Easily Distracted

Phew, back from the south. It was an exhausting few days. Unfortunately we didn't get to spend as much time in Sydney as I'd hoped, instead hanging around Gosford with Matt's father who was prone to hissy fits. And it was raining the whole time, argh! I was so moist ;_;

Anyway, here's a few pictars.


Obligatory "I WENT TO SYDNEY" shot. Nearby was the a Guylian cafe where we stopped for choclatey goodness. My $10 hot chocolate tasted like ass, but the complimentary candy was made of win :P


Unfortunately we didn't get a chance to go inside Naruto, but let me tell you- that pavement was dry as a bone before a flock of 13 year old yaoi fangirls walked by.

Oh, and by the way- I did end up stopping by Shibuya after all.



Derp.

It was lovely spending time with Matt on a nice little interlude to uni hassles, however speaking of which, I was pleasently surprised to find an e-mail in my inbox from the School of Journalism with the following statement in regards to my silly little doodles:

"The managing editor of Brisbane Times is interested in seeing some of your work and has asked to see three examples."

SHGFJDJAHDFSHJFDJA 3 examples?! GAH I don't know what to do, my best work resides on DeviantART and is animu/manporn. I dunno, maybe I should just chuck up a blog on Wordpress and throw all my junk there. But how the hell do I choose 3? ;_;

Haha, one of the little markets at UQ is selling Bodyline skirts :3 They had the Nadia print and some of those high-waisted stripey ones. Mr. Yan would be proud.

On Wednesday Louise and I went to see Avenue Q which was sufficiently awesome. The only problem was that the bar was swamped during intermission so no drinks for us ;_; Kudos to the old man who smuggled beers in though. It was lulzy when everyone started singing along to "The Internet is for Porn", myself being no exception. FAP FAP FAP

Uni has been... weird. I visited one of the few professors at the J-school who was born after the fall of Rome on a mission from the guy producing my cartooning event. We got talking about fan-fiction and stuff (oh lol), and somehow got talking about this idea I've had floating around for like a year that will never eventuate that involves using art and entertainment to communicate news to, you know, people under the age of 100 who don't give a fuck. He actually seemed kinda impressed and offered his help, telling me to keep him up-to-date on it O_o So that felt kinda good :3 I wonder if I'm un-lazy enough to do anything about it.

Also, I've noticed that people are... well... noticing me more. I know I sound like a massive douche saying that, but as someone who is used to hiding in the shadows avoiding people, it's weird. I think I can attribute a lot of that to my eccentric attire, which kind of makes me wonder if it isn't necessarily a bad thing that I dress the way I do instead of owning a wardrobe full of Sportsgirl. Sure it's superficial, but being greeted around the grounds by lecturers I don't even know makes me feel warm and fuzzy (and awkward as fuck, lawl).

And now back to wasting time.

I've been teasing myself with a Hello Kitty massage device  by looking through the Masters courses offered through various universities. QUT has some good ones and they take 6 months less to complete than those at UQ. They only require a GPA of 5 to get in which is great, and I have at least two professors who would happily give me a reference. All this is a bit far off of course and more of a Plan B in case I don't get a job within a year of finishing my degree. (But honestly, journalists are in such high demand that I'm going to be editor-in-chief after a week of being there, right? >_>)

The only thing that bothers me is... eh. I see course names like "Masters of Communication for Social Change" and while that's not really my thing, it's a lot nicer than modern journalism. I don't want to hurt people. I don't want to knock on some woman's door and ask her about her recently deceased kid. I don't want to put an obvious slant on a story to make it seem more dramatic and fuck someone over as a result. These things kind of come with the territory of reporting. I thought I could hack it but... I mean, journalism is all about selling a story. The whole internet debarcle has made that even worse and brings about a lot of ill-informed and heavily slanted articles as a result. Most people get their worldview through the news so it's not just those who get written about who suffer. This is all common knowledge to anyone who's ever picked up a newspaper blog, but you'd be surprised how little people realise it.

Christ, I'm such a woman X_x

So, one of the compulsory courses I have to do in the Bachelor of Journalism has several pre-requisites that mean I won't be able to take it until Semester 1... 2011.

I was supposed to finish at the end of next year. I'm going to be 26 when I graduate :(

Post time ending in 00 decides how I an hero.

Fucking weeaboos. I've seen so many 30 year old virgins who are like this. Though I guess enjoying weird clothes and j-rock puts one in the same category as these guys.

Anyway.

Today I had a meeting at UQ regarding my drawing and the Sydney conference. I rocked up in pseudo lolita with my new BTSSB skirt, a fucktonne of ring bling/headbows and my Jon Stewart shirt (yes, I own one). Totally professional, amirite? Amusingly, the lecturers I was chatting with were making gestures to my clothes saying that I obviously had personality, asked about the style (always fun dropping that name...), and said I should dress like that while I'm cartooning in front of an audience. (Also, apparently I am now cartooning in front of an audience as part of this thing.) They wanted to incorporate "loli" into the title somehow too. It made me smile so hard- I've been trying so hard to blend in by wearing "appropriate" clothes for a journo wannabe, so this made me feel all sparkley on the inside :D

So I will be dressing in lolita and drawing in an auditorium with people yelling ideas out in a mishmash of "The Glass House" (RIP) and "Whose Line is it Anyway". Totally not my idea and I have no idea how that's supposed to be viable, but hey, these guys have been in the PR/journalism industry for longer than I've been alive so I'm happy to just do as I'm told.

It was just nice to be told that I'll have all the support of the journalism department. I guess this pretty much negates my NYC plans. Goddammit, there has to be a way I can get an internship over there for a couple of months so I can have both things on my resume :/

After that meeting, Matt and I went op shopping for businessy-looking clothes at Paddo, as I have gotten work experience at Quest Newspapers for the next two weeks. Unfortunately we didn't count on the midday sun destroying any will we had to live as well as a few brain cells. GLOBAL WARMING, U GAIS! THIS IS ALL OUR FAULT FOR TURNING LIGHTS ON!

Today, as I was checking the EMS website for the fourth time in 24 hours... VAMPIRE REQUIEM ARRIVED :D It's so pretty and the cross hanging off the boob bow has quite a weight to it. It has the same nicely textured fabric that I was oggling on Disa's skirt last weekend and it feels so nice :D Sometimes BTSSB sucks when it comes to poofiness, but this jsk has a tonne of gathering around the skirt so even when you don't have a petti under it there's still a pretty good bell shape. So glad I got it before the Halloween party (which I hope you all come to, we're gonna have balloons and jelly shots :D)

And to think, if I'd gone to class today I wouldn't have been here to receive it. Ugh, usually it takes me 45 minutes to get from Stafford Heights to St. Lucia, and even in peak hour it doesn't usually add more than twenty minutes to my journey. Today it took me an hour and a half just to get to Kelvin Grove which is barely halfway D: GOOD THING WE HAVE 8000 PEOPLE COMING HERE A WEEK, LOL! Seriously, QLD = Australia's Florida. It's hot and full of old retirees who've moved up here so they can fish.

On the weekend, my darling Matt and I went to the Gold Coast to see his mum. She was pretty cool and down to Earth. Unfortunately Surfer's was closed due to DURR HURR CARS RACING AROUND IN CIRCLES so we didn't get to do much, but going past the awesome Dracula's building really made me want to go in >_> Some day...

Choice quotes from my essay in which we were asked to invent a new type of technology to bring news to audiences:

*(in response to the question "How is the technology new?") The technology is new in that it is a chip that is inserted into people’s brains that exploits their consciousness. Some may find this ethically dubious, but as journalism has little to do with ethics, content producers can make lots of money by tailoring news to different people’s tastes, like having news services that have a biased slant specifically targeted at, say, white supremacists, similar to 2009’s Today Tonight.

*Making people happy is very profitable, and this can be achieved by putting your company’s data into their brains.

*Now instead of having to wait a few hours to illegally download Michael Moore’s latest documentary, owners of a microchip can have it appear in their minds instantaneously and be filled with facts from the far left that could lead to the spread of such traits as vegetarianism.

*Regarding social factors, numerous studies have been done which link high Internet use with isolation, including a survey done in the US which concluded that “[Our] results show that high Internet use is related to weaker social ties: low Internet users reported significantly better relationships with their mothers and friends than did high Internet users.” (Sanders, pg. 1) This means that those who involve themselves deeply in technology could cease to function as social creatures, preferring to retreat into their mind’s eye to watch the news or procreate with animated women, which could lead to such occurences as a drop in birth rates and increase in suicides. This could be an effective way of counteracting overpopulation problems of the future. Also, as part of a cycle, people would be more likely to turn to the entertainment provided by the microchip in order to distract themselves from how desperately lonely they are. This would increase the profits of companies who advertise dating agencies.

*The ethical problems are easily reconciled by the vast amount of profits received by news producers which therefore allows them to make more content, thus affecting communities in the same positive way that 24 hour news networks have.

Seriously, fuck that shit.

On a semi-related note, the subject I was going to undertake over the summer semester has been canceled D: D: D: THIS MEANS I HAVE TO TAKE 5 SUBJECTS NEXT SEMESTER FSADFJADJFAJA 'Cos seriously, it's either that or graduate at the ripe old age of 26 :( Ugh. I'd better make sure to get all my socialising and happiness out of the way over the summer break so I can buckle down for 6 months. So irate >_>

So.

UQ hosts a journalism conference each year where 3 students are chosen to show off their work in the field.

Apparently, I am now one of these students.

Somehow I must've let it slip that I used to do a lot of drawing, and now one of the professors is doting on me, sending me all these papers on cartooning, letting me borrow his books on the subject, etc. (possibly while high) He wants me to present a case study to a bunch of interstate and international guests where I incoorporate live drawing via webcam into my show on JACRadio and some other stuff. Don't get me wrong, this is fucking awesome. He was particularly candid about how much attention the students get which could open up entire fucking career opportunities in both art AND journalism for me if I play my cards right.

And the conference is on during the semester I was planning to spend in the USA.

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

What do I do ;_;

Last night Matt and I took a trip out to West End intending to hit up 3 Monkeys... only to find there was a street festival happening! Being West End it was filled with your standard Greens worshipers, lesbian pagans, save the [noun] protesters as well as the lingering smell of something that certainly wasn't tobacco, but it was nice to see a bit of colour and life in a city where everything closes at 5pm except for Bob's Bottle-o. We sat on a rug and nom'd on vegetarian stuff that had been blessed by Hare Krishnas and what not. I luffs hanging out with my Matt-butt :3

Oh oh, someone received their Vampire Requiem jsk's on the egl comm... maybe I won't have to wait until November to get mine after all :D I'm starting to like the contrast of the blackxred one more than the plain black version that I'm getting, but the former looks a little costumey as a full dress with a giant bow on it, so I am content with what I have. Assuming it doesn't look too horrible on me >_>

I think I need to go back to the doctor. I'm guessing I wouldn't be so damn fat if I didn't need 15 hours sleep a day, which in turn makes my back hurt. 4chan has been telling me fun little stories of prescribed stimulants and such. It's got to the point now where I can't complete simple tasks like filling out forms, drawing or researching because I have zero energy. Everything feels like a huge effort and I just want to sleep all the time :( My memory has improved a bit since I've been going to Uni, but often times it's still a strain to remember what happened the previous day. I think my brain's just like "LOL fuck concentration, I'm still in sleep mode". Blah.



Also been thinking about America a lot. I'm getting cold feet :/ It's my dream to travel to all the big cities in the world, but it requires so much fucking around with my uni subjects... possibly adding 6 months to my degree... being $5000 in debt... losing other opportunities in regards to moving out... leaving certain people behind for five whole months ;_; I'm usually conniving enough to figure out ways to have my cake and eat it too (hence the waistline? XD), but there's just so many pros and cons here that it's hard to decide. Mum always said that in a perfect world, everyone would have the money to experience another country once a year. She passed on an expensive hobby to me, lol.

Oh well, enough about me, I'm boring. How are you today, dearest reader? Been molested by any noteworthy hobos? I hope you students are enjoying your last day of holidays.

I was going to procrastinate some more on an assignment I have due tomorrow and get a medical cert if I didn't finish it in time.

Now I can't stop coughing. GodDAMN you dust storms and karma :/ Also one of my fingers is in so much unexplained pain I can't think straight. Does anyone feel like writing a 2500 word essay on Rupert Murdoch?

I guess I'll just write FUCK YOU FAUX NEWS GLENN BECK IS HITLER MURDOCH CAN SUCK MY THROBBING PURPLE COCK over and over until I hit the word limit or get a 7. I'm sure some of those bitter ex-journos who lecture would approve.

I swear there will be significantly more entertaining posts to this LJ once the holidays arrive -_-;