Practically Making Money

Ok... I really shouldn't have been buying things today. Particularly not make-up things. I mean realistically I already have more than I need and I only use it 2-3 times a week when I'm on a roll.

But I do really like new things. It makes me forget things like leaving my USB in the classroom again and having to start my entire three week lab due Monday from scratch to get the report done. Buying make-up is better than buying food - I already do too much of that.

However I did do the intelligent thing of only allowing myself $20 dollars to spend today. After all I haven't got all that much to last me from now till this Thursday ie pay-day. Perhaps more importantly more than that would really be wasting my money.

Everybody knows I'm sure that $20 dollars doesn't go all that far in make-up... One thing pretty much. Unless you find a sales bin. And see because make-up is already in surplus in my life I really don't care if what I buy isn't particularly great - for one thing I'm unlikely to be able to tell the difference. So I found a very impressive sales table at Terry White Chemists - everything for $5 dollars.

SUCCESS! That means I get to buy myself 4 different things with my $20 dollars. Surely I won't hate all of it :). So what did I get?

• Prestige Liquid Eyeliner (Legend) ($11.16)
• Prestige BakedShadow Quad Mineral Eyeshadow (Joia) with free eye pencil ($29.95)
• Prestige Let Loose! Duo Shimmering Shadow Dust (Earth Angel) ($17.46)
• Loreal Paris Glam Shine (Moon Crystal) ($22.95)

So can you add up all those original prices? $81.52... and that is why I like that particular Terry White chemist.

Now I should probably go ACTUALLY do that lab report I mentioned I need to start from scratch...

Keep On Going..

If you're going through hell, keep on going...

Pretty much the definition of my life at the moment. I'm not always sure I like my career path, my degree, sometimes I'm not even sure I like myself. I suppose the last point comes about because of the first couple and the simple fact that nobody mentions that the above statement is only for use in the short term.

Hell is an OK place to visit every so often in life, its not a good place to live. Hell for short periods can teach you valuable life lessons and you come out the other side feeling like you've learned something. Long periods of time spent in hell and you get lost, it isn't a straight line along which you can 'keep going'. If you aren't careful you'll spend the rest of your life wandering around in hell lost for the exit point.

You need to be able to recognise when you should probably have found the exit already, and if you haven't now is probably the time to start changing things up a little bit. Its ok to turn around at times like that. People so often frown upon backtracking in life - a sign of weakness or being too fickle - very rarely do people point out that sometimes that is best for the person. However the direction you turn does not necessarily need to be back the way you came.

It also isn't something you need to find on your own. Its ok to admit to people that you feel like you are in hell. More importantly it shouldn't simply be greeted with a response like 'suck it up princess'. Sure everybody does a little time in hell, everybody doesn't wake up dreading their life or their work or some other particular THING  days after day.

Maybe you just need a new way to deal with it, or a new way to overcome it, or simple an alternative to what is currently on offer. There are people out there who will help. Friends, colleagues, family, psychs or counsellors.

Whatever you do don't make the mistake of thinking everybody lives in your hell. Everybody experiences life a little bit different and different stresses get to different people. For instance I stress out completely from answering machines 2 is my limit for a day and getting in trouble makes me beat myself up to the point where I hate me (at least for an hour or two). If you feel like you are in hell ALL THE TIME there could very well be something wrong though. Take a look at your life, if you want to do it over coffee with a friend at home, and really think about whether hell is worth it, whether your projection is actually directed to get you out of hell or if you've got lost in the dark and need to turn around.

Overdosed again

Isn't it funny how you often find you can't resist some habits even though they invariably lead to pain, heartache, and general feelings of dissatisfaction? I mean I've commented on my addiction nature before now. This is more the unfortunate side of having that personality. Well that and naturally being attracted by a specific genre regardless of medium.

I am addicted to romance. Unfortunately that brings to people's minds so many connotations of hopeless romantic and completely unable to differentiate reality from fiction and all those other 'stupid female' concepts. Even more unfortunately is that at times like this, when I reach the point of overdose, I'm pretty much proving many of those preconceived notions. I hate that because I don't as course of habit presume life will happen anything like it does in the books - I'm not sure I'd want it too - anybody who likes romance novels are necessarily the way to go with you life hasn't read enough of them. At the same time when I'm lonely I wouldn't mind some of the attention some of the characters in the books draw.



Now I'm normally a very good romance reader/listener/watcher even writer at times. I get swept along with all the feel good moments and laugh/cringe at the use of cliché. I am a huge person for the romantic cliché. I know so many people who think I'm silly for liking romance because of the clichés. In actual fact I think they are some of the best bits. Of course she is his secretary who knows everything about his life and yet he sees her completely asexually until the company Christmas party. Of course she is remarkably outspoken, clumsy and an uncommon beauty. I don't mind this - I love knowing the story progression by heart so that I can be completely swept up by the details.

So why am I suddenly not amused? Unfortunately it happens when my own love life is failing hopelessly. Yes I do begin to find myself wishing for the story, the fairytale. That doesn't make me like the genre though it makes me hate it and find it depressing. I really don't like it when my brain suddenly decides the romance stories are real. I feel it start telling me that everybody has that except me. Damn it but can I see that when I look around as well. So many of my friends are in relationships. Certainly every guy I've ever had a crush on is currently in a relationship (well except for the current one).

More than anything I hate having to USE the word crush. I feel like a 13 year old kid not a 20 year old who has been out of home for 4 years and seen 3 friends married and many more engaged. Yet what else do you call liking a guy who doesn't see you that way? I feel like all those secretaries in the M&B Sexy novels, only in the words of 'He's Just Not That Into You', I am the rule not the exception.

So at the moment I feel like a have an emotional hangover at the end of any chickflick I watch or book I feel. Even my music occasionally makes feel that way - country music has a large romance component to it (how else would you get such cliché song titles as 'Sleeping single in a double bed'). Everything is reminding me of the fact that I don't know how to have a real life relationship. The only romance I've ever known was found between the covers of a book.

How do you tell a friend you would be interested in being more than friends? Particularly when you are reasonably sure they could never see you that way. Hell, I've had the conversation in the past and completely destroyed my friendships. It has stopped being worth it. I don't have enough friends to risk friendships for relationships where the odds aren't good. As he has said quite directly (we were discussing beating around the bush vs direct approachs and this has been hopelessly removed from its surrounding statements to make it seem so much harsher) 'if I liked you you'd know'. It wasn't said to mean 'back off' but damn if I can't extrapolate. Friend zone it is.

I don't mind the friend zone - it doesn't effect my feelings towards a person at all. Certainly it means they talk to me and interact with me. Its only when we aren't together that it becomes a problem. Knowing I have no claim when I sure as hell would like one and knowing they have a claim they'll never want to stake over my emotions. Mostly though it is simply the thought that I will lose out in the end. Being in the friend zone means you will lose out when they do get into a relationship. I live waiting for that moment - it undeniably comes along every time.

My favourite times in life are when I'm not interested in any particular guy. I can read romance to my hearts content without these terrible feelings. I'm rarely if ever lonely. I don't find myself wasting hours on nothingness. Unfortunately going from where I am now to back to being not interested in a guy would be unbearably painful. So I'm stuck between a rock and a hard-place emotionally. What I hate the most is that it makes me sound like such a superficial, self-absorbed girl. I want there to be more to me... but I just don't know where to find that (dear heaven not in my studies).

Saturday Night At Home

I am just going to outright apologise to anybody who stumbles across my blog. This is pretty much a journal of things I wouldn't put in my journal. Currently that seems to be make-up. If you look at some of my older posts you'll find everything from Plinky posts (I still do those from time to time but Blogger doesn't like Plinky anymore so they don't show up here) to critical analysis of movies.

Why did I say all that? Mostly because the one thing I suck at more than anything is starting. The number of hours I spend contemplating the first few sentences of an essay is incredible (notably I am not Arts student, I do engineering instead).

So getting to the point. My day today was supposed to consist of study, assignments and generally getting my academic life in order. Clearly that is going to have to wait for another day. Instead I blog surfed through the make-up communities... As if I haven't done too much of that already in the last few days.  It is amazing how many hours you can spend doing that.

I couldn't actually do my make-up during that time though because I was headed to gymnastics (I'm no gymnast but flipping into the pit - and then having to climb back out again - repeatedly is good fun for something a little different). I've only done it a handful of times in the last 3 months and it would appear no more because our class ceases to exist from today :(. 

However I couldn't leave without going out with a bang. I managed to ram my knee into my own nose. I am rather hoping it isn't broken but it certainly just a little bit swollen. How does a person ram their own knee into their nose? An attempt at the vault (I told you I was no gymnast) where I was to use my hands to avoid having any contact with the vault with my legs. Well after a few tries I actually managed to get over the vault without my legs stopping me. But only just. Pretty much I got over the vault and tipped head first into the pit. My legs following behind and catching up to my face which had been stopped by the foam with enough force to give my nose a direct and rather brutal hit.

After gym I decided to pretty myself up for dinner and a movie. Dinner being myself alone at the mess hall and the movie being Enchanted since it was on Channel 7 tonight and I needed to watch some ads for a uni assignment. What a thrilling life I lead. See if you can tell that my nose is swollen =P.

This photo seems to pick up on the really goldy colour of my lids that none of the other photos I took did... 

Who is this person? Apart from the fact that my camera (which runs its own routine) has made me look like its summer not the middle of winter. I have to say that looks nothing like me (in a completely good way =] ).

Finally this one as you can probably tell has been auto-corrected unlike the others. However it probably does the best job of actually showing what my eye-make-up really looks like.

Coloured Eye-liner...

That awkward moment when I realise I have a rather large variety of colour eye liner. Now compared to true make-up fiends I'm sure my collection doesn't scratch the surface. However when you take into account that 6 months ago my solitary liquid eye-liner had been relatively untouched because I couldn't master it and didn't like it... I have accumulated a LOT of eye liner.

So yes there is some not liquid eyeliner in the bunch... a gray pencil and a purple pencil (in dire need of sharpening)... and some gel liners which I'm not sure I like.

And I'm not one for all the pretty lines and stuff so this photo is dodgy but I mostly wanted an excuse to make lines of all of them.

They are in the same order as they are in the photo above.

Now because I am a make-up hopeless its all reasonably low cost eye-liner. The gel liner 3 was $16 dollars before reduced and would be the most expensive item in the list. The four that look mostly the same and the pencils are epic cheapies - $3. 

However my favourite of them all is the bronze/gold one (its called Golden Girl) - which is made by a chemists brand Ultra3. Basically the one that started it all (my fascination with not black/brown eye-liner). I'm going to have to collect some of its friends I think. That is now at all how I should be thinking - must resist urge to buy more eye-liner.

I love Bloggable Chain-Mail: ABC Me

Ok I've been epic blog stalking the beauty blogosphere on my days off this week and I came across a series of tag posts. This one reminded me a lot of those chain emails I was addicted to as a teen - I am definitely of the modern generation I love to share information about myself in these formats. It seemed to be a self-tagging one so I figured count me in (I don't have the blog friends to be being tagged or tagging others). [Please note that as a teen I only sent them to two friends NEVER my whole friends list or anything.] 

Anyway here's an alphabet listing of things you probably didn't need to know about me.

A. Age:  20

B. Bed size:  A king single - I just count myself lucky its not single.

C. Chore you hate:  I really, really dislike the dishes - seriously I'd clean 10 toilets to not have to wash a small stack of bowls after people have eaten porridge (notably I also don't eat porridge).

D. Day:  Saturday because it is as close as I get to having a free day.

E. Essential start to your day:  Breakfast. I'm not one of those people who skip it or have to work themselves up to it. I start the day with breakfast.

F. Favourite colour:  Purple and let me say I'm dedicated to it.

G. Gold or silver:  I wear both - but then again I only wear a gold & silver banded watch and silver (cheap) studs 99% of the time.

H. Height:  178cm (5'10") - My mum started telling me at 6 or 7 that she hoped I'd be 5'10" because she thought it was a good height. Always glad to be a good daughter.

I. Instruments:  My musical talent is decidedly limited however I have an appreciation that comes with doing both Piano and Flute. 15 years and grade 3 for leisure was my greatest accomplishment.

J. Job Title:  Somewhere between government employee and overpaid full-time student.

K. Kids:  At some point in the future after I have a husband. In the meantime I'm not a babies girl - I don't goo, I don't gah and I don't enjoy the fact that no other conversation takes place even if the party goes for 3 or 4 hours if a baby is present. I'll have to deal with that enough 10 years from now thanks.

L. Live: Canberra - against my will. I actually don't mind the size or the atmosphere of the country town city because I'm not a city girl but what sadist came up with out thermostat readings?

M. Mum’s name: Jenny and if you call her Jennifer on the phone she'll probably assume you are a telemarketer and hang up because she is NEVER Jennifer.

N. Nickname:  Bron/Brony/Bronnie (yes I know the last two are said the same way) however unlike my mum I will generally introduce myself as Bronwyn and let you shorten it all on your own (everybody does Bronwyn is just that kind of name).

O. Overnight hospital stay:  As a child to get my Tonsils out.

P. Pet peeve:  My biggest pet peeves is other people who have pet peeves and let other people know about them ALL THE TIME and the people who seem to be perpetually developing new pet peeves. Seriously stop letting it BUG you. This seems like a rather odd pet peeve to have - I mean do I bug myself? Short answer is yes however the long answer is that I generally reflect other peoples emotional conditions - if your happy I'm happy, if your sad well I'm hopeless and if you seem to be angry at somebody I feel like you're angry at me and I react by being angry at you.

Q. Quote from a movie:  'They come here, they all come here, how do they FIND me?' The Producers (basically he's bemoaning the fact he attracts absolute pathetic psychos). Now I don't really get how people (particularly guys) master a swag of movie quotes but I get this one in my head whenever the situation seems appropriate to it.

R. Right or left handed:  Right.

S. Siblings:  I always think to say one - my younger brother. However I'm one of those people blessed with a late-in life half-sister thanks to my dad's marriage to a much younger Indonesian woman. No seriously I love Mel she's a great little girl (if you excuse the terrible twos).

T. Time you wake up: On a working day 0550 h. On the weekend approximately 3 snoozes after my initial alarm which I set to 0730-0830 depending on how lenient I'm feeling. Yes I'm alarm obsessed. I hate feel like I've wasted the day - do you KNOW how much of your life you spend sleeping? I prefer to limit myself to 8-10 hours a night.

U. Underwear:  Plain and cream/tan/fawn/bone (I've forgotten the actual colour word I was looking for if you can't tell) in colour. Not particularly sexy however practical under white clothes.

V. Vegetables you dislike:  It actually changes a fair bit.... sometimes I can't stand cauliflower... sometimes I have to alternate brussel sprout for beans to get through eating them... but simply put I'll force myself to eat all vegetables.

W. What makes you run late:  Other people or getting caught by the 'ten minutes I can't go yet its too early I'll just.... oh now I was supposed to leave 5 minutes ago' disaster.

X. X-Rays you’ve had: Teeth, left arm (for both a broken wrist and broken finger - the finger being the coolest x-ray I can lay claim to), back (for the chiropractor) and my ankle (always glad to know its not broken).

Y. Yummy food you make: I make... you've certainly narrowed down the field there. Myself and my good friend Louise have a tradition of chocolate chip cookies whenever I return to my hometown - I reckon after 6 years we've got pretty good cookies happenin'.

Z. Zoo:  When (and ONLY when) my best friend makes me - to be perfectly honest I don't get the Zoo thing.

Now if you have stumbled upon this I'd love to hear from you. Maybe even you want to tag yourself for a spot of fun?

Justifying My Purchases

So... I don't have the abilities of the all around dedication to be one of those epic make-up bloggers... That simply could never happen. However strange things happen when I'm on holidays.

More to justify my spending of HEAPS of money than to actually achieve something I did this. I'm not a huge fan of my shadow abilities but I really love my new copper eye liner... I'm glad I don't feel like I just wasted $6.