33 Week Challenge Week 25? maybe? Harry Potter Movie Marathon

YOU GUYS! I’M BACK!

Hello! I have missed you all so much. I don’t really care if you haven’t missed me, just don’t like… tell me. Post-2high Lizzy is quite tired and emotional and she wouldn’t really hack it.

I made the decision that after the festival I was going to do only fun things. It was going to be November: the month of radness. But there was a slight flaw in this plan. I’ve kind of crammed too many awesome things in, if that’s possible, and I haven’t really chilled yet, or slept for the required 48 hours. But this can only mean good things for you guys! Because I have fun blog things to share with you. I DID A CHALLENGE! Yeah - I’m still doing those.

I did one of the first challenges ever dreamed up for this adventure: Harry Potter Movie Marathon. That’s right, in the last 3 days I have watched all eight films. This is how it went down:

Friday night consists almost entirely of eating and making a fort. But this isn’t just any fort. This isn’t the sort of fort some shitty little kids would make. This was a serious operation. Every single person who was here has worked in student theatre. We had a ladder. We had electrical tape. We knew what the fuck we were doing.

Some notes for the young, aspiring fort builder

-       Consider your environment, what is already there? We found our house to be quite accommodating when it came to providing random nails and hooks

-       Choose light cloth, otherwise you’ll die of heat exhaustion

-       Also, flaps. You’ll want flaps. As in flaps you can pull back to let air in. What were you thinking?

-       ladders are fun – but probably 1 cider is too many when you’re on the top step and 3 points of contact consists of one foot a knee and a shin.

-       Don’t use pegs as load bearing pegs – pegs can’t bear loads but they can close gaps in your flaps

It’s the most amazing fort you’ve ever seen. It encompasses my entire lounge room so no photos can do it justice. Every angle is just sheets. But seriously, I wish you could all see it. It’s amazing.

Once we’d spent far too long attaching ribbons to the ceiling, attaching sheets to those ribbons and pegs to those sheets, it was time to get cranking on the actual film watching…

Philosopher’s Stone

We drank every time Hermione’s eyebrows controlled her face, and stopped almost instantly for fear of alcohol poisoning.  Also we got emotional about people who will die later. Actually, mostly that was just Hedwig.

We all said “et a funny whelk” at the exact same time. #nerdfriends

Saturday

I came home from karate to find the ladies hadn’t even started! Four films to get through! Come on people!

Mmm… bacon.

Chamber of Secrets

Wait… the actor who plays Lee Jordan IS actually male? All this time…

Gilderoy is rockin the most amazing side cape… and one glove.

Maggie Smith is the most amazing human in the world

I just lost my shit – Hilde just suggested Dumbledore was going to feed baby Fawkes by regurgitation - “excuse me won’t you Harry… bleaaaargh”

50 years ago, Hogwarts was a lot more… sepia.

Christopher Columbus – lime green bowler hat thief

Prisoner of Azkaban

Hermione’s penchant for stripes begins… and  also Ron’s muscles… not her penchant for them, that’s later obviously.

Wait, who put the Slytherin and Gryffindor house tables next to each other? What a terrible idea.

Dawn French is the best!

No wait… Emma Thompson is the best! I wish Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie had made appearances too

Harry Potter and the worst comebacks ever – “shut up, Malfoy”. I’m just waiting for “your FACE is a Hippogriff”

Harry Potter and the Grumpy old Dumbledore “the rest of you… fuck off out of my way”

QUESTION TIME

What memory would you summon to conjure a patronus? Tricky, hey? I think maybe the moment I first saw/held my baby sister? But that memory isn’t strong enough I think. It’s hard to hold in my mind.

Oh god! The way Snape protects them when Lupin-wolf goes to attack! Heart breaking!

A break was taken to wash the dishes. We’ve literally used all of our plates and bowls and cutlery, there were a LOT of snacks.

We’ve descended into madness.  Amy has to close her flaps and we selected the “shqip” option on the menu.

Goblet of Fire

HARRY POTTAAARR! HARRYYYY POTTARRRR! -> chill the fuck out Dumbledore, fuck.

this

Burny face Sirius is here to save the day! Slash give irritating advice.

Order of the Phoenix

Thai food in my belly. Also cider and chocolate. I discover harry potter wiki and get lost for about half an hour.

CAPSLOCK HARRY!

Emo Harry!

Snake Harry!

All the Harrys

YES! Helena Bonham Carter is here!

Oh god Neville’s backstory #myheart

Hipster Dumbledore travels by exploding phoenix… you’ve probably never heard of it.

Sunday

Mmmm the day begins with crepes. God I love making crepes. But I love eating them even more. Om nom nom nom nom.

Half-Blood Prince

Considering how serious some of the subject matter is, this film is really quite hilarious. Please see all Slughorn intreactions, Cormac McClaggen and Lav Lav.

FOOD BREAK – this weekend has been almost solely food, when it’s not been Harry Potter.

Deathly Hallows Part 1

The fort has claimed our black forest chocolate for its own. It is gone. The fort gods need their sacrifices.

“Mad-Eye’s Dead” – such an awkward line. “Guys… um… old stumpies’ dead”

BEST MOUSTACHE EVAAARR

Deathly Hallows Part 2

The chocolate is back!

Wand law is confusing.

FUCK YEAH NEVILLE!

I discover via the wiki that Dumbledore was 115 years old when he died. Holy shit son.

Oh god, Snape. The Prince’s Tale is so heart breaking. Stop breaking my heart Severus.

The epilogue. It kills me so hard that old Harry doesn’t say “It did for me” to Young Albus re the sorting hat. One little line Steve Kloves, you’re ruining my life.

Cool, so yeah I pretty much lost my mind for a while there. There’s like 17-18 hours of film there, if you’d like more evidence of my mental state, do check out my twitter feed from the last 3 days.

Next Sunday I’m filming a trailer for a webseries I am writing. Stay tuned for more exciting details!

33 Week Challenge Week 21: Do a handstand!

So I was that gangly child. You know the one? With limbs too long for their body and hair so whispy and blonde sometimes they looked bald? I tried lots of sports at school. I’m Australian, I never even once considered not doing sport – not until I was about 16 anyway. It’s just what you do. Even though I was shit at every sport I ever tried, I still did it. Netball, basketball, tennis, volleyball, teeball… and then there’s all the ones you did for P.E like touch football and hockey and LACROSSE for goodness sake. Shit. At. All. Of. Them. I remember a fateful P.E class where we did gymnastics. The horror! Flipping! Jumping! Tumbling! Other people seemed to be getting it; I was just sort of flopping about like a sea creature on the sand. Except the sand was a big blue mat.

Karate has changed a lot of things for me, as has running. I now know that I can touch my toes (sort of) and kick the air and not hyperventilate if I have to run for the bus. But I still feel like that gangly 11 year old. Especially because there is a mirror in the karate dojo. There it is, my too long, weirdly bendy skinny frame, draped in a white uniform, flailing and making me think words I probably shouldn’t, like retarded and spastic. Does it make it ok if I’m calling myself those names? Probably not. God my inner monologue is so politically incorrect.

Anyway, the whole point of these challenges is to try things that are challenging. So I decided to try and teach myself how to do handstands. That’s right, that gangly little child who couldn’t even do a tumble in year 8 P.E decided to try to stand on her own hands. What now?

It started with a lot of jumping late one night, and also a lot of groaning and holding my knee after landing on it. But then suddenly one of those jumps felt a lot more handstandy. So I kept practicing. I fell over again. I gave up. I went to Newcastle and thought no more about it.

Both my housemates are amazing at things like this. They have both been dancers, and Samara coaches rhythmic gymnastics (and is amazing at it too). So I asked both of their advice, and showed off what I could do so far. Samara taught me where I should be putting my hands, and how I should be stepping into it. The jumps became even more like handstands, but still not quite. Amy suggested I try one against a wall and then suddenly….

I did a fucking handstand.

There is not much more exhilarating than setting out to do something you think is impossible, only to find you are doing it. Or maybe it was just the actual rush of blood to the head, but it felt great. I did handstands for my housemates. I did a handstand for my rather hungover friend Tim. I did a handstand for Boyfriend in Charleville via the magic of skype. I obnoxiously did handstands at my karate class. I did handstands for my parents and siblings. My 14 year old brother and 8 year old sister were so impressed they asked me to teach them. And now I am expecting a call from my mother any day now wondering why I thought that was a good idea and do I want to come meet them at the hospital?

I got mum to take some photos, she said “you look even more disproportionate upside down”. Which is kind of true. Also I don’t care because I can do mother fucking handstands bitches.

the moment I realised my little shrug thing was not going to stay

it looks like I'm leaning on the wall a lot but I swear I'm not really. Also shut up! You don't know me.

the rather graceful return to earth

My dreams of working on Doctor Who as a stunt person grow ever more achievable! 

33 Week Challenge Week 19: Write Something Every Day for a Week

There is something fairly amazing about having the inspiration to write. I think perhaps I spend 98% of my life in a permanent state of writer’s block and the other 2% in a state where I think of so many things it’s hard to get it all down. I have ideas while I’m sleeping, I have ideas at work… I get most of my ideas in the shower actually. I like to think that it’s 98% writer’s block and not 98% unimaginative, but I suppose it’s a possibility.

So, I’m pretty sure it’s not in my original list but I have been thinking for some weeks now that I should make one of my challenges “write something every day for a week”. And when sudden inspiration hit last week, I made myself do this, and I couldn’t be happier. 3 characters had already fallen, not fully formed but I would say, fully loved into my mind a few weeks' prior. One character in particular makes me so happy. Firstly, I never write lead female characters for some reason, and here she is, a wonderful, excellent girlperson all ready for me to send off on adventures. Secondly, she is from the future. I was worried that I had started to write some sort of River Song fanfiction at first, but no, she is her own self, her own person, and also she has smiley faces on her shoelaces.

When I was younger I started a couple of “novels”, and they would always inevitably turn out horribly. I am quite good at coming up with snappy, opening moments, I am the queen of first chapters… and then I would just flounder. I’d know about 5 major plot points I would want to happen but I had this bizarre belief I had to start at the start and plow through to the end. I’d dawdle by trying to write character descriptions of characters I hadn’t even written yet and plot arcs that I had no control of. Disaster.

Then I turned to poetry. NEVER read the poetry of your youth, if you wrote it. You will come to hate your teenage self with a passion. My teenage self was obsessed with long, rambling lines of poetry sandwiched between bad rhyming couplets. I don’t know what she was doing, but it was rarely good. It got a little better, but I never really enjoyed writing poetry anyway, so I’m not really sure why I tried.

It wasn’t until a few years ago that I discovered the joy and wonder that is comedy. WHY had I been trying to write deep, emotional things when I could be writing puns and hilarious gag characters? (For those playing at home, please see Grumpy, the friendly dwarf). And yes, I turned to play writing. WHY would I write tens of thousands of words when I could write ten minutes of frivolity? Especially when Underground Productions so kindly accepted not one but two of my scripts into it’s short play festival?

And yet, when this idea fell into my head, I knew instantly that it was a novel, and I also knew that some bad things were going to happen, and some things might be sad or unfair. But I also knew that it would have moments of comedy, and also that the tone wasn’t going to be sad and dark and gloomy. I have placed my main character out of her time, and this leads to some pretty amusing encounters with people, objects and things that my readers, but not my character, are completely familiar with. Also, my other two characters are kind of an amusing pair of petty criminals, and I enjoy their banter greatly.

I recently posted this excerpt on my tumblr, it’s one of the first things that came to me. Yes, I had the idea in a Laundromat.

***

Terry opened his eyes. His forehead lay on the filthy tiles of the Laundromat, a piece of lint playing gently in a breeze near his left eye. His right felt puffy and sore – she’d punched him. Oh God, the knitting needle. He looked down. It was still embedded in his leg.

“So. You be taking all the shinies from the washing boxes?”

Her boots came into view, the laces had little smiling faces on them at regular intervals. They looked at him. He found it difficult to match their gaze.

“You be taking the shinies no? Those shinies not for you to be keeping.”

Her accent sounded normal, but she spoke all wrong. It irritated him.

“Why are you talking like that? Stop it.”

She kicked him. “Why you be talking like that… like you be from the moves”.

“The moves?”

“The moves! The movies.” After a pause she added,  “the films,” but the word seemed to sit strangely in her voice, as though it had never been there before.

Terry stared up at her. She glared at him fiercely from within a pile of scraggly, blonde hair. Dirty blonde his mother would have called it - sort of a dull colour.  But it framed her young face like a lion’s mane, and gave her a presence he found intimidating. Or perhaps it was the knitting needle she’d imbedded in his thigh, he suddenly thought – one of those.

***

In fact, quite a few things came to my mind in that Laundromat. It was the week I was knitting, which is quite an amazing way to have ideas can I just say. You turn a lot of your brain off, but you also leave a lot of it on… and some of that is the creative part. It’s kind of genius, really, which is why it’s so tragic that the first line that popped into my head was:

“There’s a girl sitting in this laundromat and she’s knitting!”

Genius, Lizzy, really inspired. I can’t imagine where that idea came from, can you? But really though, what was important was the voice that came with it, the man’s face that appeared, the backstory that started to form.

What was also important was that I knew that while I had dreamed up a fairly exciting and interesting scene, it didn’t have to be the first chapter, and I didn’t have to follow linearly, or know what was going to happen next. I started this week with nothing, and I’ve come out of it with 4000 words. I did this by sitting at a blank page and writing headers like, The Girl doesn’t like Coles and The Girl finds herself somewhere strange. Then I would look at that header, and ideas would start to flow, and I would write punchy, opening-esque scenes to go with each one. One day perhaps I’ll have 100s of scenes like this, and I’ll start putting them in order, and there’ll be joining up scenes and auxiliary characters and you know, a proper plot and it will all look lovely. Or maybe I’ll continue to write disjointedly and all over the place, and that will be a narrative feature I shall use to tell this tale. Who knows? The point is, I feel like I could go on doing this till the 2% runs out, and maybe even increase it up to 3%, or 4. It’s been a great week.

I take way too many of these photos in my pj's.

Just quickly, I’m going to TiNA (This is Not Art) in Newcastle in just over a week and I’m pretty smegging excited. Alex and I are going to meet with our faces and I’m going to volunteer in some capacity and I’m going to go to a million events while I’m not volunteering and I’m going to stay in a youth hostel in a city I’ve never been to before and it’s all going to be amazing. I can tell you with honesty that I would not have done this before this year, before these challenge blogs.

Also, a shout out to Eloise Kemish and Kath Chown who are both ladies I don’t really know all that well but who have recently told my face that they read and enjoy my blog. It really means a lot to hear that from people, and I thank you both, and every one else who secretly lurks on this page for lurking, and for reading and for validating my existence. You guys are all the best.

Also to Alex, who wrote the best blog today. It made me smile while processing timesheets at work, which is an unthinkable thing.

33 Week Challenge Week 18: Run the Bridge to Brisbane

Spoliers

Well, fuck. I just ran 10km.

Last year I would have told you I was allergic to exercise, now I’m an orange belt in karate and just ran the Bridge to Brisbane. It’s an identity shift of epic proportions.

This is actually one of my biggest challenges, because far from being a weekly thing, I have spent considerable time training for this one. I’ve endured shin splints (one of the worst pains of my life) and I’ve run in a storm. I’ve become psychologically connected to the same 90 minutes of music to the point where I’m not sure I can run to anything else. More to the point, when I hear those songs in other contexts, I can’t be sure I won’t just drop what I’m doing and run away. Sometimes, that’s all I want to do.

I actually enjoy it. Well, that’s a stretch. I enjoy the feeling you get afterwards, and the feeling you get after certain little wins along the way. A few weeks ago I was aiming to beat 5km without stopping. I was running through New Farm, exhausted, and had just about given up. I was only a block from home and I honestly didn’t think I could go any further. Then, the little voice in my ear said “Time: 35 minutes, Distance: 5.05 kilometers” – I literally whooped. If that feeling wasn’t good enough, the look on the face of the jogger passing me the other way made it totally worth it. Sort of stunned understanding. I’m pretty sure that was the day I then proceeded to run another 1.5km.

I apologise if this is boring you. It would have bored me last year. Lots of things have changed about me this year. I’m more spontaneous, I say ‘no’ less often. I make more time for myself, but I often spend that time doing more interesting things than incessantly scrolling my twitter feed. I mean I still do that too, but not always.

I’ve never been a competitive person, I mean, I’ll get shitty if I lose at monopoly just like anyone else, but I can drop it easily. But this year, mostly due to karate, I’ve been all about pushing myself to be better. Sometimes this means I get really angry in a karate class because I’m not as good as I think I should be. But then it means I try harder, run faster, or further, kick higher. It means I actually put in the hard yards and practice at home (unheard of… piano lessons, cello lessons, singing lessons, drama lessons, physical theatre classes, a short lived string of high-jump successes in primary school – they can all attest to that). Now I’m competitive with myself.

And yesterday, I beat my only Personal Best. I ran the Bridge to Brisbane in 1 hour and 12 minutes.

I have to say, I did get a little bit competitive… there was this guy dressed as Darth Maul a couple of meters ahead of me for the entire length of the course. He was wearing a plastic mask over his entire head, a full, black costume and knee length boots. Oh yeah, and a double light sabre. I was thoroughly impressed with him, but I kept thinking “if he can do this dressed like that, the least I can do is beat him over the line”. I just couldn’t catch him though. Every time I saw him, he was just that little bit too far ahead. And then, in the last 500m, I pulled something else out, and I practically sprinted. You bet your ass I beat Darth Maul.

 Using the wifi at work, hello river!

Completing this challenge also draws to a close another one, raise money for charity. I raised $300 for the Red Cross – thanks so much to everyone who donated. I’m now going to add my own contribution and send it off to them, I do hope they buy themselves something special, a new dress, or those special earrings they’ve had their eye on for a while. Or you know, foreign aid and needles… one of them.

33 Week Challenge Week 16: Make a kite that flies

The ancient art of kite making and flying is a beautiful thing. Before anyone ever worked out and recorded the physics and mathematics that go into making such a little thing fly so high, people worked that shit out in their heads and flew kites anyway.

It’s like when I was trying (badly) to do maths at school, and we were talking about parabolas. All these intense formulas and equations to work out parabolas, but anyone who has ever caught a ball as it comes down, knows how to intuitively calculate a parabola. Were the ancient kite makers the same? I’m genuinely asking, I haven’t done any research or anything. But did they just intuitively know how light and how strong a kite should be? Was it trial and error working out where the cross pieces should go? And those kites that look like dragons and stuff… amazing!

So, do you remember 2 blogs ago I said “next week I’m going to make a kite”? I note no one picked me up on it when I posted the knitting blog. “A scarf is not a kite”, not a single one of you uttered, “where the fuck is my kite?”, none of you said. Well, I *did* actually go out and buy all the things needed to make a kite. I now shop so regularly at the Mitre 10 up the street that the shop assistant there recognises me. We passed each other in Coles last week, he said hi. Anyway, I told him what I wanted to do and we discussed the relative merits of yarn over fishing line (I bought both…) and then I waited. It was Ekka week. Everyone who’s ever spent more than 2 years in Brisbane knows: it gets hella windy during Ekka week. Every year without fail. Until this year. Fail. There was a public holiday in the middle of the week, a perfect day, I thought, to make and fly a kite. But instead, it was kind of dreary and overcast and I decided to knit instead. It didn’t really ever get windy, and the drizzle turned to rain.

~But would I let my bloggeroos down? Hell no. I made a damn kite anyway. Now, I don’t know SHIT about maths or physics, and the whole idea completely daunted me, but for you, dear readers, I persisted. I found a website, I did the maths, I fucked it up and I tried again. I made a beautiful fucking kite, and then today… there was a slight gustiness to the air. ‘Could this be the day?’ I thought. I ventured out with my beautiful new kite. I went into New Farm park, and muttering, “screw what the couple making out on the grass think of me” I ran like a small child until my kite took flight. It tried to resist, but I knew best… and then. Then we were flying.

Here is a photo of my awesome kite:

Haha! That’s right. I’m a big fat liar. Everything from the ~ on is a big, fat lie. Remember how I said I would never lie to you? Yeah, that was a lie too. I do actually really want to do this challenge, but my life is really getting away from me at the moment. So many things! So many colds! So much TV to watch! I think I might like to write some other things on this too. Don’t worry – I’ll still be writing challenge blogs every Monday (even if I have to lie to get them done) but maybe later in the week sometimes I shall write about other things I think of, if I think of them.

When I do get around to making the kite, you shall all be the first to know. There is a massive piece of dowel in my room, as well as a small saw and all sorts of other bits and pieces, they shall glare at me until it is done. And I mean, when a saw is glaring at you in your own bedroom, you make the damn kite.

I had to cover my face. It's quite late. The zombie face has come out. Also, if you look really carefully, Disney characters are doing terrible things to each other in the picture behind me.

33 Week Challenge Week 15: Knit something and finish it.

Well, knitting (challenge no. 28, as suggested by Hilde)

It’s possible I’ve found my top boring-to-blog-about-unless-I-can-think-of-something-real-quick weekly challenge. First, I cast on, then, I knitted a row, THEN I pearled a row THEN I repeated the second and third thing, and then again, and again and again… after a while I changed colours. I mean… really. There’s only so much you can say. But let me take you back, deeeeep into my past, where this all began, and hopefully make something interesting of it.

You know how everyone has that teacher? That one amazing teacher who they will never forget? Well my primary school was populated by them. I had one shit teacher. And she was REALLY shit. It’s as if she got all the shit quotient to compensate for all the amazing teachers around her. I loved every single one of my other teachers, but there was only one Mrs. Pratt. She was the King, the President, the God of all the amazing teachers of my youth. Mrs. Pratt made me love geography, and reading, and writing – but also times tables and maths and other things I was hopeless at (it didn’t last, but still). She made me take pride in excellent grammar and spelling. She introduced me to a life-long love of random facts. Every week she would write 10 words on the blackboard and by every Friday we had to have researched those words to talk about. They were cryptic (for 9 year olds), and there was yet no such thing as Google, so you had to ask your mum and dad and your grandparents, you had to pull out dictionaries and encyclopeadias (HEY Microsoft word, don’t you dare tell me I spelt that wrong, I won the spelling competition in Mrs. Pratt’s grade 4 classroom with that word, I’ll fight you and your American ways!). If you were me, you pulled out your “Tell me Why?” and “Here’s More Tell Me Why?” books and you learned.

Mrs. Pratt taught my whole class how to finger spell, after we read “Helen Keller’s Teacher” together. This began yet another love of mine, and when I was 19 years old I went to TAFE to learn Auslan. She also, (and this is what this whole thing is leading up to, obviously) taught us how to knit. She had parent helpers, and we were divided into groups. And each week you learnt a new skill; knitting, sewing buttons, French knitting… and one other. I can’t remember it exactly… I think it had something to do with hammers and nails… I remember enjoying it immensely. My French knitting was 2 stories high by the end… we tested them by throwing them off the balcony.

So, I guess you could say, for a professional procrastinator, knitting is my ultimate, it’s the be all and end all… because, despite knowing how to knit since I was 9 years old, despite having fondest memories of learning how… I have never. Not once. In my whole life. Ever. Actually. Finished knitting. Anything. In fact, this afternoon as I was nearing the final row it dawned on me that I didn’t know how to finish! I youtubed it… it’s called binding off and is really easy, but the point is that having never made it that far… I’d never needed to know! Hilarious.

And now I have finished something! I cannot even describe to you how good about it I feel. Ok, yes, it’s  scarf, which is potentially the easiest thing ever to knit… but it’s a completed scarf, it is a scarf that is currently wrapped around my neck, and that is an achievement of the highest heights! I dedicate this scarf to Mrs. Pratt.

Funny story, we had a Mrs. Pratt, who was actually lovely, and a Mrs. Nice… who was also lovely. True story.

Photographs from the first knitting day:

We had to roll our own wool balls from those big loop things. It took some time. Here, Samara demonstrates how grateful we are to the wool gods, for their gift.

Here, I am demonstrating how this knot of wool looks a lot like a squid.

Hilde thinks it looks more like a wig.

 Scarf!

33 Week Challenge Week 14: The Hour of my Disconnect

Challenge Number 31: go a week without social networking sites.

Day 1 – Monday

4:30pmish – signed out of everything on my laptop

4:45pm – running late for a meeting, trying to sign out of everything on my phone while walking to a bus.  Holy crap! How do you sign out of twitter? I don’t even know! I’ve never actually done it.

4:50pm – on the slowest bus ever. I spur of the moment decide to just delete the apps from my phone. They sit there, wiggling at me, willing me, desperately to leave them be. But I delete them, furiously. And while I’m at it, I delete an infernal game that I have been addicted to for far too long, “Smurfs” – I suspect it’s like Farmville, except that the workers are blue. Honestly, it’s been ridiculous how addicted to it I am.

6:30pm – wish to write status “there are more interestingly dressed people on this bus than have ever been seen on Brisbane transport. Ever.” Don’t, obviously.

7:15pm – home from meeting, emails sent. Now what should I do? I know… I’ll write about the last 3 hours.

9:40pm just watched the Emma Thompson “Sense and Sensibility” for the first time. I wasn’t able to live tweet my experience so instead resorted to yelling “translations” at my housemates and friend, Mim. Also, I couldn’t stop laughing at things Mim said and wanted to facebook them. That’s my story.

Also, I had to sign in to facebook to get someone’s banking details they’d sent me in a message. I swear. I didn’t check anything, even though you bastards have already left me 11 notifications. GAH!

Day 2 – Tuesday

I had to log in to facebook again because I needed a photo I stupidly haven’t saved to my computer. So proud of myself, didn’t read anything, didn’t check any of the 1 million notifications. But still, it totally felt like cheating. It’s funny how much of my life is on that website, terrifying really.

On a less serious note, I’ve had the Macarena stuck in my head all day and I haven’t been able to get it in every one else’s head by occasionally tweeting “Aaaaay Macarena!” – well I guess I just did. Suck it bloggeroos of the future!

Meanwhile, I did everything on my to-do list AND am about to go for a run and there’s no one to validate my awesomeness. I think I might just start texting people on mass: “Hey friends, guess what? I did something kind of banal but I NEED YOU TO KNOW ABOUT IT IN MINUTE DETAIL!”

Day 3 – Wednesday

Today, I have actual withdrawals. Fidgeting, slight headache, and all I can think about is social networking. Seriously.

Day 4 – Thursday

Tragically – I’m kind of lonely. My housemates and boyfriend are really busy, and I don’t go to uni anymore and see one million people, so sometimes social networking is all I have. That’s not the sad part – I am so down with that. I love being a child of the digital era. But without it, yeah – I was lonely today. BUT THEN I saw a movie with Mim, who is amazing fun. That was pretty sweet. Plus people are texting me a lot more often this week so that’s kind of cool.

Also, also, on Tuesday I ran 3.5km and today I ran 4.5km. WITHOUT. STOPPING. I am kicking butts and taking names. I’ve also completed 2 to-do lists and finished some assessment for a certificate I am 6 months’ late to complete. So, it’s *possible*, I suppose, that social networking may, *at times* hinder me slightly. It’s worth noting, at least. For science.

Day 5 – Friday

I’ve been thinking today about that entry about being lonely. I’ve had as much, if not more social interaction with real humans this week. Definitely more, in fact - I’ve had two coffee dates, seen a movie, there was that Sense and Sensibility night, people keep texting me just to say something anecdotal or pleasant or whatever. And it’s been great. I think what I really meant was I was bored.  Sadly, yes, I clearly am getting confused between “lonely” and “bored” simply because I often stave off boredom by stalking friends, acquaintances and strangers on the internet, and this has made me think I am constantly socialising with people. This is not accurate. I quite like being alone, just so long as I can look at your photos from your overseas trip 3 years ago when I’m bored…

Day 6 – Saturday

I went to Toowoomba last night, and then picked up my little brother from a 5 week camp today out past Crow’s Nest. These are events I would usually like to document, but be frustrated that I couldn’t because a lot of the time I was out of internet range. But in this instance, I didn’t get frustrated even once, because I never intended to status about it in the first place.  Winner.

Day 7 – Sunday

I woke up this morning convinced that if today was the 7^th day, I must have miscalculated, and could definitely log back on tonight. But then I used my counting words/fingers and also some logic and realised that was far from correct. Obviously, when I said a week, I meant 7 full days, which means 4:30pm on Monday. The crushing disappointment!

No, not really. I’ve actually totally coped. And it’s fine. The one big thing I have gained this week is my mornings. I usually spend at least half an hour (usually more) on twitter and facebook in the mornings and am often late to work because of it. But not this week, I’ve been sleeping in! I’ve been ready on time! I got to work before the box office opened at least twice (achievement unlocked!) – this is a new and exciting thing for me. I am going to attempt to maintain it to a degree. The big problem is my twitter feed. I follow over 200 people, and it is very rare that I don’t see every single post from those accounts. As in, I check it last thing at night and then scroll through the last 8 hours worth in the morning. That is intense. And totally unnecessary. While I’m not about to stop checking my things in the morning (because I actually find it a nice way to start the day; connected, informed, and laughing at something Rob Delaney said) I don’t need to read everything. I have lists – why don’t I use them?!

Day 8 – Monday

Well there you go. Just under an hour to go and I feel fine! A successful challenge! And one of the easiest blogs to write.

I’ll sign back in at 4:30, but then I’m off to a meeting at 5:30 so I shall have to start trawling through all the exciting things I know you’ve left for me after that. And also post this blog! It’s weird, it’s like I’m talking to you from the past.

Also, this coming week I’m going to make a kite! Honestly, my life is so thrilling!

Lxx

33 Week Challenge Week 13: Make my own paper

Or, "How to Fail at (but have a great time while) Making Your Own Paper, a beginners guide"

You will need:

One pair of comfy pants (preferably owl flavoured)

Something to protect your carpet (given that you're using water later, you should DEFINITELY use cardboard, that makes perfect sense):

Something delicious to eat:

A good TV show to watch (I went with Torchwood, of course):

And this "Make your own paper" kit:

Now with added creepy children's faces for no good reason:

In the box, you will find all of this crap:

But you are missing a key feature, something to actually make the paper out of. On closer inspection of the instructions, you will find that you need to make paper OUT OF PAPER. So, go around your crappy share house and find any paper that you can.  Can't find much? Just use junk mail and envelopes from cards you received on your recent birthday!

If possible, use Umbridge's face:

Rip that shit up:

Put it in the bowl with some warm water. Stir it and let it soak until it looks like vomit:

Good. You're doing great! Now, realise that you were meant to put the plastic circle with the mesh in it first. Be irritated by this. Then, put the plastic circle and mesh contraption together, put it in the water, and then slide it under the paper bits like a ninja. You may need to swirl the paper around first so it's not all on the bottom. Pull the thing out. Now here's the tricky bit. Break the plastic circle. That's right, just sort of snap a little bit off it by forcing it too hard. That's the way. I know that's not on the instructions, but it's what all the pros do. Make sure you have ignored the bit that is in there about achieving an even spread of paper bits. Spill some water on your comfy pants. DON'T ASK QUESTIONS.

Take the mesh out of the contraption and put it on a tea towel, use the other half of the tea towel to fold over the top so it is all snug in there. Use the plastic roller thing to squeeze the water out. Break the roller. Throw it away in frustration. Leave over night. In the morning, as you left it in a damp patch in your kitchen like a tool, put it in the sun to dry. Make sure you leave it too long, so the pieces sort of come apart.

And now you're done! The finished "product" should look something like this piece of shit:

I know right?

Thanks for reading! Memo: This coming week's blog challenge is go without social networking sites for a week. So once I've posted this, no facebook, no twitter, no tumblr, no Google +, no blogger, no youtube, no nothing! See you on the other side bloggeroos! Feel free to spam me with things on all of those sites so I have something to liiiiiive foooor!

L x

P.S You can still donate to my fundraiser if you like! (Please do, otherwise the redcross might come and harvest my organs or something... they do that right?) http://fundraise.bridgetobrisbane.com.au/elizabeth_king_3

33 Week Challenge Week 12: Go rock climbing

So I celebrated week 11, and being a third of the way through the 33 week challenge by not doing one. I know, I’m now regularly breaking the first rule of blogging, which is don’t talk about blogging always keep content new and exciting so that readers are rewarded for continually checking back. Oh yes, there’s rules of blogging, didn’t you know? I am knowledgeable in, if not good at sticking to, these things now.

However, I DID DO a challenge this week! Oh my god! Amazing! Stop the presses and other stupid clichés no one has ever said! To no one’s surprise as it’s in the title, I went rock climbing this week with my mate and rock climbing buddy, Chris (not the same Chris as sunrise Chris – I’m collecting them).

Let me tell you a little something about climbing harnesses… while wearing one, everyone, male or female, looks like they have a penis. And that penis does not look comfortable. I imagine for the people who do have penises, the experience was a lot more painful than for myself, but still, I did have to endure a temporary sex change, so there’s that. Anyway, all harnessed up and wearing uncomfortable shoes, Chris and I headed off for an induction. This was unnecessary for Chris, as he is a pro, and frightening for me, as it only lasted about 4 minutes. The actual climbing part of the induction was fine. You know, tie this knot, climb a thing, lean back, don’t die. The bit of the induction that worried me was the belaying part, the part where I had Chris’ life (or at least his unfractured bones) in my hands. I think there was a moment when this also dawned on Chris. I think that moment was when he was as high as he could go on the induction wall. Spoilers: he didn’t die. I know, it would have made a more dramatic story, sorry.

So, shortest induction ever, but they all seemed to know what they were doing… and there was padding on the floor, I assume to protect us, not the floor.

Chris and I headed to the walls. There is a colour coding system; there’s heaps and heaps of foot/hand holds, but you’re meant to choose one colour and stick to it aaaaaall the way up. Each colour is more difficult than the last, smaller holds, further apart etc. I can’t remember the actual colour coding but this is how I interpreted it:

Yellow – Lizzy, you saw a very tiny child climbing this one, you should not, under any circumstances, be seen climbing the yellow ones.

Blue – Yes. You are a beginner. You should do this one and see if you can move up to purple later.

Purple – Never mind, you cannot move up to purple, ever.

Green – Chris can do this one. He is pro. Look at him go, like some sort of spider, or a monkey... actually a spider monkey is really accurate.

Red – NO

Black – no one can ACTUALLY climb this one. Don’t be silly. Oh my god, except that guy! He must be a wizard.

So yeah, blue it was for me. I was all over the blue. I was the bluest of the blue. ROCKIN the blue! Yeah! And then I tried a slightly more difficult blue climb. I got about ¾ of the way up and then… stopped. Chris was all “use your legs Lizzy! The legs!” And I was all “uuuuurrrrrgh” and “I have no legs, I am an amputee now”. I wish I could tell you some inspirational tale, you know, Eye of the Tiger started playing, and I found the inner strength and determination to pull myself up that last metre or so. But actually what happened was I whinged a bit and then Chris belayed me down.

So yeah, there isn’t much else to tell – we climbed, Chris better than me. And then we left. It was great fun, and because I was new, they gave me card to get me to come back for free in the next week. I hope I find some time to do that, but we’ll see. I highly recommend it, and I also highly recommend taking a buddy. In fact, you pretty much have to have a buddy, it’s a two person thing. It’s great if, like Chris, they know what they’re doing, but you could try it with someone who doesn’t know either; lose your rock climbing virginities together… romantic. We went to Urban Climb on Montague Road in West End. It cost me $30 for gear, shoes, membership and climbing and you can climb for as long as you want.

Chris took a photo of my ass me climbing, which was disturbing because it meant he took one of his hands of the belay, but then I did ask him to do it so yeah, enjoy:

 Leave comments bloggeroos! So I know you are not spambots trawling the internet for photos of my butt xx

33 Week Challenge Week 6: Failblog

Challenge no. 21: Write a page of news-relevant/topical jokes

Prime Minister Gillard met with New Zealand’s Prime Minister, John Key today, pledging to further strengthen ties with our Trans-Tasman allies. Gillard promised to continue pumping good, Aussie dollars into New Zealand’s tourism industry, in return for 5 more Lord of the Rings films, a pet kiwi for the lodge and a key ring that looks like a sheep.

Mr. Key said that Australia and New Zealand are like ‘family’, which is true - Australia is like a fat, rich, obnoxious aunt who keeps pinching New Zealand’s cheeks and forgetting its name.

Convicted murderer Judy Moran is in trouble after running over a fellow inmate with her wheelchair. This seems to me to be joke in itself, but here’s another:

My inability to complete this week’s challenge. Lol. Haha. Funny.

Yes, that’s right bloggeroos (my new name for you, I like it) – it is now 9:30pm on Monday and I have tried all week to write a page of news-related/topical jokes, and I have failed. However, that doesn’t mean I have to fail at blogging every week in June, I will still succeed at that one. I promise you (maybe).

So, my biggest problem with this week’s challenge is that I haven’t really been that interested in the news lately. I know, for some people this is a mortal sin, and for others it’s completely normal, but I do usually read abc news every day, and have some sort of knowledge of what’s going on in the world around me, but not so much at the moment.

My other big problem is that, when stuck, I decided to watch Paul McDermott’s GNW monologues on youtube for inspiration. All that made me do was go into a spiral of McDermott watching, and self loathing at not being vey good at what the GNW writers are great at. I spent considerable hours this week doing those things and not writing jokes.

My third problem (oh yes, this is just a list of problems. I failed the challenge, did you expect anything less?) was that I kept imagining what this blog would be like when I had finished my brilliant, brilliant jokes. I essentially started writing my triumph before I’d even gotten started. I even, sadly, imagined how I might tweet it to comedians for feedback. And how they would say nice things about me. Yes, it got that bad.

I really did think that the closer I pushed it to the deadline, the more the creative juices would suddenly flow, even though that’s never been the way I have worked well. I was hoping that some sort of brilliance would push its way out of my brain and onto the page before the deadline. It did not.  I hope you are not disappointed in me, bloggeroos, I guess I will defend myself by saying that the whole point is that I might not complete these challenges, and the two rather feeble attempts at jokes above at least count as starting; at giving it a go. I will try again at a later date to finish this challenge.

Meanwhile, my herbs have both bugs and rodents, and are now completely nommed to death. I am going to build some sort of contraption to keep the bigger pests out, and possibly install some poison-tipped spikes. Seriously, those are my herb babies, who do these possums think they are?

Also, I think the secret, biggest reason I didn’t complete the task this week is that my Doctor Who obsession continues without any sign of ceasing. As I write, I am currently half way through the third season and closing.

 Yes, I do always wear this hoodie - what of it?

33 Week Challenge Week 5: Sunrise over Sea

Challenge no. 15 – Watch a sunrise from Mt. Coot-tha

Well, I’ve seen a few sunrises in my time, but mostly from the wrong end. That is to say, in my youth* (for I am aged and nostalgic now) I stayed up late enough at parties to “shinerun” as some people I knew called it, to celebrate the end of a party with the sunrise. Most of the time, however, we were too drunk or too tired to actually watch the sunrise, and it was more sort of: “ok, the sunlight’s on the street, NOW can I go to bed?” I did once shinerun and watch a sunrise on a New Year’s morning once. That was pretty good.

*actually, I did this last weekend.

Again, in my youth, I worked in a Donut King and later at a coffee shop. Shifts started at 6am so depending on the time of year I may have seen a few sunrises, but a lot of the time I was in the shop before it happened, or on a train, and usually, still asleep anyway.

This Saturday just gone was the first time in my life I got up specifically to watch a sunrise. Now, in my more comfortable years, I have a job that starts at a normal time and a desire to sleep in as much as possible – it really has never occurred to me to *want* to get up for such a thing. I mean, how good can it really be? I’ve seen the sun. It’s all orange and glowy, how good can it really look when it comes up. And that’s the thing, it’s not really an event, we living in these modern times know it isn’t “coming up”, it’s not the gods deciding to let us live for another day by bringing the sun out of the underworld, it’s not a new sun each time. In fact, it’s not even going around us, we’re going around it, and we couldn’t see it earlier because we were facing the other way in our daily rotation. It’s the same sun as yesterday, as every day, it’s the same sun that’s currently weakly shining behind a bunch of clouds and doing nothing to warm my freezing house. Saturday morning wasn’t special, it was just another orbit, another rotation, in a cycle that’s been going on for billions of years. 6:35am was just the time that the sun shone on Brisbane again.

Can you tell I’m an atheist?

Look, the point I think you know I’m trying to make here is that it was still beautiful anyway. That’s what I love about not believing in stuff. I find the very nature of our orbit and our rotation and the sun itself beautiful. I don’t find it beautiful because god made it so; I find it beautiful because it is.

You know what was not beautiful? My face at 5:30am… which is when I woke up. Somehow, even though I knew I was getting up to see a sunrise, my body still couldn’t compute why it was so dark and why I was making it get out of it’s warm blankets, and then, much to it’s horror, outside to get my hoodie off the line. Before 7am my body and brain are two separate entities. This produces what I like to call my ‘zombie face’. It’s a sort of dry, yet drooling face, with whispy hair and a droopy eye. It’s the kind of face that makes my loving and long-term boyfriend say things like “for a pretty girl you really can be really very ugly sometimes”. Boyfriend has seen this face a few times. One time we had a flight to New Zealand that we had to get up at 5:30 for. When he tried to gently wake me, I punched him in the nose. The face had taken over.

This is a photo of me at 5:45 in the morning, I appear to have hidden most of the zombie face by raising my eyebrows and trying really hard, but I can see that it is still there, waiting to scare small children.

So I drank a tea in the dark, donned as much warm clothing as physically possible, and tried to wash the zombie away. Chris, my sunrise companion arrived and drove us to Mt. Coot-tha for my first, deliberate sunrise watching experience.

And yeah, it was beautiful. For those who know the geography, despite Coot-tha being a fairly poor excuse for a ‘Mt.’ we could see all the way out to Moreton Island and the ocean beyond. The sun came up there, and despite (or perhaps due to) the thick cloud cover, we saw massive beams of sunlight hitting the long white dunes out there. It looked a lot, as Connor, another sunrise buddy said, like Jesus was walking on the water out there. Unfortunately, he chose the wrong side of Moreton Island to stage his second coming, so no one will ever know. There was a mist over Ipswich and out to the Dividing Range that slowly lifted as we watched and a reflection of the sun’s light on clouds out to the West. It was genuinely, well worth the effort of getting up and subjecting others to the zomb.

Here are some photos I took on my phone:

And here are some actually good ones Chris took:

 this one is amazing

Connor and I looking at the thing

wow, right?

Good Morning!

An amazing added bonus was that I then had a whole day in front of me. We ate breakfast at the café at 7:30am and I was home by 8. I was so very awake for my karate class at 10 and by midday decided I would use the time to watch the entire Eccleston season of Doctor Who.

Which, I think, leads me into a couple of quick updates about some other challenges I have recently started.

Becoming a Doctor Who fan is coming along nicely. Ok, I’m fanatical to the point of being dangerous to myself. Since my last blog post I have watched the entire 5^th season. Here is my reaction to the final episode:

Episode 13: The Big Bang

Tiny Amy – hello!

If there’s no stars, is there a sun?

Time travel is fun!

Seriously, fuck off Dalek.

Ooooh, Sun explained. Thank you.

“It’s a fez, I wear a fez now.”

Ooooooooooooohhh

*cough* the bride’s gone crazy

Doctor in tails!!

I think that was the best thing that’s ever happened to me.

After this, I fought with myself about going on to the 6^th, made the decision to instead go back to the start, watched the whole first and half of the second seasons. At this point, I sort of don’t want to do anything else and am wondering if there is some way to get paid for watching Doctor Who. I had to use significant will power to write this post instead of continue watching. I’m not too worried though, this sort of obsession is normal in me, the need to watch it at all the time will fade, as it did with videos of Neil Patrick Harris, Paul McDermott, The Doug Anthony All Stars and Harry Potter (the books, don’t worry). I’m still a massive fan of all those things, I just need to O.D. for a while and then it will become a part of me, like those things did.

Yes, I know.

Growing and looking after a herb garden nearly fell apart when I discovered that something had eaten all the tops off my seedlings. Seriously, the looking after part is so much more difficult than the planting them part. Like children, really. I put off dealing with this for a few days and then went to the hardware store. I wasn’t sure if it was bugs or possums/rodents but it seemed easier to try killing bugs first, so I got bug spray. Spraying this on my herbs led to the surprising discovery that there were a bunch of, now rather unhappy, bugs hiding in the dirt. The herbs are doing ok, but I keep forgetting to water them so we’ll see how they go.

Writing a blog every Monday for the NYWM is going fine; this is the second of four that I need to do in June, so half way there! I feel sometimes as though I’m cheating, as some people are doing things like writing 1000 words a day or finishing their novels. But at the end of the day, I actually love writing this blog, and this challenge thing has been really excellent for me. Making the commitment to NYWM has helped me stay on track and the Monday deadline makes me feel like I’m a real writer who has to produce material every week…. Even if it is about my zombie face and the earth’s rotation around the sun. I hope you’re enjoying it too.

Stay classy, bloggeroos, stay classy.