OOOOOOOOOOOH PISS!!!

I have just submitted my online application for a Fulbright Scholarship. Argh. Fuck. Shit.
I'm hoping that once they've picked themselves up from the floor, and managed to stop laughing long enough to actually read my application, they might all sit round, smoke a gigantic cone, and decide that it would be a really good idea this year, instead of selecting people on academic records, their criteria will consist of candidates ability to sing all the words to REM's "Its the end of the world as we know it", whip up an authentic Greek meal, fit as many original swear words into a sentence as possible, do the patented Claire booty-shake dance, have the most puking hangover, and have the longest arms in the room. If that were the case, I may well have a proverbial's chance in hell. Otherwise, I've just wasted three days. Oh well.
Last night I went to cheer on the mighty Aqua Marine Plastic Cups soccer team, who were kicking arse and taking names. I could never be a cheerleader though. One presumes that cheerleaders require, well, cheer. I'm not so much with the cheer. I would, however, be a remarkable booleader. Like "Hey you! Other team! You blow goats! Get off the court and let some soccer be played. And you've all got fat arses! Piss off!"
I received and email this morning from a chap at Stanford that impressed me mightily. You see, I'm not normally one who's impressed by fame. Not the TV kind of fame we get in these parts, anyway. But being the gigantic geek that I am however, receiving personal emails from people whos work I have studied, who have been cited in my thesis, and who I generally think are pretty cool, impresses me. I get all starstruck. Like when that guy from Yale emailed me to say I could use his graph in my thesis, the guy who runs the World Bank's Economics of Civil War project, I nearly peed myself.
This mornings email was regarding one I had sent yesterday, asking a professor of political science at Stanford how I could improve my chances of being accepted in his school. He sent one straight back, saying that it sounded like I was able to write a decent statement of intent, which was really important in an application, and wished me good luck!! I think I actually shrieked. And I'm not a big shrieker.
But he also suggested that I apply for about a dozen schools. Given that each application costs $70-100 US, I was originally intending to apply for about 5. So if you all want to give me hideous amounts of money, it improves my chances of going to America, and thereby leaving you all alone. Actually no, cos I'll still bug you all in blogspace. But its a start.
And with that, I'm off to do some real work. Heehee.
24 sleeps to go.
15 days until conference.
Shit.

Very cool word for the day: Macademized.
Listening to Bomb the Bass is educational.

It Never Fucking Ends

Now this I really can't believe.
Just remember that theres only three and a half weeks until I can move out of that fucking nightmare of a flat.
25 sleeps.
Yes, I'm counting.

I'd just like to say...

Thanks for being sweet.
Also, my flatmate Dave is not as bad as I make out. He bought me a kingsize bar of chocolate to cheer me up after I got dumped. Yay for Dave.
So heres the story: Theres someone that I get on with fabulously with, and that I trust (big thing for Claire) and am not intimidated by, and I don't think he is intimidated by me (another big thing for Claire), and who has the loveliest chocolate coloured eyes, and there was a bit of vodka involved and we kind of told each other how we felt, and everything was wonderful and yay and so on. Then all of a sudden (OK, a few days later), he comes over all thoroughly decent, and says that although he really wants to be with me he doesn't think hes completely over his ex, although he doesn't want to get back together with her hes not ready to be with me.
I mean, he could at least have been a complete arsehole and then I would have been able to sit here and diss him and have the comfort of knowing that I'm better off cos hes a complete twat.
But no, I'm stuck here, thinking that hes honest and decent and considerate of my feelings. Fuck.
Rereading that you may think that I was on the recieving end of a big scam, and he just doesn't want to be with me cos I'm a nutjob, and you may think that I'm kidding myself here, but I do actually believe him. Well, 98% of me does. The other 2% is convinced that hes already out on a hunt for a new girl.
That paranoia I talked about? Unfortunately it doesn't switch off.
I'm off now to stake out his house.
*cough*bunnyboiler*cough*

I've heard this song before...

I really am a slow learner.
If something seems just that little bit too good to be true, then it is.
Lesson is learnt, OK? Change the fucking record, please, universe.

Its cryptic blog entry time

So something pretty interesting happened last night.
Its a good thing, a very good thing in fact, but me being me am totally over-analysing every aspect of it, and am so insecure about the whole thing that I'm terrified that it will all turn horrible and the good thing will decide I'm not worth all the trouble and I'll be back to square one again but this time with the knowledge of what I had a taste of, when maybe the best thing would have been to never have gone there in the first place. But its done now, whats said is said, and I am extremely paranoid!! Argh!!!
OK, more later.
Maybe.

Oh Yeah!!

I am one very happy chicken right about now.
Given my inclination to work in my office, instead of out in the computer room where all the plebs reside, I have been working on my laptop for quite some time now.
Anyone who has worked for any length of time on a laptop will be aware of the repercussions for ones physical well-being; ie you're hunched over a screen, your ergonomics are all wrong and you end up finishing the day with a sore neck, wrists and hands from the silly mouse thing and not having the screen raised.
Well, those days are over!
I just called Campus Computers to enquire about the cost of a USB keyboard, given that the keyboard I had liberated from a colleague's office wouldn't work on my laptop, and I was expecting it to cost anywhere from $50 to $100.

Claire: How much is a USB keyboard?
Campus Computer Guy: $15.
Claire: No, I want to buy one.
CCG: $15
Claire: No, I mean to keep, so that when I leave university I can take it with me.
CCG: $15.
Claire: Are you taking the piss?
CCG: No.

So off I hopped to Campus Computers, where I purchased a brand-spanking new keyboard, a brand-spanking new USB mousie, and a bunch of blank CDs, and I still only spent less than $70.
Yay for me, I love a bargain.
I have the laptop on a pile of file boxes in front of me, and a proper mouse (with a cool red light on it that flashes sometimes), and a RSI preventing keyboard (with some cool yellow lights on it).
Now I have my work station all set up and have no more excuses for being slack.
Oh dear.
I have to go now and think of some more excuses for being slack.

Here comes a storm in the form of a girl, shes the finest, sweetest thing in the world.


Me and Samantha went to see Shark Tale last night. Pretty funny, but certainly no Monsters Inc. Renee Zellweger is kind of annoying, even in fish form, but I adore Will Smith. The fish are funny looking though, and I found that difficult to get over. There's jokes for grownups as well as kids, which certainly puts it a league ahead of Garfield, which I took Alexander to last week. It kind of sucked, which is a shame, cos a Garfield movie has so much potential.
I really need to see a grownups movie.

I'm beginning to worry that I'm losing my need to blog. Or maybe, I'm just losing my inspiration. Ha! Like there was any real inspiration to begin with.
Anyhoo.
Whats been going on?
How have you been?
And the family?
Glad to hear it.

I believe I have come to a decision regarding statistics. Not the concept, or the field of study, but the stupid stats paper I'm doing, because I don't really have enough to stress about with a thesis to finish, the GRE exam next month in which I must score over 87.5%, the conference next month for which I still have obscene amounts of work to do, graduate school applications to complete, people to suck up to so they'll let me into their schools with my crap GPA, and work five nights (six, recently) as well.
But stats is soon to be gone. I have plenty of time to learn statistics, and now is really not that time. So this afternoon I'm off to Registry to withdraw from the course.
And the minute I made that decision, I physically felt a huge weight lift off me, and I got about five years younger. All of a sudden, life is sunny and warm. Yay.
(runs off to make refreshing life-saving cup of tea)
However, I was informed yesterday that all the data I've been working on for the project is apparently no good; something to do with the coding rules and variation in conflict intensity. I think, however, that it won't take too much for me to fix it so that we can still use it, especially given the amount of time and energy I have expended already. I got an email from one of the guys I'm working for in America which said "All the data are stuffed, and its my fault". Oh dear.
I think I can fix it though.
And I'm still not sure of which schools I'm going to apply for. They charge you for applications, so I can really only afford five or six. Hopefully one of them will be fool enough to accept me. Who knows. Cross your fingers, aye?
Smoochies.

Oh, The Horror

Something awful happened a couple of weeks ago.
It was so awful, in fact, that it has taken me a couple of weeks to come to terms with it sufficiently to be able to talk about it.
But some time has passed now, and I am really trying to accept the reality of the situation. Sometimes bad things happen to good people.
Theres no sense in this crazy world of ours.
Here we go.

At the tender age of 28 years, 3 months and 15 days, I found a grey hair (sob).
Yes, there was a grey hair growing on my formerly youthful head, trying to hang out there with all the normal coloured ones, trying to blend in, and hoping he wouldn't be noticed. Needless to say, I opened a can of whup-ass on the little fucker, and now he is but a memory.
So now I am excruciatingly aware that I am officially OLD, and am paying far too much attention to my hair. Next I'll be lamenting the state of today's youth and drinking sherry.

So last night, in a fit of whobloodyknows, I dyed my hair, and now it is RED. Not just red, mind you, but FUCKING RED!!!! Not so much fire-engine red, more like tamarillo red, with some streaky bits of the original strawberry blonde left on top, for a bit of variety. I also succeeded in dyeing my fingernails and scalp red, hopefully the red bits on my face will wear off before work tonight. Am off to the hairdresser in a few minutes to get the left-out bits lightened a wee bit, so they look less like an accident, and more like intentional streaks. And also to remove any trace of grey that may have slipped through.
Oh dear.
Its all such an effort, really.
If only I wasn't so vain, then I could just live with the grey.
But no.
Shit.

Icky Germs

I am in bed, and I have the flu. Usually I am the first to mock sick people (actually, any people, but stay on topic) because when theres nasty flu type bugs about, those around me are dropping like flies, and I get a 2 day cold. However, it appears the flu gods have caught on to my ways, and are thereby punishing me for my previously sturdy immune system.
My sister's girls have had a nasty flu, and Sami has been off school for a week, which sucks, because what I remember of school when I was six was that it was awesome fun. I have now been in bed for three days, and what really blows is that I missed my stats test on Saturday morning. I went to the doc on Friday afternoon to get an impaired performance thing, and he said I have the flu and gave me some pills to stop my cough at night so that I could sleep, and then when I woke up on Saturday morning to go to my test, I sat up and everything went black. So I tried that again a few times, with no improvements, before coming to the realisation that if I couldn't sit up, I couldn't get to uni, and sure as shit couldn't sit a test. Hopefully my aegrotat application will be accepted.
So the last few days have involved a lot of sitting in bed watching movies (am loving having tv, vcr and dvd in my bedroom, and I think they may stay here) and sleeping and chilling out, which is probably good for me mentally as well as physically.
I have to go back to work tonight, which may be interesting, cos I'm all wobbly, and when I try and walk end up crashing into doorframes etc, cos I can't go straight. So no doubt someone tonight will end up wearing someone elses dinner. Fun.
I'm guessing I have to go back to uni and do some work tomorrow, the conference in October is drawing steadily closer, and the project is nowhere near finished. Also, all the numbers I have to do on recurrence comparisons have been neglected in favour of quality snoozing and telly time in an attempt to rid myself of these flu germs.
The thing is, when you get sick you've got to strike a balance somewhere, between taking time out to get better, and keeping on doing what you need to do. If you're one of these tough guys "Takes more than a wee flu to stop me" types, then you end up screwing yourself, cos if you don't take time out to get better, then you'll end up being sick for longer, or get worse. Then of course, if you drop everything and climb into bed for a week, all your work gets neglected completely, and you're screwing yourself another way. So I'm figuring three days is a happy medium, and hopefully tomorrow I'll be back at my desk.
In other news, last night I watched "Unfaithful". Diane Lane is one classy bird, and I am extremely jealous of her, cos shes got to snog Viggo Mortensen ("A Walk on the Moon") AND Olivier Martinez, who, once he leaves that skanky ho Kylie "I have very little musical talent so am relying on selling my arse to make money" Minogue, will be mine, I tell you, MINE!!!!!
Hmmm. (The doctor said I might get a little delusional)
But really, who on earth would choose Richard Gere (short, middle-aged, funny-looking) over Mr Tall, Dark, Handsome and Foreign? He's French!!! What more could you want!!!!
Have a smashing day, won't you.

Heres a scene...

Claire is staying at her Mum's house, looking after it while her mum is away. Its Monday night, and Claire has finished work, come home and is relaxing in front of the telly. Its half past midnight, and then, the phone rings. Claire's heart stops, and her blood runs cold. Given that the phone only rings in the middle of the night when extremely bad news is coming, Claire begins to anticipate who is on the other end. Could is be her sister, whose baby had a high temperature that day? Claire remembers back a few years to when the baby's older brother was in hospital with meningitis, and all were convinced that he was not going to make it. Or, she thinks, it could be her Dad, recalling a couple of years back when a good friend of her Dad's died very suddenly of a heart attack. That afternoon, Claire had dropped her mother off at the airport, to catch a flight to Sydney that was connecting to Perth later that day. It could be the airline, saying that the plane had gone missing over the desert.
Because people don't call at half past midnight unless its an extreme emergency. Its just not done. So, imagining all sorts of horrors, Claire answers the phone. And guess what. Its not a fucking emergency at all. Its someone who shares Claire's house, who wants to discuss a fucking bill or something. Not even remotely an emergency, no matter how you look at it.

The surprising thing is, the flatmate was actually genuinely surprised when Claire went nuts at her.
Go figure.