Crimbo

I have absolutely nothing witty, interesting, or even the slightest bit amusing to say about Christmas. So I drew you guys some things. I hope you like them.


First off, a drawing that I did for a friend who requested I draw Santa. I tried my best.

I also made a drawing of a pelican in a stocking, for my friend who is the co-founder of the Pelican Party.

Also included in the mix is a Christmas werecaterpillar I drew because Christmas is not Christmas without at least one Christmas werething.

And last but certainly not least, my best attempt at a unicorn, just for you. My mother said his front leg makes it look like he has polio, but that's okay, because he can shoot rainbows out his ass.

Adventures With Caffeine

The first time I had a coffee, I was twelve years old. It was a proper cappuccino from a proper café. I was a little bit nervous and a little bit excited. But it wasn’t love at first sip.

It took about fifteen minutes, by which time I was in the car, heading back home.

 Fortunately for all those around me, coffee is an acquired taste and one I didn’t get comfortable with quickly, so for a long time I preferred to drink tea or the tame mochachino, neither of which sent me off on caffeine-fuelled bursts of hyper-energetic-ness, which would send me crashing down into apathy once the caffeine wore off.

Coffee only became a big part of my life halfway through my first year of high school, when I was fourteen. As this year had worn on, I began staying up later and later on school nights because I WAS NO LONGER A CHILD I WAS A HIGH SCHOOL ATTENDING TEENAGER AND THAT’S WHAT THEY DO. Consequently, school mornings became an increasing struggle for my sleep-deprived body.

But one day I had an idea. I would swap my morning drink of hot chocolate for coffee, which would surely give me the kick I needed to properly wake up in the mornings and be more alert in my classes at school. I couldn’t believe I’d never thought of it before.

At first, it was brilliant.

I had so much more energy to embrace education and life in general than I did before I started drinking coffee, and it was all thanks to the wonderful powers of caffeine. Everything was wonderful.

But a few weeks into my new regime of drinking coffee at least once a day, something began to happen. I no longer felt alert and energized after my morning cup of coffee. It just made me feel… normal. Meanwhile, getting up in the mornings became more and more of a struggle. My mother would yell at me to get out of bed, and when I finally conquered that feat,

I would stumble through the shower, drag myself into my school uniform, and crawl out to the dining room for my coffee.

Once I got my cup of coffee in me, I would then begin to sit up straighter and feel more normal. But it no longer set my blood zinging with energy and enthusiasm.

My rainbow of liveliness had shrivelled up and fallen lifelessly to the ground. And this could only mean one thing: I had become addicted to coffee.

I now needed coffee to feel normal, and my mornings of fizzy happy energy time were gone.

I lived like this for approximately two years, drinking at least one coffee a day (and often more on weekends) because I was too afraid of what would happen to me if I didn’t. Caffeine became an integral part of my life.

This lasted until one day, as a much older and worldly-wise almost-sixteen-year-old, I came to the conclusion that I didn’t need caffeine and, in fact, putting a drug into my system on a daily basis/becoming dependant on it was a very bad thing to do (side note: I still hold true to this; school just got harder). So I quit drinking coffee. Cold turkey. Full stop. For those of you who have never quit anything cold turkey, it feels something like this:

The first day was the worst. I distinctly remember sitting in a particularly long and monotonous school assembly with a piercing headache, feeling excessively tired, irritable, and generally shit. I was also trying to do several things at once: stay awake, stay in my seat, and not burst out with a string of expletives or start pounding something with my fists. By some miracle, I was successful.

I was in withdrawal for a few days, but each was easier than the one preceeding it, and when my body finally adjusted to suddenly not having caffeine in it, I felt great.

And my new caffeine-free life was, initally, a success. I went months without having any caffeine intake whatsoever. I avoided coffee, energy drinks, and caffeine shots like they were the plague. I was proving that I could handle life without the aid of any artificial stimulants. The first time I had a coffee after giving up caffeine was when I went out to lunch with a friend, and while it was nice it didn’t tempt me back into the world of drinking coffee every day. There were a few other scattered occasions like that, and a few coffees at home during exam time, but apart from that, I was caffeine-free.

This beautifully healthy and natural period of my life lasted until I was introduced to the wonderful package of yay that is NCEA Level Two. For those not in the know, NCEA is my country’s secondary qualification and has three levels, which are studied in the last three years of high school. To make it easier for you to understand how NCEA works, I have prepared a basic summary:

I googled NCEA to see if I could get a decent summary of what it’s all about, and most of the hits I got had titles like ‘Understanding NCEA’, ‘What Is NCEA?’, ‘How To Understand NCEA’, et cetera; mostly aimed at confused parents. To save everyone a lot of time, I made it real simple:

However, whinge-fests aside, I have just completed Level Two. Which, I discovered, is really fucking difficult and often caused many nights resembling the following:

The day after several consecutive nights like this, I had an assessment. And it wasn’t the kind where you write up a paper and turn it in and that’s that: it was a performance for my music class. I’d been practising for this performance all year (to the extent where I may have over-prepared), but as the day wore on it became clear that I would not be able to get up in front of an audience and play Mary Had A Little Lamb, let alone Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. I was so tired that even staying conscious was a struggle. However, I knew (or thought I knew) the perfect solution to the problem.

Caffeine.

I had a coffee and an energy drink before I left for the performance that evening, which I felt was sure to wake me up. And this was when I learned that complicating overtiredness with an overdose of caffeine would make things worse, not better.

By the time I got to school, I was visibly trembling – something which the audience probably assumed was due to nerves but in actual fact was caused by too much caffeine coursing through my exhausted body. Needless to say, my piano performance did not go well.

However, this was not the only time I ingested large amounts of caffeine when I was overtired and then faced disastrous consequences. One Sunday afternoon, after I had been out with my family (and already had one cup of coffee at a café), I was feeling particularly tired but had an important essay to write for english which was due the next day. After my failed attempt at writing the essay without the aid of caffeine, I decided the thing to do was make a coffee. However, the coffee I made was not the normal one-modest-teaspoon kind.

For some reason, I thought filling half the cup up with spoonfuls of instant coffee was a good idea. But what it ended up doing was turning me into a jittery mess of energy, unable to focus on anything for longer than about two seconds or form sentences that made sense, neither of which were good for my unwritten essay. And, instead of trying to focus my energy on that, I decided it would be a good idea to log into my IM client and start up a conversation with my boyfriend. Here are some of the intelligent things I said to him during that conversation (in bold):

“Suddenly I feel like doing my essay. Like, a craving.”

I do not remember feeling this way at all.

 “I realise that I sound vaguely like I'm on drugs or something right now but I'm not.”

Because I didn’t just ingest an inane amount of caffeine or anything.

“I don't actually think it's the caffiene.

 Caffiene shouldn't make you feel woozy in the head.

 Or ADD.”

My boyfriend then pointed out that I kept spelling ‘caffeine’ wrong.

“I can't do words!

 I'm not very good.”

Shit I’m intelligent.

“It's like I've had like five coffies, not one.”

Can’t think why that would be, genius. And, 'coffies'? Really?

“I think I put too much coffee in the cup. I thought it would help me write my essay.”

You think? Really?

 “I think maybe it's cos I haven't had any real doses of caffeine for ages.

And then I just had a big one.

So now it's like, woooooo!

My cells are rushing around on caffeine.”

My biology teacher would’ve been proud of this explanation, for sure.

“Caffeien is a really hard word to type. See?”

Or maybe I’m just retarded.

“I don't feel weird in my head anymore!

But typing is kind of hard.

But I bet I could write a really good essay right now if I tried.”

This makes all the sense in the world.

“This one time, I had a coffee and then I went to the beach. It was Easter and the water was cold as fuck.

When I got home I was shivering like crazy and I didn't know if it was the coffee or if I had hypothermia.

So I put on socks. One had yellow flowers and the other had blue followers.”

Then I started spilling the dark secrets of my past.

“I really don't think I can do anything on my essay right now.

Listen to me.

I'll probably go off on a tangent about how werecaterpillars increase the credibility of society's functionability, which doesn't actually make much sense and functionability isn't even a word.”

At least I recognised the fact that I had turned myself into a babbling imbecile.

“I think I should go away and listen to something really depressing to bring me back down to earth.”

My boyfriend then proceeded to tell me I was being silly, to which I responded:

“I'm not! This is the best idea I've had since I made that cup of coffee.”

My boyfriend was unable to convince me that my idea was stupid and not going to work. And so, convinced that forcing myself into a state of depression would counter my caffeine-induced high, I went away to lie on the floor of my bedroom and listen to sad songs. 

Being sad did not, in fact, make me feel normal and coherent again. But I listened to sad songs for long enough that the effects of caffeine begun to wear off, and I started ‘sobering up’. And then I just felt really, really, really tired.

Even in my now-shattered state, I knew I had to finish my essay, so I dragged myself back to my computer and bashed out something semi-decent that I could turn in the next day. I spent the rest of the night drawing elephants and telling my boyfriend I was sorry he had had to listen to my earlier nonsensical bullshit. 

Meatballs

Last night, I helped my mother make meatballs. My specific role in the meatball-making process was to mix the mince (which had just come out of the fridge and was still frozen in places due to the fact that it had been in the freezer that morning) and the other ingredients together. With my hands.

From my observation, one goes through several emotional stages during this process.

First, there is the ‘This Is Not So Bad’ stage.

Which is shortly followed by the ‘Oh God My Hands Are Freezing Off’ stage.

This gives way to the ‘No, I Can’t Do This, My Hands Hurt Too Much’ stage.

This soon becomes the ‘Trying To Avoid Feeling Further Pain’ stage, which consists of tentatively kneading the meat with one hand at a time.

Which is eventually followed by the ‘Fuck It, I Am Going To Attack This Mince With Vigour And Determination In The Hopes That This Will Prevent Me From Feeling Further Pain’ stage.

The whole ordeal is concluded with one final stage: ‘Look At Me I Am A Fucking Meat Warrior, Even Though Tears Of Pain Are Streaming Down My Face I Am Kneading Cold Raw Meat With My Bare Hands And Nothing Can Stop Me’.

Things I Am Really Fucking Good At #527

Refilling jars and variations thereupon (such as sugar bowls, salt cellars, &c) is not a task I relish for one reason only: almost invariably, it goes down like this.

At least 80% of whatever I am filling up a jar with ends up everywhere except where I want it to go.

However, today I refilled the coffee jar and most of it actually ended up inside the damn thing. Maybe there is hope for me yet.

The Day I Was Attacked By The Ground

It was in the middle of mock exams, which were in the middle of winter, so everything was really fucking freezing. I’d ventured out that morning as well-prepared to endure the cold as I possibly could be without visibly violating my school’s (shite) uniform code.

I had two exams that day, which meant I would be at school, in the cold, for an indeterminable length of time in between them which would most likely be at least a couple of hours. As I was walking into school, it was very cold and the clouds looked none-too-friendly, but it wasn’t raining then and I thus concluded that I was going to be okay despite not having a hat, umbrella, or rainjacket.

My first exam of the day was music. In the middle of the exam, as I was studiously doing my music theory paper, it started to rain. This was particularly problematic because, in a moment of extreme intelligence, I had opted not to bring lunch with me that day and thus would have to walk to the nearest place which sold food, in the cold and the wet and the wind. And when I got out of my music exam, this is exactly what I did.

Because my ears are very sensitive to the cold, I ended up having to wrap my scarf around my head. By the time I reached the dairy, it had stopped raining (more or less), but I was a sorry sight to behold.

I went into the dairy and bought a pie, as it was the only semi-decent hot food available and I was in desperate need of warming up.

This was a mistake.

When I got outside with my pie, I found that the only picnic table for miles around was completely wet from the rain. With nowhere else to go, I resolved to eat it under the miniscule awning of the shop. For those of you who have never tried to eat a pie out of the bag with gloves on whilst standing up in the cold: don’t. It is one of the most physically demanding things you’ll ever fucking do.

More ‘meat’ ended up on the sides of my face than actually in my mouth. Whether this was because I was eating the pie with my hands instead of with a knife and fork as one is supposed to, or whether it was simply because I was retarded, I do not know. But one thing was for certain: the more of the pie I ate, the more difficult it became.

By the time I had finished the pie, I was wearing most of it, in the form of pastry flakes and meat stains. I may have also been crying a little, not because the consumption of the pie had been a complete failure but because, despite the packet saying it was a steak pie, it tasted more like gristle and tendon.

It had also started to rain again.

Having made a complete mess of myself (and not feeling any warmer at all), I walked slowly and despondently back to school. On the way, I ran into a classmate from history (which happened to be the afternoon exam I was hanging around for), and briefly chatted to him before he went on his way to the dairy I had just come from. Once back at school, I ran into another friend and discovered that I had developed a runny nose from the cold. He made fun of my voice. We then decided to go for a walk to his friend’s place, which involved walking across a park. And this was where the ground attacked me.

The park had those low chainlink things around it. As I was stepping over one of them, the toe of my shoe clipped the edge and the next thing I knew, I was face-down on the cold, wet, muddy ground.

This is what it felt like:

This is what actually happened:

I just lay there, face-down in the mud for a few long seconds, unable to comprehend what the fuck had just happened to me.  Then my friend offered me a hand and pulled me to my feet. Covered in mud and damp grass and god knows what else, and with pain springing to both my knees and my right hand, I was suddenly not in the mood for anything, but I managed to laugh off the fall pretty well.

By this time, the aforementioned history classmate was walking back towards us across the park, visibly laughing. I decided then that I wasn’t in the mood for anything that wasn’t a bath or no more exams, and also that I was no longer going to accompany my friend to his friend’s place, and instead headed back to school with my history classmate. He very kindly waited for me outside the girls’ toilets while I cleaned myself up as best I could. There was no hot tap, so I had to sponge down my muddy uniform as best I could with wads of wet paper towels, all the while gritting my teeth against the frigid water. When I emerged – cold, wet, sore, and shivering – I was beginning to feel quite miserable. My right knee, which had caught the fall most heavily, was beginning to ache considerably, and my extra-thick tights had done absolutely nothing to cushion the blow of the demon-concrete-boxer-ground. But I had an exam to sit, and I refused to let a little fall be a reason for not doing as well as I could.

My classmate and I went to the school library. The plan was to do some history revision, but I spent the majority of the time sitting there, staring glumly at my history notes whilst looking and feeling generally shit. Not to mention dripping muddy water everywhere.

All attempts at remaining positive and not letting the fall affect my performance in the exam were failing.

Soon, it was time to go to the exam. I had developed a limp by this time, and hobbled all the way to the exam room, struggling to keep up with my classmate’s moderate walking pace. But once I was actually in the exam, I found that I was able to forget about my pain and focus on cranking out an essay. That is, until this started happening.

My knee had begun to swell up as I sat there writing. The bigger it got the more difficult and painful it became to move it around, and consequently, the harder it became to focus on my essay. Due to the fact that large parts of my uniform were still wet right through from the rain/the fall/cleaning off as much of the mud as I could, and that the exam room was very cold, I had also begun to shiver. Despite all this, I somehow managed to complete my essay to a decent standard and finish the other paper before limping my way to the car.

Once I finally made it home, I had a shower in which I was able to properly inspect the damage.  A huge bruise was already forming on my right knee, as well as a slightly more modest one on the left knee. Both of my shins were red and bruised, and somehow another small but tender bruise had appeared near the top of my thigh (this was actually the last of the bruises to fade). When I showed the bruises to my mother later, she was at first puzzled as to how a bit of muddy ground could have inflicted such injuries. She later concluded that I must have landed on the roots of a nearby tree, but I don’t recall feeling any roots under the ground I landed on. To this day, it is a mystery to me.

That night (and for the following couple of days), things like bending, sitting, and kneeling were immensely difficult and could not be done without support from a person or an inanimate object as I cautiously lowered my body down. Kneeling was especially painful, and I had to put all of my weight on my ‘good’ knee. Going up and down stairs was interesting. To go up, I had to support myself using the railing and/or the wall as I put my left foot on a stair and then slowly brought my right foot up beside it, being careful not to bend my knee. Going down, I devised a method whereby I held onto the railing as I slowly lowered my legs onto each step. Going one way took me several minutes.

During this short but pronounced period of my life, my mother referred to me not by my name but as ‘Limpalong’.

You guys are all jealous of my super epic life.