basement quashed

I just read through some of my notes from health psychology to try and find a word synonymous with 'pathogen' that I'd been trying to recall the past day spent wracked with the worst allergic reaction of all my lives. "It's like invader," I'd say. An antagonistic, er, aggressive, perhaps metaphorical description of a foreign body. Antigen. Alien. Illegal immigrant... I just couldn't recall. Well, I found it; it was foreign invader. How disappointing. I had remembered the term without knowing it. I thought it was better though.

Anyway I continued reading my lecture notes after finding the reference, for fun, and am smiling at some of my descriptions.. how I interpreted things so I could make sense of and remember them. "Macrophages (big chompers making up 5% of phagocytes) are totally the best; while phagocytes eat up pathogens, macrophages take a taste of the pathogen's shape, then race through the entire body screeching for the lymphocytes that match that shape so it can tell them we need more, morrrrre of these specialised chompers! Tcells and Bcells galore!"

I remember imagining little chomping phagocytes and big chomping macrophages, like different species of pacmen, racing through my body with little detectors that go BING when they identify delicious non-self foreign invaders. CHOMP

There is also a drawing of a spinal cord with a picket fence style literal pain gate. & got an HD, betch.

I wrote a lot of quite enormous papers that are really rather good. I'm tempted to use one for a current project I am overdue on and haven't started yet... but can't. It would be so easy! but I can't do it. haha. idiot.

Things to do once I've finished my degree, TUESDAY!

• Buy that $240 skirt I SIMPLY MUST HAVE IT despite its $240ness.
• Breed my prettie crowntail fighters so they have lots of prettie crowntail fighter babies.
• Go to Ikea to buy a cabinet to build a superduper penthouse for my rattie Bean.
  • Find Bean a rattie friend!
    • I'm watching him try to haul a whole slice of bread into his cage. OMG THE CUTENESS
• FIND SOMEWHERE TO LIVE that isn't $300 a week for just little old me. and my million pets. I would like to stay in or near Coorparoo, or a not-frightfully-expensive inner West somewhere. Or anywhere near public transport, I guess.
• Visit Cairns for Sarah-bear's birthday.
• Learn to drive! Maybe.
• Make a new webdesign site.
• Dye my hair some outgrageously funn colour.
• Go to Lab4 & Critical Mass & Earthcore & Cat Empire! yay!
• Get stoned and have zombie boardgame & movie night with bird_e and as many people we can con into coming. yay X 8sideways!

anyway. back to my last ever assignment:

This disorder has been found to be relatively resistant to treatment, which is thought to be due to the ego syntonic nature of its characteristics. The traits which are targeted for change are so pervasive and unconscious that the patient usually does not see them as a problem, and instead will place the blame on external sources. As a result of this, patients rarely present voluntarily for treatment, instead usually being treated involuntarily, having been referred by an employer, family member or, most often, the courts. They therefore generally lack motivation to change as well as insight into the need to change. Further, psychotherapy is based on a therapeutic alliance with the therapist, in which an empathic and trusting interpersonal connection is critical. Such a relationship is difficult to establish with a patient who is dishonest, lacking in empathy and exhibits only shallow affect and intimacy. Thus few psychotherapies have been found to be effective in treating the disorder.

GUESS WHICH DISORDER, THE WINNAR GETS A PREYEZE.

hallo internets. I have a question for you.

I am writing my social psychology essay. it is an academic paper, so is meant to be dry and humourless.

however I've no other way to describe Contact Hypothesis but as "a lumbering fog-monster."

I love the lecturer of this class, and am reasonably sure he likes me just fine. plus he has a great sense of humour.

it is fourth/honours year level, so he can safely assume I have sufficiently shown my dry, humourless academic prowess throughout my undergrad career. and, since this is much less significant than, say, my thesis, or even a postgrad essay, surely he can appreciate my creeping ever-so-slightly out of the usual format of description.

right? so come on. tell me I can leave it as is and will get 50 A+s, yay.

also, will McDonald's cease advertising with Channel 10 as a result of their airing of Supersize Me? haha. we shall see.

also, my userinfo page has been given a virtual gift. THANKS, ANONYMOUS!

so i'm wondering what the fuck is up with drycleaners lovingly caressing muculent looking stains? it's not like it could possibly be anything anyone would want to touch.

me: *dumps a pile of disgusting clothes on the bench*
little old drycleaner lady: *goes through them till she finds the most disgusting article of the lot* oh, look, stains! what happened here, then? *picks at an encrusted glob of goop*
me: ... hello? THAT'S VOMIT.
little old drycleaner lady: *yanks hand away in horror* oh! okay then. well, what about this? this isn't vomit! *pick pick pick*
me: um, yeah. THAT'S SEMEN.

meanwhile, a mystery someone just ordered me a paid-for surprise pizza, yay! MUAH!

no doubt to enforce a break during mad-essay writing. ahh. well i've just started (thus the livejournaling...). it was due yesterday, but Sarah & Hawkins stopped to visit on their way to the snow, and ended up distracting me for two whole days. and last night i'd the worst hayfever evar. I went miserably to bed at 8:pm, forestalling all my plans of intoxicated wonder :<

SHE FLOATED ON AIR LIKE THE CREST OF A WAVE

oh, essay, yes yes. i'm not sleeping till it's done.

still waking up with permanence at 4am or earlier, despite th time AT WHICH I go to bed. but it's gorgeous, earliest morning, when even witches are dead to th world. i've coffee, crunchynut cornflakes, wrapped in a blanket under a heater with ren&stimpy, my house glowing from every eye. I feel lucky. I feel i've promise.

4hours later: I feel an idiot. I vaguely recalled one of my thesis group mentioning we were meeting at 9am rather than 11. so am at uni, on time, except that was LAST WEEK. we DID meet at 9. and this week we are meeting as usual at 11. sigh.

3hours later: what is wrong with me today? I feel so dissatisfied. I feel wrong. I feel lonely. I want desperately to bump into someone I know. I want to gorge. I want to drink. I want to smoke. I want to fuck. I want to run. I don't know what I want.. but it's something. and right now. I want it.

ugh! i'm so frustrated. dissatisfied. wrong.
I could leap out my skin.
I could scream out my lungs.
I feel like I need to be saved.

p.s. waking up in the early hours unable to go back to sleep is a SYMPTOM OF DEPRESSION.

4hours later: I must think of him more than he thinks of me.
perhaps.

I don't know! because, well.. he couldn't guess how often I think of him. so.. I can't.. guess...

on the surface, uh, from an alien point of view, it would seem he thinks of me. more. most of our contact is him-initiated.
but that's true of my contact with anyone!
it's just so often..

but I can't guess how often he thinks of me.
I hope it's heaps.

this isn't healthy.
I seem to have a habit for unhealthy relationships.

but this one!.. confuses me.
I have to stop thinking about it.

livejournal addendum: if you're one of the many! who could be reading this thinking it may be about you: i'll never te-ell.

I just realised how many! of you could have thought. wow. i'm in a lot of unhealthy relationships at the moment! yay! and I love you all. :D

lol I suck.

today was a highly unusual day.

I have always really liked to be on my own. i've decided many times that i'm best on my own, and am thus meant to be so. I only seem to deeply think when alone, and to be creative, and to be myself.

well i'm on my own for the first time in around a year & a half. and i'm not used to it.
i've been craving alone-time for months, and now? i'm bored. i'm lonely.

me! lonely!
why, it's absurd!

in fact after a weekend of moping I only just admitted it today, when, after my 9am class, I found I didn't want to go home. to my lonely home.
so I didn't. instead I spent NINE HOURS
at uni, simply sitting and talking to semi-friends.

and had some very enlightening conversations.

Anjali reports that I stand out because of my blackness, after I told her I wear black so i'll be invisible. I think it was the most honest answer i've ever given to "so why do you always wear black?" yet.

James reports that I am MACHO. I was horrified.
he didn't say that. he said I have many masculine qualities, e.g. a huge protective shield I never let down, etc, that he figures I modelled after a macho male in my early life. this is because I am apparently hiding my devastation at breaking up with Dennis. come to think of it, Dennis also pointed out that my lack of devastation was male-like. hmm.

Liz reports that Anais is a frightful role model. and I realised it's true. but I can't help it! she thrills me so. she makes me think she's me. (she has masculine qualities too!)

a girl whose name I never processed so couldn't remember if I tried (I seem to never be listening when people tell me their names) reports that I am possibly the only person doing honours who hasn't begun writing their introduction. hello? I haven't even begun researching it!

she also asked me to live in Italy with her. I can't wait!

so I am feeling hopeful. tomorrow I think I will go into the city and take many pictures.

whilst researching my criminology essay I frequently come across:
psychopathy, the term forensic psychology uses to refer to something almost the equivalent to antisocial personality disorder; put simply, someone with no remorse, empathy or conscience.

conscience!
1. The awareness of a moral or ethical aspect to one's conduct together with the urge to prefer right over wrong.
2. A source of moral or ethical judgment or pronouncement.
3. Conformity to one's own sense of right conduct.

definitions of words thoroughly confuse me, because words seem far more than their literal meanings. my dictionary would have at least two pages per word.

conscience. of course it is difficult in a world of a thousand various forms of parent per person to not have grown up to know the difference between right and wrong, the consequences of them both and the collective one's preference between the two. thus when choosing between right and wrong, justifications aside, one almost invariably knows which is which!
the knowledge alone can't be conscience, as psychopaths know what is wrong, they just choose wrong anyway.

are remorse, guilt, shame, pity, empathy, moral outrage! self-disgust/reproach, et cetera part of conscience?
if you know to murder is wrong, yet feel no shame, remorse or empathy and commit it anyway, you've no conscience. obvious.
if you know murder is wrong, yet would feel shame, remorse or empathy and commit it anyway... your conscience is a pussy and your id reigns supreme.

if you know murder is wrong, yet would feel no shame, remorse or empathy, yet do not commit it because you know it's wrong?

my sociology tutor is a funny man (a general, whatever that is. how awful it must be to be called "general." hi there, general! wassup?) going bald much too young. I am apparently the only student in my class whom he knows by name, thus he is constantly calling on me to give my opinion on whatever current social issue we're supposed to be discussing at the time.

the last one was the workforce. would society function without a labour division?
"yes," every one collectively answered on cue. "sure it would. why not?" of course, because even mentioning the fact that the labour division exists is so not PC.
"Jessica?" he said, "I know I seem to be picking on you, but you always seem to have an opinion."
ONLY 'CAUSE YOU ALWAYS ASK ME. I CAN'T EXACTLY SAY NOTHING BECAUSE YOU'LL REMEMBER ME NO MATTER WHAT I SAY & IF I SAY NOTHING YOU'LL REMEMBER THAT & FAIL ME. "it's a stupid question," I said.
he barked a mixture of a laugh and an incredulous "huh?!"
I recalled the time the topic was education, and he asked why females consistently do better in primary and secondary schooling than males & I answered "because girls are smarter." he uttered the same discordant then (YES, I KNOW IT'S AN ADJECTIVE), before insisting I elaborate, at which I think I shrugged & looked away, disgusted with myself and him.
so this time I obliged: "you couldn't have no labour division. one sort of person is good at and likes one type of job, another type of person likes another. upper class people are groomed for certain jobs, lower class people with less education take what they can get. it wouldn't work any other way. even if you tried to eradicate it, it would naturally creep on back because it's just the way we are. thus, the question is stupid."

I actually said that. do you think I would say anything even remotely like that outside of a sociology tutorial? I can't bear the terms class or division. I don't believe in them & it's because of them I don't believe in or WANT society at all.
nothing depresses me as much as sociology. I have an essay due in a few weeks & the topic is "does race determine intelligence?" OH. MY. GOD. oh my god.

and it is expressly preferred that we do NOT bring up the war. I can just imagine. I don't care what is going on because it does not affect me. saddam hussein is an evil man. war is necessary. weapons of mass destruction. THAT IS ALL CHANNEL 10 HAS TOLD ME SO THAT IS ALL THERE IS.

so i'm still disgusted with myself. and miserable. and lonely. i'm sure they're all related.
can't believe I admitted any of them

I had two lectures in a row in the same theatre yesterday, so after the first one ended and everyone swarmed towards the two tiny doors at the front I sat and waited for the next one to begin. There is a ten-minute gap between classes. The girl behind me did the same. Ten minutes later a handful of people had drifted in one by one and were waiting. Five minutes into what was supposed to have been a sociology lecture the girl behind me tapped me on the shoulder and whispered "This is SY1001, isn't it?" I had tilted my head back to look at her upside down but still managed to nod. After another five minutes I took out my timetable to check, because lecturers are never late, but the lecture was there. The right theatre, the right time. I sat and stared at the timetable for another five minutes until I noticed that this particular lecture was only scheduled for week 19, when the rest were scheduled for weeks 8-21. I turned around and shouted (which, for me, involves talking above a mumble) "does anyone have a timetable?" No one did. So I told them there was no lecture and walked out, feeling REALLY STUPID, but that's okay because everyone else there was stupid too, and at least I thought to PRINT OUT A TIMETABLE.



The other week/month Lila was vomiting all over the place. As soon as she ate she'd puke a billion times, and instead of jumping all over me and attempting to rip my face off every time I went outside she'd just lie there for an hour & then docilely amble over & put her head on my foot. So I took her to the vet. The vet probed her in 50 different ways & said he couldn't feel any obstructions & had she had all her shots? Has she eaten anything strange? "She eats everything strange," I said, she eats EVERYTHING. I PICK TICKS OFF HER AND THROW THEM AWAY AND SHE FUCKING EATS THEM. And then I remembered that two days before, she'd picked up a huge chunk of plastic wrap while I was walking her and swallowed it whole. So he was all "well take her home & don't feed her & if she's still sick tomorrow we'll have to gut her which is heapsnexpensive." And then I forgot my PIN while paying by EFTPOS, but anyway she got better. The next day she ate a whole dead decomposing stinky WORMY BIRD, FEATHERS, FEET, BEAK & ALL.

Then, another day, I was on the esplanade and I thought I saw some strange girl walking her, which is totally weird because she's a freaky looking mongrel. So I finally realised it was some other dog who just looked like Lila, & I jumped up & ran over & said "what kinda dog is that?" and she smiled patronisingly and said "it's a husky cross rottweiler," like she got asked all the time, because I GET ASKED ALL THE TIME when walking Lila 'cause she looks like a husky & then like a doberman & then like an alsation. Anyway, I said "omfg! I have the same dog!" and she was like "oooo!" and I said "did you get him from Cairns Central?" and she said "No, we got him from the owners 'cause we knew them but they did take the rest to Cairns Central." and I was all "Wow! I have your dog's sister!" So we compared their personalities, and WHY DID I HAVE TO GET THE MANIAC FREAKAZOID ONE? Hers was all quiet and nice. But he looked more like a rottweiler than Lila does, which is uglier, 'cause her face is all pointy and nice.

Chloe is my other dog & she's a big fat border collie & is lovelie & perfect except she likes to attack little kids who pat her, & she once ripped open my neighbour's leg as he dived into the pool, which wasn't her fault 'cause she's a SHEEPDOG & it's INSTINCT for her to chase diving things.



THINGS I REMEMBER FROM BEING SEVEN:
- Getting the newly-painted-pink second-hand bike for my birthday and dad taking me to the football oval to learn to ride it.
- Having the kiddie train carriage behind me jacknife & land on my head & then being rushed to hospital while yelling "no I don't wanna go I wanna ride the train again!"
- Staying out in the playground with my friends after the end-of-lunch bell until our teacher came looking for us and lined us up the front of the classroom and told us to bend over so he could wack us on the butt with his big black-board ruler BUT HE ONLY PRETENDED TO WACK US.
- Mumm giving me my first Enid Blyton book which was "The Enchanted Wood" and since then I'VE READ EVERY SINGLE ONE.
- The evil babysitter who gave us dry toast and water as a snack and let her daughter beat us up and then yelled at us for complaining about it.
- My dad coming home drunk from a policeman's party at which he won a meat platter in a raffle and he left the meat platter out on the porch all night long and when mumm & my sister & I came home from visiting my nanna we found the meat platter there all rotten with flies.
- Going fishing on the ocean with my friend Michelle with the curly white hair & her big brother, & I caught a shark, & the brother said "it's only a baby, throw it back," and I said no! I caught it it's mine! and the rest of the day every time the boat rocked I thought it was the mother shark coming to attack us & save her baby.
- I used to stuff the sandwiches my mumm made me for lunch under my bed, & I came home one day & there was a huge grey rat lying dead at the front door, & dad said "I found that under your bed eating those mouldy sandwiches" & ever since then I've had a fear of rats under my bed so I would never put my feet down in case the rats bit them.

My parents got divorced when I was nine, and I was happy.

GRAMMAR MISTAKES THAT REALLY PISS ME OFF:
- When people say "might of" rather than "might have."
- When people use "whom" just to use it because hardly anyone knows how to use it and they want to seem like they know how to use it. HERE'S A TRICK SO YOU KNOW WHEN TO USE IT, IT'S EASY: Use "who" when it goes with "he," and "whom" when it goes with "him." For example: He is speaking and Who is speaking go together, and To whom am I speaking and To him am I speaking/I am speaking to him go together. GET IT? IT'S NOT THAT HARD IS IT?
- Semi-colons. You can't just eradicate them because you don't know how to use them, and you can't just use them in place of commas for the sake of using them.
- Sarah and I. "AND ME" IS NOT ALWAYS INCORRECT. You wouldn't say "That pie is for I" (well, ghostlight would), so don't say "That pie is for Sarah and I."
- The use of "his or her" over and over and OVER and over. While not a mistake, it's still FUCKING ANNOYING. You can use "their" as an asexual pronoun, despite it being plural, IT'S WIDELY ACCEPTED AND NOW CONSIDERED GRAMMATICALLY CORRECT. EVEN JANE AUSTIN DID IT. There are entire WEBSITES dedicated to it.
- whose and who's. whose is possessive, who's is the same as it's. IT'S A CONTRACTION. WHO'S IS NOT POSSESSIVE.

I'm hungry. Time to go get fish & chips.