Wel, look at me, all old an' stuff, La-Dee-Dah!

So yeah, I'm 21 now....well, as of yesterday the 29th of January anyways. Yay woop-woop and all the rest, now go back to y'newspapers. 21 ain't such a big deal, just another year, nothing really happens, although the traditional (at least here in Australia) hype of turning 21 is considered the norm. Trust me, apart from the moment when I woke up yesterday and said to myself "hey, wow, I'm old now" (which makes no sense at all, I mean, I was only 8 hours older than when I'd gone to sleep), there was not much excitement, no party lights in my head, no great, ecstatic feeling. Just another birthday, kinda fun to have some extra attention, but otherwise....nup.

I went for a run late in the morning, although it felt early because of all the rain. I ran up into the hills behind uni, which was cool, I haven't run up there since before my last injury, about one and a half years ago. I decided as I was running that I'm going to have to do a video of going up there, it's very scenic to say the least.

Oh yeah, and I worked five hours today, so that was fun. I tried to get away with no-one at work knowing it was my b'day until one particular workmate (who knew, oh yeah, they knew) came in and not only spilt the beans to the others, but also to the customers via the P.A system haha, and I only had an hour to go too, so close!

From there, Leonie took me straight to my 'surprise' party (three people attending had already told me about it), which was really nice. I had a great time, family and some friends, and some awesome presents. One thing which bothered me was that I kept calling everyone 'dude', which is kinda unlike me.....who says dude anyway?! But anyway, I digress. Nick, my mate, got me some excellent books, one on the subject of life and linguistics in the Amazonian jungle, one on international Couch-Surfing (a cheap and very interesting way to travel as a tourist), and, of course, "Learning Japanese for Dummies", a 3 cd set with booklet supplement. I found these three presents extremely relevant to me, so Kudos Nick! ^_^ Thanks....dude! (argh, see? see? annoying!).
Mike, my big sis's fiancee, got me a golf simulation green (a long strip of artificial green with hole, slope and hazards included), and a really flash putter :) Thanks Mike!

Me demonstrating how NOT to hold a putter

Flo, my big sister, made me (upon request) a HUGE chocolate multi-layered cake, full of chocolate mousse, cream, chocolate icing, and topped with cherries :D:D:D Thanks Floooooooooo!

Flo's cake, YUMMMMMMM

Mum, Annie and Greg put on this massive, fabulous dinner which I just couldn't do justice (sorry guys), and gave me an egg-cooker-thingy, which is cool cos the hens are now laying 3-4 eggs each day, yummmmmmm fresh eggs! Mum also made me a cake, and it had my name on the top, written in whole almonds, yum almonds! Thanks Mum :):):):):)!

Mum's cake, SWEEEEET

Campo gave me a fishing magazine and an issue of the "Gold Mining Journal", which is good, because, um, fishing and mining gold are my favourite pastimes? Haha, but yeah I can appreciate the effort :) and every party has to have that guy who will inevitably, at some point, come up to you and say through giggles "hey, pull my finger" and guess what, I always pull it (that's what he said), just to see if something different happens this time :S. Ta muchly Campo!

both cakes, AWESOOOME

Dad couldn't make the dinner, but he gave me an electric-powered frypan and mini-electric frypan, which is cool because I have been wanting one of them for ages (our stovetop doesn't work except for one ring, and the oven doesn't work either lol). He is also going to give me something that he promised me about12 years ago. Not gonna tell you what it is, but when he gives it to me, I'll take a pic and post it on here k? ^_^
Oh yeah, and Mike, Flo, Greg and Mum, and maybe Fred too, I'm not sure because it was a surprise, made me a '21st' slideshow. ^_^ Feels nice to be treated specially to something like that, even though some of the pics were embarrassing shots of me hahahahahahahaha. Thanks so much everyone :)!
And of course Leonie was there too, looking pretty as a picture and all made up. She got me a novelty-sized card in the sahpe of a key which everyone at the dinner signed, which was uber-cool and nice of them (and of course nice of Leonie for getting it!). She also got me a groceries voucher WOOOOOOO FREE GROCERIES!!! I love practical gifts! Alot haha! :) thanks for making my day extra cool-tastic Leonie! ^_^

In other, I suppose less momentous news, today I found ANOTHER double-yolker in the egg batch. A double yolker, as it's name suggests, is ONE egg with TWO yolks in it. Fred took a video of me cracking it open, but I'm not gonna put a vid of that on youtube, unless it's part of a bigger vlog about something else as well haha.

Also in todays headlines, I enrolled in my fourth subject for this coming semester, after much umming and ahhhhing over which one to choose. I have now chosen Foundation Japanese 1, and introductory Archeology subject, an indiginous Australian anthropological subject, and then one I enrolled in today is called Anthropology of Violence. All sound at least passable, and some sound great fun :) so hurry up uni, get here quick, I'm a-wastin time here! What's the name of my Blog? That gives you some idea of what I mean.

So ja, that was my 21st birthday, boring to some it may sound, but just how I wanted it to be ^_^. Thanks to all those involved in the planning of the dinner, and thanks to anyone who wished me a happy birthday.

My next Youtube vid will be about the hills behind the uni, as I have until Tuesday off work and will be bored stiff haha.

Until next time, remember to keep an eye on your towel ok? :)

world's longest absence?

Been about a squillion years since I blogged. I've been bu.....sy.........ok fine! I'm just lazy of late...happy?!?! But here's a catchup as long as there are many filler episodes of Naruto (lol, lmao, rofl-copters :P OM YOU NERD).

Work hours slumped after Christmas and over new years for most of the crew at work. The higher-ups in the company decided to dole out enough money in the budget to cover the managers and a couple of ten year olds on $2/hour, so mostly everyone else got kicked out of the loop. But things have definitely started picking up again, Today I finished my fourth 8hour shift in a row, and so completing my maximum 30hours for the week(7.5hours times four=30hours, because we have a half hour unpaid break each shift that is longer than five hours)(it sucks that we casuals are only allowed a maximum of 30hours a week, else I'd be begging for a 50-60 hour week....I like minimum wage holiday money lol). All of this week myself and a little CCcrew ("CC" standing for Crazy Clarkes...just trying to make my job sound more street-wise and hip) have been moving shelf frames and assorted fittings from the back of the store to the front of the store, i.e. taking all the shite off the shelves in the gardening aisle and taking the shelves down to the front, and then loading all the personal care/beauty aisle stuff onto those shelves (make sense? yeah, me neither :S). This is tedious and made even more unenjoyable by our boss's boss, who makes an appearance once a day to tell us what we have done wrong, and what to do next. Then he comes again the next day and tells us to change the layout all over again (which was what he'd wanted the day before), and also what to do next. This has happened every single day for the last four days, which means we are pretty much still at square one, whilst he refuses to stay in the store and oversee the work.
But I haven't openly complained, and I mean, it's not anyone's fault in particular except maybe the really higher up management's for not spreading regional managers on thickly enough. Ours is in charge of not only his own store, but also about six others, which are not just in Townsville, but in several others as well (one is even out of Queensland, in Northern Territory (different to a state for those who didn't know, but I honestly don't know the difference)). So it's not his fault that he has little/no time to oversee our work on re-laying our store when he has to take care of many others as well. And it's not our direct managers' fault, because they are giving us orders the best they can with what the regional manager has told them (very little, and very open to varied interpretation). And it's not our fault, because our job description is not to show ingenuity or provide management input, and is really just to carry out simple orders given to us in black and white (although sometimes there are many shades of grey in there lol), such as "move shelf from here to there".....simple ey?
In other words, Everyone just tries to do their job, and everyone gets no actual work done in an efficient manner. But hey, I'm not complaaaaiiiining :P hehe.

On the home front, my chickens have, yes that's right, STARTED LAYING EGGS! o_o.....well, two of them have anyways. But that's still 14 eggs a week, and when they all start laying, that'll be 35 eggs a week, most of which I will be selling to a couple of people who've already expressed interest (my dad and my gf's parents lol). This probably won't make me any profit, but will pay for their feed, which is great, cos it ain't cheap :(.

It has been raining frogs and locusts here for the last week, as we have been catching the outer edges of a former cyclone (now just a Low), which was situated up in far northern Queensland. This has forced me onto the bus to get to work, which makes me feel lazy :'(. But it's drying up now, so all good.

All good, except that the rain has ruined our camping plans for this weekend. We booked our campsite up at Lake Paluma ( which is also Townsville's backup water source) about a month and a half ago, and I have been looking forward to it as it is my only REAL holiday planned these couple of months which is away from everything like uni and work and home lol. But to get to the lake, you must go first go about 40minutes north on the Townsville-Cairns highway, then proceed inland up an 18km mountain range (the exotic and wonderfully beautiful Paluma rainforest), then along an 11km dirt/gravel road. Seeing as it has been raining up in Paluma even harder than it has been here, and seeing as the dirt road only needs a moderate rainshower to transform it into a complete mud-mash, it is now closed until further notice. Damn bugger shit!!!!!! I am close to being minorly depressed about this turn of events. The last four days of being told to do, re-do, and then re-re-do the same task at work has really emphasized how much I need to get away right now, and Paluma was it. And now Paluma, well, isn't it.
Leonie has organised a backup camping place near Mission Beach (a holiday area up north on the coast near Tully), which is cool, but just not the same. I hate being fussy about this, but it just sucks is all.

My last blog entry was about building the Little Silver Box, a wooden box that I've covered with tinfoil and strapped to my bike handlebars. It is my idea for a mini-series on Youtube about my favourite rides around town, and some info on where I live. Since then, I've posted one and a half episodes of "the adventures of the Little Silver Box", one being an intro to the box, and the half episode is of a ride up Castle Hill, a local landmark which is extremely popular to climb for people interested in fitness/social walking/cycling/running/sight-seeing. I don't really like how the first episode is turning out, as the box shakes too much regardless of padding to hear my voice properly, and makes the screen jitter about constantly. But if anyone's interested in seeing the vids, here they are:







If you can't see the vids above, then just go to www.youtube.com, then search for "little silver box" for the episodes, or "ensortion" for my channel :).

I have also made a vlog entry :O shock horror! It is really just a response to another youtuber's video, agreeing with him that the movie 'Amadeus' is AWESOME (it's my alltime favourite movie :D).

I watched 'Hotrod' tonight. It made me laugh soooooooooooooo hard, man I love that movie ^_^

Anyways, I'll try to write more regularly from now on, so my posts aren't ridiculously long, just like my appendages....what! I'm talking about my long arms and legs ;)

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