Ugh…..I feel so overwhelmed. I want you all to know that I haven’t stopped writing or anything; my parents are here and I’ve been showing them around every day, and I have little-to-no time to write. And when I do I’m exhausted. Just a little FYI, I have posts in the workings that include the AFL game, my day with Reese in the Australian bush, as well as my time with my parents and our Blue Mountains trip. Also, I will be writing a post on the upcoming Opera House show tomorrow, Rugby game the following day, and then New Zealand. And I have a bunch of pictures and video from all of this, so I’m hoping the posts will be epic.
It’s just overwhelming. I kinda pour my heart and soul into these posts, and spend hours on them, so knowing that I have a bunch ahead of me just kinda brings me down. I’m gonna bring my laptop to NZ to try to keep up with it all, but I’m just kinda nervous that I’ll forget stuff. But if I do, then…it weren’t that important anyway.
Now, I thank you all for the comments you’ve given me in the past. I really want this to be an interactive thing, and you’ve helped me make it that way. For those of you who haven’t commented, please view this post as a guestbook. All I want is to know who’s reading…it helps me with my writing. Just leave your name as a comment, it would be huge for me. Thanks!
Oh, and here are a couple of pics below. Proof I’ve been doin’ stuff!
The parents and I 600 meters above the Jamison Valley on a tram in the Blue Mountains.
Tomorrow the parents come. MAN! They’re in the air right now, somewhere over the Pacific. I don’t envy them right now.
It’s hard for me to fathom what it’s gonna be like seeing my parents in Sydney tomorrow. I’m to meet them in front of their hotel tomorrow at noon, then we’ll head down to the Circular Quay area to see the Opera House and all that touristy stuff. I just can’t wrap my head around seeing them. It’d be like randomly seeing Nick and Chad jamming on the wharf for a bunch of tourists or running into BR watching Ed and Taylor surfing at Bondi; my mind can’t comprehend it. For nearly three months this place has been my own. I knew literally nobody when I moved here, and there is nothing here from my life back in Oregon except for the suitcase of my belongings.
Then, seeing my parents, who are somewhat the symbol and icon of my life back home, in MY new town; I just don’t know what to think. It will be a collision of worlds. I’ve been on my own here, obviously, and as parents they of course will come in and want to parent. And I understand this. I’ve just got to remember that and roll with it.
I’m kind of looking at it as a sort of Round 2 of my Eagle Project, in terms of parental interaction. I worked with my father closely throughout the completion of my Eagle Project and we had to keep reminding ourselves that I was in charge, I was the leader, not him. And it was difficult, as it was the first time in our lives that these roles had been reversed. It was also incredibly intriguing and interesting, as I would say, “No, I think we should do it this way,” or “Dad, please let me do this. I need to be planning this,” things like that, and he had to listen. I’m expecting these next two weeks to be similar to that experience.
I am so pumped though. Many people think I’m kind of strange for being as excited as I am for them to come, but I actually think of my parents as cool people. Fun people, nice people, interesting people. People I would like to hang around with if I wasn’t their son. I think it might be due to the fact that I don’t have siblings. I don’t know how to back this up, but it seems as though, from experience, single children have stronger relationships with their parents then children with siblings.
I can’t wait to show them my life here. What I do everyday, where I go, what I eat, where I shop, my campus, the culture. And they will love my flat mates! Vasya is cooking a fish dinner tomorrow which they’ll be here for, so that should be fun. I’m also gonna bring them Tim-Tams, the best cookie in all of Australia, possibly the world. Dad will love ‘em!
Tomorrow is going to be so exciting! I sure hope I can get some sleep tonight…
Below is our tentative itinerary.
MONDAY—Explore Downtown–Walk around the Circular Quay area(Sydney Harbour Bridge/Opera House) , Botanical Gardens—-Possibly dinner at my apartment, meet roommates, etc.
TUESDAY—Blue Mountains—Leave around 830 am . Have an early lunch around 11am at Mountain Ridge Café (Kangaroo Steak anyone?!), then take the bus all around Blue Mountains.
Wednesday—Finish up Blue Mountains, mess around a little bit in the cute town of Leura, head back into Sydney. Hit up a pub with Reese for some good beer and mussels.
Thursday—BEACH!-Bondi Beach or Manly Beach or Palm Beach or another—you research and choose! I’ve only been to Bondi. Or I can ask around and choose.
Friday—The Aussie Experience-See my side of town. Walk around campus a bit, check out the mall, walk through the neighborhoods, maybe check out a rugby club. Opera House show at 8:00pm. If we want to do dinner at the Opera House, get there at 6, maybe even 5:30. If not, 7:20 or so.
Saturday—Another chill day in Sydney—QVB Building/Hyde Park-Waratah rugby game @ 7:30. Would like to get there at 6:30, 6 if we want to get dinner on the premises.
I took this video a day or two after I arrived in AUS, but haven’t been able to upload it available to slow internet. Just discovered this week that the internet at the Uni is a lot faster. Enjoy!
_______________________________ Click HQ button above after you click PLAY…
The major post previous to this, titled “An Unexpected Relationship” has raised an unexpected amount of emotion and comments/feedback from (wow, how pompous is this gonna sound) my readers. It caused pain for a couple of people whom I care deeply about, and that was the absolute last thing I wanted to do. My ignorance in all of this was that by being open the only person that could be hurt would be me; I forgot how all of our lives weave and intersect with each other. I apologize to those people I hurt.
Also, one of the most common questions I’ve received is, “So what did that girl think when she read your blog?” I just kind of chuckle at that and feel a tinge of frustration at people’s assumptions of me. The subject of that blog post proofread that post before it was made public, and I made sure to have her permission about posting it before it went public. It may sound weird to most, but that’s just how our friendship is, incredibly open.
I’m not going to change the way I write because of the fallout I received from that last post. It seems as though that would be…lying to myself, compromising myself. I cannot do that. I will not do that. And I don’t think I need to do that. Just know that from here on out I am going to continue to be open, but I NEVER EVER intend on hurting anyone. This is somewhat of a flaw of mine, if it can even be called such. If I think I have hurt somebody, I feel terrible about it until I feel I have rectified it. Which is why I had a half-hour phone conversation with one of the persons I hurt, as well as an internet conversation with another. Please know my motives are not negative in any way, and if I hurt anyone in the future it is due almost undoubtedly to ignorance.
Alright, now read on to some light-hearted recollections. Below is one of my proudest blog posts to date. Enjoy!
School on Wednesday was a routine day with Bio lab for four hours with my friends Ann, Mina, Derrick and Reese. The only difference was that Mina and I were yelled at by the instructor for talking as we came in late from break. I believe her exact words were “Shut up. Just SHUT UP and SIT DOWN” yelled in the most exasperated, Eastern-European-tinged voice possible. Ugh, slightly embarrassing. But we are known as the “loud” table, so it wasn’t all that surprising. Following that was GEO 262-Australians and their Environment; a class that I attempt to stay awake in, but it seems as though this becomes more difficult as the weeks pass by. On Wednesdays I have a tutorial (recitation) followed by a lecture in that class.
It had rained on and off and was powerfully and ominously overcast. Towards the end of the school day, however, it seemed as though the sun was attempting to poke through. This greatly excited me, and is yet another piece of evidence of God’s existence; it was, of course, the day of the Australia-Uzbekistan World Cup Qualifier game at Stadium Australia, the Olympic Stadium! I didn’t know it at the time, but this was a HUGE game for the Socceroos. If they won and the Bahrain v. Qatar game the following morning resulted in a draw, Australia would be the first team to qualify for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.
After my GEO lecture I raced back to the apartment to get ready. I had bought tickets for two friends, Ryan Priest (from now on referenced as “RP”) from Chicago and Ryan Doucette (referenced as “RD”) from Wisconsin. I took a power nap and waited for a call from RP letting me know that RD had arrived at his apartment. I received the text much later than I had hoped, at around 6:00. The game started at 8:00pm, and I had hoped to leave at around 5:30. It takes about an hour to get to the Olympic Park, so that would have given us some time to chill and casually get some food. Whatever. I met them at the station around 6:20 or so.
I love RP and RD. I’ve talked about RP before, he’s the first guy I met and actually had a legitimate conversation with here in Australia. We became friends from day one. RD is in our group of American friends as well, and he is on the Macquarie soccer team. It was good having him at the game in case I had any questions. (That’s of course in addition to his coolness…haha.) We had gone out the night before to see Watchmen, a ridiculous movie, but still my first movie in Australia. It was a surprise for me to be invited because they had been doing things without me, so that helped my confidence a bit.
Man where we pumped! We took group pictures at every train station.
Train Station 1
Train Station 2
Our excitement level seemed to increase at the same level as the Australia Socceroos fans that we came upon; at each stop the throngs of yellow-wearing ‘roo faithfuls increased exponentially.
We had a lot of fun on the train, let me tell you! We made fun of one another, and I made myself look somewhat like a racist pig, much to the delight of the Ryans. To explain this I first have to give you some back-story. This past week I was hanging out with Mona (like always ), and I met two of her guy friends from her high school. I hadn’t shaved in maybe a week or a week and a half, so I was kinda hairy/dark in the face. (Oh, guys, I’m starting to be able to connect my chin and jaw facial hair with my mustache! THIS IS HUGE!) We were talking about gangs or something in America, and one of the guys jokingly asked me if I was in a Hispanic gang. I’ve gotten this before; apparently I look Hispanic when I don’t shave for a while. Now, this frustrates me, but not because I don’t like Hispanics. It frustrates me because I am proud of my heritage and my ethnicity, and I don’t like being misrepresented. I don’t know…is that racist? I also find it funny.
So I was on the train recounting this story and talking about how people think I’m Hispanic when I don’t shave. I thought they’d find it funny, which RP did. But RD saw who was sitting next to me, and just said, “Peter!” kinda motioning to stop talking. I didn’t care, and kept on with the story, until he kinda made me feel stupid and I stopped. I looked over my shoulder and saw a group of Hispanic young men. Wow. Felt like an idiot. But was I being racist? It was a bit awkward as we disembarked, although they didn’t look at me weird or say anything. We had a bunch of laughs later about it though…
We finally arrived at the Olympic Park Station and followed the sea of yellow, coming upon Stadium Australia.
Olympic Park Station
We snapped a few photos and walked around a bit. At this time it was a 7:20 or so. It was a carnival-like atmosphere, only saturated with alcohol. Mardi Gras is a good way to describe it, sans flashing. Many food stands were set up, the night clubs were blaring music, a live band was playing, and people were EVERYWHERE. I would come to learn later that there were 67,000 of us there…whew!
The throngs of fans with the stadium in the background.
We headed over to get some Makkie’s (McDonald’s) but the line was literally 100 feet or so long. We high-tailed it back to a burger place we had come across earlier, which was much less crowded. It was at that point, running through the park to the burger place, that it began to rain. Well, rain is a bit of an understatement. Thirty seconds in this rain left parts of my jeans wet all the way through. UGH. So much for the rain holding off!
The burger I had was epic, let me tell you. An Australian beef pattie with fried egg, beetroot, pickles, lettuce, tomato, and I think bacon if I’m not mistaken. And hot chips of course. We hurried through our burgers, but at one point we just resigned to being late to the game and decided to enjoy our meals. However, when we neared the end of our massive burger-consumption experience we realized that it was 7:51pm and we might actually be able to make it to the stadium on time. We finished and began to jog towards the stadium.
Cheers began to emanate from the stadium so the jog turned into a sprint through the ever-increasing rain. We made our way through the turnstiles and RD exclaimed, “This is us! 123!” We were on the ground level, which surprised me. I thought we had good seats, but not THIS good! It was comparable to going to a Blazer’s game and sitting three or four rows back; we were about 50 feet from the beginning of the field, in the corner. Best seats in the house. And for $44AUD apiece!
First Views of the Stadium
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This is how close we were. That's my knee on the right...
We arrived just in time for the national anthems. What an atmosphere, people all jacked up and excited to see their teams play. The rain ceased as if on cue, and we took in the scene that was about to consume us.
Australian National Anthem
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The Crew. Ryan Priest, Ryan Doucette and myself
I just kind of sat there in wonderment and amazement throughout the game. The highest level of soccer I’d seen was college women’s, and I’ve been watching the World Cup additively the past two tournaments. To see players of this caliber (even though they weren’t European or South American) was just incredible.
Gameplay
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Also, the crowd fascinated me. I kept on coming back to the metaphor of the crowd as an organism; an amoeba that encircled the playing field. You could hear it collectively get restless, excited, frustrated, and angry. When the excitement rose it literally felt like water gathering to form a tsunami; it kept on getting bigger and bigger, louder and louder, and when the first goal was scored it was as if the tsunami had made landfall. You could almost feel it breathe…it was amazing.
‘Ole’
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This video is from the second half, but illustrates pretty well what I’m trying to describe…
The first half ended scoreless. We were pretty jacked up, and there were some close calls, but the Socceroos were attacking the goal opposite to us so we knew the best was yet to come. I ran outside into the concession area trying to beat the crowd, and came upon the memorabilia store. Those who know me know that I love to buy memorabilia at special events such as these; for some reason I feel like it will legitimize the experience and memory even more if I have something that I can look at that reminds me of the event. I know this is flawed thinking, but it’s how I am.
Half-time Crowd in the Bowels of the Stadium
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I bought a cool Socceroos flag attached to a pole to wave around (for only $15!!!), as well as a special gift for someone who doesn’t yet exist. (So, if you exist, I’m sorry…) I really was looking for a scarf but they were sold out at the two locations I checked. Oh well, if I see them play Bahrain June 10th I’ll have one before then.
I made my way back to my seat a tad late, again missing the Socceroos come out of the tunnel. Whatever. Turns out that both Ryans had decided to get the large Soccerroo flags. Pretty funny! The rain started to pick up again, so RD broke his out and we used it as a shield. Not that it helped, being made out of cheep nylon. But it was fun anyway, draping ourselves in the Socceroos’ flag.
The ‘roos kept on getting closer to scoring with each passing minute. It seemed as though they kept sophomoric-ally screwing up on their attacks, frustrating the crowd to no end. They got a few corners, which was incredibly exciting. It was on our side, and as we were next to the crazy cheering section the place just went wild. Everyone stood up and got loud and cheered, then held their collective breaths. When the attack went awry the previously-described amoeba let out a short scream/whimper of pain and took its seat at once.
Ahhhhhh…
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The first goal came off a cross, a header by a streaking forward who entered the game a mere few minutes previous to his heroics. (I’m such a newbie with soccer that I actually had to google “soccer positions” to come up with ‘forward’…) Man was it tight! I think I might have been caught behind the camera for that one, maybe not. It was just kind of a blur. The place erupted with cheers, and the forward ran to our corner, in front of us, and wiped off the rain/sweat from his brow with the corner flag.
Thanks to Ryan Doucette for the photo.
Thanks to Ryan Doucette for the photo.
We all yelled in ecstasy, maniacally waving our flags. It was my first legit, high-level goal, and man was it memorable. So much fun. To be a part of a crowd erupting with such glee and euphoria was intoxicating. What a moment!
I know, ridiculous. It was such an incredible moment!
GOOOOAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!
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Seven minutes later Uzbekistan committed a foul in the box, yielding a penalty kick for Australia. And, in turn, another goal. Do you guys think it was a foul? RD, whose playing soccer for Macquarie, said it was a bogus call…check it out below.
Setting up for the penalty. Thanks to Ryan Doucette for the photo.
After this it was pretty much game over. There were a few scares from Uzbekistan, but as the game entered its 90th minute all was joyous. We left about two minutes early, something that I regret. I really wanted to see the Aussies celebrate their victory and erupt into chaos, but we had to get to the train station before the other 66,999.
As we exited the stadium the downpour began. The weather was quite amazing during the game itself. We were so close to the field that we weren’t under the cover, so it could have been miserable. The soccer gods kept us dry, though, and there were only a few instances of rain, which we somewhat joyously endured; it added to the atmosphere! (And gave us a reason to cover ourselves with the Socceroo flag!) It was as though water was sloshing out of a cistern, and at the end of the game it was overturned. (Too much of a metaphor? haha.) It was somewhat comical to see thousands of people reach for their hoods/parkas at exactly the same time. How lucky we were to have the weather behave! It was probably 68º throughout the match. Perfect.
The Wave
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I sound EXACTLY like my dad on this. EXACTLY! It’s kinda eerie…
We began to sprint through the rain, only stopping to take a few pictures of ourselves with our flags. As I ran I held the flag up, as if I was running to claim land for the motherland. I felt like such an Aussie!
After a little while we figured out we were running the wrong way. What a bummer that was! We left early for no reason!!!
Anyway, after about half an hour we finally pushed our way onto a train, made it back to Strathfield, then took the train to our pseudo-home base of Epping Station. We waited for a bus there, all the while joking about a certain person’s flatulence on the train, my ridiculous Hispanic story, RP looking like a gangster in one of our group pictures, and RP mistakenly refusing a guy a dollar that he actually had, even though our ticket got us free transportation. (Had to have been there. We were giddy and all that was absolutely hilarious.) The night turned out to really be a good bonding time for all of us, it was wonderful. I’m looking forward to doing more stuff with them in the future. I departed the train at my stop, entered the apartment, conversed with Vasya about the game, and proceeded to end my magnificent night.
This has nothing to do with the night, but it’s interesting. For the Easter Break RD and RP have rented an RV and are driving through New Zealand by themselves with three other guys. They are going to a place they’ve never been, driving on the other side of the road, and have no plans for food. And man, I wish I was doing it with them! It was disappointing to not be invited, but I think it was a spur-of-the-moment thing with other friends. And it wouldn’t have worked out anyway because my parents are coming and I want to show them around SYD. Anyway, thought that was quite intriguing. What memories they’ll make!
Just a quick note…Bahrain did defeat Qatar 1-0, so the Socceroos have not officially qualified for the World Cup. They need one more point. The day after this game I got tickets, along with Vasya and Heat, to the game versus Bahrain on June 10th. I am so pumped for it! Now I HAVE to get a scarf!
Hey parents,
this is what I got out of dozing through that woman’s photography presentation at that plant meeting. i hope it would make her proud.
the b&w version is cooler, but I’m too tired at the moment. headed to the blue mountains early in the morning for more shooting, so keep on the lookout for more pix soon…
So, it’s the night of/after the game, and it was incredible! I’m working on a blog post now, but I’m too tired to finish it…it should be up this weekend.
I’ve uploaded pics from the night tho…check them out here.
Also, I’ve posted a short and interesting article on the game below…its from The Brisbane Times…check it out.
Socceroos head for Cup finals
Michael Cockerill
April 1, 2009 – 11:33PM
FOR 32 years, the heartbreak, despair, and torment of the Socceroos ritual failure to qualify for the World Cup caught the imagination of the nation.
Last night at Homebush Bay, emotions were tempered as Australia all but qualified for their second successive World Cup, beating Uzbekistan 2-0. It’s a revival which mirrors that of the sport, and that of the team. Same players, same stadium, same outcome.
But unlike November 16, 2005, there was no need for a nerve-wracking penalty from John Aloisi. In those days, as member of the Oceania confederation, Australia were always taken to the edge. These days Australia belongs to Asia, and things are a lot more simple.
Thus the Socceroos, needing a win against Uzbekistan, duly obliged before 57,000 fans who braved the rain.
Second half goals from Josh Kennedy and Harry Kewell against a rapidly tiring Uzbek side – which had only arrived in Sydney on Sunday – did the job.
The journey, which has taken the team to Kunming, Doha, Dubai, Tashkent and Yokohama isn’t over, but the remaining three matches in June are likely to be of academic interest only. By the time you read this the Socceroos, one of the last teams to qualify for the last World Cup, could be the first to qualify for next year’s event in South Africa.
For the players, most of whom were part of the squad which performed with distinction in Germany in 2006, this was an even greater achievement. For coach Pim Verbeek it was an answer to critics of his style, but also an answer to his prayers. The Dutchman has twice gone to the World Cup as an assistant coach (with South Korea) but never as head coach. Normally unemotional, Verbeek’s victory jig at the end told its own story.
Officially, the players and the staff were waiting until the result of Bahrain’s match against Qatar in Manama early this morning before opening the champagne. In truth, as soon as they were back in the dressing room, the celebrations had begun.
“I was alone, I took a ride,
I didn’t know what I would find there.
Another road where maybe I could see another kind of mind there.”
~The Beatles, “Got To Get You Into My Life”
In Fall of 2006 I was a Junior at Churchill High School in Eugene, Oregon, where I played Ultimate Frisbee for the school team. This was my second year on the team and as an upper-classman I was expected to be a leader. (One year doesn’t seem like much, but in high school with a sport as new Ultimate, after 6 months are so you are one of the veterans.)
Practice had just started for the season and we had a boatload of new recruits due to the success of the previous year. One of my roles was teaching new players how to throw, when to cut (running in a sharp angle in order to get free of the defender) and various defensive techniques.
Most people have the general throw down, which us Ultimate players call a ‘backhand’. What is more difficult, however, is the forehand, thrown on the opposite side of the body. Because of the similarities of the forehand to throwing a baseball in regards to the openness of the body, many new Ultimate players attempt to throw the frisbee like a baseball. This, of course, is their demise. It’s all in the flick of the wrist, and this is the most difficult part of Ultimate to learn.
A few practices in I noticed a very attractive girl having difficulties throwing a forehand while tossing with a friend. She was a brunette girl, about 5″4′ with an athletic build. For some reason this memory had been branded in my brain: She wore a white, form-fitting tank top, black Nike shorts with teal trim and brand new, stunning silver and blue Puma cleats. I approached her and asked her if she needed some help. As not being able to perform one of the fundamentals of a sport is embarrassing, she was eager for my assistance. I reiterated the method of throwing the forehand for her, explaining the need for the disc to be released flat, with much wrist and ‘no arm’…as well as sliding in a few flirtatious quips and (stupid) self-deprecating jokes. I stood back and watched proudly as her technique improved, and I could sense her happiness in her progression.
Over the next few weeks I continued to see her at practice and my subliminal flirting continued. I quickly learned that she was a freshman, so she immediately became off-limits. But, as I am a flirtatious and out-going person, the interest never died.
She suddenly stopped coming to practice. When I questioned her friend, she replied that she had found it too conflicting with her ballroom dancing. (Her friend, who she actually had dragged to Ultimate, turned out to be an incredible player who recently represented the United States in the 2008 World Junior Ultimate Championships, which America won.) That was the end of her Ultimate career.
At school shortly after her departure from Ultimate I ragged her a bit about quitting, throwing in a few flirtatious barbs here and there. I continued to see her, albeit rarely, throughout the rest of my time at Churchill, mostly in passing in the halls and chatting sparingly on Facebook. I continued to have a forbidden crush on her but decided that a romantic relationship was impermissible, only allowing myself to gaze at her beauty from afar.
Roughly four years later I found myself sitting in the Eugene airport, my flight having been delayed for a couple of hours. I had previously tagged her in a note where I spoke of my plans for my Australia blog. The following is her reply and the consequent discussion it spawned…
Chloë Potter wrote
at 8:29am on February 4th, 2009
wwwhhattt?? why you always doing stuff I want to do???? First alaska to take care of dogs, now australia? The place i’ve been trying to get to for the past couple years?? you bum! hah how are things?
haha, I pretty much try to figure out what I think you would like to do, then do it myself. its how i roll I’ve been pretty good, been volunteering at Bush Animal Hospital, gettin some dough for the trip and doin photog. How have you been? I don’t think I’ve talked to you in person for years! How’re things with the boy?
Chloë Potter wrote
at 10:13am on February 6th, 2009
Wow, that’s awesome! Seriously, I think that’s what you do! You probably talk to my friends or something of that sort haha. You’re a lucky guy, I’m excited for you! I’ve been alright…haven one of those months with the bad luck and all, but hey, what can you do? Someone broke my windshield and then today i found my convertable top ripped open and my ipod gone. I’m damn lucky they didn’t do any other damage though, like really. On a positive note, things with the boy are good haha. How have you been? It has seriously been years!
As I was biding my time in the thrilling local airport I decided to break out my laptop. Of course the first website I visited was Facebook, and to my pleasure and surprise Chloë was on! I initiated the conversation, and we talked for about 45 minutes, by the end of which we had come to the conclusion that we were getting coffee when I returned to the States. (We later came to the realization that neither of us particularly enjoyed coffee.) I was excited to have reunited with a friend!
I arrived in Australia and a few days passed before I made contact with her again. And yes, it occurred on Facebook. I was checking in on my friends and found out through the Facebook feed that she had broken up with her boyfriend. While we were chatting in the airport (via Facebook) we touched on the topic of significant others. She voiced a few frustrations and indicated that she felt her relationship with her current boyfriend seemed to be nearing its cessation. Therefore it wasn’t all that shocking when I heard about her relationship ending. I felt that I should reach out to her nevertheless, to make sure everything was ok.
Truthfully, this was not my complete motive. I have a cousin who is 22 who has the absolute best boyfriend. If he lived in Eugene we would be best friends, the guy is just wonderful. And, by the way, he is the only wonderful boyfriend that she has had, so we are all very excited for her! Anyways, I remember talking to her about how she scored her amazing catch, and she gave me some advice. She told me that when you find somebody, it doesn’t matter whether they are single or not; the person having the status of ’taken’ just complicates things a bit. At the time my cousin met her current boyfriend he was unavailable, occupied in his own relationship. My cousin maintained a friendship with her future boyfriend anyways, and when he broke up with his girlfriend my cousin was the first one there for him, comforting him. This showed him that she truly cared for him.
Now, don’t get me wrong, this wasn’t some devious plan of mine to finally win the girl that I had subconsciously had a surreptitious crush on for four years. It was a way for me to talk to a friend and make sure she was okay, while keeping all my options open with her.
This initial reaching-out set off a maelstrom of correspondences. We began by discussing her breakup and her reactions and feelings about it. I feel as though one of my strengths is talking to people about their interactions with others, analyzing their relationships and giving useful insight. I consider it fun to help others through these difficult times. It does seem a bit dark, for me to have fun at the expense of another, but it’s more about me helping that person than anything.
We Facebook-messaged each other 15 times before deciding to take our virtual pen pal-ing to Gmail. From there, and I kid you not, we have compiled 60 e-mails between the two of us (this is my 47th day here in Oz…) Our average length of correspondence is around 600 words or so. We have discussed relationships, occupations, school, travelling, hobbies, sex and sexuality, openness, bodily functions (thought you’d like that in there, Chloë!), my blog, parents, religion, abortion, interesting books, what we’re going to do together when I return, exercising, meditation, music, Australia, bikes, photography, our daily activities, cancer and our ridiculously numerous similarities. Plus more, it’s just too much to go over. We regularly pose questions to each other ranging from philosophy-based queries to questions such as “How many kids do you want in the future and why? and where would you raise them?”
It really is extraordinary what we have covered in our e-mails, and if my dream of having this blog published seems to be realistic I may lift passages from them. It is almost like a blog, as we are being incredibly open and blunt with each other. And that is the key to our relationship: the openness. We both are incredibly open people (I am to a fault) and are relatively non-judgmental of each other. As the relationship has progressed we have found and propagated trust in one another, and it is reflected in the deepness and frankly emotionally-vulnerable subject matter we discuss. It is a one-of-a-kind relationship.
The e-mails have also added a very significant component to my experiences here in Australia. It is somewhat of a therapy for me; I spill out my thoughts and ideas nightly, flirt with a girl whom I am interested in, and basically debrief the day. Then, every morning I wake up excitedly to see how her day was, her reactions to my inquiries and adventures, and whatever else she decides to delight me with. It really has added a new layer of excitement and intrigue to this experience!
Just last week we exchanged phone numbers, and we have begun to text each other. She told me she literally jumped and squealed when she received her first text message from me; it’s quite cool to get casually texted from another continent/hemisphere.
Things have really progressed this past month, especially recently. Tonight we talked on Skype, the first time we had verbally communicated in nearly three years. It was absolutely wild. Most of you seasoned Skypers will know this, but for the first five or ten seconds or so there is only audio, no video. Chloë was at her friends, as she doesn’t have a web cam. As the connection went through they both began to talk, and I didn’t know which of the voice’s was Chloë’s! At that point it really struck me how unique this was. I hadn’t heard her voice in ages, yet we had bared our souls to one another.
The conversation was a bit awkward, as Skype usually is, but it was a tad magnified by the presence of her friend. She is a wonderful girl and it was great to meet her. It was just a little bit weird and frustrating because after all this time I wanted to talk to Chloë and only Chloë.
She looked different to me, which was a major plus. It was a ‘major plus’ in the sense that she looked more mature, more womanly and less girly than I remembered her. Her face was somewhat harder and sharper, a transformation from the somewhat roundish faces of a child or young teenager. (I do understand that describing someone as ‘hard’ or ‘sharp’ usually doesn’t invoke flattering imagery, however these are the only words that fit my feelings.) In short, her features were more distinct. And her beauty just dropped me. I had seen recent pictures of her on Facebook, but it was surprising how much more beautiful she looked on Skype…as a living, breathing person.
Even though we had shared over 75 e-mails we spoke for an hour and a half, which went by as if it was twenty minutes. It was absolutely magical to see her and hear her voice, but it was also painful. I was so close to her, yet (as the cliché goes) so far away. I felt like I could reach out and touch her, but as I tried all I got was a stupid LCD screen.
As we pay for Internet on a gigabyte plan, similar to that of a cell phone and minutes, I couldn’t talk to her forever. I finally broke the news to her that I should be going, and we attempted to close the connection. What a hard goodbye, let me tell you! She had been telling me that she was going to be getting a web cam for weeks, so I wasn’t all that confident that she was going to get one soon. When would I see her next? I finally hit ‘End’ and that was that. I was high for the rest of the day!
The e-mails continued and the relationship has continued to evolve. It is true that I have developed (or retained) romantic feelings for her, but I am determined to not let it dictate my actions here in Australia (and I intend to alert her to this in the next e-mail, which, incidentally, I am going to write in about twenty minutes). In the month leading up to my departure from the Northern Hemisphere I had the beginnings of a romantic relationship but had to tell the girl that I was absolutely, 100% going to be single when I left for Australia. I am holding true to myself and my word.
This is truly one of the most unique things, relationship-wise, that I have ever experienced or heard. It has added a new component to my Australia trip, a new and exciting layer that keeps this life of mine intriguing. No matter how things end up when I return, and even if the e-mails stopped tomorrow, we will have created a memory that I will never forget. That is the only sure thing in all of this.
Please give me some feedback on this post…it’s a new way of writing these blog posts, much more intensive, but I hope easier and more enjoyable to read, even though this one was long. More of these, or less? Do you enjoy the vomiting of feelings and experiences, or the thought out, story-like posts? And don’t worry, the pictures won’t go away. I’m just trying to write the way I am thinking of editing the previous posts in order to compile them into a book.
This past Friday was a wonderful day, which was somewhat of a surprise to me; I wasn’t expecting it to be much. I had been planning on visiting the Blue Mountains, but those plans were dashed due to the fact that I had to submit a paper that morning at 9am. I woke up at 8 to get the paper turned in on time, then returned to my room and fell asleep until about 11:30.
As I was walking to class to turn in the paper I was so comforted… it was finally raining! My Aussie friends think that I’m a bit crazy because I’ve been hoping for rain. In Eugene this time of year it rains about three times a week, so to be in a place where it doesn’t rain for weeks, with incredible, sunny weather just puts me on edge. I’m not kidding! I feel a little stressed and annoyed, and when it rains and the air gets all thick and cool, ahh…I am at home.
I met Mona on campus at around 12:30 and had a burger and hot chips. Normally these would be mundane details, but I’ve got to explain the hot chips! Yes, it is true that they are just french fries, but man are they good! They put some kind of garlic salt on them, along with a bit of sugar, and the tomato sauce (ketchup) is sweetened with sugar as well. Those are some of the best fries I’ve had!
After eating we tossed the disc a bit. I attempted to teach her forehand and she surprisingly got it down quickly! She was having such a great time with it, saying “Oh, this is so much fun!” and being shocked when I threw an inside-out or any throw other than a straight-forward backhand or forehand. It was great!
She had to leave after a little bit, but my friend Reese texted me and invited me to the UBar (University Bar) at three to have a beer with a coworker of his. I had one beer while they downed 4 or 5, and talked about everything with them. It was cool meeting Ashley. She’s a kindred spirit. She’s incredibly open about everything, almost as if she’s one of the boys, but hot, and able to speak about anything with ease. Oh, and she has a bf, so yeah. (Thanks Reese! You introduce me to all these babes, who just happen to be taken. UGH.)
As they kept drinking the conversation naturally turned to one of sex and sexuality. As they were talking they would look at me, in a sort of “You know what I mean?” way. After a few of these looks I said, “You know, this will probably blow you away, but I’m actually a virgin. So…”
“I can see that”, Reese quipped. He has been somewhat surprised of my lack of experience with drinking, therefore the lack of sex made sense. I wasn’t made fun of or bagged on. They just said things like, “Sometimes I wish I’d have waited,” and kept on repeating, “That’s hard. That’s hard.”
At one point I was advised to continue to wait, as I had made it this far. I thought that was quite profound. How rare is it for people to say something of that nature, instead of trying to tear you down by talking about how amazing sex is and how weird you are for being a virgin. These people are true friends. (They did end up saying, though, “You should lose your virginity to someone in Australia!!! That would be so awesome!” Yeah, to somebody I would probably never see again. Awesome.)
At around 6 or 6:30 Reese and Ashley decided that they had had enough. Reese wanted to drunkenly throw the disc around so we walked out to the lawn area. Boy did it pain me to play catch with them, let me tell you! I attempted to teach Reese how to throw a forehand, but his throws just kept on blading into the grass. It was a new disc before last night, but alas, not anymore. After a while it started to get dark and a little chilly so we headed inside.
At this point it was about 8:00 pm and the stomachs started to growl. We headed to The Ranch, a hotel/club/grill for a bite, and Reese proceeded to spill a full beer on himself. His American cousin Sean met us there. He’s a pretty cool dude, and it was good to have a fellow American there to join me in saying, “You say it like THAT? That’s now how you’re supposed to say that!” The plan was to go to a birthday/house party, but as the pasta wasn’t sitting too well with me I felt as though I should head back. I thought about it a bit more and decided that I should go to the party even if I felt like crap. I hadn’t been to an Australian house party yet and felt that I needed to go. (Once again, another example of my personal transformation. In the past I would have played it safe and went home, but I thought, “If I don’t go to this I will regret it. And what’s the worse that can happen?” I’m proud of myself!)
Ashley and I at The Ranch.
The party was pretty lame (as Reese had warned) but it nevertheless was an awesome experience. Sean is from the East Coast so it was cool going to a party completely representing America…West Side and East Side! They were pumpin’ Kanye’s Late Registration, so there was a comfort factor in that, and I met a few people that I will be seeing again next week at Reese’s 19th-birthday blowout. There were a few people dancing, but it was mostly a party of talking and drinking. I had some wonderful homemade Sushi as well, and even though I felt physically terrible from the pasta it was still a good time.
Reese, Ashley and I at the party.
The dynamics of an Australian house party (at least this house party) are much different than what we have on campus in America. Here virtually no uni students live on campus, therefore most “house parties” are at a parent-owned residence. This was the case last night. The girl’s mom and dad were there, as well as her grandmother!
Another difference is the drinking age. It was very weird for me to see people younger than myself walking around with beers in front of parents and grandparents, but, as it is legal, apparently it is also chill. I don’t know if it is the people or the culture, but it also seemed as though getting drunk wasn’t the point of the party, which many times is the case in America. Though I have heard my Aussie friends say, “Let’s get f***ed up tonight!” It must just have been the people…I’ll report back as I go to more Aussie parties!
Looking back on that night, that experience really made me feel as though I’m assimilating with the Australian people instead of just being on campus and playing the role of a tourist. This is why I am here. It is fun to go to the zoo, take a million pictures of the Opera House and go to the Rocks, but you learn so much more and it is so much more fulfilling when you immerse yourself in legitimate Australian culture. These experiences are what make truly lasting memories.
Oh, and I also rode shotgun for the first time in Oz. It was very weird as I felt I should have been driving, sitting on the left side of the car. Trippy!
I don’t know if I could be more proud of Antony. Him and I were best friends in middle school, but grew apart in high school. I love that kid, he’s a great guy.
Posted to Web: Wednesday, Mar 25, 2009 11:23PM
Appeared in print: Thursday, Mar 26, 2009, page C4
News Updates: Story
With Oregon coach George Horton still absent as he serves a three-game suspension, two Churchill High School graduates stepped to the forefront Wednesday as the Ducks snapped a three-game losing streak with a 6-4 win over Sacramento State and PK Park.
The former Lancers who made major contributions to the victory were designated hitter Antony Kreitz, with a three-run homer in the fifth inning, and second baseman Josh Hogan, who seemed to fit right in as Oregon’s leadoff hitter for the first time and continued to field flawlessly.
“He made three big-time defensive plays that changed the momentum around, or kept the momentum going our way,” said Oregon assistant coach Mike Kirby, in charge with Horton missing his second game for bumping an umpire last weekend.
Hogan also contributed offensively by scoring Oregon’s final two runs, working his way on base with a walk and being hit by a pitch, then using his speed to get into scoring position.
“He’s just a really hard-nosed player,” Kirby said.
That description was later used for Kreitz, and there are some other definite links. According to Kirby, both “begged” their way into being given the opportunity to try out for the Ducks. Each also spent some time in Corvallis with Beavers as teammates, which will make this weekend’s Civil War series with Oregon State a little more meaningful for the former Lancers.
“It’s going to be fun,” Hogan said.
Kreitz spent a season on the OSU roster, but acknowledged that might not have happened if Oregon had reinstated baseball prior to his 2007 graduation from Churchill.
“I grew up loving the Ducks,” Kreitz said. “There’s no other place I’d want to play, especially playing with (Hogan). We’ve been playing together since sixth grade … we’ve been good friends that whole time and then we finally get to play on the same (college) team. It’s awesome.”
Hogan was a 2006 Churchill graduate who attended Mount Hood Community College for two years and then was a teammate of several current Beavers on the Corvallis Knights team last summer. Though he also “grew up a Duck fan,” he’s still coming to grips with the idea of playing for Oregon.
“I can’t explain it (but) it’s weird to see Duck fans at a baseball game … it’s just awesome,” Hogan said.
Oregon fans seemed to appreciate his efforts as well. Though going hitless Wednesday dropped his average to .282, Hogan offered offense anyway with a stolen base and the two runs scored. And then there’s his defense.
The game began with the second baseman diving to field a grounder in short right field that turned a potential single into an out. Later, he barehanded a one-hopper that took a tricky hop away from his glove side. Another one of his assists came when he fielded a ball hit to his right, went into a slide on his knees to stop his momentum from carrying him beyond second base, and threw out the runner.
With five assists and a putout Wednesday, Hogan has had 31 fielding chances this season without an error. All that has made Hogan a starter in the past six games after he started in four of Oregon’s first 16 games.
“In our program, one thing is for sure: everything is earned so whether you’re a scholarship player or a walk-on, you come and earn a spot and he’s earned one,” Kirby said.
“I was just waiting for my chance to come,” Hogan said. “Everybody on this team is just doing everything they can to get the win, do everything they can for the team.
“I started out as the dugout captain. Most people might not be happy about that, but I take that and I think everybody else takes their role very seriously, to do what they can to get the team a W.”
Kreitz is definitely serious, and he did what he could with that three-run homer that put the Ducks ahead 4-1. Though his average is still only .211, two of his four hits have been home runs at PK Park.
“Whenever I get the chance, I’ve got to use it,” Kreitz said.
Guessing from his previous at-bat how he would be pitched, and with an Oregon pitcher on the bench advising him similarly, Kreitz watched a curve go by and then “knew a fastball was coming. … He put it right there. I hit it square, (and) I knew I hit it hard, but I didn’t think I had enough loft on it. I thought it would at least hit the fence.”
Three runs on one swing led to a five-run fifth inning for Oregon, quite an outburst for a team that had scored one run or been shut out in four of its previous six games. Can there be any doubt that with the game tied, one out and two runners on, Kreitz’s at-bat was the key point in the victory that snapped a three-game losing streak?
“It’s not so much I felt I needed to deliver, it’s just ‘I’m going to hit this ball hard,’” Kreitz said of his thought process. “That’s the only thing I could do and see where it goes. It ended up going over the fence.”
Five Oregon pitchers combined to strike out nine Sacramento State batters, and would have thrown a shutout except for the efforts of Tim Wheeler, who drove in all four runs for the Hornets (12-9). The Sacramento State center fielder, considered one of the top college outfield prospects by professional scouts, raised his average to .416 with three hits, including a sixth-inning home run.
UO REPORT
Oregon 6 Sacramento State 4
Turning point: With the score tied 1-1 in the fifth inning, Oregon designated hitter Antony Kreitz hit a three-run homer.
Noteworthy: After hitting leadoff for the first 21 games, left fielder Caleb Tommasini was moved to third in the order and had one hit in three at-bats with an RBI. He has Oregon’s top batting average at .329. … Second in the Pac-10 in stolen bases entering the week, the Ducks added three and have 40 in 48 attempts. … Blake Williams, a sophomore transfer from Texas, picked up his first collegiate victory by working 22/3 innings of relief. … Drew Gagnier struck out the side in the ninth for his fourth save. … Seats normally reserved for students are available for Friday’s game against Oregon State, priced at $12. Tickets go on sale today at 9 a.m. at the Casanova Center ticket office or by calling 1-800-WEBFOOT.
Next: Ducks play Oregon State in the Pac-10 opener for the Civil War rivals on Friday at 3 p.m. at PK Park.
Radio/TV: KUGN-AM (590) and Comcast Sports Network (Channel 37)
Today there was a pleasant surprise and an unpleasant surprise, and sadly the unpleasant surprise ended up taking the cake. My Australians and their Environment class was canceled, but I was notified by my British friend Will that we had an 850-word paper due on Friday. Now, this wouldn’t have been too bad, but we were supposed to read about twenty pages worth of two opposing arguments and write about their differences, contrasting them. Ugh.
When I arrived home I decided to get immediately to work. After talking with friends on Facebook. And Skyping a fantastic friend for an hour and a half. Oh, and of course after dinner.
I sat down to read the article after having my two future breaks of fun-ness laid out and planned, bracing for monotonous textbook prose. I was happily wrong with my prediction. Turns out the first essay is a fantastically interesting re-examination of the history of Australia, with an emphasis on the idea that nations and individuals choose what kind of history they have without realizing what history actually took place. I came to a passage on guns, and it absolutely threw me for a loop. It’s not all that incredible or anything, but it seemed pretty profound and interesting to me. So here it is…
Taken from Rodney Hall’s essay in “The Alfred Deakin Lectures.”
“I’d now want to add the the ingredient of magic. The usual story then goes on to say that the invasion succeeded because the invaders had superior weapons. Anyone who has fired a flintlock musket will acknowledge that the spear has hugely superior accuracy and about the same range. What made the musket succeed was the factor of fear. It was magic: a bang went off over there and somebody beside you dropped dead. Tribal people had only magic by which to understand this phenomenon. Their fears defeated them, during the half century when vastly superior numbers were on their side.”
Mills, J., 2001 The Alfred Deakin Lectures, ABC Books, Sydney.
Well, I’ve had a sort of epiphany, or idea, or whatever. I’ve gotten good feedback on this blog, and at this point I’m up to about 3100 hits in about three months, which I’m pretty happy about. I’ve thought for a while that it would be cool to have this all printed out when I get back, and in an email to me my dad said the same thing, and offered to pay for it. What I’d like to do, and is kind of a dream, is that when I get back to the states in the summer, do a thorough edit, reformatting with pictures and such, and see if maybe some indie publisher would be interested in carrying it.
What do you think? Please be honest and harsh. Do you think I have a chance? Gina mentioned the idea of a sort of travel memoire, and I think that could work, pages of text with maybe every third having a glossy picture or the pictures corresponding to the text. Is the stuff I write about interesting enough, and the pictures beautiful or intriguing enough, to plunk down $15?
I’ve been reading Russell Brand’s book “My Booky Wook” and have gotten a lot of inspiration from it. He is a world-wide sensation, one of the greatest comics of his time, and it is all due to him being incredibly open about his childhoold, which was very twisted and weird, and open about his current life. Every aspect of it. I have been open up to now on the blog about my feelings and thoughts and what I’m doing, but I think I can, and will, push it further. This is what spawned that last post, a pretty gutsy (If I can say so myself) entry about my interactions with girls.
Now, I don’t have messed up stuff to talk about, but I AM living an interesting life right now, and I think that one of my gifts is writing and the ability to relay experiences through prose. Editing will pick up and openness will intensify. What should I do or write about on this blog that will make it more interesting or intriguing? Anyone? I would love your feedback. And please tell me what you think about my idea. Be harsh, don’t just be nice and be a cheerleader. I want to know actual opinions.
I’ve found myself becoming increasingly passionate about this blog, almost obsessive, where I caught myself writing notes in my Drugs Across Cultures notebook in class today about what I wanted to blog tonight. I check it many times during the day to see the hits, and would just love to get a pingback on some sight with big traffic…thats a minor dream. Ok, I’m so blogged out, I’m about to die. That’s all for now folks.
“Girls, girls, girls, girls
Girls, I do adore
Put your number on this paper cause I would love to date ya
Holla at ya when I come off tour
I love girls, girls, girls, girls
Girls all over the globe
I come scoop you in that Coupe, sittin on deuce-zeroes
Fix your hair in the mirror, let’s roll”
~Jay-Z, “Girls, Girls, Girls”
In the last few months before I left, I remember being so pumped for Australia. It felt like a dream, something that wasn’t actually gonna happen. I couldn’t believe I was actually gonna be living in one of the world’s greatest cities, Sydney, for 5 months. So much to do, such great weather, and a complete sea change!
These were all things to be pumped for, but in all honesty I was especially excited for the girls. The common refrain in the dingy, dark, cave-like Corvallis apartment was, “Duuude, you’re gonna get so many girls! ” (but with much more crude and demeaning language). Apparently all that mattered to the girls, we thought, was that I was American, and they would just LOVE my accent! I forgot who said it, but somebody mentioned that this is one of the only instances where I will have a leg-up on Aussie guys, so I better use it. I remember saying and thinking, “Man, if I don’t get girls in Australia, I should just hang it up.”
Well, maybe I should start hanging it up. Haha. I got here all hopped up on confidence, and I think it kinda made me look stupid in a few instances. The first week or so I was VERY jovial and outgoing with girls. Probably too much so, if that’s a possibility. I’m already pretty outgoing, but it was like hunting season! I was in the land of the rabbit-proof fence and these bunnies were cornered!
One of my first instances of this almost blind outgoing-ness was in a T2, a tea shop. I had headed in there to buy my Russian room mates some tea and a tea pot, and a nice and talkative female Sydneysider attended to me. We talked a bit about America, Sydney, and school, and I was getting along very well with her. I remember asking, “Do you have a Facebook? Of course she did! I said, “Well, I’m Peter, and my last name is that” pointing to her credit card-swiping machine. St. George is the name of a bank here, and it really has helped in telling people my last name in order for them to find me on Facebook. I was lucky T2 banked with St. George! We talked a bit more, and I ended up giving her my phone number. We said goodbye with all smiles, and I walked away giddily. Over a month later and no Facebook friend or call.
On the first day I arrived here we stopped off at the International Housing office and I met the absolute cutest girl I’ve ever seen. (I’ve said that many a time, its an expression at this point.) I really felt the urge to go and talk to her and see if there was some way that I could get us into a situation where we could chill and talk. (I’m very confident, even cocky with my one-on-one communication skills. I feel as though if I get most any girl in a situation where we can just talk, that I have a good chance at establishing some kind of positive relationship with her. Although I don’t really have all that much success to base that cockiness off of…) I talked to an Aussie female friend about how I should go about it, and she said to play up the angle of “American foreigner who doesn’t know any Aussies.” So I worked up the courage, and when I had an excuse to go down there, I went with a plan.
I saw her behind the desk and waited until she was free. I approached her and turned in the apartment checklist, then asked a question. Before I left, I said I had one more question. “I haven’t really met any Australians yet, and-”
“When classes start there will be many more on campus, ” she replied, totally not understanding what I was getting at.
“Oh, nice!” I said, trying to recover. “Well, I was kinda wondering if maybe you would be interested in getting coffee and talking or something…” My heart was pounding and I was flushed, just trying to not look stupid, but casual…chill, like a Don. She just kind of blankly stared back, then looked surprised, and said, “Me?!”
“Yeah”!
She kind of looked around, lowered her voice and said, “I really don’t think we’re supposed to do that while we’re at work.”
”Oh”, I replied, trying to brush it off as nothing, and asked her if I could give her my number. She said that probably wouldn’t be ok either.
“I’m a student here, tho, so I’ll probably see you on campus,” she explained, as if trying to give me a hint.
I saw her a few times after that, and it wasn’t weird at all, which was a good thing. Also saw her in the Macquarie Shopping Center…I wanted to ask her if what she told me was an excuse or the truth, but it didn’t really work out. If I see her again I think I will. (Watch her not remember me and then it be totally awkward.) Whatever, I’m over it/her now. It was just kinda funny. (Not towel-caliber tho…)
I have met many girls, beautiful girls, as school has started. Mona and I met on the first day of Bio, and that friendship has become really cool. She has that M.I.A.-like beauty about her. It was a real disappointment when I found out that she had a boyfriend, but I think that fact has made our friendship stronger; there is no real thought or opportunity of anything going there, no alterior motives, so all of our interactions are just carefree, chill and fun.
It’s kind of funny how most of my Aussie friends here are 18 and 19. I’m in mostly first-year classes, so many of my interactions are with 1st years (they don’t know what freshman are here). That has made things a little weird in the beyond-friend relationship area, but its all good. Met some cool girls at Ultimate as well, but the one that I was interested in has a boyfriend, as do most of the girls my age here.
I have a cool friendship with Dulce, though. I have talked about her a bit before. She’s a 21-year old from Mexico City studying to become a type of engineer (Big Red, I need your help. She’s interested in working with assembly-line stuff, making them more efficient. What is that?), and loves math. It was her dream to come here, and I can tell that she is having a great time. She lives in Darling Harbour, which is downtown, about an hour’s bus drive away. We have hung out a bit, and are talking about possibly going to Melbourne and the Blue Mountains. She is awesome, and we have a pretty cool thing going.
So, as you can see, being an American doesn’t really make it all that much easier to ‘get girls’ here. It gives you an ‘in’ in conversations, they dig the way the accent sounds, but thats pretty much it. It’s been a good experience, and I’ve had a lot of fun meeting many Australian girls, as well as other girls, but its not what my room mates and I built it up to be. Which is ok. Really!
(Well, I kind of almost died. More like almost got knocked out… Pretty much, I just go for attention-getting titles. I’m a blog-hit whore.)
Today was supposed to be my study day. “Supposed” being the operative, key word. Woke up pleasurably late this morning and found myself with a craving for Subway… I’ve been wondering if it would be or taste any different…So I headed down to the Mac Center and got myself a club (it’s “$7 footlongs” here…don’t know how their jingle goes). Suprisingly they don’t have my favorite vegetable for subs, peperoccini, or bananna peppers, for some reason. Also, only American cheese. I asked for pepperjack and got a weird look. Oh, and no oil and vinegar. Wonder what the reasons were behind those decisions…
Anyway, had the sandwich, then treaded back up to my place. Laid in the grass on campus for a while listening to Car Talk, then walked the rest of the way home and started cleaning. I was checking out twitter, doin some procrastinating before even starting any studying, and saw the following twitter…
tonyhawk Monster Skatepark, Homebush Bay, 5pm. You might not have heard it here first, but that’s beside the point.about 10 hours agofrom mobile web
I had never been to Homebush Bay before, but after a little bit of research I found that the skatepark was actually in the Olympic Park. It was 3:45 by the time that I saw this, so I thought, “What the heck? Might as well check it out.”
Caught the train, had to make two switches, but arrived at the village at 5:45 or so. And it went till freakin 6:45, so they went for a long time. It was different that before, much more people, and the setup was just this HUGE half-pipe with a gap. Man, they got HUGE air! I got some sweet pix, and took a vid for y’all.
Oh, and I almost got killed! I had my eye in the viewfinder, watching the action, and one of the skater’s wiped out. His board went shooting up the pipe, up maybe 30 feet into the air, and came at my direction. The skater immediately yelled “Loooook out! Look out! Look out!” This skateboard was hurtling at me at a huge velocity. I didn’t even really have time to move, I just batted at it, along with another guy. Man, woulda knocked me out. After surviving we just kinda looked at each other with relieved looks. But i touched the skateboard! barely. still, kinda a cool memory.
Tony Hawk at Monster Skatepark-Sydney Olympic Park
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Keep in mind that Tony Hawk is 40 years old. He got HUGE when he completed the first 900° in 1999 (youtube footage of that below…) Also, it kinda seems like he really got going after this…doin crazy spins and flips and crazy stuff with the board. This is vanilla, except for the end, which he landed consistenly later.
Hawk threw his helmet and shirt into the crowd, and the show was over. I went around back to see how close I could get, and there was just a huge group of people around him, pestering him, almost rioting. As he moved this amoeba-like swarm of people followed him.
He got into his car and continued signing autographs. I thought that maybe I’d try to get something signed, but I’m not aggressive enough, so he didn’t sign my little paper of directions. Held some kids skateboard in front of him to try to get signed, but it didn’t work. I was like 5 feet from him tho, it was pretty cool.
See him? He's up against the car, kinda coming out of that kids head in the foreground. Also, look at the joy on the kids face to the right! A signed helmet!!!
Afterwards I just kinda headed back, through the park, looking at all the Olympic stuff. It’s pretty awesome there! There was a rugby game about to start that I kinda wanted to go to, but I had to get back for Heat’s dinner.
Olympic Stadium
Stadium where the rugby game was about to take place.
Some olympic art or something in front of the previous stadium. Looked pretty cool...
I got back and immediately we began to eat, as it was 8. He made a dish where it was kinda fondue style, but it was boiling water instead, and we put vegetables and seafood in, then pulled it out when cooked and into a soy-sauce based sauce. Good stuff!
I was very proud of myself today. This is my maturation. In the past I would have thought that an hour was too little time to get to some place I had no idea of its location. I just kinda soldiered out, asked questions, and made it there. To a part of Sydney I’d never been to before. It was very liberating, and really cool, just how connected this city is.
I was gonna go into town and go on a pub crawl in the Rocks area with Reese and his friends, but by the time I was gonna leave it was already 930, and I was tired of taking trains. I kinda wished that I woulda gone, but I am just SOO tired. That is a bit of the old Peter, as opposed to earlier, which was the new Peter. Whatever, it doesn’t all happen at once.
First Skateboarding 900, EVER. 1999 XGames
This is at the 2001 XGames when he performed the 900 again. Look at how smooth it is!
Today was another early Friday morning, waking up at 9:30 am. I headed down to the Mac Centre (shopping center) to meet Mona, grabbing a kebab on the way. We hopped in her car, and headed towards Bondi Beach!
She hates this picture of her, but I think its a good one! We're headed to BONDI! Oh, and she is driving. Trippy, isn't it?!
It was a fantastic day, and such a fun time. It was kinda sketchy at some points, as Mona just got her driving license last week. We got lost a few times, went through toll bridges when we shouldn’t have, but I manned the maps and got us there properly. The suburb of Bondi (pronounced BOND-EYE) is just wonderful . I really just saw the beach front area that was full of surf shops, tourist places and food. But it was really cool seein’ all the beach bums hang around there.
We headed down to the beach itself, wonderful white, powdery sand and a deep-blue ocean with a blue sky. So incredible. It was probably about 80 degrees or so.
Video Panorama of Bondi Beach
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Just a quick vid of Bondi Beach, followed by Mona trying to evade the camera…
The beach. Ah, image compression ruins another shot!
It suprised me how small the beach actually was, maybe 300 yards long, 400 tops. And so many people crammed in. And on a Friday! Imagine what its like during the weekends and holidays! Mona and I laid on our beach towels and chatted for a lil bit, then soaked in some rays and relaxed. It was so perfect! Oh, and people-watching was prime! Apparently its a bikini-top optional beach (I think they all are in Oz), so that shocked me, but I got over it quick! I wasn’t offended…
Ha, kinda funny. I was taking a panoramic shot of the beach (below) and as I got to my last few frames a girl who had previously had her top on decided to remove it a few seconds before my shot of her portion of the beach. Hence, I now have a boobie picture. Totally not what I was going for, but…its the beach. I ain’t gonna change it.
Bondi Beach Panorama-Click on the picture to see a large size...
After a little while of soaking in the rays and being lazy, we decided to walk along the water for a little ways…
Walking along the beach…
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We then headed up to the grassy area on our way to some shops. Mona pointed out a gathering of people, so I suggested we check it out.
Me in front of the gathering of people, as we were leaving it. Read on to find out what they gathered for!!!
We got over there and saw that the people were all gathered around a drained pool that overlooked Bondi Beach, with skateboarders dropping in. Right away I thought there must be something special going on…usually groups of people don’t watch regular people skate, and this was freakin Bondi Beach, one of the most famous beaches in the world. I got closer and recognized what I thought to be Tony Hawk. I didnt really believe it until I snapped a few shots and saw him skate.
Tony Hawk (yeah...it was bright)
I think they were shooting a new skate video or something. Photogs everywhere, with cameramen.
Man it was incredible. Obviously I had never witnessed skating like that before…Tony Hawk is one of the best in the world (or used to be–no offense…well, at least he’s the biggest skating celebrity), and seeing the huge air that he got along with the crazy tricks he threw, it was crazy. I know nothing about skating, and I’m not gonna try to sound like I do, but…wow. The pool was probably twenty-feet deep with near-vertical sides, and the wipeouts were gnarly. I didn’t get to totally see the ending of the wipeouts, as I was maybe four rows of people back, but wow.
The Hawk-meister.
Hawk bailing on a trick.
What a setting! As you can see from the pictures the backdrop to the pool was the beach. The skaters (mostly just Hawk) would rise above the bowl, and as it was on somewhat of a dropoff, the looked like they were flying. I have no idea what kind of tricks they threw, but Hawk was doing stuff like dropping in, shooting out of the pool, doing a backflip or twists or both, and landing it back on the near-vertical side of the pool, staying on his board. Also, tricks where the skaters would ride with momentum up the side of the pool, flip up to a handstand position, one hand on the lip, one hand on the board, then back into the pool. Oh, and of course some grinding as well. (and a few kids, maybe 10 and even less…wondering if one of them was Tony Hawks kid. They didn’t do the huge tricks, obvoiusly!)
I was so lucky to have brought my d80 with me. Oh man! Moved around a bit to get shots, almost fell off a railing, but it was worth it!
We left after about a half hour or so. Later I heard that it lasted about 45 minutes. Apparently it was just a random drop by, I think Tony Hawk announced it on his twitter, but that was it. Just in the right place at the right time. What luck! Man this place is amazing! Always stuff goin on!
Hawk’s Twitter Post…
Well, after that we checked out a few shops, got a gift for somebody back home (??), then headed back. It was the Iranian new year, I think, so Mona had to be back by 530 to help with dinner. What a great awesome day! Another one in OZ!
More pix of Tony Hawk here and more pix of Bondi here.
Oh, lastly, got home to see that Obama had recorded a video directly to Iran. Thought it was pretty cool, so I sent it to Mona (who was born in Iran). Pretty ironic. I’m so proud of Obama for doing that, and am becoming happy for and proud of this country again!
Ok, I only put stuff on here that I think is cool, and I’m just floored about this stuff I’m about to post. First off, before I left I hung out with and got really close to my brother Nick. Now I leave, and a month into my absence I see that he has formed a band whose music is freakin awesome. It’s gonna kind of be weird to right this, but I’m gonna write it as if Niks not reading. He’s gone through a lot of different styles and genres in music, and to me it seems like he’s been unable to find his signature voice. He found kind of a sweet sing-songy voice that he perfected in Memphis, but this new stuff is just incredible. Sleazy old-school rock ‘n’ roll. Legit as hell tho. Check it out, you must. The songs aren’t long, so it won’t take too much of your time. I’m not begging, I’m just incredibly excited for him. Check out the Young Generators here…http://www.myspace.com/younggenerators. So good! Listen to “Dolls” first.
Also, his friend and his girlfriend have a synth-rock group that is just freakin awesome…with a chick on vocals! You HAVE to check it out as well…Rosie O’Mayhem. And listen to “Black on Black”. Super-legit song, and “Times” is a Scorcher for sure. “I coulda shot you without my gun.”
Ok, this is the last time I’ll post a snippet of my convo with Chloë…but I think its interesting, and I wanna kno what you think about this. It was meant as just to her, so its not a great argument or anything, just…interesting, i hope.
Abortion is a difficult one, not as cut and dry as people on either side of the issue make it out to be. I’ve debated it with my conservative Christian uncle, and its been very illuminating to me. It will never be solved because both sides are arguing different things. The whole conservative argument is based on life being started at conception, while the liberal argument is that life starts when a child is born (I think…is that right?) So, if either group would accept the ‘given’ that the other group gives, then there would be no argument. Obviously if there is life at conception then both sides would be against it, because then abortion would be murder by definition, and murder is illegal. But also, if life starts at birth, then why the hell can’t you control whats going on in your body? Hm..
Also, its quite ironic that conservatives are for less government, instead of in the arenas of abortion and gay marriage…and exporting democracy.
I’ve been swapping e-mails with a good friend, Chloe, back home, and I thought this little snippet from my last correspondance to her might be interesting…
Um, I guess I’ll just add on to the other email. Had plov for dinner that my Russian roommate made. Apparently its the same as rice pilaf, it was so awesome! Had some wine and a beer, and I was feelin pretty happy after it. Twas good! Then I went on a run through the suburbs here, got back and put some gregorian monk chanting on, dimmed the lights, and did push-ups/meditation. Was so wonderful!
All of my Aussie friends live over 15 kilometres away, so I’m finding myself on the internet WAAAy too much. I’ve been watchin videos of Russell Brand and Marilyn Manson being interviewed. If you’ve never heard Manson interviewed, you have to. He’s absolutely brilliant, a true philosopher of our time. I don’t really like his music, but wow, is he brilliant. And Russell Brand, hilarious dude! Also been watchin a lot of the Daily Show and Colbert, can’t get enough of those guys. Jon tore a new one for this financial ‘expert’, was so awesome!
This is the final track listing for my hip-hop mix for Mona. I appreciate all your help! Now, I must say that I somewhat misrepresented it by saying I was looking for the best hip-hop out there. I got many good suggestions, but none of them made the final cut. For one, I know Mona better than you all (I hope!) and kind of crafted it to her tastes. Also, I was looking for more upbeat, danceable, quality-beat songs that are mostly positive. Much of the greatest hip-hop or rap is not accompanied with the greatest beats, but the wordplay makes the songs…thats why some of the best hip-hop or rap is not on here. She wanted more hip-hop than rap, and in my opinion that is differentiated by hip-hop being somewhat characterized by complex beats and samples, while rap is based mainly (but not always) on simple beats with complex rhymes. Alright, here are the songs, in order, with explanations…
1. Juicy-The Notorious B.I.G. Starting the joint off right with the greatest hip-hop song of all time. I could listen to this song on a uninterrupted loop for days.
2. Yesterday-Atmosphere Too little piano is used in hip-hop, and here Atmosphere weaves it in seamlessly with his wordplay. Also, the clever story he tells ends with a somewhat jolting suprise.
3. Touch the Sky-Kanye West feat. Lupe Fiasco One of the most uplifting instrumental samples ever. This song also introduced the hip-hop community to Lupe Fiasco.
4. Izzo (H.O.V.A)-Jay-Z A water-tight chorus rapped by the genius who correctly proclaimed “Never been a n**ga this good for this long”.
5. Ms. Jackson-Outkast A nice little radio-scorched joint from 2001. Instead of bitches and ho’s, we get the perspective of a father trying to show his ‘baby’s mama’s mama’ that he cares.
6. Bassment Party-The Cool Kids Bringin’ back the sounds of ’88, The Cool Kids spit a laid-back but fresh-to-death track about college house parties and ridin’ bikes.
7. American Boy-Estelle Feat. Kanye West Straight up, this song doesn’t belong on this list (even though it won a Grammy for ”Best Rap/Sung Collaboration.”) It is, however, my theme song here in Australia, and is essential on this mix.
8. Nappy Heads-Fugees One of the greatest hip-hop groups of all time gives perspectives on slavery and what it is to be black in America.
9. Gold Watch-Lupe Fiasco One of the smoothest vocal samples, along with one of the smoothest songs vocally-speaking, this song just drips out of your earbuds.
10. Encore-Jay-Z HOV once again proving his dominance. “Who you know fresher than Hov, riddle me that. The rest of y’all know where I’m lyrically at.”
11. La La (Mixtape Version)-Lil Wayne One of the strangest and most self-destructive rappers drops an infectious beat of children singing topped with an autobiographical rhyme. Nothing better than this song.
12. Work It Out-Jurassic 5 feat. Dave Matthews The underground hip-hop group with the Bboy style team up with Dave Matthews for a chill and uplifting track.
13. Kick-Push-Lupe Fiasco Lupe’s chart-exploding and name-establishing piece tells the story of a skateboarder, of all things. Accompanied by some of the sweetest strings you will ever hear.
14. Big Poppa-Notorious B.I.G. Is any party complete without this song? No one goes harder or chills out harder than Biggie. Words drip off his tongue in this signature track.
15. Soon the New Day-Talib Kweli feat. Norah Jones Is anyone more underrated than Kweli? Uses Norah’s silky vocals perfectly, and paints a picture of a nightclub pickup and the ensuing one-night stand.
16. All Falls Down-Kanye West ‘Ye establishing himself as the “thinking-man’s rapper”. Inspired by a Lauren Hill hook. “Couldn’t afford a car so she named her daughter Alexis.”
17. Tie My Hands-Lil Wayne feat. Robin Thicke New Orleans-native Weezy spits a track about Hurricane Katrina. Further proof of the powerful vehicle of social commentary that is Hip-Hop.
18. Sunshine-Lupe Fiasco Uplifting strings along with a story of a successful night club pick-up. Is there anything sweeter than this chorus? “You’re my sunshine, you’re my moonlight, you’re the starry skies above me won’t you please come down and hug me, think I found love in this club tonight.”
19. Lost+-Coldplay Feat. Jay-Z In my opinion, the best finale for a poppy hip-hop mix. The mixture of Colplay and Jay-Z is musical gold.
Give me feedback about how I am wrong or right!!!!
Most of you know of Jon Stewart, but few watch him. Over the past week he’s had a feud with Jim Cramer, who’s the host of Mad Money on CNBC. Jim Cramer said that the banks wouldn’t fail, said to buy stocks that failed, and misrepresented truth. If you are at all interested in the financial trouble we are in, or are mad at those who stole money, or just love Jon Stewart mopping the floor with people, you have to see these clips. It’s the full interview, unedited, so the F word is thrown around. Enjoy. If there’s one thing you watch this month, it should be this. I’m not kidding, Jon speaks for us all…
I tried for over an hour to embed the videos on here, but I couldn’t do it. Please, I beg you. Check out these links. Video 1 Video 2 Video 3
Aight, so I’ve been workin’ on a Hip-Hop mix for Mona for about a week so far. Got it whittled down to about 33 songs, but at this point I’m really finding it difficult to eliminate songs. Please help me out! In the comment section please let me know what songs I should delete, or which ones I should add. I’m looking for a cd of the BEST hip-hop out there. But kinda has to be Top-40 hip-hop (sorry Chad!), and can’t be too dark. For instance, Biggie’s “Suicidal Thoughts” is a groundbreaking song, but it wouldn’t fit on here. Aight, I need about 20-22 songs… Here’s what I’ve got, think its pretty good…
American Boy-Estelle feat Kanye (Not really worthy of the list, but its kinda my theme song here..!)
Diamonds from Sierra Leone-Kanye West feat Jay-Z
Kick, Push-Lupe Fiasco
Jockin’ Jay-Z-Jay
He Gets the Girl-Lupe Fiasco
Tie My Hands-Lil’ Wayne
La la (Mix Tape Version-Lil’ Wayne
Juicy-Biggie Smalls
Alright, those are the songs. Now, I have a LOT of Lupe and Kanye, so I need a little help whittlin those down. PLEASE, I need help! Also, the list really isn’t that diverse, so suggestions would be great. Feel-good, upbeat hip-hop! Thanks!!
P.S. Ran out of patience puttin links to all the songs. Search it on youtube if ya wanna listen to it! THNX!
Apparently if you were reading my blog and not talking to me, you wouldn’t know that I was going to school. The ‘rents have been asking if I’m actually going to school, so I’m gonna talk about it on here. It hasn’t come up because its school, same ‘ole, just Australian version.
First off, its called Uni. Thats what everybody calls it. If you say College they think that youre talking about a residence hall, and if you say School they think you’re talking about primary school or something. Also, no freshman, sophomore, junior, senior, just first year, second year, etc.
First I’ve got Drugs Across Cultures, which is pretty interesting. A lot of it is about the actual physiological effects of drugs, which can be tiring, but learning actual facts about drugs (like marijuana actually is NOT a gateway drug) is very interesting and fun. Also, the cultural significance is HUGE! Learned about tobacco today, didn’t know it could be so strong. Apparently the stuff they smoke in tribes and such can be up to 10 times more powerful than our tobacco, CRAZY!
Critical Thinking is incredibly boring, UGH. Its all about argument, but written argument. (Had Argument and Critical Discourse last term, so yeah…) All we’re doing is breaking down very simple arguments, and the prof’s voice puts me to sleep. I can’t handle it.
Bio is pretty cool. I pretty much learned most of the stuff in Benders class, but they go a bit more in depth. The coolest thing about the class is actually the friends that I have made. I met Mona in Bio, as well as Jodi, Reece, Derrick, Mina, Anne and Madi. I might actually go to Reece’s place, apparently he lives on the outskirts of the Bush. He said we’d take some four-wheelers into it and he’d show me around, all the wildlife and such. He also introduced me to Kebabs, which are amazing.
Lastly is Australians and their Environment, a GEO class about the history of Australia, culture, plants, animals, all that stuff. I think its boring for Australians because they know most of the stuff, but its pretty fascinating for me, I’m learning SO much about AUS. Like, there used to be a wombat the size of a hippopotamus, a kangaroo that could jump 9 meters high and was 7ft tall. Then, within 200 years 50% of Australian animals were extinct. I do have a presentation in the Tutorial (recitation) for that class with a bloke from the UK. A 10 minute presentation, then a 1200-word or so paper on it, due a week from thursday. The presentation is this thursday, so I’ve been workin a lot on that. It’s a response to the question “Did the English settle or invade Australia?” Interesting!
Aight, talking about school is making me sick. I’m done.
Today was chill but incredibly fulfilling. It was my cleaning day so I vacuumed, swept and mopped. I also worked on my Hip-Hop mix for Mona. I’m sculpting a masterpiece of a mix, i really am. I selected a bunch of my favorite hip hop songs, about 80 in all, and I’m listening to them and chipping away (deleting) the ones that don’t make the cut. When I’m all done, I should have about 20 songs that make up the sculpture. I’m the Michealangelo of mixes!
Also, today was my cooking day (Heat cooked Japanese food the first wknd he was here, and Jenya and Vasya cooked Russian the next.) I had stressed a bunch about it, and didn’t know for the longest time what I would cook. I asked all of you about it, and got a great response, but my mommy is actually the one who I took the advice of. She recommended I do pasta and pesto. GENIUS. SO easy and SO good! And it only took me about an hour to make everything. Jenya helped me a tad (pretty much helped me decide when the pasta was ready). I asked her what I should do for a side dish, and she recommended my dish of tomatoes, mozarella, kalamata olives, onions, and balsamic vinager and olive oil (made it for them the first week.)
It was SUCH a fantastic meal, was vegetarian, and man, i kicked butt cooking tonight. I took it very serious, which made it fun. Warmed up the pesto, sliced bread and warmed it up to sop up the extra olive oil and vinegar, as well as pesto. Jenya told me about putting olive oil in the pasta so that it wouldnt stick together, I’m learning things every day! Even though I put waaay too much in!
Vasya was amazed at it, loved it so much. Jenya was talking to him and he said, “I can’t talk right now, I’m just eating.” It was funny. He LOVED the pesto and how healthy the meal that I, and AMERICAN, made! haha. Heat also put some of the salad that I made in the pasta and pesto, and that looked interesting! We ate so much bread, and drank a bottle of white wine that was fantastic (my fav alcoholic beverage is wine. It’s tasty, and healthy!) It was so relieving and made me SO proud and SO happy to see them digging in, loving it, and eating it all. Vasya asked about the pesto and where I got it, I think he’ll probably make it in the future. He and Heat had seconds…I made a ton, and there was none left when dinner was over. Mom, you pulled an Antony and hit this one outta the park!
It was also vegetarian, which was awesome. It wasn’t even a conscoius thing either, it just didn’t need meat!
Sparked some intense convo afterwards about religion, as well as animal cruelty and welfare. Jenya was talking about how she felt the eating of monkey brain was cruel in the way that they harvested it, while Heat was defending the cultural aspects of it. I interjected and said that I would probably try it to experience the culture. It was interesting!
My dinner!
All in all I think I represented America well, even though I made a purely Italian meal. Whatev, it was fantastic. I really am changing here, rapidly. It’s pretty amazing. And its all for the better!
Another memorable, unique, one-of-a-kind night in Sydney! Yesterday I got into the city at around 3pm and headed to Hyde Park to meet my American friends. As I was looking for them I passed large groups of scantily clad, spandex-wearing men and women in matching pink outfits, black boxer-briefs, glitter, wings, masks, and of course leather…I had entered the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras!
I found Ryan along with my other friend Ryan, with a group of the other Ryan’s friends, and my good friend Ryan’s roommate. (Does that make sense? haha) We hung out a bit ( I sat while they drank), then we headed to a pub/grill to get some food/drinks. The city was just completely saturated with people, many who were dressed in drag (and quite impressively, I might add. I remember thinking, “She’s kinda hot”. Then taking a second look and realizing it was a dude), spandex, underwear, a few men with nothing more than banana-hammocks (thongs/g-strings) and all painted up. It was Mardi Gras, but queer!
We wandered around for a bit, then met up with our other American friends and hung out a little bit. Two of the (straight) guys apparently thought it would be funny if they dressed up (or down, I guess) in their white spandex boxer-briefs. Turned out to not be such a good idea…apparently one almost got into a fight because a gay man made a comment about the unfortunate size of one of their members, if ya catch my drift.
The group wanted more alcohol, so we headed to a bottleshop, then back to Hyde Park to catch the parade, which was to start at 7:45. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen that many people that concentrated before. All along one street, pushing against one another to get a good view of where the parade was to be. It was a challenge just to get back to Hyde Park, they had streets blocked off, and hundreds of people were trying to cross the street to get to the park. We finally made it over and chilled in the park, waiting for the parade to start.
Crossing the street with the rest of Sydney.
It finally started, and we pushed as close as we could to the street. Got separated from my friends, but it was so loud that it didnt matter. The parade was incredible, and lasted over 2 hours. Crazy floats with people dancing to techno, YMCA, 80′s music. Guys in short shorts running around, girls in spandex, just flamboyancy. There was a cool tribute to Harvey Milk, the first openly gay person elected to public office (see movie “Milk”).
I’m a little tired of writing, so I’m gonna take a snippet of an article written before the event…taken from
THE floats are almost complete and hundreds of bodies have been buffed, waxed and sprayed with fake tans in preparation for the highlight of Sydney’s gay and lesbian community calendar.
Tomorrow night Oxford and Flinders streets, in Sydney’s inner-city Darlinghurst, will be awash with flags, national dress and global icons to match the 2009 gay and lesbian Mardi Grad parade theme – Nations United.
Olympic diver Matthew Mitcham, the only openly gay medal winner at the Beijing games, has been chosen to lead the parade and is expected to get a hero’s reception from the crowd.
It’s not yet known what he will be wearing but crowds can expect to see plenty of glitter, feather boas, sequins, bare bodies and all things queer among the 136 floats taking part in the parade.
Included in the parade will be a special tribute to assassinated American politician Harvey Milk, the first openly gay person elected to office in California.
Thousands of spectators are expected to line the route of the parade, which kicks off at 7.45pm (AEDT) from Hyde Park.
They werent kidding about thousands of people. I think more like tens of thousands.
I thought it was one of the coolest things ever, and here is why…gonna go on a little rant/reflection.
This was an incredibly powerful event. It was a gay event, but I think almost undoubtedly there were more straight people there than gay. To see straight people cheer, yell, and scream for gay people being themselves, not holding back, not CONFORMING to what society or conservatism or anybody thinks was just so refreshing. And I’m not saying they were making out, or gay sex was happening in front of me and people were cheering. They were just truly happy to have a night for themselves, to express themselves, show themselves off to others without embarassment, and for the crowd to have such acceptance and love for these people was AMAZING. I couldn’t help but think that this would never happen in America. Or at least 75% of America.
One of the most powerful parts of the night and the float that spoke volumes to me was a boring old white bus that drove by. It had a simple banner on the side that said Sydney Hillsong-Proudly Supporting the Gay and Lesbian Communities. For those of you who don’t know, Hillsong is a HUGE church in Australia, and is attended by over 20,000 people each week. This is how we as Christians should be. Welcoming, accepting, loving. What is more powerful than being part of a parade that was once a protest march for human rights by the gay and lesbian community, and saying “We support you.” Shouldn’t Christians be FOR human rights for all? Shouldn’t we be loving of ALL people? And it probably wouldn’t hurt to apologize for the ways that our Christian brothers and sisters have treated them. Seriously, I think it would be impossible to find a homosexual that was NOT disrespected by someone who called themselves a Christian. What we need to do is to show what being a Christian is actually like-and by entering their float, I believe Hillsong was exemplifying this. I’d love to hear comments from those who disagree with me.
The Hillsong Bus. You can't see it, but to the right it says"Proudly Supporting the Gay and Lesbian Communities" Just realized that this was also from Hillsong Church. Now THAT is the message!
Toward the end of the parade I attempted to meet up with my friend Joanne, but she was on the other side of the street and it was nearly impossible to get over there. I witnessed about three or four drunken fights (interesting how entertaining they are. I heard that some would happen, so I just kinda stayed and watched, and watched the police run around like idiots trying to stop it. It was probably bad of me, but it was so…interesting, how humans can so easily revert to their animalistic, uncivilized ways.) In one a chick started headbutting a guy, and the guy just took off into the crowd, and was chased by two police. CRAZY.
Finally made my way to Joanne, and then we just kinda walked around and tried to meet up with other peeps. We sat on the steps of a bar and watched hundreds of people stream by us on the sidewalk, it was just incredible, the diversity that was there. We met some of her friends at a bar, then decided to head to another club. The streets were incredible, just FILLED with trash. Well, mostly beer bottles, cans, and other alcohol bottles. The streets were closed down, and people would literally drink and toss their bottles to the curb. Not kidding, but for blocks there was literally a 2-3 foot “pathway” of trash. And cause some of the city is hilly, for much of the night I heard glass beer bottles rolling down the street…its a very distinct sound.
The street after Mardi Gras. See all the trash on the curb? It was like that everywhere! (This is where we met Joanne's friends.)
I met another group of friends! Joanne met some peeps in her class, so she introduced me to them. I spoke quite a bit with a (cute) girl named Meredith, who has a fascinating story. She’s South African, then moved to the UK, and has lived in Sydney for the past five years. She’s the coolest person, and it was just awesome talking to her about South Africa (yeah, talked a lil about racism and apartheid, apparently the racist additudes are getting a lot better) then about how she wants to be a primary school teacher. Made a new friend!
We made it to a hotel/club, went upstairs to the dance floor, got some drinks and boogied down! The whole crew was older, I’d say the range was 21-28, so it was a lot of fun chillin with them, peeps who are more responsible with drinking. I was talking to one of the guys, and apparently he was “this” close to moving to Portland, from the UK, but for some reason got a job or something in AUS. Pretty crazy.
We left at about 2 or so. We were gonna crash at one of the girls’ places in Hornsby, but we found a bus (Joanne and I) to our place. Longest trip ever, took over an hour. Then we waited forever for a taxi, and she ended up calling a friend who picked us up at 3 and took us home. We gave a ride to a random Italian dude named Gino, kinda cool. (Dude, Gina, you should totally marry this guy. Not that I know anything about him…) I ended up getting to sleep at 4:45, waaaaaaaay too late.
OH, almost forgot. On the way into town I met a Chinese dude, and we talked a little bit. I mentioned Beijing and started talking about how terrible the air quality was there, and how the Olympics were kind of dangerous because of that, and this guy across from us, just ripped and in perfect shape, said “They actually cleaned it up pretty well.” We talked to him a little bit about it, and I asked how he knew about it…He is on the freakin New Zealand national soccer team. Playin club in AUS. So crazy. So I talked soccer with him, and a little bit of rugby. Told him about how soccer was still pretty unpopular in America, and he said, “But didn’t Beckham bring a lot of popularity to it?” I said no, we really don’t care all that much about him, and pretty much told him what I’d heard from BR and Edi about Beckham, how he really wasn’t that great anymore, kinda a joke, and didnt even start in the World Cup. I FREAKIN TALKED ABOUT SOCCER WITH A WORLD-CLASS SOCCER PLAYER. We talked a little bit about the upcoming World Cup (he said that Spain were the favorites), and as I left, I wished him good luck. FREAKIN WISHED HIM GOOD LUCK.
K, that was so long, and I have more to write, so I’m gonna just start a new post…My longest to date I think! 1746 words. More pix are below, and here.
Look at that! Just look at it! So amazing, strobes on the skyscrapers!
I stumbled upon a clip of America’s most trusted newsman Stephen Colbert tonight, and he really opened my eyes to the dangers of the drinking game “Beer Pong”. Please view the video below, it may say your life. The story starts 30 seconds in…
This is the weblog of Peter St. George, a student from Eugene, Oregon who studied abroad at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, from February-July 2009.
), and I met two of her guy friends from her high school. I hadn’t shaved in maybe a week or a week and a half, so I was kinda hairy/dark in the face. (Oh, guys, I’m starting to be able to connect my chin and jaw facial hair with my mustache! THIS IS HUGE!) We were talking about gangs or something in America, and one of the guys jokingly asked me if I was in a Hispanic gang. I’ve gotten this before; apparently I look Hispanic when I don’t shave for a while. Now, this frustrates me, but not because I don’t like Hispanics. It frustrates me because I am proud of my heritage and my ethnicity, and I don’t like being misrepresented. I don’t know…is that racist? I also find it funny.
He got into his car and continued signing autographs. I thought that maybe I’d try to get something signed, but I’m not aggressive enough, so he didn’t sign my little paper of directions. Held some kids skateboard in front of him to try to get signed, but it didn’t work. I was like 5 feet from him tho, it was pretty cool.
