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

WE HAVE RUNNING WATER! It's not up to full pressure, but it's a start, darnit. A start that pleases me greatly! I am in a much better mood now.

Our hot water is still out because the broken pipe under our house means yeah...no. But whatever because RUNNING WATER.

Today I sat in the sun and I waited for a bus. I know. Amazing story. Fricking riveting. But I had on my Sirius Black t-shirt, I was listening to The Cure (greatest hits) and eating a chocolate ice cream cone and it was warm and yet windy and it was just one of those really nice moments where everything is just...nice.

Ice cream. Sun. Robert Smith. And Sirius Black apparel.

Awesome.

And then we had roast chicken and mashed potatoes and Alina was here and we watched Easy A which was hilarious and Ariadne was cute and it was all terribly lovely!

Went to the beach on the second and actually went swimming which was AMAZING! Apparently the first time we went tot he beach though, I forgot I HAVE IRISH SKIN and I didn't put sun block on. God I am amazingly stupid. I was wearing a tank top too, so like...all of my top half is burned to a crisp. And now my shoulder blade has a mosquito bite on it.

Fucking.Hell.

The beach is awesome though. I love swimming in the ocean. I played in the waves and got covered in sand and changed my clothes in a car park because it was awesome.

Today we had high tea at Sign of the Takahe which is like the coolest place ever. Then I nearly fainted from the heat so instead of going to the botanical gardens, we are hiding in the house where the air conditioner lives and watching Supernatural. YAY!

Today, Jayann and I went to Orana Park which was AWESOME. We bought special tickets to be able to see the lions up close and HOLY GHOST you should see this crap. They were all around us while we were in this cage thing and they growled and roared and fought over food and jumped up on the cage above us and AAAUUGGGH it was amazing.

These are not zoomed in. Even a little.

(This lady told a story about cheetahs too, and it was so happy and it made me cry because YAY happy cheetahs!)

( Photos and Videos of Lions and a giraffe )

The other night was one of the loveliest nights of my life. And even in my eventful and sometimes messed-up life there have been many fantastic ones, so this is saying something.

Woot texted asking if we watched to watch the sunset on the beach. The LFoD was watching Queer as Folk and eating, so we had to finish that of course (Brian Kinney says so) and so we ended up leaving just at sunset. The sky was brilliantly orangey-red and incredible and by the time we got to Sumner beach, it was darkish. Sumner Beach looks like THIS except the tide was out so you could walk all the way out past that nearly submerged rock out there.

For those of you who have not seen me on a beach, I regress to a ball of child-like joy. I grew up, at least in part, on the ocean. Wellllll on the Puget Sound, and we spent a lot of summers in Oregon and California. The ocean owns my soul. I ran into the water, not too deep because it's freezing, and played in the surf. And you see that big rock with the mast thingy on top of it? That has a cave under it, so we went into the cave and them climbed up to the top of the rock, meaning I faced two fears. The dark, and heights. And while we were up there, people were playing with sparklers and I didn't panic. HAH!

But...it was so beautiful, you guys. It was misty and the lights on the hill were SO pretty and it was warm and wonderful and just... kind of like this but darker and mistier and AWESOMER.

And since I had faced three fears, we figured why not another one. Woot drove us out to Lyttleton via the tunnel (AUGH) and we looked around there. It was lovely and peaceful and full of joy and RENT songs and laughter. Sometimes the simplest things are the best things.

Today I visited a Dylan Moran forum I hadn't been to since commenting in early October. Too many assignments. ANYWAY I found the most lovely comment ever. So I took a screencap.

( It made me all warm on the inside )

This is the same thread someone else was fangirling over Darker London and Peter on a while back. I made a post, but I have no idea where it is now. I love this group of people. They are so wonderful and supportive and awesome and that comment just made my freaking week.

So I dedicated a Dylan Moran bases post to them over on burlesque_show :D

EDIT: OMG MY GOD I didn't even think to check my inbox there! This has been there since MARCH or something... I feel so bad for not noticing but it seriously made me SOB with happiness.

( ILY )

Done.

(Now I just have to study for the exam. And, you know, drop off the research proposal to the Social Work office.)

Social Policy Paper on Mental Health Services in New Zealand word count reached. Now all I have to do is make it not sound disjointed which I am going to do AFTER going to a movie and out for dinner, because right now I am too close to it. I even finished the REFERENCING which I always leave until last because I hate stupid bibliographies.

Also, I got my tax return from Australia. And I DID get $3,200 for it. Holy crap on a cracker. But, you know...awesome! So then I bought some silly things off of Trade Me, but they were very cheap!

Now I only have a 4,000 words research proposal to do. It's due on Friday. I have a write up of a presentation I did on Wednesday as well, but those write-ups take very little time. There's another video exam on Wednesday and then I have to stand up and give a mihi in the Maori language (it's worth 5% and I am more terrified about that than the video exam which is worth 40% arghhhhh) and then this year is over.

God, it's weird.

I hope I win the auctions and then we can have Halloween-themed Chinese lanterns in the LFoD. YES THAT IS WHAT I BID ON DO NOT JUDGE ME!

Three assessments down today. I gave my cultural seminar and did the test I talked about. And I finished my cultural essay in record time, actually. And with 2,850 words! I am usually up doing those ones until like...5 am the night before when all the assignments are clumped together like this. This means I have time to start the craptonne of assessments due next week (...4...5?) tomorrow. And get my hair cut. And make chili. And remember not to die!

Oddly enough, I am feeling much less stressed about life in general. Whatever these herbs my mother told me to take for sleeping and stress-relief are, they're working a bloody treat. This is when I should be FREAKING OUT but the stress is at a manageable level which just means I am motivated not to slack. And I sleep through the night and wake up refreshed. For like...the FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE EVER. It's not an exaggeration. I'm serious. My mind turns off at night when it used to runandrunandrunandrunandrun...etc. This is so freaking blissful. And maybe it's a placebo effect, but who CARES, it's working!

I like this. I like not feeling incredibly unwell while slogging through this kind of crap. I still don't think I am doing my best work because I can't take as long on it as I want, but I'm dealing with that too.

Yay.

Today:

I won an exercycle off of Trade Me which I find WAY TOO EXCITING FOR WORDS OKAY because it's blue and I WON SOMETHING

It is my niece's birthday here (even if it isn't in the US yet) and she is wonderful :D

I got a Magritte userhead for this LJ. YES this is amazing. It's Magritte even if you can't really see that there's an apple in front of the thing. I love it!

Now I get to make a PowerPoint for a presentation which I get to use the Tim Minchin song 'Prejudice' for. Which is pretty damn awesome, I have to say.