kids setting up all over the wickety web
laba breaks it down all photo-like at share the happy

the boy likes to be cryptic at troubadavid

you know those infotainment shows on late night and midday teevee?
well, because australia has such an abundance of wonderful television programs to fill up it's stations' days, the infotainment starts at nine ay em. today while i was eating my breakfast, an ad came on for

the PSYCHOTIC VACUUM CLEANER!*

it's like all your mental health issues in one little unit! it's like, buy this vacuum cleaner for fifty two instalments of $59.95 plus postage and handling and it will follow you around the house sucking up your furniture and spurting its dust all over your kitchen with a maniacal grin and then it will sink into a deep depression and refuse to move from your bed! call now!!


*it was actually a cyclonic vacuum cleaner...i wonder if the marketing kids have realised what that name sounds like when the little man who talks all fast and excited plugs it. (get it? plugs it? plug in a vacuum cleaner? oh i'm so punny.)

alix is very good at having the best intentions.

when i have an essay due and i spend hours at a time sitting at my computer in my little room with the heater on, forgetting to eat and drink and sleep
my room becomes
THE ROOM
(you say THE ROOM in a deep ominous tone. THE ROOOOOOMM!)

so when i've come out of my room at midnight for a hot chocolate extra hot to burn my throat
and my parents are watching a deeveedee
and when i've burnt my throat like toasty
i say:
"i am going back to the ROOOOOOOOOOOMM!"

today i handed in my essay just in time, so now my room is back to being a normal room.

my life is exciting, and colour coded.

i'm doing a subject on the history of new york at university. we have a 65% final essay due on friday. and no, i'm not complaining about having to sit at my laptop while scouring over secondary sources for hours on end. (i'll leave that til tomorrow and the next day.)

today our lecturer told us that some loser person decided they didn't like photocopying, so they ripped hundreds of pages out of books that are in the reserve section of the library.

out of print books.
books other kids desperately need for friday.
books kids in future classes will no longer be able to use.

how horribly selfish. not to mention stupid--it's not like the lecturer won't be able to narrow down to who did it, simply by going through all the people who answer that particular question.

the ironic bit? the books were on organised crime in 1930s new york.

following tony pierce's twentyninth rule, we're all going to pretend i've been blogging obsessively over the last few months. got it?


today i taught kids to swim in a pool that has been making my body scream in rashes and itches for the last month. if i wasn't so poor, i wouldn't act like i don't care. anyway, i have one kid called angelo. last week i fixed his goggles for him and asked him if they were ok, and he said "there's no worries here." he's three years old. suffice to say he's a very cute little gentleman.

today, angelo stood in his little speedos on the side of the pool and looked at me through his eyelashes.

hey angelo, my little friend, let's get in the pool.

he forced his little legs to inch forward over the wet tiles and clutched my outstretched fingers with his chubby hand. he daintily stepped down the stairs with pointed toes and widened eyes at the warm bath-like water. then he lunged at me, grabbed me around the neck, and kissed my cheek.

i like you, miss alix.

i like you too, angelo.

after he swam dog paddle by himself with a cheeky and determined smile, i turned to his mum, sitting on the metal seat next to the pool edge.

if you ever need a babysitter...