ria_oaks

Still trailing by 19 votes... we're both progressing at about the same rate, so I probably won't win. ^^ Oh well, the other person's header is pretty awesome, so I can't really begrudge them. :) Just thought how cool it would be to have my art in a community header. Maybe next time. :)

On the plus side, a. I HAVE 96 votes, which is pretty cool in and of itself, and b. 2 people have called it "epic". Go me! *is proud*

Anyway, went to do some more work for that job I got through the guy on Bowen... have come to the decision (okay, it was never even a consideration, but still!) that I would rather shoot myself in the head than be an accountant. Holy FUCK, ya'll, it is frustrating and boring and blaaaaah. Does not help that I have no background in it (knowing how to take deposits and open bank accounts /= accounting knowledge of any sort...). So I was just kinda staring at binders full of papers, bank statements, inventory lists, sales records... trying to figure out what the hell the guy wants me to DO with it all, and trying not to let on too much to the woman here that I have NO FUCKING CLUE what I'm doing. ^^;; That was fun.

Well, I did my best at least, and hopefully they don't need any more... honest to god this entire thing kind of feels like a waste of time. *sigh*

On a more positive note... soliloloquyv arrives tomorrow!! She's coming in early in the day and will call once she's settled in, so I can come downtown to meet her. Very much looking forward to a familiar face. :) Oh, and can't recall if I posted about this already, but Mom might come down to visit for a few weeks after all. She initially decided not to because she didn't want to "cramp my style", and I told her that was ridiculous and to get down here already. ;) Well, if she can afford to, anyway, and if her work lets her...

And lol, speaking of family - Dad sent me an email this morning warning me about the swine flu. LOL that is so him, it made me laugh. ^^ Sweet though, I suppose - just typical dad worrying. Aww.

*twitch* Waiting for the announcement of the top 3 header choices on RBR... making me nevous. ;) I can't help it, I'm secretely competitive and I want to win!

In the meantime... got an email from one of my co-workers with updates on the branch, made me nostalgic and such. :) Inasmuch as I was ready to leave and didn't want to work there anymore... I still miss the branch, the members, and esp my co-workers. *sigh*

Working towards a post on the Great Ocean Road. Went through my 200+ pictures yesterday and I think I've chosen the ones I'll use. Soon...

Ran out of credit on my Internet (I'd just recharged $20 for 150mb of usage last time, not trusting the $100 recharge and wanted to give tech support some time to fix my account). Finally bit the bullet and recharged $100, and so far so good. Downloaded last week's TDS/TCR, thank god because I was getting twitchy not seeing it (just watching TDS last night had a calming effect on me, lol), and I checked the usage and I'm being charged at the correct rate. Yays!

(and of course, I finally get Internet back and there was no new ep of Lost this week! Woe. But we've got Supernatural tonight, so yay!!!)

Am at the St. Kilda Library now using their free wireless Internet, THANK GOD. *sigh* Used some of my precious Telstra bandwidth this morning to research differnet providers, and... they all suck. -_- Looked at Three because their deal seemed good, but evidently their coverage is shit (only in the major cities, and I'm hoping to explore the country/outback a bit...). And of course I'd have to pay $100 to unlock my USB stick from Telstra. Might do that anyway at some point once I've researched mobile broadband at home - I know Rogers has it... not sure if they have pre-paid, though, and I'd just want it for occasionally connecting to the Internet on the go (like on the ferry... oh god that would have been amazing). Gonna look into it and see if they use SIM cards and if I could just stick the card into an unlocked Telstra stick, in which case I'll unlock it anyway.

Aaaanywho. *sigh* I swear I've spent half my trip stressing over the Internet. ^^; At least I got out yesterday to the Harry Potter parody, which was fun. Though wish I'd had someone to share it with... it's not as fun when you can't turn to a friend after and talk about it. :( (ooh, and on an HP note - ya'll see the new HBP trailer?? So cool! (and of course, as I try to go find the trailer to link to it... I see how slow the Internet here is. SIGH. I'm doomed. ;_; I can' thelp it, I'm too used to fast Internet and lots of bandwidth. And okay, my Internet at home was shitty and unreliable, but at least I didn't have to worry about using up bandwidth by watching videos and surfing the web!)

Ahh there we go. http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/2009/4/16/now-online-the-full-trailer-for-harry-potter-and-the-half-blood-prince Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiny. Only 3 more monthes!! I remember in November, 8 monthes seemd like an eternity... but we're almost there! And I've gotta say, it looks good. :) Hopefully an improvement over OotP, which has grown on me, but still... wasn't that crazy over David Yates' directing. Meh. Anyway, HBP looks awesome. :)

Anyway... really shouldn't spend all day here, and don't want to - just came to check it out and see if they had free wireless. And they do. And life is good again. :) Think I'll try to come here for day-to-day usage, and I'll attempt watching streamed video which is hopefully okay by them (I mean, it's not like I'm downloading a 200 mb file via P2P...), and then TENTATIVELY try using Telstra again for the occasional download. I've heard their main problem is with the $100/6 gig recharge, so maybe I'll try the $80/3.5 gig one... which hurts, man, because the other one seems like such a better deal! But considering I was being charged at ~8 cents/mb accidentally rather than 1.6 cents.. yeah. They even told me that they have this problem with that recharge, and I saw someone else online with the same problem.

ANYWAY. I say for the third or more time. I... need to do something today. Hm. Actually may take a minute right now while I have free and relatively reliable Internet to do some *gasp* job searching! At least to research temp agencies and such. And to research volunteer opportunities in the country; soliloloquyv was talking about that possibility the other day, and it might be fun... she's trying to convince me that the big evil deadly spiders out there are cute, though. ;)

Should really make a post to my travelblog, too. Huh. Am lazy...

(my Rachel-geek icon seems fitting for this... lol. I am so addicted to the Internet...)

*eyeroll* Spoke too soon... I'm still being charged at the wrong rate for my bandwidth. Used 54 mb of bandwidth this afternoon i none session, which at the rate I'm supposed to have of $0.01667 per mb should be around $0.90. I was charged over $4. That is NOT ON, TELSTRA. -_- In retrospect, I should probably have waited until tomorrow to try downloading a large file - the woman at Telstra may have adjusted my balance, but my account may still be set up incorrectly and it may not be fixed until tomorrow. Though she never said, so who knows? I'll test it out tomorrow then call again if needed. Bleh. No Daily Show for me yet... :( More West Wing instead, I guess. ^^ And gotta finish my entry for the RBR header contest - it's due on the 20th. Yeah, I oughta be shot... should never get these thoughts into my head. Finished the drawings last week (in the end went for just Rahm and Obama - though about doing the pundits, too, but it would've gotten crowded...), but need to finish the wording (doing bubble letters... not very well, either, but hopefully it'll look decent) and then put it all together. I suck at design. ;_; I like the drawings I did, but putting them together into a good header? Ehehe. -_-

*headdesk* I just called the woman I'm supposed to be meeting with, for the work I lined up through the guy I know back at home, and evidently he had given her the impression that I was "coming at some point to Australia" and that this "some point" was in a month or so. So she was very startled to hear from me. ^^; And he only just contacted her a week ago. Oi. -_- I'm meeting with her tomorrow, but this isn't quite what I expected... he made it sound like it'd be a few weeks worth of work, and she thinks it's like an afternoon or two. And she's very busy with kids, evidently, and I gather she runs the business out of her home. *headdesk again* This oughta be interesting. ^^;

On the plus side, I'm all moved into my new place now, and it's decent enough. Nice to be out of the hostel and living in an actual apartment, even a shared one. The TV only has 4 channels, though, and doesn't seem to have the Comedy Channel. :( Oh well, that's what the Internet is for...

Anyway, since this obviously won't take long... better start looking for a proper job, stat. Bleh. Thought I'd have a few weeks. ^^;

*yaaawn* So sleepy... was convinced to go out last night by a group of Canadians I met at the hostel, and we stayed out until about 4:30am. o.o Went to two bars/clubs where they proceeded to drink a lot and I proceeded to have half a Smirnoff Ice and and glass to Coke. Heh. First bar we went to had, for whatever reason, Angel playing on a big projecter screen. Came in and looked up at the screen, went "isn't that Eliza Dushku..?" then the opening credits started and I went "omgWTFawesome". fIt was downstairs and they all wanted to go upstairs where the dance floor was so I didn't get to see farther than a quarter of the way through the credits, but just from the brief glimpse of Faith at the start I knew it was 1.18 "Five by Five". LOL I rock. XD XD And frankly, while I enjoyed hanging out with them, and the dancing was kinda fun for awhile, I would have been much happier downstairs watching it, even without sound. Lol I fail at being social... well, I like to be social, but in a "bunch of people sitting around watching cult TV" rather than a "get plastered and dance to 4am'' sort of way. I was going to bail after the first bar (we were within a block of our hostel on the way to the next bar, so I almost made it, heh...) but was talked into coming along to the 2nd place and having just met these people I didn't want to seem like a total loser... even if I am. ;) Forced myself to have fun for awhile at the club we went to, but by 3-3:30 I... kinda wanted to kill myself from boredom. 'Cept I couldn't really tell them that because it'd seem rude. ^^ Feigned tiredness (not completely feigned, either) but they all still had tons of energy (and were drunk, which helps) and I didn't want to walk back to the hostel alone (it's only 5-10 minutes along a major street, but still...). Thought about taking a cab, but... I dunno, I was feeling awkward and it was too fucking loud in there to tell them, and I don't have the number for the local taxi service, and... yeah, I dunno. -_- Anyway, finally got out of there just before 4, which immediately put me in a better mood. ^^ went to get some fast food, then went back to the hostel and collapsed until 12pm. Am still sleepy. And just.. do not get the appeal of doing this, still. I know I should be getting out and being more social and everything while here, but christ aren't there other ways to do it?? I just don't get how dancing (well, jumping up and down to extremely loud music) is fun for that long at that hour in the morning. Guess I'm just not into dancing, though, really... not drinking doesn't help, but I don't plan to start. ^^

So yeah, that was my night. ^^ Have done fuck-all today. Daylight savings time ended here today, so I got an extra hour of sleep before the free pancakes started. Yay. And have proceeded to sit around all day doing very litter. Had a nap this afternoon while ago. Watched Supernatural online earlier at a painstaking speed (every few minutes (or seconds, sometimes) it would stop to buffer... gaaaaaaaaaaah). Everyone's been talking about this ep the last few days so I was wondering what exactly to expect, but I really enjoyed it. The beginning was pretty funny - bit silly and overly meta, but entertaining. And hee at the Wincest shoutout. Rest of the ep was excellent, too, lots of great drama. Good ep, with a nice mixture of drama and comedy.

(and this is, like, practically my only SPN icon... wtf. It rather fits, though.)

*sigh* Taking care of booring but necessary business today. Called the airport and evidently my bag's been sitting in Melbourne Airport so they're going to send it over later today. Yay! :) I was just so relieved that they actually had a reference for it in their system - I gave my claims form to some guy in the domestic terminal, and while I assumed it had gotten entered on their system.. you never know. ^^

Anyway, next up is finding a place to live. I made an appointment to see a place later today, it's through a service which provides accomodation for backpackers/students/etc. It's a shared room (2 other girls), but I suppose it beats living in a (mixed) dorm with 6 people. They don't have Internet, though, so now I'm researching online about getting a USB Internet stick thingy through the various mobile/Internet/etc companies. Think it's gonna be kind of expensive, but otoh it lets me use Internet anywhere. Fuck, do we have that kind of thing in Canada?? Need to find out more about it. Pretty sweet.

(in the library right now, which is just down the road from the hostel it turns out. Free internet and at least it works, but so slooooooow.... been typing this up while waiting for a webpage to load. -_-)

Aaand, I'm in the airport! :) Yay for free wireless at YVR... am still kinda trying not to hyperventilate and panic (was doing so for the last 2-odd hours before leaving the house while frantically packing). Also trying not to cry again, already did when I said goodbye to my parents outside of security. :( Ya'know, on some level... I still don't think it's quite sunk in that I'm going away for 6+ monthes. ^^; I'm really just trying to take it one day, one minute at a time right now. Get packed, get to airport, get on plane, get to hostel... collapse... then see what happens from there. Yikes, never done anything like this. ^^ but it'll be good experience, I know. And everyone who's done this says it's a ton of fun.

Have yet to get my travel blog set up. Gah. Might just do it on LJ... I'll link to it from here, but want to keep it completely separate otherwise. Don't want people to be able to find their way back here from it... without some digging, anyway. ^^ Cuz my grandmother and former co-workers and such will be reading it. So... better keep them away from the Anderson Cooper porn, lol.

(and speaking of... I totally brought my pundit!dolls with me. ^^ They're so small, and I have tons of room in my suitcase still. Which reminds me, I need to post pics of them still. Here's a teaser...)

Yikes, what a busy week... and I still feel like a have a ton to do. *sigh* Was down in North Van most of the week shopping and getting ready - bought a suitcase, a new laptop backpack (much lighter and more compact than my current one), new walking/hiking shoes, and random other stuff. Am also preparing for the job I have down there and freaking out a bit cause I'm not sure I know what I'm doing. o.o We'll see... Meanwhile am also frantically burning backup discs of my computer and getting shows lined up to take on the plane with me. Gah. Trying not to panic. :) Approximately 48 hours to go. Holy fuck. o.o

(on the plus side, I was at my grandparents' house today setting up my TiVo for them, and they have Shaw Digital which gets MSNBC, so once it was all set up I got to watch a few minutes of Rachel Maddow. She's so wonderful. *dreamy sigh* XD XD Wish I got MSNBC...)

GAH, I just discovered that Jared, Jensen, and Micsha Collins are going to be at a Supernatural convention in Sydney on April 18th-19th. Less than a week after deciding to go to Melbourne first and booking my flight to there. Waaaah. :( I suppose it'd be silly to spend money to change my flight to just go to Sydney and start there, or to go to Melbourne then fly back up to Sydney for the weekend. Especially since the con is $150 per day. o.o And all the photo-ops are sold out. And autographs are $40 each for the main boys. I'm trying to tell myself it'd be silly and frivolous and expensive, but but... :( They'd be so CLOSE! And I was so close to starting off in Sydney in which case I would have been there! Sigh. Oh well... On the plus side, I've been digging around online and have found some Australian SF groups, OzScape 3 in Sydney in early June (mainly a Farscape con, it seems, and featuring Lani Tupu, Wayne Pygram, and Kent McCord this year... with more guests probably to be announced. Also a bunch of classic BSG guests because they're evidently doing a special classic BSG event this year, too, but I don't really care about that), soem Australian Browncoats groups (and I realized I could go to Can't Stop the Serenity in Australia this year! Last year they happened in several cities, so hopefully one will coincide with wherever I am... and realistically speaking, I'm probably going to end up planning my travels at least partially on when/where the country's SF events are. XD XD).

Anyway, there's a SF group that meets weekly in Melbourne, so I'll check that out - if anything, it'd be a good way to meet some people (and locals, not just other travellers...). Mom wants me to join fitness classes to meet people - instead I joing SF clubs. XD XD Though okay, I should do the fitness classes too...

Heh, you know... it just occurred to me that it's kinda absurd how I've been living in the same city as Jared & Jensen for the last several years, yet it takes me going halfway around the world to get the opportunity to meet them... and now I won't even be able to. -____- Oh wells. *sigh*