8 posts tagged “list”

My days go something like this:

• Set alarm for 10am
• Get out of bed at 12:25pm
• Decide I should eat something healthy
• Melt cheese flavoured with soysauce and then add some bread as an afterthought
• Decide I should walk the dogs before I go out
• Go and train Marilyn's alsatians
• Get home, realise I haven't walked my dogs
• Play with dogs for 2 minutes
• Have a shower
• Facebook, gmail, dinosaur comics, msn, Nedroid, hotmail, xkcd, yahoo mail, cyanide and happiness
• Sit and stare at the screen blankly for a while
• Pat dogs
• lolcats, loldogs, overheard in new york, overheard everywhere, overheard in the office, overheard at the beach
• Decide that I should probably cook dinner for everyone
• Facebook, renew dead msn conversations
• Let dogs out of loungeroom so they can say hello to mum and dad who just got home
• Failblog
• Eat crappy dinner prepared by tired parents
• Feed birds, feed dogs, take dogs for piss, realise I still haven't walked dogs
• Half-watch random tv shows parents put on while surfing net until 10:30pm
• Decide to go to bed early
• Engrish, texts from last night, graphjam, lookalikes
• Realise that it's after midnight
• Set alarm for 10am
• Rinse and repeat ad nauseum
  
• I have no life
  

• In dot point form! Woot!

• Falling behind in nanowrimo. 5000 words behind and counting. Will try to finish. Honest.
• Stress is very bad. Chocolate is very good at making it go away temporarily.
  
• Mum bought a ton of chocolate.
• AND SHE WONT LET ME EAT IT.
• Didn't study for psych.
• Pwnt psych.
• Have methods exam tomorrow. Preparing to suck badly.
• DnD is fun.
• Kittens are cute. They're all soft and furry.
  
• Need to do more social stuff to prevent brain imploding.
• Year 12 is over in 4 days. Again.
  
• I achieved more this year, professionally speaking, than I have in pretty much the whole rest of my life combined.
  
• GAP years ftw, even if they aren't really GAP years.
• I like cheese.
• Mum bought lots of cheese. It's in the fridge.
• AND SHE WONT LET ME EAT IT.
• But on the up side, we're having chinese tomorrow.
• Knight of Ni over and out.
  

It's getting to the point where I'm not sure whether I'll ever have the time to expand on my previous list of stuff that's happened since the exams. But now I have a little while - not long - so I'll make another dot-point summary of the stuff that's happened since I failed to expand on the last list. Only I can’t remember heaps of it. Damn. I’ll try and go through old emails to jog my memory … If I forget stuff or say something wrong, please correct me.

• I had my birthday party. We went to see The Golden Compass and had gelati. Some people came back to my place and played Uno and stuff. I got some awesome presents. Score : )
• I emptied my old piggybank and found $82 and 40 cents and 2 rupees and a button.
• I started helping at the Summer Film School. I got a lot of driving practice going to and from Melbourne Uni. I feel like I was cheating … I did almost nothing to help yet I got to do the entire course for free. The best bits where when I got to act like a brazen hussy on stage, and when they shot someone with a sub machine gun. In the lecture theatre. Hehe.
• And that took a whole month, except for the few days I was disgustingly ill. But I did get a diploma in filmmaking. So random …
• The Uni of Melbourne is up itself.
• I started studying Psychology and Maths Methods (why am I such an idiot … please shoot me now…) by distance education.
• I went to TAFE and sort of “accidentally” became a student. So now I’m doing Small Business Management. Yay … at least it’s useful.
• And I also started my Dog Obedience Instructor’s Course. That’s great. I love it.
• And in my “free time” (wasn’t this supposed to be a year off?!) I do my dog sports – agility, freestyle, hiking etc.
• In case you didn’t grasp that last little lament … I have basically no free time. So I tend to not do homework and go out with people instead. It’s great. Stuff that we did in the past while:
• On the 13^th of January (Since I went through emails to find dates I might as well put dates in, hey what?) some people went to Jess’s place to play games. Andrew put the counters in Marie’s shoes. It’s becoming a habit, that.
• On the 19^th we played Laserforce. Josh and I played pool afterwards – I suck. Hoorah!
• On the 22^nd we went to see Romeo and Juliet at the Botanic Gardens. It was slightly modernised in some points – like the truck – and it was really funny. People think tragedies shouldn’t be funny. I disagree. Some of the actors could have been better, but Romeo, Mercutio and Benvolio were great and they’re the important ones, aren’t they :P
• On the 28^th was the Australia Day Duck Race, so Marie and Jess and Josh and I (and Josh’s friend) went to Birrarung Mar to watch. Some of the little duckies escaped, and the lifesavers “rescued” them. We didn’t manage to steal a duck. Disappointing.
• On the 3^rd of February we had a picnic at Jell’s Park. I took my dogs. The merry-making (ie football kicking and Bang playing) went on well into the afternoon.
• On the 7^th, Meggs passed away. I have already written about him, of course. : (
• But on the 8^th I went to My RSPCA interview anyway. I had my first day last Friday (22 feb)– I’m alternating between dog walking and working in the education barn.
• On the 12^th we went to see Sweeny Tod. It wasn’t as gruesome as we feared, because the blood looked like paint. They went through a LOT of paint. And all the songs are stuck in my head. Even the one about the cat pies.
  
• Went to Aparna’s place on the 13^th and watched “My Fair Lady”. I love that movie. It cracked me up. Mum left home with her phone turned off not knowing the house number. When I realised this I frantically SMS’d her and luckily she got it in time to interrupt us very conveniently at the end of an amusing card game.
• On the 15^th I went to Josh’s place and we played Imaginiff and stuff, and went to AJ’s house for lunch. After Marie and Andrew went home we watched Ever After, which was surprisingly enjoyable.
• On the 16^th I took Mystic to the Papillon club trial in the morning (she did some crazy stuff, but she had FUN!!! WHEE!!!), then raced off to my instructor’s course, went home and had lunch then raced Merry off to a trial in the afternoon. She fell off the A-frame in the first run, and refused it the next 2 runs. Her final run – at about 10pm – was Jumping, and she was just a few seconds overtime. Everything else was *perfect*. Love that dog.
• I went and crashed The Monash Law intro day. Which actually meant that I got stuck for hours in a horrendously boring lecture. But when we got out there was free food (and mud). And lots of friends were there, because most people I know are going to Monash … And they joined crazy clubs and Marie beat a knight with a big stick for ages, and we went and saw an incredibly suggestive play. Actually, it went through suggestive and out the other side. It contained condoms.

 

That took me way too long to write, even in a form more condensed than Campbell's pea soup. Ah dear. I should write more often and not get behind like this … but such is life.

Well, I only sort of died. But it was worth it.
I'm so behind in my posts. I've done a lot of stuff lately. Stuff is great. But when I do lots of stuff I don't have time to write. I'm really tired.
And omgf I'm 18 tomorrow. Which is good cos I keep on thinking 18 and now it won't be wrong. W00t.

I'll post, really ... sometime ...

Things that happened (in chronological order, and most of them on consecutive days) and which I will, at some point, hopefully write about:

• New Zealand
  
• Andrew's 18th
  
• The Results  came out
• I kidnapped Marie, AJ and Josh
  
• Aparna's 18th
• Presentation night, after which I went to AJs house and watched Fry and Laurie
  
• Jess's 18th, and the wonderful floods which followed
  
• ADCV presentation night
• My grandma died
• Christmas lunch with the Donnelleys
• Mum and Dad went to Tassie for the funeral
• I discovered that we had the entire collection of Black Books
• AJ came over and watched it with me
• Marie and Jess came over to edit film which, as it turns out, wasn't where it was supposed to be, so we just did fun stuff instead
• Had a New Years Eve party at Jess's place and slept over, if you can call 3 hours "sleep" and not just "light nap" (which is why I am so very tired and also was the day on which it ws so damned hot. I think Jess angered a weather god. Her events keep happening on massively extreme days.)
• Went and saw Spamalot with Jess and Marie and Viv and Mum. That was today. Mum got back yesterday. And, as I said, tomorrow I'm 18 and we're going to see a movie and then do something. I don't know what. I'm getting very good at doing completely unplanned stuff.

And I have a job helping at the Summer Film School at Melbourne Uni from the 7th of January until the 5th of February. I don't get paid, but I get to do the course for free. And it sounds like a great course, so in essence I get around $2000.

And yeah. Stuff is great. But now that I don't have a uniform to wear 5 days a week, I am discovering that I have no clothes. I went and got some stuff today, but I'll need to go get even more stuff sometime. Stuff I can wear for summer and not boil to death. I dislike summers muchly.
And on the 14th I discover what I'm going to do for the next 4 years of my life, when the uni offers come out. Woohoo.

Sleep would be great. Sleep would be rally great right now. Au revoir.

Probably won't post again until nano starts, but you never know. School started again today, which was actually good 'cos I've been missing everyone something awful.
On the holidays since my last post I:

• Gave some talks to mum's students about dog training. I took Merry and Mystic and gave some demos. It was fun. I also got to see a Search and Rescue dog being trained. Mystic went mental, but that's just Mystic being Mystic.
• Watched Ratatouille. Fun movie. I liked it.
• Went to some more lectures and various other boring things
• Accidentally spent 5 hours studying maths
• Had a dog trial. Merry's first run in Excellent class for Jumping and Strategic Pairs. She ran very nicely for me, we got clear rounds :D (overtime, but shh, she doesn't know that!). We also had Excellent Snooker and Novice Agility. She didn't weave very well, grace a la fact that I haven't been training her much lately. But otherwise nice runs. Well done Merry : )
• Read Animal Farm. Easier to read than 1984. The pigs are evil ... corruption sneaks in all too easily. Then I fell asleep on the floor of mums office. I actually felt less bruised when I woke up than I had before, which was surprising but good.
• Aaaaaand ... yeh, not much else. I should be studying more than I am. At least if I don't get into Uni it doesn't matter at all. I feel sorry for people who need to do well ... stress and bother. Erk.
  
• Oh ... and I decided to sign up for NaNoWriMo. I'm insane. More so because of the fact that I'm actually looking forward to it ... Yes, I must be completely off my rocker. Just shoot me now.
  

And just when I thought I had time to sit down and type up the events of the past few days, I get told that we're going out to see a movie. (O Trauma of Traumas)
So I'll just put a list to remind myself for when I'm next free ... in, like, a week ...

• Going to Jess's to make Dalek and play Wii
• TSFX english lectures
• Marie's Birthday Party
• English lectures at school
• And whatever else happens between now and the time when I get to write (like going to see a movie)
  

Still sick today. I hate being sick. But anyway, I found this on someone's blog and I really wanted to share it because I realised that I have really low self esteem ... and that it's probably not very healthy. And when I got to the end and it said "write down 10 positive statements about yourself", it scared me. Because unconsciously I think that there can't be 10 positive things about me, or at least that I can't admit to them because that would be so immodest. But it's not immodest to love things about yourself, surely? And you certainly shouldn't hate yourself for not being as good as other people.

But I do.

I celebrate in other people's successes while silently, unconsciously, beating myself around the head (You can never do that, you're too stupid ...)

We talk about the little demons in our personalities - greed, anger, hate; but what about the demon of false modesty? No-one ever remembers about that one. So I say, be proud! Love yourself! You don't have to be afraid anymore ...

Appreciate yourself

People with high self esteem think positively about themselves, and accept themselves. They think: "I'm a good person". People with low self esteem on the other hand are too critical. They don't think they're attractive, smart, spontaneous or slim, and they always feel they're never good enough.

Self esteem is one of the most important building blocks for a succesful life. People with a healthy self esteem think positively about themselves, and feel strong and in control of their lives. People with low self esteem let others or circumstances determine their lives. Not because they're lazy, but because they think it doesn't matter what they think or do.

They deprive themselves of an important opportunity to be happy. Of course one can't control every aspect of life, but many aspects can be influenced.

Your inner critic

It's not always easy to accept oneself, and to think positively about oneself. It's rarely good enough. Many people grew up thinking they have to be modest. That's why they focus on the things they don't like about themselves. Things that are positive, are not good enough, or there's always someone else who's better.

Accepting yourself starts in your youth and is encouraged by loving people in your environment. It's a mirror like effect: a child sees and appreciates itself the way it's seen and appreciated by others. If a child grows up in a loving environment, and absorps all those positive reactions by others, like a sponge, it automatically learns how to appreciate itself.

On the other hand, if a child has very overcritical, meddlesome or rejective parents, it develops an inner voice that does nothing but criticise. The voice says: "See? You're utterly worthless" or "You're too fat", or "Nobody likes you". This voice is called the pathological critic.

The pathological critic is a term coined by psychologist Eugene Sagen to describe the negative inner voice that attacks and judges you. Almost everyone has a critical inner voice but people with low self esteem tend to have a more vicious and vocal pathological critic.

The critic blames you for things that go wrong. The critic compares you to others, to their achievements and abilities and finds you wanting. The critic sets impossible standards of perfection and then beats you up for the smallest mistake. The critic keeps an album of your failures but never once reminds you of your strengths or accomplishments. The critic has a script describing how you ought to live and screams that you are wrong and bad if your needs drive you to violate his rules. The critic tells you to be the best and if you aren't the best you are nothing. He calls you stupid, incompetent, ugly, selfish, weak, and makes you believe all of them are true. The critic reads your friends’ minds and convinces you that they may be bored, turned off, disappointed or disgusted by you. The critic exaggerates your weaknesses by insisting that you "always say stupid things" or "always screw up a relationship or a job" or "never finish anything on time".

The pathological critic is busy undermining your self-worth every day of your life. Yet his voice is so insidious, woven into the fabric of your thoughts that you never notice the devastating effects. The self attacks always seem reasonable and justified. The carping, judging inner voice seems natural, a familiar part of you but in truth, the critic is a kind of psychological jackal who with every attack weakens and breaks down any good feelings that you have about yourself.

Although we refer to the critic as "he" for convenience, your voice may sound female. It could sound like your mother, your father, or your own speaking voice, and is extremely detrimental to your phychological health, more than almost any trauma or loss. That’s because grief and pain wash a way with time. But the critic is always with you, and has many weapons, among the most effective the values and rules of living you grew up with.

Building self worth

Although the critic seems to have a will of his own, his independence is really an illusion. The truth is that you are used to listening to him, so used to believing him, that you have not learned to turn him off. With practice, however, you can learn to analyse and refute what the critic says. You can turn him off before he has a chance to poison your feelings of self worth.

You don't necessarily need love and appreciation from others in order to accept yourself. You can learn how to accept yourself, and be your own mirror.

Building self esteem doesn't mean you're not allowed to have negative thoughts about yourself. That wouldn't be realistic. The more you try to suppress negative thoughts, the stronger they'll return. You don't have to force yourself to think positively, but you can do exercises to build self esteem. Here's one:

Know your qualities

Everyone has many positive qualities. Perhaps you're used to only see the negatives, but you also have many positive qualities. It helps to write them down. Write down 10 positive statements about yourself, starting each statement with "I ... ". Example: I am a good listener, or I am nice to my partner.

Now read those statements out loud, twice a day.

For those of us that are courageous, it's also a nice exercise to write down 100 (!) good things about yourself. For an example, see Holly Jahangiri's post.

A third exercise is to look at your negative characteristics in a different way. Try to see them as good characteristics gone wild. Let me give you an example: disorder can be seen as an extreme form of flexibility. Intrusiveness can be seen as an extreme form of empathy. Write down 5 negative characteristics and name them in a positive way.

OK, my homework - 10 positive things about me:
I care about people
I love my friends and family
I have a sense of humour
I love animals
I try to make people think about the bigger issues in the world
I am sensible
I can take enormous joy in the world
I can usually make people feel a little better about themselves
I am reasonably good at writing
I am relatively smart

Well, that didn't work out as well as I hoped ... I still feel the need to qualify things. (relatively, reasonably, usually ...)
But hey. It's a start.

5 things in a postive light:
I am insane, and that's a good thing
I am modest
My body is sensible
I have a relaxed attitude towards things
I make people feel better about their cooking by always going back for seconds ;P

When it talked about children in this post, it reminded me of a list that I saw a while ago, a very astute and accurate list. I will post that here too.

• My dogs are both on heat
• Another of my quail was brutally murdered this morning. Probably by a rat.
• Cake is nice
• I made cake
• I ate cake
• Glenda Larke's new book has been out for a month, and I didn't know
• I'm going to the city tomorrow for french tutoring
• I will look in a bookshop tomorrow for Glenda Larke's new book
• I can't eat foods if they're not touching
• Spring is thechnically still not here, but it actually is
• It is going to be a Blood Moon tonight
• I know because the screencast told me it would be after The Simpsons
  
• I need to do something but I can't remember what it was
• Life is awesome
• I actually did some literature today
• The adds at the side of my page say "Rating Module Bacon Delivery Cheese Dip Why Not Write Here Cheese Fondue"
• I do indeed like cheese
• I was going to write something else but I forgot that too
• Yay!
• I am going to make a concerted effort to mention transgenic sheep-human hybrids in every post from now on
• This will be the 32nd post this month
• That's more than one post a day
• I like to write
• I like randomness
• I like stuff
• I've said it before and I'll say it again: Yay!
• Thank you, that is all.