Spurts of Productivity Balanced by Intense Procrastination

I've basically taken over the computer lab. I have piles upon piles of books scattered all over the floor, I am jamming to the fantastically emo music pouring out of my ipod, and, in reality, accomplishing very little. Considering I've written two out of my four papers in the course of about four days though, I'm not really that worried. I've just decided to be lazy today. I actually do have about five hundred words of my next essay written already, so once I throw a few citations into it I'll probably be finished my quota of 800 words for the day. It's a beautiful way to write essays.

After I finished my Kundera paper yesterday, I decided to go to uni to have lunch with Tim, and then went shopping because I really didn't feel like dealing with people. I am REALLY excited about my 21st tomorrow night- hopefully we won't get kicked out of the pubs for being dressed up in Halloween costumes. I'm going as a witch!! I also hope that I'm not still sick tomorrow either. I'm kind of bummed that I missed Halloween in the States, although I did go trick or treating around Whitley last night dressed in a giant pumpkin suit with a witch's hat on. Hopefully I'll have a picture or two to share at some point. I got tons of candy, fruit, juice boxes, and random things. As a result, I was hyper and sugar high until about 1 in the morning, which resulted in my trying to make origami animals and drawing pictures. I didn't actually get to sleep until about two, which means I'm moderately delirious today.

I'm very much ready to go traveling, although I realized that I actually am really going to miss Whitley. I was writing letters to people in my head while trying to fall asleep and had a spontaneous crying session. It's been really good here, and it's somewhat sad to think that I will likely not actually see these people again. Some of them have become really good friends too.

On a random note, how emo is Sufjan Stevens? It's almost Conor emo, except Sufjan's tears are less folksy than Conor's. I seriously need to be writing my paper right now.

I can't wait to go home so that I can buy books again. I want to buy more Salman Rushdie and Jeffrey Eugenides other book. I would also like Jonathan Safran Foer to get on the band wagon and put another book out!! I'm so excited for English classes at Bryn Mawr again to- my Art/Pornography/Blasphemy/Propaganda class has been such a disappointment. I wrote a brilliant essay and I know that it won't matter because my tutor is an idiot and will mark me poorly regardless.

I've really enjoyed keeping up this blog, even if I don't actually say anything that relevant in it. I keep getting told by people at Whitley how well written it is etc. It's kind of nice to know that people actually enjoy reading my ramblings. Maybe I'll just become a writer and forget this whole law school/grad school/having financial security idea. I can just write pretentious academic essays for the rest of my life! And watch movies!! Being old is terrible- you actually have think about these things now for real. That may be the primary reason for my not wanting to go home yet: when I go home I'll have to be responsible and goal-oriented again. I don't want to think about my future when I'm having so much fun living in the present!!

Beginning of the End

I am currently sitting in the computer lab trying to rewrite 800 words of brilliance wasted on my irreparable, piece of crap laptop that has finally decided to die for good. I am having little success currently and am about ten minutes from quitting for the evening and worrying about it tomorrow. That being said, I am officially finished with my classes at Melbourne Uni, leaving only essays to be completed before I have nearly three glorious months without academic stresses. Hopefully.

Not too much has happened otherwise- we had our last hall at Whitley (I got a cake!), Valedictory dinner, Battle of the Bands, MUSEX Halloween at Puggs (I won a prize for my Martian outfit), etc. Sneha and Antonio are in Tasmania until Thursday. I am writing papers and sleeping because I'm sick. My gigantic 21st bash is this Friday. Mariko and I went to see a really cool version of "Hamlet" without any dialogue last Friday. She left for Europe today and I miss her terribly. I've started reading Middlesex by Jeffery Eugenides. I'm going to the Melbourne Cup next Tuesday. I leave Whitley on November 13th for Sydney. I'm ready for things to be easy again. I think I may go to sleep and try to function again tomorrow.

October Madness

My life has grown increasingly more insane as October has progressed (although this weekend it reached a strange halt in which nothing really has been going on). With numerous essays, my birthday, my 21st/Halloween party, the end of the semester, traveling, etc, etc, I've had a hard time just sitting down and relaxing. Hopefully it will get a little easier with classes ending this week.

Last weekend I went to Baw Baw National Park in Gippsland and went hiking, which ended with me moderately hurting my leg. There was about a foot of snow on the ground and I was wearing sneakers. It was also really cold. It was sort of cool to go camping and schlepping the equivalent weight of another human being on my back through the snow, although I'm not entirely positive that I will ever do it again. Here are some pictures, however, to prove that I actually did brave a mountain covered in snow and lived to tell the tale:


So this past week I turned 21. My birthday lasted for about three days: the crazy foam party day, the nice dinner outing day, and the "I'm going to be a bum and not get out of bed" day. As I mentioned, the gang made me a Vegemite cake. Here is a photo of me eating said cake:

Friday night was the last Cafe at Whitley. I somehow managed, despite the intense busyness of my life, to organize an acapella group. We put on a rendition of Billy Joel's "The Longest Time" (sadly not the Hebrew version I have come to love). It actually went really well, and I feel as though once Mikio and Alex leave and I inevitably have to run Chaverim I'll actually do okay. Here's a shot of the group during performance:


This weekend was pretty quiet actually. Most of Whitley is studying and generally prepping for exams, so nobody actually felt like hanging out with me (I only have essays to write and I can't be bothered doing it yet). I therefore spent the weekend with Antonio and Sneha. Saturday we went to the Royal Botanical Gardens and had a lovely afternoon stroll. The weather has been really gorgeous these last couple of days- sadly it's supposed to be rainy and cold again this week. Saturday night we rented "Priscilla, Queen of the Desert" and "Casanova." I really do enjoy spending time with the two of them and will miss the time we've been spending together lately. I'm really happy about the fact I'm spending my last month essentially traveling with Antonio and that I'll be able to visit Sneha at UPenn once we get home. Here are some photos from the garden:


Alright, so now that I'm finished putting up my obligatory photos, I need to rant a bit. Sadly I can't rant as fully as I would like to do to the fact much of Whitley now reads my blog. I'll put it this way: I'm not entirely pleased with a certain situation involving myself and another person. I'm feeling moderately alienated, but I can't really point this out because it will not be taken well. It also doesn't really matter since I'm leaving Whitley in about three weeks. It's just sort of an unpleasant situation and I'm rather tired of dealing with it.

Otherwise, I am still madly in love with Melbourne, although I do look more and more forward to going home. It would have been really nice to be with everyone for my birthday. I know as soon as I get home I will want to come straight back here, but a weekend at home would be really, really nice. A job would be really nice too- I hate being entirely dependent on mom and dad for money while I'm over here because I know I'm becoming somewhat of a burden to them, but it's hard to justify not doing things just because I can't pay for them myself. My time here is really a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity- even if I do eventually come back to Australia the situation will never again present itself in the same way it has now. I am enjoying myself, probably too much, but I figure after twenty-one years of trying to please everyone else and be on top of everything, it's time I live a little. And I've definitely never been this alive.

21 in Australia

So despite the fact I am in the middle of writing a massive entry with pictures etc from the last month, I felt it necessary to interject this entry before my birthday is over (although theoretically it is over for me in Australia. This is why time travel is beautiful though- I can have a two day long birthday and have it still count). Overall it was a really nice birthday. Wednesday night there was a foam party through the university in the city. It was pretty crazy actually- it's like dancing in a giant bubble bath, except for the fact that it smells like chemicals and not like soap. I woke up on my birthday exhausted and with the impending realization that I had a presentation to give. I wrote my presentation, went to class, argued with my idiot of a tutor, and came back to Whitley. There were balloons left over from the sports dinner the night before, so even though I knew they weren't for me it felt like they had been put there especially for my birthday. Everyone was just delightful all day too. Mariko bought me a cup of hot chocolate for my presentation, which led everyone in my tute to rummage through their bags looking for stuff to give me. I took a nap on the lawn at uni, went to my classes, and came home. The family went out to Chinatown and had a lovely thai dinner. Anna and Carissa got me a gorgeous wallet to replace the one I lost in Tasmania. Then, back at Whitley, they pulled out a chocolate cake with one section covered in vegemite (I know that sounds really gross, and it was, but it's been an ongoing joke of mine about how I'm going to have a vegemite wedding cake, etc). It was just a really nice gesture, and one that was really appreciated. Later on I went to Antonio to Cookie, where we went to the rooftop bar, had a drink, and listened to an acoustic duo. It was an absolutely gorgeous day, so the night was still warm. The roof had a lovely view of the city, making it a perfect end to my birthday in Australia.

I am looking forward now, though, to coming home and seeing all of my friends. I've gotten tons of messages wishing me happy birthday and asking how things are. Thank you all for that- I promise I will see you all before you know it. Meanwhile, I am currently lying in bed watching "Heroes" and being a bum for the second part of my birthday. I just got a package from my parents- it's a gorgeous arrangement of yellow roses and other flowers. Now I have to clean my room so I have somewhere to put them!

Tonight is the debut of my Australia acapella group. I'm sure there will be pictures, but whether or not they ever make it up on the blog is another story. I'll try to finish all my updates today, but we'll see how it goes. Miss you all!

The Gigantic Picture Entry

So after about a month and a half of saying I'll put up pictures, here we go. Reasons this is happening now: my computer is fixed, I just uploaded about a million pictures onto facebook, and I currently am supposed to be doing homework. It seemed like a great time then to take a break and procrastinate further by blogging! So, here we go:

First off, here are a few shots from my involvement in Grease/the Winery Tour in the beginning of September:



Now here are some from Glo Camp and silverchair:
work at the exact moment my co <-- That's Mariko, she's an absolute gem- together we represented the goodness that was Powderchair. Okay, so I have LOADS of photos from my break, but considering this entry has taken me several days now to get to due to the fact that Blogger decided to not have the picture functionmputer was working, I am growing tired of this entry. It is also my birthday today, which means I don't really care much about anything and am hungry. So, here is a (small) sampling of my trip to Sydney with Team the Best and my stay with Shilton:

<-- The beginnings of Team the Best at Wilson's Prom

<-- Team the Best, complete in Jindabyne

<-- Team the Best, hanging with the Police in Canberra

So begins Sydney/Shilton!


I'm definitely looking forward to going back to Sydney in a few weeks and getting some more/better photos, but these are decent enough for now. I realize even though it seemed as though I took loads of photos over my break I, in reality, didn't. This was especially true for my Tasmania batch, since I didn't want to burden my tour group by having them take photos of me every three seconds. Here are a few good ones though:
<-- Salamanca Place (with Mt. Wellington looming overhead)

<-- Port Arthur

<-- Wineglass Bay (probably one of the most beautiful places I've been to so far in Australia)

<-- My Tassie tour group (at Wineglass Bay)

<-- Claire and I holding a baby wombat at the animal sanctuary in Deloraine (where we saw Tassie devils!!!!)

<-- Cradle Mountain (totally honeymooning here- it's gorgeous when it's covered in snow, but even more gorgeous when it's clear outside)

<-- the Snow Kangaroo!! (there was a snow koala too, but the snow kangaroo is more impressive)


So that's sort of a brief picture recap of the month of September. Now I will update in real time with a short mention of a few events from the beginning of October!

Definition of Agony

What's worse than giving a presentation on Althusser in a psychoanalytic context in a tutorial run by Conall Cash's dad? I'll tell you- being utterly unable to download the new Radiohead album due to stupid Australian Internet/firewall!!!!!!!! AGONY

Country Bumpkin

I've happily back at Whitley for a week now, still without a computer but thanks to Dad I now have access to my bank account again. I actually had a rather enjoyable week of being poor mooching off of free barbecues and the generosity of my friends (thanks for the free dinners Antonio!). Thursday night was College Day at Whitley, which was much like Fall Frolic at Bryn Mawr in that it consisted of sumo suits and later Hell Week-eque festivities followed by a drunken "Poor Taste" CRD. Thursday day was "Spring on the Lawn" at Melbourne Uni aka random May Day like event, complete with barbecue, beer, and live reggae music. So, I've basically had a week of Bryn Mawr activities with an Australian twist.

Friday night was the Melbourne Welcome reunion. It was really great to see people again, especially my friends from Queens. We ended the night at Cherry Bar on AC/DC Lane, where I think I may be having my 21st. Much rocking out to the classics, complete with head banging and air guitar.

The real highlight of this week though, was Ripper's 21st at his home in the country about three hours from Whitley. Due to a lack of space in Cheese's car, I ended up driving out with Ripper at 11 in the morning and spending the day with his family on the farm. His family runs a dairy farm right near the town of Stratford (which is located, coincidentally enough, upon the river Avon). I spend the day feeding calves, playing with border collies, and stepping in cow poop. And eating heaps of home cooked food. It was pretty much the greatest day ever. Ripper's family is lovely, especially his mom, who made sure that I had a bed to sleep in last night and plenty of food in my stomach. Despite my being there only a short while, I had a really hard time leaving the farm this morning to come back to the city. As strange as it may be, I could definitely see myself living on a farm for some duration of time in my life. Which completely comes into conflict with my other desire to be a metropolitan academic. In Australia, it's easy enough to do both, but who knows what will happen when I get back home.

I ended up getting a ride home with Payne, Fraser, and Fraser's girlfriend. It was a rather amusing adventure- we had multiple car swaps, ran out of gas and had to refill the car using an empty two liter soft drink bottle, and had a minor casualty of Brawnwynn smashing her finger in the car door. As usual, I have documentation which I will post in some massive picture-filled entry once Pete McNamara decides it's time to fix my computer.

So, to recap: I want to live on a farm and play with puppies all day while taking mid-day breaks to research random things while reading modern literature and listening to classic rock and eating good food. Preferably with access to a functional computer and single Australian men.

BBQs by Sunset and by Rain: Reflections on Spring Break and the Welcomed Return To Whitley

Since I last wrote, my life has taken many interesting turns. I got back from Tasmania yesterday morning after eleven hours sleeping in an ocean view recliner on the "Spirit of Tasmania." I have never been so happy to come back to a temporary accommodation as I was to be back at Whitley. I returned to a warm shower, English muffins with Vegemite, and people genuinely happy to see me. Additionally, there was a BBQ last night with dollar drinks and Aussie sausages, which, despite the rain, never tasted so good. Topped the evening off with a visit to Puggs and a post-drinking chat with Steve.

Tasmania was cold, frustrating, but absolutely beautiful. During my trip I was reminded of my early experiences in the country side of England during my People to People trip in high school. This is because when I first went to England I didn't have any money, my clothes were all dirty, and the weather was far from delightful. Likewise, Tasmania was marked by my losing my wallet (containing all of my means of financial security), lots of dirty clothes worn multiple times over, about four days of unwashed hair, cold, cold weather, and rain. But, unlike my time in England, which was rather miserable, Tasmania was really nice. Mind you, it would have been better had the above not been the case, but the natural beauty and general feel of Tasmania compensated for anything else that could have possibly been/gone wrong.

After my last entry in Hobart, I went out to see "Stardust" in a cinema near my hostel, since the city was pretty dead and I needed some form of entertainment. All I can say is that Neil Gaiman is absolutely brilliant and I left the movie highly satisfied and tremendously homesick for Bryn Mawr. Wednesday morning I left the hostel with my tour group to go up the east coast of Tasmania. Unlike my previous tour of crazy drunken Brits, this tour consisted of myself, two limited English-speaking Spaniards, an awkwardly adorable Polish Brit, my stereotypical bleach blonde Tassie tour guide, and later, an essentially mute Japanese boy. Yes, I was the only girl, and, incidentally, the youngest of the group as well. The tour was pretty good, although I felt like a lot of the time I was holding people back- especially after I lost my wallet. Saw some beautiful sights though- Wineglass Bay may be one of the most beautiful places I have ever been in my life.

Tasmania was slightly frustrating since after I lost my wallet I tried to contact home to get Dad to help me out. Unfortunately, Tasmania doesn't believe in phone reception, so I had about two days where there was nothing I could do about anything. It could have been much worse though- my meals, accommodation, and travel expenses were already paid for, so basically all I had to do was borrow a bit of money from Claire to get back to Melbourne. I will, again, put pictures up once my computer works again. Lots of good memories, good food, and good experiences.

Claire has been lovely about the whole thing. We went up to Cradle Mountain on Saturday and hiked in the snow and had a really nice time. I've decided I want to honeymoon there whenever that happens. She then dropped me off at the ferry so I could get back to Melbourne in one piece. Ferry would have been more exciting had I had money/it hadn't been raining. I mostly slept since I was exhausted and damp from the hike.

Overall, my trip was a great learning experience for me. Had it been earlier in the semester, all of the things that have gone wrong probably would have ruined the trip for me. My computer still doesn't work and I still don't have any money, but being in Australia with good people and seeing just how wonderful and extensive this country is makes it seem very trivial. While I realize now that I only have about four more weeks left in my semester (with lots of work I have to organize without a student card/easy computer access), I am a much happier, satisfied, and relaxed person than I was at the start of this trip. I've essentially decided that I may not go to law school after all, and that instead I will pursue my interest in history because it makes me happier than anything else. I want to spend my life traveling, learning, and meeting people. I realize this will be difficult financially at times, but I also know that for the first time in my life I want to do things not because they're expected of me, not because my highly competitive atmosphere demands them of me, but because they are genuinely things that I want to do. I have discovered what happiness is in Australia, and it's something that doesn't need a computer or a wallet to make it happen.