trying to keep track of my life
anything that relates to some kind of material objects – purchase, thinking of purchasing, review, rant, link, discussion
so after many months of planning to do it i finally went on etsy to check it out.
current finds, in order from really most wanted to really wanted:
Set of 4 Napkins in Tuquoise Linen with Brown Branches Print
Set of Four Turquoise Cereal Bowls
too lazy to save/upload for these. they are cute necklaces.
silver hedgehog necklace
tiny charm (necklace)
wish bone (necklace)
damn. etsy is neat. (it takes a lot of time to find what you want though; there is almost too much variety).
about a month ago i spied a garage sale on the street parallel to my parents’ house. my mom, my dog and i stopped by to see whats what. among the hockey memorabilia there was a table.
it looked like this one:
and cost $100. (and he said he’s willing to bargain).
i had no space for it; mom didn’t like it. we left, me with a pained heart.
in that month, after never having seen that table before, i started seeing it everywhere. (and it is unlikely a selective attention as i really do obsess over the wire-frame designed furniture more than i should.)
first there was this.
after about 20 other occurrences, i research our new chairs (tempted to ebay more… sidenote: i can possibly ebay some chairs for around $250 that would cost $1.5-$700 new. i am sad.)
and find this link. i’m not sure it works for you; but for me the single, lonely recommendation is that freaking table.
which wouldn’t have fit anyway.
ARGH.
i picked up a new pair of eye glasses today. i’m loving them. tim called them “high tech”.
(also got the lenses replaced in my emo-pair, so that now i can actually see through them!)
when we were in the opticians i asked for a quick check up. while my mom and i were waiting for him to come in, we took turns sitting in the chair and trying to read the eye chart in the other end of the room (like 3 meters away). she could see until the 9 and somewhat 10th line for the linked eyechart as an example. i… couldn’t really read the first. like, that big letter up top. holy cow.
in good news, my vision did not change in around 5 years now! woo!
this week should bring some exciting updates. all in all, life is pretty goshdarn great. kudos scarf, i even have a flickr account now. makes me feel special, for the low low price of $25/year! i should just give someone else the money next year and have it work out that way.
so, to sum up about a week of schedule keepin.
writing things down helps an enormous amount; i’m considering getting a smal moleskin just for that purpose. (maha gifted me with a notebook sized one which is fantabulous for everything). writing them down online? not much; actually. while i’d like to think you all care and eagerly check my blog wanting to see what i am doing, in reality i know its a really boring list of what am i doing. i can be funny! or try to, anyway.
what i am having difficulty with is how to determine what are my medium-long term goals. i.e. in between 3 months from now to 3 weeks from now
i can see my goals for the next 1-2 weeks, and for next 1/2 year to a year. i find goals to be motivating, and incredibly, err, helpful, in achieving things.
i guess that’s pretty intuitive, but, still, how to figure out whats my goal for 3 weeks from now?
writing down a list of what to do weekly is nice; although i still have a mental and partially physical “general” to do list that i gotta implement. i’ve been considering trying to fully swtich to the GTD method.
GTD is Get Things Done, written (I believe) by David Allen. it seems to be a highly popular way to create structure and organize your life. the only thing i am lacking though is a 13 folder file. i don’t want to make it a physical one, as visceral feedback is far better for me… i think. anyone heard of this before? tried it?
i can’t remember where i found this, but its tempting to print and hang this in our bathroom. hilarious!
i buzzed everyone ears off i think, but i just needneedneed to talk more about this. its like travel. i return thinking “i’ve had enough” and 3 months later i’m itching to go somewhere else!
SO in the 6 months or so that i’ve started living with tim i’ve (first) bugged him enormously about redecorating, improving, renovating, designing, purchasing, arranging, cleaning, until one fateful day he left to california and i renovated a bunch of things without really … telling him. so, now tim has agreed that not only the apartment has potential, that it is this potential that is possible to show and is WORTH showing as we’ll be living there for a while.
so, now my daydreams are mostly about wall colors, lamps and couches. among numerous other things.
the big reno happened end of february. it is not even a month, and we alredy rearranged the living room (there is an actual LIVING ROOM now). and now i itch to paint the living room, office areas, bathroom, kitchen. i itch to find lights for all the nooks that they will be so perfect in. i itch to organize the large closet so that when you walk into it, it feels like a neat space. i itch to get rid of my plastic drawers, and figure out how consolidate all the things that i have in them now into neater, prettier, smaller, invisible containers/shelves/whatever solutions. i can’t wait to get to chinatown and find the baskets for the bathroom shelves, and hang art in it. i can’t wait to find the perfectest shower curtain, and bath mat(s), and finally put the mop into the aforementioned tobe organized closet so that bathroom is just NEAT. i can’t wait for tim to have his own light at the desk, and for reading lights in living room to be convinient for all. i daydream of carpets and pillows and blankets and warmth and fuzzy that it will be SO VERY SOON.
i KNOW how great this feels. after painting the bedroom with maha’s and alina’s help, and organizing all the closets there (which are STILL ORGANIZED, w00t w00t), walking into that room became a 1000 times better experience – even when it is messy!
i want bold color! and light! and a pretty bathroom. and i think those are the things i want first.
so now that i’ve bored everyone away…
how pretty is THIS thing? I can’t believe that vacuum cleaners can be this nice.
one of the most interesting things that i learned in the last 4 years of university is the notion of flow. no, scratch that. it is THE most interesting thing that i have learned in the past 4 years. the reason i bring it up in this post, is that flow is a state in which you are:
among other things. this really deserves another entry on its own, BUT, today i realized WHY it is that the task must be challenging.
philosophy of logic, a class i am taken, is taught based on a book written by ian hacking, a u of t professor (honorary at this point, i believe). the book is incredibly well written, is highly interesting, and incredibly easy. it is easy not because material is easy – it isn’t really THAT easy – but because i have already met all the material presented with in. frequency probability (studied in stats of psych), belief probability (studied in stats of CS – highly relevant to AI!), philosophy of logic (despite that this is the name of this class, i have ran into the arguments presented with in in my other philosophy classes). i’ve touched on all of the math in it.
therefore, i have a terribly hard time making myself sit down and get into the details of the “basics”. i am capable of it, and i did a lot (finished reading the entire book, for example – i am doing all the exercize sets tonight). its just difficult to not get distracted.
therefore, out of a bracelet maha gifted me with years ago, i have made that necklace. it is SO FREAKING COOL. and thanks to my abnormally thin wrist, i am still able to wear the bracelet comfortably. YAY for saving $30.
you can read more about flow there.
well, it seems fate’s not giving me too many breaks lately. all the important ones are there – my watch got found, tim’s coming here in only 2 weeks!!!, and the picture above is of a super cute and stylish journal i got from lesley ann. she has one identical to it that i’ve been awesomed by, and she uses it as a recipe book and i’m really tempted to do the same. anyone has other ideas?
except, i caught my friend smita’s cold/flu, which started yesterday with sore throat and merged into a headache and sore throat today and will continue by her experience for the next week. yikes!
nothing much has been happening. i’ve had tests (yuck), and that’s all really.
here’s another photo from the races:
LA and i bet split our bets, and we lost in the end. but it was really fun! and we all got to dress up and look really pretty. in case you didn’t know, you’re supposed to dress up majorly for big races, including hats and such – actually, as far as i can think its one of the few occasions nowadays you can wear a fancy hat to without looking silly. alas, none of us had hats, but we all did something special to our hair.
LA curled mine.
CURLS.
i had a head full of curls.
its an awesome look, and i’ll post a photo when i figure out how to do it without going through flickr :P
also, in order to have something to wear for the races i went shopping and bought 2 dresses, a skirt and a shirt. and then yesterday i bought a journal to get 20% off for a hair place thingie and got a free scarf. and i bought a shirt and another dress before that. i’m like all outfitted!
i still need 2 things: jeans, and .. okay i need one thing. i want 2 things; one is a good pair of jeans. in a nice dark color. crisp and dark. that fit. very properly. and the other is a bag that i don’t really need.
yeah, i think i’ll end up sending stuff back with hesi and tim. that way i don’t need to count on fate and post to actually deliver anything.
did i mention being sick gives me a 30 second attention span?
i want this.
in pink.
now.
*throws a mini tantrum*
i think that wallet to me, is like my watch.
on that note, i can’t find my watch. my room is perfectly clean (including all of my closet), but i can’t find my watch. i feel like a limb has been lost.
(the reason i misplaced it is cause i had a bad oil burn on my left wrist, where i usually wear it, and so i put it away – i’m sure to my top desk drawer – to let my burn heal – but now i can’t find it).
and while i like this, the colors all suck. (its also available in coral and olive, and its unpretty).
okay, shame on me about blogging so shamelessly about all the insects and things i’ve seen. about 5 minutes after i pressed “post”, a huntsman crawled out to the ceiling of my bedroom. most. paranoid. feeling. ever. it was a small one – only 7cms in diameter (about same size as a smoke alarm), but i hid under my blanket the entire time oleg was trying to get it. the part that i missed, thankfully, is that after oleg missed the huntsman (not thankfully), it jumped down onto the window sill. it even might’ve went on the bed. its too freaking fast. anyway, after i saw how it squeezed itself completely flat into the crack of the windowsill, i crawled out of bed and far away, until oleg flicked it outside.
lessons:
– no more windows open. ever.
– those things are fast.
– and they can be very small when they want to be. PARANOIA BZZZZZ.
good night! … i hope.
oh yeah. photographs from last 2 parties, and, well, the huntsman.
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weeks in sydney: 4
week of classes: 3rd
number of classes i’m taking: 4
number of exams i’ll have: 2
number of textbooks i need to buy: 2
number of textbooks bought: 1
number of times i went to the movies: 2
days off in the week i have: 1 (but almost 3 if i leave after 12pm on friday and skip the tutorial on tuesday)
cost of parking ticket on our first day in sydney: 175$
cost of internet that i get from university: 4.4c/meg (that’s $50 for each gigabyte)
how much have i spent in the first 3 weeks despite not *downloading anything other than pages* (not even photographs): you don’t want to know. or rather my parents shouldn’t know :p
cost of wireless modem that we bought to get away from that: $70
cost of wireless router to connect to the modem to share the internet: $40
cost of monthly plan at 12gig, 512kbps download, 128kbps upload: $90
cost per person: $10 for lesley ann, $40 for me and $40 for oleg
do we actually get that speed? only for australian websites, and even then not always.
is it still worth it? hell yes.
number of bites on my left arm: 16
number of bites on my left leg: 5
number of bites on my right leg: 0
number of bites on my right arm: 3
is it bed bugs? unlikely, couldn’t find any traces. looks like mosquito bites.
number of spiders seen: a lot
number of significant spiders seen: 1, a huntsman in our bathroom. (visualize: i’m walking in without contacts, put my contacts in, look up and see this reflection in the mirror.)
last night, on the way to the movies, how many times i jumped from my own shadow (thinking its a cockroach or some huge crawly animal): about 70
last night, on the way from the movies, how many times i jumped from my own shadow: 0
last night, on the way from the movies, cockroaches seen: 4
(biggest one was about 6cms long. right next to my foot.)
did i jump? yes.
amount of times i made bread from skratch: three!
carrot cake: once, and very very good
oladushki: twice, also very very good
ate honey mustard chips: endless. very VERY good
drinking: water, lots of awesome juice, green tea
coffee: once (at home)
cappuccino: 5 times. it is amazing here.
things on the wall: only 3 4, all 3 are calendars (hesi’s, ansel adams, and UNSW’s). can’t find posters! aaargh. and sometimes a huntsman.
pillows: 2
lamps: 2
spiders: 0 (so far). funnily i typed that 5 minutes before a huntsman crawled in. make that 1.
the day began with the bad news that my bag still has not arrived. after some phoning the YHA in haast, it turned out that my bag is still in haast as of this morning. wtf mate… it was sitting there for a whole day? argh!!!
anyway, the choices were put as follows:
after some hesitating and deliberating i decided to wait here and try getting it here. if it doesn’t come today then i will leave my chirstchurch address (the hostel), and try to get it delivered there asap. argh. i miss my toothbrush, glasses, shampoo… FLIP FLOPS! dang it.
the nice thing about this town is that its so small, and the gas station attendant is doubling as the post office guy, and the hostel owner actually knows him (in the sense that she said “oh he’s a nice guy, you can talk to him and give him your cell number). after talking to the post office guy, further positive information came along – he said that the package should get here by 1:30pm. so, for now we’re hanging out in the hostel. it is 11:26am – we had breakfast, and at this point anja is reviewing photographs on oleg’s computer, and i decided to blog. i am 8 days behind!
so, upon spending the next 2 and a half hours blogging, at 1:30 (half an hour after the approximate 1pm deadline) i went to the post office/friendly local gas station/mobil. unfortunately, the guy said “another half an hour”, and i demurely went back (having bought an ice cream to celebrate the shiny blue skies and warm weather and to cheer myself up in general) to the hostel.
20 minutes later a postal truck pulled into the hostel with a MAGICAL SINGLE PACKAGE in his hands! yup! my bag has ACTUALLY FOUND ME. apparently this whole concept of “mailing” “stuff” is not entirely flawed.
in joy and celebration we have jetted out of the hostel on the road to hokitika, which has been described as the jade capital of new zealand (and possibly THE WORLD, although i’m not sure). another waterfall of flyers describing things and places as “the best kept secret in new zealand” has accompanied the visit to this town. remind me to not really trust new zealand with secrets, as they tend to publish them in official visitor guides.
hokitika also greeted us with rain, and thus we have decided to hang out at the very posh, very large, very cool looking hostel, with a very calm and friendly australian sheepdog, sid. (funny that i can remember dogs’ names but not people’s…) here i’ve found a book by grisham, “the broker”, which addicted me right away. around 11:30pm the realization that i just won’t finish it (and i can’t take it cause the hostel libraries work on the principle of take-one-leave-one), so i went to sleep in our 3(people)-for-1(room). anja hasn’t been able to find a place in that hostel, but they very nicely made her a bed on a mattress on the floor, and other than that was a bunk bed, leading to generally cozy accomodations.
