Done!

As soon as I hit post.. and it posts successfully and nothing goes wrong after that like the post disappearing or the computer doesn't die or whatever, or something that stops this, what I'm writing now from actually being a post on the blog, without some major delay that makes it not post after midnight.. I'm done. I have, or will have (provided all that stuff I wrote up there, most of which isn't even a thing) succeeded. One post for every day of a month.. and a long 31 dayer too. If I achieve nothing else this year, I will have achieved that. That is of course if one of those things doesn't go wrong between now and then, er, some point before midnight. A round of applause for me please. I can ask fro that because you (that is the generic you, the blog reader) are reading this, it has been posted successfully therefore.. etc etc etc.. yadda yadda yadda ergo and all that. Not too many hours of Jan left at this point, and right at this moment the cough doesn't seem to bad, some stuff that almost freaked me out yesterday didn't turn out to be so bad, at least at this point I'm deciding that and another thing that isn't something that directly affects me but affects my household, I guess turned out to sound worse than it probably is not that I know what it is but, come on, it's not going to be all that bad, though still annoying. Oh and we're going out tonight and after midnight.. drinks allowed! Not that I've been denying myself alcohol this month as a rule, or that I probably won't drink before midnight, but still. So.. Feb is almost here and I know it won't make a difference, but it's still nice that it's happening. Oh yeah and I plan to go vegan for Feb, or I did plan. I should try to remember that. Anyway.. that's it for this... J. M. G.

There's a saying..

we have, it goes "Australia sees the light at the end of Jan like, something..." ok it's just me that has this saying, and I just (almost) made it up. It is Australia day today, the anniversary of the day a bunch of white people settling in a land that was already populated by people and saying "hey, look what we discovered? No one lives here, not really, so let's move in". One of them anyway. It's a holiday that never been of any note to me, and as I left the place, instead of staying long enough... and my life had taken a considerably different path than the one it has here.. for the potential day off that falls in what is already the summer holidays but not necessarily work holidays, thus giving the holiday some kind of relevance to me, I usually even barely notice it. For some reason I did note the date today, no significance, just remembered. One thing for it, it falls in late January, meaning there is less than a week left for this cur-sed month. You know why I wrote it like that, make sure you pronounce that correctly. I know the turn o' the month doesn't actually mean anything, there's no magic, no better luck that will befall me just because the month has a different name but 2 things are very true. 1) By February, this damn cough/cold/whatever the fuck is wrong with me should be over with, and 2) I'll be back on the booze, because I have been drinking this month, except for the times that I drank, but I won't be not drinking in Feb which may not be exactly great in some aspects, but I still like to have the option.

Starting Again.

And here we are. The hoopla is over and we're in a new year. Happy New Year everyone! So far it's been kind of bla.. well, after the initial bit on the hill with all the people and booze and fireworks in what didn't seem too cold until the excitement died down, was ok. Just your usual NYE fun. This morning however, that is, the part of the morning where you've gone to bed and slept and it's now daylight, was crappy. Sore throat, dry cough, splitting headache and other er. feminine issues I won't go into, I was physically poorly. And then I see my first message at all of 2014 is from the bank telling me I need to balance my account in 5 days or they'll charge me a chunk more and I know it's because my account is more under what it was because I've been charged the fee for the month already (at 5am or earlier on public holiday) because I didn't manage to succeed in my last minute attempt to close the account due to their special December 31st early closing hours. So yeah. 14, not great so far. Not too much of an improvement on the unlucky 13.. I hope for the triskaidekaphobes' as well as my own sake it's just one of those new year's day bugs.. the hangover and all that, and things will marginally improve when they get back to normal.. those sighs weren't for nothing, I hope. Then again, once, 100 years ago.. the trisks of the world also sighed, a big fucking sigh, knowing that 1913 was over! They would never have to live through that year again, whatever was to come, and whatever the next year, 2014 was to bring. Little did they know that there was this archduke, who was living in this little castle, just outside of Prague... oh well.. if history can tell us one thing, it's that it can tell us nothing. And no, I don't mean we can't learn anything from history, it's incredibly important that we learn lessons from history in order to improve things and not repeat the worst mistakes, its' just that.. stuff like this, really doesn't mean anything. This year will be whatever it will be, I simply don't know otherwise. Though I am glad it's '14 now. Not so glad about it being Jan. Grrr.. Jan.

Hopefully there won't be too much more of this going on..

It's WOTD time.

wellaway \WEL-uh-WEY\ , interjection: (Used to express sorrow.)
She entered under the dome weeping and wailing, “Wellaway!"
-- edited by Leonard Charles Smither, The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night"Wellaway. My little son so dear!" So sad he was that no one could cheer up at all…
-- Marijane Osborn, Romancing the GoddessWellaway is related to the contemporary word woe. It came from the Old English phrase wā lā wā meaning "woe! lo! woe!"

So.. not the cheeriest word. More fitting to the earlier parts o the week than now, fortunately, and it is.. of course, the last day o Jan.. woo hoo! J is finally going to g.. thank goodness, in just under 5 hours, and in a bit I'll be going out to celebrate this momentous occasion by drinking with people I've never met before in a place I only vaguely know the whereabouts of.

See you in Feb.

And back to normal.

So life back from the early week pit of hell that these relatively on a world wide scale well off Westerners had to endure, to the typical dull humming of the mundane, but mostly comfortable. There was a moment when I thought they (the eternal THEY who are responsible for all these cockups, and everything really) had fucked my computer, but I got it working after a bit. After that I settled back into the usual.

And yes.. it's getting closer and closer to that haven that I've decided the end of jan.. ie February is, only one full day and this evening left. And seriously.. it better be an improvement.

Well.. on the 29th and 30th of this month.. the rest has just been.. nothing special but more of the same.. where have I heard that before? *scratches head*

2 days to go

Jan is nearly over, and though it doesn't promise and end to bullshit bullshit that's bullshit, and in fact historically has rarely been any improvement and some years crappier than Jan, it promises a start to something I to be perfectly honest I'm not sure I want to do but I'm gonna say it's a good thing. One must have something to look forward to, one has always said. Well one is saying it now anyway.

This day was barely if at all an improvement on the pit of despair that was yesterday. Much the same in many ways.. and had to dewal with annoying bureacratic stuff.. a lot of waiting etc etc. A
 new thing well not a new thing but something that was annoying me but I had a slight hope I'd be able to do something to make it less bad came up, and I can't make it less bad, it's official. Still no power, but at least it was sorted and now it's just to wait for it all to be fixed, so at least that, at least a potentially better day to look forward to.

Apart from that... once this has sorted out, apart from not being exactly richer, and probably even poorer than I'd like to be.. well, than i expected I'd be, well in the proxy way, if that means anything, then it will be much as it would hagvfe been the rest of this month of Jan, whcih is, meh.. nothing to write home about.

Oh and it rained today.

But still.. 2 days.

OFF*%FS!

Today is a shitty day. A really fucked up crappy, crummy day.

Here I was thinking.. Jan is coming to a close, it's warming up, had a lovely eve yesterday, ice skating (not well, and not even half well but after 10 minutes considerably better than first getting on the ice) for the first time in.. well, yonks, under the light snow, and though it was far from perfect, (arriving late because though it says online they close at 10, they closed at 7, and skating without Erik, and as I said not exactly getting on so well) it was quite nice. It even snowed, I may have mentioned. Oh and Erik found some spare batts, rechargables that worked really fine so I was able to take photos with my cam again just in time for a pretty snowy eve. We had a beer in a charming English style pub named after a koala and, well.. one of the more pleasant eves, in fact overall days of Jan so far.

Then came today. The last Monday o Jan. And they (the infamous They who are responsible for so much grief) weren't going to let us off easy.

Erik had some visa stuff to do in the morning. We were chatting back and forth in the morning, silly stuff, as he waited and waited, until they turned the electricity off. Yeah, they turned the electricity off. So he calls and sends messages to whoever after I manage to get him to call me, call, let him call back, but at first he answered and used up some precious few credits I had left, but whatev.. and then back and forth again. Here I am thinking he's already at work, but there's still 144 people until his number comes up at the whatever office ministry thingy he was waiting at. So, no answer from anyone. I try everything a layperson can do in this situation, knowing not if we'd been turned off or some muppet working on the flats int he building had turned off the power in the wrong flat or bumped into something or whatever, just waiting for someone to get back to him and for him to get back to me. He called a bunch of times, but to ask how I was doing, which was not at all. Finally, after a few hours, well many hours the maintenance dude guy from upstairs came by and tried all the boxes in the electricity cupboard thingy and none of them worked. Once again a mundane and pointless story of my life is getting very long and detailed, so basically what happened was, still don't have power, Erik was at the ministry thing all day, and then they gave him shit about stuff but at least he got the visa, and now he's at the dentist.

It's not as cold as it was, I suppose that's one good point.. but IT'S COLD ENOUGH IN A FLAT THAT HAS NO HEAT NO LIGHT NO HOT WATER AND OH YEAH.. NO ELECTRICITY TO RUN ANYTHING AT ALL!

Gotta sort this shit out tomorrow. Another day, another shitty day. JMG.

Eleven.

Days to go. Of this month. Nothing will change and if it does it won't be necessarily better, just cos it's not Jan anymore but.. it's good to have something to look forward to, no need to worry that there isn't actually such a thing until such time as it occurs. Or doesn't.

It's my way of coping and I'm sticking to it.

JMG!

Dear Weather Gods

I'm getting real tired of drizzly. Please do something about it.

Widen the scope please, and preferably.. actually most certainly wider than the overcast to heavy rain spectrum, that would not necessarily please me in fact it might just (in fact yes it will) piss me off. So not that, something nice, something pleasant. A little bit of cold (not below -6 please) with some pretty snow would be good, for a while. And an early spring.

Just stop the drizzling.. and all the other stuff I don't like, I know it's Jan but.. come on!

A secure little bubble

It's day 5 o this year.. '13, yes.. I can write it, I'm coming to terms with having to look at it for a whole year.. and well.. been very quiet. It's generally quiet at this time, fewer people packing onto the trams, walking on the streets, in shops, in bars etc.. particularly in the center where the tourists were hanging out, but in general as well.

Very quiet for me, no surfers anymore, no pubbing or visiting well less than around the silly season which was after all invented for that sort of thing, but still some because I'm me and that's what I do. Pubbing that is, not visiting.

So last night was a momentary slice of a not exactly exiting, or interesting, or at all eventful life but a tiny bit of.. not something happening but going to a place that isn't here to do something other than read and stuff on the internet, so something. Just a quiet drink, in a quiet bar, then another drink in another not too busy bar, and a tram ride home, and another drink with a friend we ran into in the bar in this building.

That would have been quiet if it was not for the argument and the blood shed while we're enjoying a few beers and conversation. Only a few tiny drops really, I didn't notice until they were being mopped up. Still, an event. Not happening to me but on the peripheral of my existence, I suppose. It did't quite penetrate the bubble.

Today, it's been the usual. A phone call from someone who had an adventure last night.. to do with behaving deliberately foolish, cops, arrests, and a warm place for the night if not the most comfortable. Someone I know very well, who I see very often and indeed did just yesterday.. and still, outside of the bubble.

So things are happening. Despite the Janness of it all, the dull drizzly weather and lack of hustle and bustle and celebration, life continues, shit happens, even interesting, nay exiting shit.. and right up close to me.. sometimes almost bursting the bubble, but they don't.

Feelin really Jan.

Blurgh. It's Jan, it's drizzly and I'm feeling jan and drizzly myself. It just is.

I was going to mention something else, but I forgot what it was, it was so boring. Whatever it was is the most interesting thing that's happened today, judging by my original intention to mention it but.. can't think of it.. oh well, if it's important enough it'll come back. It isn't though.

Someone measured the windows today. don't know what it's for.. why would someone measure windows? What are they going to do? Am I gong to have to deal with more days of worker dudes coming by.. waiting all day for whenever they come, sitting here while they bang and clash with whatever they're doing with the windows, go out again because they need some part, come back, and then come back another day, whatever time they show up, to fix it? and then probably come back again at some unspecified I have to wait around all day time? That will suck. an it probably won't make any difference.

Happy Jan.

That's one down.

Well 2 for Jan, but the first official working back to normal all those shenanigans over and our guests have left too so.. it's kind of that.

Also one whole (working) day of the year of the year passed without me having achieved a whole lot of the long long list of difficult and time consuming things I need to do before it gets too far into the year ok nothing at all ok.. happy!

Tomorrow I swear I'll get things done. What tings, I don't know, just how exactly cos this getting stuff done thing is so vague because it's all so.. encompassing its difficult to be too specific about it. But I'll do something, honestly. Well I'll try. I'll think about it.

I'd like to turn this here blog into something worthwhile with interesting stories, articles, stuff about ideas.. big events and general stuff that isn't just stuff that I'm involved in.. but so far there's no evidence of that.

Well.. happy beginning of the regular sensible season and stuff. I spose.

And it's here again.

The bland, blurry, bleakness of Jan. Starting now and continuing unless the JMG project goes considerably better than it has managed in the past, for 31 days. We're only just beginning, it's a long road ahead.. January 20.. er.. that number, oh yeah another thing, the year is this not considered particularly lucky and aesthetically displeasing number which I'd ideally like to avoid most times, but now it's going to be at the end of EVERY FUCKING DATE FOR A YEAR! And we're right at the beginning of it, the Jan bit, which we're just starting now.

And you know, I kind of like that it's calming down after the silly season, even though we still have people here, but I don't particularly like that it's "back to work" so to speak, which means for me getting serious about a whole lot of things which I can't keep putting off forever and although I skipped the formal resolution making this year I am going to be fff.. well older by the end of the year and.. I'd like to have gotten stuff done by then, might make me feel better about turning.. oh fuck it's so old I can't really be but you know all the same, I really need to do stuff. Starting now. Well tomorrow but that's soon, and there's all too much of Jan left at this point, and there's all too much of '13 left at this point, and by the time that ends I will be that thing that I haven't actually mentioned but you know what I mean.

So.. JMG and all that. At least I'm feeling ok, with being kinda lightweights and not staying out so late (we aren't exactly kids anymore remember) and having gotten to the party kinda late due to being given the wrong address and having trouble getting through to the host for a while and having to Scooby gang it over to the actual address with some people we'd just met and only having a glass of champagne and a little bit of beer and 2 fernets with the guests before leaving there wasn't that much alcohol consumed, which I suppose is a good thing. I'm glad there's at least one.

JMG!

Now, let's see if this works.

Yeah.. I've been going on about this Jan thing well.. all month.. the thing is that January is supposed to be a crappy month full of crappy stuff and crappy weather which is at best just unbearably dull and considerably irritating... and yeah, it's been that..

the end of Jan is supposed to be.. the end of all that.. well it'll still be a bit cold at least but the rest, I'm hoping for a clean zapping of it in.. well, just over an hour now.

*waits*

Can we get it over with already...

Yeah.. Jan is being a pain in the proverbial... stupid things, little things that you just feel like a pissy little whiner when you whine about them but they're whine worthy... being scolded by employers, screen going all fuzzy and difficult to read, the spare hard drive er.. smoking, people still not giving me answers to questions and others hounding me for the answers to those questions, long planned projects going awry.. you know the sort of thing..well maybe you do.. you probably know things equally vexing..

I mean, I'm trying to convince myself it's just Jan... and in a little less than a week now things will become magically rosy... *waits*

20 Days Left.

20 more days and Jan will be over. Then, we can get on with stuff without stuff sucking so much. I surely do hope this hacking cough goes away considerably before the end of Jan.. like, 20 days earlier.. or so. Other stuff.. I can live with.. it's slow out there so there won't be so many tours, not the hugest tragedy tbph and really.. in past years, stuff hasn't improved so much on the 1st Feb, as far as I remember. Not that things really are that much crappier in January than other times of year.

Still.. JMG.

Right.. now let's get to it!

Fuck it's already the 6th of 2012 and I'm still in not really doing shit mode. I missed getting too heavily into all this "stuff".. or "work" that I intend to do, you know.. the 1st or 2nd when the world goes back to work or whatever, I mean, I woke up with a terribly saw neck, and then I got sick... but, well, today's the day you take all your Christmas shit down.. I think, so this is another kind of official end to the holidays so if I don't start today I never will. I mean, not until later.

Of course, it's already evening, so I probably should get with it tomorrow.. except tomorrow's Saturday..

Oh fuck it.. this month is bullshit anyway.

25 days now.

*holds breath and hopes to last for 3 hours and 58 minutes*

*gasps*

*breathes*

Ok so I lasted 12 seconds or thereabouts.. not too bad.

In only 3 hours and 58... nay, 57 minutes Jan will be over. Yes, over.

If you wonder what I'm talking about or know what I'm talking about but note that I've barely mentioned the anti Jan campaign over the last month (which as it happens has been Jan) well it's because it didn't occur to me that often tbph... (to be perfectly honest that is).. but I still want to see the ole inaugural month of the year out in the what must be by now a traditional manner.

So JMG.. and it will G in exactly 3 hours 55 now.

And tbph it hasn't been all that bad this month really.. just typical post holiday winding down.. business picked up a bit, got a bit stressed with training for this tour job but then I went well... pretty much graduated (if you can call it that) first in my group.. not bragging or anything so obvs I got the job...

will be doing a bit more training (this is not shitty tour folks) and some time in Feb might start doing real life tours for actual people, so that's something to.. um.. look forward to.

Didn't return to the Meisner class.. am taking the semester off, for the mo, mostly because I just couldn't afford it but it turned out to be just as well because the training was pretty intensive.. and otherwise.. well.. the usual.

Anyway.. I'm going to go with the fact that Jan sucks regardless, because that creates something to celebrate.. so for one last time..

JMG!

3:52 :)

All that fuss for this?

So it's done, we're here and we are now living in 2011. Awesome. Yeah, but one thing that I completely overlooked, during all those festivities and the big celebration that commemorated the coming o the new year was that not only does it bring us a fresh shiny new big number at the last bit of the date for the next 12 months, it also brings us Jan.

Yeah, January. Brilliant. For another 30 days 4 hours and 22 minutes they expect us to just shut up and put up with it. Fuckers. Well I for one will not take this lying down, I intend to fight it all the way!

JMG!

Almost done, almost done!!!

Yes.. thank goodness. Phew and stuff.

Less than 8 hours to go now... *holds breath.. and then we're in the glorious month o' Feb. Well, the relatively ok month. *lets out breath, gasping desperately*.. It will be nice.

Oh who am I kidding, I don't care. It's going be exactly like this one, just probably colder. And come to think of it last February was a particularly sucky month, and the whole thing about Jan started 2 years ago because of circumstances that don't exist anymore.

But fuck it, I need something to celebrate/talk about.

carry on.