1. Amanda is going through a good period where she can look in the mirror early in the morning with bedhead and sleep in her eyes and still be able to legitimately say “Hey, you sexy thing you!”
2. Amanda is already hot enough without the added complications of 40+ degree heat.

Second, I’m now contemplating getting a few professional photos done. I’ve never felt better about my body and my looks, and I think it would be a good idea to preserve this particular moment in time with a few really well shot photos, so I can look back in decades to come and think: “Damn, I was one hot chicky”. An old friend and I have been discussing potential shots – he’s a professional photographer and is keen to expand his portfolio of portraiture. I’m keen to be a guinea pig.

We have a few staged shots in mind already (yeah, some of them will be not-so-clothed), but I’d like to get some ideas from others – especially blog readers as I’ve been more honest with all of you for a longer time than I have with anyone else in my life. Most of you probably know me, the real me, better than most of my RL friends. I really have only a single requirement for the shots: I don’t want anything too staged or fake. I want the shots to look relatively natural, like they’ve just captured me at a random point of my day.

Question of the Week: What particular things (personality traits, objects, events, places, etc.) do you associate with me? If you think of me getting professional photos done, what kind of shot do you envision?

I’ve got an online presence. I blog here. I Tweet near-daily. I use my LiveJournal occasionally for private entries. I’m relatively active in my local Melbourne LiveJournal community. I (try to) comment on other blogs regularly. I’m part of a forum (and have been very active in other forums). I’m very active on Facebook. I chat on MSN semi-regularly with online friends. I’ve met nearly two dozen ‘online’ people IRL, all over the world.

On the other hand, Dylan doesn’t understand why I blog, why I tweet, and how I can be so close to people online. It’s not to say that he’s a Luddite though, because he is incredibly tech-savvy. His interests online though, extend to browsing innovation and technology blogs, and research on various topics. For instance, we recently bought some pot plants for his place, but he spent about a week researching different varieties and their properties online before making a decision. We’re looking at purchasing snorkelling masks, and he’s already spent days researching different brands and styles.

We spend equal amounts of time online – but whereas my Internet usage is based around interaction with others, his is very much self-contained. This is actually probably reflective of our RL persons as well though – I’m more likely to spend time chatting to a friend, whereas he’s more likely to spend a day figuring out a way to rig up a way for the garden solar lights to light up his bungalow to save on electricity bills (true story – he’s still trying to figure it out).

Question of the Week: If you’re in a relationship, what’s your respective approaches to social media, and how does that work out for you? If you’re not in a relationship, what combination (one techy one not, two techies, or two non-techies, etc.) do you think would work best?

This year however, marks the first Christmas I’ve spent away from family, with two house mates who believe firmly in the concept of gift-giving, a fancy Christmas lunch, etc. Because I knew that they’d buy me presents, I kind of felt obligated to buy them presents as well. So, in the practical and logical way that I do things, I bought:

1. For my female housemate: Organisational things. A shoe rack you can hang over a door, hanging organisers for wardrobes, etc. Her room is a pigsty (by anyone’s standards, not just my own anal standards!), and I thought it would come in handy for her to be able to organise at least some of her possessions.
2. For my male housemate: Jumpers and scarves – he’s heading to Italy for three weeks in January, and has no winter clothes. He wears Tshirts and shorts year-round in Australia, but that’s really not an option for a European winter, so I bought him some warm clothes to wear over there.

Dylan tells me that I’ve misunderstood the whole concept of Christmas gift giving. He claims that Christmas gifts needn’t have to be about practicality and whether or not the recipient will use it, but that it’s about something thoughtful and personal, something frivolous that will put a smile on the person’s face. To teach me a lesson about what a “true” Christmas is about, he’s already claimed that he’s going to wake me up at 5am to open presents, then take me out for “experiences” all day. I have no idea what these “experiences” are going to be, because he won’t even tell me what I should wear for the day to ensure that I’m appropriately dressed for the activities.

Anyway, point is, I personally think that a practical gift is more likely to give long-term happiness to the recipient. Sure, a gag gift might give you a few laughs on the day, but after that it’s probably just going to go in a drawer and be forgotten about. A practical gift like the two I got however, will give ongoing benefits to the recipients!

Question of the Week: What kind of gift giver are you? Do you aim for practicality, or do you get anything that will put a smile on the recipient’s face?

He is in a long-distance relationship with his girlfriend who lives in Hong Kong. There’s a hot female friend from Taiwan coming to Australia for a holiday – she’ll be staying at his place for a week.

He doesn’t live centrally (he pretty much lives in bushland), so it’s not as though she’s staying with him because it’s convenient to access various touristy type activities. She’ll be spending a fourth of her vacation with him specifically, in the middle of nowhere.

His girlfriend is not cool with the situation and is kicking up a fuss.

He’s convinced there was nothing wrong about the situation he’s putting himself in, and that his girlfriend was just overreacting. Asking us if we would have reacted as his girlfriend did, we replied with an adamant yes – what he’s doing is simply not cool. Now I have been labelled a controlling and possessive bitch before by someone else (I think it’s in reference to my pedantic, organisational, “have to know everything” nature), but my reaction can’t only be because of that – there’s something inherently wrong with the situation itself. Surely others feel the same way?

Question of the Week: If in his girlfriend’s place, how would you feel?

Oh, and for the record, Gibe African Restaurant is really good. When you go, opt for the main course with the description that you won’t be able to pronounce – that will give you a small sample of pretty much every other main on the menu so you can try a bit of everything. It was my first time having proper Ethiopian food, and it was absolutely delicious. I highly recommend the restaurant to all Melbournites.

Matilda

I first read Roald Dahl’s classic when I was very very young – no more than six or seven. While at the time, a lot of the ironic British humour was lost on me, the story of the girl genius who used her natural talents and intellect to take control of her own life really resonated. Her sparkling wit, her obvious intellect, her rationality, her modesty, and above all, her ingenuity in creating “punishments” for her negligent parents, shaped her as the role model I most admired. Unlike other heroines of children’s novels, Matilda was firmly in charge of her own person and was fiercely independent. I still re-read Matilda every couple of months now, and the underlying theme of making the most of what one has and taking control of one’s own destiny still rings loud and true. It acts as a guide to remind myself what I am actually capable of doing.

The Babysitter’s Club

I was a Babysitter’s Club series fiend from age six to the age of thirteen – I owned all the books from #1 to #100, a few of the super special novels, and a few of the child series centered around the character of Karen Brewer. I would have read each book at least five times each, and my obsession was well noted amongst my peers at elementary school. The characteristics of the series that most affected me was the camaraderie and friendship between the main characters (despite any arguments they may have had along the way, they would always be there for each other through thick and thin – the mark of what I define to be a true friendship), and the entrepreneurship shown by the girls. They identified a gap in the market that could be filled (a neighborhood with lots of children and need for babysitters), they created an organisation that could fill that gap, and as a result, created a steady and reliable stream of income for themselves. I like to think that my own personal brand of “thinking outside the box” when it comes to making money through alternative means is influenced by this early example of young entrepreneurs.

Peyton Place

I read Grace Metalious’s Peyton Place when I was about ten years old. At the time, it was one of the most salacious books I’d ever read – while the sex scenes weren’t explicit by any means, the sheer passion between Constance MacKenzie and Tomas Makris in their scenes together was mind-blowing for an impressionable girl of ten. It is and has always been, I would argue, the unacknowledged benchmark of what I expect in an own ideal relationship. Their disregard for social conventions in the face of their passion for each other has influenced me in a very notable way – and regular readers of this blog who are familiar with my sexual/romantic history know full well what I’m referring to!

Question of the Week: What books have shaped you as a person?

While I won’t be getting married any time soon, I’ve actually already planned my own wedding dress, and have known for years what I want it to be like. If I were more artistically talented, I’d draw a visual example of what it’ll look like, but you’ll have to deal with the following descriptors:

1. Strapless
2. Boned waist
3. Long skirt – not a full skirt, but more a fishtail style with a short train
4. Base fabric in cream satin – a matte rather than shiny satin
5. Gold lace overlay over the entire gown
6. Lining of the dress will be embroidered gold Chinese silk

And actually, after doing some quick Googling, it’ll look like a cross between these dresses – this style, with this lace overlay and this lining.

I’m prepared to make some small concessions (e.g. with my large mammaries, I may not be able to do strapless), but otherwise that’s what I want. The most important part is the amalgamation of East and West – to somehow incorporate my Chinese background into a more traditional Western wedding gown – custom-made of course.

Question of the Week: Do you know what you want your wedding outfit to be like, or alternatively, are you already married and what did you wear?

1. The whole dance floor breaking into a coordinated dance sequence.
2. Romantic reunions in the rain after one person has run halfway across the city to catch up with the other person, apologise, and reconcile.
3. The socially awkward male best friend you’ve had your whole life suddenly morphing into a hot dude just by changing his hairstyle.
4. Suddenly coming into a lot of money unexpectedly.
5. The quarterback falling in love with the quiet geeky girl whose good qualities go largely unnoticed by the rest of the student population.
6. Finding the love of your life and spending the rest of your life together with no obstacles to stand in your way.
7. Growing past any parental issues and managing to build a mature adult-to-adult relationship with them with no rancour for past slights and incidents.
8. Expressing your love for someone through song and dance.
9. People holding out for their true love, no matter how long they wait, rather than settling for the first person to come around.
10. Zombie outbreak.

Question Of The Week: What do you think should happen more often in “real life”?

1. Environmental – I’m not the sweaty type, so my clothes don’t get that dirty or smelly in one day. Washing them each wear is simply not environmentally friendly, considering Australia’s currently in a drought!
2. Economical – the more you wash your clothes, the quicker they’ll wear out. Washing machines can be very harsh on certain fabrics – wash something too often and it’ll lose its shape or sheen. By washing your clothes less often, you’ll get more wear out of them.
3. Practical – I rarely wear just the one single outfit each day. I’ll have on a dressy outfit for work, but then change into track pants and a Tshirt when I get home. Washing two outfits a day is just silly.

So for instance, a weekly clothes schedule would see me wear:

• Monday: Top #1, Pants #1
• Tuesday: Dress #1, Tights #1
• Wednesday: Dress #1, Top #1
• Thursday: Pants #1, Top #2
• Friday: Top #2, Skirt #1, Tights #1

And so on, and so forth. This way by mixing and matching a handful of items, I can actually create numerous different outfits. I’ll get two or three wears out of each item (in cooler weather, I try to aim to wear tops twice, and bottoms three times before they go in the wash). In one week, I might only go through two bottoms, a dress, and three tops, as well as one “bum around the house” outfit…so I only have to do one load of laundry each week, as opposed to two, or three.

It helps that I work in controlled environments (an office and a shop) so I never get too hot and start sweating – in the Australian summer though, I do tend to wash my clothes every day because it can get very hot. Hence, my summer weight clothes always have a shorter life span when compared to my winter clothes.

It’s just a more practical method of approaching washing one’s clothes, as well as being more economically and environmentally viable. Without looking at figures too closely, I’d guesstimate that you’d save a good $50AUD on your water bill every year just by being more smart about how you do your washing.

Question of the Week: How often do you wash your clothes, and why?

• Being greeted with a single long-stemmed rose after a long time apart
• Spending a day together in a large bustling city, soaking in the atmosphere and seeing the sights
• A bottle of wine on the beach, looking up at the stars at night with the sound of waves in the background
• A walk home on a clear night through cobblestoned streets, hand in hand, stealing kisses along the way.
• Having them play the guitar and sing to you when you’re naked in their bed basking in the afterglow.
• Waking up at random intervals during the night at the exact same time, and having slow sweet sex
• Waking up in the arms of the guy the next morning.

Despite some of my lifestyle choices, I’m really actually a romantic at heart, and have always been. I believe in true love with my soul mate. I believe that love conquers all. I believe that there’s someone out there waiting for me, and that we’ll end up spending the rest of our lives together. And I believe it’s only a matter of time until I find him.

Question of the Week: What’s been the most romantic experience of your life so far?

1. The “oh my god yes, harder, harder, harder!” scream
2. The “get off me you creep” scream
3. The “your fetish is what?!?!” scream
4. The “jesus christ, look at the size of that” scream when he takes off his pants
5. The “oh my god, you have aids?!” scream
6. The “your mother has just walked in on us!” scream
7. The “what, you like incestuous sex games?!” scream
8. THE FURRY SCREAM
9. The Scientologist scream (i.e. none at all)

So, well, I think we need your help internets. What other bedroom screams can we add to the list?