Friday 30 September 2011

Yesterday was rough

I knew that Thursday was going to be a rough day when one of the vet nurses called me up and asked me to come in early. And then she called back and asked if I could come in earlier. Usually I do a five hour shift on Thursday but yesterday I did an almost ten hour one. Ouch! I only got to sit down when I answered the phone and I only had one cup of tea. I really only had one mouthful of it before I got called away and when I came back it was stone cold. I still tried to drink it though.


We had two big emergency cases, as well as our usual workload. We had a dog that was seizuring and because of this, she was very disorientated and frightened... and therefore kept trying to bite us when we were helping her, which doesn't make life easy. It was sad, when the owners came in to see her, she didn't seem to recognise them and just lay there. But by the end of the day, she was starting to get her bearings and I'm hoping tomorrow, she'll be even better and will recognise her owners.


Then we had another tick dog. This one was a big dog with a shaggy coat so it was hard to find the tick but we found it. She was in a really bad way, could barely move and had to be propped up to keep her airways clear as she had no gag reflex. She was a real sweetie though and when I would pat her, she would briefly wag her tail, even though she was almost completely paralyzed by this tick. Unfortunately she didn't make it and passed away right at the end of the day. I had just finished patting her head and speaking to her, I left the room for a brief moment and when I came back, I looked at her and I knew. I called the vets and they came and I went out of the room and I had to go and serve people. It was surreal, trying to be all friendly and chirpy to the customers, knowing that the dog we'd been caring for all day had just died.


The owner came in to say goodbye to her dog and it was so sad. I was trying so hard not to cry. In general, I pretty much start crying as soon as someone else cries so I pretended I was busy in another room.


It's days like this that make me happy though. I was busy and I felt (somewhat) competent and I felt like I was making a difference. And to top it all off, my boss today told me to write down my hours for yesterday as he would like to pay me for that day! Ten beautiful hours of pay!!!!! Considering he didn't have to pay me that makes me happy too :)

Wednesday 28 September 2011

Blu Ray Tuesday #5

As promised...

The movie:

The menu:
After a long separation, we finally went back to pizzas. It felt good. It felt right.

Girl roomie had not actually seen this movie. I know, right?!?! Here's the deal: this movie is nowhere near as good as the first one. As a standalone movie, it's ok but comparing it to Jurassic Park, it's kinda lame. I don't know what happened, they would have been given a bigger budget for this movie, the CGI would have advanced so much in the four years between the first and second movie... but the magic is gone. We spent way more time going "That looks fake" in this movie than the last one.

There was kind of way too much exposition at the start of this movie. If you need to have a whole heap of back story for your movie, it's not great. Writing 101: 'show... don't tell'.

I still have no idea why Jeff Goldblum is in this movie! It's based off of Michael Crichton's book so obviously Michael Crichton knows why Jeff's there... shame he didn't explain that to the rest of the class.

I'm being mean about this movie but there are a lot of exciting stand alone moments in this movie: Velociraptors picking off people one by one in the long grass (including a fantastic bird's eye view shot), T-Rex poking his head through a tent (this ruined camping for me), T-Rex IN SUBURBIA (I lived next door to my friend and after I watched this movie at her house, her mum had to walk me home because I was so scared!). However, lots of exciting moments do not make a movie especially when they are strung together on a flimsy plot.

This movie did have a bit where all three of us genuinely went "Ahhh!!!!!!!!!". It was quite exciting watching this part of the movie because I couldn't remember what happened- and youtube have kindly put it up for all of us to relive! All I know is Velociraptors are scary. This is the best part of the movie, I spent most of the part were Jeff's in the car, screaming "Kick it in the face!!!!!!!!!!" I realised afterwards why Jeff Goldblum doesn't kick the velociraptor in the face. Because it is an expensive animatronic puppet and kicking it in the face will probably break it. Anyway, check out around the 1:30 mark to see the moment that got all of us (but really watch all of it to give you the shivers!)!

Tuesday 27 September 2011

Help needed!

You lot seem like an interesting, diverse, creative bunch of people. I need some help.

I have to give a 40 minute talk for my class in a few weeks. I have to teach them something in this 40minute talk. Now, I was originally going to do hair braiding but when I started telling people, they were a little reluctant to let other people touch their hair in order to do the braids. So that idea got put away.

The only things I can think of is something like 'no bake treats' or making friendship bracelets. I'd really like to do something that involves people doing something so they are not staring at me during this 40 minute talk! Who has some bright ideas as to what I might do?

It's such a long period of time, I might die!!!

Monday 26 September 2011

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Brownies

Taylor had a great post that I read today that jogged my memory about a post that I wanted to do myself. Why did I read her post? It only made me want to do more baking!!

I had amazing beginner's luck this week. I was procrastinating from doing my assignments and so decided to try my hand at baking. I'm normally not very good at cooking chocolate related things but this one came out great. I would repost the recipe on my blog but if you go over to the original poster's site here, you get bonus pictures of the tasty treat- and what they're *actually* supposed to look like!

I've been dying to make this for a while now. I made it a little differently to the recipe. I used a slightly smaller tin which means my brownies were a bit bigger and needed cooking for longer. I didn't use vanilla essence either. But guys- FOR REAL- these are the best brownies I've ever tasted- and I've tasted more than a few in my lifetime. This will be my new go-to recipe for brownies, not that I ever make them, simply because I thought I couldn't bake chocolate stuff. Now I can!! I also don't think I used as much cookie dough as the original recipe calls for. And worst of all, I cheated and brought storemade cookie dough. I thought, I've spent enough money on this- it's cheaper to buy the cookie dough than make it from scratch- and honestly, you can't tell.

We gobbled these down at work. We gobbled these down at home. They are super great. I cut them up into small pieces as really, they're so rich you can't eat a big slice. You can however eat several small pieces though. I have done the experiments. You can trust me.

Sunday 25 September 2011

Lyrics courtesy of Boy Roomie

"If you don't know the lyrics- you just make 'em up. I do that all the time!"

Truer words were never spoken.

This was uttered by my boy roomie whilst watching The X Factor a few weeks ago when a contestant fumbled their lyrics. Boy roomie really does know how to mangle some lyrics. Here are some new lyrics for you to enjoy.

On the way home from watching the movie 'Friends with Benefits', we listened to the song that was heavily featured in the movie, Semisonic's 'Closing Time'. Boy roomie was on his phone reading the lyrics because he wanted to sing along. I assumed he wanted to know ALL of the lyrics but instead he just wanted to know the words in the chorus. Suddenly he exclaimed "Ohh! *Those* are the words". He thought the line "I know who I want to take me home" was... "I know who ha want to take me home". That doesn't even make sense.


Musicals aren't safe either. In 'Grease', 'You're The One That I Want' apparently has Danny singing to Sandy in that classic opening line... "I've got jewels, they're multiplying". Jewels, chills, any difference?


And my personal favourite misheard lyric is during Taio Cruz's song 'Dynamite' in the chorus. PS The clue is in the title :) Instead of 'We're going to light it up, like it's dynamite'... boy roomie thought it was 'We're going to light it up like it's 9.09'. As if that particular time of night is an especially cool time to party. Come on guys, tonight's going to be great, we'll be out way past 9.09!


Boy roomie, please keep mishearing lyrics and singing them aloud for me to hear- and blog about.

Anyone else have some great misheard lyrics? My friend's little sister thought The Corrs' song 'Breathless' contained the lyric 'Leave me breakfast'... instead of 'Leave me breathless'.

I'm just about to try and catch up on all the posts I've missed. Wish me luck!

Thursday 22 September 2011

Blu Ray Tuesday #4

I can’t leave you guys without your Blu Ray Tuesday reviews! What was I thinking?! Besides, writing this was a nice break from writing assignments!

Since writing about my fear of Jurassic Park a few posts ago, it got me thinking about the movie and whether it would be that scary after not watching it for probably ten years. We decided to do a Jurassic Park marathon so girl roomie and I went down to our video store... and we couldn't find it! So girl roomie went and asked at the counter and she was directed to the section that I had been looking in for the last five minutes, unable to find it (and slightly panicky).

Of course, girl roomie found it straight away! I also wanted to get the other movies in the trilogy so I went up to the counter and asked where they were. The girl at the counter was like "uh... are you with that girl?" referring to girl roomie and it made me giggle, us getting sassed by an underage video store employee. They weren't there but I will definitely be reviewing 'The Lost World' next week- unless some other person has stolen it from me.

The movie:




The menu: We'd had fast food three nights in a row, so we decided to cook something for 'fast food night'. We had Vietnamese Spring Rolls, which are probably called something else for different people but look at the recipe and give it a whirl, so easy and yummy!

You guys, this movie is nearly twenty years old. Just let that sink in. How old do you feel now?!?!?! And as we were watching it, I really felt that people don't make movies like this nowadays. Maybe we're so used to CGI now, maybe I'm too old to feel the magic of Hollywood anymore but this movie? This movie is AWESOME! It's got light-hearted moments, it's got good old fashioned scares, it's even got Samuel L. Jackson in it! What more do you need from a movie?!

Some notes:

  • There was way more exposition at the beginning of the movie than I remembered.
  • Some of the CGI hasn't held up over time. We spent a lot of the movie going "That looks fake... that looks real... that looks fake".
  • Richard Attenbourgh's (the guy that owns the park and looks like Colonel Sanders) accent changes throughout the movie. Sometimes he's Scottish, sometimes he's English.
  • The kids are kind of annoying but not too bad. We kept telling them to man up. Side note: look at the boy from JP now!!! Just to make you feel old again :)

  • That theme tune is amazing. That is why John Williams is the man.
  • None of us can work out why Jeff Goldblum was invited to the park in the first place. He's a mathematician. The only reason he is there is so that he can be the voice of reason and foreshadowing.
  • The velociraptors are still hands down terrifying. I chewed most of my thumb nail off during that kitchen scene. And put my blanket over my head at several points.

  • Spielberg is the king of movie making. Remember the scene where Ellie and that hunter guy have to make it to the power station to turn the perimeter fences back on? It's a 20 metre walk and they can see the power station in front of them. But then the hunter guy tells them that they are being watched- and hunted. By velociraptors. You don't even see anything and yet it is a very fraught 20m walk- and then run.
  • Sam Neil is strangely attractive.

The very DVD menu is terrifying. It's just basically the scene where the velociraptors are walking around in the Welcome Centre and they're calling to each other. Girl roomie turned up the volume and I was talking to my mum on the phone and I heard the velociraptors and just stopped talking. And then when you press play, one of the velociraptors runs towards the camera to try and eat you. I shut my eyes.

We were talking about how they are apparently making another Jurassic Park movie and boy roomie was like "They'll probably make it in 3D". Oh wow. I would die of fright right there in the cinemas.

Just looking for photos for this post was pretty scary. And then I found these ones, a re-enactment and a poster for the next Twilight movie :)

Tuesday 20 September 2011

Just a little note...

I am crazy busy and all of a sudden I have lovely people who are following and commenting on my posts. This is probably not a good time to take a short break but I really need it.

I need to concentrate on my school work.

Also to be noted: In my head, my break will be a week. In reality, it will probably only be two days until I sort my life out and therefore I didn't really need to notify you all! Oh well :)

On a side note, I got a new laptop with web camera... vlogs to come!!

Sunday 18 September 2011

Post 100!

Wow! I cannot believe that I have written 100 separate posts. I honestly thought I would get sick of blogging before I ever got close to reaching a milestone like this. And I have met so many wonderful people, including the lovely Emily from Amazing Grapes. I literally started following her from the second I saw her blog name, I'm a sucker for a good pun! Emily has given me my very first blogging award! THANK YOU!!!!!!!!

The rules are clear:

- Thank the award-giver and link back to them in your post.

- Tell your readers 7 things about yourself.

- Give this award to 3 bloggers.

- Contact those bloggers and tell them the exciting news!

Onto my seven things...

#1 I really want to stay in an ice hotel. SO badly! Which is odd considering I hate the cold but I just think it would definitely be a once in a lifetime experience.

#2 My mum is the cutest. She just brought me an early birthday present which is the BEST!! Love my mum. You know how women turn out like their mothers? I'm looking forward to it :)

#3 I have a really weird phobia. I guess it's not a phobia because I'm not afraid of it, I just hate it and seeing it makes me gag. Watching people brush their teeth. UGH! Just writing it out causes me to picture it in my head and makes me want to hurl. I have decided that it is the foam that really does it for me.

#4 Jurassic Park is the scariest movie of ALL time! For reals. Velociraptors in a kitchen?!?! And now as a result, I find industrial kitchens equally as terrifying. Bonus random fact: The first time I went on the JP ride at Universal Studios, I genuinely started crying in fear. My dad thought it was hilarious. I was 14.

#5 I was 13 on Friday the 13th!

#6 I used to hate my name until I discovered Petrarch. He was the dude that invented the sonnet and wrote most of his ones to his muse, a woman named Laura. I have super amazingly romantic poetry dedicated to me!

#7 I think the cape is a very sexy accessory for a man. However in real life, if someone came up to me wearing a cape, I would definitely be like "um... you're wearing a cape, you weirdo!". Which is why I need to start dating someone who is from the 18th century or a superhero or likes to visit Medieval fairs. Only one of those options is viable... Batman, you have my number. Call me.

My chosen three are

Danielle from danielle carey who was one of my very first online friends ever!

Abigail from Abigail and the Great World who is a new friend but also happens to be another version of me, just living in America.

Kristy from Musing of an Unenthusiastic Blogger who is a real life BFF. True to her blogger name, she is a very unenthusiastic blogger, so maybe this award will kick her bum back into blogging!!

Saturday 17 September 2011

Summer advice?

Today is my first day wearing summer clothes. I spend the winter months dreaming of cute sandals and flirty skirts but when summer actually rolls around, I realise that I hate it! I love winter clothes because you can layer and I love layering.

I never know what to wear in summer. I tend to wear more conservative clothes than the average 25 year old. And while I try and look vaguely hip, in summer I usually just end up looking like a 50 year old Amish woman. (No offense meant to any 50 year old Amish women who stumbled across my blog). Can anyone offer any tips on how to look good and keep cool in summer without resorting to nakedness?

Also I had to wear a long skirt today because of this bruise on my leg.
PS It looks way darker in real life, just so you know and can offer your sympathies.

Yet another reason to hate summer. I’m constantly walking into things and getting bruises. Which never looks good in a skirt. Also I needed to wear a longer skirt today so that I don’t blind people with my pasty white legs!

Wednesday 14 September 2011

Blu Ray Tuesday #3 (and the greatest day ever!!)

Again we were lazy bones and couldn't be bothered to go out to get a movie, so we stayed inside and watched one from girl roomie's hard drive.

The movie: Griff the Invisible
The menu: McDonald's

This movie... well... I don't quite know if I liked it or not. Girl roomie and I wanted to see it because it sounded cute and had Ryan Kwanten in it. Some people know Ryan Kwanten as that guy from True Blood but us Aussies know him from back in the day when he was Vinnie in Home & Away. Anyway, I digress. It's a small Australian film and it was quirky and I think it was supposed to be uplifting but somewhere in the middle, it just got sad.

The story is about this shy office worker who is bullied by his co-workers by day but by night, he becomes a superhero- Griff the Invisible. Somewhere in the middle of the movie it becomes clear that he is just a sad man who suffers from delusions and it becomes worse when he meets Melody, who encourages him in this belief that he is a superhero. Then I had to realise that it was just a movie and it was all going to be ok and then the movie became sweet and uplifting again.

Recommended: Why not? At something like 89 minutes, it's not a huge chunk out of your life. By the end, once I'd embraced the mindset of the film, I thought it was cute but again, not sure if I liked it.
Haha, I'm always so wishy washy with my recommendations!

Ok, the greatest day ever... at lunch time a girl comes back from the shops down the road and announces that Night Owl's (a knock off of 7/11) freezers have broken down and they're just giving away stuff. People started traipsing back withboxes filled with cheesecakes and Ben & Jerry's, frozen pizzas and so I had to get in on it! I managed to score a couple of things like Sara Lee cheesecakes and frozen frenxh fries but by the time I got there, most of the good stuff had gone. The original girls who had discovered this had brought back icecream for all of us though so we spent the rest of the lunch break stuffing our faces with ice cream :)

Then there was nowhere really to put it. We have a small communal fridge/freezer that we put it in, then there's a staff freezer which we used to. Then we have a deep freezer for dead bodies... and people put food in there too. We are such grubs!!

I thought that was so nice of the owner to just give his stuff away. I've been in there a couple of times and he's always the sweetest, so I'll definitely go back there and frequent his business as my way of saying thank you!

Tuesday 13 September 2011

Still plodding along

I took my Pathology exam and passed, phew!

AND the giant assignment that I was freaking out over to be handed in on Friday?? We were talking about it to our teacher who said "I thought it was due in after the holidays?". It was originally meant to be due after the holidays but some people in the class asked for it to be moved forward because we have a whole heap of stuff due after the holidays. I thought it was stupid because we haven't even done the class that this assignment is for! But everyone wanted to get it out of the way so the date got changed. Anyway, the teacher just shrugged his shoulders and said "Do I look like I care? We haven't even started doing the class, just hand in the assignment after the holidays". Yay!!!!!

I'm going to be so busy in the holidays doing school work but tonight I am going to just relax, read my book and enjoy Blu Ray Tuesday.

In other news, I did a rope braid in my hair. I redid it for a photo after school and it came out WAY better this time than how I had originally done it!

I'm off to read my book and probably nap too. Love doing nothing :)

Monday 12 September 2011

Ten Day You Challenge: Nine Loves

#1 Snuggling with animals
The way they just snuggle into you and simply love you and trust you. *sigh* It's so cute. Especially kitties when they purr and you are just both so content.

#2 Reading while in bed on a cold morning
Bonus points if you have no reason to get up and can stay in bed for as long as you wish!

#3 Eating melted chocolate
Normal chocolate is a love too but there's something deliciously decadent about eating warm chocolate when it's all gooey and melty.

#4 Watching reality TV whilst stuffing my face with some kind of snacks
It's always best when it's some kind of 'appearance show', like 'America's Next Top Model' or 'Biggest Loser'

#5 Laughing at something silly, usually with my mum
#6 Reading blogs
Love reading about you all and what you crazy kids get up to! I love hearing about other people's day-to-day lives and getting the insight on their innermost thoughts. You never fail to make me laugh or inspire me. You remind me that I am not alone!

#7 Drinking tea
This is especially true when it is accompanied by some kind of delicious baked goods

#8 Writing a story when it's all working out and everything's flowing
Yep, I just compared myself to Shakespeare :) Also, this is what I wear when I write... an open necked puffy shirt and I, of course, use my trusty quill at all times.

#9 The smell of rain on a hot summer's day
I also love that 'Doctor Who' taught me that the word for this is 'petrichor'. Isn't that a cool word? And now you know the word for that lovely smell that is the smell of summer.

Honourable mention is this video that my teacher showed us in class today. If you have ever spent more than five seconds with a cat, you'll enjoy this one too!

Sunday 11 September 2011

A Saturday Night Out

I am a confirmed homebody. I hate going out. Ok, hate is a strong word but it's always so much effort and I always get really excited about going out on the town and it never lives up to my expectations so I'm always like "bleurgh" when I end up agreeing to go out.

This Saturday night was an exception. We were going out to a dessert restaurant (getting to cross another thing off my '101 in 1001' list) and to a comedy show afterwards. Confession time... I did not bring my camera, nor was the lighting conducive to amazing FB profile pictures... so NO awesome pictures. Well, there were awesome pics aka some extra special sexy ones of me. Case in point:
My girl roomie was in the picture with me, making an equally attractive face but you know, there's only so much hotness that this blog can take. Plus I feel weird putting people onto the internet so I took her out.

Also I want to get a hold of video footage of me. I unfortunately introduced my boy roomie to the practice of pretending to take a photo of someone... but actually taking a video and seeing how long the people will hold their pose for. I think it's his new favourite thing to do. And he got a great one of me, literally seconds after I'd just finished talking about this phenomenon. There is a website where people have uploaded their videos of this happening and I can no longer find it. Does anyone know the one I mean???

It was fun getting to see what everyone else picked out. I got a Macademia nut and caramel shortbread slice. It was just ok. I should have gone with my gut instinct of 'chocolate brownie'. I mean, don't get me wrong- it was beautiful and yummy, it was just unfortunately surrounded and drowned in a moat of caramel sauce which I don't really like and so it kind of ruined the actual shortbread slice. I am not a food blogger, therefore I do not have pictures of my food.

I am also not a fashion blogger, hence no photo of my awesome outfit. Seriously I was so impressed with it. It was a dress from Target and I jazzied it up with accessories and it looked great! At the end of the night, I took my best 'fashion blogger' photo. This is the result.

I accidentally cut off my own head. You can see my school bag and running shoes by my feet. You can barely see my boots. This photo is pretty much a how 'not to' do self photos. It makes me laugh so I thought I'd share it!!

After food, we went to see Tripod. This is a musical comedy trio and a band that me and my friends have been following since high school! Almost ten years!!! This is all part of my local festival and I even got a cool stamp!
This is the symbol of the festival... yeah, I don't know what it means either. BUT they'd put up a tent in the middle of the city and inside, it was beautifully set up with fairy lights it was like an old fashioned circus big top. It was really beautiful. There were all these rows of seats and by the time we arrived, there were only seats in the last row left. Not cool. But my friend Kristy is awesome and went and talked to the bouncer and scored us this sweet booth right up the front of the stage!!! It was empty and we just went and sat in it and pretended like we owned it and somehow we got away with it :)

The group were just as funny as I remembered and they sang some classic oldies as well as some new ones. This is one of my faves that they sang last night, I think it's one of their best. Please listen and enjoy!



So, I might go out and do cool stuff but I'll always be a little homebody at heart. Maybe one day New York will let me come back and some more of its coolness will rub off onto me and I will ONE DAY be cool!!!!

Friday 9 September 2011

Battle your way through my wordy post!

It's a chilly Saturday morning, the sun is shining but the wind is whipping around. I realise it's all my fault because I only have summer clothes in my wardrobe but can I please catch a break?! I'm tired of being cold!!!!!

I'm not feeling too sick anymore but I would like to not be doing any school work. I wish I could just sit and do nothing, lie on the sofa watching a movie. Although I only recently realised that next week is my holidays! So this time next week, I will be on holidays!!!!!!! Yay!! That's some good news right there. But... I have promised myself that I will spend a large amount of time doing school work so I don't die next term because we have so much stuff due in October!

Tonight I'm going to a comedy show with a bunch of friends and before that we're heading to a dessert restaurant. This was actually one of my things on my '101 in 1001' list and it's funny that without any planning on my behalf, I am going to get to cross this one off my list :)

Also tonight we will be snapping pictures of me to use as my FB profile picture. I think I've had the same one for about half the year! I mean, it is of me and Helo from 'Battlestar Galactica' so it's pretty darn cool but I think it's time to move on. Time to shake things up but I usually don't go out or do anything that involves having your picture taken so tonight we will be rectifying this with lots of pictures being taken. And hopefully one will look ok and I can use that as a profile pic!

And in other news, I also won my first ever blog giveaway! Yay!! I won an e-book by the lovely Dina Sleiman over at Inkwell Inspirations. I absolutely love Dina's posts and I look forward to reading her book. Just something else to do instead of doing my assignments!

Also, as a form of procrastination I have been researching e-readers that I can get as a birthday present. My birthday is over two months away and normally I don't care about presents but I thought this year I will be proactive and have a list because according to my mother, I am a hard person to buy presents for. Also this year I will be having a birthday party! Apparently 26 is a big year for me! Anyway, my research leads me to a Kindle. Any thoughts? Does anyone have an e-reader?

Thursday 8 September 2011

Oh wow...

Thanks to Sarah, I just worked out how to amuse myself endlessly. I should be doing my assignment that's due in on Monday and that I haven't started yet. But then Sarah posted about her giveaway and gave a great tutorial on how to create moving pictures just like in Harry Potter. Well, which do you think is more fun to do???


This is one of my foster boys, Timmy, playing his favourite game- hiding behind the sofa and jumping out at an unsuspecting passer-by. He loved to play this game ALL. THE. TIME. And now he will be playing it on high rotation :)

Being of the PC variety, I wasn't able to follow her Mac tutorial all the way but thanks to a very quick google search, I managed to piece together how to do this, thanks to the headstart she gave me. I also had to save my .gif on a photosharing site first before I could upload it. For some reason it wouldn't upload normally like how it does on Sarah's tutorial.

And you guys, I know NOTHING about photoshop. I can't even stick people's heads onto other people's bodies. And I managed how to do this. I am properly patting myself on the back. So if I can do it, you can too! Give it a go, post it on your blog, drop Sarah a comment and you might win an awesome prize!! And just go and check out her own beautiful moving picture.

Wednesday 7 September 2011

Blu Ray Tuesday #2

Last night, we were all pretty wiped out. I think everyone was in bed by 9. Yes, we really are THAT cool! We didn't even go to the video store to pick out a DVD, we just found something on girl roomie's hard drive.

The movie:
The menu: Red Rooster meals (for my US friends, this is an Aussie version of KFC)

This movie was lots of fun- very silly and rude but it made me laugh out loud several times. It was a homage (or perhaps a parody?) to those 80s fantasy films, complete with an extremely fake-looking puppet character. I have to say that most of the humour came from characters in medieval costumes using modern swear words or anachronisms, but yeah, I'm a sucker for a cheap laugh.

The actual storyline was pretty good. I thought my celebrity girlfriend, Zooey Deschanel was extremely underused but that's what you get for playing a kidnapped damsel in distress.

Recommended? Um... yes... If you are in the mood for a silly movie and you won't be offended by stuff, then go for it.

10 Day You Challenge

This looks like fun. I've seen it on a couple of blogs that I read and I want in! I won't be doing it every day but just when I want to shake things up on the blog.

First day is ten secrets, so here we go!

#1 I'm 25 and I still have a stuffed toy in my bed. He is called Woof and is awesome. I actually only got him when I was 10, so he's not a beloved baby toy which I feel would somehow make it ok that I still have him. I don't snuggle with him every night or anything, just like having him around. One of my favourite things about him is that he is also my dog's toy too. Ok, this is getting weirder and grosser by the second, sorry. When my dog used to live with me, she used to love Woof as well and would just carry him around in her mouth all over the place and would snuggle with him. So Woof reminds me of my dog, who now lives with my grandparents.

#2 I'm a total cry baby. I hate crying but I cry an awful lot. Probably about once a week. If possible I cry in privacy but sometimes I get caught out crying in public.

#3 I still daydream about celebrity crushes. I know I was supposed to give up all that when I left high school but I can't help it! Sometimes it's nice to think about how [whoever I'm crushing on today] and I will meet and how we will get married and have celebrity babies with nice ordinary names.
#4 I know for a fact that I will grow up to be a crazy old lady with a house full of animals. I'm ok about it. I just hope my house doesn't stink *too* bad.

#5 I only sing along to music when I'm in my car. There's something about blasting music really loudly and singing along that is so liberating. I think it's because I play my music so loudly that I can't hear how my actual voice pales in comparison!

#6 I wish I had the guts to wear gypsy, boho fashion. I would love to swan around all the time in long skirts, vintage tops, messy hair and top it all off with bangles. My sensible brain rejects this fashion because it is messy and unprofessional. Although I do have the 'messy hair' part down :)

#7 My dream job would to be on the judging panel of a reality show. Doesn't matter which one. I would be the 'nice' judge. I think it would be fun!

#8 My actual perfect man is John Krasinski. Although that's not really a secret, I tell everyone that :) My girl roomie and I have had a John Krasinksi week actually, it's been lovely!
#9 I think I was born in the wrong era. I'm quite passive (read that as LAZY) so I would have been a perfect woman in olden days!!

#10 Whilst I'm a certified homebody, I really love travelling and living overseas for extended periods of time.

Tuesday 6 September 2011

Sniffling my way through Tuesday

Remember how I put all my winter clothes away for the season? As a result, I was a little chilly last night when I watched an outdoor theatre performance and the cold that I have been fighting off for the last week managed to get its claws in! So I now have a cold. Ick! I'm feeling very sorry for myself and today's only the first day. Never mind. I have made the executive decision to take tomorrow off. I will stay in my PJs (unfortunately not my comfy winter ones!) and work on assignments and drink lots of tea.

Last night's theatre trip was awesome! It was two dance companies together- one does a lot of circus work and the other does 'raw' dance... I don't really know what that means, I just read the blurb about the show, but the end result was amazing. It was in an outdoors theatre and they had people doing a lot of wire work. There were people tapdancing vertically up a wall and this gorgeous piece where a couple floated and danced as if they were under water. And there was a lot of tap dancing where they followed the rhythm of each other's taps, not any music- which is possibly my favourite kind of dance. Like Stomp or Tap Dogs. I could watch that stuff ALL day. Seriously.

I get so jealous seeing people dance. It's just so beautiful and it's something that's so attainable too. Like if I'd only gone to dance lessons, I could be up there too. Although I know there's a lot of hard work and you do have to have a little something called 'talent', but *sigh*. I spent six years doing Irish dancing, won some district competitions but gave it all up. I wish I'd taken modern dance classes or ballet instead- something a bit more general- something that I could actually use. Oh well, I'll just make my future daughter take a myriad of dance classes. PS Check out my fancy vocab back there with 'myriad'! Sometimes I suprise myself.

But best of all, we discovered this awesome pizza place. I wish I was a food blogger because then I would have remembered to take photos of the pizza. Man, I want to go back there right now and eat. We had a streaky bacon and camembert on a red currant sauce pizza and another one that was chicken and mango chutney and something else. Oh wow. Kind of puts all those fast food pizza chains to shame!

Monday 5 September 2011

The opposite of Monday blues

Hello! The sun is shining although I apologise in advance to all those in my part of the world. Because of Murphy's Law, the weather will now be cold and rainy. I took all my winter clothes back to my mum's house on the weekend (including my electric blanket) and got all my summer clothes... and because of that, I can pretty much guarantee a chilly outlook with the weather :)

My weekend was good. I went home to the Gold Coast and cooked soup for my mum who just got home after 2 weeks in NZ. I've missed my daily chats on the phone with her! Watched the new episode of Doctor Who. Stayed up far too late reading a scary book and then couldn't go to sleep!! Had Father's Day with my grandparents. Ate too much food.

My talk went well today to my class. Everyone actually really enjoyed it and laughed in all the right spots, so yay! It was only in front of about 20 people and we've been in the same class for 8 months so it wasn't as terrifying as I thought it would be. The only downside is that the projector wouldn't work for me and we literally wasted about an hour of the class trying to fix it. In the end, I just gave my talk and people had to look at a tiny computer screen to see my pictures. But it was good because it meant I got to sit down so I didn't have to worry about my knees knocking together which they sometimes do when I have to do public speaking. I now know what will be 'E' in my alphabet series, haha!

Tonight I'm going out to celebrate my town's festival. No parades, though Ashley!! Hehe :) We are going to see this dance/acrobatic show in an outside theatre. Hope it doesn't rain!! And then on Saturday I'm off to a comedy show. Um... remember that post about BALANCE?!?!

Saturday 3 September 2011

Work & school stuff

Friday was exciting at work. I normally wear a purple scrub top to differentiate myself from the rest of the staff who wear light blue. It's supposed to show that I'm the work experience girl but unfortunately it usually backfires and people assume that I'm the vet! Which horrifies me- don't trust me with your animals!!!!

Anyway, my boss told me that he was now happy for me to 'upgrade' and wear the light blue scrub top!! Yay!!!!!! Who knew that changing outfits would be so meaningful and such a source of joy?! AND I'm getting my own name tag with 'VETERINARY NURSE' engraved on it. If I have a name badge, then I know it's the real deal.

I also assisted with my first real autopsy. It was gruesome and awesome all at the same time. Certainly makes me realise just how fragile we all are and what a miracle the body is.

I'm currently putting together a slide show for my Edinburgh talk. I wasn't nervous about it until this morning when I was semi-practising it in front of my mum and she kept interrupting. Now my stomach is churning... why is public speaking so hard??? Although I will have a much quieter audience on Monday, much less interference!!

Thursday 1 September 2011

B is for Balance

And so continues my alphabet series.

Balance is super important and I know that now after spending a week stressed and up to my eyeballs in school stuff. Assignment has been handed in and things look a little clearer now. But it's taken that stressful situation to show me that maybe I need a bit more balance in my life. Not so much play and a little more work. Not that I sit around on my arse all day doing nothing but I think I need to make a bit more of an effort.

This blog post is going to be more like a letter to myself. I want to be able to look back on it when I'm stressed and see what I need to do to sort out that situation. I don't react very well to stress. I have about a week where I'm sitting in the eye of the storm and then the storm hits all over again- until mid November. Then I'm free!

I like to start the mornings getting up a little earlier and spending the time reading my Bible and with God. I find that, for me, it's a good way to start my day. Some days I get up even earlier and go for a run. My body loves it. I personally hate it, but my body loves it. And afterwards I feel better because I already kicked today's butt and it's only 7.30 in the morning!

But really, the only true reason I run is because it means that I can justify eating the junk food that I so dearly love :) And that my friends, is balance.

Sometimes stress is good. On occassion I need to push myself, to only go to bed once I've finished a page of assignments. But de-stressing is good too. Movies, reading, spending time with friends. And sleeping. Sometimes I need to miss my run and sleep in. And that is OK.

I apologise for the two references to bottoms in this blog. It felt right.