I'll Admit My Nerdy Side

If I could go back and relive one day of my life, which one would it be? There is nothing like a wide open question to put me in a good mood my dear plinky. After all the simple question Why? (why to pick that day) is far more complex that it may seem. There are so many completely different ways to read this question.



A person could choose to take it as a day they want to relive because they want to change something that happened. Though I'm worried if anybody (I'd predict probably someone of the high school 'emo' set) chooses to relive the day they attempted suicide to make it more complete. Sad though it would be I am also a little worried about people wishing to relive the day when somebody else died or was involved in some freak accident – to all those people there was nothing you could do... Stop mentally revisiting it every day.



Another approach (I’m hoping more common) would be to relive GOOD events from your life. The day your team won the championship game, your wedding day (which really could fall into any of the three approaches I’m describing but my romantic side would like to put into this one) or some other day you accomplished something amazing. Good things are going to be a first or a last, the day you met somebody or the day you finally qualified at your job. The intermediate days are just never as good.



My final ‘approach’ is the time travelling conscious. This one is almost implicitly required in the BAD event approach but for good times it may be a useful addition. Nobody wants to relive the bad things and not have the knowledge to fix them. For good times, or even simply interesting times, taking your current day ‘self’ with you makes it so much more interesting. Or maybe (because I am sure somebody answered this with the day they were born) they simply want an interesting memory of a life event. Or sometime when knowing what you know now would make it a little interesting. Anyway now that I’ve analysed the topic to death maybe I’ll pick something shall I?

Beaker bug, it's science!

There are a lot of good days in my life (I certainly have no desire to relive any bad times) but to pick an interesting one to relive. I have been very bored during my uni holidays so I think I want to relive one of the more interesting holiday activities I’ve ever done. The Science Experience I participated in at one of the Brisbane unis. I have to say I recommend that kind of thing to any slightly nerdy person who wants some fun on their holiday. Unfortunately for you and me both it is a high school only thing so except in this context it’s now a past opportunity for me... Glad I did it while I could then.



It was three days, so I’m going to have to pick a single day, I’ll get to that. First some of the reasons why I would pick this event in general. It was a hell of a lot of fun (but I’m sure that is a given) but more importantly it was a number of firsts for me (being allowed to catch the train to the city alone, being treated in general as an adult – or at least an intelligent being, seeing a university campus, attending my first lecture (yep they were just as bad then as now)). It was one of those unique experiences I had in high school that I DIDN’T have to share with the other high achieving student of my school (ever high achiever whether it is academics or athletics or the arts has the one person who is out in front with them and they have the –I call it healthy – competition).



So I can’t have the whole three days again. That’s ok... I will never forgive them for sending us to the natural sciences facility while the others did – well this many years on I can’t remember what they did but it was something I had really wanted to do. Unlike a lot of those kind of camp activities there was no choice about which to attend nor did everybody attend all of them. Groups A-D simply went to wherever it was and lucky groups E-F got to met some geologist and talk about rocks and erosion. Here is where I point out that I didn’t even do biology in senior let alone geology or geography, ick.



The day I wouldn’t mind re-doing since that day is clearly out. Well, I’d say the day we went to the anatomy department of UQ. Yes I found looking at dead bodies very fascinating (this coming from a girl who at that point in my life still had trouble sleeping after some CSI episodes). I have this awful feeling that is what we did after the rock people though so I’ll pass it.



Instead the day that we played the invention game – if you managed to read some of my previous posts and come back for more drivel (did you know that drivelled is a word? I didn’t. thanks spell check) you may have heard me mention this game. We made a very incredible surf board which could be created on a desert island with nothing more than paper, a couple of straws, string and all the sand in the world. Then created the best pun infomercial (in my unbiased opinion) for said surfboard ever seen, anywhere.



The whole day was just a lot of fun. I think that was the last day of the camp (though I may be wrong). Which unfortunately makes it the short day (but I wouldn’t take natural sciences day even for a full day event). Nevertheless the closing ceremony (by short day it still didn’t end until about 4.30) was entertaining to – science based ‘magic’ tricks and some random interesting banana about how science as a career could be fun.



The random fact was simply that bananas cannot be juiced (and pear juice is most commonly substituted in ‘banana’ flavoured juices) but they had been doing stuff to make bananas (looking similar to lady fingers) which are able to be juiced. Other bananas have been manipulated to increase their nutritional value with the aim being to make one banana cover the full range of vitamins and minerals for use in countries where food availability isn’t good. Just to finish off I would just want to do the day again; not take my memories back with me (that would spoil all the jokes).

Never Tell My Mother

So my darling plinky – you have chosen to be irritating again. If my concentration was better than that of a firefly perhaps I would cut you away completely (and for those of you unaware of the ‘cut away’ slang look it up, one of the most useful pieces of military slang which I would like to bring to the civilian world) but alas I am still here. Why are you irritating? Well you finally managed to use an ‘an’ instead of a ‘-est’ word word. It is simply that you are making me use the third person perspective for a second time in two days. So long as you don’t make it a hat trick I’ll forgive you tomorrow.



Anyway let’s get on topic shall we? Tell an awkward third person... wait that isn’t it... Tell a story about an awkward school experience. Fun topic... Anybody who can’t write a novel of awkward school moments must either have a bad memory or a very good imagination. So anyway I guess I should pick a good one.



As always to find a good one I had to pit stop through a large number of memories before I find a good one that I can replay which is entertaining in something a bit longer than a Facebook status (I refuse to use Twitter even in my analogies). Anyway I figure I’ll avoid the moment I told my best friend of 4 years(well me and my other best friend called him that we were lucky we he acknowledged us as friends – whole story in that one) I liked him. Or the time in seventh grade when I had a discussion on the bus with an eighth grade girl about which was more offensive the finger or the toe (which she explained was physically manipulating your toes so that only the middle toe is standing) – the answer she was looking for (everybody who asks those questions has an answer they have already deemed the ‘right one) was the toe.



So I can think of an abundance of awkward moments throughout my schooling. This one I’m going to write about however is one of those times where the snowball rolling downhill grows out of control to comical dimensions.

School bus

It is a sixth grade lunch time. Nothing particularly unusual about this one, nothing to make it memorable. The class, for in this cafeteria students come as a class, sit as a class and leave as a class, arrived to the cafeteria. Kids divided into the two lines based on meal preference―the normal meal, veg & milk just inside the door/’fastfood’ option to the far side. The girls in question had chosen the normal line.



Well, all bar one, the other girl, who in this story will be called Olive, deemed herself too good for the normal food line. She deemed herself too good for a lot of things, including the other girls―particularly the other girls. Or at least one other girl, Peach, perhaps an easy target, the youngest in the year, a little heavy, who has (being Australian not American) grown up completely oblivious to the racism and all its complications.



Peaches had been a little bit out of it on this particular day, perhaps this particular week. The exact reason for this has been washed away with history, this event took place many, many years ago. Turning to her friend, Rose, Peach said, her eyes following Olive across the cafeteria. ‘I HATE her. I want to kill her.’ Rose didn’t make a comment simply turning to get her meal.



At the table a very seconds later with the rest of the members of her class Peach was confronted by another of her not favourite people, Lily. Unfortunately Peach, having conceded completely to her bad mood gave Lily a bit of an earful also. Not death threats, though she did reiterate the one towards Olive, simply frustrated comments.



Then walking into the classroom one of the boys, a friend of Lily’s, here we’ll call him Dennis, spoke to Peaches. ‘I know what you said about her Peach. I can’t believe you could say something like that.’ Peaches starred at him shocked, she felt threatened by his tone of voice, and his words played on her already active conscious. ‘You’re... gay’ She was shocked at herself for saying that. Never had she used the word gay that way, until that moment the only references in her life to gay had been of the good-time, gay-time variety.



That was the part of this story that got to the teacher. How does one back-pedal out of a situation like that? Peach certainly didn’t manage it. The whole story came out. Funnily all of the gay stuff got forgotten about pretty quickly. It certainly wasn’t the bit that had her fronting the school police officer. How many schools have a resident police officer in the sixth grade hall, certainly not in Aussie schools? Ahhh well... The death threats towards Olive, said with all the seriousness of a relatively well adjusted 11 year old girl unexposed to anything more violent than a Disney movie.



After a long line of ‘yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir’ while the Bye Baby Bunting police officer explained how serious threats were to Peach they got to decision time. ‘Miss Peach, this is a VERY serious matter. For the threats you have made toward Miss Olive you are going to have to go to children’s court. And tell your mother.’ He said this like the separate and far more significant point which to a 11 year old girl... is about right. ‘Or we will come to a compromise. I’m going to hand you over to the guidance councillor and she will oversee you apologising to Olive and mediating a solution to your relationship issues. This will not involve court and we won’t have to call you mother.’



Dumb question, thought Peach, anything for my mum to never know my lowest moments. ‘I’ll take mediation’ The guidance councillor came and took her to the office, calling for Olive to join them. Both girls were forced to apologise to one another. Ten minutes later Olive was returned to class leaving Peach alone with the councillor to talk about the problems she was having at the time. Apparently significant enough to save dear Peach from the during class detention room instead simply being returned to the classroom to read for the rest of the lesson.





Yep... lets just say that is the first and LAST time the word of the ‘law’ has ever been directed at me. It was also the most awkward supervised apology I have ever been party to. And one of the biggest things that ever happened to me at school that I never, NEVER told my mother.

A Very Scary Moment

The scariest moment of my life. I have worked out what it is I don't like about most of the plinky topics. They use '-est' words and 'favourite' far too often for me. I can write a page or two on any number of answers that fit the bill - for this topic that would be scary moments. Just the same I can't think of any defining moment. One time which I would single out - which means that in answering this question I (no matter how I answer) feel like I gave an incorrect answer.



So I have decided, for the sake of my sanity, to simply pick one moment of my life where I was scared. Well a little bit more than just scared - I am not about to speak of times when my uncle came up behind my computer chair and I jumped sky high. Or even the more extreme times when after hours of playing Cluedo on my computer some of the guys I lived with decided it was a good time to play practical jokes. I with also try to find a more interest moment of gut-wrenching fear than simply confronting the first exam paper I ever failed.



Anyway - today you get to avoid listening to me harp on - thanks to darling plinky I am required to describe the scariest moment of my life from a third person perspective. Mine you - I may simply be my normal obtuse self and choose to read that as third PARTY perspective. Its cause to be my usual chatty self pretending to be somebody else.

Carnegie Shield - Royal Dornoch Golf Club, August 2007

It had been a long night already when that shaken young mid fronted to tell me she had just crashed the duty golf buggy. I have to tell you I wasn't overly surprised. She drove me around the last time she was on duty and let me tell you - despite her state issued license which allows her on the road I have to say the four months confided to base for initial training I doubted if she was safe on the road.



I have to say I didn't know quite what to do with the girl. Close to hysterical with laughter about something that would surely lead to a charge (though't I am not sure of what). Apparently she had run off the road, hit a tree and fallen completely out of the vehicle. I have to tell you how the HELL somebody does that at 25k an hour I've no idea.



I concede that it was a pretty windy evening - dark, cloudy - but not raining. A base this small the roads aren't overly well lit. With a 40 speed limit though you'd certainly expect a car's head lights to be sufficient - even if you have to dodge a kangaroo or ten. But then as I said this girl didn't seem to be the most efficient driver on offer.



Apparently slow speed can be almost as dangerous as high speeds. Knowing the dear old golf buggy had been speed limited causes most of the trainee's to try the reckless and ridiculous to make up for what it's lacking. Apparently in this case the driver had thought she was going slow enough to attempt to fix the torn plastic door while driving. It doesn't surprise me is that that girl would think the long downhill CURVE would be a good time to do such things.



What does surprise me. What surprised everybody. Is that the cart managed to get up and over the gutter. To be honest I think that is the cause of the only damage on the golf buggy - except perhaps to the girl's nerves. However after mounting the curve she had gone about 2 meters into a tree. Had it not been for the tree she would have gone over the edge of the 4 metre sheer drop onto the golf course.



I have to say the driver despite her shock got off pretty easy from the whole thing. I checked with her - nothing wrong with her but a very bruises and a whole lot of excess adrenaline. Apparently after she fell out of the vehicle - not wearing a seat belt (not that I blame her I didn't even know the old thing had one) she almost rolled down the slope. Not that I think it was the best plan for a girl still shaking when she got to the duty room but she managed to drive the buggy (front axil well bent to boot) all the way home. No more damage to come of it than the government's $5000 (thankfully not passed onto the girl).



Finally - just me again - to say my driving has got a lot better since then. Not scary at all from this perspective...

The Birds and The Bees

To clarify from the title (yes it was a semi-intentional suck-you-in) I am not in the least bit confused about sex. Just how the hell a man-woman relationship comes to exist and then stays afloat...



Today I think, for the sake of honesty, I will make a quick pit stop (hopefully my answer will extend beyond it) through one of the most cliche responses to this question. Afterall women confuse men and men (through women often seem less inclined to admit it - preferring instead to just blame the man's stupidity) confuse women. However I am going to extend this to... men AND WOMEN confuse the hell out of me. What part of life confuses me the most? Relationships.



AH! I know I'm sure I've stumbled into yet another cliche with that one. Actually... I may not have. Considering how many people I know with boyfriends/girlfriends - I generally don't count husbands/wifes because they interact with one another a little bit differently - it is possible that I am the only person on the planet who didn't get the 'How to Date' starters kit.

Date night

I am going to come right out and admit to not being the most social bunny going. Personally a few hours sitting on my bed watching a movie or reading a book (I live a single room so everything is done while sitting on my bed or at my desk) is preferable to a night out on the town. That doesn't mean I don't appreciate company or even mind taking my movie watching to town every once in a while.



Anyhow, so the dating thing. I am confused by a very large number of aspects of the whole social construct. Some relating to how I manage to have a guy I like like me - and I seem to have a penchant for the silent types. To use words out of the mouth of one of the guys I've liked, it was a while ago so it might be accidentally paraphrased 'I don't really like anything, I don't relax, I don't stress out, I don't really feel much of anything.' Now doesn't he just sound like a bundle of fun?



Others include why it is that morons have boyfriends. Yes, clearly it is because BOTH sides of the relationship have very low expectations of what they were looking for. Even still. Some of the most frustrating women I have ever met seem to acquire boyfriends with such ease. I really need to extend moron to include absolute bitches - you know the ones that have more male friends than girlfriends because they have a use and abuse personality. I assume being easy helps them but still.



I could go further with that one but it basically leads into my next confused issue. The serial dater. This is perhaps more understandable outside my living environment - though still not a lot. The girl that will date one guy for three months then dump him for his next door neighbour. I clearly don't understand enough about these matters to understand how a person could 'date' multiple people in our workplace. You know the name, rank, service, degree stream and personality of just about everybody. How can you date every single one of your guy friends - certain s words do come to mind, generally prefixed by the word dirty.



I'll sway away from mentally recounting all the sluts (opps did I just use that word) i know and move onto a different aspect. How does one start dating. This is clearly an area I am not alone in being unsure about - afterall there are endless dating sites in existence not to mention ploys like blind dates and speed dating. Nevertheless an answer is yet to come to me. Accepting an offer sounds like the best bet - hell thats one I've done before - but the trouble is in getting the offer.



My prior experience in any of this. I am going to admit to going on a single very awkward almost date not long before I started year 12 - we simply became good long distance msn buddies after that one. Since then I have had a few male friends, and a few male friends I had horrendous crushes on (I hate the word but when you are pathetically liking people who show very little interest [in that way] in you what other word is there) and one very bad response to (after liking him for 3 years) admitting to one of my closest friends I liked him - we never really spoke again.



Ok now I've bitched, moaned and groaned with all the finesse of a hormone induced high school girl. Which I am not nor have been for many years just to remind anybody who read this thinking 'ewww desperate school girl'. I am not a school girl nor particularly desperate. Merely tired of people ^ see above mention of s word ^ saying stupid things like 'You are so lucky to be independent and self-assured without a man.' I just like to think that yes I really am more attractive to somebody out there than a sex-addicted, money-wasting, sickeningly girly-girl with the personality of a toad.

I'm Moving On

My Dearest Plinky,



You seem to have got me good today. 'Describe something I lost and I want back.' I can think of a few petty things I wouldn't mind having back - my old purple phone after I left it at a motel, my comfy shoes that died of old age and hell even just my old copy of the first ever Australian Mills and Boon Duet I had a couple years back. But I can't think of anything significant, something life changing to talk about for this topic.

Friends

It isn't to say I haven't lost things. Haven't outgrown, matured past or outlived things. Pets have died, grandparents have died, toys have fallen apart, friends have grown apart - particularly post school. But even the bigger of those things like family and friends I may miss but I don't want the back.



So that is going to sound strange to a lot of people. Isn't missing something to want them back... yes and no. Sure you can say it would be nice to have them back, but life moves on. The things you'd have to do to go back there generally (to me) make it not worth it.



So only three paragraphs in I've almost worked out what it is I'm talking about. My school friends. Its funny how you don't believe you will lose them after school. I don't have the same close group of friends I had at school any more. Sad and often after a weekend of doing uni work I am in my room going stir crazy and I miss them. I'd kill for a msn conversation like I had back in school. Hell, right now, sitting in my family home (I'm on holidays), I'd kill to have friends abound to catch up with.



So why don't I want them back? That wouldn't solve any problems. Friends are nice its true but to have them as the friends I had at school I'd need to still be here in town, still live at home, still have things in common with them. I like my life as it is now too much to want that. I don't want what I had in the past, I want new and different experiences now instead.



Yours in Boredom,

Peaches

Ten Years Might As Well Be Eternity

Oh dear Mr. Plinky... I may have to go back to thinking up my own blog ideas at this rate... And that never goes too well - who wants to listen to me ramble about my love of the creeks (and their general lack of water) while on car trips. FINE I'll answer your question. "10 Years From Now, What Do I Hope My Life Will Be Like?"



Straight of the bat I'll admit to you my intense hatred for contemplating the future. Hell the six months goal sheets I have to do for work are enough to get my knickers in a knot. All that self-improvement bullshit about being directed and committed because I have a goal to reach. Goals = stress = me stressing out = no progress on goal = more stress = less progress... and so the vicious cycle continues - until I probably have a mental breakdown or something. All in all plans about the future = goals = stress even when nobody is going to give me a pass fail grade for it.



Moving right along. 10 years is a very, VERY long time. Though I try to avoid mentioning my age most of the time I am going to have to say that that is more than half (just) my life. Thinking back to ten years ago. I was in grade 5 at school. That was before I lived in the US. Before I went to high school. Before I moved out of home. So many life changing decisions happen in ten years.



And not to play devil's advocate - I don't play the role that well but all the people answering this question with I want to be a millionaire. Lets just be a little more realistic shall we? Unless you want to give me 400 words on how or why you'll be a millionaire - then I might (emphasizing the might) listen. Where do I want to be in ten years?



Well we are talking about what do I want to have achieved before I'm thirty. I'd like to not be doing the job I'm doing at the moment... Stuck here till I'm 27 but that isn't so bad... I'm just not sure it is where I want to spend my entire life. And leading into my next aspiration I'm not sure its where I'd like to be when I have a family.



To reference my saying millionaire was unrealistic. I struggle with visualising wanting to be married by 30 as anything more than a pipe-dream. I don't even have a boyfriend. I suppose it is not that different from saying I want to be a millionaire... After all anything could happen - I just don't happen to lust after something as petty as cash (no I am not above making lame puns).



So presuming I do find that lucky (more likely unlucky) somebody I wouldn't mind a child by that point in my life. Think in the 3 year gap between leaving my job at 27 and the magic 10 year from now border. And a dog. It is amazing how much you miss pets after having them growing up. Some days what I want most in the world is a warm, furry body to cuddle and seeing as my taste in men does NOT run to hairy I am thinking a nice lapdog would suit me well....



Now I am suffering from the - my responses sound like every other normal human being - dilemma. As we all know I dislike falling into the category of lame, predictable and unoriginal but to be perfectly honest I don't have any great life aspirations. A man who loves God and loves me, frequent contact with my best friend (I would love to be living in the same town for once), a job I can bear... I am at heart a ridiculously mundane human being...



Mostly 10 years from now I'd just be content with still being alive. With nobody around me dying of a terrible disease or being killed in car accidents, bike accidents, ski accidents or freak toe-stubbing or door closing accidents.



I've got no idea what the future holds. I leave that sort of hard core planning up to God. I hear he has some pretty extreme spread sheeting programs on his computer so I'll leave the mundane planning aspects of my life up to him. Hears to whatever the future holds!!

Unlimited Resources... What Else Would I Need?

Ahhh... The resources we live to find them, we live to develop them, we live to discover new ones and more than anything we live to use them up faster than we can do any of the other things combined. Half the fun of life is coming up with ways to do things with less resources - or so the greenies keep telling me.



Today I am answering the Plinky question 'If you had unlimited resources what would I create?' and in my usual way I am not going to tackle the question head-on with all the elegance of a mac-truck but rather lure it into a false sense of security and take its hidden treasure when it least expects it and share it with all of you kind people. For those of you unable to see the Robin Hood analogy there... I can't help you I've already wasted far too much of everybody else's time.



Back on topic now. What would I build with endless resources? I'm going to need somebody to define resources for me. By some definitions that would simply be natural resources... and to be perfectly honest apart from the quote unquote 'World Peace' answer favoured at beauty pageants I'm not sure sure what I would want to do with MORE oil. Well LOWER prices perhaps... but I don't think UNcreating a monopoly of the oil industry is really an answer I want to pitch here today. The un makes it far too negative.



Another option for a definition of resources is to go hard core on the elemental side of things. In other words... you can have all the atoms in the world you want... You can even have 100 kgs of unununium (atomic number 111 apparently it has a less cool name but why would I remember it, I'm not a chemist) if your heart so desires. Yep... I don't know what I'd do with any and every element at my disposal... Make some squeaky voices for my shadow puppets with some helium perhaps? Attempt the ol' lead balloon trick? And then to really finish off the party with some sodium in the water jug explosions...



Another alternative for unlimited resources is to have all of the worlds INTELLECTUAL resources. Basically that would make you a super genius. As far as creating things go this is probably the best on to have. Though I reckon with even the worlds vast knowledge you wouldn't be able to solve any of the fun ones - like, sorry to pageant cliche haters for bringing it back up, world piece or energy creation. But it would be pretty cool to see how many scientists could have invented something by now if they knew that this guy over here had the missing piece of information.. I'm sure there is something out there like that... That would be a fun bit of creating though I'm not sure what exactly it would be.



Finally I'm going to go with the obvious answer to the question... yeah I had to get around to it anyway. I'm figuring for this unlimited resources would most reasonably translate into anything money can buy. To be perfectly honest at that point I probably wouldn't be creating much of anything... Except some awesomely long facebook statuses, blog posts, group text messages (and any other medium I could think of) about how BORED I am... Probably a good time to invent stuff you say...



Unfortunately I'm a big believer in the more you have the less you can see. I mean I'm not situating myself as Bill Gates (though I point out he too had his great spark BEFORE he had everything) so I don't have a any natural genius to back me up. So once I had everything I wouldn't be able to think past it all to something new or different. I would be too distracted buying that thing that guy over there has because I don't have one yet... I mean when you can buy jet packs and personal water hover devices (ah the things my roommates look at while procrastinating) you are too busy putting yourself in hospital for any inventing of things...



The reason most things get created is the lack of it and its usefulness (and once you need to USE something for something isn't it therefore a resource which means I get to have it in this alternate universe?). We create more fuel efficient cars and houses etc because we need to save natural resources (woot buzz words). We create remote controls and mobile phones because we have the inbuilt need to be lazy - and lazy people don't build new things... What is left in the laziness avenue? A machine that goes to sleep for you? There are drugs for that.



People are at their most inventive when they have no resources... Probably why this question works now I think about it... Imagination makes for fantastic solutions while reality just makes a very lazy SOB. I can still remember a time on a summer science camp where we (on a desert island) had to build something with a very straws, a sheet of paper - and unlimited sand. The other group did the practical thing... Our group basically dispensed with reality from the get go and made a very very epic surf board... Long story short - I've never been a designed and we lost design phase epically... We did however win advertising... This ability for me to spin shit isn't new... apparently I've had it for years.



And just as a bonus prize for listening to my rant (for this one has been a particularly good rant [I'm avoiding my ironing something chronic]). If I had unlimited resources - as it I was all knowing, all owning, and had whatever I needed at my fingertips - I would create a camera which was basically just a contact lens. Still capture (I wouldn't want continuous video which would make getting my perfect shot impossible). It would record the world I see exactly the way I see it... I hate camera flash.