A recap of today's miseries :) no, this aint a self indulgent whine

Honestly, the news has a way to dampen anyone's good mood.

While making breakfast (Rooibos vanilla tea with apricot, peach and avocado fruit salad... brekkie epicurean orgasm doesnt get any better than that) i switched on the damn telly only to be greeted by doom and gloom of the shite world that we inhabit and consequently pollute, rape and destroy.

1: Cairns train wreck.. a truck was sliced in half when it collided with a train, which derailed. Yeah, ok so someone stuffed up the traffic signals along the bruce highway and a couple of people kicked the bucket while several others had to be hospitalised. but thats not even the worst news of the day.

2: Bangkok on lockdown! Protestors take to two major airports in Bangkok as a move to pressure the PM to step down. its funny, it was only last year i was in thailand and the pm seemed to be like a popular person,with an almost royal stature on the streets. The protesters seem to be a peaceful lot though...

and heres the kicker

3: Mumbai terrorist attack by yes, you guessed it: 'islamist jihadists'. they targeted british, american and jewish tourists. no surprise there. there were hostages, grenades, fires, injuries, emergency squads, deaths, a haggard kevin rudd, the whole nine yards... so, yeah, the usual.

in a way, im quite glad that i vetoed the suggestion for a summer holiday in india, its a rather violatile place to be right now. bloody hell...first it was bali, at the end of last year it was pakistan, now its india... am i the only one sensing that the illustrious list of places that are 'best avoided or proceed with extreme caution' is getting longer?

perhaps by witnessing all these violence and destruction on tv is desensitising me to the reality of the horror due to the sense of isolation and detachment i get from being physically distant from the events, as well as the frequency of these ultra tragic occurrences. if it aint freak weather, its a bomb. if someone didnt get mauled by a crocodile, its an oil spill. if it aint a tragic car crash, some young boy got sodomised by a pastor. it never stops and nothing that tragic has ever happened to me or anyone close so i get a false sense of security and naive optimism that i am protected from all the shit in the world and the worst case scenarios that could happen. this leads me to write about such atrocities in an offhand, even sarcastic manner because i find it hard to be heartfelt and honest if i wrote about it using proses that articulate tangibly the extreme human emotions and conditions.

i do however like to be happy.

every thursday we get catalogues, promotions, circulars and every sort of junk mail and crap you can imagine from various business trying to shove their wares in our faces and they even got kids struggling to pay bills to ride around on bikes with neatly packed parcels full of spam and secretly impregnate mailboxes of the neighbourhood in the silence of wednesday nights. i have friends who have done this kind of work, and i must say i was secretly disdainful of their choice of part time job. I hate, detest, abhor junk mail because they advertise bullshit that i dont need (i dont bloody care that your salon offers 20% off hair straighteners!), use up a lot of natural resources and contributes to so much litter, they're rude, impersonal invaders of my property... i own that mailbox and i do not welcome unsolicited mail and they give me false expectations that i have a nice parcel sitting in the mailbox. usually i would take the junk and dump them in the recycling bin with a very satisfactory 'fuck you'. but recently the attack of mailbox invaders got worse as more and more shit came in that dreaded thursday morning parcel that the slot on my mailbox through which you drop letters in are stuffed with this stupid, pointless garbage to the point where i cant even pull them out. So sick of it all, i stuck two strips of masking tape that says
"No junk mail, please" and "save the trees!" The junk mail has stopped coming, but the weekly newspaper still gets sent in their plastic wrapper and rubber band. ill take care of that soon.

This morning when i came home from my run, i checked my mail and found this lovely note:

I do know the figs that were mentioned, i ran past them the other day. Its cool to make unexpected connections, connecting little dots during the course of a day. That note made me extra happy on top of the natural endorphin induced high after the run. of course watching morning telly was a bit of a downer but i have exciting plans for the day, bring on that storm and terrorists can shove their grenades up their arses...fark yeah!

:D

Culinary Creation: Shroom salad

I love mushrooms. I bought a bag from the fruit market and made this lunchey thing for breakfast. Yes, i eat lunch for breakfast and breakfast for dinner, and leftovers for dinner. or whatever. the point is im getting enough nutrients to perform basic biological functions in order to continue living.

Ingredients:

Button mushrooms, sliced. any other mushrooms will do, i suppose.
Fresh basil, chopped finely
Baby spinach
Sunflower seed
Chickpeas
Truss tomatoes cut in cubes

- Heat up a frying pan, and lightly fry the mushrooms and basil in olive oil. season with salt and pepper.
- remove shrooms and put on a plate with paper towels so the juices can be absorbed.

- grill the tomatoes in the hot pan so it absorbs some of its shroomness and basilness for a bit of flavour. remove them and drain on paper towels.
- mix up the shrooms, toms, spinach, seed, chickpeas and youre good to go!

notes:
- next time i wont drain the shrooms or the tomatoes. ill add udon noodles and use the juices as a sauce.
- alternatively, you can have the toms fresh and raw in the salad but i'm too scared to eat raw tomatoes by myself so thats why i had to subject them to searing hot heat first. im a novice tomato eater, in case you didnt know.

cheerio!

Being Bored is an Insult to Oneself

Huzzahs are in order for Jules Renard...i love that anecdote

i've been living a pleasant, idyllic life ever since i emerged from the epic f-week and the subsequent equally stressful week of essay and assignment battle shaken, stirred, exploded, imploded, ingested, digested, turned inside out, upside down righside left...the point being, after a year of hard work i feel obliged to be lazy, useless and want to be waited on from top to toe by beautiful men with sexy smiles, broad backs, toned legs and dark skins (guys, if you fit this description, feel free to drop me an email with high resolution pictures. oh and you must be at least 30. boys dont do it for me). mind you though, hard work and the quantity of time invested in a project doesnt guarantee an outcome of a satisfactory quality but thats a whole different rant altogether.

anyway, the great battle of arch school ended in an anticlimax. I handed in my last assignment at midnight, got home knackered to the bones and went to bed in a state of surreality, hibernation sublime. So much for our plans of a shenanigan fuelled picnic at the botanical gardens. but im not complaining. ever since then ive been catching up with friends and met new people, ate at new cafes and restaurants so it hasnt been half bad.

im having a quiet day today and have been doing nothing creative, beneficial or even remotely interesting and was starting to feel a bit bored, lonely and sorry for myself until i received a phone call. details pertaining to this particular conversation shall remain private, but it was a sharp kick up the arse to do something (with myself? for myself? *lecherous grin*) that would eradicate boredom and consequently prevent me from insulting myself.

Its raining outside, which is absolutely brilliant. if im being honest with myself its an excuse not to go running, an excuse not to go to the charity store and hand over my clothes once ive sorted out my closet, an excuse not to renew club sponsorships, and an excuse to cut up mangoes and peaches and eat them in bed while i watch more family guy.

i just got off an msn conversation with a friend and we had a stimulating discourse about boyfriends, guys, older men, sensuality, sex and porn... you know, the typical chain of topics when one begins conversation about birthday plans *another lecherous grin*.. so now im back with nothing to do, nothing interesting enough that would make me do something about it. there are several intellectual and creative matters that would be mildly amusing for me to do, but i just cant be arsed at the moment. for example, i could read the books i got out of the library, read the books given to me ages ago, read architecture books i got for myself, draw imges that pop in my head, illustrate stories and fantasies, design a space station, run the marathon, cure cancer, cook, clean my room, eat something, shower, pee, poo, breathe...

meh. too lazy.please call again (and give me another kick). thanks for wasting 3 minutes of your life to read this inherently pointless drivel of a bored mind.

ps: interestingly enough, i find that when im bored, my senses, memory and intellect are dimmed somewhat. i tried to do a simple mental calculation and that took longer than it normally would, i tried to recall the most interesting thing that happened to me in the past week but all i could come up with were the image of my bright green vintage heels (which by the way is HOT)...i tried to get excited about my new job and future travels but my brain refused to kick into gear and spewed out this message: "yeah...whatever."
i conclude that being bored is not only an insult; it is a menace, a hazard and a treachery to oneself.

The chronicles of F week

For an architecture student, folio is a dirty, forbidden word. The very thought of it strikes fear and dread into the hearts of these young architecture slaves, shaking their sanity to the foundations. Folio week (from now on the filthy words shall be referred to as the F word) puts people through a severe test of perseverance and liberal amounts of fortitude is required to survive this hellish 7 days, all done for the sake of education and quite possibly the future of mankind's built environment

Some people end this week in triumph, but thats a rare breed. they belong to a subspecies of hardcore super efficient high tension steel - based lifeforms known as GERDS, a quasi-witty combination of the words geek and nerds. Most however emerge from the week crawling, shaking, covered in glue, bits of wood and cardboard and smelling of a foul mixture of sweat, food, various caffeinated drinks, glue and week- old body odour, all due to sleepless nights, showerless days and malnoutrition. Needless to say, the second group of students (i.e; mere mortals) resent the former and are secretly jealous of them. WELL, LOSER, ITS YOUR OWN FAULT THAT YOU'RE A LAZY, ARROGANT, CLUELESS IDIOT WHO WATCHES ABSOLUTE RUBBISH ON YOUTUBE ALL THE TIME INSTEAD OF DOING WORK! These gerds on the other hand, trot around the studio with rolls and rolls of perfectly drafted drawings sticking out of every orifice, silently smug that they have 5 minutes to spare before submission cut off hour while bitching to strugglers about what a hard time they had during the f week. SHOVE YOUR HEAD UP YOUR ARSE SO I WONT HEAR YOUR IRRITATING WHINING, YOU PRETENTIOUS TIT! I NEED TO GET MY SHIT DONE OR GET MY BALLS CHOPPED OFF.

Im not saying all archi students fall into either one of these stereotypes...hang on. maybe the do.

So who will survive F WEEK 2008? Stay tuned for the nail biting results show.

ps: Like the sectional perspective or ill stick it down your bloody throat.

Hello (yes, bog standard 1st post title)

um. hi. anyone out there?

this isnt my first blog post. i actually had a blog that in which i faithfully whined on friendster *hides face in shame because no one cool uses friendster anymore and i desperately yearn to be accepted in the exclusive uber sleek social posse of facebook users* but that was an age ago, after graduating from high school, when i was young, dumb, bored and frustrated. the friendster blog provided me an audience of friends and 'friends' who were subliminally suckered into reading a blow by blow account of my boredom and the loneliness and frustration that seems to accompany boredom wherever it goes.

but i outgrew friendster, moved on to myspace and subsqeuently facebook, plus i was having too much fun to sit around writing about how much fun im having. on a side note, though, i did have a small blog on myspace detailing a few of my adventures but because i didnt have may friends on myspace, i ditched it.

so why start again? its friday, i just woke up from a crit induced coma (i see myself writing about it sometime in the near future) , had breakfast and swore to myself id get going on my tech assignment at noon. i went on youtube and from one video to another, was lead to a video on the cyclic nature of internet addiction. The person (i wont say whom or what video it was because i dont like giving publicity to anyone) was fasinated by youtube and jumped on the bandwagon of millions of 'vloggers' (awful word, that) spitting out their shite in front of the video recorder and billions of people waste their time watching people watching them back which got me thinking about blogging again. a lot of my friends have interesting blogs, some with truckloads of readers, others with a few faithful audience (usually a devoted significant other or family member), but they're all forms of self expression and you could get some nice feedback, adulation, or the occassional inappropriate remark..but any attention is good attention. and i like attention. i like it when people notice something new ive done, a new shirt im wearing, the funny way i eat an apple, the quirky way i pronounce some words, the tattered state of my running shoes or the evil looking pus filled pimple on my face that is just begging to be popped.

yes. i am an attention whore. ive used the A word a few times now. i should find another word to replace it. This is what dictionary.com gave me:

absorption, application, assiduity, consideration, contemplation, debate, deliberation, diligence, engrossment, heed, heedfulness, immersion, industry, intentness, mind, scrutiny, study, thinking, thought, thoughtfulnes, awareness, big rush, brace, concern, consciousness, looking after, ministration, notice, observation, recognition, regard, spotlight, tender loving care, TLC, treatment, addresses, advertence, advertency, alertness, application, assiduity, attentiveness, circumspection, civility, complaisance, concentration, consideration, courtesy, deference, devoirs, diligence, ear, fixation, heed, limelight, mindfulness, note, notice, obedience, observation, perception, prevenience, regard, respect, study, thought, vigilance, watchfulness

i quite like spotlight, limelight, although both can't be used the same way that attention is utilised. but i rephrase: i am a spotlight whore. Not to be confused with the diva like drag queen worship of celebrity, but a silently, secretly simmering pot of excitement concealed in the realm of my emotions when another being devotes a few seconds of their lives to me, my silly two pence worth of opinions and my insignificant-in-the-grander-scheme-of-things existance.

i guess thats why i like it when a bloke fancies me, or i meet a new person whom id really like to be friends with: the attention. when there is an intial attraction, and im happy being the object of their affection, good conversation flows like delicious silky golden threads between our mouths and ears, (possibly loins as well but lets not go there) engulfing us in this 'warm' kind of coccoon of comradery, intimacy and a certain intrigue. actually this whole post is pointless except for the statement i like an audience.

i have no idea what this blog will be about, or whether im going to be completely uninhibited and spill my guts into 1's and 0's with all my dirty little secrets or if i shall be quiet reserved. Most of the time im sarcastic and dont really make sense and my stories are all over the place i cant be bothered with proper punctuation or capitalisation of the appropriate letters.

if im being completely honest with myself, starting the blog with a rant is a way to procrastinate doing tech. and laundry. and japan holiday visa. and household chores. and take a shower. OMG OMG OMG.

but anyway, pay attention to me, world for i am blogging! fark yeah.