The Ramblings of Elyse

The day of all Antioch days has come and gone. Yes, State Mass.

Long ago, we decided and I don't even know who is part of that we is, I think it is Adam, Lexi, Davey and myself, and long ago it was declared it wasn't a real Antioch event until I hurt myself.
Which is strange, coz Lexi hurts herself just as much and generally worse.

Though, different issue.
So yesterday was state mass and I ended up with some quality, quality injuries.

1. The infamous foot injury. This one I know how I got! So at Renew, I hurt my foot playing soccer barefoot. It hurt for a while. It eventually went away and I adjusted with a slight hobble and played fake drums left footed. So all throughout yesterday, there was lots of jumping around. A lot of it mainly being over things such as walls and what not. All of that combined to leave me with one seriously sore foot.

2. Overzealous clapping. I'm not a seasoned Antioch clapper. I can't handle the clapping needed and so never developed a resistence so that clapping causes damage.
This was also state mass; in many situations I am the inappropriate clapper. It's not always inappropriate, but at State Mass particular, I'm for the CELEBRATION aspect! So I start the clapping a lot. I can clap really loudly.
It's a skill and I've started claps at very strange situations. Reminds me of my school days starting clapping at assemblies for very strange reasons.
Half of Toonie, Dapto and Engadine were the backseat bandits. We were at back, creating the noise.
This lead to Elyse's watch and clapping leaving a small cut on my wrist. I don't know if it's a cut. I'd say cut, it's deeper then a graze. Let's stick with cut.
Though, cut on my wrist isn't a good thing to say. It's like a centimetre and not very deep. Photos available on request.

3. Graze on my leg. I came prepared this year and wore shorts purely for the fake fountain (more on that later!) and so as a result, I had no buffer zone for my stacking it. So, I stacked it a few times. I can't even remember, once was at Putney and I hurt my knee, but I think the actual graze came from Maroubra Beach after seeing the giant Rubick's Cube. The steps didn't go down to the beach, so there was climbing to get back up.

4. Out of all my injuries I've had, this is the most consistant... My infamous mysterious shoulder injury.
I hurt my shoulder in year 12... MYSTERIOUSLY! I just woke up with a sore shoulder one day and it got worse and worse as the days progressed. That should injury has never really gone away. It comes and goes and it normally goes quick enough for me not to have done anything in the 5 years since I've left school.
What happened yesterday?
So after the interviews in the Fake Hyde Park Fountain concluded, I put my shoes back on and while doing so, over balanced and fell backwards on to the grass landing on my shoulder. It hurt for a little bit and then I got over it. Or you know, then it didn't so I carried on with my life and then came this morning and now.
My shoulder really hurts and I can't really move it properly. 'tis no good. It's rare for my stacking it pain to last the day after.


So that is Elyse's injury wrap up.
Thus proving State Mass- real Antioch event.

It brings me to another point, if Elyse hurting herself makes it a real Antioch event, does that then mean the more seriously she hurts herself the better that Antioch event is?
If that is the case then Renews- The Live Cross to Christ/Best Renews Ever really was the best renew ever and to that I say boo-yeah James, Boo-yeah! *fist bump*

And if James isn't reading this. A little dead in side that my fist goes un-bumped.

This brings me to the most epic of stories.
I have two consistents in my Antioch career. One- State Mass. My first State Mass I was an Antiocher of 2 weeks and was mocked on the train by the Glenmore Park kids for being part of Rooty Hill but been going every year since and then two- attempting to throw someone in the fountain at Hyde Park since. The first victim was on my first State Mass and was Dana. Very appropriate, don't ya think?
I've since attempted to throw many, many people in since. A few people have tried throwing me. Good times.
Only one person has ever gone in and that bitch deserved it. Hi Davey!
Last year, it was only Cardboard Adam, but you know, that totally counts, since Psuedo Davey also almost got thrown in.

So, this year's state mass, no where near Hyde Park, so I did the next best thing. I brought my own.
My trip started with a journey to Franklins to try and find a bucket. Oh and I found a bucket... and also got glue, electrical tape and a permanent marker. I was going to get some kind of horse to stick in the middle but I couldn't find one. I was then going to get a platypus from the City but it was a stuffed toy, which everyone knows isn't appropriate for a fountain.

So I did it. I brought my own.
Now lots have people have been in the fountain. Including me. I conducted interviews from it. This interviews are on camera... Just not my camera. Most of the fountain pictures Adam has, so I should get those at some stage.

I was asked how many inanimate objects I have that represent other things. The answer is only one and it's technically none, but that explaination will come later. Cardboard Adam was created and owned by actual Adam and while, I bought and created Pseudo Davey, is was always going to actual Davey since I owed her a frypan.

Now, I was wondering what I was going to do with Fake Hyde Park Fountain and when I walked in my Mum asked me not only did I find a horse for it, but also made claims of the bucket.
This marks the only time my mother has ever supported me in my crazy endevours. I think I should be scared.
My Dad was true to form, especially when I asked him to stop at Franklins to buy said bucket.

The Fake Hyde Park Fountain was a hit and the photos are awesome.

Now comes the aftermath. Lots of photos on Facebook.
Good times.

'til '10 (prounced " Oh ten") State Mass...
Yay!

The day has come where I need to look at my life and go, "what the fuck Elyse?"

Then again, if I really asked myself, that isn't a sudden realisation. There is no great Epiphany.
There is no great moment where the secrets of the world will be revealed to me.

I've never really used this as the place to think about the world. In all honesty, that is not something I ever want to commit to text. These words will out last the moment, the feeling and more than likely me.
They will be forever locked into something that I may not know.

Today is petty cash day. I sit on my desk surrounded my receipts and the tin. Behind me there is cake, but petty cash day.
One of the highlights of my job here is that I was the one that brought balance to the petty cash. When I first started doing it, it would never add up and so things need to be taken away from it and now as a result I have about $35 of spare petty cash that I generally use to buy birthday cakes because our cake days never fall on days when I have petty cash.
Bringing balance to the petty cash tin. This is a highlight. I did what I had to. The entire thing is meant to balance.
The money taken out and the money received.

So much of stuff is meant to balance.
But it doesn't.
It's not uncommon to hear someone referred to as "unbalanced". Not completely together and all that.

Then the question remains, what is the ultimate aim?
Balance?
Balance on what scale?

What if there is no answer. Looking for the great answer. I don't think it exists.

Angel's epiphany was "If in the end nothing we do matters, then all we matters is what we do"
Sweeney Todd's is that "they all deserve to die".

Oh, epiphanys. They are a little crazy.
Is that even spelled correctly?

I don't know man. We'll see how it goes.

Once again, I should stop writing these at work when I keep getting distracted by work!
Oh, the pain of it all.

'til next time.
I may make more sense.

There is an epic debate that rages on the internet, Ninja vs Pirate?

To anyone that knows me, I'm pro-pirate. I'm very pro-pirate.

So, when it comes to the 19th of September, it is a glorious day. GLORIOUS!
This Saturday, I did intend spend the day dressed as a pirate... Apparently, I also looked like Peter Pan and Captain Feathersword.
I get that last comment a lot, I think it might be the fact I have a Captain Feathersword hat. Though, it is the only tri-point hat I've found. I'm talking real hat, some kind of material.
If I found a proper pirate hat it would be awesome!

Well, funnily enough, I have one. I have a Captain Sparrow pirate hat, complete with attached dreadlocks, which is cool. But it's weird. I have long hair that is apparently blonde (sigh...) which means it doesn't blend in easy and looks weird, the obvious solution is to cut off the hair, but then what would my parents say since it was a gift from them?
Funny story, my parents went to America last year and went to Disneyland in that trip. My three siblings got leather jackets and I got a pirate hat. Yeah, yeah.
That's not favouritism at all!
Well, the leather jackets were apparently on sale for ridiculously cheaply and didn't have my size, so thus, I got pirate hat, which is indeed awesome.
However, it's the hair attached. I don't know how I feel about it.

Once again, I was distracted in the middle of writing.
I need to stop doing that... which means I should write at home or the train or something.
My bad.

But in the spirit of all great events, there should be cake or pictures of cake... stolen from websites.
This is a link to Cake Wrecks, awesome site and this is the Pirate themed cakes and damn they are awesome.
I want one!

It has certainly been awhile since I have done a quality post... Ok, I've never done one of those, but a post about books!

My latest book?
The Picture of Dorian Gray. Another Penguin classic. How awesome are Penguin classics? $10!

Love it!

So, I started reading this. The Preface is awesome, brilliant, it is one of the greatest things I've ever read.
I had high expectations of this book, plus, you know, it's a classic, I was afraid that I knew the "twist" that it would ruin the book.

Yeah, not really an issue, that whole reveal is on the back cover.
Good work Elyse!

I was mainly left cold by the book, and then one day I had lunch with a friend of mine. A friend who in her spare time doubles as an English Teacher, who told me it was brilliant and suck it up and keep reading it. There was more discussion about Oscar Wilde and all that.

But man, the ending?
Brilliant!

I was reading on the bus yesterday and when it was my stop, I had the last two pages to go and it was just damn, so one I got my lift, I stopped to read those last two pages and man, excellent.

Probably, why it's the classic.

Plus, the thing that I didn't get is that because Dorian was a pretty, pretty man (ok, they use the word beautiful, but I prefer the word pretty. It's a West Side Story thing) it meant that he had a pretty, pretty soul.
The entire concept is that sin becomes written on the outside, so thus external beauty is indicative of the purity and what not of the soul.
Thus, all the sin ends up on the face of the portrait. But he does end up unscathed.

All the rumours and what not still existed around him, so even though he's looks went unscathed, nothing else did.

In the end, no matter how much Oscar Wilde makes the claim in the preface that there is art for only art's sake, but in the end, Dorian is a pretty evil dude. The basis of his thinking seems to be upon finding out about the portrait bearing the wear of his actions is to go and be all evil.
And in the end, he meets his end. He breaks, breaks down and then more or less kills himself.

So dude does no good and dies in the end with no one caring about his demise.
That is a moral tale. That is not art for art's sake.

Good book.

Next on the list:
Catcher in the Rye.

I've been told I may be past the prime to get the most out of it, but we'll see.

Also on my book pile:
Catch 22
Lolita
Junky


Anyone with some recommendations for me?

Wow, I kind of stuffed up that linkage action...

And yet, I'm not going to fix it, because that's not how I roll.

I hate titles... and character names...
Seriously, hate them.

It's the real reason why I could never be a writer... yeah, that's it.

Though, let me get real with you for a little bit.

Ok, I won't, because I'm not that much of a tool.

I think I've mentioned this before, but for some reason I have this dream to be big on the internet. That's right, I want to be a meme dammit!
I'm not sure I even know why, because these rants aren't really interesting, enlightening or that amusing to anyone that isn't me.
So that is my big internet dream.

It's dream, I'm way too lazy to actually do anything other than you know make my friends read this. You guys do read when I link you, right? RIGHT? RIGHT?!?!?!

Anyway, that isn't really why I was writing, it was just a tangent.

It is currently 12.51am, what have I done since I got home yesterday from work, not including sleep was watching this youtube channel. It is fricken hilarious.
Tomorrow all my "your mum" jokes are going to be because of that, as well be all the incidents of finger guns and winking. Seriously, this is my warning. You guys should check out my blog and you'd know all about it.

Yes, I watched all 178 videos and just hilarious.
It all started when I clicked onto YouTube, it might have been because I'm looking for a new Reel Big Fish friend now that Chris is leaving me to go to Texas. (What the hell Chris? Pfft...)
Just to encourage people to become my new Reel Big Fish friend I shall include some clips of theirs from YouTube, admire their awesomeness.
A Live Clip... SR Though, that isn't their normal Trumpeter which makes me a little sad.
A Cover... Take on Me
What I always thought was their big hit... The Set Up
Their ACTUAL big hit... Sell Out
And one of my favourites... Where Have You Been This one is a live version, because I prefer the live version, coz it has the horn section and that is just fricken ace, bro.

Man, I'm totally getting good with the pimpin' stuff on my blog. Shit yeah man, I'm on fire!

Oh, right... Anyway, so I was looking at something on YouTube, I don't know, I'm sure it was super important at the time.
And then I found this video...
And man, it was gold. Pure gold and then I'm like, MUST. WATCH. MORE.
Umm.. so I did.
One of my other favourites is this one

So that was my weekend.
Hangin' out on YouTube.

Though, from watching that, I realise I want more nerdy shirts.
I guess not all of them have to be nerdy, like this one . IF that's not Elyse in a shirt, I don't know what is.

Well, I guess, this is Elyse in a shirt.

That actually took an embarrassingly long time to find.
Then again, most of the photos on here have been taken in winter, so I haven't been just in a shirt.
So man, I just used my photo bucket account.
The entire I reason have a photobucket account is so I can upload and link photos like this for my Buffy Forum. Which features some quality motivators that I made, I have lots. This one was for the challenge about using Buffy titles. Enjoy!
As I expose my tender geeky underbelly to my non-Buffy peeps.

I was going to do a post full of some other links that I enjoy, but I think I got a little carried away, so I guess that is for another day.

'til next time...

For some reason I have a whole lot of posts that I've just stopped writing in the middle of, so they have been sitting there as drafts.

Now, they have been published!
With even more nonsensical writings.

Except for one from last November about Acronyms. I think I had a point and I don't remember, so until I do have another thought about acronyms, I'll fix it.

I read it and it starts off talking about bf and then BFF and I don't know, but it was all kinds of odd.

Oh well, quite a number of new posts today. I don't think they are near the top, so it might take some hunting if you really want to read them.