Mmmmmmmmarriage

Wow I've been surprised with how many people have asked me to write more blogs/read that one I wrote yesterday. I'm feeling quite popular right now. Sort of like Paul De Voir after his third album "The End of Inhumanity". I loved that album. Anyway, enough attempts at inventing people and onto the topic of today's blog: Marriage.

Which I just decided isn't the topic anymore. I could write about it, but I feel inclined to just write a thoughts blog. Thoughts about what? I don't know - Incest, bees, virtualisation, Santa, mousse and it's integration into our society. Whatever strikes me as interesting. And incidentally it's none of those things. I'm retarded... But not that retarded.

Athlete's Foot. That's what I'll write about, seeing as I have a case of it on my left foot. I've never had it before, so never knew how disgusting it was. For those of you who have never had it/seen it, just picture all your toes covered in dead skin and tiny blisters, all with a blood red tinge. It's like looking into the eyes of a rapist, or something to that effect. It also itches lots, which sucks when you try and sleep cause it heats up and gets triple-itch. I had to put some crazy vomit-smelling cream on it called Mycota. It smells gross, and feels gross, but should hopefully rid me of my foot-borne burden.

And that's my Athlete's Foot.

Next item will be more boring... It concerns depression. We've all heard enough about Rowan's struggle with the voices in his head, but I can't just write about Athete's Foot, so this is necessary. Surprisingly, I've been dealing with heaps of crap thoughts attacking lately. Particularly last week. For a while there I thought I'd kicked them, but I haven't. They've come back with a vengeance. Last week was actually quite a miserable one for me, even Gala Day was av. And despite what I've said, I wasn't 'sick' (slash faking sickness) on Friday, I was depressed and didn't wanna deal with anyone. It was a crap day too, cause I hoped someone would ask me why I wasn't at school and then I could open up to them. I s'pose you could say it was a very subtle cry for help.

I'm happy again now, though I've been really uppy downy lately. Then again, I didn't expect a few years of on and off depression to just vanish. The main thing I'm dealing with at the moment is who I am. It's not really that often that I feel like I'm just being myself. Usually I feel like I'm trying too hard or not trying at all. A thought as silly as 'I hate my smile' can stop me from feeling like trying. Or when I'm tired I can't look people in the eyes for some reason, and it makes me feel really self-conscious. Like people might be thinking I have something to hide when I don't.

But let's not speak of that anymore. I've done the topic of 'me' to death. I know, I am highly interesting, but I have to involve the all-important readers somehow. And today I'm going to do that by asking my reader's what they think of marriage. You can write my blog for me.

Do you think marriage is a necessary eventual step in a relationship? Do you think marriage is the ultimate act of love? Do you think couples who never get married are just as 'in love' as couples who do? What do you think of the increasing divorce rate and decreasing marriage rate? Is marriage for the couple or for the friends and family?

I'll post my thoughts when you post yours :D

In the meantime, enjoy this photo:

Parents

Well I just had the conversation with my parents that I had been dreading... It went from us talking about me having the house to myself while they were away to them uttering those words that I had been hoping not to hear: "Rowan, we've read your blog...".
I already had this feeling that they had... They just kept dropping sentences hinting that they knew of my abandonment of Christianity: "Rowan, if you're not gonna be going to church anymore then you should take yourself off the car-parking roster." "Are you going to be going to youth group this year, Rowan?". It doesn't sound that suspicious, but normally I wouldn't be asked if I was going to youth group this year, it would be a given.
There were some more subtle hints at them knowing of my recent (and long) depression. They seemed to be popping their heads into my room more than usual to say "hello", but it seemed more like they were making sure I hadn't axed myself while I was in there.

So anyway, onto our 'conversation' (though it was more like an interview). We talked about it for quite a while, and I had them backed into a corner with no legitimate reasons to not let me have the house, so they either had to let me have it or admit that they'd read my blog and knew about my recent depression. They weren't about to let me have the house for 12 days without a fight, so, of course, they played the 'depression' card. They asked me why and how long and blah blah blah but I managed to get away with just saying that I was over it and it won't come back during my fortnight of by-myselfness.

Right after that came the 'Christianity' card. They questioned me about what reasons I had, whether I researched it thoroughly and unbiasedly etc etc etc. I answered in a really general and not-helpful way, not because I couldn't answer specifically, but because I actually don't like sharing my reasons with those of faith in case I'm the one who turns them to the 'dark side'. I know my parents' roots are deeply dug, and I didn't expect them to just 'turn', but I've already uprooted a few people from their faith without even meaning too, and to be honest, it feels crap. It should feel good being right, but asking Christians questions they can't answer almost makes me feel guilty, like I'm some bastard destroying peoples' beliefs just because I can.

Anyway, all this interviewing came up with a surprising result. I was half-expecting judgment and pity, but they showed understanding and respect. That's perhaps due to a warped view of Christians and Christianity, but that's my fault, not theirs. At the same time though, I knew they wouldn't act in such a fundamentalist way, and I almost feel guilty for judging them as such judging people when I know they're not.

So what's the point to this story? Well, the point is that my parents are frickin' awesome. I love them so much for just being loving and understanding - for being what parents should be. I don't know why I was so afraid of them confronting me! I feel almost closer to them in a way, like I could talk to them about big life events, even though I know I probably wouldn't.

Um one more lolcat thing. My mum, as her last question for the night, asked me if I was going out with Heather! I wish!

And thus I have ended the week long blog drought. This may have been long winded and not really about anything, but the drought is finished. And I think I have a topic for tomorrow night also!

Here's a celebratory picture:

The one rule to succeeding in life: Never be afraid to ask!

At least that's my depiction of the picture.

What a mint sentence!

Notting

I haf notting to vwite about. I vwant to vwite a blog but I haf no ideas for anyting. Well, actually there is some stuff that I want to write about, but for a blog that quite a few school people read, I think those things are a liiiiitle too personal. Maybe I should make a blog just for personal thoughts that no one knows about....

Enter my day:
Today was quite a busy one for me. I got up at 8 in the morning, played some KOTOR, went to Heather's and baked a cake (which was a disaster, lol) and did some slow-mo fights, then went to Tim's and played some mad sitting petanque/frisbee. I got home at like 6 or something. So yeh, I'm quite tired.

Worst part about the day is that Rick called up to say that his girlfriend is in hospital. I think her name's Kirsten or something? Anyway, she was in some insane accident on the corner of 5th and 22nd, so now she's in hospital with multiple broken bones and possibly permanent damage to her brain. I feel really sorry for Rick because he had just had a really big fight with Kirsten, and now she's in a coma so he may never get to tell her he didn't mean the things he said. Worst thing is that Rick never got to tell Kirsten that he loved her. Here's hoping she comes out OK so Rick can profess his love for her.

Anyway. I have nothing else to say in this blog unfortunately. I'm running real short on topics without constant religiousness. I think I'll have a drink of water. Or multiple drinks. That way when the Hittites attack I'll be hydrated and ready for battle.

LET THEM COME!!!

Valentine's Day

Today was Valentine's Day, and it was the best one I've had so far. I didn't get much in the way of Valentines gifts, but it was just a really good day. Everyone was so happy and it seemed almost as if groups and stuff disappeared just for that day.

But I'm not here to talk about my day... I'm here to talk about Valentine's Day in general. Do you think that it's become just another commercialised day? An excuse for retailers to make money? Or do you think it's still just a day to show your love to your partner/friends?

Some people have said that they refuse to treat it as a special day because it has become so 'commercialised' and has lost it's true meaning. They say that we should be showing our love each and every day, so there should be no need for a 'Valentine's Day'. I agree that we should be showing our love every day, but not that commercialisation is an excuse to boycott it. So the retailers are making a killing off it? So what? That doesn't mean we can't use it as a day to treat the ones we love, and to show them we'd go the extra mile. It's a chance for couples to show how much their partner means by going further than just those 3 words, and making a gesture of love.

Anyway, I got interrupted halfway through this blog so now I don't remember what else I was gonna say. Instead I'll provide you with some pictures that depict what Valentine's Day means to me:

My Nemesis

I am so pissed off right now. I tried to do something nice for someone (ie sell my computer to Heather for like mega cheap) and then it just blows up in my face. I spent like hours getting it ready for her, then me and Deven went round to her house to install it and everything's going good until the internet won't work, and the monitor starts randomly turning off.

So anyway, today we decided we'd come round again and fix it, so after school I transferred all her old files off her old PC onto my external hard drive so we could put it on the new beast. Then we went round again to fix the internet, and instead the fan on Deven's old 9800 (it's a graphics card) decides to quit on us leaving us with an 80 degree graphics card which freezes on start-up. Anyway, we managed to temporarily fix that by giving the fan a flick to get it started (though it still never managed to go full RPM), and that gave us time to try fix the internet at the very least.

Unfortunately, the internet still didn't go after literally trying EVERYTHING. I tried setting manual IP settings, tried disabling any router firewalls or filtering, checked the router settings about a thousand times for something that might be preventing internet access, and heaps of other stuff too. Going by my logic, it can't be the computer that's preventing access because I can still get into the router settings page via it's IP address, and the internet was working for me when I had that computer here. So it must be something involved with the change of environment. Then again, the router doesn't seem to be blocking the computer, it is connected to the internet because the other laptops in the house worked perfectly, and Heather's old PC connected to the internet fine.

No wonder the case is called the Nemesis Elite!

The only conclusion I've come to is that I'm stumped. All I can do now is hope that spending hours looking for a solution will actually work.

I feel real bad too... Getting her hopes up and then destroying them. I talked it up heaps too, about how I never have problems with it and about how fast it goes (which was all true, until now).

Anyway, I'm gonna go google some stuff and see if I can find an answer. If there's conveniently a computer genius reading this then please, help me!

Me

School today got me thinking... Who am I? Why can I be someone totally different depending on who I'm with? Does my desire to be funny override what personality I have?

I can't really think of anyone who I'm completely natural with. There are some people who I feel more myself with, but rarely do I find anyone who I can just be myself with, and put impressing them aside. I wonder if it's that I don't actually know who I am, therefore I can't 'just be myself'. Then again, sometimes I want so badly to be this guy who everyone finds hilarious that I do or say things that just don't feel like 'me'. Maybe it's that 'me' is more of a feeling than anything.

It's funny cause I feel more like myself than before, and I'm a lot happier, but then at the same time I have no idea who I am, which doesn't make me sad, it just makes me feel really confused. Sometimes I wish someone would just say to me "This is who you are, these are the jokes you make, these are the things you enjoy".

One other thing I realised today was that I am barely friends with any of the people from my year 9 class. It's kind of disappointing, because a lot of them still seem to be friends. Whatever though. I love the friends I have now, so that's OK.

I hoped I wouldn't have to write more blogs about me and my feelings, but I s'pose my blog's here so that I can get thoughts out etc.

First Day of School

Today was the first day back at school, and the first day being a year 13. I'm incredibly happy about it. I have good teachers, my subjects are good from what I can tell, and I have wicked people in all my classes. The only thing I'm slightly dissatisfied with is my study periods, (Monday 2nd, Wednesday last, Thursday 1st, Friday 2nd... I think...) but hopefully I'll have some decent people to hang out with during them, then they won't be so bad. I still haven't had Maths with Stats or Tourism, but I already know there's g-unit people in both of them, and that my teachers are pretty good.
I can't wait for the year to actually get started. I've already written a blog about all the things I'm looking forward to in year 13, but I'm sure I forgot to write that I was looking forward to just general hanging out with friends. This will be the last year that I see some people, so I wanna make the most of it. This year is more about socialising (and doing hilarious things) than actually getting credits for me. I can already get into CPIT, so it doesn't matter what I do this year.

But enough about school, considering most people who read this actually go to my school... I finished building my new PC the other day. It kicks ass. I can run FarCry on reasonable settings with only onboard graphics. That probably means I can run Half-life 2 reasonably too. This makes me wonder how much an 8800gt is gonna own if some crappy Intel 9000 (or whatever) onboard graphics can do this well. This is like my Geforce mx440 all over again... 64mb and it could run some of the most demanding games of the time! That card was so beautiful... That is until it started nutting out and making lines all over the screen. That's OK though, they can take it's ability to produce graphics, but they can never take the memories. One of those cliche montages of me and my mx440 is playing in my head right now...

Anyway, I have this strange feeling that my Bebo profile needs an updated profile picture, along with a new story. Man I love writing them, even though they are perfect examples of terrible literature. Reminds me of Johnny Cucumber - the man with the unquenchable thirst for danger... A thirst stronger than Stephen's thirst for hymen crushing.

And now I'm gonna play drums instead of writing Bebo crap. Suddenly I am lusting for them. Oh you sexy kit... Let's make out...

Enjoy your drinks.