I think they have those ones as well, but my uni seems to have quite a penchant for like, jazz musicians. The creation and conditioning thereof. I've gone to those ones, because secretly I want to be Erroll Garner

Oh. Economics. That sounds so dry. Poor you. Nice of him to let you out early though. I don't think anyone would go to a lecture that late at my uni... I had law til 5pm this semester and though it was a class of like 200, by the end of the semester, there'd only be about 60 people dotted across the lecture hall. What else are you taking other than economics?

Also, hope you had a nice Thanksgiving the other week or whenever it was.

Oh lord, that really is terrible . And to think we used to all be online every day.

I'm okay, just studying. Pretty much all I do now is learn about stuff I don't enjoy learning about. And cover my rent and power bills by occasionally working. And argue with my flatmate. Growing up, it is the bees knees.

How are you though? Moved overseas? Gone to uni? Other things?

Hey Nia,

hope everything's cool with you.

<3

What do you have to do til 9? That seems kind of retarded. Unless it's some kind of mystical trackish kind of a thing which I wouldn't know anything about. I don't go to anything at uni if it's later than 6pm, with the exception of the Tariq Ali lectures earlier this year, and the concert nights at the music school where the madly gifted final year music students have recitals.

I can't listen to any music on this machine because it's on its last legs. And if it's anything like Stadium Arcadium, I don't think I want to anyway

I love my rhcp most at like, Californication stage. The balance of that album is superb, and unrivalled by any of their things either before or since (admittedly I'm not that well acquainted with Stadium Arcadium in the first place, because I disliked the singles...)

Don't worry about it - I can only come here in 6 week bursts anyway.

Hey back. <3

Omg I haven't been able to write back until now. Are you at college yet? Today? Something like that? Do you have any idea how old that makes me feel?

I hope your summer passed beautifully, and I've also been dying to say for ages that they've started playing The Walking Dead over here, which makes me think of you.

Less than three.

I'm sorry

I don't have a computer anymore - my mum gave mine away when I wasn't home - and the uni ones aren't really conducive to skyping.

Eventually I will, but first I am going to find and acquire every season/book of a:tla, which is the best cartoon to have emerged from the last decade, though the movie is such a sad piece of shit.

Mine was pretty casual, because I've put off my SUPER HUGE OMGWTFBRAINEXPLODINGFROMTHEAWESOMESAUCEOFIT 21st until Summer, because I cba organising it from another city halfway through the university year. I made a sadly normal but still yum chocolate cake and iced it all prettily, and then forgot candles so made a wish on a tealight. I got clothes and some money from some people, and a mug with a photograph of my nephew's face on it, which is the most epic thing ever, because it makes me indescribably happy to drink tea out of my nephew's smiling, baby, porcelain head, and my brother refused not to get me a present on my actual birthday, even though he's willing to get me anything up to a car this summer.

Yes. How's your summer generally going?

Thank you!

Thank you!

At some point within the next year and a bit, my rich Melbourne cousins are shouting me to Melbourne and when they do, WE CAN HANG OUT AND IT WILL BE AWESOME.

I'm pretty sure you got me first last year, so now we're kind of square

Anyway, hope you got epic things. Things being the only reason anyone should ever celebrate birthdays, ever, of course.

Mia

Man, sorry for not replying due to the loss of my internet, but anyway. It is at this point in time my birthday, which means that within the next 24 hours (less, in reality) it will be your birthday as well.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BIRTHDAY TWIN

Have a wonderful day, year, and etc.

<3

Lenny

I find it soooo much easier to be myself when I stop caring about my awkward personality. I make it someone else's problem instead

Is it based on the book The Road by Cormac McCarthy? Because if it is, then I can believe it must be depressing.

I will swap you a depressing movie for another depressing movie you should never watch: Imagining Argentina. It put me off going to Argentina for life.

EDIT - and because that's sad, I also recommend you see Fallen, if you haven't already. Because anything with the Rolling Stones and Denzel Washington in it is too badass to not watch.

I'm happy for you. Clear skin does make you feel way better. Like, at least that's one less thing to worry about.

My fav bit is the Bill Murray cameo

And yes you have. I still haven't seen it though

Hmmm. The only advice I've ever had regarding shrooms is about how to prepare them for optimum results.

And no, why?

I watched Zombieland again today.

Y'know, as a precaution.

Honestly though, it's amaaaazing. Taking ludicrous amounts of it makes you get well again so much faster.

Lol, it probably is the better alternative right about now :/

I can't! I have no computer!

Vitamin c, y'know, the stuff in oranges, protects you against pretty much everything. Homeopathists

Iodine tablets, apparently, because radiation sickness gets you in your thyroid gland. that's actually probably the most sensible attitude. There really isn't anything we can do.

Probably better for the system than a zombie apocalypse, at any rate.

No fear - this one time I said that I'd tell you next time we were on skype about things I wasn't cool talking about online in a message box anyone can read, except I don't have skype anymore? I can understand your position rather well right now, I think.

I'm BETTER though. Or at least, off the 9 pills a day. Ftw. Now I only have to take 4x as much vitamin c as normal people, and go see the homeopathist

You should be careful - the radiation's hit the west coast - as in, your coast, according to our news. I get what you mean though. It's all so extraordinarily distant. Except for the radiation threat. If that fucks up, everyone around the Pacific - including both of us - are fucked. And y'know, being human, that's when we freak about those kinds of things. More.

Some good some bad. I made a red wine and fig jelly which wasn't so successful, but an apple and fig tart which everyone loved. Whatever, I am officially in the clear, domestics-wise. Which is just as well because my nervous system's decided to pack it in again and I'm on gazillions of pills

Oh my god I can't believe you're already almost at uni! That makes me feel so old But you don't need to worry about everything changing - because no, it doesn't. The classes just get way bigger, and the teachers stop caring, so you have to be a lot more self-motivated. And the parties get less... self-conscious, I suppose. People act like you have to be way more responsible, but you really don't. You must have noticed this with your older siblings though, surely?

Oh man, it's fucking scary and horrible. A friend rang us when we were celebrating a birthday so then we turned on the news and saw a preview of armageddon all over the telly, straight after it had happened. And they still haven't got the nuclear things under control yet. I've heard heaps of people bringing up the 2012 thing.

Pretty good... dithering over whether to join the uni rock and alpine club, dithering over which bands to see this year, studying, going to look at flats, having epic fights with my cousin... today I intend to be super domestic and make a bunch of foodish things using figs from the tree in the garden

And how's school going?

Right back at you

Not always, no. Every now and then it erupts and people are evacuated, but that hasn't happened on Mt. Doom's account since 1977. And the misty mountains' mountain last erupted seriously in the mid-90s (it's erupted since, but not as hard-core). Mt. Doom is the hardest of the three to climb - like, the day I climbed the Misty mountains, a climber got injured on Mt. Doom and a cop had to be dropped from a helicopter onto the summit and then run down to find the guy (which is pretty badass of the local police force, imo. I think they get special training for that area).

But Californee way has like... desert, and um... er... movies...

If that guy had done the soundtrack, I wouldn't have sung the score with the symphony orchestra and Howard Shore (trufax. I totally sang the sad bits in elvish, when I was about 13)

They released them a couple of years after they'd started filming.

And most of the scenery looks the way it's shown - we don't have many people, so a lot was filmed in really normal places - like the city park about 10 minutes from my primary (elementary, to you ) school, and a high school in the same suburb - but for like, Lothlorien... I mean, in the books, those trees are meant to be totally extraordinary, and NZ isn't naturally deciduous. And Mount Doom and the Misty Mountains are also actually in the same chain of volcanoes here, so they cgi'd the crap out of the former to make it look like it was a standalone mountain.

Now that I think about it, that means I've climbed over the misty mountains

Awww, I was on set during the Lothlorien filmingages, but not in any scenes!

(Tbh, I didn't even know what was going on. I was like, 9, and it was exciting enough to be allowed to run around through a magical fake forest like a mad person)