Zolia Lily

awesomeness! I shall have to track her down! Thanks muchly

So I'm not sure how many people even follow Eurovision... but i was inspired but the Classical music thread and thought i'd ask and see what people thought! These are my favourites This one from Ukraine 2007. I think it sums up everything glittery cheesy and hilariously awesome about Eurovision. (However, despite the crazyness, it actually stirred up some post USSR tensions apparently... (sounds like they're singing "Russia goodbye" )) http://www.youtube.c...h?v=T9rJLtz64Hg And this one *sigh* from Norway 2009 which won. And deservedly. And this one from Lithuania. Which SHOULD have won!!! Grrr. Checked pants? Sparkly short shorts? Fake instruments? Quite simply - YES!!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvDBiqRbVa0 So have any favourites? Care to share?

Went to Beethoven's house in Bonn, Germany. Pure Awesomeness!!!! His symphonies are brilliance This one in particular makes me all goosebumpy. Perhaps since it's my mum's favourite and she cried when dad got her the CD... and the awesome awesome Grieg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAbwMGZtIsY And the very fantabulous fantabulistic Vivaldi Four seasons : Spring Four seasons : Summer Four seasons : Autumn Four seasons : Winter

That's fantastic! I don't know much about cricket, but with the (low) regard i have for the Australian cricket team, i simply cannot imagine them supporting a player who came out!!! The only openly gay Australian sports person i know of is that synchronised diver. And i just forgot his name... But kudos, definitely!

Well then, my darling Maria... i guess i'll move in with you and try to trick the Finnish authorities into letting me stay... or you could follow me somewhere :D It'll be like CJ and Antti in real life if only you could plan it!!! (edit : Only if you fall in love with me, too....)

LOL thanks for jumping on me like that! but no, that's what i meant. I don't see romantic love ever really happening to me. Friends and family i have, and plan to have for a very long time, and to enjoy forever and ever and yes. Been talking to a lot more strangers since then....

Wow, almost couldn't sit through that video.... eck! Labels are a couple of things. They're easy, and convenient, and sometimes damn useful... but sometimes they're also restrictive. I never really saw it that way until a few months ago when i started to write a new story. This story contains a character (who is now my all-time favourite) but i didn't know what to call him. I spent weeks trawling internet sites and stories and forums and things all in the vain attempt to find a label that fits this character. And i can't. I still haven't come up with anything that fits, that feels right. Nothing matches this character... I hope no one is offended / weirded out by me talking about my character. My point is merely that people are way more complicated than my character is, and i beleive that people can be complicated enough that there aren't labels that fit everyone. I don't feel like it's impossible for people to not know what they are or not want to define themselves.

I beleive in love at first sight. DOn't ask me why, don't ask me how, especially considering love is not something i see in my own future... But i do get that sensation, looking at people or exchanging a few words with them on the street- 'yeah, i could be really good friends with this person'. That happens a lot to me. And some of these people are now my closest friends. So if i can feel like that about people i'm going to be friends with, then yeah, i see no reason why you can't just know for love as well. I met a girl at an airport once, on a stopover. Well, 'met' might be an overstatement. I didn't have the guts to talk to her, so we never exchanged a word, but i just knew that we'd be friends. She knew too. I know i wasn't imagining it, and i know she felt it too. We definitely had a connection. We watched each other, and smiled at each other, and then stood next to each other and watched each other out of the corner of our eyes. I can remember her so clearly. I remember that whole hour like it was yesterday and not two years ago. STILL bloody wish i'd had the nerve to speak to her. Because i just KNOW we'd have been friends. If not more. * sigh * she could have been The One.... and now i'll never know. It was definitely not lust though. We'd both been on flights for 16 hours or something, i had spent the night previous to the flight in an airport and hadn't slept for something approaching 48 hours. We were both normal looking people, nothing spectular. But for some reason she struck me. And i couldn't look away. I beleive in it. I HAVE to, i couldn't not. It's like i don't have a choice but to beleive. It's weird. Normally i'd call myself a cynic, but maybe there's more of a romantic lurking inside me than i'd have thought...

NOOOO MAria you HAVE to watch it!!! You don't understand what you're missing!!! Seriously- if it comes to it in May- i will tie you down and make you watch!!!

Seriously interested in coming too... Leaving Australia in May and planning on being in the UK at the time... So i don't think i could pass up the opportunity!!!

I love the smell of books. I work in a bookshop. First thing i do upon walking in is that one long inhale. Ahhhh.... Sets me up for the rest of the working day!!! Then the other day, i had a customer who came up to me and told me our shop smelt. Grrr. Should have told her to go buy an e-reader if she didn't like it.

I have already completed one backpacking tour of Europe, and i'm off again in a few months for my second! The first time, i'd saved up for three years right out of highschool and basically told my family i was going to take time off from Uni and that i was going to be in Paris for my 21st Birthday. Mum freaked and decided i couldn't be alone, and then my dad and my sister wouldn't stay home either... so i sparked a family trip. We did Paris and England together, then i left them and they came home. I went onwards! I ended up spending a total of 7 months in Europe, backpacking around. I didn't work while i was over there, but i did spend basically every cent i'd ever earned. I stayed at hostels, caught overnight buses and trains, went to 11 or 12 countries and had the time of my life. I stayed with friends of friends of friends, who put me onto more friends, who have since sent their friends to stay with me here. I studied German for two months and got to live in cities i'd never really thought about beyond looking at the place names on a map. I met people who have become really close friends with and met up again with in other parts of Europe, saw things i'd never dreamed of, discovered art and architecture and history (yes, i feel all of those are sadly lacking in Australia...) and what a real mountain looks like (yeah, those too). I ate too much, got lost, got followed, got hit on by a sleazy Greek man on a ferry (there's no where to run on a ferry...), got sick, got ripped off, got sunburnt, got snow burnt (is that even a word?) found disgusting hostels where i was too afraid for the health of my feet to shower, found amazing hostels, and amazing people and places and just kept going until i ran out of money. The only reason i came home was because i was pretty sure that if i didn't, i'd never finish my degree at all. I was a pretty sheltered kid before i went, i think. I'm still not the most confident, outgoing person, but backpacking was phenomenal. There's nothing like the freedom of it! Nothing too, that will change your whole world view as thoroughly as putting yourself somewhere completely foreign to you. And the memories are amazing. I'm always like 'hey, i did that!'. Sort of can't beleive it sometimes! I was inspired by my Uncle, who basically dropped out of high school in the 70s, bought a one way ticket to Bali, and then backpacked, hitchhiked and worked all the way through South East Asia, India, Pakistan, Nepal, Israel and right through, until he reached London 18 months later. It was his friends who i got to stay with, and who have sent me more friends. No one else in our family before or after him had ever really travelled anywhere. But i like to think i've inspired them Bob- i can't imagine getting to travel in the era you did! It would have been incredible. Even though i visited basically every musuem i could, i am so aware that it's absolutely nothing compared to actually being there, at that point in time..... i can't begin to imagine. Pretty sure that's jealousy i'm feeling... I have to say i love that about Europe. You can go to modern cities, and see medieval town centres that have hardly changed in hundreds of years all really close by, see east and west, and to me it seems like all this history just squashed down on more history. Coming from Australia, where if there's a building around that dates from the 1800s it's an old one... you just can't compare it. Seeing everything that's out there. It changes how you see everything. It's a whole vast world out there. And now i have itchy feet. Travelling is completely addictive. So I got home mid 2009, and now i'm off again. This time with half the funds and with no definite plans to come back Can't wait!!!

Hmm, hard to say on some levels... Definitely not something they should have to share if they don't want to. Then again, i think the more celebrities who publicly come out the better. But... then again. Ricki Martin. Seriously? Didn't everyone just go 'duh'???

WOW it actually happened... i really never thought it would... i'm in shock... lol today in the car mum goes "do you..." and i laughed and said "trying to figure out how to ask me something awkward?" (she was driving me to a minor medical procedure... which is what I was thinking about...) and she goes "No, no. It's just your dad thinks i've turned you into a man hater and..." (yeah, mum's a feminist...) "and i wondered if you like men." cracked up laughing. Reassured her. (Dad thinks i hate men because we fight a lot, since he's a chauvinist and there is nothing i hate more that men who treat women badly.) But seriously? Lol. Unfortunately, i didn't think to take the opportunity to tell her about my writing...

hmm, so many songs already listed that i like!!! but i'm going to start heading on a slightly different musical tangent... LOTS of my favourites :D but loads more that didn't make it ... T-Rex: Children of the Revolution The Kinks: Lola You really got me Stealer's Wheel: Stuck in the middle with you Whitley: Facades ii Head first down Poison in our pocket The Panics: Don't fight it Cruel Guards Powderfinger: My Happiness A song called everything On my mind Lost and Running These days must.... stop.... posting.... music.... gah...

I happen to love the Great Ocean Road and the Otways National Park out west of the city. Especially in winter, when not every man and his children and his caravan and his dog is down there. It's really lovely (especially when you take some back roads in land and avoid the tourist rushes). Otherwise i have a thing for mountains. Probably because the things we call "mountains" in Australia are just big hills. So take me to Switzerland in summer and i am in heaven!

A couple of my favourites : "Mediterraneo" (italian comedy... slightly slapstick...) "Le fabuleux destin d'Amelie Poulain" (French, famous, awesome ) Toy Story 3 (pure unadulterated awesomenes...) Stardust (lol, call me lame, whatever it's funny!) The Emperor's New Groove (Animation. See above comment ) Strictly Ballroom (by Baz Luhrmann) (Australian dance drama movie... with a love story, of course) Black Balloon (acclaimed Australian drama about a teenage boy with an autistic brother- really good!) Little Miss Sunshine (for your monthly dose of laughs and weirdness...) Aaaaand most of my other favourite movies are kids movies... anything animated... :D :D

ok, i'd agree with the majority of people who seem to be agreeing that looks matter, despite the fact that they shouldn't. Except i'd like to raise the issue of how our looks impact upon ourselves, rather than how successful / attractive they make us out in the great wide world. I went to highschool with 2 girls who had had plastic surgery by the end of school. They were under 18 when they had their respective procedures. According to everyone else, they were pretty girls and didn't need the procedures (nose job for one, jaw reshaping for the other). I was quite critical of one of the girls, until another friend (who was actually quite close to the girl) told me how badly the way she had perceived her own looks had impacted on her own self esteem. I'm still not exactly comfortable with the idea of plastic surgery etc (does it actually resolve an underlying esteem / confidence issues or merely supress or hide them?), but i do beleive that the way we look is important for the way we perceive and think about ourselves, and not just for getting jobs / attracting mates / friends... etc. I'd also point out what my mum says (although this isn't a matter of ugly / pretty at all) - she always tells me to go out of the house as if i was going to see a friend, and that way i won't bump into someone i know and be embarassed to have put no effort into my appearance. For my mum, paying attention to your appearance is a form of self-respect, and that no one will respect you if you don't respect yourself.

I'm a cat person My first cat was called Ralph and was some sort of tabbie / tortie / bitza , and he lived until he was probably 21 or 22. He was a biiiig cat. Mum and dad picked him up as a stray before i was born and he was a few years old then. He was like the energizer bunny. He just kept going and going. He died about 2004. I got a cat for my birthday when i was 5. He was a big ginger tom; a real hunter and wild creature. As he aged he mellowed and he was my baby. He pined after Ralphy died and got really old really fast. We got two kittens to try and give him a family again. He pretended to hate them, but he cleaned them when they were sleeping and they slept on top of him, so we think they got along ok. He aged really badly though, was partially deaf and blind and had heart murmurs and diabetes and ended up with mini strokes and some form of alzheimers. It was awful. He used to walk in circles (like Zoolander, could only turn in one direction...) and sit and stare at walls. We had to have him put down late 2008. It was awful, but he was suffering. So we currently have the 2 kittens. (we still call them that, even though they're about five... ) A red Burmese, called Pride (he looked like Simba when he was a kitten, and then we said something about a pride of lions, and it just stuck...) and a Tortie Burmese who is called Tawny (because she is, basically.). Pride is a real sook and wants cuddles always. Now. Right now. And cries and cries if he doesn't get them. He pines and cries and drives everyone crazy if i go away for more than 2 days. I'll have to take him with me when i finally move out! Tawny is a real haughty tortie. She is very aloof and only cuddles when SHE wants. But when she is happy, she can't purr properly. She ends up squeaking and purring and it's ridiculous and adorable. And she can't miaow. She opens her mouth, but nothing happens. We also have an elderly arthritic dog called Scarlet (or Scarlie for short) who is a failed guide dog puppy... (no longer a puppy!) and about 6 chickens. Mum grew up in the country, and we have a big back yard..... so she decided she wanted chickens!!! When i'm old and am the local cat lady, i'm going to have a black cat called Bagheera, and possibly another cat called Sheba, and one more cat called Mouse Just to mess with it's head :D also- this is actually really funny : http://www.27bslash6.com/strata.html

Worst of it is, to pay for all the damage bills, the government is cutting spending- especially on environmental issues and counter global warming initiatives!!! It's like- you're not going to fight climate change? And you think we're getting once in a lifetime floods / cyclones / fires all within a few years of each other BECAUSE......????? AND all these stupid people are now saying it was all just a big media stunt since it didn't end up being that bad. So they'd rather the government didn't take precautions and left them out there to take a risk??? Gee, you know... i can really see them taking that in stride...

whoah i thoguht that was a kid looking in your window!!! LOL!!!

wait wait wait- so what happens if there's a tie??? Extra time??? Tiebreak??? (apparently we have the only sport in the world where if they draw during the Grand Final they replay the whole thing the next week.... happened last year. TOtally just a money making stunt though).

Hilarious! And MAN i love Urban Dictionary!!!

omg omg loved loved loved!!!Just read this on Maria's reccommendation (oooh that's sooo spelt wrong )and it was fantabulous!!! Loved Sam's vulnerability and strength *sigh* made me happy

Hey- whoah! Surprise start!Really like your style of narration- it flowed and you really left me wanting to know more!!!Looking forward to more chapters