Posting to end the year. Not much to say right now, since it's late. Might update tomorrow with thoughts and stuff.

Anyway, a list of things that have happened recently!
Zom visited. I'm going to be an aunt! Squee.
Jeff will be working in Singapore, he's leaving on January 5th.
Awesome Christmas presents (which make me feel like a spoilt brat):
Wii from mum
New monitor from dad
iPhone from Jeff...

and the most awesome...
Chocolate tetris from John! Pics later too, if I remember.

I'm working pretty much all day every day at a cherry farm at the moment. It's about four hours out of Magill. May be working for another week or so... they're short-staffed at the moment, too. Anyone want a job sorting cherries?

Anyway, catch you guys soon, hopefully. Have a good new year!

Oh, check out my entry into this year's Comikaze 24 Hour Challenge, here.

Anyhow, putting this list up here for myself

Stuff that has to be done after exams:
Piano practice. Lots of it, (yeah, right). Exam on July 12th.
Music theory stuff.
New website design?
Work on a comic. (Anyone wanna script something?)
Sleep.
Find some kind of fun forum or something to hang out on. Update: Yay for serendipity!
Draw, paint, art, that sorta thing.
Pokemon team for AVCon?
Art for AVCon? (I should probably follow that up, hurm) Update: done, kinda.
AVCon?

Realistically speaking, I don't think I'll get much done at all. Especially now that I've said it has to be done...

le sigh. I thought I was unmotivated before. But this puts that all to shame. Or rather, me to shame.

I swear, I'll start studying some time...

Maybe?

Also: I miss you. I cannot say this enough because it's true. I hope living isn't in something done in vain. I hope we can talk again someday.
Less-than-three,
Ale

How do you mourn someone you've never met?

Should you be mourning already because you know they "won't make it" or should you hope for a miracle?

This is so unfair...

So starts my little log of our American adventures.

Day 1: Saturday January 20th

We wake up early and head off, a troupe of my family, and my cousin's family. (plus dog). A long line to check in, and then waiting to board the plane... saw Hugh Flint there, waiting for the same flight. Well, he saw me. We exchanged a few words but I was hazy.

My sister insisted that I needed a good book. I "ooh"-ed at "Life of Pi," and she got it for me. I think I'm meant to drop it off in San Fran so she can read it next.

Plane flight to Sydney was okay.

Cruised through Sydney and caught our flight to Los Angeles. Was okay too... finished "Life of Pi" (good read, it's kept me thinking) and heard a nice rendition of Pachebel's Cannon. Drew a Zebra to celebrate.

Dinner was nice, but breakfast was awful... not in taste, but it really didn't agree with my already growing nausea. Threw up a couple of times... euuugh.

Day 2: Saturday January 20th

Immigration in L.A. was pretty slow. There was a huge line of people snaked through the room. I had my fingerprint scanned and a mug shot taken of me... so messy and tired.

Jeff wouldn't let us sleep. He got a hire car (Oh my God, everything's flipped! The roads are WRONG. Being a non-driver, though, I think I was able to adapt... slightly.) while Abby and I played with a vending machine. Yielding to hunter-gatherer instincts, I proudly placed a $1 note and a quarter into the machine, and was rewarded with Pringles... which I wasn't really in a state to eat. The first thing we did when we arrived at our hotel was to crash and set up the internet stuff. Then we headed out to a place called The Grove, which is kinda a shopping boulevard or something. Had lunch (which I was uncertain about my ability to hold down) and browsed the stores.

Then we went to Macy's, and shopped around there too. I actually went clothes shopping! I got a cute dress for US$21.97. Tracy got two dresses for $40.01, of which I provided 1 cent and Karma quickly returned it to me: I found a less shiny penny on the floor.

More browsing and stuff, and we've finally turned in to the hotel. It's around 7:30 PM, but it feels so much later: it's Winter here at the moment and the days are short.

I think this journal has hardly started to scratch my impressions of America. It's my third time here, but the massive cars and food servings still surprise me. Abby kept taking photos of the huuuuge jeeps and stuff in the carparks. They swamp the other cars...

Anyway, we should have good internet access while I'm in LA. So ask me whatever you want about America, land of the free...

Sunshine,
All around me,
Kids are happy,
Like Day Camp should be.

Day Camp, really extreme!
That's right, extreme!
That was our theme!

Don't tell me,
You can't see,
What it means to me.

Bowling, craft and cricket,
Making new friends,
Gonna miss it.

Day Camp, really extreme!
That's right, extreme!
That was our theme!

God's been here,
Give a cheer,
For an extreme year!

Meanwhile, when the day's gone,
All us people,
Are unwakeable.

Day Camp, really extreme!
That's right, extreme!
That was our theme!

Don't tell me,
You can't see,
What it means to me, me, me...
Don't tell me,
You can't see,
What it means to me.
Me, me, me...

Day Camp is over!

Our theme this year was, "Taking it to Xtremes" because God and Jesus did some pretty extreme things. Each day also had an "ex" word that connected to a Bible story: extraodinary, exactly, example, exceed and expect. Each of the first four days also had an extreme sport: BMX, rockclimbing, surfing and skateboarding.

My kids were the most awesome kids. This year we had a pure reception class, so just 10 of them instead of the usual joined 20 to 30. They were adorable. One of them wrote a card to say how she would miss us and to thank us for making Day Camp so fun. Another wouldn't leave yesterday until he had the chance to say goodbye to each of the leaders.

They leaders were so wonderful. My co-coordinator, Jenny, did most of the activities and work for me. The kids really loved our year 10 leader Laura and our year 8 leaders, Jenna and Miles. The Year 8's really surprised and awed me. They connected so well with the kids. We also tortured them and wrapped them up like mummies in toilet paper.

Crafts were neat, Jumping Beans was incredible fun (even though they got tired out quickly this year) and even though it rained on Friday we had a great carnival. Also, they set up the jumping castle INSIDE the church, which was awesome. The dunking machine and water fight seemed overkill considering the rain, but it was cool (in more ways than one).

Anyway, America bound. Seeya folks!

My cousin had her "21st" birthday party this Saturday. It was a "Jazz" theme and the first time I was actually invited to one of the "older kids'" parties. Mainly because of the other invitees: some of my WoW guild mates from Adelaide and Melbourne.

Sometimes I forget how shy I am. Well, I am. But I got to put some faces to names... but knowing multiple names for one person gets confusing @.@

Guildies are cool, older than me (some not by much, I was invited to a 19th Birthday party last year but I had Dellie's party) and they can drink to challenge my brother and cousin... Dad, who's in our guild, went to meet them too, and I think he had fun. Mum didn't dress up for the Jazz theme: she went as a "Chinese washer woman", because "every society had or needed one."

Speaking of WoW and my parents, my father is baaaad. (He's a WoW nerd!) He turned up an hour late for dinner tonight with my sister, (home from America for a while) because he was playing WoW! We had to call up one of the people he was playing with to tell him off.

I have three phone numbers of KoL folks in San Fran. Don't know if I'll meet them, but if I do then I know where some of my Tim Tam stocks are going...

I was going to post some meaningless depressing drabble, but I realised it was stupid. But in the process of editing it in my mind, I realised that I actually did have resolutions for this year. I don't think I've ever made a New Year's Resolution before... The main one, of course, is:
Be Happy. I've got a head start on this one, I think.

I'd like to live for, and enjoy the moment, but I don't think I can. But maybe I will try harder with my studies and such.

Maybe.

I can't believe it's a new year. I don't like change.

Ale.

I set a deadline for Wednesday, but I didn't get it. So close...

And now I'm too burnt out to finish whatever it was that I had planned. Apathy, bleh. I don't particularly even feel like moving or sleeping, I really just don't want to do anything because then I get a feeling as though I should be doing something else.

If I get to sleep tonight, then I hope I'm refreshed tomorrow.

And I'm sooooo scared about my physics mark...

Well, to be brief: my brother, his girlfriend, our cousin and I are hitting America (and Canadia) next year!

Here're some rough dates for where we're gonna be:

Saturday 20th January: We leave Aus! Also, we arrive in LA. That's ridiculous. (It may or may not be funny)
Thursday 25th: Leave LA for Vegas.
Monday 29th: Leave Vegas for San Fran.
Thursday 1st February: To Vancouuuuuuver.
Saturday 3rd: To Whistler! Our main destination, for skiiiiing.
Saturday 10th: Back to Vancouver, then home? Other stuff?

And an odd thought: I won't be an adult until we get back. An ingenious plan to extend my childhood! (This leads into another possible blog topic, but I won't blog on that until I'm angsty or something.)

I'm not allowed to be independent. Despite the fact that, "You should learn to be independent", he won't let me, say, catch the bus into town. If I do anything, he has to be informed.

In year 8, I did a project. I listed my family, "Mum, Dad, Jeff, Zoe, me."

He asked, "Why aren't I first?"

When I go to bed, he demands to be told. If I leave the car, then I have to give him a peck on the cheek.

He's sensitive and leech-y. Is it because he's old and insecure? Maybe. Maybe he just wants to be a part of my life... sure, he is. But to a certain point it gets clingy and annoying.

And then, there's her.

I'm not allowed to be angry or sad. These emotions should be squashed out as soon as they surface. Crying is absolutely out, and should be punished severely. People who are depressed are usually idiots.

If I make a simple mistake, then it was probably something obvious which should have been avoided.

I just want to have her support. She's getting better at that. Or maybe to her, the stakes just aren't as high anymore. I want her to see my side of things again, to let me voice my opinion and not squash me out with "no, I remember it happened this way. You must be remembering it completely wrong".

I want her to support me by standing next to me. Not by shooting holes through an argument and then telling me that is was to strengthen said argument.

Do I want these things from them because I'm being unreasonable? Because I want to challenge the status quo? Or am I just being idealistic? If they switched roles...

Okay, Doctor Who ended last week. Second season in a row that they've done a moving ending, this time far more than the first.

So anyway, with the series (uh, not counting the old one) off TV for the moment, I've had to sate the obsessed Whovian that I am with fanfics. Hey, I'd probably be going for the fanfics even if they continued straight on into the next season, because of certain characters leaving... (don't want to spoil it, eh).

Problem is, the best fics are the ones that deal with that very angsty season final... so uh, yeah. *sniffle*

I desperately want the next season, and now.

On another note, I got my Pokemon fix last night. One of the guys at AUVGA had Pokemon Diamond and he let me start a new game and stuff to see what it was like. I should be tied over until next year. Maybe.

Okay, I'm sure you all know, I have an irrational dislike of Firefox. It is one of my sworn enemi-- well, not really.

Anyway, my brother breezes by me at the computer and tells me to "Download Firefox and use it,"
"Yeah, I have it. Is that a recommendation or an order?"
"Well..."

Anyway, I'm apparently now a Firefox convert. Ick. I now remember some of the reasons I don't like it...
1) The tabs! I don't see how people like them. They're horrible to navigate with and to organise windows.
2) Also, I hate how the browser opens tabs whenever I use the middle-click. With my tablet, I have to use the middle button often because it doesn't scroll like most scroll-wheels do. Now if I do this to scroll through somewhere filled with links, say, the KoL chat, it opens tabs. UGH. Also, it scrolls too fast... and I can't find an option to turn that sensitivity down.
3) Google toolbar. I've downloaded the Firefox extension but it will take me a while to get accustomed to the slightly changed layout.
4) Saved forms. I want to be able to selectively delete things saved in forms, like I can do in IE. For Firefox, it's all or none.
5) Not Firefox's fault, but I have to re-login to everything and stuff. Bleh.
6) TABS. Grr.
7) Haven't logged into KoL today, but I think that some of the pages appear slightly off when viewed in Firefox. By which I mean the chat pane, and the way it sits in the browser window. Will have to check this eventually, though.

So... eh. I think my problem is that I don't like change. Still... I'm starting to wish there was a Windows version of Safari I could have fer free.

Well, just posting to say I'm alive.

Also, as I've already said, I can't believe it's been over a year. And I can't believe it's been almost two years. Time flies...

Also, also, I think I may be going skiiiiing in February next year! Canadia! I heard something about stopping by in San Fransisco, so maybe I can meet up with som KoLers or something...

I was going to get the new Pokemon games if they were out in America first, but it seems they won't be out until March-ish and that they won't be compatible with the old ones from Aus. *shrug*

Note: this is copy/pasted from another (private) 'blog' I own. I am too lazy to rewrite it all but some bits have been 'censored'.

Whoo. Last couple of days have been rather stresssssful. They've also resulted in very late/early bedtimes of 3 and 4 am, respectively.

We will start with my EPDC report, of which the draft was due yesterday.

My group did a reasonable amount of work, but a lot of it was... eh. On Wednesday I had to volunteer to edit the work that had been done, and write up the executive summary, introduction and conclusion (final proposal). This was all fine and good, and although we were a bit short in terms of page count, there weren't really any issues... apart from the extra work I was doing.

Then in the process of editing, I spot a quote that is unreferenced. This has to be rectified, yes? So I google it in the hopes of finding the source.

And the source is exactly what I find. The text in the chapter was a couple of copied and pasted sentences that had been chopped up slightly to fit into context. I google some more sections... A few whole paragraphs were copied directly from a website into the text.

I have to rewrite the chapter, and it is the day before the report is due. I do it, but it's awfully half-assed. Ugh, I know who is going to get a 0 for peer assessment... he's lucky I won't dob him in. Maybe I should...



The other thing occurred last night. I am sitting at my computer (rapidly losing a lot of meat via the MMG) when my mother runs out and worriedly tells me that someone has made [a heap] worth of transfers from one of her accounts.

Shit.

To me, that's an incomprehensible amount of money. And it's not even really her money; my understanding is that the account is a loaning one that she uses to trade with. Mum writes a letter to the bank, and they (very) promptly close its access to electronic banking. The plausible looking nature of the transfers leads mum to think that it may be a mistake, but we quickly decide on crooks that just know what they're doing. Because it's a weekend, we're not totally confident that the bank will intervene before they get away with the (or more) cash.

She changes all of her passwords, multiple times on multiple computers. (This is because my brother and I are quite sure that my computer is not secure... I know I have some virii and other stuff. Keyloggers are possible among the mess, too.)

Mum rings them first thing this morning to see what can be done. They can't tell us whether the large transfers can be reversed but two small 'test' transfers done earlier that day are reversed (that's about $20, I think. Not sure.)

We're not clear on where the money's gone, and probably won't know until Monday. It seemed quite doubtful that we would get it back at all, but mum's talk on the phone this morn gives the possibility that the bank will reimburse at least some of it.

It will be a long wait 'til Monday.

haha. I dug up some poems from when I was pretty down in year 10. The content is... well, eh. But I'm envious of the me that used to have stories in her head. That used to rhyme without reason :P

Most of the poetry is made of stems. One rhyme or two that asks for an ending. I can't give them those endings anymore, because I don't understand the delirious mind that created them. Example:
Grappling at the fraying ends,
In despair a hand extends,
Quivering with life and its fragility.

Someone scared is crushed below,
Doesn’t care, doesn’t know,
And maybe someone you know is that nonentity.

I can't believe I used to write with such rhythm... ahh. There are others but I'd rather not share them for various reasons... eh.

But I'll share with you this last one because it just seems so random. Actually, I may have been parodying some of the free-form poetry we were studying at the time. I'm not sure.
The Missing Punch-Line

A suited man
sits at his table,
looking at a pile of paper.

Why did he have to go and buy himself work?

He sorts them,
careers,
real estate,
betting,
ah, yes, there they are.
The funnies

At least these documents
wouldn’t hazard him
with work,

His eyes flick down,
to the first row of pictures.
He scans them
with puzzlement

And should someone,
with similar interests,
caution to ask if he had seen,
“That thing in the paper,”
he’d deliver a cryptic answer of,
“I didn’t get it”.

Heh, maybe it's one of those self-referential type things. I certainly don't get it anymore... but I like the idea. Maybe I'll rewrite it or something?

More poetry if I feel confident enough to let the Emo Ale out to play.

Some of the best days of my life were spent in front of my computer, chatting with the Zeophytes.
Some of my best friends were there. Like Poinko, and Giz (Komadaki).
Some of the most important lessons were learnt there.

And offline, I think I learnt a lot too.

With Pokémon Pearl and Diamond coming out, I let myself delve back into the online Pokémon community. Some of the people are still there. Some are gone. Some of the websites that formed the whole basis of communities are still alive, some disappeared off the face of the planet.

It's depressing.

Also, I'm annoyed at the new games simply because they keep adding Pokémon. I don't believe that a hundred at a time is necessary. Where will they stop? Will the franchise suddenly die after 10 years of booming success?

I want to draw fanart, but for some reason, I can't. Actually, that might just be the artist's block that suddenly jumped on me.

My name is Ale, and I was a Pokémaniac. Sometimes I think that I still am, but it's not the same world out there.
I should have cleaned out the Wall years ago.
I shouldn't have bought Colosseum.
I'm tempted to dig out the movies to laugh at. Or maybe to cry at?
But I'll still buy the DS games. If only for the nostalgia.

Trying to do EPDC, but it's just being frustrating. Nyeh. Also, this thingy seems to be screwing with the text formatting. *shrug*


My Personality

Neuroticism	55
Extraversion	18
Openness To Experience	35
Agreeableness	41
Conscientiousness	8

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