Feb. 29th - An extra day of life and what I did with it

I'm standing in the queue for the bathroom at the beginning of lunch break. A girl infront of me goes upto her friend and exclaims "*insert name here* wrecked my hair! Oh my God. Like seriously, I'm seeing the Newington guys on the train today". Her friend replies "but your hair looks really nice!". "Really?! Wow thanks!" *admires self in mirror*.

Classic example of a weird year 8 or whatever year she was in. I know I was once in year 8, (it was in fact my best schooling year to date) but I also know I was never that weird.

***

Caught the bus home today. Twas interesting, seeing as I hardly ever catch the bus anymore. That is, I hardly ever catch the bus at peak social hour anymore. Sucks, but I spose the upside to that is that I don't fall over people when I'm letting someone go through to get off the bus, as I did today.

Embarrassing yet funny.

***

Had debating tonight. We already knew that the topic would concern international relations and that we were negative (as we are for all away debates). The debate was at St Brigidines, a Catholic girls school in St Ives. I was hoping for a topic about East Timor because that's what I had read up about and what our coach had prepared us for. The topic ended up being "that Jerusalem should be administered by the UN". I knew pretty much nothing about it, as I did with the first debate. But my 2 other team members were more in the know and so they debriefed me on the issue which was great. Also, as a result of writing many english essays the night before with no substanance whatsoever, I have attained a natural ability for bluffing my way through things. I can write for pages on absolutely nothing (the epitome of that being the 3 page extended response I wrote in a history exam and received a mark of 1/15 because I wrote about the wrong PM - opps). So really, speaking for a decent time on a subject I know nothing about comes down to writing absolute crap :) (I'm amazed, English really has taught me valuable life skills!).

We ended up winning but I think it was a more "in comparison thing" - they spoke for less than 3 minutes each and we spoke for over 5 (you're meant to speak for 6-8) and they didn't bring forward many arguments. But it was still good, first victory of the season yay! And despite the massive migranes I now get from the hour long prep, followed by the usually hour long debate, I am actually beginning to enjoy debating. I'm actually learning about things in the world which I didn't use to care about (i.e. I am becoming a nerd). It may be a tad stressful, but I like the new experience and the way it expands my mind and makes me think. I mean, I've gone into these first two debates thinking "crap, what am I gonna talk about - I know zilch!", but with the help of my awesome team, I actually do write a decent length speech and finish it (usually under the pressure of the last 15 minutes) and come out looking like I know more than I do. And so I learn from the things I say that an hour ago, I didn't know. And even though I thought I would do the exact same crap job as last time, I actually improved a tiny bit to my surprise. Accomplishing something you really believe you can't do is great.

:) Twas awesome.

Choices

I recently made a choice, not out of impulse, but I didn't deliberate over it for ages either. It felt good to make the choice pretty quickly and feel so sure about it. However now I am coming to terms with the fact that I need to make another choice. But actually, it isn't really a choice at all - there's only one option. The thing is, I wish there were two, because I am finding it hard to accept that option as my choice, because it isn't my choice. I have no say in it at all, I've just been handed only one of the options to the decision and have to come to terms with that as "my own choice". It's completely unfair in my opinion. I shouldn't have to decide on a matter with only one real resolution, and then have people say to me "Well fair enough, it's your choice", or have to label the decision as my choice. It's as if this supposed "choice" is being forced upon me, ironically enough - as the term choice itself indicates free will and different options to consider.
*Sigh* It's exhausting.

Late Night Musing

I hate that I'm one of those people that thinks of the right (the BEST) things (comebacks) to say once it's much too late to say it. Only after I've replayed the conversation 1000000 times in my mind, making small adjustments to the dialogue here and there, am I happy with the imaginery result of what I could have said and how the other person could have reacted. I can't think on my feet (don't ask me why I'm doing debating), so I have to actually prepare any important converstaions I'm going to have pre-hand. Otherwise I end up saying the wrong things. This way, I don't say anything wrong, I just don't get much right either. But I can't really prepare exactly what I'm going to say seeing as unfortunately, I actually can't easily guess what a person will say in response and therefore can't pan out the entire conversation how I'd like it to go. Instead I just know the general gist of what I'm going to say, and where I'm going to draw my boundaries in terms of how much I'm going to say, or how rude I can be. I think that's part of the reason I love msn - because, for the most part, conversations do pan out almost exactly how I'd like them to, because you have time to think and can easily buy yourself time so that you don't just say alright things, but the best things.

P.S. I realise this is like my 7th blog within the last two days, but anywho, I thought I'd reward myself for finishing my assignment so early! It's only 11.35 and I just realised I have a double free tomorrow morning =) Besides, I really can't help it anymore, I'm addicted, I like wording my thoughts.

Coffee puts my life in perspective

Not really. But when I'm stressed I drink coffee. 'Cause it slows down the central nervous system which (in other words) means that each brain cell isn't screaming "STRESS!" so quickly to the next brain cell and hence the calming effect. And then I begin to think, well who gives a crap about school anway? Will I look back on this day in 50 years time and think "Wow, that really was the downfall of my life. I should have listened to all my stupid brain cells and teachers and social pressures screaming STRESS"? NO! Because school isn't as important as everyone makes it out to be, and I don't need to stress as much as I do, so I won't. And that's when I realise that my life is back in perspective all because of the wonderful depressant drug called caffeine =) Bless the person who discovered coffee beans, they're a genius. I should write that possibly dead person a letter one day to personally thank and congratulate them on making my life just that little bit more easy to endure. But for now I must get back to my assesment due tomorrow because slowly my life is falling out of perspective as the effect of the coffee wears off.

Random thought

If there's one thing I've learnt in the past year it's that life never ever gets any easier than this.

Stuff?

I think I have an addiction to blogging. Actually I know I do. It's really quite annoying, because sometimes (like now) I have several things I want to blog about, and until I've blogged about all those things, I feel highly unsatisfied. So to feel complete, I must blog about the things I want to blog about right now - although in actual fact I don't feel like blogging at all. It takes a lot of time and effort you know, because I never make sense the first time round which means I have to edit my blogs, usually more than once (due to my tendency to get carried away and add irrelevant crap for the sake of it - which then needs to also be proof read). So yes, here are the several things combined into one blog:

1. I think I get arthiritis in my feet and my fingers when it gets cold. Strange :S

2. Today, I rediscovered the joy of shopping. Not really. I just shopped properly for like the first time since the holidays (or christmas, seeing as I didn't buy much after that). I wasn't planning on shopping, but after work I looked at a few shops and ended up coming home with shoes and two tops :) Twas fun. But yes. My point being - I used to shop like heaps (at least once a week!) and now I hardly ever shop properly. Or I just window shop (which is clearly pointless and a waste of time - you may as well waste money as well). But perhaps I don't shop properly (as in, buy loads of things when I go shopping) is partly 'cause I spend my money more wisely? I'd like to think so. But I spose sometimes I just can't be stuffed looking at everything and trying things on etc. It's so time consuming and takes effort :) So yes, I quite enjoy only shopping occassionally. 'Cause it means when I do shop, I buy more and I'm bothered to try things on etc, because I'm not doing it every other odd day.

3. Previously mentioned in my last blog was my English teacher. I thought she deserved a whole blog to herself (or part of a blog anyway, not merely a mention) and hence am writing about her now. She is in love with every dead poet and classical literature writer that ever existed. She is how I always imagined Professor Trelawny (from Harry Potter) to look and act. She'd do a better job of Professor Trelawny than she does as my English teacher. For one thing, she dresses the character, for another she speaks like her too. (If you don't read HP and have no idea what I'm talking about, then it serves you right!) She has too many Keatsian moments. She's a total loony. She even had a stab at some divination. She started picking out people in class and asked them if life sometimes weighed them down 'cause they often seemed worried. Haha, funny moment. I don't really know how else to describe her, but if you know what Professor Trelawny is like and the different ways her students respond to her, than you'll no what I'm talking about. She's a clone.

Not a Keatsian Moment

Tonight I had my first ISDA debate of the season. I'm not sure where to really start. A lot went on in my mind and in the surroundings etc. Well. I spose I should start at the beginning. It was an away game at St Aloysius College, which - might I add - must be one loaded school considering it is right next to the harbour bridge at Milson's Point and by consequence they probably saved money on building a swimming pool, because if need be that the cadets learn swimming or lifesaving (is that even an aspect of cadets?) they can just jump into the harbour. Seriously, it'd build their resilience :)


But anyway, me and another girl from my team got there like 2 hours too early, so we killed time by wandering around by the sea, admiring the scenery and all that crap. Although it was still quite hot at 5 pm, being near the sea meant the breeze was nice. I always love being near water. It makes me feel calm. No actually not calm - that would be a word used by my loony English teach who continually has keatsian moments. Penisive is more what I meant. So yes, we took in our surroundings and chatted about different schools and how I wish I could experience another high school other than the only one I know. It was definitely a good unwinding session and I love being in the city or near the water, especially at night. So combining those 3 elements was great :)


We then practically hiked up a hill back to the school (see another reason why it's a good place for cadets) to find the bathrooms. Well actually, the girl from my team convinced me there'd be bathrooms down near the bridge, which obviously there weren't. So inevitably we had to walk through the cadets practicing whatever they practice to find a bathroom, which wasn't too hard, as I had told her from the start.


So from there we pretty much met up with our coach and had bits and pieces of a pep talk thrown at us - which was actually a good thing, seeing as I needed as much advice as I could get. Then it was back to the waiting game: the girl from my team was reading the goss section of the neswpaper with articles about all the trashy hollywood stars like Britney Spears and whoever else is pregnant or divorcing, our coach was doing the crossword, and I attempted to absorb anything I could from the World and Opinion sections of the paper. It goes without saying, I absorbed zilch. However I did start randomly picking out names of politicians or whoever they were ('important people') and my coach would say who they were. But now I only remember that Mr Scimone is some guy got to do with the council of Wollongong (I think) and that he was involved in sex scadals of some sort. Righto.


So finally, our 1st speaker arrived (I was 2nd, and the other girl was 3rd) and after about 15 more minutes of waiting we were told the topic. The topic was "that we should provide compensation to the stolen generations" (not sure of the exact wording). I knew it'd be something to do with that 'cause of the apology. We were negative. As soon as we got into the prep room we pretty much had arguments with eachother about what to say etc. It was pretty funny. Althought not at the time I spose, because we were all stressed. The other 2 girls in my team didn't want to say outright that we shouldn't compensate them but instead wanted to say that we'd provide them other forms of compensation than finanicial compensation (such as psychological compensation etc). I thought this was gonna be too close to the affirmative team's argument and we (as the negative team) should just oppose it entirely. But seeing as we couldn't spend the entire prep hour debating and then have no actual debate when the actual debate came around, I went along since I was the minority. We ended up losing 'cause our argument was almost the same as the affirmative's. And probably 'cause I only spoke for 5 minutes rather than 6 :)

The chair person was funny. He had a pompous accent and was very posh, hehe. And he pronounced my last name "gurgua" or something of the likes. Ha. it made me laugh.

After the debate their was supper and I was told I was too nice and should be more aggressive, which I agree with - but by the teacher that hasn't even seen me debate? Hmm. But my coach also agreed and said he would toughen me up. Very doubtful. Then everyone went home. My parents had come to pick me up and after asking if they found the school alright I found out that they paid a taxi 7 bucks so he could sho them the way. Haha. My parents are hopeless with places they don't know.

The ride home was also very pensive. You know when you are just overcome by wonder and awe and your imagination goes off an a bizarre tangent with all these weird thoughts and philosophical theories? It was like one of those nights when I'm out of Sydney and the sky isn't as polluted and you can see soo many stars, so I just stare up at them forever because the longer you look the more you see and the more you become amazed. Except that I didn't admire the stars once. It was awesome, I hadn't experience that sort of state of mind in a fair while. I mean I have philosophical musings on the bus sometimes if I'm alone, but not like this. I was listening to the radio on my phone and had the window down and the night air was cool and whipping my face gently. The weather has to be precisely not cold, nor humid, hot, or rainy and there must be a nice breeze for me to experience this pensive state. Neautral weather I call it - beacuse no matter if you're wearing an overcoat and jeans, or shorts and a singlet, you feel just right. It also helps if it is night and I'm in a car, with the window down and there is some source of amazement. See why I don't experience this state too often? The basic requirements are so specific and so difficult to come across in the one lot. We were still in the city and near water. In fact, we were going across the harbour bridge - which I rarely ever do, especially with my parents seeing as they hate the city considering the traffic and one way streets. I'd probably hate it too if I was the one driving, but I don't drive so I don't care. I felt so emancipated and on impulse decided to take photos on my phone through the car window of the harbour bridge as we were driving through it. It's not like I've never seen it before, but it's so much more astounding when your surrounded by it, than when your just looking from a distance (as everything is) or on an ugly postcard or whatever. The photos were crappy quality, but it didn't really bother me, it felt surreal. As we drove further away from the water, I looked at all the big important looking buildings and wondered what happened within each, what made each so important. I thought about all the complex structure and issues of Syndey, of Australia, of the world. How everything fits together. I thought about the thousands of issues of the world and wondered how it still keeps on running. How there isn't some major breakdown - some sort of blackout that affects everyone, or everyone attacking eachother for no reason whatsoever. I spose I why the whole world didn't just stop doing what they do. I wanted to learn about the world and become informed. I felt empowered, I felt like I could make a difference. (I know, forgive me, I personally hate psychobabble myself). But I wanted to embrace debating and learn as much as I can from it. Not to feel intimidated by the challenge, but to triumph over it. I really can't explain it any further, I don't have the ability to word the experience I had. Like I said, it was just way cool and surreal.

I came home exhausted and started this blog, but then went to bed and so now I'm finsihing it off now :)

And that's about it.

Post Script

We did win the 3rd round! Yay. So that makes 2 lost, 1 won :)

Change

I haven't blogged in yonks I don't think, so here is another stream of thoughts that I've had over the last few weeks.

---------------------------------------------------

Yesterday was Monday. I thought it was Friday.
Today is Tuesday. I thought it was Saturday.
Tomorrow will be Wednesday. And I'll most likely think it's Sunday.

---------------------------------------------------

I went to Macquarie University today for the Macquarie School's Cup. It's a debating tournament with 3 knockout rounds and then a final between the 2 highest scoring teams. We were told the topics for each round, but not whether we were affirmative or negative. I personally was also told that we weren't allowed to pre-write speeches for both affirmative and negative for all 3 rounds and just read them out. I was told that you couldn't take any pre-written material into the prep room or into the debate itself. So although I researched and took my notes today, I didn't write out my speeches pre-hand because I thought I wouldn't be able to remember them and re-write them in the prep room anyway. This turned out to be false information. I could have written my speeches for each side for each debate at home and not have to stress today gahh.

These were the debates and the teams we versed:

Round 1 - Negative: That the federal government should take over health policy from the states (Tangara)
Round 2 - Affirmative: That Australia should only provide foreign aid to countries that implement environmentally sustainable policies (Tangara, but a different team)
Round 3 - Affirmative: That juries should have a say in the sentencing of criminal cases (De La Salle)

In round 1, Tangara had a stronger case, but their model contradicted with their case, it would have been a more appropriate model for us to use. We lost.
In round 2, I thought we had a stronger case because Tangara put words in our mouths when they were rebutting and went completely off topic. As a result, I hate Tangara. Everyone does. But they spoke better, and the adjudicator was a nong. We lost.
In round 3, we didn't have the best of cases, but we had a better case, and a more confident one than De La Salle. We don't know if we lost or won, because, being the final round, there was meant to be a sense of suspense as to whether your team has made the final. I assume we won though, 'cause the opposition had the unfair advantage of a UNI law student as 3rd speaker.

Today my routine was so far from ordinary it felt strange. I was at a UNI which seemed almost deserted, void of all life (although, maybe that's because everyone hasn't gone back to UNI yet). I caught the train from Epping on a line I've never been on before for more than 2 stops. I saw different people. It made me sorta miss the familiar, but crave the new, the different, the unknown. I can't wait 'til UNI, but whatever UNI I go to, I'll make sure it isn't void of all life. It was a tad depressing going out into the grounds and seeing too much concrete buildings and not enough people.

Might I add...

...that customers who are:

a) impatient
b) rude
c) aggressive
d) arseholes
e) extremely fussy
f) all of the above

...should also go die in a hole?

Today I had a customer who had a hissy-fit over some chocolate hot cross buns. On the counter we had several bags of hot cross buns which were prepacked that morning. The lady wanted a bag of 6 buns but didn't want the edge ones with the hardish crust. Bit picky, but I complied, because I have to. I look at the racks of un-packaged hot cross and find only 6 cool chocolate ones. Only 3 of them weren't edge ones. Expecting her to understand, I explained to the lady that I could give her her 6 choc hot cross but that I'd have to put them in a paper bag as there aren't enough cool non-edge ones to package in a bag, but we had enough hot ones. "But I'd prefer them in a bag" she says. So I went on to kindly explain that if I put the hot non-edge ones in a plastic bag, they would ruin and become soggy. I offered her the option of taking the pre-packaged edge ones instead. You can't get you cake and eat it too, I thought. She then became very frustrated and, raising her voice, told me "Fine! Don't worry about it!". "I can put them in a bag if you really want", I reply. "Yes! that's what I want, I don't see why it's so hard!!"

Evidently the lady had a stick up her fat arse, and so as I bagged up her bloody hot cross buns and saw the steam condensing almost instantly, I smiled internally, thinking to myself that her buns will be soggy and digusting before she even arrives home. Serves her right! Mind you, I'm not really cruel - I was kind the entire time and tried to do what was in the best interest of her buns, but she refused ever so rudely, so she deserves it. Besides, raising her voice at me, made me look like I was at fault, right under the nose of my boss who I suspect already doesn't like me enough as it is. But had I bagged the buns while they were still hot without explaining the consequences, I would have copped it anyway.

I wish I could laugh at customers that demonstrate such idiocy and give them the sorta attitude they give me. I hate not being able to atleast say, "Farout, don't get your knickers in a knot, I'll put them in a friggen bag for you, but don't come running back tomorrow asking for a refund 'cause they were soggy" followed by a superficial smile accompanied with the usual (but sarcastic) "Have a nice day". That would be so damn satisfying, although so is the thought of her soggy buns. And considering what's at stake, I'll stick with the soggy buns. But I so want to get a job at maccas just so I can do that, they're always rude at fast food places, even when you're nice to them sometimes.

*Sigh*, that was a really good vent session :)

Things that should go die in a hole:

- English
- "Society"
- Arrogant arseholes
- Social norms
- Things written centuries ago that no-one gives a crap about
- Apathetic arseholes
- Expectations
- Boxes
- Reputation
- Identity
- Requirements
- Teachers
- Underlying meanings that don't exist
- All things good and perfect
- Debating
- Macquarie Cup
- Manipulators

I think that covers it.

Love and marriage, go together like a horse and carriage.

Not too long ago, I blogged on my frustration at how life doesn't roll like a movie. Or, put in other words, my love-hate relationship with movies which have the most feel-good endings - simply because these endings are soo good yet usually highly unrealistic and never occur to the luckiest of us. However, today I realised that I don't need these petty movies as a pick-me-up, because, I can witness something better which doesn't let my hopes get high (and wild) only to drop them abruptly in the hands of reality. Today, I went to a wedding. It isn't the first wedding I've been to. Being Egyptian means that you have a huge family, and an even bigger community, to whose weddings your most often invited to. The bride pretty much transformed my imaginary dream dress into a real one. The wedding was all lovey-dovey as always and there was a happy ending. So feel-good endings don't only have to be limited to the big screen afterall. Man, I can't wait to get married.