adieu mon ami

of a week in berlin

Today at breakfast, sitting around the oval wooden table, the elder relatives of one sort or another inevitably turned the conversation to my age. Much to my resignation, I was told that I was *ticks off her fingers* short, small, and squat (!!! i swallowed my grimace but its bitterness spitefully lingered on my tongue). The other two I’m okay with, but ’squat’?! It makes me feel like a pumpkin. They also (predictably) compared me to my cousins “Oh, so and so’s so tall and big!” “Oh yes, she’s filling out nicely,” agreed another esteemed elder. “Whatever happened to her then?” “Not been eating enough, I’d say.” “You mean she got the short end of the stick, hey what?” There was a round of chuckles and I fervently wished I had hightailed out of there when I finished eating instead of not wantin to appear rude (trying to make amends for my brother’s brusque behaviour) and staying at the table.

My self-inflicted torture wasn’t complete until Grandpa mentioned noodles, my ex, and his time spent in Berlin. If ever there was a time for learning how to teleport, this would have been the perfect time.

*sighs*

Tomorrow, we’ll be headed off to Paris – more for my brother’s sake than anything else. But I’d like to take some photos of my own there and not feel too embarrassed and touristy as over here. There were some really nice shots I would have liked to take, but my cousins already hack on me heaps and I didn’t want to put fuel on an already merrily burning fire. What do they tease me about? *ticks off her fingers again* Height, me being Australian (”you crazy Australians!”), me bringing my uni work over (I don’t care that it makes me look like a nerd but I dun wanna fail the stupid subject again! argh), how excited i get about food, my shoe size, how i resemble a penguin/chiyo-chan from azumanga/osaka from azumanga (i can’t help it if i get all ditzy sometimes -_-)… okay i’ll stop. Alright, to be honest, only one cousin hacks on me about all of that. =P

My brother is driving me crazy. We kinda had a heated discussion about him using my headfones without asking (yes, very petty) – rather I blew my top off at him and kicked his shoulder kinda (I was standing on the bed and he was lying down. It was more of a harsh shove with my foot… maybe). Baaah, felt so bad after. I apologised but I reckon we need some time apart. I can’t hack him at such close quarters 24/7.

I’ve been in my PJs all day. Thinking back on it now, to this morning. Perhaps it wasn’t such a great idea to wear my new cow (farting out pink hearts as BM eloquently describes it) PJs (that i got from the girls’ section at Myers -_-;;). I don’t think it added anything to my cause, as now I distinctly remember one elderly lady ask her neighbour “Are you sure she’s over 18? But she looks so young! And she’s so little!”

A lot of people have said that in 10 years time, I would be grateful for my “youthful looks”, though now I have a terrible feeling whenever they say that that they’ve jinxed me and I’ll exponentially age and whither away. O_O

of obsessive questions

of a footwell munchkin

“Please leave your name, the number of people attending, time, and date of the booking. Also leave a contact number, so we can call you back to confirm your booking.”

*waits for beep*

“Umm, hi! My name is [squishies] and I would like to book for 2 people for tomorrow, August 3rd, at 6.30pm. Thanks! …………….. oh! and my number is …”

Talking to answering machines always makes me nervous. I stumble over my words and stammer…. forget important details…. I’m such a ditz. By the time I hang up, my face is as red as a beetroot; this time was no different. You’d think that I would have overcome this by now, but it’s hard! I almost had a little panic attack when I realised that I had to leave a recording >_< At least nowadays I go through with it. Before I use to just hang up and after psyching myself up for a few minutes, rehearsing what I'm gonna say, I'll try again (with clammy hands, a racing heart, and breaking out in a cold sweat).

Anyways, met JAP154 at Ashfield station and navigated (rather poorly I might add... it's so different when you're a passenger! Sometimes I forget that he doesn't know the route -_-;;) him to Bondi via Oxford St. The first parking we found was 3 bucks for an hour!!! So rorted... and being the cheapo Asians we are, we went around looking for better parking. ^_^ Pleased to say that we managed to score free parking!! *evil cackle* The parking meter was broken so we just left a note on the dashboard. ^_^V

I have to say, I was a bit disappointed with the much hyped-up Hurricane's ribs: they weren't as good as I thought they would be (even though they're pretty decent). I couldn't help but think of Oscar's ribs... for 13 bucks you get a massive rack of ribs, abso-delicious-lutely coated in barbeque sauce, meat so soft and tender that it practically slides off the bones. *drools* argh... I'm hungry >_< I do concede, however, that most probably I had a semi-high expectations of the ribs that it fell rather short in reality. *sighs* We had icecream afterwards! Looooooove ice cream during winter =) It doesn't melt! (well, doesn't melt as quickly anyways heh)

On our way to Hurricane's, Zac called up about the CCNA classes and what was going on with it (they were thinking of dropping one of our two night classes so that George could take up the class that needed an instructor on one of those nights). He asked what I thought of Saturday day classes: "I'd prefer it if we didn't have class on Saturday, but if need be, then there's nothing for it and I'm okay with it." Zac told me that he doesn't know what the other students thought of his idea because I was the first person that he called. I think he got embarrassed when I awww-ed at him (I guess it was a good thing that I refrained from saying "you're so sweet" hehe). *giggles* JAP154 asked if that was BM that was on the phone, so I explained the situation and why my course co-ordinator called up. I was surprised that he called me first and was kinda touched that he did. It warranted an *dopey voice* "awwww.... he called me up first.... awwwwww" =P hehe JAP154 cracked up and commented: "squishies, you are SUCH a munchkin!" Not knowing whether to accept it as an insult or compliment, I just exclaimed "What?!" rather ambivalently and grumbled to myself at bit.

As we drove towards a fork in the road, where the left route would take you to The Gap and the other takes you Bondi, I reminisced about going to The Gap with my uni friends during first/second year. Ah those days where we had more people than available car seats....

Our record is 10 people in a Holden Berlina (not Barina!) going to and from The Gap. It was pretty crazy, not to mention dangerous. We had 3 people in the front, 4 in the back, and 3 in the boot. I wanted to be in the boot, just to see how it was. We would change people in the boot now and again just to give them a break and it seemed like they had so much fun in it as they were fully cracking up laughing every time they got out! But because of my *ahem* small stature, they were like, "No squishies, we need you in the car! It'll be a waste of space to put you in the boot!!!" So grumbling about unfair discrimination against slight statured gurls, I would sit in the foot well (i.e. the place where the front passenger puts their feet). Every time we kram people in cars, where was I? That's right! The foot well!!! Grr *shake fist*

Anyways... thus, I was known as the Foot Well Munchkin ... for the night anyways =P

JAP154 laments the fact that most of his girl friends can’t come out to dinner with him ’cause invariably their (jealous) boyfriends would call them up several times during the night OR the single gurl would think that he has something for them. *rolls eyes* Guys, trust your girlfriends! Gurls can have boy friends too and if there can be gurl-on-gurl dinners (NOT in any sexual way mind you!! >_< dirty people), then why not gurl-on-guy dinners? I mean, how could you be sure that they're not closet bisexuals and having an affair with a gurl?! (Okay so it's more appealing than gurl/guy affairs bah) Anyways, I digress. Oh and gurls: get over yourself, some times you ain't all that - he don't like you that way. =P

"You're the only one I can call up and have dinner with, knowing that you don't think any by it and your boyfriend's cool with it and doesn't call you up during the night," he complained. I was surprised, I thought there would be more gurls (or bfs would "let" their gfs) that he knew that he could do this with. I felt special... a little lonely, but special nonetheless ^_^ lol. I told him so, adding that BM's pretty laid back with everything, which was great and much much MUCH appreciated. *smiles* It was a pleasant surprise to hear JAP154 saying that BM's a good choice, that he's a great guy, funny, etc, etc... He had me in stitches when he ended his rant by exclaiming, "Hell! *I'D* go out with him!!!" Such a funny guy...

The Peer Networking Thank You even was on last night. We celebrated at Randwick’s AMF (does it really stand for ‘Always Means Fun’?? O_O). Bowling.. HUH! I don’t like bowling… and yes, it’s because I’m totally crap at it. -_-;; First round was won by BM, so was the second round. It was kinda funny cuz I was on the other end of the rankings. LOL. Second round I got 43 or something, everyone pretty much doubled my score! Even those who said they were crap!! *glares that the gurls… you know who you are* Hehe.. you gurls did well *hugs* ^_^V

of magic umbrellas

I had a magic umbrella: whenever I took it out, it would never rain – no matter how heavily laden the clouds looked. I’d feel like a great big idiot carrying this huge umbrella around (it’s a little higher than mid-waist to me). Sometimes I felt that just out of sheer impish delight, my umbrella would even coax the sun out, furthering my embarrassment.

“Rain… Showers…” Weatherzone.com.au predicted. Huh! Yea… it’s raining SUNSHINE!!!! *shake fist* (Yes well, I’m still not too sure who to blame, my umbrella or the inaccurate weather forecasting)

It must have been 4 or 5 times that I had taken out my umbrella, expecting rain and there wasn’t any. -_- Dattie, ever the optimist, chuckled when I told him of my suspicions, “Weeelll… you can look at it this way: If you don’t want it to rain, just bring out your umbrella!” That there’s a double-edged umbrella (re: sword) if I ever seen one. =P Hehe

Happily, I think the magic must have worn off or something. Last month, I took it out and it RAINED! I actually had to OPEN it UP and USE it! @_@ (Yes, I was a little giddy with the fact that I could =) hehhe) Walking up to work was a little heavy drizzle – it was too heavy not to have it open, but it was a tad light to actually have an umbrella opened =T However, after dropping by markets bar, it absolutely poured down with a vengence (must have been all that pent up rain teehee). Mc Phili, BM, and I had to huddle under it: Mc Phili held the umbrella, I had my bag on my front, BM was behind me. We had to coordinate our walking otherwise we’d stumble and get even more wet. -_-;; It was hard… we definitely lack coordination. *sighs* (I blame it on the different length legs =P)

It’s funny when you tell someone that you accidently fell asleep and they get all skeptical on you: “How on Earth does someone manage to do that?!?!?” This question actually came from Ash. I tried to explain that I was in bed and I just accidently drifted off. “Nar, you see, that’s what I’d call intentional sleep… cuz you’re lying down! With your eyes closed!”

“Well… technically it wasn’t like that,” I replied. “I was giving my eyes a break from reading an e-book on my palm by staring at the wall. The last thing I remember thinking was: ‘I think I’m gettin a crick in my neck, I really should move…’” Ash thought that was really hilarious for some reason -_-;;

be still my heart…

Unremembered, yesterday is extinct.
Without yesterday, today has no meaning.
Who are you, if forgotten?
Who are you, but a sum of your memories?

In a world where not a lot of things make sense, and those precious few that do can’t really help us in our quiet desperate flailing for something called “normality”, it seems that the simplest things in life acts as a balm to the soul – easing away the pain, soothing the anger, quenching the disappointments.

Just for that blissful moment, everything is on pause – the world is black, and there’s nothing more but the heated hands, a firm but delicate warmth that strengthens the body and clears the mind, and a delightfully light bergamont fragance slow-dancing on the tongue.

Ahhh, early grey tea… thou dost wonderous things. Who would have known? I think I’m beginning to understand the English’s obsession for tea – especially during a tough situation *thinks of Arthur Dent* hehe.

~**~  Be still my heart, I know not what the future brings.
Be still and quiet, lest thou may be broken -
Lest they knowst what lies in their hands
And cast thee upon the cold, hard ground,
Once too oft, then bitterly shatter.

Mayhap they knowst not of the precious gift given -
Unwittingly crushing it with their ignorance,
Then gaze upon thine jagged pieces, bewildered.
Be still my heart, I know not what the future brings.
Be still and quiet, lest thou may be broken…

of ra-!

After a many squillions of times that I’ve called people “Ra-!” and they’d look at me either bemusedly or rather offendedly – depending on what gender they are (and usually accompanied by, “Oi! I ain’t Ram!”) – I’ve come to realise something: I use BM’s name as an exclamation. I’m actually quite embarrassed about this, even more so now that I KNOW why I begin to say, “Ra-!” but promptly stop because the other person is definitely not BM. General Hobo and BM, who I’ve told my theory to, thought it was heaps hilarious, especially when I do it in front of them. My brother, who I do it to all the time cuz he’s always doing something I don’t want him to, gets annoyed, but takes it rather good-naturedly.

Does that mean I’m hanging around BM too much? O_o I fretted about this, but then I thought, maybe it’s because his name is just one simple syllable, and you can stretch it out longer and add inflection onto that one syllable. It’s kinda is versatile if you think of it. You can’t really do something like that with 2 or more syllable name… well, technically you can… but let’s not talk about that. (^_^;;)

~**~
Saturday night was Retro night! =D Pitter organised it at the Bristol Arms, Retro Hotel and so a whole bunch of Peer Networkers came. It was a slow night to begin with. Maybe it was because when I met up with BM after my crappy Marketing Foundations exam, I realised that I either had: a) left the free ticket coupon for 2 at home or b) it fell out of my ever over-flowing bag. Either way, we didnt’ have the free movie coupon and Ram was like, we can still go see a movie you know, but we worked out that neither of us wanted to use our OTHER free movie tickets that we won from Trivia Night oh-so-long ago on Amityville Horror. Hehe, we suck and so stingy sometimes. So… we ended up bumming around, with lots of walking. I wanted to show him the toilets that Victoria Galleries have – they’re so awesome – but it was only opened during trading hours. Boo to them =P

We were one of the few people who got there first, others came later. There was a big confusion over where the Retro dancefloor was, cuz all they were playing at that time was all dance. The girls found out that there was going to be RnB and that it was upstairs, so they all trooped upways. Pitter was not impressed and let me know the what-for. I felt bad, he said to me that I could go if I wanted to and that he wouldn’t hold it against me. Ugh. Thanks Pitter for puttin me between a rock and a hard place. =P It was one of the reasons for his grrness that night.

But it all ended well, the Retro dancefloor was upstairs and we all had a ball =) BM’s afro wig was a slut and was on everyone’s head (yes, I know that sounds gross… but none of us cared at that point). It was pretty fun, minus the domestic BM and I had. It was a little one, but it was a domestic nonetheless. Blah, me and my stupid insecurities.

You know when you know something’s not true and rationally and logically you know what’s really going on, but emotionally you believe otherwise? What’s that all about anyways? It’s so annoying. (>_<#) It makes me feel retarded and renders us both incapable of enjoying ourselves to the fullest (somehow, whenever I use the word "render", "incapable" surely would need to follow o_Oa ). I felt bad when Pvt. Paranoia sms'ed me asking what I was doing that night, "BM! We should have called the gurls to come too! We suck!" =( He heartily agreed. *Mental note to self: invite the gurls when PN stuff happens*

~**~
I had $70 stolen out of my wallet yesterday. *not happy jan* I’m so stupid. I left it in the darkroom in my bag, thinking that it’ll be okay – everyone’s working, who’s gonna have time to steal something? I trusted them. I had faith that they wouldn’t steal anything off me… Am I being naive? *Sighs* anyways, just today, i realised that they also stole the $15 HMV voucher that I had as well (>_<#). Bah!

of one of those days

Yesterday was a really odd day… okay, it wasn’t that odd… but there was this tang of surrealness to things.

1) I was a bigger klutz than I normally am:

- I was walking up 4 steps to go out of the building to get Nicki’s bday cake. Somehow, the point of my pointy shoes got ensnared by the hem of my pants (on the inside) and suddenly everything was in slow-mo… i realised that i was falling. I had so much time to put my hands in front of me to break my fall… or well, it seemed so. Behind me, the guys who were in the same elevator with me, one of them was chatting away and suddenly broke off and uttered, “oops! oh dear…” as i fell.. hehe it was kinda funny. But yea… once again, I’ve managed to fall UP the stairs o_O I should be grateful though… falling down the stairs ain’t all that either *thinks of Corp. Cow when she fell down the stairs and ended up flat on her face, eagle-spread on the ground* ….. *cackles* omg, i wish i was there to see it! XD FYI, I go by the etiquette of: so long as the one who klutzed up laugh, it’s okay to laugh too. ^_^

- I was eating the cake, and I dropped it on me… several times -_- (okay, I admit it…that wasn’t klutzy, it’s grotty hehe)

- I queued behind this massively built guy with uber big feet in boots at the ticket machine to go into Town Hall station. His ticket mustn’t have worked and when he realised that, he took a step back. When *I* realised that he was takin a step back, it was a lil too late and only managed to move back a little before he stepped on my foot. Luckily, it was my pointies. But ’cause I was already moving back, my shoe got left behind… under his boot. I think he was waitin for me to get out of his way, cuz he paused there for a moment. I couldn’t believe that my shoe was taken hostage by his boot and was looking at it a little bewilderedly, but I couldn’t move cuz I wasn’t gonna go any where without it. A little puzzled, he looked down and realised what had happened. He sheepishly apologised (I murmured back that it was okay with a weak smile) and released my shoe (which I promptly slotted my foot back in with relief), and went on his way. Daym pointies… cause so much trouble!

- I misjudged how far I was from the gutter and my hubcaps made a huuuuge scccccrrrrraaaaaaaping noise -_-# ugh (I guess that was just me being stupid more than anything else)

2) I kept bumping into people that I haven’t seen for sooooo long:

- Accompanied Nicki and Alan to her bday lunch thingy. Met up with Helen and Jennifer there. My Le (the OTHER one) was there too, so we ate together. Helen went to get something to eat, but I thought since I haven’t seen her for a while, I’d go and keep her company. Bumped into S-man as she finally decided to get a new york double decker sandwich from Sandwich Delight. He called my attention to him as we walked past. I knew I knew him, but I also knew that I’ve totally forgotten his name. We chatted for a bit and then asked if he could sit with me/us. I couldn’t think of a polite way of saying “no, mebbe it’s not a good idea to” so I tried to hint that through “we only have a table of four, but there’s already six of us there, so it’s pretty squashy.” It totally backfired as he replied, “oh that’s fine! i’ll just pull up another chair” -_-# *Note to self: subtle hints are lost on guys* When I turned back at Helen to tell her what was goin on, I saw the sandwich, “HOLY MOLY! Look at the size of that beast!” O_O it was huuuuge. Had a pretty hard time to eat it, but it was delish nice choices babez…

Anyways… I told her I couldnt’ remember anything about him, when I realised, I lie.. i know his ICQ nick: S-man… tried to think of all the names starting with S and I lingered on Steven, which I had a feelin was right. *smug* I was.. yay! ^_^ my memory ain’t THAT bad after all.

ANYWAYS, he came back to the table and surprised both Helen and I when Nicki’s face brightened up and said, “STEVEN! omg! how are you?” It turns out that he knew Nicki, Jennifer, and My… o_O weird… that boy gets around hehehe

- on the way back from the office, whilst crossing George St., I saw a guy take a double-take look at me from my peripheral vision. A little unnerved, I kept walk nonchalantly. Then he tapped me on the shoulder. Taken aback, I quickly looked at him warily, which dissolved rather quickly into a smile when I realised it was Stumpi! ^_^ hehehe Really like that guy, he’s so nice.

I think that was it… reading through it, it didn’t seem all “odd”.. but I dunno.. I got spun out when almost everyone knew who S-man was and mebbe that just carried through the whole day. =)

Was listening to Smooth Jazz and Jazz Classics on Yahoo!LaunchCast. Daym it’s good. ^_^ Elevator music BM calls it, but it’s really nice to study to.

Ugh… which reminds me.. i gotta get back to it -_- adios amigos