Forgetful Goldfish and Personal Admissions

An apt description of myself, one I often use. Basically, I need to remember that I do have this blog and it's able to be used instead of just tracking my friend's blogs with it. (Also idk if you read this but I use everyone as my pillow, it's not a sign I still like you. I don't, you're a much better friend than you were unknowing item of my weird crush)

I think that's the problem. I'm a private person really, as much as I like to share. I love telling people about things but not my thoughts. They're my thoughts, I'll keep them to myself thank you. 

Take for instance my last years of primary school/first years of high school. I cried myself to sleep every night, imagining ways I could kill myself (or dreaming of ways the universe would do it for me). I never told anyone, not until earlier this year when I admitted it to both my brother and my best friend, though my best friend got more details. I just did not know how to say it- how does one bring up in a conversation that they have issues planning for the future because, until recently, they didn't believe they would see 18? That for a while there they thought this early death would happen at their own hands? How could I admit that I thought myself too much of a coward to take what I was raised to believe was the coward's way out?

Well, I guess I'm admitting it now. I don't know how many people read this but it's a start. Semi-anonymous settings for the win. 

I'm not ashamed, I don't think. I still get upset when I remember the worse nights, when the only reason I didn't sneak downstairs to swallow every pill in my parents cupboard was imagining my parents' reaction to finding me dead. My fear of hurting them was stronger than my desire to just be dead. I cannot stress how much I just wanted to be dead- it didn't have to be at my own hand and in fact I honestly believed the universe was going to find a way to make me be dead by 18. 

I have no idea how I got out of this way of thinking. I guess one day I went to sleep knowing that I had not imagined my death for an entire week! That I had friends, actual friends, who cared for me and weren't going to tell me they didn't want to hang out with me (Something that has happened to me at least twice). Now when I imagined my death (which I did still do) I imagined their reactions to my death as well as my family's. One more reason to stay. I turned 18, my god I cannot stress how much turning 18 helped. Knowing I had made it, against imagined odds I'll admit but still against odds, was such a huge boost. I have things to live for, some of them silly but most of them not.

I've not imagined myself dying, planning out every detail of how it would happen and how my family would feel, in a very long time. It's a good feeling. Sure I still have gloomy thoughts but never do I go to sleep at night crying after imagining how the car trip tomorrow will kill me.

I think it's fitting I'm seeing 2013 out with this admission. It's something I've wanted to say for a long time but never had the words. I don't know if I've got the words now but it's a start. 

Don't judge me, I'm happy now. 

I Am Not an Idiot

I'm fairly sure about that too. I may not know a lot about all things, but I'm fairly intelligent and fully capable of making up my own mind-and knowing what I want in the first place. I can walk into a store and buy things, knowing that I am getting what I wanted and for a decent price.

Too bad the salesman at Harvey Norman the other day didn't seem to get this.

I needed a new laptop. My old one wasn't charging and there was one terrifying moment last week when I couldn't get the computer to register there was a power-cord connected. Not to mention it's as slow as a wet rag and about as useful as one a lot of the time. So I asked around, looked at prices in stores and decided I wanted one of two brands, with a very specific feature.

Then I went to Harvey Norman. I walked in and found a computer, of one of the brands I wanted (although the brand I least preferred of the two) but without the feature I wanted. A salesman walked up and offered his help. I instantly unloaded exactly what I wanted, brand and feature. Guy looked a little stunned but led me to one brand (still, the least preferred) while asking what I wanted the computer for.

Upon hearing I wanted it for Uni, he offered me a Mac.

For the last two minutes or so of our interaction I've been throwing PC brands at you. Why would you offer a Mac, when I've clearly stated I want one of two PC brands?

My opinion of this dude fell then, but I continued asking for the second brand. He showed me a laptop, in my price range that I liked. I asked what kind of a deal could be made on it, he asked what I needed. I asked if it came with Microsoft Office, then when it didn't I asked for that. He barely seemed to consider that before offering this "replacement policy" where for the next three years, the laptop could be replaced if it breaks. Great thing, but $330 for the laptop and well, I couldn't afford it.

He wouldn't drop it.

By this point I'm feeling horrible. The guy doesn't seem to be listening to me, he's made me feel confused and like an idiot who doesn't know anything. Looking back on it, I'm fairly sure a lot of it has to do with my sex combined with my age...

I walked out. Took my Mum and went to another store where we got a better laptop for less and I wasn't made to feel stupid.

I wonder how this would have gone if my brother and/or Dad had been with me?

Lazy

I don't know if the title of this post relates to myself or my father. I'm a lazy bitch, I'm well aware of it. I'm reluctant to do much without a load of motivation and I'm a procrastinator to boot.

But at least I make my own lunch.

Seriously, Dad never makes his own food. He doesn't make his own coffee, he never gets his own drinks. He always has his dinner brought out to him and I've never seen him wash a dish. My brother, mother and I do all those things for him.

Take today- I made soup for lunch and boiled the kettle. After I had sat down and started eating, I was asked to make a coffee for him (which Mum took advantage of and had me make her one too). Never mind the fact there was no water left and I had to reboil the kettle or the fact I was STILL eating. Well, this might be within his rights to request I guess...but not the next thing. An hour or so later he asked what was in the house for lunch. I suggested there was ham for sandwiches- that became a statement of my volunteering to make him sandwiches.

And if I didn't make them, Mum would have and I would be in trouble for being a lazy bitch and not following a simple request.

But it's not. It's something that happens everyday, without fail. Dad is of the opinion my brother and I exist to serve him otherwise why have kids and well, my brother hides in his room to avoid this. But if I hide in my room, I'm being anti-social and I'll be ranted at.

So for now, I guess I'll put up with this kind of shit and just rant about it to my friends.

I wonder if I'll ever feel like I exist to do more than serve people.

Compliments and Shirts

To begin, I love fandom shirts. I adore the variety they add to my wardrobe, the colours they usually come in and most of all the delight I get walking around with something I love on my shirt. It's a great feeling and I've shirts for almost everything I like- from Doctor Who to How to Train Your Dragon and even Discworld. Wearing them is a thing I do and I do it often.

I also get comments on them. Something to be expected, people like these things too, and well part of the joy in wearing these shirts is when people comment and we strike up a conversation. I've talked to some lovely people because of it.

But it's nearly always girls who comment. Nearly always, I can recall one time a guy complimented my shirt but it's an anomaly. Don't get me wrong, I don't particularly care either way if it's a guy or girl commenting, I'm not wearing these shirts in search of a date or anything and someone commenting is always lovely regardless of sex. It's just...odd?

I really just want to figure out why it's like this. Is it because of the make up of my class is mostly female? But I've gotten comments from passerbys so it's not that. Is it because I only look open to compliments when women are nearby? But I've been reading books when I've gotten a comment, so it's not that either.

Do guys just not comment on this kind of thing?

 

One Way to Die...

I nearly drowned today.

Well, nearly nearly drowned. It was close. And all my fault really, I stuffed up and I suffered for it. But the thing was, the entire time I was being bashed around by waves my thoughts were...really kinda empty. None of this life flashing before your eyes or thinking about how to live etc. All I could think was 'Shit, there's ANOTHER wave?! *sigh*' and 'This is why people drown.'

It was only after, when I stopped to think on it, that I realised how close a call it was and how I could have been one of those people.

What happened? Well, today I was on a patrol away from my Dad so he instructed me I was to go for a swim. A guy agreed to go out with me and off we went. There was a strong undertow- a current pulling you sideways into a rip further down the beach- and big waves so it wasn't the best of conditions. But the pair of us got out beyond the waves, out the back where it was nice and calm. We came back in and the guy with me asked if I wanted to go out again. I said yes.

Bad decision. We waited in the breaking line for a big set to pass and I was barely able to stand up, the undertow was so strong. Then he said to go for it and we did. Three or so waves later he was halfway there and I hadn't moved.

Then I dived under a wave but not deep enough and I got smashed. I kept my head and swam to the surface, took a breath but then there was another wave. I went under it but I couldn't hold onto the sand and I got smashed around again. This time I didn't make it to the surface straight away but I still kept calm and waited until I could get up.

I barely got a breath this time before the third wave hit me. I let it- well, I say let but by now I knew this was a situation where I had no control and all I had to do was keep getting breaths- take me forwards until I could sorta stand and begin to make my way in. I got smashed a couple more times but nothing as bad as those first three, where I was dragged further under and could feel myself being tossed around.

That feeling is one I cannot accurately describe. It's horrific, it's terrifying and I can easy see why someone caught in it would panic. Of course, someone who panics, breathes in. And drowns.

I nearly panicked. And after my taste of it today, I'm extraordinarily sure that I do not ever want to drown. It is by far, the worse way I can imagine to die.

On a side note, there were also whales in the surf today. Very very cool.

Family?

As I first write this, I'm all but asleep; kept awake only by the fact it's too early for bed. Just a warning. I'll hopefully review it for typos later but really this is sleepy musing. On family.

Well more on wondering why extended family matters.

I make no secret of the fact I'm not close to my extended family (for this entry, I'm going to consider extended family anyone beyond parents, siblings and grandparents). It's not like my extended family is small, there's four children on Mum's side of the family and a total of 15 grandchildren and 6 (and another on the way) great-grandchildren. Dad's side is much smaller, only two children and five grandchildren. My brother and I are included in those grandchildren counts on both sides. Keeping that many names straight is hard and I do not even bother trying to remember the names of partners- I know one partner's name and that's only because he's seemed to make the effort to be at family gatherings and to talk to me (or Dad who sits by me). While Dad's family lives nearby, Mum's family lives up in Sydney bar her mother who lives five minutes walk away.

Still following? Good, you're doing better than I am some days.

This entry is mostly about my Mum's side of the family. I'm not close to my cousins on Dad's side but that could be more about them being ten years older than me and I've a somewhat decent relationship with my aunt and uncle.

Not so much Mum's side. Until 2011, I hadn't seen them in fives years or more. All those people...and we hadn't seen another in half a decade.

It wasn't always like that. I do recall getting gifts from Uncle P and Aunt P when I was little but it was always the same gift- one of those stationary kits. I have a half dozen of them I never used fully because I had no one to send letters to. Uncle G used to pass down old books from his six kids to me and both he and Uncle R had children around the age of my brother and I (who are the youngest pair of cousins, if only by a year or so). There was a pool party once and a family reunion with dozens of distantly related family members (I met and hung out with the grandchild of my mother's aunt. Or something distant like that.)

Then it stopped. Barely a Christmas card exchanged, maybe a mention of them visiting our Nana who lived down here but nothing for us.

Fast forward to 2011. We have a more limited family reunion. Discuss how everyone has lost contact, realise it's probably Nana's fault with her attempts to drive us apart. And my uncles and mother decide to try and get everyone back into contact and for us all to get to know another.

And I want to know why. Yes, they are my family. But we've not talked for years, and even in the last two years only Mum and her brothers have had any sort of extended contact. Us cousins have seen another maybe, three times. Or the ones who live in Sydney have seen me maybe three times, I think they're closer to another than my brother and I are to them. We're all so different in terms of our personality- I'm going to University, none of the others my age have done so and not that many of the older ones have (if any). They're into sports in one family and the rest of us aren't sporty.

Should we be friends? Why? Does family instantly mean you're supposed to like and hang out with them?

I've got to go to all these parties and events now. I make no secret of the fact that most parties bore me. I'm going to end up just eating your food and hiding in a corner. Yes, sometimes the conversation is fun- like today's lunch included a discussion on the inheritance of blood types- but it also tends to include them discussing people or topics that do not interest me (like the best time to go the zoo in Singapore or soccer).

I'm still not sure if I should be over joyed at the thought of finally having an extended family. If this continues, and the baby shower next month seems to indicate it will, I might actually have to learn their partner's names. And how to tell the twins apart.

Written Later:

Rereading this, I'm not finding much (anything) I disagree with. I know it's probably selfish or something and my cousins do seem to be nice people I'm just...not interested? I'm uncomfortable in big social situations and any meeting with my cousins is basically going to be big just because there's so many of us. And I expect so little of them... I invited my cousins on Dad's side to my eighteenth dinner and had to hide my shock when all three actually showed! And gave me presents! I didn't expect anyone beyond my aunt and uncle...

I guess... I guess I just don't know what to think. I think I rarely do.

Nothing Has Changed

I suck at keeping a diary.

I always have. Probably always will. I'm one of those people, who will be so excited over writing in a diary when they first get it, spend hours putting their life into context in the first entry and write religiously for a week or so then forget it exists. I have one diary that I wrote in for a month or so, forgot it for two years until I found it in a box and wrote another entry dated two days to the day of the previous entry AND THEN I forgot it again but found it once more, again two years to the day since the previous entry, and wrote another entry. I've a dozen diaries in my room, none of which have ever gotten past halfway.

Why am I mentioning this? Well the other day I had a thought about something that was in one of those diaries- the one I mentioned with the entries spaced two years apart. The very first entry was about 2001-2002, just before the invasion of Iraq. In it, my- oh let me think- say eight year old self worries about what will happen if Australia joined the USA in a war. The entries written by eight year old me never make it to the invasion, I forgot the diary existed before it.

But in the next entry, ten year old me says that "nothing has changed" when commenting on the eight year old's fears. That even though my country was at war there was nothing to fear because really it didn't effect me.

The absolute privilege in just suddenly occurred to me while I was waiting for my mother to pick me up from Uni.

My eight year old self only had (limited) knowledge of the World Wars as an idea of a war and was well aware of their effect on the population via the (fictional) diaries of children who lived through them. She was worried about that happening to her. Ten year old me had near about the same kind of knowledge, though possibly a bit understanding of exactly what everything meant. She didn't grasp the fact that just because her world hadn't changed, it didn't mean that nothing had changed. She just wasn't aware of it.

I am. I'm fully aware that the war in Iraq has killed thousands of people, so many of them innocent and just like my eight old self. I'm very aware that the media coverage of the war was such that a ten year old who already had limited interest in the world's events never had a hope in hell of understanding that just because she wasn't being bombed daily it didn't mean that others were as lucky. I'm acutely aware that a fifty year old in the same time as ten year old me would have been nearly as unlikely to know exactly how the war in Iraq was affecting the people.

I'm so every aware that everything changes daily and that the phrase "nothing has changed" was a mistake...

I'm not sure what this is. A reflection on the sheer luck I had to be born when and where I was. Or on my inability to keep a diary and some of the interesting thoughts I had. I don't know.

Friends

Everyone has that one friend. You know, the one for whom saying you'll meet up at midday actually means you'll meet sometime after midday that is closer to one or even sometimes looks a lot like two. Their sense of time sucks but you don't care beyond being a bit annoyed when they are their usual version of on time or making sure they think you're meeting earlier than you are so they'll be on time.

But I've been thinking recently and I realised-I don't have that one friend. I've a load of that one friend. 

I'll admit, I'm always early. You say midday and I'm there no later than a quarter to, ten to if I'm running late. Five minutes late for me is like being fifty minutes late. I don't do if at all possible. Recently I went to a play in Sydney and I was two hours early for it. And that didn't bother me at all.

But I've noticed that- for the most part, there are a couple of people who are on time- none of my friends are like that. Sure, some of them are only ten minutes late but if you've already been waiting fifteen minutes that's a lot of waiting. Not all their fault but still. Others are later by a lot more or just don't turn up at all. 

And I don't get mad.

At all. I'm not annoyed. I don't get pissed. I'm just a little ball of worry until they show then I'm like a puppy, so happy to see that they actually came that I don't get mad. Even if they don't show at all, I just accept it and move on. After all I can just go home and talk to my friends online and that's almost the same. 

I'm sure this isn't healthy. That I'm so worried people will forget me and not show I'm so relieved when they do that I don't mind they're extraordinarily late and if they don't show well that's what I expected and it's not a big deal (and I hope my worried texts as to their whereabouts haven't annoyed them too much). My sense of self worth has always been low and I guess I've just found another aspect of it. 

Still, it's useful. Being upset or mad when people don't show or are late seems to make my mother a bundle of anger so I'm glad to avoid it. Which also might be a part of why I avoid it, to honest. 

Made a Bed to Lie in

Literally.

For the last two years or so I've had a horrible bed. The slats have slowly been falling out of it, snapping in half as the (at least) 15 year old wood rotted. My mattress wasn't much better, the fabric splitting to let the springs dig into my leg through my blankets-though thankfully not through my electric blanket.

Finally, after much complaining to my parents Mum took me out to get a new bed.

She was very restrictive on my choices. I wasn't allowed to have the Disney princess one. I wasn't allowed the race car bed. No bunk bed and nothing too expensive. There was a bed that was also a lounge I liked but the logistics of fitting it into my room (I would have had to move most of the furniture) made me decide not to get it.

The one I picked had drawers under it because I had a bedhead on my previous bed and I was so sad that no one made beds like that anymore so I wanted one with storage space. It was also much higher than my old bed. I did not get a new mattress as my brother had kept the one he had before my parents had brought him a new bed and mattress two years back.

Now, the bed was delivered the next day. In two boxes.

You see where this is going.

It arrived about 10:30am. By midday my brother was up and the pair of us set to work building the bed. First we had to remove the old bed. It took us ten minutes with a hammer, minimal splinters and we were able to save my bedhead!

But then the fun part started. And the screwing jokes. Throughout the day, the amount of screwing jokes reached epic portions. I had never realised you could stick a 'screwing' into so many sentences.

Did you know, the instructions for building a bed are actually rather simple. It's like they think you are an idiot. Rereading that sentence I think I see a problem with it but I'm not going to mention it. In a way, the instructions were like my brother who assumed I was of no use and basically a complete fool. Somehow we managed to get through the first hour of building with little shouting.

And by the end we had built the two drawers. We got bored and had lunch.

After lunch we started on the next step, had a fight and gave up. I ungave up about a half hour later when I realised if I didn't I was sleeping on the floor. My brother returned when there were things to be hammered (with a hammer! Dirty minds).

After much screwing; the realisation that one piece was missing the holes it was supposed to have so it would stay in place and will thus have to be glued in; and finally noticing one piece wasn't put on straight; we had managed to build my bed.

We moved his old mattress onto my bed and then I had to kick him out of it so I could test the new (old) mattress. At this point I went and played games on my computer because it was 6pm and we had been building a bed all day.

The point of this entry? Beds are much more comfortable when the mattress doesn't touch the floor, screwing jokes are always funny and building a bed to lie in is really, really hard work.

Morbid Thoughts

I've not posted in a while. Mostly because I'm the most productive when I have other things to do and being on holidays meant I had nothing else to do; but also recently because my Nana was hospitalised.

And I have no clue how I'm supposed to feel about it.

She's physically fine (well, not really but it's not the reason she's in hospital), which could be a part of the reason I'm having trouble knowing what to feel. Offically, my Nana suffers from Dementia. There might be an underlying mental issue but it's not been diagnosed and it's too late to tell because of the Dementia. It causes her to be really paranoid, often cruel, forgetful (ten calls a day to ask the same three things...) and just really hard to have a conversation with.

Anyway. A week and a bit ago, she threatened to jump off the balcony of her nursing home. The nurses had her hospitalised. She's been moved from one hospital to another and is looking to move to a different nursing home capable of caring for her once they sort her medication out and a place is available.

And I don't know how to feel about it.

This is not the first time she's been hospitalised for talking of suicide. It's not even the second time she's talked of killing herself. Mum is stressed beyond belief but I'm just...not caring? I'm beyond caring at some points. She's still my Nana, I still love her but I'm tired of her drama. Even though I know it's not her fault, I'm tired of it all the same.

A part of me just wants it to end, one way or the other.

Another part wants my Nana back. Not this woman who hates my Mum and is barely functioning as a person. My Nana who we visited as kids and was a loving, generous woman (Though fond of complaining).

And a selfish part of me doesn't care what she's like, just wants to know she's still there. I don't want her to go, she's a constant in my life and I really don't want to lose it. Like I said before, physically she's not in that much danger but there's signs she's lost the will to lie (signs like her saying it) so this might not be the case for much longer.

Hence not knowing what to feel.

(I wonder if I'm even supposed to know what to feel)

Video Games

I recently got a 3DS. It's a great console, I'm enjoying having it a lot.

But in order to be able to afford it, I had to trade in $180 worth of games and consoles. And now I'm looking at game prices and realising the only reason my brother and I had games for our DS as cool and as recently released as we did is because our parents brought them.

I want a brand new copy of Nintendogs. It's going to cost me $50. The game came out soon after the console did- at least a year, if not two years ago. I brought a game today for $59 which was released today. And the $50 price is in one store- another wants $68 (the same store actually, that I brought the game today in).

I'm trying to find the logic here. I'm failing. I thought prices decreased as time passed...

Television

I love to watch television shows. I'm an obsessed fan by most definitions, of course I love to watch T.V shows. I can sit here and list a dozen different shows (British for the most part) with their actors (sometimes) and then argue with you over which has more depth or which is cooler. I'm a fan and I'm proud of it.

What I don't like to do, is watch television.

That is not a paradox. I hate sitting down in front of a television and watching my favourite shows. Unless they air on channel ABC, they are always full of ads. One show I watch (Sherlock) went from an hour and a half DVD run time, to two and a half hour air time on T.V. Why would I bother watching it on T.V when I can get the DVDs and watch it without constant reminders to buy this or that?

Or these shows air at times I just can't watch them in. We do have the ability to record shows but I rarely bother because, one I have a delete happy father but also because simply setting it to record is no guarantee of recording the full program as most channels tend to view the starting times as more guides than anything they need to follow.

There's also four people in my house and only one T.V with Austar. Which isn't an issue when it comes to watching normal T.V but of the two remaining digital T.Vs, one is in my brother's room and the other is used by Mum. So really, there's one T.V and Dad gets priority.

So really, it's easier for me to watch things online.

If only it was that simple. Yes, the ABC gives me online access to shows less than 12 hours after it airs in other countries but that's about it. The other channels are nowhere near as good at fast tracking- it took a full month for Nine to air Sherlock. And those are no help if the show I want to watch aired over a week ago. I can go hire them if they're in my video st-oh wait, no I can't. It closed down. And the one left has no where near as good a selection of T.V shows. And if I feel like watching a show at 2am? Well, too bad, you can't...

What am I saying? I want something like Netflix in Australia. I know it's not a perfect system but it might reduce piracy if access to T.V shows was that much easier. Pay a fee each month and you can watch all the movies and shows you want. It might take a month or so for new shows to get onto it but hey, if a year after it airs I want to watch it guess where I'll find it?.

And maybe I want companies to recognise the fact piracy happens because it's easier, easier than waiting for months and having to pay large amounts of money for hiring or buying shows ($75 a season for Doctor Who? FORGET IT). Piracy is hard work, you make doing it legally easy and people will do it legally.

Well, most people will do it legally.

Ladies and Double Standards (aka Fancy Ranting)

"Don't do that, it's not ladylike."

Seriously, this has been something I've been wondering for ages. What, exactly, is a lady?

Now I could prattle on about a lady being traditionally a woman of higher class, born into society. Women of the middle and upper classes in the 18th and 19th centuries are a very good image for a lady and they were expected to stay at home and raise their children- seen but not heard. But while I'm sure this influences the concept now, I'm not really interested in that. I'm curious as to what being a 'lady' is in a modern setting.

According to my parents, a lady seems to be a girl who does what her parents tell her; who always sits in a proper position; never makes rude noises or farts and always uses decent language. I cannot tell you how many times I've been told to not sit like that, it's not ladylike or to not swear because it's not ladylike. Not that I do swear a lot, but my brother, at the same age can drop a swear or two and it's written off as him being young. In fact, for a old time there I was critical of others swearing as they failed to live up to this standard I had been taught. There's a time and place you don't swear, I'll admit that, but neither should the well deserved fuck after a dropped phone be told off by a parent who wasn't meant to overhear that.

But anyway. That is not the point. The point is, a lady seems to me to be someone who isn't confrontational. Who doesn't do things outside the norm. Who doesn't make waves or do anything that might upset anyone. Who keeps her contrary opinions to herself

Someone who is seen and not heard?

Now, I wonder if you raise your daughter to be this lady, when is she going to speak up? When is she going to make her voice heard and protest things that she does not find correct? Or assert herself in a job interview like employers seem to want?

I don't think she is.

Maybe I'm taking this too far. Maybe being a lady is just not swearing and sitting in a correct position. But, why must I change my ways to be this lady? When the concept has already proved to have double standards in how it treats the matter of swearing...

Then I think I shall continue to answer "Don't do that, it's not ladylike." with "I'm no lady."

I have no idea

I've decided to get a blog.

Okay, good first step. Why? Because it looks like fun and I've subjects I would like to write on.

Brilliant. But you already have a tumblr where you post personal thoughts. Why do you need a blog?

...Because I can? Actually because my tumblr is anonymous. I want to keep it anonymous. And I don't want it to be serious. I want to be serious here.

I'm aware my real live friends will probably end up reading this. I don't want it to be that private. But there are things I want to talk about, have wanted to talk about for a while but have no idea how to bring them up in conversation. I'm also relying on my parents being computer-illiterate and thus unable to find it.

That's why I used the same username as my youtube account. Because I'm smart like that.

Later: Okay, changed that. Using French because I want to learn French. And while it's not exact, this is a translation of my usual English username.