meme

Thank you, Stacy, for the latest meme/tag/interview/whatever they're called - although I understand she stole it off someone else!!

1. Go back to first or early post. How would you describe your voice back in those early days? Who were you writing to? What was your sense of audience (if any) back then?

My voice, back in the day (2004)? In one word: immature. I quote: "I finished school about a month ago FOREVER and my friends and I met up at a SERIOUS cafe today. I felt very grown-up." Ahhh, to think of the days when I capitalised everything. Now I am much more mature, I italicise things instead. I also listed all the presents I got for Christmas, and what I got for my family - definitely a mark of a younger Allie, I think.
Likewise, I was much more obsessed with U2 and Jane Austen than I am now!
And... sadly... I was rather preachy.
Although overall I wasn't terrible. Just a bit boring.

I'm not sure who exactly I was writing to. I used to talk a lot about The Spirit Of The Internet back then - basically because no one read my blog! I didn't tell anyone about it, I didn't know anyone who had a blog, and I was too lazy to search out other blogs. I had, basically, absolutely no sense of audience - but I don't think I minded too much at first, because it meant I could write whatever I wanted. But after a while, it began to really grate on me that no one read it... more on this next question.

2. Do you remember when you received your first comment?

My first ever comment was a junk one. Depressing. As I said before, I didn't mind too much at first - but then when I was going through the hardest time of my life, back in 2005, I would pour out my heart on my blog, and the only response I would get would be "Great blog! Come look at my cheap deals on Viagra" and that was super-depressing.

My first real comment (as far as I can remember) was when I started searching through random blogs, and I found this great photo blog. I left a comment saying he'd inspired me to start posting my own photos, and he came and left a really nice comment on my blog. Soon later, a visitor to his blog came to mine, and she became a regular for a long time (that's Patty of Green Tea Obsession).

3. Can you point to a stage where you began to feel that your blog might be part of a conversation? Where you might be part of a larger community of interacting writers?

Yes - this started when Stacy started blogging, funnily enough! (Thanks Stacy) Because I knew Stacy already, through our online critiquing group, it was natural to visit her blog a lot, and somehow, slowly, I got connected with a whole lot of people who visited her blog or whose blogs she visited.

Before this, I'd had a few people visiting my blog fairly regularly, such as Patty, or slskenyon, but these were nearly all isolated from each other, so it wasn't nearly so interesting. But now it is very very fun! And I feel like I have friends all over the world! I also love how this 'community' of bloggers passes around the same memes and we can all check out each others' answers. :)

4. Do you think that this sense of audience or community might have affected the way you began to write?

Definitely. Once I knew there were people actually reading my blog, I was much more careful about trying to write things that were actually interesting. Ie, I had to stop writing things like 'I'm bored and I can't think of anything to do so I'm writing on my blog'. Sometimes I still do that... but only once a month.

I was also a lot more careful about sharing religious opinions. As it happens, most of the people who read my blog are Christians, anyway. But I felt like this blog should be a neutral sort of place, although as you've probably noticed I don't necessarily hide my beliefs. So when I got sick of this, I created another blog, God is Nice, and I write on there whenever I feel the urge to splurge my current ideas on/experiences of God.

Stacy in her version of this meme mentioned that she didn't mind her family reading this but not other acquaintances. I feel the opposite, really. I've never given my blog address to mere acquaintances, but I don't mind giving it to close friends, whom I wouldn't feel the need to gripe about. Whereas I'm not so thrilled when I know that a member of my family has read it. I don't know why, but if I'm going through something that has ripped me apart, I'd rather I told them myself than they had to read it on here. Again, I don't usually do so, because - again - this blog feels, to me, like it should be neutral and relatively carefree. So to get away from this problem, I made another blog called Another Grief Observed, on which I could vent on a particular issue whenever I wanted to, and for a long time I didn't leave a link to it on this blog or on my profile.

It's definitely worked really well for me having a number of blogs. Even if I'm having a crappy day, I can come on here and make fun of it. But I can be as dieaway and miserable on another or as new agey on yet another as I want. Even when I'm really busy I love blogging; it really helps me to relax, for some reason.

vanity?

Jenkneebee worried that this was a vain thing to do... and yes, I do feel like I have reverted to age fourteen - but it does not massage ones vanity to be told that one looks 70-something percent like David Hasselhoff, or to be told on another attempt that there is only one woman in the world who you could pass for, compared to nine men! Luckily, they were only two of my attempts at this fun game. First up, my five-year-old self (and even if I, according to this, do look like George Clooney, at least he's a very sweet small boy):

http://www.myheritage.com

And me, now! This is the most flattering of my attempts - imagine, only one man!

http://www.myheritage.com

a day in the life of allie

I've had one of those interesting up-and-down days. The details are as follows:

1) Last night I got home very late from Navs, sinking thankfully into bed, when fifteen minutes later, I heard a mouse run across my floor, squeaking. Now, I should probably explain that lately I have started verging on obsessive-compulsive behaviour about making sure my door is always shut, etc etc, so that no mice can get in - because if there is a mouse in our house, it is certain to end up in my room (see previous posts here and here on this topic) - and it's become more of a thing than it really should be. I had to go sleep in the spare room and obviously couldn't get to sleep for a long time, while I woke up extremely early this morning. As soon as Dad got up, I rushed out to tell him and ended up sitting down on the couch, bursting into tears, and crying for about twenty minutes because I hate mice so much and I was so tired. Agh.

2) In Canta, the university student magazine, this morning, this was one of the letters:
"Mike, I love you and I'll do anything for you." - Kathryn Salm, 2200 hrs, Thursday, 24th of May, 2007.
Mike.

Haha! I love that he felt the need to document that.

3) I spent the entire morning trying to think up ways to make my minimal knowledge on the anti-Aristotelian techniques of Brecht take up even more words in a 3000-word essay due Friday. Actually, most of the time was spent groaning and trying to motivate myself. I hate the end of semester.

4) I went to see my history lecturer about possible Honours projects for next year, and I could do my Honours thesis on the Soviet gulag!!!! I could be even more knowledgeable about tyrannical dictatorships! Or, even cooler, I could look at Shostaskovich and Prokofiev and other cool composers and their relationships with the Soviet authorities.

5) I met up for coffee this afternoon with my very good friend Katie, who arrived back yesterday after studying at the University of British Columbia for five months. YAY! It's so good to see her again!

6) After meeting Katie, I went to a computer lab again, looked in my bag for my memory stick, only to find it... gone. *SCREAM* My entire morning's work was on there, plus my history presentation for tomorrow, plus all my creative writing and past essays. I spent about ten hysterical minutes hunting through my entire bag before finally checking my email in the almost exhausted hope that someone had found it - and thank God that there are nice people in the world, who took the time to check my memory stick for ownership details, and sent me an email. I'm so relieved.

So I feel now like my emotions are all over the place. I need to go buy myself a nice caramel slice and another coffee, I think. But I won't. Because I am saving. Sigghhh...

M

Stacy has kindly given me the letter 'M' to make a list of ten things I like! I just love these sorts of tags.

1. Mount Cook/Aoraki. I've only been here twice, unfortunately, but it is probably my favourite place in New Zealand. It's our biggest mountain, in fact the biggest in the southern hemisphere, and has a whole national park named after it. It has this startling blue lake in front of it and when you stand on one side looking across to the mountain it looks exactly like one of those fairy tale scenes where you paddle across an enchanted lake to heaven - in my opinion. And then you drive around the lake to the mountains, and everything's just so big and still and noise just gets swallowed up, and the air is so fresh, and you actually feel like going on a very long walk!

2. Music. I know this is really very broad, but I think if there was one thing I would not be willing to lose, it would be music, almost all types of it, and my ability to play it. And that's all I have to say, because I just can't describe music.

3. Milly-Molly-Mandy. Did anyone else love these books whilst growing up? Because I adored them! The little adventures she had were so simple, but made such great stories, and the illustrations were perfect. I used to copy everything Milly-Molly-Mandy did. In one story, she grew her own cress, so I grew cress too. In another, she had baked potatos with stuffing, so I did too. In another, she let a little basket down from her second storey window, and people left gifts in it, so I did that too - many, many times. In another, she made one of those miniature gardens in a bowl, which became a favourite pastime of mine. And so on and so forth.

4. Masochism is Always Funny, Stacy's wonderful novel! Although I have not read the final version, I feel I can safely recommend it as a must-have and future classic of English literature. (Does this score me Brownie points, Stacy?)

5. Madeira, M'Dear. This is my favourite song by Flanders and Swann, two British comedians/songwriters from a few decades ago. It's about a dodgy old man who tries to get a girl drunk on Madeira so he can... you-know-what. It's the funniest and cleverest song ever, in my opinion. If you haven't heard it, you are missing out.

6. Murder mysteries. Whether they are by Agatha Christie, Arthur Conan Doyle, G. K. Chesterton, or anyone else for that matter. I can't seem to get enough of these. I love figuring out who the villain is and trying to anticipate the twist.

7. The 'momentany' quote in A Midsummer Night's Dream. I wrote an essay in my first year of uni on this passage, and I love this part of it (I, i, 140-149):
Hermia: O hell!-to choose love by another's eyes.
Lysander: Or if there were a sympathy in choice,
War, death or sickness did lay siege to it,
Making it momentany as a sound,
Swift as a shadow, short as any dream,
Brief as the lightning in the collied night,
That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth,
And, ere a man hath power to say 'Behold!',
The jaws of darkness do devour it up.
So quick bright things come to confusion.

8. Messiah. This has two parts to it. Obviously, I really quite like the Messiah, as in Jesus Christ. He died for me, which demands some attention. I also like Handel's Messiah, the oratorio. I go to hear it every year!

9. Malaysian food. My brother and family live in Penang, Malaysia, and my parents and I went to visit them when I was fifteen. Malaysians are very, very lucky, because they have very cheap, amazing food, and a selection of about three or four nationalities represented there to choose from. Malaysian: laksa... Indian: masala dosa... roti canai... mango lassi... tandoori chicken... Chinese: steamboat... The list goes on. And then there's the fruit there - mangoes, lychees, and so on. Deep-fried bananas. The dessert served on the beach of fruit covered in shaved ice and condensed milk. The only downside - if you go, you may be forced to try durian, which is about the most horrible culinary (and sensory) experience I have ever had.

10. Marshmallows. Especially melted between chocolate biscuits, or dipped into chocolate fondue. Right. I'm going to have to go buy some now.

why four wheel drives are an unintelligent choice of car

[Disclaimer: Obviously, this title does not apply to you if you are a reader of this blog but have a four wheel drive.]

Not long ago, I was driving to work when I stopped for a red light - as you do - and as most children know from about the age of six months. But perhaps the owner of the ugly brown four wheel drive behind me had not yet tumbled upon this basic fact of driving? He (and of course it was a he) drove into the back of me, giving me a huge bump, and scaring the &*%# out of me.

Rule number one with Allie (and, I might add, with the police): if you are going to crash into her car and scare the &*%# out of her, it is only polite to pull over and apologise, give her insurance/contact details, and generally be a decent human being.

But no. I pulled over when the lights turned green, and CZQ243 sped away, not even condescending to look in my direction. Bastard. It seemed then that he had only hit the towbar. Now it turns out there's a dent. But even if it had done nothing, does anyone else second me in adding this man to my mental list of jerks?

(By the way, if I could, I would have made his license number, and the word 'police' flash, like those annoying pop-ups that tell you that you are the millionth visitor to a site and have won a billion dollars. If anyone knows the HTML for that, please let me know.)

life is pretty good

I was going to write 'good', but then realised there are downsides, so here are the pros and cons:

Life is good
- because I had two essays due next Friday (as well as one on Tuesday) that were not going to write themselves, and they have both been extended a week! Without any bribes to lecturers.
- because I have successfully learnt to cynically manipulate the English essay (oh the cleverness of me). I handed in an essay on Henrik Ibsen that I didn't agree with at all and that I thought was banal, but wrote what I knew would get an okay mark, and I actually got a very good mark!
- because the history essay that I thought was going to take me days and days to write is actually speeding ahead at about two hours a paragraph! Of course, it's terrible, but that's what editing's for.
- because the weather is nice.

Life is pretty ho-hum
- because I still actually have to write and edit the history essay.
- because I still actually have to write the two English essays that are now due June 1.
- because one of my best friends is in Vegas and is going to Cirque du Soleil tonight, has just been to Seattle, the Grand Canyon and elsewhere, and is off to California soon. Yes, if I were a nice person that would be in the 'life is good' column, but I'm not a nice person. I'm selfish and jealous.
- because I'm selfish and jealous. (Because that deserves a whole bullet point.)
- because I just had a lecture in which the lecturer asked questions like, 'so why don't we all just shoot ourselves?' and 'what is there to live for?'

more meme

Three cheers for Sarakastic, who has created another DIY meme! This one has the added distinction of having, apparently, the most abrupt ending ever. It's also exciting because it's like a chain letter where a question gets added on every time. I don't know about everyone else, but I used to religiously post off chain letters to eight people every time I got one, and waited in vain for the replies/gifts they were meant to send back. Anyway! Here is Sara's meme, unedited and uncensored (I think things always sound more rebellious when you say that):

1. If you could travel back in time & kick anyone, who would it be & why?
President Woodrow Wilson. This may seem quite a random choice, but given my immersion over the last year or so in the history of the world wars, it's actually kind of relevant for me. If Wilson hadn't gone all hippy in 1918 with his Fourteen Points about how everyone should hold hands in peace and be compassionate and be fair to nationalities and not embittered, a whole lot of expectations would not have been raised (which, incidentally, he never meant or could have been able to fulfil), the Treaty of Versailles may not have been such a shock to Germany, and Hitler may not have come to power - although, of course, that's all speculation, hindsight is 20/20, etc etc. He also should have persuaded the US Senate to actually support the Treaty they had been a major part of making and weakening, as then it could actually have been workable. In my opinion. Can I kick them as well? [For more info on the basics see the Wikipedia page]

Of course, it may make more sense to travel back in time and kick Hitler. I just doubt that would make much difference to an egotistical evil sadistic maniac who would probably just have me shot/hung/tortured/gassed anyway. But it would have been immensely satisfying.

2. When people mistake your name for another name, what is it?
I'm Alison, usually Allie, in reality - but there's a woman at my church who persists in calling me Alice, even though I've told her a million times that it's not my name. One time I did get a popstar to sign my diary, and when he spelt my name, he wrote 'Illie'. Which is a bit weird.

3. If you could add any question to this Meme what would it be?
What would you never sue someone for? (Just because I can't think of anything poignant or amusing to ask, and I'm actually interested.)

In other news, my friend Sarah and I have finally met up with our old school friend Hayley whom I mentioned a few blog posts ago for coffee tonight. We were so nervous, but from the moment we met her again it was just like old times - except we're all five years older - and there was no awkwardness whatsoever. It was really, really nice. Hooray!

aaaand - a second book meme!

Because I am wearing blue jeans, I get to do this meme - hooray! - the second Stacy has included on her blog.

· Use blue font for everything you’ve read
· Use red font for everything you’ve started but never finished
· Use purple font for everything you’ve read but wish you hadn’t
· Use yellow font for everything you’d never read, even you and that book were the only things to survive the apocalypse
· Use white font for things you’ve never read
· Use green front for things you want to read
· Use orange font if you’ve read the author but not that particular work
And I'm going to add one of my own:
· Use pink font if you have never heard of the book before and consequently feel very stupid!

1. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (Rowling)
17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. 1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. Bible
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela's Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She's Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. Ender's Game (Orson Scott Card
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid's Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller's Wife (Audrey Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones' Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte's Web (E.B. White)
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. Wizard's First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down (Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)

It's most embarrassing to see the amount of pink.

stacy's very own meme

Stacy, ashamed of her score on another meme, has created her very own meme, and I'm allowed to do it too because I like flying kites!

Stacy’s Book Meme (to include plays, short stories, and poems as well as novels)

Directions:

Use blue font for everything you’ve read
Use red font for everything you’ve started but never finished
Use purple font for everything you’ve read but wish you hadn’t
Use yellow font for everything you’d never read, even you and that book were the only things to survive the apocalypse
Use black font for things you’ve never read (I'm using white because it shows up better on my blog)
Use green front for things you want to read
Use orange font if you’ve read the author but not that particular work

The Bible
Medea, Euripides
Oedipus Rex, Sophocles
Odyssey, Homer
The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer
The Inferno, Dante Alighieri
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, William Shakespeare
Tartuffe, Moliere
Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Samuel Taylor Coleridge
The Eve of St. Agnes, John Keats
Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne
Moby Dick, Herman Melville
Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
Little Women, Louise May Alcott
War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert
The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
The Awakening, Kate Chopin
The Turn of the Screw, Henry James
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
Ulysses, James Joyce
Anne of Green Gables, L.M. Montgomery
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway
The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck
Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner
The Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
Lord of the Flies, William Golding
The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger
Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Tennessee Williams
The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath
A Good Man is Hard to Find, Flannery O’Connor
Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston
Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? Joyce Carol Oates
Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
White Noise, Don DeLillo
The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison
The Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie
White Teeth, Zadie Smith
Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Michael Chabon
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, JK Rowling
Everything is Illuminated, Jonathan Safran Foer
Gilead, Marilynne Robinson

Optional:
Untitled Memoir, Trish Ryan
Masochism is Always Funny: a Novel, Stacy Brazalovich

irrational prejudices

Is it just me, or does anyone else form irrational prejudices for or against certain celebrities? I don't judge a large amount of actors/musicians on their superior/inferior skill, but by random, arbitrary criteria which makes me feel very cynical about the state of the world and the way in which clever marketing can make anything seem talented. All the same, my prejudices are not exactly shaped by marketing but my personal idiosyncracies.

1) Charlotte Church. My parents bought her CD ‘Voice of an Angel’ which was recorded when she was, say, ten-ish. If you haven’t heard of her, she’s the sort of child-prodigy who sings songs like Danny Boy and Pie Jesu and then grows up to become a trashy singer of bad pop songs. I don’t really have an opinion about the songs on ‘Voice of an Angel’, but I do know this: she always reminded me of Laura S*****, the nasty girl at my primary school who stole my best friend. Laura’s dad was a policeman, which she never ceased to milk – “If you don’t do X, my dad will put you in prison” – and she made up a mean racist song about a later best friend of mine, who was Chinese. Charlotte Church looks exactly like Laura, as I remember her, and therefore, cannot be trusted.

2) Tom Hanks. This is the only celebrity featured here for whom irrational reasons actually improved my opinion of him. Simple reason: he has always reminded me of my brother. Especially before my brother gave into the receding hairline and shaved it all off (which looks much better, I think). Russell's a bit thinner than Tom Hanks, and he has slightly different features, but everything else looks similar. He even has a similar voice, in my opinion. Therefore, I was shocked and slightly offended this week when one of my lecturers mentioned how much they hate Tom Hanks' acting style. It has just never occurred to me to seriously critique him, because he looks like Russell.


3) Bic Runga. She is a singer from New Zealand who is actually pretty good. I even have one of her CDs and I really can't justify having anything against her, especially as a fellow Kiwi. All the same, one thing weighs against Bic from the start (here it comes): she went to high school with two of my sisters, and she beat one of them in a singing competition. What was she thinking?! How dare she challenge one of my sisters? (Is that a really pathetic reason to be biased against someone?)

4) John Rhys-Davies, who played the dwarf Gimli in Lord of the Rings. Two things are stacked against Mr Rhys-Davies. Firstly, in an interview I saw on TV, he was asked how Kiwi girls compare to girls in other countries. He sort of grimaced and presumed to intimate that Kiwi girls aren't actually very pretty but hastened to add that men don't necessarily need supermodels to keep them warm at night. Note the fact that I did not include a picture of him, mainly because he himself is so unattractive that my webpage would lose pretty-points. In terms of the second issue, I should apologise for turning myself into the moral police here, but really I don't feel at all apologetic. Mr Rhys-Davies' wife has Alzheimer's Disease (at least, I think she has died now), and so she stays holed up in Wales while he travels the world with a young, blonde 'companion'. Admirable behaviour! I hope his new wife treats him the same when he succumbs to old age.

5) Brad Pitt. This is a really, really stupid reason, but he just isn't a good enough actor for me to make more of an effort to dispel it. I happened to hate his character in the movie Troy, which is one of the worst movies I've ever seen. It consisted basically of Brad Pitt doing Zoolander poses. I could have recovered from that, had I not heard a rumour soon after that he was going to play Mr Darcy in the Pride and Prejudice that came out last year. The vision of Brad Pitt trying to take on the subtleties of Mr Darcy, trying to outdo Colin Firth, soon after murdering the character of Achilles... let's just say it made me feel slightly nauseous, and although there was never any truth in that rumour, it has put me off him ever since. Which is very unfair on poor Brad Pitt. Although I don't feel that bad, because he is actually not at all poor and it's not like he needs more fans.

6) Orlando Bloom. I'm sure this is a little unfair because he could hardly help it - but the long blonde hair as Legolas has absolutely destroyed his image for me. I could never understand why people saw him as a posterboy for Lord of the Rings. The hair just did not work. And although that is doubtless a very silly reason, I would like to point out that it did work on other elves in the movie, so it is something to do with him in particular. It probably didn't help that the problem was compounded by really bad lines; ie, "A diversion!" (you remember?) or "the sky is red; blood has been spilt" or something else equally terrible. Unfair, perhaps - but inescapable.

Does anyone else have any irrational prejudices?

bureaucracy is oppressive

I would like to add some more rules to my imminent tyrannical dictatorship.

1) Anyone who has at any time devised policy for Studylink, that oppressor of the hard-working student-proletariat, is off to the gulag. As soon as I am in power, a task force will immediately investigate the farce that is my student allowance woes of the last week. Those who forgot to tell me that I needed to prove my income, those who gave me a day to make my boss write me a letter, those who then ignored the letter and didn't pay me my money - they're all off to the gulag, for obviously trying to subvert the course of the revolution.

2) Small children who don't pay attention to their tutors will spend an hour every day copying out the words, "I must treat my tutor as I would treat the supreme leader of this great and glorious nation."

Thank you.

a series of little things

Firstly, today I met someone I used to go to school with who made me immediately want to make a list of some of the weird people I've met. Hopefully not in a mean way. Simply people who did slightly odd things.

Of course, he will come first. He somehow managed to be one of the cool guys at school, because he was always doing things like lighting the sink in one of the science labs on fire, or running around trying to wave dissected rats in the faces of squeamish girls (or boys), or making fart noises with his armpits. The incident I will always remember, however, was when he came to school one day with a broken arm in a sling. When we asked him how he did it, it turned out he was sleeping on the driveway and his mum drove over his arm.

Seriously.

Why?!?!?

Another weird thing that happened a few months ago - my friend Sarah and I were sitting in the sun at uni when a young Japanese male came up to Sarah, ignoring me completely, and sat down, telling her he loved her and wanted to be her friend. Sarah is very small and blonde and blue-eyed, while I am darker and tend to clump around - so I could have been offended but actually it was more funny than friendship-destroying. He ripped a few daisies out of the ground, and gave them to her as if he'd bought a $50 bouquet of red roses, saying, simply, "For you! A token of my love." Then he proceeded to ask her why she couldn't go to a party with him that evening, or see him the next day, or the next, to tell her he wanted to find the love of his life, to ask how to meet Kiwi girls, etc etc etc. He wouldn't give up! It was very weird! Soon we found out that he was returning to Japan in three days, so I'm not exactly sure what he wanted out of the 'love of his life'. Maybe he'd heard Kiwi girls are easy or something, as long as you profess eternal love for them. Finally she repulsed him, and recommended he look for Kiwi girls in front of the library where a lot of people sit, and we watched him making his way over to the next poor victim who sat reading in the sun.

Secondly, has anyone seen the secret on PostSecret this week where someone admits that they are afraid Jesus will return before they get to read the last Harry Potter book? I thoroughly identify with that person. That's my kind of secret.

Thirdly, on JenKneeBee's prompting, I went and played MASH on this site. What fun! My friends went through a craze of making up really dire possibilities for this game in high school. No, we never really grew up. These are my results which I thought quite amusing:

You will live in a Shack.

You will drive a Red Toyota Starlet.

You will marry Voldemort and have 20 kids.

You will be a Street sweeper in Chechnya.

And lastly, I have a new sponsored child. His name is Okwenye and he is thirteen and from Uganda.

phew

Well, now I feel like I overreacted somewhat last night. It was one of those days where all these little/medium bad things happened, one after another, and it seemed like that was just going to be the crowning incident. Thank you to those who did pray, and I am still praying for him - but what has happened is that Isaac's family have moved out of the district for better job opportunities, without leaving contact address etc. So it is really a very good thing that they felt secure enough to do this, and I'm happy that the sponsorship helped them get to this point, although I'm quite sad I won't get to send and receive letters from Isaac anymore.

Isn't this a pretty little bird?

request

Just very quickly: I have a small sponsored child of six years of age, whose name is Isaac. He lives in northern Uganda, which has been going through a period of a lot of violence and unrest. I got home this evening to find a message from my dad that CCF have been trying to get in touch with me - something to do with him.

This could be because:

Best-case scenario - his family has had a change in fortune and he doesn't need sponsorship anymore.

Not-so-great scenario - he's sick and needs money for medicine.

Worst-case - he's dead.

Obviously, whatever it is, it's already happened, and I don't know if there can be such a thing as retroactive prayer - but I would really appreciate it if anyone willing could throw up a prayer sometime soon for Isaac. He's a really sweet little boy and I don't want anything to happen to him.

charlie chaplin, grades, and deadlines

I have been so lacking in anything to write about lately that I'm going to write a post about what is happening at university and in my unthrilling life. That really shows I'm desperate.

1) Today we watched the Charlie Chaplin movie 'The Great Dictator' in my drama class. We've been reading Brecht plays, which were also thinly veiled critiques of Nazism, although set in different eras and countries. This was such a cool movie. Half the time I was cracking up, the other feeling sombre. A weird combination really, but it worked. Has anyone else seen it? I love the plays too. Has anyone seen a Brecht play? I will be very jealous of you if so.

2) I felt a bit depressed today because I got an A- on my last history essay and my history teacher said he was disappointed because he had come to expect essays of the highest standard from me. :( Although that was almost a compliment, it made me feel annoyed with myself, especially as all his comments about how it could have been better really made sense!

But then my friend texted me; she handed in a close reading exercise for her English class, and got a C-, because, apparently, her grammar is 'unreadable'! I read it yesterday, and it was definitely not unreadable. Anyway, you don't fail people because they make a few grammar mistakes. It so happens that this particular lecturer gave out feedback sheets at the start of the year, my friend said she didn't like the structure of the lectures, and the lecturer got very offended, despite the fact that she asked for honest feedback. So it looks very much as if the lecturer has decided she has a bone to pick with my friend. I didn't think that happened except at ... I don't know, other universities, in other countries!

So I am feeling a lot more grateful that I have a lecturer who gives me fair grades.

3) I handed in two essays yesterday that I spent my whole mid-semester break working on. Now I've realised my next history essay is due in three weeks so I have to start straightaway, especially as now I have to ace it to make up for my slightly disappointing mark! It's two months until I finish... I will just have to put my nose to the grindstone and work, even though I just don't feel like it.

4) My friend Sarah and I had a really, really good friend at school who moved to another city when I was fifteen and I haven't seen her since then, since we basically dropped off each other's radar. Well, she has moved down to Christchurch again, and we are all going to meet up for coffee sometime in the next few weeks! Very exciting but also scary. She was always absolutely gorgeous and now she'll probably be all cool and model-like, compared to how we were at high school - wavering on the fringe of nerdy.

If you have read all this, I will be very impressed.

secret shames

If I were a celebrity, and I was on the cover of magazines with headlines like "Allie's Anguish" or "Allie's Secret Shame", I wonder what they would say about me? That my marriage to Colin Firth was doomed to failure? (Lies! All lies!) That "friends" said I was going to turn into a walking skeleton if I wasn't careful, because of all the media attention and stress? (I wish!) That I had a secret fetish for dwarves? (I actually have no idea where that sentence came from.) Well - Tabloid Editors - I'm going to make it easy for you. These are the things that I don't generally tell people about. I can find it in me to announce them on the internet because, to be brutally honest, I don't have to see any of my readers on a day-to-day basis!

I bought a book called Georgette Heyer's Regency World, by Jennifer Kloester, from Borders last week - for $60! (That's about... US$35-40, I'd guess?) And I'm supposed to be saving money! It is just so cool! It is about all the background to Georgette Heyer novels. It tells me that a conservatory was the perfect place for marriage proposals, what terms such as 'nabob' and 'dandy' mean and how they originated, what card games were popular, how snuff was made and where it was sold, about the hierarchies within the peerage and even within the domestic staff of a great house, what one did at Vauxhall Gardens, and so on and so forth. The author did her PhD on Georgette Heyer books! I'm telling the truth when I say that this book makes me salivate. It's the sort of book that one just cannot justify buying, and unless someone is a Georgette Heyer or Jane Austen fan, they just could not understand the thrill of reading it. I have told no one but one of my sisters. Until now.

Christina Aguilera was one of those singers that everyone else loved, when I was thirteen or fourteen, and that I swore I would always despise. I mean, for crying out loud, she thought the three most beautiful words in the English language were: "Come on over". Hmmm.
It is disturbing me no end now, however, that I am actually really enjoying the last few singles she's brought out: 'Candyman' and the other one whose name I forget. I am even thinking about buying the album. I have not told anyone until now. I just think that her latest music is so fun. I'm a bit sick of songs about cancer, or what goes through the minds of killers, or about women whose husbands are beating them. That sounds super-heartless, I know, but there is a point at which I just want to listen to funky, young music that's just happy! Such as Gwen Stefani or people like that. It's embarrassing, though.


I can't believe I'm even telling you this one. The Sims. So I don't play it as much as I used to, but if I ever do, it has the tendency to become compulsive. Computer games seem such a 12-year-old thing to do. I even lied when I bought it about four years ago, telling the cute shop assistant that it was for "a friend". I guess ever since childhood I have enjoyed creating little universes, whether they be with Playmobil, Littlest Petshop, Polly Pocket, or... The Sims. (I keep italicising it because it seems so embarrassing and dire. If I could, when you read the words you would hear menacing music.) I actually have no idea how to justify this one. Oh! the shame.


This one isn't quite so guilty, I guess, as I'm perfectly happy to tell people I'm a huge fan of Agatha Christie (who, in this photo, looks a lot like the Queen Mother - does anyone agree?). But I think most people would be a little surprised if they knew how many Christie mysteries I read. I also get hold of them, and then can't bear to put them down, so I often find myself finishing a good old satisfying Agatha Christie novel at about 3 o'clock in the morning. I read them to my ESL students for listening practice. I'm finding it extremely depressing to think that at some point in the near future I will have read every single Christie novel there is. I have a whole shelf in my bookcase of them... and I've been reading them for less than a year. Eek! I'm telling you, I would do a PhD on Agatha Christie if someone would fund it *endearing smile to any readers out there who may be slightly eccentric and rich* and if I could avoid telling other students who do PhDs on Real Literature.

So those are my guilty secrets. What are yours? (Come on, I told you mine...)

answers from the cosmos

I have decided to repeat today a meme which I did last year, tagged by Patty of Green Tea Obsession, simply because it was rather fun, in the manner of fortune cookies or those paper things you used to fold and write things on as a kid to tell your future, and I'm interested to see what results I'll get this time!

The Rules: Go to your music player of choice & put it on shuffle. The song which pops up when you press play is the answer to that question!

1. How does the world see me? Miss Sarajevo - U2

Is that a compliment... or not?

2. Will I have a happy life? If I Could - Jack Johnson

Hmm... another answer that doesn't sound so great.

3. What do my friends think of me? Sounding Brass - Flanders and Swann

:) I guess I need to stop bragging.

4. Do I have a secret admirer? Sunday Bloody Sunday - U2

This is one of the answers that I'm just not too sure if the cosmos heard me properly. Maybe it thought I said, 'do I have a secret shame' or something.

5. How can I make myself happy? Faithful - Brooke Fraser

That makes sense.

6. What should I do with my life? A Thing Called Love - Johnny Cash

Awww... that's nice.

7. Will I ever have children? Surely he hath borne our griefs - from Handel's Messiah

Hahaha! I laughed so hard at this.

8. What is some good advice for me? Stoppin' the Love - KT Tunstall

Hey! Hang on a minute! I thought the cosmos told me two answers ago that I had to spend my life starting the love!

9. What do I think my current theme song is? So Much 2 Say - Take 6

Hmm. I think the cosmos is getting a bit rusty. Actually I haven't had much to say at all over the last few days, evidenced by my lack of blogging except for tags that I've done before!

10. What does everyone else think my current theme song is? Better - Regina Spektor

Sure hope so.

11. What song will play at my funeral? Vertigo - U2

This seems to be decidedly inappropriate for a funeral... but who am I to question the wisdom of the cosmos?

12. How will I be remembered? Smile - Lily Allen

That's rather nice.

13. What type of men do I like? Kiss from a Rose - Seal

We-ell. I hope that doesn't mean I'm going to fall in love with a pretty, SNAGish boy.

14. What is my day going to be like? Entertaining Angels - Newsboys

Suits me just fine.

Well, there you have it. I tag anyone who wants to do it who has access to a music player that you can shuffle.

This was going to be a ranting post (I'm on holiday, technically, but I have to write two essays by the thirtieth that I am having huge trouble motivating myself for, so whenever I'm awake I'm either doing homework, or feeling bad because I'm not doing homework. And my conscience, or perhaps those angels I'm entertaining, is pressuring me to do something I really don't want to do but know I have to. And the zip on my favourite pair of jeans, which I paid $20 to have repaired three weeks ago, has broken again). But then I realised that I have absolutely no right to rant about anything at the moment, given all the good things in my life. (Just noticed that somehow I managed to do it anyway. Ignore it, please.) Things I am thankful for right now:

- not being shot by a crazed gunman

- the chance to study and get a degree, which probably puts me in about the most privileged 1% in the world

- close family and friends

- music

- the chance to travel

brooke fraser

Me and Sarah.Brooke Fraser playing. I apologise for the picture quality; my camera sucks when I'm not allowed to use a flash indoors.

Last night I took my friend Sarah out for dinner and to the Brooke Fraser concert as a twenty-first birthday present. You may remember Brooke Fraser from two blog posts ago, in which I gave her four stars for her latest album. I think, having seen her live, I could safely take it up to four and a half stars, just because: she is so cool!! One example of why - Brooke has a passion for punctuation. It's not often someone introduces a song saying, "I love punctuation. And I particularly love this song because I got to use punctuation in the title - 'Love comma where is your fire question mark'." She also has the most amazing voice; it was just as faultless and rich live as it is on the CD. The music and the lights and the stage set and everything were perfectly done. All in all it was a fantastic concert; we left it on such a high, and my friend told me it was the best birthday present ever, so that was nice!

Sadly enough, I had bought some cool new clothes to wear to it, but realised, when I put them on, that it is still not cold enough to wear merino wool. Isn't that sad? Not on a par with human poverty and natural disasters, obviously, but in a mildly disgruntling way. (Is disgruntling a word?)

And today... I have to start working on some essays. Groooaaaan.

health professionals and my family

I went to my sister's house for dinner last night and we had a conversation over the dinner table about our family's run-ins with medical professionals. Here's a few:

1) My sister's dentist told her that her teeth would "see her out". Perhaps he meant this as a compliment, as only dentists can, but to me it conjures up visions of the person doing the autopsy looking down gravely at the corpse, shaking his head, and saying, "Well, she was bludgeoned to death with a sledgehammer, but at least her teeth saw her out."

2) When the same sister gave birth to her second child, the attending doctor was a man who had gone through school with her, from ages five to eighteen. Nightmare Scenario #1 - how very awkward. At least, though, as a friend said, he wasn't an ex-boyfriend.

3) My father was operated on for a hernia by a surgeon he had taught at school, in chemistry. This is more nice than weird, in a karma-type way, as the same doctor told my mother that Dad taught him everything he had ever learnt about science.

Looking back and reading this over, I've discovered this is a very random post. But I'll push the "publish" button anyway, for lack of a better one. Has anyone else had strange/nice encounters with medical professionals?

my stereo is playing...

Up until a few months ago, I hadn't bought any CDs for ages. Instead, I had been eyeing them in shop windows longingly and covetously. I decided that I was not going to buy any until I was absolutely sure they would be good'uns, and really did not have the money to buy them even if that was the case. However... *feels guilty* Over the last few months I have bought several CDs! And I have decided to review them on here just in case anyone else was looking at them longingly too.

Gnarls Barkley's St Elsewhere - no, it's not very recent, but it was one of those albums I looked at for a long time, wondering if I should get it. The first single 'Crazy' was great, but I wasn't too sure about buying an album on the basis of that single. Finally when 'Gone Daddy Gone' came out I decided it was worth it. I was wrong. I still love those singles but every other song on the album seems like a cop-out in comparison. The only one that was musically interesting to me ('The Boogie Monster') just grossed me out - the first line being "I've got a monster in my trousers". Hmmm. That's right. Two stars from me. The singles are great but as a whole, the album doesn't satisfy and just makes me feel like they tricked me to get my money.

Lily Allen's Alright, Still. Not recent either. This is a really fun album with funny and clever lyrics, and pretty cool music. Some of it isn't that memorable but on the whole the album is very good and she has particularly good melodies. 'Alfie' is probably the best single released; it sounds like Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory paired with juvenile delinquents. Very funny. It was also the single that made me decide to get the album. Another song on the album, 'Littlest Things', wasn't released, but is one of her best, in my opinion. It's a sweet and original take on the nostalgic breaking-up song. I was disappointed, though, that one of her singles wasn't on the album. It was about her granny, and it was hilarious. I'm not sure why it wasn't there - perhaps she didn't want to offend her granny or something?! It seems a bit odd and misleading to release it as a single, though, and then not include it on the album. Overall, Lily Allen has got a great accent and a nice doesn't-take-herself-too-seriously attitude - so she gets three and a half stars.

Brooke Fraser's Albertine is a more recent buy. She is a New Zealander who has done pretty well here and in Australia, but I'm not too sure what her prospects are in the States at the moment. She's a Christian singer and makes it pretty obvious, but at the same time its more implicit than overt, so she's done very well on the mainstream charts here and is fondly referred to as Brookie most of the time. It's the sort of album that could be characterised as easy listening, which doesn't often go down too well with me, but I really love this one. She's also got a beautiful voice. Whenever I have gotten overly stressed in the last few weeks, I've listened to the second single 'Shadowfeet' before I go to bed, and it has helped my sleeping no end. 'Albertine' stands out in the album; it was written about an orphan she met in Rwanda whose mother died for her during the genocide. As well as being about an amazing subject, it's also great music. 'C. S. Lewis Song' is another great one. I was sure to like it as it's dedicated to someone who I admire so much but again, I don't think I'm being too biased in saying it's a fantastic song. Overall, it's a great album, and I'm very satisfied with my purchase, but at the same time some of the lyrics tend to be a little laboured and there isn't a huge amount of variation in style. Four stars from me. I'm shouting my friend tickets for her 21st birthday to Brooke's concert in Christchurch on April 15, and I can't wait.
Regina Spektor's Begin to Hope. I bought this today! I had only heard the first single, 'Fidelity', which is just wicked, but I had intended to wait until I heard more. However, I listened to some in the CD shop, and made a spur of the moment decision to get it. I am so happy I did. I have only listened to it once through, but every song is unbelievably good. I can't believe how varied this album is. It's like she's influenced by jazz, rock, the blues, Russian piano music by composers like Rachmaninov (of whom I strongly approve) and more and more. Some songs she's like this sweet innocent little girl, and others, completely different. She doesn't just sing them, either - she interprets them. Every one of the songs stood out to me, but if I had to choose some of the best, I would point to 'Fidelity' (obviously - until they play it too many times on the radio), 'Samson', 'Apres Moi', 'That Time' and '20 Years of Snow'. This is the best album I've bought in years. I think anyone would enjoy it. Five stars.

More albums I'm lusting after at the moment: The Killers' Sam's Town and Silverchair's new release, Young Modern. If anyone has got either of these, or any other albums they just feel they have to recommend to the whole world, please let me know!

Quick change of topic: my dad has just planted a brand of spinach called 'Perpetual' in our garden. Does anyone else think Perpetual Spinach is a very funny name, and sounds like a horrible land in an Enid Blyton or Roald Dahl book? The Land of Perpetual Spinach, where all naughty children go.

rugby is overrated

I picked up yesterday's newspaper this morning and spent about three minutes groaning in agony at the latest act of stupidity of sportsmen. So - the Rugby World Cup is going to be hosted by New Zealand in 2011. Rugby is apparently our national game - I have to admit it is a lot more interesting to watch than cricket, at the very least, and has lots of buff specimens of men running round in hot black uniforms - but the obsessive lengths some go to regarding rugby makes me want to tear my hair out. Who really cares that much?! Not me, at least.

So when the Press's front page article talked about the new rugby laws created for the World Cup, I just wanted to give the politicians a kick up the backside. New Zealand now has an official Rugby World Cup Minister in Cabinet. Oh yeah, we're a real serious country of high importance in the global community. There are now laws banning streaking and pitch invasion. If you streak at a World Cup match, you could go to prison for three months or pay up to $5000. What is the world coming to?! It's not like rugby is that interesting all on its own! The government is also considering changing our Daylight Saving changeover dates, which usually coincide with the World Cup, because poor little foreigners might get confused.

Ugh. 2011 is not looking at all promising.

[By the way, this is a picture of my father by the Bealey River.]

keas and rain

A few weeks ago Dad put a notice in our church newsletter that he wanted to do a daytrip to Arthur's Pass (about two and a half hours away, in the mountains) on Easter Saturday and anyone who wanted to come too was very welcome. Obviously, today was the day, and Dad and I went, along with about twelve other people from our church. It was rainy and cold in the mountains, but it was worse in Christchurch, so we decided to go anyway - and it was worth it! I love Arthur's Pass. I have spent so many weekends and holidays there - I've probably been about once a year at least, all my life, but it never gets boring.

One of the cool things we did was drive up to the view over the ominously-named Death's Corner where the road winds down Otira Gorge to the West Coast. There were about four keas there when we got there. Keas are the coolest birds. They are mountain parrots, the biggest in the world, and super-cheeky. You don't want to leave your car unattended for too long when keas are around or they will pull all the insulating rubber out of the windows, etc etc, with their wicked beaks. They are totally unfazed by humans, and as you can see, have the most beautiful underwings. At one point we were absolutely splitting our sides as a kea landed on a car that was pulling out of the carpark, about to drive down the Viaduct, and soared off on top of it. When the driver realised what was going on thirty seconds later, the car screeched to a halt, and they jumped out, trying to scare it away, but it just sat there looking completely bored. Yeah, you had to be there, I suppose. But it was hilarious.

my numerous and complex needs

Stacy has tagged me with this great meme - all you have to do is type your name + 'needs' into google, and suddenly all your priorities become clear! Fun fun fun.

- Allie needs to walk through a greenhouse full of fragrant flowers.

Naturally.

- Allie needs a lot of personal attention to make her feel more secure, so that she won't feel she has to bully the other cats to establish her place in the household.

That's right. Purrrrrrr.

- What a surprise when the frog shows up again, just when Allie needs it.

I will keep that in mind in the future.

- Allie needs to be slapped so bad, and I'm just the gal to do it.

Uh-oh... I must think fast - who have I offended?

- Wackie-Allie needs to check herself into a mental institution she sounds like she would stalk a man to make a baby.

You know it.

- allie needs to feel the vibrations.

.... I'm not quite sure what to make of this.

- Playing with ghosts can be dangerous, so Allie needs all her detective skills.

That's right! I'm a real detective, in the manner of Father Brown, Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple!

- Allie needs help getting her pants off.

No comment.

It was surprising to find ones that were actually true:

- allie NEEDS that caffene!!!

- allie needs a haircut

Complementary needs:

- allie needs a boyfriend

- allie needs to be wit ME. ... allie can be with me if she wants to.

I daresay, but it would be helpful to know who you are!

Last but not least and probably the most apt:

- Lord knows Allie needs her Jesus. On that note, happy Easter, everyone. [I love being a day ahead of all of you!]

I tag JenKneeBee and Layling :)

exclusive exclusive

LEstes65 (of Tourette's Mom) has been so kind as to write me a fantastic selection of interview questions (if you want to see her own interview, look here)! So here goes:

1. Here's a two parter: Which character in 'A Room With A View' represents you most and which one represents the way you wish you were?
Wow. That is a fantastic question. The second part is the more obvious to me - Lucy Honeychurch, of course. She's just cool and gorgeous and she plays the piano incredibly well. I want to be the sort of piano player that provokes comments like the Reverend Mr Eager's, that he wished I lived as I played! It wouldn't hurt to live in a beautiful sprawling house in the English countryside, either, or to have a fun brother and an enchanted lake.
As for the first part, I have the cast list from 'A Room With A View' in front of me. I've been scanning it in hopes of finding someone more like myself, but I very much fear that the closest I can come to finding such a character is - Charlotte Bartlett. *throws head into pillow and cries*

2. If this were a perfect world and you had limitless money, resources and time - what kind of music would you make and with what instrument? Another difficult question! I think I would start off on the piano. I would practice Eastern European music and then I would learn the violin. Yes, I know I was slightly cruel to the violin three blog posts ago but I have to admit it's a pretty good instrument. Then I would go somewhere like Hungary and get involved in some dimly-lit music scene that involves fast music, beer, and great chords. Then I would go to Ireland and learn how to fiddle the Irish way, and drink Guinness. I would return to New Zealand and teach children to play folk music. (I don't actually like beer but from all accounts European beer is something different, and anyway, I can't imagine playing folk music without drinking beer!) Edit: I would also go to the Hague and learn how to play the recorder as beautifully as it can be done. I would learn how to do real piano jazz.

3. Jane Austen is writing a book with you as her heroine. Which member of U2 does she fix you up with and why? Best question EVER!! Well, to start with, I would have a huge crush on the Edge. I would stand in absurd awe of his musical talent, and he wouldn't notice me at all. Meanwhile, Adam Clayton would stand on the sidelines, slowly but steadily falling in love with me, and suffering great pangs of heartache that I loved one so unworthy as the Edge. Then I would fall over a cliff, and the Edge wouldn't notice because he was too busy working out the chords for a new riff, but Adam would plunge over to save me, awaking my passion for him, and all would live happily ever after. (This heartwarming story doesn't mention Bono, because he would be in Africa, nor Larry, because he's too pretty and sullen.)

4. If humans were spotted, stripped, blotched, etc., like cats and dogs can be - what would your pattern be? Definitely stripped. That's much more stylish. I don't want to be a blotchy human. Stripes, however, are slimming. :)

5. What is your guilty pleasure? And I mean real guilty - don't wimp out here. I'm sorry to say that I don't actually have a majorly guilty pleasure, ie, I smoke cocaine and take steroids before athletics competitions and have my own sweatshop. But I have lots of naughty little pleasures that make me feel, overall, quite guilty most of the time, such as:
- I like to complain. And get attention. As you've probably all noticed (see two blog posts ago).
- I like chocolate a little too much. And lollies. And cake. And anything else with sugar or fat in it.
- I love spending money. A day will feel slightly weird if I haven't spent anything. I think my whole childhood was spent dreaming about the glorious future in which I would have more than twenty cents a week to spend, and now I'm compensating for those dreams.
- I fantasise about things that will happen to me in the future. It is especially enjoyable to think of my own death and how sorry everyone will be, or to imagine getting incurable diseases. I also like to think up witty rejoinders to statements that no one has ever said to me, nor will ever say to me.
- I like to wallow. In misery, tiredness, etc. It's a bit boring to be perfectly happy and relaxed.
- I'm very, very irritable when at my most honest. My dad will attest to this.
- People think I'm very calm, but I'm actually a seething mass of resentment.

So there you have it. My first interview. Thanks, LEstes65!

U2 Top 20 - April 2007

You probably will not remember, or have seen this, but last April, I made a list on here of my top twenty U2 songs at the time [see here]. It's time to do it again! I'm interested to see how it has changed.

1) Running to Standstill - I've always loved this but it hops up to first position after seeing it on the Sydney ZooTV DVD... it was... wow!
2) Kite
3) Original of the Species
4) Desire
5) Love is Blindness - this choice is also affected by the ZooTV DVD.
6) Bad
7) Discotheque
8) One - number one last year is now number eight... I think I've listened to it too often! But I still love it!
9) All I Want is You
10) Walk On
11) The Saints are Coming (with Green Day) - this was the best rock song released last year, in my opinion!
12) One Tree Hill
13) Yahweh
14) In A Little While
15) Window in the Skies
16) Grace
17) Miss Sarajevo - I saw this live, and Bono sang the Pavarotti part - surprisingly well!
18) Angel of Harlem - I never used to like this, but it was one of the coolest songs at the concert I went to. Completely transformed my opinion of it.
19) All Because of You
20) Numb

I had to chop fourteen songs off my list to narrow it down to twenty, so I will give special mention to seven of them: Gone. The Hands that Built America. Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me. Where the Streets Have No Name. Exit. Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own. Pride (In the Name of Love).

Top 10 Live Songs:
1) The Saints Are Coming - from my own experience at the Auckland concert in November 2006.
2) Where the Streets Have No Name - from experience and from every DVD I've ever watched.
3) Love is Blindness - ZooTV DVD
4) Running to Standstill - ZooTV DVD
5) One - Slane Castle DVD, own experience
6) All I Want is You - Slane Castle DVD
7) The Fly - own experience, Boston DVD
8) Angel of Harlem - own experience
9) Kite - own experience, Boston DVD
10) Wake Up Dead Man - Slane Castle DVD

Phew, I wouldn't recommend doing this. It's like chopping limbs off your baby, or words off your essay (which, by the way, I have succeeded in doing - 900 words are gone without leaving anything crucial out! Hooray!).