mattmatt.livejournal.com

It appears I've contracted the moving-to-another-continent head cold. Hopefully this shall pass in a couple of days. As a result though, I am being very slack.

My legs are killing me! Yesterday Alex and I walked about 25km, half of which was straight up the Port Hills. We managed to make it to the Summit Rd, then back down the Rapaki track and home again in just under four hours.
Sometimes I HATE that I take New Zealand scenery for granted. It's absolutely gorgeous and I'm a dumbass for forgetting that. I got some awesome pictures of the scenery, typical kiwi culture and some of the randomness that Christchurch has to offer...

( Strange signs, mansions, homos in the wilderness, lambs and other such excitements )

This thing on Prime on Columbine is so frackin' weird: the way they're talking about NBK is exactly the way second-rate media docos talked in NBK. I wonder if at any point the makers went, "this narrative we're putting together here - this is exactly what the protagonists of our narrative want to have made about them".

Well, thank you all for the offers of accomodation, I will try and reply to people later on today.

I have started packing. I am going to make myself a bit more mobile by putting all my armour in my rucksack, and the clothes in a bag with wheels. This should enable me to transverse airports without a trolley, as you can never gaurantee getting one of those, and trying to carry the armour bag in my hands gets old real fast.

general plan is to do as much scut work as possible today, so that my last week in London can be fun, rather than stresful.

Its nice to see lots of good jobs being advertised in Wellington. I think I have at least 4-5 applications to make this week.

ha found a couple of writings i believe i hadn't posted while i was hunting for a notebook...theyre about a year old
fuck i need to be writing more...cursed honours

right
i'm gonna have to re-watch black sheep. i developed my ideas very poorly in my notes. ther foundations are there, mostly to do with conflict between tradition and development, as well as land and identity, but as i said, poorly developed.

currently reading 'monster show' by david j. skal
its engagingly written though gets a bit confusing with all its jumping between details of production companies and the people involved with them. not very analytical either. but is serving the purpose of providing a lightly socio-contextual history of american horror films. insight into what has been considered horror and how this has changed as well as into industry reactions to horror films. tbh i'm not enjoying the industry focus, but its a really broad survey and that *is* helpful.

also 'antipodean tales' , a collection of supposedly gothic short fiction from new zealand. ive read about 8 of them so far and mostly seem to be more like, post-apocalyptic spiritualism. could be interesting if i was using stories (rather than films), but theyre not really very horror-y, nor are they gothic tbh. ha. not that i can quite define what i mean by gothic :S still its good for developing kind of, i guess, a 'feeling' of whats going on nationally in this area.

have a couple of general horror theory readers that ive started on. will review a couple of articles ive read tomorrow. but i need to re-view before i review (oh ha ha ha).

tonight: psycho, texas chainsaw massacre, friday 13th, nightmare on elm st., dawn of the dead and carrie
these are for my own benefit, familiarising myself with more of the genre, so i wont be writing individual reviews but i may have a rant...you know, for practice ^^

also, uni should give me a book allowance. how on earth was i to know id actually wnat to spend my course related costs on course related items eh? ffs.

so.
today has been fairly appalling. but brought a number of things to my attention.
i know i've been upset/frustrated by a bunch of things of late. and have been blaming the people involved. which has been straining my ability to deal with people, particular and general. and i've been getting pretty bad. like the seriously lower end of intent-centred thoughts have been sneaking back in.
i realise however, that half of the reason i haven't been able to confront people about things, is cause the problems are, for the greater part mine. i have been having trouble dealing without high levels of social activity with the people i feel comfortable with. i think perhaps like, the lack of constant low level airing of mental laundry is a huge problem. cause well my mental laundry-room now looks like our home laundry-room and if any of you have seen that...suffice to say its actually festering...
it may also in part be cause its winter. which is always really hard.
so. tomorrow i make a doctors appt. i get back on my meds and i deal with the anxiety of going back on them. because im pretty convinced i need to be back on them. and discuss options for some low level cognitive re-training.
while i've dealt with some of my issues, some are still there and there are new ones cropping up as a result of my self-directed mental behaviour adjustments.
tonight. i make a list of the things that have been fucking with me that i can think of. a list of the possible things i can do about them.
i also think i should start keeping a journal. not here.
i don't really feel like everything i think can be shared with everyone i know anymore, and i'm too lazy to do friendsgroups. plus you know. it feels kinda weird to divide who is and isnt allowed to know shit so finitely. but mm. i think it might help if i forced myself to think through stuff on paper.

c'est tout

xox
ruby

The Keys to Your Heart

You are attracted to obedience and warmth. In love, you feel the most alive when everything is uncertain, one moment heaven... the next moment hell. You'd like to your lover to think you are stylish and alluring. You would be forced to break up with someone who was emotional, moody, and difficult to please. Your ideal relationship is open. Both of you can talk about everything... no secrets. Your risk of cheating is zero. You care about society and morality. You would never break a commitment. You think of marriage as something precious. You'll treasure marriage and treat it as sacred. In this moment, you think of love as something you can get or discard anytime. You're feeling self centered.

And here's me thinking that the key to my heart was chocolate, good music, and the ability to match me snark for snark while making as many jokes about people's mums as humanly possible?

Ugh. I still have emotional backwash from Wednesday. It's a bit of a bugger because I have to actively put a filter on things that I'm thinking and feeling and decide whether or not they're actually what I'm feeling properly, or if they're just a reaction to the lack of serotonin I'm still going through. (Did I mention exactly how caned I was? Not so much caned as Oh My.) Still, there are a lot of things that are being brought to my attention that I wasn't exactly aware of, which if I'm still thinking about them the same way in a couple of weeks, will need to be dealt with, which is not something I'm looking forward to, but if it is a real thing, then it's for the best. (Cryptic, no?)

Last night was one of the quietest Atomics ever. I think the entire night we had maybe 400-500 people through? Which for an atomic is REALLY FUCKING QUIET. however the people that we did have through were quite nice (apart from that stupid bitch who was having a cry because I wouldn't let her put 2 items on the same hanger, and then had the nerve to ask me if I was really going to be that anal about doing my job. I don't come to your work and tell you how to suck cock, don't tell me how to do my job. Grrr.) and a few people forgot to collect their change from me, which meant that I got about $28.00 in tips at the end of the night. Boo ya bitches.

Penny's making green tea icecream. I had to separate an egg for her, and when I got eff white all over my fingertips I looked at her and said "He told me he loved me", because you have to have that little bit of Oh Dear God Wrong in your Sunday.

And now, homework.

That's ... Dr. Horrible of course. I've been in bed since yesterday, so I finally clicked on the Dr. Horrible link I've seen on everyone's LJ. It was really quite charming. This is the first Whedon thing I've ever seen, save for the one horrible episode of Buffy that I was made to watch on the pretext that I'd LUUUUURVE it. I didn't.

The songs were catchy, the sets and costumes were adorably cheesy, but what made me watch all three episodes was Neil Patrick Harris. He's lovely. And there was *something* about him that totally reminded me of nintendoug. Which I hope he takes as a compliment - because it's meant as one!

http://www.publicaddress.net/default,5160.sm

You thought nothing could possibly be weirder than an operatic life of denunciation and poo-flinging amongst the objectivist libertarians? You thought wrong. Clearly, you are not apprised of Whaleoil's astonishing foray into the land of the gossip queens...

Good to see I'm not the only one who feels this way

This is easily my favorite of the three. Hooray! Also here is a larger version if you want it for desktops.

ALSO SOME THINGS: If you haven't seen Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog yet, hurry! It's only available for viewing until Sunday, July 20th. Which is real soon!

And hey! Who's going to SPX this year and can tell me things about it? As in, is it way too late to plan on going?

Last night Alex and I watched Have No Fear - The Life of Pope John Paul II on ShineTV, the Christian channel. It was REALLY good. I think that whoever made it did a fantastic job. I cried at the end, surprise surprise. I'm also very glad that we decided to watch that instead of First Daughter starring Katie Holmes. I caught the last ten minutes and it made me want to vomit. Also, I read so many gossip magazines that it's weird to see the people I read about actually MOVING on screen.

Urrgh. Tell me I didn't just get horrendously trashed with my co-workers, steal glasses from the beer cascade, wander around the restaurant looking for napkins so that I could wipe my hands because I'd been eating an icecream cake with a very sharp knife, shout a whole lot, tell the girlfriend of my boss how very non-evil she is, shout a whole lot more, and then dash out of the restaurant without paying...

And then come home and attempt to hold internet conversations.

And be woken up at 6am by the giant furry animal that crawled out of my mouth.

Fuck.

EDIT: It also transpires that I stole tabasco sauce.

OMG. I just accidentally saw a 7 of 9/Janeway slash video thing with a soppy song in the background, and now I should probably scrape out my brain with a plastic spoon. It's just too geeky and drippy even for me.

I went to bed ridiculously late last now and am now very tired. I spent some time on the phone having a very pleasant chat with KG about various things beginning with C including chemistry, crumpets, caning and cherries. The cherries were entirely my fault because I was rude enough to be eating them while having a telephone conversation and KG was most displeased about my lack of manners.

I've been up to Odds & Todds this afternoon and found a replacement for my smaller chest of drawers which was falling to bits and, quite frankly, I'm sick of trying to hammer it together again. The drawers on the new one are a bit stiff (just rub a candle on it said the man at Odd & Todds). I also bought two new ties and a custard slice.

Tonight I want to do some drawing. Move it.

Oh and in other news: The universe gave me a break, and after a long time of resolving myself to disappointment it turns out Dan and I are going to Winter Weekend, since we aren't leaving Christchurch before then.

Hurrah!

I am looking forward to it, as it will be my last event of this nature for some time, I expect.

And for others going up: I will be going up on Thursday in my somewhat generously sized transportation, so if you have a something/someone you want hauled, let me know (some small fuel donation might be appreciated).

Oh, come the fuck on.

so!

school is back! AND FUCKING AWESOME! no longer do i resent the fact that my social life has been crushed, i have *interesting* books. oh so freaking many!!! mommy bought me poe. FINALLY the fall of the house of usher is mine. i love how poes narrator characters have hulking great man crushes on the narrated characters. and i dont even dig the whole yaoi type jigger. its just GRAND!
he makes me giggle. uncontrollably.
sometimes for impending doom. 
sometimes for the bizarre atmosphere shatter of rationality/sudden end he seems so partial to.

and i have horror theory. which is fascinating. tommorow i catch up on classic gorier films, which arent my bag (its hard to drag me away from demons and vampires) but still...all the EVERYTHING, and crucial to understanding and people and complicated and oooOoooooOOOooh!

and! we may be getting an honours room just for rels!
and! i have a class! with 3 other people!
also finally re-ripped opheliac *snuggles the brutal angry angst*

my sister goes away on training tomorrow. i was quizzinating her earlier. and she will insist on calling the aerobridge the space tunnel. also ... just...we shouldn't be allowed near mnemonic devices. fuck man she better only be gone a week. im'a miss her. as much as she irritates me, shes such an important part of my day to day life. thank god its only like 5 day weeks and USUALLY weekends in chc.

also I WANT SUMMER!! man i want summer. swimming and sun. and SUMMER! it smells different and its so much more lazy in a non-enforced way.
*snarf* a forty year old dude tried to buy me a beer at work tonight...on shift...and hehehe. ffs.

ok BED! last night was not so much with sleeping.

xox
ruby

p.s. OMG SCHOOL!!!

• 13:12 omg, what a long day! just got back from Whole Foods. now munching on a yummy apricot chicken & almond salad at @galadarling's apartment. #

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