The Little Girl with the Curl

rain

2007-05-18T11:07:07Z

I've never understood why people like the rain so much. It's depressing - especially the crap rain that we get in Canberra. It's like the weather equivalent of a dripping tap. But it still means you can't get your washing done.

hoorayforzoidy @ 2007-04-23T22:01:00

2007-04-23T12:02:18Z

Today I bought a kilometre of black thread. A kilometre!

I'm back, nanananana

2007-04-04T11:12:49Z

HELLO LIVEJOURNAL! Remember me? The title is a line out of an eminem song, in case you're wondering about the nanananana - i'm back nanananananana, fix your bent antenna tune it in and then i'm gonna enter in up under your skin like a splinter, the centre of attention, i'm back from the winter, interesting, the best thing since wrestling infesting in under you skin and nesting, teesting, attention please feel the tension soon as someone mentions me and so on. Who would have thought there were so many eminem lyrics in my head?
So where have I been? Canberra! In fact, I'm still there. And what have I been doing for the last x months (where x = number of months since I last posted)?

Short version: Mum and Dad went to Texas, Daniel and I stayed in Bris Vegas, I finished uni (haven't graduated yet, still need to do first aid course, don't ask), Centrelink gave me a job in Canberra, I moved to Canberra, Canberra sucks. I've met some good people though (and some ok ones and some indifferent ones). There has been a lot of beer and not many drugs. Actually, I just read through my whole journal and was surprised to discover just how few drug references there are in it. I guess I started it after my heyday. A journal of my life between 2002 and 2004 would have been much more interesting I'm sure.

Last week I went to an Alice In Wonderland party. Much fun was had by all. Meh, I'm over this now. Will I keep posting? My blogspot blog lets me post pictures and I don't even post on that ever anymore, so no, probably not. But you can all keep checking, just in case. Nothing like bit of suspense in your life...

hoorayforzoidy @ 2006-08-13T15:30:00

2006-08-13T05:29:40Z

For those of you who have been wondering where I am, the answer is Canberra, where I'm now living as part of my new job working for The Man (aka Joe Hockey). To aid in keeping in contact with those members of the family that I don't actually want to talk to, I've started a new, parent/grandparent friendly blog over at blogspot - here. I'll probably keep using this journal for things that can't go in the other one, if I can be bothered. I won't have as much procrastinating to do anymore, so my major motivating force is now lacking.

Also I think America is out to get me. We went and saw Miami Vice the other day and there were *two* previous for movies based on the events of September 11. So. Over. It. I hope the movies are massive failures and the production companies go broke and people stop making crap about 9/11. Or at least keep it in America where people seem to prefer to dwell on the past than get on with their lives. Bor-ing.

And what's more, there was some to-do with terrorists and whatnot at Heathrow last week, so America has banned laptop computers from being in hand luggage on all flights going into (and presumably coming out of) the country. Go figure. So yeah, I'm really looking forward to fliying over there at Christmas. Fifteen hours, by myself, without even a laptop for company. It's going to be the flight home from Europe all over again. Yay.

hoorayforzoidy @ 2006-07-21T11:35:00

2006-07-21T01:35:01Z

These Friday morning shifts are really screwing with my system at the moment. I have to get up about three hours earlier than I normally do, so, naturally, my body thinks it's three hours later than it actually is. As a result, I get home and think it must be beer o'clock (what with it being the end of my working week at all), but it's only 11:30 in the morning. Obviously I could have a beer then (after all, the pubs are open, so it must be ok), but it kind of limits what I can do for the rest of the day, what with the not drinking and driving thing (especially as I'm still on my Ps). Good news though - the ACT Department of Transport is happy for me to have an open licence, so I'll get one as soon as I move down and change mine over. They are also a lot more helpful than Queensland Transport, but, in all fairness, they probably have a lot less to do.

hoorayforzoidy @ 2006-07-14T14:07:00

2006-07-14T04:06:46Z

QUT may be the university for the real world, but UQ is most definitely a Real University, as evidenced by this completely useless experiment.

Newstart is gay

2006-07-13T06:56:08Z

The dole pays almost $100 more than Youth Allowance per fortnight. Plus they've recently increased the amount that you can earn (ie get paid from work) before your Centrelink payment is affected. And yet, I seem to be getting almost exactly the same payment (actually less, because they haven't processed my rent assistance form yet). Why is this? Because the cut-off for the amount of money that you can earn without your dole payment being affected is $62 per fortnight. Yes, that's right, a whopping $62 a fortnight.

Gee damn, I feel so encouraged to go out and work now.

hoorayforzoidy @ 2006-07-08T15:22:00

2006-07-08T05:22:25Z

I finally got around to uploading a picture of the bruise I ended up with after falling down the stairs the other week. The picture was taken about a week after the fall, right when the bruise was at its prime. It's a bit nasty so

Isn't it pretty? All the colours of the rainbow.

hoorayforzoidy @ 2006-07-06T20:07:00

2006-07-06T10:06:34Z

Kill... all... bongo drummers...

No. Scratch that. I'm moving to Canberra. I don't care. They can bongo away all they like. In a month, I'll never have to hear them again.

hoorayforzoidy @ 2006-07-05T13:32:00

2006-07-05T03:31:30Z

I got my last ever uni results today. A 6 for my thesis and the stupid philosophy subject and a 5 for infs. No dean's commendation for me. :-( As they say, I could have done better if I'd tried harder. Actually, that's probably not true for philosophy, but it's definitely a little bit true for my thesis and a lot true for infs. Oh well.

I got my dole diary today! Now I'm really an official dole bludger. I even get a payment tomorrowish I think. And I have an interview with the job network people on Tuesday. Between the job network people and the ten jobs a fortnight I have to apply for in order to receive my payments, I wonder just how many people's time I can waste? I only have to make one "job search contact" in the IT industry each fortnight, so I can really apply for any jobs I want. Yay me. You can just see me, walking into a local shop or office "Hi, my name is Erin and I have to pretend to look for work so Centrelink will give me money. Would you be interested in supporting my cause? I'll just put you down for one, shall I?"

Oh, and I caved and asked Marco just how long he was planning on keeping his festy sausages. Apparently he's going to throw then out next time he takes out the rubbish. While I applaud his efforts at not leaving festy meat in the kitchen unrefridgerated, I am at a complete loss as to why he needs to wait to take the sausages out with the rest of the rubbish. It's not like the bins are that far away. Besides, he walks past them almost any time he goes anywhere.

It's funny, there's no obvious outward signs of how much of a slob Marco really is. Even in the house, he's not really untidy, just extraordinarily lazy. Oh well, I don't care. I'm moving to Canberra.

Alrighty, I'm off to "look for jobs" and fill in my dole diary now. What fun!

Ouch!

2006-07-03T03:17:49Z

Three Fridays ago, I was having my usual hay fever anti allergicy injection thingymabob when I had a nasty reaction to it. I stil have a knot in my leg muscly bit from it, which hurts sometimes. Then last weekend, I fell down the stairs. I have a photo of the bruise on my phone, I will endeavour to lj it when I can be bothered. It's quite pretty, especially now that it's starting to fade a bit, all in yellows and greens and blues and purples. Then on Monday I woke up with surprise conjunctivitis, which was icky. And if there were any people left who thought I was a stoner, well, my completely inept handling of the Clear Eyes quite quickly disabused them of that notion.

This weekend, the pain continued. I managed to fracture two of my fingers trying to catch a football. I'd forgotten just how much of a pain in the arse it is to have your fingers strapped together. I've managed to master tying my shoelaces, and I can type in an awkward kind of way with only 8 fingers, but my hair is completely beyond me. I can't wash it, I can't brush it and I most definitely can't tie it up. I wonder if I can go and get a hair cut, just so my hair gets washed and brushed?

Another painful thing in my life: bearing witness to Marco's attempts at shopping. This morning, interesting things in the fridge included a jar of peanut butter, Savings brand plastic cheese slices and pepper sausages with a use-by date of 27/6. Bets on whether the sausages are still there when I clean it out in preparation for shipping it to Canberra (don't worry, they haven't been opened, so the grossness is confined to the sausage packet - there is little to no chance of the rest of the fridge becoming infected.)

I wonder if Marco has developed immunity to salmonella poisoning yet? I think scientists could learn a lot from his immune system.

hoorayforzoidy @ 2006-07-01T17:09:00

2006-07-01T07:09:28Z

I really really really hate voice mail. For some reason, my new phone came with it already enabled. And I had to set it all up before I could speak to a customer service rep before I can turn it off. Except the call centre is closed, so I can't. Kill Optus! Can everybody please remember 1584 for me so I can access my voicemail again later? Ta

hoorayforzoidy @ 2006-06-28T10:45:00

2006-06-28T00:44:47Z

Ye gods. A couple of weeks ago, Marco lost his keys - somewhere in the house. He spent three days looking for them without finding them, despite the fact that they had to be in the house somewhere (he used them to get into the house and then couldn't find them when he went to leave again). Three days. In the end, he went and got another set cut. Well, today he found his keys. They were in a pair of shoes. I swear he's getting dumber.

hoorayforzoidy @ 2006-06-28T10:40:00

2006-06-28T00:40:08Z

Yesterday I went and applied for the dole. I'm a real grown up now! I also got offered the job with Centrelink, because I rock, according to the chicky who called to tell me. She reckons I did really well on the test bit which I thought I fucked up. However, she also claims I got around 80%. Obviously, we have differing ideas of what constitutes doing very well.
At any rate, the upshot of it all is that I'm moving to Canberra in August (and I'm taking my boy with me). Dale is excited about it all, so no troubles there. I haven't told Marco yet though. I suspect he may be a little bit upset when he finds out. Well, to him I say perhaps you should have done the fucking vacuuming once in a while, and would it kill you to wash the dishes occasionally?
Anyway, I guess I'm going to have to find someone to move in here with him. If the thought occurs to you that this is something he would be better off doing himself, you obviously don't understand how useless the boy is. Our dryer broke last week. I called the landlord to look at it and he decided that it needs replacing. Unfortunately, Marco was here when he came around. Marco told the landlord that he couldn't bring the new dryer for the next two weekends. Yes, that's right, Marco is willing to live for the next three weeks without a dryer (we have no washing line either!) because he wants to go out on the weekend. As if this isn't retarded enough, THE LANDLORD HAS HIS OWN KEY!!! There is no need for anybody to be here when he comes around anyway.

I don't care what they say about Canberra. I need to get out of this apartment before I catch Extreme Lazy and stupid off Marco. Eeek! What if I've got it already and I don't even know? Quick! I've gotta go do the vacuuming!

hoorayforzoidy @ 2006-06-23T07:15:00

2006-06-22T21:15:12Z

Oops. I need an academic transcript for my job interview today. I don't have one. Boo.

Done and done.

2006-06-22T11:21:57Z

That's it. I did it. I wrote the stupid thing. All that's left is one final proof-read, which I can't bring myself to do. I would rather just forget the whole thing and get on with my life.
But after it's proof-read, I can hand it in (yay for online assignment submission!) and then I never have to do another assignment again. I can go to bed and sleep.
Dammit. I still have to write that report for Daniel, during all that spare time I have between now and Saturday...

hoorayforzoidy @ 2006-06-22T20:38:00

2006-06-22T10:38:24Z

Hm. Daniel just spent five minutes walking around in circles saying "I'm special", followed by "I'm dizzy" and then "I'm speshty" and then fell down. I think studying has finally cracked his mind. Or possibly he is drunk - a well-known method for dealing with excessive study. Either way, the study is too blame.
Personally, I'm writing lj entries instead of working on this stupid assignment, because that's a reasonable use of the limited time that I have left before tomorrow. I can see I'm going to rock up to this interview in a sorry state tomorrow. "Hi, I've been up all night doing an assignment cos I didn't get my shit together, which probably suggests just how disorganised I am. So, can I have that job then?" Plus I'm getting sick. I feel like shit. Maybe I can't go to the job interview?

I can't wait for Saturday afternoon. Sleep...

hoorayforzoidy @ 2006-06-22T20:11:00

2006-06-22T10:10:37Z

I've finally made some progress on this stupid philosophy assignment. 1654 words worth of progress. And a reference list. All that's left now is the bit about emotions and then stating and defending a clever claim about the mind, but I have to finish it tonight. I think my general and clever claim about the mind is just going to be that it's complex. You can't argue that it's a general claim, plus it's pretty easy to defend. Bit lacking in the clever department, but that's what happens when you're as over something as I am over this assignment.

Redhat didn't ring again today (despite the fact that they said they'd ring on Wednesday), so I have to go to the stupid Centrelink interview (for FOUR hours!) tomorrow morning. Bah. On the other hand, I got an email from TechnologyOne today telling me they had jobs available. I don't think they do my kind of thing though. Meh, anyway. Finish assignment. Go to interview. Go to work. Then fun.

Two more sleeps til Butterfingers AND tzu AND MC Lars! Download this song!

hoorayforzoidy @ 2006-06-20T19:17:00

2006-06-20T09:17:11Z

< rant >
Yep, still haven't finished The Stupidest Assignment in the World. For those who haven't been lucky enough to hear me moan about it yet:
Summarise the course in a way which would be understandable by someone who doesn't know any philosophical jargon. As far as possible, make your essay into a unified story by relating the parts of the course to each other. Conclude by stating and defending a clever and general claim about the mind.
As if it's not enough that it goes against everything I've ever been taught about writing essays (state you thesis at the end? wtf?), it goes on to say
To get a good mark, you must connect the topics to each other in an intelligible way. This is more important than getting the details of each topic absolutely correct.
Yeah, lie about it, as long as it's a good story. Come to think of it, I know one or two people who would probably be great at writing this essay...
Anyway, I've had three weeks to do it, and so far I've written 820 words, most of them garbage. Did I mention the word limit is 2500 words? Yeah, summarise a whole semester worth of work in 2500 words. Never mind the fact that I already wrote a 2000 word essay on one of the topics. Bah. And the topics themselves jump all over the place. Nothing is connected. Philosophy is the dumbest subject ever. I don't mean that the subject matter is dumb - it could probably be quite interesting, if anybody ever introduced anything remotely resembling the scientific method to it. Or if anybody ever tried to build on already established work, instead of everybody insisting on doing everything from scratch. Gah!
< /rant >

hoorayforzoidy @ 2006-06-17T09:45:00

2006-06-16T23:45:07Z

If anybody ever offers to administer any drugs to you by a needle in the leg, just say no.
Personally, I think in the future I will try to have all my drugs administered intraveneously.

And, just in case you're wondering what the hell I'm talking about: I went to the doctor's yesterday to get my fortnightly hayfever desensitisation injection thingy. I kinda missed the week before cos I'd called in sick to work and didn't want to turn up at the doctor's (which is right near my work) looking all healthy. At any rate, I might have had a tiny bit of a bad reaction to this one - just a bit of coughing and sneezing and whatnot, but the RN and the doctor freaked out and whisked me away to the observation room for, er, observation. I have never had my pulse and blood pressure checked so much in my life.
At some point I admitted to feeling a little bit light headed so they immediately dragged out the nebuliser and started feeding me ventolin. I stopped coughing and started feeling better straight away. But then I made the fatal mistake of admitting that I felt a little bit wheezy. By the time they did anything about it, i was feeling better (honest!) but they insisted on a shot of adrenalin. Only a little one, and just under my skin (not IV, or straight in the heart or anything crazy like that!) but it meant I had to spend another hour and a half hanging around being observed. By this time, I was feeling fine, if a little jittery. But the doctor was concerned about my blood pressure being too high, although she thought it might just be the effects of the ventolin. So they hooked me up to the ECG. Meanwhile, I'm just thinking, "hello, adrenaline?". Eventually, my blood pressure dropped back to normal, but they decided that they needed to give me a shot of Fenergen too. I tried to protest, but gave up after they threatened to send me to hospital. Then the RN stuck the damn thing in my leg. It hurt. Lots. After I'd finished abusing her, she claimed that she didn't remember it hurting that much. In fact, she told me that it would be excruciatingly painful, but then claimed she was joking and did it anyway.

I made a run for it as soon as the hour and a half was up. There was no way I was going to spend any more time there than I had to - or worse yet, have them decide to send me to hospital anyway. So I spent twenty minutes skulking around the car park waiting for Daniel dreading having the RN come outside and drag me back in to the "nice comfortable bed". I passed out as soon as I got home (Fenergen is an antihistamine - it makes you drowsy). Then mum rang and woke me up. I must have sounded really out of it, cos she asked if she'd woken me up. I said yes, so she started grilling me about whether I'd heard from Redhat and what I was going to do about it. I really wasn't in the mood. Like hello? You've just woken me up? As soon as the questions required answers of more than one syllable, I gave in and told her I would call her back later. I'm thinking 8:00 tonight (which will make it about 5am in Texas).

Yeah, so my weekend got off to a brilliant start. How about yours?

hoorayforzoidy @ 2006-06-13T19:40:00

2006-06-13T09:39:59Z

I'm bored! It's so much fun! I haven't been bored in ages. Well, a couple of times over the weekend, but the novelty still hasn't worn off. Probably the fact that I still have a philosophy assignment I could be doing helps, but I can do that tomorrow because I don't have anything else that I absolutely have to be doing. I could go out if I wanted to (if I had any money or petrol in my car). I could play my PS2, or my Gamecube. I could sit around reading my book. I could fuck around on the internet all night. Imagine what it will be like when I've got money as well as spare time! The possibilities are endless!

Speaking of money, fuck fucking Centrelink and their gay arse rules. This week I've worked extra hours (lots of them on a public holiday) so my income will actually be a reasonable amount. As a result, I get no Centrelink money. But, I don't actually get the money I've earnt for another fortnight. So, I'll have stacks of money in a fortnight, but absolutely none until then. Gay. Fortunately, Centrelink appears to be run by a crazy left wing hippy who is all for people rorting the system (at least Daniel thinks so, and I'm inclined to agree), so an obvious solution presents itself. Lie to Centrelink. Tell them I didn't make any extra money this week. That way, I still get my whole payment. Eventually, they'll catch on and I'll have to pay it back, but there are payment options available for this kind of thing, and no real penalties. It's essentially an interest free loan. And if everything goes according to my personal fantasy, I'll be working at Redhat making a gazillion dollars by then, so it won't be a problem at all. Actually, I'm almost beginning to think I might almost have a tiny chance with the Redhat job - when I spoke to the recruiting guy today, he seemed to be suggesting that there was only one other applicant. Surely that's a good thing?

hoorayforzoidy @ 2006-06-09T12:47:00

2006-06-09T02:47:36Z

Job interview today! Which naturally brought up the question of what can I WEAR? I've got one pair of pants that aren't jeans, obscenely tight or full of holes. They're missing a button, but it's on the inside, so you can't see. The Ralph Lauren shirt that normally gets trotted out for presentations at uni, I have deemed unsuitable. Sure, it's got buttons and a collar, and a dinky little man on a horse logo, but it's also slightly too big for me. It just kind of screams "I'm a student so I only have one shirt." Luckily, mad scrabbling around at the back of the cupboard produced a white button up shirt with a collar and everything. Unfortunately, the damn thing's see-through, so I had to find a shirt to wear under it. The only one I could find has been sitting in my dirty clothes basket for the last couple of days. Hopefully it doesn't smell too bad. AND, I had to iron my shirt. Due to the frequency with which I do ironing, I don't even know where our ironing board is, so I ended up ironing the shirt on a towel on top of the washing machine. But I've managed to dress myself - I've even managed to get my hair into some semblence of tidiness and whipped out the makeup. I look almost like a grown-up.

God only knows what I'm going to do if I actually get the job and I have to go through this every day. I'm still pretty sure that I won't get the job (as much as I would like it), but some shopping is definitely in order.

hoorayforzoidy @ 2006-06-07T10:25:00

2006-06-07T00:24:50Z

The phishers are getting cleverer. Today I got an email from "the National Bank" claiming that hoax emails have been going around and that I should change my password immediately and download and install (or "instal") the latest NAB update. Gee, I wonder if that program is some kind of keystroke logger? And I wonder just how many average Joe users would have fallen for that?

Yesterday, the thought occurred to me that I spent three years learning Japanese in high school. Perhaps that would have been a good thing to mention during my Redhat interview when I was asked whether I had any experience with Asian languages. The question now is, do I bring it up during the interview on Friday, or do I just not mention it for fear of looking like an idiot: "Yeah, by the way, I know I told you my only experience with Asian languages was fuck-all Vietnamese at uni, but it turns out that three years worth of Japanese just slipped my mind..." In my defence, it was ten years ago. Shit. Ten years. When did that happen?

Damn you Centrelink! shakes fist

2006-06-06T06:36:18Z

Damn you Centrelink and your $51,000pa starting salary and your relocation costs and your serviced apartment and your excellent graduate program. Why must it all be in Canberra? Can I tough it out in the middle of nowhere for 12 months? It would be an excellent opportunity (and a government job is not to be sneezed at), but what about Redhat? What if I say no to Redhat and then don't get the job at Centrelink? Maybe I can get more out of Redhat? Maybe I just won't get the job with Redhat and the problem will be solved. And yes, if you'd told me a couple of months ago that I'd be in the position to pick and choose between jobs, I would have laughed. Not that I've actually got either job yet. Probably it'll all blow up in my face and I won't get any. *sigh*.

hoorayforzoidy @ 2006-06-05T18:19:00

2006-06-05T08:18:47Z

The Redhat recruiting man rang again today. This time I spoke with someone who actually works at Redhat. He has an @redhat.com email address and everything. This means I seem to have made it through three rounds of interviews, all without changing out of my tracky dacks. Hooray for phone interviews.

I was quite relieved when the guy I spoke to today introduced himself as Leon. The recruitment agency man told me his name earlier, and I just didn't think I'd be able to get through the interview with a straight face if I had to call him Mr Ho. I don't know how well it went though. I answered some of the questions well, I think, but some of them I just wasn't sure what he was asking - like "how would you go about designing an ATM?" And sometimes I'd finish an answer and he still seemed to be expecting more. Besides, verbal communication was never my strong point.

I found out a little bit more about the job today too. It's all about internationalising applications for Redhat, specifically for the Asian market, so I was intrigued why they thought I (with my zero experience in Asian languages) would be at all suitable for the job. Well, it turns out they're after my linguistics degree. That's right, my Arts degree. Well, my software engineering degree mostly, but they thought the linguistics would come in quite handy. Who would have thought?

Anyway, actual in-person interviews are being conducted this week, so I should know how I went quite soon. So don't go uncrossing those fingers just yet.