Well actually, I don't really hate EVERYTHING...

See, although I endlessly bitch & moan & whinge & complain - and will continue doing so until the cows come home, or hell freezes over, or whatever - there are a lot of things I actually don't hate. Some things I like. And more surprisingly, some things I even LOVE. Amazing.

But one thing I generally don't love is birthdays. Well, not all birthdays. Just mine.

I've always felt this huge pressure to have a good time, and when I was a kid, having a good time was directly linked to how many friends came to your party. Truth be told, I've got the feeling that I didn't have a party for quite a few of my childhood birthdays, and the couple of parties I remember having were not all that successful.

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When I was 6 (?) I was living in Balhannah in the Adelaide Hills. After moving from Sydney halfway through the previous year, this was my second year in a row in a new school, and I had only a couple of months to make some friends for my April birthday. Being during the school holidays, my sister had the fun of her best friend visiting from Sydney, and I have the vague feeling I resented that. A lot.

I always looked up to my sister, even though I was a right royal shit to her for the better part of my childhood years. And even though we are 5 years apart, I wanted to be just like her, and I thought I was her equal.

But on my 6th birthday, my sister had the audacity to have HER friend over from Sydney, someone who was much cooler than me, and was like all interesting and foreign. And someone with whom she'd rather spend time than me.

On my 6th birthday, I felt discarded by my sister. So what did I do?

I bit her.

That's right, I bit my sister right on the forearm because she wouldn't let me play with her and her friend.

Now, I can't remember what happened to all my other "friends" at the party after that happened, because I was punished relatively severely (let's just say I was told if I acted like a dog I would be treated like one - a fact that is still brought up in conversation from time to time, though thankfully my sister has forgiven me for it).

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So, I hope you can now understand just a little of why I generally don't like birthdays. They were generally a torturous experience with me worrying that no one would come to my party (if I had one) and then if they did came that they would not like me anyway. Some pretty severe teasing at my 8th birthday party cemented my fear & loathing of those enforced social gatherings.

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Now, I am sure I started writing this with a point in mind, but somewhere in the last 30-odd hours (since I started it) I have misplaced it.

Oh yeah, that's right. I hate my birthday... Not only is there terrible pressure on me to have fun, and the expectation that people will like me more on my birthday (wtf?), and I have always thought that without heaps of people around, without a party and loads of "friends", my birthday is a non-event, and should be treated as such. This is brought home even more now that I live at least 2,500 km from most of the people I love.

Luckily, I've learnt over time that birthdays are just like any other day. Sure you get cake, and presents, but I am still me, and I am not measured by how many friends I have or how many people come to wish me a happy birthday.

The people that I love, that make each day that much more special, that give me purpose and drive, that support and cherish me, and that I am honoured to have in my life - they are with me every day, regardless of whether it's my birthday or not. And regardless of how far away we are physically apart. The important people, the ones that I live and love for, they really come through for me every day. Including April 24.

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I guess what I am trying to say, is that as much as I dread this day, I love how my beautiful family & friends gather round to say, 'Hey, it's ok. Even though we might not be there in person, we miss you and love you and want you to have a great day.'

Thankyou, you wonderful special people (you know who you are) for making this day fantastic, and reminding me just how lucky I am to have you in my life.

<3

Questioning, part 1

I'm not sure why, but I am one of those people that questions everything. I cannot accept things for the sake of 'just because' - I need to know why, why, WHY??? I imagine I was a frustrating child. In some ways I still am. I am selfish and silly, I daydream and laugh out loud, I crave attention yet shy away from it unwanted.

And I still ask questions, although now they are not so much "why is the sky blue?", but more "what is wrong with me?" or "what the hell am I doing?"...

Of course, the answers are never satisfactory. I already know the truths, I just sometimes wish I didn't.

It's resurrection time!

Ok, I'm back! After ignoring this damn thing for almost 4 years - FOUR YEARS??!!! Farkk....

Anyway, I'm feeling the pressure from some awesome friends/writers (you know who you are!) to get back into this and try in vain to keep up with their awesomeness. Like I don't have enough to do already!! (mumble mumble, whinge whinge..)

Although I do feel that it could be handy to get my rants out of the way on here and maybe at some point I will learn to stop stressing and just fucking get over it. Lol. As if that's ever gonna happen.

So to kick off, here are some things that I hate/are pissing me off lately:

- dishonesty - people skirting around the issue and avoiding answering questions, although not technically lying, it's bullshitting by default

- laziness - although I am well known to spend hours on the couch watching episodes of Buffy or Angel, or Alias as is the current trend in our house - I despise people that complain and whinge and act like life is so damn hard for them... Gee, slacker, why not get off you fucking fat ass and do something for yourself for once?? You lazy c**t.

- my own stupid insecurities stopping me from achieving my goals coz if I never start, then I can never fail, right??

Ok, that was three things, I know there are more, but right now, I do have to get back to doing some work. Fun fun fun...

'til next time (in another 4 years)... Peaz out.

Calidad = crap

Recently I have had some unsettling experiences with my printer, and the process of trying to get it fixed properly!!

It all started about a year ago when my previous printer - a Canon bubblejet something or other - died. What happened is that black suddenly stopped printing, which indicated that it needed a new printhead. No longer being under warranty, I decided to put the $150 for the new print head towards a new printer for about $230. I got a Canon Pixma IP4000, which I love. It has been a faithful little worker for all of my homework needs, and has the great features of printing onto DVDs/CDs and a range of paper sizes including 6X4 photo paper (although who prints photo's out these days anyway??).

Fast forward to about two weeks before my warranty was up this year, and my beloved printers little head stopped working - it had the same problem as the last one, the black no longer came through!! I couldn't believe my bad luck, but on the other hand I was lucky enough for it to happen before the warranty ran out.

I was rather nervous about taking the printer back to be fixed under warranty because I hadn't exactly been looking after it 100%. Being a student, I found it difficult to justify spending $20-$25 per cartridge (it takes 5 in total!) as I use it everyday and need new cartridges on a regular basis. Kmart provided me with a nice alternative, Calidad brand inks, which cost between $10-$12 for what I believed to be equivalent quality ink with good colour matching. My nerves were settled after consulting with the place of purchase. I was advised that Canon would fulfill their warranty requirements even though the printer had been fitted with non-Canon inks, which impressed me. I was very happy that they replaced the print head and got the printer working again, it's just a pity that it then cost me $115 in Canon inks before they would test it and release it back to me!!!

In the end, I have a printer that works (sort of, there's an ongoing saga there - a whole other story), a whole new set of inks, and have been on the recieving end of multiple lectures about not using any alternate brand inks (especially Calidad) as they tend to clog the print head and cause numerous other problems. My advice to anyone who wants to save money on inks is to wait until Kmart have a sale thoughout their whole store and stock up. It just isn't worth the hassle of having to get your printer fixed/replaced every year beacuse of sub-standard ink cartridges.

Amnesia or just laziness?

So I just spent about half a hour trying to remember what my username for this damn blog was, let alone my password!! I think it is an indication that I have not blogged often enough since I created my account, as in, never.

Now I am not usually a forgetful person. I admit that things to do occasionally slip my mind, such as peoples names about 2 seconds after I have met them (I credit this to the fact that I don't give a rats arse about them, and if they were more interesting I would be more inclined to remember who the hell they were). But lately I have been forgetting lot of the more important things I should be remembering - such as homework that needs to be done, and things I need to take to tafe or God help me I will cop it from the lecturers!!

Can I credit this recent spate of memory loss to stress induced amnesia, or am I just getting lazy??

I have always been one of those people that writes endless notes about things I MUST NOT FORGET such as "new flavour of toilet spray" on the shopping list, or "call doctor re that nasty rash". These endless bits of paper have kept my life nicely organised and running per schedule until about a week ago, when things went haywire. Are my trusty scraps of paper, backs of envelopes and sticky yellow notes failing me in my old age?? (upcoming birthday reference here)

Or am I simply getting lazy? - not bothering to even look at those "trusty" notes once written, not once glancing in my diary to see what needs to be done at 3am before I have to get up 3.5 hours later and head off to tafe....

It seems I have asked more questions than I have answered here, so perhaps it is time to stop procrastinating and just get on with doing the tasks that are scribbled on endless numbers of paper scraps strewn around my living room floor.

The first one

So this is it. I am stuck with "theyreallgone" coz they were.

Seriously, I tried everything, and nothing and even something. I even tried gnihtyreve....

That's what I get for being a blog latebloomer.