Musings on Japan...

I'm sitting in my bright orange fisherman pants with my eyes held only half-open. The emptiness of my day has formed itself into a struggle to stay awake.

I hate uni holidays.

Perhaps it wouldn't be so bad if I had more uni friends. Or, uni friends who didn't disappear overseas, to their families or to their jobs. I've been off a few weeks now and it hasn't been so bad. But then, Muck had been sharing the holidays with me.

In more interesting news, I've applied for exchange in Japan. I find out whether I was accepted in 3 weeks time or so. It's a scary thought, about how much much life will change. Sure, I've moved around plenty in my short life. But never more than a couple of hours from the safety of everything I know, of everything I can rely to be familiar. A whole new culture, a whole new language... with any luck, Muck will be in the same city as my (or at the very least, the same country) so I won't have to do it completely on my own. As much of a valuable growing experience that may be, I'd like to do it with the opportunity to do plenty of making out with my pretty boyfriend.

Cleaning the house, things keep popping into my head, like "how much of these clothes will I actually take to Japan?", "what the hell am I going to eat over there?" and, "I finally got a friggin' Wii and now I want to leave it on a different continent?!". Hmm. I know it'll be well worth it and a year really isn't that long... but what will I miss in the meantime? My nieces birthdays, Christmas, my awesome friends, beaches, Neighbours (who knows what crazy adventures Paul Robinson will be up to while I'm gone?!)... not to mention the massively lame pressure I'll be putting on my relationship even if we do end up in the same country...

*sigh*

I suppose I'm also gaining Bento boxes, koi, a fresh new language that may get me a better job on graduation, awesome technology, new friends, karaoke, vending-machine beer and - most importantly - ninjas. Probably. I guess that helps balance it all out somewhat.

I'm trepidatious. Yes, that word will suit just fine. Is it even a word? But if I don't give it a go, I know it'll be one of those buzz-kills I regret for the rest of my forever. All fingers crossed that I pass the first hurdle: being accepted to Nagoya.

And even if everyone in Australia does forget me and I come back to nothing... at least I'll always have ninjas.

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.