Rememer, remember, in Oz there's no fifth of November

So, it turns out I won 'best dressed' at the hallowe'en party: I honestly kinda feel it should've gone to Jess, but I get a cinema ticket out of it, so I won't complain.

And I did look bloody irresistible.

In other news, it was Shane's birthday on saturday, and an almight chekhov's gun was employed; in O-week, we did a scavenger hunt, the purpose of which was to collect the ingredients necessary to make gloop. This included, flour, eggs and food dye. Now, since no one felt like getting glooped, we were allowed to just take the ingredients for ourselves. I got a bag of flour (still untouched) and three bottle of food dye. Fast forward four months (ye gods, four months?!) and Manthy wants to pull a trick on Shane by making him eat mayonnaise disguised as chocolate sauce (I know, I know- Loki would blush with jealousy), but there is a problem- it still looks like mayonnaise. Then I remember that I have four month old food dye just sitting on my shelf. And lo, Shane did eat of the mayo, and it was funny as.

You dare laugh at my pain?

To celebrate cue ball's date of birth we all went out to a casino, and I pulled a Jason in that I'd never been to a casino before- well, I put five dollars in a slot machine (honestly, I don't see the appeal- it's not even fun), and ten dollars on a roulette table and I lost all of it, and let's hope that's my history with gambling done. Although, I did go to the dog races in Dublin once. Maybe I'm just incurable.

The mall near my work is all decorated up for christmas, and I know I've pointed this out before, but it's stupid that there are aussie christmas decorations based on snow and icicles. Oh well, this will be my first christmas alone, and at least part of it will feel like home.

In other news, there have been several mentions of Oz on Once Upon a Time, and every time it happens, I squee a little inside. Plus, the most glorious thing happened on QI a couple of weeks ago (I only found this out yesterday):
http://youtu.be/22q7MViXrq4?t=27m9s
Did Stephen Fry just mention where I live by name? As in, not just Melbourne, but YARRA? Why, yes, yes he did. Be jealous, ya tools.

Tender Lumplings everywhere

Dear reader,

it's that time of year again, all hallow's eve. Or, more accurately, it was that time of year four days ago. But, better late than never, so I will display for you the assorted delights of the Yarra Becostumed Discotheque. I am, obviously saving the best for last, but I'll take you through the runners-up first, cos I'm a tease.

Jason as Dr. Lectre.

Cass as a vamp(ire).

Ellie as a fairy, Jason as an alchie and Cass as a nutjob.

Aiden as....himself but fat?

Shane as Bane Al Ghul.

Smeargle as Slender Man.

Aspen did not wear a costume.

Martin as his mother.

Manthy as Amanda Seyfried in Mean Girls. It's ironically skimpy, see?

Alec as an abortion doctor.

Milly as a nurse.

Logan as Not-Joker. 

Jason gives a lectre on the stupidity of having autumn  decorations up when it's spring in Australia.

The 'Pinata'.

Jess as Corpse Bride.

 Click 'Read More' below to see the bestest hallowe'en costume ever.

The unbearable hotness of being

It's quite warm today: 30 degrees celsius, which is the inordinately high-sounding 86 degrees fahrenheit.
This is not unworkable heat- admittedly, it makes things more difficult, but I can still go about my business. This is, sadly, not the hottest it is going to get. I have heard differing accounts, but the range has been between forty and sixty degrees (I presume celsius, because otherwise...). If memory serves, which it doesn't always, the hottest I have ever experienced was forty five degrees in Fatima, Portugal. And that really was unworkable.
Honestly, I'm not surprised that people had 'visions' there; they were more than likely delirious from the heat. The thing I keep telling myself is that I have air conditioning in my room. This is all well and good, but what about when I want to leave my room? For example, if I go to work, or see a film, or just need to buy groceries? What then?
And, truth be told, I don't have an answer. I will just have to suffer through. Probably not in silence, as that's just not how I roll, but with what dignity I can muster. This will at least allow me to gage whether or not I can live in a hot climate in the future, but will probably also leave me dehydrated and grumpy. Alack.

When God closes a door

I had a room inspection yesterday, and I passed with flying colours! It only took three years! I'll admit that I had to do a bit of a spruce-up afore the landlord came a-knockin', but there's no law against that (although Mark seemed to be under the impression that I keep my room that way all the time. I decided not to disillusion him. However, when I was tidying up I decided to do a bit of decorating, since I had some light weight mementos and more blu-tac than I knew what to do with.

Opportunity came a-knockin' and got its hand stuck on the blu-tac.

So I bedazzled my door with memories. It might not look too impressive in the photo, but all three people who've been in my room since I did this have commented on how cool it looks. And I really like the effect; every time I enter or leave my room, I'm reminded of all the cool stuff I've done since I came here (I'll admit, there are a lot of penguin pictures); I've got my tickets of admission to the opera, the sea life centre, Looper and something funny happened on the way to the forum on there. I've also got some maps of Melbourne, the coles Gift card I won at the open mic night and a drawing of me that Milly did during my first week here. 

In other news, I went to see Frankenweenie with Adrien and it's...fine. The animation is gorgeous and the story is fun, but the script is lacking. Alack.

Pretty little picture

This weekend I bought some pink headphones: I needed headphones and the pink ones were the cheapest. The shop hand tried to play on my insecurities and said 'yeah, they're cheaper, but they're pink', and when I took them to the counter, he raised his eyebrows and said 'oh, you've gone for the pink ones' and I replied, no joke, 'yes, I'm secure enough in myself'. So, I walked out, having saved seven dollars, and feeling very good about myself. I relate this story only to share my moment of glory and explain to those of you who skype me know that I haven't suddenly admitted to a newfound love of pink.

In other news, Geoffrey Rush was fantastic. The show was amazingly funny, and Jason, Adrian and I have a whole gamut of new inside jokes; it was actually very sweet, because this was lil' Jason's first trip to the theatre and he was obviously enraptured.

They don't really mean what they're saying! What is this magic?!

 

The music was delightful, the cast were exceptionally strong (apart from Geoffrey Rush, there was a guy playing the slave Hysterium who was bloody hilarious). So, money and time well spent.Yay!

And finally, I may have made a friend at work, which is nice: she's from Dublin, she's a cinephile, she's heard of the bechdel test. We went to see 'Savages' together because we'd both turned up to a shift that wasn't on, and were the only ones in the cinema, and spent the screening sporadically laughing at the ridiculousness of that. It was very fun. Her name's Queeva and I'm making her a tag now, because it worked out so swimmingly with George.

Educate good times, come on!

George returned yesterday, proving it's never too early to create a tag for someone. I also got another 'I no speak English', proving I defy the god of CATI*, whom I've deemed Katy, and am some sort of Telephone Marketing Research messiah.

I'm now done with tutorials for the year; take that, people from Uni back home (depressingly, I don't think that there are any Edinburgh students reading this- you don't count, Dr. Fowkes, being a staff member and all). I have one more week of lectures and then I am done with Uni 2012, which is kinda scary. Thinking back to January this year, and how absolutely awful I felt about my course, I couldn't have imagined I'd actually be interested in what I was studying- but, looking over my Language, Society and Culture text book today, in preparation for my upcoming test, I was actually genuinely piqued by the ideas inside. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: if I have a future in Linguistics, it's in Socio-**. Syntax continues to prove the bane of my very soul and the enemy of life itself, but I guess you can't have it all (and with Syntax, you really shouldn't have any).

I must say, I prefer the Australian school system- the idea of choosing modules (including some which aren't directly related to your major), and thus not feeling trapped into drawing upside-down trees for however bloody long, is much more condusive to work, if you ask me. If I ever have children, I'd want them to be in a university system like this (I believe the American system is similar), because it allows you to actually find out what you like, as opposed to the British system, which just tells you what to take, like it or lump it. And I lumped it. Of course, were I enrolled in Edinburgh this year (and when I eventually return), I would be given a degree of choice within my degree of choice, but I kind of see this as too little too late. Alack.

*Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing
**Fuck you, James Reid.

Consistently congenial

Hey guys, just a quick note to let you know I had my first shift at work yesterday, and that there are a LOT of disconnected phone lines in Australia. I think about 40% of the calls I made came up with 'I'm sorry, the number you have dialled has been disconnected', a further 50% was answering machines and only about 10% got through to actual people...about one third of whom would actually answer my questions.
That's a 3% success rate. Go me. Also, interesting story, my first call ended in 'I no speak English', which I was told happens once in a blue moon- so I'm not expecting another one for another 1.7 years. Or until there suddenly appears before me the only one my arms will ever hold.

Not what I meant, but I'll take it.

In other news, this week is hellish. I'm working again tonight, have a class test tomorrow and a syntax assignment due on Friday. But then, on Friday night, something brilliant will happen. It will be my treat for surviving. For, on Friday, I will see Captain Barbossa perform live on stage. And he will be singing this:

 

Almost, almost, almost worth doing syntax for.