(no subject)

[labellementeuse]

So my parents are away? So I am sort of pretending to take care of the kids. I hasten to assure you that when I say "the kids" I mean my brothers and my sister, and not, you know, my actual children or, in fact, people who are significantly younger than me in any respect; Rewi's 17, Hedley's 15 and Freya's 13, so they can basically clothe and clean themselves, anyway. They're too lazy to feed themselves but, well, so am I. Anyway, I'm paranoid and like to know where the younger two are.

(and, actually, the older one, except he just schlepped out and wouldn't tell me where he was going, from which I deduce that he's seeing his girlfriend, shock. Which, god, it's not like I don't know where she lives? heh, speaking of which and I don't know if I should mention this in front of sixth_light but anyway; last night he was at a party with said gf. He drove, but he also drank, so they took a taxi home, and when I say home, I mean they were both in the same place and it wasn't here.

because they are petty criminals, he got up at seven this morning to get a taxi back to where he left his car, which is in town - Thorndon, for those of you playing the Wellington game. Because life is fucking funny, he managed to leave his keys at her place and both his phones in the locked car, and ended up walking home to Newtown. He then had to chase down the other brother, who has the spare key and who was also AWL (absent with leave, although when say "leave" I mean "I'm going to Tom's place bye" and leaving me hanging with "-- wait! Who is Tom?") and who eventually turned up at... Walt's, I think? he never answers his damn phone so it's hard to tell.)

Anyway, god, that really long parenthesis later the point of which is for me to be smarmy about don't drink and forget where you left your fucking keys, kids; I'm sitting in the computer which is quite close to the front doo when said door opens and Kenneth files in, followed by Walt, followed by someone whose name I don't know but from whose feet, hair and demeanour I assume is a friend of Hedley's, followed by a couple of GIRLS I don't know, followed by maybe another six friends of Hedley's, and at this point I'm wondering, is Hedley actually with them or is this just a social visit? The place was filling up with fifteen year olds pretty damn fast.

Hedley himself finally appears at the tail end and says, with straight face but with twinkle in eye, "I'm having some friends over." normally, I assure you, my family wouldn't even notice this, but I feel icky about being in loco for so many kids of dubious ability to communicate with their parents and I say so. (Seriously? You wouldn't think this would be a problem, but Hedley goes missing a lot, and maybe if a few less parents were prepared to accept wild gangs of kids in their house without knowing their parents knew, that would be less of a problem. it's okay at half past nine on a saturday, but it's not cool at half past two on a thursday.) Anyway, eventually they leave to go to Matt's, literally 23 houses down and across the road, but the net effect is kind of like this hurricane of fifteen year old ness, wandering through our hallways and talking loudly and generally just being wonderful. I act like a hostile bitch but I really do love that kind of thing, it's so ephemeral and crazy.

On another tangent, I just hope you're all aware that sixth_light is totally my sockpuppet.

Oh, and also: I missed world AIDS day (see, it's possible for me to do this because we're a day ahead and you guys are useless and don't remind everyone 24 hours early.) and I missed domestic violence and I... have missed like every charity to hit the streets in Wellington this summer, and I feel ridiculously bad about it because I don't give regularly to ANY charity and I don't do volunteer work except occasionally for the sake of politics and the only thing I really do is give to street collectors, over summer, when I'm working and so have spare money. don't get me wrong, this is totally self-serving and so I can feel good about myself, but let's face it, I spend a lot of money on transient junk like food. Anyway, the point is: can anyone suggest a way I can give a small amount of time or, preferably, cash, to worthy organisations in wellington? Telephone donations are useless because I don't pay the bills, I don't have a credit card, and volunteering is less preferred because a) I am hopeless with people and b) I work seven days a week, my spare time is precious and also I'm a grumpy bitch. Might x-post this to wellingtonnz.

ETA: NOT religious charities. I know they do a lot of good work, I just don't always feel comfortable with everything they do and I'd rather give to stuff where I know for sure no-one's going to be preachin'.

Comments

[nzlemming.livejournal.com]

Sweetie, you're home! ;-)

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

;) howdy.

[deinacrida.livejournal.com]

Hahahahahahahahahaha. Rewi.
Ewwww. Fifteen year olds. You should have chased them out with a broom.
Try Trade Aid, luuv.

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

I shop at TA all the time. :P

[deinacrida.livejournal.com]

Aaaaaaas in, you could get a volly job there if you felt so obliged to give back to the international community.
OR you could buy a broom... TA sells brooms... and chase those dirty 5th formers out with it.

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

As I already said, I'm working seven days a week and I just don't have time to volunteer extra. Also, I'm wanting to give to my local community a bit more, to be honest.

[deinacrida.livejournal.com]

Good luck with that.
I just thought that a few hours at TA might compensate for the whole anti-international community thing you have going down in Starmart. (Jks, Tui, you're awesome.) I bet 7 days is a bitch.
I'm sure you'll find something to help with around town.

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

I try not to shop at SM, that way I can be like... they pay me, so I'm actually *taking* their money. Also, they send me on licensing courses and stuff.

Yeah, I hope so, ta.

[derrick-reeves.livejournal.com]

Well... the Salvation Army are fairly easy to give to, but I'm not sure that they count as "worthy" these days. Could you be more clear on what sort of charity you'd like to help out?

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

i'm really wary of giving to religious charities because, although I know they do a lot of good work, I'm not religious and I'm hugely uncomfortable giving money to groups that might put religious pressure on the people they're helping - even World Vision bothers me. I'm more interested in giving to things like the Women's Refuge and so on.

[cactus-cat.livejournal.com]

Women's Refuge = Great idea. =D

[kitsunerei88]

Shinerama, shine shine-erama!

It's a required part of Orientation Week at my university to hit the streets on the last day collecting money for Shinerama, which us a charity that supports cystic fibrosis. We make over $100 000 each year, I think. . . Pretty amazing what setting loose about 6000 first year students to peddle, do carwashes, etc can do.

But I'm not sure that universities over there do that. Pretty much all universities here have Shinerama as part of their O-Week, but Western's is the biggest and the most enthusiastic. If they do, you could consider getting involved with that, because seriously, dragging around a bunch of 17, 18 and 19 year old frosh, cheering for six hours straight yelling at passing cars to "Chuck Your Change" and then dodging traffic to GET said change is actually rather fun. And it's only one day.

Also, there's Operation Christmas Child done every year for Samaritan's purse, I really like doing that because I get to fill a shoebox with all sort of toys and little things to send overseas to a kid that's going to be very happy on Christmas.

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

neither of those charities are represented in New Zealand unfortunately! We also don't do the collecting thing in first year uni, although my school did do it in sixth form and I got up at ungodly oclock to collect for Life Flight and so on. :)

[kitsunerei88]

YAY xD.

Aww, Operation Christmas Child isn't represented in NZ? Obviously I have to rethink my life's direction, ie that Masters in Geophysics I was planning to get there. ~^

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

HEY HEY DON'T BE HASTY. we have other charities!

[amarynth.livejournal.com]

I think Barnados accept donations by account transfer. I know they did two years ago and I can't see why they wouldn't continue to.

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

Thanks, that's a great option.

[sixth-light.livejournal.com]

Dude, why wouldn't you tell me that story? If he'd been driving Ellie while drunk, that's a cause for sisterly rage, but otherwise? ROTFL. (BTW, you gave her Mum's prezzie, yes? I'd hate to be a neglectful daughter.)

The real question: if I am your sockpuppet, does that mean you're vicariously sleeping with Mike? You know. Just sayin'.

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

I don't know? And yeah, she came around this afternoon and got it.

No (and ew!) but I mean, think about it. IP addresses matching and frequently changing? Check. I've commented from all three of your computers and I know you've commented from mine. BFF since the beginning of time? Check. Your journal was even created on the computer at which I sit right now. And if either of us were unable to post for whatever reason, the other would totally be the one to post about it, am I right? (you have been following that drama, right?)

[sixth-light.livejournal.com]

The ms_scribe one? Yeah. But our IP addresses wouldn't all match - I post from Mike's house at least as frequently as I do from here - and there is definitely enough evidence of us as separate people on easily IDable records (uni, for starters) to render it pretty obvious that I'm not.

However, I see your point. Iiiiiiinteresting.

Oh, yes, and Inquiring Minds want to know how exams went. (Mike's results were positively schizophrenic - an A, 3 A-s, a C+, and 2 Ds - inducing severe angst.)

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

Not the msscribe one, the newest pseuicide. dwbi. The idea is, could you believably, publicly fake your own death on livejournal? how many people on your flist would you have to convince to play along? I was pondering, and the thing is, while I know very, very well a significant fraction of my friendslist, should I attempt pseuicide, the vast majority of them aren't actually in fandom. They definitely wouldn't notice something showing up on f_w. you would - but I bet you anything you care to name someone would claim that you're my sock (or vice versa) and let's face it, they would have IP addresses enough to prove it - no-one's gonna go through and check every single comment, all they need is one or two to match. tas would notice, but she could also be a sock. Mike's journal is so obviously your poorly maintained sock, as are the journals of all of my siblings. Uni records sure, but who in fandom has access to those? I'm pretty much left relying on keymash.

This tem, an A+ an A-, a B- and a C+ - for English, Linguistics, Logic and Maths, respectively. So basically exactly what I told you they'd be, with a + on the C in Math. I'm no better than i ought to be, considering how many classes I actually attended.

[nzlemming.livejournal.com]

Jeez, all these socks - how many feet have you got?!?

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

Wouldn't you like to know ;)

[lady-larla.livejournal.com]

*rolls eyes* i knew i shouldn't have left my laptop in the lounge, But Tui you've used my laptop too you know! Now what? Are all three of us the same person? Mike and J may have issues on that..

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

:O Oh noes, we must be!

[rewihendrix.livejournal.com]

if you drink and drive, you're a bloody idiot. if you wait till you're sober, catch a taxi to your car and leave your keys behind and having no money, you're beyond taxpayer advertising.

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

*falls over laughing*

[miriamus.livejournal.com]

Man that story is a whole barrel of lols. Apart from the whole you-must-be-tearing-your-hair-out aspect of it *hugs*

Unfortunately I don't know how you could give to charity aside from the ones who go round the streets with the little white buckets and stickers. The last ones I saw were the City Mission, too, so yeah..

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

heh. it wasn't so bad.

[shoeless-girl.livejournal.com]

I love your family :)

I have an AP that gives $10 a month to Amnesty International. I set that up several years ago when I was at university. I had another one that went to Greenpeace, but then I decided that I didn't agree with their politics anymore so cancelled that :)

[amarynth.livejournal.com]

Just out of curiosity, what don't you agree with about Greenpeace's policies?

[shoeless-girl.livejournal.com]

Many, many thing, though the main things are:

1. The total megafauna bias - I understand that "Save the Whales" is an emotionally charged compaign, but I think they need to move on from that to a more inclusive, ecosystem-based strategy
2. I don't agree with their shock protest techniques - again, I understand that it's important to raise awareness, but the majority of the time I just roll my eyes. Perhaps that's because I like to think of myself as already aware of the issues.
3. Humans are not intrinsically evil. Humans need to consume resources in order to survive. I prefer my eco-action groups to focus on sustainable development rather than moaning about how the world would be a better place if all the humans were be wiped out.
4. I don't have a problem with GE

This is probably fairly nonsensical. It's too early.

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

I agree with you on all of those (except maybe shock protest, which doesn't annoy me much), by the way.

And that AP suggestion is awesome, too! Thanks!

[amarynth.livejournal.com]

I totally agree with you on points 1 and 4 - I'd never considered 1, but you're absolutely right. I wasn't aware Greenpeace opposed GE either, but the fact that they do is a big black mark against them in my book.

I'm not sure I would call what Greenpeace does shock protesting, and I do feel that sometimes shock protesting is justified, even if it does turn some people off (they're usually people who would never be supportive of Greenpeace anyway).

As for point 3, is that Greenpeace's position? It's often used as a generic attack on all environmentalists, that they are basically anti-human, but I've not seen evidence of it, indeed 'sustainability' is a huge buzzword for many of them.

[shoeless-girl.livejournal.com]

I was involved with Greenpeace as a 20 year old at university who was hanging around with wannabe environmental scientists. To be honest, most of the representatives I've talked to seriously believe that saving the whales and the forests are the greatest priorities, like, ever. My personal experience is that the majority of the them are pretty flakey. And totally against genetic engineering, yes.

I don't know if it's the official Greenpeace position, but again, it's certainly my experience of the group.