Hey mates!

Just posted first thing in a while :)
Entry titled Challenge Fic: "Home" at pulped_fictions (here). Prompt was a black and white picture of a doorway.

Lots of fun :)

♥

Right. Now must do Physics homework :S

... before I go to school.

I thought I'd let you all know that it's going to be 44°C today D: (Which is 111°F for the Americans ;). )

So, if I never post again, I probably died of heatstroke.

8|

Edit: Don't you just love talking about the weather? ;)

Edit #2: It cracked 45.7°C for the maximum today (114°F) with only more to come!

Hurrah for a vaguely new layout ;)

Sigh, another missed deadline has come and gone (hence the missing of it) which is quite embarrassing really.

There's only 2 weeks left of summer holidays and then I'm into my final year of school, which is exciting :). I'm no longer doing maths which is joyous and wonderful and great.

I'm most excited about Art where I'll be doing prac work predominantly with only a few written assignments. One of the assignments which Prac students have to start in the holidays consists of creating 20 A3 pieces of artwork around a central theme using different media. So far I have used bus tickets and other rubbish but I'm really desperate to start making a little alfoil/permanent texta/cellophane rocketship piece ..... This year is going to be great :D :D

I got my results back for the year 12 English Studies class I took this year and I got a 20 which blew my mind :D Out of 75 'perfect' scores in ES, 6 were from our class - credit to the best English teacher ever ;).

But then, on the same day mum fell over and broke the top of her femur off and has had to have a hip replacement D: So, she missed Christmas and New Year and she came home from the hospital today, just glad she didn't break her spine which is where the cancer has set up a thriving civilisation :S

And on that SAME DAY AGAIN, I quit work at the supermarket and started at Dymocks, the local bookstore :)

So a good load of ups and downs on that particular occasion ...

Currently (aside from attempting to think up pitiful excuses for why I never - quite - finished that Metafic :O) I am clearing out my room. Does anyone else have issues with deciding what to throw out and what to keep?

Honestly, I'm staring at a Physics text book that I never read in classtime and am never going to read again and I'm thinking 'Oh, but what if I do need it for this year? What if there's something in there that's explained simpler or has clearer diagrams?' (Not that I'd know where to look, having never cracked the damn thing open anyway ....... ) Whereas I really should just sell the stupid book on to another poor year 11 who will never open it either but to write their name in the front cover ...

It's just ridiculous, lol. I have the hardest time throwing stupid little bits and pieces out - tell me I'm not alone in this ;).

Also since you're all musical folk on LJ may I draw your attention to the world's biggest music poll?

Triple J's Hottest 100 is run annually by freecast Australian radio station Triple J and is a worldwide chart of the best music of 2008, decided on votes of music listeners from all over. The results are released on the 26th of January 2009 - you have to be in it for your favourite artists to win it . . . :D

Hope you're all well and wonderful :)

Hey all,
Have had crap week, so in desperate need of up-cheering! And, thought I to myself, what better way to do so than music?

I discovered to my horror that I do not have a Christmas playlist, or any Christmas songs (!) and would Love Love Love to make one!

So, what's on your list of songs to listen to this season?

Also, if you're up for the Christmas season continuing slightly into the new year, sign up at this post for a Christmas card from me :). I was absent when the usual address exchange seemed to go on, but don't want to bypass another year without sending out cards to my lovely f-list :D.

While I'm collecting photos for my picspam (nominate 3 thing you want photographed!) I thought I'd do this letter meme, stolen from that_september.

Dear cuban_sombrero:

I don't really know how to tell you this, but our romance is over. I think I realized it when you put cuffs on me with George Bush and his wife and I saw you hit on my best friend. I'm sure you're ashamed enough to understand that we're cousins. I'm returning your love letters to you, but I'll keep the results of your blood-sample as a memory. You should also know that I always wanted to break our friendship.

In pain,
-Ilona.-

( rules under the cut! )

Yaaaaaaaaay, 16! Here's my birthday fun-time happy post :).

What fun. Re: the handwriting meme, I'm afraid it is lost forever. I even poked a hole in my pinboard to try and get it out, but unfortunately, unless I want to unscrew the damn thing, I'm afraid it is ... lost ... forever (which I may have said earlier, but you will kindly ignore, yes?).

But firstly, happy birthday to CUBA! Everyone's favourite geographically challenged hat connoisseur.
( Pressie! )
And happy birthday to the best addict in town, Mary, for tomorrow!
( Pressie! )

Prepare yourselves for a bit of a picspam, ladies and gents, because here comes my birthday :D.

(Oh, and on the topic of 'picspams' I totally intend to do that photo diary week thing. Not next week because Claire's over, so there'll be no computing to speak of ..... so the week after, methinks :) It looks like loads of fun.)

Okay, so, firstly, here's the card Claire gave me in the morning ....

( my birthday, the musical )

And these are my pressies ... I got a book and a lovely green coat, too ... I'll put the pics up tomorrow (NOW UP!). That chocolate is to DIE for. World's best. Even better than whatever expensive European chocolate you can think of. Mm. Haigh's. And young Mr Haigh is in my grade at school. And dated one of my classmates, I think. So, yes. Interesting, I KNWZ.
( mes cadeaux )

And the Classic Uncle "I'm Depressed" Tom Card. Tee hee. I wait for these every year. This one says ...
( illegible handwriting in a fuzzy photo )
Dear Ilona,
Happy birthday. You have certainly left the tadpole stage far behind you & are no doubt getting ready to make a splash in the world. I definitely hope that you never sink so low as to have to write birthday card verse for a living - mere drug addiction or alcoholism is positively respectable compared to the social rank of birthday card "poet". Ther lines opposite are a warning to you to work hard at school, & always obey your parents, & now that you are a Worker, your employers too. Just ask them.
Best wishes. Tom.

The poem in the card reads "A day of enjoyment / of happy times too / is wished in this greeting / especially for you!"

Dad made a big chicken and vegetable pie, with 'Happy Birthday Ilona' and a picture of a chicken made of pastry on top. He also made a MASSIVE bowl of broccoli (which you may know is my all time favourite vegetable). My brother's girlfriend came over and we ate it all, followed by a midnight viewing of Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd.

So, yes. That was my birthday. It was lovely.

Thanks to everyone for your birthday wishes! I wuv you :D.

EDIT: Now with coat and book!

Teeeeeee hee hee.

I just did that handwriting meme from a week or so ago and I put it up on the top of my pinboard so I could get a pic of it ..... and it slid down the back and I can't reach it!

When I get it back, I'll put it up, lol.

:D

Just memeing about and generally updating - just to let you know I'm still alive ;).

Two memes today:

One from quibblernews

( Letter Play )

Another from that_september.

( Name a character from one of my fandoms and I'll give you ... )

I'm really enjoying snooping around at the handwriting meme. I have handwriting identity crises; it's constantly changing - but it keeps my teachers on their toes ;).

Well, tomorrow is our annual winter concert where all our school ensembles and choirs get together and perform. It's usually pretty dreadful :S. So that'll keep me occupied tomorrow ...

Generally, I've been hanging with my brother's girl friend (ish person. We're not quite sure, lol) and working (school and otherwise) heaps. Her name's Caitlin and she's really nice :). Work, however ........ not so nice :(.

I had a Physics speech to give today which was interesting to say the least (or the most, depending who's talking, lol).

I'm working on my metamorfic_moon piece! Yaaaaaay. It's been interesting so far. I think spotting the prompt will be the greatest challenge, lol. I've taken obscure a little too far, methinks. On that note, the prompts I got were .....
entertain

Who ever knew that we two
could be free as we'd fancy,
fancy is free
but are we bound
to each other by love
- The Honeymoon Song, the Beatles.

So, they're excellent prompts and I may reuse the lyrics later for other projects (but I have to get this project finished first :D).

In the world of music, I'm really digging Goldfrapp, Múm and Sarah Blasko at the moment. Mmmm. And Laura Marling. Prettiez :).

Oh! And I managed to get tickets to the Angus and Julia Stone concert! I'm so excited. It's the last day of term and there's a group of us going. It'll be ace. Then everyone's coming back to my house and we're having a little bit of belated birthday excitement for me and our friend Georgia :D.

Dad and I decided to go to Monarto Zoo the other day. We're members, so that's free ... but when we got there, super massive line ... we got to the front eventually, and the lady said there was a three hour wait for the tour (which is the only thing you can do ...) so we left. So yes. A nice scenic drive. The second in as many weeks! Dad and I went to Victor Harbor, then came back through the hills .... it was nice. But, yes.

UGH. And I'm trying to sort out Work Experience, too. I've been emailing companies for months. Last week, in desperation, I emailed about twenty companies - graphic design/ editing/ magazines/ publishing places - and got four replies (all no, of course). I had my heart set on this one place, Kids Media, but since its the end of the financial year when the placement is for ... no dice. If I get really desperate, I suppose I'll just go to Angus & Robertsons for the week ... but it seems like such a massive waste of time.

If you know anyone who lives in Adelaide and is looking for Work Experience kids ...

And now onto two memes from the wonderful Mary!

1. Reply that you wish to take part, and I will pick four (five, Mary?) of your icons.
2. Make a post (including the meme info) and talk about the icons I chose.
3. Other people can then comment to you and make their own posts.
4. This will create a never-ending cycle of icon squee!

I don't have many icons, though ;). I'm going to start infiltrating the Tennant supply with a Twilight supply soon :D.

( icon!squee! )

Let others know a little more about yourself, repost this with your name followed by "ology" ...

( ilona-ology )

Sorry about the deluge of posts recently. Obviously there's a lot of backlog from missing so much ;).

For some audience participation, let's try the meme snagged from, er, everyone.

The 'Ask Me 7 Questions' meme.

Not just any seven questions though. No, to keep it interesting, use the seven questions as per below - just copy and paste the following, replace the blanks with something you want to know/ask (e.g. 4. Donkeys or sandcastles and why?), anything you want, personal, silly, surreal or deep, comment away and I'll answer honestly as I can! Then post this in your own LJ and see what kind of things people want to ask you!

1. What do you think of _____________ ?

2. When did you last ____________?

3. __________ or ___________ and why?

4. What did you ______________?

5. What's your favorite ______________?

6. How would you ______________?

7. Who would you most like to ________ ?

Byah!

Just out of curiosity, I wandered through the birthday list and - WHAAAAT?

Damn.

So, erm ... here's to very late birthday posts?

Haaaahahaaa.

:S






SORRY!

Hello, strangers .....

Ahahaha.

Where have I been?

I haven't been here in over a MONTH. Bleugh.

Sorry for missing all the challenges :(.

I'm not game enough to wander back through a month's worth of flist entries .... WHAT'S HAPPENED? Any birthdays? Any marriages, babies, deaths? Freak earthquakes? Publishings? New hair cuts, new houses? Awards? Graduations? Failures? Spontaneous combustions?

I spent about two weeks away from the 'net and, ah, it was beautiful. I got some reading done, rearranged my room, dyed my hair (picture ahoy!) and had a round about wild time. It's holidays for another four days down here, so I'll be pic-spamming like CRAZY.

HAVE YOU ANY REQUESTS?

Oh, also, I just thought I'd mention the having of MySpace and Facebook.

You may find me here for MySpace or here for Facebook; add me if you're around......

I've decided to totally overhaul
a) my priorities
b) my life
c) my perspective
so I'm having an awful lot of fun.

I've always been a super massive black hole of a list writer - they're secreted around my habitat (under piles, in draws, on the walls, in my bags and bookcases .....) and I've just been going list crazy.

It's just I've gotta do this, then this, then this, then after that (if that works) I can move on to this or this, and if I do this then ..... call her, message him, find this, finish that ...... at the moment.

I also have to finish a subject's worth of work in the next week, organise my work experience placement, write two essays and do some practical collection for art. On top of that is the comparative study which has been plaguing me since last year ...... but I've finally chosen my books!

Keep the Aspidistra Flying - George Orwell
&
The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists - Robert Tressel

If you've read either of those, care to share your thoughts, criticisms, favourite parts?

I've been reading Glen Gerreyn's book HOPE and he spoke to us at the beginning of the year, and ever since I've just been ridiculously motivated, but with nothing much to put that motivation into, so, I've decided to throw it into EVERYTHING. And I'm really happy at the moment, which is more than I could have said two or three months ago. I just decided, 'Screw this - I'm going to be happy' and ... voilà. (I also got this awesome MozillaFirefox tool which allows me to use accented letters in text boxes. Do I hear a 'hell yes!' from you all? I should hope so. It is a beautiful tool. Yaaaaaaaay, French homework!)

As it stands, I've also lost a LOT of interest in Harry Potter/fanfiction. I've been reading it for nigh on four years and, well, there isn't anything really new coming through. I mean, there's still the brilliant constants like the flist crowd and my Favourites back on ff.net, but....... I don't know. It just seems like a bit of a waste of time? Between my job and school and YAA and coaching .... I don't have the same interest in spending my free time at a computer reading largely repetitive stories about a series of books that ended a little disappointingly.

?

I don't know what I'm talking about any more.

But yes .....

Oh! Can I tell you about YAA?

.... Of course I can.

Right, YAA is 'Young Achievement Australia' (or something to that affect), and it's a business skills program run for people between the ages of 15 and 20. What it is is this ....... you get put in a group of about twenty people, you set up a business, you market, produce, and sell a product and shares, then liquidate after six months. It's a fully established hardcore company, totally registered and everything.

Claire, myself and a few other girls from school are in a big team together; our company name is "Yummy Arm" (you have to have the letter 'Y' then the letter 'A' in it somewhere ...) and we're thinking of marketing self-counting piggy-banks. In the shape of banks. With little personalised name-plates on them.

It's (hopefully) going to be fantastic.

My friend Didi, who wants to be an airforce pilot interestingly enough, is Company Director, and I'm the Secretary. It's loads of fun (but it takes up more time than I think I really have .........)

Hm.

So, yes. That's YAA.

Then on top of that, I'm both in a debating team and coaching a younger team, facilitating a Tournament of Minds team, in choir, working three times a week, searching for a yoga school, going out with My People, and digging the magazine industry at the mo. That's something I've always wanted to do, play editor for a decent magazine. 'frankie' is my favourite (new issue out tomorrow!) but there are others, like Tank, Yen Magazine, and Black magazine (when you get past their atrocious grasp on grammar). Thankfully, most people tend to give me Borders vouchers for birthday gifts, so it's a cheap habit at the moment, lol.

I've also got two public speaking comps to go in - I'll post up the speech when it's written. One of the comps is a small-time thing, run by the school's local Probus club, but there's a whopping AU$75 prize for just turning up. The winner gets AU$150, which is exciting. It's only out of 6 year 11 students from across the council area, so yeah. The other is BIG TIME, three heats, semi-finals, state-finals, then nationals. I came third in the junior nationals in '06, then reached the state final in '07 .... but competition is HUGELY tough for the senior comp :S.

Bah.

Alright. Hair pictures.

( from this ..... )

( to this ..... )

A note: the pictures were mainly for Claire's benefit. She found out first - I sent her the pictures, so, erm. I'd like to say 'hence the dorky expressions', but, erm .... I do tend to look like that a lot. They're rather deranged, aren't they?

?

Rar.

Oh!

And the shoes I'm wearing to formal:


Dude.

Right.

So, just to reiterate.......

I'm not game enough to wander back through a month's worth of flist entries .... WHAT'S HAPPENED? Any birthdays? Any marriages, babies, deaths? Freak earthquakes? Publishings? New hair cuts, new houses? Awards? Graduations? Failures? Spontaneous combustions?

Love!

Thanks everyone for your lovely get well messages, they really made my weekend :).

As for today ...

The first thing I did when I got up was cut my finger open while I was making my lunch (which I didn't get to eat anyway, as later explained ....)

After bandaiding and getting sympathy head-bonks from the cat, I staggered back to school coughing and sneezing and snoozing on the bus all the way there ...

One of the Year Twelves dressed up as Jesus this morning in chapel. She turned up and sat in the choir stalls in her robes and beard and watched. It was a little weird but ultimately more interesting than whatever the chaplain was talking about. (Something to do with the olden-day celebrity status of Jesus and donkeys. Or something. Chapel is Continued!Snooze Time.)

French first lesson was pretty mundane. We're reading a little book series which was written back in the fifties for primary students, but the stories are quaint and it's nice to just ... read.

Anyway, following French I had two frees, in which I did maths revision, a bit of physics and read a little more of Prochownik's Dream by Alex Miller, which has proved vaguely interesting thus far.

Then, at lunch, we had Choral Night practice.

Choral Night is the one school event that I actually adore with every fibre of my being. It's this HUGE choral competition between the four houses (Patteson, Selwyn, Kennion, and Kilburn) that we hold in the first term of every year. Each house has its entire Year 7-12 population combine into a choir, which then performs a hymn and a themed House Song. The Year Twelves then do their own piece, super awesome dance moves required (that's me next year!).

This year, the hymn is ... For the beauty of the earth, which is a little bit blah, and the theme is 80s which I also find (sorry flist!) a little blah, mainly due to the song our leaders chose, though, methinks. I quite like the others' choices ...

Our house captains chose Madonna's Like a Prayer to sing, but the other songs are:

Kennion: Dancing in the Street
Selwyn: Hm. When I remember, I'll pop it in.
Patteson: Walking on Sunshine

Our Twelves are doing Break My Stride for their big song at the end.

Two years ago was the best theme, ever. It was Jazz/Swing and Alex, our house captain, chose The Boy from New York City by the Manhattan Transfer. It was (in, you know, my humble opinion, lol) the greatest song choice on earth. You can download it from limewire. It is excellent. The hymn was Holy, Holy, Holy and the Twelves did What I Like About You by the Ramones - which was absolutely AWESOME. We, erm, won that year. And the year before, too, now that I recall.

*Just thought I'd add it here, I go to a girls' school. I know a couple of the other girls' schools have choral/arts interhouse comps, but boys and co-ed ... Not sure. My brother's old school did a massive inter-school musical every year, though ....*

So, yes. I'm super pumped.

But, anyway, back to the original point .....

We had Choral Night practice, so our house was up in the theatre, Patteson was in the hall, Selwyn had the chapel and Kennion was breaking it down in the drama room.

A small group of girls, including myself, went downstairs to practice the descant part of the hymn, when, all of a sudden, the power blew in the room we were using. Admittedly, this is not an unusual occurrence, as "due to demand" Etsa and the other power suppliers like to switch off parts of our city's power grid to conserve ... (though we still pay for full access, so how this works ....)

After a couple of blind staggerings, we set our choral leader back on the piano and kept practising.

The next thing we know, the corridor's full of smoke and the fire alarm's going off right outside our room.

So, we scarpered and congregated out on the lawns in our class lines.

It turns out that the transformer just outside our room and underneath the theatre had, erm, exploded. Yaaaaaaay, soundproofing?

So, yes. We missed the rest of lunch and physics class because the school was on fire. Hurrah.

Two hours, out on the lawn, in heatwaveyness. (Meanwhile my poor sandwich was crying out for its maker in the inferno that was the theatre ... )

Then we got to stifle our way through maths sans fans in the wonderful 40Cness.

Yay.

Et voilà.

My exciting day.

Hallo! There's a man in there!
Here's The Boy from New York City ...

Anyone care to explain how, in a record-breaking heatwave, I've managed to contract the flu?

Uuuuugh.

Worst time to get ill, ever.

I spent all of yesterday asleep on the couch under a billion blankets while my parents complained about the 40C/104F degree weather.

And, you know, to add to the brilliant news and wonderful week, Mum had been complaining about pain in her shoulder and along her pickline, so she went to see her doctor and Tab has no idea what it is. She said it could be a fracture, it could be arthritis, or it could be a cancerous legion, which is always lovely.

I'm going back to bed, now. Hopefully, when I get up again, it'll all be over.

Stolen from cuban_sombrero

Top 250 movies at IMDB.com - bold the ones you've seen.

( ... methinks I need a life ... )

71/250

I love movies. I'm surprised at some of their choices, though. "Toy Story 2"? What the?

I have, however, seen none of their bottom 100. But I thought The Lady Killers was meant to be a good film ...

I have to be very snappy here, tonight, but I can't not say ...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LADY BRACKNELL!
Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!



I hope you have a thumpin' good un ;).

Aside from that, a meme stolen from that_september!

Instructions: Open up your iTunes iPod and fill out this survey, no matter how embarrassing the responses might be.

As I am not cool and do not have an iPod/iTunes, I used Windows Media Player/Creative. Windows Media Player is a BITCH. And you can't auto-sort things using Creative technology (that's right - you have to do it by HAND).

( So I couldn't say 'no'. )

Whoa. Random music player trivia attack: I have 108 Beach Boys songs. That is a LOT of songs. (The most I have ever played a song: 4 times.)

Can you guess the lyric from which So I couldn't say 'no' is from? bonniedoll knew the last 'Guess the Cut Lyric!' game ;).

Title: Immortal Pride

Word Count: 1,950

Summary: Pride of all others the most dang'rous fault , proceeds from want of
sense, or want of thought.

A/N: Written for my first year 12 assignment. The theme was SEVEN DEADLY SINS, and I chose PRIDE. (Unfortunately, we were only allowed to choose one, so my Gluttony/Sloth fic in which Obesity is spawned was veto'd at first mention, lol.) I hope you like it and critique would be HUGELY appreciated :).

( Immortal Pride )

And now, for more about the life of ME!

I've an essay due on Monday, and another due on Thursday. Our whole French class (read: the four of us) have to redo our orals on Monday, which is VERY annoying. I downloaded some Presets songs, which are as excellent as they are ...

Tomorrow is our swimming carnival, but Claire and I are bludging the second half and skipping for town instead, so that should be a thrill. (Our team will lose whether we're there to watch it or not, so, yes. Yaaaay, yellow!)

Just on that, WHICH HOUSE WERE YOU IN? Did your team ALWAYS win (the red team!) or did it always lose (our team!)?

I seem to find that nearly EVERY yellow house loses. All - the - time.

Whoa - Hufflepuff. Dude. This is a scientific phenomenon, I bet.

Title: All the Things I Say

Author: seer_of_spots

Summary: ONESHOT SiriusLily. I’m not saying that just the thought of you makes my walk a skip, and I’m not saying that my heartbeat’s any more than just a radar blip … I’m saying that I like you … I like you very much.

A/N: Better late than never, eh, eh, Potter? My entry into the Box of Chocolates Reviews Lounge Valentine's Day Challenge. Note: QUITE SHORT.


( All the Things I Say )