Traffic Lights have Christmas Cheer!

It would have been a tough day if you were a dust particle or a miscellaneous piece of tiny omgwhatthehellisthat on my floor, because if you were, you suffered from being severely devoured by my friend Purple Vacuum Cleaner. It clings to dust and yet adheres to...well, unfortunately, itself, which is muchly frustrating. Oh well.

It does also have another failing, which is that it doesn’t make for any quality segue opportunities into my taking the driving theory test.

Some low grade options included:

- “It sucked, but not as much as that one give way question”
- “Now I’m on the path to a set of wheels that doesn’t have a tubular attachment which collects everything it comes into contact with.”

...and my personal favourite:

- “It’s purple, but getting one question wrong made me blue.” <- that one’s also a LIE so uber craposity points go it it...well, a half lie.

So I’ll just plunge in. The actual adventures of Elizabeth’s Journey to Driving actually began last week, which involved a tram trip, West Wing DVDs, a Wikipedia t-shirt, and turning up seven minutes too late to Service SA.

They continue still.

Yesterday I went in, and was confronted by an unexpected kaleidoscope of feelings. Baffled frustration at the vast array of forms on offer. High level perplexedness at which service button I should press, and minor self damnation at getting one give way question wrong.

On the plus side, I did make a temporary fellow failer friend. This took me (though briefly) to alliterative heaven.

Ultimately there was passage. Second time’s a charm. However, phase 1 of the journey doesn’t end there. My severe lack of “proof of accommodation” ensures a third future voyage into the land of icanteventhinkofanamebecauseeverythingisratherthevague.

I can’t help but think it’s worth it however, if not purely to escape the “memories are made of this” experiences I keep getting on the tram, one such example, my being wedged between a wall and a woman with every possible nail filing utensil ever in her handbag, who proceeded to bring each one out one at a time and make the most appalling “squeak-scrratcha-SCRAWK!” noises, all to bring no visible change to her nails...

...bliss.

Serratous Anterior

Title Explainage: now I have no excuse whatsoever to forget that muscle...

It's time to crack out the procrastinational pride again; this hemi-year's theme song is "Love Is Blue" by Paul Mariat, and much appreciation goes to the person who tells me what television ad it was on (extra points if you can sing it...), as the niggling lack of knowledge is slowly eroding and chipping away at my sanity.

...the sanity that, this weekend, is characterized by triumphant exclamations of "EXTENSOR POLLICIS LONGUS!!! Yes!!!" and the such that have been wafting from my room, alongside creating the soon-to-be-hit comic strip: Action Potential: adventures with the Cardiac Cycle!

However, exciting revelations not aside, I have realised that there are varying degrees and intensities of procrastination. Mathematically put:

Exam Procrastination > Household Chores Procrastination > Putting off Socially Awkward Situations

I even managed to prove it through experimentation (albeit, I didn't realise that I was actually testing anything until I thought back over the way my day unfolded) ((I enjoyed the rhymedness of "way my day" faaaaar too much...nerd alert.)) (((ditto assonance in "nerd alert" :S))).

To begin with, we had flash cards (I'm not going to mention that I somehow managed to watch the entire "Pride and Prejudice" over breakfast...) ((<- DAMN! Whoops)), then subsequent to completion, we had pen buying and job hunting (SOCIALLY AWKWARD!!! I don't want to peruse stores in the future that will potentially reject me...) Home -> tea -> upstairs for study, where I suddenly found myself doing the hand washing of new clothes. We wouldn't want the colours to run into the rest of the laundry now would we? Good thing I did, as once I finished, I found that the soaking water had turned red...

...a profusely baffling fact, as the shirt I was washing, was infact grey and gold. Nice to know that my new clothes have likely been used in a drive-by shooting or some other mafia-related activity.

Nonetheless, I have done my bit for procrastination and will now sign off, with the final exciting fact...this is my 100th post ever :o

BULLETIN

Hmm just a brief note to say that the month of June just got a whole lot more riveting, because on the 14th of the aforementioned month, is INTERNATIONAL WEBLOGGER'S DAY!

Look it up on Wikipedia - because link is being the terrible...

BRACE YOURSELVES!

Advice is for Mugs

...to give

He looked me straight in the eye, sarcastically nonchalant yet somewhat searching. No words needed to be spoken for the meaning to be understood...

Worst lack of postage ever.

Of course, that’s just the opinion of James Dean on my “Rebel Without a Cause” mug, but when I came to scroll down this page, I could actually see every post I’ve made this year. Poor form.

Be that as it may, it is possibly poorer form yet to be having conversations with a piece of tea-containing crockery, but, there are exams looming, so for the time being I’m going to bask in the associated highly insanifying blamability factor that comes with them.

It’s been a strange day, and there is one word to explain why.

Musicals.

Now it’s one thing to try and project a musical-esque situation into real life – in reality, how would you react to a street full of randoms not only only pre-empting your dance moves, but somehow knowing the oh-so-appropriate lyrics that are cropping up in your brain?

Imagine how much stranger it would be to find yourself seemingly amidst someone else’s musical. Worse still, that someone else seems to have heartily nicked off, leaving you to grapple with the harmonised twangings that make up their life.

At least that’s how it somewhat felt today, due, in large part I’m sure, to the copious listenage of me to the Buffy Musical Soundtrack...which I should probably listen to “Once More With Feeling” then let it slip back into the archives for a while....

Makes for a pretty odd time as you putter around your home searching for the one solitary toilet roll that has been doing the rounds of the house this weekend (we desperately need to go supermarketing...) whilst in the background there are people singing about the anguish of being torn out of heaven. And the joys of mustard removal of course.

Anyways, procrastination be gone! I’ve already vacuumed my room once!

Demefiantisation

Having written what follows, I subsequently, I found out the real reason for the evacuation, which was rather sobering. Interesting that the conductor didn’t know what had happened, and that it was left to another passenger to tell both him and I that someone had attempted to get onto the tracks. However, I decided to post what I wrote, because it shows what went through my mind as things progressed.

The effect is instantaneous. One swift move for the notebook, to write a highly necessary rant, and: KERPLIPH! The Tram appears.

Well, moment be damned! (Trammed?) The spiel marches on!

...and that was the introduction I so neatly penned in my lecture book as I sat after a half hour wait, confident in the thought that soon Victoria Square would be Victoria Dot, and that within 34 minutes I would be back to the Palindromic Sand Den.

So why is it that now I find myself becoming slowly infuriated by the seemingly incessant chiming of some distant church bells, marking the apparently significant time of 7:22p.m.? The conductor and some man with a torch circle the vehicle thoughtfully, whilst the now de-passengerated bystanders grumble and wonder what the evacuate-worthy “Incident” could possibly be.

My paranoia bells are saying “bomb”...clearly my self preservation instincts (OH NOES! It’s the chimes again, happily informing us that it is now 7:27p.m.) leave a lot to be desired...I am only standing one metre further away than everyone else, and 57% of that is because I don’t want people to see what I’m writing.

7:28p.m. we are allowed to re-board (and for those of you who are following the soundtrack to this piece, yes, the chimes are still pealing) and now the disgruntled atmosphere is being replaced by the usual awkward apathy.

...do I ask what happened?

Of course, the usually suppressible area of my imagination is tossing in its two cents that, actually yes, the tram did explode, and now we are commuting to the afterlife a’la “Heart and Souls”...I guess too many Robert Downey Junior movies at a young age can do that to you...

However, briefcased individuals keep “vacating this vehicle”, so that theory is fortunately deported back to its celluloid roots (why must I always think of celery whenever the word “celluloid” crosses my path?)

I am still no closer to finding out what happened, as the conductor has withdrawn himself to the far reaching corners of the tram.

My speculations are as follows:

1) The woman who monotonises “the next stop is...” etc. escaped from the special compartment in which she is imprisoned, and ran amuck, hysterically shouting destinations at random, before finally being “contained”.

2) The tram is actually a transformer, and we were evacuated to be flashy-thinged into forgetting...

3) There was something wrong with the cement on the new part of the track at Victoria Guang Chang...plauisible...I guess...

...and that is where I stopped writing on the tram, due to the extreme “getting to the end of the line” nature of things.

Highlighers: Revisited

Though this may actually be quite sad, today I fulfilled one of my lifelong ambitions. Yes, at last, I am the proud owner of a Purple Highlighter. Now, though this may not seem like very much, today marks the end of a frustrating, and somewhat soul-destroying quest.

The purchasing of highlighters, though simple in theory, actually could leave the strongest minded person in tearful disarray. Now, maybe, if your house is completely and utterly devoid of aforementioned make-word-stand-outterers, then maybe, just maybe, your task will be easy. However, this occurrence is exceedingly rare.

The problem is, that it seems that different colours have different running out rates. Now, you could put this down to preference of usage of a particular colour, but now don’t lets get bogged down by logic. Besides, haven’t you noticed how it is that the more uncommon orange, pinks and (yes) purples seem to run out far quicker that the ever-immortal Yellow, and his less “im” sidekick Blue? (Green has been omitted because it’s a fence sitter)

Ok, so you initially purchase a package complete with the unkillable Yellow, the slightly more mortal Blue, and the evolutionary duds, the survival of which would have Darwin in tears, Pink, Orange and Purple. Shock! Surprise! Alas! The POB crew have essentially dried up, and the only time you could possibly want to use them would be if you so desired to have two thin lines with a gaping chasm of white between them drawn over your work.

So, off to the shops you go. Now, there are two perfectly functioning sticks of colour at home, so it would be a waste to buy another whole set for the time being, yes? So it goes to follow, that you merely need to buy replacements.

...however, they only seem to come in sets of two, and virtually inevitably one of these will be a Yellow, Blue or Green.

CONSPIRACY!!!

However, one must have highlighters, and so an extra is purchased. Sigh.

This cycle continues, and suddenly you find yourself amidst a huge pile of yellow highlighters, with a smattering of feeble looking, dried up other colours. Utterly stuck, as there is no need to replace what you “already have”...

Hmm...all in all, that was a very long winded way of saying that I seem to have managed to pull-off the seemingly un-dooable this year, and used up all my highlighters, thus giving way to the rare opportunity to acquire the much in demand: Purple Highligher :p

Death for Laundry - hanging is the only option..

My dislike of laundry doedness has risen to an all time new level. Under normal circumstances, it is merely excruciatingly dull.

To better explain the issue, it is best to give an overall outline of the “normal” laundrerical process, or at least the one that exists in my household. There are three main stages; first, is the actual putting of the clothes into the machine, along with associated powders, cleansers, and softeners which will insist on being packaged in gently coloured containers, inevitably featuring a picture of a duck and/or a baby.

Following this, is the actual hanging up of the garments on some kind of fiendish device, that will find a way to clamp your fingers with its evil metal components. Then, colour coordination of pegs, and avoiding having to utilise the horrible, splintery wooden pegs ensues...this is the dullest stage of all. If you keep at it for long enough, you begin to find entertainment in “bettering” the clothes horse-eseque thing by fixing half snapped lines, or by thwarting its fiendish attempts at embracing gravity by wedging it between a table and a wall. Ha! Get out of that one!

*cough* anyways...any more time than that spent hanging the laundry, you then get into dangerous “everything must be exactly symmetrical” territory...and there’s pretty much no coming back from there.

The third, and final stage takes place some hours later. This is actually the least irritating stage, as it involves the folding up of the newly dried clothes, and thus presents you with options... Wow, you can let loose...should you fold along the axis of symmetry of shirts? Make that polo top look just like the ones in shops? Pants, folded in half, or otherwise?!? The choice is all yours. Thrilling.

However, there is one way to make the whole process s;ahgoi;wre ‘yto8a’ieg.

Sorry, just felt like pressing a lot of keys. I’ll try that again.

However, there is one way to make the whole process about eleven-fold more irksome, and that, is to make stage two occur in a tiny room. Sure, the gravity thing becomes not an issue anymore, but in an attempt to “pick up the slack”, the metal contraption picks up all new skills in the area of finger hurt and catchedness. Not only that, but once all the clothes have finally been adequately executed (sigh, if only they had ratted out all the other witches...), you then need to perform extreme gymnastics simply to make it out the door.

Good luck with study!

Procrastinational Pride

Twenty minutes of studying later, and I have it down. I think. Mickey, Peter, Davy and Mike...right, that’s all the Monkees named. Lesson learnt.

Halfway through exams, and procrastination has really well and truly been cracked out. So far out in fact, that, if procrastination were a car, it would have gone careening out the driveway, smacked into a neighbour’s house, and so, would if fact actually be cracked in as a result of its extreme cracked out-edness. Whereupon at this stage, the police would come and crack down upon this reckless cracked in procrastination driver, extracting them from their analogy-fuelled car...which after all this careening, you would expect to be rather cracked up.

...there’s certainly no cracking under pressure here.

Work actually has been done today. Past exams read, learning objectives gone through, etc, etc. If only this could be done without sizeable “breaks” in between.

Upon having completed a review of some multiple choice questions, my room was retired to, “just to sort a few things out.” (Why that’s in quotation marks I have no idea, as I certainly didn’t say it. Or even think it. Maybe in a parallel universe.) Before not too long, clothes were hung up, shelves were being dusted, discoveries were made (it’s normal to find a Teenage Mutant Ninja turtle mug containing buttons in your room right?), all the while, with Roy Orbison blaring at maximum volume in the background.

...speaking of which, I think I really might need to shelve things with our Mr Orbison, as there is a very real possibility of my parents ending me if they have to hear “It’s Over” or “Working for the Man” one more time this week.

However, bad move switching to "Unchained Melody", as it’s slowly giving me the urge to watch “Ghost”. Just as well that the VCR is optimising its malfunction function at the moment.

...and moving away from the 60s now.

Things have been rather the weird this week. Maybe because for the first time in about ever there haven’t been any mathematics contained within the great exam pool for me to drown in. So anyways, in a vain attempt to fill the void:

Peter + Mike + Mickey + Davy = Monkees

Hogwarts Logo (almost) = Schematic Diagram of the Human Heart

5 + 5 + 5 = 550 (well, if you add a straight line) ((not through the = sign))

...and just for the hell of it, here’s a mech:

Exams -> Procrastination -> Random Television and Music -> computer usage -> Creation of unnecessary mechanism for purely bloggatary purposes

Dehiatification!

Today I learnt something. It is actually quite difficult to sing along to the Angel theme song. Possibly because:
a) I can't sing, and
b) It's 100% instrumental
...nonetheless, it was mildly disheartening.

Hiatus sucks.

However, the textbooks are out once more, and thus along with them come all the familiar procrastational behaviour. Chapter's to read? Time to consult the “relevant” tv show.

It worked last year anyway. When studying for Year 12 end of year exams it was necessary to consult Buffy Season 4...where Ms Summers goes to College, as it was Motivational! (It was also necessary once that was done to give ones parents a detailed run down of Buffy villains through the seasons...im sure they were thrilled)

So of course that policy passes from high school to University. Well, if you’re learning about the human body, it’s only natural to consult the infallible source that is: “Angel – the episode about the guy-who-is-a-doctor-able-to-detach-his-limbs-and-use-them-to-stalk-people-in-various-creative-ways.”

Highly handy.

...and footy...and eyebally. (but they just aren’t alliterative.)

Anyways, after this shameful lull in posting, I thought that I'd break character and put up a picture from Med Ball...just one of the things that's distracted me from the all important world of blogging...:p

They Wear Clever Disguises

It’s enough to fool most people for at least the majority of the time. However, at 7:34a.m on a weekday morning, even the array of business suits, school uniforms and deceptively granny-ish cardigans are not enough to conceal the inner athlete at the core of every commuter on The Glenelg tram.

To take a step back, it is safe now I think to say that I am a commuter. I commute. Partaking in the commutary process is something that I am now involved in. As the weeks pass by, unspoken rules emerge. Never must you make eye contact with anyone. People who do, are either shifty or angrily eying the shifty people with suspicion. Never hold your wallet in your hand if you have a Multi-trip ticket – if you are a teenager, this will lead to automatic assumptions that you haven’t paid when you don’t respond to the “tickets please” catch-cry.

However, none of this matters so much, as the real test begins the second you set foot in Victoria Square.

You can almost hear the inspirational opening chords from “Chariots of Fire” as preparations begin for: The Commuter Race.

Races are run all over the world every day, for various reasons. What makes this one stand out though, is the fact that consciously “its not a race” but subconsciously, everyone is somehow aware of the truth.

Smiles through gritted teeth are aimed left and right, the woman in the two thousand dollar suit tightens her sneaker laces, the shudder of tram doors closing is heard…

It’s on.

There’s no time to take jaywalking laws into consideration, everyone else is on the move and terrible consequences await those left behind. Powering past the fountain, anything goes…people will go so far as walking on the grass (!!!) to get ahead. The group halves at this point; those who are willing to risk life and limb cross the road, despite the little green man, having been overtaken by fiery red anger, losing all reason, beginning to flash.

The sad, sorry, safety group is left in their wake, staring at the shell of what was once a happy green man who used to let anything go.

Here’s where the reckless group divides again, with one group off to continue the battle down one street, and the other charging up King William. One by one they are stripped away, cut off by inconsiderate lines of school children, or left contemplating life and weeping at a traffic light, all the while, the others are raging ahead.

Finally there are two. Shoulder to shoulder, it is impossible to get ahead without letting on that you know about the race. Dilemma. Looking at your competition, it’s impossible to detect emotions…very clearly a seasoned professional. Suddenly, out of nowhere….

“Sue! SUE!!!” your heads whip around – just for a moment, you see fear strike your opponent, as her friend rushes up to her. “SUE! How are you?” With a sigh, she stops, leaving you to move ahead to victory. “Hey, what’s wrong?” the voice so distant its barely audible.

“Oh, nothing…I’m just…tired.”

Chasing Cars

What better way is there to start a person on the path of education than to place them in a “Garden of Children” and tell them that Fritz is actually Elephant’s Ears.

In over a week from now, University will be a happening thing, so naturally you should regress and remember your initiation into “schoolishness.” Kindergarten is fun, learny, and yet is really quite out of this world.

Social dynamics are interesting. For one thing as a general rule, Kindergarten “boyfriends” are a bad idea. Hypothetically speaking of course, they try to peer pressure you into eating sand (“it’s really nice!”) and then one day they exclaim “you get it every day! It’s my turn to try it on” about your favourite dress in the dress-ups room. Plus, of course at that age they have “boy-germs.”

Then there are shoe alliances to be made. Regular shoe swapping is essential for survival in everyday kindy life. I mean, the grass may be greener on the other side, but who cares about grass if you’re standing on it with your feet in shoes that aren’t adorned with multi-coloured sequins?

You also have your foray into physical education, with looong treks to the collection of swings, tunnels, and bizarre metal twirly things to which there are no point in a park, which seem to last for a reasonable percentage of forever (we drove past the kindergarten the other day…leading to the discovery that it is actually situated next door to the playground…hmm…fitness.)

Anyways, to wrap it up, young children have a penchant for acclimatising themselves with new things by putting them in their mouths. So, as logic follows….crack out the finger paints.

Quagmire

“The anesthetist will come and ask you a few questions, to ascertain certain facts. Kind of like a hangman working on your noose actually.”

Despite these cheery words of parental encouragement upon arriving at the hospital, the removal of all four wisdom teeth was not as daunting as expected. I guess the horror stories are false…or at the least, exaggerated.

Then again, the prospect of surgery pales in comparison to the thought of spending many hours in: The Waiting Room.

Paperwork completed, and parents gone, it was time to once again call upon the stored knowledge of proper Waiting Room etiquette.

First of all, ascertain that you are, in fact in a Waiting room. If it doesn’t have a line of chairs (usually against a wall), a TV tuned to a channel that no-one has the slightest interest in watching or stacks of magazines, some with recipes subtly removed, then further probing into the etiquette file will not be required.

If it is a waiting room, and you have the luck of being the only one occupying it, then Congratulations! You have your pick of seats. However, if there are others, you had better have your mathematical-problem-solving hat on, because there’s an unspoken rule that you have to sit at least and equal distance away from every person in the room. We can’t have strangers sitting next to each other now can we? Tough luck if the only seat fulfilling this criteria is situated next to the bin, is home to ABC gum, and (in a galaxy far, far) away from the Reader’s Digests.

Next comes reading material. It’s a fine balance. You could be called away at any time, and so you need to select something that isn’t going to bore you to tears, while at the same time, it cannot be interesting enough to cause you distress at the prospect of being separated from it, mere moments before you can get to the end of that article about Jack Nicholson and his experiences filming “The Departed.”

Always be careful not to look at other people in the room. If you happen to notice that they are holding a magazine that looks oh-so-much-more-interesting than the one you happen to be perusing, the jealousy really can drive you over the edge, and before you know it, you snap out of daze to find that you’ve been watching Hi-5 for the last half hour…

Finally, when it does come to Exit Time, move at a normal speed. DO NOT speed away with the air of an escapee – this breach of etiquette could cause a chain reaction and an ultimate break-down Waiting Room Behaviour, the results of which could be disastrous! People sitting next to each other, magazine snatching…basically chaos could ensue…

Ah well, I’m getting off the main point, which is that I got ice cream, and it was good.

Puzzles Can Be Morbid

I came accross this puzzle today (in a puzzle book surprisingly) and thought that it was fun:

Four suspects - Jack Vicious, Sid Shifty, Alf Muggins and Jim Pouncer - are being interviewed at the scene of a murder. Each of the suspects is asked a question. Their answers are as follows:

Jack Vicious: "Sid Shifty committed the murder."
Sid Shifty: "Jim Pouncer committed the murder."
Alf Muggins: "I didn't commit the murder."
Jim Pouncer: "Sid Shifty is lying."

Only one of the four answers is the truth. Who committed the murder?

*Guitar Twang* Dre-ea-ea-ea-eam, Dream Dream Dre-eam...

“Riding in Cars with Boys” made itself into a part of the week the other night, and so now as always in the aftermath, I have The Everly Brother’s “All I have to do is Dream” sailing around my head in all its 60s, innocent, lilting goodness.

On one hand, it is giving “Crying in the Rain” a bit of a rest, but on the other, it reinforces the fact that there seems to be a special segment of my brain permanently set aside for Everly Brother’s songs for whatever reason.

Anyways, in the movie was a quote that went something along the lines “life is made up of four or five significant days that shape the rest of your life” (that’s not verbatim but meh). However I disagree.

Going back about a week or whatnot, the channel 10 broadcasting executives, or whoever it is who makes these decisions decide to screen something else in the place of “Riding in Cars with Boys”. “The Shawshank Redemption”, a Michael Palin documentary….the “My Little Pony” movie. Whatever.

This results in:
a) An exodus away from screens Australia-wide?
b) Migration to another channel?
c) “My Little Pony” quotes for the next week and a half?

Whatever the options, if we view the past week alongside this alternate past week, they’ll be different. On the first level, people who had originally watched the movie would have spent their evening doing something else – watching another movie (creative), updating their stamp album…writing Christmas thank you letters. This would ultimately impact upon the rest of the week, whether that be conversations about a movie that otherwise wouldn’t have been screened, additional time to do other things, as schedule’s would have been reshuffled…and “All I have to do is Dream” (well probably) wouldn’t be stuck in my head.

Maybe it could even affect what you dream about, which in turn affects the mood you wake up in (though it’s difficult to put your finger on what kind of mindset dreaming about school croquet camp puts you in…).

Then on the second level, each of these small changes bring about further small changes, which in turn create even more small changes…causing the dominoes in your affect to fall in an entirely different direction than they otherwise would have.

…go too deeply into this and one could end up getting psychotic about how what they choose to put on their toast will end up affecting what career they follow.

But now they're axing the OC. Think how that'll wreak havoc upon the future of mankind. No really.

Anyways…Happy New Year!!!