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bliumchikHurray, I have my phone back! You never think about how much you depend on things until you lose them. It doubles as my watch and alarm clock, not to mention people can't, you know, call me. Anyway, today I got on a 391 at the start of its journey, at my uni, and stayed on it till the end of the route, at Botany Depot. It was incredibly boring. I spent the bus ride adding details to the characters I'm noooot writing for that Battle Royale RP (yet) and trying not to think about sex. I don't know what it is about public transport - it's gotta be either the boredom or the vibration, or possibly some mildly disturbing combination of the two, but I always find myself drifting off into, at best, idle speculation, and then mentally slapping myself because, NOT THE TIME, MAGGIE. I was mostly joking about the vibration. I used to think about sex a lot in math class too. BACK TO THE STORY.
As I approached the depot the bus emptied of all but me and a couple of guys I overheard asking the bus driver where to get off for the depot, because in a startling coincidence they were looking for some lost property. The three of us meekly disembarked and followed another driver to a little shed where we were given bright yellow vests, to prevent us from becoming roadkill in the lot full of behemoths, and sticky name tags, presumably so they could identify our bodies in case the vests didn't work. Then we once again followed the driver like a line of large ducklings along the narrow paths and pedestrian crossings until we reached the lost property office, where our respective belongings were returned to us and we returned to the bus stop to wait for the next one out of there. Why, oh why oh why could my phone have not fallen out of my pocket on a bus headed to a less remote location? I wondered. So naturally I struck up a conversation with my fellow seekers after items claimed by public transport and absentmindedness, which turned out to be a brace of exchange students from Nepal who are studying Business and Hospitality and think Triple M rocks.
The bus that eventually showed up was unfamiliar to me, so I ended up taking four different buses home, briefly syncing journeys with Amy on her way to work at Gloria Jeans, where she has recently been promoted to Barista, a job that reportedly entails a tiny pay rise and a massive amount of extra work. Meanwhile my online tutoring job pays 7-14 dollars an hour depending on how many kids log on, but I can read blogs while I do it. I think I win. The two problem areas are 1) explaining maths without just walking the kid through the question and 2) giving advice on short stories without either wildly overshooting or falling short of the level I need to dumb down my critique. Obviously syntax advice isn't much help to a kid who can't even keep tense and person in check and has no dialogue, but if it's that bad then WHERE DO I START? At least doing workshop in Narrative Writing class I can be assured that we're all on a similar level, and hopefully relatively thick-skinned at that. I worry a little about my tendency to info-dump. It's just that we don't have much TIME, so when asked my opinion (or, you know, regardless of being asked...) well. My opinion is e.g. that your structure needs work, you use too much passive voice, you need to name-drop less voodoo and your protagonist is a dick. I could be more subtle but we're only on your story for about five minutes and this is efficient. (Please note that your protagonist is allowed to be a dick. But only if you did it on purpose.) Still, it's a bit of a blunt hammer. I'm used to online critique where I can just stick the good bits at the top and you can refer back to that whenever you feel too overwhelmed by the bad bits.
That reminds me, I really should get started on revising my own story so I can actually send it to people before the class and thus get opinions formulated over a slightly longer period of time. I'm using the zombie steampunk story. The last advice I got was focused on getting rid of the Olde English in the first paragraph unless I could sustain it for the whole piece, which I really can't. Speaking of zombies, the first story in The Giant Book Of them was pretty damn good. I'm not sure if relating zombies to sex or to theatre critics was the coolest thing in it... probably the latter, I know the former has been done before.
Now, among the things I managed to do in a slightly faily manner without my phone were the forcible restringing of Stan's long-procrastinated electric guitar (Went allll the way home and then allll the way back to UNSW to meet him while he hung around aimlessly because he couldn't call me on route) and Yi Fan's birthday on Saturday.
Outings among my high school friends tend to be organised by Diana, who excels at it. Unfortunately it means invitees are essentially at her discretion - Melissa hasn't been to one since they broke up (though obviously this is not just Diana's doing). Lately Nicky is absent as she and Diana are feuding over nonsense. Other parties not present were the infamous Jenny (reasons uncertain) and Ruxi, because she's currently playing tourguide for a conservative cousin from China and was reasonably apprehensive of introducing her to our group, which is kind of you know a bit gay. Ironically this gathering was somewhat more heteronormative than it would have been save for the Nicky-Diana feud, which significantly cut down on the amount of gossip I could in good conscience engage in.
At any rate, those of us who WERE present (some people from my school, Lily, and Diana's boyfriend Kanin) met at Kinokuniya to buy Yi Fan's present. I hadn't seen most of them since last summer so we stood around gossiping and cackling for a bit until the nice staff members asked us to stop, whereupon we proceeded to the comics section to decide which Batman-related products we were chipping in for. As chief DC fangirl among the group without Yi Fan present, I nominated the creepy Arkham book with Dave McKean and Grant Morrison, and some Frank Miller stuff after being reassured that Yi Fan likes him. He's sort of polarising. People either tend to love him or hate him. I explained this to the group, who explained to me that they were embracing the third option, entitled Who The Hell Is Frank Miller. Then we found a big TDK-movie related hardcover and Batman: Year One. There followed a large volume of waffling as we attempted to decide in a vaguely democratic fashion which two books we would end up with. I threw up my hands and went off to leaf through Marvel Zombies halfway through.
At this point somebody brought up the fact that if Yi Fan got to the city early she would almost certainly end up hanging out at Kino until she was due to meet Diana. Since the entire Plan rested on her not knowing about the rest of us until we had obtained cake and other necessary items and set up in a table-y location, this caused some worry. So obviously we proceeded to the exit in a leisurely fashion and stood around arguing for another ten minutes. During this time Diana attempted to sort out monetary contributions while Kanin wandered off to look at cook-books and I glanced yearningly back at the comics section. Finally we bought the damn books and were off, though not without some further ado as Min and Hannah insisted on trying to remove the tags.
Here began a comedy of errors that was honestly as hilarious at the time as in hindsight. The game plan was so: Diana was to head up to town square to meet Yi Fan, whom she would distract for an unspecified period of time. The rest of us would split up into the group setting off for cake and the group going down to Woolworths to buy paper plates and candles. The first hitch was the realisation that a) another possibly hangout for Inconveniently Early Yi Fan would be JB Hi Fi (directly between us and all three of our goals) and b) our approach to the supermarket was in direct view of the Inconveniently Early Yi Fan who could RIGHT THIS VERY MINUTE be walking towards the aforementioned electronics store from Town Hall station. Much ducking and flailing ensued. We therefore made a small detour in order to reach our targets via the underground portions of the QVB. There we split off into our task forces, which sadly I was not allowed to call task forces or give code names.
So there we were in Woolworths. Paper plates were found. Mona was distracted by melons. Kanin rang Diana up to check on her, only to discover that she was already with Yi Fan and had to improvise a call from her father. Then we spent some time arguing over which pack of candles to buy. As we were on our way to the checkout I suddenly heard "Duck and cover! Yi Fan's here!" and executed a speedy about-face to hide behind some shelves. "What's she doing in here!?" cried Hannah. "Diana's meant to be distracting her!"
Kanin rang again. "Oh hi daddy I'm just going to the bathroom," Diana said, which explained what they were doing in the building but then necessitated an elaborate cover story from Diana to explain why her father needed to know about her lavatory situation. After some maneouvering we found a checkout that wasn't in the birthday girl's direct line of sight and proceeded to HQ, where we met Min with the cake and set up at a table outside the Thai place. Now, the cake was made of tasty tasty green tea ice-cream, so now we had a time limit set by its melt-resistance. "Call Diana!" I yelled at Kanin, waving my arms about. "Tell her the eagle has landed!"
So Diana got another phone call from her father while we attempted to light the candles. This was easier said than done. Eventually we enlisted the help of a lady with a gas stove lighter from the Thai place and got them lit despite the wind. ...and yet, no Yi Fan in sight. The cake was melting at an ever-faster rate. "Call her again!" I hissed. "Tell her the goddamn eagle has goddamn landed. AND IT'S ON FIRE." He wandered off with his phone.
He wandered back. "Okay, then you turn right at the big phallic statue and go down the stairs - no, right. Wait, what side of the road are you on?"
Finally the birthday girl approached and we all made a lame attempt at ducking under the table in order to jump out and yell surprise. Yi Fan laughed so hard she literally didn't have enough breath to blow out the candles. After several hilarious minutes of trying she finally pinched the last one out with her fingers. "Oh wait," said someone, "Did you make a wish!?"
After delicious (and green) cake we all trooped off to an interesting little place Diana found by way of knowing the owners called Norita's. They do Japanese food and board games. We actually only ended up paying them for a deck of cards and food, as Hannah brought a board game called Articulate (the FAST TALKING DESCRIPTION GAAAAAME no really) with her which we played a whole lot of. It was awesome, I turned out to be pretty good at it. On one turn which was open to any team for guessing (so you have to phrase the description so your team has an advantage) I said to Lily "Just make a reference to emo bands!"
"Oh!" she said. "It's that band whose concert you went to. Only singular."
"Panic at one Disco?" Diana looked confused.
"Oh oh a match!" I yelled. High fives were exchanged.
The place is really pretty cool, but the menu is kind of limited. Kanin persuaded me to order Takoyaki (octopus balls) instead of being boring and just getting rice. I regretted this halfway through and donated the remaining squishy balls of cephalopody goodness to the table. Lily kindly shared her Ramen with me as I was still hungry. This precipitated yet more hilarity as we repeatedly requested boiling water from the staff, who brought it out in glasses, and then bowls, but still fell short. Then of course I disregarded the "spicy" warning and put in seasoning. Nevertheless I managed to get some nourishment out of it. This was the most excitement the table warranted - later on we played I Never, a drinking game... with glasses of water, which sort of defeated the whole point.
Anyway, fun was had, buses were caught, my parents returned from Cairns and my guitar teacher from wherever he went, I forget. Essays are due but are being ignored in favour of A Perfect Circle, which I used to love when I was fifteen and had lost somewhere in the intervening hard drive crashes. I had not noticed at the time but the albums are sort of themed. Mer De Noms (nom nom noms lol I'm five) is full of Catholic imagery, while Emotive is the CD to put in your stereo for an anti-war rally.
Finally, I don't remember who on my flist uploaded the version of No Children that the Mountain Goats recorded live with the audience singing due to technical difficulties, but thank you very much. You, sir/madam(probably madam), are responsible for my walking around singing "I hope you die! I hope we both die!" in a loud and cheerful manner and getting odd looks in the street.
As I approached the depot the bus emptied of all but me and a couple of guys I overheard asking the bus driver where to get off for the depot, because in a startling coincidence they were looking for some lost property. The three of us meekly disembarked and followed another driver to a little shed where we were given bright yellow vests, to prevent us from becoming roadkill in the lot full of behemoths, and sticky name tags, presumably so they could identify our bodies in case the vests didn't work. Then we once again followed the driver like a line of large ducklings along the narrow paths and pedestrian crossings until we reached the lost property office, where our respective belongings were returned to us and we returned to the bus stop to wait for the next one out of there. Why, oh why oh why could my phone have not fallen out of my pocket on a bus headed to a less remote location? I wondered. So naturally I struck up a conversation with my fellow seekers after items claimed by public transport and absentmindedness, which turned out to be a brace of exchange students from Nepal who are studying Business and Hospitality and think Triple M rocks.
The bus that eventually showed up was unfamiliar to me, so I ended up taking four different buses home, briefly syncing journeys with Amy on her way to work at Gloria Jeans, where she has recently been promoted to Barista, a job that reportedly entails a tiny pay rise and a massive amount of extra work. Meanwhile my online tutoring job pays 7-14 dollars an hour depending on how many kids log on, but I can read blogs while I do it. I think I win. The two problem areas are 1) explaining maths without just walking the kid through the question and 2) giving advice on short stories without either wildly overshooting or falling short of the level I need to dumb down my critique. Obviously syntax advice isn't much help to a kid who can't even keep tense and person in check and has no dialogue, but if it's that bad then WHERE DO I START? At least doing workshop in Narrative Writing class I can be assured that we're all on a similar level, and hopefully relatively thick-skinned at that. I worry a little about my tendency to info-dump. It's just that we don't have much TIME, so when asked my opinion (or, you know, regardless of being asked...) well. My opinion is e.g. that your structure needs work, you use too much passive voice, you need to name-drop less voodoo and your protagonist is a dick. I could be more subtle but we're only on your story for about five minutes and this is efficient. (Please note that your protagonist is allowed to be a dick. But only if you did it on purpose.) Still, it's a bit of a blunt hammer. I'm used to online critique where I can just stick the good bits at the top and you can refer back to that whenever you feel too overwhelmed by the bad bits.
That reminds me, I really should get started on revising my own story so I can actually send it to people before the class and thus get opinions formulated over a slightly longer period of time. I'm using the zombie steampunk story. The last advice I got was focused on getting rid of the Olde English in the first paragraph unless I could sustain it for the whole piece, which I really can't. Speaking of zombies, the first story in The Giant Book Of them was pretty damn good. I'm not sure if relating zombies to sex or to theatre critics was the coolest thing in it... probably the latter, I know the former has been done before.
Now, among the things I managed to do in a slightly faily manner without my phone were the forcible restringing of Stan's long-procrastinated electric guitar (Went allll the way home and then allll the way back to UNSW to meet him while he hung around aimlessly because he couldn't call me on route) and Yi Fan's birthday on Saturday.
Outings among my high school friends tend to be organised by Diana, who excels at it. Unfortunately it means invitees are essentially at her discretion - Melissa hasn't been to one since they broke up (though obviously this is not just Diana's doing). Lately Nicky is absent as she and Diana are feuding over nonsense. Other parties not present were the infamous Jenny (reasons uncertain) and Ruxi, because she's currently playing tourguide for a conservative cousin from China and was reasonably apprehensive of introducing her to our group, which is kind of you know a bit gay. Ironically this gathering was somewhat more heteronormative than it would have been save for the Nicky-Diana feud, which significantly cut down on the amount of gossip I could in good conscience engage in.
At any rate, those of us who WERE present (some people from my school, Lily, and Diana's boyfriend Kanin) met at Kinokuniya to buy Yi Fan's present. I hadn't seen most of them since last summer so we stood around gossiping and cackling for a bit until the nice staff members asked us to stop, whereupon we proceeded to the comics section to decide which Batman-related products we were chipping in for. As chief DC fangirl among the group without Yi Fan present, I nominated the creepy Arkham book with Dave McKean and Grant Morrison, and some Frank Miller stuff after being reassured that Yi Fan likes him. He's sort of polarising. People either tend to love him or hate him. I explained this to the group, who explained to me that they were embracing the third option, entitled Who The Hell Is Frank Miller. Then we found a big TDK-movie related hardcover and Batman: Year One. There followed a large volume of waffling as we attempted to decide in a vaguely democratic fashion which two books we would end up with. I threw up my hands and went off to leaf through Marvel Zombies halfway through.
At this point somebody brought up the fact that if Yi Fan got to the city early she would almost certainly end up hanging out at Kino until she was due to meet Diana. Since the entire Plan rested on her not knowing about the rest of us until we had obtained cake and other necessary items and set up in a table-y location, this caused some worry. So obviously we proceeded to the exit in a leisurely fashion and stood around arguing for another ten minutes. During this time Diana attempted to sort out monetary contributions while Kanin wandered off to look at cook-books and I glanced yearningly back at the comics section. Finally we bought the damn books and were off, though not without some further ado as Min and Hannah insisted on trying to remove the tags.
Here began a comedy of errors that was honestly as hilarious at the time as in hindsight. The game plan was so: Diana was to head up to town square to meet Yi Fan, whom she would distract for an unspecified period of time. The rest of us would split up into the group setting off for cake and the group going down to Woolworths to buy paper plates and candles. The first hitch was the realisation that a) another possibly hangout for Inconveniently Early Yi Fan would be JB Hi Fi (directly between us and all three of our goals) and b) our approach to the supermarket was in direct view of the Inconveniently Early Yi Fan who could RIGHT THIS VERY MINUTE be walking towards the aforementioned electronics store from Town Hall station. Much ducking and flailing ensued. We therefore made a small detour in order to reach our targets via the underground portions of the QVB. There we split off into our task forces, which sadly I was not allowed to call task forces or give code names.
So there we were in Woolworths. Paper plates were found. Mona was distracted by melons. Kanin rang Diana up to check on her, only to discover that she was already with Yi Fan and had to improvise a call from her father. Then we spent some time arguing over which pack of candles to buy. As we were on our way to the checkout I suddenly heard "Duck and cover! Yi Fan's here!" and executed a speedy about-face to hide behind some shelves. "What's she doing in here!?" cried Hannah. "Diana's meant to be distracting her!"
Kanin rang again. "Oh hi daddy I'm just going to the bathroom," Diana said, which explained what they were doing in the building but then necessitated an elaborate cover story from Diana to explain why her father needed to know about her lavatory situation. After some maneouvering we found a checkout that wasn't in the birthday girl's direct line of sight and proceeded to HQ, where we met Min with the cake and set up at a table outside the Thai place. Now, the cake was made of tasty tasty green tea ice-cream, so now we had a time limit set by its melt-resistance. "Call Diana!" I yelled at Kanin, waving my arms about. "Tell her the eagle has landed!"
So Diana got another phone call from her father while we attempted to light the candles. This was easier said than done. Eventually we enlisted the help of a lady with a gas stove lighter from the Thai place and got them lit despite the wind. ...and yet, no Yi Fan in sight. The cake was melting at an ever-faster rate. "Call her again!" I hissed. "Tell her the goddamn eagle has goddamn landed. AND IT'S ON FIRE." He wandered off with his phone.
He wandered back. "Okay, then you turn right at the big phallic statue and go down the stairs - no, right. Wait, what side of the road are you on?"
Finally the birthday girl approached and we all made a lame attempt at ducking under the table in order to jump out and yell surprise. Yi Fan laughed so hard she literally didn't have enough breath to blow out the candles. After several hilarious minutes of trying she finally pinched the last one out with her fingers. "Oh wait," said someone, "Did you make a wish!?"
After delicious (and green) cake we all trooped off to an interesting little place Diana found by way of knowing the owners called Norita's. They do Japanese food and board games. We actually only ended up paying them for a deck of cards and food, as Hannah brought a board game called Articulate (the FAST TALKING DESCRIPTION GAAAAAME no really) with her which we played a whole lot of. It was awesome, I turned out to be pretty good at it. On one turn which was open to any team for guessing (so you have to phrase the description so your team has an advantage) I said to Lily "Just make a reference to emo bands!"
"Oh!" she said. "It's that band whose concert you went to. Only singular."
"Panic at one Disco?" Diana looked confused.
"Oh oh a match!" I yelled. High fives were exchanged.
The place is really pretty cool, but the menu is kind of limited. Kanin persuaded me to order Takoyaki (octopus balls) instead of being boring and just getting rice. I regretted this halfway through and donated the remaining squishy balls of cephalopody goodness to the table. Lily kindly shared her Ramen with me as I was still hungry. This precipitated yet more hilarity as we repeatedly requested boiling water from the staff, who brought it out in glasses, and then bowls, but still fell short. Then of course I disregarded the "spicy" warning and put in seasoning. Nevertheless I managed to get some nourishment out of it. This was the most excitement the table warranted - later on we played I Never, a drinking game... with glasses of water, which sort of defeated the whole point.
Anyway, fun was had, buses were caught, my parents returned from Cairns and my guitar teacher from wherever he went, I forget. Essays are due but are being ignored in favour of A Perfect Circle, which I used to love when I was fifteen and had lost somewhere in the intervening hard drive crashes. I had not noticed at the time but the albums are sort of themed. Mer De Noms (nom nom noms lol I'm five) is full of Catholic imagery, while Emotive is the CD to put in your stereo for an anti-war rally.
Finally, I don't remember who on my flist uploaded the version of No Children that the Mountain Goats recorded live with the audience singing due to technical difficulties, but thank you very much. You, sir/madam(probably madam), are responsible for my walking around singing "I hope you die! I hope we both die!" in a loud and cheerful manner and getting odd looks in the street.
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no subject
Date: 2008-10-20 03:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-21 12:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-20 04:01 pm (UTC)Green tea ice-cream is one of the only things I miss as a vegan. Although Green Gourmet make a very impressive vegan analogue... so I don't actually miss it. I just would if there wasn't a vegan version available! ... FAIL.
I still need to go to Norita sometime. I've heard about it from tons of people.
no subject
Date: 2008-10-21 12:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-21 01:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-21 01:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-20 10:38 pm (UTC)(...) but I always find myself drifting off into, at best, idle speculation, and then mentally slapping myself because, NOT THE TIME, MAGGIE.
OH GOOD I'M GLAD IT'S NOT JUST ME. W-why always in the most inappropriate places?! SOB.
no subject
Date: 2008-10-21 12:28 am (UTC)