My life is freaking AWESOME.

Seriously. It is. It's fantastic. Basically I study for a living. I get paid to learn amazing and fascinating shit. Right now? I'm about to write an essay on the ideology of Capt. Mal Reynolds from Firefly. Seriously. This is what I do. How is a life like that not awesome?

In addition, I've had a brilliant week. Last Saturday/Sunday I went to SANcon* dressed as the Doctor (bowties are cool!) and made chainmail and a steampunk necklace and played random boardgames, and also won the quiz! And I beat Phil! I have no idea really who Phil is, but apparently it's extremely impressive that anyone beat him and he's usually not even allowed to play because he always wins. And my prize? A bloody enormous sombrero. Sombreros are cool! Also a guy in the mall looked at me weirdly for a while and then comes over and asks, "Matt Smith?"
He is my favourite person.

Monday/Tuesday sucked a bit because, exhaustion. My notes for History class about the Bolshevik social policies just prior to their taking over the Russian government? "Oppose ALL the things!"
Yep. Helpful. Good job, me! It's pretty funny though, gave me a wee giggle. Oh and then on the way home we went past the little Asian shop on Riccarton Road (Kosco, I think it's called) and we were talking about how the street used to look and how weird it was that all those empty gaps were buildings only a year ago and suddenly I remembered that Kosco used to be named Wang Mart back then. Wang Mart! I am not lying. Wang Mart. And then I laughed the entire way home, which is actually pretty impressive because it's like a fifteen minute walk on a good day when your breathing is being put to use in helping you walk instead of all being wasted on hysterical laughter. But, Wang Mart!

Skipped class Wednesday and slept most of the day which was fantastic! It was soo good for me, I really needed it. I did spend a lot of time studying but I felt a bit guilty anyway. But then I got punished because I'd forgotten that we were taking a class trip to the Rare books room at the library and I was totally going to be able to hold and read an original print King James Bible. Like, printed and bound in 1611. The real deal. Shakespeare was alive when this book was made. Holy shit. Do want. There's another chance coming up on Wednesday but if I take it I'll have to bunk another class. So. I don't know. I think I'll bunk class again and just feel guilty because, old books.

Thursday was a little bit poopy because I had a Latin test and it was Not Good. I didn't even finish answering things this time, which has never happened before. I often get answers wrong, but I've never just not answered so... yeah. I guess I'll just have to wait and see.

But then! We get to the good stuff! The really really good stuff! I went on an English-Philosophy Discussion Retreat! With all these amazing awesome smart people! And we sat around this huge fireplace in this beautiful lodge in the mountains and talked about philosophy and literature and religion and politics and culture (Half the people were American, and there were a few Brits as well) and oh gosh, everything! Turns out that the majority of them really like Doctor Who and we had an amazing series of conversations on that rather wonderful topic. And my Shakespeare lecturer was there and when I arrived at the gathering point before she says "Now, obviously you're in my class, but I'm sorry, I've forgotten your name." Haha. Awesome. I'm rather impressed she even knew I was in her class, because it is a pretty big and rather crowded classroom. It turns out she's very lovely and, also? She just went to an important conference in Cambridge to present a research paper on... *drumroll* Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels. No shit. Fucking awesome. I mean, I knew she was awesome anyways because I'm in her class and she's freaking hilarious and a very good lecturer, but Discworld! And like, her normal area of expertise is Shakespeare and Early Modern literature. And now Pratchett.

Ahh there's too many stories to tell but seriously everyone was amazing and the whole weekend was amazing and asdfghjk! The only sad part of the whole thing is that the man who organises these retreats (who is lovely and also hilarious. His emails are amazing, they're like a million miles long.) is retiring this year, so probably this experience won't come around again. Also this was the first and possibly last time the English department was invited. But still. asdfg. most amazing time.

AND THEN! There's more! I bunked school (AGAIN! I know, I'm terrible. Still, this brings the total up to like, four times in the whole year, so that's not a bad record) and went to Boulevard Day in Ashvegas. THE coolest costume jewelery stall. It looked like a hundred little old ladies' jewelery boxes had exploded at once, it was beautiful. I bought a sweet little brooch and omg, my flatmate's sister got this amazing little cross stitch brooch. Beautiful. I really wanted to buy it myself, but Larry really loves cross stitch a LOT, so it's right that she got it. It's perfect for her. AND THEN! The Bookarama! I fucking love Bookaramas! So many beautiful books. Including two that I don't even know what are but they had stunning covers. Also a gift for my sister- a Spanish picture book called "The Book of Virtues for Children" (except in Spanish). Hahahahahaha. It's the best present EVER.

Yeah. I really need to get a bigger room/ more bookcases/ room to put up the bookcase I already bought. Because, books.

*Super Awesome Nerdy Convention

It's in the details

All the funny quirky little things that happen in your day that really aren't big, but conspire together to make your life awesome.

Like yesterday, when some random guy informed me that I fail at being interested in books. This is not something that anyone has ever said before. Ever. Books are what I do. I have four bookshelves in my room and I still have books piled up on every surface because I do not have enough shelves (you never ever have too many books, only not enough places to put them). This is only about half my collection, I have a bunch more in Australia somewhere that I unfortunately cannot get over here. I tried valiantly while I was over there last holidays, biking way out of town and digging through storage sheds, but alas, I have no idea where they are. In Brisbane somewhere probably. Anyway, I was knocked rather speechless and stared at this guy in amusement and bemusement and all the rest of the alphabet of musements. Really was not sure what to say. To be fair to the guy, he spotted my open textbook and, taking advantage of my stunned silence, leaned over to get a peek. His whole face changed and he was like, "Oooh... actually, I take that back. Never mind." Yeah. Take that, dude! The reason I haven't finished that epically long fantasy book* is not that I am not interested, but I'm too busy busting my ass trying to remember what the heck a passive periphrastic does and whether it has six arms and ten ears or the other way round**.

Or today in Shakespeare, where my lecturer very seriously informed us that our "essays and shit" would be available online tomorrow. Then he showed us a trailer for an upcoming movie*** and then proceeded to tell us that "It's such shit! Complete bullshit. Do not ask [other lecturer] about this movie by the way. She refuses to speak about it, she won't mention it, it just makes her so angry."

Or even the other day in Latin class when we had the word 'patronus' in a translation. We, of course, were all excited and whispering and Harry Potter references everywhere. My teacher got so confused as to why we were so excited by what basically amounted to a lawyer**** and when Classmate told Teacher that it was a Harry Potter reference she said, "What is Harry Potter? Why is there patronus in Harry Potter? What does patronus mean in Harry Potter?" We all looked at her about funny because really, who doesn't know Harry Potter? I know she is a bit older than the intended audience, but she's got kids. And her colleague aka our other Latin Teacher quotes Potter all the time. But anyway, she was completely confused. And then for the rest of the day whenever someone in the class laughed at something (a very common occurrence and one that confuses Teacher no end because, although she is an incredibly awesome and funny teacher, most of her humour is accidental and she's never quite sure what's so funny) she would say, "Why are you laughing? Is this Harry Potter too?" Shortly followed by "Why are you looking at me like that? Don't look at me! I don't know Harry Potter, ok?"

Heh. Probably all 'you had to be there' moments, but nonetheless they made my day(s) better and more awesomer. So here's to the little things!


*Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. Actually a very good book, if you're into epic fantasy.

**It's the other way round. Also, it's formed by combining a future passive participle with a form of the verb 'to be'. I'm still unsure why or what it does.
***Anonymous. It's a movie about how Shakespeare didn't actually write Shakespeare and it was all some conspiracy involving Queen Elizabeth I's illegitimate child. From a historical viewpoint, completely ridiculous and laughable. From a linguistic viewpoint, Occam's Razor dude, look it up.
****A patronus in the original Latin sense is a kind of protector-patron, someone who argues your case in court and defends you, basically.

I've been reading fundie blogs all day.

I don't know why I do this to myself.

Oh wait.

Yes I do.

It's fucking hilarious, that's why.

I just came across this gem from a website selling modest swimsuits:

The bodice is lined, so there is a double layer of fabric covering the entire bodice. This offers the coverage of a shelf bra. A bra can also be worn underneath for added support, but isn't necessary. We have found bikini tops work great as swim bras! You can pick them up for $5 at places like Walmart

We have found bikini tops work great as swim bras!

We have found bikini tops work great as swim bras!

Well, no shit, Sherlock! What the hell did you think they were?

The swimsuits look like this, if you care:

I would just like to say here that I'm not intending to be a complete tool about this. If people want to cover up then you know, fine, whatever. Wear what makes you comfortable. I am myself reasonably unhappy in very short skirts and bikinis and things because of my upbringing and probably cover up a lot more than I really believe is necessary. I do mock Fundie blogs, but that's really mostly a defence mechanism. It's a case of laugh so I don't cry. Maybe if I'm in the mood some day I'll post a more serious and thought out explanation for all this stuff and where I sit and why. At this point I'm not so sure it matters because I'm pretty sure only like one person knows about this blog and I'm pretty sure we were drinking at the time (see Inaugral Post) and she's forgotten. So you know, whatevers.

Her Share of the Blessings in Your Pants

So yeah. I was at work yesterday, unpacking boxes of books. It's hard work because (a) books are heaver and (b) the people who put them in boxes are, according to my boss "Not even aware that Congress has a library, never mind that there is a Library of Congress sorting system". So pretty much, there are thousands of boxes of books which must be emptied and all contents put on the correct shelves in the correct order, and mostly you have to just guess, which means you have to move each individual book four or five times before it ends up actually in the right place. For the whole library. It's an eleven story library. And? This is the third time in the last year we've had to do this job. Fuck earthquakes, they ruin everything.

Aaaanyway, at work, doing dull repetitive job, bored. Suddenly remember the Your Pants game*, and shazam! Life is beautiful and fucking hilarious. I'd forgotten about it because I ran out of books at home but now I have a whole library to work with.

And then my supervisor was all bored and he's like, "I love the really old outdated sociology books with all the really inappropriate titles" and I was like, "...Have you heard of the Your Pants game?".

And he hadn't, so I taught it to him and he was like, "I am going to be doing this all day now. I hope you know that."

And I was like, You're welcome. Because I just made your whole job so much better." I am an awesome influence.

*For the uninitiated- the Your Pants game is when you take the title of practically any book ever and tack the words "in your pants" to the end of it. Seriously, try it. Go look at your bookcase and you'll see what I mean.

Highlights of the day include:
The Vital Illusion in Your Pants
The Problem of Reality in Your Pants
Interesting Journeys in Your Pants
Her Share of the Blessings in Your Pants
The Destiny of the Warrior in Your Pants
and The Justice of Zeus in Your Pants

Yay! My essay is finally finished and submitted and it's only three days late! I am AWESOME at this student thing. Now I only have a shit-ton of Latin exercises to do and I can actually enjoy my holidays! To be fair there would have only been the normal amount of Latin except my entire class collectively did not do our homework last week because, snow. Snow doesn't actually stop us from doing homework, but it provides a range of things that are mush more interesting than homework so... yeah.

Conversation went like this:

[Teacher] Let's do the homework.
[class] *looks guilty and very studiously buries heads in books, avoiding eye contact*
[Teacher] Did you guys do the homework? Did I even assign any?
[class] *looking hopeful* No! You didn't!
[Teacher] I'm sure I did... and anyway you shouldn't need me to tell you. It's like brushing your teeth. You brush your teeth, you translate your Latin, you go to bed. I must have assigned you something.
[Classmate] Uhm. You assigned us to make snowmen.

This is not a class of Year Twos, you guys. This is university and we're still trying to pull this shit.

Yeah. Probably funnier if you were there and could see her expression. Also Teacher is confused a lot and there's pretty much a rule in the class that you can get away with anything as long as it makes her laugh. But still, you'd think we were five.

Inaugrual Ramble

Oooh, look at me using big words.

Basically, I don't know. I'm a little bit drunk (only my second drink! I am a kind of a lightweight though), and also I am SUPPOSED to be writing an essay on a Shakespearean sonnet, but I do not want to. I have a theory that drunk blogging will make me really funny, but it probably won't. Oh well, I tried, you guys!

Uhm, let's see. Shakespeare is actually pretty funny, I bet you didn't know that. Also. Dirty. Really, really dirty. There is a ridiculous amount of sex in Shakespeare, especially in his sonnets. They pretty much all go something along the lines of, "You're super pretty and I love you heaps, COME HAVE SEX WITH ME! Please?" Except like, the first half? Which are directed to a guy (SCANDAL! there are multiple scholars whose whole life's work revolves around trying to figure out who this guy was and whether he was real and also whether Shakespeare was gay. Because you know, these things matter. Apparently.), and all go along the lines of, "You're super gorgeous and you're a selfish jerk because you just masturbate heaps and aren't making babies, and now when you die the world is going to suck! Go make babies, you selfish bastard! And that way even when you die, there's totally still be a little bit of your prettyness in the world. Because you are THAT FUCKING GORGEOUS."

I am not making this up.

In other news. Cyber drinking with my sister. My life is awesome. I bet you wish you were me right now.


Update: Still haven't finished my essay or even really started it but you know, whatever. It's 2:30 am and I just got off the phone with my parents in Australia. I didn't really mean to drunk talk to them but one of my sisters just kinda handed them the phone and was like, 'Here, talk to Dad' and I was like, 'Oh shit', except I didn't say that out loud because you know, he totally would have heard me. And I actually did want to talk to my dad, but maybe a bit more sober. Soberly. While I was sober. I think I pulled it off. I just talked really fast a lot, but I don't think I sounded drunk. Just hyperactive. Which I told Mum was probably because I ate smores for dinner, which is half true. I told both of my parents all about Shakespeare sex and how hilarious it was, but they didn't really seem to appreciate it. Mum was all like, "...?" and Dad was like, "Yes, he was very crude. Uh-huh." and the 'Uh-huh' was in that very disapproving tone that parents have when they are super unimpressed with you but don't want to start an actual fight over something as silly as whether Shakespeare sex is funny or not.


Oh yeah, my parents are very conservative, by the way. Like, I'm allowed to drink but not allowed to be drunk (which is unfortunate because did I mention lightweight? One drink makes me tipsy, two and I write posts like this.) and I'm not allowed to swear (I accidentally said shit on the phone to them quite a bit. It's funny how you can hear silent disapproval.), and I'm CERTAINLY NOT allowed to read Harry Potter (entirely irrelevant to this post but is a good thing to argue about). Fortunately, I don't live with them and therefore don't have to follow the rules. As long as they don't find this blog.Yeah. Now it's 2:30 and I have a headache and still have most of an essay to write and it was due like two days ago.

Fuck.