Okie dokie.

So I just finished the essay. It's a world of bad, but it'll do. I just have to proof read it and do the referencing. That will take me about 2 hours, stupid footnotes. Give me in-text referencing any day!

Nan just called and we've settled on a date we can all spread Nonno's ashes - November 9th. Now that it's finally coming and we have all agreed we can do it, I kind of don't want to do it at all now... But anyway, I apparently have to go down there for the 21st of Louisa Russo's daughter. All I remember about her is that we played together a couple of times at Mrs. Russo's house and I didn't like her very much, but BOY did she used to have a crush on Dan. It still makes me giggle. But I hate going to parties where I don't know anyone except my family. That's if Daniel and Jonas go, but they're good at making friends. Me, I'm not a mingler. I'm a hang-out-with-the-olds-and-try-not-to-be-seen-er. Maybe I can convince Rachel or someone to come with. But then they'll want to know where the boyfriend is. See? I don't like this dealing with people you've known forever crap. I know the older generation - Mrs. Russo, Nan's best friend, and her kids who are all middle-aged, but I don't know their kids.

Too much hard work.

In other news, the HUGE mosquito bites from Saturday night have stopped swelling and itching and are now red welts just bigger than the size of a 10c piece. Actually, they kind of resemble hickeys (how teenaged of me!), although they're on my legs. Awkward. And the one on my left ankle had actually become a purplish, quite large bruise. Which, you know, is great seeing as I'm supposed to be going to the races in two weeks' time and will be wearing a dress (which I am yet to look for/have money for). Unfortunately, the dress will probably be knee-length, and the bites are on my calves. HOT.

In other news, I want this bag. But it's US$30 and it's an uncertain financial climate!!

This is my favourite painting from the NSW Art Gallery:

One of my little sister's drawings from about three years ago:

...just procrastinating...

OK...

So I finally got an email from my lecturer. Thank jeebus. He says to attach it in an email asap and bring him a hardcopy in class. Erm... so I have to write it now? Shit. I'll just pretend I haven't seen the email until tomorrow. Yes, tomorrow.

So anyone at work with me tomorrow will have the cranky Sarah with them cos I'll be up all night working on this bugger. I'm about halfway, but I kind of hate it. I feel like all I'm doing is describing, not making arguments. DAMMIT!

I got my EDUC assignment back. The one that was handed in late. Totally didn't get any marks deducted. Oh yeah. I got 30/40, so it was just a distinction. I'm happy with that, especially after only just passing the first one. Beau, the slut, got 34. I think he slept with the teacher. I'm just saying! I mean, he couldn't have just written a better essay or whatever...

And I finally got through to my grandma this evening, and WHERE WAS THE FUCKING SYMPATHY????? I'm there whining, going, "I hate this, I don't want to do it anymoooooooooore," and do you know what she said? "Sarah, you're going to quit again? You've already done one and a half years before, now you'll quit after one year, you have to finish something."

Oh no she di'n't!

I was like, "Woman! That is NOT what I want to hear! All you're supposed to say is, 'That's terrible Sarah, all those mean university people making you do all that work. They're horrible, you'll be fine.'"

How dare she! After I had my mini rant about what she should have said, she did rectify the situation a little by saying it. But the damage was done.

Oh, and more damage: Nan nonchalantly mentioning that Dan and Jonas were planning on spreading Nonno's ashes this Sunday.

WHAT THE FUCK???

I was so angry I cried. And she didn't get why I was upset. HELLO??? So, we don't do anything on the anniversary because Dan and Jonas were busy at Indy, but we'll reschedule it for whenever it's convenient for them.

Sometimes I hate being part of a family. Or at least I hate being the only one that thinks being part of a family is important and there are certain responsibilities that come with it.

*************

It's now two hours later and I've spent literally the last two hours bitching and gossiping with Shuba. I love people who are just like me. :)

WHERE THE HELL IS EVERYONE???

I'm sitting here stressed out of my mind and NOBODY IS ANSWERING THE PHONE.

HELLO? NAN?! What the fuck???? Why aren't you home? You should be always home, waiting by the phone in case your granddaughter calls you. That's common curtesy.

Fuck. It's Wednesday. Bingo day. Fucking bingo.

I'm no longer pro-bingo.

I don't want to do this assignment.

I can't do this assignment

Why doesn't the bloody lecturer reply to emails that are urgent???

WHERE IS EVERYBODY???

Beau answered the phone. I can breathe again.

Bright side!

What? Sarah looking at the bright side of something?

Yes, two minutes ago, that ear-splitting, frightening sound you heard was the sound of hell freezing over.

I'm thinking that if I can't get another job for these holidays (which I'm still really shitty about - ooh, hell thawed out a little) I'll dedicate myself to being creative. I've always wanted to do a dressmaking class. Or maybe I'll keep working on my US scrapbook - the one that's up to June '06. Heck, by the end of the holidays, I could be up to July!!! Wouldn't that be amazing?!

Plus, I'm being mighty inspired to finally do something with my moleskines.

Yes, I'm procrastinating on doing my history assignment...

My shitty weekend has begun

I've built it up too much. I keep thinking about how terrible this week was last year. I had forgotten that it wasn't all about Nonno, and that I also spent a day in court for mum and dad's settlement, and had my interview for Borders and dawdled in Spotlight and at Emma's house sorting out details of me moving in. And meanwhile Nonno died. Waste of fucking time. I don't know if I could have made it to the hospital in time, but maybe.

I spoke to Kristy this afternoon. Yeah, not going fulltime. Kind of shitty right now. Kind of really shitty. I've got so much shit to do in the next two weeks and looking for a new job is just another hassle. And all the Christmas casual jobs are probably all gone. Just... things that could have been told to me earlier. Apparently they haven't been given the hours they thought they would be. Even though someone else was put on a fulltime contract.... anyway, I must eat so many lemons because I am so bitter.

Talking to Nan on the phone now. She's being very sympathetic this time 'round. When I was not dealing very well on Nonno's birthday she was like, "You so need to get over this," but she said it a little less ghetto than I make it sound... This time she's being very understanding and telling me jokes to cheer me up. Things that don't cheer me up: "I just hope I'm around long enough until you finish uni." Erm, woman, you do realise you're not allowed to die. Seriously. I'm not just saying this to be cute. Death is not an option for you.

I'm also trying to convince her to come to Italy with me next year. I think she's afraid to, because obviously Trieste has changed so very much from when she left in the early 50s, and there wouldn't be anyone left. I say stuff it - we'll see Trieste but then go to other parts of Italy she's never seen, which is pretty much everything. I think it also frightens her because she's never been on a plane before. I'd love to take her though. Auntie Joan is going to England next year to be with her family, maybe I can get her to coax Nan into going too.

Ok, things that cheer me up: I'm listening to my hiphop playlist right now and that song from 2002, Slacker, just came on: "I'm about to make it famous, so you can take this J.O.B and you can shove it up your anus."

Tee hee.

General Observation

Why are some people still on magazine covers? Misca Barton and Lindsey Lohan, I'm looking at you.

Seriously, they're irrelevant. Got a new movie or something to promote? NO! So why are they still getting paid to do shit?

Here you go, Nicole, happy?

So I'm watching Bill O'Reilly on The View. Joy is angry. I love Joy.

What is with Americans and being so anti-Communist? You fucking won! The government bailout was socialism, and a fucking expensive act of socialism too.

You go Joy!

And Elizabeth needs to shut her squeaky trap. Her stupid high-pitched voice drives me insane.

Anyway, so I'm sitting in the loungeroom wearing about 50 layers of clothing and wrapped in a doona, still freezing my ass off. Stupid weather. I had so much trouble sleeping last night because I was so cold.

Oh, and this morning I went to do some grocery shopping and it was windy but still sunny outside. I parked at the Stockland Mall and went across the road to do my fruit shopping, and of course when I get out of the fruit shop it's pouring with rain. Gross.

You know what else is gross? I spent $40 on fruit and veg. WTF? That's so much bloody money. I should just eat crap and save money. Bloody hell. And I bought it all to make one stirfry. Granted, I'll be eating that stirfry for the next week, but it's still frustrating.

I went to trivia on Tuesday night with Beau, Michael and Simon, and oh yeah, bitches, we totally came 3rd!! That won us a $20 voucher for the restaurant, and seeing as bar meals are only $5 we've totally got next trivia night's dinner. Unfortunately, our team name was Star Trek themed. I can't remember what it was, and I didn't understand it, but I was informed that it was Star Trek. That shit just ain't cool. In fact, it's really, really nerdy. :P And Beau told me last night it class that Simon and Michael have apparently planned a lot more in the same vain. Yeah, NO.

Also on Tuesday, I had to do my Peer teach lesson. Yuck. My lesson was on the wonderful topic of fact and opinion. Please try to contain your excitement. I had to hand in an essay about the planning of the lesson on the day, and now I get to write an essay about how the lesson went. whoo. Cannot wait.

I'm also trying to write my history assignment. It's about the fall of communism. Why did I choose this essay topic??? Seriously, I have no clue. I thought it would be interesting. Guess what - it's NOT. It's a whole bunch of reading of boring books and articles to tell me that NO ONE GIVES A FUCK. Obviously with the exception of the people within the USSR. I'm sure they gave a fuck. Possibly many fucks.

I also got my creative writing essay back. I got 90, so a HD. I'm glad about it... but why didn't I get a higher mark? The thing that really annoys me about this topic is that there's no marking criteria for anything. Where did he pluck the 90 from? The feel of it? He only had good things to say in the essay, said it had really good references, he underlined many points I'd made and noted that they were really good.... I dunno. It's just that with other classes, you know exactly why you got a certain mark, but not with this one.

So in other news, I'm trying to use microfibre cloths on my face. I was reading a thread on the Vogue forums about how good they are, and they really get rid of blackheads, so on Monday I went out and bought some. I bought the ones designed for your face, but didn't really find any improvement, so now I've bought a household one. Lol. Next time you see me I'll have no face left. The ideas I get from the Vogue forums make me giggle. Last time it was sage tea, and I found no difference from that. Or maybe I did, but didn't stick with it long enough? Who can say.

Oh, and now I want a Ped Egg. Great.

This weather is making me miserable.

I have work at 5 this evening. 5-10. That's past my bedtime. No seriously, I'm in bed by 9:30. Not asleep, but in bed. Hello? Nanna, remember?

I have this weekend off because on Saturday it will have been 1 year since Nonno died. I plan on being drunk. That's pretty much it.

YAY!

Rachel's back! I want to call her but it's 8am.

Goddamnit!!

I have a month's worth of talking to do.

Just an observation

I just noticed that I have a whole bunch of moisturiser in my fridge, but nothing I want to eat.

Am I the only one that keeps her moisturiser in the fridge? It started with just the eye cream, but has now branched into both my face moisturisers. The body one hasn't migrated into there. Yet.

I guess it's also cos my fridge is conveniently located in my bedroom.

Things I Heart

Image from lovepad

I'm taking a cue from Gala Darling and writing about things that I adore at the moment.

Great friends. Friends that will send you bags of tea out of the blue, friends that will join you for coffee late at night. Friends that will gossip with you. Friends that will get drunk with you when you're sad. Friends that might be tired of hearing you complain about something again, but don't show it. Friends that you can always turn to.

My $1 earrings. They're these little green circle things with a spiral in the centre, but I've had loads of complements. And we all know how much a love a bargain.

Gorgeous weather. Being stuck inside at work whilst the weather is beautiful is not so fun, but being in the sun brings a smile to my face and energy into my system.

That feeling you get when your assignment is finished. Which it isn't yet, but I'm hoping it will be either today or tomorrow. Just in time to start my next one.

The colour of these flowers:

Everytime I see them in a flower shop I just want to buy them and stare at them for hours on end. But then I think of all the things I could do with my money and think that the flowers would be a waste. As a treat for myself, when I'm finished with this semester and have done all of my assignments I'll buy a bunch. Or two. And drown in their colour.

xx

Things that make my heart glow

Receiving a package from a friend completely out of the blue and finding two types of green tea in it, especially after the lovely afternoon tea we shared at T2.

Thank you Mrs. Kremer!!!

Ephemera

Today's been a bit of a walk down memory lane, mostly to avoid doing anything that needs to be done.

I'm not sure why, but I was going through my little filing folder and noticed that I had old assignments from UWS in there. I had a read through them and just cringed. My highest mark was a distinction, but I really think they were just being lenient - they are horrible. I guess I've now just had practice. Not that I think my stuff is getting any better, but I'm able to read through them and go, "Yeah, that makes sense."

Also, I think that when I get time, I'm going to turn my old blog into a book and self-publish it on Lulu. Just for myself. My fear is that one day I'll go to the blog and it won't be there, and I think it's such an important record of such a big part of my life and I don't want to lose it. And it doesn't look too expesive to get a book done in hard cover. I'm willing to spend up to $100 just because I think it's important. And with the exchange rate, I probably will.

But that will have to wait until uni's over, along with selling all my crap on ebay and all those books I plan to read.

And we're back to my more superficial / whiney posts

I reeeeeally should have taken advantage of the holidays more. I just see the next four weeks stretching out in a mass of stress. There'll be a lot more of these posts.

I'm so glad to be back in Newy. Sunday, although I was dead tired due to my mother waking me up at 5am (after I'd gone to bed at 1am) because she felt the need to vaccuum. Needless to say, we had words. Loud, angry words.

Anyway, I got back, had an afternoon tea with Leesh, Michael, Bec and Beau, went to the Bogey Hole (that swimming hole I wrote an assignment about last semester but hadn't actually seen), took note of the vast amounts of rape-bush around. Or should I say, "surprise sex" bush. Basically, the kind of bush you look at and go, "Wow. That would make a great place to rape someone."

It's OK. It was long ago established that I'm going to hell.

Then we went back to Michael's for dinner. Have I mentioned how much I love sausages? They are the best.

Last night was our first book club meeting. It was good. Only three of us had read the book. Oops. The next one is The Picture of Dorian Gray, which is good cos a few years ago I started reading it and really enjoyed it, but then for some reason I stopped. Good to have an excuse to go back and finish it.

Trivia tonight. We'd better bloody win, that's all I'm saying.

Stupid Old People.

I totally didn't win anything. My grandma gave me a consolation prize by giving me her winning raffle ticket, and the grocery prize that came with it, but it was like salt in the deep wounds of my soul.

Also, am totally becoming sick. Ack. You'd think that with how sick I've been lately I'd be used to the horrible achey-but-not-achey feeling I have, but alas, apparently the pain isn't something you can develop a resistance to. Pity.

Home again ... jiggety jig ...

Wow. We can definately cross Catherine Zeta-Jones off my list of people I'd turn gay for. That shit is so not OK.

Meanwhile, I'm sitting at home, have just eaten a bowl of pasta and am now writing my brother's assignment for him. Yeah, that's right. Writing it for him. I am such a sucker. I thought he had already written it. Yeah, apparently not. And it's such a shit assignment too:
"Articulate and define, in your terms, the difference between 'at risk' and 'vulnerable'." And he has to use examples from his job. yawn. Most boring assignment ever. Actually, I think his ethics assignment was worse. Can't complain though, cos the biatch has leant me money he knows he will never get back.

I haven't been to mum's yet, so I'm a bit worried. Dan tells me it's soooo different. There's apparently no old furniture in the house. She better have kept all my Babysitters Club books, that's all I'm saying. :P

Oh, can everyone who reads this... Ok. The two people who read this, can you please text me your mobile number (obvs say who it is in the text) cos I went to pick up my phone from the repair place today and the whole phone's been reset, and apparently, even clicking "Save contacts to SIM card" doesn't actually save your contacts to SIM. Yeah fun. So I have no phone numbers. Cheers!

If we took a holiday ... it would be, it would be so nice ...

So tomorrow I have 5 hours of work and then I'm off home. I absolutely cannot wait.
By Saturday I'll be wanting to go home immediately.

I'm looking forward to staying at my mum's place, especially since she's not there. I haven't been there in about a year. I hope Daniel leaves me the keys. Yeah, that's right, I don't have a key to my mum's place. I have the house keys that worked before my holiday to New Zealand in 2005. Getting back to find my keys didn't fit was fun. So yes, I will stay in her house, drink her coffee, obviously not eat her food, because she never was fond of stocking the fridge.

I called nan this morning and asked to borrow money. She sighed and said she would go to the bank in the morning. I'm a horrible person. I think I'll ask Daniel instead.

Why is it that I always go down to Sydney when I have no money? I look forward to shopping so much, and then get there and can only look. It hurts me! And there's so many things I want too. I'll have to hold off to my next weekend off, which is October 25th, but something seems wrong about going shopping on the anniversary of Nonno's death.

I've also been trying to sort out my study abroad application, and while one of the managers at work has promised to write me a personal reference, I need an academic reference. So far, I've emailed two of my tutors from last semester and haven't gotten a reply (rude!), so I think I've got to ask one of this semester's tutors. My options are horrible 1006 lady, the one who talks so slowly and treats us like babies. Then there's my history guy, who wouldn't be able to say anything nice about me because I'm the dumbest person in the class and I have nothing to actually say about anything we talk about. Plus, I'm afraid he'd make mention of my love of karaoke. I can't remember how this came about, but when the class gets too quiet or anything, he seems to love mentioning that I love karaoke, and why don't I whip out a couple of tunes? I do the "chuckle chuckle, give me a few drinks and then we'll talk," whilst knowing my face is bright red. Have I mentioned that HE mentioned this at a lecture? Singled me out and everything? Yeah. So no reference from him. The next options are the most likely: 1004 lady - I say a lot in her class and contribute, but I did pretty shit in the first essay, then there's creative writing guy - maybe. I'll have to talk to them.

On a completely different note, for some reason I left MSN open (I hate MSN. Stupid computer for automatically logging on) and my cousin Nadia in Italy came online and started talking to me before I could log off. I feel so bad because she's used to talking to me when I used to study Italian and could say a lot more, and I also used to live with my nan who could tell me the correct way to say something. Now when she talks to me, after the pleasantries of "Ciao" and "Tutto OK?" and "Si, e tu?" I have nothing left to say and have to quickly go, "Mi dispiace, ma non parlo l'italiano bene," and quickly say bye. Tonight's conversation was in the same vain. She's not feeling so well, it seems, and she's getting old, wants to know how Auntie Joan is. My Italian doesn't stretch so far as to say, "She's well, considering the dead husband and all." Poor Auntie Joan. I have to remember to drop by when I'm in Sydney. I'll take nan and make a day of it.

Speaking of Auntie Joan, I just found out that the rellos in Italy had a big mass for him there when he died. I just thought that was really lovely.

Nothing else. Except Sydney folks, I my phone's in for repair, so I don't have anyone's number. If you want to catch up at all this week text me and we'll do something.

Actually...

... I hate my haircut. The layers are uneven, all the more noticable due to the fact that I have to straighten my hair. }:

My phone is now in for repair, so until I can figure out how to use Leesha's phone that she leant me, I have no phone access. I'm officially uncontactable.... except via the internet.

I'm rethinking going to Chicago next year. It's just so expensive, especially considering how extensively I want to travel around Europe. sigh. That's OK. 2012 isn't too far away... sob. We'll see.

Rachel sent some photos of her in China. This one took my breath away:

Words don't capture it. I'm in love with this photo. Majorly jealous, also.

I need another gap year. I'm sure I've had more than my fair share of these, but I wish I could teach English overseas or something. At least next year will kind of be a gap-half-year.

I really hate how fragmented this post is.

Almost a GRRR

So, new haircut doesn't look at all good unless it's straightened. That's very annoying, seeing as I've gotten into the habit of just blowdrying my hair, otherwise it adds too much time onto my morning routine.

Hopefully it'll grow enough in the next few weeks so I can go back to just blowdrying.

Being a girl is too much effort.