Saturday 26 July 2008

Entry ?

CHANGE Today was such a learning experience. I ended up being in another world, figuratively speaking of course, and the Canadian's friend ended up calling me a bitch for not realizing she was talking to me. Hmm, people are so nice here. But the reason I bring this up is because it actually didn't bother me like it would've in the past. I barely even noticed-- I think my newly acquired "don't care too much about what others think" way of thinking is paying off.


LIFE HERE But I'll move on to Arthur for just a tiny bit, because he's still hasn't changed much. But wait! He's finally realizing that yes, Aussies are just as bad as Americans as far as acting like assholes and bitches. I mean come on, it took him a year and a half to realize that?? And how did he not know that Aussies don't pronounce the "-er" in words, but with an, "-a" sound instead? How is a guy this stupid to the culture going to stay here, but I may not?! But most of all: he blames every fucking thing on Americans. I tell him all the time, how can you hate your own people? That means you're an asshole if you're calling all Americans assholes. He just laughed, dumbass. But then if Aussies do something differently than Americans, then he calls them stupid!


LITTLE PLEASURES I ran into Mike twice, and he sought me out two other times. I read my professor's philosophical novel last night, which just happened to talk about the universe giving us what we need (even though I don't fully believe in that...only somewhat) and here it was happening for me. Serendipity I suppose.

But I'll go back a little bit to the beginning. I was in the library waiting for Arthur, because he can't be alone and he made up some lame excuse for me to be there. Fine. While looking for him I ran into Mike and we said hi as he went to his meeting with Ash and company. Meanwhile I found Arthur and we went into a group room to "study" (I was, he wasn't). Mike happened to walk past and popped in to talk, but mainly to me. It was just stuff about International Finance, etc, but it was fun because Mike always has us laughing.

There's this thing about Mike...he just does it and is confident about it, but in a loveable way. So we went back to "studying" when he popped in again and stole my financials from my group to show his. Meanwhile Ashnita hears I'm there and comes over to say hi. To we're all laughing and talking as usual, but it's stuff like this that makes my uni experience fun.

And when they go to leave, Mike cuts through my room and he stays a few extra seconds to chat and say goodbye. Ash waves and they're all off. Or so I think. I then leave Art for a little bit (I get fed up with how slow he is) and run into Mike out by the Brasserie back room/Bungies. We're talk, he lights a cigarette, and I'm not sure if he wants a long chat or not, but neither of us are really pushing the other to leave.

I just love stuff like that.

A little bit later me and Arthur saw them writing, "A <3 J" in the sky via a skywriting plane. It's always so much fun to watch that. It's the second time I've seen it on campus, and like fourth I've seen in Sydney (the first two were in Sydney with Gaz three years ago when the swans won).

CULTURE I asked mom, "how'd you go?" without even thinking about my Aussie English, ha.


To back track a little bit, I found gaz's email, bright and early (10 min after woke up)!

Mum had fun in Italy [...]. Does he talk about his mom since I know here and I'm like family in some ways? Or because he has nothing else to say?


Yep, only three weeks till the next big adventure (oysters, kidneys, livers…and hotdogs). He makes me laugh-- all disgusting things. But really, so he thinks of this trip as an adventure?! Maybe I'm so over him that I never thought of it that way. [...]. Take things step by step, get excited about finishing and not having to worry about uni, then you can start panicking about planes and stuff. What's this in reference to? Leaving Bond? Because where does the plane thing come in then? Or is it about our trip and waiting to plan it until I'm done with Bond? What matters though is that he cares enough to offer advice.


So far with centrelink I’ve been able to save up two 2 ½ grand. WHAT?! I THOUGHT YOU HAD NONE! SINCE WHEN HAVE YOU BEEN SAVING WITHOUT TELLING ME? [...]. I think my chest was 87 centre metres, and I weigh about as much as a sumo wrestler at the moment (53kg- haven’t been that light since about year 8!)- the solution, I’ve checked out what women’s clothes are uni sex and I’ll see how that goes. [...]. There's his weight thing again, always mentioning his weight and scaring me when he does it. And is he gay or not? If I’m a good boy I should be able to save up maybe around three thousand before I pick you up in Newcastle/Sydney (it’s Newcastle right? 17th?), which means we’ll actually be able to have some fun every now and then…hmm, Hobart…Perth…Fiji…McDonald’s! This is the best part. He's saving his money so we can do something together, irregardless if it's just for his sake or not. And he actually wants to do some real traveling! I just wonder why he hasn't mentioned this earlier, when I first told him I'm coming? Is that why he wanted me to stay longer than a week?

CULTURE I told him that I don't mind people bashing my country really (only when it's Americans who think it's cool to bash now that they think Australia's completely godsent or something), but that it does bother me that Aussies are so one-sided about it. It's never what's also bad about their country, but rather it's always about mine. Nothing's wrong with good-old Australia...but every thing is wrong in the US according to so many of them. But being a true neutral thinking guy, fair all the way, he said this about my talk to my Fijian friend (Ashnita): Hmm, it wouldn’t be too hard arguing what’s wrong with Fiji either really, all of those coups and stuff all the time. I think the hard thing on you is that Fiji’s never in the news, where as every man and his dog get saturated with American news (hell, England’s barely ever in the news and it’s supposed to be a super-power, and I can’t remember actually EVER hearing about Canada in the news…your right, nothing happens there). I bet everyone’s an expert on China with all the news they’re getting now days. Yep, he remembers what I say about Canada.

[...] I think the trick could be just to leave with as many fond memories as possible, and not miss it to much. This is about me leaving Bond, my friends, and all the cultural fun. Again, it's him giving advice.

[...]

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Hey, driver’s license, that’s long term thinking (if I get it now, you’ll still be driving anyway, so there). Ha, how did he know what I was getting at?? [...].

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[...] I’ll let you know how it goes here. We always do that now, but it still means a lot.

See you in a little bit. And this as well, but at least this time he's talking about in a little bit.

Gareth.