A stove and nails and animals

I got home from work tonight with the intention of doing swatches and finishing up the post for my Silk Naturals Kisser Slickers review. Instead, I did this:

That, ladies and gentlefolk, is the cleanest damn stove in all of Australia right now. Not pictured is the cleanest damn kitchen that it lives in, because it's the boyfriend's turn to put the dishes away and of course he hasn't done that yet. It is also a newly repaired stove - the ignitors on the two front burners have been no-worky since we moved it, and the technician finally got the parts in for us and fixed it yesterday. We waited a month for our property manager to start doing something about the problem, a month for the parts, and then it took the technician TWENTY MINUTES to fix. Riiiight.

Two months since my last post! How did that happen?! I have been working on my nails in that time (read: whining about the fact that they split and peel all the bloody time, and moisturising like crazy). IT HAS PAID OFF. Here's a pic of the fabulousness before something bad happens to them.

Picture taken with my new camera that doesn't do macro as great as the old one, but I couldn't find the old one so it'll have to do. Polish is a franken I made for work. YES, my nails are rounded! Some of my fingernails aren't really... symmetrical. Especially the middle finger of my right hand, that nail curves inward quite dramatically on one side so when my nails are long and squared, it looks really weird and is actually quite uncomfortable. I decided to try out a rounded shape with the amazing length, and lo and behold, me likey!

I have lots of reviews to do, here AND over at Jade Likes Words for those of you who like reading about books and comics. I am going to do my darndest to post once a week in both places. And you can poke me via Twitter if I don't!

Speaking of Twitter, I'm going to be online a lot less often for a while as I've, er, misplaced my phone. It's literally disappeared. I remember having it in my hand when I got home from work and then just POW! Can't find it bloody anywhere. The things I have done whilst trying to find that thing are absolutely ridiculous (read: I checked the microwave, and shook every piece of clean laundry in the laundry basket, and searched the pockets of bags I haven't used in months). It's a bit of a bummer because 1) being without a phone SUCKS and 2) I still have about 7 months left on my contract for it, so if I have to get it replaced it will be kind of expensive.

On a happier and more picturesque note, over Christmas my grandparents were visiting from Melbourne (well, that wasn't a happy note for my parents who had to deal with doddery and extremely passive-aggressive oldies for two weeks) so here are some snaps from the Perth zoo.

AMINALS AWAY

Meerkat

Pretty flower

Bamboo graffiti. BAMBOO. GRAFFITI. I so do not remember seeing that the last time I went to the zoo.

TOIRTOISE

Meerkat butt

Rhino, chillin'

While I was going through these photos I found this photo from our Sydney trip of several months ago:

Carrot cake from Starbucks. God I miss you.

(there will be honest-to-god real posts soon. After all, now the kitchen's clean I have nothing else to d- oh shit I have work tomorrow. Raincheck?)

Indie perfume favourites

I'll admit it: I'm pretty confident when I review make-up. Colour preferences aside, there are qualities that indicate, well, quality - opacity, longevity, texture, presentation and to some extent, packaging. I've done some basic photography classes and I consider myself handy enough with a camera to get decent photos. I can structure a review well enough that I feel comfortable calling my posts "reviews" instead of just haul posts or swatches.

However when it comes to perfumes, I feel COMPLETELY out of my depth. I literally went from cheap-o Impulse body sprays to that weird musky ea de toilette perfume called Taboo (I still have a bottle knocking around somewhere, I think) and then staggered onto the indie perfume scene with a vague understanding of top notes and dry-downs and a definite dislike for powdery florals. Since then I've thrown money at several companies, sampled my nose off and generally tried to understand what and why some things make me smile after I sniff (since all the boyfriend can tell me is "I like that one" or "I don't like that one").

Perfume is so personal, my lack of knowledge aside, I'm just not comfortable reviewing it. But I didn't want to keep completely silent about the great experiences I've had with several indie companies, so I'm going to compile a list of favourites instead of actual reviews. This way I get to showcase the stuff I love without having to buy a perfume dictionary from Amazon, which means more money for smelly things! YAY!

For me, scents fall into four different categories. The first is tolerance. I don't mind smelling it, but I'd never use it. The second is like - those are the smells I might go for in a soap or scrub, but I wouldn't wear as a perfume. The third is enjoyment. Those are the perfumes I'll return to - that I have a strong memory of, and I get in the 'mood' to wear. The last one is something I discovered only recently - that is perfume love. When you find yourself reaching for the same perfume every day. When all you want to do is sit there inhaling its gloriousness. When you wish everything in the world would smell like that perfume. When you're tempted to drink it to see if it tastes as good as it smells. I didn't realise there was perfume love until I smelled this scent. Ahem.

Purple Almond
This is a definite enjoyment perfume for me. I adore lavender and this is mixed with the smell of sugared almonds - a rare treat. The lavender keeps it from becoming too 'foody' for me. It's such a calming smell. I turn to this perfume when I'm particularly stressed. I bought a full-sized bottle.

Nuee Ardente
I like spicy, incense-y smells and this perfume is amazingly so - but not musky or pungent at all. This scent is fierce and warm and the rose-y notes temper it into something beautiful. This is one of the 'boyfriend-approved' ones, so I didn't hesitate getting a full-sized one.


Wrestling Tigers While Calling Your Mom Long Distance
What a name! More incense-y, woody smells here, but this particular perfume opens with this amazingly realistic cola scent. It smells like a curious sort of medicinal drink. It's suggested as a perfume for "those days when you are doing absolutely everything", and I feel like I have those a lot, so I got a full-size of this one too.

Candy Mechanic
The backstory behind this scent was so charming, and anything vaguely oil/petrol, metallic or earthy reminds me of my boyfriend. I found the description of this perfume to be absolutely spot on. For me, this scent toes the line between enjoyment and like - I didn't get a full size of this, but I have reached for the sample vial occasionally. It's such an intriguing scent!


Visit Zomg Smells here.

Dessert Absinthe
This perfume was a surprise to me. I like liquorice but I never would have imagined wearing it as a perfume. I'm also not a big fan of citrus scents... but this perfume blends both in such a way that it becomes this sweet, effortlessly invigorating concoction. The evolution of this scent when worn is beautiful, too - it starts out with a strong anise top note, and then as it dries you can really smell the lemon - but it's a soft, sweet lemon, like lemonade cream or something. Not sour or reminiscent of cleaning products at all (which is the main reason I dislike citrus scents). The result a few hours later is this lingering sweetness - vanilla with a touch of something darker. I have a little of my sample left and also a tube of solid fragrance. I don't wear this as often as I'd like since my boyfriend hates liquorice. Lysa offers this scent as a milk bath and I'm severely tempted.


Baltus 
Offer me a fragrance with coffee or chocolate in it and I'm very likely to try it - as you'll see when I talk about indie bath goodies later. Baltus was as much of a surprise for me as Dessert Absinthe was. I wasn't sure if I'd like this fragrance... I definitely didn't expect to fall in love with it.

I want to bathe in Baltus. I smell espresso - rich and strong. I smell caramel and chocolate and a bit of vanilla - creamy, sticky, sweet. Then emerges the fig, mashed together with pumpkin - an altogether different kind of sticky-creamy-sweet, much more effervescent; pungent but not sour at all. Baltus is a wild smell. The name Baltus makes me think of Bacchus, the Greek god of wine, which is fitting. This scent is indulgence. It's sexy and selfish and I enjoy every second of it. I have an empty sample vial and a full-size of this. I've been checking the shop every week or so in case Lysa does bath salts with Baltus - I'll have to buy a few packets!


I tried several other perfumes from TMTM, which have received rave reviews from various other bloggers - and they just didn't do anything for me. Not like Baltus. I also have a few other perfume vials I haven't touched. That's the problem with perfume love; sometimes you can't even make yourself wear something else!

Visit TMTM here.

Next up, favourite indie soap/scrub/lip balm scents!

Tales of a Part-timer

**Please read my review of Chew if you haven't already, and comment on the review for a chance to win a copy of issue 1!**

You guys, I did it! I made it through my first week (by week I mean two days, I haven't done my weekend shifts yet) of part-time work (mostly) intact!

I look a bit tired because, er, I am, and also because I'm wearing NO MAKEUPS in this photo. I'm smiling behind the paper, I promise. I was going to do the whole cheesy thumbs-up thing, but I can't find my tripod at the moment. It's probably hiding under my couch cushions. One day I'll find a dust bunny under there the size of an actual bunny. Then I'll sell it on eBay.

These are some of the more entertaining thoughts that were running through my head over my first few shifts:

• This POS system is so old I think that it might actually BE a dinosaur.
• No, sir, I cannot give you a free display box worth $60 because you're buying a "lot" of coffee. FYI, you are not actually buying a lot of coffee.
• Oh god which one did she say?! Just tell me the package colour please. On second thought, don't do that, because you'll say gold and then I'll have to ask you if you mean the pinky gold, the pale gold, the yellow gold or the copper gold... and then it will be bad (thank god there are only three reds, two greens and one that people keep referring to as blue but I swear it's purple... albeit a very bluish, cool lilac-y periwinkle-y colour).

Today I had the trial run of what I like to call the "doomsday race"... basically, I have classes from 8:30am to midday. Then I have to somehow:
1) Get changed into my work clothes.
2) Have lunch.
3) Get to Perth, which is an approx. 20 minute trip via public transport.
And I have to do all of this in one hour. Hence by the time I got to Perth it was 12:45 and I hadn't eaten yet. I ventured to the closest and least busy place-that-sells-food, which happened to be a great Japanese sushi bar. I got a Teriyaki chicken box which was about twice the size of the one I normally get (from a different shop). It was my first shift with the assistant manager so I was absolutely FREAKING out about being late and making a bad first impression, so I starting wolfing down my food like it was going out of fashion (funny phrase, but I can't think of anything similar right now).

I got the hiccups. I'm eating and freaking out trying to eat fast, and hiccuping, and thinking "oh NO, I have the hiccups, how long is this going to go for aaaah nobody is going to be able to take me seriously!..." and then they stopped. Normally when I have hiccups I have them for a good twenty or so minutes. By sheer force of will I made these ones go away. I didn't quite finish my food because I suddenly realised how much I'd eaten and I didn't want to make myself feel sick later, so I hurried off to work. The assistant manager is delightful, in case you're wondering.

One of the girls I worked with today will be on with me on Saturday, and she's already told me I can ask her anything at any time, which is so nice. Also my boyfriend has promised to get up (gasp!) on Sunday morning to have coffee with me before I go to work. It's not that early, don't worry, but I do feel a bit bad making him miss out on his weekend sleep-in. He's a tradie so he starts work at 5:30am.

More makeup reviews, swatches, comic and webcomic reviews are on the way! I was going to do 'a something' tonight but this will have to be it... I kinda sorta maybe haven't done my readings for class tomorrow (EEP) and I'm rather sleepy.

How are you all, any significant changes in the last few weeks? Read any good books lately? Had something funny happen to you or to someone you know? Share in the comments, or if it's something you'd rather not tell the whole interwebz, you can email me at the.jade.carver at gmail dot com. Or tweet me. I'm on Twitter all the freakin' time!

I ain't doing this for kicks

Lately it seems I've written about a million cover letters. I won't deny the practise has been helpful, but lordy is it depressing! For every application I send, for every half an hour I spend agonising over word choices, I am getting nothing back.

I've heard a lot of people say that Australian employers are by far the worst for getting back to you. I've never tried to get work outside of Aus, but I'm inclined to agree with that assessment. If you don't want to hire me, FINE! Just bloody well let me know! I'm not going to sneak in during the middle of the night and vandalise your shop!

It especially gets me when I drop my resume off at a shop in the city that I walk past often. No emails, no phone calls, and nearly a month later they still have their 'staff wanted' sign up. Doesn't do much for a girl's self-esteem. I've heard back from maybe one out of four places I applied to, and it's all been "Blah blah thankyou for your application we found someone with more experience".

Picture snitched from here.

I pretty much am doing the assistant manager's position at my current job, because we don't HAVE one, and one of the 'co-managers' has been away. I've done rosters, customer orders, banking, returns, opened and closed the store, and tracked the budget. I'm not getting paid extra for it but I don't care. It needs to be done and I'm here pretty often so I just do it. However when I get back to uni, because of our weird shop schedule and overabundance of casuals, I'll be getting 6 hours of work a week. Yup. SIX. HOURS.

Hence why I am looking for another position. New or second job, I'm not fussy. Except that I've been looking since about November.

I have a lot more availability this semester than I did last semester. A lot of places are looking for full-time staff but even more are looking for casuals. I have a ton of experience in a wide range of fields. I learn fast, I'm easy to work with and I'm great with customers. I don't understand what I'm doing wrong! I want to be able to save money while I'm at uni, not just scrape by.

Writing endless cover letters and worrying about money isn't fun. It's sapping my creative energy, hence why I haven't been blogging much. I haven't done any writing for myself lately either, despite having some really great feedback from a magazine.

I've got about a week and a half til I go back to uni, so I'm applying for things left right and center, and trying to muster inspiration to get things started and finished before I get bogged down with studying and assignments. I have been thinking about (thinking about thinking about :P) opening a jewellery shop on Etsy - simple and slightly geeky items, but I don't know if I have the stamina for such an extended creative project! I also don't have the equipment or expertise to do anything beyond beading. I know that some of the stuff I have come up with is really quite pretty and marketable:

The first and last necklaces also have matching earrings. Some of the pieces I can fairly easily re-create... but some of them are really 'one-off' designs that were made out of vintage beads or just took really long to make. I've been working on a gorgeous tiered safety-pin necklace for months now, it keeps falling apart on me! I'm thinking it may need to be soldered. Clamping them works fine for the earrings as there's no strain on them, but the weight of what I want to make usually ends up being too much for a necklace and it just falls to pieces on the third or fourth wear.

I also don't want to just make random junk-y things, I wanted it all to be 'discreet geek': inspired by books, games and TV shows. I don't know if I'm going to be able to come up with enough designs to merit a whole shop... I get inspired by beads, by jewellery and by plain ol' necessity. Most of the pieces in those photos were created because I didn't have a piece with a certain colour scheme, I acquired a piece of jewellery that didn't quite work for me so I altered it, or I saw the beads and just HAD to make something with them. This inspiration process can take anywhere from a day to years.

 I have had these beautiful blue marbled beads for months and still haven't been able to decide what to do with them.

I guess I'm still in a state of indecision, where I'm waiting for things to happen (i.e, uni to start so I know how busy I'll be, and to hear back from some jobs) so that I can figure out what my next move should be.

Social Media Musings

Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and to a lesser extent, Tumblr, Flickr, and blogging platform sites (blogger, wordpress): what do they all have in common? They fall under the category of social media. They condense our social world, bringing us together globally like never before. Are you as tired of hearing terms like "global village", "global economy" and "OMG the internet totally brings us together lol" as I am? Yet, it's still a subject that bears some examining, because it has changed us, both on a global and individual level. It's had a huge impact on the way we relate to each other. Sites like Facebook and MySpace have a different dynamic to the rest because they ask for real information - they (supposedly) reflect and enhance our real life 'connections', though more and more, through gaming, pages and groups, they are connecting people who would not have met off-line, who now connect through text and trawl each others photos even though they have never, and probably will never meet face-to-face. Forums, blogging, Tumblr and to a lesser extent Twitter, are more anonymous - they provide a platform for virtual relationships to blossom, where people know each other by nicknames and handles and may not, for months, or ever exchange photos and 'real' information, though they consider themselves friends.

The dynamic of these virtual relations are a little odd, if you think about it. The way we relate to each other online is markedly different to our 'physical-world' way, but we don't really think of it in those terms, do we?

Let me attempt to break it down, to compare it step-by-step, so to speak:
ONLINE
1. Two people meet, say on a forum. They would probably post in many of the same threads, directing comments at and referring to each other. They might read each other's post history to try and get a better sense of one another.
2. A private message may be sent, asking a question or proferring a comment, funny link or piece of information.
3. The two may arrange to meet online somewhere that they can chat in 'realtime'. This may be an independant chatroom, an email-based host such as MSN.
4. Cross-connection would begin; they would refer each other to the other social media sites that they use.
5. Facebook identities would be the final point of the connection - giving each other access to real names, photographs, and real-life friends.

OFFLINE
1. The two people meet, say at a party. They will likely be introduced by a mutual friend. They talk, exchange stories, and by the end of the night will likely exchange phone numbers or email.
2. A mix of private and group interactions will now take place. The two new acquaintances will text and/or email each other, and probably go out with the mutual friend. They will begin to get to know each other independant of the mutual friend.
3. They will connect on Facebook, looking at photos, social history, likes and dislikes.
4. Now this relationship can go one of two ways: either the relationship will develop online, offline, a mix of the two, or it will not develop at all, and they will remain at the acquaintance stage.

FACTS
Mentally and emotionally, humans are capable of maintaining only 150 relationships offline. Some sociologists are claiming that Facebook, whilst it does not help us expand that number, helps maintain 'weak ties' we would not ordinarily be able to have head-space for. I like to call this, very un-scientifically, the "Huh! I remember that person!" factor. People you knew in school but weren't close to, people you used to work with, ex-next-door neighbors, that sort of thing. People you wouldn't object to keeping in contact with, but somehow, you never quite made the effort to connect with them. These are your 'periphary' relationships. These are the people that are friends with us on Facebook, but there's no wall-to-wall talking. Maybe just a quiz invite or two.

Our circle of real, close friends is often very small. These are the people we will cry in front of, the people we may fight with, the people we want to tell important news to first, the people to whom we say, "Stop working so hard, I never see you any more!" and actually mean it. If I'm going to be brutally honest, I probably only have three of these sorts of friends, and one of these is my boyfriend, so he's in a category of his own. These people may actually not Facebook/Twitter with us very often - because they're so often with you, or you already called them and told them things that it would just be overkill to talk about it online!

Then there are the people that, for reasons of time, distance and scheduling, have the potential to become one of the really close friends. These are the people we really like spending time with, and have lots of thing sin common with, but aren't totally comfortable telling them all of the intimate details of our life yet. They may eventually become part of our 'inner circle', but for now multiple coffee dates and lunches giggling over TV series are the go. These people are probably very present in our online lives, where you chat and arrange meetings through tweets and messages.

Online friends, people who you meet through games, forums, blogs etc. may never hear your voice, due to the security risks and costs inherent with talking to a stranger on the phone. However, Skype, saviour of many long-distance relationships, is changing this. Some friends may be content with text-only relationships conducted through every social media available, but those who aren't may now talk aloud with new-found cross-Atlantic pals. These people, naturally, will be very present in your 'online' life and activities, because it is their primary form of contact with you.

As a media student with a very basic, amateur interest in sociology, I find the subject of technological impact on human relationships quite fascinating. It's also especially helpful in diffusing the grumbling surrounding how 'wired in' Gen X and Y are ;)

So... yeah. This post started off all nice and decisive and degenerated into me rambling and providing bad examples. SORRY!


LINKS  (stuff I read that gave me ideas)
http://stream.adamdodson.org/items/view/3010
http://technosociology.org/?p=131
http://www.news.com.au/technology/kates-party-prank-takes-aim-at-facebook-privacy/story-e6frfro0-1225858792605
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/world/embarrassing-web-data-may-cause-users-to-change-names/story-e6frea8l-1225907968537
http://www.socialtimes.com/2010/08/google-change-your-name/
http://social-networking-tagging.suite101.com/article.cfm/difficult_facebook_relationship_status_changes
http://cow.neondragon.net/index.php/sociologists-describe-facebook-ambient-awareness
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/7066454/Facebook-friends-are-virtual-finds-Oxford-University-study.html
http://mashable.com/2009/10/16/social-media-changing-lives/