Dearest dearest everyone,

I had a lovely Christmas day. didn't do anything at all. That's happiness.

You know, i think i actually slept through most of it. glorious. I haven't exactly been getting enough sleep recently u see. I've been busy...and a leetle stressed, over what i don't know, but i cut my hair so i must've been stressed. Its now lots shorter...from definitely undisputedly long, to what you could probably call... almost longish.

I have fantasies of a chic dark purple bob. Or red if purple is too bold. heheh. But i know better than to cut my hair too short. Once its beyond tying-up range, it gets uncontrollable and wreaks havoc on my social life...what social life. hrm.

I shall trim it again later and see about semi-permanent dyes tomorrow.

I need proper scissors too.

Oh happy days... Did u know i was miserable a few days before? well of course u don't know. No one cares... Yeah.. i was moping around thinking evil thoughts at my friends in Singapore. Notice i'm not flying back this festive season. I'm staying here to sleep. I'm staying here cos no one gives a shit whether or not i return. Well maybe that's too strong, but something like that. Before i flew here, i loved christmas if only for the sheer amount of cards i got. Snailmail is always lovely to receive (hint hint. heheh). This year, i got a total of 3 christmas cards, one of which was actually a corporate card. I tell you, its incomparably rude to send a friend a corporate christmas card, i don't care if you own the company and it has your towkaykia-name printed on it in gold lettering.

You can tell, i spent the last week thinking expletives at the world at large. Being broke (5 dollars to my name), sleepy, tired of math blah blah blah BLah BLAH! YEEAARRGHHH!!!! But its alright now. Everything is fine.

I got my results too. It wasn't bad, the maths was embarrassing but at least i passed. :-P And about that zero grade in my computing assignment, it didn't hurt too much, since i got a distinction anyway. For the other results, speaking as someone who knows how little i studied, i can only express surprise and definitely some relief.

oh and I hope you got my cards. the 30 cards i sent out. If you didn't get a card from me, i ran out of money. and you don't need to feel insulted cos im pretty sure i didn't get one from you.

Okay, sorry. I'm being such a whiny bitch. Anyway, i have money now! :-)  you see, i got my parents and brother gifts, although they decided since last year that we didn't need to celebrate Christmas anymore, i'm not sure why, but anyway they didn't get us anything, and when they found their gifts today, i think they were surprised. So anyhow, after sleeping through the entire afternoon, i woke up for dinner and told my mother about the post-xmas sales tomorrow, and then mentioned not having any money so i couldn't go anyway, and she disappeared downstairs, and turned up a few minutes later with a hundred dollar bill! Yay! heheheheh. How to Guilt Your Parents Into Fiscal Philanthropy.

La la la... deck the balls...

I just caught one of those charity concert things on tv. Usually these are incredibly insipid and such a pain to watch, but this one was British, and had something to do with the 21st anniversary of the Prince's Trust, (1997) - the charity. Anyhow, the british have a marvellous sense of humour. I love british humour. Everyone's a wit on stage. They had Julian Clarey (i'm in love with him but he's wickedly gay), and Joanna Lumley (from Ab Fab), etc., and even HRH prince Charles was funny. believe it or not. The entire thing was just hilarious and cheered me up immensely. Also, my fridge is presently decked with boxes of chocolates and that helps too. heheh.

Did you know they banned caviar in Australia? Imagine that. Last night i was at a christmas dinner (parents' friends), and they had this neat vol au vents filled with caviar and egg. Apparently sturgeon is endangered. How tragic. Just when i decided i liked the taste of the salty little balls they ban it.

(snigger)

There was Oliver on tv too. the musical one, and the boy playing oliver was sooo pretty. I wonder where he is now. There was also Great Expectations (an old black & white version) on this afternoon. Excepting these two dickens classics, TV executives choose the most insipid christmas programs. Its almost as if anything with christmas in it goes, no matter how inane the premise, or plot if it has one. TV executives tend to be really stupid anyway. Oh and Under One Roof is back again! its showing at 3.50pm on SBS, i forget which day. heh. But back to TV executives. I detest them. sickening commercialism. The news on commercial (i.e. not-ABC or SBS?) stations is sensationalist, and has no integrity whatsoever. The newsreaders are pretty and painted, with fascinating bosoms powdered in matching shades of eyeshadow while they read out reports, sounding very childish and accusing. You can watch channel ten's news and ABC's ATV news half an hour apart, and see the difference. I think its disgusting.

They seem to have forgotten the point of news, and treat it like some story-telling contest, except, its LIVE! and see, we have the footage to prove it. For example with the story of the woman who gave birth to octuplets, what i saw on channel 7 or 9 or 10 (u cant tell them apart), was this tabloidy report, about how she was put 'upside down', and the kids survived, and something about she and her husband not speaking to the press. Ooh. On the ABC news however, we find out that she wasn't actually upside down but kept on an inclined position, actually told what country she was from, her age, the health issues for the children and so on. It was a very different sort of story. And not as if channel 7/9/10 had any better stories to do either.

The commercial stations here really turn their news reports into cheap entertainment. The newspapers aren't much better either. They're not as bad, but really, they're not that much better. Particularly with things like statistics and so on. my psychology statistics lecturer told us the first lecture we had, that she had yet to find a news report which didn't misrepresent its data. You know how graphs and things can be misread right (adjust the axes, etc.), well practically every piece of information in numbers can be too, since what often gets reported is an interpretation of the results and that usually involves a lot more math than people put in. That sucks yeah, but really. If u take a survey, of say 20 people (like those dubious things we did in primary school for projects), you get such unreliable results, but someone can just take your results and without explaining them, use them as basis for an article. Studies have shown...

In fact, studies have shown that what you read indelibly affects your point of view. Duh right? but no seriously. like for example, there was this experiment, where the subjects were given a list of statements, both true and false, and asked to rate them on a point-scale, on how interesting they were. Later, these same people were given a list of various statements, including some from the previous list, and asked the people to indicate whether or not each statement was true or false. What happened then was that a person who incorrectly judged a statement was more likely to have judged a false statement true, if they'd seen that statement in the previous list.

In another experiment, an ongoing one in fact, which i took part in, but lets get on with it... What happens is that the subjects (in pairs) are first given a questionnaire to fill in, on their views of a particular issue, such as whether or not people should confess guilty secrets, stuff like that. And then they're given something to read. Both people get these official looking printouts, with titles like 'studies from the Blah institute of Psychiatry', etc. For one person, the printouts report studies which 'show' that the confession of secrets has shown to have bad effects on the guilty confessor and the confessee(?). The other person, reads about how confessing of past secrets is a good thing, it makes everyone feel better and cleanses the psychological system. They don't know they're both reading different reports of course. When they're done, they get the questionnaire again, along with more questions if i remember correctly, to try control the many variables.

What usually happens is that you find each person usually changes their opinions on the subject, and its not a small change either. Quite an obvious sway of opinion. At the end of the experiment, when its revealed the documents are all bogus, the subjects usually think, 'no shit. im such a sucker'. And then, you can't help but wonder about the effect the media has and then ...

[Remember the guy in the latest Bond? Goldeneye? the guy who owned the media? I wanna be like him. so cool. ]

I guess what i'm trying to say is that you should be very aware of what you read. What i've just written might, in the spirit of irony, be just as sensationalistic and even totally false, but there's no denying that what you read is often what you believe, and so be careful. Don't get sucked in.
 

Perhaps i'll tell you about another party. [grin] 'Twas a birthday event, for two of my good friends, so it was nice and relaxed... i drank far more than i ever have, and realised to much amusement all round, that alcohol affects my diction at 3 glasses of wine and two bottles of stolichnya lemon ruski. I'd be saying something incredibly coherent and then mess up on the simplest words.

"You're going to the Big Day Out concert?"

"yeah! no way i'm going to miss that! i don't care if i have to go alone, its got Marilyn Manson!! and Hole! and Korn, and flibbubrsim. I mean, Fa blur sim. ARGH. F a t, Boy, S l i m. Yes. "

Fat boy slim is a good band. Sortof a band. Well he's a DJ. im not sure if he has a band. Hrm.

Big Day Out is good stuff too. $69 for an entire day of rock and various inscrutable music genres. I refuse to miss it, and i'll even go alone. My friends are either too broke, stuck in singapore, or just sotong-blur about how amazing the line up for this rock fest is. Here's the website: www.bigdayout.com check out the incredible line-up: Hole, Marilyn Manson, Korn, Manic Street Preachers, Rammstein (with pyrotechnics), Underworld, Fur, Fun Lovin Criminals, Powderfinger, Groove Terminator, Fat Boy Slim, The Living End, Regurgitator, Etc. etc. etc. etc. Lots lots lots more. aaah! the orgasmic potential. (kelly kelly kelly, wrong place wrong time wrong financial situation, wish u were here).

I should stop writing soon. What else is there to update. Oh yess... I'm newly-mad about Rialto! I have the mp3, of their Monday Morning 5:19 song, and i thought they were these long-disbanded pop group in the 80s, but turns out they're a new group! well relatively. Go visit their marvellous website. A bunch of sweet british boys, i love british boys, and they're funny too. hahah. One of them mentioned Beck's Odelay as a defining album for him, and another mentioned Blondie, and the Stranglers, and etc. These guys have fabulous taste! *rave* they make fabulous music too. I want their album. Can't find it here. Oh and by the way, Blondie is another marvellous group, except they're really from the 80s but they just re-formed after 15 yrs and have a new album. I love their older tunes. I have these midi versions of 3 songs, better than nothing. :-)
 

Happy holidays people, and may Marvellous things happen to you next year!

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