How to Have a Bad Week

Welcome to How To Have a Bad Week 101. In order to past this course, you must undertake the following:

1. Fill your week with an immeasurable amount of stress - this may be related to exam pressures, family issues, concern over friends, and a lack of time spent with your boyfriend due to his new position. For maximum results, all of the above should be undertaken.

2. Attempt to fit in study around this.

3. Attempt to fit work around this. (Please note: it is highly unlikely that you will be successful in steps three and four if you have successfully completed step one).

4. Become sick. If you have undertaken the above steps correctly, step four should be a natural occurence.

If you have completed steps one through four, you have fulfilled the requisites for How To Have a Bad Week 101. The secondary course following this subject is How to Feel Better and Recover 202. The following are necessary in order to ensure optimal outcomes for this course.

1. Step back, and realise that exam concerns are easily put to rest.

2. Take a short break and return to study fresh-faced.

3. Realise that your work friends are extremely supportive, and relax, because they will help with your shifts.

4. Take some cold and flu medicine, get some light exercise and drink more than your usual amount of tea.

5. Watch Veronica Mars.

6. Look forward to the good things in the near future.

It is likely that, in finishing all of the tasks set out for you in How to Feel Better and Recover 202, you will have completed your week. It may have been a tumultuous one, but it's over, and you can now move on.

Last week was long and hectic, but it's over now. It finished on a good note; Szilveszter and I went to a friend's house, and we played Battle of the Sexes and had a few drinks. It was a triumphant win for the girls; the boys, when asked where the female scapula was, came to the conclusion that it was "something they do their eyes with". It is, of course, the shoulder blade, which is in the same place as the male's, obviously...

I have plenty of good things coming up over the next few weeks, the first of which is Szilveszter's 24th birthday party on the weekend. I can't wait to catch up with our friends, both old and new! Then on Sunday, Szilveszter and I have booked two nights away at the Crown Plaza at Surfers Paradise to celebrate both his birthday and our two year anniversary of being together. I can't wait to relax at the coast (even though, unfortunately, it will be Schoolies...), it's my favourite place to be. This afternoon is my work friend Ella's formal, and my mum is styling her hair for it. I'm excited to see her all dressed up for her formal! Then in early December, I have a couple of Christmas parties; one on a boat cruise down the river with my mum's work and some of my work friends (our parents work together), and then our Famous Footwear one at the coast, which is semi-formal, how exciting! During the day, on that same day, I'll be returning to my prac class for their Christmas party at the local bowling alley. It's going to be a lot of fun, and I'm looking forward to all of it.

I love Veronica Mars at the moment. I'm late to catch onto most trends, unfortunately, and I realise she had her boom a while ago, but still. Anything where the protaganist is an outcast is generally guaranteed to click with me.

Hoping everyone's had a good week!

claire. x.

A Lovely Weekend, Actually.

Today I've given myself a day off. As I've mentioned previously, I've been busy with uni assessment and study, prac and work, so this weekend, I took some time out and decided to give myself a break so that I'll be fresh for my last few days of prac and study for my one and only exam on the 14th.

Friday night, I went to a Halloween party at Garden City, where I work. Szilveszter and I ordered costumes online for pretty cheap, and I had a Queen of Hearts dress. I've always been a bit fascinated with Alice in Wonderland, so I was glad to come by the costume, which had a ribboned bodice and a skirt made of playing cards. Szilveszter was Batman, and after a few drinks, felt that he embodied the role appropriately. It was a great night, and the costumes were most certainly the highlight. I caught up with a few people I hadn't seen for a while, so that was excellent. The group who organised and threw the party are in definite need of commendation, and I look forward to their next event!

After work on Saturday, I went to a work friend's house with one of the girls from our store. We had dinner together and had a few drinks. It was relaxing to sit around chatting, and then we watched Love, Actually. One of my favourite movies! I think everyone relates to at least one of the stories in it. The scene where Emma Thomspon's character is standing in her bedroom listening to Joni Mitchell's Both Sides Now usually makes me cry, also. But in a good way, I suppose. But who could resist smiling when the children's lobster-inclusive nativity scene raises its curtain to reveal Prime Minister Grant locked in the much anticipated embrace of the sweet and bumbling Natalie? Just the thing to put you in the festive mood...

















I am so excited about Christmas. I can't wait for my exam to be over (although yes, I know I haven't got much of a complaint, what with having a single exam and all...). The decorations have begun to be put up in Garden City, our local shopping centre, and at work, we're planning the rosters for the late night shifts over the weeks leading up to Christmas. I know it may sound wierd, but I actually love working over Christmas. I love it when you start to see bulk-purchased rolls of wrapping paper in people's overfull shopping bags as they approach the counter, and when the staff of various stores begin to don Santa hats. I don't even mind the fact that I can't get to the foodcourt because Santa's got such an extensive queue of children waiting to put in their requests for this year. This will be my first Christmas at Famous Footwear, and I've already anticipated the Santa hat, and so I have purchased red ballet flats (well, I initially bought them for the Halloween party, but they'll double as Christmas shoes!). I guess that the fact that we work so extensively over Christmas means that we essentially share Christmas with our workmates, and given that we've got such a fantastic staff at FF, it's going to be great.



Since my last post on A Great and Terrible Beauty, I've read Rebel Angels, the sequel, and have almost finished Hush, Hush, the highly anticipated Nephilim romance, among a few more insignificant things. I'll most certainly update on Hush, Hush when I get it back from where I left it at my friend's house (oops), but a post on Rebel Angels will follow this one. I've also fallen in love with the New Moon soundtrack, which I didn't particularly like the first time I listened to it. After putting it through the motions a few more times, I find this soundtrack somewhat more atmospheric than Twilight's, and obviously it's a little bit darker, given the painful nature of the book itself. My favourite song is Thom Yorke's Hearing Damage, among others. It's inspired me to hunt down some Radiohead this week.

Hoping everyone's having a lovely week, and is anticipating Christmas as highly as I am!
claire.x.

A Great and Terrible Beauty

It's been a while since I updated with a book review, and this one was I particularly loved. Libba Bray is a relatively uknown author outside of her first mainstream trilogy, but I have a feeling that we'll be hearing from her again soon. The first book in what is known as the Gemma Doyle triology is called A Great and Terrible Beauty. It revolves around the interactions of the young women at an austere boarding school which houses secrets which have remained under dusty lock and key for decades.

Following the suicide of Gemma's mother on the Indian streets on which she was raised, Gemma is transported to Spence Academy to learn how to become a proper young lady ready to be released for the matrimonial picking of London's finest gentlement. Unschooled in the interworkings of young girls, Gemma is shocked at the cruelty displayed by her English peers. While she herself is a formidable target for would-be bullies, Gemma begins to notice that a particular group of girls is making life difficult for an underprivileged and unfortunate girl named Ann, her new roommate. On top of her attempts to make Ann's life a little easier, Gemma is plagued by visions which allude to the existence of a world exterior to our own, which contains the most desirable and wonderful of things, as well as the worst, and most horrific. As the story unfolds, Gemma's connection to the realms she glimpses is unravelled with the narrative expertise of a writer whose talent is extremely apparent, and as her supernatural ability reveals itself, the girls who proved former tormentors begin to expose their vulnerabilities in a world where they are traded as commodities.

Felicity longs for the power to influence those around her. Ann, cursed with unattractiveness, wishes to be beautiful so that her unfortunate past is perhaps more concealable, and Pippa, the most stunning of the four, desparately wants the opportunity to find true love for herself rather than walk down the aisle toward the incompatible husband and dreary future her parents have arranged for her. Gemma's deepest desire is to have the inner workings of herself revealed to her, so that she may understand her role in both the worlds she inhabits.

All four girls are appeased in their deepest desires when Gemma begins to control her ability to access the realms, and the greatest wishes of the girls are within tangible reach. Meeting in a cave adorned with Celtic prehistoric imagery in the dead of night, the girls explore the realms and the diary of a student of Spence past which begins to reveal, page by page, a destiny which awaits Gemma.

Brimming with Gothic eeriness and a modern understanding of teenage girls, A Great and Terrible Beauty provides insightful commentary into the lives of women during the late 1800s. I felt drawn into the inner circle of the Spence girls, as if I were a part of the illicit secret they harboured, and I was as enthralled by the novel's plot as the protaganists were by the diary of their predecessors.

The novel crept up to a suspenseful and dramatic ending, with more than one surprise I most certainly did not expect. Absolutely unputdownable! I'm so glad I read it, as this is one I'd been tossing up on for literally years.

I give this book my highest reccommendation to anyone looking for, as they would have put it in Gemma's day, "a rollicking good read".

The following books are: Rebel Angels and A Sweet Far Thing. I'm sure you'll get an update on these as I finish them!

Thanks to Gracie, a fellow superbookworm (because we're more avid than your average bookworms) who reccommended this wonderful novel to me.

thanks for reading.

claire.x.

Ode to the iPod

It would only be just to give my recently acquired purple iPod nano its due credit for having gotten me through some confusing and difficult times of late. The past few weeks have been filled with the usual ups and downs, as well as an onslaught of pressure from unexpected places, but I've been just fine, because when I'm so frustrated that I can't find words to describe it, my little nano shuffles itself into gear, and presents me with Paramore's "Pressure" to do it for me. When I've got a minute to myself, the nano reminds me to try and relax by serving up Josh Pyke's "Lines on Palms" and Coldplay's "In My Place". Or, once, when it was in a particularly perceptive mood, the nano offered me "Full Moon" by Black Ghosts, indicating that I should go and escape into my favourite fantasy world at Forks and unwind.

Okay, so this is probably reading into my iPod's shuffle function a little too much. But I most certainly have come to appreciate the benefits of having this little piece of technological advancement in my handbag at all times. Music is a relaxing influence, can be vindicating, is an outlet. It can stir up memories of an entire period in your life (X&Y and Queen's "A Day at the Races" for me = high school), or from a particular night (Black Eyed Peas' I Gotta Feeling, anyone?), and can entirely change your mindset. Soundtracks, if put together well enough, have the capacity to transport us back to the setting of our favourite movie or book. Romeo and Juliet's incredible soundtrack has the ability to tell the entire story of Shakespeare's play through the clever track arrangement of Radiohead, Garbage and Desree. These days, music can make you laugh and cheer you up on a day when you feel down. Take Lily Allen, for one, whose surprisngly insightful appraisal of George Bush ("You want to be like your father/His approval you're after), set against cheerfully boppy music, never fails to crack me up. And Katy Perry, one of my favourites, whose hit Hot 'N' Cold yielded the following sparkling gems of wit: "You change your mind like a girl changes clothes/Yeah, you PMS like a bitch, I would know". How can you not laugh at that sarcasm? It's fantastic. Flight of the Choncords, not to be matched, provide crazy, quirky and hilarious lyricism, which immediately recalls their hilarious show no matter how often you hear them.

At the other end of the spectrum existing within the confines of my little purple nano are the heart wrenchingly works of Placebo, whose drug based songs are definite downers ("I'm forever black-eyed, a product of a broken home"). Good to listen to while you're in the same mood, but not for long, lest you remain there. And for goodness' sake, don't move on to Eminem, who seems to lurk in the "Unknown" track titles, even when I think I've evicted him from the iPod, who is blatantly open about his disdain for most of his fans, himself, his family...you know how he is. However, as I've mentioned, I found Paramore's albums immsely useful in relieving frustration of late...Then there's the endless string of Ministry of Sound albums I've acquired over the years, which are surprisingly useful for study, the gym, drowning out noise, etc., but lack most emotional depth, as would be expected.

So I'm thankful for my purple nano for housing all these realms of expression for me. It's definitely helped me get through these stressful weeks just past. :)

claire. x.

Busy week & Tim Burton

This has been a busy week yet again! So just a quick post to update you. I've been occupied with my study, naturally, and have been assembling several essays for submission as the FINAL ASSESSMENT PIECES FOR THE YEAR. What an exciting feeling! I can't wait for this to be over. However, even though I'm just dying to be free of reference lists and Turnitin.com and due dates, etc., I'm enjoying these last few essays. Essays are my favourite assessments, and I have one to write on the Black Death, as well as another one on Tim Burton! What could be better?! I've always loved Tim Burton's directorial style; my mother used to put us through the paces of watching The Nightmare Before Christmas every year since I was little, and I've grown up appreciating his eccentricity as artful. So I'm anticipating that my essay on his films will be an enjoyable one to write! It's also made me excited about Alice In Wonderland, coming out next year!

I've also been at my first practicum this week. For some reason, they wanted us in a primary school, despite the fact that I'm a pre-service high school teacher...but I ended up in my old primary school, to which my sisters and my partner's neice have also gone. It's strange to hear myself being called Ms. Lines by teachers who taught me, and remembered my tendency to read under the table during their lessons. I have four more days there, and my next day is on Friday. I like it there, but it hasn't swayed me to become a primary school teacher just yet.

I'm also happy this week because I've gotten some marks back for assessment, and despite it having been yet another stressful one because of family issues, I have managed to keep all my marks above a six so far. Hopefully with a bit of hard work, I can keep them there!

Somewhere in amongst all this assessment, I've managed to fit work in. Work's going really well at the moment, despite our excessive consumption of Whittakers Coconut Block during the week, and the dilemma of where to shelf the bondage shoe, as we like to call it.

Today is Szilveszter's Bathurst BBQ (more like pizza, though, I'm thinking...), and after a bit of study in the morning, I'll be going along with Jess, so I'm looking forward to an afternoon relaxing. :)

Hope everyone has a good weekend!

claire.x.

Love La Roux!

This week, I've been listening to a lot of La Roux. I bought her album for Dad for Father's Day (he's predisposed to like anyone and anything from England, but particularly liked her), and put a copy on my ipod. I quickly became addicted to her music, especially her songs Tigerlily, Cover My Eyes and As If By Magic. I often think that finding an album that you truly love is as satisfying as a good book, and almost as good an escape from a stressful day.

Well, I'm on holidays for a whole week (ha) from uni. This week has been a crazy race against time to get all my assignments finished before their due dates, but I managed, and it's over for a whole seven days...

I'm looking forward to having a few lazy days reading and watching DVD (Gossip Girl and Alias and Big Bang Theory) sets before throwing myself into the last few weeks before the exam period. I have a growing collection of books I can't wait to get through, including the first in the Percy Jackson series, the new Marian Keyes book, Blood Promise (I made myself wait for this one, I've absolutely fallen in love with Vampire Academy) and rereading Catching Fire. Yes, I am going to indulge in young adult stuff over the break, it's awesome. :D You won't be surprised to know that I have had a cold again over the past week. All my enegery dissolved, which made pushing through those final exams a bit of a chore, and all my joints and limbs ached with the fever, which made me feel like I was constantly walking through mud. After I handed in my final group assignment, I crashed, and it was such a relief to just be able to lie in bed for a while and watch TV! Szilveszter kept me supplied in Ease A Cold and cups of tea, so I feel much better now!

Speaking of walking through mud, however, all of Brisbane this week was ensconced in a sepia haze of dust, the result of dust storms that had blown up from Sydney. It was very eerie! I was in the uni library when it really hit; I'd been there since about 8.30am, and so I didn't see it start, and all of a sudden all the library windows had this strange, peachy tint. Uni itself was very strange to be at; the sandstone buildings, intimidatingly academic at the best of times, almost looked haunted. Strange.

What was less supernatural, however, was the resulting dryness, and the dust that dirtied anything and everything it landed on. Sigh.

I'm already looking forward to Christmas, on a slightly more festive note! Christmas means lots of listmaking for me: lists of decorations, presents, things to do and buy; extended trade means being a part of the Westfield Christmas period almost non-stop, not that I'm complaining (yet), and numerous Christmas parties and celebrations. I can't wait! We're having some visitors from overseas this Christmas, including my dad's closest friend Dirk, from Germany. It's going to be a big affair at my house! Expect photos of all the animals dressed in Christmas outfits. My mum insists upon it, and if grumpy old Begby could manage his Christmas bow, I'm sure bouncy Daisy and friendly Rosie will manage their outfits... sigh for the puppies!!

claire.xx

What I've Been Up To Lately...

It's been a busy couple of weeks, so I just thought I'd write a quick update. I'm slowly getting through the Vampire Academy series, I love them! Thanks to my work friend Ella's insistence, I finally got over the off-putting covers (which they substantially improved for Blood Promise) and cringe-worthy title, and found that Richelle Mead's series if tautly written, full of a different kind of romantic tension to Twilight, and based around a narrator who is the exact opposite to Bella. More on those in a later post, I'm sure!

I've been trekking through assignment territory steadily, and have one group assignment and one (ahem, unstarted) smallish argumentative essay due in the coming weeks, and then I think I'm done until after the mid-semester break.

I spent yesterday with my boyfriend, who hurt his back recently. We had a lovely relaxing day, and took in a little sun. I did manage to get a slight tan - wow, this means I might have to buy the second lightest shade in my make-up now! Incidentally, on the subject of my beloved boyfriend, I managed to push, shove, plead and coerce him into reading The Hunger Games. And, lo and behold, he adored it. He's currently reading Catching Fire, and for those who don't know Szilveszter, let me just say that he is so resistant to reading that he has read a total of three books in his lifetime prior to THG, and all because I forced him to (he did enjoy them, however!). These include Dean Koontz's Life Expectancy, Russel Brand's autobiography My Booky Wook (which I couldn't really get along with, but he loved), and The Hobbit, which is still under contention, as he was actually read to by his teacher at the time. Hmm. If you count that sort of thing, he also "read" Twilight, by using an audio book. SO it is an indicator of the power of THG that Szilveszter would enjoy them as much as he has, and I'm so pleased.

I'm off to work today, wishing Garden City would hurry up and put its Christmas stuff up. That'd put me in a better mood!

I am currently...

Thankful for the bounce proof case on my iPhone, which has proved its worth a number of times now (and just did again).
Curious about how I managed to hurt my elbow do badly, it's a little swollen and bruised and I don't know how I did it!
Wishing that they made more diaries at this time of year so that I could have a new one. I'm considering just writing the dates in my small moleskine.
On that note, needing another moleskine.
Looking forward to going away for a night with Szilveszter in the mid-sem break. Oh, and Jason and Gracie's engagement this weekend. :)

Have a lovely week, everyone.
More book-related posts soon, I hope.

claire.x.