She’s A Runner, Rebel And A Stunner

[Dani California – Red Hot Chilli Peppers]

Today was my bowling party of sorts at Strike. It was originally going to be paintball, but that fell through like an elephant in a paper building, so instead it got changed to bowling.

Took the train up to the city with Swang, April, Annie, Whitty, YL and Jac. On the train, I got my presents from YL and Whitty (I specifically told everyone not to get me anything, but pretty much no one listened. So now I feel guilty) which turned out to be, firstly, a bogus present which was this book of Justin Bieber photos, facts, and poster (Swang loved it, being an avid Bieber-fan), but then came the real cool present, which was this UNOFFICIAL GUIDE TO GLEE! I haven’t read it yet (I got home at around 10:30) but I do plan to, along with HP7.

(Oh, note, for now there is no pictures of everything because I haven’t had the time, but when I do I will come back and put pictures in for all the wonderful stuff people gave me, and so this note will disappear. But for now.)

Then I got to Melb Central, where we waited a bit. Sam came along first, and then Jen and Ash. Jen and Ash got me a picture book, titled “Tales From Outer Suburbia” by Shaun Tan, which I have yet to flick through (I want to look at the pictures really closely so I will do it when I have at least 30 minutes to spare). Then Joshanna came along, and I gave each of them a huge big hug, because I hadn’t seen them in over a month, which I wasn’t used to.

We went to Strike, and started the games. I was a shoe size 4, FYI. There, Joshanna showed me the present they got me – a freaking Tiffany’s sterling silver ring. I’m shocked that 1) they got me such a high-brow gift and it was my first Tiffany’s ever and 2) they found my ring size. Swang refused to let me see what she got me, and it turned out that it was a card from both her and Steven, and Steven was late.

He was so late in fact, that we skipped him in his game, and in the end he had to play 7 rounds by himself to catch up with everyone else.

Mandy and Dot came in halfway through – I love you Dot, and I am so so sorry for you-know-why. They both got me a wonderfully soft and comfy hoodie, because I’d commented that I liked Mandy’s hoodie. I love it when people remember stuff I forgot I’d said. They stayed long enough to watch Swang embarrass herself in bowling, but then sadly had to go. I was so proud to introduce Dot to my other friends, because Dot had been my friend since Gr 3. That’s special, dude.

I also got a present from Jenny through Swang. It is a lovely and sexy-as looking jacket.

Ash owned everyone hands down in bowling, and Sam came in at a close 2nd. I wasn’t…bad, got myself a few spares and a strike! Jac made me laugh hard, because she would just drop the ball to the side of the lane, let the gutter guards throw it around, and hopefully hit something. Swang made me laugh harder, because she picked up a heavy bowling ball and as she was walking up the lane nearly fell to the ground from its weight.

Josh had to leave early to work, and Ash followed him soon after. We played a bit of pool (Swang, once again, provided much mirth in her attempts to be coordinated) and then headed off to lunch. We had lunch at Dessert House near Don Dons, and I accidentally fed Jac some chilli without her realizing it. She wasn’t too pleased with me. Anna, having just met Whitty and not even knowing his name, dared him to eat a whole spoonful of the very potent chilli oil. He was not too pleased with her.

After lunch, Jen had to leave, but the rest of us went up to Melb Uni so to let Annie and Swang sort out their time tables. After that was done, and the light was starting to wane a little, we went to Josh’s work at Southern Cross Starbuck’s.  We sat around for ages just chatting and laughing, and I got picked up a fair bit for my shortness – despite the fact that YL is shorter.

Suddenly, it was 5. Everyone began the ritual of leaving, and Brendan warned there will be a storm incoming. He wasn’t wrong. As Jac and I took the tram down to Elizabeth to meet up with Dani, Andrew, Dani’s roommate Theresa and Leanne, it started pouring in earnest. At around 5:40 when we were heading up to Crown for dinner, it was pouring cats, dogs, meese and some pretty pissed off livestock.

Theresa, by the way, is from Norway, and shares my birthday.

We went to a restaurant near Kitchenworks (the buffet from last time with Mandy) where they had a $15 steak meal with complementary wine. I was rather pleased, because I like steak, and also because it’s the first time Jac is drinking outside of her house. Andrew ended up cutting up my steak for me due to my lack of culinary skills, and Jac ate more than what I thought was possible. It was fantastic to see Dani again, because it seems everytime we see each other, no matter how much time passed, we just get along just like that again.

It’s a pity she’s going back to Canberra tomorrow.

Well, I have to cut a long and fantastic day short, because it’s nearly past midnight (according to WordPress, it is past midnight I should probably change the daylight savings setting…), and I have yet to shower for tomorrow. Another day out tomorrow!

Thank you, EVERYONE!

Alex.

P.S. I forgot to mention the fact that Annie pinned a “Birthday BOY” badge on my hoodie for the day.

Stuff Summer, Stick With Savior

These are the 2 pieces of poetry that I plan to submit for my Creative Writing assignment.

I can’t actually stuff the Stuff Summer one, because I need to have 2. I’m hoping that 14 lines of a dodgy Shakespearean sonnet (that is, a sonnet with the rhyming scheme of abab cdcd efef gg, as opposed to a Petrarchan sonnet, which has the rhyming scheme of ababcdcd cdecde…but you don’t really care, and neither do I) and a strange free-verse poem will be enough.

So here is the free-verse:

Stuff Summer

Summers are not family friendly.

Family friendly is when children

Can run around, laugh, eat dirt,

Whatever, without having to slip, slop, slap,

Wear sunglasses,

Wide-brimmed hats, Shirts,

Zinc, a bloody suit of armour.

Summers are not family friendly.

Because you expect clean and comfortable days,

But instead you get sleazy ones that

Make you uncomfortable in your own skin.

They come up to you, gives you a drink,

And the drink tastes kinky, and you want to

Kill the come-on.

Or, go with it, and then tell your friends about

The half-forgotten stuff that happened

after.

Summers are not family friendly.

Go to the beach – no seriously, go;

You’ll never want to go back again.

Disgusting, engorged bodies, dripping in grease.

(You’ll never eat at KFC again, either).

And you’ll have to slip,

slop,

slap,

Sleaze. And I’m not talking about the heat

I’m talking about those ON heat.

Everywhere is out of bounds, even the underfoot burns.

And God Forbid if you leave garbage behind;

Because the beach – and summer – isn’t dirty enough already.

And here is the sonnet:

Savior

The day I met you I’d erred and made you cry,

You forgave me, yes, but still I pulse in debt.

Overdrew not only tears, but I

Will not look back and feel a ray of regret.

Your inner light broke down my cellar heart

Speared through me, and pulled me into the depth,

I felt the quiet inside of me depart

And in this glow, gratefully, I wept.

I saw the world through glasses tinted rose,

But then the thought drove daggers into me:

Despite the girly whims and pretty bows,

The infatuation ends at this degree.

The reality that I’d almost forgot;

I’m not in love with you, I swear I’m not.

I hope you enjoyed reading it, because if you don’t, chances are my profession won’t, either.

Alex.

Acquiring Target

That’s probably a creepy way of describing what I’m trying to do.

There’s a really cool girl in my Professional Writing. I want to make friends with her but I don’t seem to be able to. It’s made worse by the fact that she’s not in my tute, so I can’t exactly properly get to know her there.

I tried to say hi to her today as she walked past me – I’d even gotten as far as a half wave – but she didn’t see me.

Okay, to clarify, I’m not really that creepy! I mean, perhaps my reasoning for wanting to be friends with her is shallow; she’s cool, laughs at the good jokes, pretty, and her hair is really soft and shiny-looking. But you have to allow me to want to make friends, right?

Also, last week at the Tute I corrected my work which was put on the board. This prompted my tutor to point me out in the lecture today. It made me look a bit like a teacher’s pet…which probably didn’t paint me to be a very cool friend material.

So…wish me luck…

Alex.

The Name’s Face, Whore-Face

I suppose I could’ve used “The Name’s Whore, Man-Whore” but then it isn’t AS funny.

Julia caught up with us today! It was the best. Anna, Annie and I were eating at Melb Central (I was a fattie and had an All Stars Box). But before Julia came, we spent about 30 minutes sitting there watching a bunch of guys put fake 50 dollar bills on the floor, and watching everyone’s reaction walking past it.

There was a young teenage girl who’d walked past it, picked it up, saw it was fake and said out loud, “Oh damn I thought it was a 50 dollar bill!”

We came across Stoner as well. Stoner now looks like a full fledged girl, damn her!

After talking to Julia for a while, Anna needed to go back to class. So we dragged Julia along to Melb Uni (her being a Monash kid now). We met up with Josh, and promptly introduced Annie and Julia to him as a couple (don’t think he bought it, so it’s safe to say it here).

We sat around for a bit chilling (Suse joined us), while Anna decided to go to class half an hour early. I was making fun of Josh, and I suppose I might have taken his threat of “if you keep going I’ll pick you up and throw you into that bin” too lightly, because he did end up picking me up and running across the courtyard to throw me in a bin. (He didn’t actually throw me in, thank God.)

We then left, because Josh needed to meet up with Me-. So we went back to State Library, and upon meeting Me- the first thing she said to me after I introduced myself was, “Have I met you before?”

Thus started my trying to remember where I’d seen her familiar face. I’m still going, mind you.

Went to the station with Julia (Annie’d gone back to MU to find Anna for their wild night of partying), and saw Mai and E. Told Julia about the hilarious result of if Mai married E. Julia laughed.

Said bye to Julia, and took the train home with a whole bunch of red-jumpered MacRobbians.

Saw Amy on the bus (today is a day for seeing people. Except sadly on the train I didn’t see neither Fa, Catherine, Julia L nor Eunice Y).

And so later tonight I’m going to one of Zhen’s youth things – he promised there won’t be anything religious tonight so I won’t feel awkward.

I will now go check my Tumblr, and, if I have time, update again for a sort of musing/joke that happened yesterday.

Alex.

I’ve Been The Needle And The Thread

[Must Get Out – Maroon 5]

Sorry, but I haven’t been so diligent in writing up everything that happened.

On Thursday I went up to Melb U again. Took the train up with Jenny (who, by the way, made me wait at Mt Wav for ages and then made me sit in the sun. Jenny, I thought I told you! I hate waiting, and I hate the sun), and then went up to Melb U by myself. Found the Sydney Asia Myer Center easily, and surprise surprise bumped into Annie going to the theater. I swear. That chick is everywhere.

The lecture was pretty boring as well, but at least the lecture theater looked pretty awesome. Afterwards, Annie went up to the place where she had interviews for Chinese (yelled at Josh over SMS for being late), and then we decided to find Union House by “wandering along in a straight line until we hit something”.

After that, it really was just a blur of clubs, freebies etc. Went back and forth from Bookshop back to Union House etc, met up with Josh who’d by that time decided to grace us with his presence. Met Pris’ friends Sarah and Vits. I joined Aa, which I don’t remember the full name but it has to do with Asians. Then we stumbled across the juggling club, and after severe failure, Jen and I thought, “yes, we should join this club.”

Watched Flare perform, and Annie and I played “what percentage is that overly enthusiastic guy gay?” I started at 90%, but by the time he’d finished with some booty shaking, and shimmy-shimmying, we shot up to 190%.

Picked up Anna along the way, and then we walked around trying to find the rumored “free beer”. We came across the pub crawl, and followed it. On the way, we all thought, “Oh no, this will be okay. Jackie will be able to get in; they can’t possibly check all our IDs.” Well they did, and Jackie, being 4 months shy of drinking age, couldn’t go in. So I stayed outside with her, watching the others drink through the window (they weren’t easing up on the showing off either). Then Jackie and I went to a nearby park place, and sat down on the grass. The others joined us soon, and we sat around listening to – sigh – Korean music.

After that, we all took the tram back to Melb Central. Said bye to everyone, and I found Jenny again, who’d just been to her own RMIT orientation deal, and was full to the brim of stories of RMIT students. I tried to listen but I was tired and hungry.

Jenny bumped into her friends from PLC at Melb Central, and I went to greet them too. Then, we finally went to the Original Lolly Store, and bought the Pop Rocks I’d wanted since the TAYG filming.

And that was Thursday. My feet hurt. Oh and that night I was talking to Josh on MSN and he offered to teach me to dance (so did Dom, but Dom didn’t do anything about it. I don’t know if Josh would. Let’s see.)

Alex.

Everybody’s Screaming

[Untitled – Simple Plan]

You know, the whingey one. Now, I haven’t written about yesterday, and since I have some time to kill before I gotta go shower, so I’ll write about both days.

Yesterday was my first O-day thing at Melbourne. I took the train up with Elmo (…Did I call her Jackie or Elmo? Who cares. It’s Jackie now.) and met up with Jen at Melbourne Central. She texted me saying “see you UCMC.” I replied, “Wtf is UCMC?” Now, who here remembers that blog post where I wrote “I invented a new acronym for ‘under the clock at Melb Central’ so it’s easier and faster to type”? Yes, I failed at remembering my own code.

Took the tram up to Melb U, and went to get my ID and concession cards done. I managed to look like a gimp in mine. Yes. I’m now stuck with it for 3 years.

Made it to my Host group just on time, despite getting lost and having to call my Host. Didn’t really know anyone there, quite a few of the other students in my group are doing Art as breadth or something, as a 2nd year transfer, or something like that, so I felt pretty small.

Oh, but there was this Norwegian guy in my group who closely resembled Cory Monteith from Glee. I may or may not have been walking close to him for the rest of the tour, just to hear his accent.

After the Host tour, I caught back up with Jen, Jackie, and then met up with Nay. We went around trying to get free stuff. We went to the Nando’s stall, thinking they’d hand out free Peri Peri sauce packets. We did get a packet. On the front it said “Not for soft cocks”. It took a good 20 seconds for us to realize we were each given a condom.

Got more free stuff walking around; lined up for 20 minutes for pancakes that came with really good strawberries, and then lined up for 20 minutes for the free BBQ. While we were eating we bumped into an old face from back old VET days with Nay. To cut a long story short, that was a very bad meeting.

Then lined up for snow cones. I wanted a massage too but you had to show that you were in the Student Union, not just lying and saying “yes I am” to get a free snow cone…

Caught up with more MacRob girls, then went home with Jackie. Hung out at the Glen for a bit before taking the bus back, just ‘cos there was nothing else to do.

Anyway, that was Tuesday. Now onto today.

Took the train up with Jackie again, and dropped her off at her building, which was pretty far away from the rest of the buildings. Went to my building which took a good 5 minutes to find, with many rotating bodies and maps.

Caught up with Spanna, who I hope doesn’t mind but from now I’m going to call Annie, her actual name. Then the Asian friends she made the previous day arrived, so I introduced myself. Thus I met Kristie (Christy? Christie? You know what I mean) and Josh. Josh, who was from Scotch, turned out to actually have many mutual friends with me. Also saw Pris, who looked really tanned, still.

Fast forward through a rather boring lecture, and we were lined up for the free BBQ (I love Uni having free BBQs all the time. Apparently later on they’ll have more, but with alcohol instead of soft drinks). Jen and Mai appeared, and smoothly we let them cut in line with us. Introduced Jen and Mai to Josh.

There’s a Facebook event called “Make things sexually awkward” so I decided to bring that up. It resulted in Annie asking Mai to hug Josh, because Mai has…rather…well…endowed assets. And Josh’s response was bloody funny (Let me clarify now that it was all in good humored fun, good humored and platonic fun, there was nothing there and it was all a joke):

“Wait, why are you hu-…WOAH!”

It was fantastic. And. Very awkward. So, mission accomplished.

As we were eating our lunch later, Dom and D.P. came along. Dom ditched us to hang off his MHS buddies (literally), so Josh was the only guy sitting with us. Had a pretty good lunch (I also remember an instance where Mai was holding my sunnies, and Josh pointed at them saying “Woah they’re HUGE!” But Mai was holding my sunnies around her chest area), and thank God we sat in the shade.

Went to another lecture thing later on, and it was so boring and patronizing. After that, Jen and I went to a final lecture, and I nearly fell asleep, or I did fall asleep, I can’t remember. Afterwards caught up with Annie and Josh who’d ditched us for something else. Jackie found us again, and then we took the tram back down to Melbourne Central.

At Melb Central, I managed to bump into Catherine and all, and it was fantastic to see them again! They were coming back from their Swimming Carnival (haha high school carnivals). Got home with a blister on my foot, from having to walk so much. Yes I am complaining.

So that’s my first 2 days of O week – two more days after this. There’s something happening with the Arts camp I think but I don’t know what. It’s rather confusing. Maybe I should rephrase: Arts “camp”. Yes, that does sound more suss. Good.

Will keep you posted.

Alex.