Farewell, 2011.

So I've decided to join the blogging bandwagon and post a summary of my year...

Everyone keeps asking where the year's gotten to, but to be honest, I'm amazed it's STILL going. I'm more than ready to bid 2011 farewell.


I've had a fairly shit year. A lot has been thrown at me over the last 12 months, which has not only really tested my resilience, but also tested how strong I am to not revert back to pessimism.

I struggled quite a bit through Uni, with stress and anxiety. Which is so unusual for me, as academia is usually my strong point.
I've struggled with housemates, and the financial stress that brings.
My Nan and Pop both died at the beginning of the year, and for the first time in my life I found myself playing funeral director.
People I care about got really sick, really hurt, and some of my best friends from Uni were mourning the devastating loss of one of our own. 

Not that it's all been awful, all of the time.

It's just that it seems this year more than ever I have been made aware of my own mortality.

Which brings me to 2012. 

I'm so keen to start off the New Year. I'm so keen to actually have a good year for once.
I know that certain things will be out of my control, but I'm ready to continue living each day fully appreciative of what I have. Carpe Diem, baby.

I'm so excited for my trip to Bali with my amazing boyfriend.
I'm excited for my sister, who will be finishing her last year of high school. I hope I'll be able to be there and support her through her HSC.
I'm excited to move house (maybe).
I hope to further my experience in my chosen profession.
I hope to get back into volunteer work.
I'm excited to continue learning ... both at uni and in my new hobby, pole dancing.
With that, I hope that I'll be able to treat my body a bit better. I want to increase my strength, and my stamina.
I also hope to save a bit of money next year.







What are your goals and aspirations for next year? I'd love to hear them. It's important that we all STAY MOTIVATED!

Christmas!

I am back from my lovely few days away in Canberra!
We caught the bus down on Christmas Eve, at an early 8pm. Unfortunately, leaving at such an early time caused so many problems it was starting to feel like I was in a comedy of errors.
The night before, I looked up the bus / train times on 131500.com.au. I was advised to catch the bus at 6.20am, to get the 6.50am train. I was meeting J at 7.30 at Hungry Jacks so we could get breaky and coffee before our long adventure.
But the bus I was advised to catch didn't even start running for another 2 hours. So I started freaking out and called a taxi to take me to the train station. I would have walked, had there been enough time. But there wasn't. So I waited. And after about 15 minutes I called back the taxi company and changed my destination to Central.
When I finally got there, I was $53 poorer, (which I feel is a ridiculous amount of money given that time of the morning) and glad to be alive because my taxi driver was TEXTING while driving. Honestly. I should complain to the company.

Anyway, so I'm waiting at Hungry Jacks for J, who is also running late because of busses not coming at their specified time. I'm in a bit of a pickle, because I'm not sure if I should order food or not. I decide not to, and patiently wait. The lady sitting at the table next to me asks me to mind her bags while she gets her coffee. We start chatting when she comes back.  She was visiting relatives in Perth with her husband and heading back home to Newcastle on the train. I love meeting new people.
I get a call from J, who is 1 minute away from the bus.

By the time he runs up and gets me, (and I say good-bye to my new friend) and we run back down though, we've missed the opportunity to sit next to each other. Disaster.
So J gets some idiot whose headphones suck and leak sound, and I'm sitting next to a dude who breathes WAY too loud. And that's coming from an asthmatic.
Poor J had been up so late working the night before (like 2am or something ridic). Suffice to say, we weren't in THAT great of a mood.

But we finally got to Canberra, and the fun began!
We didn't really get up to much on Christmas Eve, on account of us both being pretty exhausted. We did however, go check out some Christmas lights ..

   

 

All from the one house! Amazing effort. 

We woke up on Christmas morning, and ventured out to the living room to join J's parents... 

We were all waiting for everyone else to show up for lunch. So we may have opened a present each in anticipation....

I received this gorgeous leather travel wallet from J's parents. It will be absolutely perfect for storing my new passport and our boarding tix etc, for Bali in February!

Everyone showed up shortly after, and we all enjoyed some delicious starters...

And everyone else started opening their presents! 

It took us a few hours to get through everyone. Everyone was having a pretty good time enjoying eachother's company. 

J and I were pleased that everyone seemed to be happy with the presents we'd chosen them. Which is always a relief! I love buying presents for people, but I love them enjoying them even more! 

Here are some of my spoils from the day:

Woah, blurry photo. Crabtree & Evelyn Hand Therapy, from J's sister, T. 

J and I both got chocolates and a voucher for gold class cinemas from his brother and his brother's girlfriend. Such a thoughtful gift, because unfortunately we can't get to the movies as much as we'd like to thanks to how expensive they've gotten recently! 

And some other little pressies from J's parents...

  

1. Box of Favourites Chocolates

2. Drink bottle! 

3. Washing bags. 

4. Shopping bag in a pouch!

So happy about the last two. They were both things I needed but couldn't seem to find anywhere! Again, so thoughtful!

We enjoyed a delicious lunch, with lots of cold meat and a million salads...

Nomnomnom.
Such good food!

And, I didn't get any photos of this, but the Christmas Crackers for the year were musical ones! So everyone got a whistle in their cracker, which had an allocated number.
Then someone was the "conductor" and they had to point to each person when it was their turn to play, following the numbers on a sheet that came with the crackers.
J played as the conductor, and hilarity ensued. It was such a disaster, but so much fun!

I was absolutely spoiled this year for Christmas, which I feel totally undeserving of...

New TV from my Dad. ...

1. And new coffee machine (also from Dad)

2. My first attempt at a cappucino! 

1. NATIO body pack from my work KK.
    Tangerine and cinammon flavoured - DELICIOUS
2. T2 Iced tea set from my darling sister!
3. LOVE sculpture thing from my bestie, Meg. I think it's absolutely adorable, and I LOVE homewares!
4. Gift card from my boss.
5. (not pictured) Mum got me a gorgeous red leather handbag - which hopefully should fit my lappy!



My sister, brother and mum went to my Nan and Pop's grave, just before Christmas day to decorate it for Christmas. This is my first Christmas without them, and although it's almost a year since my Nan died it doesn't really make it any easier. It hurts, how much I miss them.

I'm so incredibly thankful for all the presents I received over Christmas. I'm so grateful I was able to spend the week with my family, and with J's family, and being surrounded by people I care about and love.
And although Christmas is (and should be) a joyous occasion to be spent with family, I think it's important to reflect on those who are less fortunate than ourselves.

Although it sucks feeling somewhat mournful on Christmas when everyone around you is so gleeful, I understand how blessed I am that this is my biggest problem at the moment.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas, spent with their loved ones.

xx

Merryyyy Christmas!!

Ahhh that time of year again!
I've been trying to get festive this year. Last year I really wanted a xmas tree, but they're so expensive, and I can't really justify that money for one month of the year. Plus, where would I put it when it wasn't December!?
But this year, I got myself a little tree...

Hehehehe. 

See it there? On top of my present pile?

I finished off most of my Christmas shopping last week..

And got myself a little something...

Isn't it absolutely gorgeous!?

And some more little Christmas decorations..

One of my favourite things about Christmas is the reindeer!! They're so cute!

And to be festive, I've coloured my nails appropriately...

Last night, I celebrated an early Christmas with my mum and Rich, my siblings and J.

SOOO much food OMG. 

The table was set all beautiful as well: 

And here is mum dressed as a reindeer with her moustache that she won in her Christmas Cracker...

Hahahaha. She'll probably kill me for putting that up. 

I was able to catch up with my bestie, Meg this morning for breakfast at the Woods, which was awesome. Sorry, no photos! I had granola though, if you're interested. Tonight I'm off to my dad's for dinner, and tomorrow morning I'll be heading to Central super early to catch our bus to Canberra!

So you might not hear from me for a few days. 

MERRY CHRISTMAS

TO ALL MY READERS

Grateful for..

It sounds insane, but I'm so thankful for all the cold weather we've been having!
I honestly am not much of a fan of the heat, and would much prefer to snuggle up in bed with J and a good tv show. That, and drinking coffee and tea in the heat is not as much fun as when it's cold!

Family BBQ dinners!!
I do love a good barbeque. The one thing I miss about moving out is not being able to have my own anymore. I love that smokey, charcoaley taste of meat. I love BBQ'd onions.
I love being able to catch up with my siblings and my dad's kitty cat...

Hehehe! Cute, squished Furby face.

 And although I host an unbelievable hatred towards Sydney Buses, I was grateful that this night I waited at the bus stop and was able to watch the hundreds of bats flying over head, on their way to hunt their food!
The above picture is not that great, but all those black spots? Bats!

3rd chances. 

This is the 3rd Jury summons I have received in the mail this year!! Clearly our justice system wants me bad. 

So excited that I'll actually be able to attend this one though, as it's in January!

I am the only person I know of (besides my other crazy law-school friends) who has taken pleasure in receiving this letter in the mail. 

And I am grateful for unscheduled concerts!!

My friend Thom asked me to accompany him to see Opeth at the Enmore Theatre on Friday! It was totally unplanned, because his girlfriend got sick, which is unfortunate for her, but super fortunate for me because he had a spare ticket!

The show was amazing. 

Shitty-quality camera-phone photos:

Such an incredible band, with such amazing talent.
And the Swedish accent is soooo fucking adorable!
The drummer, Axe, reminds me so much of Skwisgaar from Metalocalypse!

Oh! How I've Missed Thee!

I once read a post, written by another blogger about 'mistakes' that so many bloggers make, that stop them from being successful at what they do.
One of those 'mistakes' was apologising for not posting very often. Apparently this is something a 'good' blogger should never do.
The rationale behind this is that people probably wouldn't have noticed if you didn't bring it up. That, and sometimes it can be construed as a bit arrogant.. "look how busy I've been, in my awesome life"

But I didn't start a blog in the hopes of being "successful". Not in the capitalist sense of the word anyway. I did start this blog for a variety of reasons, one being that I love to write, and I needed a creative hobby.

And I don't really agree with the sentiment. I mean, if you're a "successful" blogger, you'd sort of hope that your followers would notice a lengthy absence. I definitely do with blogs that I love. And I think that after a long, unexpected absence one should probably explain that to their followers.

So, after that long, convoluted introduction, I'm apologising for the severe lack of posting since I've been on holidays. I'd love to say "oh look at me I've just been FLAT OUT". But, to be perfectly honest, I haven't.

I am enjoying the long days and the long nights. I have caught up, finally, on season 4 of Gossip Girl. I finally had a look at the Inbetweeners too. I have read 3 or 4 books purely for pleasure. I have played lots of Playstation. I have been enjoying my own company, which for me is kind of rare. I tend to try and avoid spending time with myself. In the past, spending extended periods of time isolated in my thoughts only lead to dark places. But this is nice for a change.

I have thoroughly enjoyed snuggling up to J without the pressure of uni hanging over me.


But it is hard to make these small, trivial pleasures seem even slightly interesting to an outside viewer. So I had withdrawn from writing at all. Which I did not enjoy, not at all.

Anyway,

This post was long, and not one I had planned to write at all.

I'm going to go make some tea now, and start editing some photos for some more posts.

I have missed you, blogging world.

To everyone who doesn't think rape jokes are a problem...

ETA:
I have now been made aware of the original source for this article. Please find the link below.

To all those men who don’t think the rape jokes are a problem:

I get it—you’re a decent guy. I can even believe it. You’ve never raped anybody. You would NEVER rape anybody. You’re upset that all these feminists are trying to accuse you of doing something, or connect you to doing something, that, as far as you’re concerned, you’ve never done and would never condone. 

And they’ve told you about triggers, and PTSD, and how one in six women is a survivor, and you get it. You do. But you can’t let every time someone gets all upset get in the way of you having a good time, right? Especially when it doesn’t mean anything. Rape jokes have never made YOU go out and rape someone. They never would; they never could. You just don’t see how it matters.

I’m going to tell you how it does matter. And I tell you this because I genuinely believe you mean it when you say you don’t want to hurt anybody, and that it’s important to you to do your best to be a decent and good person, and that you don’t see the harm. And I genuinely believe you when you say you would never associate with a rapist and you think rape really is a very bad thing.

Here is why I refuse to take rape jokes sitting down…

Because 6% of college-aged men, slightly over 1 in 20, will admit to raping someone in anonymous surveys, as long as the word “rape” isn’t used in the description of the act—and that’s the conservative estimate. Other sources double that number (pdf).

A lot of people accuse feminists of thinking that all men are rapists. That’s not true. But do you know who think all men are rapists?

Rapists do.

They really do. In psychological study, the profiling, the studies, it comes out again and again.

Virtually all rapists genuinely believe that all men rape, and other men just keep it hushed up better. And more, these people who really are rapists are constantly reaffirmed in their belief about the rest of mankind being rapists like them by things like rape jokes, that dismiss and normalize the idea of rape.

If one in twenty guys (or more) is a real and true rapist, and you have any amount of social activity with other guys like yourself, then it is almost a statistical certainty that one time hanging out with friends and their friends, playing Halo with a bunch of guys online, in a WoW guild, in a pick-up game of basketball, at a bar, or elsewhere, you were talking to a rapist. Not your fault. You can’t tell a rapist apart any better than anyone else can. It’s not like they announce themselves.

But, here’s the thing. It’s very likely that in some of these interactions with these guys, at some point or another, someone told a rape joke. You, decent guy that you are, understood that they didn’t mean it, and it was just a joke. And so you laughed.

Or maybe you didn’t laugh. Maybe it just wasn’t a very funny joke. So maybe you just didn’t say anything at all.

And, decent guy who would never condone rape, who would step in and stop rape if he saw it, who understands that rape is awful and wrong and bad, when you laughed? When you were silent?

That rapist who was in the group with you, that rapist thought that you were on his side. That rapist knew that you were a rapist like him. And he felt validated, and he felt he was among his comrades.

You. The rapist’s comrade.

And if that doesn’t make you feel sick to your stomach, if that doesn’t make you want to throw up, if that doesn’t disturb you or bother you or make you feel like maybe you should at least consider not participating in that kind of humor anymore, not abiding it in your presence, not greeting it with silence…

Well, maybe you aren’t as opposed to rapists as you claim. 

SOURCE: http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com.au/2011/03/feminism-101-helpful-hints-for-dudes.html

White & Nerdy

Grateful for Saturdays where I have nothing to do but play video games.

The last time I played FF13 was back in FEBRUARY.
Which is just atrocious.
So I spent countless hours yesterday playing. Which really, is just bliss considering I haven't wasted whole days away in many months.

Am off to Beth's 21st today yay!

Happy weekend all!!

xx

Smitten with Holidays!

I am THOROUGHLY enjoying finally being on holidays!

Here's some snapshots of what I've been up to:

Drinking lots of coffee...

...and lots of tea.

Chasing away spideys. 

This huntsman was only little. Later that night, my sister and I found one that was sooooo much bigger chilling out on the door frame that leads into my kitchen. 

I was too scared to approach him and ask for a photo

 

I'm not much of a summer person, so I'm kinda enoying all the cosy nights inside, listening to the rain pounding on my roof.

I've also enjoyed breaky with J at the Post Cafe:

 Crazy 'fruit basket'. 

I love me some fresh fruit. Drizzled in honey ... even better!!

J had the 'post brekkie'. 

 

But what I've enjoyed even more than stuffing myself with food is being able to use my lappy just for reading blogs, curling up with a good book and doing some logic puzzles. 

I have started doing some research for our trip next year! YAY! 

And finally have gotten around to starting this book. 

Only a million years after all the hype. 

Although at the moment I'm also reading:

• Dracula - Bram Stoker
• The Bronze Horseman - Paulina Simmons
• Live Wire - Harlan Coben
• Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
• Animal Farm - George Orwell
• Johnny Got His Gun - Dalton Trumbo 

I know right, crazy! 

This is why it takes me so goddamn long to finish any books. I just keep starting new ones!