Aug 31, 2010

Has it really been a month already?

This is the final post in my everyday posting, but in no way is it my final post ever. If anything making myself write at least once a day, even if it wasn't meaningful, has made me more confident with my writing. I don't think it is a secret that I want to make writing part of my profession in some way or another. The term 'writer' is old hat though. I prefer 'literary rock star'. It will catch on I'm sure.

Now while I will not be posting every day without precedent, I will be sure to post at least 3 times a week. Maybe more if I feel like it. This whole blogging business is much fun and it gives me a whole new way to procrastinate.

I mean in addition to reading, watching TV, going on various websites such as facebook, IMDB.com and mylifeisaverage.com, drawing, practicing my aim with a Nerf gun, putting a whole box full of paperclips together to make an epic chain that stretches right across the room, pulling the paperclip chain apart, drawing faces on the eggs in the refrigerator. . . .



All in all I am proud to have accomplished the blog every day thing, even if I did miss a day or two and had to go back. . . I still feel accomplished.

-Rachel

Aug 30, 2010

Hello Everyone!

Writing westerns isn't as awesome as one would think. Maybe if I didn't have a word limit on this western story writing English assignment I would enjoy it more. Oh well, I think I shall go do something else now.

-Rach

Aug 29, 2010

I think Jodi Picoult endorses antisocialism

Controversy is just part of Jodi Picoults job, it seems. Is there no subject she ventures from for fear of ridicule? I haven't read all her books, but I have gone through a fair few and a majority of them are confronting in one way or another.

Second glance was probably the least controversial that I have read so far. It is about ghosts, essentially. It was pretty cool though, had a whole cold-case thing going on. Still there are a few people that would look at the blurb of that book and think 'Wow this author believes in ghosts. Psycho.'

Vanishing acts is a little more confronting. A girl who has grown up and finds out her devoted father kidnapped her when she was young. He did it out of love, sure, but the fact remains that whatever verdict the jury comes to at the end of the book can be seen as the authors opinion. I won't tell you what the decision is, I'll just say this: Does the end justify the means, or not?

House Rules is all about being biased when it comes to drawing conclusions about someone when they suffer a mental illness. I admit it probably isn't the riskiest of subjects to discuss, no doubt someone with Asperges syndrome acts and is treated differently.

(Note: I just put down all the books I have read by her so far and plan to give them each a run through. Feel free to step away from your computer any time.)

Nineteen Minutes is definitely a controversial subject. I am sure I have mentioned a lot of these books before, but just in case you forget, nineteen minutes is the one with the kid that is bullied enough to come to school one day and shoot up the place. Saying that the kid has some level of innocence because of the bullying could offend anyone.

The Pact is probably the most intense and crazily realistic and heart wrenching book ever. If you would like a more detailed description of this book about suicide, scroll to my extremely long post near the bottom of the blog. Basically with the pact you have no idea weather to believe it was a suicide pact or if it was a murder. Pretty confronting stuff.

Keeping Faith is the one I read this weekend. Religion is about the most controversial subject you can get. The story is basically about a little girl that starts seeing and having conversations with God. This starts a whole lot of media attention for her family, and a lot of crazy happenings. If she had just seen God she would be marked as crazy. If she had just started bleeding spontaneously from the hands, her mother would be marked as crazy and abusive. The fact that she starts bringing people back from the dead kind of makes her marked as some sort of martyr.

Can't help but love a collection of great reads that make court drama way more entertaining than Law and Order makes it. Anyway that is my boredom and enjoyment of writing book reviews spent for one day.

-Rachel.

Aug 28, 2010

Another day another blog post.

What do I put here? Since I have nothing to say I will just inform you of a few things, like I did another time I think.

-Keeping Faith by Jodi Picoult was definately worth burning up my whole weekend for.

-Angus and Julia Stone's album, A Book Like This was definately worth losing $15 over.

-I dislike having hands that are small enough to make playing scales on a guitar difficult, yet large enough for me to be able to, sort of do it, kind of.

-I like the line from the Angus and Julia Stone song 'Soldier' that says "Life is a stranger that won't go away" because it is clever.

-I am pretty keen for the coming week.

That is all you're getting.

-Rachel

Aug 27, 2010

Crazy wishes that would be awesome if they came true. . .

I wish you could get a licence for a pair of wings instead of for a car. Think about it: No petrol cost, No car crashes, No pollution, and the price of airplane tickets would drop dramatically due to flying losing it's novelty.

I wish they had a tardis section of the airport with a list of years and planets instead of countries. Imagine it; instead of Rome or Hawaii, Earth in the year 3050!

I wish Angus and Julia Stone would follow me around playing random songs from their repetoir while I do mundane tasks. I could hear 'Big Jet Plane' or 'A Book Like This' while I waited in line at the shopping centre. I would ask them to shut up when ever I felt in the mood for a different artist though. Also, if they want to come to the Paramore concert they are going to leave their instuments outside.

I wish there was a machine that could tell you exactly what your greatest obscure talent was. What if I go through my whole life and never find out I am a master at guessing peoples shoe sizes or something.

I wish Castle season 3 would hurry up and be on TV.

I wish happiness and confidence came in a can and tasted of strawberries.

I wish I didn't have to do my freaking History and Geography assignments because they are pointless and burn worthy. The teacher pretty much told us exactly what she expects us to do on it. So basically she wants a pile of identical papers with different names at the top of each. This is tedium!

I wish puberty was just something from a horror film. Can't we skip the growing pains and mood swings and go straight to being awesome? I mean more awesome than we already are.

I wish everyone was able to see themselves for their awesome qualities and not be distracted by imperfections. I find I do this with everything; My character traits, my appearance, but especially when I draw something. All I see is the things that make it wrong not what makes it right. If everyone could just see the awesome in themselves, there would be more people smiling.

I wish we lived in a world where chickens could cross the road without their motives being questioned.

I wish there was an end to this post. Oh wait, I can make that one come true!

-Rach

Aug 26, 2010

You have GOT to be kidding me!

Well last night was a bit disappointing, but it did turn out all right. You see, me and my friends (yes I have friends) went to see the pixiekills perform, only to discover that we needed a parent or guardian with us. So we hung around town for a while then went to the movies.

It was still an awesome night, really annoyed at missing pixiekills though. What has made me extra annoyed is the fact that while we were missing pixiekills, Angus and Julia Stone were playing in New Castle. Imagine how awesome that would have been? If you haven't heard Angus and Julia Stone, or the Pixiekills for that matter, look them up.

I am actually really tired so this is all you get, a short rant and advice on some wonderful musicians. Also Salt isn't a bad movie. It is mostly explosions and hectic gun fights and the plot line is kind of odd, but it was alright.

-Rachel

Aug 25, 2010

I swear I didnt miss a day!

I didn't mean to miss yesterday I just kind of forgot after I got home at 10:30pm. Tell you what, I'll pretend I didn't miss the 25th by posting it as if it was posted on the 25th. . . . .So there.

-rach

Aug 24, 2010

not in the cheeriest of moods.

Think possitive Rachel! You have lots to be cheerfull about!

You have a space cowboy costume coming along splendidly, you are eating pizza, you have awesome slippers and very comfortable boots. You're even talking in the third person! What more could you want to be in a good mood?

Well some frozen coke would be nice. . . .

There are some people you just can't please.

-Rachel Lehcar

Aug 23, 2010

Here is my attempt at optimism.

Synonyms for wonderful:
admirable, amazing, astonishing,
astounding, awe-inspiring, awesome,
brilliant, cool, divine, dynamite,
enjoyable, excellent, fabulous,
fantastic, fine, groovy, incredible,
magnificent, marvelous, miraculous,
outstanding, peachy, phenomenal,
pleasant, pleasing, prime, remarkable,
sensational, something else, staggering,
startling, strange, stupendous, super,
superb, surprising, swell, terrific,
tremendous, unheard-of, wondrous

If there are this many ways and more to say the word wonderful, imagine how much wonder there really is. You wouldn't need all these words if there was only one wonderful thing in existence. All we have to do is look for more.

Rach

Aug 22, 2010

Musicians are a different breed

It seems that all musicians need to have some unique quality that has nothing to do with their music. It is like if they want to be musicians they need to look a certain way or act a certain way, even though it is how they sound that will get them the job.

You have your moderately normal artist that aren't extremely weird, such as Paramore, but even they have something noticably different about them. By which I mean Hayley Williams and her obsession with dying her hair bright red. She absolutely rocks the look, but how different would the band be without their lead singers trademark look?



Then there are the outrageous musicians that seem to thrive on the fact that they look weird. Maybe the goth and glam dress like that so they are not recognised when they walk around town dressed normally. Exhibit A, Marilyn Manson. Even without the make up and freaky clothing he looks creepy.



Appearances aside, I have to wonder why musicians like Never Shout Never, Owl City and Play Radio Play! feel the need to have names that make them sound like bands when they are just one person. It is a little excessive.

-Rach

Aug 21, 2010

Friendly nameless extras

It was a lovely day today full of blue skies, singing birds and cars parked all over the place as their drivers went into various buildings to vote. I wonder why Australia only has the single day for people to vote. If it were a week then there would be shorter lines at the booths.

I walked past rows of cars on this fine day, intending to reach the shop that sells serendipity ice cream. I thought I would just get my death by chocolate and be on my way but as it happened my plan was foiled by the dreaded lack of planning.

How was I to know that the only shop I have found that sells serendipity ice cream closes at 2:30 on a Saturday? I was twenty minutes too late to get my death by chocolate so I ended up walking to McDonald's and getting one of their cheap yet sugary soft serves.

I was bored out of my mind. I went to Angus and Robinson's book shop but wasn't enthusiastic enough to browse for long. I went by the British Lolly shop but didn't really feel like stopping for sherbet strawberries. I ended up just walking through town until I reached the path that leads to West Port Park.

I had my ever present Jack Skellington bag that contained my Art book and pencil case, so I sat at a bench near West Port Park and looked at the lovely view of the waterfront and tried to draw. . . something.

Several somethings. I tried drawing a duck that wandered past but it looked far too cartoonish. I considered drawing a boat that I saw drifting in the water but my heart wasn't in it. So again, when all else failed, I started drawing my feet. I don't think I will even finish this one I already have a drawing of my feet.

I was sitting there sketching the square tiles of the path beneath the park bench, when I heard someone walking near. She remains nameless, because she didn't say her name. She did however tell me her dog of 12 years was called Molly. I only spoke with her for a short time, but it certainly brightened my day.

You would think people that talk to young teenagers that sit alone sketching pictures of the ground were weirdos. Some of them are, I'll admit, but Molly's owner was a nice person. A bit eccentric perhaps, but still nice. She came over saying "Oh I thought you were reading, but you're drawing! What are you drawing?"

I was a little embarrassed when I admitted I was, in fact, drawing my feet. I didn't think the drawing was turning out all that well but when she said it was looking great it made me feel good. Sure she was probably just being nice but a little compliment can go a long way.

She introduced me to molly, the little white furred dog that scampered along with it's leash dragging behind it. I have no shame in admitting that I liked Molly much more than the dog I encountered during my Newspaper Run. Molly in no way resembled Cerberus.

There was more casual talk between Molly's owner and I. She asked questions people usually ask kids, but she didn't do it in a demeaning way like allot of people do. It wasn't really our conversation that was memorable, I can't even remember most of it and it happened only an hour or two ago. What was memorable was how optimistic this lady was.

"So do you think you did well in your exams this year?" she asked.
"Um. . . yeah I guess I did OK." I replied. I don't often talk to randoms at the park, can you tell?
"Well are you happy with how you did?" she persisted. It seemed that she didn't want to leave until she had me feeling better about something.
"I guess. . . yeah. Yeah I think I did pretty good actually. Better than I thought I would do." I answered, already feeling more cheerful.

The lady commented on what a wonderful day it was, how nice the weather had been and she even mentioned what a great area it was to walk around and explore. I'll admit that before this conversation, I had been noticing every broken bottle, every discarded plastic bag, every corner that smelled of cigarette smoke. Port Macquarie hadn't seemed all that wonderful until she mentioned it.

I know that at least two of my readers haven't ever been to Port Macquarie, so let me tell you it is in fact a lovely place. The weather is pretty nice allot of the time, there are plenty of nice places to walk. You can't look anywhere without spotting a waterfront or seeing a car with surf boards on the roof racks. I even took some pictures on my phone. Awful quality I am no photographer, but this is a little bit of West Port Park.






Molly and her owner eventually ended up walking on leaving me with a sense of optimism. Sometimes we forget to notice the little wonders don't we? That is what people like Molly's owner are for, to remind us.

It wasn't untill I got home that I realised I had tried to get serendipity, and that serendipity meant to accidentally stumble apon something great. You can't have a serendipitous moment if you TRY to have one.

-Rach.

Aug 20, 2010

Whoever said "a little hard work never hurt anyone" was seriously misinformed.

"A little hard work never hurt anyone!"

"The Captain of the Titanic would disagree."


I have nothing meaningful to post so I will share the extremely mundane tale of delivering newspapers. Prepare for boring.

My older brother has the job of delivering newspapers, but when he is unable to, the job falls to one of his other lovely siblings. The fact that my sister and eldest brother don't live at home lets them escape from this task. My younger brother used to do it every week with much complaint and despises paper delivery.

So yesterday when my paper delivering brother came down with a rather nasty cold, the job was handed down to me, the second youngest of five children, the only one with monkey slippers. Okay the monkey slippers used to be my sisters but they are mine now.

Awesome slippers aside, I had a job o do. It was a lovely afternoon; the sun was shining, the cloudless sky was a pure blue blanket spreading far above the rooftops (imagery and a metaphor. My English teacher would be proud). The fact that it was a lovely day and that I would be payed for my efforts had me pretty keen to start working.

So there I was: Backpack full of plastic cover newspapers, mp3 on shuffle and my earphones in my ears blaring some awesome tunes. Paramore, fall out boy, Damien Rice, Angus and Julia Stone, Afi, Placebo, Evanescence. . . . A whole range of musicians accompanied me and I was actually enjoying myself.

If you have ever delivered newspapers you may, or may not, have gotten a paper cut or two. I got more than a few that afternoon. At first it didn't bother me all that much. I would be strolling along to the next letterbox (These aren't the kind of newspapers you can throw from a car window you have to hand deliver them to the letterbox), pulling the next paper from my bag then I might get a cut. It would hurt sure but then I would get over it.

I was doing great, the cuts weren't bothering me, the weight of the bag was manageable, I was even in good enough a mood to not skip 'Jesse's girl' when shuffle decided to play it. It was about the time that I was half way through Condon street (I am serious there is a street near my dad's house with that name) when my mp3 died. At least it reached the end of '9 crimes' by Damien Rice before the battery depleted.

I just put it away thinking "It's cool I'll just have to go without music". I discovered that music makes the time go by faster. Without it, time was going at a snails pace. I seemed to get more paper cuts, the uphill streets inclined further as they sensed my approach, the pebbles on the road leaped into my shoes as I passed and wedged themselves in between my toes to make my job more difficult.

Admittedly I was starting to get annoyed. That lovely blue blanket above me was even beginning to be dotted by clouds. When I was about half way done, refilling my bag with the next stack of papers that had been left for me on the street corner, I was rather irritable. A boy that looked about ten years old was peddling his bike nearby.

As I got up to continue my walk the boy on the bike, observant as he was, noticed my bag full of newspapers and asked "Are you delivering the newspapers?". Me, being in my irritable and sarcastic state replied, "No, I am carrying this for fun."

I have to admit the strange look on his face as he said "Okaaaaaay" very slowly, brightened my mood a little. Smiling to myself, I trudged on, glancing down at my hands that were covered in the dark green ink from the papers. The tiny paper cuts were stinging a little, and I had even managed to cut my leg while I loaded the papers into my bag. These inconveniences meant little to me because I was already half way there.

There is a street that makes up about a 5Th of that run. It goes up and down and up hill once more, the mail boxes have small holes and are difficult to spot among the many hedges. There is not a single apartment complex, gated community, or duplex on the street, which meant there were no places that would allow me to off load 5 or more papers at once.

By the time I reached this area, it had grown dark. There are two street lights on this street and visibility is low for a majority of it. Last night I learned that there is also a large dog that lurks there. More on that dog in a moment, I have to tell you the whole story of my adventure on 'Gray Street', or what I like to call it, the newspaper deprived street from Hell.

I got to the bottom of the hill looking into the mouth of Gray street. It seemed welcoming enough with the light from the street I was exiting filling up the first few houses. My bag was full and loaded, though the small tear beginning at the left strap was making me a little nervous.

I was walking uphill into the newspaper deprived street from hell, grabbing papers from my bag, folding them to fit the slots in the letter boxes, slipping them, or when the slots were annoyingly small, cramming them, into the letter boxes, then reaching for another paper as I approached the next house.

By this stage I was powering on like a machine with a heavy backpack; grab, fold, deliver, grab, fold, deliver, grab, fold, deliver. It seemed that my bag wasn't getting any lighter as I dragged my feet up the hill. Grab, fold, deliver. Then something happened that proved, if not supplied very convincing evidence, that Gray street was in fact the street from hell.

Grab, fold, deliver, grab, fold, deliver, grab, fold-SNAP! THUMP! WHATEVER SOUND PAPER MAKES WHEN IT SCATTERS!

I looked down at the road, barely able to see in the lack of light. Before me lay my open backpack, the left strap torn completely free, the contents of the bag spilling out over the road showing me just how many more papers I had left to deliver. I knelt and started re stacking the papers, getting a few more cuts as I did so, becoming increasingly aware of how many cuts I had, shifting my toes to remove the tiny annoying pebbles, wishing like hell that I had recharged my mp3 the night before.

I managed to refill my bag and tie the half attached strap strategically to stop it from flapping around and dragging on the road. I trudged on, annoyance growing strong, the end of the street within my sight, the knowledge that when I reached that end, the street would only be half finished.

After much struggling to stop my bag from tipping out it's contents, and after breaking a, until then, superfluous handle on my bag, I managed to get to another dark corner of the street, to the last few houses on the end. Then I heard a low grumble coming from the shadow of a hedge.

Remember that hugely massive dog I mentioned earlier? The one that resides on the newspaper deprived street from Hell? It was staring at me from the shadows in that moment. I could see it's outline, it's sharp teeth, the small puddle of drool before it's feet. I knew it was there and that it was staring, even though I could not see it's eyes. I have never been good at identifying dog breeds, but the dog looked a little something like this:



OK the dog wasn't actually Cerberus, and it wasn't three headed, but it did scare the living daylights out of me when it barked, growled, snarled and started coming toward me. I don't know if I was more frightened or relieved when I heard the sudden shout of "Oi! Get out of here stupid mutt!" I'm happy the lady was talking to the dog and not the paper girl, but either way the dog went on it's way. Probably to go guard the gates of Hell or something.

I was so startled by Cerberus that I had managed to drop my bag again. The lady that had scared off the freaky hound just said. "Sorry bout that. He's not my dog." Then went on her way. By the sound of her voice, I'd say she was in as good a mood as I was.

I continued on my way eventually, after I tied my broken strap strategically so that it held the papers together. I got back into my mechanical rhythm, sort of, and kept on going with my work through the newspaper deprived street from Hell. By the time I was re organised, I had delivered to every mailbox on Gray street until it was no longer newspaper deprived. Now It is just the street from Hell. Thankfully I didn't run into Cerberus again.

The rest of my trip was mostly uneventful. My shoulders ached from having to hold all the weight of the bag on one shoulder at a time, but the last street was full of gated communities and apartment complexes. At that point in time seeing the row of 14 mailboxes was, in one word, beautiful.

It was like seeing a very short line in front of the ticket booth at the cinema. It was like finding the completed assignment you had lost and were sure you would have to reattempt in class. It was like having a sudden craving for serendipity ice cream and finding a full tub of the stuff waiting for you on your bed side table. It was like walking through a desert and seeing an oasis, a water fountain, a buffet, and a hotel with a sign on the door that says 'If you have been walking through the desert you can spend the night for free.' It was amazing.

If gray street was the street from Hell, then Lake road is the street from multiple mailbox heaven.

There is nothing like the feeling of an empty bag at the end of a long afternoon of delivering papers. My shoulders were aching, my hands were filthy, I had over thirty paper cuts (yes I did count) but I was finished and I had twenty six dollars waiting for me at home.

There you have it, an over dramatised reenactment of my paper delivery job. It wasn't actually that bad, I was just annoyed at my bag breaking. I didn't have any issues the last time I did it, in fact I kind of like doing the job. I just hope next time to have a fully charged mp3, less paper cuts, a bag that remains intact, and no run-ins with Cerberus.

-Rachel the temporary paper girl.

Aug 19, 2010

How important do you have to be before your murder classifies as an assassination?

Again I have no idea what to blog about. Give me a break I'm going for my 19th day in a row here. So I will ask a few questions that I hope will make you wonder, at least for a little while.

How important do you have to be before your murder classifies as an assassination?

Why is the singular of feet foot, but the singular of sheep not shoop?

Why is phonetic not spelled the way it sounds?

What horribly cruel person put an s in the word lisp?

Doesn't the number of syllables in the word dyslexia make it difficult for dyslexics to pronounce?

There is a crime novelist named Karen Slaughter. No relevance I just thought you might find it amusing. Doubt it's her real name though.

-Rachel

Aug 18, 2010

Monkey slippers.

Aren't news readers strange? They say "Good evening" or "Good morning" etc. then they proceed to talk about alot of horrible events that either include the destruction or end of someones life. Then by the end of the string of depressing horrors, there will be a mention of some famous person doing something in an attempt to brighten the mood.

"Good evening a family has been killed in a house fire that has destroyed their entire home and all their possessions. In lighter news, Justin Bieber has run into another glass door, so we will talk about him for the rest of this month as well!"

. . .

See I don't actually have anything that meaningful to say. Today an idea jumped in my head of something to blog about tonight but I completely forgot what it was. So To fill time and space I will give you some pointless information that I am sure will not interest you in any way.

The last book I read was 'Life expectancy' by Dean Koontz. It was awesome to the max. I much enjoy saying 'Koontz' out loud.

I have tried and failed several times since seeing Inception to explain it's plot line to people without giving too much away.

For the first time I have seen on TV they played the actual credits on the TV show 'Castle' and the tune was very entertaining. I don't know why they haven't done it before, they always show them but with commercials taking over the screen.

I really, really like my monkey shaped slippers.



-Rach

Aug 17, 2010

If superman dressed in a clown costume, there would probably be an awful lot of coulrophobics.

Clowns are quite creepy. Superman just might be the most awesome superhero ever. A clown costumed Superman would no doubt produce and awesome amount of creepiness. For the first time I realise that tights weren't such a terrible costume decision on Clark Kent's part.


I get it, clowns are supposed to be cheerful, funny and entertaining, but they just seem to give off an evil impression. You know of many evil clowns; the joker, Stephen King's 'It', Ronald McDonald (though I suppose that is a matter of opinion).

In fact, when I think clowns the only possitive image that comes to mind is of a 'clown' that I saw at a circus a few years ago. He was actually entertaining and quite funny, but the reason I didn't imediately resent the clown was because he didn't dress like one.

He wore a calm and welcoming light blue suit, complete with sparkling blue bow tie, and everyone, including Dr. Who, knows that bow ties are cool. He didn't wear the painted red smile or the gloomy painted eyes. There was no mess of wild brightly coloured hair, and he had no red nose. Without The polka-dotted baggy pants or any other rediculous clown get-up, the man was not threatening in any way.

In conclusion, clowns are only non creepy when they don't look like clowns, and Superman is awesome, dispite his weakness to a rare type of stone.

-Rachel

Aug 16, 2010

Awesome things.

1. Popping bubble wrap. Bubble wrap is like cheap effective therapy.

2. When you open a can of pringles and the wonderful smell of it escapes the package.

3. When you whistle the first few bars of a really old TV theme and someone nearby joins in.

4. Having a song in your head that, rather than bothering you with it's presence, makes you feel great.

5. Finding a nice spot that is close enough to walk to from home, but far enough from civilisation to give you the feeling of being alone in the world.

6. The moment when you wake up on Saturday morning and realise you don't have to get out of bed.

7. When you have a book that you literally can't put down because it is so good.

8. When an old song comes on the radio during a long bus trip and you aren't the only one singing along.

9. Walking in the rain without being cold.

10. Stealing spoonfuls of ice cream, nutella etc. from the kitchen when no one is watching.

11. Unexpected good moods.

12. Discovering 1000awesomethings.com, reading through them and smiling at the fact that someone can name 1000 little pleasures life has to offer.

13. Having a longer 'awesome things' list than your 'annoying things' list.

Aug 15, 2010

Annoying things.

1. U.F.Os (Unavoidable Family Outings)- Sure they can be fun, but sometimes they happen when you really would rather be doing something else. It is worse when the outing involves waking up early.

2. Walking past a fence and having the dog on the other side scare the hell out of you by barking like mad.

3. When awesome songs get remade and remixed into grotesque and butchered versions that ruin the original for you.

4. When cartoon characters get on your nerves- Like the show babar, all about rich elephants. Shut up elephants your lives are charmed.

5. When you are sitting in a room alone with the door closed, someone comes in to ask you something, and they leave without closing the door. -the other day my little brother did this to me. I tried to close the door by throwing my slippers at it. It worked but I got up any way to retrieve my slippers.

6. When you spend for ever developing a skill, thinking you are awesome at it, then someone comes along and is pro at it straight away.

7. Reality television shows. -"We are going to wave a giant cheque in front of your face, tell you to do something ridiculously mundane, talk to you like the failure of doing this mundane task will make your life end, and we expect you to cry every time we mention something even mildly dramatic. Welcome to every reality television show invented."

8. That dramatic noise on law and order that happens whenever they cut to the next scene. -I am yet to find someone else that finds this as annoying as I do. Hearing it makes me physically cringe and whenever the show comes on I search desperately for the remote so I can mute the TV before the monotone introduction message ends. Because I know that almost immediately after the robot voice says "These are their stories" the noise will sound and it will be awful.

9. Things that I find annoying but have no idea why (see numbers 4 and 8)

Aug 14, 2010

Life is just a bowl of fancy assorted cashews

Recently my 18 year old brother got hold of a box set of Spongebob Squarepants episodes. He borrowed them from my 23 year old brother. Family maturity aside, we have been watching them when there is nothing else to do. Being teenagers, we can rarely find something more worth while to occupy our time, so we have watched it a lot.

I have realised some amazing things about the yellow pineapple inhabiting sponge. If you knew someone with the personality of Spongebob, you would hate them. He is the most annoying company. It is no wonder that cynical octopus neighbour of his dislikes him. Spongebob is annoying there is no doubt about it.

Although I would hate to have an acquaintance as annoying as Spongebob, I would love to have a friend with his outlook on life. While he resembles a cleaning device, he is the brightest most positive fictional character I can recall at this time. He sees the good in everything.

I may be talking about a cartoon yellow sponge here, but it is the character that i am commenting on. Perhaps we confuse negativity with normality, and being positive with being obnoxious. There is an awful lot of negativity in the world, isn't there? Maybe living in a pineapple effects overall cheeriness. I'm seriously considering making the change to undersea life and fruit dwelling. Not only would I be more cheerful but my house would smell and taste amazing.

Rachel

Aug 13, 2010

*stares blankly at the title box*

Hmmm. . . . What will I write.

. . . .


When was the last time you had pineapple?

. . . .

There I will leave you with that thought. That is all you get today.

Aug 12, 2010

Silly dreams waking me up in the middle of the night and making me sleepy all day. . .

A couple of nights ago I had a dream that me and my friend were sitting in my room chatting idly, when she decided to throw a cockroach at my face. I woke with a start desperately trying to flick the bug away from myself, only to realise I had in fact been dreaming. I was so annoyed at this rude awakening that, despite the dream having nothing to do with her, I was mildly annoyed at my friend when I saw her that morning.

Dreams are strange. They are not real, just mixtures or memory and imagination, yet they can seem unusually real sometimes. They can feel real enough to wake you from the deepest sleep or to even make you wonder if they had further meaning. Perhaps Inception has made my view on my dreams more creative, or just made me curious about them. I know one thing is for sure, I have been remembering more of my dreams lately and it has been both interesting and irritating.

Interesting because dreaming does make sleep less boring, irritating when the dreams wake me up in the middle of the night and leave me exhausted for the whole day. What was really interesting though was when I realised I was dreaming half way through a dream. I don't remember what I was dreaming about, I just remember that when I discovered I was dreaming my instant reaction was "I'm gonna fly!". Flying is fun, even if it was just a dream.

Well that is all I have to say to you.

-Rach

Aug 11, 2010

Don't think of a pink elephant.

Why must everything be for a purpose? If something unremarkable happens, chances are someone will give it a meaning for occurring. I don't mean how things happen or the series of events that lead to their happening, I mean the reason they happened. Like people saying that something happened because it was 'fate'. That word is used a little too loosely, don't you think?

This little philosophy, like many of my random snippets of thought, came from a book. What can I say, Jodi Picoult knows her stuff. In the book there is a conversation between a single mum who had apparently found love again, and another single mum who was extremely cynical on the whole concept of love.

The mum in love, I forget that characters name already, was saying that it was fate that she had met this new guy, I think his name was Eli or something. The cynic mum argued that she had probably thought her ex husband meeting her was fate too, at the time. She continued to say something along the lines of justifying why the marriage hadn't worked by saying 'it simply wasn't meant to be' even though it had been fate at one stage.

So does fate really exist or is it just a word used to make happiness a gift from the universe? Saying something is 'fate' or 'meant to be' could be said about anything.

"I ate some ice cream. It was fate."
"I saw a sea gull. It was fate."
"I forgot my lunch. It was fate."

Fate is like a conclusion drawn without the barest hint of evidence, like a detective arresting a murderer on a hunch. I think fate is either a simple statement told by people that need to justify their decent circumstances, or is just a word used for everything that happens. It happened so it was fate. Obviously, if this happened, something else can't possibly happen in its place. We all know that if time travel were possible the future travellers would have come back and told us already.

I think I'll finish this before I make less sense, if that were possible.

-Philosophical me.

Aug 10, 2010

An unintersting story of my day.

Sunday afternoon I had reached a state of boredom strong enough to entice me to go for a walk. I always get extra bored when I am walking without at least a small amount of purpose so I decided to take my awesome messenger bag, that has a picture of Jack Skellington of the nightmare before Christmas on it. In my bag I had my sketchbook and my unimpressive pencil case. My goal was to make my way to some sort of nice spot to sit and. . . draw something I guess.

First I walked to a nearby park that I have been meaning to visit just because of its convenient location and how green it is. I discovered quickly that the spacious green Field with its random tree placements was less secluded than I thought. I am not entirely sure why I thought it was secluded, seeing as I discovered it by looking out my car window while driving on the main road.

I tired of the noises of cars and slams of doors (honestly, do people that live on the main road not know how to close their front doors quietly?) a few minutes after I arrived. So I continued walking, planning on going to the memorial cemetery. My mission to visit a cemetery isn't as unusual as you might think. . . OK it is pretty odd. However, in Port Macquarie there is very little to do. There are not many nice places to sit and draw.

Next to the cemetery there is a park, complete with lovely trees, well kept grass and even a flowing river where ducks occasionally drift setting a nice scene. It would be a very calm and serene spot, were it not for the fact that another main road cuts through directly next to it. Also it is across the road from Finnian's Irish Tavern. I don't think the bar was open but the fact that it is there kind of ruins the tranquility of the spot.

I walked down the main road, past pizza hut, domino's, red rooster, several petrol stations, until I reached Finnians and crossed the road to the park next to the cemetery. I was planning to go straight to the cemetery and sketch a broken grave stone or something but I was in the mood to get away from the noise of civilisation. So I went into the park and walked until I reached the tree line and the beginning of the board walk.

I didn't even hesitate to start walking along the board walk. The further I went the quieter it got. Until I reached a single dead end part of the board walk that opened to a nice view of the river, mangroves sticking up through the mud around the edge of the wooden path beneath my feet.I sat down and started sketching. I was going to sketch the river, but the fact that the water was broken in one spot by the hose of a vacuum cleaner put me off a bit. I ended up sketching the wooden path itself, and my feet that were sitting on top of it.



I was having a nice time, the weather was great I was completely chilled out and I was very happy just sitting there sketching my feet. Occasionally other people would walk along the path and come over to look at the view. Mostly they would just notice me then continue on, a couple of people said hello politely and continued on. I was almost finished my drawing when one particularly unusual person wandered over to see the view.

I just glanced up when I heard him coming so I didn't really take in his appearance. I just remember my first impression was that this guy was an idiot. He wandered up to look out at the river, saying "G'day" as average Australians usually do. He continued walking to the edge of the board walk, almost falling into the river as he did so. I tried not to laugh and just kept at my drawing.

He glanced at me and said "You don't look like you smoke. Wouldn't happen to have a lighter?" I said no and he turned back to the river muttering something about all his lighters going missing. He managed to walk almost directly in front of me, blocking my view from the river. I may have been sketching the wooden path beneath my feet but I was still appreciating the view. The guy seemed to just be gazing stupidly at the river. I have to say I am glad his lighters left him. The interruption of my serenity would have been doubly annoying if he had lit up right there.

I did what any annoyed but polite person of my generation would do. I took out my phone, pretending to check the time, and packed up my things as if I had somewhere to be. I muttered a polite "Have a good afternoon." and headed back along the board walk. I did end up going to the cemetery after all.

It may seem like a tad morbid a goal but the cemetery is actually quite lovely. Gravestones scattered randomly around a Field with no real structure. The wonderful amount of grass and trees in the area almost makes up for the broken and graffiti covered blocks of granite everywhere. I even found some mildly creative graffiti on some sort of table.





How low can you get, spray painting a grave. Disrespectful idiots aside, I managed to have a nice walk. I sketched a grave stone that was sitting alone in a wide empty space, much like many of the others were.






And there you have it my boring Sunday afternoon complete with pictures. Hope you liked it.

-Rach

Aug 9, 2010

Post number nine of the month. I have a good feeling about this.

Not only have I not so far missed a day of posting, but I am also getting ahead of myself. I am pleased with this. Now onto the rambling daydreams of mine that I know you just love to read about on here.

Something I have noticed recently: Teenagers are less mature than toddlers on occasion. We go crazy on sugar and caffeine, we will be excited to see toy story 3* at the cinema. We will listen to certain songs over and over and sing them when we feel the need. The songs may not be nursery rhymes or the sesame street theme, but we sing them like young children would.

When it comes to arguments with anyone, teachers, peers, parents, we are most childish. When we were younger we were essentially fighting for the same thing; we wanted our way and we were willing to cry and scream and be foolish to get it. Though now our reasons to fight do tend to run deeper.

A majority of what we argue and protest against has something to do with our need for individuality. Every teenager needs to find who they are as an individual because up until that point, they hadn't really cared how minuscule they really are in the world.

As a toddler, you want to live, learn and enjoy this world you are apart of. As a teenager, and times beyond that even, you wonder why you live, why you should learn, and what there is to enjoy about this world you are inexplicably in.

It seems to me that as we grow up our problems and relationships get more difficult to deal with, more complex and taxing, but our way of handling these problems doesn't evolve much past how we handled them as toddlers. We want it, we take it. We lose it, we cry over it. We brake it, we cry some more.

We may grow in height and mass, we may grow in knowledge and intuition, but how much do we really grow in maturity?

-Rachel

*when I saw toy story 3 at the cinema, the place was completely packed. Out of everyone there, about five people were under the age of ten. The rest were teenagers and adults. My 22 year old brother cried in that movie.

Aug 8, 2010

3:30, on Saturday afternoon, I saw the movie 'Inception' at the cinema. It was beyond AWESOME.

I have to say thank you to the Magical Facepunch blog for recommending this movie. I also would like to say that if you are expecting me to tell you all about this wonderful film, you may be a tad disappointed.

If I meet someone that can explain the plot without giving away key points in the story or confusing the person they are talking to, I will be impressed beyond belief. Then I will wonder if the person explaining it was really there, or if I was actually dreaming and the person was a projection of my own thoughts. Kidding. I better stop typing or I might give away the movie before you go and see it.

-Rach


ps. Alyssa, the comment thing isn't working because of a problem with the site. Apparently it is being fixed.

Aug 7, 2010

How to entertain yourself while waiting for it to be 3:30 on Saturday afternoon.

1. Repeatedly ask if it is 3:30 yet

2. Laugh at the people threatening to kill you if you ask again.

3. Draw screaming facial expressions on all the eggs in the fridge

4. Put coloured food dye in the milk. (note: I would not recommend using blue food dye. I spent long enough brushing the blue from my teeth to learn THAT little lesson)

5. Wonder what the movie you are waiting to see is actually about.

6. Make screaming noises and other various cries of pain while watching someone trying to cook with the eggs you drew faces on.

7. Reminisce about the awesome ice cream you had yesterday.

8. Try to figure out what is stopping the comment part of my blog from working (sorry Alyssa I swear I am trying everything here.)

9. Get side tracked by passing thoughts such as, "Do caterpillars dream while they are in their cocoons turning into butterflies?"

10. Write a blog post about the time you are wasting.

Aug 6, 2010

Serendipity icecream, death by chocolate flavour is pretty freaking awesome.

Serendipity: an aptitude for making desirable discoveries by accident.

Why make that the brand of the ice cream, I wonder? Sure it is an awesome word and is fighting to be my favorite word ever (I can't decide if I like shenanigans, discombobulate, shindig or serendipity the best) but is it actually related to the ice cream?

Perhaps the person that makes serendipity ice cream is impossibly serendipitous, constantly spills ingredients together into large freezers until they turn out to be wonderful ice cream.

More likely, they just thought it was a catchy name. Oh well, it is late, I am tired and I am determined to continue this blogging once a day thing. The posts don't necessarily have to be meaningful.

-Rachel "I love my slippers" Hopkins.

Aug 5, 2010

Nostalgic for the days when I didn't know what nostalgia was.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am bored. Blogging ever day would be difficult if I was trying to make every post an absolutely life changing intelligent entry, but I think I deserve to write the occasional boring post.

A few random things I would like to mention: A book about a blind girl that can see the last 18 seconds of a corpses life with a single touch, would be so much more awesome if I was in a mood to read. It would probably be even better if one of the main character's surname wasn't O'Shaughnessy. The surname is creative, to someone I'm sure, but the fact that they insist on referring to her as O'Shaughnessy and not her first name is starting to bother me. For one, I am not sure I am pronouncing it correctly in my head. It will probably annoy me less if I get into more of a reading mood.

I discovered something today, that is not related to the book I'm reading at all, but I feel fine about changing the subject. It is my blog after all and if you actually bother to read the silly thing you are willingly handing over all power of what you read about to me. I can change the subject, use grammatical errors, misspell the word miscellaneous as often as I want and there is not a thing you can do about it. I will only be changing the subject though, unless I miss a grammatical error during my editing. I certainly will not be misspelling miscellaneous, I take pride in being able to spell that.

Now onto what I discovered today: It is difficult to go on a TV strike when the house you are in has a total of three rooms, not including a bathroom. When everyone else decided to watch television while eating dinner, I had to watch with them despite my vow to only watch TV on one day this week. I haven't been so strict with the idea that I won't tolerate a single glance at the TV set, in fact I just decided to cut down my viewing to one day because I feel I watch too much. I have been doing well too; I haven't sat down for an entire program (besides having to watch during dinner tonight) since Sunday.

What I find funny is that watching a lot of television is directly related to being anti-social, yet when I sit in my room alone because everyone is watching TV, I am being anti social. In my attempt to be social I have alienated myself. Ironic, yes?

Another thing that bothers me about this book, though I it is actually an alright story, is that the author doesn't seem to know what irony is. George D. Shuman, please stop saying things are ironic when they are not. Thank you.

Oh and one last thing before I finish this. . . Miscellaneous. That is the correct spelling, I assure you.

-Rachel "I need a life" Hopkins.

Aug 4, 2010

My name is Rachel and I'm a read-aholic. I'm Also a frozen coke-aholic but I don't have a problem with it.

Well the challenge of posting once a day, every day, for all of August is proving to be a tad difficult. I am more determined to post then I am to do my English homework. You can't blame me though, the homework is writing dictionary definitions of words. I was convinced that kind of homework had been left behind when I entered high school. Apparently not. An up side to the whole English thing is that I feel smart when I get all the words right on my spelling test. Yep you read that correctly, ninth grade spelling test.

Condescending tasks aside, I have recently read the time traveller's wife. At last, a book that hasn't been completely ruined by its adaption to film. It kind of made me hate the time traveller though, he just appears in the past and tells some little girl that he is going to marry her in the future. Poor girl had no choice in the matter. From the age of six she meets with her future husband and chats about this life they have together. Henry, the time traveller, shows up randomly every now and then at the back of her house until she is 18. Clare, the time traveller's wife, is raised knowing she will marry this guy that constantly disappears and gets into impossibly dangerous situations because of it.

If Henry hadn't shown up all through her childhood, if he had only shown up when she was, let's say, 18, she wouldn't have chosen him. Sure the fairy tale universe would say 'of course she would, it is true love!' but you know that isn't true. Even if he did say he was from the future where they were married, and he proved it to her, she would have walked away. Because, logically, no woman is going to choose a man who disappears all the time and gets beaten up, hit by cars, and at one stage gets stuck in the snow without clothes on long enough to get hypothermia, just because he tells her they are 'meant to be'.

I'm not complaining about the story, it was great I loved it and the movie, I am just pointing out how Clare truly got the raw end of the deal. Her whole life, until she is 20 and meets Henry in his present, she waits for Henry. Then a lot of crazy stuff happens, they live happily for about 15 years, then Henry goes to the future, finds out he is going to die and tells his wife all about it when he returns. Then Henry goes to the future, when Clare is really old, comes back and writes in a note to Clare all about it for when he is dead.

So Clare spends 20 years waiting for Henry, 15 years watching him disappear and waiting for him to return, then the rest of her life waiting to see him again just one last time. Clare had no choice but to have a life that revolved around the man that always disappeared. Can't help but feel sorry for the girl. If She had not met Henry when she was young, she probably wouldn't have believed so strongly that she couldn't live without him.

Well there is my days worth of ramblings. I just think the book would have gone by faster if Henry had just said "Make me a sandwich woman I want to go see nirvana live before Kurt Cobain dies!" It would have carried the same story, just a less detailed version.

-Rachel

Aug 3, 2010

Here you go Tara, a post just for you!

Upon discovery of this silly blog, my friend Tara complained that there weren't any posts about her in it. So I decided to make one. Years ago Tara and I wrote a story together. We were about 12 years old or something so the story makes very little sense. I still laugh when i read it. Just so you know, it makes even less sense because we wrote one line each, Tara taking every second line and I the others. Enjoy.


The Tragic story of a Duck.

Once upon a time there was a duck
Whose name was Bumbag. He had
A really, really big. . .foot. . .
On his foot there was a HUGE
Toe. His toe was so big that he destroyed
His whole town! And when he did
He became Australia's most wanted criminal.
He was banned from all countries besides
Tasmania, it isn't really a country.
One day he was out shopping and
he thought "How can I clear my name?"
So he went to England to meet the queen.
There he was knighted and was called Sir
Flatulence the great.
His giant foot almost destroyed
the Queen's hair.
So he got surgery to shrink his foot but he didn't survive.
He was soon in Heaven when
God kicked him out for stealing Angel wings.
So he fell down to Hell and met a girl named
Little miss evil. They stayed at a pit of
Bumbags when Satan came in and sent them on a Quest.
To find Hitler, teach him how to play ping pong and
How to make muffins
Hitler learned ping pong quickly but kept burning the muffins.
So the devil came and kicked him
and showed off his muffin making skills.
Oh how good they smelled!
But Bumbag made a mistake by saying,
"Hey, did you use arsenic in those?"
The devil was sick of Sir Bumbag
So he kicked him out of Hell.
He was glad to be out of there but he missed his girl friend.
But then he found out she was in love with
Hitler because 0f his ping pong skills.
So he challenged Hitler to a ping pong rally.
He lost. But he had a trick. He said, "What about muffins?"
Unfortunately, Hitler was now a very good muffin maker.
So that night when Little miss evil wasn't there, he kicked Hitler
On the ears so he couldn't hear.
It was such an evil thing to do, he was sent back to Hell.
"I want to live on Earth again!" he would cry every night.
"This is Hitler's fault!" He said. So he stepped on Hitler with his big foot.
SQUISH now Hitler was nothing but a stain on his shoe.
He didn't realise little miss evil was home and she saw the whole thing.
So he stepped on her too, now he had two stains on his shoe.
The devil thought that it was so evil, he made Bumbag the Grim Reaper.
He loved this job! Squishing people.
He squished his teachers, the Fox network, he was so happy.
But then someone squished him.
And that is the story of the duck with a big foot.

THE END

. . . We were messed up 12 year old kids Tara. Why on earth is Hitler mentioned so many times? I swear I typed it up, word for word from the original draft we wrote in that notebook, not a thing has been changed except some grammatical errors and spelling mistakes. I am glad that even then we knew the Fox Network needed squishing.

There you have it, a post for Tara, a tragic tale of an off-the-rails duck, and a flash back to the minds of 12 year old Tara and I. Hope you liked it!

-Rach

Aug 2, 2010

I want to feel weightless, and that should be enough.

Why is it that teachers will be outraged at a student using curse words when the teachers themselves say 'homework' without hesitation? I for one think it should be considered a profanity. Whenever I hear an authoritative figure use the word I am extremely offended and annoyed because I instantly realise that the phrase 'I have nothing to do' won't be used by me for some time. I truly understand that one does not know what they have until it is lost, because the other day I was complaining about having nothing to do and now it is what I crave.

Of coarse my homework list isn't extremely long. In fact, the amount I have is small enough for me to be OK with procrastinating like this. I think I might have a default setting, when there is work to be done, I unconsciously look for things to be distracted by. I typed 'OK'. When did people start using the letters O and K to express their contempt? Do the letters stand for something? By saying "It's OK." could someone be saying something totally different that lost it's meaning through time?

"It's Only Kansas" "It's Orange Koala" "It's Only Kidnapping" "It's Over Kendal"

Imagine that, if OK was originally in a text message from a guy that was dumping Kendal. However, Kendal, being the optimist she is, assumed OK meant alright, or fine. And ever since then it has been a universal term. I am aware that OK has been around longer than texting but still. I think I might google the origin of OK.

. . . .

According to wikipedia it is another way of spelling Okay, which is a word meaning 'alright'. Your plethora of knowledge astounds me wikipedia. Just so you know, that was sarcasm.
Another reason, wikipedia explains, is that during an American election the American Democratic Political party, nicknamed Old Kinderhook, had posters that stated "vote for OK". In this instance OK stood for Old Kinderhook. If you want you can look up this yourself there are a lot of theories involved with this 'OK' business.


I understand that in the time it took me to look up the origin of OK, to type this post, to check my emails, I could have finished my homework. But I am OK with this.

JustMe

Aug 1, 2010

Don't you just hate it when you are about to go to sleep, have a great idea, then wake up the next day and have no idea what it was? . . . LONG TITLE

I came up with a lovely topic for my next post when I was going to sleep. However, I was tired and comfortable and wasn't sure if writing it down would be worth it. The conflict in my mind went something like this. . .


"Should I write this down so I don't forget?"


"I'm not sure. The bed is so comfortable and warm, and your notebook is all the way over there on the table right next to you."


"Hmm I guess you are right me, but what if I forget? Then when I go to write the post I will be completely stumped as to what I will write!"


"Oh I'm sure that won't happen. You will write it down in the morning and not forget. And if you do forget, you can write an exessively long title and talk to yourself instead of writing this brilliant topic you have come up with."

"I guess you are right. You are so smart. And I will definately remember this in the morning!"

"You bet your britches you will!"


. . . . You will never guess what happened when I woke up. That's right, I forgot completely what the idea I had was. So I decided to give you a link to a random song instead! So here it is, Cloud cuckoo by the real tuesday weld! It is randomly awesome. Enjoy.

After reading what I was thinking last night, I realise why people can't read minds; it causes madness.

-JustMe