Rants about everything, anything and yet nothing at all.

Last ten days of 17

I can’t believe I’m almost turning 18! In barely ten days’ time I will legally be an adult, be able to buy alcohol, go to pubs, clubs, R18 movies, etc!

It’s a really exciting prospect, yet at the same time scares the crap out of me. Considering the amount of things that have changed since even my last blog post (staggeringly busy, no time to blog, gah!), it’s amazing to think back on the transitions and growths that I’ve experienced in the past 17 years… at the moment I just keep thinking “holy crap!”. My friends joke and say that I’ll “finally be the age that everyone things [I] am” – because I’ve been sneaking into (mostly mates’) gigs in town for years, and have been awaiting the day when I can actually flash my drivers license at the bouncer!

Today’s been the hardest day of my week – it started bright and early at a little past 6am, and saw me go from running warmup laps around the hockey turf which I didn’t actually feel warm after; to attending two classes; leaving school for “year 13s’ half day Wednesday”, only to return for a 3-hour-long seminar by an Australian speaker, Darren Pereira; then I had two hours’ of concert band practise – yet another 12 hour day doing school-related things! In addition to all the stress of my AS Music exam on Tuesday, and internal mock exams all this week and next week, I got informed today that next Friday, on the eve of my birthday party, not only will I have to set up art at school for the annual 1st XI Hockey fundraiser, but then I have to race over to another school, play jazz for a charity gig, and rush back home in time for my own birthday party. How sad is that?! I’m furious at the music teacher – he has asked the stage band/jazz combo whether or not we’d like to do the gig, and most people weren’t keen, especially since half of them were coming to my birthday; but this just makes my already tight schedule even worse.

The thought of my birthday/arty is the only thing that’s getting me through these couple of strenuous weeks – the highlight is, though, I get to countdown to my 18th birthday with all my friends and family :D.

“Healthy” rip off

See this drink here? This sloshy pinky liquid with what looks like pink biofoam on top? It cost $7.90.

Now normally I wouldn’t have gone near such an atrocious rip off, but my friend had a voucher for “buy 1 get 1 free”, so when I said that I was thirsty, we couldn’t help but endulge in a ‘bargain’ of a free drink… so technically that drink cost me $3.95. Regardless… it was supposed to be a berry smoothie, the menu frolicking with delicious descriptions of a multitude of berries and frozen yoghurt. What I got turned out to be about as viscous as a cup of tea. I don’t know whether the lady that made it forgot the part about frozen yoghurt and ice, or whether their recipe was just an uber-fail, regardless, the smoothie – no it doesn’t even qualify that title – juice thing was revolting. Not only did it taste awful, but it also had a lot of pips in it… from the boysenberry, maybe? Twenty minutes and a sore stomach later, I thoroughly regretted being firstly coerced into buying that drink, and then feeling too guilty about wasting and downing the whole damn thing. Never again.

What I don’t understand though, is the whole franchise of healthy, “tasty” alternatives to fizzy drinks and other smoothies/drinks of high sugar/calorie content being so expensive. $7.90 could’ve bought enough for a meal for two from the supermarket, or at least a burger combo at any buger joint, but no, instead, I merely got a disgusting, and disgustingly expensive healthy drink. It seems that people these days will pay an arm and a leg not to satisfy their tastebuds, but to mend their conscience by telling themselves they consumed something “healthy”. Next time I’m that thirsty, I’ll settle for a glass of tap water, thanks.

I kind of believe in this “jinxing” business

Do you ever say “touch wood!” or “knock on wood” and touch something wooden when you tempt fate with statements such as “I’ve never been mugged” or “it looks like the rain’s holding off”? To me it also kind of relates to Murphys Law – ie: the one time that I didn’t check whether my house keys were in my bag, I ended up being locked out for two hours whilst sick, trying to not throw up on the back deck.

Anyway, during hockey* tournament on the weekend, we were all in the changing rooms putting our gear on ready for a team talk and our game. A few of my team mates were putting on their inner socks – they’re like tube socks with stirrups that go underneath shinguards – when I turned around to Hannah and said:
“Ooh, I’ve been meaning to get some, my shinguards get so grossly sweaty”
Hannah: “Yeah they’re great, and they stop shinguard rash too”
“What on earth is shinguard rash? I’ve never gotten it”

…whilst I usually say “touch wood” and the matter is laid to rest, it’s not to hard to guess that yes, indeed, I forgot to this time; six hours later after a nice long shower, I was curled up on the couch watching tv when I suddenly thought “what the heck is that nasty, stinging sensation on my leg?!”, only to look down and discover a huge patch of sore pink and red on my left leg, right where my shinguard was. I coated it with aloe vera and it improved somewhat. But the next time the same patch had returned… oozing blood this time :(.

*field hockey

“Express” lane, anyone?

I hate when I have to go all the way to a supermarket – okay that’s a slight exaggeration on effort, because there are about 6 supermarkets within a 10-minute drive from my house and I drive past them all the time – just to get one thing, only to discover that even the express lane is insanely long. But that’s okay, right? I mean, those checkouts are limited to people with 12 items or less, so theoretically it should be much, much faster in a long queue of bachelors with bottles of shampoo or beers in hand, as opposed to mothers with shopping trolleys stacked full to the top…

Unfortunately, that theory may as well go out the window when the checkout operators are stupid. We have a thing called the “one card” system, which can be used at supermarkets such as Foodtown or Countdown, that gives you extra discounts – all you have to do is swipe your card before you pay at the checkout. So here I was at 9.30pm on my way home from my piano lesson, needing to buy a 20-pack of mini chocolate bars as prizes for the sports quiz that I’m meant to conduct at House Assembly tomorrow morning, and not only did I wait a full ten minutes (if not more), for 4 people in front of me to get served (and feeling sorry for the 7 behind me), until it was finally, finally my turn. I swear, it took her at least 30seconds to pick up and scan my bag of chocolates, after which I was holding my eftpos card on the machine, ready to swipe, and she just stands there with an impatient bitchy look on her face, glaring at me – what for? the fact that I was card-in-hand, ready to pay, not waiting for her to ask me to?! After a stare-down and a half, she finally realises she hadn’t clicked the eftpos key so the machine wasn’t ready for my card, I finally make some progress towards my escape from her… and then my card was declined. For $4.55.

I’d evidently forgotten that I had dinner out on Sunday night and hadn’t transferred my money onto my card. Embarrassed, I quickly handed over $5 in cash, only to have the checkout girl give me a “WTF ARE YOU DOING?!!” look; and, juding by her half-opened mouth, she appeared as if she was just on the verge of saying it too. Honestly… how much louder could the eftpos “DECLINE” beep have been?! It was loud enough for me to have gained a sympathetic gaze from the last guy in queue, as well as send a woman chuckling, surely, surely the person whose job it was to get money off me would realise?! ARGH. Anyway, my chocolate mission took me about 20 minutes… time in which I could’ve watched an episode of something online, or driven about 15-25km!

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