It’s Blitz!

First of all – It’s Blitz! by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs is AMAZING! I’ve finally gotten it, after months of lurking around on msn with the release date on my personal message. I have to admit, after first hearing Zero, I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect – was there to be more of the same, twangy, catchy, zesty power tunes that the ingenious Zinner has made up on guitar, or something slightly more sinister, featuring the sophisticated side of Karen O’s vocals?

The answer was to be a tasteful equilibrium of the two. I’ve currently been making a huge attempt to tidy my room with this album on in the – no, not background, at all – well, with the album playing, and as usual, I’m loving the lyrics. One of my personal favourites so far based on both the way it sounds and the lyrics will have to be Hysteric – the words “Flow sweetly, hang heavy/You suddenly complete me/You suddenly completely” ring so heavily in my ears.

In other matters, I went shopping with my Mum and sister in Newmarket a couple of days ago in search of some ball shoes. I ended up with a pair of Mollini in coral (my phone takes crappy pictures, the colour looks off here), and whilst it doesn’t perfectly match my ball dress colour (flame red), I’d like to think that I will wear these heels on other occasions as well – plus, who’ll really be looking at your shoes if you’re in a Jovani dress? They were on sale, so I got them for $90 at virtually half price.

Despite being completely happy with the shoes, I’m outraged at the shitty customer service that I received. Upon arrival in the store, I found about three different shoes that I wanted to try on, and the two girls (they looked only 20-something) that worked there gave me one of those bitchy up-and-down looks, and proceeded to continue chatting behind the counter right at the back of the store, completely ignoring my presence and the fact that I was approaching them with all these shoes in my hands. Then, when I asked them if I could get them in my size, one of them snapped “Those two are the last pair, I’ll find go find this one”, and fell just short of snatching them out of my hands. What on earth.

By this point I was insulted. Okay fine if you two don’t want to approach every customer that enter the store and end up “only browsing”, but here I was, a more-than-eager customer wanting to try shoes on, and they were completely putting me off. Well I ended up falling in love with this pair but decided to ask them to put them on hold for twenty minutes so we could finish strolling up Broadway – and you know, just in case I found something better… in a store with nicer sales assistants – and I got a “yeah whatever”. Not only that, but when I returned less than a quarter of an hour later to pick up and pay for my shoes, I approached the counter to see one of the was busy rummaging in the back room for a shoe in someone’s size (the store was full by this point), and was wondering where on earth the other girl had gone when I heard a rustle, peeked over the counter, and found her sitting against the back wall, evidently hiding behind the counter, pretending like she wasn’t there, so she didn’t have to do her job! Then I had to say “umm… excuse me?” about four times before she finally let out an impatient sigh and stood up to serve me. I was just short of slapping her with a shoe or something when she looked blankly at me like she didn’t recognise me, and gave me an “eh, wtf?” look when I told her that I was here to pick up my shoes that were on hold – this, being the same girl I’d given them to.

It took her forever to find the shoes. I was mad. And left the store cursing them and telling my mother that I was definitely going to ring up their manager and lay a huge complaint at some point.

I’ve just looked up the store’s phone number.

Red nails, retail therapy and a hundred posts

Finally, my term one holidays has been kick started by Easter Weekend. As usual, within 24 hours of being released from the realms of our strict school rules, I immediately coloured my nails… red again – I went on a hunt for black, but couldn’t find it, and gold was just not bold enough for my mood.

I can’t believe that after almost three years that this is finally my hundredth post! Actually, I can believe it, because I’ve simply always been too busy or too lazy; or, more often than not, a combination of the two. My friend Angie and I sped off in my car straight from the school carpark (oh what rebels we are, our school doesn’t allow students to drive to school, most certainly not with passengers, unless you have a driving permit and passenger permission – both of which I’m a proud owner of – although I don’t think the mall’s what they had in mind when they issued that to me) the minute school let out at 2pm on Thursday. One of the few upsides with my school is that school always finishes an hour earlier when there’s a long-weekend holiday – we take ample advantage of it, of course.

I don’t think the rooftop carpark wall minded witnessing our drastic transformation from a primped and highly decorated school uniform (we adorn many badges) to flash things on heels. Ang and I spent the next 7 hours glamourising ourselves in changing rooms and making mental wishlists… my 18th birthday is in a month, presents, anyone? I couldn’t remember the last time I had so much fun (window) shopping. Hopefully when I receive my holiday paycheck for tomorrow (not even working, on Easter Sunday, yessss) I’ll be able to go back and buy a gorgeous sequin dress from Max. It’s a shame no one wants to pay $199 for a pair of pants that look amazing on me (even if I say so myself) – which is really saying something about how nicely cut and designed they were, considering I don’t generally look very good in pants. Towards the end of the day, however, after 2 malls and 7 hours of strutting around in heels, I was satisfied with the purchase of a new cardigan-shawl-like thing, as well as four bits of jewellery for $5/each from Bling at Botany since they’re closing down – they’re getting more stolen from them than what they’re making, the girl from school that works there said. I’m not complinaing.

I’m thinking I’ll take some photos of how I’ve been dressing lately, sort of as a point for future reference for myself, maybe? I feel very rock ‘n’ roll lately. I’ve always felt that way… but moreso as of late.

The Kills

It’s actually 3rd period at the moment, but I just got home from school; the entire 1st and 2nd XI girls hockey teams have been excused for the rest of the day to play against St. Mary’s, a South African school’s touring teams. To be honest I’m actually nervous right now, upon hearing that they’ve played/are playing against schools like Kamo or Dio around Auckland, all of which are in the Auckland Secondary Schools A side that we play in, which means they’ll give us a pretty hard run.

I knocked someone out cold on tournament last Friday. Our team ended up coming 1st-equal after 3 round-robin games on Friday and Saturday, finishing nil-all in the finals against Baradene; I’m actually thoroughly diappointed and frustrated that we didn’t win outright. If they had done a countback we would’ve been declared the winning team – we had far more PC’s, and were completely undeafeated in the tournament, having already beaten them in our first game on Friday; not to mention we hadn’t conceded any goals all weekend.

I’ve always been on the receiving end of injuries – having my nose fractured by a hockey ball on my 15th birthday, having my face hit with a hockey ball on several occasions, being bashed elsewhere with hockey sticks and balls (I have a fresh bruise by my knee off a hit from our captain), etc etc – but I hadn’t been on the giving end of anything major, until now. To be fair, it wasn’t fully my fault, but it could’ve been avoided if either of us had done things differently. Basically, the girl had attempted to tackle me at about the 25, but missed, so I ran on with the ball to the 16/approaching top of the circle, saw a wide gap at the goal, went to take a hit and on the upswing – BAM! – I stopped cold. And froze. And she blacked out with blood oozing out of her head. You’re not supposed to stay running in someone’s blindspot after a failed tackle… you’re meant to go around and in front. I don’t know what she was thinking (obviously she wasn’t thinking), but as bad as I feel for having done that, I can’t possibly have known she was there; we’re taught – and it’s instinctive – to start swinging your stick for a shot at goal the minute you hit the 16 line on the run to the circle… I can’t imagine me checking my blindspot at the same time as I would if it were in my car.

Turns out she’s fine and was laughing but the end of the match, but I was completely stone cold for a good few hours.

The night before that was the best night I’ve had in a while – I’ve been bogged down by doing so much music practise and trying to keep up with my A Levels that I’m going insane – because THE KILLS were in town! We saw them live at the Transmission Room, which is a pretty cosy little venue, so it was completely sold out, and they were amazing.

Alison was so freaking sexy! I’d wondered how they’d pull off drums, and turns out they played to a pre-recorded track – but even then they were soo tight. Ahhhh I can’t get over how good it was. She reminds me of a wilder version of the character Alison off the movie Yes Man. Same hair, same music, same scene. Me in a few years’ time? Maybe. Hopefully.

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

2nd place looks like a tradition

I’ve been piled under stacks of music, paper, and for the past two days, lots of sweat and muscle pain. This weekend our school’s boys and girls 1st XI hockey teams played in the annual Massey Tournament held at Crown North Harbour Stadium. It was only a round robin competition, the boys winning the cup yesterday due to a lack of teams, and only having to beat 2 teams in the process, whilst we played three matches into this afternoon undefeated. Until our last match against Kristin College, we had only conceded one goal, and as we were the last game of the tournament, and the only two undefeated teams, it ended up being like a pseudo-final. The disappointing result was that we lost 2-0. The upside was that they didn’t score any field goals – it was an awfully tight game, and anyone merely watching, ignorant of the score would’ve had no idea who was winning. The fact that they only managed to score off penalty corners meant that we covered the field well, but our defensive PC was just a bit weak, especially with a young, inexperienced goalie, but that’s all room for improvement.

I don’t deal well with coming second. I think it’s so much harder than coming third – in a non-round-robin tournament with actual semis and finals, at least if you come third it means you won your last game? I guess there’s always the novelty of being in the finals… but still. This just feels like deja vu from Southern Skies in Australia last year – losing a long-fought, undefeated battle, settling for second… Someone said after our game today that “well 2nd place looks like a tradition for us” – but I’m unwilling to agree. I don’t want to play with that mindset hanging over me.

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