i think i enjoy the lead-up to christmas so much more than christmas day. is that a bad thing? i'm not sure it's always been that way, but people were talking about their christmas plans today and i realised how much i love the shopping centre decorations and christmas cards and all the other pre-christmas stuff, but also how average and uneventful christmas day is. obviously, the cause for the celebration is by no means average or uneventful - i don't think you could ever put jesus christ's birthday in that category. and maybe that's the problem - maybe i don't get excited enough about that and that's why christmas often doesn't seem all that special. it's just that we've never really made a huge deal of it. that sounds so unspirited and even a bit un-christian, by some people's standards. but that's just how it is. it's usually just the four of us, but we've had friends over once or twice, and one year where we had this poor lady and her little son over. we should do that more often. and last year i think we had an aunt over...i honestly can't remember. what is with my memory?! anyway - christmas day - dad works, obviously. christmas day is a pretty important gig for him - he can either draw people back to church or drive them away for another year! and there's always the chance mum might have to work too. we go to church in the morning; and again i honestly cannot remember which church i went to last year. my sister was overseas. i probably went with my parents to their church. on christmas eve i went to my church while my parents were at their's, but my new church doesn't have a late night service on christmas eve so i don't know where i'll go. maybe with my parents. oh it would be so nice and so easy to go back to my old church where i know what goes on and i know everybody...but i can't do that. anyway - after church on christmas morning we go home for lunch, and laze around doing who knows what for the rest of the afternoon. it's all just a bit...boring really. it does not feel good saying that christmas is boring. i guess i'm always just expecting that everybody else is at these huge colourful family gatherings with little kids and dogs running around wildly and christmas crackers cracking and beer and chocolates and teared wrapping paper and swimming and whatever else, and then half the people pack up and move on to the next gathering for the other half of their family, and so on, and in the evening they might end up at the beach or somewhere else nice, or end up staying home playing tacky holiday games or watching a movie, and the whole day/evening is filled with laughter and goodwill and bubbly aunts and uncles and merry times for all. not sure where i get that picture from, and i'm not even saying that that would be an ideal christmas day. who knows. the thing is, we do have a family get-together, but it's always on boxing day instead. we're a day late! the annual boxing day gathering used to be quite fun when we were much younger; the cousins all used to (well, all 4 of us...there's 3 others but they either didn't come or were too cool) make up plays and perform them for the adults...oh it was fun. they were usually murder mysteries, and being a bit of an animal-freak i'm quite sure i used to always work out a way i could be a rabbit or a puppy or something. otherwise i was usually cast as the detective or the waitress or the fish&chip shop owner. but it was always fun. but now the cousins are either married, or living in outback queensland, or have little tuckers to look after, or in the army, or in the airforce, or just too busy, and if they turn up at all it's either for a very short time, or if they stay for a long time it's still hard because when you only see somebody once a year it's sometimes hard to keep conversation going, even if they're your own cousin. there's a substantial age gap too (i'm the baby), so while i'm all about music and holidays and what-the-heck-am-i-gonna-study, they're all about career and kids and how-the-heck-am-i-gonna-pay-the-mortgage. tragic, and maybe the wrong way of looking at it, but that's how it seems. i do have 2 aunts that are really funny. they're good fun. so don't get me wrong - they're all lovely people. but we really just don't know each other. and i think, perhaps strangely, we're all cool with that. maybe we shouldn't be. but it does take away from the whole christmas-family-joyous-sharing thing. maybe that doesn't even exist. who knows. our family is definitely among the less close-knit families. i mean i would love to spend christmas day with a whole heap of friends instead, but i'd always hesitate to ever attempt to do anything about it because that's when everybody else seems to have their family get-togethers. no - we could spend it with a whole heap of friends AND families. heyyy. it could just turn into this massive gigantic gathering and we'd all have a great time. but that wouldn't work, because everybody wants to spend christmas with different people, so my plan wouldn't fit with everybody else's plan, and christmas isn't about being selfish. sigh. as i said, the lead up to christmas is very exciting. i love seeing giant christmas trees and those sculptured department store reindeers, and i love decorating the house with whatever i can find and trying to make our sad polyester christmas tree look a bit more cheerful (maybe that's the problem - we need a real tree! that would make it all better), and i love wrapping presents once i finally decide what to buy, and i love making silly little christmas cards, and i love christmas eve services no matter how daggy or solemn they can be, and i love the fact that the reason it all happens it because of god's divine plan, and oh there are so many things i love about christmas. i love all the festivities of the days and weeks leading up to it, it's just ironic that the day itself is the least festive of them all.


"if i let you in...giving you the key to everything of me...then you can trash it or treasure it...and sometimes i'm afraid which it will be"

beached it this afternoon. soooo nice. except i got a rash on my arm from the spindly grass on the sand dunes. we had some unintentional detours on both the way there and the way back; now we know our surroundings just that little bit better. when we got home i had about 15 minutes to shower, wash my beach-hair, wash my swimmers and get dressed for tonight, when we had dinner in the city, kind of for a friend's birthday. we had tapas at this cute spanish restaurant. there was a hen's night happening in the corner, and some very loud ladies came over and asked/shouted if we could help them with part of the hen's challenge. we couldn't. afterwards we went down to darling harbour and had ice cream. mine was white chocolate. i'm not a huge fan of white chocolate itself, but as an ice cream flavour it does wonders. the range of ice cream flavours is amazing these days - you can get green tea, pumpkin, lychee, black sesame, sticky rice etc. i mean you can just go crazy can't you. how about lasagne ice cream. or asparagus ice cream. potato ice cream. vegemite ice cream. the possibilities are endless. i'd caught the train in with a couple of friends, but we were offered a lift on the way back by some of the others. we had a bit too many people to fit in the car, so i (being the shortest) got to ride along in a special little spot on the floor between the front seat and the back seat. actually, i think i was more on somebody's feet than on the floor. twas fun all the same. if a bit illegal. as we were driving through the city, one of us spotted selwyn (a 'popstars' - the tv show - reject who does a cereal-packet version of r&b/hip hop pop, or at least he used to...he kind of disappeared from the music scene). i couldn't see him, all i could see was my knees and someone else's knees. but how exciting all the same. to see a musical sensation of that calibre. i bet you're all jealous. wow. i mean, wow. seriously. selwyn. THE selwyn. call the newspaper. we saw selwyn. seeeeelwyn. the selsta. what an experience. sorry - i should really be more supportive of the australian manufactured music scene. oh but selwyn for pete's sake!! anyway, we were dropped off at the station where our car was parked, and on the way home i got a lesson in manual driving. i didn't actually attempt to drive. my friend just explained it all to me as she was driving. i really want to learn, but i don't have a car to practice on. although i'm not actually allowed to drive a manual car until i've got my green P's. which i'm eligible for now, but haven't taken the test yet. maybe if i get them soon i'll get to practice on friend's cars when we go up to pearl beach in a few weeks...if they let me...

"fill the spaces with untouched places...fill the places with blanker spaces"

playing soccer with friends on the waterfront at milson's point looking out onto sydney harbour at night is such a beautiful thing.

"walk on" - u2

my parents are in tasmania, so everybody is welcome to pop over here anytime and join in with the drugs and the house-trashing. no, not really. house-trashing is naughty.

i hope santa brings me vulture street. how cool does that sound. it could so be some cool edgy lyric, that leaves people thinking, 'i wonder what she means by vulture street? do i want vulture street too?'. but really, and obviously, i'm just referring to the cd by powderfinger. hmm.

"seems the road less travelled...shows happiness unravelled...and you got to take a little dirt...to keep what you love" - tonic

damn. i'm generally not a competitive person. really. but losing to england...oh-ohhh-ohh. ok, so they did do a good job. they played well. we played damn well too. at least we shared our points around our players a bit ;) it's time like these where i could claim my mother's english-ness (she's actually a pom, but she moved here when she was a teenager) and say that since i have 50% english blood, 50% of me should be celebrating. but alas, no. although i do have a soft-spot for many things british, i am australian. and as such, i will grumble and whinge and bicker for the next 24 hours, and then i will be over it and move on.

"don't let your dreams be dreams" - jack johnson

last night i had a dream in my dream. what an experience that was.

but earlier in the evening, when i was home alone and very tired, i decided i could do nothing better than sit in front of the tv with milk and cookies and have a 'lord of the rings' extravaganza. but half way into the first one, decided i wanted to watch something light and hilarious instead. so i watched fawlty towers. that is honestly one of the best shows ever. so so funny. love it. damn good laugh.

it's funny how lots of people (including me) are generally not really into sport, but as soon as a world cup appears, we are into it like pamela is into cleavage. right now, i love rugby. in a couple of weeks i probably won't think much of it. but for now - go the aussies. all the way. love you guys. please win. otherwise we might not hear the end of it...

"never seen the sunshine...from higher points than sunrise...i don't wanna be lonely...i just wanna be alone" - silverchair

i did 2 stupid things today. actually, i'm sure i did more than just 2. but 2 come to mind:

1) had an exam today (which i hadn't really studied for...and that in itself is stupid...but i do that so often that it seems to have lost it's stupidity), so i had to make sure i definitely got to uni on time. i got to the station and silly me just assumed there'd be a train within 10 or 15 minutes as there usually is, but instead there wasn't a train for another 29 minutes. crazy. and that meant i would be late for my exam, as, stupidly, i didn't leave enough time to cater for emergencies like this. silly silly silly. i could not be late to my exam, but my parents were out and needed the cars, and nobody i knew was going in at the same time...so i was in a bit of a spot. i ended up getting a taxi. i felt so north shore. i didn't have to call it - there's always a few near the station, but it was exciting all the same. the driver was a classic. he had such strong opinions about the funniest things. we had a good chat. so it turned out fine...except it obviously cost a lot more. i got to uni 2 minutes late, but they let me in and it was all good.

2) during the exam, i was answering some question about the political and cultural changes during the 1960s and i mentioned The Beatles....and i had a shocker of a blonde moment. oh it's bad. as i was writing "beatles", i got distracted by the spelling of it; i'd always liked the way they spelt it; but....it had never clicked that it might be spelt that way because it contained the musical term 'beat' rather than just being conventional and spelling it the insect way. "ohhhh". then again, i just told my mum about it, and she didn't know what i was talking about. so, maybe, it's not meant to have that meaning after all....and really, instead of being blonde, i'm actually just a little advanced for everybody else. ha! no. i really have no idea. who knows. who cares?!

just a thought on the lyrics i put up....i put up lyrics (and they are all lyrics) that i like. i don't necessarily always agree with them or encourage what they're saying. other times - maybe most of the time - i do. but i might like them just because i think they're clever or fascinating, or beautiful or wonderfully abstract, or because they capture a feeling i've had, or because they present an interesting view on something, or simply because they sound good. so.....um....no...i don't think i have a point after all that. enjoy :)

"i can handle the fighting...it's the affection i can't stand" - jebediah

there are so many things i could comment on right now. but i think i'll refrain from doing so.

"if i'm wise i will walk away...and gladly...but sadly i'm not wise...it's hard to talk away the memories that you prize" - leslie bricusse

yesterday we went up to the central coast and gave out candles and car washes for free. it was a beautiful day. in lots of ways.

when we got home, my sister and i had this stupid conversation about how many acclaimed song-writers there are that start with the letter "j" (either first or last name). you've got jack johnson, jeff buckley, john mayer, jon bon jovi, james taylor, norah jones, john farnem, michael jackson, john lennon...and i'm sure there's heaps more. obviously you could take any letter of the alphabet and do the same thing. but it was amusing at the time. we were tired.

"i can't help but looking outside for a guarantee" - jeff buckley

however...something not so cute about little private-school boys is the whole knee-high socks thing. that is not cute. that has to go.

"i lie down and blind myself with laughter...a quick fix of hope is what i'm needing...and now i wish that i could turn back the hours" - the calling

something fun about living in this area is that you get all these cute little private-school boys who doff their caps at you when you're in your car and you stop at a pedestrian crossing. it's the cutest thing. it's so unnaturally polite and old-fashioned and gentleman-ish. or maybe it just seems that way because i'm not used to it and wasn't brought up with boys who were like that. the other day it happened again; this group of 11yr olds had obviously been at sport or something, they were looking scruffy and sweaty and weren't wearing their hats. as i pulled up at the crossing where they were standing, they started walking across, and though they looked all casual and didn't have anything to doff (?!), i still got a little hand-head-bow gesture of acknowledgment. so cute.

and how good are strawberries!

"and you don't know just what to say...once you make your plan you follow it just right...i know you never meant to let nobody down...you never feel the way i found" - pete yorn

there's a show on tonight called 'bizarre ways to die'. i think they might be running out of ideas.

"when you have everything...you have everything to lose" - ben harper

...and....saw 'revolutions' tonight. it was cool. not amazing. but cool. as all matrixish things tend to be. it didn't feel like a movie though. it felt like just 'some more' of the last one. i suppose that's because it was. hmmm. we had the super-soft, super-bouncy, super-comfy, super-red recliner seats, which was such a novelty. they're almost too comfortable. and it was actually kinda weird having that much space. you get so used to less-comfortable, not-spacious public seating, that suddenly having heaps of room to sit however you like and being very comfortable is a bit of a shock. i felt like i should have been at home in my pyjamas. and the recliner feature was super. hours of fun. probably the most beautiful thing about the evening was the trailer for 'the return of the king'. SO excited about that. the trailer had my eyes watering. i think i may even cry in the movie. that's a big deal - i never cry in movies. i frequently say things like "oh that makes me cry", but i usually mean that in an emotional sense, not in a physical tear-production sense. but the trailer just got to me. the whole concept of 'lord of the rings' is just so......i don't know. love it. thankyou mr tolkien.

"on certain sundays in november...when the weather bothers me...i empty draws of other summers...where my shadows used to be" - counting crows

oh jack johnson is the bomb. he is floating so many boats right now.

"guess i'll walk down Still Street...and remember going somewhere"

finally got a jack johnson cd. really like it. quality chill out/mellow out/hang out/driving/beaching music.

after i'd payed for it at the sound counter and was walking out the front doors of target, the door guy checked through my shopping bags to make sure i hadn't swiped anything. he had to hold the cd bag to get a proper look at the receipt taped on the front (he was a tall door guy), and said "that's fine - sorry about the fingers" as he passed it back to me and stepped back so i could leave. it was then that i lapsed into one of those pesky muddlesome moments where anything that comes out of your mouth doesn't make sense, even though it does in your head. it seems to happen most often in cases like this, when dealing with a customer-service person or the like. i meant to say something like, "ta - no worries - see ya". but it came out more like 'tsnowreesyathnks". he may have thought i have a problem. or that i'm from another country and havn't quite grasped english yet. or maybe he deals with nuffys like me everyday and it doesn't phase him anymore. who knows.

"puzzle pieces in the ground...but no one ever seems to be digging" - jack johnson

some of the things to be done this summer:

* go to the beach!! yay!!
* go on a picnic and play touch footy and throw frisbees and eat yummy food and have water fights
* have a bbq dinner at somebody's house (maybe mine?)
* write a summer song
* have a games night (pictionary, taboo, spoons, scategories etc....all the classics)
* make a stupid video/photo book
* go on an adventure to somewhere new
* learn about something random
* collect more hubcaps and other fun things for my room
* send away for freebies (of anything)
* go on a massive op-shop hunt
* organise myself for next year...

that's a start. plus working, of course. and arts camp. should be good fun...

"i can't wait to figure out what's wrong with me...then i can say this is the way that i used to be" - john mayer

i was meant to go up to the shops to get a leonard bernstein cd for an assignment. i did get the leonard bernstein cd (which is awesome), but i managed to come home with a fat graphics magazine and a pair of jeans as well. not sure how that happened.

"there always another wound to discover...there's always something more you wish he'd say" - vertical horizon. that's the 3rd lyric in a row from that song (everything you want). needless to say, it's a good song, with good lyrics.

airports are such emotional places.

and, i think the past-tense of 'preach' should be 'proach'.

"you're waiting for someone to put you together...you're waiting for someone to push you away" - vertical horizon

being backstage is one of the coolest places to be ever. love it. it's such a rush. it can be so much more exciting than being on stage. the concert last night went well; personally i had some shockers, but i think i did a couple of things alright. it was so beautiful seeing everybody work so well together. so many people and so many talents...wow.....and so many people who could have been doing exactly the same thing somewhere else and getting paid for it.

been watching 'watership down' (that old film based on this novel about rabbits on this big journey) again. top movie. i was so taken with it when i was little. it intruiged me. it made me want to be a rabbit. and the seagull! oh the seagull. "YOU STUPID BUNNY!!" ahhh...you gotta love it...well, first you gotta see it, then you can decide whether you love it or not. i guess it's up to you.

anyway, i'm tired (though not as tired as some!!), my whole body is aching (it's like you're one giant bruise thats constantly being pushed - heaps fun!), and i have eyeliner remnants that refuse to budge. but it's all part of it - you want to be involved in shows and the like, then the morning-after symptoms are just part of the deal. and an awesome deal it is. i wouldn't have it any other way.

"somewhere there's speaking...it's already coming in...oh and it's rising at the back of your mind" - vertical horizon. mmm-mmmm.