june 30, 2002
yesterday
was not a good day for study. i chose the lazy reading a novel choice, at the same time knowing i had the power to choose the more profitable, but greater effort choice of studying for my ism exam.
i did not do any study. i picked up the textbook from my floor! but otherwise i read, bought socks, ate a weird combination of food (porridge, a carrot, pasta, two boiled eggs, lots of dried apple and two tim tams), strangely i didn't have many cups of tea.
i watched the news, my family and then a beautiful documentary on nick drake. i could have done study then couldn't i? but no, i watched bits of north by northwest and kept on reading!
so today i'm going to study.
i have to study.
really i'm going to.
pipstar @ 02:08 PM | link | Comments: *
june 29, 2002
further
it was my second to last friday at work. only next thursday and friday and then my boring job is finished.
woohoo!
i rewarded myself by visiting a high class retail outlet where i bought a $2 keyring for one of my little bros, a caramello koala and a copy of caleb carr's the angel of darkness for $3.50.
from then on it was all downhill. i haven't done the tiniest bit of study. i've started reading the carr book and then i drowsily watched taggart (i guessed that the art teacher did it) and then my parentals came home bearing a going away gift.
gift you say? yes a gift. i'd have liked a puppy, but they don't pack up very well. instead mum bought me a very cute headtorch. the theory is that now i don't need a booklight, i will have a light for night bikerides and i'll have my handsfree if i need to deal with strange toilet facilities in the middle of the night.
oh, and i've just discovered an online version of one of my favourite childrens' books. the adventures of dunno and his friends by nikolia nosov.
:::...
my family (particularly my mum) have been pretty stressed over the last week. one of the main factors is that last monday my 19 year old brother claimed that he'd had an epileptic fit (of sorts) while watching his friend play PS2. he had an e.e.g. done a few days ago, which showed abnormal results, but they weren't consistent with typical epilepsy. so today nick had a CT scan, which came up clear (no tumour!) but which doesn't explain the eeg results or the fit. add this to his drug induced schizophrenia, his continued use of dope, his many learning difficulties and asperger's syndrome and it's no wonder that my mum's stressed.
and my youngest brother has severe scoliosis which will need to be operated on in the next year. not good.
i also threw a bit of a mixed family hissy fit at her last weekend. but, as this is my blog, i choose to NOT write any more about that!
but it all comes down to my ma being stressed.
pipstar @ 01:50 AM | link | Comments: *
june 27, 2002
the google game
google game from judy
Pippa is no manically vacant fashion doll, but has infinitely
more character and expression than most of her rivals.
pippa is a small network datapipe written in Perl
Pippa is a member of the Standards Council of Canada's Consumer and Public Interest
Committee, was an active member of the National Broadband Task Force
Pippa is also a gifted horsewoman.
Pippa is the Gardeners' Question Time resident "bugs"
expert
Pippa is literally cleaning up bucket-loads of cash
Pippa is less than cooperative,
Pippa is Henry's daughter by his first wife, Miranda.
Pippa is a very lively and 'naughty' cat but also very cuddly
Pippa is an 18-month-old cross-bred bitch which has been nurtured back to health
i didn't know that there was a doll called pippa!
pipstar @ 03:04 PM | link | Comments: ***
june 25, 2002
breathe
i finally received a couple of emails from aidan. i am so relieved.
i thought that maybe he was dead, injured, angry, not my friend anymore. so i'm feeling much better now.
i haven't done ANY study. literally.
i keep on waking up after midday.
i am going to return the brilliant but too big backpack, take in some old film (after three years i don't know what the pictures are of!), buy some socks and then do some mega study.
really. i am going to study.
pipstar @ 03:30 PM | link | Comments:
june 23, 2002
rock city
rock city went well last night, we've had better nights with more people. to be fair, it is swot vac at the moment and there was also worldcup finals fever, so we weren't expecting that many people would turn up.
one of the big delights of the night was that chris h (a friend of aidan's) turned up! gemma had come in earlier, but later she turned up with a bunch of other people including chris.
anyway, chris has finished his degree and is just about to go to western china with dave for a month. i'm very jealous of that trip as it corresponds so closely to news from tartary.
and i also went to see spiderman with karah and james before r.c. i don't care what alan says, it was fun and i enjoyed it!
...
this is where i get all guilty. i ate at mcdonalds last night. i didn't have much cash, and there isn't that much cheap food on the west-end of hindley at 9pm, so i walked down to mcdonalds and had a happy meal.
it was crap. the drink came in a plastic cup! since when do they need to pollute the environment more?
ever since i was little i was always a hungry jack's girl. the fries are better, junior whoppers are good value, AND they offered vegie burgers during my brief sojourn as a vegetarian.
but there isn't an h.j. or a subway on west hindley! i feel dirty. if i'm going to put money into the pockets of fastfood companies i actually want to enjoy what i eat!
pipstar @ 06:45 PM | link | Comments:
june 23, 2002
the last of the big spenders
yesterday i went into town to look at daypacks and rainjackets. i ended up spending over $400 at the scout shop (snowgum) sale.
a pair of snowgum shoes
a black climber swiss army knife
a freeflow II rucksack
and a rainbird rainjacket
and now i'm going through a bit of a panic about the daypack. it's huge! the structure of the bag is such that it can't be made smaller.
i'm used to using a 15 (or previously a 22) litre daypack for everyday use. very rarely would i wish for anything bigger. but my intention is to just use a 40ish litre daypack for the final leg of my trip when i'm in thailand (and now laos because of bonnie's reports). but, i have to realise that that's 7 months away, at the end of my trip.
maybe i should return the daypack and just use my 15 litre kathmandu pack? i can pack up my scungy old 22 litre pack as a spare and then invest in the berghaus when i'm just about to go to thailand?
stressful.
but i'm a little less stressed as i also purchased a spanish phrasebook and cassette and turkish phrasebook from europa bookshop which is unfortunately are going out business. my spanish pronunciation is going to be much improved as i've been pronouncing every spanish word i see as if i was speaking in french. not good.
pipstar @ 06:23 PM | link | Comments:
june 22, 2002
i got a booboo
i had a boring day at work today (only two more fridays to go and then [thank god!] it's over) and i felt depressed because the same promises of a good computer and extra work are being offered to my replacement. i'm not sure whether i should feel happy if the promises come through for this person, or all gloomy that things didn't happen for me.
and then i met two spontaneously friendly people at reception as i was leaving and felt sad that i didn't get to work with them (they were in the sport department, so it's no wonder i didn't work with them) or with more people like them. the two main people i worked near were smokers and would go off and have their discussions while they smoked, and the people who worked on the same project were up on the next floor and the meetings were on monday and i contentmonkeyed on fridays, so i never got to interact with them then.
so i was feeling sad while i was walking to my car.
and then as i got into the car i hit my head against the door and it really hurt.
i started crying because i wanted to tell aidan all about my shit day and how depressed my job has made me feel for the last 8 months and that made me sadder because he's in paris at the moment and i don't have a number for him and he's been feeling distanced and upset and i can't be there to have him tell me how he feels.
and i haven't missed him this strongly (enough to cry) for a good couple of months.
but i made myself feel better by talking my way through my feelings in the way that aidan has before when i've been feeling stressed.
:::...
hmmm. it's 3.20 adelaide time and i should go to sleep and wake up and buy a rain jacket tomorrow and do some study and get ready for rock city.
but all i can think about (now that i'm feeling better about my day) is tibet and mongolia and trans-siberian railway journeys to europe. unfortunately those thoughts will have to be postponed a couple of years.
Still, it was exciting to pass from time to time little parties of Tibetans, their wild dark faces alive with curiosity beneath their fox-fur hats, the scabbards of their broadswords projecting horizontally athwart their saddle-bows, their shaggy ponies pacing briskly. At one o'clock, breasting a low ricge, we saw the great monastery of Kumbum......As we dropped down towards the gay and curious buildings I had the sudden conviction that, whatever political maps of Asia might say to the contrary, we had done at last with China. It was not so much the obvious difference in the architecture as a more elusive difference in the atmosphere. Here was something altogether more dour, more self-sufficient and aloof than pliable, conciliatory, irresponsible China; something that Time had hardly touched, that the West had not touched at all; something that had not faced, perhaps would never face, the necessity to prove itself adaptable, to change certain of its spots; something for better or for worse immutable.
Peter Fleming, News from Tartary
as i read this passage i felt so sad. i wanted to believe that Tibet would never have to go through the struggles that it had been through, that the country would never have to face "the necessity to prove itself adaptable". but i'm living in 2002, for 43 years Tibet has been occupied by the Chinese. however much i'd like to believe a book written in 1935, reality prevents me from doing so.
pipstar @ 04:58 AM | link | Comments:
june 22, 2002
virus? $%*^@
i think that aidan's hotmail account was sending me a virus (W32/Klez.h@mm), so i may have inadvertently passed it on to someone else. i usually send using webmail, so hopefully your computers are all right.
i was able to find the beasty responsible, winkhoe.exe. if you think that you've been infected, here's mcafee's instructions on how to remove the virus.
:::...
uh-oh. i think that i'm miss taken-with-herself soon to be travel logged. my life is sad.
pipstar @ 04:19 AM | link | Comments:
june 20, 2002
gadgety cameras. i want all of them
first it was the lomo. and then the actionsamplers and supersamplers.
and then a holga.
and then the l'espion mini digital camera
and the aiptek mega pencam
and now it's the lomographic pop9.
thankgodthatihaven'tboughtany[yet]becauseifihadi'dbeverypoor.
pipstar @ 04:41 AM | link | Comments:
june 19, 2002
i think it's because they never wash it...
i went for a super-fast walk at 5 this afternoon. down to the interchange along the river and then up again. i went super-fast, not because of fitness reasons, but because i was afraid of the freaks who are said to hang out in the park at night.
i got home before dark, with my heart racing and the sounds of super science in my ears.
and then i did some yoga. in front of my brother and mum, which isn't the easiest situation to yogify in.
but it's all part of my commitment to get slightly fit before i have to cart my backpack everywhere. so really, embaressment shouldn't be an issue. this fitness thing is about not panting and puffing and not having to take a break every three metres.
:::...
oh, and i finally put in an email contact form, as i've recently been getting spammed. i'm surprised that my nekkid email address had lasted for so long without spam!
pipstar @ 03:51 AM | link | Comments:
june 18, 2002
i'm going to go for a walk in a few minutes.
maybe my brain is running very quickly today, but my net connection seems to be moving along very slowly. or maybe it's my computer that's moving slowly, as it seems to be taking ages to move to a new window.
:::...
i had a slowish weekend, worked at uni on friday night, did some group assignment work on saturday, went to warped at music house all by myself, wandered down to mojo west, didn't get much sleep on sunday morning, so i then spent pretty much all of sunday evening asleep.
but all of my assignment work is handed up. i'm not expecting particularly good marks, as i haven't really been interested in any of my subjects this semester. and in 15 days my exams will have been finished.... after which, no more uni until next year!
not studying will be weird.
after high school i went straight onto university, i didn't take a year or even six months off study. and because i've been studying my degree(s) part-time, i'm now in my 6th year at university! without any credentials so far!
that's 17.5 years of education. with nothing much to show for it apart from a reasonable T.E.R., the SACE certificate and more than a degree's worth of credit points... but not the right subjects to make up any worthwhile degree!
so you can guess that i'm pretty bored with the whole study concept.
but after 7 months away, it will be good to return to study, not only because my poverty will make me eligible for youth allowance, but also because at the end of next year, i'll finally have a double degree. and two years of related work experience. and seven months of living out of a backpack. i believe that will make me an almost well rounded person.
:::...
my 13 year old brother was very sweet last night (he was feeling sick, which might have put him in less of a tough boy mood), and told me that i had to make sure that i came back at the end of the trip. he actually admitted that he'd miss me.
pipstar @ 06:21 PM | link | Comments:
june 15, 2002
like a broken record
yep, once again, while i should have been working on an assignment, i made up a rock city flyer.
pipstar @ 01:17 AM | link | Comments:
june 13, 2002
mad sounds. mad feel.
lue saw alex from big brother at work today. a couple of weeks ago i had a dream and he was in it. there was a hill which a group of us were walking up, and at some point alex started to tell us how we could pick the lemons hanging off the trees.
even in my dreams he has a theory. in my dream, as well as in lue's reality, he was spunky.
my day was not star-studded like lue's.
after one hour of sleep (you know when you try to get to sleep, and you just can't?) i headed off to my dental appointment to find out that i only have one wisdom tooth. and at the moment that baby is staying where it is, firmly embedded in my jaw. i have no cavities, and my teeth are now ultrasonicly cleaned. so i don't have to worry about any major tooth trauma before i go away.
i also changed my ticket so that i leave europe from london, rather than stockholm via london. which freed up a segment, so now i can get from london to istanbul with no stress. though i do have to get to london from spain... paris? is that you calling?
i'm managing to not spend my $23 limit for the week. today i only paid for my bus tickets in and out of town. and the wonders of mutual community meant that i was able to claim on my hepatitis vaccination, so i have $43 i can spend this week!
...
i'm struggling with the concept that it's the final week of uni this week. i still have ecommerce tech to work on. and 1000 words to write about online education (my new technology). and on monday my desktop publishing class has an exam which i have to supervise, but apart from my exams, this semester is over. FREAKY!
as my handy countdown javascript on the side displays, there are only 54 days until i go!
and i have to develop some degree of fitness before i leave. AND all the other stuff i have to do.
eek.
must go to bed to wake up for tres exciting pre-exam lecture (my 2nd lecture for the semester!) tomorrow morning.
pipstar @ 02:26 AM | link | Comments:
june 11, 2002
yikes
hopefully i'll have enough tax credits to pay off my hecs bill for this year, because i'm up for about $1000.
and then there's the ABN that i applied for, but never used because i ended up being an employee, not a contractor at my new work. so i have to make a call to the ATO to find out whether i need to submit a big form or just a statutory declaration stating that i didn't use my ABN. which i've forgotten.
pipstar @ 05:16 PM | link | Comments:
june 11, 2002
if i only had a brain
i think i just might have died of jealousy.
at this moment i am procrastinating something which will be pretty simple to do. writing a personal log about the re-engineering assignment, blahblahblah, problems encountered, decisions made. but i don't want to do it!
pipstar @ 03:24 AM | link | Comments: *
june 11, 2002
yikes
$29.70 to see the avalanches play records?
i suppose that it could be much worse.
pipstar @ 03:15 AM | link | Comments:
june 11, 2002
riffens
i was worried about not getting to see warped play before i go, and what do i find out?
they're playing on saturday!
Saturday 15th June
@ the Music House
pipstar @ 03:00 AM | link | Comments:
june 11, 2002
i bake because i can
i just made my third loaf of bread for this long weekend. this loaf is multigrain with sesame seeds on the outside.
and damn, eating bread that you've baked yourself is so damn good! letting others eat it is even better, but not if they get to eat the last slice.
i think that after exams, (while i'm selling my car, designing a travel blog etc) i'm going to do a flash recipe for baking your own bread. i want to attempt to show how to knead and how to wait for bread to rise. (maybe this will have to be a 3 hour flash movie!)
pipstar @ 01:42 AM | link | Comments:
june 10, 2002
he was an adelaide boy once.
paul kelly sings songs that sound of australia. of sprinklers on summer evenings, and the journeys between cities, of australian people.
he makes me homesick. i haven't even left yet. i haven't even paid off my ticket yet!
pipstar @ 05:47 PM | link | Comments:
june 10, 2002
un-natural thoughts and resolutions
for instance, take saving money. i've been really good gathering funds together for going away, but now with only about 60 days to go i've gone into spending overdrive.
a limited edition avalanches tshirt? yes please.
shouldn't i be inspired and try to gather even more moula before i go? rather than buying more cds, clothes i can't take with me and stupid things like passports and hepatitis vaccinations? (just joking!)
resolutions
ok. no more cds.
that should be relatively easy. i've already been encouraging nick to buy less records so that he'll be cashed up in stockholm.
no withdrawing from non commonwealth bank atms. because i can't stand losing up to $10 a month on stupidity.
get my bond money from morgan and fridge money from jared. that way i'll have enough for my backpack and superfly hiking boots.
.
.
.
and the biggest most immediate resolution?
i'm going to try to survive on $23 for the next week.
so, i eat food at home. simple. i'm not having to pay rent and i have at least 4 books i haven't read yet and lots of study to do instead of going out.
because one of my major assignments is due on friday, there's a big chance that i won't be able to go to yoga on thursday night because the effects of procrastination will be strongly felt. so that saves me $10.
easy peasy.
the only tricky thing is going to be my dentist appointment on wednesday morning. in the middle of the city. i either drive and have to pay for parking, or bus in and face the dangers of rundle mall.
eek.
pipstar @ 01:28 AM | link | Comments:
june 09, 2002
unsubscribe
i'm afraid of having my email accounts blocked by newsletters and special offers while i'm away. so i'm slowly unsubscribing from list upon list upon list. and i think that i'm going to set up some type of email form, rather than leaving my email address exposed to the world of evil spambots.
even though i ended up staying home last night, it ended up being for no good reason. i scrawled out a little bit of zine stuff, but ended up flicking between rage and the longest yard. any hope of an earlyish bedtime was lost when the eminem videos came on.
a saturday night accompanied by marshall mathers and burt reynolds? yes. my life is incredibly sad.
pipstar @ 05:00 PM | link | Comments:
june 09, 2002
nice dream
wow, i just wrote a 1400 word email to aidan. and it contained actual french words in it!
how can i write such a long email so easily, but have to spend weeks psyching up for a 2000 wd essay, and then spend the majority of time procrastinating and checking the word count every extra ten words?
yesterday karah, james and i went ice skating, and we met up with karen (from the sleep lab) and her friend louisa. there was slipping and sliding, and much graceful ice skating from karah and yours truly. no more "social netball but we really want to kick your ass" for us. we want weekly ice-skating adventures.
[i think that ice-skate designers have no concept of the shape of the average foot. or the average ankle for that matter. i have blisters in odd places. like the arch of my foot.]
i baked a really good loaf of bread today. i'm very proud of it. if only bread could be emailed.
...
skedaddling is in order. except i don't really feel like going out. but if i don't go out i'll feel all pathetic because of lack of social contact.
...
looks like skedaddling aint going to happen.
because:
i want to make up a couple of pages of stuff for the zine with gemma. i've salvaged a few books that we were going to throw out, "the australian girls' book of crafts, pets, sports and hobbies", "a general school physics" and "a child's bible", all because they have lovely pictures to reuse. but i don't think that i'm going to be able to bring myself to cut them out. so scanning, tracing and hand copying look like they're the go.
and i also have to do quite a bit of uni work in the next week. so i think i'm going to work out a technology that i'm unfamiliar with, and then write 1000 words... Note and then analyse your own responses to the experience of using this technology.
... m.u.d.s? chris did that for his exploring tech assignment...
ripping cd tracks to mp3? i have ethical issues surrounding that.
shopping online? i'm not new to it, and that would just be a dangerous game i'd be getting involved in.
hot or not? kinda an old school meme, and i don't really have enough time to get responses and then guage my responses to my rating. but it would be a good thing to use to look at the technologies of self and identity formation...
the dancing games in the video arcade? they involve interaction of the body and technology and identity. but they would be an expensive thing to research.
.
.
.
zining. my new procrastination...
pipstar @ 12:42 AM | link | Comments:
june 07, 2002
yesterday
i went to yoga with karah. we did some new poses and so many downward-facing-dogs and handstand preparations that we found it hard to use our arms when we were eating dinner (granny's bean curd and rice at kychow).
and karah gave me the most beautiful book for my travel joural (it's better than anything i'd imagined!). it's pink and red, covered with chiyogami paper.
and then as always we analysed life in detail.
:::...
i finally bought a discman. this is the first of the BIG purchases before i go away.
:::...
[to read]
pipstar @ 06:05 PM | link | Comments: *
june 07, 2002
the flashing lights of the city
we've already seen two fire engines, lights flashing drive along north-east road on their way to storm related incidents.
[i was looking forward to another walk this weekend. but it looks like it will be wet. ]
in the last week i've attempted to make a start on a zine with gemma, phpd like mad for the ecommerce assignment, had a lot of naps and kinda attended uni.
pipstar @ 05:25 PM | link | Comments:
june 07, 2002
stormy weather
one of the few exciting things about my job is that the placement of my desk gives me an amazing view over adelaide.
when the weather is sunny, the view is actually annoying, as i can see what i'm missing out on while i'm working as a content bunny.
but watching a storm come in? that is truly awe inspiring.
pipstar @ 04:43 PM | link | Comments:
june 02, 2002
shank's pony
hmmm. the weather is just chilly enough to make a walk worthwhile: for the [non]feelings of frozen ears and cheeks; bright eyes and the return home to o.j, tea and toast.
also, there were little kids on bicycles. or tangled up in their bicycles on the path, about to cry at any moment. and birds all along the river. ducks, magpies with snails to eat, a cormorant, some time of crane / ibis / more exotic long beak and neck type of bird, tiny little honey eaters.
and people smile back at each other as they walk along the path. what else can you do? what else would you want to do?
there is so much garlic in the garlic butter i spread on my toast. i think that maybe if i try to watch buffy or angel the television will break into a thousand pieces. of course, silver bullets and garlic are myths. wooden stakes, decapitation and no entry into houses without invitation are not.
:::...
on friday night (well, early saturday morning) when i was going to bed, i felt really happy. i looked in my box of super-special stuff (i have so many boxes of stuff worth keeping... but this was the box of notes from friends, special stickers, tiny presents and badges.) and i felt so happy.
so i rang up aidan (the only person i could be guarantee to not wake up at 2.30am) and had a swell chat. a chat free of mega bitterness or sadness about his adventures in sweden and france, just good conversation because somehow balance has returned to my life. and so i finished the conversation in a good mood.
chris n referred to this feeling as a "natural high" which made the even happier feelings i had last night (at mojo west) as almost like something to be ashamed of (why should happiness be compared to drugs? it doesn't feel quite right.). but at the same time, i had been comparing my supreme happiness to unnatural highs, particularly my inability to keep a straight face and my desire for everyone else to "feel the love".
this happiness is just growing, it peaks and then calms down and waits to build up again. i want to be friends with more people and i'm getting over my fear of making those initial friend moves.
perhaps this is a symptom of my excitement at leaving soon, but i hope that it isn't . i would like to live everyday in this mood.
pipstar @ 07:13 PM | link | Comments:
june 01, 2002
resolutions, schmesolutions
i'm confused. see, i look forward to the weekend (theoretically no study, definitely no work) yet all i do is sleep in and then perform mundane tasks which prevent me from doing anything vaguely weekendish.
i woke up at 1pm. 11 would still be ok. i'd be tired since i didn't get off the phone to aidan (in sweden, about to depart for paris) until about 3.15, but at least i'd have been awake in the morning!
oh well. at least i'm getting to re-dye my hair. and i might even leave the house to do something before i go to the party at mojo west.
what i really need is a new soooper dooooper revamped sleeping pattern.
bed at 12. limited reading. waking up before 9 (well, let's make that 10 to be realistic) and then interesting activities in the morning to encourage me to be awake.
that means that i'll do my netting while i'm watching tv. apart from mondays. that requires full attention.
the problem is, i can't think of anything exciting to do in the mornings unless i return to doing morning yoga. i've got stuff to do, but that stuff (uni work) is one of the major reasons why i end up sleeping so much.
pipstar @ 04:29 PM | link | Comments:
june 01, 2002
watch this space.
there's a whole lot of knitting going on across the girly web community.
but what about spinning? are people going to start pulling out their distaff at the bus stop and spinning a few yards of wool?
my mum has had a spinning wheel as long as i can remember. last year, she and my stepfather spun beautiful gray wool in many different shades and then knitted rugs with the yarn.
in retrospect, the best thing about the going to the Royal Adelaide Agricultural Show was the visit to the wool shed, where you'd be able to look and feel and smell the different wools entered in competition. and then mum would go off and buy a bag of unwashed greasy wool from a coloured sheep... lanolin smell. mmm.
so i think that maybe spinning is going to be The Thing soon. it might not be anywhere near as portable as knitting. but goddamnit it's fun!
disclaimer: i can't spin that well. and i never end up knitting the wool i knit. but at least i have good intentions.
pipstar @ 02:50 AM | link | Comments:
june 01, 2002
footpath
amanda has now got a live journal!
all i have to do is get the rest of my friends with mildly interesting occupations (karah, pete, chris, sarah, aliese) to have their own journals and then i'll know all about their lives while i'm away.
in honor of the lovely ladies who make up The Norgs (an offshoot of Battlecat [The Band]) here is a guide to Breasts, Tits or Jugs? A Primer.
© 2002 - 2007 Pippa Buchanan