365 over a possible 10 years

I started a self portrait project inspired by those I found on Flickr, where you take a photo of yourself every day for a year. Alas I have been going now for almost 2 years and still have only 161 photos. But I try.

Today's shot



http://www.flickr.com/photos/kacy4/sets/72157601537478406/

What kind of issues can one have with bubblegum?

Is it the taste?
No I love the taste of Hubba Bubba, especially the sweet, sweet strawberry!

Is it the artificial flavours?
Nah, it's not like I eat truckloads and that it would make a difference my health!

So then is it the whole concept of chewing gum, like a cow chews it cud?
Nope, a bit of chewing never killed anyone (I didn't research that, so don't quote me on that) and plus it is supposed to be good for digestive health.

So what is it then, that prevents me from enjoying the odd Hubba Bubba experience?
When I eat Hubba Bubba, I do just that....I eat it, not chew it. Merely seconds after the initial chews, I swallow it. It's not a choice, it's a given. I have no control over my Hubba Bubba chewing. I think the longest I have ever lasted was 70 seconds, and that was only because I made a great effort. Usually it's only 20 seconds. As soon as that opening burst of flavour begins to dissipate, it's down the hatch for the pink piece of goo. And then I have to have another piece, which also has a life of 20 seconds, and so it continues for the remainder of the packet, consumed within minutes.

I know what you are thinking. "Bubble gum stays in your throat/stomach/any part of the digestive system for 7 years!" I also had heard this from many people in my life over the years. My Dad, my school friends, the butcher, and the lollipop man outside my school, just to mention a few. Worried by their revelations but unwilling to cease my relationship with bubble gum, I set off to do some research.

After many years, several thousand dollars and a trip to India to ride on an elephant I discovered this to be a myth. No matter how many packets of Hubba Bubba I ate, I would continue to digest as normal. I was relieved, happy to be able to resume my liaison with bubble gum.

But after the first packet, I began to think, “Well what’s the point? One minute of chewing for a burst of artificial flavour. Was it worth it? Were there far more satisfying flavours out there waiting for me to try? Was there any point in eating bubble gum when you didn’t actually ever get to the bubble blowing stage? Wouldn’t it be better to just eat strawberry flavoured lollies?”

And so it ended.
Hubba Bubba was put aside in favour of those pink fluffy cloud lollies……gosh how I love them.

Celebrity Endorsements

I have begun to notice that everything I buy, whether it be clothes, toothpaste, a car or toilet paper has some celebrity’s tick of approval. Retired basketball stars advertise carpet. Britney promotes Pepsi and gets herself into legal celebrity strife when spotted drinking Coke. MacGyver extols the virtues of MasterCard, all which is based purely on monetary remuneration rather than on the actual merits of the product. Do I really believe that Jackie Chan drinks Mountain Dew or that Justin Timberlake eats and enjoys McDonalds?

Even fictional characters have gotten in on the act. The Simpson’s swear by CC Lemon – a Japanese soft drink. Bugs Bunny really digs Nike shoes and USA War Bonds. And Kermit the frog, since he has the need to drive places all the time, wouldn’t go anywhere if it wasn’t in a Ford or BMW. What makes advertising executives think that I would allow the opinion of a Muppet to influence my car buying decision?

Even if they did actually believe in their products and wished to share their wonderment and awe with the rest of humanity. Even if Big Kev really did rejoice whilst using Shower Power in his spa bath, what possesses us to believe the recommendation of random famous people? Do Britney and Kate Moss have such great track records that I would want to believe what they say?

Some prominent individuals in the circle of household names have serious drug problems, anger issues or are inflicted with an addiction to one thing or another. Some celebrities get married eight times in the space of 3 and a half days. That should tell me that they may not be the greatest judge of character. And if they aren’t any good at picking their future partner, what makes us think that they would be any better at choosing a car or a skin care product? When I choose my household cleaning chemical should I trust the guidance of someone who is familiar with chemicals of the pill popping kind? I don’t wish to disparage those people who have achieved stardom, but wish to stress to people the fact that surely there is someone better than Tara Reid to plug the newest Kenwood Chef Mixmaster.

So who should the advertising companies use instead of the rich and famous? People who know their onions, I think. Someone I can trust to really know what they are talking about. Someone that I would bump into down at my local Chinese restaurant. I’d like to see my Nan advertising pasta sauce. A greasy mullet-possessing mechanic advertising my car. Somebody my size advertising my clothes. My friends Bernie and Andy advertising the latest movie. A highly-strung teenager advertising caffeinated soft drinks. A geeky IT guy advertising my iPod docking station.

I want no more good looking, rich, famous or skinny people with fake teeth trying to sell me stuff. If you were on a billboard I would smile and probably purchase whatever it was you were peddling. That’s because you are like me. I can relate to you. You are just like my brother, my mother, my aunty or my best friend. You have probably never been married more than 3 times and have probably even used Shower Power or Easy Off Bam. Even if you were selling tuna, I, as a vegetarian, in all probability would still acquire my fair share of “Chicken of the Sea”…but if Jessica Simpson were the spokesperson, it would be a completely different story.

I forgot my own mobile number today!

I have had my mobile phone number for the past 3478 days and about 3475 days ago I had my number memorised. So great is my freakingly good memory that even whilst drunk or recovering from the dramatic effects of a general anesthetic my mobile number slips off my tongue as if I had been born with it as an inbuilt piece of genetic information.

So to my great surprise and sickening shock, today whilst leaving a message on somebody's message bank, I had a mental blank and for the life of me could not remember this blasted number. I ended up leaving what I thought was my number all the while knowing in my heart of hearts that, that number was not mine.

To further disturb my otherwise cruisy day, involving not much more than sleep, food, Timezone and Ricky Gervais, I discovered that due to my decade of perfect remembrance of my number that I had no record anywhere of what my number actually is. It wasn't in my phone, it wasn't in my computer address book, it wasn't written on a tiny scrap of paper that was shoved at the back of a drawer along with my primary school graduation photo and half used tubes of hand cream. No, my trust in my memory to serve me to my death, was absolute and to write down my number anywhere was simply an insult to it.

I decided that my only option was to message a friend, admit to having a less than perfect memory and get my number off her. But before I did that I decided that I must record this monumental occasion on facebook. As I logged in and went to my profile, I was suddenly faced with my phone number. Plain as day it sat there on my profile and I realised that my sub conscious must have realised that somehow that I wasn't perfect and that there was a chance that one day I would forget my number. I guess my trust in my memory wasn't as absolute as I first suggested.

I took note of my number. I had given the wrong one to the person who I had called earlier. I am a failure.

South Street Vet

I was driving along South Street yesterday, and whilst concentrating dilligently on the road ahead I saw a sign. Not the spiritual awakening kind of sign, but a billboard for South Street Vet. I don't know what caught my attention, maybe my subconscious was looking for things to include in my blog, or maybe I just wasn't concentrating as dillegently on the road as I first suggested.

The sign had the simple words 'South St Vet' on it. No surprises there considering it was the South St Vet. But now, what kind of picture would you expect to be on said sign? A dog, cat, rabbit, maybe even something as exotic as a ferret or guinea pig, some kind of animal that you would normally see frequenting the local vet.

But the South St Vet decided to use as their mascot and billboard hero, a dolphin! Yes, a dolphin! I didn't know that many people owned dolphins! Or that they even made cages big enough to secure the family 'mammal of the sea'. Even if I owned a dolphin and poor Flicka got sick, would I take him to the local vet clinic? Would South St Vet have the facilities to treat my poor ailing aquatic creature?? I just hope that one day someone doesn't take their dolphin to South St Vet, only to find out that they don't actually treat dolphins, or any other sea life for that matter, and find themselves swiftly running out of options.

"We used a dolphin on our sign because they are cute and his tail curled nicely around the lettering" I can hear the manager saying whilst little Timmy is heard crying in the background "Don't die Flicka, you complete me!"

It's a law suit and many broken kiddy hearts waiting to happen.

I think I might open my own vet, "Kacy's Kreatures" and on my sign will be beaver, as I have heard that beavers are increasing in population in Fremantle pet owning society. Or maybe a goat. I haven't decided.

Gym? What's a gym? ......... Oh, a gym!

(Yes, to all you Simpson's fans out there, I realise that without hearing it, that title makes no sense and for those who have no idea why the title is, in fact hilarious, please check out this video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4i8SpNgzA4)


It all became clear one unseasonably rainy summer afternoon. Dressed in my usual summer attire of shorts and a singlet, I lounged sluggardly, being efficient only in my tactics to avoid my uni readings. Yes, it was only Week One, hardly enough time to manage to fall behind but I knew the minute I pushed aside “America Since 1900” in favour of something a little lighter and more fantasy based, that I would end up in Week 14 with only a knowledge of Elven High Magic practices and nothing else in the slightest that would be helpful come exams. Visions of essays containing intriguing propositions such as “Although the United States was, until the turn of the 20th Century, mainly a rural nation, it was not seen in any of the scenes in Lord Of The Rings. Rather the location of Middle Earth was deemed to be far more appropriate to support the ‘hero’s journey’.” Although I am sure that it would be found to be highly amusing by both lecturers and the guy’s who run the “Stupid Essays Written By Unfocussed Students” website, I knew that it would not give me the HD that I sought.

Alas, I digress. This one afternoon, wind whipping violently against my windows, thoughts akin to those above yet to surface in my mind, I lay downstairs on the couch watching a DVD. Red Vs Blue to be exact, as ever since a part of it got played in one of my lectures last year, I have quite easily been able to convince my wayward mind, that not only is watching it helpful to my education, but that it is sure to make me more attractive to the opposite sex as well. As the wind picked up and the sky became muddied by cloud, the temperature began to drop. Indiscernible at first but as Church revealed that Tex was not only female, but also his former girlfriend, I found myself in the foetal position, muscles twitching in an attempt to keep me warm. As I live in a house that not only contains blankets of varying sizes but also electric heating devices, a plethora of solutions to my chilling problem presented themselves. It was when I decided to take none of these choices but instead remain cold, shivering on the couch, lest I have to actually get up and walk up a flight of stairs, that I knew I had a problem.

I was unfit.

So unfit that not only did I choose to freeze as opposed to getting off the couch and doing something about it, but walking up the gentle incline from the car park to the Hill Lecture Theatre, left me puffing and red in the face. I had many excuses for my lackadaisical nature. “I am too intelligent to concern myself with the worries of the physical realm. I shall overcome all obstacles using my superior power of mind alone,” was a common one. “I’m too poor to have a gym membership and fresh air is bad for my constitution,” was another. But the signs for the Murdoch University Gym not only showed pictures of happy skinny people, visually promising me that if I join I would be popular and have straight teeth, but also showed a price that I could afford. So I joined.

To be continued.....(once I finish those readings that I still haven’t done from Week One)

I'm still here, I'm still alive, I'm still writing. Welcome to Second Year.

So I passed first year. I wasn't turned off by the lengthy essays or the expensive food in the ref. I felt somewhat more knowledgeable when I enrolled in units that didn't begin with "Introduction to...". I saw people who looked more lost than I did. I knew then that second year had begun and with it comes a whole new year of posts from me.

Will I pass?

Will I make new friends?

Will I learn anything at all besides the price of Bubble O Bills?

To be cliched, only time will tell.