Movies Get to Me

By now I'm sure everybody is well versed in the fact that I hate being forced to choose something when there isn't going to be a clear cut response. Today even less than most days. Plinky is asking 'What movie always makes you cry?'. Are you kidding me? Am I the only person who has difficulty answering this question?



Why do I have trouble answering this question? Every movie that is the least bit sad will make me cry.



Its strange really. I tend to be rather under-emotional about life. I simply don't care enough to be bothered in some instances, care a lot but am incapable of effectively expressing it in most other situations. The minor afflictions like somebody speaking harshly to me on an off day is far more likely to make me cry than death or significantly bad news.



As for other peoples feelings... Yes I am the awkward friend who sort of watches and maybe pats you in that detached and very unhelpful manner. I do try to avoid emotional outbursts of my friends because it makes me feel quite incompetent. And yet? For some random movie character, hell CARTOON character, I'll well up for the littlest thing.



So movies that make me cry. The list would be endless so I am simply going to pick a couple of recent ones or stand out successes (failures really I hate being sad for such a long period of time).

1. Toy Story 3. Was so sad, and interestingly not just at the end. I cried for both the first 15 minutes and the last 15 minutes of this one. This movie is not pitched at children. It is for the viewers of the first Toy Story and most significantly the kids who were the first Toy Story watchers. The ones who are the same age as the boy. Its very sweet... A little too sweet for my tear ducts.



2. All Disney Movies. It is pathetic. But the love scene or the family death scene of just about every Disney movie ever created has made me cry over the years. Something about cartoons gives me the disconnectedness to get that little bit too involved with the characters. Things like Bambi? The worst for it.



3. P.S. I Love you. No. I flat out refuse to ever watch this movie EVER again. I watched it the first time. That was a mistake. I have never had such a heart wrenching time in the cinema. I cried continuously. I am not good with the love/death combination.

Things like The Notebook as well? Nope. I simply don't watch them. The bitter in the bittersweet is too much for me to handle. You watch movies (at least I watch movies) to feel good. If you feel bad something is not right.



Basically most movies can make me cry at some point. However so long as my cheeks are dry by the end of it I'm not to bad for it. And so long as I manage to not have to make noise when I cry. the scene has been going that little bit too long when I have to take the drawn out I was crying and therefore not breathing breath... =) I love a happy movie instead.

Hello Again

Hello my most dear and darling one,

I've been pondering again. I think this is a largely a defensive mechanism against the depression that comes from being incompetent with creatures of the opposite sex. Nevertheless the thought of you does provide comfort. Today I am curious about your personality. Are you like every Joel I've ever known? Or perhaps more of the extroverted variety like Fred (he's about the only extroverted personality I genuinely like the majority of the time)?

I find personalities intriguing. Even more intriguing is how the personalities interact. Most of the people I like best have my personality type. Even if I am not aware of it at the time. Not that means I am expecting you to be exactly like me. Personality types are too generalised to suggest that. I am one of the most highly stressed (therefore emotional) T personalities I know but just the same I am most definitely a T. By T I am referring to the Myers Briggs personality typings. The third set thinking vs feeling.

I can't imagine you being a feeling. Or a J. The one thing I doubt to the extreme. That you would be an extreme J-type personality. And yet... I think some of my biggest crushes have been on J-type personalities. We'll keep that one under wraps.

Ok I give up. I am just going to sulk to you about my current love-life dilemmas. How do you date? Clearly you know, if I am going to marry you surely we've dated? I'd simply ask my future self but that would be cheating, she already knows how this particular event of my life turns out. Who knows maybe you do too... but to even think of the possibility would be to allow the romantic side of my brain too much of a free leash.

Anyway back to the problem at hand. How do you show somebody that you like them, that you would like to be more than friends? Wow I feel like I am talking in cliques... I feel like I am trying to stare down a brick wall... Should I try kicking the wall? How do you go about kicking a brick wall? Did you make the first move in our relationship? Or did I give the wall kicking a shot?

My biggest fear is do I want to? Joel, yeah I'll use his name because we are all thinking it anyway, is one of my closest friends... I am not entirely sure he realises this. To sacrifice that for stating I like him and having him freak out and avoid me... That is about the only relationship lesson I did learn in high school... That would kill me.

But I am sick of just being somebody he talks to on Tuesday nights after our meetings. Dammit I want an excuse to see him, to talk to him, to have his undivided attention for a small amount of EVERY day. I want to be allowed to show that I favour him over most other people (I am pretty sure I do this to a certain extent now anyway). I want... well I almost don't know what I want... I want him...

This must be weird for you. Me fawning over some other guy. Sorry about that. I can guarantee you that I felt this way about you too :P. Just not at this point of my life...

Love you

Preschool War Stories

Ever have that moment when you look at a question and think 'I have the most awesome automatic answer to that question?'. Well I am having one of those moments with Plinky today (I just wish I could have another of these moments when I get to that maths test on wedenesday).



The question is 'What is your earliest memory?'. This is fun because it has a story linked to it. You know those stories which your parents tell repeatedly because they are humorous (and more than a little embarrassing?). At the same time I can be sure that my memory doesn't have anything to do with the story... I hate when people claim to have memories which are clearly just an ingrained family story - what you have is a memory of a story about an event not of the event itself.



The story revolves around cutting paper. However my memory is less defined than that. My memory relates to the colouring in table at my kindergarten, that word means different things to different people in this case I'm talking about 3 years of age.



In my memory I am sitting at the table doing art the the way all normal small children do. Most significantly I remember the little boy beside me, his name was John. Anyway so I'm there doing my craft and the teacher comes up to me and (without memory of the exact conversation) tells me I'm not allowed to do craft any more, I need to go and do some other activity. Why me? What am I doing that is so wrong? JOHN doesn't have to go and be shown the puzzles. HE gets to keep colouring. All these years later this is still a perfectly vivid memory.

Marica's entertainment

Now I thought about this from time to time for years. As you do with all memories, particularly the ones where you have been wronged in some way or another. The was always that unanswered question 'Why me and not John?'.



I would have been about 14 when my mother solved this question for me. She was the reason I had been taken away from the crafts table, she had requested through the kindy staff that I be persuaded to do something else with my time at kindy. Why? I had been cutting paper for 8 weeks. As in scissors in hand cutting paper into smaller and smaller pieces. Pretty well all day every day.



It was the kind of kindy where they let the children 'choose their own adventure' I guess you could say. Children were allowed to decide what they wanted to do. Supported and supervised but never pressured outside of the 'lets go outside, lets go inside, lets eat now' sort of routine matters. For me that had until my mothers intervention consisted solely of cutting paper.



The strangest thing perhaps is I have no recollection of the the paper cutting. Only the shock and frustration of not being allowed at the colouring in table. I can only remember that John was colouring in. Nothing about small pieces of paper or of me having been doing anything different to him anywhere in my memory.



So there you go. Mental scarring which traces all the way back to kindergarten ;P. To think both myself and my mum remembered the event without realising that the other person knew anything of it. That is both my earliest memory and coolest proof that I have always been a bit weird.

I Believe

Plinky... not one for keeping to polite dinner table conversation. Today's topic is 'Would you describe yourself as spiritual, religious, or something else?'. Now I am not usually one to shy away from the good old dinner table picker. In our mess the more often you can bring up the topics of 'sex, politics and religion' the better, though perhaps most frequently the first one.



I suppose with this one you really have to jump in head first with your pick. For me I'd say I something else. I have a faith, I am convinced, I am convicted but I am not religion nor to I like the airy fairy connotations I get when people use the word 'spiritual'. Put simply I am a Christian. I have little to do with the denomination debate and less to do with the concept of religion.



If I was trying to be religious I would be failing to be a Christian. And right about now I have 90% of the universe against me. Some because I am claiming a faith in God and Jesus without claiming a faith in tiresome dedication to the church by-laws others because I am claiming to be Christian at all.

The Island Cross

I am actually finding this pretty difficult. Writing about my beliefs on a free-to-air blog (not that many people read it I'm sure). Its not that I am not open with my faith, or that people will judge me without knowing me because of it. It is that maybe the way I explain something isn't just right, maybe I use a word that people don't like and that will blame my God and the very concept of Christianity for it.



To get on the the prompt points 'How did you form your beliefs?'. Well some parts of Christianity are big on the huge and fancy testimonial. Not that they aren't inspiring and powerful - it is always great to hear about somebody on the edge of breakdown turning to Christ and being restored. No Christian influence in their life until that moment where they suddenly realised God's grace and what it means.



For me though my greatest conviction came not through the big story but through knowing that I don't need the big story. When I stopped needing to compare myself with others. I grew up in a Christian home. I went to a Christian primary school, and attended Sunday School, and listened to Christian songs in the car. I was memory versed and parabled and had been in the Christmas play. Basically I had all the luxuries, was it just a product of my childhood that I would be a Christian too?



Some kids from Christian homes still do the great turn around. They think it is all boring, the rebel, refuse to attend and then turn back to Christ. I didn't do that. As I got older it just made more sense. For me God is and I never needed to question it. So my Christian story came in the knowing that Jesus died for me, for knowing that while I am a Sinner, while I could never measure up, he took my punishment.



And by knowing this that I don't need to measure up, my story doesn't have to be flashy, I don't need to remember the moment it happened down to the second. I live for Christ because Christ died for me. Its that simple. Living for Christ doesn't mean tiptoeing around the planet, it doesn't mean being a teetotaller or judging those around me for their 'wicked' ways. I live to love, to serve, and to be a living testimony to the love of Christ in my life.



To emphasise the don't be tiptoeing around the planet - I JOINED THE MILITARY of all professions. There is an entire debate topic in whether or not Christians should serve in the military but beyond that. It certainly doesn't make me less Christian. In fact it is one of the best things that ever happened for me as a Christian. I can't say that my faith would be as strong as it is now without the Christian fellowship I belong to now. Goes to show God works, God calls, and He will save.



Without God, without Jesus, without the cross, I would be dead.



For our sake he made him sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. -- 2 Cor 5:21

Wait... That's The End?

Ok... So I clearly I misinterpreted the plinky prompt for today. The prompter said 'Discuss a book that left you disappointed'. Which my initial reaction (which is often the one I choose to write on because its quicker) was to right about a book that left me disappointed but was not necessarily disappointing.



But doesn't one equate to the other? Well I don't think so not. There is no requirement for a disappointing book to leave you disappointed (wouldn't you be glad it was over with at least?). More significantly, a fantastic book can quite possibly leave you disappointed, you can believe that after all that the author would choose to end it like that. Or maybe you didn't want it to end at all.

The book I always think of when I think of random endings is To Kill A Mockingbird. I will admit here and now before people get their knickers in knots that it has been MANY years since I read this book and had this experience and it is quite possible that it has become a little hazy and poorly remembered.



I can recall getting to the end of the book and thinking 'That is a really strange place to stop.' It just sort of ended, though I had this feeling I hadn't gotten to the end of the story. It put it in the words of the plinky prompt 'I was disappointed'.



I sorted out the reason for the abrupt ending. You had to recall the identified reason for the story at all. Although it was intrinsically about the racial court case and various racial divides that wasn't the purpose for the story. Well it is but then that is the why its considered such good literature I suppose.



The book is from the perspective of the little girl, whose name I have long since forgotten, Scout? perhaps. It is really irrelevant. What isn't irrelevant is that she explains early on about her family etc. In particular her older brother and the fact that his arm doesn't hang straight, pretty sure it is that is always thumb of the hand away from the body (also irrelevant). She says that there is a story behind why his arm hangs that way - and then proceeds to tell it.



And that is why the story ends where it does. Though I was a little bit disappointed I can understand the construct after I think about it.



Bonus Prize for the people looking for dud books (why you want to read dud books I don't understand). I hated the final Harry Potter book. In fact I generally disliked the last 3 (so 5,6 and 7 for those who can't count). After the movies become popular I found that the writing in the books changed. And I hated the movies so by the time the seventh book came out... the Harry Potter I had read and loved in the earliest books had been completely put to death.



But more significantly so had the writing style. The final books are even WRITTEN like they were intended for movie production. Because of this a lot of the intermittent moments captured in the earlier books. If you don't believe me you only have to look at the way the later novels shrink. And its not because their story lines are any less detailed. They leave out the quirkiness and admittedly the innocence the early books had. In all I was very disappointed.

Dear Bob

Is it possible? Apparently there is a number of girls and young women who do it. Write to their future husbands... Is that lame? More importantly it is possible? And if it is... isn't it depressing? Well I shall endeavour to find out I guess and give it a try.

Dear Joe (I'd have used Bob but that was already taken by some author... along with Hey Jude and Dear John)

Though I am quitely hopeful that your name is not Joe. It isn't that I have especially high hopes for the non-existant relationship I am in at the moment but rather that Joe... I don't know I've never met a Joe I was especially fond of. Probably all the safer for naming you it then wouldn't want to be showing undue favouritism within my friends.

With the contemplation of writing to a future spouse comes all of the obvious questions. How did we met? What do you do for a living - are you in the military? Do I know you now? What colour are your eyes? Are you taller than me? and perhaps most significantly - do you exist at all? I'd question your faith but I am sure, more sure than anything else, that you would be christian, that is one of my must haves.

Knowing my usual outspokenness with people I am close to I doubt that you can be reading this to find out something that you haven't known previously. Assuming I don't change drastically the me you know is probably the same purple loving, romance reading stresser sitting in front of my keyboard right now. I have few secrets, even fewer which I could post to an internet blog =P.

So if I have nothing to tell why write? I don't know why others write to their future spouses but I am almost certain I can say safely that it is NEVER for the spouse. You are the bystander in the contemplation of my mental state. An end point to help me get through the here and now. A reminder not to tie myself in knots with my hopeless (though I am always resolute that they aren't completely hopeless I'm sure you will be one of them someday) crushes. A reminder that these things happen in God's time and not my own time.

At the moment I am really struggling with a deep set loneliness. My entire career plan seems to have backfired. I generally play it down but one of my biggest reasons for taking this path is the living arrangements. I figured by living 24-7 in relatively small communities I could prevent myself being lonely. Unfortunately I didn't think to factor in social lives and the fact that other people seem to be so much more socially adept than I am.

Significantly introverted with a strong need for company - I never said I was an easy to please personality. Unfortunately around here it is far to easy to not have company, who knew. Around here it is exactly like high school only this time I don't have Steph. I am very glad for my section mates but they aren't the bare-all and care-all friends.

A little part of me is struggling with personal identity. Which is bad, we do it often enough in church and bible study for me to know that I should derive my identity from my faith and hope in Christ but... I am so used to being the smart one in high school. By being the smart one I was known to the majority of my year level. Here  I am average... and often the one who stresses out but gets good marks (therefore the person who complains for no reason). There is a reason, I either know what I am doing or I don't... and more than often I don't these days.

How do you put up with me? What about me makes me attractive to you? I am weird, an epic fraidy cat, who always asks the dumb questions, who's foot is perpetually lodged in my own mouth. I'm overweight and under fit. I am hopeless at attempting to comfort another person yet I am always seeking reassurance for the ridiculous, yet often go completely off my rocker and completely beyond reason. I am almost 20 years of age and have been asked out a total of two times, one of which was a joke about formal another of which I backed out of because it was inappropriate. To date I have hopelessly crushed on no less than 5 guys. One of which was for the entire duration of high school - and that ended oh so well.

At this point in my life I want you to be Joel... obviously not the high school one rather the one I have a major crush on... I want this to be over and I want to have the companion that my personality longs for. Somehow I don't think this is going to be that easy.

Anyway... I will remind myself that God has a plan for my life.
God never changes his mind about the people he calls or the gifts that he gives them. Romans 11:29

For the love that will we have in the future,

Peaches

Hah! I Told You So, Or Did You Tell Me?

Ok 'Oh Plinky, my Plinky' today you want an I told you so moment. Or more specifically a Hah! I told you so. It is important not to leave out the Hah! I guess because it changes the statement entirely. I told you so moments are dime a dozen. Hah! I told you so. Has that extra implication that somebody had dug themselves a hole or made an absolute ass of themselves prior to the great realisation.



I love a good Hah! (as I will refer to these moments from now on). They are not about the important life and death situations but far more likely the 'I reckon you are wrong about why that their cone is blue and the rest are orange.' or perhaps 'I know you are going to admit that you can't do that eventually.' (The do is something lame and random like balancing a spoon on your nose never anything where that statement would be cruel).



However the object was to describe a Hah! moment I had recently. Firstly I am not sure whether this intended to be me getting somebody else or them getting me. I am going to go with the most obvious choice would be a moment when I got them... Therefore I will for the sake of inconvenience chose the other alternative.

Bakery

That moment when you realise you have just dug yourself a hole so deep there is no option left but to jump in and over yourself up to be buried in it. My friend is responsible for food at my university christian fellowship and he is a little bit of a scrooge. This isn't necessarily bad, nobody really wants to waste food. However sometimes it means he is a little bit ruthless about getting rid of the final snacks of food.



The other day it was mini muffins (it wasn't but the word for what they were I can't spell and am therefore forced to change this minor detail). Regardless, he wanted me to eat one and I refused, and refused profusely at that. I was sure that if he went around the room again he would get rid of that lone 'muffin' and therefore getting me out of eating it.



Unfortunately it came back. Apparently every person in the room managed to have a better excuse than me for why they didn't want to eat it. I nevertheless wasn't relenting easily. So I came up with really extravagant arguments why I shouldn't be required to eat it. Yet after one or two minutes I could feel that knot tightening. A second or two later I was left to hang, caught out by my own ultimatum (it was a very minor ultimatum of course) and forced to eat it. I believe the statement was 'I told you you'd eat it.' but there was definitely a Hah! going on in his eyes. Such is life I suppose... thankfully in this case losing was perhaps as sweet as victory.



For an added bonus 'Hah! I told you so.' from my end? Telling a friend that we had definitely gotten a lab timetable sheet in physics class. More specifically that he had attended the wrong lab week. Seems minor but trust me it was hilarious how doubting he was. After discussing (arguing) with me for a number of minutes he had to get the confirmation of no fewer than 2 other members of the class before he believed me. At which point the 'I told you so' was very satisfying...



They both seem really minor but honestly? The best Hah! moments are minor... That's what allows them to be truly hilarious :P I've had some absolute ringers but these ones are the most recent so i'm sorry if you're disappointed. Such is life.

Not A Scene For Romance... Or Perhaps...

Oh fun times Plinky... Describe the community you live in, as if it were the setting for a book. I wouldn't call myself a very good writer most of the time but I have often written a beginning... Though I have never contemplated setting a book here. It isn't really the environment for a romance.



Concrete building after concrete building. Each as bland as the next. For an outsider the only distinguishing marks the name on the sign outside each of the buildings identical stairways. Reading those signs, somebody must have had a sorry sense of humour. Best House, Little House, Cobby House names which emphasised the dullness of the buildings rather than providing any sense of character.



Every person confined to the weather worn concrete creation was lured there under false pretences. Most want to leave, few do. Few escape the prison of concrete. Here is a place of boredom masked with descriptions of professionalism, debauchery justified by the desire to relax and frustration created by the requirement to excel.

The place has all the facilities a human should desire. A large mess hall serving three warm meals a day, television to be watched freely, sporting fields by the dozen and a well stocked gymnasium. There is nothing openly missing, nothing which has been designated as off-limits or confiscated. Yet nobody lives there without a sense of loss. All acknowledge that the place has let them keep their humanity, keep their luxuries but that it all has come at a very great cost.



The weather is bad, though on a good day the grass invites the trees paint a beautiful picture against the blue, blue sky. Nobody notices. Nature is a background, a foil for making the place appear more bearable to outsiders. The grass is beautiful because it is untouched, to sit or to walk upon it would be sacrilege.



The rules of this place may seem strange to one not part of this place. Requesting to another person simply to be allowed to go into town is standard. To drink alcohol within the buildings or to leave your room untidy has similiar outcomes. Rarely a week goes without persons charged and punished to sweep the open-air car parks, polish brass flagpoles and photocopy pointless documents.



This is a place of indoctrination. People come to it everyday fresh-faced kids and they don't even know when it happens. The place which they learn to hate becomes everything. Every decision they make, every conversation they have, every plan that they make becomes based around the place. What of these people? What of the people who call this place home?

What's More Important - I'm Not Sure Either Is

Hello my most darling blinky. I am sure when I look back to contemplate why it is I fail my physics test on Monday I will probably blame my procrastinating ways on here. Please remind me at that point that I am writing because I am stuck and my head hurts more than I am writing because I wilfully wish to procrastinate.



I am not sure how much I take a liking to today's topic though. What's more important, where you live or what you do for a living? I'm not entirely sure if what you are asking is a chicken or the egg question of a question of my personal values and what I value more.



I suggest chicken or the egg because what you do for a living controls where you live and it is a widely held social opinion that where you live controls what you do for a living. I am certainly of the opinion that what you do for a living has a much more concrete connection on where you live than the other way around but certainly there is some impact on what you do for a living based on where you live. You don't get many professional fisherman in the middle of the dessert.



In short, which one has the greater controlling factor on the other I'm going to say what you do for a living... but that is probably not what the question is asking you.

Shanghai day 9, Apartment Building

Ok what is most important to me personally - where I live or what I do? Is it ok to say neither? I am much more inclined towards it being WHY I do it and WHO I do it with. I've lived in everything from single room with shared facilities to a 4 room cottage in North Carolina with my mum and brother to my family's home in suburban Caboolture. I have to say that neither geographical location nor physical space or 'stuff' has much to do with it.



What I do for a living, its handy and certainly I couldn't live very well without it, even my location of where I live is dependent on my job. To quit would be to move. Nobody goes to work and has a good day vs a bad day over the amount of money they earn - unless you work for commission then the two concepts probably do overlap. A good day at work is more meaningful that that - and if its not for you I recommend you find a new job.



A good day at work as often as not for me is achieving something productive, or sometimes simply having a good conversation with a friend is enough to lift my day up. Certainly not getting into trouble and not encountering some new assignment or whatever makes it good.



I'm going to cut myself short at the this point to get back to work but put simply. I work to have money, to live freely, and so long as I have a bed, a computer, food and good company I'll be happy enough where-ever I am. Though Australia is my first preference of course. A beautiful eucalypt against a rich blue sky there isn't any view better... Life is short and heaven is better than anything I could have upon this earth. Friends are the ones who stand the most chance of being forever.

The Many Levels of Swearer

Where do I stand on bad language? It has been a while since I have looked a plinky with both the time and the inclination to write - and I scored an awesome topic. To swear or not to swear.



Well I think it is a little bit more gray scale than the black and white picture they are trying to put it here. In the words of the plinky prompt Some people love to swear. For others it makes them cringe. There are far more levels to it than that - take it from somebody in a profession of heavy swearing.



So for the rest of this post I am going to show you the different levels of swearing that I see in my daily life and I am going to explain why I don't give a rats about swearing anymore. Why I do it perhaps more than many but less than so many more.

The levels of swearing - I think I'll start at the bottom.



Oh Ye of Innocent Ears These are the people so far at the bottom of the swearing food chain it is pretty much completely over their heads. They will know a couple of swear words (and cringe when they hear them) but there will also be many more which provided the swearer uses it fluently they won't understand the word or realise that it is swearing.



Sugar, Spice & Everything Nice Well... minus the spice... These are the well behaved misses (I'm sorry but I simply haven't met a guy with this kind of perspective on swearing) who keep rough enough company to have heard most swear words. However they refuse to let anybody get away with one little word without a page long in depth complaint about how bad using that word is.



The Conscientious Objectors You'll probably never hear these guys (and by guys I do mean both men and women ok) let a swear word drop but they see the sense in just letting the words flow around them. They may occasionally object to significant unnecessary swearing but more often than not they just leave people to their own expressive devices.



Stressed-Out Swearer These are some of the more fun swearers. After all when you make them swear you know you've gotten them to stress out, freak out or get frustrated. This is probably a subgroup of the 'Conscientious Objector'. They try hard not to but in the end they can't help it.



Social Swearer These guys will swear in the right (or should that be wrong) company. They wouldn't normally say it but they don't mind their friends swearing and more than that they don't mind doing it a little themselves. Though they try to constrain themselves in more generalised company.



Consistent Swearer These guys don't live and breath swear words but you are pretty well guaranteed to hear one or two while you are talking to them. They will have particular uses for each of their swear words and as such will just use them much the way they would use any other word in their vocabulary.





The Chain Swearer You've heard of the chain smoker? These are the chain swearers. They use swear words about as often as they use normal language. Hell if you think about it you can't even work out how they FIT that many swear words into such a short sentence.



Me... While I'd like to say I am a Conscientious Objector... I was once upon a time now I am a Consistent Swearer. Though I would like to suggest that is a rather broad category and I hang about at the bottom end. Sometimes when people use swear words unnecessarily I will speak up against it... but that is very rarely after all I use them rather too frequently myself to get mad at others.



I guess I slipped into the habit because I hated the overreaction of some Sugar, Spice and Everything Nice people and I at the time failed to see the middle ground Conscientious Objector option. It was a reasonable slow slide after being surround by a group of people made predominately of the last two categories... I know a number of chain swearers.



I'd love to stop swearing... it makes me feel a little bit guilty when I think about how much more I swear compared with most of my friends - I don't mind swearing but I would prefer not to be 'the swearer'. However stopping swearing is like trying to train your self out of using the word 'like' in a sentence (Yes I know I am speaking about a specifically gen Y language construct there) - I like mean using it like like like like... you know how it sounds and I admit to still having the occasionally extra like though I was never particularly bad for it and I trained it out many years ago...

The Trick is Knowing What you Learned...

Something I learned recently... really? You couldn't be more vague could you plinky. The only challenging part about this particular topic is the number one. One thing I learned recently. I could list a hundred things easily but to narrow the list to one would require thought - and more importantly a worthy topic...



Thinking...



Nope I give up. I will provide two or three things I have learnt in the last week.

Ghetto angular data collection

Electro-magnetics makes my head spin. I know I know bad form for the electrical engineering student to admit this one. I had one of my friends explain our lesson the other day to me in such dumb terms I think I did something similar in grade 10 physics (and back then I was top of the class I feel inclined to add). It is very much a 'mighty have fallen' feeling for me. Not because I am full of myself simply because in the way of all high level students you come to rely on your ability to comprehend things... On a high note I can now do the right hand rule... that has to be something ;p. (I suppose that counts for a second thing I learnt)



That ethical theory is entertainingly ridiculous. One of those subjects that uni says you have to do but you don't want to do. I have learnt about utilitarianism (lets party hardy guys), Kantian Ethics (how would you like it if that happened to you?) and Virtue theory (be a good person (or simply think of a good person) to make good decisions)... There may have been more to it... but really I just like that different theories can give some ridiculous answers to some ethical dilemmas...



Sitting with the guy I have a hopeless crush on is just as exciting now as it was in high school. There isn't really much to this one. Except to say... I wish I was past these kinds of things but apparently I am not.



Onenote is useful for more than screen clippings. Seriously? I love having a touchscreen laptop. Best thing I accidentally bought on a whim and a lot more useful that some teach yourself spanish cds... Yes I know I need to control my spending sprees... Nevertheless... I don't get it out often but sometimes (and for obvious reasons) I need to use a computer without the procrastination tool that is internet. But I have had it out (the only copy I currently have of the physics text in electronic) and much fun to be had I must say lol... I think I still prefer post its though...



And finally, with direct and shameless reference to some of the other answers to this plinky question some people don't get better at telling you 'what they learnt today' with age. By that I am referring to the age old 'What did you learn at school today?' question that no child who is relatively normal will have an answer to. (Well small children do I guess regaling you with tales of playing with the blocks but then the question is more what did you DO today.)



To all those people still unable to decide something they learnt today... I learnt that such-and-such clique is true - I think in 90% of cases this is a lie... you may have reaffirmed the fact but really? you totally already knew that... If you want to do that at least make it entertaining. 'Today I learnt that toast doesn't land butter side up every time - however the ten second rule can always apply.' Gross but it would have made me smile (as a note I don't eat toast... or even bread very often and certainly not today).

In The Dark Of The Night

It is getting harder to make time for this kind of time wasting since the uni session is really getting going... Never the less some topics are interesting enough (and I have more spare time on wednesdays than any other day) to make it worth my while.



Thunderstorm arrives, power outage! How do you occupy your time?



Fun times... First off I am guessing that this is wanting me to think after dark power out. You realise thunderstorms are often an afternoon event and excepting for gloom you could get away with continuing to do any number of activities except computer/playstation/wii/television etc... Some would say it is going back to the dark ages (hahah... oh i crack myself up sometimes).



Never the less your run of the mill power outage which occurs somewhere between 6-9 at night (i'm going to be honest and say that after about 9 at night you simply go to bed and assume all power will be restored come morning). I am thankfully not one of those poor soles cursed with an intense fear of storms. It is amazing how many people get antsy when the thunder starts rolling and I am talking about adults here.



Now I am pretty sure a previous era of human would suggest going for the candles as a first option. Not anymore. That is why everybody has a mobile phone isn't it? Sure if you do happen to have some industrial candles lying around it might be nice for some more long term light but most of those bidly decorative ones i don't think are worth the effort.

Power Outage..

Lets not get the opinion I am not a fan of light though. I am a real big fan of light... and I have a sizeable dislike for the dark. I don't generally go so far as to use the word fear. After all 5 year olds have a fear of the dark. It just makes me even more jumpy than usual and yes I do (when I am outside) feel the need to check over my shoulder every few steps. I am fine in most peoples and certainly my own room.



But before I digress too far. Occupying my time. Well I could get my sound powered home phone out and ring one of my other friends who still also has one (whether you use it as your main phone or as an emergency phone) and laugh about all our friends with digital phones who are now cut off... Well I am guessing their mobiles still work... Well that ruins my fun now doesn't it.



Basically when the lights go out. You just don't do anything. You sort of sit there thinking to yourself - are they going to come back on? When they don't you think that again and wait again... and that cycle continues for a good 15-30 seconds longer, if you really want the power back.



After this point you call out to anybody and everybody who is in the house. Just in case in the 2 seconds in which the lights when off everybody in the world except you died - who knows that is a plausible reason for a power out if you ask me. You usually group together... in the kitchen... I don't know why... probably because you are looking for those candles I already said you don't need.



After the point at which you have realised you no longer remember where the emergency candles are or simply could no longer be bothered to find the matches you now realise were not kept with said emergency candles, you just talk. If the storms a good one you sit by a window and watch it for a bit. But generally though it depends on the people specifically but they give up small talk and random chatter and go their separate ways (very very slowly) to bed. Probably getting lost at least once on the way.



So in the most general sense - when the power goes out.... I go to bed!