Week 12 - Waiting & Watching

Thursday #13 – I kicked off this Thursday with a glance at my clock and this was pretty much how I spent the entire day.  Having received word last Monday that DTM would be making a brief trip home this week, I had struggled for a few days to keep it on the downlow as promised.  Eventually he ruined his own surprise by deciding he’d rather lock in some New Years Eve plans and inform the world of his return than end up stranded and alone to ring in twenty twelve.  This was a big relief as I knew there was a chance I’d stuff up and let something slip when out drinking with The Vegetarian, The Trophy Winner and DTM’s version of M-Dizzle on Xmas Eve.  Since he’d arrived in Melbourne on Wednesday night (while I was at Legally Blonde’s place with The Hot One, The Tradie, Greenpeace and others to celebrate Legs 11’s birthday) I’d been hanging out waiting for the call I was told would come at some stage while he was on the 12½ hour train trip to Sydney.

All day at work I found myself looking at the clock just waiting for it to be 8pm and to know he was officially back in town.  The Gym Junkie wasn’t helping matters with her frequent inquiries as to whether or not I had heard anything yet.  Having decided against a romantic rendezvous at central station amongst the homeless and the buskers, I suddenly realised my clock watching was super crazy as I wouldn’t even be seeing him at 8 so what exactly was I counting down to?  I was driving myself crazy so spent most of the afternoon/night making phonecalls and sending texts to anyone who would listen – Legs 11, The Hot One, The BH&G Fan, The Vegetarian…

Eventually DTM got in contact and we agreed to meet up on Friday.  I suddenly got all first date nervous so calmed myself down with a couple of glasses of wine.  The sem sav blanc was particularly feral (I clearly had not learnt from last Thursday) so I mixed it with some out of date orange juice to make it drinkable.  They came together in a beautiful Captain Planet kinda way – both useless and not very tasty on their own but suddenly when their powers combined they made for a pretty ok wine and OJ beverage.

After some facebook chats with DTM and my Clinic Gossip Girl it was time to head to bed and look forward to the fact that there may very well be ice cream and movies in my near future.

Week 11 - Wrapping & Wincing

Thursday #12 – ‘Twas an information-filled start to the day as I awoke to find every kind of symbol my phone knows flashing at me – texts, emails, facebook messages, whatsapp and even a chat on words with friends.  The initial feeling of immense popularity quickly wore off when I realised the text was a thank you for a b’day message I’d sent out a couple of days prior, the email was an automatically generated one from some shop wishing me a merry Christmas, the facebook message was part of a group chain and was not actually aimed at me, and the whatsapp was little more than a movie review.  Having decided that 1am the previous night would be the ideal time to start wrapping presents; I was a little slow getting out of bed but eventually did and set off to bravely take on the mall on the Thursday 3 days before Christmas.

On a mission and armed with a list of the exact things I wanted, I managed to finish up my Christmas shopping fairly quickly.  Quickly for that day, not in general – it was probably my 5^th or 6^th attempt at finishing my Christmas shopping.  Then it was off to meet The Marge for lunch and to buy my final present.  I marvelled at my own music collection as the ipod shuffled up an 80s mix to die for on the bus trip there.  Pat Benatar and Madonna had me wondering if my playlist could possibly get any better.  Once there it was kebab time – I still struggle to get my head around kebabs in the middle of the day completely sober but The Marge and her sister absolutely love them so lunchtime rendezvouses with these two often involve getting into the hommus and tabouli.

Stomachs full it was time to hit the nursery and pick a gift for Big Brother.  Walking into Flower Power took me back about 20 years to trips there with The Farge who loved nothing more than long drives and looking at plants…not a lot has changed in that regard.  I wish I was joking.  The stench of fertiliser is not something I have missed in the years since I was last at a nursery.  The Marge helped pick out a lovely palm that was splaying out all over the place and then it was off to the car to try and wrestle the thing into the backseat.  Good times, especially when trying to juggle an umbrella at the same time.

On the way back home I popped into my local liquorland for some champas and was stunned by a request for ID.  With the exception of a few months ago when M-Dizzle and I bought a case of UDLs and were loudly discussing schoolies; I’ve not been ID’d in a bottle shop for years.  Suspecting it may have been the headband I was rocking; when I returned home I took it off and tried to work out if that was what had been responsible for me suddenly looking so much younger.  It didn’t seem to make a difference to me but I am determined to work out why the man who has been serving me for a year, no longer thinks I look 18 –The Marge and her nutrimetics friends could make a fortune adding my secret to their “stop the clock” range of products…I just need to work out what it is that not only stopped the clock but turned it back 7 years.

Looking for some support from DTM (which now that I even type that sentence does seem a tad ridiculous) I filled him in and was told “yeah I can see that” as I whinged that I apparently didn’t look 18.  I suspect he was just trying to annoy me and I don’t want to think too much about why he would’ve been chatting up someone who he thought looked 17 all those months ago – it’s just silly, if I was 17 I wouldn’t have been able to BYO cider when we went to see The Smurfs…

At the recommendation of multiple people (ok maybe just 2) I sat down and watched Warrior.  I do love me some Joel Edgerton at the best of times so was more than happy to see him all buffed up and often shirtless for the 2½ hour movie.  I’ll admit the storyline was good and it was a good movie (which did at one point cause me to shed a tear or two) but I did spend a lot of the time not wanting to watch as my Joel (and various other men with muscles in places I didn’t know could have muscles) got punched in the head.  I questioned DTM on which part of this made him keen to do MMA and am told the training part appeals and not so much the getting punched/kicked in the head/stomach/back part.  I’m not entirely sure how you train for that without having to endure that but I don’t really want to think too much about it.  He tried to argue that mixed martial arts isn’t really that bad and that the movie had OBVIOUSLY dramatised it, but his case was shot to bits when I reminded him I had in fact seen UFC with him and the movie seemed fairly accurate – just with hotter fighters (which did possibly cause me to wince more than if they’d just been average looking).

Movie and skype over I finished up all my Christmas wrapping and sat down to enjoy* a glass of sav from last year’s box of wine from Mr H.  The sem sav blanc tasted suspiciously like a chard and one glass was more than enough.  Not an overly eventful Thursday but a relieving one as I finally finished my Christmas shopping, got all my presents under the tree and headed to bed relatively early to prepare for the next few days of craziness.

Week 10 - Lunching & Decorating

Thursday #11 – with both Wednesday and Thursday off work this week, I woke up decidedly confused about what day it was. Felt a little like Sunday and somehow also like Friday but definitely not like Thursday.  Damn mid-week weekends.  After this confusing start to the day it was time to spend half an hour checking my emails – not because I am suddenly Miss Popularity or haven’t checked my emails in a while, but because the bigpond gods have decided (in a decidedly unfestive manner) to slow my internet right down after I allegedly downloaded one too many TV shows this month.  Chuggalug.  It is a very painful and frustrating time, reminiscent of the late 90s when checking your emails involved a lengthy (and noisy) dial-up process which could be interrupted at any second if someone decided to call your home phone.  I am fairly confident our internet billing month ends in a day or two and am sincerely hoping this is true as I don’t think my patience will even last that long.

With that eventually out of the way it was off to The Rocks to meet up with The Wannabe Ranga for some lunch.  After some chicken paninis and cold beverages it was time to hit the shops.  Not being from Sydney herself, I impressed The Wannabe Ranga with my superior knowledge of the city (superior only to her, most of the time I have no idea where I’m going) as I was able to take her to all the venues she requested – luckily for me her requests were all fairly obvious landmarks.  We spent what felt like an eternity in Myer and discovered that the phrase “the customer is always right” is clearly not in their staff training manual.  Having started work in customer service 10 years ago, I am well aware of this little saying and often disagree with it completely; thinking a more accurate description would be “the customer is always a tightarse and trying to get something for nothing”.  Except on days like today where I AM the customer and I AM right. 

Somehow their own incompetency in sticking a barcode on something meant they wouldn’t be able to sell it to me – but not before sending us on a wild goose chase from register to register via a million confusing escalators.  We explained that there was an almost identical product (with just a couple of words different) with a barcode and a price on it but that was not good enough for the Christmas Grinches at Myer.  After confiscating my present I went back downstairs (after locating the escalators once more) and returned with my almost identical item to then watch the lady spend 5 minutes trying to use this to lookup the one I actually wanted to buy.  Rather than apologising for this ridiculous waste of my time, or perhaps thanking me for hand-delivering the product she could use to look it up (since she clearly was not going to trust me when I told her the price); she looked at me like I had somehow made her life more miserable.  The Wannabe Ranga and I were fuming over this poor customer service and she pointed out that people that rude should not be dealing with customers – “exactly” I agreed, “that’s why I stopped serving customers years ago”.

When I finally got home I had some dinner with The Marge and then it was tree decorating time.  The fake Christmas tree made its way into the lounge room on Sunday and has been looking decidedly bare all week.  We finally figured it was time to stick on some baubles, chuck on some beads, hook up some lights and throw a bit of tinsel in the mix (all while listening to Mariah Carey’s Christmas album of course) and voila – it feels a tiny bit more like Christmas.  I explained to DTM via skype later that night that The Marge is quite particular about her fake trees and selected this one based on it having “that authentic toilet brush look”.  He seemed confused (clearly not a fake tree expert) and had to be reassured that we did not use our Christmas tree throughout the year as a bathroom utensil.  I’m really not sure who came out of that conversation sounding crazier.

For what felt like a jam-packed Thursday, in hindsight it was fairly uneventful and full of awkward moments when I realised (and shared with The Wannabe Ranga) that this time a year ago I was hanging out with The Older Man.  We both cringed as we recalled the horrific line he had used and more disturbing, the fact that it had worked.  Perhaps I should be thankful, for as much as it makes me shudder; “I want to know what your lips taste like” has provided me with lots of laughs over the past year as I’ve found myself retelling the story of a very awkward night in our nation’s capital.

Week 9 - Working & Taste-testing

Thursday # 10 – much like children a quarter of my age; I started my day by excitedly opening up the Advent Calendar to see what treat awaited me.  The Marge is still super proud of her creative efforts which 2 years ago saw her create her own Advent Calendar when all the shops had sold out and I had specifically requested one.  Truth be told, I would’ve been content with the $2 variety which stocks chocolate so suspect looking it’s started to go a little white, but The Marge went above and beyond.  24 mini cardboard noodle boxes, lots of festive stickers (3D ones nonetheless!), numbers written in glittery pens and an assortment of lollies and chocs later and we have our very own Advent Calendar.  It often isn’t ready for use on December 1 but I’ve never objected to playing catch-up when it comes to chocolate.  This morning I opened the box to find a mini gingerbread man and 2 little chocolate praline balls – the day was shaping up to be another healthy Thursday, just like last week.

Then it was off to work where The Dieter’s return this week had certainly not gone unnoticed.  It’s not so much that he tells the same stories over and over again that gets on my nerves (though admittedly he does and it does) it’s that he insists on having the same conversation with every single person there.  When I got in and sat at my desk I was greeted with “hey H, is it summer or winter?” to which I politely laughed and agreed that it was a little hard to tell.  Less than 5 minutes later he was over chatting to last week’s birthday girl asking her what season it was.  My patience was wearing very thin when The Gym Junkie rocked up and was asked the same question.  We get it dude, it’s a little rainy and not as warm as usual but it’s obviously summer and your question was barely worth the laugh the first time around, it certainly isn’t getting any better on outing #3!!  Don’t even get me started on Tuesday’s story about finding 2008 grand final tickets in his backpack (which I also heard 3 times in 2 minutes). 

The work day improved when The BH&G Fan brought out her baked goods for us to sample.  Testing out her shortbread recipes pre-Christmas, we were more than happy to step up and assist in the tasting.  A big thumbs up from everyone, especially Mr Tai Chi – though after a decent slice of alcoholic fruit cake I’m not sure how valid his opinion is.  The Gym Junkie went back for seconds and we allowed it since she’d been to the gym at 6am and had done 2 classes before work.  Crazy lady.

After work I decided to hit up the mall in search of Christmas presents.  It’s possible I spent more time looking at clothes for myself than actually buying things for other people – it’s not my fault I am so easily distracted by pretty things.  90 minutes and 2 presents later I decided to give up and head home for a quiet dinner with The Marge.  After dinner it was time to dust off the laptop and get my social networking on.  An email to The Pen Pal and some facebook chats with DTM wrapped up a fairly uneventful but pleasant enough Thursday.

Week 8 - Wining & Dining

Thursday #9 – the day kicked off in the same way as the previous 3 this week, hitting snooze on my alarm multiple times before finally dragging myself out of bed and off to work.  Work this week had been better than usual with The Dieter having a week off and consequently our ears having a week off from hearing about his sons, his iphone, his T-box and his new rabbit food health kick.  Since we had a birthday in our midst, The Better Homes & Gardens Fan and I had joked about how disappointed The Dieter would be to miss out on sandwiches and cake.  We got the shock of our life when he turned up at morning tea time and told a less-than-thrilled birthday girl that he “wouldn’t miss it, this is family” and stayed for the 15 minute celebration.  We’re not sure she agreed as she was so determined to avoid an incoming kiss on the cheek she ended up with a kiss on the shoulder as she walked away.  The BH&G Fan and I were most amused as we stood there downing wraps; somehow the only 2 people left at work who don’t pretend to be vegetarian at birthdays – more chicken and bacon for us!  The work day went fairly quickly with multiple visits to the fridge for what seemed like a never-ending morning tea.  Couldn’t help noticing that this was the first birthday in a long time where there had been leftover food at the end of the day and The Dieter hadn’t been working...just sayin’...

After a quick visit from The Designer (who was dropping in clothes I had semi-drunkenly purchased on Sunday at her house-warming but love all the same – props to her for an excellent marketing ploy, provide free punch and a cask of vodka then ask if I want to try on your new designs...genius) it was time to head to the city and continue my day of eating.  Met up with The Wine Buff, Legs 11 and The Hot One (who insisted I call her this despite no evidence of it actually being accurate) and headed to Fratelli Fresh where we enjoyed a cheeky pre-dinner beverage while we waited for Legally Blonde to finish work.  A nice glass of sav and some mozzarella snacks and it wasn’t long before we found ourselves reminiscing about Franco’s mozzarella bar in Sorrento, our crush on The Boat Captain and our very favourite Sheffield Stunner.  The Hot One particularly enjoyed this since she hadn’t actually been part of Euro Trip ’08, but she shared our love of Sheffield Stunner all the same.

Legally Blonde finally finished work and joined us for some din dins and more vino.  Legs 11 and I particularly struggled with the menu and remain unsure about what language it was actually written in.  I personally chose my meal based on it being the only item on the menu which I understood every word of – lasagna.  The Hot One decided to interrogate our waiter with probing questions about where he was from, how long he’d been in Australia and whether or not he has a visa.  She claims to be unemployed but I’m starting to wonder if perhaps she’s been doing some undercover surveillance for ASIO.  Our French waiter assured us he did have a visa (albeit one that would be running out soon) and The Hot One offered up the rest of us as potential wives for The Waiter.  Legally Blonde spoke fondly of Anglet and The Hot One did her best to ignore it.  I used my best French to inform The Waiter I had lost my magic bag and The Wine Buff ordered an interesting ice-cream and whiskey dessert.  Legs 11 was placing stationery orders while The Waiter was getting jealous when he caught us talking to Waiter #2.

Talk turned to boys (as is fairly inevitable when 5 girls go out for dinner) and The Hot One summed up her type beautifully in eleven words “I like them big and I like them with brown hair” – luckily The Tradie fulfils this strict criteria.  Despite Legs 11 not thinking she had an obvious type; Legally Blonde, The Hot One and myself all used the very same actions to depict her dream man and it was again up to The always poetic Hot One to summarise: “she likes a man who can pick her up and throw her on a bed” – I doubt any of us can argue with that.  Sadly The Waiter did not join us for Banoffee Pie (I say us but I wasn’t going anywhere near those bananas) or the champagne he had promised.  Let down, it was time to say goodbye and head home.  The usually long bus trip went surprisingly quickly chatting with Legs 11 then it was time for a quick chat with DTM to wrap up a tops Thursday.  A LOT of food was consumed but also a lot of laughs were had and I am pleased to say my Thursdays are looking to be back on track.

Week 7 - Scrabbling & Texting

Thursday # 8 – this day was not off to a good start when I inexplicably woke up at 5.30 and could not get back to sleep...for about 15 minutes.  By the time the alarm went off at 6 I was dead to the world and snoozed for the next 2 hours before calling work at 8 to inform them I wouldn’t be in. Oops.  Luckily they were quite supportive of my plans to spend the day studying; it’s just a shame that didn’t happen.  Then it was back to sleep for another couple of hours before finally getting out of bed and kicking off a doozy of a Thursday.

Since the uni gods had thoughtfully decided my time would be better spent seeing patients this week rather than living it up in NYC I was naturally a little down.  Had hoped this post would be filled with stories of the Macy’s thanksgiving parade rather than stories of how I spent my day playing words with friends and catching up on TV.  Gossip Girl? Check. How I Met Your Mother? Check. Beauty & The Geek? Check. The Doctors? Check. Some new show that I think was called Happy Endings? Check. Losing in scrabble to The Goalie? Check. Preparing for uni on Friday? No check...my bad.

The day brightened a little with a message fest from a slightly intoxicated DTM that lasted about 3 hours.  Thank goodness for WhatsApp or my phone bill would be reaching those all-too-familiar highs that result in emails saying I’m approaching a credit limit I have no recollection of agreeing on!  The Marge popped in and made us both lunch before heading off to Bris Vegas and leaving me alone to spend the night charging my optom equipment and looking at photos from my work Christmas party on Tuesday – which was perhaps the reason I had been so tired to begin with.  This Thursday reminded me of a song that The Weather Girl once tried to work into a short story – things can only get better!  I have high hopes that next Thursday will be a step up from this downer.

Week 6 - Pre-Drinking & Celeb-spotting

Thursday #7 – with exams finally out of the way it was back to the always exciting world of full time work.  I rocked up and did my thing only to leave with it looking like not only had I not made a dent in my workload, but there was perhaps more to do than there had been at the start of the day.  The joys of only working 5 or 6 hours a week during semester means my “holidays” are spent catching up on the previous 4 months work.  On the bright side, the day went pretty quickly and it wasn’t long before I found myself on a bus to M-Dizzle’s for some dinner and beverages.

Despite me starting my journey from the Northern Beaches and her starting from Randwick, I somehow managed to beat M-Dizzle to Kensington after work.  Luckily The Doctor was around and let me in so that I could do important things before M-Dizzle arrived home – such as moving the UDLs out of the freezer and into the fridge.  Very important.  We cracked open our cans (which were left over from our post-exams celebration at the beach and which needed to be finished so that they wouldn’t need to be packed and moved to a new house) and sat down to enjoy some soggy-based pizza.  Turns out accidentally using the griller instead of the oven does not a crispy pizza make!  After polishing off the uddles it was time to hit up The Rege and introduce The Guest Kiwi to the joys of Thursday night karaoke.  We spent a considerable amount of time deciding what to wear and whether or not we could even be bothered changing – the 4 or 5 UDLs we had each consumed probably did not help speed up this process.  I stayed in what I’d worn to work and added a headband to jazz shit up while M-Dizzle opted for her whore top and after much deliberation, a pair of havaianas.

The karaoke was noticeably disappointing – our favourites (who have been known to rock out to The Divinyls’ I Touch Myself and Chicago’s All That Jazz) were sadly absent and had it not been for the “seven minutes and six seconds of glory” provided by The Hippy Engineer and his rendition of Rapper’s Delight, the evening would have been a complete waste of time.  Luckily The Guest Kiwi didn’t seem to mind and I’m pretty sure he enjoyed his visit to The Rege – how could he not when he got his photo taken with a celeb!!  OK, so perhaps celebrity is a bit of an exaggeration but M-Dizzle and I were pretty excited to discover The Jim Beam promo girl was in fact one of the beauties from Beauty And The Geek.  Extra special since it was a Thursday and had we not been out and about we probably would’ve been watching her on TV that very night – amazing.  We got a quick photo but then she moved on, I think our jugs of cider perhaps gave her the hint that we were not going to be buying whatever bourbon based product she was selling.  A cheeky cheeseburger stop and then it was time for bed.  Not overly eventful but a pretty good Thursday nevertheless.

Week 5 - Cramming & Napping

Thursday #6 – not the best start to the day when I woke up with a throbbing headache that I can only assume was related to the previous evening’s futsal game.  The Vegetarian had decided it would be appropriate to yell comments about DTM from the sideline in an effort to make me run faster.  Unfortunately (for both my head and the team) it only resulted in me laughing and running into a fence. Oops. And ouch.  So after popping some panadol it was time to get my study on once more.  Having had an exam in the morning I’d decided to give myself Wednesday afternoon off and instead learn my entire subject the morning of the exam.  It was a flawless plan and probably could’ve been pulled off had I not decided after showering and eating breakfast that a nap would be appropriate.  I really need to stop napping an hour after I wake up.  So post-nap I tried to cram as best I could but was interrupted by emails from The Pen Pal which were a welcome distraction to the always riveting world of magnifiers and telescopes.

Eventually headed into Randwick for an exam that lasted about a third of the time it took me to make the return trip to the racecourse.  We enjoyed the new announcement about plastic bags and tried to work out why it had only featured in one exam.  It was pointed out that pens and pencils were not considered valuables and plastic sleeves were not sealable – a very educational exam indeed.  The Italian and I spent way too long trying to work out how long the actual racecourse was; even with markers for 50, 100 and 200 we were unconvinced it was being measured in metres.  By our very scientific calculations (“that guy looks about 1 metre 70 and you can fit 34 of him between the 100 and 200”) we determined the markings were 57.8 metres apart and wondered what strange measuring system they were using when they put those markers out on the way to the finish line.

After getting home from the exam it was time to once again attempt to cram an entire subject into less than 24 hours and somehow also sleep.  There were more emails to and from The Pen Pal as I tried very hard to read my notes without napping.  A pretty full-on Thursday of trying to memorise stuff with a hectic headache but also exciting as I knew that the very next day I would finish my exams for the year and also my self-imposed 12 day facebook ban.

Week 4 - Examing & Tanning

Thursday #5 – the day kicked off with some last minute cramming ahead of the afternoon’s contact lens exam.  I decided after showering and dressing that bed would be a good place to read over my notes (for the first time since writing them) but soon found out this was not the case when I realised I’d been asleep for 20 minutes.  Oops.  As much as I enjoyed my sleep it didn’t seem very conducive to study so I relocated to the lounge room to continue my reading.  Before I knew it, it was time to get on a bus and haul arse to Randwick Racecourse for my exam.

Going to uni across the road from a racecourse has its drawbacks.  For one thing there’s the constant smell of horse poo to contend with; which can be particularly distracting at this time of year, with the spring racing carnival and exams both being held at the racecourse.  Once you get past the stench, you then have to navigate your way through bars and past the people filling fridges with beer to find your exam room.  Inside the exam room you have to struggle to ignore the drink menus offering frozen cocktails and focus on the paper in front of you.  If you can do all that you’ll be ready to listen to the all-too-familiar announcement of “mobile phones must be switched off, not just turned to silent but switched off and placed on the ground underneath your seat with your wallet or purse for the duration of the exam”.  Today’s exam had an added distraction – not only did we struggle to keep a straight face for the announcements as the main supervisor on the microphone had a particularly ridiculous accent; we also had to try and block out the racing commentary.  I appreciate that we were at a racecourse, but trying to focus on eye infections while some man excitedly yells “and they’re off and racing” is a bit of a big ask.

Exam done it was time to get some colour – coming out of winter and into studying did not bode well for my pasty white skin and with the engagement party of my fav Woolworths coupling on Saturday night, something needed to be done.  A quick spray tan later I was leaving the city with skin which resembled that of a normal human, and not the weird so-white-it-was-almost-transparent look I had been sporting.  I stopped off at The Oaks on my way home to pick up my external hard drive from The Weather Girl and got roped into enjoying a couple of cheeky champagnes.  I stayed long enough to hear my 2 Ricks on the jukebox (you can’t go wrong with Jessie’s Girl and Never Gonna Give You Up) before bussing it back home in time for dinner.  DTM texted some insults to round off the day and it almost felt like a normal Thursday – apart from the obvious lack of free movies.  Not the best Thursday I’ve had but surprisingly good for an exam day.

Week 3 - Facebooking & Facialling

Thursday #4 – after having a self-imposed 36 hour facebook ban since Tuesday night, this day started off with a massive catch up effort.  There were important things that needed to be addressed on facebook so it was a necessary start to my day.  Youtube links needed to watched, comments needed to be made and most importantly, study needed to be avoided at all costs.  A quick skype session with DTM also helped in this regard – it also helped bring me back down to earth.  Along with the free movies, ice cream binges and excessive amounts of shaker fries; my Thursdays had also involved receiving a decent amount of insults.  It was perhaps my own fault for spending so much time talking myself up, DTM felt the need to deflate my ego a little; nevertheless was nice to see him slip in 2 offensive comments in a 10 minute chat.

It was then time to catch up on TV and again avoid studying for next week’s exams.  Gossip Girl helped and when I got desperate Dr Oz was there.  I finally sat down to write some notes at about 5.30pm and after a solid 3½ pages it was time to break for dinner.  Post-dinner, The Marge had decided to throw a Nutrimetics party, so any hopes of studying that night were now completely out the window.  Bugger.  After spending a couple of hours learning how to stop the clock and fight my wrinkles and dark circles I was again feeling good about myself; after DTM’s comments on how old I looked, this party could not have come at a better time.  It’s a real compliment when your own mother buys you a product to help with dark circles under your eyes...and you’re 24.  By the time everyone left it was close to 11 and I had to accept that there was no point even attempting to finish my notes.  A step up from last Thursday but still no free movies.

Week 2 - Procrastinating & Failing

Thursday #3 – by far the most boring Thursday to date, with the day off uni I was free to do whatever I liked and I only briefly left the house.  There were big plans for a day of uni work; nailing an assignment so I could relax on the weekend, organising a semester worth of notes from a giant mess into individual subjects and maybe even start studying for the upcoming exams.  Of those things I managed to get my notes sorted and into binders, it’s not as catchy as Meat Loaf’s version but I reckon 1 out of 3 aint bad.  It involved a lot of stapling, hole-punching and searching through various piles but finally my notes had reached some level of organisation.  Now it’s just a matter of learning them over the next week or two, eeek.

I had taken a phonecall some time last week about donating blood and had jumped at the chance since it is my very favourite form of procrastination – you can’t possibly feel bad about not doing uni work when you’re helping save lives!!  Turns out you can feel bad about it.  After turning up to my appointment right on time, it was 45 minutes before I even got to the interview stage but I wasn’t too worried about the assignments awaiting me at home because I knew I was doing a good thing.  After sailing through that it was time to lie on a bed and try not to wet myself after downing a couple of litres of water in the couple of hours prior.  Finally someone came over to get things started and commented that it would be easy to find my vein as she could see my “track marks” – how lovely.  Apparently not.  After a very painful needle insertion she explained she’d missed initially but had finally got it in the vein – thoughtfully, she never took it out when she missed though, instead just made a bit of a mess of my arm wriggling the needle around inside it.  Almost immediately the thing started beeping and she tried to blame it on some tangled cord.  The beeping continued and I was quizzed on whether I’d drunk enough (definitely yes), how I was feeling (absolutely fine) and told to just keep squeezing the thing in my hand every couple of seconds (not the 10 she’d originally specified).  When the beeping would not go away they waited for it to get to 200mL then stopped it, unplugged me and wrote “flow ceased” on my pathetic little bag of blood.  In my 8 years of donations I have never felt like such a failure, I know I had the full 470mL in me, they just didn’t try hard enough to get it out.  So I finally got home about 2 hours after I left and realised not only had I not been doing uni work, I hadn’t even really done anything constructive so my feel-good procrastination turned into just regular old procrastination.

The night was however looking up with a reminder from M-dizzle that Beauty and the Geek was on.  I excitedly switched on at 8.30 only for The Marge to realise she wanted to watch The Slap so we switched channels.  I managed to catch the emotional end of the episode and luckily only missed 2 makeovers – am pretty excited about the other 4 happening in next week’s ep.  I also managed to get up to date in Gossip Girl and How I Met Your Mother so the day wasn’t completely unproductive.  No movies or ice cream involved but it certainly was a cheap Thursday.  Hoping for an improvement next week but not liking my chances with exams getting ever closer.

Week 1 - Drinking & More Drinking

Thursday #2 – in the week since DTM left, uni had gone from bad to worse, so naturally when this Thursday rolled around there was only one thing on the agenda – drinking.  Following his suggestion that I use his absence to spend some quality time with M-dizzle, the 2 of us (together with a few hundred of our closest friends) hit up unibar for some Oktoberfest action.  Before making it to the official party we spent a couple of hours downing ciders with the 713 gang to ensure we wouldn’t be too sober for unibar.  After teaching what we thought were valuable lessons in home safety, attempting some indoor cycling, explaining the importance of drinking THROUGH the hangover to some amateurs, and doing a quick shot of Bacardi; we were ready to take on Oktoberfest.  After a few hours of insane toilet queues, cans of Smirnoff that took me back to my teens, music I’d never heard before, giant sausages, and pretzels that were “hard like a bagel and sweet like a doughnut”; it was time to cut off the wrist band and head to McDonalds.

Rejuvenated by our quick big mac stop; M-dizzle and I were ready to take on the Rege in all its Thursday night karaoke glory.  Not one to ever get on stage for karaoke, I instead took the time to teach one of the giants my Grandpa-style dance moves and impress the gang with my superb knowledge of lyrics from songs that were big before I was born.  To say they were blown away by the fact I could sing American Pie in all its 8 minute 30 second entirety was an understatement.  However to say I was humble about it would perhaps be stretching the truth.

Things M-dizzle and I learnt on this Thursday without free movies:

1. Relocating people’s laptops as a home safety lesson is not always well taken or appreciated.  I suspect instead of learning not to leave a bunch of strangers unattended in the apartment; The Blonde Giant may instead have learnt not to leave 2 friends and 13 ciders unattended in the apartment.

2. Indoor cycling is not as easy as it sounds when the bike seat is located higher than your belly button.  As a general rule, if it takes one person to hold the bike still for the second person to then use a table and a wall to mount the bike, it probably won’t end well. 

3. Cycling on the balcony with an appropriately sized bike and a cider in hand is much more enjoyable than the aforementioned indoor cycling.  However, drinking before excitedly mounting the bike may lead to some pain for one’s lady bits.

4. When you've been drinking for a couple of hours, have started to get a headache and are feeling a little sleepy; you must not, under any circumstances, sit on the floor.  We stressed this lesson to The Less-Experienced Drinker who was struggling before 7pm and after heeding our advice she was seen outlasting us at 1am.  As the hangover started before reaching Oktoberfest we told her she had to just drink through it.  Seeing her after the Rege was a proud moment for all of us.

5. Bacardi, when not in its Breezer form, is disgusting and should not be taken straight.  It did however, successfully take us from “too sober for unibar” to the previously discussed indoor cycling so all was not lost.

All in all a good and educational evening was had.  It was by no means a free Thursday, but as there was still money in the wallet on Friday morning I really can’t complain.

Week 0 - Shopping & DVDing

When DTM packed up and left on Thursday, I was suddenly left without my weekly date.  Gone were the days of free movies, ice cream binging and mixing and matching fast food to get the best of both worlds with Oporto wraps and McDonalds shaker fries. On a brighter note, perhaps my days of impending hypercholesterolaemia were also gone.  Armed with all this free time (surely uni assignments and exams could wait) I needed to find a new way to fill my Thursdays; not to mention the rest of my week! There was the suggestion I recruit someone new to take me to movies, but no-one sprang to mind and the audition process seemed tedious. Plus there was the fact that in the past I had only been willing to pay a max of $1 for the two of us to see a movie, and even then it wasn’t very willingly; so what were the chances I could find someone else who would accept this somewhat expensive deal?  There was talk of spending more time with M-dizzle but 5 days a week is probably sufficient already, if not verging on excessive. Beauty and the Geek was looking like a promising way to spend my evenings, especially since Hamish and Andy’s Gap Year had sadly come and gone all while I was at free movies.  I was at a loss for what to do and since nothing exciting was coming to mind, I figured I might as well record my boring efforts to find something to do on Thursdays.

Thursday #1 – there is some debate over whether this Thursday counts; yes it was free-movie-less but it was not DTM-less.  Nevertheless my night had to be filled as DTM was busying himself at an airport rather than entertaining me.  In a panic with no Thursday night plans for the first time in months, I did what any girl in my situation would do; I headed to the mall and bought a pair of shoes and some costume requirements for the following night’s fancy dress shindig.  A fairly tame Thursday night but care of some good bargain hunting and a surprise sale, I only ended up $52 out of pocket after my shopping expedition.  Hardly free but one cannot be expected to walk around barefoot.  Upon returning home I settled into bed with a quality DVD from a community television show circa 2005, yes, perhaps an oxymoron.  Too much excitement for one night, I left some of season 1 for another day.  A good start to my Thursdays without free movies but there is definitely room for improvement.