It's not a cry you can hear at night, it's not somebody who's seen the light...

Snow + New Zealand + Kitties + best friends + some Baileys (optional) + warmth + cameras = awesomeness.

I love this house.

♥

It's been a while since I did this! But Dylan is being interviewed by a New Zealander and he talks about the earthquake. And also I love him, as he is my favourite everything.

( Comedian Dylan Moran worries about earthquake victims but not popularity polls and his impending 40th, writes Stephanie Holmes. )

Totally depressed and feel like sobbing forever. Everything is crumbling and it's all very, very doomy and gloomy. Fucking earthquakes anyway.

I got tea in the mail though. Tea and also a mink blanket (it is not actually mink, it just feels like it) and more tea. So, you know. That's nice. But the blanket is black as my soul. Aaaand now I have that song in my head.

Rearranged my room last night. I set up my new bookcases and the kettle (muhahhahhaa room-kettle!) and now I just have to put the new blanket on my bed. When I have motivation to do more than just sit here and feel shitty about everything in the world ever.

The ground can stay still now, please? I have spent nearly a year writing 'stop it, Christchurch' LJ entries. They have to be as tiring to read as they are to write.

I was looking at photos of the tornado and storm damage in Massachusetts which is heartbreaking. But all I can think when I look at these photos is "...that looks about normal" which I hate.

But I live in Christchurch. And I see things like this every time I leave the house. And have now for coming up on a year. And I have such sympathy for what those poor people are dealing with and what they will deal with in the future. But I'm not shocked by the photos. I rode past dozens if not hundreds of buildings like those just on my way to placement every day.

I kind of miss being shocked. But I've been numbed to it.

EDIT: JUST AS I POST IT the biggest aftershock we have had since February happens. At least it felt the biggest and shit fell down and my bridge puzzle broke! (It goes back together easily enough)

And it did this.



So. What I meant was photos of crumbling buildings don't shock me. The damn earth? It still does. Fuck you, Earthquake. Fuck you.

This is what our central city looks like. Still.

http://eqstreetcam.co.nz/1001100170

If you click on play, it'll take you through all the streets. It's horrible.

So you see this aftershock report yes?

Leah and I had just gone to see Sream 4 (which I will talk about in a different entry so people can comment and not fear spoilers) and the movie had just finished. We just left the theatre and we were in the hall when this weird noise started happening and the floor shook and I was like "oh my god, are there people running around in...oh the vending machines are shaking...oh. OH." And then the fire door started to close. The really big fire door that locks people in to lock fire out and keep it contained? Yeah. And the evacuation alarm went off and we see this tiny girl who worked at the cinema trying to keep the door open so Leah grabbed it and leaned against it and I pushed higher up (I am way tall but this door was like three times as tall as me...) to hold it open so the hundreds of people still in the cinema could get out.

The poor girl was freaking out. She said, "I just got here!" Poor thing. So yes, Leah and I held the door for about five minutes until it finally stopped trying to shut. It was so heavy, my word.

Everything at home is fine! My cupboard doors were open though and I was like "Dammit, Ariadne!" until I realised the earth had opened my doors, not my poor kitten without opposable thumbs.

I am so glad the movie had just finished not a minute before that. The credits had just started to roll (I just realised I missed the picture credits but you know...whatevers...)

So now I am eating roast. Good day!

I had a dream that I had this great idea and I was going to write a book with pages marked A, B, C, D or E. All the A pages were a novella for one character, and all the B pages a novella for another character and so on. Since novellas are novels with one main idea and novels have several main ideas coming together, the book could be read for any of the five novellas or as a whole. There were unmarked pages too, meant only to be read if the book was read all together, as the blank pages tied all the separate novellas together.

It sounds like an awesome idea but yeah, I'm not that clever.

I did, however, get to the bank today. This pleases me greatly. And I bought two more pairs of fingerless gloves because apparently I need enough to make a giant pile I can dive into. And I had dumplings at Riccarton.

I did worry that while I was eating, the shopping centre would fall in on me. But it did not. Which was kind of it.

One day I will be able to dye my hair again. I don't want to while we are still having water shortages, since my hair is so thick it takes about 45 minutes to wash out. But I miss my roots being red!

Large aftershock just knocked out the power. It was only out for like...five minutes, but that was five minutes of me panicking that it was starting all over again. And it seemed to last a lot longer. I checked the water and that was fine (thank Christ, I really didn't do well without the water), and then my fan came back on and I felt this ridiculous sense of relief.

I don't like this. This doomsday feeling that my life is on pause. Though I read that the area where my placement is might be opening back up, since it's in the inner city cordon now, but they're decreasing the cordon tomorrow. And I think they mentioned the area where my placement is. That's good because it means I might be able to go back to placement. But it's bad because it means I might be able to go back to placement and I don't know if I'm ready. On my first day all Hell broke loose. Kind of literally. Though I will probably feel this way until it happens, so maybe the sooner the better. I have to tell you, this is making my 'spend a few years in the UK after graduating and then come back to NZ' plan look all kinds of nice, even though I don't want to leave my people :(

When I do go back, I will be terrified the entire time, and it is no longer because I feel I will do a bad job. I am so beyond that now. It's because I don't want the world to fall in on me.

In other news though, I'm about to go have a sandwich. And that's a tick in the 'Good Things' column! And my head is feeling a little clearer. Maybe I can write something today that isn't historical fiction. This would please me greatly.

Also, my cat is an agent of chaos. Just so you know.

I don't know.

I posted a thingy on Tumblr last night which was metaphorical of how I'm feeling inside, even though I was talking about something else. It's here in case you feel like reading it. Behold how goddamn deep I am, you guys, omg.

I just feel really fragile. I managed to actually write something I didn't hate. In fact, I really love it. And that made me want to watch Michael Collins so I could Irish!historygasm. Yeah. If you're feeling fragile, watching Michael Collins WILL make you sob for two hours straight. Just, you know, FYI. But GOD that movie. I love it. It is so well done. And it amuses me to see Jonathan Rhys Meyers in one of his first film roles. Where he gets to use his actual accent!

I'm just worn out. And people keep asking me questions I have no way of answering and it pisses me off when it shouldn't. But I don't know when my course will start again and I don't know when my placement will start again and I don't know when real life will resume. We only just got water on at full strength and considering the way it's been going on and off for days at a time, who knows if it will stay that way. Some of the city is still without power and water at ALL, let alone the people who lost homes and families and lives. So yeah, I don't know when classes will resume again.

Stop asking.

You can buy a shirt to donate to the Red Cross Earthquake appeal.

In other news, you can be a fan of Tim Minchin and continue to enjoy Most Haunted. God this show is hilarious. It's cheering me up to watch them all act like idiots.