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!