August 3, 1999

So look, another entry, that's amazing.

Checking out flights to Melbourne. Booking by the end of the week. Going to see the trams, cafe and Freya's of Melbourne. About time too.

I think I have screwed up my sound assignment. Why do I leave things til the last minute? I always do, and most of the time I pull it off, but late this afternoon I realised the file I had made in the sound studio last week, that I ripped off the cd to use later *today* refuses to play without it's original disk. And I can't find the original disk. Seems someone has it in their pocket or in their bag or some such oversight, and I don't know where it is. The files are being burned tomorrow for show and tell on Thursday morning, and there is a blank space next to my name that should read michelle.wav. Bugger.

Why do I do that? I am my own worst enemy. Oh it won't mean I fail the course or anything but being sooo anal about filling in forms and such i hate blank spaces where there should be none.

*plonks* and I have a headache. I am getting too many of those these days. It's the sitting-in-front-of-a-computer thing and it's the you-are-running-out-of-time thing.

I watched the X-Files tonight. Gawd damn Mulder is a fine looking man. And he's funny too. When Santa gets to the Plaza I am going to ask him for Mulder for Christmas. I bet I get him too, because Santa is pretty nifty and fairly well connected when it comes to getting stuff. He has more access to more stuff than any other human on the Planet, I reckon. I will be good for the rest of the year to improve my chances.

Do you think these pages need colourful titles and stuff like that?

Adobe Premier tomorrow. I need two gigs free on the hard drive for that. Hungry little program indeed. Video. Who would have thought it? I might get to say 'action' and 'cut' and 'wrap' a bit later this month.

And no one in the Articulate - which is a good thing. I need to go to bed. I haven't been sleeping well lately. Screwed my sleep patterns up again. At least I do it well. I drink too much coffee. I don't drink enough water. I don't move enough. My breath is far too shallow. I need to make a list and improve some stuff. Of course, I will have to shop around for some nice paper to write the list on. And find a comfy blue pen.

No doubt, I will drink 2 ltrs of water, run 10kms, drink tea, sleep 8 hours and ihale deeply the night before and feel very virtuous.

I suck.

August 7, 1999
ggggrrrrrr geocities.

I had a potentially productive day turn into a bloody waste of time. I had such great plans too. Was going to teach Mags how to use the Internet so she can teach it only to find the stupid macs at her school seem to be such gutless wonders I couldn't even get the geocities page generator up. Man, for a school that's barely a year old, they have some crap hardware. They don't even have CD drives for goodness sakes. I guess they were either ripped of big time, or someone on the Board of Trustees cut a deal somewhere along the line. I have NEVER seen such a slow connection, and i would bet dollars to donuts that 'puter has less than 16megs of RAM.

But she thought the homepage was cool, but then, she's barely ever seen a homepage in her life so it was easy passing off the work as cool.

There, that's better isn't it? You can't beat margins.

You will never believe it after the last entry, but I got away with the soundclip thing by the skin of my teeth. It appears Steven D had the cd in his drive so I ripped it out and recorded the voiceover, chucked some tweetybird sounds and highheelsingravel (no, they are not horse's hooves) and a big arse train sound into the background and got the assignment in on time.

So, I guess I still won't have learnt my lesson about getting things done early/when I have time to. Oh well, I wouldn't be me otherwise I suppose.

The Cdrom project is in its final weeks, which is enough to put anyone into a spin. I emailed the Company for copyright permissions and any video or audio stuff they have. Doing Premiere and needing some footage to edit and shove on the Cd you see. If I let it, the oh-my-god-i-will-never-finish-this's come to the surface. Not at all helped by the addition of a second assignment handed out on Friday, due two days before the CDRom one is due. Just a leeetle bit of pressure.

The new assignment is to make a 30 second video clip featuring my car (there are clauses for those who are car-deficient but seeing as thats not me i won't go into it here). Oh, and it's meant to be funny. Some have said i just need to film my car and its hilarious enough. Well, erm. Okay.

For some odd reason I have emailed a person I don't know. He wrote back. I replied. He answered. I responded. Amazing. I can't help what happens when I lick the sugar bowl 49 too many times (mind you some might say once is too often).

I think I quite like the fact no one knows this exists.

Back Page, August Issue of New Zealand PC World:

'Does your PC give you grief? It might sense that you're a wimp. Try Dr Deeram's assertive maintenance techniques.

• Approach the problem machine in a confident manner. Let it think that you don't care if it works or not. Like dogs, computers can smell fear.
• If others are watching, always be ready for a machine to start working of its own accord. Rehearse lines like: "There, I thought that would work."
• Try percussive maintenace. This involves gently lifting the uncooperative device about 100mm above the desk as though looking for something underneath. Then suddenly drop the beast. This often completely fixes the fault.
• If all else fails, simply swap your PC with a working model from another department. If there's a danger that serial numbers are kept somewhere, make sure you've swapped your computer long before it breaks down (this is called 'preventative maintenance).'

August 9, 1999



Another day, another dollar. Okay, let me rephrase that, another day, another action packed day of dreams. Yep folks, I slept until 4pm. And no, I didnt 'need' it, if I 'needed' it I wouldnt have felt so shattered on waking.

I went to Scarfies tonight.. Kiwi film. I should write my comments on my movies page i suppose (would provide a link but cant remember the file name off the top of my head) (click 'watch' on the main page anyways if you are at all interested.)

I have nothing to say. It's your lucky day.

August 9, 1999

I'm tired, yeh but really tired. I slept four hours after school today, and i have just put my hotty into my bed cos I am going to crawl in there in a minute. I am going to try taking iron again, and if that fails go get an iron booster I guess. I bought some sulpher today, I hope it helps my itching.. its like my skin is crawling all the time, but there is no evidence, no rash or any other weirdass ugly thing to suggest its anything serious, but its damned annoying.

I am overdue for a cervical smear. I don't care how gross it is, I don't feel like being nongross. Those smear tests freak some women out, I don't really care, I mean, I don't go looking forward to them but i just zone out and try not to wince. I guess I have put it off cos my doc is going to take one look at me, bend me over, and shove a big sharp needle full of iron into my butt cheek. He loves doing that, cos it leaves a nice brown stain for the next couple of weeks, not to mention the feeling like I have sat down hard on something. They do work though, for a while. I am just so sick of needles.

I would still rather be a woman, for all the poking and prodding we put up with, i would still rather be a girl. I like to be able to think of two billion things all the same time, I like being able to do four things at once, I like being able to pick up peoples feelings and hear words that arent spoken. A lot of men cant do that. I sacrafice a brain that can't cope with the concept of numbers, a small price to pay, i say.

It's weird when Sander is away. Not right. I keep thinking he's going to arrive, but of course he won't. And Thursday seems a long way away at the moment.



The Rocking Chair
9 August 1943
Pablo Picasso

August 15, 1999

My brain is fuzzy.. I found this photograph, as you can see it's not had a very happy life. My mother has a large hand tinted one at home in the basement under some old newspapers. I remember having this picture taken. I remember having to wear that dress, how the tarten itched and I worried that Jo would wiggle off the ironing board we were made to perch on. The photographer had convinced my mother to have us photographed, even though she really couldn't afford it. He said "what if they all died tomorrow, you wouldnt even have a picture of them". How horrible is that? See that expression on Jo's face.. she still wears that at times, that's funny to me.

I lived in Rotorua until I was 14 years old. I went to Westbrook Primary School (was one of the founding pupils actually) and then to McKillop College. On Friday, a woman from my college class was appointed cheif honcho of all that is Telecom. She is 37 and has a salary to make anyone weak at the knees. It's rude to talk about your own salary and even worse to reveal others, but let's just say, it's not over $2 million dollars a year, but it's over $1.8 million dollars a year. That's a lot of money. Just imagine the computer set up you could have with that kinda money rolling in every week. She probably gets about $100,000 per month after tax. I can't even imagine that much money. I would love to be able to though.

That school has produced some over achievers. Susan Devoy, World Squash Champ for 9 years running. Jan Corbett, award winning journalist and recently, successful author. Um. okay. that's all I can think of at the moment, but I am sure there are others. Oh yeh, Kathryn Sharplin, works for the Treasury Dept. down in Wellington in some not-so-minor-way. Cor, to go to a reunion, you would have to at least get a tailored jacket and a hair cut *s*.



Wayne, Joanne, Michelle
approx. 1968

August 26, 1999
I'm not happy. I have a head ache the size of Texas. And I am so angry with myself I could smack someone (else of course).

It's just.. I want.. I have... and.. arg... then... ggrrrr...ardvark... tomorrow... hose... and... then... I have.. and.. *screams*

I wonder if it's fixable.

it could be a pea but for its colour

August 30, 1999
And then it was Monday again.

I was lying in bed thinking how very easy it would be to drop out of school. I hadn't ever thought of that before. After spending two days in bed last week, it would have been very easy to have spent a third, then another, then, all of a sudden I would have been a drop out.

But I got up, showered, washed my stupid hair, and drove to school. I don't think I would make a very good drop out anyway, before you know it I would have been working again and I don't think a good dropout would work.

There is still something wrong with my brain. Maybe I need to take extra (who am I kidding) ..take vitamins.. as if i take any to consider taking extra. I hate swallowing pills. I am a big girl's blouse and have trouble even getting the oral contraceptive down without gagging. I have the world's most tuned in gagging reflex (yet another attractive feature) but not everything makes me gag, but we won't go there.

So I am sitting in class. I have two assignments due this week. The first due on Wednesday, the infamous My Car video clip (haven't started that yet, so right on course) and Friday the big CDROM project is due. That pretty much looks like it will be in on time. It's not the most exciting of projects but at least it works, and it's in when due etc, and thats the main thing at this stage.

I haven't been very interesting lately, and that worries me. People only put up with boring people for so long, I feel like I am getting near the end of my boring limits. I better find something interesting to talk about soon or *squelch* I am outta here.

Wonder if Quentin survived the weekend.