what i have done today at work instead of actually doing work

checked twitter
looked up a lot of jobs on 'creative opportunities'
looked up jobs on 'w4mp'
saved jobs in gmail draft titled 'jobs'
connected the twitter and facebook of the crystal palace overground festival
replied to festival director's emails
chatted to stacey teague on gchat
wrote a 1500 word email to my friend shu shu zheng
put on more lipstick
spent an unnecessarily long time in the loo
looked up jobs on linkedin
looked up people i went to uni with on linkedin
gave myself a 90 minute lunch break
looked at a few jobs on 'office angels'
wrote a 1500 word email to my friend andrew murray
(briefly) chatted to stephen o'toole on gchat
chatted to ziggy gelman on gchat
read a few articles 'the age' (newspaper based in melbourne)
looked up some media jobs in melbourne
read eamonn marra's blog
replied to some email thread about an open air cinema and gave the impression via my choice of movie (princess bride or o brother where art thou) that i have children (princess bride seems like an obvious crowd pleaser)
wrote a dumb blog about it

2011/12 internet champions of the world

have been trying hard to work out what kind of things i want to do blogging about lately.

i just wanted to do a quick post about the nice people i met from the internet. in appreciation. each of the following peeps were just totes lovely and in some cases let me stay at their houses, which is a kindness i will always be thankful for and hope to repay one day : )

david s. klein
eamonn marra
jackson nieuwland
james duncan
alice may connolly
ben rosamond
carolyn decarlo
spencer madsen
marshall mallicoat
dj berndt
shaun gannon
michael michael motopsychle
jess dutschmann
jae dyche
megan boyle
zachary german
jacob steinberg
dave greenspan
gregory sherl
crispin best
ben brooks
stephen o'toole
kirsty lewis turkington (technically met in 2012 but are too awesome to leave off the list)
vicki tingle
laurens verdonkschot
giles ruffer


just makes me feel really good about things when you can go somewhere and feel like you have frands to show you around or hang out with.

life things

i think the reason i haven't been able to write a lot lately is because i feel too 'in' things/life, i am finding it hard to step out of my body and look at things i am experiencing

is it wrong to want detachment?

all i am doing is the things i am doing and other than that, trying to distract myself from the implications of these things

thinking about boys

the other day me and huna were in her car and she said something about not thinking anything at all at that particular moment and we paused and then both starting rapping to a biggie song

a lot of the time when i go to write something i just try to describe what it feels like to be in my body and how that relates to things in my head

i just watched grey gardens and i cried twice

i made a xmas card for my boss at bird rescue, it has a picture of a bird on the front, is that too obvious

there are a lot of things i need to do and none of them are particularly unpleasant but there are just a lot of things

i like cats the most out of all the things

read an interview with Haruki Murakami in the newpaper and he said "If I'm taking a walk and I see a cat, I'm happy." then i cut out the picture of his face that went with the article and stuck it on my wall

tonight i feel like there is a tiny animal inside of my chest

things are about to change i think

new lynn bus station

seeing people carrying around 1.5 L soft drink bottles in public

woman just got up and started 'shimmying' right in front of me, occasionally swearing loudly, it's 11.42am on a wednesday

she just yelled 'don't be jealous', and 'boy i can shake aye'

internal monologue: HOW IS THIS HAPPENING

interested in how each of the 7 individuals in this bus stop are ignoring this woman in their own unique way

my way is to pretend to be deeply engrossed in whatever i am typing into my computer by squinting my eyes slightly and occasionally mouthing words

she might have started singing 'golden years' by david bowie but probably not

she is currently in v. close proximity to me

internal monologue: please get away from me crazy dancing lady

homeless man making really succinct yelping noises at passers-by and making people feel extremely uncomfortable including me, even with headphones on

'smack that' by akon just came on my ipod

life is bloody hilarious

friendship cameos in my undergraduate degree

1. Country kids who lived in the student apartment block I lived in
When I didn't get into the Melbourne uni college I wanted, things seemed dire as heck. Scrounging around for alternatives, me and my sister ended up living a few streets apart in 'Student Housing Australia'. It was horrible. I lived in a shoebox room and most of the other tenants were quiet asian types. (Sometimes I would be woken up at 6am by the sound of pots and pans being thrown and very loud screaming..!) Though this was a good exercise in living alone, I was overjoyed when I ran into a girl called Laura from Benalla in the lift one day. She had made other friends, Alice and Tim. They all went to RMIT as well, though Alice never went to class and seemed scatty as all hell. One night we decided to go on an RMIT pub crawl as a building. I went along and learnt about those games where if someone puts a coin in your beer you have to scull it. The next day Alice woke up and she had a sore throat. She said when she swallowed it felt like there was something in there. Laura drove us to the hospital and we were in emergency trying to convince the doctors that a possible coin in the throat was worth skipping through all the people with gaping wounds or broken limbs. Alice had to go home to her parents and she didn't come back for semester two. I used to get group texts from Laura saying things like 'happy easter' or 'merry christmas' but I think she has probably deleted me from her phone by now. I think Tim ended up getting into a college.

2. Lindy
I don't really remember how we fell into the same crowd, because we never had any classes together, but for my second semester my 'bestie' at uni was a French Canadian girl called Lindy. She'd done a year of exchange in Geelong and ended up in Melbourne. She lived in an apartment about a twenty minute tram ride away from me and was experiencing similar accommodation loneliness. The difference between her student housing and mine was that hers had a largely unused entertainment room with a big ass tv. We took this as our opportunity to become wanky media students and watched things like Mulholland Drive and Slaughterhouse 5. Lindy was a loud person with lots of enthusiasm. She was also still in love with her high school boyfriend Aiden. One day we went to Geelong to hang out with some of her old friends and see Aiden. It was weird seeing Aiden. Lindy liked the song 'Shake it' by Metro Station and also the band Escape the Fate. She got a job bartending at a strip club and would insist that I went to visit her when she finished work. I managed to do this only one time and it was as weird as I thought it would be, even though I didn't see any boobies. The bar is across from the MCG and apparently football players would always go there after games. Sometimes she seemed a bit like a sociopath and I couldn't tell when she was lying. There was one particular incident on a night when we went out for somebody's birthday and she scratched my arm because I accidentally touched her dermal anchor while hugging her and she tripped another friend of ours, then went home with the birthday person out of spite (but I am not sure if this actually happened). Lindy and I were going to live together in our second year but a lot of my misgivings about became overwhelming and I had to tell her I didn't think it would be a good idea and after that our friendship fell apart. I have seen her on the street probably once since then and made false promises to hang out but I am okay with not hanging out.

3. My media and meaning tutor
For some reason me and my friend were obsessed with the idea of our media and meaning tutor. I was in one of those classes were nobody would speak (a pattern to be repeated for the remaining two years of my degree) and there was overwhelming pressure on those sitting closest to the tutor to say something. For whatever reason, I usually found myself in that position. I found his arrogance attractive for some reason. And because it was first year and we had a bunch of young tutors taking us we would end up going for end of semester drinks. And you know. I ended up being one of those breathy girls, twirling her hair staying around until the end trying to 'get to know' my tutor. Uh now I see him sometimes when I'm studying at uni and every time I think 'jesus, how embarrassing'. Then, 'maybe I can write about this'.

4. The indies
Country girl that I was (also highly influenced by myspace), I spent the first couple of weeks introducing myself to people at uni, then asking what music they were into. Everyone in my course seemed to be really hip, well dressed, into awesome things, confident etc etc. I felt shy and wanted this awesomeness to rub off on me. One night after drinks with a bunch of kids from uni, somebody mentioned wanting some weed. At this time I still had hometown connections and had a stash in my crappy flat. We had a session on the deck at my place. I think another time some people stayed over. I felt a bit jaded that these two instances didn't equate to instant friendship but to be fair the lengths I went to after that basically boiled down to 'facebooking' them and then proceeding to get blog-jealous of one in particular! My first year friendship efforts were fairly rubbish, also I was a passive aggressive bitch. In third year I ended up in groups with all these people who I had revered in first year and found them to be normal/funny human beings.. and I think by that time I'd turned into one of those too.

5. Boy from band who I emailed for a number of months
Somehow I 'got into' a really cute band and via myspace or this blog probably. I began emailing the singer somehow. We had this nice insightful email correspondence for a couple of months and then they played a residency at the Birmy in May and I went with a couple of friends.

We stopped emailing after this. I never really knew what happened, but I can only assume that it had something to do with the fact that I started 'seeing' email boy's friend (who I referred to for some time as 'blog boy' but now is just my regular friend - also cannot write about him here because his friendship isn't a cameo) but maybe it doesn't matter and I just don't understand him at all. We did sort of chat at Campus a Low Hum earlier this year when Toro y Moi was playing and he was having some sort of 'musical epiphany' or that is how it seemed to me kinda. Anyway I feel like their band is still really amazing to see live and I don't really mind but I like emails so people should email me long things of niceness maybe.

6. People from my philosophy class
I have written about these people before, one in my four crushes zine. The person who I mentioned in my zine wasn't really that attractive to me I think but was more a memorable figure for a few months. My philosophy class was handily timed from 4.30-6.30 Wednesdays, so we would, more often than not, head to either the Oxford Scholar (rancid pub across from RMIT) or Workshop (decent, not overly trendy bar in close proximity to RMIT) and debrief about the annoying people in class, like the one girl from my course who would come along every four weeks and be the most verbal person in the class just to compensate for her terrible attendance. So there was the guy from my zine known only by his last name 'Collins', Felix, the German exchange student, Carolyn, the sweet printmaking student who had similar music taste to me and I run into her occasionally and she's as sweet as ever and Madeline, the American exchange student who was as cool as shit, just a real friendly group. We would hang around in the smoking area at workshop and smoke cigarettes and sometimes Felix had weed, talking until 9 or so. Often we would speculate about our philosophy teacher's life and make amusing banter about his silk attire. I was in a dire philosophical/personal ontological state at that point in my life, and I found these gatherings to be a useful extension of the therapy that philosophy class offered.

life bullet points

- chewing a lot of "airwaves" chewing gum
- spiders starting to congregate in my bathroom again
- lorikeet at work humping the pom pom on my beanie
- feeling less lonely talking on gchat
- nachos with an unhealthy amount of sour cream
- feeling aware of how, whilst driving, i only indicate when absolutely necessary
- listening to a lot of Pavement
- during my grandma's funeral thinking that the trees outside looked like lil brocolli florets
- feeling cheeky about feeling like a grown-up whenever i go to the post office to pay my power bill
- my current favourite cat in the cattery is called "Bumble"
- mum earnestly suggesting i should wear a skivvy
- feeling okay about nothingness mostly
- keep burning myself whilst filling up my hot water bottle
- putting on my favourite brown beanie and feeling like it is swallowing my head and it feels nice
- drinking coffee and feeling normal
- sitting in front of my mac book writing words i guess

where i live

I live in a suburb of Melbourne called Abbotsford. This is a suburb quite near Fitzroy and Collingwood and Richmond and Clifton Hill. It is 2km from the city centre. You can walk to and from the city with ease, but it would take you a long time. I try to ride my bike into the city as much as possible, but now it is getting colder and often it is wet I don't do it as regularly as I should.

I live right next to this old football oval called Victoria Park. This is also the name of my train station. The oval used to be the official training ground for the AFL team Collingwood and some of the buildings are black & white. A lot of people don't like that team and they make jokes about it but my mum goes for them and she told me that when she first moved to Australia my dad took her on a date to Victoria Park. I am pretty sentimental about things now so I tell that story a lot.

This suburb is made up of houses, mostly old terraces houses or warehouses. Some of the warehouses are still in use, but others have been converted into really fancy apartments. Gotta love gentrification. This is a building at the end of my street.



My house has become really good for parties. Somebody once said they like parties at my house because "something always happens". This is pretty true. Here are some pictures of parties at my house.



I do not know these people. I stole this picture from some girl's facebook.



This is my friend Shu Shu at the same party but much earlier.

My house is an old terrace house in a row of houses. The name of the terrace is Winifred. This name is good for a number of reasons
1. Winifred is a cool name because you can shorten it to Winnie
2. Winnie is the name of Stacey's cat
3. Winifred is the name of my friend Erin's grandma who was a really awesome lady

Because it is an old house it gets pretty cold, but luckily I am a warm person and I can warm up at nights pretty fast. It also has a small kitchen with not very much bench or cupboard space which is difficult at the moment because we have a new housemate and she has a lot of awesome kitchen stuff. I say awesome because it seems like it relates to baking.

My housemates are Steve and Ashley. Ashley is the one who just moved in. Yesterday we went to a Ghostpatrol exhibition together and then picked up my bike from the library and rode back home. I think it will be good to live with her. Steve is pretty chill. He likes photography and I just helped him arrange all these canvasses in our lounge room. They are pretty. He eats a lot but also goes to the gym like every day and rides his bike to work.

We have a little courtyard out the back of our house. It is useful for parties. Ashley says she has a bunch of plants to put out the back.

I love living here because the house vibe is really chill. We kinda do our separate things but we are friendly, clean and respectful of each other.

Another awesome thing about my place is that it's close to Collingwood and Fitzroy which are really fun places to go out. A little further down the road is this cool place to eat called Lentil As Anything which is a vegetarian buffet/food coop where you pay what you feel the food is worth. The food is delicious so if you live in Melbourne and if you haven't been there before you better go and support them.

Come to Melbourne. You can stay on my couch, it's really comfortable.

I will take you to nice places.