When I began work this morning, the heater wasn’t on. I sat hunched over my keyboard, fumbling a little as I typed, and slowly my fingers began to freeze in place. Now the joints are sore, and bending them at all hurts. Better still, I have to work tomorrow as well; and the heater may or may not choose to work. Brilliant.

I spoke to Az today about interviewing her for my Journalism class and she agreed, so I’m hoping to do that sometime this weekend. Then I can get the transcript and a rough draft together by next Thursday. To be honest, I’m just relieved that she agreed, because I had NO IDEA who I was going to speak to.

Verbs are still killing me. For some reason, I just can’t wrap my head around what a verb IS, exactly. It doesn’t help that there are about twenty million different kinds, mind you, all with their little names and their little rules, and OF COURSE their little exceptions. I am going insane.

And, the next person who tells me to check out Grammar Girl is going to get some verbs shoved up their ASS, because that site is useless to me, okay? It’s not designed very well, and I can’t find my way around, and I DON’T LIKE THE WRITING. End of story, so please, stop telling me to go there.

I saw and heard some rather disturbing things on the train this morning. Three people got on the train, in that lazy, slow way that LOSERS have, that makes the train stop and start a MILLION freakin’ times, and immediately start talking at the top of their voices. Choice words such as f**k, and c**t were used.

I hate that word, that ‘c-word’. I really do. In fact I hate it so much that I won’t even type it. You can tell already, I’m sure, that I wasn’t going to like these guys. The two younger guys (they were all male) were probably 17 and 11. That’s a rough guess. I have no idea about the older guy.

So, anyway. They start going on about jail, and juvenile detention, and how it’s going to ‘toughen up’ the young one when he gets sent there. WHEN. Not if, when. They’re expecting it to happen, and seemed proud of it almost. Ugh. Then they started throwing around the word ‘gay’, and I tuned out.

Or at least I did, until the youngest of the three started spitting all over the seat. He had obviously gotten a bad taste from somewhere in his mouth (probably from all the language he was using), and he began spitting all over the seat next to him. Sniffing, and hacking, and SPITTING. On public transport.

Thank god my stop was next, because I was disgusted. Truly, I was horrified. I don’t know whether I was more horrified that the boy did it, or that the two guys with him found it FUNNY. I can’t believe that there are people that are so disrespectful out there. It’s worth noting though, that they were on their way to court.

That might explain things a little.

I caught up with a good friend of mine today, one that I haven’t spoken to in a long time. We’ll call him Chris, since that’s his name, and although he hasn’t called me in many, many months, we still got along just as well as we did last time we spoke. It has always fascinated me, the way people can not speak to their friends for months - years, even - and talk as though they were never apart.

Since I’m so exhausted tonight, I am going to stop my rambling before it begins and go to bed. I’ll write more tomorrow - promise!

(Note: I was in fact, so tired, that instead of publishing this, I saved it as a draft. Apologies.)

Just to give you an idea of how awful the girls are being at the moment: tonight they had a twenty minute argument about whose eyes were bluer. I KNOW. I’m living with it, and it is impossible to express in words how terrible they are right now. They spent fifteen minutes after that argument chasing one another up and down the hallway, squealing at the top of their lungs, ‘She’s gonna hit me!’

I used to hope and pray and WISH for a sister closer to my age; in fact I’ve always wanted to be a twin. Right now, I am SO glad that I didn’t have a sister growing up. They are so nasty and manipulative; constantly trying to get each other into trouble, or hurt one another. Did I mention I’m reconsidering the children thing?

I think Mum is reconsidering at the moment as well; one of those lapses in faith that mothers have from time to time. I know that other mothers feel like it as well, that they often feel like failures, that they don’t know what they’re doing. They feel like their children are insane, out of control, little monsters. That they are the only parent on the planet to ever have those problems; no one else’s children would behave so atrociously.

They can, and do; I know this because I read blogs that are blunt and truthful about child-rearing, and you know what? They all feel like that at times. In fact, some of those times are whole stretches of time. Motherhood is apparently not quite the blessing that (outwardly) many mothers would have us believe.

On a somewhat lighter note, I am redesigning the site. Again. I just want something.. lighter. White background, clean cut with those little flairs that really make the whole design. I have ideas, but so far haven’t actually sat down to create anything. I will, eventually. I’m also trying to streamline the categories and get a tag cloud set up. I will probably end up moving categories and archives from the sidebar onto their own page, and linking the header image to the home page, instead of that link in the sidebar.

My mother, Nana and I went to a party shop today - to sort out the rest of my party. Can I just say right now: I do NOT take responsibility for the cost of my 21st birthday. I refuse, absolutely will not accept it. Everyone who knows me is aware of the fact that I didn’t want a huge bash, and in fact when I originally planned the party, I didn’t want alcohol. At all. Then my aunty refused to come, so I had to give in.

That’s not the point though, the point is that I cannot possible be held responsible for something that I have had almost no say in, that I didn’t even want in the first place! Although.. as the date draws closer, I find myself getting excited. Just a tiny bit, mind you! Nothing to get excited over.

Well, I go back to class tomorrow. The three day weekend didn’t feel long enough; on Friday I was thinking ‘Wow, three whole days. I’ll be able to get so much done!’ and this afternoon I realised that it was over already. It reminded me of school holidays when I was younger. When they first started, it seemed like you had forever, and then by the end you always felt like the time had flown.

In a way, I feel perpetually trapped in that time right before school starts, at the end of the holidays. Days, weeks and months have gone by so quickly. It shocks me that VCAL was two years ago, that three months ago I began PWE; I can’t believe Gentil and I broke up over a month ago now. Time is flying, really and truly whizzing past me. It’s scary, because I don’t feel like I’m changing that quickly. I feel stuck.

Next Friday, I will be twenty-one years old. I don’t feel twenty-one; I still feel like that scared, self-conscious thirteen year old. I almost feel as though I’m a fraud; at twenty-one you’re supposed to be an adult. Twenty-one year olds are supposed to look absolutely flawless and be completely independent.  Right? They’re supposed to have great friends, and go out on the weekends and care about how they look.

I know it’s only a stereotype, and I know there isn’t anything wrong with not being like that at ANY stage of your life, but somehow turning twenty-one makes me feel like I should be living like that. Instead, most of my friends are online, my idea of a good night out is actually in front of the computer, and the hair that I struggled with for the longest time and finally grew long? It’s usually piled up into a bun.

At the end of the day, though? I’m happy being where I am right now. I love being at home with my family, and yeah, I like being a bit of a nerd. And that’s okay, you know? I like watching the ditzy girls go out and make their mistakes; I like being the safe, cautious one. I doubt that I’ll have any wild tales to tell my children, but I probably won’t have any embarrassing confessions, either.

Thanks for listening. =)

I actually managed to get some homework done today, and I did some work on SQ’s manual! I’ve been focusing on Computer Skills work, because it is all due in first, and because I was more motivated (probably because it’s the sort of thing I could do with my eyes closed) to finish it today. I’m finishing off the Word module right now, and will begin the Dreamweaver stuff soon after. I still can’t believe I have to use Dreamweaver.

My short story.. well. I do have part of it written, but I’m not quite sure how to end it yet, and I don’t know whether I like the beginning or not. I suppose for now, the Computer Skills homework is a little easier to tackle than Editing. Bleh, the editing work is awful; verbs are kind of beginning to make sense, but there are a lot of words that can be used in different ways. Confusing.

Katie and Tiffany were only marginally better behaved today, and I still think I could get away with tying them up and throwing them in the shed. Katie talks back constantly - about everything - and no matter what you say (or threaten, for that matter), she just won’t quit. Tiffany was back to her whiny self today, and although she was antagonising Katie (as usual) she wasn’t being nasty like yesterday.

Stephen went to a friend’s house tonight, and left his computer on, so I’m going to tape a sign to the screen informing him that the computer has gone on strike, and won’t be functioning for the next 48 hours. I’m also going to remove the power plug. He expected it to stay on the whole time he was gone, and I’m sick of him claiming that he doesn’t leave it turned on. Maybe the computer taking a ‘vacation’ will help.

Before I go, random tidbit:

Tiffany: “Lisa, What do butchie boys eat?”
Lisa: “Um, I don’t know?”
Tiffany: “Can you look it up on the computer, on Google?”
Lisa: *wishes Tiffany had never been shown Google* “Sure.”
Tiffany: “Well?”
Lisa: “They eat decayed vegetable matter and fungi.”
Tiffany: *tilts head to the side* “Do we have any of that?”

Only under your brother’s bed, sweetheart. Although, given the smell emanating from his room, I’m guessing it’s long past the decayed stage.

Today has been eventful, for all the wrong reasons. Katie and Tiffany fought ALL DAY, until I was very close to tying them up and locking them in the shed. I was considering whether I’d be able to get away with that or not; I was so fed up by their tantrums that I found myself literally pulling at my hair. They just whined about everything, all day. Nothing Mum or I did stopped the tears, and the fighting, and the yelling.

I wanted to drown them.

Now, they have settled down a little. They’re both still on edge; casting nasty glances at each other, and making comments about anything they can. I’m not sure why they’re in such a bad mood, but generally they don’t both act up like this at the same time. In fact, Katie is usually the one acting like a cow and Tiffany is whining and crying because Katie is being nasty to her. Today they were both as nasty as each other.

I guess today was just one of those days.

I worked today, from 10:30am ’til 3:30pm, and as much as I love my boss? I will be ever so glad when June comes along and I can look for a mindless, retail type job again. See, the video store was fantastic; it tested your people skills, but didn’t stretch the brain too far. Now that I’m back in classes AND working, I find that if I work in the morning, I’m exhausted by the time I get to class that evening.

It doesn’t help that my boss is unable to do things in a logical order, either. Or that he dictates half of a matter, switches to another file and then expects me to pick up where I left off. I mean, I can do that, and I do! It’s just exhausting, and more of a mental work-out than I need right before Journalism, of all things.

I will admit though, class tonight was really good. We were discussing how to turn a transcript into a profile piece, and the steps required to do that. We’re indexing transcripts at the moment, and learning how to pick out the good stuff from the bad. Also, we’re doing these things called Soundbites every week; two members of the class (pre-arranged) get up and interview each other about a chosen topic.

David is really good at making us see where things could have been tightened, or where a lead for a really excellent story was missed. Tonight Natalie was interviewing Rajit and vice-versa; both interviews were about music, and I thought they both did quite well, asking the right questions and answering generously.

That’s probably the scariest thing about interviewing someone: what if they won’t talk? It happens, according to David, and when it does you need to work that bit harder to get what you’re looking for. He seems to think that being really soft in the beginning and trying to gain their trust is a good idea, and that most people will respond if they’re given time to relax.

Oh, and some news was announced tonight. Natalie is dropping Journalism; she said that it just isn’t her thing, and she isn’t enjoying it. Fair enough, I suppose. If you’re not enjoying it, if you’re not ‘into’ the subject, then it’s better to drop it than to fail. She’s still doing Editing, so I’ll only see her on Fridays now.

I noticed some tension tonight, between two of the class members. We were talking about dealing with sensitive topics, and whether you were allowed to listen to people, even if the issue wasn’t something you could use. David seemed to think there was no harm in listening, so long as they were willing to share. Sara, one of the older women in class got quite uppity though, when Mel was all, “I’m nosy, though.”

Basically, Sara made a comment, something about ‘you can’t be a vampire’, and Mel said something along the lines of ‘I’m not saying I want to suck information out of people, but if they want to talk..’, and then Sara said something about ethical and moral issues, and how you have to be sensitive to people and treat them carefully’, and Mel was all ‘Yeah, I got that part thanks.’ Then I was like, ‘MEOW!’. Only in my head.

Sara is someone that I’m very careful to not cross paths with too often, because we have very different opinions about the refugee issue, and apparently about aboriginal affairs. So, I am quiet around her, because I’ve heard her speak about the refugees and she seems to be the type of woman to keep coming back to one point, that one thing that her argument is based upon, refusing to accept any other view.

I plan to keep on her good side; her exchange with Mel was a little too ‘high school’ for me.