We had an ant problem. Bug problems are common in summer in Australia. Cockroaches, flies, Christmas beetles, ants. But before I get to that…

I started watching Breaking Bad yesterday (everyone was telling me to watch it) and I finished season one today. It only has seven episodes. I wish I could say I’m hooked, but like James warned me, it is a bit slow until season two. I am enjoying it though. Not quite feeling the emotional engagement Tristan mentioned either, but maybe that’s because I get so irritated at nearly all the characters. It’s a really great show so far though, and I am enjoying it. I have to say, I probably wouldn’t have started watching it if there was no definite end (the show has finished, and only has five seasons). I tend not to get into television shows very much.

Along with that, I have been trying to read more often. I started reading American Gods by Neil Gaiman (it was about time as well) and am halfway through. There are a lot of e-books I left for dead last September or so, and quite a handful of books in physical form that I also neglected. I haven’t read a novel for a while, so I am hoping to get back into it. I am thinking of keeping a log, like Lilian and I used to in high school.

Lilian and I saw The Book Thief last week and caught up for the first time this year. The movie was really good. It is an adaptation of the book by the same name by Markus Zusak, which is my favourite book. I don’t think the reviews were very good, but I think that may be because people who have not read the book may have a hard time following. It certainly was not the perfect movie, but it followed the book very well. The only things I would really have to pick at are the accents being inconsistent, and certain scenes flowing far too quickly or seemingly wedged into the movie. It was humourous and light-hearted in some parts, but also gut-wrenchingly sad in others. I guess it really lacked in flow, but it was cinematically very good.

Our family has been doing some cleaning around the house, and I have to say, I think I have just about removed everything from my room that I absolutely do not need. Our family has a little habit of hoarding. In our family, we all hoard to some extent, and that all comes together which is pretty nasty, because our individual belongings accumulate and take up space. But I have just taken a whole heap of old clothes and bags to the op-shop, and I have thrown out a lot of old, discoloured jewellery. I even managed to plug my record player and speakers back in, which had been unplugged for a while since I got my bedroom window re-done almost a year ago.

So, yeah, I mentioned ants. I saw a whole heap of them in my room on my desk. Writing about killing bugs sounds really nasty, but yeah, I killed the ants. I whined to Brandon about it, and he started getting grumpy and saying that when I was in Japan, he totally had ants in his room too. My parents apparently went for the bug spray.

The ant problem got so bad that I found them crawling out of my MacBook. I kid you not. I would be using it, and a random ant would appear above my keyboard. I had it cleaned… but it was still annoying.

After noticing the ants seeming to like the seams at the corner of my curtain, I asked my dad to help me remove it and let it air outside so I could wash it. It was getting rather late and dark by then, so I decided to just shake it off and give it a super good vacuum. I didn’t see that many ants. When I checked the window and its corners, it was also completely clean. The ants could not have crawled in via the window.

I made an effort to vacuum my whole desk and underneath it, as well as its surroundings. I left my room for a while, only to return and find more ants crawling around the items on my desk. Okay, I get it, you like my notepads. Go away.

I got rid of them, and my dad sprayed some bug spray around the area. I stood there for a while but I saw no ants emerge from anywhere.

I left the room again, since it was very hot, and our house only has air conditioning in the main living room. When I returned to my room to pick something up, I saw some dead ants on my desk, but there were also some alive ones. I was really confused. It was really hot, so maybe they just died from the heat. Regardless, I got rid of the live ants and shuffled my things around on the desk. Granted, it was still a bit of a mess, but they seemed to like my notepads and cards that I had sitting there. I wiped them clean (even though they were spotless) and moved them to the other side of my desk.

I spotted a tin of mints, but it was completely airtight. Maybe the ants liked the smell. I moved the tin to the kitchen, again getting rid of all ants before I left the room.

I called to my dad and told him what was happening. He told me to clear up that side of the desk, so I did.

We came back about twenty minutes later, and stood there watching the desk and trying to figure out where the new group of ants came from. I was getting really exasperated.

“They seem to like…” I muttered, pointing at the stationery on the desk, that had ants crawling all over it.
“This pen…”

My dad picked up the retractable ballpoint pen.

“Dude, that’s it,” I said. “I think that’s it. They like the ink. Get it out of here.”

My dad and I rushed to the kitchen with the pen, and he held it over the sink and unscrewed it.

To our (well, my) horror, as my dad pulled out the ink barrel, a flurry of ants fell into the sink along with two giant clusters of ant eggs. The pen had been retracted, and an ant must have crawled in and made a home there. Brandon and Ricky rushed to the kitchen with Brandon curling his nose up in disgust. I laughed and groaned at the same time, in complete and utter disbelief, as my dad ran hot water into the sink. Well, to be frank, I was pretty mortified.

There haven’t been any ants since.