Sometimes things happen.

I have this theory that the reason I've lost my design Mojo is that I haven't been updating my livejournal. Yeah, flimsy at best, I know, but it's 1:20 am and I'm SO DEEP into procrastinating that I'm procrastinating against going to sleep on a Friday, when I don't have anything overly unpleasant to do tomorrow.

I know, crazy, right?

I'm not really sure what my original intention was in opening livejournal today. But, I came across a metaquote related to Australia and it made me simultaneously re-remember how great our wildlife is here, rekindle my desperate desire to go camping up North again, or down South, or over East, I really don't care where, honestly, AND feel deeeeep nostalgia for this time last year. Experiencing other countries is the bomb on levels, and shit.
(I never said this was going to be a particularly enlightening entry)

Mainly though, I want to go and do the drive up to Exmouth again and then just stay there for a month, snorkelling every day. There is almost nothing else to do up there, but the reef is so amazing that I don't really care. Swimming after reef sharks is a good adrenaline rush. As long as there are no bigger kinds of sharks around - that would be less fun. Actually, last time I was in Coral Bay (close-ish to Exmouth, a fair few hours south, but the same Coral Reef), we were coming back in from a fishing charter and saw a 3m long Tiger shark literally just gliding through the water around some coral bombies that we were looking at the day before. I can't imagine coming across one of those things in the water. It would be... it would be bad.

Hm. Uni. Uni this semester has been about as pleasant as a cheese grater to the face. Now there's just over a month to go and I'll be honest, I am freaking out, now. I still don't have - well, that's not true, I have a design, a form, but I don't have floor plans. Or, I did, but I showed Emiliano and he didn't like them. The trouble is, that I know what his problem with them is - they are plans, but they don't have "it" - that thing that makes what architects produce better than what some other building designer produces. That quality of space, or whatever. They're just places where things are. And I don't care. That is probably the biggest problem. I have 0 passion this semester. I have no design mojo. Things aren't falling into place, I have no vision. And worse, I have no idea how to fix it, and I'm running out of time. I think I can do enough to pass, but just passing would be very disappointing indeed. I was hoping that I could get a 70% average over studio for the next 3 studios so that I can do the dissertation studio unit in 5th year (so that I can have an MArch: Hons), but I really can't see that happening at this point. Which is sad. But I don't know how to change it!

( Cut for more whinging about uni that nobody wants to read - I guess writing it is cathartic or whatever )

Hm. Now I feel a little better, actually. Maybe one day, when I actually have anything to show, I will put up some pictures.
Now, I should really look up pictures of hair so that I can tell the hair dresser what I actually want done tomorrow. I may have done a silly thing. I booked some kind of assessment/consult thing at the Maurice Meade in Garden City. I don't know if I care enough to pay their prices, but the consultancy is free. When I was looking at one of their brochures the other day, it looked like they were only about $60 more expensive than my current hair dresser, who I don't like, so I thought it might be worth the extra money to get something nicer. But when I spoke to the lady on the phone today it sounded like it was going to be a lot more.
Eh!
We'll see.

Ohhh also I am going to order an earring for my helix piercing made from Mammoth Ivory. Seriously! It is only $20. Apparently they have more mammoth carcasses than you can shake a stick at up in Finland, or somewhere, so the ivory isn't that expensive, or something.
IDK. I am somewhat skeptical, but Exotic is a pretty reputable business, to my experience, and surely, you can't say something is certifiedly Mammoth Ivory and issue a certificate and everything if it's not?


Does anyone care about the Grand Final this year? Ever since the Eagles have started... well, you know... I have completely lost interest. I watched Freo's last final game, and obviously jinxed them because that was just embarassing. But I actively dislike Collingwood and couldn't care less about the Saints, so... boooooring! Footy is pretty boring when nobody that you care about is playing.

RIGHT!
LESS PROCRASTINATE, more.. .things

Yes, not something you'd expect from someone who is in London in December, but we've been plagued with lovely, sunny (yet freezing) weather, and damn it, the weather lady said it might snow today or tomorrow and I may not know much about snow, but I don't think that bright sunshine is a good sign.
So I want the sun to go away, and I want it to snow.

People should watch this. It's awesome.



I'm looking forward to going home now, as I think I've said, but I'll definately miss London. It's an awesome city. The only downsides to it are the weather and the huuuuuuge distance from home.

We overestimated how much money we'd need for food and such for our 9-day stint in the city, so we're going to splurge today and spend more than £4 between us on dinner - we're going to Nandos! Nandos in England costs the same number-value as it does at home - so it's about £20 for the two of us to eat.
Which is a fair bit... But it's still great. And Nandos here comes with bottomless softdrinks.
Mmmm.

But let me tell you about our amazingly cheap dinners!
So there's this supermarket called Iceland, where you can buy a 1kg bag of frozen veggies for £1, and a 1kg bag of frozen chips for £1, and deeeeelicious minted lamb chops for £3.

It sounds boring, but it's actually amazing. Because - and this is the bad bit - we cook the lamb chops in a baking tray in the hostel oven and then we cook the chips in the saaame baking tray after we cook the chops.
SO the result is amazingly delicious chips... But it's probably not very good for us.
I like to think that the veggies cancel out the badness of the other two... but I know that it doesn't.

How lucky is it that our flight is tomorrow and not next week? British Airway Cabin Crews are planning to strike over Christmas.
Striking has to be the most retarded thing ever. Ok, so you're not happy that you're not getting paid enough. But that's not the customer's fault.
Basically, BA is in a fair bit of financial trouble, from what I have heard, and they have offered staff wages cuts or they lose their job. This is what's causing the planned strikes. Yes, this sucks, but the company is in serious trouble. They have to cut jobs, they don't have a choice. If I was in control of BA staff, I know who I would fire first - anyone that strikes.
Er. I just really hate striking. It's the most inconsiderate, stupid thing ever. Strikes almost always hurt the customer/whatever more than it hurts the CEOS or whoever are making the strikers angry.

In another ranty rant, the Australian Internet Filter is retarded. Why the hell would you waste money on something that isn't going to stop everyone? Even if it's only going to slow our internet connections by a negligible ammount, our internet is already beyond woeful for a nation of our standing. In this hostel's average by English standards internet connection, on a computer that is in no way fast, we downloaded a movie in under 8 minutes. A whole movie. To do that at home on a pretty great connection takes hours!

ERRRR.

Well, gotta go pack, re-pack and weigh our bags now! It's a delicate balance. Basically if the baggage lady asks to weigh my carry on, we're boned. If she doesn't, we're sweet.

I'm going to catch up on aaaall my friends page stuff when I get home. And then I'll be a good LJ-user again.

Ok. So I looked up the tour we're going on in Egypt (because I'm bored and procrastinating, ok?), and now I'm actually excited about it because it finally feels like it's going to happen. I haven't really been that excited yet for some reason. It doesn't seem like a real thing. I guess because for most of it I don't have a clear idea of where we're going in Europe. BUT, EGYPT:

( Cut for boring list )

So yeah. Things. One of these days I'll upload my underwater photos from February.

So I was thinking I might buy a secondhand Digital SLR for the trip. But I'm torn. They are a lot of money, and I will need a lot of money to last me for over 6 months of souveneiring, even without accomodation and food. I don't know how cheaply I could get one worth having, but I'm willing to bet I wouldn't get one that works for under $600, and think of all the things I could use that $500 on!
BUT ON THE OTHER HAND
I am going to amazing places. I'd like a camera that can actually do them justice. My camera can take nice photos but I want awesome photos. I guess I could buy prints or postcards but I don't really want to do that, I'd rather have my own pictures of my own memories. I can get photos of the pyramids from a store here, for example. So it's a tricky situation.

What do you guys think?

[] Do it
[] Don't do it
[] Ticky

OK SO I DON'T HAVE A PAID ACCOUNT AND CAN'T REMEMBER THE HTML FOR TICKY BOX. :'( :'(

Oh also I don't currently have a thousand dollars. So I'd need to sell something/get money and therefore have EVEN LESS money for the trip. My concern is that if I buy a swanky camera I will be even more of a terrible leach-girlfriend-who-is-making-boyfriend-pay-for-everything because I'll run out of money even sooner.

BUT on the other hand maybe I won't want to buy as many things because maybe I'll be super happy with all my awesome photos? 
 

GOD.

Oh yeah and the other thing is my Dad was going to buy my laptop from me so I can have more money (and then when I get back I can "borrow" it until I can buy a new laptop. My parent's don't have a mortgage any more (yay for them!) and it makes them do somewhat crazy things.
So it's a :
2.4 Ghz Dual Core processor, Intel or Pentium or whatever tf they are calling themselves these days
Vista Home Premium
250GB HDD
4GB RAM
Nvidia GeForce 8600 gfx caard
It's green
15.4" monitor
It's a Deeeeelll.
er, it's from 2007.

If I ask him to give me $1000 for it, is that ridiculous? I mean I know I'm selling it to my Dad essentially for lols and all, and that Dads always pay too much when buying stuff from their kids, but is it TOO too much? It's suffered no structural damage.
 

YES, I do worry too much.

Errrrrgh.

*dances*

Hah, this show is so dumb.

Also my hours got cut from 3-9 to 3-7! LAAME! :( :( I am going to be so hideously poor, um, forever.

This is a meme that I stole from caketime!

( The Controversial Survey, hah )