Archive for the 'Media' Category
August 29 2010: This Past Month
Filed under Body & House & Media & Relationships/Men with 4 Comments
I have excellent reasons for not posting for a month, and for not answering the questions posed to me in the last entry. Do you want to hear them? Probably not, but to appease my blog conscience, I’m going to tell you anyway. Be warned, this is quite a lengthy entry.
I moved into my apartment
After a week’s delay from the tenant that I couldn’t do anything about as they’d paid their rent a month in advance, I finally moved into my apartment on Saturday the 14th of August.
“Moved into” is a relative term here though, as I spent the first week and a half sleeping on blankets on the lounge room floor as I waited for my bedroom furniture to be moved. Even now, I really only have the two bedrooms furnished – one as a bedroom, and the other as an office. It’ll be the end of September before my couch is delivered, and as all other pieces of furniture in the living space hinges upon the placement of the couch in the living room, I won’t be purchasing or commissioning those until the start of October. Ergo, my apartment won’t actually be fully furnished until probably the end of the year. At least I’m waiting for perfection and not settling for second-best furniture?
There are other bits and pieces I want to do around the apartment before I’ll be fully satisfied, largely as I’m a meticulously anal bitch:
- Replace the exhaust fan in both bathrooms
- Get the drainage system looked at in bathroom B
- Add towel rails to the wall of bathroom B
- Replace plastic venetian blinds with canvas roll down blinds
- Repaint skirting in certain areas
- Get the dishwasher looked at – it’s not functioning correctly
- …and other bits and pieces?
Anyway, speaking of setting the second bedroom up as an office – did you know that my boyfriend has moved in with me, along with a huge fish tank which now takes up a quarter of the office? I’m now living with a partner (and six temperamental and high-maintenance tropical fish) for the first time ever. There are pros and cons of course, which will no doubt be covered in length in another blog entry further down the track. It’ll probably be written right after he forgets to do the dishes (again), or lets the laundry accumulate until I do it (again), or spends twelve hours straight playing Starcraft and ignoring the fact that I’m in the apartment (again)…there may be more cons than pros listed.
I Got Sick
For those who know me, I’m not very good at being sick. It’s largely because I’m never sick. I’m clumsy and constantly cut myself and get bruises, but I rarely ever get the flu, migraines, aches, pains, etc.
Well, for the last two weeks, I’ve been subject to a terrible case of conjunctivitis. It started on a Saturday night in my right eye and caused me to take a day off work on Monday to see a doctor who prescribed eye drops for bacterial conjunctivitis. It then spread to my left eye on Thursday morning, causing me to take another day off work to go to another doctor who prescribed other eye drops for allergic conjunctivitis. By the Saturday (one week after the first symptoms), my vision in both eyes was affected to the point of half-blindness. This occasioned a visit to the emergency ward of the Eye and Ear Hospital.
I know in the past I’ve praised Australia’s health care system. My parents have both received excellent treatment in public hospitals. I on the other hand, spent about eight hours in the waiting room of the emergency ward of the Eye and Ear Hospital, with both eyes flaming red and oozing pus, while other patients were seen before me, with no discernible eye injuries at all. Upon complaint to the nurse on duty (after six hours of waiting!), we were told that other more urgent patients were being called in before me, because they were in danger of losing their vision. Apparently my case wasn’t serious because I’d already lost my vision from the streams of pus oozing out of my eyes. What. The. Fuck.
Anyway, after doing what I do best and causing a scene in the waiting room (eight hours! I’d been waiting for eight hours!), I finally got to see a doctor who basically said:
You have viral conjunctivitis. The eye drops you’ve been taking all week are no use at all, and there’s no drugs I can give you to address the problem. Cases like yours will take about two weeks to clear up, so all you can do is sit and wait to get better. But here, have this medical certificate so you can take the week off work!
Oh, hoo bloody ray. A diagnosis with no cure, two oozing eyes, and an inability to see or do anything. I basically spent the next week lying in bed listening to the radio with a cold compress over my eyes, and my phone an inch from my eyes, squinting at it trying to update Twitter (hey peeps, I’m back on Twitter!). If you check out my old tweets actually, you’ll see the progression of my frustration at being utterly useless and unproductive.
And now? I still have trouble focusing on things like text in books and computer monitors (so, only doing half days at work) and still can’t drive without feeling nauseous, but general vision is clearing up. Eyes are still red, but there’s less pus on the whole. Given another week, and I just might be at 100%.
Long story short – I hate being sick, and I’m terrible at it. I become (even more of) a grumpy, cranky, whiny, miserable bitch.
And some other miscellaneous stuff
Before all of the above, I got the chance to watch Katy Perry perform on Sunrise, a morning talk/news show. She performed three songs: California Girls, Teenage Dream and Hot and Cold. She also signed my chest and by default, touched my boob. Are you jealous?
I have a six thousand word essay due on the 8th of September and I’m actually still utterly clueless. Because of the conjunctivitis, my progress is basically set back two weeks. Combine that with the fact that I didn’t understand the relevance of the reading material of the first few weeks of semester, and it all equates to a “what the fuck” for the essay. I may just break my High Distinction average for my Masters. Bollocks.
Having a fancy TV that receives the digital channels now means that I’m watching more TV. I’m addicted to Total Wipeout UK on the Go! Channel – I love watching people fall out things and get hurt. Yes, I am a bit of a sadist.
On a finishing note, the technician is supposed to be out this week to install our phone line and by association, our internet connection as well. If all goes according to plan, I may very well soon be spamming this blog with more blog entries.
April 18 2010: I’m Actually A Pedophile
Filed under Media with 11 Comments
In addition to my recently discovered love for anything sparkly vampire related (look, Twilight reference!), I’m also discovering that I’m actually a pedophile. Not only do I want to do nasty things to Taylor Lautner and teach him things that only a real woman would know (unlike those childish girls he’s been wasting his time with), but I can also imagine myself being more than friends with Justin Bieber.
Yes I am a twenty-three year old woman with a little bit of a crush on a sixteen-year-old boy whose voice still hasn’t broken, and who looks like a lesbian. Someone who, even I can admit, hasn’t really got any real talent at all, and only got famous based on how he can fool teenage girls into thinking that they might actually be the one for Justin.
I guess the only consolation is that I don’t cry over him:
April 6 2010: A Simple Kind Of Life
Filed under Life & Media & Q.O.T.W. with 8 Comments
Now that I’ve got my male housemate reading the Twilight series as well (yes, I will draw reference to Twilight from now on in every thing I write), he posed an interesting question to me over the weekend: What if we weren’t as ambitious as we are? Could you be happy?
The question came based on the depiction of Bella Swann’s father – Charlie Swann, chief of police in the small hick town of Forks. He’s been chief of police for years. He lives in the same small house that he’s been in for decades. He has the same routine – goes to work, doesn’t know what or how to cook for dinner, and watches football on television every weekend with a beer in his hand. That’s the extent of his life, and if his wife hadn’t left him, he’d be extremely content with it.
So the question – could I be content with that kind of life? Could I be content working the same job for years without any significant pay rises or career progression? Could I be content living in the same house with no visible improvements to lifestyle? Could I do the same thing day after day with no change in routine? Could I be happy having a weekend game of football on television being the high point of my week?
My housemate doesn’t think he could – he’s a few years older than me, but remarkably well travelled (he spent two years travelling the world), and has just bought a share of a business, so he’ll be going into business for himself. He’s a university graduate (or will be, after this semester), and plans to go on and study for Honours in history.
I don’t think I could be content with that kind of life. I’m not as motivated and driven as many people seem to believe I am, but I: 1) consistently look for opportunities to progress my career and earn more money; 2) count graduating from university to have been important for me; 3) consider continuing further postgraduate study as crucial to my personal growth; 4) am a home owner at the (relatively) tender age of twenty-three; 5) travel as widely as I can considering my other monetary commitments; 6) have definite plans for future children and family.
Yet, millions of people around the world are content with a life with no change, and don’t mind working that same job, and living in the same house, and knowing the same people, and doing the same thing for years upon years. It makes you question what’s worth more – the sense of accomplishment that people like myself and my housemate get when we achieve yet another goal, or the easy sense of mindless satisfaction from having an worry-free consistent life that others get. Is the stress and pressure that I feel worth the sense of achievement?
Question of the Week: What kind of person are you – are you a constant achiever with a number of goals, or are you happy to let life take you wherever it may?