I've mostly moved to http://bloggity-ah.blogspot.com/
but i'll still be around LJ to read all your blogs and occasionally write terrible stuff that i'm too shy to post anywhere else (i've got a bit of history of that already here, see :P).

come say g'day over at blogspot, please! xo

To make these delicious glowing things (I swear the yellow is from the custard and not some crazy karma from a higher power / meatarians for not using eggs/cow juice), today I crashed together the following ingredients:

chocolate-raspberry cake
vanilla chai ice cream
boyz in skirts
hott girlz
randoms from the better part of my past
teh activism
joan as policewoman
room sized fridges to escape in
honky tonk pianos which almost sound like elliot smith with a squint
chai on tap
amazing!hugs
lack of scurvy!vegans
screenprinted walls
unshaved feminists
shaved feminists (snogging the above)
general apathy towards mould

= i'm marrying wholefoods and having its lentil-scented babies

fucked up administrative buerocratic bullshit

-----> run to:

Deep Forest :'Sweet Lullaby'  (pretty much the coolest song ever, it span on SBS about a decade ago)

Now i'm back in melbourne i'm laughing at the way in which Muslims are often presented after living in Indo for so long where some of my close friends were strict Muslims / and or wore strict Muslim attire (read: loose clothes and jilbab though there were some who wore stacks of makeup and exposed necks which I always found amusing).

Women at uni here in Aus in my experience who wear the jilbab are often the butt of sneaky (and sometimes completely overt) stares that in Muslim countries like Indonesia are unseen for jilbab wearers. (mostly because when Indonesians stare they stop in their tracks, turn off engines and completely obvsiously STARE.)

 (My friend Bec when we were posing with a jilbab)

Heheheh

So - jilbabs / hijabs = a coloured piece of material wrapped around the female Muslim's head, more or less expertly arranged, generally to protect the 'modesty' of the wearer.
Variations include the classy 'twist' ending at the nape of the neck, but *gasp* showing a bit of neck
the 'lazy jilbab' which is like a pre-fitted jilbab almost like a sock, but larger and often slightly more attractive, shoved on in a second.
the 'trend jilbab' which entailed a colourful pretty piece of material in the latest fashion - often batik or i swear once a tye-die type thing.
the 'tent' which is basically the slappest laziest way of wearing a jilbab, often seen by 'tweenagers' forced to obey their parents in wearing it.
and the 'full jilbab' which is a really loose style covering the shoulders, tight under the chin and completely covering the breasts.

Hello gorgeous friendlies...
I've just started a travel blog for my overseas adventures.
You'll find it at http://www.xanga.com/travellingada.
Umm yeah. It'll be AWESOME.
I might still often write here, as I'm thinking pretty much everyone I'm even vaguely related to will read the other one.
See you there!
xoxo me

Really interesting fragmented sensory things....
Spoken Word as far as I can see (or hear it?) as a mix of prose and rap and passion. It's really great to hear even if mostly I miss the lyrics and just listen to the rhythm and force of people's voices.
Alice just told me about individual ear phone meets where all these people get together and listen to their own music in headphones and dance it out. A whole silent room full of thriving jumping individuals moving to discordant beats only they can hear.

I got my visa today in the mail! I was expecting a shiny holographic golden-ticket esque stamp but instead it's a pale coloured sticker. But hey, what I am talking about? Ghana seems glorious and full of colour and festivals and is going to be so bloody awesome I may just fall of my chair.
Also, I got a video about studying in Yogyakarta (where I'll be for 5months) and apparently staying in a student accom costs as little as $10 per month for the very basic accom. WHICH IS SO VERY RELIEVING. I'm now also going to 'Prague, darling' for four days where I will live in cheap hostels, water from puddles and the smell of adventure. Or most likely the smell of overused clothes and odd room-mates. but it will be BEYOND AWESOME.
>>>blah blah blah name drop of overseas places :D

THE FUNNIEST THING just happened.
So funny that although its 3am and I just walked in the door home from waitressing, I had to blog it and immortalise it forever.
At work we were cleaning out the dry storage room, and a co-oworker and I were moving maple syrup tubs from end of the store to the other - me naively pushing from behind. 
"Watch out! It's tipping" I cried but my cooworker was too slow - a 25L tub of gooey, golden syrup splashed all over me, drenching my shoes and soaking my pants, and wiping away any dignity I still had at 2am working for $13 an hour.
My shoes were thoroughly lubricated, and, aided by good ol' gravity, a 15kg box of soft drink in my hands, I started to do the splits onto the 3m radius mapled floor.
My supervisor finally stopped laughing long enough to take the box, and throw me some aprons.
Shoving aprons over my sticky golden pants I had a nice mini skirt look going on, then ruined the effect by flashing all in front of me with my trendy granny orange undies as I pulled off the pants under the aprons.
End scene me running halplessly to the car barefoot, hitching up my various 'skirts' ,and trying to drive out of the parking lot under the after hours rope that my friend held up for me.
As I ran I felt the jingle of my tip tonight - 70c in shrapnel - it was so worth it.

 A really interesting take on gender:

Practically every second pigeon you see is missing toes or a foot or limping pathetically. Everywhere you go.
How do pigeons lose them? I really want to know.
What do you think?

hooray!
internet connection!
and Fall Out Boy... :O 

Also. I saw Hairspray. I'm a sucker for musicals apparently. and the 60s. it was GREAT.
But it reminded me, I always longed to go to DIY kind of dance parties, not modern music but like swing. I picture underground emos. But it's a nice picture, no?
Maybe I should have a party where everybody dresses up in swirly skirts /whatever and flowing clothes and we just dance around to jazz and old music for hours? in ridiculus costumes perhaps. and swirly moustaches.
yes?

I'm raging and I have to get this out. I just watched Amazing Grace which was a pretty awesome movie which was about slavery in the 1700s and it just made me think about suffering and the depths people go for their own selfish greed.
After the movie all I could think about was the animals we raise in our society for meat. The voiceless cries of those in our society who suffer at the bottom of every heirachy except for those who happen to be cute or rare. (what's the difference between eating your dog and eating a pig?? Cuteness? Certainly not sentience.

If something reacts the same way we do to pain stimulus, it can suffer. If it can suffer, we have no right to infringe on it something that causes it pain. Might is not fucking right.

http://www.factoryfarming.com/gallery.htm

I am the last perfect person in the world. But just to ignore that such things occur because its too gross / hard to think about then keep giving money to such corporations is worse.

I've realised that I have hardly any idea what the hell I'm doing with my life. So this semester I'm planning to do more of what I love, be more involved in things, hopefully be less shy. I'm really wanting to do lots more volunteering in stuff, too.
Hannah and I found the most AMAZING coffee shop the other day, tucked behind that seven angels discount store or whatever on Swanston Street. It's literally a coffee shop in two shop windows, tiny tiny tiny. Like you move an elbow too liberally and three people lose an eye. You sneeze and the whole place trembles.
Also, nosweat shoes and clothing etc is having a sale. If I wasn't saving up to travel the world and etc etc I would get stuff, anyway its at nosweatstuff.com.au (buy any pair of shoes and get a high top pair in pink free). 'All orders need to include our promotional code; nsc002 Unless you enter this code, you won’t get the deals.' I do like their shoes.

i'm sure i've said this to you all before but for textbooks
www.textbookexchange.com.au
has quite cheap ones, you just meet up with people and pay them individually for their books.
Also, for english-y books there's a great bookshop on Bruswick st, Fitzroy (near the Vegie Bar) which has hard to find books quite cheap, IMO. and sometimes give student discounts. Called Grub St Bookshop?
Also, i'm finding that Camberwell Market is really fantastic for clothes, which is pretty convenient for me since I work there.
On Smith St there's a place called the Garage which from the outside just looks like a rusty metal door but inside there's all these individual stalls selling vintagey kinda clothes and stuff cheaply, if you're into that. Misty bought some really fancy red and white stary pants there.
a really awesome place with $3 tofu burgers is on Smith st, just opposite (the long-gone {dammit} ) pronto-brontos, at cnr Gertrude and Smith.

Hope everyone's enjoying their holidays! 
sending lots of lovin' xoxo

Hooray! I can't say how happy I am, exams are finally, finally, FINALLY over as of today!
Feels like it's been absolutely forever.

wow, fancy new subj ENH 1220 Worlds in Conflict: Empire, Margins, Difference

here's the booklist:

Selected extracts (Reading Pack)
Short Stories (Reading pack)
Defoe  Robinson Crusoe
Shakespeare  The Tempest
Coetzee  Foe
Conrad  Heart of Darkness
Achebe  Things Fall Apart
Selected Poems of Judith Wright (Reading Pack)
Grenville,  The Secret River
Malouf  An Imaginary Life

**anyone know any of these books? good/bad/indifferent? love to hear your op.
i've heard of almost all of them, but never read them.
the decision is between this elective and one called 'fantasy narrative' where all you do is study kids books from an adults perspective. hobbit, narnia, alice in wonderland etc etc. (edit: here's that booklist. i've read almost all of em.)
exciting stuff

L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
Roald Dahl, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Cornelia Funke, The Thief Lord
Neil Gaiman, Anansi Boys
William Goldman, The Princess Bride
Madeleine L’Engle, A Wrinkle in Time
C. S. Lewis, The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe
Philip Pullman, Northern Lights
Jonathan Stroud, The Amulet of Samarkand
J. R. R. Tolkien, The Hobbit