I'm a Troublemaker

First of all, I would like everyone to know I'm perfectly alright and the wildfires are nowhere near where I am, though I appreciate the concern. The fires are all the way down in Melbourne, which is about as far away from Brisbane as Florida is from Pennsylvania. There were actually some major floods here in Queensland, but I wasn't affected by them.

I'm back at Nathan, so no more 17-year-old central where I felt like 'Charles in Charge.' Now (so far) my flatmates are three geeky guys closer to my age who play World of Warcraft all the time. Meaning my life is now 'The Big Bang Theory.' Yes, I enjoy comparing everything to sitcoms. Unfortunately the move itself didn't go as planned and I nearly had a nervous breakdown in the bus station. See, I had to be fully checked out by 10 am on Valentines Day, but I couldn't move in to Nathan until noon on the 15th. My plan was to leave all my luggage in a flatmates room, check out, walk around the city until 5 pm (when the building office closes), then have a flatmate let me in and spend the night so I could move my things to Nathan in shifts the next day. I would've gotten away with it too if it weren't for those meddling kids! My one flatmate got incredibly drunk the night before and thanks to her stupid friend that's always at our flat for some reason, had the brilliant idea to go out at 1:30 am.

Nothing was stopping them and neither of them knew the city, meaning I was pretty much forced to go with them (damn you conscience!) or else they'd wake me up with a paniced phone call to come rescue them anyway. I told them I wasn't going anywhere you have to pay a cover because I'm poor and we'd only be there for about an hour anyway so what's the point. I knew this was going to be a bad day when my flatmate started making out with a stranger who looked like Nick from 'Freaks and Geeks' while waiting in line at McDonalds. Yup. They just looked over at each other and BAM then they were sucking face. Several boys worth of flirting later, we eventually ended up at the club she wanted to go to. The same awful place where T and I once ducked into to avoid the rain and had those super creepers hit on us (I forget if I actually told that story or not, I don't think I did because it had funny photos to go with it that T never ended up sending me. Long story short, the guy hitting on me said I looked like a cocaine user because I "have the big nose for it," which he actually meant as a compliment. I then look over to see the guy chatting up T doing the 'Stop Hitting Yourself!' thing to her. We got out of there as fast as we could.) "No," I firmly stated, "I hate this place, it's full of jerks and I have a very strict policy of avoiding places with stripper cages built into their walls." But I was outvoted by the brilliant future of tomorrow and spent the next hour miserable. My flatmate then decided we should try the gay bar across the street. I was relieved since I'd much rather be there, but then I discovered it was $10 to enter and my flatmate needed me to pay for her as well. We ended up staying about ten minutes and had to leave because 'it wasn't happening enough' and the friend was uncomfortable. So I essentially spent a dollar a minute to marvel at gay raver kids dancing the Melbourne Shuffle. To top it off, they decided we should go back to the first club again. Hiding my anger, I told them I'll be waiting outside instead.

At this point, it was about 3:15 am and I'm sitting outside on a bench by myself. This would be worrying if I did this in Philadelphia, but in Brisbane you're perfectly alright. I was tired, grumpy, and just knew my day was bound to get crappier. My face must have shown it because from beside me a voice whispered in my ear, "Why so serious?" I almost had a heart attack. Standing there was a guy dressed as The Joker for no discernable reason. I just stared at him and then a guy in a Batman costume jumps out, yelling "Leave that citizen alone!" They then began to slappy fight for a few seconds and ran off. My flatmate's friend came out several minutes later to find me still dumbfounded. I tried to tell her about the amazing thing she just missed but she thought it was more important to be snarky about my flatmate. "I don't care how many guys she's made out with tonight," I practically yelled, "I just saw The Joker and Batman fighting!" She leered at me, "It wasn't really them. They're not real." A random goth guy came up to us, "You don't get it. Obviously Batman isn't real, duh. Point is, it was AWESOME!" Apparently he had witnessed it too and we talked a few minutes, with him offering me a cigarette if I knew the smallest country in the world. Which I did (Vatican City), but I don't smoke so I told him to give it to the next person who asks him for one on behalf of me. The friends he was waiting for showed up and we said goodbye, which made my flatmate's friend happy because she thought he was 'a freak.' Yeah, all those guys trying to grab your butt in that skeezy club are normal because they wear Abercrombie & Fitch but the goth guy who has an innocent friendly conversation to pass the time is the one we have to watch out for.

Eventually my flatmate was ready to go and the cab ride home was entirely arguments between her and the friend. I tried to calm the tension by making a stupid joke which neither got made the cabbie laugh. "You don't get it?" he said, thankfully on my side, "It was a pun." NEITHER OF THEM KNEW WHAT A PUN IS. The cabbie and I tried explaining it, but to no avail. How did they pass fifth grade English? Once back at the flat, I knew I'd never get up at 9 am if I went to bed at 5 am, so I just stayed up reading. The first part of my plan was successful but I was too exhausted to go into the city, so I told all my flatmates I was going to nap on the couch and to warn me if building management were coming. The flatmate I sacrificed my sleep and $20 for ended up opening the door because "she forgot and their knocking was killing me, omg I'm soooo hungover!" And thus I was kicked out hastily and forgot several of my things. I was called a cab, which I had no cash to pay for and had to use my credit card (I hate doing that). The office told him to take me to a hostel so I could spend the night there. An okay idea, but dammit, why is it such a crime for me to stay one more night at my old flat? Renters rights! It was also not such a great idea considering the hostel was full. But it was across from the bus station at least. With much difficulty and cursing, I managed to get half of my things into the world's most high security storage locker ("Please enter your birthdate, then choose a colour, re-enter your birth date, then pick a four digit code") and struggled onto a bus to a friends house with the other half of my bags. We spent our Valentines Day night eating pizza, watching 'Mean Girls,' then dancing around to my new favourite music video.

So to all those people who complain about Valentines Day because they're single or hate how commercial a holiday it is, you can shut it. Valentines sucks because something completely ridiculous (good and bad) always seems to happen to me that day. Fortunately I ended up having a fun time later on, but any day where you're dragging wheelie luggage and screaming obsenties because you're temporarily homeless thanks to your selfish flatmate is not really a good one. Damn you, Valentines Day curse!

On the bright side, this weekend I'm off to the Soundwave Festival and interviewing one of my musical idols, Ace Enders. I'll try hard not to cry like a Beatles fan when I meet him. Needless to say, next entry should be amusing and in a significantly happier tone.

Hot damn, Summer in the City

(Note: I know, I know, I'm supposed to write about Byron Bay. But last night I wrote this following post out of boredom and figured I should use it now.)

I fear I am turning into the local crazy lady. Granted, I’m not as outrageously strange/awesome in appearance as my two favourite home town weirdos, Penny Man and Leprechaun Guy (Penny Man has coins glued to every piece of clothing he wears and according to my Mom, has a habit of surfing for porn on the public library computers. Leprechaun Guy is obviously a small Irish dude with the stereotypical ginger hair and beard who always wears green, rides a bike, and hangs out behind the 7-11, most likely dealing drugs). However, if I continue living my life as I have the past two weeks, I foresee a future of a Winebago in New Jersey, a job as the person who writes descriptions for the absurd products in Sky Mall, and my only companionship from a flatulent Westie named Iggy Pop. Maybe I’ll have a shrine of James Dean or Jim Morrison on my wall to talk to, convinced that if falling in love with a photo of someone from the past worked for the guy in The Terminator, maybe I could have a chance to go back in time and save the world with them. And now having re-read that last sentence, I realize it makes no sense if you haven’t seen the movie. Too darn bad. Now having re-read this entire paragraph thus far, I realize my comma splices are horrible and if my Senior year English teacher reads this, he will bludgeon me with a copy of ‘Strunk and White’ when I return to US soil.

SEE? This is what I have become. No job, TV, or Internet make Danielle a dull and pathetic gal. Allow me to let you into my world by detailing what I did today, which is very similar to what I’ve done the past fourteen days. Warning: The following is still a tad boring, despite me using the best of my self-deprecating wit to make it seem more interesting. If you honestly have better things to do than read this blog, I suggest you go about doing them.

9:00 am to 10:30 am- Alarm rings obnoxiously and I set it for fifteen more minutes several times until I finally give up and decide I should start my day. At least two cups of tea are needed to set things into motion.

11ish am- Got my laptop and seemingly useless stack of resumes in their backpack, hoist on said backpack with sunglasses and headphones on. Commence drudging into the city while listening to The Smiths.

A little past 11ish am- Wave at the old man who feeds the lorikeets in the park everyday and now recognizes me as a regular fellow weirdo.

Noon to 2:00 pm- Go to whichever area in the city I haven’t hit up for job opportunities (I’m running out) and hand out my resumes. When they say, “I don’t know if we’re hiring, but I’ll put this on the manager’s desk for you!” it is code for, “I’m going to throw this out later, but now I’ll pretend I care.” Usually I do this for even longer than two hours, but today is Sunday, so not much is open later than 4 pm.

2:00 pm- Walk to the library still listening to The Smiths. Feel emo. Wonder if it’s bad that I relate to lyrics written by a (now) 50-something British gay man during the ‘80s.

2:10 pm- Go to library and download Youtube videos of shows like The Amazing Race and Nevermind the Buzzcocks to watch back at the flat later that evening. Check out the following books: ‘Candy Girl,’ ‘The Devil in the White City,’ ‘The Romanovs,’ and ‘The Encyclopedia of Saints.’ Get disturbed and judgmental looks from the librarian because these books are about (respectively) a stripper, a serial killer, a bunch of long dead Russian monarchs, and a bunch of long dead Catholics (some of whom were Russian monarchs). I’m sorry I have a varied and eclectic choice of reading material.

3:00 pm to 3:30 pm- Wander around the city aimlessly. Buy honey lemon bubble tea because it’s the closest thing to Wawa Lemonade Iced Tea. Mmmmm.

3:30 pm- Start to walk home, become way too excited to eat dinner and watch a reality show about a bunch of idiots running around Eastern Europe.

4:00 pm- Read ‘Candy Girl’ for a while and realize how awkward it is that my own mother has read this book as well. Then again, we watched Superbad together.

5:30 pm- Make dinner and have the usual once a day chat with my flatmates, which is either about food or our native countries. Tonight it was about both, and the Spanish girl flat out told the Chinese girl that Chinese people eat dogs. The Chinese girl was confused, fortunately wasn’t offended by this slightly racist comment and just said, “No, I don’t think so.” I had no idea what to say, so I blurted out, “I think it’s actually Denmark that eats dog. It’s a delicacy there. I saw it on Quite Interesting, and Steven Fry is never wrong.” They stare at me and we all silently decide we should each go to our own rooms. Our section of the UN, if you will.

6:00 pm- Let the wonderful cheap laughs from The Amazing Race issue forth. I love this show a bit too much. Their cameramen have the best jobs in the world, I think I may have found my calling. Although knowing my luck, I’d be stuck with the obnoxious bickering couple they have every season instead of the token strange underdogs like the Jewish fratboys who lost their shoes in Kazakhstan or last season’s awesome goth couple from Tennessee who had pink hair and constantly said, “OH MAH GOTH!”

7:30 pm- Finish reading ‘Candy Girl’ already and decide to write this post. Wish I could file an application for a life.

This is the Final Countdooooooooooown!

Sometime earlier this week I was supposed to post about a particularly odd occurrence I had last Saturday, but what I have written up and ready to go makes little sense without the photos we took. Photos that are on my friend’s camera because mine is apparently operable by my hands only. She was supposed to e-mail them to me but keeps forgetting so you might not get to read that story for some time.

But worry not, I just returned from an equally stupid and embarrassing ordeal! My three and a half hour long Japanese Popular culture final. Nobody likes finals other than the fact that they signify the end of that particular course, but I especially can’t stand them because I seem to have things constantly go wrong on finals days. Last year, the train back to school from my internship in the city was stopped because of a stabbing (welcome to life in Philly!) two stations before mine, forcing me to take a bus then walk a few miles with a heavy backpack. I got in ten minutes before it was time for the exam and said final ended up giving me a mild case of carpal tunnel syndrome.

Today wasn’t physically as troublesome, but equally stressful. I got to the testing room twenty minutes early and chatted with two guys from my study group. Before I go on, I should mention that this class is basically Japanese students expecting an easy A, a bunch of cute nerdy guys, a girl with a huge tattoo of the Transformers symbol on her arm, and myself sitting around talking about things like ‘Battle Royale’ and J-punk. So basically one of my favourite University courses ever. I talked with the guys, sad that this is probably the last time I’ll see them again and just as I thought, “Oh duh, ask them for their e-mail!” the test administrator entered the room. Dammit. They allotted ten minutes for looking through the questions and being a quick reader, I spent a good eight minutes of this time ogling my crush’s strangely attractive new Wolverine-esque facial hair. He’s attractive, I swear it! Stop picturing a mutton chopped 18th-century geezer. He first got my attention the day he practically lead the discussion on Miyazaki films AND did so wearing a Horrors shirt. You instantly get points in my book for being a fellow fan of a band I love, especially bands barely anyone else seems to know about. Many a time I’ve terrified people by running across the street towards them yelling, “AHHH! I WAS AT THAT CONCERT TOO!”

Getting back on point, it final-ly (har har) started and I got past the vocabulary section to the essays. But halfway through my second essay, the nib of my mechanical pencil simply broke off. I had not anticipate this, as it’s never happened to me before and I thought it was a fairly solid pencil. I started to panic, shoving it back in with no avail and then opened the little canister of pencil lead to see if it was possible to write with only them. The answer is no, they snap in half, which is why you need the mechanical pencil nib to hold them in place. Arrrgh! I look around nervously and see that some students are using pens in their blue books. Since when were you allowed to use pens? I raised my hand to see if I could ask one of the two test administrators to let me get a pen from my bag. The closest one had seen me freaking out internally at my pencil, but gave me an evil smirk instead of any help. NOOO! “Relax, “I thought, “Ogle the cute guy for a bit, then try again.” That worked and I retrieved my pen, huzzah! I continued working, but after a few sentences, realized the pen was running out of ink. Why was I carrying a pen with barely any ink?! I don’t even recall using this particular one much at all! So an essay and a half of a final worth 40% of my overall grade was written in decreasingly visible ink. Near the end of the essay on the Takarazuka Revue (which I’ve included a link of the wikipedia definition for because it’s hilarious/awesome) the pen died fully and I scratched, “Sorry no conclusion, my pen’s life has ended” into my already suffering paper. Fortunately my professor has a good sense of humour and will hopefully understand, but I still slightly regret doing that now.

I’m actually traveling for once this weekend, over to Byron Bay after spending tonight at the Gold Coast. I look forward to attempting surfing again, but dread the thousand more freckles bound to form as a result. The other day, Elle commented that my arms were starting to look a bit tan, but then as she came closer, she realized that at a distance, my freckles sort of meld together giving the illusion of tan. Curse my Scottish paleness.

You cant go wrong, come on skank along!

It's official, nobody in my flat physically talks to one another anymore except for Ellie and I. Nick will instant message me from five feet down the hall just to say 'hello,' or as he says, "Morning!" (no matter what time of day it is). And even worse than that is the dreaded note on the fridge. Instead of knocking on everyone's door around 7 pm when all are guaranteed to be present and awake to call a flat meeting, they write an incredibly rude open notice. Now, I don't mind if it's just something along the lines of, "Could whoever's turn it is to take out the trash this week please do so? Thanks!" Those are friendly reminders and make perfect sense. But last night someone put up a wonderful jem the censored version of which basically states that if the note writer ever finds out who keeps using up the ice and not refilling the tray, they will make icecubes from their blood. I haven't used a single ice cube my entire time here, but the anger of that note made me dump all the ice cubes down the sink and leave the trays empty in the freezer. Just because they went about trying to solve a stupidly easy problem that doesn't matter much anyway with violent fingerpointing. No need to call in Miss Marple or a hitman. It's like Dylan Moran said in his stand-up act, "You want to write a note back to those types of flatmates and say, 'Dear Complaining One, NOBODY LIKES YOU.'"

On a lighter subject where I'm not being a hypocrite by whining about how annoying passive-aggressive proclamations from my flatmates are, I managed to get out for once this weekend. I went with a friend to a place we'd gone to once before, but only for an hour. This time we got there at 9:30ish, stayed quite late and thus were able to see two bands play before the DJ set. To give an idea how this place is set up, they play indie and alternative rock upstairs, then downstairs is split between the main room (which has the live bands and then usually plays ska, punk, and some hardcore afterwards) and the incredibly fascinating pop/hip-hop room. I literally stood by the pool tables for half an hour with my one friend (who is also from a large American city) cracking up watching all these drunk Australian hipsters/punks/emos/whatevers trying to dance to things like 50 Cent and Lil Mama. He turned to me and said, "Wow, I feel like Ving Rhames compared to these kids!" Which is saying quite a lot considering the two of us are pretty darn white. I wish I had video of it, words can't describe the hilarity factor... Then we went and skanked in the other room (for those of you not aware, skanking isn't what it sounds like, it's the type of weird dancing you do when a ska song is playing), where at least we knew we looked silly when we danced.

These obviously aren't any of the people that I'm talking about, but it's the closest I could find, so I'll leave it up to you to decide who looked stupider:
Hipsters who think they're gangstas (just imagine whats going on in the video but on a greater scale and throw in some punk/emo kids to boot)



Vs. My friends and I skanking way too enthusiastically (exactly like these guys are, but not out in random public places)

Time flies by like fly time

This week went by waaaaay too fast. Maybe it's because the seasons have changed so drastically here, we've been getting spring showers already and winter just ended a few days ago. I still get confused by the opposite seasons. Because of said rain, I was forced to stay inside a bit, but I made sure to watch Australian Idol and read old issues of an amazing Aussie magazine called Frankie. Now, I can't stand American Idol, but find myself addicted to the Australian version. There is significantly more talent, variety of music styles, and the judges actually have more constructive criticism than "A bit pitchy, dawg!" Plus, almost every contestant knows how to play at least one instrument in addition to being able to sing well. See, I'm still experiencing Australian culture even though I'm indoors! Once the weather is better, I promise to be more interesting.

I've been here a week or so shy of two months time, but for some reason this week was particularly full of people asking me questions about America. For starters, I'm shocked how little about American geography most people I've met here know. Only one person knew right away where I meant when I said Pennsylvania. It's not like it's even an obscure state! I always hear on the news that America is the stupid one where lots of kids don't know even their own state capital and other countries around the world shame us in the US History and Geography department. But I had a guy as me if Philadelphia was "near Chicago, you know, that state where the Pilgrims landed, right?" Just explaining where exactly I'm from is frustrating enough sometimes, but then I get the same top five "oooh, I've always wanted to know this about America" questions:
1. What's New York City like?
2. Is high school in America just like in the movies and TV?
3. Do you see famous people like all the time?
4. Have you ever been mugged/ have you ever seen someone get shot?
5. Do people from the South/New York/Boston/etc. really talk in those exaggerated accents?

And I usually give the same answers every time:
1. It's so big that this question is incredibly vague. I've only been to three of the five boroughs [explains and names boroughs] and I still can't begin to describe just Brooklyn in itself. But New York City is awesome, though I personally don't think I could live there. You should try and visit it for yourself. It's not anywhere near as dangerous as TV and movies make it seem.
2. Not at all. Though I'm sure there are rich California kids who have amazing courtyards they're allowed to eat fabulous lunches in. The closest thing to my high school experience would be an updated version of 'Daria' mixed with 'Freaks and Geeks,' maybe a bit of 'Pete and Pete' thrown in. [That's right, my life was and still is more of a weird, under-rated comedy than a drama or coming of age romance.]
3. I see and have met lots of musicians that I find famous, but the only really famous person lots of people would be familiar with I've seen in Philly is Jay McCarroll, who won the first season of Project Runway. So no, not really. Only B and C-List folks.
4. Um, no. I know people who have though. And if I had, I don't think I would want talk about it.
5. Yes, but not everyone obviously. I don't sound like I'm from Philly at all, thank goodness. My vote for weirdest American regional accents go to Long Island and Wisconsin. [Then I do my impressions of said accents. No offense to people from those areas!]

I can understand people being intrigued by the fact I'm from America and don't mind answering their questions, but sometimes I hate that I'm 'The American.' Would people still be interested in talking to me if I wasn't from a place that's novel to them? Do they make assumptions about me based on my accent? Sometimes I want to put on a British accent and see if I'm treated the same way. When I was in Scotland, there were a whole bunch of other Americans, but here I'm one of three that I know of on the entire campus. The other two are from New Hampshire and Colorado, so they aren't as close to the big cities as I am. Fortunately I haven't had anyone insult me for being American, but I still can't help but think the big "I'm from a famous American city!" sign that seems to be on me overshadows everything else about myself.

Oh, down to the river we ride...

Yet another mistake was pointed out to me (thanks Becky!), so now everyone can comment on my posts. I have no idea why it was set so only people with Blogger accounts could respond. Sorry!

Riverfest is going on all week in the city, but having gone both Friday and Saturday, I'd say the only day anything interesting took place was yesterday. Friday, a group of friends and I just wandered around looking for something to do besides shop and eat food. We passed by Hungry Jacks (what they call Burger King here for some reason) several times throughout the day and the same group of bored looking goth kids were always sitting outside. I had to wonder why this was their choice place to mope. Did Robert Smith get onion rings there once? Maybe some day I'll go over and ask them. More aimless walking in search of a Riverfest event, but the only noteworthy thing that happened was passing Hare Krishnas and being given pamphlets by the Socialist Youth Society. Nothing like being told you should consider a new religion and political party by people on the street!

Back at the flat later that night, I stayed up to finally watch a few hours of Rage. Rage is an uninterrupted six hours of music videos shown late at night on weekends. So clearly, this was a bit like heaven to me.

Haha, look at my happy little face! And please ignore my horrible attempt to grey out my flat's disgusting and ugly sofa set. It looks like someone trash picked it from a crack house. Needless to say, I never sit on it. Anyway, I was so excited to watch full videos that have more than just a band playing in a field or a rapper with some booty-shakin' hos (yeah, I'm looking at you, modern MTV and VH1 when you actually take time off from awful reality shows to screen a few videos). The absolute best one of the night was a song that I've heard before, but never seen the video of. It's called 'Letter from God to Man,' by the British rappers Dan le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip. Believe me, it's outstanding and not really as religious the title implies.

I know it's a bit difficult to understand his accent sometimes, so here are the lyrics. Seriously, I was watching this at around 3 am, on the verge of sobbing. Then it changed to The Kooks and my flatmate walked in to get a glass of water and looked at me weird, wondering why I was so misty-eyed over a bunch of rock stars in tight pants flirting with models.

Riverfest Saturday was a bit more impressive because that night was Riverfire and entirely too many people were walking around. So we opted to spend most of the day in the Science Center and Art Museum. They were both pretty neat, though I was creeped out at the sheer amount of taxidermied animals the Science Center had on display. What made it weirder was that every single one had it's cause of death underneath it. I realize that's so nobody thinks they were killed just to be stuffed, but do I really need to know this poor wombat died from impacted bowels? We waited in ridiculously long lines to get dinner, then at 7 a huge fire-spurting plane flew past way too low, scaring the bejeezus out of me and letting everyone know the fireworks were about to begin.

Unfortunately, I did not get to enjoy the display as much as I'd like to because a third of the crowd were taking pictures. Some using their flash. I wanted to scream, "Put your damn cameras down and enjoy the fireworks! Don't you realize your photos are going to suck anyway?" I was so angry that all these people were taking shots that were of the dark sky and one little green spark, then turning to each other and going, "Oooh, that's a good one!" WATCH THE FIREWORKS! Don't take pictures so you can instantly reminisce about that red heart shaped one and miss two minutes of other fireworks in doing so! I mean, I love to take photos and understand that they want to capture their beauty. But take a few really great pictures if you can, then put the camera away. Taking several bad pictures a minute for the entire half-hour fireworks show is just stupid. Since when did photography become about quantity over quality? Grump, grump, grump. Sorry for the rant, it just really annoyed me that I waited all day and people were ruining the show for me.

Today I slept in and am continuing work on a paper for World History, super exciting stuff! Tomorrow is the start of September, maybe I'll be a bit more interesting in the new month. Hope everyone has a good Labor Day! I won't because I don't get the day off. :[