Twenty Candles

Just sitting here eating some chocolate love hearts. And listening to Christmas songs.

I got the chocolate from my best friend in Norway. Because today is my birthday. Or, well, technically it isn’t yet, because of the fact that I was born in Norway, which is about 12 hours behind New Zealand, but I only see this as an excuse to celebrate for 2-3 days straight, to make sure I cover my birthday in all the different time zones.

Holy cow. There was just a delivery for me. A basket full of flowers and stuff. From my family in Norway – thank you, I love you so much!! You just made my day.

I started celebrating my birthday last night, with a few close friends. I had an amazing night, and despite the fact that half a bottle of malibu and half a bottle of vodka was consumed, I woke up this morning feeling fine.

I’m still undecided about what I’m doing today. So far I haven’t made any specific plans, other than to tidy up my room (there are empty alcohol bottles and cans, dirty plates, cups, etc, general rubbish, and clothes lying around…), eat a fair amount of unhealthy food, listen to some good music, and reply to messages on Facebook. Tonight? No idea.

I prayed for some nice, sunny weather today, having celebrated my birthday in dark, cold and usually wet conditions for most of my life, but the weather gods didn’t really listen to me. It’s overcast and about 13C outside.

Whatever, I’ve got chocolate.

Move along

Life

is

so

darn

sweeeet.

The last 24 hours have been rather amazing. Last night out on town was ah-mazing. Today was AMAZING. One word for it? Yeah, amazing.

Also, I now have beers in my fridge. Fuck yeah. Speights, at that. I am one VERY happy girl. AND a bottle of wine. AND a bottle of gin. Does life seriously get any better??

Oh, yeah – it was supposed to be raining all day today. Instead it’s been sunny for most of the day. Someone is definitely on my side.

I have a newfound love for Australians and football players. And cafès in Wellington. (That last one was a lie – I’ve always loved the cafès in Wellington.)

Now to cook dinner. Then I’m having a movie night with my bud. Rock on, world.

1/3 down

I have officially (and hopefully successfully/satisfactorily) completed my first year at university.

I spent nearly 6 hours on campus today. I sincerely hope that that’s not going to happen again fot at least another 3 months or so. I went to the library at noon to do some last-minute cramming with some friends, and we spent the next couple of hours having an awful good time, considering we were about to sit an exam. Which I reckon was the best preparation anyone could’ve asked for. It was also quite entertaining to watch as we one by one (myself included) took turns studying our notes for a few minutes before throwing our arms up into the air and declaring to the library at large that it was hopeless and that we would just have to make it up as we went along.

At 2.30pm the exam began. At 4pm, halfway through, two of my friends were done, and left. Half an hour later another one left, and I was the only one still sitting there out of our wee study group. I finally finished about 10 minutes before the time was up, and when it’s 15 minutes to go no one is allowed to leave, so I was forced to stay for an extra 10 minutes and had a quick second glance at what I’d written. Which, in hindsight, I suppose might have been a good thing.

When I was allowed to leave though, at 5.30pm, I was so happy I could have kissed everyone in my path (of course, I didn’t). Once outside, I sat straight down and felt the warm sun on my face and the wind in my hair, and I just couldn’t stop smiling. Free at last.

So I went home, got changed and went to the liquor store. Obviously. On my wee shopping list I had written ‘gin, lemons, and lemonade’. You smiling now? I know I am.

On my way back from the supermarket in town I stopped at a red light. (Everyone knows I’m a sworn pedestrian right? Good.) While I was standing there the cars coming from my right were turning into the road on my left-hand side, and when the second car was going slowly past, I accidentally caught the driver’s eye, and he stared at me, transfixed, and I stared back, and I saw him, quite clearly, utter the words ‘Fuck me’. Now how is one actually supposed to react to that?

If this was any other day, I would have been furious at being objectified like that, and probably felt compelled to give him the finger, but instead I just tilted my head a little and smiled resignedly at him while barely shaking my head. I saw him repeat the words, never breaking eye contact with me, and that, I must say, made me feel a little angry afterwards. Does it mean that he has absolutely no respect for women? This is where I’d like some opinions, please. Is it appropriate to feel flattered? Upset? Compelled to chase after the car, tear open his door and threaten to send your (imagined) boyfriend after him? Like I said: If this had happened on pretty much any other day, I would have hated it.

But at the time I’d just come out of a 3 hour long exam, my last one this year; I was carrying a newly purchased bottle of gin in my bag and the sun was shining. Let’s face it; I was happy to the point where I could have been walking through a blizzard and a wee sun still would have been shining above my head. Living in perfect bliss.

But yeah, curious though. How normal is it for a guy to be that “rude” to someone they see? And how should I feel about it?

 

And tonight? I’m going out to celebrate with friends, of course. It’s not every day you finish your first year at university.

Crash and Burn

My least favourite way to spend a Sunday: Hungover and trying to write 1,000 words and thus finish my very important film essay. Yet that is what I have subjected myself to today. The half-finished essay can only be blamed on considerable amounts of time spent procrastinating, and the hangover can be blamed on a very foolish decision made last night, concerning a bottle of wine and some gin & tonic.

Waking up this morning was not in any way pleasant; although now, several hours later, when the hangover has subsided a little bit, I can see the humour in it. My flatmates woke me up with their usual noise, and trying not to think about how late it was bound to be, I checked the time, only to discover that it was 8:30am. Great. I’d had about 5 hours of sleep. So I got out of bed, dressed myself and stumbled out to the kitchen. There, I proceeded to make an epic breakfast, which consisted of a huge omelette, lots of toast and numerous glasses of juice. I brought the omelette back to bed with me, checked facebook, ate about 3/4 of the omelette, and went back to sleep. The next time I woke up it was 11:45am. Much better.

Since then, I’ve been drinking everything I could think of that could make me feel better; suffered a severe attack of chocolate craving; peeled an orange for the first time in years and remembered why I stopped doing that (about half the orange is now strewn all over my room); sat on my bed, back against the wall, staring at the opposite wall trying to make it stop spinning; taken deep, meditative breaths to try to control my body’s desire to vomit; and repeatedly told myself how stupid I was for drinking at all last night, when I knew that I had to finish my essay today.

I think about 95% of my brain is temporarily out of service, and I’m finding it extremely hard to write even a simple sentence. Certain words, images, even sounds, make me feel all queasy, so I’ve had a real struggle all day trying to find music that I can listen to without getting that gagging feeling. I had to unfollow someone on Twitter because he used the word ‘lol’ (blah, there it happened again) in all his tweets, which are numerous – and I can’t handle that word today.

About an hour ago I was finally beginning to feel better (at least the world wasn’t spinning as badly anymore), and then I went to the fridge and ate three crumpets. Now I feel sick again. What to do? I’ve tried like everything that has ever worked for me in the past against hangovers, but it’s just not working today. And I still have to write 1,000 words on my essay before I can go to bed tonight. Jolly good.

I swear I’m never drinking again (at least not when I know I have a really important essay due on the Monday after).

Silly, silly bugger.

Counting down

…getting ready for take-off…

 

I have a big night planned. In fact, I’ve already started drinking, and I’m not looking forward to going back to this blog entry tomorrow to see how many spelling mistakes I made (blame the alcohol!). The loud music isn’t exactly helping, either. But never mind, that’s how I want it. I don’t feel like thinking or feeling anything anymore, at least not tonight. I don’t know exactly why, but I feel kind of depressed right now. And I drink to forget all my sorrows, and lull myself into a false sense of security and positivity, which at least helps me feel better for as long as it takes me to get sober again. And I enjoy that state of false hope and happiness. I know it’ll be gone when I wake up tomorrow morning, but how much don’t we humans do to feel happy, even if only for a short while?

 

Being stood up by someone I thought I could count on to accompany me tonight didn’t exactly improve my mood, either. But that’s the story of my life. Never trust anyone. Once again, I ask myself: Is it because of me? Of who I am? Does something about me shout out to the world that it’s OK for you to abandon me at the last moment, that I’ll survive? I don’t know, I don’t always give a fuck (although tonight I do), but I’m sick of it. I try my best to be a kind and caring person, but it always backfires. I never receive anything good in return, just cold shoulders and rejections. Destined to loneliness? Yessir, I think so. Real friends are hard to come by. In fact, so hard that I think I’ve only ever come across one. And she’s not here (or maybe I’m in the wrong place?), so I’m by myself once more, just like I’ve been for the most of my life.

But enough ranting. I hate bringing other people down because of my problems, and it sounds so very weak, to boot. And I don’t see myself as a weak person. So just ignore everything I wrote above (you know what they say, it’s supposed to help to ‘unload’ your troubles), and focus on the awesome night I’m about to have. I’m pretty sure I just started drinking at 5pm for the first time in my life, and it was amazing. Just keep in mind that I’ve got a fridge full of beer, wine, sparkly drinks and last but not least, gin, to keep me going all night.

 

So keep on counting down for me, please. It’ll be a big night, and who knows what’ll happen (I sure as hell won’t, because I’ll be beyond drunk). I might even meet someone nice out on town to drown the rest of my sorrows with. Wish me luck.