19 Nov – The Funny One

Are you the funny one in most groups? What kinds of things do you find funniest?

I’m not going to lie, I’m the funny one in most of my circles. I’m not sure why that is, but that’s just how it goes. Depending on the group, I’m generally the funniest because I say what most people are thinking, but are too scared to vocalise it.

Daily Prompt – Good Tidings

Present-day you meets 10-years-ago you for coffee. Share with your younger self the most challenging thing, the most rewarding thing, and the most fun thing they have to look forward to.

Ten years ago I would have just recently turned 22. I’m not quite sure if I was still in my share house with the lesbians, or in my share house with the girl with cerebral palsy.

2 Sept – Communication

How do you communicate best? Speaking or writing?

For me, it’s definitely writing. I’m much better at writing a scathing email than I am having a go at somebody face-to-face.

Daily Prompt – I Can’t Stay Mad at You

Do you hold grudges or do you believe in forgive and forget?

Correction… I can and WILL stay mad at you for as long as I feel like it…

Give me a reason to hold a grudge… any reason… any reason at all… regardless of how minor it may be, and it’s like setting something into concrete – I’ll hold onto that grudge for as long as I need to.

Hi, I’m a Scorpio, and I’m the wrong person you want to be pissing off. Ever. For me, holding grudges is something that just happens . Naturally. Like learning to walk, or brushing your teeth at night. For as long as I can remember, I’ve always held grudges against people, even when I was a kid. I was always of the mindset that if you’re going to piss me off or upset me, then I want nothing to do with you.

…and that was just primary school!

Daily Prompt – Why Can’t We Be Friends?

Do you find it easy to make new friends? Tell us how you’ve mastered the art of befriending a new person.

If we’re talking about people who share similar interests, personality and sense of humour, then yes it’s naturally easier to make friends with those people. Everybody else, however, is a completely different, awkward and uncomfortable story.

Being somebody who, over the years, has become increasingly awkward at the art of conversation, I really struggle in social situations, to the point where it’s almost becomes just too overwhelming and I need to leave, and therefore avoid any future situations like the plague.

I can’t do it. I just cannot do it. I really struggle to have a conversation with somebody I’ve just met because there’s always that awkwardness between the two of you as you navigate through the conversation trying to find some kind of common middle ground on something you can both relate to. My problem with that is that even with people I already know or have shared interests with, I still struggle to engage in conversation with them.

Many people have told me that they see me as the complete opposite – suggesting that they see me as being quite bubbly; forward; engaging; interacting etc but I think that is the result of my work. I have to be like that, but in saying that, when I do interact with people in that capacity it is actually coming from a genuine place; an authentic place, rather than simply being fake and talking to people because I’m obligated to. I can’t do that; I can’t be that person.

Sometimes I feel like a bit of a contradiction: on one hand you have this person who is entertaining and engaging in the workplace, and on the other hand, that same person is also incredibly shy, reserved and awkward around other people – but I guess that’s only applicable in social settings surrounded by strangers.

Ugh, I’m just a mess.

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/why-cant-we-be-friends/

Jan 30: Persuading Others

If you could persuade people to do one thing right now, what would it be?

I would actually try to persuade people to have more of a social conscience.

Only in the past few years have I really developed more of a social conscience in terms of being more vocal about things that I believe in – things like animal rights, climate change, marriage equality, boycotting companies that don’t support the same beliefs that I have.

And then we end up with this complete and utter monstrosity, Tony Abbott, as our leader, who is so completely backwards, he almost seems to be determined to try and inflict as much damage as possible, so that when he gets voted out at the next election, him and his Liberal government will then have all this damage and destruction to use as a platform for the incoming government, and use that to make them look inadequate because they won’t be able to fix it overnight, and they wont have billions of dollars at their disposal to start trying to undo all the damage that the Abbott government has, is and will cause to our country.

Without actually thinking about the country that we live in and the world that we live in, people tend to just sit back and ignore or avoid these kind of things because they don’t think it affects them; or they think that they can make a change, (or maybe they don’t want to?!) but the fact still remains, that there is a lot of shit that happens in this world, and not enough people really seem to care about it to do anything to create a positive change. Yes, there are a number of activists out there, but more often than not, they give the actual term ‘activist’ a bad reputation.

What’s the first thing you see in your head when you hear the word activist? I’m just gonna go out on a limb here and suggest that it’s something like a person with some signs / placards, chaining themselves to a fence or a tree, or maybe standing in the way of a bulldozer in a picket line. Perhaps they’re rocking out a giant mop of bushy dreadlocks, screaming into a megaphone, barefoot, with a face full of piercings and referring to themselves in the third person by their alternate non-religious name of Sapphire or Moonflower.

That doesn’t have to be the case. Any body can be an activist without having to resort to that kind of action. You can do little things, small every-day things, that will at least make you feel like you’re doing your part to help a worthy cause.

Personally, I’m not going to go out of my way to go to a rally. Even if it’s for something that I support, I generally loathe them, because you see those people I just described, and they make me want to throat-punch them. Instead, I do my own stuff. I’ll sign petitions; I’ll buy only free-range eggs; I’ve even gone to the point now where I completely emptied my entire bathroom skincare and hair care products for cruelty-free brands. I’ll donate money to charities like the RSPCA, or supporting initiatives for the homeless. I refuse to support companies that don’t support marriage equality, or have financial ties to anti-gay organisations like the christian lobby. I no longer donate clothing to The Salvation Army or The Red Cross because they refuse to help people who are in need that are homosexual. Those people are more than happy to take my hard-earned pink dollars, but if I ever found myself in need of their assistance, it’s so disheartening to know that the people who gladly took my money would refuse to help me.

Why would I continue to support that. Especially when I’d blindly been doing so for so many years. Part of me wishes I could ask for a refund of everything I’ve donated to them, just so I could give it to a more deserving charity.

But I am just one person. I cannot make a big enough difference to influence any change, but I can tell other people about it. And they can tell people, and so on and so forth. But there’s a difference between agreeing that there is a lot of stuff that is wrong in this world and actually stepping up and doing something to make a difference.

So if you were to sit there and make a list of what do you feel strongly about in terms of a broader social aspect, what would you write down? What are your top five issues? What small steps can you take to make a small difference?? And for those of you that believe in it, I think we can agree that by making a positive change for a social cause will bring you good karma.

And everybody wants good karma, right?

Jan 2: Pressure = Obligation

What are you currently feeling pressure to do that you don’t particularly enjoy?

Well, I’m currently on holidays, so I’m not actually feeling much pressure to do anything. I really want to get my lazy arse up to date with all my blog posts – and I must say, yesterday I managed to smash out a whopping 16 blog posts one after the other… That was something that I felt a lot of pressure to achieve, and I really wanted to have it all done before New Years, but I just didn’t get a chance to do so.

But now that I’m home alone (Hulk is back @ work), it’s now 12:10pm, I’m still in my PJ’s on the couch with my laptop, listening to some music by Medina (Check her out on iTunes, she’s got a few really catchy tracks!)

One thing I’m feeling pressure to do is to be more social. It started with New Years Eve. I had no intentions of going out whatsoever because I couldn’t stand the thought of being squished into a nightclub, sweating my hole out, surrounded by stinky drunk disgusting gays and the aroma of smoke, alcohol and b.o. NO THANK YOU.

However, Hulk had made the decision that we were going out much to my dislike. The reality was that it wasn’t as packed as I had anticipated, which was good, and we were out with some great people, which made the night much more bearable. So I ended up enjoying myself…

My problem is that, generally I just don’t like people that much. There’s only a select few of people that I know that I could quite happily spend hours with, without wanting to slowly bleach my retinas, or gouge my eyes out with a piece of rusty tin.

But that’s just a constant in my life. I dislike people in general, which is kinda bad, because it just makes me want to interact with people less and less. I really should change that.

However, given that I’m now getting over the festive season, I do have one underlying pressure I’m placing on myself… to lose weight. Ugh.

Seeing as how for the last two weeks of the year, all I’d done is eat myself stupid… the pinnacle being Christmas Day / Boxing Day, as well as far too much chocolate, I have now got a healthy bouncy little food baby… and I’d like to get rid of it.

However, in order to do so, it means I have to do excercise… but the type of exercise that I absolutely loathe… weights. And I don’t lift weights. I can’t think of anything more boring… and I feel so incredibly self conscious about doing weights in a gym, so the whole thing becomes a complete nightmare.

See… this is what I basically anticipate happening. I know that it won’t because I physically wouldn’t be able to lift anything more than my 5kg baby weights… but it’s the only image I get in my head. That, and the constant intimidation of being surrounded by all these fit muscly guys all watching me and judging me. Fuck that. It stresses me out too much… and how do I deal with stress?? Eat. And what do I have a table full of, waiting to be eaten? Chocolates. And thus, the vicious cycle begins.

I recently stepped out of my comfort zone to try a fitness class I’ve never done before, and it nearly bloody killed me… and I was sore for days afterwards. If anything, I might do that again… start off with something achievable…