How to eat everything on your plate when dinner tastes really bad but you don’t want to offend anyone by leaving it.

How to eat everything on your plate when dinner tastes really bad but you don’t want to offend anyone by leaving it.

Step 1. Stop thinking about how god damn awful it smells. If it does indeed smell awful. When you smell it, you preemptively taste it. Don’t do that.

Step 2. Eat the things that look the worst, first. There is a reason that you always save the icing on the cupcake to last, and that’s because it tastes delicious. If there is something that looks even mildly edible on your plate, save it, you can make up the time it takes to chew down the bad stuff, with the good stuff later.

Step 3. Place a small amount of the offending food item on the edge of your fork.

Step 4. Look enthusiastic, and take a deep breath. If you feel like this could look suss, for example, everyone is watching you, you can pass this off as a laugh.

Step 5.  Place fork in mouth.

Step 6. Swallow. *Note- do not chew. Make sure the amount is small enough that it can be swallowed directly with minimal chewing and thus without hitting your taste buds. If you must chew, flatten your tongue to the top of your mouth and keep it there until food is gone.

Step 7. Repeat until the gross food is gone. * Note. It is possible to hide some of it in a napkin if you maintain stealth. 

Step 8. Take the edible food, place small amount on fork.

Step 9. Put fork in mouth. Chew if possible, swallow.

Step 10. Request an after dinner tea or coffee. This will wash down the offensive crap you have just eaten.

Important note: Vomiting will only bring the taste back into your mouth so avoid this at all costs. Ensure throughout the dinner, you continue light conversation with occasional compliments to the cook. This will make you seem awesome, and will also boost your own self- esteem in preparation for the next bite. 

Everything tastes better with wine.
(Image from Mens Health Magazine)

The Hunger Games- Short Review.

The Hunger Games (aka the new twilight)

Only the latest tweenage pot of literary gold could get away with marketing a storyline involving ritual child slaughter and warning people never to disagree with their governments, to children. 

‘The Hunger Games’ plot in a nutshell, revolves around 13 districts of the fictional Panem who each must nominate a child between the ages of 12 and 18 to compete in the annual Hunger Games, fighting to the death until only one victor remains.  The female heroine, Katniss Everdeen, is chosen from the poorer district of 13, and has qualities not unlike the last biggest female heroine in tweenage literature, Bella Swan from Twilight. As Bella was a mere human, Katniss is a mere lower class coal miners daughter.

Overall, a pathetic piece of literature, and unfit for publication let alone movie rights, although could be helpful if you run out of toilet paper. 

Alex.

I love you. I love you more than all the fish in the sea, and all the stars in the sky. I love you and the way you loved me back. I love your "fuck it" attitude. I love your bad influence. I love the way we spun in your room until we blacked out, and how we laughed under flashing lights until we were sick to the stomach. I loved how you called me so late on your tinsy pink flip phone, and I love the way you always knew what to do when I was sad, even if it was just to hold me, and be silent. I love how high on life we both were, or I thought you were. I look at the pictures of us, of you. Your smile, your face, your body...you. I wonder what you were thinking that day. I wonder what made you feel like you couldn't come to me. I wonder what went through your mind as you jumped off the edge. I imagine, I hope, that it was pure freedom. That it was all your worries whooshing away. You said have "seen enough, heard enough, tasted enough", and ike, I believe you. I only hope that you have found your peace, and all the happiness you were looking for.

I will miss you more than words can ever explain and more than pictures will ever show. I see you so clearly in my mind and I am afraid of losing that image. I see you everywhere. People look like you, people talk like you, people remind me of you. Everything reminds me of you, and how much I wish this wasn't real. But you were real Alex, you were so very real to me, and I don't know how life will go on. I don't know how I will ever be the same without you. You were this chapter in my life, that I never want to end. Perpetually 21, you shall live on in my memory as my first love, my best friend, my biggest smiles, my everything.

A Twilight Re-Write

So in possibly the greatest writing task of all time, we were given a passage from "Twilight" to read and re write. Some people did it in a horror style, others in gothic style, others even in shakespearean. I felt that Twilight is simply not worthy of tainting these genres, and so I did it like this:


The Actual Passage: 

"You know Bella, Jacob?" Lauren asked—in what I imagined was an insolent tone—from across the fire.

"We've sort of known each other since I was born," he laughed, smiling at me again.

"How nice." She didn't sound like she thought it was nice at all, and her pale, fishy eyes narrowed.

"Bella," she called again, watching my face carefully, "I was just saying to Tyler that it was too bad none of the Cullens could come out today. Didn't anyone think to invite them?" Her expression of concern was unconvincing.

"You mean Dr. Carlisle Cullen's family?" the tall, older boy asked before I could respond, much to Lauren's irritation. He was really closer to a man than a boy, and his voice was very deep.

"Yes, do you know them?" she asked condescendingly, turning halfway toward him.

"The Cullens don't come here," he said in a tone that closed the subject, ignoring her question.

Tyler, trying to win back her attention, asked Lauren's opinion on a CD he held. She was distracted.

I stared at the deep-voiced boy, taken aback, but he was looking away toward the dark forest behind us. He'd said that the Cullens didn't come here, but his tone had implied something more—that they weren't allowed; they were prohibited. His manner left a strange impression on me, and I tried to ignore it without success.

Read more: http://www.oprah.com/entertainment/Excerpt-from-Stephenie-Meyers-Twilight#ixzz1qTU1jYsA

The Re-Write. 

“Do you guys all like, know each other? Like, OMG if you do” Lauren asked in her most serious tone- from across the fire.

“OMG we totally do! Pretty much like, forever” Jacob laughed, in his giggly gay voice.

“LOL.” It didn’t sound like she was lolling though, her eyes narrowed to reveal the poor quality clumps of eyeliner.

“I’m like so devo that the Cullens couldn’t hang out with us today, did anyone like, even think about inviting them” * sad face *

The hot one who turns into a warewolf later in this whole ridiculous series turns to face Lauren and says “ They are nowhere near cool enough to hang out with our gang”.

I stare at this immensely attractive specimen, distracted by the movement in his sexily sculptured abdominal muscles. I make a mental note to dump Edward at the first possible opportunity. 

A profile.

And here is my first attempt at a profile. It is of a class mate after a half hour interview so content was limited.

Liz McGee

According to her Facebook profile, Elizabeth McGee is female, she lives in Kiama, was born on the 8^th of June and she studies at the University of Wollongong. What Facebook won’t tell you, is that Liz has always lived in Kiama, and finds it obscenely boring or that she studies a double major in Journalism and advertising and marketing. It also shows us that she has red tips in her hair, but it doesn’t tell us why.

 It won’t tell you that she; has done surf club, plays netball at a representative level, dances (not just in her bedroom with the door shut and earphones in, but really dances, does classes and performs) and plays touch football. It does not give you any information about the fact that Liz works 2 jobs, one at an ice creamery and one as a waitress at Relish, one of the prime dining restaurants in the Illawarra.  It won’t tell you that despite living in a beach town where the ocean is the main attraction, she doesn’t really like the beach and would much prefer to hang out in Sydney.  What I am discovering about Liz, is that she is not as she seems. Facebook has lied.

Liz has a boyfriend. Facebook doesn’t even tell you that! They have been together for one year. He is 22, lives in Sydney, is unemployed, and according to Liz, is “a massive stoner”. It seems an unlikely couple, given that she is the polar opposite to him. She does tell me that she was a little wild in high school though. She liked to go out and party a lot, because there was nothing else to do in Kiama.

“Once, I got caught with a fake ID in Woolworths Liquor. I spent years going out in Sydney and Wollongong, clubbing and pubbing, and I get my fake ID taken off me in Kiama,” She recalls. 

This image that Liz has created for all her friends and family during her teenage years, through facebook and her party girl lifestyle, does not hold as strongly now as it once did. She talks about her university degree being her main focus at the moment. “I have also applied for an internship with Annex. I am worried about the commitment but I feel like I need to make an effort and get motivated to do well. I am too laid back!” Liz says, when asked about whether she still likes to party.  

In addition to her ambitious dreams involving a career in marketing, her work commitments, her study schedule and her hectic extra curricular activities timetable, Liz has still found time for travel. Her most recent adventure was with friends to Thailand and this is a fond memory. If facebook is in any way an accurate profile of a person, this is where it lives up to its reputation for profiling people. We flick through the photos of Liz in Thailand and we come to one that catches her eye. She explains that “On our first day in Thailand I stepped on a sea urchin and ended up in hospital. That was fun”.  It’s the cheeky little stories like this that throw hints in the air that there is more to Liz than meets the eye.

Elizabeth McGee is a classic example of life as a teenager today. Her story is not extraordinary, but it represents the majority of teens living in small coastal towns.  She is an example of someone who is very different in their Facebook profile, to in person and she admits that “This isn’t necessarily a bad thing.”

Facebook might be considered a profile of someone, but how much can we really learn about someone on Facebook? Even if they are willing to share almost their entire life. We can’t help but judge someone, literally by their cover, when what really counts, as Liz has shown, is the person themself, not what they chose to share with their ‘friends on Facebook’.

And regarding the red tips in her hair? “I just like them,” she laughs. “It’s just a part of me now.”

The anxiety of interviews

The day is fast approaching where I will need to conduct a real interview. Face to face. Cyberspace will not be in between my subject and I, nor will there be an opportunity to hang up when it gets awkward, or sign out when I get bored. I am in the process of thinking about who I might like to profile, and what a good topic for my feature article later in the session, might be.

 I am tossing up as to whether I want to interview someone a little more well known, such as an athlete, or a politician, or whether I want to focus on something closer to the heart, like my family. My grandmother for instance has travelled around the world alone for more than 20 years. She has a story that would blow the mind of just about anyone and yet no one hears it, because she is on her own. Perhaps it is those stories that need to be told. The stories that are hidden away in the depths of an old lady's house. A lady who spent the majority of her life working harder than I have ever worked in all my life, and probably harder than I ever will. Who has spent years travelling around the world, seeing and doing amazing things, and who would give you the shirt off her back if you ask for it. I think it is people like this, who are the really interesting people. These are the people who's stories deserve a little limelight.

I only hope, that with my inexperience and "under construction" way with words, I will be able to do a story like this justice.

Rainy Days.

He is so beautiful. The way that he hunches himself over her, is perfect. His green and red arms stretch out to ensure she is comfortable. He is obviously protecting her, and only her. She holds onto him tightly, his smoothness apparent, she has no problem with maintaining a comfortable grip. She looks at him with the kind of desperation that one would certainly be saving for a rainy day.

 They splash through the rain together, without a care in the world. He lovingly takes the harsh raindrops, and lets them drip off him. A sacrificial gesture that no normal person would be willing to allow.

As they arrive in the safety of the Mckinnon building, her attitude changes. She shakes him, looking angry that he is so soaked. Embarrassed that she will have to sit with him through her lecture. The decision is made, she will leave him outside. He is abandoned. Alone. She walks into the lecture theatre and glances back only once. There is only one thing she could possibly be thinking.

Bunnings sell a damn good umbrella.