26 November 2007

you know you're jet lagged when...

it's 237am and you're not going to sleep anytime soon (mostly becuase you slept till 230pm this arvo).

so, instead, i'm gonna do the most productive thing ever and create a "you know you've studied abroad in australia when.." mostly because i was inspired by a list i found on the internet that is only halfway decent, and some of the things i reckon were inside jokes for this person's own time there.

so, without further ado, i'm making these up on the spot and will probably need to add more later when i think of them,

you know you've studied abroad in australia when....!

...you became a pro at knowing world times ("oh, it's noon here? that means it's 6 in bangledesh and 8 in london and too late to call home")

...without skype, you probably never would have talked to your family after the first 2 weeks

...aussies told you about the much-feared 'dropbears' and you believed them

...then, when you found out they were kidding, you still proceeded to call koalas 'dropbears' because it made them potentially interesting, rather than just the boring sleeping buggers that they are

...tim tams and cadbury became a suitable meal so long as you supplemented it with a fruit

...you began to shorten every word you possibly could (brekky, arvo, macca's, chocky, etc..)

...50c cones at maccas were a must every time in the cbd

...oh yeah, downtown does not exist, it's the city centre or, more likely, the cbd

...aussies tried to get you to try vegemite, but you knew better

...but then ate it drunk one night (NEVER AGAIN!)

...bad day? tim tam slams make it all better

...you have been to more parts of australia than the average australian

...your final exams are worth more than 50% of your grade

...because you only have 2 asessments a semester

...you own multiple thongs because you like to match your outfits

...you know what a thong actually is (and you have hardcore tanlines from them)

...when you tell people about your eleven hours of class, they know you are an arts student

...and it's not class, it's subjects

...you live in a college but go to university

...aussies shun you for your love of peanut butter and jelly

...and they can't comprehend peanut butter and chocolate until you get them addicted to reeses' sent from home ("can you ask your parents to send more???")

...leggings aren't just for gymnasts anymore

...you became a hardcore environmentalist when it came to saving plastic bags

...but can't be bothered to take a 4 minute shower, no matter how low the reservoirs are

...speaking of which, you refuse to believe there's a drought when it rains as much as it does

...it's not unusual for it to be raining, then sunny, then raining, then sunny, then raining, then sunny, then raining, then sunny, then raining...within a 30 minute period.

...oh, it might hail too.

...there are "two dollar coins" and "laundry dollars" and "macca's cone coins"

...you have no problem line drying your laundry in order to save that dollar

...warm weather was a nice welcome until you realized it brought heaps and heaps of FLIES

...you have been stopped by the tramcops and lived to tell the tale (without a ticket!)

...you knew what you were doing each night based on the day of the week: mondays at turf, tuesdays at eurotrash, wednesdays at pa's, thursdays at pugg's, friday's at persy's, and saturday and sunday were days of rest (sometimes).

...the guys wear shorter shorts than you do

...aussie rules footy became the greatest sport ever

...pies are made out of meats, not fruits

...pumpkin pie doesn't exist, but you eat roasted pumpkin regularly

...sticky. date. pudding.

...you found nemo while snorkeling the great barrier reef

...you went surfing in cold & rainy weather because the waves were better

...you stayed in a hostel because it offered a free beer on arrival

...you shared a room with 7 other people of different sexes, ethnicities, and showering preferences.

...you still completely miss the point of cricket.

...you could never turn down 7$ for 4 litres of wine. much love, goon.

...you've drank out of a goon bag in public

...you just don't root for a footy team (and you cringed when other americans said they did)

...you wondered why the half-flush and full-flush weren't just labeled "#1" and "#2"

...you know the toilets don't spin in any direction, just downward

...you've handfed kangaroos and wallabies, and it never got old

...you walk everywhere to save tram money, but when you have to buy a tram ticket, you make sure to get your money's worth ("who wants to go to st kilda??")

...no matter how hot the day got, you refused to go swimming in st. kilda

...you have seen more of melbourne than any australian.

...you know it's not ketchup, it's tomato sauce

...tomato sauce comes in easy-to-squeeze packets, but hell if you're gonna pay 30c for it

...you consider everyone to be your mate

...you got disappointed when you realized that most aussies do not greet you saying "gday mate"

...you have picked up on the dance floor of pugg's

...and pa's

...and eurotrash

...but not turf, you have standards

...you are more than willing to spend more to fly with qantas (free alcohol!)

...you walked into a shop and before the attendant could say anything you say "how ya goin?"

...you read for your subjects diligently for the first 2 weeks, then knew better

...you learned how to properly BS your way through any tutorial

...you say 'tea' instead of dinner

...you know the difference between brekky, lunch, afternoon tea, tea, and supper

...you know the XXXX is not a porn rating

...and you got excited when you ordered a 'pot of gold' in queensland

...you know each states' beer

...premixed cans of alcohol just made things so much easier

...the phrase 'i reckon' doesn't mean you're a hillbilly from the South

...you'll forever call them sunnies and bathers

...you got excited the first time you unknowingly pronounced 'banana' the aussie way

...you can tell the difference between a british, australian, and new zealand accent

...you know that new zealanders are to australia what canadians are to the USA

...no matter way day of the week, or what the weather, chances are, there's a BBQ on southlawn (free food!)

...boost juice became the answer to the worst cheap redwine hangover

...dressing like harry potter for tea lost its novelty, fast

...no matter how bad things get, no worries.

...you know the difference between chips, chips, and chips

...you learned which way to look when you cross the street (or, if you are in sydney, you just look down to know which way to look)

...the first time an aussie said something was "cool as" you waited for them to finish

...you quickly learned aussie beer >>>>>> american beer

...you know biscuits are cookies, and scones are biscuits, and pastries are scones. phew.

...heaps.

...walking home barefoot is nothing to be ashamed of (especially if the trams stopped running and your shoes are giving you blisters)

...when someone yells "aussie aussie aussie!" you know how to respond ("oi oi oi!")

...you know good mexican food is nonexistent

...aussie guys wear skinnier jeans than you do

...you end every sentence as if you are asking a question

...freddo frogs and carmello koalas

...bundy & coke was for bogans (but you drank it anyway)

...you knew which items were acceptable to buy homebrand (home brand timtams = NOT)

...on at least one occassion, kids streaked through your lectures

...and your lecturer just kept lecturing

...you know kookaburras are nice to look at...but hearing them at 430am SCREECHING is enough to make you want to wipe them out of existence

...you have gotten a bag of chips, a slice of pizza, 2 potato cakes, and a dimsim from smiley's..all for only $1.70

...you may not know what dimsims actually are made of, but you know they are NOT dimsums.

...you ate kangaroo and enjoyed the horrified reactions of people back home

...you are amazed by the many flavours of kitkat

...you could spot another american kilometers away (north face, anyone?)

...you quickly learned the conversions to kilometers and celsius

...even with only 5 tv channels, there is still always something to watch

...you got mad at your friends when they told you what happened on (insert tv series) because it hasn't aired yet in AUS

...no one wears UGG boots in public

...it's not "aus-tray-lee-a", it's just "stray-ya"

...you begin to wear sunscreen no matter how cold or cloudy it is

...lollies don't have a stick, licorice is black, jelly is jell-o, capsicum is red pepper, not is zero, zee is zed, and you went on holidays, not vacations.

...by the end of the trip, you could pull off at least a half-convincing accent (enough to fool drunk aussies or new americans)

...aluminium.

...you can't be bothered to start your 2000 word essay.

...and it's essay, not paper, no matter how many words it is.

...you start adding the letter U to words, and replace Z for the much more sensible S

...you tell your american friends to skul their beer and they just don't understand

...you know melbourne is 'melbin', brisbane is 'brisbin', cairns is 'cans', and canberra is 'canbra'...and hearing it pronounced another way makes you cringe

...but queensland is still queens-land.

...you know pedestrians never really have the right of way

...the city circle tram is not for tourists, just people too cheap to spend 3.30$ on a ticket

...swot vac was an excuse for a holiday

...sweet, ripper, mad, rad, tops, and sick all mean good. stick bloody in front of it when you REALLY mean it.

...when you got cold, you just threw on a jumper



ok.im gonna stop now. i could seriously go on and on and on...

24 November 2007

homecoming, thanks kanye

first of all, if you havent heard the new kanye cd yet, go steal it off limewire or something.

second, there is a song on htere he does with chris martin from coldplay called homecoming, it is about chicago. as if it werent great enough (and it is) i messed around with the lyrics and came up with this gem...

i met this town when i was 2 days old
and what i love most, she had so much old
people -- excuse me little leeshy i know you don't know me, but
i know your daddy and, he brings me my mail and,
from that point on she had made her mark
friends come from outta town, i like to tow them off,
they tend to act bored, i say it's not my fault
and make them at least fake it because i know she's soft
and when i grew up she showed me how to bike downtown
go from budnik's to totura's to the lpd
and i told her in my heart is where she'll always be
she never mess with college kids cuz they always leave but
she says she knows that some day they'll be back with kids,
knows if you're born here that you'll always be sucked in
i guess that's why last winter i saw on my drive,
every one from the class of, the class of two thousand and five

but if you really care for her, then you would never let jewel build
and make chipains struggle for business, but when you shop
it always seems like jewel's got pop for cheap and,
she said you left your bg fries and they're greasy like you,
they melt on your tongue and stick to yo heart like glue
but they not good for you but you just got to
and macca's does it up but it's just not new
now everyone's got their stomach filled up all wrong
i guess you never know what you got till its gone
i guess that's why i'm here and i'm still coming back home
and guess that i'll always somehow end up back home
everyday i think of where i'll be ten years from now
living here in australia, my brother's frat starts with tau
but no matter what, i'll put two thousand dollars down
to fly back on a plane to my home, l-town

do you think about me now and then?
do you think about me now and then?
cause i'm coming home again
maybe, do you remember when,
keepataw days beer garden
oooh, now i'm coming home again
i'm in home again
maybe, do you remember when
nick burgers and the christmas inn
now i'm coming home again
maybe we can start again

let's dance to joy division

and celebrate the irony
that everything is going wrong
but we're so happy

ALRIGHT! well lucky you kids, you get a whole nother blog entry! one last go before i go home, that's what ia lways sa. actually i never say that. but i could. and isn't that what i always say?

so..this is it. my life is packed in 2 suitcases (hopefully under 23 kilos each) and a carryon.. i was actually surprised at how well everything has fit considering how much i have bought.. or haven't bought, but God knows the money in my bank account went somewhere. i have heaps of clothes and stuff i'm not even trying to bring home.. i had this big aspriation to make this brilliant scrapbook..yep..that's all in the trash. all this stuff i wanted to bring home.. trash. which is all as well because i have no room for it back home. i have heaps and heaps of trash though and i cant be bothered to take it allllll the way down to the dumpster.. so it's staying in my room. maybe i'll drag it out to the hallway. yeah, i'll probably do that. but only the boxes without my name on them..

went out for one last time tonight with claire and her sister, who is pretty much my twin except cooler. if that's even possible, but let's not kid ourselves. we went to the only hiphop/rap/blackpersonmusic dance club in melbourne which was heaps of fun, and it was even better because 1) aussies CANNOT dance. to hear akon and kanye and see people doing the same moves they'd do if bryan adams or something would come on.. it's pretty hilarious, but it also means that i come across as a decent dancer..so that take laura MMMM.

how am i going to get home 2 blown up footies? how do i get the air out of them?

seriously though.. i reckon i have more trash than i have luggage.

also, i am worried about the stupid kangaroo at customs. damn californians, go eat some tofu.

the election is tomorrow and i dont even get to vote. havent we decided that i am more australian than most australians?

i never got to finish my apple dedication. i reckon i still have a chance to tomorrow but i probably wont be bothered.

my stupid iphone keeps reverting back to chicago time. it is 333am and i am dreading sleep only because it means i will be awake for my flight.. my 20 hour flight. it leaves melbourne at 1255pm and gets to LA at 945am. I GO BACK IN TIME.

then it gets to chicago by 7pm. probably not. i hope that gives me enough time to clear customs.

lets be honest folks. i dont want to go home.

i am missing australia already,
love,
me.

22 November 2007

i eat vegemite for brekky

so.. i guess this is it. my last post was october 28th, and it's now.. november 22nd? what happened? well, there are four options

1) final exams & essays
2) traveling!
3) internet is not free here = running out of credit
4) better things to do.
5) laziness.

i'd say it was a combo, but honestly, mostly it was 3 & 5. this past month has been .. awesome. this whole trip has been ridiculous. it's everything i could've ever wanted out of this bloody country, & so much more. and now i am in the process of paking up and LEAVING - to come back who knows when, but will definitely be coming back.

i just got back from sydney & canberra the other day, which i wasn't planning on going to at all but then emcor was driving home from college (she lives in the berra) and so we drove back together, explored c-bang, then hit up sydney. canberra was so incredibly pretty.. it was a planned city, planted in the middle (ha) of sydney and melbourne so as to not let one city be 'supreme' over the other. so although it is still 8 hours from melb and only 2 1/2 from sydney, it's at least not in one or the other. the city was placed in the middle of the mountains, in a 100k squared valley. there's a man-made lake and everything. we explored parliament and old parliament and the war memorial, which were pretty awesome. i haven't even been to DC but i've been to australia's capital.. what should that tell you? we were meant to see and do much more but we spent so much time at the three of them.. which was absoltuely fine, because they were so cool. that's the government-nerd in me talking, take for it what you will.

i am obsessed with this - so the senate and the house each have their own 'colour' - senate is red, house is green. we were walking through old parliament and each branch is pretty much separated and has their own amenities. we wandered into the senate garden, which was nice, flowers and tables and gazebos and red clay court tennis courts. later we walked around the house gardens, same spiel, except - wait for it - green grass courts. maybe you had to be there, me and em found it pretty amusing... the separation went so far as to the type of court that each branch played on. what if you were a better grass court player? do you run for house? anyways. we thought it was funny.

so em's backyard basically is just bush, so we took a walk after tea one night. i got one last look at boxing kangaroos and a really pretty sunset over the mountains.

sydney was pretty cool. it was a LOT different than melbourne.. first of all, the CBD is HUGE, and there are much much more big buildings. i don't know if its just because i'm so far from chicago that i'm thinking this, but yeah. it's just a different lifestyle there as well. we saw the opera house and bridge, didnt climb UP it but we walked over it, and up one of the pylons. we met one of em's friends who drove us around, took us back to her house and we ate lunch, then left again to go to bondi, where topless sunbathing is more than okay. afterwards we went back to the cbd and hit up darling harbour, got some eats, then went up the sydney tower to watch the sunset. the next day we went to manly for the morning and lunch, then back to circuluar quay and the rocks. we went inside the opera house (SO COOL!) and i peed in the toliets there, which had the wickedest sinks ever. then we went to mrs macquarie's chair and got some good pictures (and by good i mean HEAPS) went to st mary's, hyde park, and got some icy poles and just relaxed. so in conclusion, we didn't DO much, but we saw HEAPS. for only 1 1/2 days in syd, i think we did pretty good.

and now i'm back in maryland. most of the people are gone.. siobhan karri and leah left wednesday morning, so when my flight got in on tuesday night i went right to the village, and we gooned the night away. i fell asleep with my shoes on in karri's bed..good thing it was the last night, i reckon she would've been a bit angry otherwise.. but it was the worst thing ever to see them go the next morning.. it just seemed so final. i know i'll see them again, but it was more than that. it wasn't just saying good bye to them, it was saying goodbye to this whole experience. i'm off in 2 days. from australia. something i've looked forward to my whole life is just coming to.. an end. and don't give me that crap about 'every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end'... put it away, semisonic.

it even got sentimental at pa's.. that's when you know it's a bit over extremed. the dj was like " thanks for a great year! we'll see you next semester!" and then proceeded to play a 6-song banger with all the classics, including a tricked out version of land down under. try interpretive dancing to THAT mother.

Also, i don't like this whole saying bye thing. i get an extra couple days in aus but it also means that everyone is going home before me.. so instead of them saying bye to me, all at once, i have to deal with it in doses. it's a bit unfair.

in other news, i decided i am more australian than most people here. i've already passed the citizenship test (albeit unofficial), but the other day i was talking to em about the elections and everything and said "our prime minister" without realising it.. then in syd we were in the visitor center getting maps (duh, tourists) and some girl starts talking to us, turned out she was from california, and the she asks me where we were from. i say chicago, and she goes.. wait.really? i thought you had an accent. it was pretty much the greatest compliment of my life. the problem is, it only comes out when i'm around australians..and then it flows naturally. i was showing jenna my potty time video from the 4th day in australia and she said that my accent has gotten a lot 'better' for lack of a better word. but when i'm talking to mum and pop at home i find myself stopping to correct myself, to talk like them. LAME. i don't like it.

alright. stime to go see across the universe with claire, who i'm pretty sure is my australian twin. more later (although probably not.)

see you stateside.