Plagiarism alone doesn't make me a bad person.

But it helps. I thought you might enjoy this anyway.

You got nuthin I want

I got this idea from Rodney. You google "your name needs" and write down the first ten results. Well, Google didn't seem to recognise my name, so I googled what Mum would have called me if I'd been a boy.

1. Quirkie needs money for art supplies.
2. Quirkie needs help.
3. What Quirkie needs right now more than anything else is for the Boston Red Sox to win the World Series.
4. Quirkie needs your help.
5. Quirkie needs no bell to silence Pacers.
6. Quirkie needs a ride home.
7. Quirkie needs to learn to play purposefully with toys.
8. Quirkie needs to develop step-by-step approaches to academic work.
9. Quirkie needs a home!
10. Quirkie needs a Smock.

Thank God I'm a girl. Apparently I would have been a complete wanker otherwise.

Parenting theologically

Polly had already snapped at Noisie, hurt her feelings, felt remorseful and said 'Sorry' by the time I got into the car to take them to school this morning. Noisie had told me all of Polly's crimes by the time I had my seatbelt on. Polly rolled her eyes at me. No fear there; she knew I understood.

Q: Noisie, have you forgiven Polly?
N: No. [Eyes stubbornly downcast]
Q: You know Polly loves you. She did the wrong thing, and now she's sorry.
N: I don't know where that spot is in my heart to forgive her.

Hmm, I thought as I pulled out of the driveway. The pre-primary teacher must have introduced this idea.

Q: I think it is in the same place in your heart where you love Polly.
N: I'll check. [Closes eyes to concentrate] Deeper... deeper... deeper... deeper... deeper... deeper... I think I've got it... Nope, that's my skeleton. Deeper... deeper... deeper. Nope. I can't find it.
Q: Mmm. Maybe it's in the part of your heart where you remember all the things you have done wrong.
N: Oh I don't remember them. I don't hold those grubs in my hand. I just give them to Jesus, and he takes care of it for me.
Q: Rr...right... Umm... Where do you think Jesus looks in his heart to forgive you?
N: It's probably in his love words.
Q: ...
Q: ...?
N: I'm sorry Polly, and I forgive you.
P: That's OK , Noise. Thanks.

20 ways to purge blog material

I haven't responded to Kranki's tag yet out of the firm conviction that Fluffy is on the money.

But since I've got nothing better to do than study for an exam and drive to work, and since I'm sure (certainly?) that there must be at least a few more than 20 things you don't know about me yet, I thought, what the hell?

1. Kranki said I've usually got something pithy to say. What he doesn't know is that that'th only when I'm pithed.

(Sigh. Yet on we go.)

2. I have a birthmark on my right shin, and ever since I was little, I have always crossed my legs so it doesn't show.

3. I like to sing "As long as he needs me" in a Cockney accent. I think it makes it more tragic.

4. When I was 6 I nearly suffocated my little brother by locking him in a suitcase so I could perform a magic trick on him.

5. When I was 9, my little brother nearly suffocated in a wheat truck because my Dad thought I was just screaming 'like a girl'.

6. I'm not as close to my little brother as I'd like.

7. My second toes are not as long as my big toes, and when I was 10 my friend told me this was a sign that I was not beautiful.

8. When I read a book, I can't start it until I've read all the publication details, and I always imagine that I know what the person to whom it's dedicated looks like.

9. I'd rather get the piano restored than cap my tooth, but since a can't afford to do either, that's probably moot.

10. I love the smell of passionfruit, but I don't eat them because of the seeds.

11. No one got my sense of humour until I was a grown up, and even now my husband looks at me funny.

12. I really hope cats and dogs go to heaven. Mostly cats.

13. I love swimming naked, but I haven't done it since I was a teenager.

14. Oddly, I have more sex now than I did then.

15. I'm not afraid of the dark anymore.

16. You know, of course the things in the dark still bother me somewhat.

17. I'm pretty sure I'm not an alcoholic.

18. I took up smoking cigars when I was thirty, because I've always liked the smell of them.

19. I got a tattoo the same year, on my ankle. It didn't hurt a bit.

20. I feel really comforted by the fact that my husband is going grey early.

Shazam.

Now, five unsuspecting genii: Hazel Blackberry, because she's got a way with trivia, Jellyfish, because she's back in town, Fred Austere, because I dare him to do it without once bitching about clothes or music, Rodney Olsen, becasue he's the world's most dedicated blogger and I don't know how he keeps coming up with stuff, and TJ, because I love her sticky notes and her last post about her uncle must mean she's got heaps of family secrets.

Luv yers all.

Oh wicked, bad, naughty Zoot.

You can tell I have an exam coming up on account of I'm blogging.

I handed my assignment in this morning on the way to school. I got there really early, as one does, to slip the assignment under the lecturer's door, in the hope that she'll think I handed it in yesterday after she went home. But then my conscience kicked me and I wrote today's date on it. But then I made it look like it had been finished yesterday, and I just hadn't caught her in time.

I sometimes wonder how many marks my soul is worth.

Gifts from the Negotiator

All Morning Tea posts will hitherto be renamed as Gifts from the Negotiator.

What.

You didn't think I bought myself doughnuts and stuff every Tuesday and Thursday morning did you?



















This morning's offering is lemon rice. Fried oil, dhal, mustard seed, shredded coconut, peanuts, lemon, plenty of salt and a leaf of unknown identity, mixed through rice.

The cybergurus have spoken

This Is My Life, Rated
Life:	7.1
Mind:	6.5
Body:	6.8
Spirit:	8
Friends/Family:	7.7
Love:	7.3
Finance:	5.8
Take the Rate My Life Quiz

Actually, I can't believe they are so inaccurate. I mean, yeah, I feel pretty good. I drove home after dropping the kids at school and I felt that weird glowing feeling you get that tells you something good, nay, something cosmically wonderful, is going to happen, has happened. The sun was making everything pretty and the morning radio was chatting in the background with its buddies. I went to turn it off, so I could focus on the good feeling and figure out where it was coming from or what it meant, so I could pray and figure it out. But then I turned it back on because that seemed too much like hard work. And I drove home feeling cosmic. I wondered if God was communicating something to me, something very specifically for me to share with the world, or about the world, which God wanted only me to know. Then I stopped thinking that because I think that's just how schizophrenia starts.

And anyway, didn't the cybergurus *know* I have to write a 4000 word assignment this morning? There should be a section in there to uncover exactly how many methods of procrastination people have used in the last week.

eg:

Do you reward yourself with coffee and/or chocolate everytime you sit down at the computer, before you do any work?
Do you get up from the computer before you start writing to make yourself another coffee?
Do you check your friends' blogs before you start writing, just to get yourself into the mood?
Do you then begin responding to tags because, well, now you've *seen* them, you should really strike while the iron's hot?
Do you decide that would be irresponsible, and then write your own blog anyway?
Do you sit for 30 seconds pondering whether to continue this innane list, or to make another coffee?

I know I do.

By way of explanation... my brain has imploded

(Such as it was.)

As the increasing appearance of doughnuts at morning tea time may have indicated, I've been a wee bit, er, distracted of late. For one thing, I failed an exam. FAILED. An exam.

This shits me no end.

Such is the degree to which I hang my raison d'etre on being a high performing nerd.

Re-read that sentence. I am a failed nerd.

A nerde defuncte.

A nerd who invents french phrases whenever she's annoyed with herself/ other people/ whole systems of people/ systems of systems of people.

A nerd who irreverently uses the solidus/ oblique/ slash/ diagonal/ separatrix/ shilling mark/ stroke/ virgule/ slant and/or forward slash without any consideration of the sensitivities of her readers.

Hence the doughnuts.

By the way, to any Americans reading this, the correct spelling of 'dough' is D O U G H, not 'do'. Just so you know, that really annoys me. It annoys me so much I feel justified in permitting myself to incorrectly, and, furthermore, hypocritically, punctuate and grammarise that last sentence.

Furthermore.

I have an exam on Saturday, and a 4000 word assignment to produce on Wednesday.

Also, I have more counselling clients than I thought I would have at this time of year, and one of them in particular is a child that (who? whom?) I cannot get out of my head. I want to adopt this child and perform a joint double bypass decapitation and/or sterilisation on it's parents. Never allow me to counsel your children. HA! and now you know why I don't use my real name here.

(cough)

Anyhoo...

So, yeah, I'm off to see my supervisor about this one. Transference issues, unresolved conflicts... yada yada.

PS: Thanks for the vote of confidence Fred.