Hope everyone had a safe and happy holiday season. Merry (belated) Christmas and Happy New Year. And a Happy Birthday to Stu.
It's already New Year's Eve here and disturbingly hot. It's supposed to get around 34oC (apparently that's like 93oF) today or close to it. I love the heat. It's almost midday so I shouldn't go swimming but I think I will anyway; it's too hot not to, and my swimsuit was bought specifically because it covered most of my potential-to-turn-into-melanoma spots.
Anyway, have a safe and happy new year everyone.
♥
Amy
(FG)
- Mood:
content
I avoid caffeine after 5pm, go to bed early etc. then spend 9+ hours just lying there, unable to turn my brain off. Nothing I do works and for weeks now, I've been turning my alarm clock off a half second before it start making noise, because I notice the moment it lights up. I get out of bed exhausted every morning.
It's starting to drive me batty. My work life is now just me constantly telling children that they can't do something. And granted, every word said is the truth, they are breaking the rules, but I just feel like I'm nit-picking too much. Part of me is sure the kids are getting ruder (and other staff members seem to think so too) but the other half of me just thinks I've turned into the Gromble.
There are some serious issues going on at work at the moment and I'm not sure that they're being delt with properly. My boss has confided to me that she routinely hates her job and just wants to walk out of the building and not come back. And I understand that she has a stressful job with too many demands on her and ridiculous hours and that she's been giving up way too many of her shifts to other staff just so that everyone else gets a decent amount of hours in the week. Problem is that there are some things that only she has the authority to deal with and she's never around to do them anymore. She comes in during the day and does all the office stuff then gives up her contact hours. She needs to be there for the contact hours.
There is a staff meeting next week and hopefully some of the stuff will get sorted out then (like half the staff members having no idea what is required of them and not knowing the rules or how to enforce them - yet another reason why I'm always pulling kids up on their behaviour).
My mum just keeps telling me that I need a new job but I want to go to uni next year and this is the perfect job for that. So long as things at work get sorted out it should all be good. But I still have to sort out my uni application. I did have a fair idea of what I wanted to do until my sister told me that it was a stupid plan and gave me reasons for her opinion. I know she would do that no matter what I chose to do. It's just her way; she thinks she's helping. But the reasons did make sense and now I'm second guessing myself.
I don't know. All in all, I would love to study creative writing but I doubt there would be job opportunities at the end of it. I can't make a living as a writer, not unless I become an international best-seller which is, realistically, fairly impossible. I suck at anything with chapters. I've taken career advice tests but they come up with things like comic book artist and animator and I just don't have the artistic talent for that sort of thing, no matter how cool it sounds.
Urgh, I just don't know anything anymore. I need sleep. I need to sort everything out, make it work and I NEED SLEEP.
(sorry, I never seem to have cheerful things to post anymore. :-s)
- Mood:
cranky
So, a random update.
I went to Quill Chat this morning. It's been a while, I'd forgotten how fun it is. Ronka finished her Ballad in 87 parts. I was quite excited for her by the last stanza. Since then I've done the laundry, cleaned the bathroom, vacuumed, mopped and made lunch and with all that time to think, I still can't come up with a better word than epic to descibe it. With the writing and all, you'd think I'd be able to come up with more words than that. Yet, it shall, forever more, remain as epic in my mind.
Random topic change:
The weather here is insane. Last week I was freezing my backside off and getting windburn. It was raining enough to push the dam levels above 40% for the first time in years and every one was going on about it really being winter. But, this week is warm and sunny and reminds me of early summmer (when it's warm but you can still wear jeans). It's weird. Seriously, this is the view from my back veranda at 3.30 in the afternoon:
Doesn't look cold does it?
Sorry I don't have anything more interesting to say. Oh well.
Toodle-pip 'til next time. :)
- Location:Next to my cat.
- Mood: content
So not only was I tagged, but it happened to coincide with me actually logging on to notice said tagging. So here follows the meme thing that
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
stubefied_by_gd tagged me for:The rules of the meme...
A) People who have been tagged must write their answers on their blogs & replace any question that they dislike with a new question formulated by themselves.
- Location:On the Squishy Sofa
- Mood: content
I thought this was interesting when
author_by_night did it, so now I'm doing it too.The "ten years ago" meme.
1) How old were you?
THEN: 13
NOW : 23
2) Where did you go to school?
THEN: Second year (grade 9) of High School at an all girls catholic school. I fought so hard to go to a 'normal' school but no one listened and the decision turned around to bite them on the bum.
NOW : I don’t go to school but I work in one – does that count?
3) Where did you work?
THEN: Um, I didn’t have an official job but at 13 I used to rush home from school to give 'DL' her bottle. She was one of the newborn twins that my mother looked after. I took sole responsibility for her for every moment that I wasn’t in school. I skipped a lot of school to help mum with the kids too. She’s in grade 6 now.
NOW : At an O.S.H. (Outside School Hours) Club in a public school. It’s crazy, it’s noisy and I don’t get enough hours but I love it anyway.
4) Where did you live?
THEN: Capital of ‘The Sunshine State’ – the origin of the world largest skin cancer to populace ratio.
NOW: Still here.
6) Did you wear braces?
THEN: No.
NOW : No.
7) Did you wear contacts?
THEN: No.
NOW : No.
8) Did you wear glasses?
THEN: Yeah, for reading. I had a focus problem so it took too long for me to adjust from looking up at the board to looking down at my book and vice versa. Mum made me do exercises for it every day and by the end of the year I didn’t need glasses anymore.
NOW : No.
9) Who was your best friend?
THEN: I thought it was ‘P’ but in hindsight, it was definitely ‘K’. (nothing against 'P', I just talked a lot more with 'K')
NOW : I still have basically the same group of friends but I’m not really close with any of them. I’m a loner.
10) Which of your pets are still alive?
THEN: At 13 my dog was around six years old (she died at 12). She was a black American Water Spaniel named Ebony. At the time, I also had a pet rat named Sugar – because she was white (albino, actually), sweet, & my life revolved around her. She died of cancer when she was 3y/o.
NOW: My cat is my only pet. She’s 8 now.
11) Who was your boyfriend/girlfriend?
THEN: Didn’t date anyone, though that was the first year I ever went to an inter-school dance, where I learnt that the guys from our ‘brother school’ might say the words “Can I dance with you?” but actually meant “May I grope you?”.
NOW : Still don’t date (gee I wonder why).
12) Who was your celebrity crush?
THEN: At the time, everyone was obsessed with Hanson and all of my friends liked
NOW : I don’t find celebrities ‘crush-able’ at all. I get crushes on book characters occasionally, but not celebrities.
13) Who was your regular-person crush?
THEN: A guy from the train station. I never knew his name or spoke to him, never even looked at him for more than a few seconds at a time, but his hair looked really soft and I really wanted to touch it.
NOW : I guess it would be an ex-coworker of mine. He got a new job at the beginning of the year but he comes back during the school holidays. He’s a really nice, nerdy guy and he’s great with the kids but really quiet. He’s far too tall and he looks kinda weird but he’s possibly the only guy I’ve ever actually met/known that I’ve considered dating.
14) How many piercings did you have?
THEN: Four.
NOW : Four, but I’d like another three.
15) How many tattoos did you have?
THEN: None, but I’d always planned to get one.
NOW : None, but I still want one.
16) What was your favorite band/singer?
THEN: Publicly: Hanson, Privately: The Corrs
NOW : I guess it would be Michael Bublé, though I don’t much listen to music.
17) Had you smoked cigarettes?
THEN: No, the whole idea of it was illogical. Most of my friends smoked and all of them tried it, but if I had tried a cigarette I would have almost certainly died – I was a severe asthmatic as a child.
NOW : No, and I never will – unless I have a gun to my head or something like that.
18) Had you gotten drunk?
THEN: No, as a teenager I just wasn’t social enough or rebellious enough to try it.
NOW : No. My father is a severe alcoholic and I never want to end up like him. Besides, I never understood why, if it’s an acquired taste that’s obviously bad for you, would anyone bother acquiring it?
19) Had you DRIVEN?
THEN: I used to drive Dad’s work van around empty parking lots and I drove the FWD along the beach.
NOW : I only just got my learner’s license. I’ve had one driving lesson and it went really well. Looking forward to being able to drive myself around.
20) If so which car?
THEN: Work Van, and a Mistubishi Maverick (basically a Nissan Patrol that had been re-sold by Mitsubishi).
NOW : Some little hatchback thingy, and my Mum’s Mazda Astina.
21) Looking back, are you where you thought you would be in 2008?
Hell, no!! I always swore I would never work in childcare, and I thought I’d have my life all sorted out by the age of 18. When I was young, my family all expected me to grow up to be some sort of biker chick or some such thing. And granted that when most little girls were watching The Little Mermaid, A Little Princess and The Lion King, I was watching Cry Baby, Terminator 2 and Indiana Jones but I still think that was a slight mis-interpretation of my personality. Anyway, my expectations of myself were based on my parents expectations of me, so I expected to be a very rebellious/hard/independent kind of person and I’m a little shocked to find myself wearing skirts at every given opportunity, fussing over Diana Ferrari mary janes, and not just working with children, but with school aged ones (when I’ve always been more comfortable with the ones that still don’t know how to feed themselves).
This is definitely not what I expected.
- Location:In a drought ridden city that is currently flooding.
- Mood:
contemplative - Music:Dream a Little Dream - Michael Bublé
Now I'm bored. :(
Nothing much has been happening in my life lately. Except for last week. Last week I got a mini promotion at work (where one of my new duties is ordering craft supplies and deciding what to do with them - WOOT), and I finally, at the age of 23, bothered to go and get my learner's license. So yeah, things are going well. I haven't been writing much. I can't seem to get into the groove of it and for some reason I got the idea in my head to write a book in a foreign language. Stupid? Yes. But I'm going to start teaching myself to read, write and speak Japanese despite how stupid it sounds. Actually I'm really looking forward to learning something new. I haven't had a real challenge in so long. It's kinda exciting. C-=
And now I think it's time for a cup of tea.
Toodle-pip m'dears
FG
- Location:I'm on the screen - Can't you see me?
- Mood:
geeky - Music:Michael Bublé
I suppose that's all for the moment. Hope y'all are having fun and enjoying your long weekends. I have to go and prepare for the sister (and her new, wonderful, making her life so much better, boyfriend) to come over for an easter bbq.
Toodle-pip,
FG
- Location:The New Home
- Mood:
tired
I couldn't think of anything important to post so --> Memes!!
| - December 30 - | |
| You are fun to be with and have a good sense of humor. You are very ambitious and hate it when people try to bring you down. You are logical, social and loyal. |  |
Positive Traits: charisma, wit, mimicry, writing ability, expressiveness | |
Negative Traits: self-centered, drama queen, lack of focus, dreaminess, laziness | |
| 'What does your Birthdate mean?' at QuizGalaxy.com | |
So, yeah. Also, feeling a little guilty about it (though, logically, I don't think I should be) but I have a whole new fandom and corresponding LJ these days. So, I'll drop by occasionally but I probably won't be here all that often.
I hope everyone's doing well.
Love
FG
(Amy)
- Location:Not far from where I was before
- Mood:
guilty
I don't know if I'm as aggressive as I used to be. This all seems just a little too strong for me but I am comfortably confident in most areas of my life.
Two things in this one:
1) "You have a lot of enthusiasm, but it fades rather quickly. You don't stick with any one thing for very long.
You have the drive to accomplish a lot in a short amount of time. Your biggest problem is making sure you finish the projects you start." - Disturbingly true.
2) "You don't always resist your urges to crush the weak." - I love this. Weak people annoy me and if they try to get under my skin I do tend to set about destroying them. I haven't done that since high school though. I used to be quite a mean little thing. I have a lot more self restraint these days.
- Mood:
mellow
If you're wondering what the chant thing is that they do, it's called The Haaka. It's a traditional war chant thing that the Maori's use to intimidate their opponents by showing the fierceness/strength of their arms, legs, eyes and tongue. (I think the tongue part of it has to do with the cannibal history of the Maori, but I could be way off mark with that.)
I've only ever seen them do the Haaka on the football field before.
- Mood:
amused
author_by_night. I didn't realise how affected I was by the anime world until this. (^_^)First Fandom of 2007: Harry Potter?
Favourite Fandom of 2007: Harry Potter.
Favourite Main Character of 2007: Wolfram
Favourite Minor Character of 2007: Morinozuka Takashi
Favourite Villain of 2007: Too many to choose from
Favourite Het Couple of 2007: Ron/Hermione, Mori/Haruhi and Sakura/Syoran
Favourite Femmeslash Couple of 2007: None.
Favourite Slash Couple of 2007: Yuuram
Fandom That You Never Expected To Get Into: Any of the Anime ones
Fandom That Made An Unexpected Comeback: Fruits Basket
Fandom That Inspired The Most Crack: Ouran
New Fandoms of 2007: All the Anime ones (Ouran, KKM, DNAngel, Karin etc.)
Constant or Old fandoms that are new again: Harry Potter
Last Fandom of 2007: Harry Potter?
- Location:Sitting sideways in the Squishy Armchair
- Mood: geeky
- Music:Yorokobi no uta - Kat-tun
Firstly and most importantly:
Happy Birthday
stubefied_by_gd Happy Birthday to Stu
Happy Birthday to Stu
Happy Birthday dear Stu-oooo
Happy Birthday to Stu
Second: I had an impromptu day out today. I got woken up from my nice big sleep in by a phone call from my mother telling me that they were on their way to see Enchanted at the movies and did I want to come. So I got to see a really adorable movie, went for a little shop where my mother and I both bought cup cake tins because our old ones have mysteriously disappeared. *sends a suspicious look in sister's direction* Cup cakes are a big thing in my family. My mother was three hours late meeting me yesterday because she randomly decided to make me cup cakes. They are our one and only secret family recipe.
Then we (Me, Mum, StepDad & 8yr old StepBrother) went back to their place to play card games. I didn't get home until 6.30pm and then mum and I sat in the car and had a big chat. I was really lovely.
Third: I just checked my emails and sorted out the latest seven of them. I wrote a story at FF.net that has been getting enough of a response that I made a folder for it in my emails. I am ending 2007 with 87 emails in that folder.
Fourth: It was my birthday yesterday and it wasn't at all disappointing. I went to quill chat early, had a good chat, then left to do the birthday thing with my dad. Then my mum was supposed to show up around lunch. After half an hour of waiting for her I jumped back on quill chat with the odd thought of maybe someone will be there. Lots of people were there so I had another big chat. (Happy birthday to Alkari for tomorrow)
Once my mum actually arrived we had a very pleasant afternoon with just me and my divorced parents. It was weird but so nice to have them both there with me and all to myself (my sister has moved back in to the place she had just moved out of). It may sound mean but I love that all of my friends are out of the country at the moment. I hate being obliged to do stuff that other people want to do on my birthday.
Fifth: I got a present from a new friend. Thank you for the balloons
busterde that was really nice of you. :) Sixth: QUIET NEW YEARS!! I don't drink so New Years has never been a fun thing for me but this year everyone's going for a quiet night. The cyclone off the coast is bringing in winds big enough to cancel most of the fireworks shows and the ones that are still going ahead have been downgraded to smaller displays. So most people seem to be staying home or having drinks with friends instead of all partying out at South Bank and so forth. I might actually get to sleep tonight (which is a requirement because I'm going out tomorrow).
I hope everyone has a safe and happy new year. I'll talk to y'all in 2008 m'dears.
- Location:At Home
- Mood:
pleased
So I followed a Google ad at the top of my LJ and found:
Whimsic Alley
I like it.
They have house prefect badges and all sorts of things. Proper looking robes with different linings depending on the house of your choice. And this bumper sticker:
They even have the hats.
^
/ \
_______
(^_^)
- Mood: amused
- Music:Hit the Road Jack - Skeewif
With a Ho Ho Ho,
and a Ha Ha Ha,
and a couple of Tra La Las,
That's how we dance Chrismas away,
in the merry old land of Aus!
(That's the closest I get to singing Christmas Carols :p)
It's Christmas Eve here so I thought I'd drop by and say:
Merry Christmas
to all. Have a really great time.
May you all feel loved and avoid family fueds.
Love and Christmassy Hugs from
Fiction Goddess
- Location:In the Squishy Armchair
- Mood:
Festive - Music:Horse of a Different Colour - Wizard of Oz
I am offically on holidays as of an hour and a half ago. I can almost feel the stress seeping out of me. Annnnnnnd...
I found my watch!!!!
May I just say that the love for this watch is extreme. Of course it figures that I find in a place I had already looked in several times (just not from the right angle) and at the exact moment that I realised I wouldn't be needing it much for the next week. Murphy's Law.
Happy holidays to all.
^_^
- Mood:
ecstatic
It doesn't feel like Christmas at all but I still have to spend all my spare time power walking from shop to shop, getting increasingly frustrated at the lack of viable presents for my family members. None of them told me what they wanted this year and without guidence it's really hard. My mother and sister are impossible to buy for. (Especially because my sister seemed really impressed with her last birthday and Christmas presents and I'm sure I'm going to fall short this time.)
A few other people I've talked to have mentioned that there's nothing decent in the shops this year so at least I know I'm not losing my mind. I spent my day off roaming all over the city looking for presents and by the end of it I still had nothing and I felt like sitting down and crying. I'm always grumpy on the first week of vacation care but to have all of my free time taken up with a fruitless task is just so annoying.
I do love Christmas. I'm not religious in the slightest, but I love having a holiday where I get to show the people who are important to me, that they are important. I consider the exchange of gifts to really mean something. It isn't a 'give a gift to get a gift' sort of thing with me. It's more like 'give a gift to show that that person is important to me and I wanted to make them happy' sort of thing. The problem is that I can't find anything to give them that says that. I hate the idea of buying random things for people just because it's expected of you. Especially if you know that it's something that they won't be terribly enthusiastic about.
Also: I made a new years resolution not to buy any gift cards this year and so far I've stuck to that. I'm so close. I really want to get them real presents, not gift cards. I want something that they can unwrap and be excited about. So far I've gotten each of them a little something but I still need to get each of them a special something. I'm starting to think that I'm made of fail.
Urgh!!! I just want it all to be over and not have to worry about it anymore.
Oh yeah, and I lost my watch as of last Friday. I want my watch back. I keep missing trains and buses because I'm relying on inaccurate wall clocks instead of my oh-so-trustworthy wristwatch. I don't just want a new one either. I want my one. It was blue and it had 3D rainbows and clouds all over it. I love that watch. I miss that watch T.T
And so ends my rather depressing entry.
- Mood:
gloomy
It was the last day of school today. It shouldn't be a big deal, I know. But I'm really going to miss some of the kids that are leaving. Annnnd, two grade six girls and one grade three boy had their last day today too. I didn't even know that they weren't coming back.
N, the grade three boy, has been permanently attached to my side for two years. When I first started working there, I worked nearly every shift and he was there for all of them. He arrives at 6.30 every morning and leaves around 6pm every night, even during holiday care. He practically lives at the OSH club. And he left with no warning at all.
And then there are the ones that just aren't coming on the holidays but I don't know if I'll see them again because I'm looking for a new job, so I probably won't be there by the time they get back. It's all just weird and sad and it kinda crept up on me. This week went by so fast.
On the plus side, tomorrow I get to go back to the town I was born in to visit my grandparents. I haven't been there in years. Not since my Grandma turned 80. They moved since then so it'll be weird to see them in a different house. They used to live on a small farm on a street that had the same name as their surname. They had a chicken coup, potato fields, and two giant rain water tanks. Mainly they just had a whole heap of space. And a HUGE back patio area. Oh, I just realised, Grandma's kitchen is going to be different. I really can't imagine her in any other kitchen. This is going to be weird.
I'm really looking forward to seeing my Grandparents. And my aunts and uncles. Maybe not so much the spending 6-7hours of the day in a car with my mum and new step-dad. Between the two of them there is the unnatural love (and inability to get enough of) Christmas carols and a love of Status Quo (and other bands like them). The radio situation is going to be torturous.
And then tomorrow night is a Christmas/ farewell party at my friend P's house which should be sufficiently draining. But hey, I get to see Duckie. I haven't seen her in two years (she went to the UK to work for a while). Should be interesting to meet the boyfriend that she bought back with her. They seem pretty serious and I get the feeling that there may be wedding bells in the next couple of years (by the time their visas stop them from staying in the same countries).
I'm going to be so tired by Sunday.
- Mood:
drained
I got some Christmas shopping done. Got some new shoes that are really cute. Turns out that the reason I was having trouble finding comfortable shoes was because I was trying on the wrong size. In high school I was a size 8. After high school, when I started buying designer shoes, I moved down to a size 7 1/2. Now, apparently, I'm a size 6 1/2. I'm shrinking. Or at least my feet are.
So some highly satisfying shopping done by lunch time. All necessary items and cheaper than I had expected. I got home, hung out, watched some more Tsubasa Chronicles (loving that anime), then I decided to test run my new shoes. I put them on, walked down the street and -> It's $1 Tuesday at the videos store. Three girly, weekly movies - $3. I haven't had a girly movie night in so long. And dancing during the end credits. I never do that when there's someone else in the house, but I am blessedly free of people at the moment. Ooh and Pringles for dinner. *hee*
BTW: Everyone should watch DOA. I know it's a few years old now and no one like hiring a movie that has Holly Valance on the cover, but it's really good. Lots of fight scenes, top athletes with cellulite (just to boost your esteem a little), fun storyline aaannndd a nerd with glasses called Weatherby (whom no one can remember the name of. They keep calling him Wallaby :p) - remind you of anyone?
Now I'm off to watch NCIS and Numbers, then, maybe a Disney movie before bed. (Thank goodness I'm not on an early shift tomorrow :D)
Just wanted to share my glee. I'm done now. Enjoy your days, my friends.
- Location:Dancing in a leather recliner - it's easier than you think.
- Mood:
hyper - Music:Movies!!!
Urgh, the past couple of days have been exhausting. But it means money for my week off (yay for Christmas).
Not long back
author_by_night mentioned an article she found that said Sydney had banned Santa from using the term 'Ho ho ho'. Aparently they thought it would offend people because some Americans uses the term 'ho' in a derogatory fashion. Which seems stupid no matter which way you look at it. I didn't really think too much about it though because, well, it's Sydney. No one listens to Sydney.But yesterday I had a bunch of kids come up to me for the following conversation:
Them: Miss Amy, did you hear about the woman at Myer?? (Myer is a department store)
Me: No. What about her?
Them: She got fired for saying 'Ho Ho Ho'. (Said with strangely gleeful expressions)
Me: Really? I heard they were going to ban that. Seems a stupid thing to get fired for though.
Them: Yeah. Did you know that ho means prostitute!? (really gleeful expressions)
Me: Only in America.
Them: COOL!! It really means prostitute!
And then they ran off to tell their friends that it had been confirmed. So the people who tried to ban it in fear of offending people who didn't know what it meant, are now responsible for informing an entire generation of children that there are insults that can be used to call fellow students prostitutes under the guise of 'Christmas Cheer' (something that has never been a problem before).
At least there's only one more week of the children going feral before summer hols start. Bring on the Vacation Care!
- Mood:
hot
The summer holidays start in two weeks at my school and today a bunch of the grade seven students turned up with signature bears. You know, the bears made out of calico that everyone signs. So I was signing away on the bears of some of my favourite children and now I feel all sad. I'm really going to miss them.
No more over-excited, long-winded stories about runescape or zelda. No more running up to me on a Monday to ask if I watched the latest Dr. Who. No more interesting conversations about mythical creatures. No more parody songs about emos. No more decapitated Big Birds. And this is all just one child. To think about what I'll lose with the rest of them included is just painful.
I've been doing childcare since I was a child. I'm used to letting go. I know I'll be fine once they leave and I can focus on the other kids. But leading up to them going - I'm all sad! I like these kids. I just hope I don't cry. They'll lose all respect for me if I cry. Fan fics make me cry and tv ads make me cry. It's going to be so hard to stop the tears when I lose kids that I've been hanging out with for two years.
Also - D (the boy in the second paragraph) noticed my feet today. Now I know I have nifty feet and children have marveled over them many a time throughout my life. But D seems to think they are the niftyest things in the world. He gathered up a heap of his classmates to come over and look at my feet. This isn't all that weird but he now wants a photo of them, which is a little weird. I really don't want to let him photograph my feet. There's nothing wrong with it, it just seems odd. It's odd right?
In other news: I've been reading a lot of fics on the Quill lately - and reviewing. I never used to review but I've reviewed, like, ten in the past couple of days. I think it's because I'm happy. I've been having thoughts. Really good, interesting thoughts about something that I could do with my life that might actually make it more fun, and interesting, and financially stable. I like these thoughts. They're making me happy.
:D
- Mood:
thoughtful
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