I cut all the straight hair off - my hair is dark brown and curly, the way it is naturally. Yay!
I tried to go without smoking today. I lasted till about midday. Ah well.
Tonight is Vanja's birthday dinner. I am setting myself a budget of $50 for the whole night and seeing how I go. I am going to order a salad with cheese in it, and take a bottle of water to drink!
How the physical went - well the beep test was easy, I could have gone past 7. Situps were a triumph, and pushups, well, I managed somehow.  ¶ 17:14 0 Comments

  Passed the interview. I was stressing over NOTHING.  ¶ 16:21 0 Comments

  Second AGM for 2007
Apologies: Mr Quelquechose A. Faire
1. I think I've got RSI in my right elbow, from surfing the net too much at Elgas.
2. Just watched Lost on TV.
3. Had peppermint tea instead of earl grey, because I had two coffees today so I don't want to overdose on caffeine.
4. I secretly hope the interviewers have found it in their hearts to forgive me for not 'selling myself' enough. (He said I should have talked about Taiwan more. I guess I didn't crap on about it, because I've already spent the last two years doing so.)
5. Am officially registered with two agencies, so there should be more work available.
6. I hope my First Lady-style french roll went down alright with the interviewers.
7. The recruitment guy said he'd call as soon as he knew, but I'm still going to call him at 4.30.  ¶ 15:16 0 Comments

  No longer Missing In Action

Had disastrous interview yesterday. Not going into it. They said they should know by today whether it's a yes or a no, so I will know whether or not to go to the physical tomorrow. I thought it was this morning, so I woke up at a quarter to five after going to bed at 8.30, and I left extra early in case I got lost on the way to Kellyville. I spent the hour warming up on one of the fields in between smoking and buying energy drinks. So it was ten to 8, and I start getting a bit suspicious as to why there was noone else waiting there. I asked the reception guy, and he informed me that it was tomorrow. I gave my best 'Oh My God How Embarrassing!' performance, then drove home through peak-hour traffic heading towards the city. Yesterday when I called to check if they knew or not, I asked him what the story was behind having the interview before the physical. Well, he said, I was among the applicants selected to have our applications fast-tracked. So this is a good sign. Also, if I were to succeed (which is not likely at the moment) the training course would begin at the end of April so if I got the go ahead, I would not be enrolling in uni this semester. But we don't want to get ahead of ourselves unless we want to see such a pattern forming...

Kuba is working all the time at the moment, so I'm not going to see him this weekend, but it's probably for the best, as I need to snap out of it, girlfriend.

Vanja's birthday yesterday. I got her a chocolate fondue set. I warned her against using milk chocolate instead of dark or cooking, but alas, she went ahead with it anyway, and we ended up with a sticky, solid blob of chocolate I did not care to try on top of my strawberries more than once.

You'd think I'd have more to say after I think more than a week's non-blogging. Well, I've got nothing to do today, (except read my new book, The Spy Who Came in From the Cold) so I will probably sit around reading and blogging and eating and reading and blogging.

Love,

Liz  ¶ 13:10 0 Comments

  There are currently technical diffuculties going on with the Lizwa blog site. The situation is a bit agoinsing not being able to read the daily adventures of the lizwadian girl. So it is me to tell you the news, because for some reason i AM able to access this. ?. Stayed tuned..............................  ¶ 18:04 0 Comments

  LIZWA PTY LTD ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 2007
PRESENT: LIZ, CEO
APOLOGIES: A VALENTINE

AGENDA:

1. Valentine's Day
I was going to get my fellow Valentine-less flatmate Vanja a rose yesterday, but they were ten bucks. So I bought a card. On the way home from Central I contemplated whether to pretend it was from an anonymous secret admirer. So yes I got home, wrote inside "Vanja... xx" and left it on the

INTERMISSION WITH KATE ON PHONE

doorstep of our appartment. I sat on the couch watching TV, waiting with baited breath for the rustling of plastic bags and the flip flop of her thongs echoing in the stairwell outside. Finally the time came. She paused, probably to pick up the envelope, while I mentally prepated myself, much like an actor would do before a big scene, to feign complete surprise and amazement. The door opened, I turned my head from the TV , like I normally do, and as I opened my mouth to ask her the most unsuspect of questions ("How was wor...") she stopped and asked, with a hint of knowing impatience, "Liz, did you do this?"

At that very moment, my Oscar performance was cancelled abruptly as I cracked and confessed to everything.

Valentine's Day non-celebrations were finished with her going to bed after us pigging out on BBQ chicken, Doritos, and chocolate.

2. Stapling Invoices:
The girl who normally does reception left 3 archive boxes of stapling sitting stagnant behind the desk for three weeks, knowing that I would eventually arrive (3 weeks later) to do it for her. Two days after I got here, the next two boxes were delivered to me, and I was asked to let her know when they were done. Nice girls, but bludgers, through and through. I felt slightly resentful. But this is precisely why I temp, my friends, so I don't have to PERMANENTLY put up with that kind of shit. Otherwise you would find me arresting myself for double homocide.

3. Books
I just finished that book I bought two weeks ago.
Is being moved really so much to ask these days? Where did my $22 go?


4. General business
In order to increase my IQ by the time I reach age 25 and my IQ plateaus, I bought a copy of The Monthly. It's a magazine about stuff. Anyway the writers are mostly academics if you get my drift. OK so I'm reading it, and I find that it's quite reader-friendly, and I also find that it's half-interesting! Not challenging enough, obviously.  ¶ 14:23 0 Comments

  My semi-psuedo torrid email lust-affair with George has reached a tragic climax:

Hello Georgios,
I am going back to uni full-time, which means I will not be travellingfora long, long time!
When are you coming back to Australia????

What a misery!! How can you do this to me, Lizwa, or, rather, to us??? Now, our love is bound to be fading a like a rose in a vase......well, ok, so what will you be studying? I´m not returning to Oz until...probably 1 or 2 years, ... By the way, how is your love-lofe [sic] doing?
Cheers
George

For those of you who are not in the know, George and I have been exchanging deliciously flirtatious emails for a while now, and made a date to shag when I was to pass through Deutschland on my way from Moscow to London. Emails like this:

I also need to tell you that people in Europe (also known as "the nothern hemispehre") don´t do hand-kissing anymore.We used to do that like a century ago. Only people from Austria are known still practicing this habit, and my dear lizzard, we don´t like Austrians, coz they are a three-nipple-inbreed mountain people, that speaks a funny German, and they gave us Schwarzenegger-- beat that.
However, in these days, we kiss women(some do men) on their cheeks, this way, we are closer to their brains, i.e. we can start our mischievious game right from the very beginning, hehehehehe.

I've been composing my reply internally for most of the day.

I will miss being a receptionist when I'm raucously rich and sickenly successful. When will I have the time for such frivolity when I'm earning $2000 a day?

(Not.)  ¶ 14:27 0 Comments

  This is my 495th post.
Out of all the posts I've written, I would estimate that less than 4% were remotely entertaining, 64% were complaints of boredom, and 99% were made up of the incessant self-deprecating nonsense to which I have become accustomed to writing. And there was irony in all but 2.7 posts.

Well, I'm going home tonight to chill out with my homies. I've been stalking Kuba all week so I'm not expecting to see him. I'm going to surrender my phone to Vanja so I'm not tempted to call him.

It's the weekend, which gives me the right to 'social-smoke' (a euphemism for chain-smoking) so I'll do that, and cook a tuna pasta extravaganza using 49c penne and a $1 can opf chunk tuna bought from Aldi.

Yours,

Liz  ¶ 17:01 0 Comments

  Here are the lyrics to my new song:

Oooh baby I've been waiting all day
Waiting all day
For five o'clock
Four o'clock came, and four o'clock went
And ooh baby I counted down the minutes

But then I found out
Oooh yeah
Then I found out
That I had to be here till half past five
Oooh, half past five.
Oh yeah.

Fa la la la la
La la la la
Half past five,
Yeah, I said half past five.
Walking to the bus stop,
In the rain
Was gonna go apply for a job in the city
But changed my mind
Ooh yeah, I changed my mind...  ¶ 17:09 0 Comments

  Trials and Tribulations.
So, definitely not eligible for Youth Allowance. A lady at Centrelink said if you're enrolled in a graduate diploma or certificate program you are still eligible. So of course I called the uni and asked if I could switch to the 4-subject grad. cert. version of the M Com, and of course I was quite excited to experience the ingeniousness of the idea. (It would buy me one semester.) But alas, everyone has to enrol in the M Com first, and then only if they decide to drop out after four subjects, do they get awarded the Grad. Cert. It's going from bad to worse. But he recommended I email someone else to clarify, just in case... So there is hope yet.
Dude, how the hell do people do Masters by coursework around here? Is everyone doing research on a scholarship? Sheisse!
OK just noticed a camera in the top corner. Picking my nose and printing out 6 copies of my resume was probably not the most crash-hot idea.
Kuba thinks I'm crazy. I am indeed quite crazy. Sigh.  ¶ 14:56 0 Comments

  Mad cackling reverberates down the hall as she puts down the receiver.
In her recent dealings with Centrelink she had overlooked the simple possibility that you can't get Youth Allowance doing a Masters or a PhD.
On top of that, her plan of doing five subjects was a bit awry, because there would be a timetable clash.
Here is the envisioned situation:
4 days of work per week
5 subjects
1 clash -meaning she would be behind in two subjects, all the time.
Now she knew how Kuba felt.
It was preposterous, but the allure of the challenge did not go unnoticed.

Worst case scenario: drop out after census date (and hopefully not live to tell the tale).  ¶ 10:58 0 Comments

  Day off continued.

Jogged to Coogee. The downhill run was so easy, I then and there decided I wouldn't even bother trying to run back up it. I think it only took about twenty minutes to get there, which is much shorter than I expected. 40 minutes walking back. So I think it's more worth it jogging Centennial.

In other news, I decided to ring SMEC just to see if I could talk to anyone about anything. (Who knows, maybe they'll like the sound of my voice? Maybe if I call them every week without fail it'll be one of those typical stories in which they give me a job just to shut me up! Wouldn't that be romantic?) What jobs there are, if they take graduates, with what experience, and if they had any resume tips. The receptionist was quite nice. Maybe I could take her job and work my way up! Hehe. But I'm guessing it probably wouldn't work like that. But this is what I have my eye on at the moment: click here

Lamb is cooking away in the slow cooker. Now I think I'll read. And get my money's worth out of the previously mentioned random CD I bought. I picked it out from the 'chill out' section.  ¶ 13:27 0 Comments

  Kate said my last post was very poorly written, which is true for most of my posts these days, so from now on, I am going to make an effort to write logically and think systematically. (Something the Usyd Chair of Chinese said I needed to work on... what happened to my brain at the end of highschool?)

This morning I woke up knowing that the agency would not call me with work. The chatter of Jochen and Shani in the kitchen aroused me at about 8.30 when I decided that my vivid dream of moving to the more expensive on-campus student appartments this year so that I could finally get involved in campus life (and put it on my resume somehow) and arrive at self-fulfilment, said more about my psyche than most dreams had in the recent past.
Shani and I threw around some ideas as to how I should spend my precious day off. Her suggestion that I should use the slow-cooker (8 hours) to make my lamb casserole/stew/concoction was well received, and I proceeded forth to the supermarket to buy the required veges. Finding myself absolutely fed up with crawling through the boot to open the car door from the inside, I resolved to call my sister Yasmin, and devise a serious plan of action to get it fixed, with the help of her husband Larry and his auto-expertise.
But now, I reveal a secret ritual that noone as of the present is aware of. Whenever I go to Royal Randwick shopping centre, I get a flat white from DCM. In the past, I would attempt to drive home with it, without spilling it. This worked perhaps once or twice. After the huge spill on my pink car seat cover, I decided to never again engage in such tomfoolery. The secret ritual involves doing the shopping, buying the coffee, then sitting in my car, in the car park, listening to music, and drinking the coffee slowly. It's not the most romantic place to be drinking a coffee. In fact this morning the heat in the carpark was stifling. But there you have my secret ritual. Oh, and there's something else - instead of taking the empty cup back in the car to chuck out later, I open my door, and leave it on the ground, for the cleaner top clean up. Mwah hah hah.
I have two more 'major' activities planned for the day:
1. Jog to Coogee and back, hoping that stopping at street lights, (there are of course none of these at Centennial Park) will not tempt me to stop altogether.
2. Read the new book I bought the other day in Balmain after most recklessly spending $30 on a random CD, called "The History of Love".
The the subject of love, in fact, recalls to memory my chat with Suitor #1, from that trip to Balmain. He told me he was writing a play. I asked him what it was about, and he gave the response to beat all other responses: "About love". That went down quite well, as well as a flat white in a stifling shopping centre carpark in Randwick ever could.  ¶ 10:21 0 Comments

  Well what a day/night I had yesterday.
Had the coffee date in Balmain. Was impressed. We shared a couple of laughs and I thought it went swimmingly.
BUt oh god, what a ]
TOTAL
FUCKING
FREAK
the second guy was. He was seriously fucked up. I don't know if he was trying to be cool or what, but when he got my screwdriver, he ordered a double. What a god I don't know how to say it, presumptuous, fucked up try hard. He crapped on and on, then apologised for crapping on and on, then continued to crap on and on. I sat there not paying attention to the utter crap that was coming out of his mouth wondering if I was game to crack on to him. So I said finally 'let's get a bottle of wine and go back to your house'. Now, my friends, that is just about the most forward I have ever been in my entire life. It was a waste though, because he didn't get the hint. We went back and played pool with his flatmates for a while, then he was overjoyed when we sat down to surf Wikipedia in wonder and amazement, after having talked about how we could surf the net at his house on the way there. Playing pool, I didn't touch him or even hardly look at him, because I was busy chatting up his flatmate, who is one of those smart, sexy/attractive, knowledgable, witty etc etc Americans with a sophisticated appreciation of good music and loads to talk about. We had a good laugh playing this game where you say what book, movie, and CD you'd take with you if you were going to be stuck on a deserted island for the rest of your life. For movie, I said The Blair Witch Project, which I thought was pretty funny, and cracked up accordingly. As for book, I said Anna Karenina, because it takes two months to read anyway.
Back to the freak, he asked me about my last few rsvp dates, and wanted to know exactly what happened, and why I didn't like them etc etc. I told him about the army guy I had a few dinners with, and the Freak was like 'so are you still in touch with him' as if he was the last guy I had anything to do with... He suggested I was 'using' Scott, my personal trainer, and I had no fucking idea what he meant. Freak. What else. Oh, the double shot in my drink. I knew straight away what he had done, so politely said it was too strong for me, and left it. After a short silence, he was like 'in case you're wondering, I didn't ask for a double.' I gave him the benefit of the doubt, and thanked him for clarifying that. A bit later, he raised the topic again, and said 'I did'. I said, 'I know, I'm not stupid you know' and then he changed his mind, and said he didn't. Fucking Freak. Did I mention the word Freak.
You see, it's utterly traumatic experiences like this that turn you off meeting random strangers from the internet.
And finally, before I left, he said ....

"So you don't think I'm a psycho, do you?"  ¶ 11:54 0 Comments

  Using Professional English in Emails
Chapter II

thank Liz,

I have let everyone know you availablity.

Will be in touch isf anything comes through

Amelia  ¶ 13:08 0 Comments

  So I emailed one of the people from the Chinese department asking about the textbook for business chinese. And he replied so vaguely that he didn't even answer the question, but mentioned that depending on demand, the class would be merged with an undergraduate class, which a) is gay because I am an all-superior post-grad student*, who does not deign to mix with under-grad underlings** and b) will probably be moved to a more 'undergrad' timeslot between 9am and 5pm, making it impossible for me to attend classes. Oh and by the way Simplified Characters are the style du jour. This spells serious trouble for me.
In related news, this caused me to investigate which subject it would be merged with, and that's when I discovered the array of Chinese subjects of all shapes and sizes, far more 'superior' than the selection at Usyd. Well I'll be damned. They've got 'Chinese Social and Cultural Change Through Visual Art' and 'Professional Communication Skills in Chinese', and an exchange subject with Singapore Uni where you spend 6 weeks doing Mandarin then spend a week on a tropical Malaysian island studying biodiversity or something. Sigh.


*actually I only find post-grad students who do research more superior - I am what I consider to be a Coursework Cop-out.
**to be honest I wouldn't mind  ¶ 09:23 0 Comments