Mystik Spiral

A few days ago I finished watching all five seasons of Daria (I forgot how oddly parallel that show and its characters are to my own life, perhaps that's why I love it so much) and switched to being an Olympics addict. I never used to watch them much in the past, but it's everywhere over here and I couldn't ignore it if I wanted to. There are giant screens all over campus and the city for people to watch while eating lunch, to take a break from their walk, etc. The ironic thing is I usually don't care at all about sports and sometimes could even go as far as saying I hate them (mostly just because rabid Eagles fans during playoffs are incredibly annoying). Yet the other day I was on the verge of tears when that one weightlifter kept slipping grip and lost his chance. I screamed in anger just as passionately as my flatmates when the Australian boat meant to win the race capsized only a few hundred meters from the finish. Yes, Phelps is amazing and totally deserves his victory, but I actually prefer watching the offbeat competitions and rooting for the countries I probably can't point out on a map.

I haven't just been sitting around watching active people though, I've been doing some sporty whatsits of my own. I went rock climbing last week and not just on an indoor wall like I'm used to, but an actual cliff face. That was a bit terrifying, but it's something I want to try to do every week or two, so hopefully I'll be a pro by the end of the year.

Spent the weekend at Stradbroke Island, aka Straddie, which is gorgeous.

We went surfing, kayaking and sand boarding, all of which were intense fun but completely killed my muscles. Unfortunately I don't have any photos from the first two, and the only one I have of me sand boarding is me with my butt sticking out as I try not to fall over. So I won't be posting that, neither will you see the video of me going down the dune then face planting in the sand. How about pictures of a pretty sailboat and a cute skink on a rock instead?



I was incredibly tempted to put a photo I took of my friend standing on the cliff and write, "Oops, that's a cute skank on a rock, wrong photo..." but I decided against it.

One of my favourite parts of the trip was actually the part a lot of people hated. We were crammed into a seatbelt-less troopie (a type of van) meant for a lot less people to travel in and sped around the island going over logs, rocks, and such off road obstacles while our driver turned up Australian hip-hop to drown out the sound of us being tossed around and freaking out. It's sort of a 'you had to be there moment,' but at one point, the driver pulls down a little DVD screen and this music video starts playing on it:

I was the only one to recognize what it was from the start and thought, "Okay, that's a random choice!" Then other people picked up on it and soon we were all singing "YOUUUUUUUU... YOOOOOU GOT WHAT AHHHH NEEEEEEED!" at the top of our lungs while being thrown around and hitting our heads in the back of this van. It was a bit like that scene in 'Almost Famous' when they all sing along to 'Tiny Dancer,' except a lot less harmonic and with more bruises. It was worth it not only for that experience, but we spotted this little guy chilling out in a tree.

It's not very often you get to see a koala in the wild, our guide was telling us most Australians can't even say they've seen one outside of the zoo. Then he got way too excited about how koalas are constantly high/drunk from all the eucalyptus they eat, which made us a bit uncomfortable considering he was our driver.
Later, as we ate lunch in the park, I spotted a pigeon with a sweet mohawk (I wish I got a better picture of it).

The only bad part of the trip was the ferry because it was the car-loading kind that I associate with doom thanks to 'War of the Worlds' and that episode (the only one I've ever seen and it had to be this one) of 'Greys Anatomy.'

Fortunately we survived both times and managed not to be sucked under by aliens or crash into Seattle. Phew. I know, the chances of both those things occurring are incredibly high in Australia. We should all be grateful I'm alive.

I don't really have much else to say, so I might as well leave you with another purposely awful/hilarious music video by the namesakes of this post title and one of my favourite fictional bands (after Drive Shaft and Wyld Stallions of course), enjoy 'Freaking Friends' by Mystik Spiral: