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