. I can’t wait for the third season. I get this feeling though, that you can only be obsessed or fanatic about so many things at once. Like, there’s only so much time and effort I can spend on things I want to be fanatic about. I’ve become more into Grey’s and I’ve noticed I’m less into HP at the moment. Although that may be because I’ve gotten sick of reading fanfic. Or at least, it’s been hard to find fanfic that’s really drawn me in and is multi-chapter and not cliche. So I’m taking a bit of a break for a while. Sort of.

Now that I’ve finished uni I’ve got some time to do the things that I’ve wanted to do. I joined the gym near my workplace, and I’m intending to go 2-3 times a week. We’ll see how it goes. I can be really lazy sometimes, but at the same time, I want to get fit. I feel really lazy and unhealthy. I want to be be in better shape before I go to Europe because I’ll be on my feet all the time and I want to make sure I can survive. The only problem is that whilst I am exercising a lot more, I’m not changing my diet. And anyone who knows me knows that foods like chicken and chips, kebabs, fried rice and other such foods are a staple in my diet. I find it hard to change what I eat. I’m trying to eat more fruit, and drink more milk but it’s not really happening at the moment. Hopefully just doing more exercise will be helpful as it is. The gym is rather expensive though so that’s a decent enough incentive to ensure that I keep going. I must must must get more sleep though.

Other than that, not much to talk about. Seen a few movies, been out a bit with friends and with parents. Doing a lot of prelim planning for my trip and will start cleaning up my room soon. Also need to reformat Tichondrius. I’ve got the Windows Vista Beta 2 which I hope to have time to install before I go away. I really want to check out what it’s like to see if I need to save for a new computer next year. I might even pick up some parts when I go to HK. We’ll see.