what the?!

I am a terrible blogger. I am terrible at sticking to things in general. I haven't always been this way, I used to be a real 'go-getter' and then one thing lead to another and then it fell on something else and now I am a terrible stick-to-it-er. Now the only reason I bring this up is that I am suddenly having quite a little conflicting time of it all. Normally I start work on a project get really excited, research the crap out of it and then sit down to pull it all together, stare at the paper and run screaming from the room at the mere thought of failing at this task that I have prepared so dilligently for. Thats my generally pattern, and I'm fairly ok with it. The due date comes up and I run screaming back into the room and pull it all together in a crazy frenzy. However, in a recent happening, this pattern seems to be changing. I've been thinking about typing and editing a short scene I was working on...thinking a lot, not doing it though. Then all of a sudden yesterday afternoon, I sit down and write the whole thing in one go. I don't mean to frighten you dear reader, but I actually finished it! Feel free to stop reading here and have a breather, it is quite a shock. But wait before you do, there's a little bit more. This is not the first time I've come across this worrying behaviour of late. Nooooo, I also picked up three more stagnant projects and started working on them in a "I am finishing this now" kind of fashion.

Now there are two options here, either I have gone entirely insane, the world is on it's head and I am now living in a backward crazed world where I will be forced to do cartwheels to the train (which is more than a little worrying because between you, me and the world wide web...I can't do cartwheels! My butt overbalances me and it's all very unattractive! There is also a genuine risk of suffocating myself in my chest!) OR I am finally, after years of wandering through some fog coloured land of "but what if I can't" isms, getting my arse into gear! I might start practising cartwheels to be on the safe side...

I know I haven't written but I have a REALLY mediocre excuse!

So I have not blogged in quite awhile....I would apologise but as I have all of two followers I figure I'll just give them a buzz at a later date and bribe them to stay on with various forms of foodly goods. But in all seriousness (well with as much seriousness as you can for someone with the word spatula in their name) I've been as my mother says "a little bit off colour" and by that I mean I've been down right a pain in the arse to be around. Now openly, I'm not the healthiest person around, I accidentally poisoned myself for about three years before finding out I am allergic to gluten (go me!) so those surrounding me are kind of used to bitchy I will kill you if you don't abide by my wishes until this stops hurting personality and most have their own ways of dealing with it. But even they were questioning the turn of hand rages that I can throw without a second's warning (eg: "No seriously if we don't go home RIGHT now I will vomit ON you" and "I am not kidding if you don't get me drugs NOW you will regret it"...I am all charm yes) Anywho, turns out that I have been legitimately sick and probably should have looked into it earlier (like hell, evil evil doctors with your cold hands and metal ear stickies, I'm on to you) and this morning I learnt a good lesson, if you don't go to a doctor after a month of feeling ick, you WILL wake up with your eye puss glued to your pillows (mmmmmm) and welcome conjunctivitus into your life. So I have been punished and as I see it, it is a direct result of my non-blogging....so damn you puss eye causing blog!  On the plus side, I can now threaten to contaminate people with eye gunge if they don't abide by my wishes...every cloud.......

Now you know more about me than you ever needed to......and don't we all feel better...well no I feel icky but blogger-ly yaydom! x

So I did it. I deleted facebook. It was really very un-monumentous and was fairly depressing to realise how many people I am acquainted with that I don't spend anytime with or even think about very often. In general I could pretty much write off most of the people as lovely, but not close enough to warrant caring about 131 photos of their trip to Las Vegas (consisting of pictures of them drinking different coloured drinks and then, wait for it, the drinks BY THEMSELVES!). It's not that I am not very happy for my brothers best mates wife's sister who has just found out she's pregnant, it's more that it feels strange knowing details first hand when I have met the woman ONCE!
So I am no longer on the facebook bandwagon, and to my absolute lack of shock no one really cares, which gets me thinking, how much we think about others, and I'm not talking about the whole lets save each other and be good caring people but rather, more selfishly, how this is a thought worth remembering.
How many times I have not done something for fear that someone would look on it badly and now I realise they probably wouldn't have given a damn. Which is quite refreshing when you think about it. Thats not to say that the day I fell face first on the treadmill a lot of people (90% of the gym) didn't stop and look, but rather that laughing at me probably wasn't the highlight of their day (and if it was that's probably more their problem then my own...).
There is something nice in realising how insignificant you are in the world, makes it easier to get on with things and just bob along. Since realising this fact, I've been testing it using my new toy twitter. It's fun to direct comments to people and then never hear a response, in fact the best thing is to make a comment and then leave it for a few days and then delete it. It only illustrates how little influence we have on anybody else's world and it's even better when someone inadvertedly replies, seems to have a little bit more meaning somehow. Kind of like when you ask a question in a crowded conversation and you think no one's heard and then someone leans over to answer it.

So blah blah blah, that is all I have to say really, that and to apologise for my ranty-mc rant rant previous blog. Oh and also to announce the swim in the baths challenge, where by I have to swim in the baths, preferably in winter in the morning. No brain, no pain, so I should be fine......

Human Folly

I am always astounded that when something goes wrong, there is a large amount of people who automatically assess how it effects them and what they can gain from it as a result. Recently on a trip back from Sydney to see a concert, there was a fatality on the line, which meant that the train was held up for quite sometime. It was an interesting situation to be caught in, as all of a sudden people’s priorities became vocalised and really quite clear. The three sixteen-year-old girls with over manicured hair, falling down pants and lack of an ability to manoeuvre words into any coherent sentence all started to draw attention themselves. “Oh my god, I can’t even believe how late we’re going to be! I don’t wanna see any like dead shit” which was then followed by numerous phone calls to parents and friends to say “Yeah we’s been held up cos like there was some dude and he jumped in front of the train and now we’re like stopped” This was of course I imagine followed by the parental party asking why they were on said train and the fantastic answer of “we’s got bored so we wents to Hornsby shopping centre and was headin’ back and now it’s stopped” The accident becoming a comfortable cover up for their obvious  misdemanours.

Then there was the couple who were also incredulous to this ever happening “This has never happened to me before! It’ just doesn’t seem right. I mean how are we gonna get home in time. This is so fricken stupid.” Wow, what a lot of insight that young lady possessed. Her conversation later turned into a very detailed description of “the train driver comes round and says to us that this guy has jumped right in front of the train and hes dead and now were stopped for questioning” which I was fascinated with because I had missed this conversation with the driver somewhere between her seat behind me and my own and had only heard “please remain patient, there has been a fatality and this train will be evacuated in due course once the authorities arrive.”

Then there was the brilliant man who called his work and explained that he had witnessed a crime scene and couldn’t  possibly come into work tomorrow. Now this was pure genius as there was an accident and then there technically he had witnessed the track that had been the scene of the crime . Only a man of particular skill could have worked that story out so quickly and I have to admit to being generally quite impressed!

The amazing way that everyone’s thoughts went to being stuck, being late, having to wait and being hungry FASCINATED me! Someone had just chosen to end their life, you would think they could be a bit more considerate, I mean really peek time on a Sunday, tsk, tsk, tsk.  Next time, he should plan it for maybe 1.30 am on a Monday morning, because then no one would b inconvenienced, so mr Jumpee, next time…oh hold on…..There is no next time because you only have one life and yours has so sadly JUST ENDED!  I wanted to scream you miserable people, what the hell is your problem?! Have some bloody respect! Someone has just died and the poor dude driving the train has had to watch it happen! But instead I sat there and tried to concentrate on my breathing. Why couldn’t I just say what I had going through my head? At what point did we stop pulling each other up on being basically ridiculous human beings and just let it become a culture? This attitude was worn loud and proud for 3 hours whilst the situation was sorted at which point I found a friend of mine to discuss the amazement that is human society. And two days on I'm still amazed that not one person, including me, had the guts to standup and say something.... really makes you wonder doesn't it...or does it?

Challenge #2 - Update #1

I am now officially on my first day of my second challenge to delete facebook and so am trying to slowly but confidently detach myself. I posted my blog url so that hopefully will mean people contact me because I feel like a bit of a moron doing the old "I am deleting my facebook so take my details because I am oh so so important!" I've also been going through my "friends" list and realised that I speak to a total of about 13 of the people on the list! Isn't that absurd! And whats more, I actually DISLIKE over half of them! How did this little world become so frightening that all of a sudden I have to pretend that I actually care how many of these people do well in "texas hold em" application...news flash: I DONT! 

I have also already met with the unavoidable annoying question of "yeah, but why are you doing it? you can just downsize it can't you? make it really private?", in response, yes, yes I could do this, but then I could just as easy not have one at all and achieve the same end.

I realise this is a very rant like update but in daylight I have actually begun to hate facebook, more than just find it a waste of time. There are some really mean aspects to it all....which I will update in full over the coming posts if only to strengthen my own resolve :)

Face-off with Facebook - Challenge #2

Challenge number two has been a tough one. I have had a few in the pipeline but for whatever reason I have had to drop back and will do these at a later date. The last challenge was to test my fear and I think it did just that... although the write up did leave a lot to be desired, so apologies for that one.  So for this fortnight's challenge i am assigning something that i should have done quite some time ago but have been putting it off and putting it off because I am a lazy lazy young lady! 

For a bit of a back story, I signed myself up for a facebook account when I was about 20 and it was to keep in contact with close friends and to post pics and do the whole community thing. I had all the security protocols and what not and it all seemed dandy. After a little while though, things started changing. Less people exchanging news, and more people ranking friends and doing "which miley cyrus song am I?" quizzes. Then there were the "Become a fan of 'people against beating small children and women on trams' group" which was so rightly examined by my good friend Dr Q who countered this argument with his own "People in support of not getting shot in the face with a crossbow group". But mostly it just became fairly half hearted on my behalf. Then my friend who I will warmly refer to as Earl Grey informed me that everything I wrote on there was the property of Facebook. Which lets admit it, is a fairly horrifying thought. I started thinking about all the dodgy "I've had too much to drink" photos that I have in existence and it was rather a frightening thought that they would be posted and tagged to my name. So after some serious thought I have decided to bite the bullet and be independant and DELETE MY FACEBOOK! Shock horror for anyone of my generation. I did mention it to a few close friends and the general feeling was "why would you do that?" "How will I know what your doing?" to which I counter, I have a blog, I tweet and I own a phone! If you cant find me, you aint trying! So I challenge not only myself to this, but also my close friends to remember me even if I'm not commenting on facebook.

Now I know that the whole deleting facebook probably seems pretty lame to some people, but for me, facebook is fairly addictive! You can see into other people's life and monitor them! Which is that horrible addictive nosy parker streak I have's dream come true and also a reason to get rid of it (the next step will be to stop gossiping entirely but lets just start with baby steps!) So I am breaking  four year trend and will have to learn to live without it. The rules are these:

I have two weeks to:

 1. Remove all important info from facebook.

 2. Notify close friends of twitter account, email, blog and (god forbid) phone number and NOT make a big deal about it.

 3. Finally disable my account. 

 I am aiming to track my progress with this challenge this time, so hopefully I will update and you can all have a laugh as I rid myself of the facebook addiction....I wonder if there is rehab for this....

Random Fandom

When I was younger I stuck pictures of my favourite bands on my school books. I had a crush on then famous tennis player Mark Phillipoussis and Boy Band singer Taylor Hanson. I had posters of Leonardo DiCaprio on my walls and would sometimes wish that I could see him for real but that was the extent of my fandom. Not to say that I don't still have the odd moment where I think "god Ben Mendelsohn is so very very sexy!" but the reality is he could be a real arse in person and I don't pretend to be mates with him (he might with me, but then why wouldn't he?! :P) So i have to admit to my absolute shock and amazement at the fan crazies (sorry I know that is rude but I am struggling with what else to call them!) that surrounded the recent Harry Potter installment. We all expect that the three leads are going to get some degree of full on attention and I think they seem to handle it pretty well, I did not expect the level of fandom surrounding the other actors, nor did I expect the level of passion with which they address this appreciation. It is frightening! Youtube is a myriad of scary slideshows devoted to nearly every character and the actors who play them admitting undying love to the actors who portray these side running characters. I dare you to type "Fred Weasley" into youtube and just trail through the frightening array of devoted love interests that James Phelps (the young guy who plays Fred) can proudly skite of. I had no idea who he was till this little foray into fan world and now I'm just impressed with how normal he seems and even more impressed with the young fans that can tell him and his twin so readily apart. I've become so fascinated that I found myself "following" some of them on twitter, purely to see if the fans were on there too (they are! The Phelps Twins have more followers than Kristin Chenoweth which is just weird!).

So here's my question to the ether or anyone who answers, how do you shake that expectation of a fictional character as an actor? I mean it's one thing for Harry Potter to shake the label, but what about the Neville Longbottoms, Luna Lovegoods and Weasely twins? Do they also live forever in the shadow of a minor character, or will their fans follow them from project to project? And secondly, what do these actors have to maintain in order to stay in favour? I imagine you have to try and be pretty interesting if you know that thousands of fans are reading your twitter comments daily. It all seems rather exhausting really don't you think? Who knows, maybe it's just bizarre because at the ripe old age of 23 I really can't be arsed making slide shows or maybe it's just a genuine hope that we are actually all the same and their normality will shine through...or maybe I'm just so wrapped up in my on world I've no space to dream....gosh thats depressing...certainly hope thats not the reason :)