"You steal my clothes!" "We have a barter system!"
So Kirsten and I went to Sherlock Holmes last night (which, by the way, was excellent, mostly because of the banter between Holmes and Watson) and when we were in town there was an unusual number of unicycles.
"Is this a new trend?" Kirsten asked me, as we walked along the waterfront in the early evening sunshine. "Like, are unicycles the new Miley Cyrus?" I told her I thought it must be a convention of some kind. "You could go and ask one of them," I suggested. "There are many unicyclists around." But Kirsten was too embarrassed. "What if it is the new trend in transport?"
Turns out the unicycling world champs are in Wellington at the moment. Good times.
There are many things I don't understand about customers who come into my work. However, number one of my list is customers who come in to buy curtains without having actually measured their windows properly. How is this actually possible? Because I know that people don't have such a high opinion of retail workers to think that they are mind-readers. Do we even have minds?
"Oh, the window is about this wide," they'll say, while I resist the urge to roll my eyes. "It's just a standard size window," they continue. "There is no such thing as a standard size window," I respond. "Maybe about six feet?" I smile politely, greasily, and try not to tell them that New Zealand converted to the metric system over thirty years ago. And then they get snarky when we can't actually help them.
Christmas was very nice. I am the proud owner of a Penguins Classics Pride and Prejudice mug, because my family know me far too well. Also, books and teapots and soap. My family are pretty neat really.
I have read many books in the past few days, including Nation by Terry Pratchett, Just Henry by Michelle Magorian and The Lost Island of Tamarind by Nadia Aquiar. Michelle Magorian has taught me everything I know about World War II (which, disturbingly, may come in handy next year) and I cried reading Just Henry. Curse you, Michelle Magorian, and your loveable, flawed characters who get everything they want at the end but have such a tragic path to take. And I will NEVER forgive you for Zach.
Perhaps because I had just read Nation, where the treatment of gender and colonialism was so excellent, but I didn't enjoy Aquiar's novel as much as I had been lead to believe I would. It just wasn't as smart and there were aspects of the depiction of characters like Helix and the Cloud People that I found slightly troubling. Also, I thought some of the gender stuff (you can tell I have a first class honours degree) was problematic. I am so sick of motherly girls and actually thought Penny (the baby) was pretty much unnecessary to the story. There were some comments characters made that were never problematised about girls and their ability to do things, which I felt Maya could have maybe struggled with. Also, it was very episodic and a lot of plot points weren't resolved by the end, which I thought needed to be. Even if it's sequel bait, I don't think the appropriate ground was laid for any sort of resolution.
Anyway, enough of that. The weather outside is frightful but I'm about to curl up in bed with a good book (potentially with The Hunger Games, which I haven't started yet as I was told that once I started I would not be able to stop and all my reading is happening in fifteen minute breaks) and drink tea.
NEXT WEEK ON AIMEESWORLD: Anne Bronte and my big, embarrassing crush on Mr Weston from Agnes Grey.
PS Liz and Lee game me a 'Grow Your Own Unicorn' for Christmas. My plans for sparkly world domination continue apace.
"Is this a new trend?" Kirsten asked me, as we walked along the waterfront in the early evening sunshine. "Like, are unicycles the new Miley Cyrus?" I told her I thought it must be a convention of some kind. "You could go and ask one of them," I suggested. "There are many unicyclists around." But Kirsten was too embarrassed. "What if it is the new trend in transport?"
Turns out the unicycling world champs are in Wellington at the moment. Good times.
There are many things I don't understand about customers who come into my work. However, number one of my list is customers who come in to buy curtains without having actually measured their windows properly. How is this actually possible? Because I know that people don't have such a high opinion of retail workers to think that they are mind-readers. Do we even have minds?
"Oh, the window is about this wide," they'll say, while I resist the urge to roll my eyes. "It's just a standard size window," they continue. "There is no such thing as a standard size window," I respond. "Maybe about six feet?" I smile politely, greasily, and try not to tell them that New Zealand converted to the metric system over thirty years ago. And then they get snarky when we can't actually help them.
Christmas was very nice. I am the proud owner of a Penguins Classics Pride and Prejudice mug, because my family know me far too well. Also, books and teapots and soap. My family are pretty neat really.
I have read many books in the past few days, including Nation by Terry Pratchett, Just Henry by Michelle Magorian and The Lost Island of Tamarind by Nadia Aquiar. Michelle Magorian has taught me everything I know about World War II (which, disturbingly, may come in handy next year) and I cried reading Just Henry. Curse you, Michelle Magorian, and your loveable, flawed characters who get everything they want at the end but have such a tragic path to take. And I will NEVER forgive you for Zach.
Perhaps because I had just read Nation, where the treatment of gender and colonialism was so excellent, but I didn't enjoy Aquiar's novel as much as I had been lead to believe I would. It just wasn't as smart and there were aspects of the depiction of characters like Helix and the Cloud People that I found slightly troubling. Also, I thought some of the gender stuff (you can tell I have a first class honours degree) was problematic. I am so sick of motherly girls and actually thought Penny (the baby) was pretty much unnecessary to the story. There were some comments characters made that were never problematised about girls and their ability to do things, which I felt Maya could have maybe struggled with. Also, it was very episodic and a lot of plot points weren't resolved by the end, which I thought needed to be. Even if it's sequel bait, I don't think the appropriate ground was laid for any sort of resolution.
Anyway, enough of that. The weather outside is frightful but I'm about to curl up in bed with a good book (potentially with The Hunger Games, which I haven't started yet as I was told that once I started I would not be able to stop and all my reading is happening in fifteen minute breaks) and drink tea.
NEXT WEEK ON AIMEESWORLD: Anne Bronte and my big, embarrassing crush on Mr Weston from Agnes Grey.
PS Liz and Lee game me a 'Grow Your Own Unicorn' for Christmas. My plans for sparkly world domination continue apace.