I'm actually alive.

I have had THREE PEOPLE this week tell me to "update your blog already!" To be honest, this is actually quite flattering to me. I didn't think that many people cared about my ramblings and pictures and what not!

I have been mega busy with work and such, and we've only recently got the new internet at our place (hurrah) so I promise to up the posting from now on.

Last week Tom and I were lucky enough to have a visit from Mum and Dad, and our sister Meg. It was brilliant seeing them, although brief - Dad was here for work stuff and Mum and Meg tagged along. Mum and Dad are coming back for my graduation ceremony in October so it won't be too long till I see them anyway.

For now I'm going to bed, (this post was basically to let people know I'm still here..) but I'll post again in the next 24 hours - I am getting a special delivery tomorrow morning and must share the details!

And no post is complete without a photo, so here's me and Josh in our latest dress-up, which was part of our Amazing Race audition. The boy is very talented at face painting! 

Happy Birthday Rory

Yesterday my youngest brother Rory turned EIGHTEEN years old. What?

When did the little boy from this video:

Become this handsome young man??

(This is from his acting portfolio, sorry Roz.. I had to haha)

I miss this little (ok, 6+ foot) beast and wish me and Tom could have celebrated Rory's 18th with him. I talked to him on the phone and asked him if he was "hitting the town" for his birthday. He said "Nah man. The town's broken". Poor old Christchurch.

So now there is only one underage person in my whole family. What the?! Time is going way too fast.

Love you Rose, Happy 18th!

Tom flies

Today, my younger (though much bigger) brother Tom moved to Melbourne. He has officially become a grown up, and what an epic way to do it! He arrived at 11 this morning, when me and Kayla greeted him at the airport with a massive green and gold sign (G'day Thomas!) and now I am no longer the only one of my family living out of New Zealand.

So in Tom's first few hours of being really and truly independent, he moved countries, and as soon as he arrived we were off to the real estate agent so we could sign the lease on our new place! That's some extreme nest-flying if you ask me!

I've almost teared up thinking about Mum and how upset she would have been saying goodbye to Tom, and how sad she would have been all day.
(Ok now I am seriously tearing up.) Poor Mum! Lucky she has two extra kids at home, haha.

Anyway, it's great to have him here. Though one thing I'll have to teach myself to do is think of him as a housemate as well as a little bro - I have already found myself on numerous occasions worrying about him and thinking that I'll have to look after him and make sure he's okay, or that I know where he is at all times. But then I think, he's my housemate now. I don't know where Maire, Kayla, Courtney or Aaron are half the time, and I don't worry about it.

Once Tom knows all the ropes, and his way around the city a bit better, he'll be sweet! It's going to be a lot of fun living with him and having family around all the time. Perhaps he can even look after me sometimes, haha. In the meantime, I will remain in protective big-sister mode till he's all settled in!

xx

Happy news.

So some pretty brilliant things went down today. First of all, I smashed out my final assignment last night, and I am officially DONE with university forever! It's exciting, but somewhat sad in a way. Another era of my life is over. I was definitely ready to leave though, after doing a semester extra than I should have, I was well and truly over attending classes and listening to douchey hipsters point out their pretentious opinions, or listening to mature aged students arguing with the tutor because they're old, and clearly know more about the world than anyone else in the room. However I will miss student life and the perks that come with it - youth allowance, going out on weekdays, cheaper everything... (wait, my student card doesn't have an expiry date! Muahaha, thanks La Trobe!)

The last thing I'll ever submit. Peace out LTU!

Anyway Kayla and I then went to get lunch at one of the uni cafe's, and the boy there made my day by bringing the price down on my meal. Bless his heart.

Nothing was more delicious than a big-ass burger to celebrate my finishing uni... The proper thing to do would have been to go and smash some beers in true graduate style.. but we had more important things to deal with and that brings me to my last BRILLIANT thing.

Earlier in the day we'd gone to a house inspection and fell in love. We were shown through an apartment above a shop on a busy street filled with cafes, grocers and random little shops. The apartment was perfect for us - newly renovated, it looked basically new. The three bedrooms were very decent sized, still had restored art-deco period features on the ceilings (which were HIGH and awesome) and the two front ones had little terrace balconies going out onto the street.

Kayla and I had a good old yarn to the agent and he was a very decent bloke - he made us feel as though we had the place secured already. The other group being shown through were three asian guys who seemed disinterested. We took some applications, went home, smashed them out, and took them straight back to the estate agent to apply.

Less than an hour later I got the call: THE APARTMENT IS OURS!!

This is our new kitchen! It's so newly reno'd that the exhaust fan still hasn't been installed, haha!

So THAT is my brilliant day! Been a while coming! I feel as though two great weights have been lifted right off my shoulders. 

Tom arrives in the country tomorrow and our household will be complete. We're going to sign the lease as soon as we get him from the airport, and then all the fun stuff like packing can begin! Hooray!

Weekend ft. A Sibling & New Phone

I'm back! Tom returned to NZ yesterday, so I have regained access to my computer (he had supreme rule of it while he was here). This was fine, as I was preoccupied by my brand new iPhone 4! May its life be longer than its predecessor, the one that got stolen on the spiked-drink night (whole other story).

I'm not going to even start on how much of an asset this is to my life, cos I will never stop. So instead I will post some pics of the weekend, ft. my sibling.

Bless the fact that this device has a decent camera.. and bless its freakin' cool apps!

Here are a few pics taken with the Instagram app, where you can take pics and instantly apply cool vintage-looking filters and effects to them.

All these are just random shots I took for the sake of using the app, and they look awesome! The blur (like in the last picture) can be used in any of them, though I only just discovered this moments ago.

More cool shiz to come! Till then, I'm off to use the Sleep Cycle app in bed. You set a half-hour time frame in which you need to wake up, and the app uses motion sensors to record when you're in the lightest sleep and therefore the best time to wake you up. 

Here's the graph of how my sleep went on Sunday night (well, Monday morning). We'd been out on Sunday night and had been drinking, hence the almost-instant "deep sleep". This is a typical example of alcohol-induced sleep, with deep sleep in the first half and frequent waking in the second.

Pretty cool huh!?? I'll post one soon of a normal sleep night.

Anyway, it's time to go to bed for real now. Goodnight!

Blast from the past

So tonight I logged into my old hotmail account, which I used between the ages of 12-16 (cheese_princess, brilliant). I had totally forgotten about it, having switched to a more employer-friendly email address once I got my first job.

But when I explored it tonight, for the first time in probably four years, I discovered some hidden gems and here is one of them...

January 6, 2006. I was 16, Meggie was 8.

Friars cafe is one of the few things I miss about Shepparton. It was the family favourite from the time we arrived in 2003. Formative years were spent in this joint; from sitting bored with Mum and one of her friends, to sitting hungover with my own friends and a big plate of bacon and eggs, to even waitressing there for a little while. By the time my family left Shepparton the staff were like family friends, and Meg would more often than not get a free plate of hot chips along with Mum's coffee (no need to order, they knew what she wanted.) 

Oh the nostalgia....

Filth.

Still being awake at 6am SUCKS.

I used to do it way too frequently. When I was first 18 and working I would go out most weekends and stay out until the sun was rising, then I'd wake up less than 3 hours later to go to work and I'd be fine to work all day. I cannot even fathom such behaviour now. I can still party of course, but I start to fail around the 2.30am mark. To think I would get up and work a mere 3 hours after falling into bed is insanity. Where did I find such energy?
Maybe I am getting old. Or maybe it was the fact I was still living at home and eating Mum's nutritious meals...

Anyway. Point is, it's 6am now and I haven't been to sleep, but this is because I have been pounding homework all night. My computer hasn't been working for a while (failed charger) So I've had to put off typing my assignments until I got money, to replace charger. Grrrrr.

But, the work got done. AND I am free to enjoy the company of my dad and brother, who arrive in Melbourne for a week tomorrow. Hooray!

Now, to promptly pass out. x