Saturday the 15th March marks the date of the third annual Dusty Days music festival – and I am SO there. The line-up includes acts such as Sneaky Sound System, The Potbelleez and most exciting (for me) SPIDERBAIT!

Spiderbait was one of my favourite bands back in my tweeny highschool years. I have never seen them live and I’m really looking forward to hearing some of their oldies (hopefully they’ll play some). Sneaky Sound System should be great, they completely rocked out when I saw them at Live Earth last year. The below song by The Potbelleez is my current song obsession, so hearing it live will be awesome.

Ahhhh I can’t wait. Just hearing that one song will make the whole weekend worthwhile as far as I’m concerned. Now to find some accommodation and organise cars/who’s driving over .. etc. Wagga (where it’s being held) is about a 2.5 hour drive away – and as I’m the one that works from home (which apparently translates into “you’ve got nothing better to do”), I’ve turned into organiser in chief.

Cannot wait. Dusty Days, here I come.

Three days ago I was shopping in my favourite craft store, Lincraft, and almost passed out smack bang in the middle of the paint brush isle. I’d been feeling light-headed and shaky all day but it was also a billion degrees and humid as hell so I thought it was dehydration.

The next day I woke up, got out of bed, and promptly fell on the floor. I felt like a semi had visited my room during the night and ran me over multiple times. My thighs felt hard as rocks; sore like I’d run a marathon the day before. Every few minutes my knees would decide they didn’t want to support me anymore and buckle. So for the entire day I was walking around like I had a poker jammed up my ass because I couldn’t bend my knees.

That night I had quite possibly the worst sleep of my life. Every time I rolled over in my sleep the muscle pain would wake me up . The next day (yesterday) was WORSE. The pain I felt in my legs spread over my body; even my elbow pits hurt! I’d also started getting cold-like symptoms, mainly a sore throat and swollen glands in my neck. I made a doctors appointment and had to actually get my mum to take me. I haven’t been taken to see a doctor by mother since I was a kid, but I could barely walk, let alone drive myself there.

After describing the course of events that brought me to see her, the first thing the doctor said to me was “so.. been kissing anyone icky lately?” Apparently glandular fever aka mono has been making the rounds the past few weeks, GREAT! She sent me off to get some blood tests to confirm whether it was glandular fever or something else just as icky. Now, I have a minor phobia when it comes to needles. This is thanks to a traumatic experience donating blood when I was 17 that left me with arm-length bruises along the inside of both of my arms; but that’s another story. So needless to say, I was just a TAD concerned with getting blood tests. It was ok though, and I should get some of the test results by this afternoon or tomorrow morning. At least the blood count results that determine whether I have mono or not. They’re checking for a few other things too, like influenza.

The thing I hate most about sickness (apart from the whole.. sick part) is that it’s so BORING. Being able to lay in bed all day seems really appealing until you’re actually doing it. I got my 17 year old brother to help me move some furniture around and now I have a pretty sweet set-up going so that I can lay in bed, use my PC, watch some TV, or play xbox 360. It’s just not very practical if I ever.. y’know.. want to open my desk drawers?

If there are any of you out there looking for an extended vacation from work, please feel free to visit my quarantined bedroom. I’m bored here by myself.

Yesterday whilst visiting my chatroom an interesting topic came up. After a bit of a bitch about trolls being really irritating, someone announced that people troll because the internet isn’t real. I found this statement quite baffling. I know that for some, venturing online feels like entering a foreign country where no one speaks English; but is the internet so far removed from reality that it’s morphed into an alternate universe?

The internet can remove the accountability you have for your actions and bump up your courage points while you’re hidden anonymously behind your computer screen. People may behave differently under these circumstances and say or do things that they wouldn’t ordinarily do, but it’s still them, is it not? They don’t develop some alternate personality, it’s the same person with lowered inhibitions.

I’ve always hated the term “IRL” (In Real Life).

Example. I have this friend IRL that doesn’t use the internet.

What? I tend to avoid categorising my life into sections of real and make-believe, lest I develop schizophrenia. I really just don’t understand this distinction between “real life” and the internet. I don’t miraculously turn into some other person when I open my browser. The rules of interaction may change – I wouldn’t go up to someone in person and make little star (*) motions with my hands whilst hugging them – but the norms of communication are still essentially the same, no? You’re still communicating with a real and tangible person and it’s still possible to develop ties and feelings with that person.

Granted, there are many out there that aren’t honest about themselves online (tsk tsk) and take advantage of the anonymity that the internet provides; but there are liars and assholes everywhere. They follow you into your “real life” too. I know several.

I use the internet a lot. It’s my source of income as well as a hobby. As far as I’m concerned it’s a part of my life, not a separate entity floating along beside it. Honestly, I feel bad for people that need to maintain a second life to make their first bearable. I’m far too lazy for that.