My immune system hates me

Soooooo I’m sick. Again. Quite badly so because it’s developed from a sinus infection I had for like… three months and ignored ;D now it’s spread to my throat and my whole head feels slooshy and crap. End whine. Onto the good things!
Providing I get accepted into the program, I’M GOING TO ECUADOR!!! there’s no guarantee I’ll get a placing but I really desperately want to. It sounds incredible. We’ll be right in the amazon rainforest building freshwater pipes for a really remote village. So remote, in fact, that we’ll be taking canoes every morning to get there. COOL OR WHAT?! After the volunteer work, we also get to do:
1) a night time canoe ride to see the rainforest at night
2) a guided tour with a biologist who can point out all the different wildlife and plants, and also owns a butterfly farm with over 55,000 species. WOAH
3) Visit a wildlife rescue centre (STEPH’S DREAM COME TRUE!!)
4) go white water rafting (yeah not sure about that haha)
and various other super-super-super awesome things I can’t remember right now because I’m half asleep. But I’m so excited! Apparently there’s monkeys running around everywhere there – you gotta be careful they don’t steal your camera XD

On the note of cameras, I got a new number today. I sent it out to almost everyone on my contact list, but if I missed you just let me know. Oh and tell me if you’re on Virgin Mobile, cos if so I get free calls and texts to you basically I went with a plan where I pay almost the same in what I do in credit every month (only plus $10 for insurance, because I know I’m prone to breaking phones) but get a phone in the bargain. And I get as much credit as I do with my prepaid turbocharge, so I’m pretty pleased. I can’t really use it much till the bill resets on the 10th though, because it took almost all my credit to send out that mass message with the new phone number X_X I’m gonna KILL anyone who I sent it to who doesn’t bother to save it

Erm what else? Uni sucks. Still. Hate it -stab-. And I still can’t stay awake during lectures -_-; on the plus side, finally got my laptop working there so I FINALLY have the internet. Oh and I have a reference for job hunting from the head of the english department booyeah. Woot for padding out the CV even more.

And in spite of how cheerful this post sounds, I actually feel really bloody awful right now. Which just goes to show how stupid I am.

Night!

Big grin!

Bad day passed, I’m sane again… for now -shifty eyes-

Today was good ^^ Amy and I went into town to get our Live at Monarto tickets. I am drooling over mine as we speak (well, not really on account of the fact that that would be silly as it is paper). MUST remember to book the accommodation tomorrow -hits self- Must remember to get up at a reasonable hour tomorrow too… AAAAAAAAAAANYWAY, so yeah. Got tickets, bummed around town doing various other things (including trying on very expensive clothing and buying an uber cool messenger bag for uni that I am a little in love with) then headed home. Dragged Damon with me, watched far too much Billy Connolly till my insides ACHED from laughing so hard. Then discovered a torrent downloader that works on linux and spent the rest of the evening (well, night considering I dropped Damon off at 11) downloading the most recent albums of all the bands playing at live at monarto. I have my tickets to that, Birds of Tokyo and Stephen K Amos sitting next to me. It ish good

Got the stupid uni thing tomorrow, but eh. I’ll wade my way through it and get paid for the privellege. Reeeeeeally can’t complain. Not sure what I’m gonna do tomorrow night – really didn’t think that through. I’ll find something ummm what else? Wednesday seein Lewis then checking out the Garden of Unearthly Delights with Damon.

I am really really not looking forward to being back at uni… but I’ll live.

I really really want to buy a new ipod. Le sigh.

Going to start regular updates… or going to try

That’s right! You read the title correctly. I am actually going to make a solid attempt at getting off my butt and trying to keep this updated. Why you may ask? Well I don’t really have a decent answer to that. More than anything just because I feel like it, and because for ONCE I don’t feel whiney so perhaps this might actually be the kind of blog I always intended it to be.

Namely one that doesn’t sound like it was written by a 14 year old emo Steph

Wow. I just realised I’m wearing a towel. How did I not notice that?

Aaaanyway…
So. Steph’s world. What can I tell you?
Things are finally looking up. I finally feel like a normal human being with normal emotions and normal reactions.
Although still not zombified. Still totally capable of flying off the handles and being ridiculously intense it’s lovely. I’m so pleased. I shall treasure it while it lasts.
I finally broke out of my rut a bit too. I’ve been going out and doing things, meeting new people and volunteering and just generally being alive. Flashdance on Wednesday was absolutely awesome. Probably my second best ever night out. Maybe even my best, it was just so fun. I spent about half of it loving the company of some of my awesome friends, and the other half with some random guy who never bothered to ask my name but treated me like a princess anyway (hard to believe huh?). And shite could he dance O_O all who know me know that I hate to dance. I didn’t really get much of a choice! He tried to teach me and just generally ignored it when I screwed up, but omg it was SO MUCH FUN. I never thought I’d have fun doing something like that – but I guess knowing I’d never see him again made it a bit easier to not be self conscious about how I looked or how sweaty I was plus he didn’t care. He wasn’t in it for the hookup, he just wanted someone to dance with and have some fun. It was great – I wish I’d thanked him at the end of the night.
Other than that I spent Tuesday at a training day for uni, which was actually… great! The training itself was all the sort of crap I covered during peer mediation in high school (huh I forgot I’d been considered a part of that. Forgot to include it on my list of stuff to give to Campbell at the end of Year 12 – d’oh!) but I got a chance to get to know a couple of the girls from uni a lot better, which was great. I’ve been making more of an effort and it’s just so nice to feel like I’ve finally got some friends at uni XD (as in within my course )
What else…? Hmmm… met Ross, who was hilarious. Had Lewis over on Monday, which scored me a judgmental glare from my mother. Went to gym and worked so hard I threw up, then went to gym again and worked so hard with Heather that my arms hurt too much to really hold the steering wheel whilst driving home woo! I’m sure I did much more than this but it’s 1am and my brain refuses to function. The point is that I actually have something to write other than “felt like crap, stayed in my room all week” which is my usual byline.

I’ve planned some stuff to keep the year interesting. Going to birds of Tokyo with Amy and Mez, going to Live At Monarto (but staying in murray bridge) with Amy also starting volunteering with the animal welfare league around april (so excited!). The house will be built around June, so very much looking forward to that. PARENTS ARE GOING AWAY FOR FIVE WEEKS! Scoooore! I even organised for Adam to house sit my Uncle’s place (he’s going with them, and it was easier for me to stay at OUR house because work is about five minutes away) so I DON’T HAVE TO LIVE WITH HIM EITHER! House to myself. Pure bliss. Someone better come over and cook for me lest I accidentally burn down the house I also want to see if I can visit Pete again sometime in the holidays – though probably for a much shorter time as my bank balance ached last time Saving for Canada too, which SHOULD be happening in February ‘11. Here’s hoping! Also doing some stuff with uni – more leadership stuff (well, “mentoring”, but they’ve decided they don’t like that word) which should be really cool. Giving a couple of speeches next week, though have no idea what I’m going to say XD “well I hated uni till about a week ago… so uh… yeah… enjoy!” – I also found out about On Dit, the uni newspaper. And found out how to write for it… I am totally going to try to do that as often as I can. I don’t care if they don’t publish me, I just need the practice. And I think it’d be so damn cool to see my name in print (even if anyone could )
Really only thing that could make life better right now would be for Andrew to reappear from his disappearance oh lord I’m pathetic. -facepalm-
I think you should all be thoroughly amazed with me right now A couple of months ago I wouldn’t have bothered to organise a damn thing. I wouldn’t have even thought I’d be around for it.

So that’s about it for now really I had the shift from hell at work today, and have another fun-filled shift to look forward to tomorrow. At least on Sunday I should be seeing Tom, so the weekend won’t be a total bust. And Lewis said he’d come around tomorrow if he could find the time, so who knows. Might actually be a good weekend.
Either way, with all that in mind, I need to sleep.

Goodnight and stay tuned. I WILL actually update this!

For Monica’s benefit, so she knows I’m alive

Man I am terrible at life. It’s 1:54am and I haven’t even started studying for my psychology exam which is in just under 12 hours. Jeez.

I don’t really know what to write at the moment. What have I been doing? Working, moving house, sitting on hardwood floors in empty rooms with no one to talk to but a dust bunny or two… basically anything BUT studying for exams like I should be doing.

I was looking at the postsecret blog on myspace today and they were doing this thing where you post your phone number and people can send their secrets to you. I picked out a few people that had given the international codes for their mobiles (I can’t just type in an American number and expect it to work) and shot off a few of my own secrets – a couple the funny kind and a couple more serious ones. I didn’t expect a reply really, but the odd thing is that the one that was probably most dear and most scary to me got an instant reply. And it was a really sweet one too. Nothing overly serious or daunting, just honest good wishes and good vibes from some person who has never met me and whose life would not be even a TINY bit effected if I didn’t exist.
And yet still they took the time to say something nice.
I hate people just a little bit less right now.

Argh. Things are so damn strange lately. I’ve been in and out of doctors offices and god knows what else till they hand me this box of pills and tell me it might make it all better, but who really knows eh? Down a few and see what happens? And people seem weird to me. Maybe that’s all in my head but I feel like all the boundaries are shifting and changing and I’m sitting there going “Wait… what? Who the hell said you could change all the rules?!”
Don’t get me wrong. Some of them are good changes.
But most of them are just giving me food for thought when I already had too damn much to think about anyway.
-sigh- one is bugging me a lot right now. For no reason other than while I was writing that she popped into my head. She’s a cool person, I like her and I think she’d be a good friend, yet I cannot seem to open my mouth around her without making a complete idiot of myself. She has NEVER given me a reason to think that she dislikes me, but somehow I shrink under her gaze and feel like running for the hills whenever she’s around cos she scares the CRAP outta me. I get this weird feeling that everytime I say anything she’s internally rolling her eyes and going “What a fucking idiot”.
And yet she has NEVER EVER DONE ANYTHING TO MAKE ME THINK THAT!
Argh I’m so damn stupid.

Speaking of so damn stupid, males are complex and frustrating and I’d sooner bash my head against a wall than bother trying to sort this mess out anymore. I mean honestly you had a YEAR to get your shit together, you didn’t. Not my fault I’m too messed up now. Arrrrgh. Grr.

I’m broke. Pitifully so. I’m going to Melbourne from the 4th-9th of December and I’m going to have NO damned money. Plus I just got a bill from blockbuster informing me I owe them $50 for that dvd I never returned. Ouch. I don’t think I can afford to go to Brisbane next year like I planned, and that makes me a sad panda. On the plus side, it’s starting to look like Pete WILL be in Melbourne when I go, which makes the trip look a lot cooler and a lot more fun haha.

What else can I tell you? Pft. Nothing. I’m not interesting enough to have anything else to say. Time to cram for that exam…

It’s so nice…

When someone randomly understands exactly what you’re going through before you even try to explain it. It’s even nicer when they somehow seem to know exactly what to do, and do it. Just out of kindness.

I’m really grateful for people today.

*grumble*

I should be in bed. I have to get up to do an open shift, but I’m tired and, as per usual, pissy.

I’ve noticed a trend. Night times = Steph feeling looooooooooooooow. I tend to be a lot better during the day/afternoon, but when it comes to evening/night… urgh. The less said of it the better. I’ve used more of my last dose of sleeping pills in the past month than I had in the six preceding it. Which makes NO sense to me because worse things were happening THEN than they are now. My doctor won’t give me any more – doesn’t want me to be a drug dependent zombie. I get where he’s coming from, and I agree with him.
But urgh.

On the plus side, I’ve done all assignments minus one (a French oral) until exams. Now all I have to do is read all the novels I should have read but haven’t and then catch up on… everything. Psychology in particular. Word of advice? Don’t miss somewhere in the vicinity of 20 lectures.

So the standard “What have you been up to”:
My fish died all four of them. I was devo, which may seem silly because they’re just fish but still. I knew I hadn’t cleaned the tank in a while but they seemed okay, so I didn’t really worry about it. Then one night the filter was driving me nuts so I turned it off for the night. By the time I woke up, two were dead and the other two were clearly dying before I could decide on the most humane way to end it for them, they’d died too. It was awful
Moving along from that sad note…
I won a free photo shoot with Studio 2000 for me and a friend. Elyse is doing it with me. I dunno if I’ll pay for the pics but it might be fun to get the hair/makeup thing done. I dunno. Honestly not looking forward to it as much as I was. Can’t really explain why.
What else? Working mostly. Went to Tanunda this morning, watched half of Lewis’s hockey match before I left for work. I had the most peaceful drive back down. I felt like I was driving AWAY from Adelaide, rather than straight back into it. It was great. That’s why I love going there. I always feel better afterwards. Other than that spent most of my week locked in the library trying to get two essays finished. I succeeded, somehow. And I made better friends with someone than I was before which was nice. I also questioned other friendships, which wasn’t so nice.

Interesting quote I’m currently pondering over: “Yeah okay I tune out to some things, but I hear what’s important! How you’re feeling, what’s wrong etc.”
Those weren’t the exact words but the meaning is more or less there. Got me to thinking. And I think they were right.
Who’s the better friend; one who listens to all your mundane day to day crap, or one who listens to the things that count?
For most people the ideal would be someone who listens to both. For me, I think it has to be the latter, with much less of the former. I talk too much shit. It’d drive anyone crazy if they had to hear ALL of it.

Speaking of talking too much shit, I’m going to end this now before it gets worse.
Goodnight!

(as an afterthought, does anyone else have the experience that when something/someone tells you to do something IMMEDIATELY for your own health/safety, you actually just feel MORE inclined to ignore and defy them because you resent being told what’s good for you? Yeah. Random I know.)

Probably too tired to string a coherant sentence

So I guess you could say I’m a little on the up. Well, in comparison to how awful I felt on Monday night that’s hardly a surprise. You KNOW something’s up when you’re in the company of two of your best mates who are being their usual hilarious selves and you’re still feeling miserable. But eh such is life, and I’m feeling a little better. Still panicked as hell and confused as hell about certain things but whatever. I’m dealing with it

I’m borrowing Amy’s old phone while mine is in repairs, which is quite good because Amy’s phone does everything I needed out of mine anyway. Better still, my phone is being repaired for free under my extended warranty. I kicked up a bitchfit that they weren’t covering me till July because I opted out of my contract early. I told them I’d paid for TWENTY FOUR months UPFRONT and am still an optus customer (just on prepaid), so they had no right to deny me the repairs even though I’d opted out of my contract at 21 months (penalty free cos I spent so much -facepalm-). After lengthy explanation, they apparently agreed. Downside? 95% chance I’ll lose my contacts and (much more upsettingly…) messages/photos. Very devo about that. There were some I would’ve really liked to have written down, but what can you do.

So this week at uni has been okay… aside from the fact that I STILL can’t stay awake through certain lectures. I swear it’s just plain impossible. Plus I have an essay due Friday that I cannot be assed writing. Aaaaaand I had to do some Psychology research participation thing today which I thoroughly did not enjoy. Normally I like that sort of thing but the personality assessment… yeah really wasn’t in the mood. I was criticising myself in every possible way for every possible answer. It was a bit shite. And I called in sick to work because I felt like shite. I have a splitting headache at the present, which is why I’m still awake – stupid panadol not being strong enough! On the plus side, I saw someone today who made me really smile and feel just that BIT less useless at everything important in life. That helped a lot. As did just seeing them and knowing they’re okay.

On top of all of that, I’m finally looking forward to something. Granted, I’m still DREADING something else but I’m flipping it into a positive as much as I can. Toni has suggested I go stay with her in Melbourne for a little while. If she’s serious, and if I have the financials to do so (which is a lot less likely… but I can try), I think I might. I really want to get out of here, and I’ve wanted to go to Melbourne for a while. I feel like shopping not to mention I just plain like Melbourne and yet have hardly seen any of it (I’ve only been once that I can remember, and I was only there for a day on my own outside the hotel). Plus I haven’t seen Toni in years and I think it’d be great fun! But we’ll see how things pan out. I wonder if it’s cheaper to drive or to fly nowadays? Petrol’s so expensive and domestic flights so aren’t if you pick them right haha. Things to ponder…

Also, I’m seeing a good friend I haven’t seen in a fair while on Monday, so that’s also lifted my spirits a bit. I guess some DO still want to keep in touch. That’s nice to know

That’s enough from me right now. I really REALLY need to sleep…

… and continued whining :D

I’m fairly pissed off at the present, though over something that is fairly petty. Namely that once again technology and life have conspired to piss me off and make things just that TEENSY bit harder for me. My phone appears to be on the out – less than a month after my warranty and insurance expired. I plugged it into the charger and… nothing. It doesn’t recognise that it’s plugged in. It’ll probably be flat by tomorrow. It might be the charger, which will cost money to replace that I simply do not have, or it might be the phone connection in which case I SHUDDER to think how much it would cost to fix. Not to mention the inconvenience of not having a phone because it’s off in repairs AND losing all my contacts/messages/photos. Honestly it’s the messages thing that quite upsets me. I really hope it’s just the charger.

But even then: MONEY THAT I DO NOT HAVE.

Argh. It’s like every time I work harder to get more money, something screws up like this that I have to replace. Plus, as a result, I am DEFINITELY taking tomorrow off uni. Mostly because I have so much shit to do that I never seem to have the time to do. I need to hang up all my clothes (everything I’ve done in laundry in the past month or two is sitting on my floor because I didn’t have the time to sort through it), clean the fish tank, clean my room from top to bottom (this includes throwing shite out. Clutter is driving me to madness), clean out my car, take my phone in for repairs, write two essays, order my new glasses, get my new sneakers… -breathes- I could go on, but you get the gist. It’s just day to day crap I never seem to find the time for.

So my life? Erm I’ll start at Friday cos that’s as far back as I’m currently capable of remembering. Pete bailed, so my day got rearranged. Mum and I went to the optometrist to make sure my script was still the same, then she dragged me around town because she refused to pay as much for glasses as they wanted. I lost count of the pairs I tried on. After that she took me sneaker shopping (my sneakers for work are falling to BITS), and low and behold the ONE decently priced good pair didn’t have my size. Also, mum bought me two new jackets because she absolutely LOATHED the one I was wearing and couldn’t stand looking at me any more. I’m not sure whether to be glad about that one? Eh. Free clothes. Went home, went to some appointments, wasted MASSIVE amounts of time looking for a new tracksuit for mum that she wanted for mother’s day and found NOTHING decent (Adam ended up getting it for her the next day in a totally different shopping centre) and ended up buying her potted tulips (her favourite flower), which, fortunately, she loved. Then I went to work. Then I went to Tanunda because I was sick of everything in Adelaide Lewis, being the generous soul he is, let me sleep in his room and nicked off to the spare room. Whilst he falls asleep fairly quickly most of the time, it was inevitable that I’d be up for hours so by being in his room I had access to his computer which is full of movies and TV series that really help me sleep. Yay! That was by FAR the best night of sleep I’ve had in SO long. I don’t even know why, but I actually managed to wake up at around 8:30 OF MY OWN ACCORD. I hadn’t even had 8 hours of sleep yet but I woke up and kinda went “… yep I feel energised enough to actually get up”. Normally dragging myself out of bed is an absolute chore. So yay! We went and saw Iron Man, which was FANTASTIC, and then I went and watched his hockey game again (which was muchos fun and involved a rather painful hit from a hockey ball for Lewis accompanied by an excellent rolling landing XD) aaaaaaaand then I went to work after massive argument number 3000 with my father – weirdly enough he’s been quite nice ever since… so I just have to facepalm at the whole thing. Sunday was a write off… I should have done so much more but I didn’t sleep at all Saturday night so I wasn’t up to it… I got up early to learn how to do open shifts at work, then went home and absolutely wasted the day (mostly with sleeping) and then went to work again. Which irks me cos it’s my own fault I now have so much shit to do tomorrow. Urgh.

So, realistically my dear readers, instead of writing this I should be sleeping for a hard day’s slog tomorrow. But I can’t sleep. I’m over thinking and angry at nothing. I had a MASSIVE anger fit the other day. I don’t even know what triggered it… actually that’s a lie. After picking to pieces the events surrounding it, I think I can mark it up to bordering on a panic attack at the thought of being “left behind” – I won’t go into details as to why that’s come up a lot recently because it’s not important. But it was MADNESS. I’m driving and then suddenly there’s tears streaming down my face and I’m screaming nonsense and hitting the steering wheel (and obviously not getting a great deal of results in doing so) and various other things O_o Just INSANITY. I was completely shaken. It took hours to get rid of the edge… thankfully I was in good company so I think I appeared fairly sane after I got out the car. Just out of spirits I guess. Man I’m amazed I didn’t kill myself doing that whilst at the speeds I was -shakes head-

And here I am, wondering why my head sucks so much at looking at the bigger picture and realising how lucky I am, and awake.

But you know what? I’m still gonna smile. Cos I know something you don’t, and that something just made me smile

I love Damon’s ass!

I remember someone told me to post a blog under that title, but I honestly can’t remember why. But who am I to question peer pressure?!

I’m grumpy, for various and decent reasons. I also have a craving for another holiday. Either off to the Gold Coast to go theme-parking, or to Europe (but that one’s always a given), or even just a couple of days in a luxury hotel kicking back without a care in the world or maybe Melbourne for shopping… Gawd I wish I had money XD

In other news, I have shiteloads of uni work. Now there’s a surprise. Lately I’ve been up to… well way too much to summarise in a blog. Tomorrow I am spending the entire day running joyous errands, followed by work, FINALLY followed by some relaxation time up in Tanunda. Then Saturday I’m HOPEFULLY seeing iron man, watching a hockey game and then work. Sunday I might be getting trained in how to do opens, so at least I might get some longer shifts or something. This leaves me almost no time for my two essays that are due next week hoorah!

I miss Dazzleland.

End whining.

Late again

For the past few days I have been, as Nat would so well put it, “cracking the sads”. I couldn’t tell you why – I just haven’t felt particularly good about life in general. Ah what an emo kid I am but in all seriousness, it’s fair shit.

I haven’t been up to a great deal the past couple of days. I’ve been working until very early hours of the morning and sleeping till very late hours in the afternoon as a result. This morning I had decided I might see if Lewis was busy in the morning as I rather felt the need to see a friendly face. However, as per usual with me, when my alarm went off at a time earlier than I’m used to getting up, I really couldn’t find the strength to get out of bed so simply went back to sleep. But joy of joys! All was not lost. Evidently Lewis read my mind, because when I woke up (somewhere around 12:45pm >_<; ) I had a message from him asking if I wanted a visitor. Granted I started work early and he was a good hour or so off, but it was really great to see him despite the short amount of time and it made me feel a HELL of a lot better about needing to go to work. I think I woulda been in the pissiest mood known to man kind for the entire 8 hours if I hadn’t seen him. Instead, I was overly cheerful

Work was as to be expected – namely insanely busy. Without Kathleen and Jerald there (they’re on holidays), I am (apparently) the fastest maker there. That doesn’t count for much when I’m still half as quick as either of them and we’re INSANELY busy because of the long weekend. Fortunately it died towards the end of the night, so we managed to get the dough done by 12, so I was out by 12:35 this is a nice change from the norm of 2am. The plus side is, of course, that across the past two weeks I’ve made a fair bit of money so hopefully I’ll be able to pay it back into my savings account like I’ve wanted to for ages (I’m about $700 down). It won’t be ALL that I need to put back in there but it’s a start.

Oh and since I missed the update, I should also add that on Wednesday night Elyse cooked up a storm for us under guise of a girl’s night. I haven’t had that good of a feed in… well I can’t really remember the last time. It was awesome!

Well I’m out of things to say and am becoming more and more conscious that I should go to bed (not that I will – I’m hungry. I’m going to have to find a way to get food without waking Adam and Shannan). So on that note, goodnight!