Yesterday I got my first bill for my new mobile. I know you are thinking that I will launch into a tirade against Telstra here, and their ludicrously high charges… but no. That is not what I will do. Rather, I am here to sing their praises, however infrequently this occurs. I am not one to bow to tradition. At any rate, my phone bill was rather long. I have to say, it is unwise of them to itemise my calls, much less my text messages. At the end of this, there were some notes. And one of these informed me that any calls made by Telstra fixed line OR mobile phones, between the 12^th and 26^th of July, to Lebanon or Israel in order to check on the well-being of family members, are eligible to be rebated. And any mobile users who were travelling in those places and called Australia to advise family members of their circumstances are also eligible for the rebate.

So I am happy with Telstra. I think it is wonderful of them to assist those struggling with the situation in Lebanon and North Israel. Well done, Telstra. I am proud to be associated with you. I am even more proud because this has not been bragged about and made big splashy note of… this is not just a media stunt. And that impresses me no end.

In other news…
I really don’t HAVE any other news. I have gone ALL WEEK without falling over and am feeling rather smug, which means something awful is going to happen sometime soon. Pride Cometh Beforeth A Falleth. Or whatnot.

Soon I have to go to school, and bask in the hallowed halls of learning, which is Centralian Senior Secondary. God bless the education system! Only think what one could learn! The other day we had a substitute teacher who had the hots for Jarrad Newman and told him he had ‘a brilliant way of describing people,’ and was ‘really clever.’
He was telling me he spent a ‘good portion of the weekend explaining globalisation to a very polarised person,’ (he is another one of those economics people… where do I keep FINDING them? Well, I mean, I know he’s in my eco class… but still…)
So anyway, you would think that that would not be very interesting conversation matter in general, much less to a substitute teacher. (But interesting to me because I am very interested by pretty much anything.) However this teacher LEAPT upon his remark and said, with waaaay more enthusiasm than it deserved, "what a FANTASTIC way to describe somebody! As POLARISED! That’s BRILLIANT! Rave rave rave… You could tell that to somebody, ‘oh, you are very polarised,’ and they would think that you were talking about their sunglasses! What a very great description! You are very clever." Jarrad and I sort of looked at each other. We were quite restrained, though. The worst part was that she was kind of aiming for a response, she kept GOING, waiting for Jarrad to say something else, presumably something equally as marvellous, but that wasn’t going to happen, because what do you say to that? ‘yes! They would definitely confuse that with their sunglasses! You are very right! We are both brilliant, let us elope together!’
Or maybe not…
She was a bit odd. I think she may only have ever taught year sevens with no brainpower, because she was rather excited about how much work we did. (we did not mention that it had been set as homework and nobody had done any, except Nyaree.) But hey! That’s okay! Relief teachers for senior secondary are only ever babysitters, when it all comes down. Still. I liked her.

And they take the roll! Yes! I knew they did something other than sit there! How BRILLIANT!

It is rather good to have Jarrad Newman in my Accounting class because we are often chatty and get in troubleish. (trouble ISH, Mr. Yeaman is incapable of being genuinely angry.)
"Jarrad and Jordan! Stop talking!" he says, and then he gets involved in the conversation and it all goes downhill from there…
But having the ‘Jordan and Jarrad,’ in an exasperated tone, is so very reminiscent of when my Beloved Cousin Jared and I would get in trouble.
We seemed to get in a LOT of trouble. Sianne would tell you it is because we used to torture her/set things on fire/run scams but the reality is we were just highly imaginative children with a lot of skills, genius, and wicked senses of humour.
At the day care, when we were about four, we used to put sticks on the path to trip up the kids on bikes. *sighs happily* Good times, good times.

BUT let’s not dwell on the victories of the past! Let us celebrate the current victories! Like, ummm, well. I am sure there are victories. For example, I have recently rearranged the lighting scheme in my house by a) moving my big lamp last weekend… or the weekend before? And b) purchasing new globes for my other lamps which are really purely decorative but have blown their globes.

Also I have mastered the art of fidgeting to the extent where I can tap my pencil on my paper faster than the heart rate of a mouse!*
This automatically qualifies me for most positions in higher personnel management, so I am very positive about my future. I must apply for University soon, incidentally. I am still tossing up WHAT I would like an acceptance letter for most. I won’t be going there, but part of me is tempted to apply for the same courses as people I feel competitive with just to prove that I, too, could have done what they are doing. And probably done it with a lot more pizzazz. Anything you can do, I can do better…

This weekend has taken an unexpected turn toward being busy. I don’t understand it! Busy and I don’t get on! I like to do nothing! This time last year I LIKED being busy and I was deliberately setting things up so I would a) be busy a lot and b) not have a lot of one-on-one time with ANYBODY. This year I am far more interested in not doing anything busy except maybe one person at a time, but that is not to be. Oh well. I am going to alter plans with Sianne Marnie (okay, annie?) and take her to the debate I have to go to on Friday night to cheer on my school, the topic of which is "There can only be a worse thing than sliced bread." Jarrad Newman is LIVID because they are affirmative and somebody dropped out and he is being blackmailed into being first speaker which he hates…(it went on from there) but I am going to cheer them on, and, naturally, cheer on JULIA, really. She is one of the adjudicators. I am going to give her moral support. First lot of senior adjudication! Well done, JULES!
So. Sianne. You will not mind if we do that, and THEN go and make postcards for people? I know you won’t, because it’s about sliced bread. Debates about sliced bread are the best thing since…

I don’t need to go on, there.

WHILST we are on the topic of poor jokes, what do you think of my favourite jokes? Max was VERY disparaging, but then, he’s a boy.

Q. Why couldn’t the turtle drink his milk?
A. Because he was DEAD!

Q. Why did the plane crash?
A. Because the pilot was a potato!