Here are some things that have happened recently:

1. I voted for the first time ever. (today, ten minutes ago)
And I voted Green.

2. Andrew left for SxSW in Texas. (March 11)
He gets back in 17 days and I'm started to get a bit melancholy. However, good things to come out of this include: I know how to use Skype now, I am getting lots of uni work done, and Andrew met Gala Darling AND Quincy Jones and has the pictures to prove it! <3 <3 <3

3. I'm back at uni. (March 2)
It is not too bad. I really love my writing class, my Japanese class is just starting to get really challenging, and my anth one is... pretty boring. Which sucks a bit. And I have to write 750 words for it by Tuesday. I know, I know! It's not that much! But it's on boooring stuff, and I hate anthropological jargon... anyway. Uni is okay.

In more general news, things are pretty good I guess? I'm working so damn much but I get paid fortnightly from Job #2 and it goes straight into my savings account so it's pretty great watching it go BING, YOU ARE RICH every other week.

I have also started to learn the guitar, I am very bad at it but enthusiastic. Doing Music again feels pretty great.

I have ALSo been extra crafty lately. Example: my giant motherfucking sparkly bejewelled headphones. They are magical shining ear-jewellery and they reflect light exactly like a disco ball so basically, what more could I ask from a cranial accessory.

I know it's been seven weeks since my last post, but I promise there will be more than this next time. Just dropped in to say,

So recently I have been trying to assert to myself that I Have It In Me to Be A Writer. Unfortunately, this grossly conflicts with my Lazy-Ass Attitude to Any Sort Of Work.

The conundrum goes like this: I COULD painstakingly pause and unpause my voice recorder while transcribing the interview of mostly unusable material - OR, I could watch strings of YouTube videos that make me laugh!

Ha ha! YouTube! Ha ha ha.




Help me D:

Hey, y'all. So I know I barely posted at all last year, which is a bummer, right? So I've decided that since I'm using my NEW BLOG Pop Robin for some actual on-a-topic writery, I can keep up the ol' typing mechanism and use my good friend LiveJournal for some actual, live, journalling!

This is mostly because I want to whinge about shit in a public forum and I can't do it on Pop Robin, it will look unprofessional.

SO.

I have been doing some dumb shit recently. There is the regular dumb shit, where I catch completely the wrong bus and discuss loudly with my clueless friend how THIS IS STRANGE, IT IS GOING IN THE WRONG DIRECTION, just because I didn't look properly and I thought the 9 was a 5 and wasted a whole half hour trying to get back to a point from which we could catch the REAL bus, or when I went to the bathroom at a restaurant, key in hand, and walked the entire block of eateries looking for the damn thing until I realised that had I walked in the opposite direction I would have walked directly into the toilet -- you know, the usual. That kind of dumb shit usually makes me go, Oh, shucks! Gosh I'm silly, and then I berate myself for a bit for being so dumb, and then I let it go because it kind of makes me feel a bit happy-go-lucky and adorably flaky (a total illusion).

HOWEVER. Today I did something so EPICALLY DUMB, never again will I think that dropping something in the toilet equates me to Amelie-level cuteness.

To summarise: I opened a tube of Superglue by cutting one of the arse-end corners off (the lid was glued on! Shut up), glued what I needed to glue, then flung it into the bin, noticing and then completely forgetting the three droplets it had left on a junk-mail brochure resting on my desk. I forgot about those droplets so completely, in fact, that about ten minutes later, I set my phone down on that brochure -- squarely collecting all three droplets on the back of my flat, rectangular phone. Imagine my amusement when I picked it up again, to find the freakin' brochure firmly attached! Imagine how I laughed at my own clumsiness as I frantically tore the thing to shreds as I ripped the two asunder! Imagine my shrieks of joy at the disgusting, paper-fluff encrusted lumps of immovable Superglue disfiguring my sleek, beloved phone.

Thanks to Google, I discovered the best way of removing the stuff was acetone, which was thankfully contained in the nail polish remover I'm currently inhaling. Unfortunately, acetone is also the best way of removing the matte black paint from the panel on the back of my phone. So after an hour of picking and swearing and watching the paint bubble before my eyes, the cursed glue is gone, and I have an extremely shiny silver phone back already garnering fingerprints and scratches like a nude Miley Cyrus garnering media coverage.

Could be worse though, I suppose.

Hate to break a two-month-plus hiatus with swears, but seriously:

FUCK. YOU. GARTH. GEORGE.

Mr. George writes for the New Zealand Herald, and makes me ashamed to have lived in the same country as him. Eat a fucking dick, you old wrinkled ballsack. If women are the the most perfect and wonderful creatures in the world, HOW COME YOU DON'T WANT US TO MAKE OUR OWN CHOICES?

Christ.

In other news, my blog is up and running with an entirety of two (2) posts. Check it out: Pop Robin. If you have any suggestions for articles, I'd love to hear them.

So, guys:

I decided like four days ago that I Am Going To Be A Writer. One of the things I'm going to do in order to get that shit going is start a blog.

I know! Okay! Everyone and his shoe-horn has a blog. But it's not going to be lame whinges (coughlikethisonecough) - I'm going to be writing about pop culture.

Pop culture affects everyone: it's music, film, tv, fashion, internet trends, politics - all the cool stuff that people are into right now. Considering I want to write for magazines and street presses, this is good stuff for me to know, and also, it's way interesting!

The help I am asking from YOU (yes you, sir/madam) is possibly the Ultimate Question: what do I call it?

It's tempting to have something obviously pop-culture related (so far possibilities are poptron, popthing, popusup, even pop-cultures isn't taken), but I think I'd prefer something a little more general, in case I end up specialising or branching out.

I'll start my account with Blogger (so that's .blogspot.com). Any help from anyone would be hella appreciated!

It's been more than a month! I am sorry about that. My computer chucked the shits (that's a technical term) and I've only just got it back up and running. I LOVE YOU, RAPTOP, LET'S NEVER FIGHT AGAIN.

Uni is in full swing - I went on a field trip yesterday for my Anth class, it was pretty cool. Not exactly looking forward to writing the report for it though. I'm so in over my head in that class!

I got a letter of commendation from the Dean of the Arts faculty for my GPA of 6.25 (out of 7). I am quite chuffed! Hoping I can keep it up for the next few semesters, as good GPA equals more scholarships for study abroad (hello, Tokyo!).

I'm working a lot - have to be at work at SEVEN tomorrow in fact, uurgh will be such a long day - so lots of money, which I'm enjoying immensely. The people I work with are really cool, but I eat soooo much chocolate. Andrew told me today that Mimco are hiring casuals at the moment, and I think I will put in a resume. It is a bit of a dilemma - I'd really love to work at Mimco, and they pay quite a lot more than what I earn now, but what if I don't get all the hours I'm getting now, or the people are shit to work with? I guess I will try to check it out anyway.

I dyed a pair of my shorts blue about a week ago and they look awesome; I now want to dye EVERYTHING IN MY WARDROBE. Successful sartorial adjustments ftw.

I guess there is not a lot more to report - well, there is, but I am TOO TIRED to do so. Goodnight for now.

Dear Ladies and Gents,

As we speak (/I type, you read, whatever), if I go "HAHHH" into the air, I CAN SEE MY BREATH. Brisbane: It's Cold!

Not that I really mind right at the moment, as a) it is not raining (AWESOME) and b) I have a tomato sandwich and a cup of tea with me in my cosy little room of cluttered-ness, and I don't have to go outside today until like 4:30!

NEWSFLASH: I managed to drink my tea in the OPTIMUM AMOUNT OF TIME! It was still warm (but not mouth-burningly so) by the time I got to the bottom! SCORE ONE FOR SAM.

Anyway, onto the real stuff - it's the first week of semester, hooray! I have astoundingly managed to wangle my way into only being at uni for two (very full) days per week, which let me tell you is kind of BRILLIANT, especially for employers at whom I am waving resumes. Speaking of which, I'm working at Darrell Lea now, did I tell you? It's a chocolate shop, for all you non-Australians or lactose-intolerants or whatever. They really do give you all the chocolate you could possibly eat if you work there, which almost makes up for the horrendous pay rate.

ANYWAY. UNIVERSITY. Condensed, the gist of my argument is THIS SEMESTER IS GONNA BE FRICKEN SWEET. After some shuffling around to fix tutorial clashes, I'm now taking Cognitive Science 1000 Minds and Machines, which is mainly a philosophy course with aspects of psychology and neurology and SCIENCE thrown in (basically sounds like it was made for me!), Religion 1300, which is called Medition and Soul Journeys and which is already so much fun - we did a guided meditation in our first lecture! Writing 2120 - Screenwriting, which is this awesome opportunity for me to develop a film I've wanted to write for a long time, and Anthropology 2098, an Aboriginal heritage course which doesn't even HAVE tutorials (pretty cool!) and includes a field trip and other awesome deelies.

I'm really looking forward to everything! I think anth will be a lot of work, but all the others look like they'll be fun more than anything - one of the assessments for religion is to write a blog about your dreams, meditations and/or out-of-body experiences!

I'm going to Splendour in the Grass next weekend - very exciting, I'm probably gonna get loose, and the line-up is so good!

So many exclamation marks this entry. That's enough of that.

- Seeing people outside in their pyjamas.
- Getting up at nine, going back to sleep at eleven, and waking up at three in the afternoon.
- My new housemate Maud! She is from Paris, and is Totally Awesome and Fun.
- Making crepes with Maud! "More milk... more milk... not enough milk... more milk!"
- Cheap Japanese feasts.
- Cooking for my friends.
- Falling asleep and waking up in the arms of someone I love.
- Choosing my courses for this semester of uni! Yay, Meditation and Soul Journeys!
- The prospect of employment at either a chocolate shop or a tea store.
- Tomato sandwiches.

And of course, a whole lot more - but I have to go shopping for tomatoes now! Your turn - what do you love this Thursday?

Brought to you by Gala Darling, my favourite blogger and cupcake extraordinaire.

Did I ever tell youse guys about getting a migraine?

I'd never had one before, and a couple of months ago I got one CLASSIC, complete with sparkly-visioned prodrome and everything - although I didn't realise it was a migraine until afterwards, I just thought there was either a small animal inside my head gnawing its way out or I was having a stroke or something. Anyway, it hit at work, and it was awful, I kept dropping things and had to go and sit in the bathroom and take deep breaths so I didn't cry, for god's sake. It was intense!

Anyway, so on Sunday morning a couple of hours before I was meant to go to work, I got the prodrome again - one side of my peripheral vision blacked out - and I went, uh oh, am I going to get another migraine? Of course the answer to that question was YES, FUCK YOU, so I called work from my darkened, quietened room and said, I'm really sorry, I can't come into work. I'm fucked by this migraine. My head's gonna fall off.

So ten minutes later, my boss Sam calls me back and says I should find another job. They need someone more reliable.




Ahhhhhhhhh.


I hate hospitality so much. I just hate it so, so much. I've never ever called in sick before. I always showed up on time. I gave sooo much notice if I was going to be away for a weekend or something. It is very frustrating. I should really call Pete, the owner, and talk to him about this, to 'end on a good note' and get a reference or something, but I don't know what to say, except

NO MORE HOSPITALITY WORK FOR ME, EVER.

On another note: does anyone know of any jobs going at the moment? : D

I went home recently. It was my Mum's 50th on Saturday and the family went to Hamilton Island for a couple of days, and then back to Woopen Creek.

It's weird going home. I really like spending time with my family, but I sort of feel like I look at things differently now; there is like a veil of sadness over things, and I think, Is this adulthood? Does this mean I have grown up? I go home and I see how excited my sister is to have me around, and how my parents treat me so nicely but so differently too, and I feel like an outsider. I guess not just because I haven't been there for so long, but also because I don't really want to be there a lot? I don't know.

Mum and I drove into Cairns yesterday, and it was sunny and breezy and warm, with all the flowering canefields on the outskirts billowing about, and it was so... natsukashii. All these warm beachy car-trip memories came rushing back, feelings of my hair blowing out the back window of Guy's car surrounded by music equipment, being on the way to the beach for a bonfire and guitar-playing, or up the hill for looking at the stars... And I thought, But I don't even like Cairns that much! Where are these good memories coming from?

Funny the way that works.

I woke up this morning, and said to Andrew:

"I had a dream that my next-door-neighbour gave birth to an armless banana that later turned into an AFL player wearing a Spiderman suit."





...




I could elaborate - but I think I will just leave you with that little pearl from my subconscious.

Reading pages and pages of awesome blogs like this one and this one, and then sort of getting to awesome-funny-peak-capacity, putting my head down, squinting my eyes up like this >.< and giggling madly to myself.

*sigh* Best thing ever.

It's a pity the housemate with the best CD collection is moving out soon. He's basically my one-stop new-cool-kid-music shop. I've got Spoon, Air, Feist, the Raconteurs, Midnight Juggernauts, Daft Punk, Thom Yorke, Wilco, Sufjan Stevens, the Shins, Wolf Parade, Radiohead, Sigur Ros, Of Montreal, M.I.A., LCD Soundsystem, Death Cab For Cutie, and !!! so far. Dude's got intense music devotion - he buys all his CDs, hates downloading music. Memo to me: rip everything before he goes.

I've totally finished my philosophy essay, despite MICE under my BED being NOISY - wtf?! Aren't mice supposed to be QUIET?! I CAN SEE YOU, MOUSE. I CAN SEE AND HEAR YOU NIBBLING THE WALL OR WHATEVER THE FUCK YOU ARE DOING.

Okay: I love my boyfriend, but there is one thing that shits me more than ANYTHING about him - arguing about sexism! He's not sexist himself (we-ell, not THAT sexist, there is a certain level of damage from boys' schools and colleges that I am undoing) but he's SO DEFENSIVE about being sexist that whenever I make a comment about it - for example, today, I talked about how the (big, fat, old, male) doctor was REALLY condescending about my "women's problem" regarding the Pill (I'd thrown up a few hours after taking it a couple days ago and I had hoped that I wouldn't have to wait as long as I thought I would until it was effective again), and Andrew was all "OOH YOU'RE BEING SEXIST" and I was like, What, just because I said he was dismissive to me, probably because of my perceived "women's problems" and because I am a young, smallish girl? And he's all "OOH YOU'RE JUDGING HIM ON HIS GENDER" and I said - well, I yelled, on the phone - I AM NOT HAVING THIS ARGUMENT WITH YOU AGAIN, YOU'RE NOT A WOMAN SO YOU DON'T KNOW. GOODBYE.

FFS. No, I'm not judging the stupid old wanker on his gender, I'm judging him on his behaviour, and yeah, also on the behaviour of a number of OTHER stupid old wanker doctors about this kind of thing! I wish he could just say, "Oh, okay," instead of bringing some boring bullshit up that we've gone over ALREADY like a THOUSAND TIMES. It's emotionally exhausting for me to have to argue that It Is Sometimes Difficult For Me In Some Situations Because I Am Young And Female, all I want is to tell my damn story and have someone listen without being all DEFENSIVE about being SEXIST or WHATEVER.

Sorry for all the caps. I am so cross about this.

IT'S LUCKY THIS IS AN AWESOME FUCKING ALBUM

My morning has been full of it! First, two rainbow lorikeets landed on Andrew's verandah railing, and Dodds thought he'd try his luck with a bit of bread in his hand, and the parrots just hopped right on there, casual as can be! Hayley came out and we all stood about taking pictures of the birds sitting on hands and shoulders, being flashy and cocky and eating bread, cool as.

THEN - as you probably know, my room looks right onto the footpath, and I can see people walk past. Anyway, here I am at my desk, and a BUSH TURKEY just strolls past - right down the middle of the footpath! I like to imagine she's going for groceries.

So I really have interesting things to update y'all about! Check it:

1) There's this student-run free magazine called Universe, right, and I really like it, and it has fashion pages, right, and today I was walking to the refectory (after handing in my assignment, WOOO) and this girl bounds over to me and is all HI I'M WITH UNIVERSE CAN WE TAKE UR PICTURE PLZ?

I was like Aw hell yeah! So they took some photos and asked me some questions (Q. How much money do you spent on clothes? A. None. Q. Do you think you need money to be well-dressed? A. No. Q. What influences your style? A. What's in my wardrobe.) and I'll be in the next edition of Universe! All y'all Brisbane people, pick one up, it should be out in July.

Something like that does a girl's self-esteem hella good. In case you're interested, ( this is what I was wearing: )

2) Bad-ass cigarette-smokin'-lion-dude is in my anthropology course, right? We had some close contact today. I walked right past him when he was sitting outside waiting for class, and again when we handed our teacher evaluations in. He gives me tingles in my tummy! WHO IS THIS HEATH LEDGER DOPPELGANGER

3) Carmen and I bought Woollies out of mousetraps (all three of them). We now have FOUR mousetraps ready for action, smeared alluringly with peanut butter. DEATH TO THE MOUSES.

I've basically had enough of it, is what I'm trying to say. I finished my anthropology essay (it was on how sexuality in Samoa has changed since the conversion of most of the population to Christianity). It was interesting and I think I did an okay job but JEEZ I've had ENOUGH of looking at the SAME FOUR SOURCES that are ALL THAT APPEARS TO EXIST ON MY TOPIC.

Goodness.

I have so much uni work to do at the moment. Freakin' philosophy exam this Wednesday that I am Royally Buggered for (that's a technical term). Haven't been to half the lectures or done ANY of the reading... looks like it'll be a few all-nighters for me.

SPEAKING of all-nighters, I went out with Daniel Gouge on Saturday night, along with Nuala and Sorcha (I left my cardigan at their house, woe is me, sartorially!), Brenton (who was a bit weird and come-on-ish), Jiva, Lija, April, etc. It was sort of weird because I never really hung out with any of them at school much; April and I were in the same drama class, Brenton and I hung out a bit when I was going out with Jesse, and I used to work with Nuala and Sorcha so I'm comfortable with them, but yeah, it was an interesting crowd to be going out with. Daniel and I ended up dicing everyone and par-tay-ing in the Met by ourselves. It was really good to spend some time with him, even if it was mostly shouting in each other's ear and giggling boozed-ly. He leaves for Berlin for A YEAR today; good luck Daniel!

Srsly though I'm never going out in the Valley again. I spent SO. MUCH. MONEY. And I didn't even buy any of my drinks! Ten bucks to get into GPO for FIVE MINUTES, fifteen (!!) to get into the Met, grumpy bouncers and huffy door-bitches, constantly losing everyone and having to be super-vigilant re: random arse grabs... not my idea of a good time.

I'm going to leave it there for now and continue this update when I get home (there's a lot of stuff I kinda want to document, y'all); right now I gotta print this baby and hand it in a whole HOUR AND A HALF EARLY. Awww yeeahhh.

Peace!

I really love the GoMA (Gallery of Modern Art) building. It looks like a 3D architectural model, like a weird prototype pitch that you see on big billboards with 'COMING SOON!' written underneath, except it's REAL.



( And another... )

Another thing I really love: 'Love Of My Life' by Queen. I was listening to Queen on shuffle on the bus a week or so ago and that song started playing. I hadn't heard it before (I am bad with my music like that, all "HELLO YES I WILL BORROW YOUR CDS but never listen to them all the way through.") and I thought Oh, this is nice - it starts with piano and guitar and harp and Freddie singing on his own - and then - and THEN - the HARMONIES came in with the second verse and - well - I was almost brought to climax. I gasped! On the bus! They've got to be five-part close harmonies, and they're AMAZING. All I want to do with my life is get a bunch of people together and DO THAT SONG.

I had fun briefly hanging out with Stephanie and Rastko today. Rastko inexplicably looked dashingly handsome, I expect to see him on the cover of a romance novel any day now. I look forward to seeing the lady he was talking about... He met her at a party or something, apparently she does poetry readings and theatre performances and she "usually masturbates at the end". I can dig it!

And the last thing I want to say today: I saw the cigarette-smoking lion again today. Stephanie saw him too! - he really does look like Heath Ledger. And the thing is, he did exactly the same thing as before, spotted us and leaned against one of the pillars outside the library, lit a cigarette and fixed his gaze on us. And - somehow - he's in my anthropology lecture! The mystery deepens... I hope he didn't see me whisper and giggle about him. I want to see what happens next.

ANYWAY.

It was Mother's Day today, and I worked. The cafe that I work at is really popular, and we were flat out all day. At one point a couple, maybe in their fifties, with a dog, approached me, and the woman asked, "Is it possible for us to sit at this table?" in the best French accented voice ever. I had to say no, this one is booked, we're flat out because of Mother's Day, and she was like, "Oh! We did not even think of this 'Mother's Day' thing! We forgot all about it."

HOW COOL IS THAT. This charming elegant polite Frenchwoman, her moustachioed husband and waggy Rottweiler all just forgot that Mother's Day even existed. How much would I like to grow up and be her. To have a man and a dog and be so blissfully complete that I could forget about Mother's Day. She looked like the thought of having children had never even crossed her mind.