A girl can dream

So I kinda entered a competition because I was bored. (being bored is a motivator of many things in my life - sometimes being bored is the only excuse I have - fortunately hair grows back... and things dry out and solvents remove most of the evidence)

Anyway. back on topic... this competition sent me a letter yesterday saying I may have won a large sum of money. Not ridiculously large but equivalent to a fair portion of my annual income.

So I sent back the Thanks for the Offer of Your Money form and I know I know I know these things never happen but... just imagine if it did...

So I got pondering and dreaming and thinking and calculating about What If I Really Won All That Money...

So as part of making a pact with the powers that be. I shall declare here what I will do with my money. and therefore holding myself accountable (but only if I win)

First: I will tithe a portion of the money. This goes without saying. If you have to ask what portion of the money that is... you should ask me - Ill educate you in the joys of giving to the Church. (No point in giving if it isn't a joy)

Second: I will donate a portion to my parents for their awesome holiday. They have spent so many years taking my self and my siblings on holiday, I wish for them to have a good restful holiday of their own this year. (a holiday from parental duties)

Third: The money is unforcasted and so it features in no budget of mine so spending it doesn't hurt. I will speak to one of my teacher-siblings and donate a quarter of the prize money to pay the school fees or university fees for a girl. I will prefer that the girl be schooling in Maths and Science or else be an Engineering student. I can be nerd and feminism specific if I want... It's my imaginary prize money.

Now I am not saying all of these things so that you'll be thinking "Oh wow, Frankie is such a generous person I want to be just like her!"

It would be cool to be able to be extravagantly generous without having to impact my salary. Normal people have to budget giving to charity versus the size of their entertainment budget... me included.

And so after these three portions of the money Ill have a bit more than half left.

I will not lend any of it to friends of family members. I may never get it back or else resent the person until I get it back.

It will not be enough for a new car, but will be enough for a fat deposit on a new car.

It will afford me a kickass trip overseas. but not enough to have kickass travelling partners with me (you know who you are)

I could invest it... or I could put it into my retirement fund to grow for 40 years... or I could spend it on investment items (LBD, leather boots, designer luggage, laptop)

I could find a micro-loan beneficiary organisation and feel good about myself. (until I realise that I have no money any more)

But for now I can dream away :) It doesn't hurt anybody to spend away all the money you don't have.

pretty pretty pretty please I would like to win.

43 Things pt 2

I forgot to include the amusing bit.. My About Me:

About me: “I am a girl… No, I am 23, I am a lady… or try to be a lady. I am 1 of 5 siblings and sometimes act a little attention starved. I am an engineering student and I try to be a remarkable person.


I think deep down what I want from life is for someone I meet to be able to say in even some small way that their life was changed for the better for having met me. but then don’t we all want that?

I am fond of the normal things like chocolate and boys and some less than normal things like sheep in a compltely innocent fluffy-soft-toy and frolick-on-the-hillside kinda way.

I worked for 5 years in the service industry and that combined with the work intensive engineering degree makes me not a people person but I really love getting to know individuals. Some people just intrigue me.

I think that the existance of humans that can do really amazing impossible things is no where near as amazing as the very existance of human beings at all and THAT is the start of my beliefs…..”
 
 
It's a real pearl that. In some ways... I have hardly changed at all.

43 Things

Some where in the work avoidance of spending time in the computer labs at varsity I joined this website where you list 43 things you want out of your life. And you get to see who has similar goals as you and you get to encourage other users at any of their goals.

Anyway I happened to stumble across my own profile today. (I had completely forgotten about this)

Anyway here it is:

FrankieBeans's Life List


1. visit Japan
2. take up a sport and get fit
3. pierce my nose
4. move to the sticks and live there for a while
5. get a car
6. become a wife
7. learn to paint watercolours
8. travel Europe
9. work or volunteer for a charity
10. get a score higher than 10000 in solitaire
11. fall in love and stay in love
12. own all the books in The Edge Chronicles series
13. live in Norway or Sweden
14. pet a sheep
15. learn to play the piano
16. read the whole Bible
17. take a cruise to Antarctica
18. become a mommy
19. learn to speak French
20. open a coffee shop
21. meet someone really famous
22. own and redecorate a house
23. learn to sew and knit
24. donate more money to worthy causes
25. make my parents proud
26. make a difference to the world food crisis
27. achieve one general life milestone before my older sister
28. complete a project report before the night before
29. find something better for breakfast than porridge
30. get my eyebrows properly plucked and shaped
31. get a teeny tiny tattoo
32. create an artwork
33. buy and wear a really tall pair of heels
34. collect all Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels
35. tidy my bedroom
36. backpack somewhere and rediscover the joy of camping
37. climb somewhere interesting on the corporate ladder
38. get a job where I get dirty
39. celebrate my 60 year wedding anniversary .. eventually
40. visit the United Kingdom but never settle down there
41. afford and get eye surgery
42. finish my engineering degree
43. live on my own for a while

What actually made me feel pretty good was how many of these I have already achieved or partially achieved. It's not astonishingly many but quite a few. I have managed to complete a project report before it's due date. I managed to complete my engineering degree and I managed to go to Europe not once but twice (so far). I have a car and I think my parents are proud of me.

Feels good that Frankie of 2008 would be a little proud of Frankie.2010.

:) Perhaps time to set a few new replacement goals.

The weekend pass-eth

So I did not make it to the travel agent today... but don't cry boys and girls. I received free tickets to the Travel Expo instead.

So the good news is that I found two, no, three viable tour group trips that fit into my time frame and my budget (whoop whoop). I even tried to hook two of them together as one finishes in the same city as the next starts the next day.

Bad news is that because I want to be travelling between Christmas and New Years and/or the first week of January. The air fare is going to DESTROY my budget. (doesn't help when you choose obscure holiday locations)

I even managed to find a tour to countries/towns that most of my friends haven't been to (Sorry Russia -I am not ready for -40 degree weather yet)

So I have spoken to the nice people who want to take my money (the tour operators) but no money has been forked over as yet. Trouble is... the Travel Expo is only on until tomorrow so the multiple discounts only apply until then (wait did I say I was saving 10% on my trip if I book this weekend?)

Funny/Not-So-Funny bit is that I only went travel -lust-crazy because some other people I know are travelling a lot and now Mr Thursday is NOT AMUSED that I am going away on holiday without him.

Honestly, I think that the best way to go about this will be alone. I think it will be an awesome adventure into independence and a good time to learn how to make new friend and not scare them off with my pre-morning-coffee-antisocial tendencies.

... speaking of which (and on a mostly unrelated side note) people have the audacity to complain at me because I am less that friendly at 7:30am at work (that's pre-coffee time). Lesson: Boys and Girls, Frankie is no fun in the morning. it's nothing personal.. stop bothering me... the growling is a warning... Sarcasm may follow.

...but back to my impending travel plans... This trip isn't finalised. all I have is a tentative place booked on a tour and a flight salesman with my number and some flight-search-instructions... I am wondering if it would be more economical to not travel in peak holiday season and suck it up that Ill be at home for a week between Christmas and New Years Not spending my hard earned money...

...might feel like a passport-stamp-deprived-loser tho...

Weekend cometh...

I have had a hairy few days with watching persons involved in my project exchange acerbic letters and increasingly polite tart communicating and muttering insults under their breath. This is of course a complete exaggeration.... However some tense moments have come and passed before me. In hindsight it is a little amusing but in the moment it was very stressful. Each man defends his empire and throwing arrows over the castle wall at the barbarian invaders and usurping naughty people.


(Could I be more obscure?)

I am a little tired however again from this silly busy schedule. I nearly brushed my teeth on three separate occasions in the space of 30 minutes the other night. Well I succeeded the first two times and then in the third time I realised that my minty fresh breath was in fact minty fresh. So I had to moosh the toothpaste back into the tube. Which was not very appetising the next morning for after breakfast teeth cleaning (Wait... is toothpaste supposed to be appetising?)

I also find my self waking up with my alarm at 6:00am and 6:15am and 6:30am. I lie in bed and think about how wonderful it is that I have woken up early and all the things I will get done that day because I woke up early and how productive I will be and how early I will be able to leave work… and in the process I go back to sleep dreaming about productivity and wake up later when it is late and I have to fly out the door.

And now the weekend dawns and I have plans of doing nothing all weekend long. Except I know that I won’t. Ill be shopping and cleaning and tidying and coffee-ing and wandering and washing and hanging and brownie-ing.

In other news, I have decided to make use of the fact that I get a holiday from work between Christmas and New Years and that I have some leave days collected up and I wanna wanna wanna wanna go on a holiday. I have been saving up for another overseas experience since forever and I have a tidy budget amount inside my head. My plan is to simply vanish for two weeks. Trouble is who will take photographic proof if I go on holiday alone? It irks me that everyone else is going on overseas holidays and I am not and for teh only reason of that I am cautious about going alone and I have so many other things to distract me from teh passing of time.

So Ill be meeting with my friendly travel agent tomorrow…. Unless anyone wants to host a visitor to your country/province/city/town for a week or two? (I think I would settle for Paarl or Parys even) It would save me a tidy sum in organised tour guide fees….

Meet my kitteh.

This is my cat. Her name is Camouflage because she has fur colouring that is termed in veterinary circles as "calico". Basically she is multicoloured all over, Not that unlike camouflage material colouring. I call her Camo.

Anyway, she was a gift to me from a school friend. (Lets call her DocBrown)

Camo is fluffy and awesome for snuggles and a very friendly cat.

Now that I have moved into my own place, she lives with my parents. I think she has adapted my grandparents as her owners as she spends most of her time hanging around them as they are at home all day.

My grandparents even put a chair out for my cat to sit on while they enjoy their morning and afternoon tea times outside looking onto the garden. On the chilly days where they drink their tea inside, Camo sits on the window sill outside with a mournful face. (she has a lot of furry fur... She is more impervious to cold than my 90 year old grandpa)

Anyway, when I go home to visit my parents I always make time to give some love to my kitteh. She smells nice and she likes to be held and its all nice and pet-like until my allergies get going and I start sneezing.

I wish wish wish I could have a kitty of my own at my new house... However it wouldn't be fair to keep it inside tho and I would feel bad for it being alone all day.

but some day... :)

Jacarandas are blooming

... If you haven't started studying for the year-end exams yet... It is too late...