Its really late and I shouldn't be blogging

Its really late and I shouldn't be blogging ... but I am. Because I'm self-destructive like that. Nevermind.

I just thought I would quickly do this.

Dear Amanda,

You are too judgemental of the people around you, because they remind you of yourself. Don't nitpick when all you are doing is criticising yourself, whilst hurting and annoying other people.

You expect too much of people, and probably don't listen to them enough to know what it is they are really trying to say. A few moments of insight and compassion don't make up for most of what you miss.

Don't be too hard on yourself. You have people who love you enough to tell you when you are too much of a bitch. Even though people find it hard to let you in as much as you would like them to, life isn't a TV show, and you aren't the protagonist. Just let it go, let it happen, and let it be.

Every moment contains within it the purpose and meaning of your life. Don't forget about that and get lost in thought.

I love you, you silly head.
xo

A new AWESOME quiz...

This is stolen from John who says he stole it from facebook ...

What you do is, you type your name into google with the given word, and answer with your favourites!

Note: you can do this with your whole name, but since it doesn't work very well for me I've just gone with Amanda...

1. Amanda "needs"...
- YouTube - amanda needs to pee
well... I did need to pee but I've fixed that...
-Amanda C. Needs Some Direction « NewTeeVee
probably, I mean that's a fair comment ...
-Amanda needs to be loved - Carbone & Money - Opinion - theage.com.au
YES I DO. Well, I believe I am loved, but that doesn't change the fact that I need to be.
-Amanda needs a better storyline - All My Children Message Boards ...
Lols ... yes I do need a better storyline... I would love to write a book, but that storyline eludes me.

2. Amanda "looks like"
-Life in a Suitcase: Amanda looks like"Amanda looks like any nerd in school, but she is actually really smart and cool . She is smart because she knows everything about bugs"
Well, I don't actually know anything about bugs... despite people confusing Anthropology with a whole plethora of other professions including things to do with bugs. But I think I'm smart and cool ... which means I'm probably not...
-Stefani : photos : Christmas 2005 : Amanda looks like she is ...
Looks like she is what? I just had to click the link, and apparently "Amanda looks like she is pouting here"...


3. Amanda "says"
-Boy v. Girl Amanda says: As crazy as it sounds, we lie to make it seem like we're not Little Miss Bitch. If a dude asks us out and we're just not attracted, ..."
Well I'm not sure if that's true... well, probably...
-MySpace.com - Amanda says [{ Im so tired of bullshit!!}] - 20 ..
That's true...
-amanda says gimme that coffee drink on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
That's true...
Oh and apparently there is a website actually called "amandasays.com" and "amandasays.co.uk". Crazy huh?

4. Amanda "wants"
-YouTube - Super Amanda: Masterpiece Cleavage Blooper
Super Amanda wants to be Alistair Cooke in black satin corset ...
Lols.
-Amanda wants to go and play pictures from kittens photos on webshots
I'm not sure if that's a proper sentence... and by "I'm not sure if" I mean "No way", but I want to go and play with kittens, or look at photos of kittens... that's cool with me.
-Amanda Wants A Hug 'N Kiss
hehe... sure do!


5. Amanda "does"
-MySpace.com - Amanda Does What She Wants - 25 - Female - Fresno ..
I try to do what I want... hells yes.
-YouTube - super strong amanda does pushups
That's hilarious... I'm not super strong, and cannot do pushups...

6. Amanda "hates"
-YouTube - Re: Amanda hates good music
LIES!
-YouTube - Amanda Hates Feet
um... not really. I mean they are pretty useful.

7. Amanda "asks"
-ABC News: Amanda Asks: 'What Would Google Do?'
Lol. There were several links that had this phrase... I think I should start using it...
-Amanda (writer) and Riceman (tutor) Amanda asks "Do I need to push return after each sentence?" ... Amanda asks "Do you think that I should put it after her name or what?" ..
Yes.
That's odd.
I don't push return after each sentence.


8. Amanda "likes"
-Exotic yet ordinary: Amanda likes to distract herself with silliness
That's true.
-Amanda Likes Stalking
Only on facebook... I swear!

9. Amanda "eats"
(I didn't think this one would turn up much but apparently I eat a lot).
- Amanda eats Subway
-Amanda eats pellets
-Amanda eats my meat
-Amanda eats pandas

I feel uncomfortable about all of those except the first. The first is definately true.

10. Amanda "wears"
- JANET BED SCENE - AMANDA WEARS SEXY CHAPS AND RIDES MARSHALL LIKE ..
Oooookay... like what? um, I don't want to see.
-Amanda Lear - PHOTO HISTORY Yet another picture in which Amanda wears outfit from Christian Llinarés collection.
I wish I could wear an outfit from any collection that wasn't my own...

11. Amanda "was arrested for"
-Amanda Overmyer Arrested for DUI :: Celebrity gossip juicy ...28 Feb 2008 ... American Idol finalist Amanda Overmyer spent time behind bars for drink driving and has a string of other motoring offenses on her record, ...
oooh juicy goss that.

12. Amanda "loves"
-Jon: Amanda loves texture and living vicariously
True I suppose...
-amanda-loves-lesbians
I couldn't say that I know any lesbians personally for that statement to be fully true, but I guess I love lesbians for standing their ground, and loving who they want to love.


Well that's it folks! You should try it... adds a whole new dimension to googling yourself. Er... not that I do that regularly...

*cough*


x

Dear People.

Today I drove a long way. And during my drive I thought - I should write a blog when I get home. But not about the boring trip, the boring town I went to, and all that. Rather, I should write a blog where I address an anonymous letter to each of my friends. Just short ones, and not to all my friends... but maybe just a few - like 3 perhaps.

So here goes. If you are my friend, maybe you know who I'm talking to... if you don't know me, and stumbled across this randomly, well, you can probably relate to what I'm saying.

___________________________________________
Dear friend,

We've known eachother for quite a while now, and we've been through quite a bit. I've always admired you but I couldn't begin to tell you why. You are a wonderful loyal friend, but lately things have changed. I don't know why completely, although I could speculate ... with everything that's happened in the last year I guess you could justify a bit of a change in attitude. The problem is, more so than usual, you couch what you say in passivity and ambiguity when it relates to your opinion. Worse, you'll complain about something that's wrong, and when someone else agrees that its crap, you'll defend it... I just don't know what to do anymore! I love you but you drive me crazy - original huh?

-Amanda

________________________________________
Dear friend,

I haven't actually known you that long if you think about it, but you are one of my closest friends. The trouble I have is that I struggle to have myself heard around you. Sometimes I will start saying something, but you will cut me off and start a conversation of your own, and no one seems to notice that I was saying anything at all. I find it frustrating both for the obvious reason of feeling my opinion isn't worth hearing, but also for the fact that I can't seem to bring it up because I value you too much as a friend to risk hurting you. Its complicated. Also - god damnit get some self confidence. There is a reason your friends love you like crazy, and its not because you've tricked us into doing so! You're an awesome, compassionate and loving person and you need to wake up and realise your special place in the world.

-Amanda

_____________________________________________
Dear friend,

I have known you for a long time too, but somehow I haven't ever had a fight with you. I don't know how, but we've always got along. You are my sister that turned out not to be my sister... which is good because we get all the awesome parts of sisterhood and none of the crappy angsty stuff that you get when you grow up. I admire you, I worry for you and I love having you around. I don't know what I'm going to do without you, but I think my phone will be used a little bit more often somehow. I want you to look after yourself and I do worry that you have a tendency to the excess, but I trust that you know when enough is too much, and the people you keep around you are good people too. But if it is ever too much, I know that you trust me enough to come and ask me for help, or for a shoulder, or advice - or even just a hug. Because I love you in an unexpected, unconditional way.

-Amanda



If you read this, and you think its you, it might not be. If you feel offended, don't be. These are letters to my friends, who I love. Also if you recognise the negative qualities, that doesn't mean its you! Part of the reason things annoy me is because I recognise those qualities in myself, and so they annoy me in other people more than other things, because they are things about myself that I don't like... see? Ah. Complicated. Relationships are fun. :-P



Now, just because he always wants me to, here is a bit about ... sex.

We have it.
We like it.

;-) Sorry honey, that's all I feel comfortable revealing on a semipublic forum.

I love you!



xox

Charities and the Internet.

Most of the time I tend to take my connection to the internet for granted. Way for granted... even though it is a majorly important part of my life. But some people don't have access to the internet and don't know its wonders. They have no idea about youtube, about blogs, about all the things that I do on a daily basis... I'm lying - more than a daily basis.

In society when you don't have enough money to buy food, you really don't have enough money to spend on non-essentials like a computer, or an internet connection. That's where this charity, Infoxchangehttp://www.infoxchange.net.au come into the picture. The founder, Andrew Mahar, decided that he would do something about this. Using ex-government computers done up by a team of long-term unemployed workers, the organisation hands out these computers to families in communities that need them most. They then go about connecting the houses to the internet, and away they go.

I don't think the majority of people would realise how much help having the internet is to underpriveleged people. Aside from having access to things like job search websites, email, internet banking etc., they also have access to knowledge which increases their opportunities in society. Mahar also argues that in underpriveleged communities the things that bind them are all negative - drug problems, violence, unemployment, family problems -but bringing in computers and internet connection can bring a positive aspect to the community.

I am a big fan of this charity, even though I only found out about it a few days ago, because in Uni we studied the homeless issue and found that one of the biggest problems that people have is getting their foot in the door. If you have been long-term unemployed or long-term homeless, your opportunities are greatly decreased because employers make negative assumptions about the people. Having the Internet gives them access to information that could better their situation, opportunities to make their way up in the world, and back into the community of employed "useful" members of society.

Anyway. Just thought I would point it out because I think its an awesome idea, and seems to make an attempt to make a difference rather than a band-aid solution to a widespread, deeply seated host of problems in society.

x

In the midst of the stuff.

I am taking a break from packing, partially because I deserve it, partially because I have uncovered too much dust and need to let it settle, and partially because damnit, I'm buggered.

A blog in 3 parts!

1. AFP concert
Last night after my impromptu late night blog post, I went to Amanda Palmer website where I realised that I had overlooked the tour dates there because I thought they were only European dates. To my shock I found a post (that I'd glanced at before) entitled "European and Australian Tour Dates" ... and AUSTRALIAN?!?!?!?! So I raced to see when and where, and discovered that Amanda announced 3 dates in Aus next month. I fretted for a while, wondering if I should book then and there, wondering if they were sold out already, wondering if it was selfish of me to go to Sydney as well as Cairns this month, and NT in March all without Nannal... but finally, thanks to a prompt from my lovely friend Heather, I booked the tickets. Yay!

Amanda Palmer is by far my favourite musician. Not because she has a perfect voice, not because she plays perfect piano - she doesn't have a technically perfect voice, and she can't read music (tho you couldn't tell to listen). I love Amanda Palmer because she puts real soul into her music. She puts real voice and real passion into her music. Its ridiculous how wonderful her music and lyrics make me feel. So... to understate it by a mile, I'm very excited about the upcoming concert.

2. my possessions
I have been going through my things, and with half the furniture missing, it makes my stuff look kind of ... well, like stuff. Piled as it is on whatever available horizontal surface I could find, my things look less meaningful than I usually think they are. Why do I keep it all?

I must have at least 20 bears here at this house... despite most of them still residing at my parents house. I have many trinkets of cats, and dragons and other random things, that I either bought for myself or was given by a friend. I have probably 30 necklaces. More bracelets. I have many many folders. I have too many clothes.

Really, I have to think: if the house burnt down, what would I be devastated that I'd lost? The answer is probably nothing. But I'd be really sad if I lost my oldest teddies...


I'd be quite sad if I lost the dresses mum made me ...



I'd be really upset if I lost the jewellery my family has given me over the years. Either heirlooms or just gifts...


I'd be sad about other things too... but in that circumstance I think I would also feel relief. I have bought or aquired so many things that try to represent who I think I am, and who others think I am that I manage to easily lose myself in them. The opposite of what we try to achieve through accumulation occurs...

That said, I still can't throw away all these boxes... but I'm starting.



3. no visitors to my site

The third part of this blog brings into question the purpose for this blog at all... I actually think absolutely no one reads this blog. While some people might be disappointed by this, I find it quite ... what's the word? It gives me the freedom to express exactly what I want.

That's the reason I don't blog so much on facebook, or at least why I don't blog as much as I did when I frequented that other social networking site that arguably started the "everyone must do it!" social networking craze - myspace. On facebook my blogs are announced to everyone who I am friends with, and its much easier for them to find it. On myspace, I was friends with less people who I didn't know that well, and I knew less of the people I was friends with would care to look at what I'd blogged.

Here, however, I feel the freedom to just write and not really bother so much with what anyone I know might think of me. I shouldn't worry so much about it, but really I do. And I think anyone who blogs would think it from time to time. How stifling to know that my friend from year 7 would read my deepest fears and silliest anecdotes if I told them. To those people who I barely know anymore I want to appear uncomplexly together and happy. To the people who want to know me, who can be bothered to read this or listen to whatever I say, they can read this and recognise it as very much a part of the real Amanda. Well, I hope so anyway.

hm...
I think I have well and truly exhausted my break time now.
Back to boxes; back to contemplating the importance of my stuff, my life, my space.

x

On Procrastinating 10 hours before the fact...

In 10 hours, my boyfriend, his parents and a trailer will be arriving at my house. In 10 hours, I should have a clean bathroom, an organised house with boxes at the ready, space to move and an idea of what should be going and what should, for now, be staying... However. I am at my blog. Refusing to move...

Really - students do it best.
What can I pass of as productive then? I mean, aside from posting 3 blogs in one day...

Here is a poem.


Hiding in the rafters,
I hear them scurry.
I don't know why,
but I know they must need something.

Lying down beside me
I hear him breathing -
but here's me
imagining a world into his mind.

Sitting on the pavement
Feel the warmth.
Feel my skin -
For a moment I know nothing but this.
Surrender.




Oooooh. Good poem. (I feel like I'm talking to a dog). Stay poem - uh! - staaaaay. Good poem. Keep existing and making sense. I'll come back and check on you tomorrow to see if you're still a good poem, before I decide whether or not to keep you, or take you back to the pound.

xo

An old blog...

A long time ago ... three years I believe... I had another blogspot blog. I have no idea how I came to have so many, mind you, but I did. This one can be located here. The last post I wrote went something like this...

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

so ben made a blog with his friend john where they debate stuff. yes, i know, its a good idea. BUT i'm jealous. you remember how jealous and left out i get? well, its happened again.

so to (once again) retaliate (even though its not so much a retaliation as an act of sugar induced randomness), i am now going to argue about the fact that the moon is made of cheese.

The propostion that the moon is, in actual fact, made of cheese is one which upon first viewing, seems somewhat preposterous. I mean, it is an accepted scientific fact that the moon is as most moons are, made of rock and other such normal satellite materials. However, I believe that I can prove this wrong following several totally logical (perhaps to begin with... we'll see) arguments, the conclusions of which you shan't be able to deny.

My first premise is one which needs to be stated in order to answer the obvious objection that man has visited the moon, found it to be rock-like (i.e., un-cheesy), and that this is fact. Yes, I have seen the footage, yes I saw the "hubub" surrounding the take off, the landing and all that. But I have also seen a television program which proposes a conspiracy theory. "Man never landed on the moon" is its claim, and they have some convincing arguments. Mainly in the form of evidence surrounding the visit. One which I find rather unnerving is the presence of cross hairs in photographs on the moon. Simply and quickly put, cross hairs in the lense of a camera will always show up in the resulting pictures on TOP of the image captured, just as your finger, if placed in front of the lens, will obscure the view. In several pictures from the moon, which were supposedly "untampered", the cross hairs are obscured by images taken by the camera. Without tampering, this is simply impossible.

Perhaps more convincing however, are the shots (again "untampered" with) which show the moon-walkers exiting and moving around the space shuttle. They are clearly illuminated. The problem with this is that they are behind the space shuttle, that is, the shuttle is in between the sun and the moon-walkers. Now given that the only source of light on the moon, is the sun, how could this possibly be? Shadow and the bending of light is one thing, but clear illumination, and in fact (if I remember correctly) reflection, is a completely different, and somewhat impossible... well, thing.

So yeah. My argument begins with the premise that mankind has not actually visited the moon. So how do I get from that to the fact that the moon is made of cheese. I have two compelling points.

Compelling Point Number 1.
Once I saw another TV program which was called "Wallace and Gromit". In this documentary style show following the adventures of a man and his dog, a trip to the moon is filmed which contains footage of Wallace and his dog Gromit eating the moon, which is made of cheese. They even put it on crackers!

Compelling Point Number 2.
I have thought this through thoroughly and have decided that if I were the moon, what would I like to be made of? No, not harsh icky rocks. No, not dirty icky mud. No, water is nice, but a bit boring... What then? And the answer is clear. Cheese.

Compelling Conclusion Number 1.
The moon is quite obviously made of cheese. All evidence of the "rockness" and "non-cheesy" nature of the moon given by scientists and NASA is false, because they have fabricated their moon exploration trips (yes I only had points against the first, but I'm sure if given evidence I could disprove the others too). Clearly, the only people to have visited the moon sucessfully are Wallace and Gromit (although Gromit isn't technically covered by the term "people", he is given an honorary human title because he is really rather intelligent don't you think?) who we can see in real footage eating the moon, and finding it cheesy. Also, Amanda would like to be cheese, if she were the moon. What further evidence is needed, really?

More Realistic Conclusion Number 1.
Amanda is a strange lady who has too much time on her hands. She consumes too much sugar and watches too much television. Her theories about the moon are obviously flawed and do not rely on objective or reputable evidence and she uses fallacy and fantasy as premises to a conclusion nowhere near forced by the argument. She has an unnatural liking of cheese.