Teh Missed Opportunity...

I am a student of journalism.This is an important fact you need to know in order for the following post to make sense. Without this fact, the post is just a whole pile of crazy... Mmmm, crazy....

Anyway, about a week ago, I saw someone in my region post on Facebook complaining about finding a maggot in their pizza (which was from a major pizza outlet).

"Ew," I thought, and kept scrolling. BIG MISTAKE!

Why? Well, a few days later, what should appear in the paper but a story about that person finding a maggot in their pizza.

My tutor made the mistake of wondering aloud where the reporter had found the story, at which point I made the bigger mistake of casually informing him that it had been "up on Facebook for several days."

If looks could kill, I tell you, I would be dead and buried right now.

Disclaimer: My tutor is actually super super nice, like seriously one of the nicest people you will ever meet. It's just that I tend to do that to people. In fact, I was once told not to be chirpy in the morning because it was bad for my health. Apparently it made people want to kill me. I used to be one of those people  that would never get out of bed, but once I did, whatever the hour, I was AWAKE! Used to drive the girls in the hostel insane at breakfast, on the few occasions when I made it to breakfast. But I digress, as usual.

Anyway, he was FAR from impressed.

Side note: I'm sitting here with music playing through headphones, just kind of "grooving" and "bopping" away. Or so I thought. My desk buddy just informed me that I look "like you're being electrocuted". So much for my dignity. But then again, I do on occasion wear crazy slippers that make my feet look like a monster's to class. And then there's my Doctor Who-esque trench coat. And the crap that comes out of my mouth, "So, does Freeview come under free or paid TV?" So maybe dignity doesn't really count for me anyway.

I wish I could say that's it folks, but I have plenty more fails to write about yet. And that's just from the past week.

A small success: I am now a kickass cake baker. After two successful cakes. Don't even think about telling me it's a bit soon to judge. Cakes are in my blood. Or at least my stomach.

See you later,
Juno
xoxoxox

Some of teh more minor fails in my life...

Fails are funny. I am not. EXCEPT when I fail.
So here are some of my minor fails. Highly exaggerated to maintain your interest, of course, but nonetheless still slightly funny...I hope.

So I went skating a few months ago. On these massive beasts called Skorpion Skates, which, I have to say, are fantastic skates which can be bought if you click on the picture. Because I used my awesome HTML skills to make it a link. I would like to stop and mention that I also

used my awesome HTML skills to make this text appear beside the picture instead of beneath it. Yay for tables. And learning to code. Anyway,enough of the bragging, because success is not nearly as funny as failure. Actually, let's pause and talk about words for a minute. Particularly words like epitome and segue. Because illustrated above is an excellent  segue from success back to failure, if I do say so myself.

 I remember when I first associated the spoken word "eh-pit-oh-me" with the written word "epitome".

A week or two prior to my sudden leap of understanding, I started wondering how one was meant to spell "eh-pit-oh-me". I was in my early teens, and concluded that I must have read the word SOMETIME.

So I kept an eye out for it whilst reading. I eventually came across the written word "epitome", and, after a few minutes wondering (not for the first time, I'm sure) what an "epi-tome" was, I finally clicked.

My revelation induced flailing whilst spouting incoherent babble (more on that later) continued for several minutes before I finally got a hold of myself. Unfortunately, because I was saying "epitome...is epitome", but pronouncing the word the same both times, nobody had the slightest clue what I was on about. They all just nodded politely whilst slowly backing away.

Side note: my tutor thinks nobody uses the word "whilst" anymore. Well, I do. Frequently. Including when texting. So there.

Second side note: I love the word "flail". It is possibly my favourite word in the whole world. It's like failing, but with arm movements.

My discovery of the word "segue" happened the other way around. As often happens with me, I use words in writing which I don't actually know how to pronounce. So, a word like "segue", which I know the meaning and correct usage of, but not the pronunciation, presents a problem for me when I want to use it in conversation. Which happened recently.

My pronunciation, I believe, was something along the lines of "seg-you". Luckily, only minimal laughter was involved and a quick search confirmed that the correct pronunciation was, in fact, "seg-way". But what's a mispronounced word when you're among friends.

It was among the same friends that my other recent bout of revelation-induced flailing whilst spouting incoherent babble, this time related to a poem I'm rather fond of, called "The Uncertainty of the Poet", which is about being a poet and features bananas (this is a key point relating to the flailing). It's a fantastic poem and I highly recommend looking it up. But anyway, I discovered in my friends' art book a picture titled "The Uncertainty of the Poet" and it featured...wait for it... bananas (among other things)! I was so excited. It took me about five minutes just to become coherent enough to explain why I was flailing. Before that all they could get out of me was "poet...bananas...oh my gosh oh my gosh...". It was much more exciting at the time than it seems to you guys now.

So, now that I've failed at being coherent, I should probably finish the story about the humiliation of skating. So, I had my Skorpion skates on, and I was going pretty well. Skorpion skates are amazing to skate with, and (almost) impossible to fall off with. They're stable enough that you can't fall sideways, but you can, if you don't lean forwards, or if you lean backwards just the slightest bit, fall down on your bum. Which is exactly what I did. Hard. In someone's driveway.

Concluding I had probably broken my tailbone, I proceeded to gingerly crawl over to the grass beside the footpath, out of the way of any cars attempting to enter their respective houses. Fighting back tears, I ripped the skates off and gently got to my feet. Skates slung over my shoulder, I walked home, regretting more with every step my fateful decision that mere feet were not good enough and I had to have wheels.

For the rest of the week, I could not sit or lie down without considerable pain. And, most disappointingly, I didn't even get a decent bruise to show for it.

I DID go back out on my skates. Once. With a pillow pet (I have a pillow pet. Yes, I'm 18. I have no shame.) strapped to my tailbone area.

I did not fall again.
I also have not skated again since then.

There, I managed to finish at least one story. This started out with the intention of being about fails due to clumsiness, but mostly ended up being about linguistic fails instead. So I failed at writing a fail post. That takes talent.

Anyway, until next time,
Juno,
xoxox

P.S. Remind me to tell you about my "pet" ducks sometimes. And my fascination with sloths. And my other pets. I've had a lot of pets.

Failing at using teh telephone...

Making a telephone call. Simple, right? Not if you're as talented at failing as I am.

I was trying to contact and old friend who, despite being an amazingly kind and caring person, is terrifying and can (entirely unintentionally) make you feel about two feet tall if you interrupt her when she's busy and/or on a mission. Maybe I'm just a wuss.

Anyway, I was trying to call and wish her a belated happy birthday. I was rather apprehensive as I don't really like phone calls, and didn't really want to catch her at a bad time, so I had planned when to call quite carefully.

Not that it helped.

To start with, someone else answered the phone. They said she was busy and asked if I wanted her to call me back, which I didn't, basically because it would be inconvenient. So I asked if they knew when a good time to ring back would be.

They asked me to wait, which I did. Everything was going well until suddenly...

"Hello?"

Shit. She did NOT sound happy. 

"Hello?" 

"um...hi..."

Well, this conversation is going swimmingly, isn't it? I knew this would all end in tears.

"Yes, what was it that you wanted?"

Alright, so she's definitely busy.

"Nothing important, sorry." 

And, there goes my resolve. And all my plans of a glorious catch-ups after not talking to her for several months. Gone. Did I mention this was the first time I had tried to contact her by phone? 

"Oh, ok then, bye."

She sounds confused. This is good. If I'm lucky, she won't know it was me.

"Bye."

It's over.  Please don't let her have recognised my voice. Please don't let her have recognised my voice.

I did not get to wish her a happy birthday. Oh well, that's just too bad, because I am NEVER GOING TO CALL ANYONE AGAIN. Particularly not her. Because if I do, she might recognise my voice. Which would be disastrous.

I shall now proceed to crawl into a hole and die of embarrassment as I mull over my failure at performing a simple task that most people succeed at on a daily basis.

I shall never touch a telephone again.

This was a week ago, and I still have no plans to call back. EVER.

Yours in failure, 

Juno xoxox