double edged knife???

ok, not sure if that's even the right term but it's along those same lines, do you know what i'm talking about?? anyway, awesome news, got way more than expected back in tax, like i'm talking i got thousands and was expecting hundreds. so that's going to save me for some time, dad and i are currently working out the best way for me to use it. he thinks all on my credit card to reduce the amount owed, even though i'm going to use, i was going to put it into savings and keep some out to continue paying off monthly amount due. will probably go with his idea seeing as will probably still need to borrow a little bit.
the other side of all this was i get a letter from maya yesterday with invitations to her's and mo's 21st, obviously knowing i won't come but a lovely gesture, means a lot. anyway, she sent me a letter which i started reading then got distracted and didn't get back to until really late last night (where's this going you're wondering). so i get to the bottom of the first page and she mentions jenni (pronounced yenni, was a finnish exchange student i was close to during years 11 and 12) coming back and fancy that, like i knew about it. and for some reason i completely flipped. maybe too over the top but i was pissed. not at maya but about michelle and mona who've known for at least weeks and not bothering to tell me. or at least tell people not to mention it to me. then i got really pissed because i have people sending me shit and my own best friend still hasn't sent me a card for my 21st or a damn thing come to think of it. so now i sound selfish because i know she's busy and works heaps of hours and is now planning to move to darwin (prior to me coming home). this all sounds selfish. so anyway, i flipped, got mona's number, sent her a text asking her if there was some info i was spose to know, and she texts me saying she's no idea what info i want and then i switch on my other cell today to find that she's actually left a voice mail and if it's about jenni then let her know. there's no doubt a very valid explanation, maybe people didn't think to tell me because i won't be there for xmas or new years, maybe they just forgot because their lives are so busy. millions of reasons, but i got upset. so i've been stewing over it and ended up giving my anger to michelle, who has no clue about that. i know i shouldn't, i know i shouldn't even care so much, it's great that jenni is finally able to go back to australia which she's wanted to do since she was there but i just feel left out. again, selfish me.
so that's it. college was alright last night, i was tired though and am super tired today so think i'll just go down to my room after this and go to bed. oh but i went to matthew's school today!!! i went to do a math exercise with a pumpkin then carve it, my first pumpkin carving!!! and it was a great job too i might add!!! matthew really liked me being there and i'm going back in to give a talk about australia. it was great to be in there because i've never been in a first grade class room when i wasn't a student and it's what i want to do in the future, teach. obviously seeing as that's what i applied for.
anyway, will go now. hope all's well.

oh, i forgot to say - IF I FIND OUT SOMEONE HAS TOLD MY PARENTS THE ACTUAL DATE, ACCIDENTAL OR OTHERWISE I PROMISE TO WIPE YOU AWAY AS A FRIEND.

and the date is.......

i found out this morning my arrival date back home!!! and so now i'm thinking, can i trust you not to spill the date to my parents??? i've told them feb 19. i told rach feb 16, which is THE date. that's right. feb 16th i'll be back in aussie land. i fly out of san fran on feb 14 (the best valentine's day i'll ever have i think) and arrive in melb just before midday on the friday. was going to tell mum and dad the 21st then realised they'd take a day off work and it would be better if they had the monday off instead of the wednesday.
apart from that excitement not much going on. i worked yesterday, was so tired that i napped after i finished but was woken by kellie. i went and met them at the mall where i bought a top from gap for $3.73 - can ya beat that??? then last night we went and saw running with scissors. it was art house, none of the other au pairs liked it. i didn't mind it but think it was a dvd at home movie. then i had to drive 3 people home to three completely different places which i was fairly pissed at, considering one of the girls asked me during the movie so i couldn't exactly say no. it took me over an hour from the movies to finally get home. i was fucked. so have decided to fuck everyone off in regards to driving places. if it's not in my way on the way home or to where i'm going then i'm not going to do it. i'm sick of people who don't have to pay for gas but don't want to drive having me pick them up but not offering me anything in gas. enough of that rant because i'll get angry again.
am finally going to lake county museum today with kellie (picking her up, it's on the way). was supposed to do trick or treating but greg is here so i might not even do that which upsets me because i could've gone downtown, especially considering it's suck a beautiful day. will try not to get pissed at that as well because i think my anger brew is bubbling away, waiting to boil over (don't know why). so i won't get pics of the kids, might just get copies from pat. upsets me to know i bought my costume and everything but am only going to wear it once. nd that i won't be a part of it.
ok, ending this post now because it's gone from happy happy happy to me getting angry and sad.

just a quickie

now that's something i haven't experienced now for oh, say 12 FREAKING MONTHS. to be honest i don't know if that's the correct timeline but according to johnno it was a coupl of months before i left. maybe it was november, so maybe it's only been almost 12 months. anyway, enough of that.

i got lucky today, rather than starting at 9 to get back the extra hour i worked last night i started at 8 (first time in forever i haven't wanted a nap within an hour of waking, it was because i had 8 hours sleep) and pat had to take em and alex to get shots, so i thought i'd get from like 1-2 off, instead i get 1-4 off!!!! after i do this i'm off to lorey and keith's who tivoed (brilliant idea that is) ugly betty for me last night and i'm watching today. oh but i first must go and take the happy birthday poster from our last lcc meeting to ana. anyway, so now i'm thinking she's trying to cut hours for me so i'll be so extra willing t hang out on sunda for the trick or treating going on in gurnee. which i was going to anyway but wasn't planning on being very happy if i got stuck in the house handing out treats, although it'll be warmer there... blah. whatever. i shouldn't be mean. my positiveness in regards to certain things has been slipping. probably lack of new clothes.

oh, packed another box yesterday!! so for when i get from my vacation i have 2 boxes to send home, i literally can't pick them up together at the same time. could be an issue at the post office. i'm looking at what i have now and think the clothes i have should be able to get me through until when i leave (but i will be buying some more... can't help myself) so will send some winter clothes home in box rather than packing and taking it back to summer. now it's my scrapbooking stuff i'm concerned about, i don't want it to take 3 months to get home so i need to ensure i've got half of my suitcase dedicated to scrapbooking. so my pack will have all my clothes and shoes and my suitcase will have everything else. it was so good for me to write this down so i won't forget it.

now, any other news? oh oh oh! i'm talking to pagan last night (one of the aussie's i came over with who lives in nyc) and she's going to an 80's prom this weekend. she then informed me that there's one in chicago s guess what?!?! she gave me the website for it and i was like a big puppy, wiggly around, almost wetting myself from sheer excitement. so i called sarah who i assume spoke to lara and hopefully i'll know if they're up for it one night. even if we don't go to the prom and just go to the club.

that's all my news. speaking to home tonight, can't wait, with mum's new full time job we're getting less and less time to email, or she is anyway so i'm feeling lonely sometimes.

have fun!

blogger beta or maybe not

so i've changed my blog to 'blogger better' still the same, obviously, but somehow different... it does stupid stuff, i knew i shouldn't have changed. i've never liked updating things i use, it started with msn and icq, both of which i was happy with until i updated them, icq was the worse, whenever that was updated i swear i'd come close to have a heart attack from frustration. and msn was annoying cause half the time they took away the good stuff and replaced it with even shittier stuff that was shittier than the shitty stuff from before. make sense? anyway, so i did it with blogger and i miss the old way. if i hadn't have opened a gmail account i would never had contemplated doing it because i didn't have one.

anyway. short day today. finished at 2. yesterday was also a short day, only worked 3-8. on monday pat caled after she left saying that there was a house around the corner with a playhouse out the front that had a sign saying 'free'. so after putting matthew on the bus em and i waked aroun to look at it. keith ended up pushing it back home for me because i would've required a screw driver to take it apart, i couldn't lift it by myself and i had emily and the stroller. i'll let you see it. once back here pat took it apart when she got home so we could move it into the basement, where it is now.

anyway, today is one of those lovely crisp days so em and i went to park for almost 2 hours where we swung on the swings, put 'baby' down the slide and other park stuff. OH OH OH i finished my second scrapbook yesterday!!! already started the third and am going down to do more now. want to buy an album and do the d.c. one before i leave, i've got everything for that but the album. might get some more embellishments.

so i'm off. all excited!

hope you're well.

Halloween Party

Oh what a night!!! I had so much fun! There was a little slump half way through when I didn't think I could stand up but I soldiered on. If I wasn't outside having a 'breather' then I was on that dance floor!! Can you believe it - I was on that dance floor when it was practically empty!! At the beginning, you know how no one wants t be the first to dance? Well hell to that I thought, It was only a 3 hour party and due to our non English speaking limo driver we lost 15 minutes of dance time so I wasn't going to waste any.
Sarah, Kel and I did Australia proud!!! Kel won the best dressed and we broke out in an Aussie Aussie Aussie Oi Oi Oi. On the way back to the train station I found out there was another Aussie there from Cairns, imagine the bloody temperature difference for her!!!

That's Kel and Me, like the hair?? I had a stranger come up and asked me if it was my real hair?!?! Best wig, except after too much dancing it was sort of coming loose... And my head couldn't breath so I was hot as hell.
Have just discovered I don't need the program I used to need to upload pics to my blog (it probably took me a while but ah well) so now you can see pics!!!! Oh, did I say I was the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow??? The pots lasted all of half an hour maybe, I should have clipped them onto my costume.
So yeah, good night, had a lot of fun. When leads me to a realisation... Now I am, and believe me when I say this, quite anti social. I hate leaving my comfort zone, I hate having to smile for people when all I want them to do is fuck off and really, people generally shit me to tears. My way of dealing with this is being a giant personality for people I kow and a total bitch to people I don't, and the bitch is because I don't know what to say to them. Freak. Anyway, I've had two awesome nights of recent (The Fray was an awesome night, another night od dancing!) and both times I made the conscious decision prior to me going out that 'I am going to have a fun night'. I've literally said this out loud to myself when getting ready. So my previous idea that having no expectations means you'll have a good night has been trashed, plus I never had a good night. Being alone without the support network I hide behind back home has been good for me, I'm more positive. America has made me positive!!!

Oh now, can't remember (can I ever remember?) if I mentioned that Chantelle might be possibly coming over to travel with me for a couple of weeks in Feb but there you go, I just mentioned it. And now I'll update you and tell you that's pretty much in the bag. Tash is going to visit her in Perth then I assume the day Tash leaves Chany is getting on a plane over here. Can't wait!!! When I went over to Perth last year and stayed with her I had a blast, we had our little argument (she was getting too much for me when I just wanted silence) then got over it and had fun. That trip to Perth with Chantelle and Alyica was a good trip. Anyway, so yeah, we'll go down to Orlando (Disney World and Kenndy Space Centre!!) then up to Atlanta and across to San Fran where I'll fly out of. Which means I'll have seen everything I've wanted to and more. That's crazy. Am already working on where I'll be going when I come back. Read up on Dallas and it seems like a cool place so that's on my Next-Trip-To-America-When-I-Have-Money list.

Anywya, gotta go, almost 1pm, still in pj's and want to upload pics onto Ringo from the last few weeks. And you thought I was going to say I was going to go have a shower and get dressed. Hope you had an awesome weekend!

universal thing

quick post as i'm pretty sure i'm going to be late to pick up dragana (new girl) and getting to kellie's, therefore just generally late. it's the cultural care halloween party tonight, have just finished my costume, did i say i was going as the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? god only knows how i came up with it because i'm not very inventive or imaginitive when it comes to dressing up. and even though it cost me more than buying a costume i enjoyed making it, very pleased with myself.
so, this universal thing i've discovered is saturday traffic. at home i hated going out on saturday's unless i knew i had a few things to do, plus i rarely did go out around midday because i was busy in my pj's or something. but today i remembered why i hate it. i worked for a few hours today, took alex and emily to alex's soccer, had a couple of errands and then had to get from one end of gurnee to the other pretty much. now it can take about 10 minutes sometime,s it took half an hour, including a 10 minute stop at mickey d's through the drive thru, i should have just schlepped us all inside for how long it took but couldn't be bothered to carry emily and lunch back out to the car. traffic was a general nightmare.
anyway, that's all from me as i need to flatten down my hair to put my wig on!
hope you're having a super dooper weekend. will update tomorrow night hopefully!

just remembered i forgot to check something. anyway, moving on. absolutely no bloody news. i had one day off, saturday, and had a mini disaster occur in the morning when i discovered there was a form i didn't fill out for my uni app that the actual uni wanted. and so i missed the deadline but hopefully will make it into the late applications which i'm figuring is going to go against me finding out if i got accepted next month. which means more waiting. so this affected my saturday by causing me to go into meltdown, write home telling them i had to call them again and to go through the forms i needed them to get copied and certified and then rushing to the post office before it shut. after that freak out i went to michaels (craft stor elike spotlight, not an actual boy) and bought a t-shirt and fabric paint to make my rainbow pat of my halloween costume, did i tell you i'm going as the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? that was a bit expensive. went and did scrapbooking later only to discover i've actually ran out of photos that i'd printed off and need to do that. more money. AND then i had to go back to michaels to try and find something on australia because i was doing my multicultural day page (from when i went to alex's school, remember?) and of course they had diddly squat. i then did nothing saturday night and on sunday i worked. it was emily's party, very fun, and then i got the mothers of all migraine's, and knocke dmyself out with two mersyndol nights and woke up this morning. mind you, i was on the comp last night, all be it not feeling well. and i only had two cigarettes on account of it making me more sick. so it's monday, i've already worked two days and i have another 5 to go. but i finish work at 2:30 tomorrow and don't start until 12:30 wednesday. should be a long enough break, i plan on either hiding downstairs or being out of the house for most of that time. no reason why, i just need downtime. oh and they focus so much on homesickness in the first few months of being here that either i'm strange or they never mention what occurs in the last few months when you're just busting your arse for time to go quicker and for you to be getting on that plane to go back. going now, i'm cold. i hate chicago weather.

I LOVE THE FRAY!

i had THE BEST night last night!!!! i went up to milwaukee with sarah, lara, patty and another of their friend's called andrea, and we hung out up there before the concert. aqualung supported them, they were good, but not that fantastic, their song which was on the oc had the biggest reaction but they definitely had a following. anyway, then the fray! oh my god i didn't think i'd love it so much. i forgot all about how sore my feet were and totally 'rocked'. best fun, best time. one of the best concerts. i didn't have enough cash on me to buy a t-shirt but i had so much fun i'm going to get stuff from michaels (a craft store) and make myself a t-shirt, it was sssooooo good!!! only sarah, lara and i went to the concert, patty sold her ticket to go to a bar with andrea. if i'd had a bad night last night then i would've been pissed with them because when sarah called to say we were at the car they said oh we'll be there in 15 minutes. 10 minutes passed and sarah called again, they still hadn't left. so we drove around the corner to mickey d's for lara to use the bathroom and for us all to get a thirst quenching beverage but it was closed, so sarah and lara walked across the street to use one at citgo (a gas station, the absolute worst) and when they came back paty had called to say they were staying up in milwaukee so we got our drinks and headed back. in the meantime i'd been talking to kellie, who was at grill 21 and i decided to drop the girls at my place where their car was and head out to libertyville. i got there and was so happy to see everyone, don't think i've seen anyone for about 2 weeks. it was rodolfo's birthday so i bought him a drink, we danced, had fun. it was just an awesome night.
then i come home to the basement a mess again (i cleaned it all up a couple of days ago and now i think it's sitting there waiting for me to clean it again - like hell) and the floor that leads me to my room and back to the basement door and bathroom has toys all over it so i kicked it all out of the way, i was pretty pissed off, and when i finally get to sleep i am woken this morning by screaming, high heels on the hardwood floor above me (beginning to think there's no insulation between the main level floor and basement ceiling), and then emily coming downstairs to my door calling out kelly. i didn't answer it this time, learnt from the last time. more and more things keep bugging me, i feel like i don't get the same respect that i give, and since deciding to go home these annoyances keep piling on.
anyway, will go. want to get dressed, clean myself up and clean my bathroom so i can begin my arvo of scrapbooking!!! yay.
hope your weekend was good!

news

So I've been holding off on sharing some news, because I had to ensure my parents knew first, after the last time I gave them a whole week to know... I am not extending and will be home in February as originally planned. Lots of reasons contributed to my decision but the main one was money. Whilst Pat and my parents were willing to offer me the money to help out with the extension and insurance fees I knew it'd be another thing I'm far too conscious about and desperate to pay the money back, gift or not. On top of that my credit card which we all know has been maxed out for a few months is causing me stress because to get money home without paying a fortune in transferring fees requires me to send a parcel. So if I go put $80 in the parcel I am spending at least an extra $20 on postage and insurance, not to mention whatever is in the parcel to send. My parents offered to clear the debt for me. I refused their offer, thanked them but said I couldn't accept it. I have been spoiled, I know that, but I know I don't have to let them. To learn about responsibility and all that I need to pay off my debt, otherwise the lesson might not be learnt. To add to the money my grandpa has been more sick than usual this year, which concerns me and whilst if someone dies during my initial I can live with that, but if something happened during my extension and I had never been 100% sure about either decision, to stay or go home, I would end up very upset with myself. I know we can't control life and death but I can control where I am. If I was a 100% I'm sure I wouldn't worry but I wasn't 100% positive that I was making the best decision. Further from that, whilst Mum and Rach got used to me not being home in February when I told them I would be home in Feb Rach got really excited according to mum. I want to see Rach. I want to see my house, my room, my car, my family. I want to eat food with lots of garlic in it. I made a list of all the food I was dying to eat the other day. One thing I didn't put down but the thought consumes me is dim sims with plenty of soy sauce that my dad sometimes makes on a Saturday afternoon.
Anyway, I have to go down stairs and get ready for work. I am hoping that my lack of posts of late is because of the unsureness I was feeling about my decision and that I can get back to posting more regularly!! This weekend I'm off to Milwaukee to see The Fray so will definitely have a post about that!!!
Have fun.