.: the tempest :.

Little Monster / Shuffle

2010-09-20T10:50:00.002+12:00

I know, I know. Last time I wrote anything was before Jelle got back from Australia (and probably ONLY because Jelle hadn't yet gotten back from Australia - sigh), and even that was sort of questionable content.

But fear not, friends! I have something to write about today and that something is VIVA GLAM GAGA. The LIPGLASS edition.

Yes, yes.

You've heard about Viva Glam Gaga before. I have the lipstick (I bought it the day it was released in New Zealand) and now I have the Lipglass too. It was released in New Zealand... today.

Viva Glam is a range of lipsticks by MAC that donate their entire retail cost to the MAC AIDS Foundation. Lady Gaga and Cyndi Lauper this year became the first celebrities to have their own Glam lipsticks created. They've since created the matching Lipglass. I am, as you can tell, super excited about it.

Feeling quite pleased with myself after having bought the Lipglass, I was then lured into Bond and Bond (an electronics store) under false pretenses: they were playing Lady Gaga in the doorway. Upon entering the store however I was met with completely different music altogether, and was so disappointed I almost left. And then I saw the "New iPod" display.

Depending on how well you know me, there's a chance you also know of my illustrious history of the mistreatment of iPods. My sister bought me my first one in 2005: it was a first generation Shuffle. Within two weeks of getting it, I jumped into a pool in Canada with it in my pocket.

Later that year I bought a first generation Nano, which lasted almost a year before I stood on it with my cast (when my self-induced shin splints-which-turned-into-hairline-fractures were healing), destroying the screen. I continued to use it until a few months later when I left it on the grass by the 100m start line at QEII stadium in Christchurch (where I was competing, despite being told to never run again if I wanted to be mobile past the age of 30). This is, for the record, around the same time I punctured the screen of my old laptop and mourned its slow but sure decline into unusability (yes, that is a word. Thanks for asking.)

I can't remember how long I went without, but I doubt it was long because I remember feeling left out when Sally had a new Shuffle. I then bought an *insert generation here* Shuffle, which was bright blue, and this lasted until I stood on - no, not the iPod but - the jack, ruining its ability to charge my iPod. I then stole one of Sally's, and within days stood on that one too. This prompted me to buy yet another new Shuffle - this time pale green.

It is this iPod which has stood the test of time, and I'm proud to say it wasn't me who ruined this one! It was my mum. But it was probably my fault, since I threw whichever item of clothing it was that my iPod was in the pocket of, into the laundry. My mum then washed it, and then fished it out following the wash cycle.
She felt terrible and immediately plugged it into her computer and tried to revive it (of course, it is the turning on with wet components that seals the deal, but my mum doesn't know things like this. It's a wonder she even knows how to turn it on), then when I came home from shooting Jono's film that night, she told me what happened and said she was going out the following morning to buy me a new one.

She did, and since it's the second-newest generation one, it's one of those godawful things with an INLINE REMOTE. Oh, how I hate it. Mainly because everyone knows that iPod headphones last a week tops, and they're notoriously hard to come by.

Anyway.

On Friday I PUT IT THROUGH THE WASH.
Yes.

I didn't make the mistake of turning on directly after - in fact, I still haven't.
But then Jelle and I was perusing the Apple site the other day and found the NEW generation... and these ones are better...
Actually what I really want is a Nano, but I can't justify spending $250 when it's likely to be ruined by year's end.

Back to my original story (you know, the one where I got lured into Bond and Bond)...

I was in there gazing at the display when the decidedly attractive store manager approached me and told me they'd received the new Shuffles this morning - "four pink, and four silver!". This was my own doing. I'm wearing a pink cardigan today, so he probably mistook me for one of those girls who likes everything to be pink (for the record: I'm not. I like my fair share of pink, but it's generally in the form of Saint Germain or Viva Glam Gaga lipstick, not electronics).
"Pink and silver are no good." I said, feeling a bit relieved as I knew my bank account would not allow for the whimsical purchase of a new iPod, especially one which I might not actually need if I leave mine to dry long enough...
The store manager disappeared out the back of the store, and came back holding a blue one. I started to panic. I am not kidding. I actually panicked because they had a blue Shuffle, and I want a blue Shuffle, but I don't know if I need a blue Shuffle, and I know I definitely cannot afford one.

I'm blaming the stupid store manager's good looks, because I then put down a deposit on the blue Shuffle and I'm going back this afternoon to pay the rest and bring it home and cuddle it (probably. I mean I'll probably cuddle it).

Why does this happen to me!?

I went into town this morning with the sole intention of getting my Viva Glam Gaga and getting out. Then a sneaky chain events led me to now owing Bond and Bond $69. Gah!!!

Still, at least now Lady Gaga can sing in my ears for the rest of eternity...

On The Move. Again.

2010-07-27T23:07:00.002+12:00

I know, I know.

But all will be revealed when you visit my *new* home at

patchblakie.blogspot.com

I Am Probably Not Fashion. Definitely Not.

2010-07-26T20:51:00.006+12:00

I don't really like clothes (except tshirts. You've probably noticed that I like tshirts). In fact, I dislike clothes to the extent that if it came down to a decision between clothing and makeup, I would invariably opt for the makeup option. I am serious.

Anyway, yesterday my flatmate coerced me into a clothes-shopping expedition. It. Lasted. Three. Hours. I documented my trip with a selection of cellphone-camera-photos which you will find below. I went with a bit of an "accessories" theme, and from the photos you can probably deduce that I have little, if any, fashion sense.

Enjoy.

Fall From Grace

2010-07-26T14:35:00.002+12:00

Well, Lance Armstrong is probably feeling quite happy that he announced his imminent return to triathlon now that he fairly bowed out of this year's Tour de France, finishing the GC in 21st place - his worst placing ever. To be fair, Mr Jonathan Mellow (one of his more formal nicknames) is almost 40, and has already won cycling's crown jewel seven times, as well as being the GC runner-up last year.

Lance was once my favourite rider, but after I switched allegiances to Garmin last year, Vande Velde became my man by default. This year, Garmin's Ryder Hesjedal took over the mantle of "team leader" when Vande Velde withdrew, maimed, on stage two. The whole "Contador vs Armstrong" dynamic within the Astana camp last year caused me to lose a lot of respect for Lance (but nothing compared to the deep-seated hatred I have for that bastard Mark Cavendish), so I'm not going to lie: I had a bit of a chuckle each day when Lance failed to make the top ten GC list. Even moreso when I saw Ryder's name on there repeatedly.

There's a good chance Lance will now smash everyone in the world at Ironman. At his first marathon outing at NYC in 2006, he turned in a fairly swift three-hours - which he then shattered the following year by posting a 2:46. There aren't many guys in the world that can win a Tour de France AND run a sub three-hour marathon. Add this to that Lance was once fourth in the state of Texas for the 1500-m freestyle, and yeah... watch out, Ironman.

I, meanwhile, have no plans to return to anything so active for at least the remainder of this year. Currently, I'm battling what might be lung cancer (disclaimer: this is a self-diagnosed condition at present, but stay tuned just in case) as well as a serious caffeine addiction, and lack-of-exercise-induced borderline obesity.

Instead, my plan is to be one of those couch-based former athletes, reporting in a pessimistic style from in front of the television during the 2010 Commonwealth Games, World Artistic Gymnastics Championships, and Pan Pacific Swimming Championships (note: the first of these to get underway is Pan Pacs, from the Irvine pool in SoCal. I can't wait. August 18th, bitches).

By far the most exciting thing about both Pan Pacs and Comms is that FEDERICA PELLEGRINI WON'T BE THERE. So we won't have to deal with any of her bitchiness. YAY!

Guess who will likely be at Gymn Worlds though...

Everybody's faaaavourite bulldog, Rebecca Bross!

Still, I heard a rumour that Kayla Williams can do a double layout with a full twist now.It doesn't make sense, and I don't know if I believe it... but if it's true then I may just die from happiness.

It's Likely That I Will Implode Before You Read This

2010-07-21T18:23:00.003+12:00

I have grave concerns that I have an addiction to caffeine.

I've long erred on the side of caution when referring to addictions, because real addictions are powerful things that sometimes ruin lives, and it seems sort of rude to be like "I'm addicted to candy!" when really I enjoy the occasional Chokotoff (having a European boyfriend has its downsides, you see).

But I'm serious now.

There's good chance that if you spend any amount of time with me here in Dunedin that you know I not only enjoy the occasional Chokotoff but also the occasional can, bottle, or giant goblet of V. I once drank a litre (that's a quarter of a gallon) in the space of an hour or two, and I'm not exaggerating here, I did not sleep for two days afterwards. After that, I swore off it until the afternoon following, when I spent three hours on Sephora.com reading reviews of the Bliss "Pore-fector" Gadget Kit. Oh, how I wish I was lying about that one.

Since then, V has become the bane of my day-to-day life. The part of me that loves my stomach lining shrieks "no! Don't do it!", but the part of me that likes staying up past midnight jabbing Jelle (who is invariably trying to sleep) in the ribs with my index finger always caves. So it's with regret that I confess to a two-bottles-a-day habit.

So bedtime should be fun tonight. It's 6:40pm and I'm looking at an empty bottle that I just finished. I feel invincible, like I could type forever. Whether that results in one of the greatest literary masterpieces of the last century, some angry blog posts, or an essay outline (I'm hoping for that one, since it's due on Monday, and tomorrow I'm going to see Inception and expect to spend the weekend crowing about it and doing makeup for the Carrington College ball) - we shall see.

Over and out.
(For the next five minutes, anyway)

Make It... Fake It...

2010-07-18T22:20:00.002+12:00

I'm definitely far from the first person to say this, but Make It or Break It has got to be one of the most unrealistic representations of gymnastics, ever.

Right now I'm watching the episode, "Battle of the Flexes", via ch131.com, and can I just point out that an in-house, reverse-apparatus competition would just never happen. You might have seen Paul Hunt, formerly of the University of Illinois, performing comedy women's gymnastics routines on Youtube, but I can guarantee that no such things happen inside elite gymnasiums.
This episode features the female gymnasts (who are supposedly in hot contention for the 2012 Olympic Games) competing on rings, parallel bars and men's floor, while the men perform on uneven bars and beam. It just wouldn't happen.

This is on top of their apparent USA Gymnastics agenda, where the national federation is viewed as "having it in" for the girls, their gym, and their coach. They pluck national rankings seemingly from nowhere, and whisk certain gymnasts off to international meetings with close to no notice, all the while forcing the girls to "pledge allegiance" to the federation. There's in-house meets to determine who competes first for the team at national meets - which doesn't happen, because while you represent a club at Nationals, there is no team competition and even if there was, it would be unlikely that the coaches could select the order of their athletes. It's the equivalent of letting sprinters pick their lane and heat at the USA Track and Field Championships.

And those girls' boobs? Way too big to be elite gymnasts.

Anyway.

I just like sparkly leotards. Not gonna lie about it.

/rant.

Curly

2010-07-18T21:26:00.002+12:00

You may have heard/read me describe myself as Bob Dylan's hair twin.

Since I have, for the last two years, been a devoted fan of my ghd hair straightener, unfortunately my hair has suffered the consequences of 300+ degree heat on an almost daily basis. And that is why, most mornings, I wake up looking like Bob.

My obsession with Bob Dylan goes back a number of years, to a quiz night with Hamilton Swimming Club when Sal and I decided it would be really funny to yell out "Bob Dylan!" as an answer to every "Who am I?" question. Apparently, it wasn't.

My ghd has fairly ruined my formerly lovely locks. I used to blame its declining state on chlorine, but since I haven't been in the water for well over a month now, and especially when you consider that the swimming outing in question was a one-off in over two months, I really doubt that chlorine is the true culprit.

Since my sister's wedding is "looming" (haha, I like how I talk about it more than she does), I thought it best to leave my ghd at home in Hamilton, to give my hair a six-month break. I imagined myself in February, prancing around Melton Estate in my new purple dress with my long, Lauren Conrad-esque hair either floating about behind me or styled neatly into a classy French roll. My mum bought me a pot of "deep" conditioner, which, as a teenager, I applied nightly and slept with my head adorned with glad-wrap. I've begun to use it nightly again, and today is the first day in a week that I've left my hair "out".

It looks awful.

Like Bob Dylan. Only worse.

I'm hoping that it's that awkward "in-between" phase - like the stage in metamorphosis when the beautiful butterfly is hiding in a nasty cocoon. Come February, I will look like Lauren.

As such, if you see me between now and February, please curb your urge to yell offensive hair-related comments in my direction. You'll be sorry when the photos from Louise's wedding appear on here.

Yeah.

Soft Kitty

2010-07-15T15:30:00.003+12:00

My boyfriend hates hairless cats.

And don't tell him, but so do I, but i just find it so funny when I show him photos of them and he gets far too offended.

So Jelle, here's some of my favourites.

Monster Mash

2010-07-13T18:34:00.006+12:00

Laure Manaudou has a baby?!?!

I can't believe I did not know this. Laure Manaudou is my favourite female swimmer of all time ever.

The father is... Frederick Bousquet. So yeah, the baby is three-quarters human, one-quarter monster. I mean, really. Frederick Bousquet is definitely the spawn of Zeus fornicating with a monster. If it's anything like that time he disguised himself as a swan and had sex with Leda... well, then maybe Leda was the monster and Bousquet was the result. But anyway. My odds are on that baby winning the 100m-200m freestyle double at the 2028 Olympic Games.

Yeah, we hazarded a guess and decided that in 2028, the Olympics will return to Moscow (hence the medal straps).

Indian Summer

2010-07-13T17:24:00.006+12:00

Just this morning I was lamenting the lack of swim meets this year to watch, critique, and complain about. I was all, ho hum, no swimming meets this year?! What is the world coming to?

And then, just like that, I remembered the fun that is the Commonwealth Games.

The Commonwealth Games are a sensitive subject for me. In 2002, I made the qualifying standard for the 50m freestyle but I did so the day after the qualifying period ended (which raises the question, why on earth did the qualifying period finish the day before the second-largest swimming meet in the world?) and besides, 2002 was well before the days when New Zealand considered "elite athletes with disabilities" for their Commonwealth Games teams. In 2005 I competed at the trials for the 2006 Games and failed to qualify so miserably that just two days later I quit swimming forever.

This might be why I've thus far ignored this year's Games, due to be staged in New Delhi, India (oh, that could also have something to do with it) in October. Admittedly, one close friend (Jessica Hamill), one former training partner (Rebecca Wardell) and an old clubmate (Stuart Farquhar) are all New Zealand representatives this year, along with some of my favourite athletes ever, Nicholas Willis and Valerie Vili - so I should really be paying attention. As well, Penelope Marshall is on the swim team. If you were at the Waikato Age Group Swimming Championships in like, 2002, you may remember seeing me, Penny and Kirby stumbling round in fits of laughter while candy dropped out of our pockets and from under our jackets. It may have been the greatest moment of my life up until that point. (And, maybe even since.)

Commonwealth Games swimming events don't boast the Chinese, Japanese and US swimmers that Olympics and World Championships do. And you might watch them and think "Guernsey? Really?" But it shouldn't be forgotten, firstly, that Italy is not in the Commonwealth and so Federica Pellegrini won't be there, and also that Ian Thorpe broke his 400m freestyle world record at this event in 2002 (a mark - 3:40.08 - that stood until it was controversially broken by German Paul Biedermann at last year's Worlds), and that Australia has some of the world's best swimmers. In 2002, Petria Thomas swam in thirteen races (this includes heats, semi-finals, finals and relays) at the Commonwealth, and if memory serves me correctly, she earnt seven medals. This of course was en route to her stunning 100m butterfly gold in Athens.

Pellegrini: bitch, get out of my life and take your
oversized breasts, smug face and ego with you.

I'm biased, but the Commonwealth Games has, for the last three editions anyway, showcased the enormous (in both terms of achievement and her physical size) talent that is Natalie du Toit. In 1998 she competed for South Africa in the 200m butterfly and 400m IM events, before having a leg amputated. In Manchester (2002) she won both "EAD" events, as well as qualifying for the 800m freestyle final. She repeated her efforts in Melbourne in 2006 (after dominating the 2004 Paralympic Games, competing at the 2004 World Short Course Championships), and has since represented her country at the 2008 Olympics and Paralympics, and at World Open Water Championships.

So the Commonwealth Games are significant in terms of international swimming, even though they don't have Phelps. You should watch them. And ha-ha, even if you don't intend to, you're still going to hear about it here.

P.S: Wondering about Le Tour de France?

Well, Vande Velde got out on stage two after a nasty crash, and Farrar is out too... so apparently my team's hopes now rest on the shoulders of Ryder Hesjedal, who is like, younger than me. Good.

Hello. Goodbye.

2010-07-13T09:22:00.002+12:00

I frequently abuse my body with such "treats" as candy, carbonated beverages, sleep, lack of sleep, aioli and more candy. Right now, for example, it's 9:23am and I'm more than halfway through a 500mL can of V (Red Bull for those who don't live on my atoll) and an apricot/chocolate cookie.

Zoom, zoom, zoom.

I didn't even want the cookie!

It's just that I'm so, so vain that I refuse to drink V without first gunking my teeth with a layer of plaque so the pantothenic acid doesn't leave me with root stumps. (Is that what they're called, Jess? Root stumps?) I mean, eventually it's going to happen because I just drink so much V that eventually my teeth are going to stage a coup, but you know, until then I want my bases covered.

By sugary, salty cookie plaque apparently.

As for sleep, well, I feel like sleep is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, sleep is great for me, and apparently I should aim for seven hours a night. But I hear sleep has conditions too - I have to get two of those seven hours between 2am and 4am, and if I sleep longer than seven hours, I'm at risk of a host of medical conditions. But at the same time, if I get less than seven hours, I'm still at risk! Of different things of course, the main threat being dark circles under my eyes (this seems more debilitating to me than something like cancer), but I mean, what?
How is it possible for me to get bang on seven hours? And sometimes, you know what, I can't sleep between 2am and 4am. Sometimes being on Wikipedia at 3am is just too good to pass up.

And this is how I abuse myself with sleep. It's a rare day (or night, as the case usually is) that I get seven hours sleep. Often, I get like, two. But then just as often, I'll get ten. Ahhh, what a conundrum!

Urgh. I've finished my V.

Well, I Hope Her Dresses Aren't Purple

2010-07-12T20:28:00.004+12:00

I caved and bought a dress the other day for the purpose of attire for my sister's wedding day.

You might be thinking, wtf, but you said her wedding isn't until February, or even wtf, you said she hadn't decided on a colour for her bridesmaids' dresses yet. Isn't picking a dress now a bit risky considering the pickle you got yourself into the other day over it? and rightly so. Yes, my sister isn't getting married until February, and no, she hasn't even put so much as a grain of thought into the colour of her bridesmaids' dresses. So yes, it's risky. Especially since purple is a tried and true bridesmaids' choice, because purple tends to look good on everyone.

Including me.

The purple of the dress I chose is an inky, dark shade, one not too dissimilar to OPI's "Sapphire in the Snow". Unfortunately this means that wearing said nail colour is off the table.

Hmmm.

A likely option is looking like "Meet Me on the Star Ferry". Wait, am I discussing nail polish for a date so far in the future I don't even know if I'm going to be alive? Wow.

Something that cracked me up from a previous post is that I started my rant by saying I wanted to find a hairstyle, then finished up by complaining about dress colours.

I'm an idiot.

Jelle's dad bought me a USB drive. I've never had one before, and this one is especially cool because it looks like a Lego brick. Do you love Lego? I love Lego. As such, I love my USB drive (I also love it because now I feel like a real, organised student. I mean, sure I've been at university since like, 2004, but I've roughed it until now, sans drive). Here's what it looks like.

omg. I know.

Oh, holy crap.

THEY COME IN PINK.

Ummm, I Want This

2010-07-05T00:01:00.004+12:00

It's unlikely that you'll remember my jubilation when my favourite person in the whole world, ever, sent me some Imju Fiberwig Mascara last year. If in fact you do, then wow. Prepare for even greater jubilation: it now comes in "Extra Long" formula.

I think I might die from happiness. Sure, in my annual "write-stuff-about-cosmetics" post last December, I placed Lancome's Cils Design Pro mascara above Fiberwig, but let me tell you it was close. And now that it comes in extra long? Oh. My. God.

Also excited about:

MAC Studio Fix Mascara and Opulash.

But remember that time I got excited about Dazzle Lash? Well, that was much ado about nothing. My lashes certainly didn't look like this.

You may be thinking I'm an idiot for actually thinking a mascara would leave my lashes looking like the above, clearly photoshopped and shot-with-lash-inserts photograph, and you'd be right. I would be an idiot for thinking that. But Dazzle Lash fell short of my much-lower expectations, and that's why I'm hesitant about buying more MAC mascara. That and the whole, Marine Life thing.

Point is, I want extra long Fiberwig lashes. And I want them now.

Why Don't You Like Me?

2010-07-04T22:56:00.003+12:00

It's true, I'm obsessed with Allie Brosh. And it would seem, with an average of more than 100 comments per post, a lot of other people on the internet are too.

I have an insofar unexplained tendency to mimic those who a) I spend too much time with (this is why I say things like "ain't nothing but a thang, heeey"), or b) I read too much of - this is best exhibited in my "Anyway." topic indicators, something I stole off of Jonathan Safran Foer. On a side note, holy crap does anyone else get annoyed at the array of possible spellings for the name "Jonathan"?! Good grief!

Anyway.

The good thing about Allie Brosh is that I will never come even close to being able to mimic her deranged artwork, or her hilarity, so you guys are getting off pretty lightly.

My sister is getting married. You might not even know that I have a sister (you'd even be forgiven for thinking I don't have a family, since I pretty much NEVER talk about them), but I do and her name is Louise. She's marrying a guy named Nick in February of next year, and I've recently begun agonising over what I should do with my hair on her big day. I know, I know - it's ridiculous. In my defense, however, it is the middle of the holidays, I am so so bored, and I am also incredibly conceited and appearance-driven, so you really shouldn't be so surprised.

Since my sister is currently studying for a Master's degree in psychology (I know, I hate pyschology too), her wedding planning efforts are well, intermittent. She hasn't decided on a colour for her bridesmaids' dresses, which is a problem for me because it means I can't choose a colour to wear, either. Say I go for, I don't know, magenta. What if she decides on tangerine for her bridesmaids? I'm sure she won't, because even though she's doing psychology, I don't truly believe that she's an idiot. But she might... and then we'll clash, and I don't want the reason I stand out at my sister's wedding to be because I clash with her servants. Oh, bridesmaids.

An obvious solution to this matter of extreme and all-encompassing importance is to wait for my sister to choose a colour for her bridesmaids' dresses, and then make an informed decision based on that. But I don't want to! I don't care that it's 11:10pm on a Sunday evening. I want to choose the colour for my dress right now.

Anyway.

Haha, I did that on purpose.

Has anyone tried Shellac nails? I'm not going to lie. I am tempted. You probably know about my obsession with nail polish (and as such, you may be astonished to learn that I'm currently sporting naked nails. Take note. It doesn't happen often). I read about Shellac nails in the weekend insert of the newspaper - in the beauty column, which I one day intend to take over, because the current writer is just so average - and since then I've been toying with the idea of taking a stroll (yes, a stroll, for reasons I will explain shortly) down Casabella Lane and getting Shellac nails in a colour like Taffy Pink or Indian Rhubarb (or maybe not Indian Rhubarb, since I hate both the country and the ... what is rhubarb? Is it a fruit or a vegetable? I can't believe I don't know!). Since Shellac supposedly lasts fourteen days, I'm going to have to make a really good decision about what colour I want. I've never had to commit to anything for fourteen days before! Unless you count my tattoo. Or maybe my boyfriend or my degree.

And now, why I have to walk to Casabella Lane.

O.M.G.

You know my car? The 1984 (or so, I've never actually been 100% sure on what year it is) Honda Civic that may have followed you home more than once? Yep, I had to leave it in Waipu the other day.

I was coming home from my fun-filled trip to Whangarei Heads when I happened to notice an unusual amount of smoke pouring from my exhaust pipe (in my rear view mirror, which was probably in all honesty, actually a glance up to check my eyebrows). I felt a little bit uneasy until I saw even more smoke seeping out from under my bonnet. And then I screamed and pulled over. I was somewhere close to where the red X on the map below is drawn.

There's a chance that unless you're from Northland, you have no idea where that is, but it's just far enough from Whangarei for it to be annoying. Luckily, my mum knows I'm completely car-illiterate and bought me an AA membership so within a few hours of parking up by Bridge 2898 over the Tauroa Stream (amazingly, this didn't help the AA representative pinpoint my location) a tow-truck driver arrived and dropped me and my car off in Waipu. He advised that my car was done for.

Last year, my car nearly exploded when I drove it home from a week of shooting (film, not animals) in Katikati. Amazingly, it survived that ordeal, but this time I wasn't so lucky. I had to leave my car in Waipu, where it's due to be picked up and salvaged for parts some time this week.

Since then, I've been relying on my feet and my mum for transport. It's been kind of crappy, but anyway that's why I have to walk to Casabella Lane on Tuesday. Sigh.

It's a hard-knock life.

Oceans. Ten.

2010-07-04T17:34:00.002+12:00

I had the best intentions of blogging every day while I'm in Hamilton, but then I got whisked away to the tropical north, where I stayed at the Whangarei Heads Surf Lifesaving Club. As soon as I can re-install the drivers so I can connect my cellphone to my laptop, I'll chuck some photos up, but I thought, since I'm bored and self-obsessed, that I would answer some questions I get asked a lot.

What happened to you? You used to be smart.

Um, yes. I got asked this, and I don't really know the answer to the first part, but I can assure you that I am, for the most part, still smart. I suppose one might say that I'm exercising different aspects of my intelligence this year - having a significant other fries my brain in ways I never thought possible, as does being a reluctant pseudo-mentor of sorts to a selection of people. I've also had to become about 4739279237 times more responsible since I'm in charge of the bill payments for my flat, as well as cleaning it, since the other inhabitants appear incapable of doing so.
Excuse me for only getting an A for an essay I wrote in one seven-hour sitting, probably the only seven-hour stint I've managed to be by myself for this year.

Do you have a job? Or do you actually just play Zelda all day?
No. And yes. A few months ago, I installed an Nintendo64 emulator on my laptop, which allows me to play The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time to my heart's content. As you can imagine, this makes me very happy. I also have Banjo-Kazooie, Diddy Kong Racing and some other games. In fact, recently I struggled with a repetitive strain injury in my right hand from non-stop gaming, which I ignored until I couldn't open doors anymore.

With regards to a job, I would very much like one and have been applying for a number of cosmetics-related vacancies in Dunedin, so far to no avail.

You look terrible. What happened to your triathlon career?
It stagnated.
After World Championships last year (for which, for the record, I trained solo and sans coach), I made a decision to study again. Shortly after embarking on said study, I decided that study wasn't for me, and that I would continue competing. This was followed shortly after by the Christchurch Marathon, where it became blindingly obvious that I'm well past my retire-by date. So, despite the invitations to races overseas that fill my inbox, I will not be competing in triathlon again.

Are you happy?
Not particularly.

What's your plan now?

Um, what? Do you even read my blog? I don't have one. I have a few badly-thrown-together plans, none of which will eventuate. They include flying planes, visiting countries like Sweden and Croatia, and um, some other things that escape me right now. I have only one thing set in stone for now, which is breaking up with my boyfriend in February next year. So that's nice.

ANYWAY! That's enough for now. Photos of Northland soon!

You'd Be Forgiven For Thinking I Don't Like Track Anymore

2010-06-26T15:34:00.004+12:00

Last year, I was all up in just about every track meet in the Northern Hemisphere season. I'm this year embarrassed to admit that I only just learnt today that the USA Track and Field Championships are underway in Des Moines, Iowa.

Probably the most exciting thing I've noticed is that Sanya Richards is now sporting a new extension to her surname - Ross. That means she got married! Which I have a feeling I kind of knew was happening anyway, but still. She is placed seventh after the 400m semi-finals, which kind of makes me wonder what the hell is wrong with her, but meh.

The heptathlon, which has long been my favourite track and field event (after the men's 10,000m, but only when it's being raced at major international championships - otherwise it's boring as shit) is being dominated as per usual by the nimble Hyleas Fountain, who I love. As a general rule of thumb, I love all heptathletes, because they are basically superwomen. One of my old training buddies is New Zealand's best heptathlete - Rebecca Wardell, and she is just out-of-this-world talented. Prior to competing in heptathlon, Rebecca was a top-notch 400m hurdler, and since making the switch, she's competed at Commonwealth and Olympic Games, as well as at World Championships. Don't even get me started on Sarah Cowley, who used to be one of my sister's competitors in her high school high jumping days, who now also dominates heptathlon. Actually, once when I was competing in Australia at their national championships, I managed to video one of Sarah's long jump attempts on my cellphone, then showed it to her once I saw her again back in New Zealand. She was... probably a bit confused, but flattered all the same. I think.

Here's Hyleas pwning the 100m hurdles race, anyway. Yay!

My other favourite event, the women's 200m, is looking lacklustre due to the well, lack of Allyson Felix. I love Allyson Felix. She ought to have that "zoom, zoom, zoom" song from the Mazda ads playing when she runs, seriously. And I've heard she can leg press something like 300lb. Pretty sure she weighs about 95lb. That's just silly. Turns out (after some judicious Zimbio and usatf.org stalking) that Felix is just running the 100m at these Championships - turning in a swift 11.27s for first place in the final. Into a 2.5m/s headwind. Get. Out. Of. My. Life.

I know, I know. Women should be running that fast, anyway. But still! Here's a picture (just in case you doubted me when I said how much she leg presses).

OMG I Love My Slippers

2010-06-24T23:06:00.004+12:00

My mum bought me some new slippers on Sunday.

I started wearing ugh boots well before they were cool. Granted, I wore them to swimming meets so they were constantly wet and disgusting, and they were just the plain, grey kind. They didn't have tassles or reach my knees, and I didn't wear them as a fashion statement. Lord knows nothing I wear is a fashion statement. Up until recently, ugh boots were the only form of slipper I subscribed too. Then I moved to Dunedin and bought some "indoor slippers" - in an attempt to encourage me to wear real shoes to uni each day. It didn't work - those slippers were on my feet for a large amount of the semester, including throughout eight-hour study shifts at the library, to linguistics lectures, and down to good old Mei Wah Takeaways. One day I tripped, which made the toe of my slipper begin to unravel. Pretty soon, because I continued to wear them in Dunedin's mean streets, the entire foam insole was protruding out of the front of what developed into a gaping hole.

To add insult to injury, when I visited Christchurch for the marathon on Queen's Birthday weekend, I left my slippers at my sister's house. I went and bought some more - hideous things they were, leopard print and only $8.

Upon arrival in Hamilton I fairly yelped at my mother that I needed more slippers, and pronto (please, if possible... or just whenever you're ready). And then I found these.

OMG, right? I know. They're perfect for my hoodie-wearing lifestyle. And they were kind of overpriced for slippers, so there's no way in heck I'm going to be venturing outside in these babies. Since I got them, I've only taken them off when it's been absolutely necessary. Showering, leaving the house, and... yeah that's all. I want to be wearing these slippers on the day I die (and every day until then, obviously).

Waaaaaant? If you live in New Zealand, you can buy 'em at Farmers. They're called Grosby's Hoodies For Your Feet and you can peruse their website here.

I. Love. My. Slippers.

Kosovo

2010-06-23T18:51:00.003+12:00

I mentioned a few posts ago the game that Jelle and I (admittedly, more I than Jelle. He tends to not become obsessed with trivial things in the way that I do) play naming the countries of the world. You can find it here.

An interesting aspect of this game is that the 195 countries are 193 UN members, plus two other "widely recognised" nations. If you're anything like me, you suck at knowing the difference between Caribbean islands that are independent nations, and those that are owned by other countries (here's a hint: Bermuda? Not a country. St. Lucia? Country. Who knew?). And just as perplexing is the Pacific Ocean islands (where I live, in New Zealand, we generally refer to them as Polynesia, and I think a lot of the people I know would struggle to name the independent islands from the ones governed by other countries) - how Micronesia is any more of a country than Tokelau is honestly beyond me.

Anyway, last night I did some research. Turns out the two countries that aren't UN members are Kosovo and Taiwan. Taiwan, Chinese Taipei and Hong Kong have long baffled me, but not to the extent that Kosovo does. My knowledge of Kosovo as an independent nation is limited to Milorad Cavic's controversial t-shirt at the European Swimming Championships a few years ago - "Kosovo is Serbia". This, from a man who comes from a region where it's been necessary for him to represent three different countries in his three Olympic Games outings (you've heard me crap on about Cavic before, and this is because he's the man that could have stopped Phelps in his now legendary quest for eight golds at the Beijing Games) - in 2000 he raced for Yugoslavia, in 2004: Serbia and Montenegro, and in 2008: Serbia. According to Wikipedia, just 36% of UN countries "recognise" Kosovo as an independent nation.

It makes me wonder how these countries come to such decisions. While giants Russia and China say no to Kosovo, a few African countries like Lesotho, Burkina Faso, and Liberia recognise it. I mean, really. We've all seen what the UN assemblies look like - everyone sitting there behind a little placard with their country's name emblazoned on it. Does the Secretary-General say something like, "all in favour of making Kosovo an independent sovereignty?" and even though the Ethiopian representative quite likes Kosovo, he can't help but notice the death stare he's getting from his Eritrean neighbour? But Somalia doesn't have a ball of this. Somalia supports Kosovo in all its independent glory, and because of countries like Somalia, Kosovo gets included on the aforementioned game as one of two lucky countries to not be UN members but still widely recognised.

How then, does a place such as South Ossetia just miss out completely? Perhaps the Kosovo debate caused such a fracas that no-one dare say anything about it.

It amazes me in a similar way to the way some countries deny the Armenian Genocide (yes, here we go again). Did you know that modern Turkey and Azerbaijan claim there was no such thing? There's even a website I absolutely do not recommend, as such refuse to link to, called Tall Armenian Tale, denying the events ever took place. It's like that ridiculous lecturer I had in first year that tried to convince me that the grand total of casualties following the Chernobyl reactor disaster was seven.

Now, I don't know about you, but I personally know three girls who have congenital deformities which have been clinically confirmed as a direct result of their birth mothers being pregnant within the "danger zone" of Chernobyl. Apparently their deformities at birth distressed said birth mothers so that they were left in Russian orphanages and later adopted by well-meaning Americans (that was not in any way meant to sound judgmental, it's just what happened). When I broached this subject with the lecturer - who was, unsurprisingly, delivering a pro-nuclear power speech - his response was the equivalent of the Tall Armenian Tale website.

Splendid.

Anyway, I'm not sure how I ended up ranting about Chernobyl when originally I intended to discuss the international recognition of Kosovo.

*Yawn*

How Did We Get Here?

2010-06-23T13:07:00.002+12:00

I know I do this ALL the time, but I just love to look back and see what I was up to a year ago. That's the beauty (and sometimes, guys, beauty is pain) of having a blog you once kept meticulously.

This time last year, I was: obsessing over the lead actor from a seemingly random 48HOURS film. And Lady Gaga. Yeah, so not much has changed.

You know what's weird though?

In the last few days of 2009, I received some particularly horrifying news that really changed my life, and that I have avoided writing about as a matter of principle. I'm not going to elaborate any further, but it does sort of crack me up now when I think about the drastic life changes I made in an attempt to forget the new information which haunted me on a daily basis (most days, it infiltrated my brain within moments of waking, leaving me feeling disturbed for the rest of the day). Without putting much thought into it, I began subscribing to a whole new genre of music. I listened to Pendulum what seemed like 24/7 - during my daily walk to and from uni, while I studied and wrote papers, when my cellphone rang ("Granite" was my ringtone from about December 28th until a week ago, when I had to buy a new cellphone because apparently texting while you're in a spa pool doesn't go down too well with your cellphone. Who would have thought), even as I fell asleep at night. I'm not kidding. I was playing drum and bass as loud as my eardrums could tolerate to help me sleep. I listened to Pendulum so much that the new "friends" I made really thought I had no other interests besides drum and bass music. It eventually became that to me, "music" meant "Pendulum".

But, you know me. I have phases. Phases where I blog eight times a day, and tweet thrice as much. Phases where I think that following Malaysian guys home from the gym is acceptable. There was even a momentary phase where I thought shaving my head would be a good idea. That had passed by the time I finished shaving it, looked in the mirror and thought "what have I done?"

And that's how we get to now. I'm currently on a classical music binge. Vivaldi's "The Four Seasons - Spring" (well, at least that's the English translation) is my ringtone. I listen to baroque while I'm studying, and writing papers, and even driving. Wellllll, okay - maybe not so much while I'm driving, but that's really only because having a car for a few weeks is a novelty and I am taking this opportunity to sing as frequently and as loudly as possible. The other night my mum even said I sounded like Serj Tankian - which I took as a compliment until she followed it up with "loud, and out of tune". I think she's jealous.

Speaking of Serj, he inspired me to learn about the Armenian Genocide recently - another phase. That shit was pretty awful though, and I think you should take some time out of your day to learn about it too. I've always felt a weird connection to Armenia (and Azerbaijan, but this is primarily because we had our "flag-raising ceremony" in Athens with them. And anyway, since learning about the Armenian Genocide I like Azerbaijan a whooooooole lot less) and it's for that reason that I'm falsifying my "Place of Birth" on my triathlon.org profile as "Yerevan, Armenia". I mean, really - a growing number of people truly believe that my dad was once a Soviet spy, so it's not that farfetched. I can also spot an Armenian surname from a mile away.

You'd be forgiven for reading this and thinking "this girl is unstable and as such, not fit to make life decisions" and you may be right. Actually, do you think maybe I should send the link for this post to my mother so she stops berating me for not having chosen a career yet?

Speaking of triathlon.org (yes, you skim-readers, I did mention it. Go back and have a look), I recently had a ridiculous interview published on there. I've also been asked to submit a profile for the "Profiles" section of the site. This is the same profile where "Yerevan, Armenia" will be listed as my "Place of Birth". It's mostly pretty mundane, but the one question that perplexes me more than life itself is "proudest moment outside triathlon". Are you serious, Thanos? (Thanos is the guy who sent me the profile to fill out.) I can assure you that I have zero proud moments outside triathlon. Even the mild proudness I felt upon winning Worlds last year has all but been forgotten by now.

Just kidding.

Here's my medal, in case you forgot what it looked like.

Hahaha.

To The... Forest.

2010-06-23T12:02:00.003+12:00

You might have noticed that I get a bit feverish with excitement when MAC Cosmetics (just to clarify: MAC Cosmetics is incorrect, as "MAC" stands for "Makeup Art Cosmetics". Really, Makeup Art Cosmetics Cosmetics? I didn't think so. Sort it out) release new collections. There was one earlier this year, All Ages, All Races, All Sexes, that I was particularly obsessed with (read about it here if you must) - I ended up purchasing the "Personal Style" beauty powder which I rarely use but love like my own child all the same, and "Equality" lipstick which I use even less. I don't know, I just think that when I wear skin-coloured lipstick I look a little bit like an horrific porn star.

Then there was Viva Glam Gaga, which I'm still obsessed with. It helps that it looks perfect on me, and that Lady Gaga's signature is printed onto the lipstick tube.

There have definitely been releases since then (Give Me Liberty of London springs to mind) but nothing has quite captured the imaginations of MAC's devoted fanbase like To The Beach. It's summer elsewhere in the world, you see, so this is their tribute to sun.

Amber (who you can follow on Twitter here) recently twitpic'd a photo of some good-looking girls with particularly pretty cheeks. When, upon inquiry, she told me it was MAC's new "Marine Life" highlighting powder, I nearly died from excitement, then went and bought it the following day. It was $68, which I'm fairly sure is more than I've ever spent on a single makeup product in my life (except maybe Bliss' Triple Oxygen Instant Energising Mask, which retails for USD52 and as such blows "Marine Life" right out of the ... sea) and while it really pains me to say this...

I don't love it.

I bought it, and became increasingly more excited about wearing it clubbing on my first foray into Hamilton's nightlife since Boxing Day (did I ever tell you guys about Boxing Day, and how I came out of it with a new appreciation for that-song-I-famously-hate, "Whatcha Say"?), which finally rolled around last Saturday. Upon application though, I became bitterly disappointed. What the hell is this neon coral-coloured shit? It looked pink on Amber's twitpic, PINK! Pink, and flattering, and pretty, and everything else I wanted in a blush. Why is this happening to me, when I don't have enough time to wash my face and start again?! I managed to tone it down with some MAC Studio Fix (Fix is right, guys!), but I still spent my night fretting about my coral-coloured cheeks. Here's a particularly awful picture from the night (which doesn't really showcase my cheeks, but is hideous all the same) - courtesy Shannon Rolfe Photography.

Actually, I think it showcases my cheeks pretty fucking well, now that I look at it again. My eye makeup looks like it might have been applied by a four-year-old with spastic cerebral palsy (ha! I can say things like that without feeling guilty because I have it too!), but that's another story altogether.

Anyway, all in all, I am not that impressed with MAC's "Marine Life", and this has put me off purchasing the other To The Beach products that I had in mind - "Temperature Rising" lipliner, "Flurry of Fun" lipglass, and "Beachbound" lipstick. It sounds drastic, but I actually feel a little bit betrayed by MAC right now. Boo.

Another thing: I feel like I never write about makeup anymore. Is this the case? And yes, I do realise it could be said I don't write about anything anymore, but we've discussed that and I promised I would write some stuff while I'm in Hamilton.

Okay? Good. Peace and love.

In My Dreams, I Can Credit Calligraphy Papers To A Degree

2010-06-23T11:32:00.002+12:00

I often feel like my life, both waking and sleeping, is plagued by unnecessary perils. Recently my dreams have ranged from repeatedly beating an elderly man over the head with a chair until he was dead, then having Bart Bass from Gossip Girl finish him off by hurling a bottle of expensive whiskey in his general direction. You can imagine my unsettled feeling upon waking (well, actually, you're forgiven if you don't because I just don't think a large number of people have those kinds of dreams). A few nights later, I dreamt that Sophie got a starring role on that amazing show, Jersey Shore. You have no idea how much I wish that one was true.

And now, due to recent turmoil over which papers I should study next semester at the University of Otago (well, to be fair, I've already chosen them and they are Maths, Physics, Geophysics and Chemistry): last night I had a dream in which I could study Calligraphy and credit it to a degree. Do you have any idea how utterly ridiculous that sounds? Calligraphy. I could spend a semester writing in Old English text and at the end of it, have 18 points of point-y goodness that would be credited towards an undergraduate degree of my choosing. I don't even know what I would write, maybe the alphabet or maybe just my name. I think I can attribute my dream to the fact that I love love love typography. You probably know this, because I make reference to it often, but I love fonts - particularly The Maple Origins. Imagine then, being able to credit a paper about fonts to my degree.

When I woke up this morning, I actually reached for this very computer to check the course prescription on the Otago site. Don't you just LOVE when your dreams are THAT convincing? well, until you come to the painful realisation that it was a dream, and there's actually no way writing in fancy script will contribute to your degree now. You might like to try submitting lab reports using The Maple Origins, but if anything you would probably lose marks, because lab reports are to be submitted strictly in size 12 Times New Roman (which I hate), or Arial (which I am a little bit more than partial too).

Sigh.

I think I'm going to submit a petition for a Calligraphy paper at the University of Otago.

When I Grow Up

2010-06-23T00:42:00.002+12:00

Oh, noes. It's another one of those posts where I tediously crap on for a bit about how I'm brilliant but still have no idea what I want to do with my brilliance.

You may have read one of these posts before, where I'm like "that's it! I'm going to Sweden." (it was called For Sverige I Tiden), or "I'm going to join the Air Force/be a pilot!" or even, "OMG, I'm going to do a Master's degree."

Ha ha ha.

I haven't done any of those things, but for the record, Aviation at Massey University is back on the cards. I had a lengthy discussion with the HOD of Physics at my current school, the University of Otago, before he signed me into the Physics major programme, and I didn't tell him that the *real* reason I want to take physics next semester is to boost my chances of acceptance into the flying programme. At new Zealand universities, you have to declare a major right from the word go. Personally, I find this a bit ridiculous, because it's a rare eighteen-year-old who knows precisely what they want to do. Sure, they know what they want to do at that point in time, but often declaring an English major ends in bitterness and heartache once said English major discovers that an English major isn't writing novels and poetry, it's ripping apart other peoples' novels and poetry. Or, if you're lucky enough to be admitted into the writing stream, it's having your life's work ripped apart. Fun. At Otago, there's the infamous "Health Sciences" stream, for first year students intending to study medicine, dentistry, physiotherapy or pharmacy. It's ridiculously competitive, and I'm told that last year, for admission to medicine, the GPA for Health Sciences was 93%. I'm going to go out on a risky limb here and say, you definitely don't need to be that intelligent to be a doctor. I've heard this from a number of graduates from the Otago Medical School. But I guess the rigors of first year are designed to weed out the weaklings who wouldn't otherwise survive Med School. It's natural selection, university style.

Anyway.

After many years of thinking (I'd love to tell you here that I sit on rocks and pull Socrates poses while I'm doing said thinking, but as a general rule I do it when I'm trying to sleep, which isn't that constructive. Sometimes I do it while I'm standing in line at Frankly Sandwiches), I have begun to reconsider an aviation-based career due to a number of contributing factors. First of all, I like to fly. I like travelling. I also like maps. A whole lot. In fact, Jelle recently introduced me to a game where you have to name 195 countries of the world in fifteen minutes. My best is 193. I left out goddamn Belgium and the Maldives, but that's beside the point. I like maps. And weather patterns - well, patterns in general. They're my IQ superpower. You probably also know that I love maths, and numbers - as demonstrated by my supersonic car registration plate memory, and my memorisation of Pi to 21 decimal places. Number patterns are even more fun. As far as I know, I was born to fly planes. (Yeah, okay so that might seem like a big departure - I like numbers so I should fly planes...) But I think the fact that this has been been a lingering desire for more than five years is also a good sign. It's not like the times where I've been like "WOW, I really like that Malaysian guy at the gym!" and then just as quickly forgotten about him when I get to the sushi bar and seen that they have crab sushi today. (Disclaimer: yes, my obsession with Malaysian guy from the gym may have lasted a little longer, and ended in rather dire circumstances, but it seemed like a good little anecdote. Here's hoping LMC has gotten something better to do with her time than collect damning evidence from my blog and Twitter these days.)

And anyway, I have an aviation-related back-up plan. You should always have a back-up plan, especially if you're pinning everything on being accepted into a postgraduate programme at a prestigious Dutch University. Was that too obvious? Anyway, I have also been looking into the fun world of air traffic control. It helps that my sister applied and was rejected (because we all know that I love to outdo people, especially family members who think that my life dramas should be talked through in the way that someone who calls Youthline before a suicide attempt is talked to), but again my love for numbers, patterns and planes may come in to play. Oh and, international aviation language? English. Thank god. Because we all know how scuh-rewed I would be if it was Japanese (here's a hint: I am so bad at Japanese that I didn't attend my final exam for it).

So that's the plan until further notice.

Just in case you were wondering.

Flying Solo

2010-06-22T23:46:00.002+12:00

Let me begin by saying a big hello to Hamilton.

HELLO HAMILTON.

I'm back.

Hopefully that means that over the next week or two (well, two weeks + two days that I have remaining) I'll get into some sort of blogging habit and you guys will have something exciting to read. Okay, yeah that won't happen. GO HERE INSTEAD. Seriously.

But anyway, for now, I'll write about something mildly related to the post title.

You may have realised that I don't really surround myself with people. Yes, occasionally I mention Thom, and Sophie, and Jelle, but don't fool yourselves into thinking I actually see these people on a regular basis (Jelle being the exception, because between about the 9th and 19th of June, I don't think I saw anyone else. Besides maybe the people at Mei Wah Takeaways, where I order my meal in Mandarin Chinese and don't get funny looks, which I like). It's been more than six months since I saw Thom OR Sophie, but I do get to talk to them through the magical technology known as texting sometimes (actually, I don't have Sophie's number anymore, so Thom will you be a dear and text it to me? Thanks).

There's a reason for this, and it's because people just aren't my thing. Actinoids, as a general rule, are. I like kittens and I like showers, but people are kind of a grey area I could do without. Even as a like, four-year-old, I wasn't your average four-year-old who made a new best friend every day based on what toys they had (well, that's what the Plunket book says average four-year-olds do). I had one friend from the earliest memory I have and that's how I liked it. When she went on to make another friend (when we were like, I don't know, seven), I wasn't happy about it. But eventually I think I decided that her new friend could be my new friend and so until the age of eleven I had two friends. Then I had one friend from then until she left our high school in bizarre circumstances...

You get the picture. The fact that I like more than one person enough to consider them a friend is pretty incredulous. But it's not completely unfounded. I do feel a little bit raped by people in general, and that's because on the odd occasion where I have thought I liked someone enough for them to become a friend, it's ended not-so-well. Like I dunno - I give them a ride to somewhere REALLY out of the way, without asking for petrol money, they don't say thanks or text me again for at least six weeks before they need a ride at 3am to the Auckland Airport, and then when they've left the country they only text me because they don't know what to do because they think they might be pregnant (this has happened, and I'm still SO perplexed as to why more than one person in my life has ever asked me what they should do when they think they might be pregnant. I mean, really. Do I seem like the kind of person who's in any sort of position to get pregnant? Pretty sure you need to be... uh, *intimate* with someone for that. And if you know me, you know it's a blindingly obvious fact that no fertile males get intimate with me).

You may also have a distant memory of me being a competitive triathlete. Triathlon is a sport that markets itself as accessible, and it may be for that reason that during my competitive days, I had one or more "friends" claim they would either compete at races with me, or at the very least come along and watch. I pretty much NEVER say I will attend races to watch, because it's boring and dumb - the obvious exception being XTERRA, and that's so I can write fun blog posts when Nic Leary dominates. But for every single weekend during one season, I had at least one person say they would come. And I can tell you right now that I attended every single race that season alone. I had people pull out on the Thursday before a Saturday race because they wanted to go and get wasted on Friday night instead of doing a race the next day (which would be fine, if they hadn't "promised" to drive me there with all my racing gear). I had people who just conveniently weren't at home when I went to pick them up the night before, who conveniently ignored my text saying "I'm at your house, are you ready to go?" for six days following, eventually sending some sort of "lol, I lost my phone!" response. The worst may have been when someone had "promised" me accommodation, then told me two nights before that they actually couldn't, leaving me to stay in one of Rotorua's finest hotels rather than the Thermal Holiday Park/Dive I normally habit for races. I wouldn't have minded, had it not set me back a weeks' worth of pay.

Most recently, I had a friend fairly bully me into doing a race with her - yes, with her. It wasn't like I was going to do the race and she fancied entering too - she told me to enter because she already had. Then about five days prior to said race - which I did minimal training for because well, she's waaay crapper (yep, that was crapper. Not crappier) at running than me, and well, I have a boyfriend and when you have a boyfriend there are way better things to do than train for a running race you were fairly bullied into - she pulled out. Turned out she hadn't in fact entered. Oh, good. I'm so glad I paid to enter a race I didn't really want to do, as well as paying for a bus ride to the race city. Said "friend" then texted me the night before the race asking if I wanted to go to a party, then out clubbing. Ahem. And oh, she couldn't even come and watch me run. To be honest I can't blame her for the latter, but still! As it happened, I ran an awful race, tore a calf muscle and ran so far over my PB that I actually had to think about Thom yelling "lip slip" while we were shooting a film in Katikati last year to stop me crying as I crossed the finish line.

And then I got food poisoning, and ironically it was someone I don't particularly like who drove me to the hospital in the dead of the night and waited with me for six hours.

Anyway.

Said friend from the fun running story just asked me to run another race with her today.

No. Fucking. Way.

I am sick of you people, and your ridiculous inability to actually commit to something, then fucking text me when you think you might be pregnant. Be responsible. Heard of condoms? Or the Pill? Or like, fucking abstinence? AND, I don't know anything about pregnancy, or abortion, or rearing younglings. Even if I did, why should I impart my knowledge with you, if you're not even going to be at home when I come to pick you up for a triathlon?!

And this is why, for the most part, I fly solo.

Yup, as per usual, Jelle is the exception to the rule, because, apart from almost daily kind of hilarious misunderstandings (sometimes caused by his crappy English, and sometimes by the fact that right now we communicate via MSN Messenger) he tends to not be shit and unreliable.

Kentucky Fried Poisoning

2010-06-09T10:15:00.002+12:00

Yeah, I had it coming.

For the majority of my recent life, I've lived off the goodness that is McDonald's and Mei Wah Chinese takeaways. On Monday night, since I was in Christchurch, I had KFC with my old flatmate.

A few hours later, I was sprawled on the floor of the Christchurch Hospital Emergency Department, drifting in and out of consciousness and plagued by waves of uncontrollable nausea.

Yes, our friends at KFC Hornby poisoned me with their Tower Burger.

I was in hospital from about 2am until 6am, then embarked on a fun bus journey back to Dunedin at 8am (one I nearly missed, actually, because I was in the car when the bus arrived). "Fun" here having the meaning of "we were almost involved with a high speed, head-on collision with a Holden" and "I was definitely not in any sort of shape to be on a bus for five hours".

Since then, I've been afraid to eat anything, which is partly why it's 10:20am and I'm still laid up in Jelle's bed (he's in an exam). It's also partly because it's cold and I. Am. Freakin. Lazy.

Oh, Holy Crap. It's June.

2010-06-01T11:47:00.003+12:00

I guess I should have noticed that when I started crowing on about it being the end of the semester. We're like, halfway through the year.

What was I up to this time last year?

Well... complaining about the wedding of Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt, for one thing. Funnily enough, rumour now has it that the pair are going separate ways. Wow, didn't see that coming in a million years, huh?

As a general rule, my life last year seems pretty similar to what it is now. For one thing, on this day last year I wrote about how I was going to Christchurch the following weekend. Almost eerily, next weekend I am going to Christchurch. Well, this Thursday. But you know. Work with me here!

As well, last year I had a horrible flatmate. I still hatefully remember that guy and his apparent aversion to showers and general hygiene, his obnoxious tendencies to play computer games with the volume on high, while watching TV AND talking on the phone. Sure, this year's flatmates don't know how to wipe down the oven, or do dishes, or take out the trash, but at. Least. They. Aren't. My. Last. Year's. Flatmate.

A year ago, a friend of mine in Canada promised to buy me a foundation brush from Sephora.com I still haven't gotten a sniff of. Thanks, Marco.

And it was about this time last year that I learnt that I would be represent Aotearoa at the ITU World Triathlon Championships... wow. This year, I won't be (mathematics calls), but I've learnt that the 2011 event is due to be staged in Beijing, China. So there.

So what do I expect to be doing, a year from now?

As a general rule, I try to avoid pondering the future. This may be the reason I currently have no idea what I want to do with my life (and to be fair, that's quite bad - I'm 24, and as such, about halfway through my expected lifespan). Still, next year I suppose it would be nice to be working in makeup but also be in shape enough to race in Beijing. Especially since I also intend to qualify for XTERRA Worlds next year.

Hopefully I won't still be blogging from the University of Otago's central library, and hopefully, Facebook will have self-detonated by then and I'll no longer be plagued by status updates, "likes", and the constant conundrum that is carefully choosing religious and political views to display on my profile page. Being a narcissist is hard work, guys.

*yawns and checks reflection in glare from laptop screen*

Over and out, pets.

New World Order

2010-06-01T09:24:00.002+12:00

OMG, you guys, it's nearly the end of the semester.
Currently I'm in my final week of contact hours at the University of Otago, with exams due to start some time in the near future (mine are on June 10th and 19th). And you know what that means - it's time to change all my carefully selected semester two papers!

Ah yes, after much chopping and changing right up until the last moment of available change time using the University's "PIMS" (Personal Information Management System, I believe), I'm still unhappy with the papers I'm currently enrolled in for semester two. This largely stems from the fact that I chose the papers when I still thought I had an ounce of interest in linguistics. Hmmm. Not so much.

To that end, yesterday I paid a visit to the departments of Mathematics & Statistics (for the former), and Physics. To that end, I am now officially a student of the University of Otago Physics department - the oldest in New Zealand, according to their website. I am excite. Even more exciting is the textbook I have to buy (OMG, how sad do I sound right now) for the physics programme. It's big, sciencey and fun, and leads me to my next story.

Yesterday I paid a well-overdue visit to the University Bookshop (commonly referred to in Dunedin as UBS or UniBooks). At the beginning of each year, the top floor of this store is transformed into a veritable wonderland of textbooks, arranged in a timely, paper-wise order. Since I went yesterday with the intention of looking at maths textbooks, I made a beeline for the top floor, where I found a sign that read "textbooks now downstairs". With that, I turned and went about making my way back down the stairs. This of course being a relative term for "I rolled my ankle and then rolled to the bottom". It wasn't really a short fall, either. I'm talking, second-from-top step to bottom. Into the entrance of the shop. In front of several amused onlookers. Possibly the most entertaining aspect of the fall was that I literally yelped "noo!" as I felt my ankle give way. My god. I am such a loser.

Anyway, as if that wasn't enough, after spending an hour or so mulling over maths books, I found a "Periodic Table of the Elements" wall chart. If you know me, you'll know that buying such a chart would be redundant because I know the table, in order, in my head. But I wanted it anyway, and decided I would buy it right there and then. And so, for the second time this year, I went to buy something with UniBooks. Without. My. Credit Card. AGAIN. I mean, it wasn't enough that seemingly just moments before, this cashier had seen me peel myself from the floor a few feet from his desk, but I then had to further embarrass myself by not having the money to buy a wall chart.

Sigh.

I completed yesterday by attending a session of what I have previously referred to as "yoga for the clinically insane" - that is to say, Bikram. In comparison, the East West Studio in Auckland delivers a class I would now like to describe as "for the discerning crazy person" - Dunedin Bikram Yoga is quite something else. For one thing, I'm not even sure the instructor was speaking English for most of the time. There was also the fact that he was dressed in just TYR jammers. Not. That. Nice. Also, the Dunedin studio smells akin to a hamster cage, but I guess that comes with the territory when you fill a room heated to 38 degrees (celsius) with half-dressed bodies and feet. Ew, feet.

Still, I guess it got me out of the house for a few hours...

More From The Depths Of My Excuse For A Mind

2010-05-30T20:50:00.001+12:00

As you may have noticed (whether it be via Facebook, real life, or my previous post), JK and I have some pretty stupid interactions. The latest I wish to share with you is via text message.

me: "who thought choosing dinner could become such an ordeal."
JK: "a bit like Big Bang haha" (he currently has an obsession with the show, based on a friend giving him a hard drive containing all episodes from season one through three)
me: "not really, since they eat the same thing each week."
JK: "not when someone is missing."
me: "you're missing."
JK: "your face is missing."
me/JK: "imagine if my face was actually missing." / "imagine if it really was." (yes, we simultaneously say the same things. Vomit, I know)

me: "I just lol'd" (that's a big sentiment, because I hate the phrase "lol")
JK: "haha good"
me: "people are giving me dirty looks" (it was earlier established that I was in the library with my flatmate, who we'll call Elle)
JK: "at your non-face?"
me: "yeah, they're like "ew, who does that faceless girl laughing at herself think she is?" *scowl*"
JK: "haha. *makes previously unreferred-to reference to Facebook."
me: "what...?"
JK: "your Facebook."
me: "...your face."
JK: "imagine a book with a face."
me: "leprosy."
JK: "..."
me: "yeah, you heard me."
JK: "*continues conversation as if nothing happened*"

Facebrats

2010-05-18T02:22:00.002+12:00

One of my [not-so-secret] favourite things to do is to look at old Facebook status messages and read the comments pertaining to them. On February 23rd (so, about a week before Jelle and I got together) I posted a status saying
"my sister is stalking Thomas"

the comments are as follows...

Jelle: "it's in the family"
Iris: "your face is in the family."
Jelle: "u wish my face was in ur family"
Iris: "hmm, only i don't. i bet those squinty eyes don't breed out :p"
Jelle: "it's your loss!"
Alex [Mountain Man]: "I smell a sitcom!"
Thom: "love life"

Ahh, good.

Goldfish Asylum

2010-05-17T18:26:00.005+12:00

Recently, I received a copy of the DVD with my 400m freestyle (the first time I typed that, I typed "40mm" - imagine a 40mm swimming race) race from Athens 2004. It was a wee while ago, and you may or may not know how pitifully I performed there, so you can imagine it's been a while since I've seen footage of the race.

It's an event I'm very much in two minds about. In one, I'm a tiny little bit (I mean TINY. I'm not being falsely humile about this either) proud that I was able to compete at the Olympics when I was eighteen years old. To add to that, I actually looked the part (if you ignore my height, that is. In 2004, I was all of 4'11"), with big shoulders, a ripped back, as well as being what now seems to be extremely thin. I'm sure that's just flabby 2010 me being jealous, though. Something I'm not envious of is that hair "style" - it being the remnants of a head shaving that took places five months prior.

Of course, a much larger part of me is still hugely disappointed with how I fared in Athens - sixth in my heat, and nowhere near the final I should have medalled in. The look on my face in my post-race interview conveys that pretty well. And contrary to Keith Quinn's (he was a pooldeck commentator there) wee muse that "in retrospect, I think she'll be very happy with that", I'm not, nor have I ever been.

Years after Shane Gould (you may have noticed I'm a bit of a Shane Gould fan - this is because I used to share her best events, the 200m freestyle and IM races, before moving "up" in the world to the 400m and 800 frees) retired, she lamented the fact that in the 1970s (Munich 1972 was her hey-day), no psychological post-retirement support was offered to Olympic athletes. In my case, more than anything I needed post-race support. Upon my return to the Olympic Village after doing a "deck change" at the pool, having not warmed down or even showered, I literally crumpled into a heap on the floor of the room I shared with my then-coach, Jo. Within minutes I re-emerged from the room, then went about the rest of the day and the rest of my time in the Village as if nothing - not even a race - had happened.

There was the Ethiopian flag incident. This is my favourite story from Athens, even though most people I tell don't think it's that great. Outside the dining room in the Athens Olympic Village was a paved area, where all the flags of the competing nations were raised (there was even a flag-raising ceremony for each country. We shared ours with the USA and Azerbaijan). On the day before the Games finished, I trundled up to the hall, flanked by my posse of sorts. We noticed the volunteers were taking the flags down, and I had what I considered at the time to be the greatest idea of my life. It was my opportunity to take the Ethiopian flag! Flag-collecting was something of a swimming trip tradition - I had the flags of the US, Norway and Brazil from previous excursions. We went inside and over lunch, hatched a "plan" - which, in retrospect wasn't much of a plan at all. It just involved me taking an empty bag to the flag site, lowering the flag and then taking it. It worked for Dawn Fraser in Tokyo - almost. Easy peasy.

I walked back outside - cleverly dressed in my New Zealand uniform, and still wearing my Olympic accreditation around my neck - and "hid" behind a small shed (which, of course, turned out to be a security office). At what seemed the most optimal moment, I approached the flagpole with the Ethiopian flag hoisted high in the air, unwound the rope and started lowering it. Of course, due to the intermittent wind gusts that plague Maroussi (that's the city the Olympic Village was in), while the flag was on its way down, a few times the wind got the better of me, so anyone within a 50-yard radius could probably tell what was happening. I ignored it, and once the flag was within reach, I freed it from the rope, folded it as quickly as I could, and stuffed it into my backpack. Rather than scampering away, I attempted a casual walk out from behind the office.

"Stop, stop stop." A young, grinning Greek man stepped in front of me. I hadn't considered this.
"What have you got in your bag?" he asked.
"Δεν μιλούν ελληνικά!!" I insisted, and he burst out laughing.
"Clearly, you speak Greek perfectly well. What have you got in your bag?" he asked again, his English as good as my thoroughly practiced Greek. I sighed and opened my bag, revealing my treasured flag. He continued to laugh.
"But why do you want this?"
"It's my favourite country!"
"You wait here. I must discuss this with the other men." He walked off, with my bag, to a group of other volunteers, and they agreed, in Greek, that I could keep it. He did mention, though "we must ask the women."
The women were decidely less fun than the men.
"Why are you laughing?" they demanded. "This is not funny! You are very bad!"
"I think it's hilarious!" I replied in a deadpan tone, as was customary for 2004 me. The women were outraged that I would take a flag, and they made me fold it up and put it in the box with the flags of all the other countries.
"You should not be laughing. You should be ashamed." they told me, and shooed me away. I returned, defeated, to the dining room.

Anyway.

The point of this post was not to illustrate my two failings in Athens but rather the power of memories and how much of a paradox they are. Sometimes I wish I could forget every minute of Athens - the petty arguments I had with Jo, the moment on my race day morning that I realised I'd forgotten to bring accreditation, the earbashing I got from another team member for spilling water on the bathroom floor (yes, really). Of course, I also wish I could forget every second of that awful race but through the power of DVD I remember it all. Vividly. Honestly - watching it makes me remember it even more. There was the almost-inability to even walk from the final marshalling room to pooldeck due to nerves, the initial feelings of "this is good! I could win this!" (that's actually a quote from a track meet later that year) which inevitably - within 50 metres - gave room to a more sickening feeling, that I was losing ground and despite putting together what should have been my best race on record (based on form not only in camp in Athens, but also the months leading up to the Games), I was just failing. Badly. There was the final 50m, where every fibre in my body screamed at me to finish better, and of course, worst of all, there was the moment where I saw my time on the scoreboard, and as such, the moment my heart broke. (Luckily, the DVD is shot from such a distance that the expletive I let loose upon seeing the time, can't be heard. But I still remember.)
It didn't end there - unfortunately, at the Olympics, even if your heart is broken and you doubt your ability to remove your goggles, let alone remove yourself from the pool - you have to get out. So what followed was the heartbroken hauling of myself out of the water, the heartbreaking walk to be interviewed, then the saddest, loneliest walk of my life to the warm down pit, where I perched on a start block for a few moments before shrugging and trudging back inside to find my equally heartbroken coach.

So yes, at times I wish I had a goldfish memory.

tumblr...

2010-05-13T20:52:00.001+12:00

Oh and by the way, by the way...

That's obviously a reference to Thom, but anyway.

I have a tumblr now, which I find more fun than this, so come on over and see me and Serena some time!!

bratcorenz.tumblr.com

Thank God You're Here

2010-05-13T20:38:00.003+12:00

I am not even kidding; someone said this to me today.

As you may (or may not) know, I am currently pursuing "The Good Life" - that is, undergraduate linguistics at the University of Otago. Good times? Well, not really.

After taking a second-year paper during summer school here, I made a rash decision to follow it up with a third-year paper this semester. Hmm. Said paper is called"Second Language Acquisition" - and since I never go to class, I don't really know what the course content is supposed to be. What I do know is, 30% of my total grade is based on GROUP WORK.

GROUP WORK?!?! I know. Seems unimaginable. For me, that is, the original lone wolf. But since I remained blissfully unaware of the "alternative assessment" for those not wishing to immerse themselves in the company of others until it was too late, I was exposed to the trials (and tribulations) of group work. Urgh.

Anyway, owing to an exaggerated chain of events that I can't be bothered explaining, I ended up in my lecturer's office this afternoon, listening to the tail end of a very one-sided telephone conversation with someone I assume is some sort of mentee. Offspring, perhaps. Honestly, if you met this lecturer, you too would entertain the idea that she treats her offspring as hangers-on, disruptions to her pursuit of the greater cause - teaching languages (especially Armenian, judging by the number of Armenian posters gracing the walls of her office). After several what we linguists refer to as "turns" - attempts, for want of a better word - my lecturer finally said bade farewell to her caller, hung up the telephone with an almighty sigh, turned to me and said

"Thank god you're here."

I felt a little bit proud. No-one has ever said that to me with such emotion. In fact, upon further pondering, I don't think anyone's EVER said that to me.

The word pondering has reminded me, though, of a conversation I once had with an old friend. Most of it is blogspot-inappropriate, so I'll just post my favourite line:

"*ponders* that would be good. but would also possibly be quite bad."

Fun With Chlorine

2010-04-27T00:12:00.003+12:00

I used to be a swimmer.

Once upon a time, in a city far, far away, I spent more hours each day submerged in the over-chlorinated waters of the 50m pool at Waterworld, on Garnett Avenue than I spent doing anything else.
In 2005, I became something of a satellite member of the Duncan Laing Swim Squad, training under the great man himself, but outside of his usual hours. I'm amazed, on a daily basis, at the hill I scaled twice-daily that year to swim under his sometimes less-than-watchful eye. At the time I ignored it - my dream was to be the fastest, the most famous, and most successful swimmer in the world.

Upon my spectacular failing to qualify for the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, after a month of mediocre splashing around in the Hamilton Municipal Pool (I laughingly referred to it then as "training"), I left the pool, midway through training in a rather inconspicuous fashion. It was that day that I stopped being a swimmer.

Olivier Marceau forgot how to swim, also...

Last year, the Waikato Times in Hamilton printed a most unflattering photo of me swimming, a few days after being named Waikato Sportswoman of the Year. I was appalled at how my technique had fallen apart, but at the same time, not really that surprised. Since leaving Mr Laing in the dying months of 2005, I'd not really listened to anyone about the declining state of my once textbook freestyle. Mr Laing, I know, along with my previous coach Johanne, would be even more disgusted than I was. Of course, given that I'd already sold my racing bike and decided an academic career - rather than a sporting one - was what I wanted to pursue, I put little thought into my horrendous swimming.

Now I face what's going to be an uphill battle to get my old freestyle back - all aspects of it. There's my once-noted kick (honed to perfection in 2003, when I spent almost nine months kicking up and down a lane for five hours each day. You know when you get pregnant, and have a kid? Yep, that's how long I spent doing kick, and nothing but kick) that needs a revival. My speed (I refuse to even attempt to record how much that's dropped off. It's bound to drive me back into an Oreo addiction). And of course, perhaps the biggest thorn in my side - my increasingly late breathing. Photos from Athens show that even then, I might have been considered a late breather. Photos from now almost beg the question "who in god's name taughtyou how to swim?".

Thankfully, I'm not completely at a loss here. The University of Otago's Physical Education School is home to what was once New Zealand's only flume. Even Michael Phelps has used it (I beat him to it - in early 2004, our entire team was flown to Dunedin for what proved to be a fruitless exercise in stroke correction. Our head coach kept the videos, claiming it was "too close" to Athens to be rendering anyone's stroke, leaving us baffled). Actually getting permission to access the flume may be a war in itself, but I'm lucky in the fact that my biomechanical knowledge with regards to swimming is pretty damn good. I even got some awards for it in high school, after "successfully adapting backstroke to increase speed and decrease energy output", thank you very much. Sure, I'll probably cry the first few times I watch the tape, but once I get over that, I'm going to know exactly what it is I need to fix to get my stroke back to its former glory.

Why, you might ask?

Well, it's all in the name of winning XTERRA races next year. It's a set-in-stone fact that my victory at ITU Worlds last year came as a direct result of the massive lead I gained in the swim. If I'm swimming the same way I did when I was an international-level swimmer, and not just triathlete, then there's a good chance I can do even better next year. Whether I admit it happily or not, mountain biking is just not my foray (sorry if I've led you to believe otherwise!) and I'm going to need to be out on those dusty lava fields as far ahead of everyone else as possible.

Eek.

And like, seriously - it can't be that hard. When Dara Torres got back in the water to attempt a qualifying standard for the Sydney Olympics (after retiring in 1984), Richard Quick actually stopped her and said "we don't swim like that anymore". She won three medals in Sydney, and in Beijing won silver in the 50m freestyle race at 41 years old. I'm actually a little bit excited about learning to swim again.

... Maui Beckons

2010-04-24T16:13:00.004+12:00

So, you guys may have noticed that my blogging frequency has dropped substantially.

I wish this was because I am always studying, but it's really more to do with the fact that I'mnot. You know when you're really busy, and as a result, uber-productive? That's why last year, while I was busting my ass for fifty hours each week training for ITU Worlds, I was able to blog all the time. This year, I do so little that I waste the time I do have to blog, doing nothing.

Anyway.

48HOURS Dunedin was... redundant. You may remember my apprehension about the weekend - this largely stemmed from the fact that it was to be the first film I was working on without Thom (since the weekend he's said "just be thankful you're still a Radioactive Reptile"). I did have doubts about the production value of our film, based on our lack of sound tech and editing. In the end, of course, it was the editing that became our unraveling.

I quickly realised last year, during the 48 hours, how privileged I was to be working with Sophie, Jono, Bevan, Katie and Thom. These guys are graduates of "Moving Image". They're pretty good at what they do. It's not that the team I worked with this year aren't awesome too, they just didn't have quite the level of expertise of my Reptiles back in Hamilton. There was also the minor (read: MAJOR) detail that editing was left solely to our director, Serena. She had about four hours, total, of sleep during the weekend. With 1 minute and 8 seconds remaining until the deadline on Sunday night, Serena didn't have time to view the DVD our team submitted. And that's how Disaster One happened.

On Tuesday, Decile One packed into a bus and headed to Dunedin's first heat. What happened there was literally a living nightmare. I can't really explain the utter and complete disbelief I felt while watching our DVD. Within moments of it starting, I was texting Thom. "Our sound is horrible." But that was only the beginning. A few seconds later it became evident that something had gone horribly wrong with the editing and final burn. Scenes were out of order. The sound was completely (I mean completely) out of sync. There were frames that froze completely, creating an ambient house music sound (which I rather enjoyed, to be honest). The audience cringed. Audibly. Even now, almost a week later, I feel that a description doesn't do the full disaster that was "The Rook" justice. It really has to be seen to be believed. And, judging by the reaction I got from my team when I asked for a copy (to show Thom, of course), that's just not going to happen.

My musings about what I've affectionately referred to as "48HOUR FAIL" on Twitter have received advice such as "make note of what you did wrong, and how you can fix it for next year". It's times like these I really wish I'd paid attention as I watched Sophie work her magic on "There Will Be Blood" last year. Or, at the very least, known more about a computer than is necessary to use Twitter. My only rectification for next year is that I WILL be back in Hamilton next year with Thom and co. If there's a team I want to fail miserably with, it's Radioactive Reptiles.

Their film "Sid & Kate", is looking like a finalist, and to that end, I've booked flights home for May 8th. 48Hours Hamilton final, my brother's birthday, and Mother's Day, all in one hit! I like this.

In the last week, I received a copy of XTERRA PLANET magazine. And, you guessed it, I'm so getting back into that shit next year. Maybe it's that, compounded with the excitment of my stupidly talented cousin Scott winning his first XTERRA NZ title on April 17th, that's got me all worked up. Whatever it is, you can expect to find me on the start line at Blue Lake next year. I. Am. SO. Excite.

And then there's Maui. XTERRA World Championships. The original goal was to win this year, but due to some incident - which I now look upon as a momentarily lapse of reason - which resulted in me now living in Dunedin, 2011 looks to be a go. This afternoon, I showed Jelle part of a ten-minute highlights video from last year's event.
"Um, cool." he said. "Yeah, you can do that. I'll just wait in the hotel room."
Nice.

But whatever; can't win em all, eh? Maui better watch out. I am so there.

48HOURS: Take Two

2010-04-16T10:34:00.003+12:00

You guys remember last year, how for like, two months after the V 48 Hours Furious Filmmaking competition, I gushed about my team, Radioactive Reptiles, and about how much I loved them?
Yeah, it's THAT time of year again.

Except now, I live at the other end of a different island. Last year, as I'm sure you remember because I crowed on about it at every opportunity, I lived in Hamilton.

This year, it's sunny Dunedin.

I'm not being sarcastic either, actually. You'd be surprised how sunny Dunedin is, even today.

Anyway, despite early plans to fly home for this weekend so I could re-join my old team for more fun, I've had to go for second-best and join a *shudder* Dunedin team, Decile One. Uncannily, our director this year was a rival director last year in the Hamilton City final. Her team won the award for Best Teen Team, as well as (from memory, anyway) taking a sound engineering award. What's kinda funnier is that our team this year DOESN'T HAVE a sound engineer. Or an editor. Which could get fun.

Of course, 48 Hours this year is going against my better judgment. Last year, on the night immediately following 48, I slept for twelve hours. In the week following, my nights were interrupted by sleep-walking, sleep-talking, sleep-attempting-to-get-to-Wintec-to-do-makeup, as well as a general sense of fatigue. It was of course, fine last year, because last year I didn't have classes to attend. This year, well - for one thing, I have an assignment due on Monday. Yep. Not gonna happen. I have Japanese tests every week, which I consistently fail (please kids, if you're thinking of studying a language, don't miss class.) and will probably continue to do so next week.

Meh.

Of course, I will do 48 this year with a heavy heart, knowing my Radioactive kids at home are doing the same thing without me. I hope they win their heat (shouldn't be too much trouble, considering we last year beat eventual Hamilton winners Guerrilla Monkeys - a big "fuck you!" to Chris Tan on that note) and I'm also the awkward, on-the-sly cheerleader for Indiefilm and Whenua Pamamoa Productions. Hamilton FTW!

Here's hoping Dunedin isn't too bad either.

Peace, love, and forty-eight hours of furious filmmaking...

I'm Getting Pretty Crap At This

2010-04-10T19:47:00.003+12:00

"This" here having multiple meanings. As you've probably read (or you just know, either because I share a bed, or house, or class with you), my "life" in terms of assignments, attendance, and general knowing-what-the-hell-is-going-on is not exactly panning out in accordance with my high hopes for 2010.

I've also recently become aware of opportunities in my "former" life (better known to most of y'all as triathlon) - buuuut, of course, since I ended 2009 with no views to continue in the sport, it's going to be something of an uphill battle to get back to a place where I can legitimately refer to myself as a sportsperson again. Mmm. Yeah, it's been done before (twice actually, in 2007 and in 2009) but I'm not even kidding you guys, I feel like an old woman these days.

It's a case of laziness and sloth breeding... laziness and sloth. If I sleep in, I feel too crappy to work out. So I don't. Then I eat like, a pizza for lunch or something. Then I'm all, "I'm too full of food to work out now". So again, I don't. And THEN I'm like, "oh, well it's dark now. I'll work out tomorrow." Of course, the following morning when I wake up I not only have slept in and feel crappy as a result, I also feel remorseful about having missed a day. And so the cycle goes on. Granted, I'm exaggerating about eating pizzas for lunch. I so cannot afford that right now.

Where did these opportunities pop up from, you may ask?

Well, I'm trying to keep them on the DL, in the spirit of my last year's efforts to do the same about this year's plan. (Wow, did that like, totally mess you up? I didn't even understand it, and I wrote the damn thing.) You'll hear about them when they pan out. I like that. WHEN they pan out. So WHEN I'm back in shape to cut up 11km runs like nobody's business.

I have a bit of time. But at the same time, I'm twenty-four years old. That's like, almost thirty. I don't have HUGE amounts of time to play with here, guys. So in the spirit of that wee gem of knowledge, it begins on Monday. Hopefully within a few weeks I'll be in some sort of routine that allows me to train, study, write and hang out with that Dutch guy I seem to see an awful lot.

Can we not like, hold me to this though? We all know I have a tendency to talk crap...

Over and out.

PS: Congratulations to my favourites, Nic Leary and Cabin Leishman, who won and placed second, respectively, at XTERRA NZ today. Also to my far-removed cousin, Scott Thorne who WON the pro men's race. Top effort all round.

Let's Have Fun: Linguistics Edition

2010-03-31T11:25:00.003+13:00

Is there anything better to do when you have an assignment worth 30% due than write an unrelated blog post?

...

Didn't think so.

So here we are.

It's Wednesday, but seeing as I spent my weekend in Christchurch and haven't told y'all about it, I'll do that now.

Actually, I'll start back on Thursday, which is when my "twin" Julie arrived in Dunedin from Milford Sound. Julie and I met on the first day of high school and we share what she calls a "birthday bond" - that we were both born on the same day (actually, so was her real twin sister, Rosie). Technically though, Julie and Rosie are older, since they were born in Singapore and I was born in England. And, just in case you were wondering, Rosie is about 30 seconds older than Julie (ie, the doctor pulled her out of the gaping wound that was their mother's caesarian section before Julie).

Anyway, we went through high school together, and then Julie studied Resource and Environmental Planning at the University of Waikato, while I dithered about at a variety of schools and jobs. Julie then moved to Kansas, and THEN to Norway, and she's been living in Wellington for about a year prior to taking a job at the Sound.

You can imagine then, that it was quite exciting times to see her again. Even though we ended up spending about six hours together in a hair salon.

Mmm-hmm.

Julie once had waist-length, blonde dreadlocks. She's half-Asian, so you can imagine how much her hair loves her. When I met her on Thursday, she had a chin-length, Jackie O-styled bob in a colour I assume that was somewhere around natural. When we left, three hours later, she looked more like Jackie O after putting her finger in a power socket, after trading hair with a tiger. You can imagine then, that Julie was not too pleased.

And so it was that we spent three hours the next morning in the same salon, with a new hairdresser, trying her best to rectify Julie's hair disaster. I kid you not, when we left on Thursday, Julie immediately put on a hat. Can you imagine? leaving the salon wearing a hat? On Friday morning, we left and Julie looked mildly happy, which was a 100% improvement on her close-to-tears look from the previous day.

Still, that was six hours of gossip time for us. I'm calling it a success.

A few hours later, I got on a bus and went to Christchurch. The plan was as follows: track & field Saturday, Mandy's duathlon Sunday, home Monday. And that's pretty much how it panned out, with The Hurt Locker (I recommend it) thrown in there for good measure. Cheers for the comps, Hoyts Riccarton.

In the words of Nick Corban, a number of my old track team - Hamilton City Hawks - "disastered" on Saturday. There was "the video tape of fails" - namely Nick's sensational DQ in the 100m heats (he was so annoyed that he stormed off the track even before the officials had time to show him a red card) and then Jordan's even more dramatic fall on the second-last hurdle of the 110m race he was about to medal in. That afternoon I sat with a bruised, bleeding Jordan who, still in high spirits, played Pendulum through his cellphone and proposed that we "go to town!". Disaster was right, although Jordan managed to redeem himself on Sunday in the 400m hurdles event with a bronze medal. Unfortunately it was a race where Josh had his own disaster, coming last. But that's another story. The highlight of Saturday (from a Hawks-centric perspective, obviously) was Ann-Marie's lifetime best and silver medal in the 400m. It came 56.11 seconds after Jordan announced "come on guys. Let's cheer this fossil on". Ann-Marie is 29. There was also my uber-talented neighbour, Julia's victory in the W16 hammer event, something my mum calls the "most un-ladylike sport imaginable" but something that Julia dominates, holding New Zealand records in her age group and the next age group up. Not bad.

And then it was Sunday, and time for Mandy's first foray into the world of multisport. I "cleverly" wore jandals, a choice I later regretted as I scrubbed horse manure off my toes later in the afternoon. Mandy put in a superb effort, and later whispered to her dad that she "kicked mum's ass". So it was a successful day! I was so proud. She even managed to get on a finishing sprint, something I'm pretty sure that no matter how tired you are, you can always manage. And Mandy got a sprint on that Tirunesh Dibaba would be proud of.

So that was my weekend.

I've successfully managed to divert my attention away from my assignment for the last hour.

I think I have 28 hours until it's due.

This should be fun...

I DO Use Blackboard.

2010-03-24T14:18:00.002+13:00

It appears that the University of Otago is not only New Zealand's oldest (it was established in 1869, 100 years before its poorer and less-respected cousin, Waikato) but also the school which makes the most use of old software.

I'm talking about Blackboard. If you're under the age of twenty, you've probably never heard about it, because in institutions that AREN'T Otago, it's extinct.

This semester, it's become a well-documented fact that I'm putting less effort into my studies than, well, anything I've ever done before. Until last last week, I hadn't opened a textbook outside of class. I don't even own the required texts for my courses - with the exception of Japanese, a subject I had high hopes for. But, sigh - you guessed it - I suck at Japanese, too.

However, going by the fact that when I type "bl" (as in "blogger.com") into the... URL bar, (?? Seriously, what is that even called? I'm referring to the box where you type the website address.) Blogger.com doesn't even come up first. Instead, it's been replaced by that clandestine "app" that every Otago student loves, Blackboard. My Japanese teacher so loves it that she calls it "BB".

So, then it would appear that everyone else has got it wrong. Maybe I do study?

Nah, who am I kidding. I have an assignment due today (well, it was originally due today, but the date's been pushed back to next week, maybe because of the huge percentage of students who fall asleep in 4pm lectures of LING319: Second Language Acquisition) that I haven't even looked at. Hell, if I'm honest, I don't even know what the assignment is.

It's been a long and embarrassing fall from grace, guys. Don't let yourselves do the same.

Have Spikes. Will Travel.

2010-03-23T12:23:00.003+13:00

Orrrr... I could just travel for sake of it.

Dunedin is not the most exciting place on the face of the planet (if you have suggestions as to where is, I'm all ears). To that end, this weekend I'm branching out and visiting... Christchurch.

Yeah, so it's not much of a step up. Some might even consider it a step down. I'm going with sideways, due to the fact that it's for a good cause and has the added benefits of catching up with old friends (one of whom I haven't seen since 2005!), even if it means leaving Jelle here. Sigh.

Speaking of Jelle, he was disappointed at the lack of mentions he gets on here. I reasoned that it was because if we break up, I don't want to have an entire blog full of raving about him. His response? "Fair enough". Yeah. Gives me hope.

Anyway, back to Christchurch. The original reason for my visit is that Mandy is competing in her first duathlon on Sunday morning. I made the rather brave offer of dressing as a cheerleader and well, cheering. "Brave" here having the meaning of "idiotic, based on my current size and as such, expected appearance in cheerleading outfit". Sooo, might give the outfit a miss and just take an airhorn along, along with a giant size saying "I LOVE MANDY". Hopefully she's not too disappointed.

I thought that was a pretty good reason to visit ye olde Ōtautahi, so you can imagine my excitement when it came about that the New Zealand Track & Field Championships are being held in the same place, on the same weekend! Can you say, kill two birds with one stone?

Or... maybe ten birds, since that's about how many people I'll get to catch up with on Saturday. Good!

Naturally, I've been told by more than one of these ten people that I "should be racing". Ha. Like that's going to happen. I'm racing tonight. In a 5k race that's sure to leave me permanently disabled (moreso than I already am, obviously) - it's been that long. Buuut, gotta start somewhere, right? I figure it's better to start running now, rather than this time next year, when Worlds are "just around the corner", and I've had eighteen months of inactivity instead of six.

To that end, no I will not be racing this weekend, however I will be trackside at QE2 on Saturday, and... roadside at the equestrian centre at Maclean's Island on Sunday morning, supporting those who have clearly made a better commitment to their fitness than what I've shown lately.

Get out there.

Machina

2010-03-22T14:23:00.003+13:00

Last year, I sold my beloved bikes in favour of more scholastic pursuits (a decision I'm now bitterly regretting, as you will know if you are a real-life acquaintance) and on January 3rd, I arrived in Dunedin sans a method of transport other than my feet. You can imagine then, that I've been having barrels of fun walking from my home to uni (about ten minutes, but ten minutes longer than I would like), and even MORE fun walking the two miles to my gym - Les Mills - which is past the Octagon.

Having just won Triathlon New Zealand's "Performance of the Year" award, my mother urged me to keep swimming. Yes, this is the same woman who last year, virtually on the finish line of the World Championship race I'd just won, told me to retire. Anyway, said continuation of swimming is conditional on my getting to the pool frequently enough to call myself a swimmer. In first year, that meant twice-daily swims under the expert tutelage of the late and great Mr Duncan Laing. And if you're familiar with Dunedin, you'll know that also means twice-daily scaling of either Stuart Street or its less imposing counterpart, London Street. Not that ideal. Especially not now, when I'm at about 15% of my 2005 aerobic capacity.

And so it came about that my mum bought me a bike. A new bike! What fun! Sure, it's no Safire (how I loved my Safire) - instead I went with a Giant Strata, which is hugely pared down in comparison, but will definitely do the job for the daily jaunt to the gym or pool. I'd look a bit pompous getting around on Artemis these days anyway, and since the Strata is bound to spend a few hours a day locked to a post in Dunedin's city centre... it's probably better.

So here's to many new adventures with my Strata. Yep, she needs a name, too. Suggestions welcome.

Over and out.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LUKE!

2010-03-21T14:00:00.002+13:00

Yeah, that's about all I've got for today.

It's Luka's birthday today, and hopefully he's having a good one.

Love you, Luke!!

Oh, Hi March...

2010-03-17T12:59:00.003+13:00

So I've been quiet lately.

Depending on how involved with my life you are (by which I mean, you found my blog by Googling something like "girl obsessed with Lady Gaga" or you're my boyfriend), you may or may not know about recent happenings.

Which - admittedly - aren't all that exciting.

Right now, I'm sitting in the University of Otago library, staring at my Japanese textbooks and thinking it would be a pretty good idea to learn some hiragana, especially given I am the ONLY person in the class who can't read it yet. Oh, that and the fact that we're expected to know katakana tomorrow. Not. Going. To. Happen.

Yeah, so I'm sucking in a pretty big way so far at uni, which isn't ideal. In the first two weeks of class, I had twenty-one lectures, and attended four of them. It prompted my boyfriend (more on him later) and I to strike a deal: we're now attempting to attend every class.

When you've missed the first two weeks of beginner's Japanese? Yeah, it's not that much fun.

*soldiers on*

Somewhere along the way (in LING221, an interesting excuse for 200-level university study during the summer) I met my now-boyfriend Jelle who's a fellow Otago student. Fingers crossed he has no objections to my using his real name on my blog...

*waits for objections*

*shrugs*

Mmm, so anyway he's studying something gay like management, but I'm trying my best not to hold it against him. Can't win em all, eh? And no, before you ask, it's not anything to do with Jelle that I've been so average with recent blogs. That's what I like to refer to as "Willownet" - the sad excuse for internet we have in our apartment. It works fine downstairs, sometimes. It just doesn't want to play ball in my room, which where, as a general rule, I prefer to write. There's something creepy about musing from the lounge, or from the second floor of Otago University's central library. Or even worse... from your boyfriend's bedroom (yeah, I know. I'm disgusting). Either way, he started reading my blog before we started "dating" (?) and has given me a bit of shit about not updating it recently, as has Aubrey.

So here you go, friends (firends? Haha). My first post in over a month!

Over and out...

Evan Lysacek, Olympic Champion!

2010-02-19T20:19:00.004+13:00

On December 30 of last year, I made the following comment:

"oooh yeah, definitely pinning everything on Evan Lysacek" - even though at the time I had huge doubts about it, because at the time, the US representatives were as yet unnamed.

Well, tonight, ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce the 2010 Olympic Champion of Men's Figure Skating: EVAN LYSACEK!

Yeah, I had an exciting afternoon watching the men's free skate - apart from Evan (who didn't skate for about 3 hours after the start of the session), other favourites included Denis Ten of Kazakhstan and two Japanese skaters: Daisuke Takahashi and Nobunari Oda. Both of the Japanese ran into trouble - Takahashi failed to land his first skill, a quadruple (!!!) toeloop and Oda's bootlace snapped during his program, which was unfortunate but probably could have been avoided.

ANYWAY. Evan skated a lovely, clean program for a score of 167.37, which - after an agonising wait for the other skaters to finish - proved to be enough for gold over that Russian guy, Evgeni Plushenko. I actually squealed with happiness.

I'm doubly excited because Evan tweeted at me the other day. Yes, Olympic gold medalist Evan Lysacek took a few seconds out of his day to profess his shared support for the San Antonio Spurs.

I showed everyone who would give me enough time to cast their eye over my laptop screen.
"Evan Lysacek tweeted at me!" I raved, "and when he wins the Olympics in a few days, I'm going to post this on my blog."

So here it is!

Congratulations, Evan!!

Four And Twenty!

2010-02-11T16:50:00.004+13:00

Turns out my worries about not getting to name an older post "Four and Twenty" were for nothing, because I turned twenty-four yesterday!

I'm happy to report that it was about a 329847972% improvement on last year, mainly because I didn't slip over. AND I had pizza for dinner. Oh, and bought three Pendulum albums off iTunes. Yeah, it was a good day. A few people even remembered without Facebook prompting them!

Other good news (that's not birthday-related): Lady Gaga has lent her name and support to MAC's Viva Glam lipstick this year. Viva Glam lipsticks contribute 100% of the purchase cost to HIV/AIDS research, so it's pretty cool that Gaga is getting behind something real (I'm not suggesting she normally doesn't, but in my opinion, it's a bit of a step up from Polaroid's "creative director" or whatever title they recently anointed her with). Go Gaga!

I miss Ben an awful lot at the moment. I mean, of course I miss Ben every single day, but in the last few days I've spent a particularly huge part of each day thinking about him. I often wonder if I'll ever get used to the fact that he's not around anymore, and I very much doubt it. Love you, Ben.

Ye Olde Canadian Cup

2010-02-09T08:08:00.002+13:00

Congratulations to Wanaka's Kendall Brown, who yesterday won the Canadian Open halfpipe snowboarding event. Kendall is but a wee twenty years old and off to her second Olympics in Vancouver this weekend. She won by just 0.66 over the Canadian Sarah Conrad, but both girls were light years ahead of third place-getter Mercedes Nicoll (also a Canadian).

Kendall, who had the lowest score of the competition after her first run, came back in the second to score the highest.

I know, I know. It was only the Canadian Open, but what an excellent win for a New Zealander so close to the Olympics. I'm actually just a tiny bit optimistic about our team this year!

He Lives On... Through Chemistry

2010-02-08T23:16:00.002+13:00

Dmitri Mendeleev was born 176 years ago today. In my opinion, he was one of the world's greatest what I like to call "chemical minds", having created the periodic table of the elements (he even left spaces for the yet-to-be-discovered elements like gallium and germanium). He has an eponymous element named for him - mendelevium, along with a crater on the moon, and a giant memorial structure at the Slovak University of Technology (which is strange, because he was a graduate of ye olde St Petersburg, but anyway).

I have had a particularly successful day today, having made a new friend, bought a dress to wear on Wednesday, and been recommended by a MAC counter manager to apply for a job there (on account of the outrageous, Cirque du Soleil-inspired makeup I was sporting today). High five. I have a good feeling about my life for once. Remember on Becky's birthday, when I said your birthday was a more suitable time to set resolutions? I stand by that. Hopefully I'll soon work at MAC (and some other things may or may not pan out, but since they're sort of secret and under wraps for now, I'm not going to discuss them)!

Anyway, it looks to be the first night in about three weeks I'm going to get to bed before midnight, so buenos noches, and I'll write some more blathery crap tomorrow.

Peace, love and mendelevium, yo!

Iris Designs For Life

2010-02-08T02:25:00.003+13:00

I'm a little perplexed as to why I'm so stupidly excited about my upcoming birthday (it's this Wednesday, in case you missed all the previous memos regarding it). I think it's because the last few have been such pathetic excuses for days that I'm keen to have a decent one, and especially this year, because I have so loudly and frequently campaigned for 2010 to be my best year yet.

In 2008 I spent my birthday volunteering at the Weet-Bix Tryathlon, which probably would have been enjoyable, had a "friend" not invited herself then proceeded to spend the day complaining about how she was "roped into it". What?! And, Briar had thrown up in my car in the early hours of the morning, but it was just so funny I forgave her immediately. Briar is amazing.

Then last year was just a write-off. I've discussed it at least three times before on here, so I'll refrain from doing it again.

This year? Well, ignoring the fact that I have to give a presentation for COMP113 (seriously? What's wrong with the 11th?), I'm keen to have a good day that doesn't involve waiting anxiously for texts that never come, falling over and skinning my leg, or just anything else really shit. I'm buying a dress to wear. Yes, yes. How self-indulgent. I am buying myself a dress to wear on my birthday, solely because it is my birthday and I don't want to spend it in a Threadless shirt and some ugly shorts (no offense, Threadless). I'm going to wear the most outrageous makeup I can put together, and heels. I am eating whatever I want. I am going to smile at the Spanish-speaking Pakistani guy, and Drew Rodrigo, and the Chinese guy in the library with blonde hair.

I AM GOING TO HAVE A FANTASTIC BIRTHDAY.

Unfortunately, I'm not getting hair extensions, because they are just so far out of my price range (admittedly, not my dad's price range, but I am better than asking my dad - who I largely ignore and have done for most of my life - for $1500 for hair extensions. I am just not that much of an asshole, believe it or not). Instead, I'm getting a facial and a body exfoliating treatment. I'm some Chanel Luminous Matte Powder Makeup (and paying for it, because Grace is no longer in a position to feed my addiction to the itty-bitty samples of it), and probably whatever other makeup takes my fancy while I'm buying it.

I am going swimming. I am going for a run. I am going to go to the gym, too. I'm going to do everything I like doing, in a dress I like, on my birthday.

And if you wish me happy birthday on my Facebook page, you can expect to be deleted by the end of the day. Just letting you know.

I Didn't Forget...

2010-02-05T03:11:00.003+13:00

Carly Patterson's birthday, I just remembered it about 3 hours and 11 minutes late.

Happy birthday Carly! Seeing as it is still her birthday in Texas. She is 22, which I find unbelievable - in August this year it will have been six years (!!!) since her historic win in the Olympic All-Around in Athens (which also means that in September it will have been six years since I swam particularly poorly in Athens, not far from the gymnasium where Carly reigned). Grim.

Here's some of my favourite pictures of Carly from her gymnastics glory days.

Dual Authorship

2010-02-03T12:47:00.001+13:00

My blog now has "two" authors.

Don't be fooled.

They're both me.

Last year, in the wake of the LMC fiasco, I moved my old blog, "Waldorf Like You" here, renamed it, and created a new account to post with. Now, I'd like to think that wee phase of my life is over, and it is just SO much easier for me to post out of my original account. At any rate, it's the internet. Anyone can find anything they want. I kind of learnt this the hard way recently, when some guy I hardly know managed to unearth a particularly poorly-written article about me from the Waikato Times last year and sent it to me via Twitter.

I love the internet machine.

Something I don't love? Sarah Jarvis' non-selection for the New Zealand Winter Olympic team. Anyone care to explain?

Sarah is New Zealand's most successful alpine ski racer since Annelise Coberger, who became the first and only person from this country to win an Olympic Winter medal when she earnt silver in the women's slalom in 1992. Sarah is 23, like me, and was bidding for her first Olympic berth this year in Vancouver. Her accolades include a host of top-ten finishes at FIS events, as well as Nor-Am cups. She was the only female in contention for our alpine ski team and her exclusion seems well, a bit stupid. It's likely that by 2014 Sarah will be enormously more successful, and her non-selection means she's missing out on a valuable Olympic experience that would undoubtedly serve her well, should she make Sochi.

To be completely fair, no New Zealand athletes are real medal contenders at this Olympics. This begs the question why more "seasoned" (or older) athletes like Tionette Stoddard and Ben Sandford have been selected and Sarah hasn't.

Eeek, political.

Sam Sam!

2010-02-03T09:41:00.000+13:00

Happy birthday to my superhuman ex-flatmate, Sam!! Yay. He is 28 today, and celebrated by going for a run.

Yes.

My hair extensions dream looks to be coming true! My mother asked me last night what I wanted for my birthday, to which I replied "hair extensions! Hair extensions!". She actually didn't seem too adverse to the idea, which was unexpected. As such, tomorrow I will be going to Uphair Salon on George Street and inquiring about hair extensions! And prices!

If you follow me on Twitter, you will have no doubt seen the myriad of photos I have posted of Lady Gaga's Grammy outing. I just have one more to add. If you or someone you know has a hat like this one, I will buy it off you for a princely sum.

Ah, she is just magnifique!

I need some new shoes. And while I'm tempted to just run out and buy the Asics Gel DS Trainer 15, I've done that before (different shoe, but you know) and then spent the next six months suffering through run training. To that end, I'm going to get some fancy foot analysis done at the Frontrunner in Dunedin. Last time I had shoes actually fitted, rather than purchased on a whim because I liked the colour scheme, I clocked the fastest XTERRANZ run for my age-group, and later won a World Championship title. I think getting my new shoes fitted is the best idea I've had in a while.

It's a beautiful day in Dunedin. Sounds unbelievable - is in fact true. People are surprised to hear that in Dunedin - much like Coventry, England (a place which is considered my home by everyone except me) - the sun does actually shine from time to time. Fingers crossed for outdoor lectures today! Then I have an excuse to wear my extraordinarily large sunglasses.

To that end, I must depart and make trails to the joys that is COMP113. Roll on semester one.

Twit-dict

2010-02-02T10:28:00.001+13:00

I've been a Twitter user since December 20, 2008. My first-ever post reads as follows:
"attempting to get out bed for another drive to cowtown"

Since then, my tweets have ranged from mildly entertaining, to downright depressing. Here are some of my personal favourites.

"eww, eye disease" - 9:12pm, April 4th
"I'm sick of SH1, it's always dark, foggy, rainy or 3am." - 5:41pm, April 20th
"I LOVE MY LIFE. In the way that I don't." - 10:57am, April 27th
"drinking cold hot chocolate. wait, if it's cold, does it just become cold chocolate? either way... wish it was still hot" - 6:38pm, June 18th
"@avantiplus plus cheers. about to throw current saddle into pit of hellfire" 6:29pm, June 27th
"going out for a casual drive in what might be a category 1 storm: not the best decision i've ever made" - 11:25pm, June 28th
"ahhh so freezing. never getting up before 6am again! until tomorrow, presumably." - 7:27am, July 2nd
"my back is soooo broken." - 8:52am, July 10th
"going back to sleep. i feel like a bike with no wheels." - 2:32pm, July 30th
"omg guys, did @Gary_Fisher just say LOL? love it" - 11:45pm, August 18th
"damn, i thought it said "china unicorn" on the trending topics. disappointed :(" - 11:34pm, August 28th
"Hello, Saturday. So far I haven't used you well. But it is only 8am so I have more plans for the rest of you. Love, Mim." - 8:10am, August 29th
"car: broken. bike: on its way out. me: still hanging on by a thread. yusss." - 4:10pm, September 2nd
"dear ticket website, you suck, all i want is to buy my bad religion ticket." - 5:53pm, September 16th
"workout + big mac = yessss" - 2:18pm, September 21st
"its official. the month of november is trying to ruin my life." - 11:09pm, September 23rd
"standing on an iPod jack: not recommended." - 5:30pm, September 27th
"he's not a man. he's a scrap of indian trash someone found in a pile in mumbai and tried to pass off as a person." - 5:32pm, October 2nd
"MIRIAM WINS" - 1:15pm, October 5th
"#beatbeingbasic? how? by being acidic?" - 4:58pm, October 19th
"my 23-year-old ex-boyfriend who has the IQ of my dog just told me he is pursuing a 34-year-old woman with a 14-year-old son." - 9:38pm, October 23rd
"met a guy from Dubai last night. talked to him for ten minutes and then he introduced me to his friends as his girlfriend. wtf." - 3:30pm, November 1st
"i am so tired. i don't know what part of my brain decided that 3 hours of sleep after 8 hours of drinking was sufficient." - 3:34pm, November 1st
"i just had a very uncomfortable nap on the floor of the UC library" - 2pm, December 1st
"i'm at uni without a pen again. it could be argued that i suck at life." - 11:58am, December 2nd
"haha, there's nothing like watching fashiontv to make me feel like a fat bitch. love it." - 4:36pm, December 8th
"my eyeball is not having a good day." - 2:47pm, December 26th
"hey, good idea willowbank, waterblast the apartments at 9:45pm! it's not like i wanted to sleep or anything." - 9:46pm, January 7th
"run, long-haired japanese man, run." - 4:55pm, January 9th
"afternoon activities: sit next to indian boy in central lib. become obsessed with him and stalk his fb. discover he is a fan of 123 pages. i need a new hobby." - 7:03pm, January 15th
"lost my pants... but found my shoe! a successful afternoon." - 7:30pm, January 15th
"well, our smoke alarm works. and our house smells like burnt pizza." - 6:13pm, January 17th
"i just drank a bottle of four-day-old apple juice. i wonder if i'll die." - 9:29pm, January 18th
"what can i say? i'm really just a fifteen-year-old punjabi girl at heart." - 11pm, January 25th

... Right.

So I have a few more favourites than expected.

I haven't been to sleep yet...

Huitanguru

2010-02-01T23:03:00.000+13:00

While I feel that this year is not traveling at the light speed with which 2009 passed (thank god, because 2009 sucked), it's already February so that's exciting stuff. It's my birthday in nine days!

Anyone do anything during January that they felt was particularly exciting? I know that for the most part, I didn't - but I did get my grade for the Te Reo Māori paper I sat at Canterbury (A+) and a $250 cheque from the uni. What? Yeah. That's exciting. I'm using it to get hair extensions.

Priorities? Power bills? Whatever. I'm getting my Lauren Conrad-esque hair at long last, bitches.

Unfortunately my new year's goal of cleaning myself up (well, my atrocious sailor mouth, to be more specific) is still in the works (you will have seen this when I referred to National Lady Gaga Day as "fucking hilarious"). I've also chowed down on the odd McDonald's binge feed. Which is fine, because I like McDonald's. I'm still struggling with the concept of restricting myself. It doesn't make sense. I do what I want!

January sucked for the people of Haiti. February is probably going to suck, too. Don't forget about them! Just because "Grammys" is the number one trending topic on Twitter right now, doesn't mean Port-au-Prince suddenly got better. There are still people who need your help. Men anpil chay pa lou.

Still, February is shaping up to be fun! And it's up to us to make it our best yet. Even if, like me, your resolutions didn't exactly pan out, you can still make an effort. I know I'm going to be.

Thankfully, the string of irrelevant posts regarding Taylor Phinney, the Mumbai attacks, and DailyBooth.com will not be continuing throughout February. There's only two weeks left of class! Hooray!

Oh, and one last thing! Congratulations to my g, Sophia who got engaged to her bee-eff yesterday! Exciting fun times.

I Like This.

2010-01-30T18:10:00.000+13:00

It's from the MAC website and it is just ridiculously beautiful. Ahh!

I have a long-held obsession with eye colours other than blue. Apparently, blue eyes are a recessive gene and so less people have them, making me "lucky" (hmm?), but I am just not convinced. I see people everywhere with blue eyes. I want brown eyes, dammit!

And while the so-white-it-almost-looks-like-she's-been-painted-or-at-the-very-least-been-lightened-post-production girl in this photos does not have brown eyes, she has perhaps even more excitingly, green eyes. What fun!

And clavicles. Ah, how I love clavicles. I have some, somewhere. But they don't poke out, and dammit, if there's one thing in life I want, it's clavicles that poke out!

Wow, this post has involved a lot of "dammit"s and "I want"s, hasn't it? Well, my birthday's coming up. I'm allowed.

Teeth

2010-01-30T16:33:00.000+13:00

Yep, it's "name-every-post-after-Lady-Gaga" day!

It is sort of relevant, though. My mum, worried that down here in Dunedin we are completely isolated from the rest of the civilisation (and recently, with the Telecom XT outages, some of us have been), sends me copies of the Listener and Your Weekend magazines for my perusal. The beauty pages of Your Weekend are our favourite. There's an interesting recommendation in the copy I received today (from last Saturday, presumably) which suggests my favourite OPI shade, "My Chihuahua Bites!" may once again be fashion-forward.

You'll know from previous posts that my nails aren't usually in fashion. They're likely to be painted any colour that isn't considered stylish. Right now, they're sporting a shade from the 2008 OPI Holiday collection. Which was over a year ago. Last week, it was "Sahara Sapphire" - which was first introduced in the early 90s. Another favourite is "Curry Up, Don't Be Late!" - a tacky gold which has had some passengers in my car banging their heads on the dashboard. I'm not lying.

But now that obnoxious orangey-pinks are apparently back "in", this could be my time to shine!

Teeth? Oh yeah. Chihuahuas have teeth.

The Fame

2010-01-30T16:09:00.000+13:00

I'll admit, I'm not actually as huge a fan of Lady Gaga as I make out. I know, right? Shock horror!!

I bought her album two days ago off iTunes (my first iTunes purchase!), which means my "Paparazzi" play count has gone from something like 946 to... about six.

I'm not going to lie - some of the stuff on The Fame and The Fame Monster is a bit shit. But hey, I don't think "52 Seconds" was Bad Religion's finest hour, either and I still love them unconditionally (we're currently on a break, but it's a long-term thing, my relationship with Bad Religion). My personal fave? Well, after "Paparazzi", anyway - which I love so much I want it played at my funeral - I'm going with "Speechless". It. Is. So. Good.

Apparently, yesterday was National Lady Gaga Day. Which I find just, fucking hilarious. National Lady Gaga Day. Obviously, had I known about the celebration, I would have rocked the leotard, six-inch heels and diamond-encrusted sunglasses to Moana Pool. You know, I just have diamond-encrusted sunglasses lying around the apartment. I probably made up for it by listening to her albums on repeat, though.

If you had any sort of decent upbringing, you will have no doubt experienced the amazing magic that is Walt Disney's Fantasia. Well, I tried to hire it last night. I have it on VIDEO at home, but unfortunately for me, you can't play videos on your laptop. Anyway, I was out of luck - the store's DVD copy is "damaged", so I settled for Fantasia 2000. And while it didn't have shit on the original, it was still surprisingly cool. Terry and I watched it at about 2am, and I'm not going to lie - we re-watched "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" several times - mainly for the half-second where Mickey Mouse starts chasing the broom and it RUNS AWAY. At 2am, there is nothing funnier than a running broom. In fact, it's 4pm now and I'm still laughing at the advent of a running broom.

Haven't seen it? Maybe you should. It's kind of good!

DailyBoredom: COMP113 Blog Assignment #3

2010-01-29T14:05:00.002+13:00

DailyBooth.com

I joined DailyBooth, grasping at straws for an online community which I could document for this blog. It is a social media-driven site: one which users join after filling in a simple form (name, username, email address and password) and its purpose is to share a daily photo with "followers". It can be likened to the slew of sites for uploading photos to Twitter (twitpic.com, tweetphoto.com, yfrog.com etc).

I initially came across the site by way of Wikipedia - I was directed to a "List of social networking websites".

The rather disappointing "Welcome" page doesn't allow new users to "sample" the site. Personally, I find this an important aspect of a social media-driven site - I would like to know what I'm signing up for. Instead, I was prompted to "Sign up now" and once this was completed, referred to sixteen individual users I might like to "follow". These individuals are recommended for - one presumes - no particular reason, as the site had not yet been given any information about me or my interests (these can be edited, in a Facebook-like profile found elsewhere on the site).

The "Dashboard" page - something which seems to dominate sites like these now - is initially uninspiring. Your profile avatar is an emoticon smiley face, and as you have yet to upload any photos, you can feel quite bored.
Photos can be uploaded through a variety of methods: traditional upload form, through email or mobile, or by using a webcam. While I can't think of any solutions that would improve user experience at this point, as a new user I was bored and didn't feel as if I had much invested in the community - I didn't feel inclined to contribute.

My first submission

Upon uploading my photograph, I was disappointed to discover that it just sat, bored, on my dashboard. How then, did I get it onto the fun, "live" map? This remains a mystery, with the geo-tag function in an undisclosed location somewhere on the site. If it's not easy to find, I can't be bothered looking, and to be honest I think this is to the detriment of the DailyBooth community.

The live map itself was also not as much fun as I expected. At first glance, DailyBooth appears to be a site where people might post pictures of fun, exciting happenings during their day - to me this held the possibility of seeing photos from fun places like "that place", 17 minutes in to the film "Home" - but instead, the overwhelmingly most popular upload seems to be the self-portrait. I fail to see the point. I don't know, maybe some "followers" like to see half-dressed girls lying in bed with a caption such as "mE lying in bEd, LOL". Not really my thing.

DailyBooth appears to lend itself to the ever-increasing number of social media-driven sites, but it's not one I would recommend. Yawn.

This is "that place", by the way. Know where it is? Tell me!

Fun With Skis

2010-01-27T00:59:00.001+13:00

I am not even kidding, you guys: in some countries, they compete in what might be the world's greatest sport: Ski Ballet (or acroski).

This strapping young man was the World Champion in 1993. In 1988 and 1992, ski ballet was a demonstration sport at the Winter Olympics, under the freestyle skiing banner. Unbelievable. Where was I in these glory days?!

It's fizzled out since the mid-90s, presumably due to its non-inclusion at the Olympics, which is a shame. I'm sure you will all agree that ski ballet should not only be at the Olympics, it should be part of compulsory physical education in high schools across the world.

Double Layout. Off BEAM?

2010-01-26T15:39:00.001+13:00

So, you probably know that I love double layouts. On, floor, off the bars ... but off beam? Wow, I don't think I could contain my excitement if I ever saw one of those.

Apparently, though, it's happened. And though the sources are a little bit sketchy at best, I may be willing to accept that it's been done. The problem, then? That it's supposed to have been done by Armine Barutyan Fong.

Fong?

Yes, yes. She's married to Al Fong. Fail.

Still, I'm okay with ignoring that minor personality flaw if it means I get to see video footage of a double layout off balance beam. There's also reports of a triple back off uneven bars, but that just doesn't seem as exciting. Bars, you know, you have all that momentum, you're 7 feet, 9 inches off the ground, it seems almost natural that someone would attempt, and possibly land a triple back. But beam?

Beam is unforgiving. You'll agree with me if you've ever walked across one. There is SO much less room for error on beam, it's almost unbelievable. There's a reason Carly Patterson is the only gymnast to perform her dismount (unless you cound Bulldog Bross, which I don't, because she butchered it). Why would you ever risk throwing something like that when you could just settle for a double back? And that is why there's about one hundred gymnasts out there throwing double backs.

Imagine then, something even harder than a double Arabian after 90 seconds on a four-inch wide plank, four feet above the ground. A double layout. The mind boggles. And then gets a little bit excited. If I'm honest? No, I don't think it really happened. Or, maybe it happened and she didn't stick it. Maybe she landed on her head, or her butt, or her knees. The fact that she might have tried is exciting.

Will anyone during this quad try it? It's unlikely. But once upon a time, it was "unlikely" that women would do Deltchevs on uneven bars. Hell, it was unlikely that I would win Sportswoman of the Year last year. So maybe someone - Murakami Mai? Deng Linlin? - will give it a whirl.

Murakami Mai

The triple back off bars I don't care so much about. But a double layout off beam? Call me.

What Were You Guys Doing...

2010-01-25T23:01:00.000+13:00

On this day, last year?

One of the cooler aspects of having a blog (besides reporting on the excitement that stems from Kate Gosselin's latest hairstyle, obviously) is that you can - for the most part - pick a day, and have a look what you were doing a year, or longer, ago. Today's it's my grandmother's birthday (which, no - I did NOT have to look back and check up on. Happy 81st, Grandma!) and this time last year (okay, maybe not this time, since it's 10:51pm) I was floating in the water at Long Bay, on Auckland's North Shore! Ah, the memories! Those were such good days. I was also preparing for my longtime pal, Libby's 21st. Hard to believe that six days from now, she'll be 22. Time flies, kids. Make the most of it!

Take my day today, for example. As a result of the AIDS face thing, I refused to leave the house, except to buy a skin supplement and some strawberries. What I did instead has already been written about, except I can now happily report that we went for our run - almost an hour's worth, too. Not bad for a pair of sloths who, until yesterday, hadn't worked out this year.

look out

Making the most of it? Okay, maybe not. But there's always tomorrow. Tomorrow is going to be great. I just know it.

Peace and love.

If Only I Still Had Use For Sparkly Spandex...

2010-01-25T20:12:00.001+13:00

Yeah, so I peruse the GK Elite website a bit too much for a 23-year-old sloth. Buuut their "Precious Metals" collection is just so cute, I'm willing to get back down to the necessary 35kg to wear one. Ha ha.

I've watched about a million different videos of Ivana Hong's uneven bars routine today, and I just kind of want to mention it to Valeri (her coach, and Nastia's dad) that maybe, just maybe she should consider a different dismount. Double layouts are my personal favourite, but they're just not for everyone. Including Ivana. I mean, if Ksenia Semenova, He Kexin, Beth Tweddle, Nastia Liukin and Bridget Sloan can pull off uneven bars without double layouts, so can Ivana.

Doesn't mean I love her any less... just don't love watching her crash.

AIDS Face

2010-01-25T16:27:00.000+13:00

I was excited the other day when I came across an article on Time.com about Dr. David Ho, who is one of the world's leading AIDS researchers. You can read it here, but the gist is that there's a new agent called ibalizumab developed in Houston which may be the key to the antibody to prevent HIV infection in the first place. Can you imagine the implications if something like this actually works? OMG. I can. I'm so excited.

I wasn't so excited, however, when I woke up this morning looking like I have AIDS. I mean, quite often when I look in the mirror, pre-makeup, I have a bit of grimace at the state of my face, but this morning it was really just... something else. Something else that became worse once I put makeup on. Yeah, you read that right. Yeuch. Suffice to say I haven't left the house today.

On a more positive note, Shaun and I finally got off our butts yesterday and not only went to the gym, we RAN there. I know, I know. I never thought I'd exercise again, either. But the fact is, the gaunt, malnourished look has been restricted to my face - that aside, I more accurately resemble a whale. AND we're going for another run tonight! (My thinking being that I look like a tomato hit a windscreen when I run, regardless of AIDS face, so I might as well do it.) We are so fit.

Also, I spent the time at home today constructively, which is something of a small miracle in itself. Yes, I wrote my entire essay for Linguistics, which isn't due for a week. I'm rather pleased.

Peace, love and the antibody that inhibits HIV!

SoKosuke

2010-01-24T14:02:00.001+13:00

Well, apparently I forgot alllllll about the Southern California Grand Prix last week after Kosuke Kitajima smashed the 200y breaststroke (1:53.03!) on Sunday evening. I'm now (nearly a week later) very pleased to tell all of y'all that he dominated the 100y event, too - in 52.17.

The 100y event was held on Monday night (which is... strange) and was toted as a "showdown" of sorts between the Tsunami and comparatively average breaststroker Michael Phelps. Not really sure what that was all about, since Mike wound up fifth in 54.25 (that was comparatively average, after all). Oh, well. It just proves that Kosuke is still on top! Yeehaw, bring on London!

Uggh. Enough With The Red, White & Blue Wash Already

2010-01-24T03:26:00.000+13:00

I can see where this is going.

The article, about gold medal hopeful Lindsay Vonn, is just a little bit blown out of proportion. The Vonncouver Olympics? Please.

We've heard it before - four years ago, in fact. In Torino. Some larrikin out of New Hampshire, Bode Miller, who "downplayed" claims that he might go five-for-five. It's eerily familiar. In fact, I'm pretty sure I've read these words - "her recent results suggest it's more than possible that she would fare well in every Alpine skiing event on the mountain at Whistler, B.C." - before, just replace "her" and "she" with "his" and "he", oh and "Whistler, B.C." with whichever mountain it was that Miller performed spectacularly badly on in Torino, Italy. Of course, his "downplaying" of these expectations involved stories just like the one about Lindsay Vonn, some bad behaviour on his part (drinking the night before races, living an RV outside the Olympic Village are two examples of this) and well, just generally being a jackass. Then he failed, and shut up.

Sure, next month I may be eating my words. Maybe Lindsay Vonn will win five events, and become the frost-bitten equivalent of Michael Phelps. But you only need to be realistic here: America just aren't that good when it comes to the Winter Olympics. The men's and women's alpine skiing events are usually dominated by good-looking Italians, Swiss, and Germans. The cross-country and Nordic combined? Well, Nordic countries. Even in figure skating, it's been a while since Michelle Kwan's heyday. Yup, they've got their "Flying Tomato" Shaun White, who I love love love, and Hannah Teter and Gretchen Bleiler aren't bad on boards either. And there's nothing wrong with dominating the one event! It doesn't mean you have to shove your mediocre "talents" in our faces, claiming they're going to not only sweep the Olympics, but that people may even start nicknaming the Games after them.

I am just going to crack up if a New Zealander wins a medal in Vancouver. That will be a fantastic day. One you're sure to hear about. Maybe not in the USA Today, though.

It's Three A.M.

2010-01-24T02:59:00.000+13:00

I got sick of skating (seriously, "short" programmes are like, three times as long as floor exercise) and decided that instead, I'll post some photos of Ivana Hong. You may have noticed in previous posts (here and here) that I kind of love Ivana and especially love posting photos of her flying through the air. Seriously, she might be the best-looking airborne gymnast in the world.

Her most obvious competitor for that title would be Nastia's Pak Salto on uneven bars, of which I weirdly couldn't find the perfect shot of - but this is mainly because I couldn't be bothered trawling the screes of photographs on her website. Like Nastia? You can also follow her on Twitter. Personally, she gets my vote because she's one of a shrinking number of gymnasts who can kind of pull off the compulsory dance elements on floor exercise. Here's a particularly nice example, which I stole off her site.

And, just because I found it on Zimbio and it's not your average gymn shot, Hong again. SO glad she got out the Blue Springs ghetto that is GAGE. I heart WOGA.

Speaking of which, the WOGA Classic is soon! February 13-14, if I'm not mistaken. If short/long programmes with jumps that all look the same freeze your brain as well, check it out.

Maxims In Practice

2010-01-23T22:41:00.000+13:00

Relation:

Yup, this picture is relevant to my previous excited posts about the Olympics. It's of US team hopeful Mirai Nagasu (who's fourteen in the photo) and her coach, Charlene Wong. Mirai, who's currently leading the US Championships with a short programme score of 70.06 considered herself a darkhorse going into the event, and wasn't really pinning anything on Olympic selection. She's sixteen, and totes herself as "the future of the US".

Anyway, I love the contrast in facial expressions between Mirai and Charlene in this photo. It's pretty amazing. I've made a few faces like Mirai's in my time.

A US Figure Skating committee will name the team for the Olympics on Sunday night, PST. *bites knuckles*

With Glowing Hearts

2010-01-22T22:06:00.000+13:00

Eeee, I can barely contain my excitement: it's nearly Olympics time!!!

You guys have gotten off pretty lightly, given that my first-ever post was on November 21, 2008. If I'd started say, three months earlier, you would have caught the tail-end of the Beijing Games, which, like every other Olympic Games in my lifetime, captured my undivided attention for two weeks. So this is exciting: it's our first Olympics together! And I'm doubly excited because it's a Winter Games, a relatively new obsession.

My first instinct was to try and remember everything I've ever forgotten about figure skating, but the fact is, my brain just can't differentiate between Salchows, Lutzes, flips, and toe-loops anymore. What I have learnt is that Shizuka Arakawa's layback Ina Bauer could be the closest thing to perfection (after like, Nayuha, obviously) on the face of the Earth.

Let's have fun: bent in half edition

So, it may be that we'll go the entire Olympics without a critique of figure skating, but that's probably a good thing. Especially because you just know I'll be too busy salivating over the long-track speed skaters. Here's hoping for a massive Japanese turnout.

I have a new flatmate - who is Norwegian - and as such, knows more than anyone I've ever met about Nordic Combined, Biathlon, and Cross-Country. Which is good. It'll be like having my own compendium, right next to me on the couch, for the entire Olympics!

Yeah, wow - I'm excited.

The Bayswater Crucible

2010-01-22T20:49:00.001+13:00

You really have no idea how long I've wanted to call a post "The Bayswater Crucible".

Today, it's in honour of Superhuman Sam, who I love and miss like crazy!!! Seriously, I hardly ever get to talk to him anymore, but I had the pleasure of doing so recently, funnily enough on the day that he chose to set his goals for 2010. (Don't know why this is funny? Read this)

We didn't really discuss his plans - I get the idea that he doesn't really parade them about quite the way I tend to, but we did get a bit reminiscent of our Bayswater days. There were the conversations about med school, the time I got hit by a car then lost my job, the time Sam went for a two-hour run in the rain (okay, that last one probably happened a few more times than once). And yes, he's still going about his action man ways - having recently competed in a 32km off-road run (yep - thirty-two kilometres. That's kind of a long way, guys) presumably with ideas to do more.

I miss Sam Sam!!

Strangely, I've forged a friendship of sorts with a guy in Dunedin who was going to be my flatmate (he told my friend Jess the other day that he realised I was a dick and didn't want to live with me, but it's actually because he got a job with accommodation) who kind of reminds me of Sam. We have similar conversations, and he's rather like Sam in that over-achiever kind of way. Sure, he doesn't run 30km with a smile on his face, but I kind of got the idea that he pursues excellence this morning after griping over the fact that he may have got one question wrong on his chemistry terms test (just to one-up him, I reminded him that I achieved a perfect score on mine). Which is nice. It's always nice to surround yourself with people who are also constantly trying to outdo everyone they know, too. But, he's not Sam... it's not really the same.

If you've been wondering why I've kept quiet on the "here's another foreign university I want to attend" front, it's because I've found a real "doozie". Is that a word? Doozie? I'm sure I've heard it before. It's Lomonosov Moscow State University, back in Mother Russia. Have a look.

It looks more like a palace than a university. That's Russia for you. It's the tallest educational building in the world, which kind of begs the question: how many really tall educational buildings are there in the world? I mean, until they start teaching English as a second language on the top floor of that new 828m-high monstrosity in Dubai, Lomonosov probably isn't going to have a heck of a lot of competition. Anyway, to its credit, the school ranks in the world's top five universities, and has a medical school. So you know, a natural choice. And I love love love Moscow *touches heart and wipes away tear*.

Have you guys donated some coin to relief in Haiti yet? I hope so. If you haven't though, there's still a long way to go for everyone involved, and you should never think that any small amount of money will go unnoticed. Right now in Port-au-Prince, looters with knives are wreaking havoc on the already devastated capital, people are burying amputated limbs, and little kids are going hungry. You can, and you should, help out. Like tshirts? Threadless are donating 100% of the profits from this tshirt to the American Red Cross efforts in Haiti. Not fussed? Visit Google's page to donate some money you would otherwise spend on manicures.

Speaking of manicures, my nails are ruined after doing the dishes without gloves this afternoon. They're in dire need of some OPI loving, so I'm going to shoot off and take care of them.

Peace, love and relief for Haiti!

"Bomb-Bay" And Viral Transmission Of Information (COMP113 Blog #2)

2010-01-22T14:08:00.000+13:00

"In a few short generations, a viral population can explode." (source)

In "real life", viruses transmit by attaching to a host cell, then replicating exponentially. Similarly, information online can be shared "virally" - if information is given to two people, and each receiver tells two or more people, the information has the potential to be incredibly far-reaching, especially given the global nature of the internet.

1111

11111111

1111111111111111

1111111111111111111111111111111

An example of information transmitted "virally" online is that of the Mumbai Bombings in November of 2008. It is estimated that witnesses to the attacks sent around 80 "tweets" every five seconds during the siege, which lasted three days (source). The subjects discussed ranged from actual accounts of the events ("Mumbai terrorists are asking hotel reception for rooms of American citizens and holding them hostage on the floor") to calls for aid, including the broadcast of emergency telephone numbers and locations for people to donate blood for victims.

For many people, the first news they heard of the Mumbai attacks was via Twitter. Since the service is free, mostly uncensored and incredibly far-reaching, new information - however biased and unconfirmed - was readily available online.

The Taj Mahal Palace and Tower, South Mumbai

(source)

Facebook allowed users to "check up on" friends and family who may have been affected by the attacks. My partner at the time was on holiday in Hoshiarpur (admittedly, nearly 2000km from Mumbai - but the fact that he was in India at all concerned many friends here) and was able to alay our fears by posting the following Facebook status update: "alive and well, far away from "Bomb-Bay" (haha, get it?)" which drew a mixed response from our friends - some who commented "too soon" on his rather offensive play on words, to some who were relieved and passed the message on - another form of viral communication - to other friends. He became the guy that was "almost in Mumbai during the attacks".

In the wake of the Twitter explosion following the siege, the Indian government released a statement requesting that live Twitter updates from Mumbai "to cease immediately. ALL LIVE UPDATES - PLEASE STOP TWEETING" via news websites. This is comparable to the after-effects of the Sichuan Earthquake in China, where the Chinese government "shut down the social media" used to inform and co-ordinate the protests that followed the quake itself (source).

The internet has fairly revolutionised the "word-of-mouth" method of information transmission, and with the constant advances in technology and social media, this is likely to continue.

Yes, I Do Care About Haiti

2010-01-17T20:15:00.000+13:00

A huge amount. And this is going to sound uber-lame and cliched, but it seriously upsets me to write about it. I've tried to read every story I can find about it, and I have the .kml auto-refreshing on my Google Earth, but damn, that is some heartbreaking shit.

What should you do if you care about Haiti but aren't in a financial position to donate relief? Um, donate anyway. Fact is, if you're online and reading this, you're better off than everyone affected by that earthquake. It means I have no food in my cupboard for the next eight days, but I'm alive, and online, so you can too.

Google's Haiti Relief Page

Peace, love and sending all the best thoughts in the world to those affected by the earthquake. xxx

RIP Heidi Montag

2010-01-17T19:59:00.000+13:00

Good god, what has she gone and done to herself?

Yes, yes - I do realise I'm a bit slow on the uptake here but I do care so little about Heidi in comparison to the non-reciprocated love affair I have with her old The Hills co-star, Lauren Conrad. It's only tonight that I've seen the mortifying before-and-after pictures (scans from People magazine, I assume?) of Heidi, and only tonight that I see less and less hope for young women growing up in today's society.

I know, meep meep. But seriously you guys, have you SEEN her? Do you remember what she used to look like? By that I mean, a normal person? Now she looks like a well-fucked up Barbie doll. Are those breasts really necessary, Heidi? I mean really. They look like they would interfere with everyday activities like, I don't know, walking. Staying upright.
Obsessed with being "perfect"? Nuh-uh, sweetheart. You do not look perfect, or close to it. You look fuuuuuucked up beyond recognition.

Another thing that "grinds my gears" (wow, I hope that's the last time I ever use that phrase. Ugh) about this whole thing? Heidi has blamed her insecurities on the pressures of Hollywood, saying people used to make fun of her chin. She then goes on to say, and I quote "... what people say at the end of the day about me doesn't matter." Um, what?

"I was an ugly duckling before"

I know Hollywood is a tough place to feel beautiful. I've been there. But shit, so is anywhere. I see at least fifty girls that are better-looking than me right on campus here in Dunedin every single day when I'm at school. That's like, 250 people a week. De-puh-ressing, right? And it's not for lack of caring - because I do care - but I know getting sliced up to the extent where I look like a weird, half blown-up, half downsized, cat eyed and ears pinned back version of my former self isn't going to help. I know that. If I know that, why doesn't Heidi know? Can't someone tell her that?

As much as it pains me to say this, I bet there are some sad, misinformed girls out there that like Heidi. They wear "Team Heidi" tshirts, and keep their eyes peeled for guys that will abuse them into submission, then kick them when they're down, like Spencer Pratt does. What an example you're setting, Heidi! If you're sad, get transformed by the wonders of plastic surgery! Looking "perfect" is in fact the answer to all of life's problems!

Someone needs to intervene. Either have this girl exiled and banned from all forms of media, or get her some serious, serious psychiatric help, away from that monster Spencer Pratt. As far as I'm concerned, she's ruined her own life and she's in a position to influence young women to ruin theirs as well.

No more Heidi!

Crowing On

2010-01-17T13:16:00.000+13:00

Wait, what? Crows use tools to get food? OMG. Look out people, this could be the fall of man. Remember back in the day when early hominids started using tools to get food? Then they became humans and took over the world?

Yeah, me neither, because I was only just born in 1986, but a well-informed Biology teacher told me that's what happened, and I'm willing to accept it as the gospel.

Anyone pick up that Bad Religion reference? Yee-ah. Love Greg Graffin (just because I don't listen to you constantly anymore, doesn't mean I feel any less strongly about you...).

Seriously though, I'm intrigued. Do crows have sophisticated mechanisms in trees that catch unsuspecting prey, or even better - some sort of transportation system for them to fish newly thrown-out food from trash cans? Someone needs to look into this for me!! If you're a bird enthusiast and know stuff about birds using tools to get food, please leave a comment.

Threadless again, here's a picture of a particularly fashion-conscious crow.

Warning: This May Break Your Heart

2010-01-17T13:05:00.001+13:00

Luckily for me, as my heart is already tattered and torn, I found this "disappointing" but not devastating. Depending on how you feel about owls, though, it could ruin your life.

From "Lunanuula":

"I like a good nature myth as much as the next person, but I just found out that as birds go, owls are actually fairly stupid, because so much space is taken up in their heads by the mechanics required to give them such fantastic eyes.

Crows and ravens, on the other hand, are brilliant, and have different crow dialects based on location, and use tools to get food.

Owls do look better in glasses, though."

Ouch.

"Why is an owl smart?" by Lim Heng Swee

I mean, what's next? There's no milk in the milky way?

Late Registration

2010-01-16T22:14:00.003+13:00

Oh, yes I did. I just named a post after something Kanye West-related.

Anyway, it's because I really really really wanted to call my 420th post "Four and Twenty" after the nursery rhyme (even though on further reflections, it's irrelevant because "four and twenty" means 24, not 420). Just so you know, this is #423. Boo, me.

More importantly, it's BECKY'S BIRTHDAY TODAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

if I wasn't such a shit friend, I would have
made Becky a cake.

Yeah, I just over-punctuated, like the annoying Facebrat I am. Ha ha ha *makes gun noises*.

Sound like I'm drunk / on party pills / had too much caffeine and/or sugar? Well, as per my new year's resolution to stop drinking and ingesting illegal or frowned-upon substances, I'm NOT! I'm just excited because Becky and Manda left me the best voicemail ever. Seriously, it was like, 9:11pm and they were both pretty much pissed out of their trees, which is just so good and so Hamilton. Of course, I'm actually really disappointed because I'm not there. Sad face. After all, it's a year today since... Becky's last birthday, obviously. And oh, we had such fun that night! And nights subsequent to that, obviously (think every Saturday night between September and New Year). Anyway, supposedly Beck is wearing a sash that says "Number One Party Girl" which is pretty hilarious, and she has a to-do list, 14 items long. Why am I not there?!

Oh yeah, because I thought moving to Dunedin and becoming a responsible student was a good idea. Why was that again?

Birthdays are always exciting. If anything, they should symbolise more of a fresh start than new year does. It's the start of OUR new year, after all!! I'm excited because this year, Becky's 24th, is shaping up to be great. She starts beauty school really soon, and is running the Huntly Half Marathon in a few months. I should take a leaf out of her book. Congratulations Becky, me so proud of you! And I always am!

Yay. Peace, love and happy birthdays!

Love Actually

2010-01-15T22:10:00.000+13:00

It's entirely possible that I've found a new love of my life.

It may be that I love this necklace, designed by the amazing Frankie Murray, more than life itself, as well as actinoids and cell biology. It's a big call, but it's one I'm willing to make. I discovered Frankie and her unusual talent for making beautiful new things out of beautiful old things almost a year ago, and since then her business, Swell Vintage (new website went live today!) has gone from strength to strength, as has Frankie herself.

The aforementioned necklace is my new favourite in a long line of loves from her one-off creations. I want it more than you can even begin to imagine.

It might just be the most perfect piece of jewellery ever created. I'm not going to lie. I'm in love.

Wow, speaking of the word love, turns out I use it an awful lot! More than 100 times on the first page of my blog, for example. That's kind of heaps. Good though, right?

Peace and love.

World Champion? Me?

2010-01-14T14:37:00.001+13:00

Yeah, you wouldn't pick it, based on my current lifestyle.

My gold medal is tucked away in a box with medals from various other competitions, in a wardrobe in my room in Hamilton. And maybe that's the reason I've made such a departure from the athletic lifestyle.

Currently, the extent of movement in my life each day is the dreaded 20-minute commute on foot (and usually in heels, as per my new year's resolution to dress better) to and from the University of Otago. This, along with my diet - mainly comprised of Bumper Bars, rice crackers and Frankly Sandwiches, has left me in a constant fog of lethargy. My life is boring, unfulfilling, for the most part lonely.

It's made worse by my inability to go more than an hour without staring mindlessly at my computer screen while it displays the graduate entry criteria for the University of Auckland MB ChB programme. As you can imagine, a month out from embarking on my Master's, it doesn't exactly do my already obliterated enthusiasm for study any favours.

I'm told my background as an "award-winning sportsperson" will lend much to my graduate applications - "yeah, they love shit like that!" was an exact quote from a friend, but I remain unconvinced. In 2012 (when I intend to apply, upon my return from the Nippon) I have fears that offering "2009 ITU World Champion" and "2009 Waikato Sportswoman of the Year" will not only seem redundant to the admissions committee but also a little... desperate. It's kind of like how, once the Beijing Olympics began, my participation in Athens (way back in 2004. So little of my memory from this year is left, I sometimes wonder if it even happened) was instantly nullified. Athens? When even was that?

I find a return to my "normal" self unlikely. Even post-Athens, when I didn't swim for more than three months, I was racking up fairly huge mileage - by way of running - on the Waikato river paths. And since then, I've scarcely gone a week - let alone more than a month, without running, riding, or swimming. I don't even know what lung capacity means anymore.

Let's be frank: since my return from Worlds, I've avoided the gym like the plague (it helps that my membership expired), been running twice, and haven't been near a swimming pool in more than a month. There was that foray into the water for the Waikato Times pictures, but you only need to look at the resulting photos to see that I was hardly in the best shape of my life. It's a pretty huge fall from grace.

To that end, I had the quite serious intention of embarking on my first run of 2010 this morning. I wasn't going to get up early for it - we all know such ambitions when you've been away so long are always disastrous - I was just going to get up at a reasonable time, put on my shoes, and haul my ass a few miles. No such luck. When Michael Jackson's "Jam" (yes, I have a Michael Jackson song for my alarm. He's still relevant) burst into my ears this morning at the very reasonable hour of 8, I tried to move. I was unsuccessful. And besides, I told myself, it's raining. Only Ezekiel Kemboi runs in the rain (hugely untrue. In fact, I think I last year established that I may be the only athlete who doesn't run in the rain).

So this morning was a non-starter.

Start the year as you intend to continue? Meh. At least I haven't skipped class. Yet.

"Delete Post?"

2010-01-12T20:42:00.000+13:00

As a wannabe linguist I should really start adhering to Grice's Maxims... you know, those of quantity, quality, relation and manner. And in accordance with these I should note that in my previous post I did not make the distinction between "surgeon" and "surgical resident". My bad.

My point was... there are people around my age qualified to be involved in procedures I don't even want to think about (ooooh, hemispherectomies, maybe? God, I love the idea of a hemispherectomy!), and I'm still on the fence about school.

Yawn.

Forget brain explosions, I'm brain dead.

Brain Explosions

2010-01-12T20:03:00.001+13:00

That was a bit grim of me. But I've been so bored the last few days (apparently two Summer School papers is not enough to keep me occupied? Bring on Semester One) that I've spent a great deal of time watching late 80s gymnastics videos (Daniela Silivas is a perennial fave), which inevitably develops into watching early 80s, late 70s, and of course - the glamour years - early 90s. Nothing like a bit of Mo Huilan to cheer up your Tuesday.

More exciting news? I got a text today telling me I need to stop buying Threadless tshirts. It was from my mum, and it's in light of the fact that apparently two more shirts arrived at my home in Hamilton this morning. That is to say, Blooming has finally arrived! Does this mean I am going to stop buying them? Probably not. I have a few more lined up...

The Great Debate rages on: am I ever going to apply for medicine?

For most of my life, this has been a largely internal debate. On one hand - of course I should, I've been fascinated by the concept of being a doctor since I knew what one was. Before you ask, yes, I do know that being a doctor is not like being on Scrubs (if only, right?) or Grey's Anatomy. I know that it's six years of university, followed by specialisation - in my case, oncology or immunology, followed by a lifetime of continual learning, struggling, and maybe dying unhappily because I never cured, or contributed to the cure of, AIDS (you've heard this before). And yes, I still want to do it. Even though I'm 23, sick to death of being a student with no money, and dead set on going to Japan next year. It's my dream, guys. What's life if you give up on your dreams?

And then I'm like, oh nah - who am I kidding? I won't get accepted, and if I do, by the time I even finish I'll be thirty - which only leaves me ten years (until my death at 40, obviously) to win a Nobel Prize and have "Emeritus Professor" prefixed to my name. There are other ways to live well. I don't have to be a doctor. There are other things in life.

So you see? My head is a bit of a hot mess right now. And it has been since I missed an interview for medicine in 2005 by 1%.

Consider my dilemma then when I recently met a 25-year-old "surgical resident" (don't know the difference between surgeon and surgical resident? Nah, me neither. Nor do I care that much). Yeah, read it again, and weep. Twenty-five years old, and practicing surgery. SURGERY! It's almost too much for my under-developed brain to process. You guys know I think medicine is the holy grail of professions, right? Well, surgery is like, the holy grail of holy grails. Not just any old medicine student becomes a surgeon. And this guy did it by 25. This time next year, I will be less than a month off 25. And I can guarantee you I will not be practicing surgery this time next year. It's heavy stuff.

Of course, in a state of drunken stupor, I told said surgeon of my own medicine dreams. So now we must add his argument to the table: that of course I should apply for medicine. Of course I should. And we all know what a sucker I am for other peoples' opinions, right? We all know this very post is going to end with, "Should I apply for medicine, guys?"

Maybe I should just do it. It's not like I'm going to get my Nobel Prize if I don't even try...

Did you like that? A "surprise" ending to my post. I'm sneaky.

Break Neck

2010-01-12T19:33:00.000+13:00

I think my first memory of Elena Mukhina goes back to when I was about six years old. She who broke her neck tumbling. It's one of those things that you don't think about when you're six and tumbling (admittedly, not on the Thomas salto scale) is about the most fun way to spend your afternoon.

In case you've got no idea who Elena was...

While of course she is most remembered for the skill that's since been removed from the COP (largely because of her accident), Elena was an outstanding and pioneering gymnast, lending her name to several skills, including the Mukhina salto on floor. My personal favourite Mukhina "move"? Her now-defunct, almost death-defying full-twisting layout Korbut on uneven bars. And yup, it's about as complicated as it sounds. Watch it below (0:09 - 0:12) Since the current COP forbids standing on the high bar - and rightly, too! - gymnasts no longer perform the skill, but it is just so crazy-difficult and cool that you simply must watch!

As for the Thomas salto? Well, like to be honest, I don't even know why women were trying to do it in the first place. It's freakin' ugly. It just doesn't look nice when performed by women. Some skills do - the Deltchev (my personal lovechild of uneven bars) is a good example of a skill that works for both women and men, but the Thomas just does not. It looks, to be frank, like a fail. It's disgusting that coaches would force the young Elena into this skill, but the fact is they did, and look what happened.

In 2006, Elena passed away from "complications relating to quadriplegia".

New Year's Resolutions Suck

2010-01-10T14:18:00.001+13:00

Seriously, who resolves to "not talk about 2009"?

I do.

Buuuut, if you've read the last like, twenty of my blog posts (yes, sadly this year I have already posted twenty times) you will know that I'm publicly failing at this. Never mind. Speaking of which, Megan posted some ridiculous "2009 in REview" questionnaire on her Facebook account (yes, I'm back on Facebook too. I rule).

At first I was all, urgh, get out with your tacky questionnaires, Megan, she who claims not to be a conformist. Then I read some of the questions and felt they applied directly to me.

Did you meet any new friends this (last) year: Obviously. Thom and Luke are probably the best examples of this. Not only new friends but new faves!
Did any of your friendships end: Absolutely. In retrospect, I look at it and I'm like "oh, I don't talk to that person because they said something mean about Becky" and the most upsetting thing is, there were a LOT of people that said mean things about Becky! They can fuck off!!! Becky rules. I will end as many friendships as I need to for that girl.
Did you dislike anyone: Probably when I was drunk. I either love people or hate them while under the influence. It polarises feelings (seriously... alcohol metabolism thesis anyone?). But other than that, YES I dislike ANYONE that says mean things about Becky, or Thom, or any of my other faves.
Did you make any new enemies: Ooh, enemies is a strong word. I don't think so...
Did you resolve any fights: Temporarily. But that's all gone back to shit now. Oh, well.
Did you grow apart from anyone: Yeah, of course. It's pretty hard to stay in touch with like, Sam for example because I no longer live in the room underneath his, and he is NEVER on Facebook! Which sucks. Sam is probably the person I would least like to grow apart from. Conversely, my friendships with people like Becky, Sam (another Sam, obviously), Mandy and Kirsty got better, so that's nice. Always look for the beautiful positive.
Did you have any regrets when it came to friendships: Of course. I wish I still saw my Bayswater kids every day. I wish I saw Danielle every day. But we're all still friends so no *real* regrets.

Anyway.

2009 is done! Let's never speak of it again! Until like, the next time I feel the need to rant about it. Probably ten minutes from now.

Love and light.

Even I Am Better-Looking Than This Guy

2010-01-09T14:40:00.000+13:00

Urgh! This guy (Robert Pattinson, according to the blurb under the photo on Zimbio) is SO UGLY! What is he even doing?

"I'll turn up to *whatever event he's at* in a dinner suit with an UNDONE shirt, without having shaved, with my hair trying-to-look-like-it-hasn't-been-done-but-really-it-took-an-hour, and my eyes HALF SHUT!"

He looks like he has foetal alcohol syndrome! Someone buy this man a razor, and a clue. Please.

COMP113: Blog Assignment 1

2010-01-09T13:46:00.002+13:00

Taylor Phinney
(Taylor on Twitter)
(Taylor's website)
(Taylor on Facebook)

Taylor ("world champion American racing cyclist" - from wikipedia.org) has used Twitter since October 2008 to establish a fanbase of nearly 13,500 Twitter users. Taylor, who doesn't even turn twenty until this June, is one of the United States' most prolific and successful cyclists - having won the UCI World Road Race Championships Junior Time Trial event in 2007, the UCI World Individual Pursuit (IP) Juniors title in 2008 (along with placing third in the Time Trial), along with a slew of international victories in 2009. Taylor competed - at just eighteen - at the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing, China and was seventh in the IP event. Last year (2009) he dominated the track cycling world, winning the IP at the World Championships and earning second place in the Kilometre race, as well as a historic win at Paris-Roubaix Espoirs (U23) (source).

Taylor is an active Twitter user, and makes use of the site for self-promotion, as well as the promotion of his teammates (Bjorn Selander, Jesse Sergent and Sam Bewley are just three examples of this) and to broadcast cycling news. He was a major, and vocal, supporter of the 2009 petition to UCI, when the organisation announced its plans to omit the IP event from future Olympic Games. The petition eventually gained more than 4,000 supporters from more than 55 countries, many of them Taylor's "followers", but was rejected. Taylor holds competitions via his Twitter account - they have included Halloween costumes as well as prizes for milestone followers (ie, his 7,000th and 8,000th followers). Since he is sponsored by a number of large companies, he has offered prizes like Oakley Jawbone sunglasses, and Nike "LiveStrong" shoes.

Taylor uses Twitter and other sites to raise the profile of cycling in the community. At local events around the US, he encourages his "Twitterati" to attend, and makes an effort to be a personable and friendly champion. His contribution to cycling website blogs (CyclingNews, VeloCast) and general availability to the press (he's also featured on numerous online radio interviews) led him to be ranked the second-most popular track cyclist of 2009 on CyclingNews.com. His own website plays second fiddle to his online presence elsewhere. There is an under-maintained Fan Page dedicated to Taylor on Facebook (992 fans) and he has nearly 5,000 friends on his personal page.

Taylor Phinney is a fine example of a "significant individual" who has used social media to engage with fans and supporters.

Birthday City

2010-01-08T10:33:00.000+13:00

So far, January has been a remarkably busy month for birthdays. On new year's day, Ying-Te turned 20, and then Aubrey did a few days later, on the same day that Joss turned 24. On January 2nd, Jono (my favourite director - of Radioactive Reptiles fame) had his 22nd, and today Niiiiiiiiiiiick is 21, and Sophie (not THE Sophie) is seventeen. I can actually still remember this Sophie when she was twelve. She's an amputee, and Theresa and I lamented the fact that she had a skin-coloured prosthetic.
"What she really wants," we proposed "is one of those titanium poles." Theresa theorised that at Sophie's age, she would probably be like, "argh! It's a monster!".

Anyway, Sophie has since gone on to become the world's most dominant Paralympic swimmer, with three gold medals and one silver at the Beijing Paralympics in 2008, and last year she won four gold medals, in world record-setting times, and two bronzes at the IPC Short Course World Championships. Out of control.

Happy birthday, Nick and Sophie!

Jersey Shore?

2010-01-08T10:28:00.001+13:00

Wow, I really cannot wait for the day they start broadcasting "Jersey Shore" in Aotearoa. Thus far, I've been reduced to watching clips of its tacky magnificence on YouTube, and reading endless stories about its trashy cast on gossip sites.

It sounds amazing.

There's one US accent I can't pull off convincingly, and that's a Guido accent. I'm not kidding, if I could, I would do it all day, every day. Everyone would believe I was from Jersey, the same way airline attendants in Las Vegas thought I was from Irvine, California.

And let's be honest, we all know I love trash. "Jersey Shore" is just trash central. The girls have nicknames, for crying out loud. J-Woww, Snooki, and Sweetheart? These are just not acceptable names for girls anywhere in the world besides Jersey. Don't even get me started on "The Situation". Roflmao. Seriously.

These kids all look like something out of an Ed Hardy ad. So you know, pretty much like a dream come true. Ed Hardy is just like, wow. So crap.

Bring "Jersey Shore" to New Zealand, MTV!

I'm The Reason You're Not Allowed To Eat In The Library

2010-01-07T13:46:00.001+13:00

Wow, I'm kinda starting to get over capitalising every word in every title. Especially when titles can be as long as eleven words. That's just silly.

"That's just silly" - actually - is a direct quote from my old chemistry lecturer, Associate Professor Allan Blackman, which he made (in 2005!) in referral to using equations to calculate the pH value of a solution. I'm bringing this up solely because I just walked past him in the Archway building on campus. He was my favourite first-year lecturer! He loves Calvin and Hobbes, so here's a strip in his honour.

Anyway.

I've picked up a computer science paper at Summer School (and dropped that fiction class! Hooray for me!) and part of the course requirements include posting blogs. So if some unrelated musings on Facebook or Twitter appear here, don't be alarmed. It's just me merging education with life, I suppose.

I've started carting my entire life around campus with me in my Jansport bag. Today, for example - along with my laptop, there's two diaries (two! Why anyone needs a diary at all, let alone two, is lost on me), a book I've been searching for since about 2006 - and finally found this morning at Otago's Storage Library and Bindery, probably three lipsticks, some eyeshadow (mainly for the mirror), two bottles of drink, seven pens, some hairties, receipts, keys, and my purse. I'm unnecessary.

Oh yeah! The reason you can't eat in the library! It's because of me.

Well, people like me. Who eat sandwiches and spill the contents everywhere. I mean everywhere. I just ate a sandwich (courtesy of Frankly Sandwiches... yum) and I suspect about ten percent of its filling now graces the 1m radius around where I'm sitting. There's also aioli on my pants. Could I be any classier? It's unlikely. I'm the same with cookies, rice crackers, chocolate (I know, right. How do you spill chocolate?) and pretty much any other kind of food you can think of. I'm a grub.

Other "that's just" or mildly related quotes?
"That's just weird" - said in a fantastic, half-cockney, half-East Anglian accent by the outrageous Justin Hawkins at the 2004 Big Day Out in Auckland.
"Which is nice" - I still maintain he stole it off me. I say it all the time! Emeritus Professor Colin Gibson.

One day, I hope I can get "Emeritus Professor" tacked on to the front of my name! Sure, it means I have to become a professor and then retire (before the age of 40, since that's when I'm going to die...) but I think it's an achievable goal. At the very least, I'd like a Nobel Prize. I don't ask much!

Peace, love and sparkling zesty lemonade (try it. You won't be disappointed).

I Love My Brother: v3984739274

2010-01-06T19:31:00.000+13:00

My brother, Karl, is unbelievably cool. His girlfriend posted this picture of them on Facebook. It's so cute.

Out With The Old

2010-01-06T19:01:00.001+13:00

I know, I know.

The whole, crapping-on-about-the-new-year thing is getting a bit old.

But I've been thinking for a few days now about how one of my goals this year is to tidy myself up. To that end, I refuse to wear jandals or trackpants before 8pm at night. Arbitrary? Yes. But it goes hand-in-hand with my other endeavours which include dressing better in general. No jandals, except when supermarket shopping (and even then, I'm going to say it's frowned upon). No trackpants outdoors. Dress less like a scruff, less often. Stop tying my hair up. Just, make an effort every day.

Does that seem weird? A makeup artist who is lazily-kempt? Yeah, probably. It's one of my least favourite personality flaws. And it's going to get better.

Weirdly, I came across an article on a New Zealand site earlier about a girl and her love affair with jandals. I'm going against the grain of my generation here, giving jandals the heave-ho. But I think I'm going to have not only better foot health (there's been research to suggest they're bad for your feet, and looking at the state of mine, I'm not going to argue), but more class. Yes.

Anyway, anyway.

I stumbled across this tonight, quite by chance. I've long since stopped looking at the daily "Blogs Of Note", having given up hope of ever being featured the first time I said "fuck". It's weird, because she mentions "church" which is linked... to none other than the official site of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. That's pretty weird, right?

Other weird stuff: Sophie was the most popular girls' name of 2009, in New Zealand. I mean, it's not that weird. I would probably name a baby girl Sophie, too. A nice feature of the list, for both girls and boys, is that New Zealanders don't seem to be buying into the trend that is giving your children stupid names (the noted exception being that couple who called their son 4Real). Names like Ruby, Emma and Charlotte pepper the girls' most popular list, while Jack tops and Thomas rounds out the boys' top ten.

Proud to be a New Zealander? Who, me?

Gaga: The Fallout

2010-01-06T17:34:00.002+13:00

I loved my white-blonde, Lady Gaga-reminiscent tresses the way only a Lady Gaga wannabe could.

Unfortunately though, by Christmas, my hair was more reminiscent of... I don't know, copper wire (without the colour, obviously). My hair was about an inch shorter - due to breakage, not a haircut, a million times drier, and more sensitive to everything - water, hair product, being tied up, my hair straightener (okay so that last one was a given but I like my hair to be not only blonde, I like it to be straight). It's time to go, blonde hair.

So on about December 23rd, I bought some hairdye and away I went, expecting a low-key, fades-into-the-background brown. This was not the case. I ended up with quite an ... electric ... shade of red. Red?! Yeah, works for Brigette, and that horrible girl from Paramore. Does not work for me. Still, I braved it for a few days until Boxing Day, which when I bought yet another packet of hairdye - hoping, once again, for low-key brown. Instead, I got black.

People! Do not dye your own hair! It will not end up the way you want it.

Trouble is (apart from looking like an emo, I mean), restoring colour to my stressed tresses has by no means restored any sort of "vitality". No, no. It's even shorter. It's still hydrophobic and hates the straightener. IT STILL FEELS LIKE STRAW! Right now, I'm dressed in a white tshirt, and my hair is literally shedding on to my shirt. I mean, shit, if it was still white, at least no-one would see!

When it comes to hair, you can't win. Don't ever, EVER dye your hair.

The Climb

2010-01-06T13:31:00.001+13:00

Some days, I feel about eighty years old.

Not in my mind, obviously - I'd like to think that in the unfortunate event that I reach eighty, I'll know a great deal more than I do now - but in my legs. I live on the third floor of our teeny-tiny, five-person apartment, and when you feel as old as I do, getting up those stairs after a day of lectures that make you want to die (it's that fiction paper! I knew it would be the end of me) is not an easy feat.

Take heed, athletes! Turns out spending your formative years underwater, in a weights room, on a four-inch wide beam and hanging from a pair of uneven bars isn't so great for you once you reach 24 (I know, I'm not 24 yet, but that's kind of past the point). There's being active, and then there's stupidity. I fall into the latter category.

Before Worlds last year, I was putting in fifty-hour training weeks. Every week. For months on end. I then went from full-time training to full-time dancing, whilst under the influence of copious amounts of alcohol, in town. It's not ideal, as I've recently discovered. Your body doesn't forget behaviour like that, people! It remembers! It repays you when you move into a three-storey house!

Admittedly, there are upsides. I'm not sure why, but I've recently (meaning: in the last two days) mastered the art of staying awake all day, and sleeping a little bit at night! It's only taken my whole life. Getting up to live, not work out, at 7am is a strange feeling. So is having inexplicable sore arms that I can no longer stretch because they literally NEVER get warmed up. I haven't exercised in forever.

I'm beginning to wonder if the muscle soreness is in part due to the almost-fatal (that's a self-appointed assessment and may not be all that accurate) fall down the stairs I had two days ago, which I managed to land headfirst. Seriously, landing ANY other way than headfirst would have been hugely preferable. Unfortunately, it was not to be - I not only crashed into the side of my skull, but the rest of my once tiny, now not-so-tiny body landed ON TOP of my head. Yeah, man. I had a pretty extreme fall. Of course, I lost consciousness and gave myself a concussion, carpet burns (including one on the back of my ear, that my hair now sticks to, which is ideal) and possibly some ruptured internal organs. I'm co-ordinated.

I will not let this dampen my year! Concussions go away. Bruises and internal organs heal. So do burnt ears. If there's anything that's going to destroy me, it's going to be that damn fiction paper.

New goal for the year: to successfully climb each flight of stairs every day. I don't like my chances.

Overheard In The Post Office

2010-01-06T12:36:00.001+13:00

Asian guy at counter: Umm, it's a gift so I don't want to fill out the customs label.
Post office worker: They won't look at it. Do you look at the label when you receive parcels?
Asian guy: Um, yeah. Pretty much, always.
Post office worker: *stumped look*
Asian guy: *looks away*

The Spelling Bee

2010-01-06T10:09:00.000+13:00

You know how I always rave about what a great speller I am, right?

Have you been secretly laughing about how shocking my spelling is on here sometimes? I'm going to put it down to typing. It's not that I actually think "from" is spelt "fom" (as per "I Am Dunedin") or that "odd" is some sort of alternative way of writing "off" (from "xterraplanet"), more that I am a completely retarded typist. So if you see any mistakes like this - or otherwise - tell me!!!

How embarrassing.

The Promised Land

2010-01-05T11:22:00.002+13:00

An added extra that I love love LOVE about being back at the University of Otago?

It's an Asian bonanza.

Currently, I'm hiding out in the computer lab that forms part of the University's central library, on an "island" formed from six computers. There are three Asians within gazing distance, including one next to me who is unabashedly laughing at videos on YouTube. Which is something else I love: people (like myself) using university computers for anything other than university work.

That's as well as... condoms on the ground - whether it be on campus, at the octagon, at my apartment building... keep it classy, Dunedin
Leaving my house unlocked
Feeling like I never left, despite not having lived here since 2005
The way some peoples' cellphones work in the library, but not mine
The aroma of chocolate between the hospital and the octagon - thank you, Cadbury factory
My ID card. I look hot - first time ever, and my name is Iris
The Centre for Innovation, opposite St David's lecture theatres. A gross waste of resources never looked so fine

So look forward to posts about all these things and more (including that awful flat on Emily Siedelberg Place. God, I wish someone would just burn that dive to the ground) this year. There's 360 days left of it...

I Am Dunedin (Part II)

2010-01-05T11:09:00.004+13:00

Turns out, my memory does in fact suck.

You may be led to believe otherwise, if I've ever recited to you all the car registrations of people I know that I've memorised, the periodic table, or anything else that takes up extra space in my brain I could really use for, I don't know. Passwords?

Yes, you read that right. In the two days since I left Hamilton, I have successfully forgotten nearly every password to every password-enabled site I visit online. Starting with my email. Handy.

Anyway, Dunedin so far is being hailed as a success. The move into my new apartment was stress-free (amazing, considering just about everything else in my life right now causes me immeasurable amounts of stress) - if you ignore the fact that the internet there isn't working. Slight problem, especially when you're me, and your online presence is greater than your real life. Greater in terms of volume, not... greatness.

So that's okay.

I arrived at uni for the first day of Summer 2010 today, and was issued with an ID card that says Iris, not Miriam. We'll take the win. I have a lecture in three hours, and to be honest, as far as I'm concerned, the world is mine.

I no longer live in Hamilton, nor have any intention to keep up with those who do. If you're a Hamiltonite and you're offended by that statement, don't be. You're not the problem.

To that end, my Facebook password has been changed by my mum, who I know will not cave in to any amount of begging (yes, I am already suffering Facebook withdrawal symptoms, and wondering if my latest profile picture - a shot of me with no hair, from 2004 - is really that appropriate. Too late?) and as such, I'm destined to spend the rest of the year Facebook-less.

"I'm not going to lie about it," I said to my mum at the airport. "I have no intentions of coming back." She smiled, knowing she'd heard this story before. In fact, last time I lived here, I went back to Hamilton at every opportunity - ANZAC Day (which is ridiculous, it's only a half-day holiday), Easter, Mid-term... this year, I really don't want to do that.

This year, I am Dunedin.

What's That You Say?

2010-01-03T02:02:00.000+13:00

Good idea, Iris. Break two of your new year's resolutions, within an hour of setting them, and in full view of the internet community (and as such, the world?)

For whatever reason, I decided to do a word count of how many times "fuck" has appeared in my blog. Turns out, it's a few too many times for my honest liking. I did, however, come across this wee gem of wisdom.

"I tell people that I'm narrow-minded when it comes to music. I think I am - to an extent. Although, I'll make no apologies for saying this - I think the real narrow-minded ones are those who listen to hip-hop and R&B trash. Honestly, what is the attraction? It's all, stock-standard, synthesised drums with identical basslines, with either some guy with no education rapping about "bitches and hoes", or a scantily-clad woman wailing about how she can do better. Well, fuck - if you can, go ahead, and save my ears."

Anyway, that's quite enough of that. No more referrals to 2009, or sailor mouth.

Over and out.

Formatting Wanted.

2010-01-03T01:38:00.000+13:00

God, I really have no idea how to do anything except type in the box and then click "Publish Post".

Especially when it comes to whatever function it is that controls spacing between text. I mean, come on! What is that about? It looks like I did about fifty carriage returns between each paragraph, which I absolutely did not. Aaaaand, the font is about 4pt bigger than what I want!

Can we please get a more stupid-person friendly editor up in here?

Rave / High in Fiber

2010-01-03T01:33:00.001+13:00

I know, let's talk about how much I love mascara again! Shall we? Shall we?

Okay.

Imju Fiberwig... brought to you by a well-meaning Nippon who apparently listens a lot more than he lets on.

I don't even remember the first time I heard about Fiberwig, but I remember its claims of "false lash effect" and other such exciting things that every mascara fiend dreams of. From what I now understand, I created such a song and dance about this mascara that it turned up at my house late last year.

I wore it often, and thought to myself, "this really doesn't give me the false lashes I hoped for," I'd been had! Lancome's Cils Design Pro still reigned in my makeup kit. I liked Fiberwig, but I didn't love it. It left my lashes looking silky, sure, and black. But I've had silky and black before, and it didn't need to be imported from Japan.

By chance, I decided Fiberwig would be my weapon of choice for my new year's party. I'm not going to lie. It's changed my life.

Fiberwig is a mascara you cannot use too much of. Seriously. Listen to that advice, and make use of it. Some mascaras are formulated to look best after two coats. Not Fiberwig. Sure, I spent as long applying my mascara to perfection as I normally spend doing foundation (and I'm pretty picky about my foundation application), but the result was quite literally, unbelievable lashes. In fact, I had planned to use falsies. I didn't need to.

Gasp.

Yeah, so do it. If you live in a country where Fiberwig is readily available, go out and buy it immediately. If you don't... hope that one day you find your very own considerate Nippon. Or go here and have it shipped to your door.

Yet another Japanese export worth blogging about it. I cannot wait to go there.

Staring Upward...

2010-01-03T00:53:00.000+13:00

It's one of my favourite days of the year today, and that is because today is Aubrey's 20th birthday. Happy birthday!

One clear umbrella, to be used for stargazing in the rain, apparently. Good. Only Aubrey would come up with something this quirky. My birthday (which has recently been relisted on Facebook as December 10, in an attempt the "inevitable" happy birthday messages that overflow the Facebook pages of people with more than five friends. As yet, I've managed to dodge this phenomena) is five weeks away and to the best of my knowledge I'll be spending it in a small room reading more research than my brain has room for.

For once, I can't actually think of something I would like. Take note. This will probably never happen again. Last year, I tried to go swimming at West Wave in Waitakere City, but slipped on the driveway while checking the mail, putting a stop to my swimming dreams not only for that day, but the following six. It eventually healed and only close inspection of what was the wound site displays any evidence of my clumsiness.

Unfortunately for me, the scars I acquired from riding my bike down a bank into a blackberry bush, and falling onto asphalt in an unrelated-but-on-the-same-bike incident, are more obvious. Not that handy, when your new year's resolution is to get so classy that should you get passed by this guy, he might consider stopping to snap a pic. I mean, if you've seen what I tend to get around in, you'll know that at this point in time, it's pretty unlikely. Today, for example, I went shoe shopping in a pair of white Nike running shorts (even though, in reality, it's been almost three months since I even though about running) and a bleach-spotted racer back tank top from Supre.

It's okay. I've got a year, and so twelve issues of Vogue magazine, to sort myself out.

I've enjoyed reading up on the new year's resolutions of others, courtesy of Facebook, in the last 48 hours. They range from staying alive, to "calming down", to marrying a South American man. As I mentioned yesterday, the guys I spent new year's with forgot about theirs. Oops. I might do some Wiki research on alcohol tonight. I'm intrigued to know exactly what it is about it that causes black spots in memory. I have whole nights I'd like back (okay, just one. I am really not as much of a binge drinker as I make out to be), and I definitely know others that do, too.

Speaking of which, time to start upholding the Honour Code. I may have been found in the grass outside my friend's house with a Corona in my hand at 7am, enjoying the early morning 2010 sun, but I'm willing to forgo that if you guys are. Hopefully this year everyone will be seeing a lot less of a drunken, disheveled me in town (well, that's a given considering my plane leaves in about seven hours), hearing a lot less of my sailor mouth, and enjoying a more reserved, modest young Iris who lives as per the rules. That's the goal.

And since this year's first meal was Indian pancakes (they exist) and not a cheeseburger from Wendy's (in fact, since May 1st of last year, I haven't touched a cheeseburger. Go on, be impressed), I'm willing to give the big one a go - no fast food. Can I do it? I'm going to say yes. I successfully gave up the following items of food and drink last year:
- V
- Lift Plus
- Frosty Floats (actually, the fact that I ever liked those things kind of amazes me now.)
- Fanta and L&P
- Cheeseburgers
- Red Licorice
- Big Macs

Ideally, I would have also given up chocolate, french fries, chicken burgers, and two other things, but it just didn't happen.

Actually, have you guys noticed that new year's resolutions always seem to be about restricting ourselves? "I'm going to do less of this" or "eat less of this" or "stop doing this". I'm going to go all, Antoine de Saint-Exupery on you for a bit here, but why do we not have resolutions like, "I"m going to start collecting butterflies" or even "I'm going to start noticing what peoples' voices sound like". Seriously, if you know me in real life, don't do that one. I have a horrible voice, one I'm going to refer to as "scrapy" because it reminds me of an obnoxious door opening. I also pick up fleeting vocal nuances from the people I'm with - at new year's, I swear I sounded Sri Lankan when I got home. A scrapy, obnoxious door-like Sri Lankan, but a Sri Lankan.

To that end, let's make some good ones. Let's be happier than last year. Let's make more out of every situation. Let's suck everything we can out of life!

And stop eating McDonald's. Haha.

Four Hundred And We're Going Fashion

2010-01-02T19:19:00.000+13:00

Photo courtesy The Sartorialist

Wow. I just love beautiful people. Look at her! Who in the world can pull off a blazer with a tshirt and a dress that look like they came from Supre? And the movement and light in this photograph is so beautiful and perfect it just makes me want to cry blood.

It goes to show that beautiful people do exist outside the runways at Bryant Park in New York City. This particular girl was spotted in Sydney, Australia.

I finally bought my first pair of heels today. Save for the day following my naming as Waikato Sportswoman of the Year (let that be the first and only break of my new year's resolution to not speak of last year), I don't think I've ever been this excited. That said, I'm hoping that in a few days I'll be jumping for joy at being named a finalist for the Halberg Awards. Buuuut, I'm not going to lie about this. I'm not confident.

This isn't the first, and it won't be the last time I say it, but what we can be confident of is that 2010 is the year for us to make our lives, and the lives of those around us, better. Let's get out there and kick butt.

The Olive Branch

2010-01-02T11:39:00.002+13:00

Seems I'm not the only person who didn't really get 2010 rolling with a positive bang.
I'm not going to lie, I had a fantastic new year's night, but started messing things up around 7am. I have friends who forgot to stop smoking at midnight and consequently spent the afternoon chain-smoking - "smoking to our heart's content until tomorrow".

It's okay. Tomorrow, I'm leaving for the University of Otago - a move that's been pegged by myself, friends and family as the one thing that's going to make the most difference in my newly shell-shocked little piece of hell I call life. I'm moving in with a bunch of people I've not yet met, and intending to be referred to not as Miriam but as my newly selected pseudo-identity - Iris.

Yes, it all sounds a bit dramatic. And maybe it is. But I'm more determined right this moment than I've ever been in my entire life to straighten things out, do what's good, and more than anything, to "future-proof" things for myself. In light of events that recently transpired (which I am absolutely not at liberties to discuss) in Hamilton, I came to the conclusion that adopting a new name will aid in my personal disassociation from said events. So, Iris it is. Call me Iris, guys.

The olive branch? Well, it's a leaf really. I'm just a fan of olive branches (while we were in Athens, Theresa and I made our own exclusive range of olive branch jewellery, crafted from the trees in the Olympic Village. Mostly it was wreathes intended to look like those awarded to medallists), and a few years ago, on a completely unrelated note, Curtis apologised to me on my birthday for something. Ever since then, I've told people that for my 20th birthday, Curtis Thom gave me an olive branch.

So let's do it, bitches. Make 2010 our own. It's going to be good!

Let's Get This Started

2010-01-01T21:09:00.000+13:00

It's January!

The first!

2010!!!

I hope everyone's new year got off to a terrific start! Mine did. I'm excited about this year, and the fact that with the new year comes new beginnings! Fuck 2009 - I'm all about this year.

Right now, I'm a little embarrassed at the calibre of writing in this post. Start the year as you intend to continue? Uh oh.

Happy birthday Ying-Te, who just turned... 20? So young! Live it up, kiddo.

New Yeah!

2009-12-31T01:25:00.002+13:00

It's New Year's Eve! (Again, not according to my blog's timezone, but whatever.)

I'm going to be venturing out, solely so I can show off my newly-perfected Vivian Orth smoky eyes.

The tools?
A lip brush (yeah, sounds bizarre, but once you've done your eye makeup with a lip brush, you won't go back), an eyeliner brush, an angle brush, and an eyeshadow brush.
Other stuff...
Eye primer - I use Bloom, but you might like Napoleon, or something else. Foundation, powder, a nude eyeshadow (the lightest colour in the Prismatic Eyeshadow Quad #13 is a treat, as is the lightest shade from the Revlon ColourStay Quad in Blushed Wines), a black eyeshadow - and I mean black, black cake/liquid/cream/gel liner, black mascara, and the eyebrow enhancer of your choice.

What do I do?
Well, first you're going to prime the skin on your eyelids, foundation and powder them up, and then sort out your eyebrows (strong eyebrows are your friend). Apply the nude shade all over the lid and up to the browbone (there's nothing like nude under the browbone to make you look awake. Except maybe some E, and I don't advocate the use of illicit drugs to improve your appearance). Use your eyeshadow brush for this. Next, create a fine liquid line along the top lash - whether it's with gel, cream, cake, or straight liquid. Just make sure it's fine. Practice makes perfect. You may end up looking like Amy Winehouse the first few times. Don't worry - we've all been there, just get your average practices out of the way before you debut this in public. Depending on how confident you are with your liquid lines, you may like to create "flicks" at the outer corner of your eye, but only do this if you're absolutely sure you can replicate the look on both eyes.

Now, use the lip brush pressed in black eyeshadow - really pack on the shadow, we want it to be BLACK, and apply black eyeshadow carefully to the lid. You must be especially careful not to get carried away - keep the black to the lid only, but use heaps. Make your lids super-black. At the outer corner, follow the natural shape of the eye as a guide to how winged you want to go. The focus of this look is on the black lid, not how far it extends past the corner of your eye, so be careful! Step back from the mirror and take a deep breath before making your decision!
Blacken the lower waterlines (and upper, if you can stand it. It makes me feel sick, so I never do it) using either a pencil or cake liner, then pack on the black shadow with an angle brush. Smudge the tiniest amount of black shadow along the lower lashline using your angle brush, paying judicious attention to the inner corner of the eye - no shadow here looks weird, and too much looks like, well, Adam Lambert.
Finish with the most mascara you've ever applied - but make sure it doesn't clump!

The intensity of the black in this look means the rest of your face should be minimal. Go for a flawless foundation base (best applied post-eyes, simply to avoid dropdown and hence, grey cheeks. Jess Gilby-Todd knows what I'm talking about!), powder, and a bit of bronzer. The best thing I ever learnt off Jerrod Blandino? Always put a touch of pink under your bronzer, to avoid the muddy look. My pick is the pink from Benefit 10, or the lightest pink shade from MAC Mineralize SkinFinish Trio in Smooth Merge. If you know how to contour with bronzer, go for it - otherwise just apply it to the areas the sun would naturally hit. Step back from the mirror frequently, and don't be afraid to run around your house, checking your look under different light. I do it every weekend.

If you're a low-key kinda girl, you can get away with a clear gloss or even lip balm to complete the nude face. Personally, I conceal and powder my lips, and apply a peachy or nude gloss (Chanel Levres Scintillantes in #96 is my personal fave) - but this is an option that requires constant touch ups. Alternatively, ignore everything I just wrote and try Clinique's Full Potential Lips Plump and Shine in Glamour-Full. You won't be disappointed - just remember to lick (daintily and as inconspicuously as possible) your wine glass or flute before drinking from it.

If all else fails, just have a few too many drinks, and a great night!

Happy new year, babes! xo

Figures

2009-12-30T18:06:00.002+13:00

OMG, you guys, it's only like, 42 days until the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Winter Games. Time for me to re-learn all my forgotten knowledge about figure skating so I can give accurate criticisms once the fun gets underway.

Since most countries still haven't named their teams, I'm unable to be all "ooh, yeah. Definitely pinning everything on Evan Lysacek" - as much as I'd like to, because I do have an unfathomable obsession with him AND he came out on top at the recent Grand Prix Final in Tokyo.

I'm not going to lie - figures for me are a lot more difficult than gymnastics because of the whole, long/free programme-short programme thing. God, keep it simple already! From what I understand, the short programme is like what gymnastics compulsories used to be - so kinda boring. These routines last 2:50, while the long or free skate is 4:00 for "ladies" and 4:30 for men.

New fave: it's likely that in the coming months you will hear more about Nobunari Oda than you will about anyone else. He's been done in the past for drink-driving (not impressed) but it seems like he's back with a vengeance this season, placing second at the aforementioned Grand Prix and winning the Cup of China. He also placed 7th at the World Figure Skating Championships back in March.

And yup, he's Japanese.