Mel's blog, October 31....point 2...

I really need some sleep. Going to try and get an early night tonight but something tells me that probably won't happen. I was really looking forward to a bit of a sleep in tomorrow, not having to leave the house until 9:30am, but good old Mel went and gave herself more to do so have to leave the house by 8:30am now. Good onya Mel.

It's gonna be a full-on day, when I'll be spending more time driving I reckon then anything else. If it weren't for things being so far apart from each other the day mightn't be so bad. Have to drive to the other side of town to pick Misch up in the morning then go to Belair National Park which is about an hour from her place. Have a grasses workshop in the morning, then a BBQ, then a meeting, and then taking Misch home and visiting my parents, so will be home about 8pm. Just a quiet day, lol.

Ok, so I'll sleep in on Sunday, that's not so bad. I got a phone call from my old store, gonna do a couple of extra shifts there next week. Excellent because a) I get to see my old mates, and b) I need the money badly right now.

Hmm, gonna go do some stuff before bed. Apologies for the vague update, but trying to update this more frequently even if it means there is nothing good to say.

Is that the time?

Whoops, was meant to update this hours ago, and then I got sidetracked, and now it's almost 1am and I'm not going to be able to get out of bed and consequently be late for work again. Whoops!

A few nights ago I had a bit of a chat with my oldest friend Michelle, and it was one of those chats we haven't had in a while, and I was so happy afterwards. One of the things we talked about was how we hadn't gotten together and had a good "gossy" session, not where we got together and gossiped about others, but you know when you're younger and you have sleepovers, and you stay up until all hours of the morning discussing your deepest darkest secrets. Got me thinking. Why is it that as we get older we share less of ourselves and bottle things up more? I think everyone does this. It's like when you're younger you don't care so much what people will think or say so you tell people everything. Someone suggested to me that perhaps it's because people get burned by others in their lives. Perhaps they told someone something once and got betrayed or looked at differently, so they stop sharing with everyone. Maybe that's true to a certain point, we all become a bit more opinionated and tell people what we really think as we get older. Makes me think that maybe when people tell me stuff, rather than offer advice or pass judgement, I should just listen. Who knows. We all seem to lose that innocence we had when we were kids.

I miss being a kid, I really do. Having to worry about relationships, finances, jobs, is all a little too much for me and sometimes I just want to curl up and wish it all away.

On a lighter note, tomorrow is Friday and I shall rejoice. Thank goodness this week is over and the weekend is almost here, although I do plan too much on weekends and perhaps need a quiet one soon.

The conversation I had with Michelle the other night makes me smile when I think of it. She reminded me how I always wanted to be a writer (this is true, even started a couple of books I never finished many years ago). Michelle was going to be the singer, and I was going to write her songs. Well, my dear, it's never too late to start I say. We can still be the female Savage Garden, but I swear those guys are gay so maybe not.

In the famous words of Eric Cartman, "Follow your dreams, you can reach your goals". Edited because the rest of the sentence wouldn't make sense right now.

Oh god, 1am. Goodnight! OH! And see the links on the right there? Squashland is a great read from a great guy. hint hint.

Melancholy and the infinite madness

I seem to go through these waves of emotion sometimes. Like, I can be happy, then someone will say or do something that might be nothing really but will totally ruin my day. Is this normal, or am I just mad? Like yesterday, someone (sideways glare at Ivan) made a comment in regards to my eating chips that I, in hindsight, completely overreacted about. Anyway, went on this walk to cool off and it started getting a bit drizzly and all I wanted it to do was absolutely bucket down with rain so I could do some twirls as if I was in a Carefree Tampons advert. I then realised that I am, in fact, probably insane. Abnormal is perhaps a better word. Sharing this with my readers is for their own good.

So, as you may have guessed, I haven't got much to write about but figured I should update this because it's been over a week. Perhaps a shameless link. One of the reasons I got into blogging was because of this guy, and his latest entry is hilarious so go and have a read. Some may remember him from The Next Generation as that irritating little shit Wesley we all wanted to eject out of the airlock, others might remember him from Stand By Me (my favourite film ever incidentally), but he's a great writer and his page rocks, so yeah.

Let's see, what have I been up to that's kept me away from my blog this past week? Hmm, well, my new workplace sucks, I really miss my old store and the people in it. I had the last office running like a well oiled machine, and this one's rusty as hell and will take a while to get going. At first I liked the challenge, but now, into my third week, I'm ready to throw in the towel. Every day there's something new. Like today, I'm trying to file the monthly reports and cannot find a fucking thing from her previous filing attempts. I call them attempts because clearly, the job was started, but never actually followed through. I mean, a spider has made his home quite happily between two of the filing boxes. I just left everything in a pile, named him Frank and left the room.

I'm still up with all the environmental groups and things. I started a Native Grasses Workshop on the weekend which runs over the next few weeks, and almost every weekend in November is tied up with more camping trips or days out. In two weeks I'll be spending the weekend camping in Burra, then will be back there a fortnight later. I love it :-)

Well, needless to say I didn't get the AQIS job I interviewd for. Not in the least bit surprised, like I said, the interview went well but I thought they wanted someone with more experience. Guess I was right (for a change). Haven't sent off any more applications for a while either. Not sure if I've given up subconsciously, or maybe there's just not much out there at the moment. I think maybe I've given up a bit. So disheartening to have almost gone a year after graduating without getting any work. Don't know where else to look, what more to try, etc. So if anyone hears anything, let me know. Am willing to relocate!

Okies, enough. Cyas next time for another dull installment.

It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine

The above title is courtesy of Sammo due to my writer's block. I, infact, have nothing to blog about but am bored and waiting for time to pass. Why, you ask? Because I am a geek. That's right, this fact has been confirmed by my behaviour in the last 24 hours.

It's all thanks to a little game called Tibia, a highly addictive MMORPG (I think that's how it went, hehe). When I went out today to a housewarming, I just wanted to come home and play Tibia. When I experienced my first death this evening, I was so annoyed and upset at all the cool stuff I'd lost, I lashed out at Ivan. Yep, you know you're a geek when it's gone beyond a "just a game" mentality.

Today, someone even asked if I'd be their Tibia girlfriend. I guess there are some people worse off than me.

The curse of Mel

I wanted to tell you about a strange phenomenon that occurs every day of my life. I call it The Curse of Mel.

The curse involves railway crossings. Now, I don't know whether I'm sending out some strange electrical impulses or just some train-attracting vibes, but The Curse of Mel means that, whenever I'm driving a car, sometimes if I'm the passenger but not as often, I get stuck at a railway crossing. This is rather annoying because on the way to work I go through two of them.

Some might say it's because I'm travelling at the same time every day, but to those people I say "HA! You fools! The Curse of Mel is far more powerful than that!". You see, my roster is different every day, so it's not as if it's because I am following the same schedule.

Let me give you an example of the power of this curse. When I went away recently for the long weekend, I was driving home, in Adelaide for little more than 10 minutes, before I got caught at a railway crossing. On a public holiday. When the trains run like once an hour.

On other occasions I will be coming home from a meeting at, like 10pm, from the city which is only 10 minutes away, and get a train at the only single frigging crossing I go through. After 6pm. When the trains don't even run that often.

So you see, this curse is here with me and maybe talking about it will wash some of the vibes away. Or, maybe, the vibes will just weaken and I will get only one train at the one crossing instead of 3 (yes, my readers, that has happened several times too).

Fear The Curse of Mel! Muwahaha!

News just at hand

Don't be fooled by the title, this is old news I forgot to mention before today.

I've been hoping for some kind of promotion at work to give me extra money and develop my skills until I find work in my own field. So, I got a phone call from John, the Area Manager, who asked me to move to the store he's based at so, on top of my regular duties I can work with him and the State Manager more closely. Sounds good, I thought, and so agreed to the move. Later as I thought about it, I realised there will be no extra pay, no extra hours, just more responsibility, so it's not a step forward at all. So then, I regretted my decision, but it's too late, as I'm moving on Monday. Is getting rather sad actually, I'm gonna miss some people heaps, and they've already started with the "Aww, don't go Mel", which makes me feel worse. Plus, everything in my office is set up how I want it to be since I was there when the store opened, now I gotta do it all again and risk ticking off other people. Oh well.

So today I went in to have a look around and meet some of the people I'm going to work with. They seemed ok. My office is MUCH bigger then the one I have now which is a bonus. I could frigging do laps of it if I wanted, not that I would ever want to mind you. I start at 5am on Monday, YUCK! Because it's a bigger store, more to do, so early start. YUCK!

So anyway, another thing I forgot to mention here was I had an interview with AQIS last week, as a Quarantine officer at the airport. Is only part time but would be an awesome job. I was surprised they'd called me in for an interview at all since I didn't really meet all of their criteria. The interview, I felt, went really well. I thought I answered their questions well, but I got the impression they wanted someone with more experience, so probably another job down the toilet. On that same day, I got a phone call back from another place I had an interview with as a feedback call. Seems I did well in everything except one part of the day, which was a large group activity because I "let myself be cut off by other people". Geez, you have to be bloody perfect to land a decent job.

Well, I say, I embrace my imperfections! They make me "me" dammit!

Yeah

Ups and downs

Well, got back from my trip away yesterday absolutely stuffed so didn't hang around to write something about it yesterday. I did, however, check email to find that out of 42 emails, only 1 wasn't spam. Hmm, a serious case indeed. Anyway, about the weekend.

I left Saturday at 7:30am for the long drive to Penola. I was expecting the holiday traffic to be awful but thankfully wasn't too bad. Stopped off at Tailem Bend and Padthaway along the way to stretch my legs and have something to eat. So funny, with country towns. Some are actually quite big and busy, and others are so quiet, you wonder if anyone actually lives there at all or if someone just dumped 3 houses and a general store along the street and left.

Anyways, got to the campsite at about 12:30 and started to set up my tent. No one was around, they all seemed to be out doing stuff, but it wasn't long before they returned for some lunch. I was ultra happy when I found out Nerissa had been and gone, and that I didn't have to put up with her for the weekend. So, set up my tent, unloaded the car then sat reading for a while. After an hour or so caught up with Peter, Kate, Jo, Brad and Spencer and we went foraging for reptiles. The old lifting up rocks and logs trick. We found a few skinks, which made me happy, as Peter showed me how to identify them and I managed to hold them without them escaping from my clutches. We went to check the trap sites, got back, had dinner, then had the campfire going. After a while, we decided to go spotlighting in Penola Conservation Park, it took about an hour and was excellent. Saw lots of beasties.

The night was freezing, and is the only downside to camping in my opinion. Oh, no, not the only downside, it gets annoying after a few days to squat going to the toilet, but anyway. Woke up so many times so bloody cold. When I eventually crawled out of bed, it wasn't long before we were off to start the day again, checking trap sites and such. I got to see my first wild echidna and sugar glider, yay! In the afternoon Peter brought out all the reptiles we'd caught so far (including a baby brown snake) so people could take photos of them. I really have to get a decent camera, was so annoying. That night was a bit more fun around the campfire, but no spotlighting or anything.

Now, the last morning, here's where things get wierd. We all woke up, packed up our stuff then started heading out to pick up all the traps. We did one site, went back to camp and someone thought "Howard's sleeping in a bit, better check on him". So they go to his tent, call out, no answer. So they have a look inside and are met with a really shocking site - Howard had actually passed away during the night. He was about the age of my dad, so no one would have ever expected it, but when the police came, they found lots of medication in his belongings so it looks like he had heart problems. Was a real shock. That was the first time I had met him, so it didn't effect me as much, but still was just so unexpected. So, after the police were done and we packed up some more traps, I took off and got home about 4:30pm, totally exhausted.

Back at work today, and tonight, I have a committee meeting. The fun never stops!

So yeah, was a good weekend that ended strangely. How was yours?

This one time, at band camp...

For those I haven't already told, tomorrow morning I'm going away camping until Monday. I love long weekends. It's for a biological survey with the Mammal Club but should be a heap of fun. So, only going for two nights, but the amount of food I bought, I reckon I could survive a week out there. We're going to this place called Penola, just between Naracoorte and Mount Gambier, and I haven't been that way for so long, I don't even remember it. It's about 5 hours away, which is the only real pain in the ass, because I'll be going up by myself and it'll be so boring. Plus, there was a head-on collision on that very road today so that scares me a little. And, I'll have to pitch the tent by myself, and that sucks too. Hope it's not too windy. Anyway, this week has been nuts, had an interview too, but will write more when I get back (may even have a new photo or two). So, have a great weekend everyone. Any random SMS's are always welcome too, should you get bored.
Ciao.