Inspired by Hyperbole and a Half, I'm going to regale you with stories of moving house. In about a month, my lease here runs out, and then I'm no longer staying in Brisbane.
Nathan and Joe are much saddened by this.
Anyway, so going back to Ballina is accompanied by many things:
- Quitting my job. Which makes me quite sad.
- Deferring uni for a year (which I just checked on. I wasn't sure if it went through, and if it didn't, my 5 days would most certainly be up, and I'd have been turfed out of uni. But that didn't happen) and applying to go to Monash. There is no Monash campus in Ballina; I'm studying via distance ed as I have done before... but that was for high school.
- Packing up my books and whatnot before I leave on Saturday.
The packing up of books and whatnot is what irritates me most. Firstly, it is a horrendous effort to get a hold of boxes.
"What ho," you say, brow furrowed, "but surely your brother is Woolworths Gatekeeper of Doom?"
Indeed, my brother is one of those Woolworths Gatekeepers. However, the conversation went as follows:
ME: Chris, can you please get me boxes from Woolies?
CHRIS: Can't you get them?
ME: You work there, though.
CHRIS: Get them yourself.
A few hours later, I texted him pretending to be Mum. This was an unwise move, as my mother is a technophobe and has only just learned how to open a text message. When I next saw Chris, the conversation ensued as so:
ME: So, did you get those boxes Mum told you to put aside for me?
CHRIS: No, I did not get those boxes you told me to put aside for you, but Mum's aware that you kidnapped her phone now.
Finally, I decided to go back to Brisbane and get boxes. The guy at the counter was lovely. "Sure," he said, "I'll put aside boxes for you. We're getting in a load tonight, so I'll tell Chris to keep as many aside as he can."
"Chris?"
"Yeah, our produce guy. The 2IC."
Chris, at this point, was carefully stacking mangoes and glaring at me.
"Oh. Okay," I said, shifting my chocolate and mince. "Well, my name is Natasha Pavez, P-A-V-E-Z, and you can just call my brother and let him know my boxes are there, because my phone's on the fritz."
"Wait, Pavez? That's the produce g -" And the guy promptly scribbled out my name, wrote in capitals PUT ASIDE BOXES FOR YOUR SISTER, CHRIS and beamed at me. "I'll let him know."
"You, sir, are fantastic."
And Chris kept up his scowling til I left the store.
When I saw Chris this morning, he was alternately excited because he'd just bought Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, and cranky because I was the bringer of bad news. One, that Chris had to move too, and two, that he had to put aside boxes for me at work.
He said, very sulkily, "I put them aside for you. You can go pick them up when you finish work." Muttermuttermutter. "I have a game to play. So I can't get them for you."
I returned after work, and guy at counter went to find me my boxes. The same guy as yesterday, so that was a bonus. He returned with a trolley.
"Um... Chris put aside a lot of boxes. I think he took 'as many as possible' literally."
The trolley, now in my living room, is a flipping jack-in-the-box of boxes.
Anyway, so I have started packing. I started with my beloved books, and in a Crinkle Cut Variety Multipack 20 (which, I'll assume, carries 7 packets of 20 packets of chips), I have cleared ONE SHELF.
Just one.
I want to take a photo, but Bellatrix is in NSW, so I can't.
I also have forgotten to buy packing tape. My logic wasn't too sound; it was a tossup between pizza and packing tape. I went with pizza, though I could have eaten most anything in my cupboard. I am now quite literally the proud owner of $3 and nothing more, as I donated the rest of my coinage to charity.
And in this wasteland which I call a room, I have to somehow locate my flipping HSC results. Somehow, this gets me into Monash. I think I burned my HSC results in glee. Or they were the closest thing to hand when I needed to draw. Either way, my HSC results are not in this room.
I just phoned Mum. My HSC results are something of a mystery. "Where would they be?"
"I don't know. I thought you kept them, because I'd do something stupid like burn them."
"That's true, I did say that. Call me in the morning, I'll look then."
I wager they're watching TV.
"Did you pack up your room?"
Guiltily looking at my lone Crinkle Cut Variety Multipack 20 box, I told her I did and hastily made my exit.
Now I'm the proud owner of $3.20. And... my medicine. For my bad cough. WHICH DISAPPEARED ON ITS OWN. Never am I buying medication again.
Okay, so in packing up my DVDs, copious numbers of magazines (I will be slaughtered when my mother sees them), and CDs, I have noticed a few things:
- Pride and Prejudice's case has vanished.
- Dr Parnassus has vanished. Not the case, mind. Just the DVD.
- Lo and behold! Pride and Prejudice has been found under a copy of Queensland Brides.
- Huzzah! Dr Parnassus has been found inside Pride and Prejudice!
Actually, another problem, prompted by my seeing Crowded House's Woodface (best. album. evs, I might add). Why on earth does Sirius not read it? It makes no sense. Apple, I demand an explanation. You also didn't allow Sirius to read Linkin Park's iconic Meteora, the last album they did before they became sensitive Twifails.
Okay, back to packing.
The DVDs and CDs and copious amounts of magazines got packed in a Corn Flakes box, which is upside down.
However, Kelloggs manufacture their boxes with a gaping hole, which is okay for Corn Flakes, but not so okay for Scrubs, Vogue, and a huge Spanish dictionary.
I cannot be bothered repacking this box, so I will leave this for when I return and I am inevitably scolded.
Okay, attempting to carry that box did not work.
The hole ripped open and I got a Spanish dictionary to the toe.
This isn't a meagre paperback dictionary, either, like my French one. This one is like this. No, I didn't pay $93.95 for a dictionary, I got mine in Melbourne for $30 because I went down a creepy-looking side street and found a v. tiny bookstore.
Either way, it hurt.
To repack that box in NOT a Kelloggs box.
I should ask Chris to buy me packing tape.
Wow, he said yes.
In an attempt to pick up the other box, it tore as well. This is where working in a bookstore had its benefits; the boxes were DESIGNED to carry about 50 books at once, generally hardcover. (By the way, until you've lifted a box of Dan Brown's latest bestseller, retailing at $60 or the low low price of $54.95, you have not lifted a box.)
Maybe I'll just pack my suitcase, because that physically cannot tear.
Packing my suitcase is kinda boring and also very demoralising. I am sitting here, scowling at various items in my room.
Sims 3, if I hadn't have bought you, maybe I could have bought packing tape.
Ticket to go home, if I hadn't bought you, I could have bought packing tape.
DKNY Be Delicious perfume, if Papi hadn't bought you, maybe he could have bought me packing tape.
See, the thing with Chris is, he may SAY he'll buy packing tape, and he will do that. The question is when. And it is a sad sad day when I can't even afford $4.50, because I need $1.70 to get to Roma Street on Saturday to catch a bus home and th -
If I hadn't have bought that muffin I could have bought packing tape. CURSE YOU $4.50 muffin!
Anyway, and then I've got to start a new job somewhere (which apparently is at the pub in Alstonville), and then I will have funds.
Young Victoria DVD, even though you are in Wollongbar, if I hadn't bought you we would have been solid (though I would have been sad come hometime).
So I danced around my room for a while to Eddplant and Dashboard Confessional; I now have posted a horrendously emo Twitter post. Life in Technicolor begins with the music from The Escapist, which is a song hidden at the end of Death and All His Friends (hi, yes, I listen to Coldplay, what's your point? That I know way too much about it? Shush).
and
in the end
we lie awake
and we dream of making our escape.
and
in the end
we lie awake
and we dream of making our escape.
The song only has that as its lyrics, one verse repeated twice, yet I honestly love it more than I love Swallowed in the Sea. And it sets me off. I don't know why, but it makes me wonder what happened to me. Why I feel like I need to flee home, and why I'm spending the year in Wollongbar again. I mean, yeah, I know above all that this is the right choice for now - I kind of need to learn to drive, for starters, and I can do that far easier down home. I also need to save money, as I spent my Year 12 blowing it in huge hits when I thought $50 was cheap. (Goodbye, money, I'm sure the Sunshine Coast and Melbourne economies adored you.) I want to get back in the headspace of Year 12, not where I was a nutjob but where I craved writing, where I craved books, and where my tongue danced around Spanish and English in this strange language that my Tata and I speak in (my cousins also speak it, but less sarcastic and less rantily about authors). I want to also regain my sense of adventure. By year 12, I was in desperate need for adventure. I think I needed it, but also needed to be connected to home, hence why I fled to Brisbane. Next on my agenda, after however long I'm at home, I think I might go to Melbourne. Get my RSA and RCG for Victoria and just amble on down there, and see how I go. Maybe Sydney.
The advantage of Distance Ed means I'm pretty much open with possibilities as to where I can go.
I'm being coaxed by Glen to go to the Sunshine Coast; the only disadvantage of doing that right now is lack of transport. Not saying Wollongbar's got transport, by any means, but that at least there I have a Tata who drives me anywhere, given I beg nicely and pay him at the end of the week (he doesn't like being paid however). Brisbane's transport is quite brilliant, Melbourne's is fantastic, and Sydney's? I'm not too sure, but I do know it's flipping expensive.
Okay, quick diversion.
On Alex Day's channel, I saw a video about dreamlines, where Master Day writes down his dreams for the next 3 months and then, at the end, comments on how he did, etcetera so on so forth. I myself have decided to do this, as I'm on holidays now. Yay!
My list, which is currently at home, is:
- Do 40 hours of driving. At the speed I am allowed to travel in NSW (QLD doesn't have these laws, but in NSW I'm restricted to 80km/hr), this should be a breeze. I can apparently get 120 hours in 6 months, according to my father, if he takes me driving daily. THEN I GET MY Ps.
- Write at least 40,000 words in my novel. Really, not much to do. I'm taking it slowly, as NaNoWriMo failed with stresses and angst and me really just not feeling like writing.
- Get a job, which may have happened.
- Get accepted to Monash, which may happen.
- Get published again (and the bridal stuff doesn't count in this total, as I've known it was going to happen). A nice side dream would be payment for being published, but we can dream.
So in three months, I shall review this and see how I've gone. If the novel's done, we can safely assume the goal for 6 months' time will be to get an agent, and get it sent off to be edited/published/whatever.
And that, because I am all levels of procrastinatey right now and really need to turn off the computer, is my apology for abandoning you guys for so long. I apologise profusely, really. I attempted to write, and just could never get anywhere... but I think tonight God's unlocked it again in me.
Ah, craft and arts and things of the heart. Darn confusing, is what they are.
But oh so worth it.
