Oh man. Music brings joy to my heart.
I've been doing work most of today. I had Opeth's Damnation on in the background for a while earlier. But just now I've switched from thesis to Japanese, and put headphones on. A whole bunch of random stuff in a playlist is going into my brain and it's goooood. Straight to my ears with no other random noises getting in the way. It was Bjork's There's More to Life Than This that made me start groovin' around here, and made me need to tell everyone how good music is. But I'm sure you already knew.

There it is! The day of J's first thesis-induced tears.
Oh man.
Tried to run away from it when I got home. Feeling a little better I guess. But there's only so much that exercise endorphins can do I reckon. I think I'll feel better after dinner. I hope.

I have decided that 4.5 years studying engineering actually does change the way you think. After my last class today I had to swing by the lab to do some stuffu, so by the time I got to walking back to my car, the gates to the gardens were shut and I had to walk around the block. There was a truck parked just a little bit up from the gates and when I saw 2 ladders just sitting on the back of it, the first thing I thought of was how the time & energy required would differ between me walking all the way around the block, or getting a ladder off the back of the truck, using it to get over the too-high-for-a-shorty-like-me-to-jump-it fence and short cutting it through the garden.

In other news, I now know vaguely how those uni-ball fusion pens work :D If you want to know I'll send you an explanation!

Good stuff today:
- I can FTP to my robot again! Hooray! Annoying issue finally sorted out. (Though it'll still be a lil while before I can sit down and properly run the tests I wanna do...)
- My Japanese teacher was nice enough to take my draft speech to check it over & give me feedback even though I left it uber late to hand it in!
- My shoes didn't eat my socks! All day! When I left the house in the morning I thought it would happen, because I've had bad experiences before with these socks.

I won't write the annoying stuff of the day because that will cause me to unnecessarily dwell on it.

WOOHOO!

I just realised that one of the presentations that I thought I had to give next monday is actually the monday AFTER!! Aw yeeeah!! Relief factor 2000.

More Blood

Today I added to my so-called "boy-level" of injuries. When I was opening a sushi container I managed to end up with a staple rammed underneath my thumbnail :) When I held out my thumb and said in a probably-too-loud and uncharacteristically girlish way "Argh, someone pull it out coz I can't do it myself!" Mark got it out but it took a few tries. As a result of this stupidity of mine though, I can now tell you all that "First Aider's Choice - Premium Fabric Strips" are the cushiest band-aids I've ever experienced, in all of my band-aid experiences.

Now I'm stressing about uni things because I have 3 presentations within 2 days, next monday & tuesday. Oh the pain.

Long Ramble

Yay for Monday off.

Today was pretty cool. Was woken up by fam noise as usual. (I'm generally the last one to go to sleep, so I generally get up because of other people's morning noise.)

Finished off the homework for Yuki Sensei that I was whinging about earlier.

My grandma came down to chill with us for a good chunk of the day. That was cool because I hadn't seen her for a few weeks I think. She's doin' well :)

Went on an adventure to Bunnings. Picked up a pack of 10 dust masks (the packet says "Pack of 10 Nuisance Dust Masks" or something) for $2.61 (and didn't end up paying the $2.61 myself anyway). For some reason they struck me, at the time, as something that would be amusing to adventure around in, with a novelty factor not dissimilar to that of 3-D glasses (Back to the Future 1 Biff buds? Ne? Ne?). I don't know. They'll probably come out on some 'stoopid' occasion or dress-up thing.

Stuck my head in at Nathan's 22nd. It was cool to see some of the now working kids who I hadn't seen for a while. Crazy working kids. Nathan had purchased a nice little Roland electric drum kit, so had some fun mucking around for a while, while he cranked out some bad-because-he'd-had-a-few-too-many-cold-ones nooskoo punk goo on the guitar. I was hoping the kit'd be kinda like the one Pak used to have, with all the crazy junkyard kits and uber fun sfx, but it pretty much just had straight kits. I think you could create your own, but there was a bit of a limit to the sounds available. Anyway.

Church was cool. Some more solid practical stuff from Galatians. Some cool chillin' wid da kids. Some runnin' the two o on six bucks o' fuel. Supper at Kylie & Jeremy's. Very cool.

Right now I'm starting to make the template for my mid-year thesis report. Kinda weird. It wasn't long ago when 'thesis' was this kinda weird distant concept of something I might one day maybe possibly have to kind of 'do'. Ugh : / Still daunting, considering progress. Or lack. Meh.

In a week I have to give a 5-6 minute speech for my Japanese class. It can be about whatever. I'm thinking about writing about the whole way-too-many-people-live-for-their-careers idea. It's something that kinda makes me sad. And it's a situation I want to try to make sure I don't end up in. Heard stuff from Jonnie about some of his Sydney buds who are working crazyzah hours every day. Sure they're paid well, but what're you living for if you're willing to spend every moment working some job where expectations of you are too extreme and you keep getting pushed. I know I'd crack. Which is maybe why I feel as though other people shouldn't drive themselves into the ground for work either. Dunno. There's also the whole experience of what my friend Steph refers to as the "Forum of Death", where 4 of us, on our Kawasaki trip last year, and 4 Japanese uni students were put up in front of a whole bunch of company reps to answer questions (in Japanese - a key reason for the title of the occasion) about our reasons for choosing our field of study, what we wanted to do after graduating, whether we had a "kyaria puran" (career plan), etc... The Japanese students all seemed to have it all planned out. They knew who they wanted to work for, and why, and seemed as though they'd decided pretty early on in school. We must've sounded like such a bunch of Aussies with our "I'll decide when I get there" take. I can't diss the Nippon kids too much if i mention them though, coz we might end up giving these speeches at the annual speech comp thingo in September :p
Meh. Just some stuffu I'm thinking I might be able to blab about for 5-6 minutes... : /

Jaa. Too much rambling. Back to said thesis template.

The Return of the BFG

Argh! It's not fair. I just got an email from my Japanese Economics & Media teacher saying that I need to redo one of the parts of that big freaking giant newspaper assignment!!

I cheered when that assignment was bound and "finished", and I walked out of Officeworks with a kinda it's-finally-over feeling. But ALAS. 'Twas not the case.

As Ben Folds would say, (and don't forget to insert stoopid mocking tone) "FEEL MY PAAAIN!!!" :p (Because obviously there can't be any point to me actually posting this, except that I want you to "FEEL MY PAIN!!"...)

Ooh, yay :) Now my mind's ear is ringing with sweet sweet Roland AX-1 tones and fuzzy bass lines. Thanks Ben!

Two nights ago I woke up at some unknown dark hour of the night with this really weird feeling. For one I was completely melting. (Someone had fallen asleep in the "yeah, I'll turn this electric blanket off just before I fall asleep" phase.) I don't know if that was what woke me up. Probably. I kinda had a sore throat too. It's still kicking around. But the weirdest was I felt really scared. It sounds weird written down, but it felt like God wasn't there. Like, what hell is. Don't know why that kind of sudden fear kicked in, but when I got up in the morning I could still remember what it felt like. Really scary and horrible. It all reminded me that hell is real.

Hmm. About ten minutes ago, I felt like posting.
Now that the page has finally loaded and I'm thinking about other stuff, I can't really be bothered writing stuff.

Looking for plain comfy cheap T-shirts.

To add to the T-shirt slogans that Sal listed, here's one of Sim's suggestions that I know I'll be printing on a shirt in the near future:

TOKEN

So appropriate at
so many times and in
so many circles for
so many reasons.

Yesterday I went for a walk in the arvo when I was feeling all sleepy like. It was cool. The sun was just sitting at the top edge of the mountains, and the lady who owns that big flock of homing pigeons had let them out so they were circling around the block where I was walking. They fly low, so with that many of them all flapping their wings it sounds really cool when they fly over you. I picked up a few frangipanis from my usual pick-up-a-few-frangipanis place. Outside was so awesome after way too much desk & book action.

Getting BettOr :)

Hoorah. I am now swallowing something like pins as opposed the double-edged razor blades of the other night. Mine pappa brought home some cough syrup this morning :) Aww.

Wedding to play at this arvo at 3:00... I'm kind of hoping they have some CDs for the processional/recessional, just to make it easier for me. Don't know what the chances of that are, but here's hoping. I'll give their guests some quiet Folds as they're waiting anyhow. Everyone loves it. Even if they don't think they do.

Freaking Throat

I feel terrible. My throat is feeling about a hundred times worse than it did a few hours ago. It kills to swallow stuff. I wish I'd studied for tomorrow's mid-session earlier so I wouldn't have to feel like I should be studying now.

Whine whine,
Whinge whinge,
Blah blah blah...

Friday Pics

I was told by a few people how NOT Not The Same so many of my concert photos were... So I'm only linking to a few.

A few of the kids on Friday night before the show. (Some of us were particularly excited about the idea of seeing Ben live... *ahem*)

Ben looking kinda contemplative...

Proof that we got to see those crazy ben solos close-up...

二番目のコンサート

Yay! Finally! Access to blogger! It's been hating me since last night (= early this morning). So now I can write more trivial concert babble that will interest very few people!

Drove up to the Enmore with Stu. He went to his folks' place while I kicked around near the theatre, & joined the queue of one (plus me) at about 2:30. Phil (= the rest of the queue at that point) was the guy with the alphabetised buttons from the Friday show. He brought good news of great joy. Ben would be doing post-concert signings at HUM records down the road, for the kids who pre-ordered Songs for Silverman from their store. (I don't really like the idea of that. Bit of a scam. Makes me anti-HUM. But how could I pass it up?) So I went down the street & got my ticket to the signing (= a receipt for the album from stinkin' HUM).

Mmm. There was the usual Enmore arvo line-up scorching sun factor as we waited. There's a bit of a tale of woe about when we got inside. Door 2 had been opened a bit before Door 7 (us) so despite waiting for a good 5 or more hours, we were in the second row again. The people in front of us were the same kids who were in front of us the night before, which was kinda weird. One lad was nice enough to let me have front row for one song, so i chose Not The Same.

The setlist was changed up a bit from the night before. New stuff to Saturday's show included:
Losing Lisa
Where's Summer B.?
Evaporated
(Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy - if that counts!! :p )
... maybe some other stuff that's slipping my mind

Some of the newens that he played on Friday & Saturday that I couldn't remember before:
Bastard
Trusted
Jesusland

There was a lot more chatting with the crowd that went on, which is always nice. A girl behind me bootlegged so if all goes well I'll have a copy of it soon :) If any of you kids reading this are interested, I can burninate you copies too.

Ooh. Fun times. When Ben said that they changed up the set a bit for the sake of us who were there the night before, i gave him a big "Arigato!", which was answered with "Domo! Ben chan desu!" ala the '97 Tokyo show. Ahh, drivel Japanese exchanges. Highly entertaining.

After grabbing my cloaked stuffu, Lewis, Phil and I ran to HUM where there was a mini queue happening already, and got a nice spot in the line. They were playing the new album. (The version of Give Judy My Notice with more than the piano sounds bizarre!) At this point, my camera was screwed. (It happened as I was trying to load my last roll of film during the show. Ah, primitive film-requiring cameras...) Anyway, we got our "limited" album cover prints signed ('limited' in that there was a massive stack of them on the shop counter that were one-each for the pre-paid kids) and had a few words with the Ben man.

"Great times, noodle salad." (Minus the noodle salad.)

I was pretty gone by the end of it all. Not much sleep over the last few days (for some reason...). This morning I kinda felt like I did when I was a tiny kid and it was Boxing Day. That "Oh man, I can't believe it's over" feeling, where your gut gets all tied up.

The benergy's kinda subsiding as I realise I have mid-session pain this week.

Awesome weekend. It was really good to have something force me to take a proper weekend off any work.

Actual Saturday. Not Friday-night-roll-over Saturday.

Argh. Weird in-between concerts feelings.
Went for a long run this morning to release some of my built-up benergy and try to sweat out this fluey thing that seems to have caught up with me...
(I think it worked. Hoorah for diminished snot factor!)
Caught up with mum & dad after their week of adventuring around Tasmania...
Waiting on word from Stu about transport for today...
Hmm, BF5 self-titled just finished...
Ate a banana...
Should probably shove some vitamin C into me...
Deciding which 'yeah-I'm-a-Ben-Folds-nerd' shirt to wear today...
Attempting to ignore that 'remember that pile of uni work you have?' voice that's in the background...
Looking forward to getting my ol' skoo analog film with last night's pics developed...

Is my neighbourhood grumpy?
Why is it that in my travels this morning I initiated 6 out of 6 morning greetings with various passers by? It's not like there were many people out. And if you pass right by someone on the same chunk of footpath, a greeting's warranted, yah? The northern 'burbs need a genki-boost. Or summin'... 元気アップ！！(For anyone who bothers to Babel Fish that - the translation it gives you is stupid. Don't listen to them. They produce much Engrish.)

Aaah, the sky is blue and pretty! I can hear cool birds, but the whipper snipper across the creek is louder than them :(

...

Yay! Leaving for Sydney at 12:30. Can't wait for the show! XD

Benny at the Metro - April 1

That concert was exactly what I needed. One of the few things that can make me completely forget about everything else and just enjoy the moment.

After a day spent kicking around the city with Sal, a bit of a headache was kicking in. (Not blaming Sal directly for the headache!) Caught up with Joe, Karen (who I met for the first time), Jonnie, Lewis & da kidz. Thankfully Karen came to the rescue with some headache-ridding goodness :) Yay.

Spent a while in the line getting paid out for being too excited - or maybe for not attempting to contain any signs of excitement. (It's been a couple of years since I last saw Mr. Folds live, so ultra mega supersonic death monkey excitedness was 100% warranted.) Talked to a guy who ALPHABETISED the 50 or so buttons on his bag (nyeeeeiiirrrrr!!). Stole chips off Joe. Blah blah blah. I wanted to be inside.

Ended up 2nd row back, just to the left of the pyana. Pretty good for viewing piano solo hands.

Gelbison were a great support act. I really enjoyed their set. (So they did pretty well - It's generally hard to get my attention if you're a pre-BF(5) act :p !!) Might need to dig up some of their stuff. It did well calming me down out of my possibly too hyped up state.

Benny opened with his Cure cover In Between Days - interesting (and FUN) opener! There was a lot of new stuff (some of which I'd managed to hear bad sampling rate mp3s of before the show), crowd faves, classics, and a lot of general Ben crazies goodness. (He even showed us his ankle... w00t!!)

(For my own benefit, here's a list of songs I can remember him playing, in no particular order. Well, if you're a fan you'll probaby be able to see a certain kind of order in here. But they're in nothing like concert order.)

In Between Days
There's Always Someone Cooler Than You
You To Thank
Gracie
Late
Landed
Bitches Ain't Got $#!+
(other new stuff I don't know the names of)
Philosophy
Underground
Brick
One Angry Dwarf and 200 Solemn Faces
Army
Not The Same
Gone
The Luckiest
Rockin' The Suburbs
Still Fighting It
(...other stuff I can't remember right now in my concert high)

Stuff that was particularly cool:
The usual Am-->Cmaj audience choir action in Not The Same, which is always magical no matter how many times you're in the crowd for it
The crowd being the brass section for Army (same deal - always gold)
Ben's bad southern accent explanation of the Not The Same story, followed by Joe's "Yeah, tell me about it!", followed by Ben's "I just told you about it, *insert muffled cuss word*"
The fact that we were treated to Underground
Continual insanely high release of endorphins going on in my head
Seeing both people I dragged along ending up with nice new Ben Folds shirts! :) (Conversion?!?!)
Ben switching to the bass to do the groovy pentatonic riff at the end of Suburbs
General r&b payout goodness
The willingness of those nice people in the front row to take photos on my camera for me

When I can, I'll link to some photos. I kinda hope some kid out there did some bootlegging. I could deal with hearing that concert again. MORE TOMORROW!! (Well, today...)

(Sorry if this is just a mess. My brain's a bit of a mess. A great big happy mess! :)
Thanks all the kids who kicked around before/at/after the show, and put up with my obsessive antics. Friends make it FUN!! (Aaaaww! Shed a tear. Like Gracie makes ya.)