A month of debauchery

I am hoping that this post will eventuate to become a thorough recount and evaluation of the past month and a week - though it might not end up such a long post since most days are relatively similar. Anyway.

The HSC exams seem to be a fleeting memory from years yonder since I had completed them on the 31st of October. The feeling of immense relief and educational catharsis has been replaced by one of ennui and repetition. A typical post-HSC day for me comprises of:

• Wake up at anywhere between 9:30-11am.
• If hungry, eat leftovers of the breakfast mum prepared for brother
• If not hungry, hop on computer
• Check Sneaker Freaker forum/Sneaker News/DWI/Blog/Youtube/G.NA's tumblr/Facebook (in that order)
• If 11am, turn on Nova 969 for Old School, half hour (now only 25mins) of songs from earlier in the decade and nineties stuff
• If not 11am, iTunes on shuffle or Youtube music not yet downloaded
• If games are available to play, Final Fantasy VII or Portal 2
• Both have actually been completed, so.....
• Guitar
  
• Carry on the process until the wee hours of the night, sporadically broken up by food breaks and whatnot
• Sleep anywhere between 9:30-2.

Well, that is a very hazy and umbrella summary of a typical day for myself. It almost seems I approach a fork in the road each day. One such fork is exercise. For all days but two, I have decided to not exercise and sit at the computer. More on this later.

I feel that the structure of this entry is quickly losing shape, so I will just dedicate a paragraph to each major happening:

1. Kitchen renovations have been currently undergoing at home. It has been a highly stressful period, with my parents frequently arguing about things such as cost (at the moment it's projected to be at least seven grand - the money which was going towards a family holiday but was diverted into this) to more superficial aspects like the pattern of the porcelain tiles for the floor. One such sub-event that I have found to be somewhat frustrating is my imposed "obligation" to help out. I have been called awake at ungodly hours (6:30am) to do the most menial of tasks such as chisel away the previous vinyl tiles off the kitchen floor, or interrupting me in the midst of my internet surfing to do something like move the kitchen table back and forth. Bloody hell, the contents of the kitchen, e.g. fridge, pantry, sink, etc. have been scattered to other regions of the house. The fridge and pantry currently reside in the living room, no joke. Bags of rice are in my room, along with all the consoles, yet there is no television to play with them. Most of the kitchen is down in the garage though, and it is a proper mess down there. I am almost certain it is a deathtrap, for there is everything from oil to knives to lighters and piles of stuff stacked up too high ready to fall. My brother's BMX bike is down there which I want to ride, but it is stuck down there so I can not do anything about that. So the other week, one of the daycare kids' parents was hired to do some of the stuff for the kitchen renovation. Nothing too complicated it seemed, to flatten out the kitchen floor with cement, then to do the floor tiles the following week. So that following week was just last weekend, and he managed to screw up the job by misaligning the tiles and wasting about ten of them in the process. He soon left unfinished after mum decided to start telling him how to do his job - I doubt he is coming back. To make matters more complicated, it turns out he did not have a licence and whatnot. Oh well, mum has been looking for other contractors to do the tiling. She found an Italian guy yesterday, with the most Italian of names: Giuseppi. Turns out he is very efficient and he will be doing our tiles tomorrow. Even after that is done, we will not have a proper kitchen until at least February next year. Yay.
2. The search for a job to fund my Nikon D700 has been a frustrating affair. Oh, you may notice D700, not D7000. I have opted to go straight into full-frame. The body will cost me about $2300, and the bloody memory card alone is $115. And for lenses, I really wish I could procure the 24-70mm f2.8G, which DWI has for around $1700, but as if I will have the money for that. Therefore my solution will be to buy two primes for the time being, 24mm f2.8D and probably the 50mm f1.4D. Perhaps later on for the wedding portrait stuff I will buy the monster 85mm f1.4G, but that is down the track. Lately I have been into the wide-angle stuff and the 14-24mm f2.8G would be lovely, but no I do not need it. Honestly, if I had the 24-70mm and either the 50/85mm f1.4, I would probably be set. But for the time being, the two primes will do. But of course, how to fund all of this. With my photography business of course, wait what? I will announce that maybe early in the new year. So otherwise I obviously need to find a form of employment that will provide me with a source of income. Of course I have been applying for the usual retail jobs, plus some oddities like film extras and attempts to tutor. Successful? No. My parents are becoming continually frustrated with this, and mum has gone the distance to scream at me every once in a while for being a lazy slob. But you know, it is post HSC, I am supposed to be like this. There are probably grocery shops everywhere happily ready to take store hands to carry stuff, but I am not really into that. So onwards I go with my domestic sloth. Would like to buy that camera soon though, amongst other things. (Casio x Parra DW-5600!)
3. Exercise is something I said I would commit to, but like any sort of physical commitments, I have not lived up to it. My bed is just too comfortable you know? Though yesterday was a different case. I was yelled at to wake up at about 6:30am and to do something productive. I am grumpy when I am woken up abruptly (well I am sure everyone is). So I limped around in my muttering zombie state and almost tripped over aforementioned bag of rice as I fumbled for some batteries to put into the DSLR. Went outside into the freaking cold morning air to try and capture the sunrise, but it was rather uninspiring, so I went back in to curl myself in the foetal position and lean back on my chair. Before I knew it, it was 8am and again I was yelled at to get changed. I know it is summer, but us Sydneysiders will know that the weather is far from it, so I threw on a padded overcoat and jeans and Lunarglide 2s. So after we had dropped my brother off at school - oh allow me to digress here briefly. It was a strange feeling, being driven to school at proper school peak time and seeing all these kids heading off into school. It was also Orientation Day, and the future year 7 kids are quite tall, much taller than average. Very surprising. Anyway, back on track. We went to a tile shop in Sefton to pick up more tiles since the other guy had wasted some. But alas, the tiles we had bought the other time were out of stock. This was pretty funny, because the store guy was very Arab and said in the very Arab accent: "You shoulda bought them all last time!" and had the corresponding hand action. Also pretty random was their receptionist/accountant chick, an Asian with a very nasally voice. So far, no mention of exercise right? Well, about two minutes later my mum hands me one dollar and pushes me out of the car on Waldron Road and tells me to grab a French stick from Woolies. What the hell man. So there I was, buying a sesame seed-topped French stick for one dollar. And then I proceeded to run the two kilometres or so back to my house. Thank Buddha I had chosen the Lunarglides huh? I was pretty damn tired once I got home, and was furthermore vexed when I was told to do laundry within two minutes of getting home. But you know what? Whatever man, instant noodles and BBQ Shapes and raspberry jam on French sticks is rendering me fat and plump - totally worth it.
4. I am having girl problems. I wake up to find a bloody stain on the sheets lolwut No, I have reached that point in life yet again whereby my feelings for Unknown Mystery Girl is at a crossroads. Do I continue my yet to begin quest or subdue feelings that could be very much a childish crush? For once I sort of want to conquer this romantic predicament and see where things go by asking her out on a date, but of course shit has to hit the roof and make things complicated. So, again I am not sure what to do, or even if my interest is legit. Do I see her as just more than a pretty face? Well yeah, she is a reliable friend - some of the time haha.

Well, back to my daily routine. I also turn eighteen in less than two weeks, how scary.