I ♥∪♥ IKEA

$3.99 mini fairy lights. They are remarkably bright. I might take them out tomorrow night.

Scented candle which has only just started to smell after at least four hours of burning.

xmas 5x5

Apple are kind of unreliable at calling people up and since the beginning of this HDD debacle I've called them thrice. Ridonkulous! After today's phone call they confirmed that my laptop was available for pick up. When I got there the guy at the counter was like 'so, can I have some ID?'. I showed him but the repair was under my dad's name so he told me that he mightn't been able to give my laptop back because I'm not my dad (obv). A few minutes later he was like 'luckily Jacob recognised you so I can give it back to you'. I didn't catch his name but he was an absolute qtπ. For reference, he kind of looks like Keith Murray of We Are Scientists only not a silverfox.

Last time I went to Bondi I was in Lush checking out the soaps with Jane when this SA came up to me and asked 'So do you need any help? Oh, you're not new to Lush are you? You've been here before. I recognise you'. Okay, I think it's safe to say that I am pretty much UN-FOR-GET-TABLE. Is my haircut too severe? Am I so vertically challenged that I'm an oddity? Do I offend? It may be my bitchface...

GOOD NEWS EVERYONE (in Professor Farnsworth's voice)! Aunt Rosie decided to visit me and put me out of my stress and anxiety! Aunt Rosie is getting into the spirit of giving this Xmas.

There's been so much good news these past few days so I'll continue recounting. Yesterday I found out through James and Dad that the annual Christmas party isn't going to be held! Fantastic! As long as Asian parents don't socialise everything's swell.

Tom Ford Private Blend Lip Colour - Bruised Plum

Yesterday was the release of the ATARs. I'm a little disappointed but the mark wasn't really a surprise. However, I think I'll still be able to get into my course. Determined to put that past me I went shopping. I kid, that wasn't the main reason I had to go to Bondi. I phoned Apple on Tuesday and they said my new HDD had arrived and I could drop off my laptop any time I wanted. So I did. Andre look-a-like Andrew was working.

Lovely Whiney had a $20 gift voucher from years ago which she never used and so gave it to me to spend at DJ's. Obviously the only reason I go to DJs is to check out Tom Ford's lipstick (30% truth). The Tom Ford SA was supernice and pretty much gorgeous. I was initially going to pay at one of the cosmetics checkouts but the SA's there were 'new' and so clearly had no experience meaning J and I had to trek from level 3 to 1 to Customer Services. The lady at the counter was very polite and said that nothing was wrong with it. Up to level 3 again and TF SA referred me to the fragrance pay station where I happily gave her my card to pay.


The bag.


More-pricey-than-usual tissue paper.


Front


Top


Inside.


Taking it out.










After purchasing the lipstick we made our way (eventually) to the Myer fragrance section where we were both given a sample of Britney Spears' Radiance fragrance.

In all its cheap, tacky and pink glory.

a,y,18

I didn't get a photo with the other birthday girl. 
mmm...
I admired from a distance. Honestly, not every food needs meat. 
The vegetarian pizza didn't look as delicious.

I was so full I could only have one spoon of this.

sunsunsunday

A quarter of an hour after I had woken up TNPS' Doppelganger began playing, catapulting me into slight anxiety. Could that missionary be persistent enough to phone for the third time? Alas, he isn't, it was my dear friend Whiney (I forget how I came to call her this) requesting suggestions of activities to occupy ourselves in the sweltering Sydney weather. A couple of my suggestions included making handmade Christmas cards to send via snail mail, playing guitar together (or as I'd like to think in my head jamming), shopping and having a picnic at Kemp Field where there is not one speck of shade ever. ever. ever. One sentence led to another (as they do) and soon we planned our trip to the city, mainly to get some lunch and have a walk. After waiting a very long while for JenWen (who had previously agreed to come) we eventually got through to her via her home phone to which she told me she was cleaning and was still at home. Bitch needs a bitch slap (once she comes back).

Our however-many-minute train trip consisted of laughing over the ridiculous lyrics penned by wannabe rockstars I was so fond of years ago, discussing how annoying Britney Spears' voice is, trying to decipher the lyrics to Atreyu's Bleeding Mascara and coming up with an ingenious plan to analyse Lady Gaga's lyrics using English literary techniques. Creative train trip over, we make our way from Circular Quay station to the Rocks and found Pancakes tucked away inside probably a heritage building (idek). We ordered a Potato au gratin and a Devil's Delight. The Potato au gratin was potato, I'm thinking mashed, mixed with savoury pancake mixture (to tie in with the name of the restaurant, duh) with cheese, fried until slightly crispy and golden brown served with a salad, a grilled banana and a slice of grilled pineapple. I enjoyed the savoury pancakes immensely even though the texture was kind of strange when you consider that gratins are never actually in pancake form. The hollandaise sauce was alright, nothing to obsess over and the sour cream was sour cream (ie delicious). I'm not a fan of pineapple or banana so I gave the grilled versions a try. I still don't like them. Devil's Delight was two chocolate pancakes with strawberries, cream, chocolate ice cream with chocolate sauce drizzled all over and icing sugar to add the final, unnecessary saccharine touch. The pancakes (imo) were too thick and crumbled like cake. The cream was unnecessary as the ice cream melting on contact with the hot pancakes allowed for syrupy moisture to the (in all honesty) dry pancakes. Or we can just say I've never been a fan of cream, whipped or not. The strawberries were good.

After stuffing ourselves almost to our limits we pretty much rolled out of the restaurant to stroll through the Rocks Markets. First stop was a lemonade stand where we both bought a pink lemonade each and made plans to recreate the product with sparkling/soda water. I was about to buy this really awesome lipbalm inside a shell but after much contemplation decided against the idea because 1 - I already have too many lipbalms and 2 - if the shell breaks inside one of my bags it'll mean no lipbalm and clean up. Skip to the end of the street we saw a glassblower making glass stilettos holding a stick of glass in his right hand, constantly returning it to a fiery flame fueled by a huge tank of gas, and in the other hand the stiletto on the end of another stick of glass. We were absolutely blown away by his techniques (and the flame was pretty) we spectated until he finished. Bogged down by our stomachs and cameras we began heading to the Botanical Gardens. On the way I bought some freshwater pearl earrings, my first pair of earrings in about four years.

Around the foyer area of the Opera House and before it the set of Oprah's Australian special was being set up. Cue people, more people, metal scaffolding and more people. Coco Rosie and Blonde Redhead are having shows at the Opera House early next year and the tickets aren't too expensive. Eventually making our way to the Botanical Gardens we walked until we found a suitable place where we could rest our feet, and really, by this stage, ANY shaded place was suitable. I took a photo of a couple about twenty metres away from me and after some quick examining I'm pretty sure I took a photo of a gay couple kissing - cool (but also a little creepy I admit). Whiney and I skimmed through issue #2 of The Gentlewoman with Inez van Lamsweerde on the cover with a beard. The paper is so luxurious, the content is actually fascinating and the photography is although at times bordering on US Vogue standards, on the whole very refined. Getting back up on our feet after a much needed rest we got lost on our way to the Rose Garden but encountered some dragonflies which were happy to pose for us (or were suffering from heatstroke as a result of the atrocious amount of Sydney sunshine). Just as we were about to enter the Rose Garden I saw the funniest statue ever. It wasn't funny because it was a statue of a man with a cup in one hand and some dead looking plant in the other named Winter, it was hilarious because it permanently has the best 'judin' u' face ever. I have photographic evidence of this, scroll down. Shaded by some fairly large trees and high rise buildings behind it, the Rose Garden was reasonably cool. I pointed out all the colours which would make fantastic lipsticks and came to the conclusion that I will have to spend a day reading there before I die.


Waiting for pancakes. Jane's photo.


The dish I ordered, Potato au gratin. (We swapped later on). Yum yum yum. Jane's photo.


Devil's Delight, even though it really doesn't look like a delight in this photo. Jane's photo.


My pink lemonade which I later spilt over my skirt because of a huge gust of wind which caused me to flash to the entire market and my automatic instinct was to ensure that exposure time was as short as possible with my drink in hand. Jane's photo.


Jane's comfortable shoes.


Poser friend #1.


Poser friend #2.






This reminds me of weddings.


Me taking a photo of a rose. My luscious glory is no more. Back to shit coloured hair! Jane's photo.


Judgin' u statue


I'm pretty sure this won't be happening very often in the future.


Earrings.

Waiting for my driving lesson in the humid weather outside under the blazing sun these two missionaries came over and started preaching to me today. Hoping they'd leave me alone I told them I was an atheist. Obviously it was my fault, not realising that it'd spur a whole tirade of religious crap I don't care about, but really, was it necessary for them to tell me how Jesus saved their lives blah blah blah, LET ME JUST FREAKIN' LIVE MY LIFE VICARIOUSLY. I don't care if I return to my dismal state after turning the TV off, I don't know what my life's purpose is and I don't want one. I want to live in the moment, be spontaneous and not limited by religion. Sin? WHAT IS SIN? As Jenny Holzer says, sin is a means of social control.

eta: So during that flurry of religious bullshit and wanting to leave one of them asked for my number to contact me later about talking about Jesus which I gave because mostly I thought they wouldn't call and they'd leave me alone. THESE PESKY MISSIONARIES ARE SO PERSISTENT. I just got a phone call and hung up on him.

SP6 and SP7 have been completed (actually for a few days now). Bunnings Warehouse still hasn't been graced with my presence. Photos to come.

Excuse me while I recount what has happened for the past I-don't-even-know-how-long.

• The death of my laptop's hard drive has been pretty much all that's been on my mind. I suppose it's a good thing that my HDD is getting replaced - I could never bear delete music off it. However, it's a little sad that all my podcasts (especially the ones unavailable to download) and all my rare music is gone. Originally I had planned to move everything from the desktop computer to my laptop so I did so and thought I deleted everything but thankfully my inability to actually complete tasks means I still have my photos (my GIF collection is gone though).
  
  Backtracking a little bit, I went into the Apple store with high hopes because I had made a disk image of my HDD but after a while of trying to fix it the Genius was like 'we have to get it replaced' so I asked if I'll be able to replace everything since I have my HDD on my external drive. He was super nice (okay I'm going to make that one word from now on) and sweet and told me 'you may be able to get a few files off it, maybe a quarter, maybe half but I'd be really surprised if you get everything off it'. I swear he looked exactly like Andre from the first season of Masterchef - NO FREAKIN' JOKE. EXACTLY. AND HIS NAME WAS ANDREW. COME ON. WHAT IS THIS? I CAN'T EVEN. So after a few more administrative steps he told me that Apple Bondi will phone me in a couple of days to tell me that the replacement HDD has arrived and that I'll need to take it to the store and leave it there for a few days. Supernice-Andre-lookalike was such a sweetie that he put in an extra note to instruct 'someone' to save and return my original HDD back to me after everything that's going to happen and will refer me to a data recovery guy because in his words 'it'd suck to lose everything'. I LOVE NICE PEOPLE.
  
  
• JenWen and I came to the consensus that one of life's pleasures is to go into the fragrance section of department stores and spray everything which takes our fancy onto those sample cards to put in our bag to keep our bags smelling good. Hael yeah-ah sistah.
  
  We also agreed that Magnum Chocolate Temptation is better than green tea ice cream in moderation.
   
• Sophia and Maddy's birthday dinner was held at La Piazza inside Bankstown Sports Centre. Bankstown is such a scary suburb so I spent all of the time outside the centre being paranoid that there was going to be a drive-by shooting playing out before my eyes. I enjoyed my pasta with loads of parmesan. The theme of the restaurant was a little pan-Italian and tbh, it could've been any laneway in Australia. Talk of school and the upcoming release of HSC results and ATAR scores bored me to no end. I totally should've worn tranny heels because I was severely lacking in the height department. Jess H actually recognised my nail polish - AMAZING.
  
  
• Mum advised me not to wear my tranny heels (only after this incident did I dub them this) because they make me look 'fake'. Really I think she was trying to say they make me look like a hooker. She told me I should buy shoes which have a slimmer heel. No. I love tranny shoes never gonna give you up. The higher the platform and thicker the heel the better.
  
  
• I actually drove somewhere. I don't mean to say I haven't driven anywhere now that I'm 7 hours into my required 120 but I actually drove somewhere I needed to go in our family car. I made a slight booboo when I didn't realise I had to let a car merge into my lane but to my defense the driver didn't indicate s/he was going to switch lanes. My mum was in the car and later told me that I was turning too fast. In all honesty, if I turn any slower I'd create a traffic jam.
  
  
• There are four egg whites dehydrating in my fridge. This time I told mum that I will actually be using them as opposed to last time when she thought I had no use for them and only needed the yolks. Whiney is coming over on Tuesday to give me a much needed hand in making the macarons. Hopefully this time they actually rise. Before cooking we are going to swim then watch Narnia. SKANDAR YOU RAGING BABE.
  
  
• Mum trimmed my hair and it's not quite even. Because of my haircut I have to have the top of my neck (where hair line meets rest of neck) shaved and... I quite enjoy it shaved. I feel like I have a head-shaving connection with Oliver Sim. In one brief interview (on youtube) he (and Romy) were asked what their vices were/are and he answered shaving his head too often (how endearing. I luv him).
  
  
• You can tell that I'm being serious when I don't use proper English. When I type without proper punctuation I'm being lazy. When I write like I do on my blog (like a proper person) it means I care. Whn eye typ liek diz it meanz i hav trubl conveyin my real feelinz sew eye haf 2 res0r+ 2 typin liek im illiter8. if eye typ liek diz it also meanz i luv u nd wanna hav yo babiez. Then if I'm actually angry I'll write with very succinct sentences (or at least as succinct as possible).
  
  
• NGL, I have fallen back in love with tryhard punk music from circa 2k5 after listening to JenWen's iPod on El Clasico night/morning and today on the train. I'm on fire and now I think I'm ready to bust a move. Check it out I'm rocking steady.... or THERE'S NO ONE IN THE WORLD LIKE EME-LLLLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE or perhaps AND WILL YOU TELL ALL YOUR FRIENDS, YOU'VE GOT YOUR GUN TO MY HEAD. THIS SONG WAS ONLY WISHFUL THINKING or even a little splattering of JamisonParker (ah I luv dem. JENNY, YOU MADE ME SAD FOR NO REASON, NEITHER JAMISON OR PARKER IS DEAD) and A7X (but the Rev is dead).
  
  
• Singing Mariah Carey is a requirement at karaoke. I haven't been to karaoke in about a year but my point still stands. We Belong Together is my jam. I need to make a fool of myself by attempting screamo soon. Excluding Connor, do you remember trying to scream on our Friday night phone calls? GOOD TIMES.

D'=

After all the fun and frivolity of yesterday's El Clasico sleepover something has to go wrong. As soon as a come back from JenWen's I turn on my laptop and it's stuck on the grey loading screen. Is this karma's way of telling me that I shouldn't be having fun after the HSC? That I should be more active in my job seeking (urgh, and my resume's on there as well)? Fuck off, I don't even believe in karma. Right now I'm trying to back up my harddrive and it's taking forever. I'm so paranoid - what if all my music, photos and films have been wiped? This is the first time a computer's crashed on me, what is this?!

Um, wow, my blog looks like shit on a Windows platform.

eta: congratulations to TNPS whose album is #1 on the NME Albums of 2010 list. Step 2 of their world domination, now all they need to do is come to Australia. Here they are playing one of my favourite songs, Three Thousand.