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...

my mum has bought me the world.

she's uber-excited about me going on exchange next year to canada and so she's been preparing my wardrobe for the insane cold. and i totally will need more, and warmer, clothes. and she's right--the warm clothes will be out of the shops by mid-winter, so it's good to buy stuff now. she doesn't normally buy me clothes, but i'm crazypoor and she is happy to buy for a cause, i guess. a cause being another country, that is. and me conquering it.

but.

i am disgusted by my wealth. i walked into my room this afternoon, side-stepping the maze of stuff on the floor. clothesbagspaperbooksshoesetcetcetc. piles on piles. and i started hanging all the lovely jumpers and long-sleeve tops mum's bought me over the last few weeks. i have so many new items that half of them are still unworn, tagged, even still sitting in their colourful branded plastic bags.

and i feel guilty. the same feeling as when i watch water pour down the sink, wasted. when i can't finish dinner, so i chuck it in the bin. it hits me higher than my stomach, slightly to the left. it just doesn't make sense. why should i have more thingsthingsthings when some people--most people, even--have virtually nothing? the only thing that makes me different to the faceless, choice-less, voiceless impoverished masses is the part of the world in which i was born. just because i am sitting on the lucky side of the world.

yet when mum takes me into a shop, i want. i want things i don't need, i want a more expensive jumper than one that will simply do the job, keep me warm, i want what that girl at uni is wearing today, i want a new pair of jeans, i want a new outfit for every day. i want to keep being picky about what combination of materials i will cover my body with today. and when i try on a pair of shorts (the shorts i wore today to uni) that i don't need? and say i happen to like the look of them? i want. i ask. i stand there in the glare of the changing room lights and i ask mum to buy them for me because i have a total of forty dollars in the bank. sure, they're on special. but then i go home and i see in my room a cluttered mess of possessions. and i sit here and feel guilt fill me up.

and all the while i know that i perpetuate the cycle. i make it happen. it's me.

last weekend i went away. and when i dumped my old blue bag on my temporary bed i realised. in that jolt of the springs when it hit. i was carrying with me more than what most people own. in that small bag, stuffed with jeans and jumpers and a big fat study bible and shampoo and make-up and old shoes. more than most people own. in total. for one weekend. a weekend during which i wished more than once that i'd brought a different jumper along with me because i didn't feel 'confident' wearing the one i had. freaking confident.

i really need to get over myself.

for media this semester we are doing radio production, and my group's major project is going to be awesome. and so i give you...

an excerpt from

MEDIA BOY

THE BEST RADIO PLAY EVER

DRAFT ONE

Anne Dunn: (interrupts Media Boy) Excuse me, but could I speak to you for a moment, John?
Narrator: Our ordinary little media student is surprised that Anne Dunn knows his name.
Media Boy: I’m surprised that Anne Dunn knows my name. (pause) Hey wait, I’m not ordinary!
[sound of other students fades out, as Anne takes Media Boy aside to speak to him in private]
Anne Dunn: (deadly serious tone) John, I have something very important to tell you.
[sound: dramatic music, sudden build-up of suspense…]
You…are the Chosen One. You are our only hope. Now come quickly, we must head to the Media Cave at once. Some very important people are waiting to meet you!

ooo yeah.

i have new hair
and writer's block.

go and be india's fans because hers was one of the best concerts i've ever been to.