i am not belle

I couldn’t afford a plane ticket to south-east Asia, so I decided to squat over a claypot for fifteen minutes crushing garlic cloves. Ahh… I’m there!

Well, it paid off in the end, because I had concocted yummy peanut sauce to accompany my summer Vietnamese rolls. I have been having them for the past two days. It was a nice alternative to eating out. I forget how lovely homemade food can be. I also had to stay home because I needed to cram for my biotech exam on Tuesday. It’s only Saturday today, but considering I will be out for most of tomorrow- Newtown Festival, I figured I could make the most out of today. I was trying to not write anything, because nothing gets in when I write. I spent the focus on writing instead of the info that’s actually there. I got through six lectures today. Woo!

I am so full. Blergh. Can’t wait for tomorrow. Hope the weather is going to be good. The weather reports have indicated that it would probably be raining this weekend, but it hasn’t rained all day today. In fact, in the middle of the afternoon, there was some considerable sunshine, and the sky looked pretty good as well. Hopefully, the clouds would have moved interstate or out to sea by tomorrow.

Ew, I’ve been sitting at my desk all day and I haven’t washed my hair in two. It’s so greasy, I could shape my bangs into a mohawk (without product!) Better get washing.

This makes studying biotech much more interesting!

The thing about having exams at the Racecourse is that it reeks of horse manure. Luckily for me, I shall be spending the better half of the day there on Thursday, occupied by the chem and psych exam. I wonder who else will be unfortunate enough to have two exams at the same place with about two and a half hours in between wandering around. Although, nothing is really more exciting than having an exam in the Pavilion, being surrounded by people, half, who are as clueless as you are. For the maths exam last Friday, I spent the better half staring at the UNSW library from a distance trying to figure out how long it would take if I were to actually walk there from St Leger’s Bar. We had our exam in a bar, by the way. I wasn’t sure if I mentioned that before, but now that I think about it, I don’t think I had. I was placed at the very back, so I didn’t feel too conscious about people glancing over and knowing I have no idea what I’m doing. I checked out the back menu- $8 for a bottle of Becks (getouttahere!) St Leger’s Bar is situated on the fourth floor of this larger complex. There were several of them. We had to take several escalators to get there. The Pavilion is the main area, I think. I never had a night exam before. That’s gotta totally suck. If I didn’t have anything right after chem, I would’ve went home to sleep. Maybe, I can squeeze in a half hour nap underneath the Meeting Tree..

Anyway, after Yum Cha yesterday, we came back home and I had a sleep. I woke up in the evening with a splitting headache, though my aim was to study after that nanna nap. I tried to get rid of the headache: Panadol, water, orange juice, even ice cream. The Magnum bar was the last straw, which made me obtain 300 empty calories. I couldn’t stand any noise at that point because the headache had gotten so bad, so I tried to sleep it all off. I woke up feeling much better, at 3am. Timing was totally out of whack. I hadn’t really thought about that. Slept through Halloween. Booo =(

I have Cornerstone by Arctic Monkeys on repeat in my head.

Despite my sealed doom come 2pm tomorrow, I still find myself in a state of panic in regards to the maths exam. What happened to ‘I’m going to fail it, so I’m not going to bother’? I hate how I’ve disobeyed my plans. I went to uni today to make the last of my cramming with Ulrika, Anson and Stan. We got some things done. I went through piles of notes that may or may not be related to what I would be tested on while the table next to us was buzzing with tutorial exercises. I bet they’re definitely more ready than I am. I didn’t touch the practise exam questions til I got home, and I’ve just finished paper from last year’s just now- 4 hours after I got home. Mind you, I have two hours to finish the same format paper tomorrow. Oh dear. It’s a good thing the exam is in the afternoon, though. I’ll get it over and done with and head straight on to psych and chem. Oh, treacherous, treacherous. I’ll be celebrating next Thursday, even though I’m not technically finished. It’s definitely a feat, but not so much of one compared to some of my friends who have three exams straight. Holy cow, why is the keyboard sticky? I’ll need to disinfect this. Ew.

No, seriously. This is rather uncomfortable. I’m going to put methylated spirits over them now.

Oh, I’ve also done a tres crappy job on my biotech report, which is due tomorrow, which I handed in today. Half the amount required with a really poor and confused discussion at the end. I am hoping for, what, 3 out of 15 for this?

So tired. I’m going to go and rest now. Hopefully, all this will stay in my head tomorrow.

Goodnight x

I went to the state library yesterday with Joey, Stan and Chin. I’ve only been there once last year, and that was with Anson and I remember specifically, because it was the first time I tried the apple pie from Maccas. Anyway, I obviously couldn’t remember how fucking anal the system is over there, because if I had, I would have suggested going to the uni library instead. It was compulsory to rent a locker (free of charge), not bring in any food or our bags and we had to write on blank strips of cards any published books we were bringing in, so they could check it on our way out. That was ridonkulous. I don’t think I’ll ever willingly agree to go there to study ever again. Despite all that, we got a lot of studying done, well, at least I got a fair few things done- 1 lecture. Ugh. Still have heaps to go before the maths final on Friday. It’s Wednesday already. Time just flew by very, very quickly, and by next Thursday, I would have to have had chemistry and psychology down pat. I think I shall have to go out after Friday’s exam and stock up on food so I don’t leave my house for the rest of the next week.

The weather was lovely today. It got less sunny in the afternoon, but it was still sorta humid. Went to Joey’s to get some stats done and we went to Cabra to search for food. Sadly, Cabramatta has a distasteful habit of closing all their yummy food stores at around 5, so we didn’t get to have fried banana. Dammit. The sugarcane place was still opened, and the owner was dancing as he was mopping. It was cute :O) I forget how deserted the place can be as you’re approaching 8, but not that we stayed that late.

Oh man. Bitch, bitch, bitch. Even a hefty amount of Roses chocolate and kudong tea won’t bring me out of this miserable state. We all have to feel it some time. It wouldn’t be too healthy to always be happy and carefree, wouldn’t it? I was never really sure. I wonder if too much of a good thing was ever bad for you, like feeling happy-go-lucky. Though, that’s probably more of a character trait than a temporary feeling. I don’t see the bad side of it though, feeling carefree all the time. Most people would want to feel like that, I imagine. Nobody wants to feel run down, at all, unless you’re one of those people who insist they’re at their productive peak when under pressure and such. I suppose you would get bored, wouldn’t you? If you were motivated to do/achieve something, you would kind of encourage yourself to get there, and that would be considered pressure. So, does that mean, if you were constantly relaxed and stress-free, you have no goals? I don’t think I phrased the concept as properly as I should have, but hopefully, you get the gist. Essentially:

If you were always in the stressless, carefree state of mind, are you more advantageous than the people who do worry, even occasionally? What is your state of mind if you were in the former category and were trying to achieve something (whatever it be)? Can you maintain that carefree state of mind while working yourself? And if it were possible, I wonder how long this mindset would last before you got bored, assuming that nothing external will happen to stop you.

Ways of Reasoning (ARTS2366) is running over the summer session. I am contemplating taking it up, that’s if I fail to find a job to keep me busy. I have taken the appropriate units to be able to take it up as a subject. Hmm. Might be interesting. It runs from the 30th of November to the 11th of December, and it’s being taught by Michaelis Michael (whose Metaphysics and Epistemology course I took last semester. It was ace!) Maybe if I can find somebody to take this course with me..

Back to biotech report. I really should be heading off to bed right now. Ouch, or else I’ll be late tomorrow.

P.S. I just realised this as I was writing, but how funny is this:

1st
11th
21st
31st
41st
… and so on.

Is 10 (110, 210, etc) the only unit where the 1 is denoted by a ‘th’ instead of a ‘st’? Well, it obviously is, but, hurh.

Despite the terrential downpour, I headed into uni today. As aquaculture gathered in my shoes, I was starting to doubt how wise the decision was. Chin and Ash had booked a study room in the library and had it til midnight, which was awesome. The bad thing about the rooms is that there are gaps on top of each side of the walls, so there really isn’t much privacy, especially when any talking is involved. You practically have to whisper to not get interrupted by the people next door telling you to keep it quiet. Come on, it was a Sunday. There were enough people there to make it look like a Thursday afternoon. I did some mass printing and actually got to the point where the printer ran out of paper. That problem was quickly fixed. With paper.

I don’t know what happened after that, but time flew by very quickly. Jacob came and joined us in the afternoon and we had ordered pizza. I can’t eat crusts so where was a stack of them in the corner. Some people say that the crust is the best bit of the pizza. I hate it. It’s just dough!

Did very little studying, if that includes skimming through your psych notes and highlighting every second dot point. I felt like highlighting everything, but I might as well have highlighted nothing, and the only good thing about highlighting is that you get to differentiate between relevant and not-so-relevant points. Needless to say, I was in no mood to do any sort of analytical thinking this afternoon. I blame the weather. And my wet shoes.

Ate raw salmon as soon as I got home. I feel like a Magnum later on tonight. I’ve been doing a lot of work. I deserve it. Well, it’s not technically a reward if I am feeding it to myself. Not like anybody else is here to acknowledge it, but that’s the best part about being by yourself. You don’t need to set yourself up to impress anybody.

I may or may not head into uni tomorrow. At this stage, it’s looking very unlikely, especially if the weather is going to be anything like it was today. Long commuting hours isn’t all that encouraging, either. Might give it a miss, but I do need to borrow Joey’s stats notes. Even though we’re doing different stats courses, we’re learning along the same lines every week, so hopefully it should help. I need to spend more time on chem equations and memorising. Argh, the perils of memory. How I lack capability in it.

I need a drink.

So much for a storm. Stupid Yahoo weather. I woke up to find the house empty (as per every Saturday). I briefly remember my dad coming into my room and telling me that he and my mum are going shopping, but I must’ve went back to sleep shortly after that. I woke up at a decent time (11am) and got procrastinating, first by eating a banana, making tea and ruffling through pages and pages of work that I need to get through by the end of the coming week. I’m thinking of heading into uni tomorrow, even though it’s another three hours wasted commuting and probably not doing anything. Since I am not doing anything tonight, and probably won’t be until the 10th of next month, I figured this would be a good substitution for going out. Man, I hate it when people are trying to help you out, but they end up making things even worse. Like, my dad keeps turning on the light unnecessarily when I’m trying to study because he assumes I won’t be able to read because it’s too dark. I know he means well, but, ah well. I need to be in some dungeon where I can just not be distracted by anyone.

How do you work with music? I know people who can’t study well without it. I, on the other hand, cannot study with any background noise. It’s pretty distracting. Refer to dungeon reference above.

Am finding it hell to look for articles related to this final report for biotech. Way too much reading to do. I don’t even understand half the things these articles talk about. Too many measures, too many letters and too many tables. Science, why do you hate me? I can’t risk procrastinating though, even though I’m on here writing about it. The thing is worth 15% of the course mark and we’re required to write 12 pages, 12-point font and single-spaced. Death! Like, really?? Fuck this shit.

Back to gases.

What kind of songs would he write?

It was the last day of uni for 2009 today. I am ever so glad. Sadly, I still have to come in next Friday to hand in my biotech report, which I have not started because I do not know what to write, and if I had maybe tried, I would have made something from running around like a headless chook for four hours every Monday for the past twelve weeks. I have a feeling I am going to get very little done over the weekend, so maybe I’ll force myself to come into uni on Sunday so I can print stacks and stacks of notes without holding up a queue. I bet the library is going to be full.

I also managed to get my calculator approved. Finally! If I wasn’t going to do it today, I’d never do it. I hate how some school offices close at very indecent hours of the day, like between 11-3. How long does it take to fucking each lunch? Do they leg it to Double Bay and back? Is that why is takes so long?

Macquarie Hotel is apparently the new Place To Be. I don’t get it. I mean, sure it’s local and everything, but is it really that big of a deal? There is something a little disheartening about getting dressed up only to realise that I’m going to a venue that’s little more than a 15 minute drive away. I’ve never seen this place in my life, but for the past few months, that’s all I hear people raving about on Facebook. I got over clubbing when I was 18. Maybe I’m too boring for this kinda thing.

I ate all the pineapple last night. I wish I hadn’t because now I don’t know what to snack on at 1.30am while watching Rage.

I didn’t have any classes today as lectures for most courses had finished last week. I did get some studying done in the library and Ash so kindly and patiently explained redox reactions to me and I can now do them. It definitely took a while. The only trouble with preparing for exams is that I am never quite sure which subject to study for first. My only focus at the moment is trying to get this blasted emotions report done and handed in on time.

Holy crap, it was so hot today. I wore shorts today and my legs were pale in the morning, but by the end of the afternoon, there was a deep tan running. Buuurrrn. I can’t wait for the Newtown Festival on the 8th of next month. By then, I would have gotten three exams out of the way (if I show up to maths, it would be three). Yay! Can finally relax, and possibly start looking for casual summer jobs. Most of them are retail though, and I am not really interested in that field. There was an article in a newspaper a while ago (weeks, months?), which broadly accused Generation Y of being too picky with jobs. There was a girl featured in the article, and she’s worked in about every sector I could even consider about looking for a job in, and she liked none of them. When I was in high school, I had found the idea of being a waitress rather aspiring. After hearing about so many disaster hospitality related stories, it’s turned me off the role. I don’t think I would make a very good waitress, anyway. One of the benefits, I reckon, is how quickly you’d get guns. Oh man, they have pretty nice arms, well the ones I’ve seen anyway. I worked in a call centre for about a year and quit this past March. I just couldn’t stand it. The people there were so friendly and I’ve made a few lasting friendships, but other than that, the job was tedious and boring and too routine. I didn’t like the idea of sitting down for several hours a day on a phone and computer. I needed to be moving around at least, get my blood flowing sort of thing. The article was right though: we are becoming way too picky. At least, I think I am. I wish I could be like “I’ll do whatever job it is, as long as I’m earning my own income” (except prostitution or anything degrading like that). Well, maybe-

I kid, I kid. I’m tired of talking about jobs. Not that I’ve went on quite a lot about it. I just finished studying for the night. I’ve been making steady progress for the past three nights. The only downside is, I can’t get to sleep before 2AM now. Something is keeping me up, or maybe it’s because I’ve been waking up late, since I haven’t been showing up to a lot of my morning classes. Last chem lab tomorrow and I would go, but I had a look in my manual and realised I hadn’t even done the safety pre-lab. It isn’t fair, they didn’t have pre-lab put down in the manual schedule. Oh well. I could miss out two without pHailing. See what I did there? See? See?

This kuding tea is making me cringe, but I can’t stop drinking it.

Such a sad song. I’ve only heard part of it once, and I never want to hear it again due to the given circumstances at the time.

I finally lodged my tax return this afternoon. I crashed Joey’s study mojo because I had saved most of the process of lodging on her computer. Only needed to get one thing done, quicker than I thought. My parents are both out today and so I had the car to take me wherever I fancied. I wanted to get Maccas afterwards, til I realised I had no money on me. Sad. Off home I go. I guess it would’ve helped. I’m getting monthly cravings again. Would not have helped me in my attempts to detox at all. Yes, “attempts”.

I do need a colour notebook and a very good working pen to get me back in the mode of studying though. It’s surprising how powerful stationery can be. I ceased all study when I realised I needed to write things down, but I was disappointed with the quality of my blotchy pens. So much crap due in the next week. Bitch, bitch, bitch. I’m sure people have got it worse off than me, so I shouldn’t complain.

Also need more cranberry juice. Write it down. I have three final exams (not including maths, because, well, fuck it). Statistics makes me puke. I don’t get it at all. Maybe I would have understood it if I went to the lectures, but you don’t understand, they’re so tediously BORING.

Shopping list:
cranberry juice
vanilla ice cream
bananas
colour leaf notebook
good pens
praise stickers (for the heck of it)

Am going to get a classic Magnum now. Yummerz.
What. Detox?

Went out to Nails’ 21st birthday last night at Sushi-e. I am such an idiot for not taking photos. I have good reason- there were already so many cameras in effect, I figured they would up uploaded sooner or later and I can just take those. I would essentially be taking the same sort of photos anyway. Sushi-e was on level 4 of the Establishment Hotel. Really good food and a Justin Long look-a-like waiter guy made my night. Nails’ was already half drunk halfway through the 10 course dinner, which was paid for by the birthday girl. Thanks darlin’ for a great night! Argh, I will have to accompany pictures to this post, as soon as somebody uploads them! Amansbra and I went home after dinner because we were really beat. I woke up this afternoon at 1. I was so tired. I still haven’t done some decent study for stats. Am probably going to be screwed this coming Friday. Oh well. Hopefully, I’ll win them over with my sick probability skillz.

Am taking it easy today, like a lot of people, I assume. It’s a pretty warm day, my thermometer reads at 24 degrees celcius. It’s going to be around 30 tomorrow, I hear. It would be so nice I guess, to go to a beach or something, but I suppose most people would be cramming to finish off last minute uni assessments and such.

I went to the uni library the other day to borrow a biography on Edie Sedgwick, which I will need for a psychology personality assignment. Can’t wait to start and get this over with. I know nothing of Edie Sedgwick than from what’s on Wikipedia and Factory Girl. Even though the book was reserved, I couldn’t find it in the Reservations section and it was actually held in the reservations section behind the main desk, because it had nudie pictures (LAWL). Anyway, the librarian was gushing about how much he loved the book and how it was really good and told me about his Andy Warhol tour around Greenwich Village in New York and to the place where Edie caused a fire in an apartment building while sleeping with a lit cigarette. It was really interesting, he’s quite a character. I enjoyed listening to his stories. I would have stayed longer, had I not been in a rush to meet the Bourgeouis King for lunch. Maybe next time.

I wonder if I can do a post-grad in design after a science degree? I hate when my mind is all over the place about my own future. So much for stability. I want to be everything, it’s almost a little sick.

Ahh… such a nice day. Really don’t want to pull out the books and ruin it all now.