Clare's 21st...fun, fun, fun

im-a-freakin-out

I thought i'd dedicate this post to telling you about how crappy this holiday is [for me].

Normally i'm fine with assignments - I never stress out. BUT this time it's different. After this holiday is over, I have to hand in a 1500-2000wd essay on the 27th of this month [in a weeks time] and then on the 2nd of May i have a property law essay which i think is about 2000wds and then on the 4th of May i have a 3000wd essay for Jurisprudence. To top it off i have two presentations on week 8 [the 27th and the 28th].

OKAY so i'm going to stop stressing out now and actually type them up. Wish me luck...

Group work isn't what it's cracked up to be...

ABOVE: a comical representation - badly done in paint but COMICAL nonetheless.


WELL where shall i begin this story. It is indeed a long story with many twists an an EVIL villian that is soooo, well, EVIL!

This story begins a while ago...two weeks in fact [well probably long before that], when our so called group member [We shall call her Mary, whether that is her actual name or not, only three other people and I will know] came up to us during our lecture break and told us she wanted to speak to us. Well her exact words were: "Sarorth, I want to talk with you". So we turn around in our seat and face her, not really expecting anything in terms of what she wished to discuss [see "Comical representation"]. Anyways she begins really aggressively and accuses Jill and myself of being immature and tells us, without allowing us the opportunity to rebut, that we should grow up. She also mentions something along the lines of: "I don't know if it's who you are or just your age, but you should grow up". Okay, so coming from someone who is being passive, if not overtly aggressive-it doesnt count for much. AND not to mention the fact that she was the one who did not make it to our group meeting and emailed us after we had already handed in the work, how are we supposed to incorporate her ideas? BUT in taking consideration the fact that she did have some relevant things to add, we then revised our work to reflect her ideas and told her about this. SHE still got angry at us because she felt that we misled her about handing in the earlier work.

THIS LEADS US TO TODAY'S INSTALMENT...

Instead of telling our course convenor about the confrontation, I decided that I wouldn't let it bother us and see if we could work things out with her. So the next week after the confrontation [last week] things seemed fine, we met and not needing to do any work that week all decided to finish early. Come this week, and things seemed to have reached boiling point [for her]. We had our negotiation [part of our assessment for "offices"/group work for Property law] and our main negotiator didnt turn up, he set his alarm at the wrong time. Anyways so we went on with it and SHE nominates ME to do the negotiation, I hesitated but then said i would do it if everyone supports me in it. So we start, things go great, until SHE decides to take on an aggressive approach but arguing some irrelevant [non-existent] law and refusing to allow the other team to have a look at the Statute. She also kept cutting me, jill and the other team off. That pretty much stuffed up our negotiation and pissed me a fair bit off seeing as she was the one who nominated me to do it.

Anyways we got over that and had to meet today to type up the evaluation for the work. She brings to class her version which she typed up and presented to us. We all read it and then decided that we need to incorporate everyone's opinions on how it went. So Jill types up a new structure and without even finishing two sentences, Mary chucks a spazz. She accuses Jill and myself of dominating the work - all the work in fact. And then in her defence, jill says that we weren't, we were just trying to incorporate everyone's ideas. Mary then goes, "well that's what you are saying, but your actions show me something else"...Hmmm okay - so in typing, Jill is domination. I bite back, saying that it's not up to us to organise everything. WE tried to contact her earlier about completing the work. If she doesn't turn up then she should have notified us beforehand, not a day before the work was due. She then threatens us and tells us that she has a copy of every email she has sent and she DID send an email to ALL of us about telling us her phone was broken. As it turns out-She didn't. Jill checked it and showed her, there was no proof of that email. This argument goes on for a while and then i leave to get the class roll. during my absense i find Mary still going off at Jill - so much so that she upset Jill quite a bit. So on my return, Mary signs the Roll and leaves. Good riddance. Who does that anyways? Just because people don't allow you to dominate doesn't give you the right to walk all over us. You can't have it your way - its GROUP WORK!

Anyways - Jill copped alot of flak during that confrontation. I felt really bad because it was during the period of me getting the roll where Mary decided to go after Jill. Tinashe really couldn't do much - his words fell on deaf ears, she would just speak over him, and us all. The thing that really bothers me is that she is the one calling us immature when she is the woman in her 40's who is being aggressive and won't compromise.

That's all i have to say. I have to deal with this woman being in my class, but at least i can that i didn't resort to her dirty tactics.

Two BIG nights = exhaustion

Well i finally have something to write in this blog - and you all thought that this blog would just roll over and die, didn't you?!

Anyways i went out Friday night and ended up sleeping at Pin's house. We spent most of the night watching rugby at the same time as organising who was going out with us - pin didnt quite understand the rules and just sat there anyways. The things i make my friends do - haha. It ended up only being the two of us and two of her friends [Jay and Jeffrey]. I spent most of the night laughing at how the people were dancing - particularly Jeffrey who was trying to dance to hip hop music and it just did not suit him [imagine a pretty boy dancing to hip hop/gangster music - doesnt quite work]. For some reason people kept asking me what was wrong...maybe i was staring into space too long, i dont know. It wasnt that great. I guess the fact that Cas wasnt there. It's not her fault though, i did say that we weren't going, I didn't really expect to drop what she was doing. Which is proof again of our inability to plan.

We ended up leaving at 3 and i slept over Pin's [with the help of my sister's covering for my whereabouts]. I woke up around 8 and tried to get Pin to drop me off home but she was in a deep sleep. I woke her up again at 10:30 and then she dropped me off. Once I got home I had an hour to get ready for my sister's graduation.

MY SISTER'S GRADUATION

[photos: yes i know, they're shocking quality]

The ceremony itself wasn't too bad - although towards the end was just really, really boring. I enjoyed the jazz music they played. The procedures were really formal. It was similar to the way a court/parliament would operate. The announcer had to address the Chancellor as though she were some holy figure and every graduating student had to tip their hats.



Well that got the boring bit out of the way...

Anyways afterwards we went to a korean restaurant - i cant remember the name but its across the road from the myer centre. It was different, in a good way though. We managed to all fit there despite having 11 people turn up. After that, we went to Gilhooley's. That was a really casual affair. But of course, as it goes - there is bound to be something stupid that happens...especially when tanner and linus are left holding a lighter. They burnt a coaster and put that in between two ash trays which then exploded and flew everwhere. It made a pretty loud noise too. The security guard was too dopey to notice though. haha. Oh and Elliott forgot to pay for his drinks [and he left his credit card with them] because we just upped and left to go to the Mustang Bar. I don't think it was his day. He forgot his ID so they wouldnt let him into the Mustang Bar.

We ended up going to Ric's Bar and just sat outside. There was this really awkard time when my sister and her friend [rose] left to go check out some place. Because there was a few of us there, we were split into two tables. There was just this silence. It doesn't really help when every person at that table I was sitting at was the quiet type. I just got a sense that many of us were tired. We managed to get my sister to have a tequila shot. I think she got a wee bit drunk. On the train home she was really talkative. I think most of the girls there has a wierd thing with alcohol. Corrine can't drink cause she gets really sick, Stephanie can't have much because she gets drunk really easy [after a tequila shot and a cocktail she was tearing up - wierdest thing i've ever seen] and off course with me and my sister - we get really red and get a rash on our neck [which doesn't really happen to me anymore].

I could have really summed the night in a few points instead of writing all that crapola. I'l do it anyways:
1. I was tired - but that was okay, i'm always tired.
2. Elliott looked Really, really tired/stressed [hence the forgetting of important stuff] - my sister, not so much
3. Rose was tired and looked uncomfortable because of the sarcastic-fast-[somewhat] academics talk. And the the fact that talking was the only thing that was happening didnt help.
4. It's really hard to convince my sister to drink-even though this thing was organised for her and Elliott.
5. Many people were coming and going throughout the night, and there seemed to be a lot of calling up people to see if they could make it
6. I lost paper, scissors and rock to Tanner. He won everytime.

Okay that's about it...My perspective is so uninteresting - but it has to be done. Someone has to speak for the small people and it might as well be me.

I have to go and finish [err, start] my assignment that is due tomorrow. It's only 1000 words so its not an impossible feat...i've managed to finish bigger, and scarier assignments the night before. So, that i shall do now.