To The States & Back

Its been really interesting to bounce between the United States and Australia. As a citizen of one and a pseudo-citizen of the other, I've been trying to do my due diligence in observing each country, examining their differences and how their systems function or why they don't function well. However, I'm not an expert in anything other than being a keen observer. So, when I went back to The States I was constantly asked questions about Australia and the differences between the US and AUS. I really only had my observations to answer questions, but found a lot of the conversation interesting and worth noting. So, here are the differences between the US and Australia:

While there are several differences ranging from economy to politics to environment, the most immediately noticeable difference (literally from the moment you step off the plane) is that the general attitude of most people living here is genuinely warm, friendly, and happy. (This observation may seem kinda trivial, but I find it to be indicative of the state of the nation - happy citizens usually equates to a stable country). Culturally speaking, in Australia there is an importance stressed on maintaining a healthy work/life balance. The disparity between the haves and the have-nots that is becoming increasingly noticeable in the states is fairly minimal in Australia (or at least the parts I've seen), income vs costs of living is proportional providing comfortable lifestyles, and government provides protection and security in health care and well being. Also, it doesn't hurt that Australia has incredibly beautiful beaches and surrounding islands to get away to. :) As far as the economy is concerned Australia has not been affected by the recession. Something I noticed was they have royalty taxes here, a hefty fee if you would like to purchase, for example, a foreign car as opposed to purchasing domestic. Certain incentives like this help keep jobs in place and keep the economy stimulated. The biggest difference between the US and Aus is population. Australia's population = 22.5 million; California's population = 39 million (just for kicks the US pop is 312 million). So to me, this is the biggest contributing factor as to why in Australia systems are not overrun and bursting at the seams like the states (certain metropolitan areas in particular like Los Angeles) and also why Australia is able to function so much more efficiently and effectively. I'm sure they are very strict on immigration in order to keep it that way. To be clear here - I'm not saying Booo on immigration, but what I am saying is if you want to be lax about immigration, at least have systems and infrastructures in place that can accommodate and support an influx in population.

So those are a few observations thus far, I could go on and on and get into environmental stuff and government stuff but then it would be a record long blog post. Anyway, I could be wrong about all of this because like I said before I'm not an expert on anything. But, it was super fun discussing all these things.

Anywho - other topics of interest while visiting the states: social media and its role in politics, international relations, non-profits and raising awareness; potential findings from the LHC (yes, I'm a bit of a science nerd); and anything that has to do with Modern Family (I fell in love with that show on my way to the states).

I feel like it's kinda a given to say that I was happy to be spending time with family, friends, and kitties. I think as most of you know by now though, (if I can help it at all) I wont be moving back to LA.

Sorry if you didn't know and I just dropped an end-of-blogpost-bomb on you.

Til we meet again,

Jillian aka Jilly, Jillypet, Jillybean, J-Dilla, J-Bones, and sometimes Crab Cakes

Thailand - Land of Contradictions

Funny moments and general summary...

1. Pancakes - sometimes along your travels you meet great and truly fascinating people. Other times you meet people who are interesting characters/crazy/possibly on drugs, like our dancing island friend, Pancakes. Yes, we had all had a few buckets that night, but dear old Pancakes was clearly off his rocker. He earned his name by his clear passion and art form of making pancakes at his pancake cart. However, as the night progressed he kept abandoning his pancake cart to try and get us to dance with him and invaded all our pictures, as shown in the photo above. Pancakes - thanks for the laughs, you wont soon be forgotten...

2. "Excuse me, is that a giant fossil in your living room?!?" - I can hardly remember this entire story, it really was that lackluster (and it's very much a 'you had to be there' situation). Basically, we hired a driver to take us around to some cool sights, including a whale fossil. We get to the top of a mountain where the whale fossil is. Turns out the fossil was pretty much being kept in someone's outdoor living room. Literally there were a couple chairs, a coffee table, 22inch TV, and oh, a giant whale fossil. It looked very much like an over-glorified home accessory. Turns out museums do know best, it's all about presentation. It kinda felt like Thailand just played a practical joke on us - and yes, our driver was laughing...

3. Thailand thinks we're lesbians - As hard as Kate and I tried, we could not escape couples massages. After the first couples massage incident, we tried to make it very clear that we would like separate massages. Nothing worked. I think we had 3 or 4 couples massages over the course of our trip. Although it was a bonding experience we ended up laughing over, it got to the point where I was feeling like I might have to reassure Joe that nothing was going on between Kate and I.

Overall - If I could change one thing, I really wish we could have stayed with one of the hill tribes. Actually, make that two things, I wish the weather was nicer. This trip was definitely us being tourists looking from the outside in, which I feel misses the main purpose of traveling. However, given our time constraints and wanting to see and do so much in such a short amount of time, we covered as much ground as we could. This trip was great in that we got to see a lot of sights and do a lot of things we would have never done otherwise, and we met great people along the way. All in all - I'm very grateful for the experiences I've had.

Here's to the good, the bad, and the funny,

Jillian aka Jilly, Jillypet, Jillybean, J-Dilla, J-Bones, and sometimes Crab Cakes

Thailand - Land of Contradictions

The positives - The most important lesson I've learned about traveling is to try not to plan too much. The best moments are unplanned. Exhibit A -

1. Bio-luminescent (sp?) plankton - I planned for us to stay at a really nice hotel the night before my birthday. However, the hotel fell short in many ways so we decided to switch hotels. We chose a random hotel in a random place on the island and hoped for the best. The girls spoke with a guy working at our new hotel and arranged for him to put on the pool lights at night and bought a bottle of alcohol so we could drink and do some night swimming. Lina walked down to the shore (our huts were right on the beach) and noticed the tide had receded leaving a quarter mile sandbar from the shore out into the sea. Lina called us over to show us this sight and we walked into the long stretch of sandbar. As we walked we noticed a neon blue glowing light illuminating underneath our feet. Every step we took in every direction, this blue glowing light was everywhere. We ended up playing and dancing around in the sandbar for hours, completely mesmerized and in awe. It was an incredible sight and me trying to explain it doesn't do it any justice. Here is a video to show you a little of what it was like... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EN1Yxq8KMsw

2. Monks and Tigers - Monks are awesome. Tigers are awesome. Monks and tigers together are a big ball of awesomeness. At the tiger sanctuary 2 hours outside of Bangkok you can be an onlooker to the incredible bond that occurs between the monks and tigers. It's hard for me to describe why I'm so captivated by the interaction between the monks and the tigers, but the mutual exchange of power and respect between them was incredible. The monks would playfully mess with the tigers and roughly massage them and the tigers responded playfully like they were buddies - except the tiger could literally kill the monk at any second. It made me wish that I was either A. a monk massaging a tiger B. a tiger getting massaged by a monk or C. just had a tiger as a pet in general. Knowing that I will never be or have any of those things, I just starred in amazement.

3. Chaing Mai - There are a million different reasons why this is my favorite place in Thailand. The first being the strong sense of community in the area my hostel was in. It was refreshing how welcoming the locals were to the travelers both new and old, their hospitality and warmth made me feel at home. I gained a greater sense of the different cultures of the region, especially when visiting the hill tribes. Loi Krathong was a beautiful cultural tradition of light and celebration, I felt really lucky to be there during that time and to be able to take part in it.

4. New friends - We met a group of guys along our travels. They started out as travel buddies, they quickly turned into friends, and by the end of our journey they became more like big brothers. It was great to share some of the experiences the girls and I had with them. My favorite moment was the night of my birthday. The weather held out so we went to an outside bar on the beach and watched fire twirlers err dancers err throwers, whatever, people that do crazy stunts with fire. We had lots of buckets of alcohol, meandered down the street and found another open bar and danced in the middle of the street in the rain. Specifically, we doe-see-doed (sp?) to Johnny Cash songs and enticed (read: forced) drunk onlookers to doe-see-doe with us. It was great times.

I realize I am indeed one lucky bitch,

Jillian aka Jilly, Jillypet, Jillybean, J-Dilla, J-Bones, and sometimes Crab Cakes

Thailand - Land Of Contradictions

Weeks ?? (Nov.1st - Nov.24th) The first thing I noticed when I entered Thailand is that it carries an air of mystery, lawlessness, and beauty. Everywhere you look there are examples of contradictions that captivate your senses, and there is no use in trying to figure out how they co-exist. Thailand is a place where one can practice ancient eastern traditions or seek out modern day sex tourism. There are plenty of opportunities to find your inner zen through meditation in a temple, relaxing massages, or yoga classes. However, the second you step out into the street you realize it is a crazy free-for-all race between cars, motorbikes, pedestrians, and tuk tuks to get to their destination. There are no rules of the road. Speed limit signs? Didn't see any. Side of the road people are supposed to drive on? The left - unless the car in front of you is going slow, in which case you drive on the right until another car is coming at you. In the same general area you will see the most extravagant temples and dilapidated homes. The architecture is mismatched and nonsensical from (what I assume to be) an influence of different nations that have previously ruled the land. However, this varying architecture is scattered throughout a consistent tropical background.

In an effort to save time I will document the good, the bad, and the funny moments on the trip, starting with the bad (so I can end with the positives)...

1. Monsoon - unfortunately it rained heavily (like ridiculous flooding heavy) for 2/3 of our trip. While we made the most of it during our time on the islands, it was hard to truly enjoy the island beauty and island vibe with massive downpours and constant flooding. This kind of rain in Nov. was highly abnormal for Thailand, and it showed as certain things we had planned to do were postponed til later on in the month. The UN was even bringing relief aid to certain areas of Thailand because the flooding was so extreme. Bummers.

2. General recklessness - two stories here, the first is when we went boating in rough seas. It wasn't raining but storms had been coming in and out, which created conditions for really rough seas, so no boats (big or small) were going out and doing island tours. However, we managed to find a company that was willing to take us out. We tried to bargain down the price, but knowing they were the only company willing to go out to sea they would hardly budge because they knew we had no other option. This was the first sign that they were desperate for money and we were doing something stupid. We head out in a rickety canoe type boat with a canopy and a guide operating the motor at the tail. I look around and notice that all boats are docked or looming around in the bay, none are going out to sea. Sign number two we are doing something stupid. Fishermen on a nearby (and much larger) fishing boat yelled out to us urging us to turn around because the sea was too rough. At this point I tell our guide to turn around, noticing a change in the ocean. For some reason Lina thought the fishermen were joking with us, even though it was clear they weren't. We make our way out pretty far and get into really rough waters for being in such a small boat and it got to the point where I was wondering ' why the f*ck are we still going out and how am I going to save my camera if I have to swim back to shore?!?'. We finally get to the point where the waves were really choppy and higher than our boat. No doubt we would have capsized if we went any further, so the guide turned around and headed back to the bay. At that point I wanted off the boat even though the guide was going to try a different bay in the other direction. Screw him! If he needed the money that badly I'd rather he just stolen it from me. The other incident happened in Chaing Mai during Loi Krathong. We ended up walking by a rouge firework being lit in the middle of the street. Luckily, when I saw it I knew it was bad news and started running before it was lit, so when it exploded on the ground I was nearly into an open bar finding good cover. However, it was crazy to see bright balls of different colored sparks flying past me as I was running.

3. "I think I need to go to the hospital..." - Those were the last words I wanted to be saying on this trip. It was no more than a few hours after we had landed in Chaing Mai when I started shaking uncontrollably. I had goosebumps, my teeth were chattering, I was freezing - it was 90 degrees outside. The girls tried to convince me I was just getting a cold, but I knew (that gut feeling told me) this was something else and by the way my body was acting it was probably something worse. 4 tylenols and 6 hours later, my temperature only dropped 2 degrees from 103.8 to 103.6. I made the judgment call at 2am that we needed to go to the hospital immediately. I'm glad I did as the doctor told me if I wasn't admitted to the hospital I would have gone into shock. I spent the next 2 days in the hospital hooked up to IV's and eating what I can only describe as rice soup mush battling a bad bacterial infection. The girls were my guardian angels - they slept in the hospital with me and made 7-11 runs for bottled water, toilet paper (yes, no toilet paper in the hospital), and a deck of cards in case I would be in the hospital for awhile and wanted to get a poker game going with the nurses. My parents checked in often, and Joe was a main source of comfort in helping me get through it. All in all it took me two weeks to recover. The most unbelievable part of the whole experience is that 2 days in the hospital + the 6 different medications they gave me after I was discharged cost $100 USD.

It all makes you stronger (and wiser),

Jillian aka Jilly, Jillypet, Jillybean, J-Dilla, J-Bones, and sometimes Crab Cakes

How Big Is Your Pond?

I'm on a flight to Thailand, living deliberately, listening to Florence & The Machine, and oddly enough, thinking about the pond outside my window. The pond constantly reminds me of this theory I once heard, that a goldfish will only grow relative to the size of its environment. There are various explanations for this "phenomena," some rooted in science and others rooted in myth. I'm not concerned with the actual reason as to why or how this occurs. Instead, I'm fascinated with the implication that individual growth is directly related and relative to the size of one's environment. I believe there is great importance in its meaning, and I relate a lot of it to the explanation of why I moved and why I feel it is so important to travel.

So, to give you a brief 6 month update with this theory in mind: I've created a new home on the other side of the world, taken up (and passing) a subject that I'm very passionate about at an amazing university (However, I actually learn the most from my fellow students turned friends that have come from all over the world to study here), I have a boyfriend that I'm constantly in awe of, and every time I see his face I can't help but smile, and I'm taking lots of time to travel.

This is my leap of faith in action. I committed myself (and my entire savings account) to the creation of this new world, to emerge out of the small and stagnant pond I had been so comfortable in, to take a chance on the unknown. So far, it has paid off in the most immeasurable of ways. I have no physical commodities to show for this life investment, but I often get that "butterflies" feeling (something I can only blame Joe for), and a fire inside of me that gets ignited during my classes and discussions with friends, and freedom and escapism when I'm running through the forest near my house, and I'm learning a lot about myself and the world.

So that's where I'm currently at. I have no idea where this road is taking me, and even though this all sounds amazing, it's far from perfect. But for the first time in what feels like forever, I'm happy and content with where I am.

Now, onto the good traveling stories...

Jillian aka Jilly, Jillypet, Jillybean, J-Dilla, J-Bones, and sometimes Crab Cakes

The Calm Before The Storm + 2 weeks

Week 13 (Oct. 4th - Oct. 10th) + Week 14 (Oct. 11th - 17th) + Week 15 (Oct. 18th - Oct. 24th) - I'm doing something completely unprecedented. Yes, as you can see from above, I'm squeezing 3 weeks into one blog post. Complete madness you say? Yes, I know, but I must for reason that I have sequestered myself in the backroom of our house since the beginning of week 14 and I plan on staying in here until the end of week 16, that is how much work I have to do, I swear I'm not even procrastinating. My 3 main papers are all due at the end of Oct. but they equivicate to approx. 30 pages total worth of intense critical analysis and threory. I very literally have no life. I had a reminence of life in week 13, but that has since vanished. I do have a funny story from week 13 though. So lets go into that...

So Michael bribed us with $50 and two bottles of passion pop to leave the house for the evening (i think Wednesday night) so he could throw a proper bucks party (bachelor party) for his mate at our house. I had class til 9pm so I met up with the girls on queen st. and we went bowling. Since bowling is an awful sport(?) that is more fun to make fun of than actually play, we got bored quite quickly. Oh I also lost at our bowling game. And if loosing wasn't enough, I had to loose while wearing the fucking ugliest shoes. Bowling may be the only sport that adds insult to injury. Anyway, it was getting close to 11pm and all we wanted to do was be at home. So we devised a plan of sneaking into our house. Not a complicated plan or anything, just go undetected and be quite, which shouldn't have been very hard with rowdy drunk guys being entertained by a nude female. She should have been diversion enough. Only problem is we had to sneak past the front gate to Michael's entry way where the love tub is and consequentially where everyone was. We walk up our street when we see one of Michael's friends leave the party and head to his car, luckily his back was turned toward us and we sprinted back down the street and dived behind a low wall and waited for his car to pass. We were stealth and went unnoticed, this was operation "we just wanna be in our house, dammit!" Attempt #2: we run back up the street duck behind the fence where the guys were just on the other side, and yet another effing guy is leaving the party. At this point it was clear this stripper, or naked waitress, or whatever she was, wasn't doing her job! We stop in our tracks, stand up straight, and turn around and casually walk back down the hill. Just three random girls taking a stroll at 11pm, ya know, as girls do. He probably saw us and knew who we were. Oh well, whatever, that's why we're grad students and not spies. So he leaves and we turn around. Attempt #3: Not giving an eff anymore we sloppily and hastily run up the street, past the fence, and down the driveway and make it inside. We notice the bottom of the staircase has a collected puddle of water and then look opposite of that and find a gaping hole in the bottom of the wall. That was not there before! No less than 30 minutes later do a couple of the drunk boys come downstairs. One in particular who had problems keeping his pants up, which made for awkward conversation, as he proceeded to apologize that his foot accidentally went through the wall (we found out in the morning that this guy was so drunk he opened the door thinking it was the bathroom and not realizing it was stairs he went tumbling down the stairs and his foot went through the wall - he wasn't seriously injured or anything so we can laugh about this). Than he passed out drunk on our couch. We ended up jacuzzy-ing with a couple of the guys for a little while, but I had to get up early and continue working on papers so I didn't hang out for long or drink (which I was very proud of myself for). In the morning I was sitting at the kitchen counter when all of a sudden water starts seeping through the ceiling creating what I can only describe as an unwanted ceiling waterfall feature to our home. EFF! I ran upstairs and screamed for Michael to turn the water off and Lina ran and gathered towels and trashcans to soak up the pool of water. Michael realized the groom had thrown up in the sink next to the washing machine and pulled out the washing machine hose when he did, so when Michael did his laundry the water went EVERYWHERE on his floor and seeped through to us. I seriously hope, for the well being of this house, that Michael never throws a bucks party again!

Other than that and occasionally (very rarely) hanging out with people from my program, I have been inside, reading, writing, and researching. I am currently drowning in a sea of theory, and this is an awesome break from theory right now. My schedule is, wake up around 8am, make breakfast, hole myself up in the room around 9am, write, read and do research until 1pm, have lunch and talk to family, go back in the room at 2pm, re-ammerge around 5pm to make human contact with the roomies for a little bit, go back in the room and come back out around 7pm for dinner, 8-9pm go back into the room until I mentally exhaust myself for the day around 1-2am. wake up at 8am and start process all over again. When I said I have no life, I meant it. So, this has been week 14 for me, and I will predict week 15 and 16 will be the same, no different, maybe worse depending on how much I get done everyday. So, if you haven't heard from me, don't take it personal, no one other than my parents have really heard from me recently. I'm leaving for Thailand in less than two weeks and I don't even know where I'm staying for the most part because I haven't had time to book places. This is my communication with you guys so you know I'm alive and well. Actually, the "well" part is debatable. So, this will be my final update before Thailand. Stay tuned for some good stories from there!

Constructivist theory states I create my social reality therefore I am the reason I have no life,

Jillian aka, Jilly, Jillypet, Jillybean, J-Dilla, J-Bones and sometimes Crab Cakes

Byron Bay Brought Out The Bitch In Me!

Sept. 27th - Oct. 3rd (Week 12) YAY for Spring Break! Although, not a true break because I had a presentation due the day we go back to Uni, but whatev. I wasn't going to let that take over my break, although, it didn't really matter since it was STILL raining! This was week 2 of no running, and it's really starting to piss me off.

On Wednesday I ended up going to the Blue Room Cinema (the fancy shmancy movie theaters). I can't help myself, it's just a cool place to go and who wouldn't want to drink some wine while watching a movie?

On Thursday Lina picked up the rental car for our trip down to Byron Bay, so we decided to go to our new favorite home shopping place, Ikea. I've always been an Ikea hater, but honestly, the store is really starting to grow on me. We got some cute stuff for our place..

Ok, I'm sorry I have to interrupt this post because in real time it just started raining, AGAIN! WTF?!? Lina and I were going to go running tomorrow (it's 1am). Seriously, weather?! Seriously?!

Sorry, ok where was I? So we got some cute shit for our place. Yay. Sorry, I'm in a bad mood right now. Anyway, Lina, our mutual friend Chey, and I decided to take a girls trip down to Byron Bay for a weekend getaway. I have to say I have never yelled at so many people in such a short amount of time in my life, and my experience unfortunately left a bad taste in my mouth for Byron Bay.

We get to Byron and decide to go shopping. Lina exits a dressing room that I was in prior to her, and this sales woman comes running up to her asking to search Lina's purse because an empty hanger was left in the dressing room. So Lina chucks her purse at the sales woman and lets her have it. Than the sales woman proceeds to accuse me, since I was in the dressing room first. I explain that the hanger was already in the room when I tried on clothes and that I'm going to PAY for my clothes and never shop at this store again. So, that was highly insulting and offensive and I let them know that, even though they had no sympathy for wrongfully accusing us. We got to the hostel which had a really fun and cool vibe, so that was good. We went and got a drink at the hostel bar and our night seemed to get better. After visiting a couple bars we decided to head to a different one that ended up charging $15 cover! No thanks. So we walked by some random girl and for no apparent reason (other than being wasted) she called the three of us some very distasteful names that I will not mention here. So, me being drunk yelled back some very distasteful names that I will not mention here. Lina also yelled back some distasteful names in Spanish that I do not know how to pronounce or spell, so those as well will go without mention. So far Byron Bay is getting the thumbs down from me. The next day we decided to go visit the lighthouse where you get a beautiful view of the ocean and all of Byron Bay. We were even lucky enough to spot some whales off in the distance. The sky was beginning to look ominous though and we could actually see a rain wall moving in on us from the ocean. We estimated we had about ten minutes to get to our car before it was going to hit land. We estimated wrong. As we started walking to our car which was a 10 minute walk away, people began sprinting past us and yelling various things in their native languages. We just thought they were mostly weird, overreacting Swedish people. But then we felt a couple drops and realized these people were all yelling some form or variation of "RUN!" Not even a second later did we get caught in a crazy downpour with wind and it was just a crowd of people sprinting to the parking lot (note picture above of people running and the one asshole with the umbrella watching us). I have to say that was my favorite part of the entire trip because it was a hilarious situation. However, you know it's pretty bad when getting downpoured on is the highlight of your vacation.

The next day we went to Nimbin, which is supposed to be this cool hippie town. It was kind of like Haight and Ashbury on crack. Like if there was a horror film involving a creepy hippie town, this is where it would be filmed. The second you walk down the street, people who look less hippie and more homeless (I could only surmise from the affects of doing way too many drugs for way too long) constantly offer you "cookies" while the more forward ones just say "marijuana?!" You can't help but have the immediate reaction of thinking to yourself, "not from you!" We went, we saw, we conquered, and then we quickly left. With it being torrential rain almost the entire day, we tried to salvage the night and make the most of it. So we braved the rain and went out which needless to say was a journey that just wasn't worth it. We were completely drenched by the end of the night and the clubs were no fun.

We left in the morning before anything else could possibly go wrong. And that was my weekend getaway vacation.

I hate you, Byron Bay.

Jillian aka Jilly, Jillypet, Jillybean, J-Dilla, J-Bones, and sometimes Crab Cakes

Rained In

Sept. 20th - Sept. 26th (Week 11): I'm not one to really to discuss the weather, but I feel like it became Spring and here and has not stopped raining. It rained all week, so Lina and I didn't get the chance to run even once. Very annoying. I'm so spoiled when it comes to sunny weather, us LA people sometimes forget or take advantage of how good we have it. Since we got trapped indoors by the rain, we ended up working on assignments due. Mine that was due on Friday was a literature review on one of my main papers about diplomacy and it's effects on Italian Renaissance City-States. It's definitely the least favorite out of my three main papers due this semester.

Came home Monday night to find that Kate had bought us cookies and left them for us on the kitchen table, well wait that's not really true. I found out Kate had bought us cookies the same way we all find out the most recent news, it was posted on Facebook. The picture on Facebook displayed the three cookies Kate had bought for us with a note beside them that read, " Because I <3 you guys!" Could she be anymore adorable? It was just one of those sweet, thoughtful gestures that makes you very grateful for the people in your world. And my green monster cookie was delicious.

On Thursday night we had a girls night since it was the last night Kate would be in town before flying home for Spring break. Our original plan was to go out and make a night of it, but Kate still had packing left to do so we ended up staying in and drinking. Had some good discussion about guys, had some laughs, it was good times.

Friday was kind of a rough day. Lina didn't get a grade she was hoping for and was down about it, so I took her out for a little retail and booze therapy. We decided to do some damage on Queen St. and started drinking around 3pm (hey, it was the beginning of Spring break and I'm a college student again - when in Rome). About an hour into our drink sesh I get a call from a classmate that a bunch of people from my program are drinking down the street at my favorite pub, Mick O'Malleys, so we head over and join them for what was surely one of the sloppiest drinking nights ever! It was great times though and since we are in such a rigorous accelerated program, it was much deserved. However, pretty hilarious when you wake up in the morning and find pictures on your camera that you don't remember taking, or even worse, pictures on your camera of people you don't know. See the picture above of the friendly-looking couple? Do you know who they are? Me neither.

Needless to say, I spent the rest of the weekend recovering (I feel like I've been saying that last line a lot lately), and since it's been raining I haven't had much motivation to do anything outdoors anyways.

Waiting for sunshine and looking into local AA meetings,

Jillian aka Jilly, Jillypet, Jillybean, J-Dilla, J-Bones, and sometimes Crab Cakes

The Beauty Is In The Release

Sept. 13th - Sept. 19th (Week 10) Alright I'm almost a month behind on my life here. I'm sorry, it must seem kind of pointless to read this as it probably feels like old news .I'll make the next couple blog posts quick. I finally turned in my paper on Tuesday. I pulled an all-nighter to get it done, and wasn't completely happy with the finished product (you can see the decline in quality of the paper as it progresses) but was just happy to get it out of my hands. One of these days I will learn how not to procrastinate.

I believe Julia Gillard was also elected to be Australia's PM on the 14th as well, which means that Australia went for nearly a month without a new PM officially in office. The funny thing was no one really seemed to care all that much either. As long as the footy games were happening at their normally scheduled times and the public transport system was still running. Interesting fact about Julia is she's a self-admitted atheist. I say interesting only in comparing and contrasting our political system and the qualities many Americans find necessary in political candidates.

I also never received word on whether I was going back to the states or not. So, I've come to the conclusion that without receiving the closure I was looking for, I have to learn to just it let go. In the process of moving and living here, I've had to learn to let go of a lot of things that I have no control over. It's not an easy process, but there is beauty in the release. Once you finally let go, you can feel at peace with yourself, which is very freeing for the soul.

With my new outlook, the girls and I decided to go out to Friday's on Friday and keep the Friday night tradition going. We met some interesting people, it's kind of difficult because as the night goes on and people get more and more intoxicated, the less fun it becomes (This is my "I'm becoming an adult" schpiel). However, I always enjoy the girl time though and it brings good balance to my life. We also met a cool Aussie girl named Lauren who lives not to far away, so we may just add her to our wolf pack (See movie The Hangover). Oh god, I just referenced in my blog post, these papers are really getting to me.

I'm not completely sure it was this week (I'm loosing track since I'm so behind) but one of my friends from my program invited me to play poker with him, his roommate, and some friends on Saturday night. It's kinda funny how playing poker, even though I was on the other side of the world, made me feel like I was back at home. I played shitty, but it was still really fun.

On to next week...

Letting go and loving it,

Jillian aka Jilly, Jillypet, Jillybean, J-Dilla, J-Bones, and sometimes Crab Cakes

Running Away, Or Just Running?

Sept. 6th- Sept. 12th (Week 9) - By this time, Lina and I had been running for a couple weeks and gaining a lot of endurance really quickly, which was surprising to me. If only I was as determined to write my paper as I was to become a decent runner. I guess I was just too distracted by other things to hamper down and get it done. The topic was easy enough, I chose to argue that Rationalism (out of Wight's theories of Realism, Rationalism, and Revolutionism) is the most prevalent in today's international community. I feel like even though my professor is a realist, there is no wrong choice between the three as long as whichever you choose is argued well. Although, I'm seriously freaking out over this paper as I've found out that my professor failed half the class on this assignment last semester.

I've been using running as a release for the anxiety I've been going through, which has helped tremendously. In the beginning of the week Lina and I got adventurous and decided to try to run to Mt. Coot-tha and see how far we could get. We ended up jogging for about 20 min. and actually got to the base of Mt. Coot-tha and decided to run one of the trails. It was absolutely amazing and the scenery was so beautiful that it inspired me to continue running to the point where I felt I could just run for days. In total, the run there and back took about an hour and a half - and I should note we didn't run the whole time. It was so much fun we decided to go back again on Wednesday, even though it was cloudy and looked like rain. We started our run and got half way to the mountain base and felt a couple drops, no big deal, so we decided to keep going. Then it starts to sprinkle and we decide to keep on going, the mist actually felt really refreshing. It was all good and fun until about 3/4 to the way to the base and it starts pouring, not raining, pouring! We continue to the mountain in the hopes that it would be a quick moving storm we could wait out. Lina and I found refuge under an overhang at the public restrooms. We waited, and waited...and waited. At this point we were trying to decide exactly what we were going to do next, when we see a cop car in the distance pull off the road and head towards us. He pulls his car up to us and rolls down his window (keep in mind Lina and I are completely drenched and disheveled) and he gives us this look like he's confused if he should be worried about our safety or his safety. He asks us where our car is and we explain that we are not car owners and we ran here. When we told him we ran there from Bardon his jaw dropped and then he offered to give us a lift home. So he is this very good looking heroic cop that saved our asses, and we are stinky and disheveled morons that tried to defy the weather. Great! What's worse is that while Lina is sitting upfront giggling and flirting, I'm sitting in the back looking like I've just been arrested. He was really nice though and had no problem with making an illegal u-turn to drop us off at our front door. Oh, gotta love it.

On Friday night, Kate, Lina, and I went to see Sutra at the Queensland Performing Arts Center, but first stopped by at a local pub that I love that reminds me of home. After we had a few drinks with one of my friends from my program, the girls and I headed off to the show. It was an interpretive performance centering around Buddhist themes of minimalism while incorporating various Karate movements of Kung-Fu and Capoeira. All these pieces of the performance came together to create an intricate story only told through music and movement - leaving the audience to draw it's own conclusions to it's true meaning. It was brilliant, beautiful, inspiring, and unique. The best part was sharing this experience with Lina and Kate.

After the show Lina and Kate went off to Friday's, and I went back to the pub to meet up with some friends from my IR program. I spent the rest of the weekend recovering from Friday night and working on my paper, or at least trying to.

Love this city - hate writing this paper,

Jillian aka Jilly, Jillypet, Jillybean, J-Dilla, J-Bones, and sometimes Crab Cakes

Not Your Regular Irregular Blog Post

I interrupt this irregularly scheduled blog posting to bring you an updated news bulletin. I got some good news from L.A. in week 8 that I thought I would update you on since most of you know about the situation with the tenants I had been defending from the management/ management company in the last building I lived in. I know I'm diverting away from blogging about my experiences here in Australia, but it's my blog, and I will divert if I want to.

One of my old neighbors had contacted me and told me that Amy and Javier (for the few of you who may not know - Amy and Javier are my last apartment managers who made the lives of the long-term tenants miserable with the goal that they would move to create market value profit) have moved out of the building and no longer manage it. About a week ago (week 7), a majority of the tenants along with several tenant rights advocates and attorneys, protested the management company and picketed outside the apartment building. Two days later Amy and Javier moved out. It only took 3 years. It is a victory that is long overdue. My old neighbor describes the apartment building now as being how he had remembered it for so many years before the management enacted their "cleaning house" tactics. Kids are now able to play freely outside and people feel safe and comfortable in their homes. He said it is like a black cloud has lifted, and it is a happy and safe place to live again.

I'm ecstatic and in slight disbelief, this has been such a struggle that we had fought so hard for. I learned a lot about myself, advocacy, and the human condition from this experience, and it is a majority of the reason I am here in Australia. These are the top lessons I've learned (hopefully you find as much value in them as I have):

1. When we are all being persecuted, we all become equal.
2. We have rights and we have a voice, and those are very powerful tools.
3. It's challenging to fight malevolence, but it's nearly impossible to fight indifference.
4. In regards to advocacy work - we can sympathize with any particular injustice, but to experience the injustice and learn first hand all the complexities of the particular situation is to understand the problem at its core. And you need to be able to understand the problem at its core in order to solve it in the most appropriate and effective fashion.

From this experience, I am completely grateful for my apartment family, they have expanded my world exponentially. This experience was both, in certain aspects, rewarding and infuriating. But, if not for it, we might have never learned the meaning of our own strength and determination.

Since I seem to be in a sharing mood, this quote is what continually inspires me and keeps me going:

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."
- Margaret Mead

That concludes this not-really-breaking- news-actually-more-like-old-news-at-this-point update. Please stay tuned for more irregularly scheduled blog posts...

Skyrockets in flight, peeww, Brisbane festival delight...

week 8 ( Aug. 30 - Sept. 5) - In real time (sept. 14th) I just pulled my first all-nighter finishing up my second paper for this program. I'm slightly delirious at the moment but I need to stay awake til a reasonable bedtime hour so I sleep through the night. In this valiant post-grad effort to maintain consciousness, I will blog to you about stuff. This is your disclaimer that there is an 89.9% possibility the following blog writing may not make any sense. Ok, here it goes...

So at this point I've been here for almost two months. A lot of my lifestyle has changed, I've changed. TV is non-existent, news is received by various reliable and (mostly) unbiased internet sources where I get to pick and choose the information I receive. I've realized the amount of sensationalism in most news programs actually added anxiety in my life, so it's a great change to get rid of that unnecessary stress. I also had a goal before I moved here to learn to become a good runner so I could take advantage of the surrounding beauty in the neighborhood and local forest areas. Slightly delayed in that goal, but Lina and I started running this week and plan on running about 4 days a week. I'm not a runner, at all. In fact, I really have always hated running and my body generally gives out after two minutes of trying. But, after all the obstacles I've overcome the past couple years, I feel that I've mastered mind over matter and running should be a breeze. Plus, I know it's going to be an amazing feeling to run through some beautiful forests. I promised myself I would remain cognizant of the fact that I only have this life and this moment so I really plan on taking full advantage of everything I have. In any case, if I don't send out another blog post within the next week, please send search and rescue crews to Mt. Coot-Tha.

I've really been trying to be productive in getting my paper done this week, but the idea of possibly coming home next week had me completely sidetracked. I couldn't focus on getting my paper done at all. I've been feeling anxious, happy, sad, nervous, excited, pretty much everything, and all potentially over nothing. The waiting game was a complete life distraction and my work was suffering from it.

Luckily the weekend came up quick to give me a decent reason for not being productive. The beginning of September marks the month long Brisbane festival, and yes, Brisbane is such a great city that it deserves a month-long celebration. The kick-off festivities began Saturday night where the city puts on a yearly event called RiverFire. It's basically a massive fireworks show where they shoot fireworks from buildings and bridges around the river and downtown area so everyone gathers by the Brisbane River to watch. They also have F111 fighter jets that do a dump and burn, where they set the engine exhaust on fire and the jet takes on the form a giant fireball flying through the sky, it's very cool looking in a slightly Armageddon-like sort of way. Kate and I decided to go to my classmate, Ben's house (he lives right on the river), to see this sight for ourselves. We partied and drank on the roof of his apartment building with several other people from my grad program. After the fireworks show a group of people stayed for a couple hands of poker. Fireworks and poker, all in one night, I was indeed a very happy girl!

Photo #2 - the jet fighter dump and burn (it looks far more ominous in person) here's a video as the picture does no justice http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbK1koSNxc0&feature=related

I have successfully made it to midnight, so goodnight to me and good morning to you.

To tired to think of something clever,

Jillian aka Jilly, Jillypet, Jillybean, J-Dilla, J-Bones, and sometimes crab cakes

My Italian Vocabulary: Buon Giorno! Ciao! Bravissimo! Spumoni!

Week 7 (Aug 23rd - 29th) - All I can say is, I encourage you all to start off your week with an Italian man cooking you dinner. I also encourage Lina to continue attracting Italian men so I can reap the culinary benefits. Andrea is a sweet and delightful Italian man who happened to be our waiter at this Greek restaurant we love going to. After Lina said "Buon Giorno" to him, he was smitten and offered to cook us an authentic Italian meal, and boy was it delicious. We started off with spaghetti and meat sauce and for the main course had mashed potatoes and pork marinated in this yummy sauce. nom nom nom. I tried to watch him while he was cooking, but seriously, who am I kidding? I doubt I could ever replicate that meal. Andrea is very light-hearted, charismatic, and passionate about life, which I'm not sure if that's just him or common traits of Italian culture, but either way his personality is extremely refreshing and am so glad we have found a new friend in him. Although, we didn't get to hang out with him too much as he has relocated up to Cairns to be a scuba instructor.

The rest of the week I just continued studying and reading. Friday night we were all itching to go out so we went to Friday's (it was appropriate given the day). It's not at all like TGIFriday's, it's actually our new favorite hang out spot. All the 9-5ers go after work to unwind and loosen their ties. While sipping on drinks we get to have a beautiful view of the Brissy river and a lit up bridge that I can't remember the name of (but it looks like a miniature version of the Golden Gate bridge). By huge random coincidence, we ended up seeing Lina's bus crush and ended up talking with him and his friends and hanging out with them for the night. We had a great time and some good laughs. In a desperate attempt to get rid of my heels I coerced one of his friends to trade shoes with me. I so sneaky sometimes! hehehe...

On Saturday we decided to get out of Brissy and head to the beach at Surfer's Paradise, which has pretty much become synonymous as our retreat from school work. What is it about the ocean that possesses the innate ability to calm the soul? I crave being near it.

On Sunday we headed back to reality and another week of studying and writing papers....

Wishing for a little less papers and a lot more beaches and Friday's,

Jillian a.k.a - Jilly, Jillypet, Jillybean, J-Dilla, J-Bones, and sometimes Crab Cakes

It's A Hung Parliament!... Heh?!?

Week 6 (Aug. 16th - Aug 22nd)

Move over Wizard, tonight is the federal elections, which means there may be a new person emerging from behind the curtains to run the land of OZ. However, the polls are so close that the deciding factor might be called to a hung parliament (a legislature where no political party has an absolute majority of seats). To give you an idea of how rare this election outcome is, it would be the first hung parliament decision since World War II. I'm sure this news article can explain it better, so hopefully you can open this web page and read about it if you're interested. http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/latest/7801295/hung-parliament-looking-likely/

Apparently the Greens Party (read Hippie Party) are the only ones currently jumping for joy as they've earned their first seat in the Senate. Right now the current PM, Labor Party's (liken to our Democrats) Julia Gillard, is duking it out with the Liberal/ National Coalition (Liken to our Republicans) Leader Tony Abott. I will update you with the results so stay tuned.

Interesting facts about voting in Australia: voting is mandatory! If you do not vote, you will be fined. It's not a large fine (maybe around $100 aud) but here you literally and figuratively pay a price for not voting. Also, election days are always on a Saturday. This helps to make the polling process convenient for people to vote so it doesn't interfere with work or school. I really can't help but compare other systems to our American system and wonder if the States should make voting mandatory. At the very least, they should hold election days on Saturdays, it makes way to much sense, doesn't it?

In any case, we can only hope the elected PM (unlike most politicians out there) has courage, a heart, and a brain.

Yours by popular vote,

Jillian aka - Jilly, Jillypet, Jillybean, J-Dilla, J-Bones, and sometimes Crab Cakes

I'd Tell Ya If I Could Remember!...

Week 4 (Aug. 2nd- Aug. 8th) - Nothing interesting or informative happened this week.

Week 5 (Aug. 9th- Aug. 15th) - This week was formally known as Ekka Week in Australia. Actually, it's more formally known as the Brisbane Exhibition, but any long title or word never escapes without an informal abbreviation here, hence Ekka. It is an agricultural fair of sorts, and Wednesday was recognized as a public holiday due to the cultural significance of the Ekka. Since Wednesday was a public holiday, we spent Tuesday night like any other society that has the next day off work - we got very very drunk. A group of about 12 of us went out to dinner and brought about 6 bottles of wine, which by some peoples standards may be plenty of alcoholic refreshment, but clearly was not enough for our group. By the end of the dinner and 9 bottles of wine later, the lazy susan (that spinning disk in the middle of the table you put entrees on) and a spoon had been transformed into a lethal drinking game. We had about 3 bottles of wine left, and with no one willing to sacrifice their livers for the team, we came up with a clever involuntary drinking method. We placed the spoon on the lazy susan, spun the lazy susan around, and whoever the spoon pointed towards had to down a glass of wine. No one was safe from the spoon. Eventually, after finishing all the wine and annoying everyone in the restaurant, we meandered to the Jube to drink some more. The Jube is a cowboy themed bar complete with complimentary straw cowboy hats and a mechanical bull - notice that even while intoxicated we are keeping with the agricultural theme of Ekka. I'm pretty sure we danced, sang, and socialized for a bit and then headed back to our place for a dip in Michael's "love tub" jacuzzi- because after a long day on the farm it's tradition for the ranch hands to take a dip in their love tubs. Okay, that's not true at all, we totally broke with the agricultural theme on this one. While others who shall remain nameless found a whole-lotta love in the tub that night, Michael and I fought to see who could collect the most floating miniature rubber duckies. I think I won...

The next morning we worked on nursing our hangovers and piecing together missing parts of the night. Advil, water, and bread was needed, STAT! After all, we had about two hours to pull ourselves together and get ready for the horse races. We hired a van and the Irish girls and the roomies went to New Farm race track. From afar it looked kind of glamorous. Girls wore dresses of all lengths and colors with over-sized hats or flowers in their hair, while guys looked dapper in their suits. But then after closer observation and a couple hours of drinking, this civilized gathering rapidly declined into what could only be described as the horse racing scene from My Fair Lady on crack. Think Kentucky Derby meets Jersey Shore. The crowd was slightly younger and while they were putting on their best show, it had quickly turned into a shit show, perhaps a dressed-up version of what we looked like last night. Girls could no longer function in their heels, guys were wrestling each other and rolling around in the grass, people were making out so hard I think they'd forgot horse races were even taking place - all of this in their Sunday's best. Whatever, it was still fun to watch everyone walk by and rate what they were wearing. It was kind of like watching the red carpet show before the Oscars, except it was nothing like the red carpet show before the Oscars. I definitely plan on going again, it is quite the unique experience.

I spent the rest of the weekend recovering and writing my first paper that was due on Monday. I learned that weekend that while I was able to easily get away with procrastinating in college, that work ethic was not going to fly in grad school. Right now I'm struggling to find the balance between school and social life - without one or the other suffering to grave a consequence. On top of that, I eventually will need to add a job in there somewhere. Oh, in case you were curious, I wrote my paper on the national and human security threats of Uganda brought on by the Lord's Resistance Army. Although the crisis there is dire and tragic, it is just as sad to me that compared to other world issues, this issue has only received minimal media and scholarly attention.

Avoiding lazy susans and spoons from now on,

Jillian aka - Jilly, Jillypet, Jillybean, J-Dilla, J-Bones, and sometimes Crab Cakes

Lost In Translation...

I figure while I freeze in the rain waiting for the bus, now is as good a time as ever to update y'all on living in Australia.

So I'm going on a month of living here. Before moving I had set expectations of certain lifestyle habits I wanted to amend and adopt while living in Australia. One of my lifestyle habits I really wanted to change was to spend more time outdoors and less time watching TV. Living here and not owning a car, it's nearly impossible to not walk to most places. Also, with studying and being out and about, I've maybe watched an hour of TV cumulatively since I've been here. I used to consider TV a necessity, and now it's hardly an afterthought. I don't think you understand how effing huge that is for me. I literally used to justify to myself that watching TV all day was okay because I was watching CNN. It's really not okay. I will definitely be making a conscious effort to never let that happen again - there's a huge, bright, magnificent world out there folks! However, I still would have liked to have seen the last episodes of The Hills and The City and I really miss Locked Up Abroad. Don't judge me.

Random bird noises: So we have already discussed the "Wild Uni Turkeys" but while walking around my new hood, I've noticed some truly weird bird sounds. I now refer to birds by the sound they make. There's the "drop" bird - which makes the sound of a water drop in a bucket. Then there's the "whip" bird - yup, sounds like the crack of a whip. And I saved the coolest one for last, the "monkey" bird. Unless there are monkeys in Bardon, this bird sounds exactly like a monkey and it kinda weirds me out every time I hear it. It's very elusive, I've never seen what this bird looks like so for now I can only imagine a monkey face on a bird body. OR, there is the possibility that since OZ has wild parrots and cockatoos that mimic sound, it could be one of them making all these crazy noises. Shit, I might have just totally debunked my monkey bird theory. Hmmm... I'll try and find out and get back to you as I'm sure you're all very interested to know more about Australian bird calls.

Moving along, so I was in a club the other night and Lina just happened to run into her friend from class, Travis, who was with his roommate and friends. We all introduced each other and the following conversation ensued (to preface the story - Travis and his roommate met when they were kids, their families had neighboring farms. In Australia, it's not uncommon to grow up on a farm or know someone that did):

Travis: So, what college did you go to?
Me: Cal State Northridge
Travis: What's near Northridge?
Me: Chatsworth?!
Travis: What's in Chatsworth?
Me: I dunno, it's the porn capital of the world.
Travis: Oh really? Huh.
Travis' roommate walks up (I don't remember his name, so we will call him John)
Travis: Jillian, this is my roommate John. John, this is Jillian. She's a corn farmer.
Me: WHAT?!?! Wait, why would you think I'm a corn farmer?
Travis: Because you're from Chatsworth, ya know, the corn capitol of the world!

This entire interaction will never cease to be funny to me. While loud music was mostly to blame for this miscommunication, I can't help but feel a little bit of it has to do with the slight cultural difference. I'm fairly certain if this situation were to happen in L.A. there is no way someone would have mistaken me for any type of produce farmer.

I know my East Coast family would appreciate this segment of the post, but I guess you can tell by the pictures of what has re-entered my life once again. Yes, the good old clothes line! I was actually really excited when I first saw it, just brings back some of my favorite memories of all of us staying at the cottage on the Long Island Sound. Although, this clothes line doesn't have the fun pulley system like the old one, which takes all the excitement out of drying clothes. But you can't have it all, can you? I've occasionally forgot about my clothes drying and they've received a second washing from Mother Nature. Not only is it aggravating when that happens, it's incredibly counter-productive. However, I had a stroke of genius and got crafty with my space heater! Not just a space heater anymore, it is now a multi-functional device as you can tell from the first photo. Yes, family, this is what I'm doing in Australia. In case you ever say to yourselves, "Gosh, I wonder what sort of fascinating and wonderful things Jillian might be doing in that foreign land?!" Scroll back up, take another look, and marvel at photo #1.

We'll, it's official, my life is getting pretty normal here. But if you know me at all you know that really never lasts for too long. Just hang in there with me til November. I should be going to Thailand, Bali, and Cambodia with the money I'm supposed to be using to fund my education. Hopefully my trip will produce something interesting for me to blog about, but until then my life might be relatively normal. Sorry.

Missing all my loves residing in the surrounding areas of the corn capitol of the world,

Jillian aka Jilly, Jillypet, Jillybean, J-Dilla, J-Bones, and sometimes Crab Cakes

The Learning Curve

Week 3 (July 26th- Aug. 1st) This was a pretty trying week. My days of fun and playing around were officially over! Well, maybe not officially over... but definitely unofficially over until the weekend. No more introductory lectures. My first course started out with my professor asking us, "what causes war?"An intriguing question with several varying responses but the one he was fishing for was when a student replied, "human nature." I kept quiet, seeing as I have never studied International Relations before and my professor has a PhD in the field, it's probably in my best interest not to question it. However, being a hopeless eternal optimist, I couldn't help but disagree. Not even 10 minutes into my program and I'm already questioning authority. Honestly, who do I think I am? I guess I can't help but feel that while conflict is human nature, war is an outcome or product of conflict, and therefor a conscious decision that can be controlled. I disagree with the sentiment "what always has been, always will be." I'd like to think that our ability to evolve and adapt might take us to a point someday where war is unacceptable instead of inevitable. Although kind of forced, some may argue we have reached that point already in a sense regarding a future third world war. That's the thing with international theory, we would like to try and predict the outcome of future situations based upon the history of similar previous ones, but there are too many unforeseen variables in a constantly changing world that it's all speculation until it happens, and then it becomes history.

Sorry for the tangent, but that's a little insight for you into what my courses are like and that was just scratching the surface of how analytical/ theoretical they require us to be. But thought the question was fascinating enough to share. If you give it some thought let me know what you come up with, I'm curious to get a consensus on it.

I'll be honest, there were moments when the professors were giving their lectures this week and I thought to myself, "What have you done?!? You've picked up, moved to another country, got in over your head. Same mess, different continent." But then I reminded myself (and I'll remind you, so that you don't think I'm being all whimsical and flighty) that there's a lot more to this move than getting a masters and living in another place. I promise (and as you well know by now) there is always a method to my madness, and everything I say and do is weighed, calculated, and thought through ahead of time. Although I can not predict the outcome of this journey, I'm happy to say that so far it has been living up to its intended meaning. BUT, I really miss all the loves of my life back home - family, friends, meh kittehs, and In-N-Out. For the first time I experienced the feeling of being homesick - not a good feeling. You really have to work through it and psych yourself out of it.

The weekend couldn't come fast enough to pull me out of this travel funk I was in. We decided to check out the West End on Friday and ended up finding the BEST Greek restaurant, I was in heaven. We went out after and found a cool spot called Archive. To give you a better idea as far as social night life scene, The Valley is Hollywood and the West End is Santa Monica. The next day we hopped on the train to Surfers Paradise - my sanctuary - to celebrate Lina's birthday. It was a good time and being so close to the ocean put me in the relaxing state I had been craving.

Once again I had a reflective train ride home. I came to the conclusion that I'm at an interesting juncture of school paralleling life and vice-verse. On a daily basis I learn about and form theories on an international scale, while learning and forming theories about myself and my life. And life is just like international theory, you can plan and predict future events and outcomes all you want but there's always unforeseen variables that inevitably change everything. It's okay though, I've figured out that while planning may work for some, it doesn't work for me. I do best just living day by day.

Eternally Optimistic (who knew?),

Jillian aka - Jilly, Jillypet, Jillybean, J-Dilla, J-Bones, and sometimes Crab Cakes

PS - looking at some of my favorite photos of my luvs always eases the homesickness.

I Say Bell Pepper You Say Capsicum; You Say Budgie Smugler I Say Speedo; Bell Pepper, Capsicum, Budgie Smugler, Speedo- Let's Call The Whole Thing Off

I always felt the most important part about traveling is to observe, participate in, and understand the respective country's culture(s). If only we practiced this in our everyday lives, how different our world might be - but that's a whole other blog. I'm doing a little subsection blog, if you will, on idiosyncrasies, differences, and general observations on culture, environment, language, really anything and everything. I'm excited to share with you about what I learn in school, but I feel that what I learn from living is infinitely more valuable, and thus the most important to share. Plus, some of these experiences of venturing out of your comfort zone and putting yourself in an unfamiliar and different environment produce really funny results sometimes.

Exhibit A: Kate, Lina, and I had stopped into a coffee shop in Paddington to take a break from walking and caffinate ourselves to get over the jet lag. We got onto the topic of Queensland sports teams and which teams we should start rooting for. Quite confused by all the leagues and various teams within Queensland and Brisbane, we asked our server which teams he rooted for and which teams we should root for. He chuckled and responded with the names of a few teams I've since forgotten. We continued with our conversation and trying to decipher all these teams and have noticed the family sitting next to us frequently taking pause, looking at us, and chuckling. Others were not laughing as much as just staring. Anxious to get back to exploring and a little put off by the attitudes of the other customers, we wrapped up our break and came to the conclusion that we should really just root for all the teams and call it a day. It wasn't until later on in the afternoon that we learned the word "root" here, means "to fuck." Needless to say we haven't returned to the coffee shop in Paddington.

Excessive use of up-lighting: The other night I was traveling by way of bus coming back from school. Since I'm bad with directions and didn't want to get off at the wrong stop, I was being hypersensitive and vigilant about my surroundings. In my very aware state, I noticed all the trees that lined Coronation Drive (the main street that runs along the Brissy River) had dramatic and super colorful up-lighting. Each tree was illuminated from the ground to cast a glow of vibrant colors onto it. Then I started thinking about buildings that I've seen in the CBD that also have the same type of lighting. This one beautiful casino in the CBD (pictured in Farmers Market in last post) is lit up in bright fuchsia at night. While a ferris wheel across the river is lit up in bright purple and a bridge over the river is bright blue. I don't know if this night illuminating technique is used elsewhere in OZ, but Brisbane seems to be all about the bright and dramatic up-lighting effects. If there is a bland looking stationary object in Brissy, the up-lighting police (city decorations committee, perhaps?) will find it and they will up-light it with a magnificently bright color. It's kind of odd, but no other city could really pull off this extreme night lighting quite like Brissy.

Smoking in Australia and the policies of government regulation under universal health care: Boy am I glad I am a reformed smoker in this country! I noticed last time I was here that a pack of cigarettes averaged about $14.00 AUD a pack, packs of cigs usually have a large grotesque picture of a cancerous lung, and there are signs above the cigarette stand that read in large letters "smoking kills" and phone numbers for quitting help lines. It's nothing short of obvious that the government doesn't want it's citizens smoking. I asked Michael about it recently and he said the federal government is taking even further preventative measures in the near future by raising the tax on cigarettes again and taking all branding off the packs. Why this would never fly in America - we value (or perhaps are too scared to change?) the freedoms associated with free market enterprise and the tobacco lobbying dollars that line our politicians pockets would never allow for it. Prime example of the downside of capitalism (I know, strong words). For a country providing universal health care, it is in the government and the people's best interests to try to regulate tobacco use. In Australia, people with smoking related cancers and other smoking related illnesses are considered a huge economic drain on society. I wish I could say the governments regulations on tobacco products is the direct result of a love story between a government and it's people, but it is simply more profitable for Australia to keep it's citizens healthy, than to generate revenue through tobacco sale. It's almost too logical, isn't it?

Things about Australia I'm not sure I will ever get used to: No toilet seat covers in public bathrooms - my legs have gotten noticeably stronger from hovering; you're waking up, I'm going to sleep. Weird.; Australia's roadkill (kangaroo) is significantly larger than most American household pets - I thought I was going to need therapy after our drive home from the farm

I'll continue to update you as I continue to learn. I will probably revisit old topics too as I learn more about them, specifically health care since it's such a hot button issue back in the States.

But enough about me, I'm kind of curious to hear your thoughts on all of this. Especially seeing as this particular post got a little controversial. If you'd like to discuss, debate, question, or comment on this post or any of them, you can click on the word "comment." We can also discuss privately too if you prefer.

Controversially yours,

Jillian aka - Jilly, Jillypet, Jillybean, J-Dilla, J-Bones, and sometimes Crab Cakes

Farmers Markets, and French Horns, and RooPoo - Oh My!

Week 2 (July 19th - July 25th) We get back from the farm on Monday and reality slowly starts setting in. On Tuesday I went to orientation at the St. Lucia campus. The campus is incredibly beautiful and captures a type of university setting that I felt lacked from CSUN and always wanted to experience. I don't know how to describe it but the people, the energy, and the environment are so different. And last I checked CSUN didn't have wild turkeys roaming around campus (yup, you read that correctly, wild turkeys on campus - makes thanksgiving dinner incredibly convenient. kidding). I'm not going to school bash or anything but I think you know where I'm going with this. Anyway, orientation went well, I wont bore you with details.

Since we had really only been in Brisbane for a short few days before heading to the farm, the city still feels like relatively new uncharted territory. We continued exploring and on Wednesday happened upon an amazing Farmers Market in Brisbane Center. It's the healthy hippie in me that just loves supporting local farmers, fresh/ organic produce, and outdoor market/ fair type things, so obvi I plotzed over this! I'm so excited to pick up some veggies and other goodies there every Wednesday!

On Thursday evening we decided to go have dinner in South Bank, just a short bus ride and walk over a Brissy River bridge. After dinner we randomly found a french horn symphony performing in an open air theater in the middle of a park, so we stopped and listened. Other passers by did the same, it was just too beautiful and peaceful to not take a seat and appreciate the music for a moment. Maybe it was the impromptu french horn concert, or the amazing Farmers Market, or the way the city lights up at night, but I couldn't help but think to myself while listening to the music that I am one lucky bitch!

Friday we took a train down to Surfers Paradise. It was the first time when we actually had a moment to stop and rest and be alone with our thoughts. I think it was a reflective train ride for all of us about how much our lives had changed and all the life events that led up to the present moment of being on a train in Australia, creating a new world for ourselves for a (relatively) short period of time. It was a great day trip, and I still got the same "this is where I want to be" feeling just as I did the first time I had visited there.

Saturday was a particularly big night for us, we experienced our first rugby game - and it was A-MAZ-ING! We started off at a BBQ for Rowena (one of the Irish girls we had met at Michael's Bday) where we got our pre-drink on. Michael and I decided to get decked out in Wallaby (our rugby team) paraphernalia. We made a deal that if he wore a bright green and yellow mullet, I would wear his prized blow-up kangaroo, RooPoo. Seemed like a harmless enough deal at the time but then things went horribly wrong for me. I thought it would be this little kangaroo I would wear on my back, until Kate blows it up and the thing is as nearly as big as I am. Then Michael started dressing said roo in a yellow mankini reminiscent of Borat. The yellow mankini was NOT part of the deal, and when Michael started stuffing mini sausages in the "down under" region of the mankini I was ready to call the whole thing off. We truced that the sausages went but the mankini stayed. Although I found my argument of "kangaroos don't typically wear mankinis so why should I have to wear one that does?" to be a valid argument, I decided to be a good sport and go along with it. Very aware of the unwanted attention I was about to receive, I braced myself by having a few more drinks. This is where things get really weird. So I'm walking down a busy pedestrian street with a life-sized yellow mankini wearing kangaroo strapped to my back, and NOBODY says anything. They hardly gave a second glance. I started wondering if people maybe did this often - how was nobody phased by this? The lack of attention would have been a let down if it wasn't so damn embarrassing. But I did get a chance to bond with RooPoo a little bit, and gave him a more L.A. ghetto fab style name, K-Jizzle. We got to the stadium and although K-Jizzle was an absolute hit with security, he was not allowed into the stadium. They gave us a claims ticket and we would have to retrieve him from a claims desk after the game. We kept our drinking going and watched the Wallabies claim victory over whatever the South African team is called. Rugby is a super fun game to watch and pretty easy to pick up the rules quickly too. After the game we head over to the claims desk to pick up RooPoo and come to find that someone else had taken the roo! Although this was really devastating for Michael (it was a very precious and irreplaceable item) here are some funny bits of the argument with the guy behind the claims desk that should be shared:

Michael: Hi. We're here to collect RooPoo, my kangaroo
Claims Guy: I don't think we have anything like that here. what did it look like?
Michael: Brown. 4 ft tall. wearing a yellow mankini.

and

Michael (to claims guy): I can replace the mankini, I can replace the sausage stains, but I can't replace RooPoo!

Maybe you had to be there. Anyway, it was useless, RooPoo was gone. The only way for us to salvage the night was to continue drinking along the bars on Caxton Street near the stadium - and that we did.

Sunday - recovery day

And that sums up week 2.

Peace, love, and RooPoo,

Jillian aka Jilly, Jillypet, Jillybean, J-Dilla, J-Bones, and sometimes Crab Cakes