Everything and nothing at all.

In the absence of human touch

The creepiest thing happened to me last night/today – since I’m currently home by myself with the cat for a couple more weeks, I have to clean the kitty litter. He’d usually do more of his business outside, but he’s recently had a UTI, so it’s not been pretty. The cat’s litter box is located in our bathroom, to the right of the toilet, whilst the scooping thing hangs on a hook on the wall to the left of the toilet. What happened was, last night I discovered the poop-scoop in the litter box, which I was surprised about because I never leave it lying in there – I always, always put it back on the hook on the wall. Thus I distinctly recall replacing it in its right place. But then this afternoon I found the poop-scoop back in the litter box, upside down and with cat’s pee on it. I’m not sure if our cat has evolved from opening doors to moving the poop-scoop into the litter box to draw my attention to the fact that it desperately needs emptying… or if I just have terrible memory. I’m not embarrassed to say that I made sure my friends weren’t just playing a prank on me.

And wow, I just realised that I have a huge habit of using songs/lyrics as blog post titles.

Treat me like your mother

(This didn’t post yesterday, not sure why)
I don’t know how to let you go… Or even if I should keep you.

Driving home in the dark at 6am this morning felt bizarre. The streets were mostly empty, with the odd couple in their fluro-reflective clothing going out for an early morning stroll and a few cyclists getting in my way. I love the night. It feels so liberating, like I could do anything I wanted – and often I do. With !!! and then The Kills blasting through my factory speakers in my car, the few kilometres home felt much, much further. If only my hobbies weren’t so expensive, I’d invest in better car speakers – you know, so the bass doesn’t distort? That kills me; being a bass player and all, I can’t even turn it up loud in my car. It was so easy to double the speed limit, especially on the downhill slide home. Luckily it was a Wednesday morning? Though these days the last thing I need is another speeding ticket.

I’m super annoyed that my laptop/usb ports are messed up. Not only do I have to resort to using mum’s computer at the moment, but I also can’t sync my ipod. Which is such a pain because I finally got Horehoud by The Dead Weather. And it’s HOT. Signature Jack White guitar sound, with Alison Mosshart’s snappy attitude in her voice and words… QOTSA’s guitarist pretty much takes a backstage, but his riffy-style does shine through at times. I can’t stop listening to it.

Play dumb, play dead play straight! Time to manipulate.

A million to go

I can’t believe July has already rolled around. This means that my 7th form (year 13), and final year at college is over halfway over. My audition video for Jazz School at University is due October 1st and I’m starting to freak out – extra practise required is a huge euphemism. I made a potentially life-changing purchase today, but I won’t delve into it until a later date – I kind of want to keep it to myself until things start swaying my way. It’s astonishing and rather frustrating how, despite completing one task, there always is a million or more left to go. I miss the youthful days when homework was a worksheet due in a weeks’ time, and 20 minutes’ music practice a day was more than sufficient.

Despite my laptop half dying on me plus refusing to connect to wireless nor internet via ethernet cable, I’ve been sitting online on Mum’s computer a fair bit (such as now) and researching into future plans and destinations for perhaps 3 years’ time when my Bmus degree is completed. Which brings me to this: tertiary education is so ridiculously overpriced – especially in America?! I can’t begin to imagine how a student without scholarships/financial aid would cope in the USA; how does one pay for a degree that will cost $15,000 a term?! Here, student loans are bad enough, despite being interest free; ommitting student allowances (also goes on the loan), based purely on a rough estimate of if I took out a loan for the duration my bachelor’s degree and stayed living at home, my student loan would stack up to $15-20,000 (approx $5k/year for the degree). The “real world” looks like a scary prospect for a future 21-yaer-old me, with a music degree and debt due to the cost of my tertiary education. Then, if I were to complement my degree with an audio engineering diploma or degree… don’t even get me started on number crunching. I simply don’t understand how students in the US cope since, SAE for example, are charging twice as much for (virtually) the same course in New York as in Auckland. Here’s hoping I land a lot of gigs.

Edit: Just found a photo from that gig in June… I really ought to sort my photos earlier. It’s a reflection of Tomas. Hopefully I’ll get some films done soon too.

No time to be bored

I just found the awesomest origami-styled art – some guy called Won Park folds $1 US bills into amazingly intricate things. Check it out Here.

Whenever the holidays roll around (such as now, finally!) and I start receiving txts from friends asking me what I’m up to, and complaining of how bored they are, I can’t help but think that they’re being silly. For starters, I’m secretly jealous of people who have time to be bored – I’m so busy all the time, even during the holidays, that I simply don’t have the time nor energy to be bored. It’s only Tuesday today and already I don’t have a spare day to myself until Sunday, and even then I’m worknig 8 hours that day. I guess I’m the proactive sort: if there are people I want to catch up with, hang out with or see, I will get hold of them, and make sure we have something planned. As for the people who end up txting me on a daily basis asking me what I’m up to, because they’re “bored”, well unfortunately for them, they get left behind, ultimately staying home and doing nothing at all.

I’ve always had the tendency of being the person that organises things – hang outs, outings, movie nights, get-togethers – there’s one such person in every group. But frankly I’m tired of it, and I’ve decided that if people aren’t going to get off their arses, then other people who regard me as important enough to arrange something with, win out.

Maybe I’m being a bit harsh? What are your thoughts? Are you the kind of person who waits around to be invited, or the sort that invites people along?

Ethereal

I can’t believe that the school ball is over. After months of planning and plotting of the annual school ball, I must say that I felt really, really proud that the ball committee this year far outdid last year’s. Since our school is one of the biggest secondary schools in the country, with well over two thousand students, one of the few venues that can hold about the thousand senior students and partners that attend the ball is Sky City. But one of the downsides to having such a large venue is the challenge of having to decorate it. Since the ball room itself is huge and therefore impossible to entirely decorate, we had to mainly focus on the foyer. My proudest feat has to be the 2x Thai Airlines’ cargo nets which I draped with white chiffon and wired up with fairylights, then hung from the balcony, dipping into the foyer. It took houuuurs. Now everything just seems like a denouement, there’s only grad dinner to look forward to in December, and then 7th form and college is over.

Anyway, the rest of the photos are up on facebook. I’m really ridiculously ill with the flu (don’t even say “swine”), but have to go into school tomorrow for rehearsals and a music concert tomorrow night… joy.

I can’t believe how much we’ve all grown up, us four have been in the same form class since 3rd form… 5 years ago, until now. Wowzers.

My handiwork in the foyer – draped chiffon with fairylights on two Thai Airlines’ cargo nets.

1 … 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47