Newcastle's Version of the Crazy-Ass Duststorm.

For future reference and for overseas friends, here is a recap.

This morning, I wake up to this:

A post-Apocalyptic glow outside my windows. The entire house smells and tastes like DUST. And the insane winds are threatening to send a cow flying through my third-story window.

The morning moves on and Mark leaves for work. The moment he steps outside, this falls a few meters from him:

So of course, my own trip to uni has me shitting myself every time I heard a tree creak. I was very amused, however, to see the stupid magpie that swoops me struggling to stay upright. If only you hadn't been such a bastard, I may have let you shelter in my house. Too bad.

Other various shots from around town, including Civic Park, the general look of all the cars on the streets and what the surfaces in my house look like now.

And my favourite shot:

More list stuff!

So even though plenty of intersting things have happened of late (including one visit to Indonesia =D!) I will not be blogging about that just yet. Because I'm lazy.

This is just concerning The List. I just remembered it and remembered that I have a bunch of ew stuff to cross off!

25. Play on a sports team.
I've been subbing for a netball team for a couple of months now and played... four or five games? And last night, the proof of my radically hidden sport skills was revealed: it was suggested that I should be kept on as a permanent sixth in the next season. Fuck yes.

32. Paint a picture on a canvas for my wall.
My house looks like an amateur art gallery now between Marcus and I, but I have now contributed TWO pictures to the walls! The latest was a blue and red Indian-esque style tree... I like it even if noone else does (looking at you now Mike, you bastard).

42. Punch a monkey in the face.
Okay so technically I didn't quite achieve this one. I was sooooo goddamn sick when I visited Bali's monkey temple that I mostly wanted to throw up on the monkeys. Luckily, a baby monkey jumped on my head. By the time I got rid of him, he tried to repeat offend so i kicked him a little bit. There's a video on youtube if you want proof.

45. Visit a foreign country.
One week in Bali. Suck that, List.

89. Buy a couch.
Okay so this one isn't as exciting as playing sports and hurting animals... but I did this a while ago, halving the costs with Mr Macus... okay, technically I'm still paying my half off, but the couch is in the house! It totally counts!

So there you go! I've now done... 18?! That can't be right. Shit, I'd better get a move on.

For anyone who's still reading, I got two Cs and a P last semester, results came through this morning. I need to kick some major arse this semester in order to bring everything up to a Credit average for exchange.

Another day wasted.

Friday's are supposed to be the day I use to catch up on the week's uni stuff. I don't think I've actually done that all semester, bar the times assignments are due that day and I've left them until the last minute.

To be fair, I do still have a week to complete this one. But being timely involves making sure I have room to study for my first exam (which is in 11 days! Eeek!). I'm sure I'll manage. I'll just do it in the worst possible way.

In other news, I'm going to a rodeo tonight. Yup, not at all sure how that managed to happen but here we are. It's actually going to be an alright night, I reckon. I'm getting picked up from work and chauffeured to dinner and then onto the rodeo. Followed by coffee on the beach, yupyup. That's my plan anyway. Here's hoping we don't get rained out or I'm going to be pissed.

Newfound patriotism.

I've always been somewhat ashamed of being an Australian. Now I know that's a harsh thing to say and many senior citizens would want to chase me down on their motorised scooters and beat me sensless with walking canes for making such a statement but thems the facts. As far as I was concerned, I had no reason to be proud to be Australian -- wars were senseless to me, I always saw our colonisation as more of an invasion and I thought our country was packed to the rafters with bogans.

Now, while I still think a lot of these things, my perceptions have somewhat... shifted.

The last six months have taught me a lot. Like how logistically our country could not have been a simple dumping ground for convicts. Like how there's no evidence that the Darwin bombing were never an intended invasion as everybody seems to think. All of this has come from studying history and it's actually made me realise how important our nations history is and why I should be at least a little proud. A little understanding goes a long way, huh?

This weather is intensely shit.

It really brings a guy down, being surrounded by dismal and depressing grey clouds. I much prefer summer, I have decided. That's right, after 22 years of thinking I was a winter person (winter has jumpers, scarves and snuggling -- what's not to love?) I now discover that I am actually a beach-lover. My fear of melanoma and sunburn has evaporated in the rays of sunshine and left a different Beau behind -- hence the reason I am escaping this shitty winter and visiting the much more tropical regions of the world.

Which brings me to the point of my post. The formal identification of Beau. For twenty-two years, I've been somewhat of an odd child. I'm sure I've made mention before this theory before: that I'm somewhat of a social chameleon, changing my personality from hour to hour depending on my company. It's always made be a bit uncomfortable to acknowledge the fact but never enough to do anything about changing it.

Turns out that bit happens on its own.

Yup, this post is another about me. Some people use blogs as their own personal Facebooks with the intention of gaining readers and feedback; some record amusing anecdotes of their day; some use it to document their daily adventures; me? I talk about myself. Move on if that doesn't interest you. =)

So as I approach the wise old age of 23, I find myself developing a bit more concrete views of myself and I think I owe it to the last year, to my relocation to Newcastle which forced a lot of growing up.

I used to live with my sister and treated her as a mum. She did the shopping, she cleaned and she cooked. Good practice for her impending second child, to look at it in a positive light. I relied wayyyy to much on everyone else. Then I moved to Newcastle. I took that first step and started looking after myself and being responsible wholly and solely for myself. But still I relied so heavily on other people. It's a bad habit and I've got to get out of it. I've never had to rely on myself but that's not going to last forever -- so that's my new goal: become more self-sufficient!

It's so cliched to claim that I've had some sort of life-changing experience that has made me into some sort of whole new person and that's not the case I'm trying to make -- or at least, not what I'm aiming for. It's just a reassessment of the things floating through my mind on this dreary day where there's little else to do but reflect.

Uni has been the main factor is all of this, I think. And my relationships with the people I've come to really care about. I've been wrapped up in my relationship with Marcus that I've managed to neglect not only my friends but myself, too. I've gotten so wrapped up in being Beau+Mark that I've forgotten about plain ol' Beau. I've changed a lot of myself and I'm not really a fan of some parts of person I've become. Which again, is kind of a good thing. I realise now the parts of me that I like/liked and know what parts of me I now see as Actual Me rather than Chameleon me.

Young Adult psychological moratorium. Erikson would be so proud.

No time for Beau!

So it turns out that annoying people are right when they say stupid things like, "there just aren't enough hours in the day."

My blog has been abandoned of late. But man, it's because I barely have time to scratch my own arse, let along type about how good it felt and what I was thinking when I was doing it.

Uni has been taking up 80% of my time. And I'm not even an over-achiever! I would say "I don't know how the over-achievers do it" except that I've spent countless hours learning about how epistemological beliefs affect self-efficacy and your overall metacognitive skills... so they're just better organised. I suck at learning and so it's a lot more effort for me! Things are building to a crescendo at the moment, what with only four and a half weeks remaining of term. Only two more online exams, three more essays, an in-class exam and a large-ish PE assessment task to finish before exam period.

Then comes Bali. Speaking of, I've managed to schedule my first overseas trip smackbang in the middle of exam period. it mostly goes over a weekend... so I'm only really knocking out half of a Wednesday, the Thursday, Friday and following Monday. Surely the chances of my exams being on thee dates is fairly slim... right? Worst comes to worst, I'll fake an illness and get a doctors certificate. ;)

But back to the time issue. There's Uni, that's 80% of my time. Then there's work, which takes up another 5%. It does work in REALLY well with uni in comparison to any other job I could have... but still takes away a lot of valuable study/assignment time. So my weekdays are wholly dedicated to those two things. Then Market takes up the other remaining 20% (yup, your maths is correct - I need 105% of a day to fit everything in). Turns out living with someone isn't enough -- you need to spend quality time together! Who woulda thunk it? So there goes Saturdays at the very least. Which leaves Sundays. Which is usually used for either extra uni stuff or finally getting a chance to do shite all and just sleep and relax.

So where does my social life fit into this equation? Bloody good question. My friends have fallen by the wayside and there's absolutely nothing I can do about it without killing myself running around! Thankfully I get the chance to see Sarah at least once a week when we have lunch. And Carolyn is my one true lifeline to a social life (we're both crazy Geminis and so the relationship works perfectly!). Beyond that though... very little!

Anyway, holidays are soon. Just gotta get through the next few weeks and I can have some downtime. At which point I'll probably blog about being bored. Go figure.

Easter

I'm sad at how different the holidays are when you're a grown up compared to when you're a kid. All of the build-up is gone, knowing that you now have to BUY presents instead of just receiving them. I can't even enjoy the awesome that should be public holidays -- because that just means a day of doing work at home instead of uni and not being able to work (which equals not being able to meet my budget)!

*sigh* Being a grown-up sucks major hairy balls sometimes.

I did gorge myself on Easter eggs, however. Okay, so chocolate-gorging is also nowhere near as enjoyable as when you're a kid, but it's still pretty rad. For the first three days, at least.

I woke up a couple days before easter busting to pee. My rush to the bathroom is immediately stopped when I notice a line of tiny eggs in the hallway. I follow it through the dining room, over the clothes horse, across the table and behind the tv, where a giant chocolate egg is waiting. The trail continues across the bookshelf, over the fishtank, through the lounge and down the stairs where Pete the Potplant is holding an insane looking miniature cow with an easter egg uncomfortably lodged in his spine.

Either the Easter Bilby has some stupid timing or I have the worlds most awesome boyfriend.

73. Write an article for publication

73. Write an article for publication
That's right. I just wrote an article for the Star on a circus skills workshop. Y'all need to actually pick up your copies of the Star of your lawns and read them before you drive over them (yup, you're totally being targeted Mike) and read it. Then pretend Mark wrote it.

Slightly hungover...

So... I've finally done it. I managed to get so drunk that I have a section of the night that, no matter how hard I try, I just cannot remember.

It started yesterday, with the opening of the stuff on Hunter Street. A bunch of the shops have been rented out to architecture students and other creative figures. They do with it what they want in order to showcase their stuff -- and were kind enough to have fruit and cheese platters and free wine! So of course, Markus and I took full advantage of this situation and helped ourselves to three glasses. And then we took those glasses home. 'Cos they were pretty. We tried to grab some more free food (including sushi!) from the display nextdoor, but were BLOCKED by a rude old woman! Kate tried to grab some and was interrupted by, "Are you from the display nextdoor? Sorry, you can't have any." =O

Then came the second birthday celebration for the day. Leon, John, Markus and myself all took the one car, dressed in matching school uniforms. It would have looked slightly odd to outsiders (including the manly men at the bottle shop who were very amused at the sight of us marching in to stock up on goon). I am not allowed to say too much about it, due to fear of gay-mafia attacks. Needless to say, there were some very interesting encounters and situations that reminded me of how thankful I am not to be in that circle. Being milked for stories on how stable my love-life is was one such nice reminder.

Anyway, there was much, much goon to be had and I don't remember much of where the night went. I do remember drawing all over Johns leg with an orange marker but not being able to see the results because of his dark skin. I remember drawing portraits of people on a whiteboard. I vaguely remember a toasted sandwich when I got home... but waking up wearing nothing but TWO pairs of underwear was the most confusing part.

Recovery so far has involved about three litres of water, a very enjoyable massage and Berry-Weetbix with yoghurt. So I can't really complain. Except that the next stage involves A LENGTHY HIKE THROUGH THE BUSH. Yay.

In other news, I've found things I can cross off of my list:

02. Skinnydip at the beach at night
Friday night. Myself, Rosie and Mark. Some random fellow skinnydippers. Newcastle pools.

21. Get drunk on goon
"You're junk, Drohn." 'Nuff said.

24. Have a food fight.
Whether you count the Great Ice Cream War of '09, the watermelon fight a couple of weeks previously or the grape fight at Kates birthday yesterday, Markus has helped very much with this one, repeatedly.

31. Dance like a fool and don't care who's looking
I was going to use either the Silent Disco at BDO or any night at G to cross this one off. Then I remembered my performance of Beyonce's 'Single Ladies' dance in front of the giant mirror at the gym. Yes, that works well.

38. Build a giant sandcastle
Does a giant pod of whales count? Hell yes it does when you win FIRST PLACE for them and get a TROPHY for your efforts! =D

50. Plant a tree
Do herbs count? I helped plant the basil and I relocated the parsley... and I helped pot Pete!


Yay! Now I'm up to 12/90! Hmm. I'd better get a move on.

Ain't all that.

So my car is unregistered until the government decides to hand out a nicely sized bonus into my starving bank account just for being as rad as I am. My plan was just to continue driving my car with my fingers, toes, arms and legs crossed for good luck (which led to some very awkward driving) and hope I don't get booked. It worked for a couple of days, until a trip in Marks car to the gym had us pass four normal police cars and one unmarked car!

Needless to say, I'm now finding alternative transport.

Unfortunately, the alternative is by bicycle. So even though it's overcast and feral (not to mention my complete lack of anything resembling fitness) I am riding the 8km or so from my house to work. And I'm leaving an hour before work starts, so hopefully it will take no longer than that. Although I'm sure my exhausted, slumping form seen swerving back and forth across the road, sweat dripping from every part of me as I rock up to work will invoke some sort of sympathy if I am a bit late.

Something tells me that tonights gym visit will be somewhat redundant. Speaking of, I've been going... 4-5 days a week. And, okay, it's working, my body is changing shape. Unfortunately, it's mostly in MY LEGS. I've lost all of my beautiful floppyness in my legs, leaving behind mostly muscle. Again with the unfortunate when you realise how little muscle there is. Therefore, I now have the skinny legs of an akward 14-year-old. As a result, I can only wear jeans in public from now on, until the muscle starts to build.

Naughty LOLs

Okay, so I'm on D-Listed (which, thanks to Sarah, I am somewhat addicted to). I'm looking at a picture of the adorable little koala who drank the firemans water while holding his hand... but I'm having a large LOL at this comment:

"Yeah, yeah. Its all cute and sweet until they find out the koala was the one that started the fire. It came back to admire its handy work. Burned paws indeed!"

Inappropriate humour at its best.

And while I'm here...: Possibly the most amusing story I've ever seen on that site.

Mannnn, I have done NOTHING today.

I was sitting in this too-fat, retro-print beanbag in front of the computer doing stupid things like deleting music on iTunes, photoshopping and editing a screenplay... then I look up and it's 2 o'clock. I sat down after Mark left at what... 8:30? The only times I'd gotten up were to pee and to eat some wedges. Mind you, there was a long minute where I was deciding between wedges or a chicken burger...

Never fear, though, I'm now up, showered and have a load of washing in the machine.

...when did I turn into this?! I need to stand up for my rights to liberation! UNION!!1!

There are maybe plans for Parkhill tonight, which should be pretty awesome. This smaller version on the group is still as rad as ever, especially with Emma. I do miss the old members though... *sigh* Also, Markus is accompanying me to Pilates this evening. Yatta! We've been on a bit of a health kick of late. It can only be a good thing, right? Except for my legs. They disagree with that statement completely. They're almost ready to talk emancipation.

The week ahead:

• Tute enrollments tomorrow -- can't wait to have them out of the way and if I don't get my tightly organised timetable, I'm going crotchkicking in the direction of some stupid first-years!
• Ultrasound on Wednesday -- that should be fun...
• DOLLHOUSE ON THURSDAY! -- wholey crap! Muchly anticipated for months and months now, it'd better kick arse
• The weekend? Not sure yet but things have been quiet for a while. I'm thinking maybe volleyball on the beach? With you. Yes, you. Be there or be square. That's right, you'll be a quadrilateral with all congruent sides and all congruent angles. Burned.
  

Great Ice Cream War of '09

Last night was host to what shall now be known as the Great Ice Cream War of '09.

It started when Markus put the last of the blueberries on his ice cream cone. And me eating them when he was distracted.

It ended with two grown men standing in a kitchen that was covered (almost literally) with bits of soggy cone and sticky desert -- not to mention the fact that said substances were also dripping from hair... and in my eye.

The Shelf

I'm not sure what's happened of late. One minute, I'm bored out of my mind, hating everybody for working while I sit around my house doing nothing but some hardcore Facebooking... the next I'm in a very awesome and very new place -- a place that has an amazing boyfriend, has me eating peanuts and cashews, has me re-potting herbs and has me dancing in public places.

I've always considered myself a bit of a chameleon. I'm open to pretty much anything (albeit occasionally with a tiny bit of protest) and as such, meeting new people makes me feel like a whole new person. I've never been able to pinpoint my actual personality. I'm sure my friends can, but it's just something I've never managed. I almost feel like a bit of a living chalkboard, being able to have things wiped clean and new things applied whenever the need arises. It's neither a good or a bad thing, as far as I can deduce. Or, more accurately, it's probably both.

The current Beau is having some serious financial issues, with my rego due in a week, three months worth of phone bills being overdue, monies owed to people left right and centre... part of me is worried about it, but then the other me reminds the worried me that stressing about it will only lead to bad places. So I sat, worked out a budget, shit myself about how restrictive my next few months are going to be and suddenly all was good again. I'll get through it, you know?

Speaking of the current Beau, he is sitting in his office. I feel so grown up and stuff. The office has two computers and a whole bunch of text books. It's gonna be all formal and stuff soon. Granted it also has boxes of shit, a pile of dirty clothes and half of a big, fluffy brown couch from the 70s that resembles Snuffalapagus... but it's getting there, a'ight? There's a bookshelf in the neighbours open garage downstairs. I'm going to steal it. It would look very, very nice in my office with my uni textbooks, my large cardboard Tardis and my Batman Lego decorating it. Okay, yes, theft. But it's so pretty. And perhaps it will teach my neighbours not to leave their pretty shit in an open carport when there are poor, needy students around. Really, he should thank me.

In the same vein, I am in love with this part of my life. I have a bedroom that I share with an incredibly attractive boy; I have a kitchen with expensive cutlery and a fridge that I don't have to fight for space in; I have a lounge room with an actual coffee table; best of all, I have a balcony on which I am able to have romantic breakfasts/sunset dinners upon with aforementioned incredibly attractive boy. Yes, I may be accused of gloating. But man, as if I don't have reason to! The laws of the universe state that being this happy means that it will all inevitably come crashing down around me before long (as Sarah would say, it's science) , so why not live it up while it's all still here?

Time to go put together an outfit made entirely of black and containing some form of mask. If I'm gonna do some badass thieving, I need to look the part.

Argh.

So it turns out that jogging does little to relieve intense frustration.

Sometimes, I dislike what people are. I don't understand why we can't just accept people for who they are and move on.

Hmm.

...in a haze, in a stormy haze...

Yesterday, I had a brilliant moment of clarity. I was laying on the beach, the sun was shining without a single cloud in the sky, my belly was all full-up with hot chips + tomato sauce, I was laying next to my gorgeous boyfriend... and things just seemed to spill over with awesome. You know those moments where everything just seems completely brilliant and there isn't a single bad thing at the forefront of your mind?

On the down side, I have bright, bright red stripes on my lower back and neck. Apparently, applying sunscreen to someones back is a difficult task? Especially when they have 'neck rolls'? But I can't really complain, Mark ended up burnt too to I suck just as much at the application process. It's gonna be an interesting week or so, filled with flaking skin and hisses of pain.

The last of the free movie tickets was used up last night. It turns out that Benjamin Buttons wasn't what I'd built it up to be in my head. It could be that I hadn't gotten home until 3ish the night before and had gotten up at 730 -- I was repeatedly doing that thing where you drift off and your head drops, jolting you back into awake-ness -- or it could be that the movie was pretty damn boring and had very little storyline outside of the romance. Either way, I was disappointed. Plus, it was like 3 hours long. I need to have some serious commitment to a movie in order to stay that long.

Today I have to make annoying phone calls, switching names on contracts and addresses for the move. I probably won't though. I need a trip to the chemists to buy some sort of soothing/moisturising ointment and drop a couple of bags of clothes at a clothing bin. Other equally exciting things. Fuck, I miss uni.

House-y things.

The guy nextdoor has expressed an interest in taking my room. Which would save me having to pawn off James' things to pay for breaking the lease. Not that the thought of doing so bothers me, but if I don't have to sell them, then I get to continue owning a PS2! He lives with his grandparents. I guess this way he gets some independence but not too much; he can still scuttle off next door for food and nanna-cuddles. Let's hope he decides to go for it.

In other news, I used my expensive new cutlery for the first time last night. It was very satisfying. I felt fancier just eating my sorbet (well, not my sorbet...) and holding my pinkie out (I didn't really do that...)

My room is almost sorted. For the first time in... well pretty much ever, I have only one load of washing left to do! I'm all caught up! I'm just about ready to move my shit over to the Connors Estate. He's gonna love me invading his beachy house with all my nerdy paraphernalia, I can tell already. A Tardis on the kitchen bench, sci-fi DVDs scattered around the lounge room, Batman Lego in the shower (...just cos it needs somewhere to go?). I'm not sure he knows what he's gotten himself into here.

Wholey shit, I just realised it's Friday! This means that tonight I'm going to go see Lisa Mitchell (who you may remember as my future wife that my lame friends prevented me from seeing months ago) and Whitley who apparently "exudes charm and wit". I've only heard a bit of his stuff -- mostly cos his album is all the way down in the car and I'm far too lazy/forgetful to retrieve it whenever I think to listen to it.

I have to find something to wear that will make Lisa fall head over heels for me and start singing directly to me...

Busy busy.

2009. Jesu. Where the fuck did '08 go, honestly?

I was gonna do a recap of '08 and talk about some of the memorable things from it, but it can be summed up like this:

Highlights of 2008:
Parkhill
Music festivals
Hanging with Mike
Getting back to Uni
Buffy Season 8
Markus. Definitely Markus.

Lowlights:
James

In more exciting news, I've just gotten back from Sydney after a week there. Brilliant holiday. I've only ever seen the crazy, business side of Sydney, with its masses of people and blaring horns and Opera Houses. This holiday was so much more relaxed.

Let's see, what did I do?

I went to Manly beach. Packed, man, it was crazy-busy. But you kinda forget about all of the people when you're with fantastic company, eating peanuts (hmm) and chilli Shapes. There was a ferry and there was sunbaking and fountains and then -- here comes the best part -- a big-arse ice cream. Oh! And a girl playing chess on the streets for moneys. Let's not forget that I actually went in the water. Yes, it was for about five minutes total but hey! I've always hated the beach but I'm finally seeing the good side of it!

I finally got back to the zoo, too. It's been a few years and it's looking pretty different but again, the awesome company made the day. I flashed the Harbour, banged my knee on a ferry, ate nachos, saw a baby pig clean the water it was currently peeing in and watched some meerkats!

It was all pretty mundane stuff from anyone else's perspective, I suppose... but man, it was the best holiday I've had in a really, really long time. I got to spend time with/meet some brilliant people (Kate, Pete, Percy, Anna/Sam). And I ate a truckload of frozen beverages. Oh and I ate African! When I say ate, i mean everyone else pigged out while I looked terrified and ate only cous cous. Yes, my horizons are ever-expanding lately but I guess they have certain limits.

And of course, Mark was there. Man, what can I say about him? He's incredibly awesome to hang around with. He's quickly becoming one of my best mates. Which is good, I suppose, if we're going to be living together within the month. Hmm. More on Mr Connors elsewhere, methinks.

Fuck this temperature off. I should be at the beach. Why do my friends all have jobs and/or dislike the beach? I should be there right now, enjoying the freezing cold water and blinding tourists with my pasty body!

I should be cleaning. It's my goal to have my room ready by the end of the week.

Yeah, right.