the velveteen happiness

Hahaha look what I found.

2012-02-06T04:05:00.000-08:00

An old attempt at a video diary from November, the morning of my last exam. Oh dear Lord.

The 100 most beautiful words in the English language.

2012-01-29T04:10:00.000-08:00

Here is something really lovely that I came across today. It's a list of words that give me faith in the English language after coming to dislike it so much in comparison to the romantics I've heard on my travels. I have italicised my favourites, but please let me know if there are any amazing ones I have missed. Personally, I can never go past a good nemesis, but have always wondered if you can ever have more than one. Is there a plural? Anyway, hope you had a wonderful weekend!

Ailurophile A cat-lover.
Assemblage A gathering.
Becoming Attractive.
Beleaguer To exhaust with attacks.
Brood To think alone.
Bucolic In a lovely rural setting.
Bungalow A small, cozy cottage.
Chatoyant Like a cat’s eye.
Comely Attractive.
Conflate To blend together.
Cynosure A focal point of admiration.
Dalliance A brief love affair.
Demesne Dominion, territory.
Demure Shy and reserved.
Denouement The resolution of a mystery.
Desuetude Disuse.
Desultory Slow, sluggish.
Diaphanous Filmy.
Dissemble Deceive.
Dulcet Sweet, sugary.
Ebullience Bubbling enthusiasm.
Effervescent Bubbly.
Efflorescence Flowering, blooming.
Elision Dropping a sound or syllable in a word.
Elixir A good potion.
Eloquence Beauty and persuasion in speech.
Embrocation Rubbing on a lotion.
Emollient A softener.
Ephemeral Short-lived.
Epiphany A sudden revelation.
Erstwhile At one time, for a time.
Ethereal Gaseous, invisible but detectable.
Evanescent Vanishing quickly, lasting a very short time.
Evocative Suggestive.
Fetching Pretty.
Felicity Pleasantness.
Forbearance Withholding response to provocation.
Fugacious Fleeting.
Furtive Shifty, sneaky.
Gambol To skip or leap about joyfully.
Glamour Beauty.
Gossamer The finest piece of thread, a spider’s silk.
Halcyon Happy, sunny, care-free.
Harbinger Messenger with news of the future.
Imbrication Overlapping and forming a regular pattern.
Imbroglio An altercation or complicated situation.
Imbue To infuse, instill.
Incipient Beginning, in an early stage.
Ineffable Unutterable, inexpressible.
Ingénue A naïve young woman.
Inglenook A cozy nook by the hearth.
Insouciance Blithe nonchalance.
Inure To become jaded.
Labyrinthine Twisting and turning.
Lagniappe A special kind of gift.
Lagoon A small gulf or inlet.
Languor Listlessness, inactivity.
Lassitude Weariness, listlessness.
Leisure Free time.
Lilt To move musically or lively.
Lissome Slender and graceful.
Lithe Slender and flexible.
Love Deep affection.
Mellifluous Sweet sounding.
Moiety One of two equal parts.
Mondegreen A slip of the ear.
Murmurous Murmuring.
Nemesis An unconquerable archenemy.
Offing The sea between the horizon and the offshore.
Onomatopoeia A word that sounds like its meaning.
Opulent Lush, luxuriant.
Palimpsest A manuscript written over earlier ones.
Panacea A solution for all problems
Panoply A complete set.
Pastiche An art work combining materials from various sources.
Penumbra A half-shadow.
Petrichor The smell of earth after rain.
Plethora A large quantity.
Propinquity An inclination.
Proximity; Nearness
Pyrrhic Successful with heavy losses.
Quintessential Most essential.
Ratatouille A spicy French stew.
Ravel To knit or unknit.
Redolent Fragrant.
Riparian By the bank of a stream.
Ripple A very small wave.
Scintilla A spark or very small thing.
Sempiternal Eternal.
Seraglio Rich, luxurious oriental palace or harem.
Serendipity Finding something nice while looking for something else.
Summery Light, delicate or warm and sunny.
Sumptuous Lush, luxurious.
Surreptitious Secretive, sneaky.
Susquehanna A river in Pennsylvania.
Susurrous Whispering, hissing.
Talisman A good luck charm.
Tintinnabulation Tinkling.
Umbrella Protection from sun or rain.
Untoward Unseemly, inappropriate.
Vestigial In trace amounts.
Wafture Waving.
Wherewithal The means.
Woebegone Sorrowful, downcast.

NEW FILM!

2012-01-28T04:03:00.001-08:00

charlottedurand's photostream on Flickr.

Just uploaded a few holga shots from Wellington. These ones turned out great! None of them have been edited, I got the film developed and rather than scan them all, I just took photos of them on my phone. Super lazy I know, but they look fine anyway. Enjoy!

Making the Cut.

2012-01-28T02:54:00.000-08:00

This photo was taken on one of my last days at Sydney uni, where I have been for the last couple of weeks. If you look closely you can see me in the second row in what is the ultimate photobomb. Seriously.

I was lucky enough to be invited to spend two weeks in the lab, participating in a part of the uni's 8 week whole body dissection elective which runs in the summer break. Everyone else in white is in their final year of a post grad med degree, and the people in green are either surgical registras or professors of anatomy.

Before you ask, yes- it is weird to spend 2 weeks legitimately cutting up dead bodies- but you seriously don't even notice how creepy it should be because it's just so freaking cool. I can't tell you how fascinating the whole experience was, it's like nothing I have ever done before. And you learn so much! After spending the best part of your day painstakingly dissecting out a particular branch of the facial nerve there is no way in hell you are ever going to forget it.

Dissection is a completely different style of learning because you really learn about the anatomical relationships of different structures in the area where you're working. I spent most of my time with the two teams doing head and neck, and I learned so much in such a short amount of time. Because I've only just finished my first year and we haven't covered much neuroanatomy at all, I thought that I would be waaaay out of my depth and that everyone would think I was an absolute idiot. But it worked out great because I could follow along with everything they were saying and if I didn't fully understand, someone was always glad to talk me through it.

Before I got there, I had this image in my head of a deathly silent lab crowded with nerdy freaks bent over bodies and talking in medical language so sophisticated that I wouldn't even be able to hold a conversation. What I found on the first day could not have been more reassuring. Yes, most of them are nerdy (you kind of have to be to get in here in the first place) but everyone I met was so chilled out, kind and genuine, I couldn't have asked for a better group. We worked together in teams of about 8, meeting in the morning for a debrief of the days goals and other relevant info. The clinical lectures were fantastic because they linked the things we were learning with situations and symptoms we might come across in practice.

Most days we worked until 11am, which had become the unofficial break for a cup of tea and a sneaky game of table tennis in the common room. Back to work for a couple of hours before another lunch break outside in the sun, and then most people stayed around until about 4pm.

It was a pretty similar schedule every day, and though we covered sooo much anatomy in each session it surprised me just how relaxing and how fun the environment was. We worked together, teaching and learning from other students as well as the professors and demonstrators. I got to know them all quite well that when it came time to leave I realised how easily I could have stayed on for the rest of the course.

One of the best things for me was to get to know people who are at the opposite end of my degree, who are about to graduate and who still feel like they don't know enough (which is both reassuring and horribly scary.) People who are living real lives alongside their study and work, not just hanging out at college in their spare time. I met someone with a young daughter who I spoke to about balancing her time between being a doctor/surgeon and having a family as well. Hopefully all this kind of stuff is way in the future where I'm concerned, but it's nice to know that there are people out there doing what I want to do and that I'm not alone in my fears and worries.

I am so grateful for having been given such an incredible opportunity, and I hope that I can keep on seizing every little thing that comes my way. Most importantly I hope that I continue to love what I do and to have fun in my work- whatever that may be. Most immediately, I think that this experience has made me reconsider applying to do the dissection elective at my own uni in Townsville this year. I think that if I am even considering surgery as a career path (which I am- I don't want to not do it) then it is definitely something that will help me. Who knows where I am headed or what I will do, as long as I enjoy it then I'm happy!

beautiful.

2012-01-24T12:58:00.001-08:00

New Zealand so far.

2011-12-28T21:45:00.000-08:00

Ok so it's been so long since I last posted on here so there are a good few months of my life missing which I will try and fill in soon, but right now I am in New Zealand- about 3 days into a 10 day holiday. I say holiday rather than 'trip' because we are making a deliberate effort to relax and do holiday-ish things.

Today we went on a very sophisticated wine tour around the Martinborough region. It was fantastic. We tried all types of wine and I have eaten so much cheese and so many crackers that I don't think I can ever look at another one again!

The region is famous for Pinot Nior, but we had a try of everything. Super proud of ourselves because we managed to stay relatively sober for the entire day. Never thought I would say that haha! The countryside on the way there from Wellington was so beautiful and green, and we rode the train along the coast for a short way too. We have been so lucky with weather, even managing to get in some sneaky sunshine.

Last night we met up with these 3 lovely guys who live just around the corner who had invited us over for dinner. We went for a walk up Mount Victoria and had a little picnic overlooking the whole of Wellington and Oriental Bay. We watched the sunset and talked about everything and nothing, it was such a great way to spend the afternoon. We went back to their little place which was absolutely adorable and cooked up an amazing meal of fish, salad, potatoes, lamb, sausages and asparagus. It was actually a feast. Haha.

Wellington so far has been incredible, I am so glad that we decided to spend all our time here rather than exhaust ourselves running from town to town. We have discovered some gorgeous little cafes and gelati shops, even stumbled across some giant free beanbags down on the wharf that we promptly fell asleep in :P

I just bought tickets for a NYE party at a bar on the wharf, it is a live gig in this incredible old ballroom with wooden floors, chandeliers and an incredible view of the bay. The bands sound pretty sweet too, so we're getting pretty excited about it. I can't believe how quickly the new year has come around, it's actually incredible.

Tomorrow we are going to wake up, have a coffee and go from there. What a fantastic way to live :)

lookbook.nu

2011-11-24T23:55:00.001-08:00

Oh my god.

2011-10-18T06:55:00.000-07:00

A picture began circulating in November. It should be "The Picture of the Year," or perhaps, "Picture of the Decade." It won't be. In fact, unless you obtained a copy of the U.S. paper which published it, you probably would never have seen it.

The picture is that of a 21-week-old unborn baby named Samuel Alexander Armas, who is being operated on by surgeon named Joseph Bruner. The baby was diagnosed with spina bifida and would not survive if removed from his mother's womb. Little Samuel's mother, Julie Armas, is an obstetrics nurse in Atlanta. She knew of Dr. Bruner's remarkable surgical procedure. Practicing at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, he performs these special operations while the baby is still in the womb.

During the procedure, the doctor removes the uterus via C-section and makes a small incision to operate on the baby. As Dr. Bruner completed the surgery on Samuel, the little guy reached his tiny, but fully developed hand through the incision and firmly grasped the surgeon's finger. Dr. Bruner was reported as saying that when his finger was grasped, it was the most emotional moment of his life, and that for an instant during the procedure he was just frozen, totally immobile.

The photograph captures this amazing event with perfect clarity. The editors titled the picture, "Hand of Hope." The text explaining the picture begins, "The tiny hand of 21-week-old fetus Samuel Alexander Armas emerges from the mother's uterus to grasp the finger of Dr. Joseph Bruner as if thanking the doctor for the gift of life."

Little Samuel's mother said they "wept for days" when they saw the picture. She said, "The photo reminds us pregnancy isn't about disability or an illness, it's about a little person" Samuel was born in perfect health, the operation 100 percent successful.

Reset.

2011-09-18T20:04:00.000-07:00

I have been feeling all scattered today, probably due to lack of sleep and exercise (broken foot- I'll explain later). I have had so much caffeine and I was pretty much running laps of my room and swinging between neurotic happiness, helplessness (soo much work) and ridiculously angry at absolutely nothing. I was so mad at a slice of red onion at lunch- it was really bad. But I've managed to reset my day, and I feel so much better. It happened by chance (yes, I was procrastinating) that I found these things, but they were the perfect combination of what I needed to get my head back together. The universe just sent me a little help, so thanks to whoever orchestrated the whole thing. Just in case anyone else is having one of those days, I thought I'd share it. First, watch the video and then click the link and do what it tells you. It's the right dose of the right emotions. Promise you'll feel better after :)

Click me!

Guaranteed, this will make your day.

2011-08-12T23:59:00.000-07:00

Holga

2011-08-09T03:34:00.000-07:00

All these were taken by me in the last year. Some are in New York, some at home in Ballina and some since I have moved. Taken on 120mm film and developed matte with a white border. Scanned with a terrible scanner...sorry about shit quality.

Black, White and Grey.

2011-07-17T02:50:00.000-07:00

All of these photos were taken by me on standard 35mm black & white film. I use a little camera that is one step up from a disposable, nothing fancy. They are all taken around Ballina, just things that caught my eye in one way or another as I wandered around. Hope you like them :)

The system.

2011-07-15T02:06:00.000-07:00

It's just been me and Arty at home during the day for the past week. Mum goes to work in the morning, and comes home around 5pm. We've been enjoying hanging out at home, getting all the stuff done that we can't do when we're studying. Stuff like painting, sewing, cooking, watching Seinfeld etc. It's been pretty fun. the only problem is trying to keep the house clean for the whole day while Mum's away. Seeing as Louie is also away this week, she won't just get home and assume it's his mess all over the house, so we have to actually clean up after ourselves. (Exhausting and impossible, I know ;)) We have evolved this system where we don't clean anything at all, all day, until about 4:20pm. We make as much mess as we like, there are dishes in the sink, bits of material all over the lounge room, paints and old cups of tea scattered through the whole house. We don't lift a finger until this magic time of 4:30, when we clean the whole house from top to bottom- vacuuming, folding washing, all the dishes, everything. It works so well, because by the time Mum walks in the door just after 5, the house is pretty much shining with how perfect we are. If she's lucky, she'll even walk in as I'm putting away the last of the days cutlery, or Arty is giving the benches a final wipe down or straighten. It's a flawless system- or so we thought...
Today was like any other Friday, Mum went off to work and we went about our usual daily business. I bought a pattern for shorts, so I was sewing up a storm in the lounge room- needles and thread everywhere. Arty was making toast and avocado, and even though Mum had asked him to vaccuum the house, that would obviously wait until later on. Everything was going great, I even got my paints out, and managed to get through about 25 cups of tea before lunch.

I made up this little graph to illustrate the accuracy and logic of our system.

So now the yellow star represents the time when Mum usually comes home. As you can see, the house is pretty much back to the cleanness of that morning, no matter what has gone on during the day. Usually, the mess rises after she goes, plateaus a little while we make lunch before a tremendous increase as the afternoon progresses. Unfortunately, the red star represents the time at which Mum came home today. It was not a pleasant experience, and I think she was just as shocked and horrified as we were. She just kind of walked through the house in slow motion; if you can imagine somebody surveying the remains of their house after it has been destroyed by fire, randomly picking up things to examine, with a pinched expression on their face- that's what she was doing. It was painful. She was home for a few minutes, but then went back out to work, thank god, and we were able to proceed on the continuum until we went though the whole clean up routine just before she got home. I think that maybe in the future we will have to incorporate an emergency evacuation plan in case it ever happens again, otherwise we can just all point at Louie ;)

Picnic on the headland.

2011-07-14T18:14:00.000-07:00

Claire sitting with our beautiful spread. We found a little spot on the edge of a cliff, looking out over the ocean. We had a blanket, lots of munchies and even a few cups of tea in a sneaky thermos!

We managed to fit so much into this basket, it weighed about a hundred kilos. We looked hilarious trying to lug it up the hill. So not graceful at all!

The view. How magical is it? The water was actually sparkling.

An hour before we left, we realised that it wouldn't be a real picnic without some scones! These are Claire's home made raisin scones, and they were incredible.

We made this amazing salad, with roast pumpkin, grated carrot, roast walnuts, chickpeas and baby spinach. Ate so much of it, it was gone in about 2 minutes!

My Grandma used to pride herself on the cumquat jam she made-she even had a little cumquat tree in a pot at the front gate of their Brighton home. Mum and I both love it, and so whenever we see any we just have to buy it- especially if it's been made by a sweet little old lady. Somehow our combined efforts mean we have accumulated about 7 jars in the last 6 months, and it's getting ridiculous.

How adorable is my tea set? I managed to get four cups and saucers, four small plates, four large plates and four bowls all with the same rose pattern and gold trim. The best part? I got the whole set for $5 at the salvos! And the lovely lady in there said she might have a teapot that would go nicely that she would bring in for me. Amazing!

Claire's French book, I have no idea what it says, but it looks pretty!

The beginning of my little art book. I'll explain more when I have some art to show ;)

It was such a perfect afternoon, tea, snacks, sunshine and salty air. It's raining today, so all I have are these photos to remind me that I live in a summer holiday destination.

Nobody Expects the Spanish Revolution

2011-07-11T04:59:00.000-07:00

Scott Trindle- Unretouched Models.

2011-07-11T03:31:00.000-07:00

"It doesn't scare me that the images aren't retouched, it adds another layer of interest and intrigue," Trindle told us. "I'm as guilty of a slight polish in post as any, but having beautiful woman sit by a window doesn't fill me with unease. The fear that surrounds an un-retouched image is quite amazing - and again I'm no martyr. So much can be adapted in post, and so I suppose the main benefit is its purity."

click here to read about his project and see more photos.

Quote of the week.

2011-07-11T02:04:00.000-07:00

"I'm colour blind. I've eaten uncooked meat many a time before."

On the fact that the chicken might not be cooked right through yet.

-Arty

I got asked where I'm from again last night.

2011-07-09T01:29:00.000-07:00

It's a real conversation stopper, and I should really just start inventing a new home country to please those people that always look so disappointed with my answer.

Where are you from?
Um, Ballina.
Where are your parents from?
Australia.
...

and then they get all awkward and don't say anything more.

Last night I took Claire up to Byron because she has been staying with me for the past week. It was such a nice, chilled out night. As soon as we got out of the car we heard this music coming across the park and decided to follow it and see what was going on. We ended up in this packed little bar, listening to this girl who was an incredible performer. Her name is Vanessa Baker, shes athletic, eclectic and a super babe. You can have a listen to a few snippets of her here.

Over the week I have been trying to give Claire the proper "Byron experience" and looking back I think we pretty much got there. Some highlights for the week include;

-Walking in on a conversation in the art shop involving one old lady trying to find the best portrait artist around to paint a portrait of her two cats.
-Being offered purple haze by a guy that was either an undercover cop, or a really awkward douche bag.
-Walking down the street past a guy with a gigantic llama on a leash.
-Buying so much stuff from the op shops that Claire had to wear about 20 layers to compensate for buying carry on luggage only for her flight home.
-Seeing teriyaki tofu being sold alongside hot dogs by the late night snack vendors.
-Having a picnic on the headland in the beautiful sun and watching the wales go past. (I'll upload some photos from our picnic because it was glorious)
And finally, this conversation;

*We had been next to this older lady in the crowd at the beach hotel listening to this crazy band and she had been absolutely losing her shit, jumping around and whipping her hair all over the place. This conversation happened about 10 minutes later...*

Lady: Hey girls!
Us: Hi :)
Lady: Man this is good, I love this band, love getting right into it.
Us: Wow yeah you must be getting hot in that vest. (she was wearing a gigantic fur vest)
Lady: Yeah I am, but i can't take it off because I can't lose it.
Us: Fair enough.
Lady: Yeah because it's my dog.
Us: *blank faces but inside screaming "No, no, OH GOD, NO!"*
Lady: You think I'm weaird, don't you? I know you think I'm weird now.
Me: (strangely high pitched) Weird is good!
lady: *looks me up and down* Yeah well you obviously like a bit of weird, don't you?
Claire: (I don't remember what she said but it was pretty much just a colourful word vomit of reasons to justify why turning your dead dog into a vest is a plausible thing to do. I think it involved that it would be just like cuddling the dog, and its better that she didn't go out and kill a healthy animal to make a coat. A real mixed bag of comments haha.)
This lady then takes the vest off, and sets it down on the pool table, before kind of holding it in the shape that it would have been in when it was a dog. At this point we were being way too enthusiastic in an attempt to hide how freaked out we were, and so we decided to bail to the bar before she offered to make us matching ones!

I would say that we had a pretty successful week, and I loved having someone to show around to all my favourite little spots. It's amazing how much fun you can have pretending to be a tourist in your own town!

lookbook.

2011-07-06T16:53:00.001-07:00

Tomorrow! Melbourne!

2011-06-17T03:42:00.000-07:00

Eeeek! I am so freaking excited that tomorrow I will finally be back in Melbourne, reunited with friends and family I haven't seen in over a year. Can you believe that on this very day, one year ago, I was spending my first night in New York City. I was scared and excited, about to begin months and months of crazy adventures. Best decision I ever made. I feel like I am going home, but going on a new adventure at the same time. I can't wait! I am especially pumped to actually have a reason to wear this sweet new hat that I told you about the other day....

Its actually grey so the black and white photo is still fairly accurate, but spares you my horribly un-Townsvillian face paleness. Haha.

I will keep you updated on what I'm up to, I've got to do a placement for uni for a few days, and then I am going to try to pack as much stuff as I can into the week after. I want to go to T2, camberwell market, youkis sushi, the library, soul mamma, lygon st, ackland st, fitzroy and a few other places that I haven't been to before, but that I have heard are pretty nice. Anyway, it's just me and louie here tonight so I'm going to go watch big cat diary with my little bro :) Seeya!

Old brand new

2011-06-16T06:20:00.000-07:00

Yes it is the name of one of my favourite blogs, but it is also kind of today's theme. My days don't usually have themes, just so you know, but its kind of awesome that it did today. So first of all I met up with a friend this morning that I haven't seen in years, literally. It was really lovely, we just hung out at my favourite little place in Byron catching up on what we've missed and what everyone else has been up to. It was so weird to think about so many people today that I haven't heard of or from since I stepped off Phillip Island. It's strange how you can spend so much time away from people, completely out of contact, but then when you finally see them it's like you just said goodbye the day before. Speaking of which, I am super excited for my trip down to Vic next week. I don't really have any plans just yet, but I have a few things that I want to do and people to see, so I really hope I can fit it all in!

I also made this today...

I have had this old piece of lace hanging around my room for like, 6 months, and really needed to do something with it. It's still a bit of a work in progress, but I will let you know how it goes.

Oh and this morning, I went to get a coffee in a place that I haven't been before and there was the prettiest girl working there. You know when you just see someone who looks so different from anyone you have ever seen before, and they are just so incredibly beautiful that you love them and hate them at exactly the same time? Maybe that's just me, but she was adorable!

And oh god I nearly forgot, I bought the most freaking amazing hat ever yesterday. Oh you are going to die when you see it. It's a fur hat, made of a grey-ish white colour fur, and its kind of box shaped. It's AMAZING. I will try and get a photo in it tomorrow to show you. Which is now completely possible because I FINALLY HAVE A CAMERA! Yeah I don't even know how to hold it. Its like when someone asks you to hold their baby and you're all awkward trying not to crush it but also not drop it. That's how I feel about the camera right now, though I have noticed that the auto focus won't work. As of right now I can't be sure if that is a problem that happened before or after Arty thought he would take it upon himself to borrow my brand new camera to take photos of the wall. Yes, the wall. Anyway, I'm going to try and sleep now because I am freaking exhausted. Yes it's only 11:15 buuuut I ran 7k in 35 mins today. Ok yeah that was just a horribly obvious segue just so I could brag about my time. Ha. Goodnight! xx

goosebumps.

2011-06-07T04:57:00.000-07:00

This video, I don't know what to think about it. But it's not good to watch if you're feeling fragile. Makes you feel kind of empty.

The night before the night after.

2011-06-05T04:26:00.000-07:00

I have my first exam as a med student tomorrow, and I have no idea what to expect. Most of the people I have talked to about it have been in tears at least once in the past week. I think I just don't care as much as I should, maybe it's because I know that my entire career isn't riding on the hope that I get top of the class. All you have to do is pass, how hard can it be? I guess we'll find out. Maybe I'll be eating my words next month when the results come out and I have failed miserably. But hopefully not. Haha. I found this quote about medicine as I was procrastinating tonight, and it kind of makes me a little sad, but definitely brings back to earth any lofty thoughts I might have had about being a doctor.

Medicine always claims the experience is the test of its operations. Plato therefore was right in saying that to become a true doctor, a man must have experienced all the illnesses he hopes to cure and all the accidents and circumstances he is to diagnose... Such a man I would trust. For the rest guide us like the person who paints seas, rocks and harbours while sitting at his table and sails his model of a ship in perfect safety. Throw him into the real thing, and he does not know where to begin.

- Montaigne, Essays 3.13

I guess getting dengue fever in Thailand earlier this year will give me a leg-up in the world of tropical diseases. Maybe everything does happen for a reason, haha. Oh wow, look at how philosophical I am getting in my tired stupor. I haven't done any excercise in 2 days and I am going crazy. Think I might get up and run in the morning. The sunrises here are beautiful, it's amazing. You wouldn't think it was winter yet. This morning the sky was purple and pink, and the sun looked like a giant egg yolk. I am liking this place more and more. But I am so unbelievably excited to be heading home in just 7 days. I haven't seen my Mum in 5 months, and my Dad in over a year. Oh hurry up weekend. I even bought a new coat to help me brave the Melbourne weather. I know, more online shopping- it will be the death of my funds. But it was orange so I had to....

the new inventors

2011-05-23T06:03:00.000-07:00

The 'peekaroo' baby carrier is possibly one of THE most disturbing and worrying contraptions I have come across in recent weeks. Can you please just look at this picture for just 10 seconds and then focus on what facial expression you are making. If your reaction was anything like mine you will be looking a bit like this....

Actually, I can't decide if the peekaroo beats this little beauty; the 'infant pillow,' whose generic and unimaginative name does little to reduce the sense of horrific wrong-ness that creeps up on you when you see it. Let's be honest, this is freaking weird.

Can you guess what it is? That's right, its a bicycle seat cover. A bicycle seat cover.

"Covers protect and keep your seat dry while adding a little lightness to your excursion. Other members of the animal kingdom are immortalized for your riding pleasure, including a bull, wolf, lionness and goat. "

And finally, the "pink passion kitten wig"

Totally speaks for itself....

There seems to be a little diva in every cat, let it shine through with the Pink Passion Kitty Wig. Bouncy waves of elegant pink locks make up this absurd kitty accessory. Just be careful when trying to get yours to wear it…we hear that divas can be downright catty.

But the best part is the price. This wig will set you back a good $50. FIFTY DOLLARS asdfghjkl. OH my god if I ever see a cat wearing an expensive pink wig I will actually die.

Quote of the week

2011-05-05T05:51:00.000-07:00

I've got you on loudspeaker, but I still have to hold the phone up to my ear so it's a bit of an oxymoron...

-Mum, trying to work technology.

Watch this. The end.

2011-05-02T23:28:00.001-07:00

Never Let Me Go.

2011-05-01T21:28:00.000-07:00

Possibly the most painful, beautiful and heartbreaking film I have ever seen.

I couldn't even breathe it was so beautiful, and I don't even know that much about cinematography and everything. I read somewhere that the director deliberately didn't use any primary colours in the entire movie, which gives it this beautifully honest quality and makes my heart ache at how wonderfully artistic it is. And the light, oh the light. In this one scene where young Cathy is sitting on her bed by herself, it's so amazing. She looks like an angel. The whole film kind of has the same feel to it as one of those old brown world maps. Please, please watch it, but read and understand the storyline/book first, because then you won't be distracted constantly wondering wts is going on, and you'll pick up on the little details better.

Please excuse all the spamming of my blog today but I just had to share this movie with someone, and when I tried talking about the pretty lighting and gushing about the genius behind the colour scheme at lunch today, everyone laughed at me and gave me that "this is really awkward because you're a freak shut up before we all leave and sit at another table" look that I seem to be getting a lot recently. Oh well, at least I have tumblr.

~~WOW my life has reached a new low today.~~

Creative Napping

2011-05-01T17:09:00.001-07:00

Because all I want to do today is sleeeeeeep.

Magnetic Floating Bed

Hamburger Bed

NapShell, an egg-like bed
Molecular Bed
Fantasy Coach, A fairytale bed

Cosmovoide Bed
Quantum Sleeper, the “anti-terrorist” bed
Private Cloud, the rocking bed

The Scoop!

The Computer Bed
The Sonic Bed
The Lomme Bed
BedUP, the Ceiling Bed
The Hanging Bed
Coffin Bed

The Jezabels.

2011-05-01T14:39:00.000-07:00

Holy Jesus God they were amazing yesterday at Groovin. Definitely the highlight of my day, even though they played really early. dsjdbfhsj! The lead singer, Hayley Mary, is actually incredible and also super adorable. Oh my gosh you should have been there. If you guys ever get the chance to see them please go, and take me with you! The only drawback was all the forkheads in the crowd yelling out "MACE SPRAY! MACE SPRAY!" in between all her songs. Seriously :| Just enjoy the music.

Megan Washington was cute as always, loved her set, but I think because it's the second time I've seen her-and because it wasn't a small gig like last time- it didn't seem AS amazing. The wombats were so much fun, although they neglected to play Patricia (which is completely understandable but frustrating all the same). Cut Copy were actually a little disappointing but I was happy they popped 'Saturdays' into their set. Bliss n Eso will never be as good as the time they played at Pyramid, but they did eye of the storm so I was loving it. It's probably my favourite song they've done, and not just for the Angus and Julia part.

I took my holga and managed to get some pics, so fingers crossed they turn out ok when I get them developed. In July. I know, July, don't even.

Oh my god the funniest thing happened yesterday; we were waiting for Nicola's sister, Cristina, to text us when she was going to be walking past so we could walk to the festival with her. Anyway, she messaged us and said that she had found someone to give us a lift so we needed to be out the front in 5 minutes. Frantically, we filled our snap lock bags with vodka and shoved them in our clothes every which where and sprinted out the front (I couldn't understand why everyone was screaming to hurry up) and on her front lawn was a freaking bus packed full of people! We climbed on this bus, and I swear the guy was either drunk or had not driven a bus before because he was electing to go over the roundabouts instead of around them, we went up on almost every curb possible, and I am pretty certain we backed into a tree at one point trying to turn around in a court after picking someone up hahaha. Meanwhile, snap lock bags were leaking like crazy, and so my bra was becoming increasingly soaked with vodka. Such a depressing and helpless situation to be in. We got there in the end, I still don't know what the whole party bus thing was, but we loved it!

I found a wallet on the ground in the mosh pit with 200 bucks in it. We handed it in, totally being good samaritans and all, but the weirdest thing was that I didn't even think twice about it. If you had asked me what I would do in that situation, I would have said 'handed it in' but deep down would be thinking about taking the money. It was weird though, because actually at the time I did not want to have someone else's money that I would have pretty much just taken. We are hoping that some good karma comes our way, or that the guy gets his wallet and money back without the police taking it. That would shit me.

Oh well, on a happier note; here are some photos from yesterday :)

Wow, I am an idiot.

2011-04-25T20:38:00.000-07:00

So I have had this dress for almost 2 years, and this morning I came to the realisation that I have been wearing it backwards the ENTIRE time. Haha oh my god. Wow I continue to amaze myself with every passing day.

I am a bit of a scatterbrain today, I think it is because I have had a bazillion coffees and not that much to eat. So much for 'looking after myself' this week. Sorry Mum!

The long weekend was good, it's always a bit lonely staying at college but we have fun :)

Oh I forgot to tell you, in my ridiculous online shopping spree the other week I bought this dress too...

Naturally, it looks much better on her than it ever will on me, but I am so freaking excited to get all this stuff in the mail. That's pretty much the only reason I get it online. Haha.

Got a few plans this week, on Friday night we are having a dress up party for the royal wedding, and then Sunday is Groovin the moo. I will have to find something to wear for them because I have NOTHING. Zero. No clothes left which I remotely like. But I am determined to wear my boots. Every freaking festival I go to, my feet get the absolute shite stomped out of them and I have to do that mental thing where you try and block out all feeling from the knees down so that you can enjoy the show. Well, my friends, this year it will be me doing the stomping so watch the ufck out.

On Saturday everyone from college is going "goon tubing" where they float down the river in blow up pools and get drunk. Apparently it's a blast, but somehow I don't think it will compare to Vang Vieng. I think I might have to give it a miss because a) I don't like goon, b) I don't want to drown, and c) I'm just not feeling it. Who knows, maybe I will end up going but as of right now my Saturday plans consist of a trip to cartridge world and an afternoon nap. Oh grandma time.

Also I watched skins again last night. Far out Cassie is so freaking adorable.

This video

2011-04-23T04:42:00.000-07:00

makes me want to find my soul mate, and fall asleep side by side on a picnic rug under the stars.

The Mountain from Terje Sorgjerd on Vimeo.

Sometimes life makes me laugh.

2011-04-18T06:11:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I did a body balance class. In the bit at the end where you lie down and meditate quietly, I burst into tears. Way to go, emotions.

Today, I stripped my bed and put my sheets out so the cleaners would leave me some new ones. They didn't.

We had this online quiz today. Could have smashed it if I had looked at my books. I just guessed the answer instead. Got it wrong.

Ate so, so much food today I nearly made myself sick. It wasn't even good food.

Got woken up at 3am this morning because there was a cockroach in my bin. Spent a groggy 10 minutes chasing it with a shoe before it went in a crack in my wall. The crack is about 2 feet from my pillow.

Who am I these days? Serisously. If this is the worst that will happen to me in a day I must be the luckiest person on Earth. I really have to get things back in perspective. This last week I have felt detached from my life. Like I am sitting across the room, watching myself go about my daily actions. It's weird. I get halfway through conversations and thin "ok, here is where I laugh and respond." So I do. Apologies if I come across as uninterested. I think I need more sleep, or more coffee.

I'm kind of feeling like I was this time last year, almost to the day, when I wrote this. How strange. Turns out I had a blood virus back then. Who knows, maybe it's back. I think it's because I'm not looking after myself. Clearly. I'm up writing stupid, vain blog posts instead of sleeping. But I'm not running in the morning so I can sleep for an extra hour.

Here's what I ordered online yesterday. Super excited! Agh god and there was free shipping dskbldmjsdf!!

NB: Looks like a skirt in the picture, is actually a pair of shorts. ^^^ Planning on wearing shorts+shoes indefinitely. Blue and orange is possibly my all time favourite combination. Aside from beautiful red and crisp white, maybe with some navy thrown in.

I'm going to get some sleep now, hope everyone has had an amazing weekend, and that your week is just as pleasant. If you happen to speak to me this weekend and I burst into tears halfway through the conversation, it's not you, it's me. Really. Haha. ;)

oh my amazing.

2011-04-10T20:18:00.000-07:00

So I absolutely love old photos of old things, and some of my faves are those of my parents before they had kids. They always look so carefree and happy...haha. On my wall right now I have one of my Mum with bleached blonde hair, skiing down a mountain in a bright red coat. There's one of my Dad just under it, he has so much hair and a big moustache, and he is crouched down on the edge of a dam, proudly holding up a tiny fish that he must have just reeled in. I love them! So anyway I found this amazing chick, Irena Werning, who shares my passion but has had the initiative to get off her butt and do something creative with all this love. She re creates some of the coolest pictures that people have kept throughout the years, and with an ongoing project has produced some absolutely incredible shots! Here are a couple of my favourites...

Awesome isn't she? Check out more of her stuff here.

Beautiful

2011-04-06T03:13:00.000-07:00

This is the littlest sister of one of the girls I went to primary school with. Just listen, she is so incredibly sweet.

You need this right now.

2011-04-05T15:54:00.000-07:00

poladroid

NB: No, of course it's not the same. But it's just so much fun and an amazing way to procrastinate!

Everyone Forgot My Birthday

2011-04-02T20:22:00.000-07:00

EXCEPT MY MUM.

Just joking-my birthday is actually August 23, but in a completely random wave of hilarity the exact opposite situation arose a few weeks ago when I received this little gem in the mail...

I laughed so hard when I opened the envelope (which was clearly labelled "Char") and was confronted with this. I love how Mum wrote inside "Dear Char, Yes this is the only card available at the Lismore post office...tragic huh?" But on further inspection, WHO IN GOD'S NAME ALLOWED THIS TO BE SOLD AS A BIRTHDAY CARD? Look at the kid on the front, possible the most awkward representation of an 8 year old that ever existed. And I love how they put him in again in the 8 when they ran out of random bugs and what looks like a deflated elephant. Not to mention the flies buzzing around him with little gold stink lines that flash when you move the card. Haha. Classic. Maybe I'll drop out of med and begin designing children's cards, clearly they are in need of some serious help...

Souvenirs

2011-04-01T20:57:00.000-07:00

So I finally got around to connecting my phone up to the computer, thanks to lovely Mehrad who lives next door, and found that I had an assortment of pictures of weird stuff that has caught my eye in the past 6 months. So, rather than let them go to waste, I thought I'd pop them on here and share a few memories. Enjoy!

Louie getting a massage on our road trip. We borrowed Mum's car for the weekend and road tripped it up to the Gold Coast. We had an esky full of food and a whole lot of fun. I will have to upload the video we got taken of us on the slingshot, it's absolute gold!

Yeah he actually ended up buying them...

The view from our home away from home in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. I spoke to Claire on the phone just before and I was overwhelmed by how much I miss her. For 2 and a half months we were pretty much always within a meter of each other and now it feels like I am missing something all the time. Missing my other half :(

This was the strange little dog that lived at the guesthouse while we were there. It always lay spread eagled on the ground in the middle of where everyone was walking. So funny!

Another hilariously classic kodak moment from the road trip. Nothing says 'tourist' like some big fake sand boobs...

The giant prawn in Ballina. You can't see it here, but some absolute wanker tried to draw a giant penis on the side of it. The funny thing is that it looks more like an upside down lollipop than a dick, which is a little embarrassing for whoever drew it.

One of the first days I was back in Australia I went down to the beach near my place and because of all the flooding, the ocean was covered in foam! It was freaking insane. All the foam was moving and blowing all over the place, it was one of the weirdest things ever. I think I heard someone say that it happens because all the fertilisers wash into the ocean from the river, and get churned up like a huge bubble bath. :S

Is this not one of the most adorable things you have ever seen? This little avocado stall is just on the side of the road near my Mum's place, but up in the hills a bit. They have a little honesty box and you can just serve yourself. Restoring my faith in humanity :)

My grandad. What a joker. He came up with this crazy get up because he didn't want to get his hearing aid wet in the rain. God we have some wild times....

Welcome to first year Med. Yep, we made penises out of play dough...

A pretty awesome debate unfolding on the back of one of the toilet doors in Byron.

Not sure if this is a joke or just some hilariously unfortunate sign placement. I had a chuckle all the same.

Arty repping some seriously burnt toast. Pretty sure that is not healthy.

Oh oh! I FINALLY am getting my camera replaced. Hallelujah! The best part is that because they took so long to send it, I will be unwrapping a 500D instead of a 1000D this time next week for no extra cost. Sweet ;) I can't wait to get snapping and show you everything that has been happening around here. Because although phone photos are fun, the quality is a little shit. Hope you all have a great weekend. I went out last night and I'm still recovering. Ugh. But I will tell you about it some other time. Photos on my facebook if you're interested. :)

Someone did my washing today

2011-03-14T03:57:00.001-07:00

Seriously. I took all my dirty clothes down in a pillowcase before brekkie this morning, and someone had put their clothes in the free one already. (for some reason you have to pay a dollar for all the others…) So I just left my stuff on the bench above the machine and went to get some toast. Typical Char, I forgot that I’d done that, and went shopping in town for a good 6 hours before I even realised it was still sitting on the bench. But by then I was wandering around Woolworths eating nuts (because why pay for them when they have self serve…?) so there was nothing I could do. Fast forward a few hours and I needed a sports bra for rugby training, yes- rugby, and I remembered that my stuff was still down there, unwashed, chilling out with everyones OMO on the shelf. I ran down to put it through, and as I walked in the door, I saw all my washing piled neatly on the opposite side of the room. And yes, it was washed, I’m not that stupid. Some phantom laundry bandit had gotten to my clothes and done them for me. And if it wasn’t my Mum then who was it?? This needs to be investigated further….

On another note, I had my first training session with the Sirens cheerleading squad tonight. It was so much fun! I love it. We did a few stunts and I felt like i got the hang of it pretty quickly, I wasn’t scared at all, I love being thrown in the air Oh oh! You should see the outfits, they’re classic! it’s seriously like something straight out of bring it on, and we are starting to train for nationals which are July, but I don’t know how that’s all going to work around my trips back home in June etc. Uh oh. I guess I’ll have to wait and see.

Hope everyone had a great day! Sorry for the horribly un exciting blog post, but that seems to be a trend in my life at the moment. Haha. Going to give “pretty little liars” a go tonight, see what all the hype is about. Will let you know. Oh and before I go, if you haven’t yet checked out the wildfox catalogue online, please do. But I warn you that your self esteem will take a nose dive. But they’re just SO AMAZING! jfgbjklf xxx

Fireworks.

2011-03-11T04:58:00.000-08:00

So today I reached a new milestone in my university career...I fell asleep in my first lecture. HA. I know, pathetic hey. But it was seriously only for about 30 seconds, one of those times you don't realise you're actually asleep until you wake up and they've moved forward about 4 slides and you're like "was I..? no, yes? Ahh yeah pretty sure I just fell asleep" *looking around awkwardly hoping nobody noticed.* But apart from that, the day was pretty uneventful. Clearly!
Just got back from the uni club, we went over for a couple of hours but no one was really there because there is some footy match on tonight or something. Shoot. Just spilled avocado on my dress. Fuuuu- It's the nice little linen one I got made in Vietnam. Like, pale pink/peach colour. Pretty much the colour of my skin and makes me look like I'm naked all day. But not like it matters, people think I'm weird as anyway. It's so funny. Didn't realise how much of a creep I am (apparently) until I got here. Oh it's so funny, you guys seriously wouldn't believe it. I wear things some days just to freak them all out. The other day I wore my bright sun-yellow jacket that I bought at a Japanese thrift store in Cambodia, and you could literally see people straining to figure out what the hell I was thinking. They have this need to say something, anything, about my clothes and they decide that they won't go as far as to offer a compliment, but will satisfy this burning desire by making random, obvious, pointless statements.

"Wow. That's a yellow jacket..."
"Oh! So it is!" :|

"You're dress is really bright...""Oh damnit, I was hoping I'd put the black one on today..."

"You like dresses"
"I also like it when windows are so clean that you think you can put your hand straight through..."

But mostly people are sweet about it, I do look like a weirdo some days (compared to Townsville's traditional dress of t-shirt, shorts, thongs) and I've decided that when people are confronted with something out of the ordinary they tend to react with the first thing that pops into their heads. Even if it is a completely useless waste of breath.

The funniest thing is that I have somehow managed to convince the entire college that I am this super straight, non-drinking, non-partying, hellishly feminist (??), potentially lesbian, hyper fit person. WHO IS THIS GIRL I HAVE CREATED? Haha if only they knew me like most of you do. Hahahaha. I kind of like that people think I don't drink/socialise. Oh god. I'm going to have a proper night out and they'll be falling out of their socks. Not that I have even seen anyone in socks yet. Ah to be 17 again. Or was is 16? :S

This weekend I am getting a group of Med girls together to go out for a mexican feast. It will be the best ever. Ummm I think that's all that's been going on really. Oh yeah, had an hour lecture today on penis', balls and the perineum. That's the gouch. It was delightfully awkward. Especially since the lecturer is this super hot latino woman who always wears purple. Like, without fail. It's adorable. She goes today, "Ok so is everyone listening? ok boys, BOYS are you paying attention. Watch me. This," she shines her laser on the slide, "is the clitoris, don't forget." It was hilarious.

I bought tickets to groovin the moo also. So if anyone wants to come and spend the weekend with me and come, you can totally crash at college ;)

Oh my god. STILL HAVE NOT GOT CAMERA REPLACEMENT. CGU; what the fuck. I'm sorry, but seriously. :| on a more positive note, they have taken so freaking long to replace it that the 1000D is no longer being made, so they have to get me a 500D. Sweet. So hopefully I will be able to post some new pics of college and stuff here. Want to share all my buys with you. Because there are so many oppies! Woohoo!

Here's a couple from O' week.

After jelly wrestling.

Pub crawl. The theme was "Hollywood" and in true geek style I went as Luna Lovegood and no one knew who I was. Hahaha.

Gasping.

2011-02-22T21:58:00.000-08:00

Hello! Yes I am still alive and haven't disappeared into oblivion although I have felt like that has been the case for the last few weeks. I have been in such a flurry of packing/moving/o-weeking/organising stuff that I haven't been able to find the time to update my blog! Ok I lied, I could have done it the other night, buuuut we had a season 4 Gossip Girl marathon instead. Because I have so much to say and it's all going to come tumbling out in horribly mumbled and ugly sentences, (see?!) I will list the most significant events of the past weeks in a few dot points.

Moved to Townsville. Massive change in so many ways. The direction and focus of my life has been completely shifted in the last few weeks. I am surrounded by all these new people, places and things to do and I'm going crazy just trying to take it all in. I'm staying at St Mark's College on campus, which is fun but can also be a bit rowdy. The wing I am in is co-ed, so I have not yet managed to escape from living with smelly boys :P. It's amazing how close you get to people when you live with them. I have known everyone for just over a week and already I feel so comfortable around them and we are starting to have this big college family. It's great! The food is good, people complain about it but really it's just basic meals.
Started classes. For anyone who doesn't know, I'm studying Med, with 220 other first year students. I thought that I knew a fair bit about the course before I moved here, but as I am learning more about it, I am loving it more and more. It's like no other course in Australia, we get clinical experience from our first year- our first few weeks!-which is something that other uni students from other places don't get until they're in their third of fourth years. We do clinical placements and hands on work alongside learning all the theory, and there is a hospital for us to train at literally adjacent to the uni. We have all these brand new facilities and 24 hour study labs which we have key card access to. I don't know why I would want to get up and study at 3am, but I know that the option is there if i choose to take it! Yesterday we had our first class in the anatomy lab which is amazing. We painted the bones and muscles on various body parts, got introduced to what we will be studying this year, and we even got to experience what we are in for with real dead people's limbs. How morbid is that? But it was creepy-cool.
Joined a million clubs. There are sooo many clubs that you can get involved with and I pretty much signed up for everything except for the army. There are so many volunteer opportunities in the local community working with disadvantaged kids, people with all kinds of ailments and diseases, and also heaps of international volunteer organisations. I am about to apply for a 2 week placement every year for 4 years in a town in remote Australia. We had a lecture on it today and I would absolutely love to have the opportunity to do something like that.
Partied our way through O-week. We had jelly wrestling, 4am wake up calls for exercises in the mud, a toga party, nights at the uni club (across the road :S), cricket matches, competitions, slip and slide, ice skating, lawn bowls, and last night a hollywood themed pub crawl. I went as Luna Lovegood- though she isn't very 'hollywood' you pretty much just had to be in a costume of some kind to qualify. I managed to dress in my own clothes and pass it off as a costume which was super handy.

Ok so I have to go because I joined the gym at uni (which is incredible, btw) and we are going to a class tonight before water polo. What? Yes. I said water polo. Undeterred by the fact that I can barely swim and that I have little to no hand eye co ordination, I thought that I would give it a shot anyway. If I don't do it now, I don't think I ever will. So wish me luck, and I will let you know how everything goes; hopefully in a bit more depth next time. Hope you are having an amazing February!

Never thought I would cry over a rap song.

2011-02-07T21:35:00.000-08:00

But I guess change is in the air. A few days ago, Louis came out of his room to show me a song he had written about me. He had rapped a few lines of it to me in the car the week before (true gangsta style), and he was proud to show me the finished product. I barely got halfway through it, and I was bawling my eyes out. Not so much for the poetic beauty of his language (he has the tendency to 'sample' lyrics from his favourite songs), but because he is aware of so much more than I give him credit for. All the things that I thought he never realised and never cared about were right there on the page, and I will never forget it. Here is some of what he wrote...

(This one is just after I had my teeth out :S)
Dear Sister;
Yeah, my sister had her teeth pulled out,
so I gotta put in and help her out,
try not to get to that point where I make her shout.
She is like my Mum, making me dinner,
playing downball in the sun, we both gettin' thinner.
The day is coming,
the day that I'm dreading,
when she moves out,
now that's gonna make me shout, shout
loud on these papers while I express myself,
before I wreck myself, just writing rhymes for you
you know for you sister.

You make me laugh,
you say 'fuck off' when I fart,
I love you and I'm eternally grateful,
for having you as my sister,
yeah I'm gonna miss ya
when you're gone, I be in mourn
Just in my room, listening to beats
But you watch, we'll prove them wrong Char,
I'll make my own beats, and don't worry;
I'll make my own sheets on my bed.
I gotta get these people outta my head
yeah, and not let them tread on me.
Just give 'em all I got,
Cos yeah it's worth a shot.
Why not?

Growing Up;
Growing up on a farm,
you helped me out by holding me in your arms.
Now I'm sayin' thank you, for everything you have done
and for everything that's yet to come.
It's you that helped me be who I am right now, and
I'll always remember you and those memories just chillin' on the swings with you, Char.
Yeah I mean this, I love you.

The feelings I have for you are true,
and I know I have been rude to you, but listen;
this song is for you.

You have changed me from a boy to a man,
and I thank you for helping me be who I am.
Yeah it's true, thanks to you
I got rid of those voices in my head saying I'm a fail,
guess I don't have to go to jail no more.
When anything is wrong you know it;
I may be as slow as a snail but I'll get there.

I hope I'll be as successful as you,
and not just be a fool like I used to,
I look up to you every day,
I wouldn't be here like this if I didn't have you, hey

Shit. If you know then,
all I'm tryin' to say is I love you
respect you, please don't go
but you have to, I wish you wouldn't and you couldn't
Don't forget to call, cos you know I'm gonna miss ya'
My favourite sister.

Doesn't it just melt your heart? As much as we fight, there is nothing in the world I wouldn't do for him, for anyone in my family. Aw look, now I've gone and got all emotional. Time to peace out before your opinion of me goes out the window. But first, a little challenge; before the day is over, tell someone how much they mean to you, how important they are in your life. Call your family just to say you love them, or tell a friend how amazing they are. Surprise someone by thanking them for something that made a difference in your life, and try to make a difference in theirs. Just make someone smile, I guarantee you'll go to sleep with warmth in your heart.

Is Paris Hilton Pregnant? Does anybody care?

2011-02-07T01:41:00.000-08:00

If my life goes according to plan, this will be the last week that I ever live at home, ever. It's exciting and daunting and sad and inspiring all at once, and I can't help but feel everything at the same time. I feel like I just got back and now I'm going again (probably because that's exactly what's happening) and I don't know what to think about it. This year has gone by so quickly, and I'm told that they only get quicker as you grow older. It's so crazy, my life is flashing past and I'm so completely powerless. It's kind of like I have spent the last 12 months touching a series of portkeys, blink once and school is back but I'm not going, turn around and I'm in America, woop I'm home again, then I'm getting off the plane in Hanoi before you can say 'ben trovato'. It's that feeling of being pulled across great distances by a rope around your middle, not ever quite sure which way is up, but just trying to stay on your feet as it all goes spinning past. And it's always forwards, onwards. In the past two years I feel like I have spent most of it saying goodbye to people I love, and the next week is going to be no exception.

New Old Things!

2011-02-04T03:07:00.000-08:00

As most of you will remember, I worked at a vintage/pre-loved clothing store a bit last year which I absolutely loved. Well, I went in to visit the lady who owns it the other day, and she asked me if I would come in one day and set up a facebook page for the shop. So I went in there today for literally about 2 hours to sort it out, mind the shop for a bit and have a sneaky look at all her new stuff. As I was roaming around, I spied some white lace poking out from between a mass of colours in the vintage cabinet. I pretty much sprinted across the floor and as I pulled it out of the cupboard I nearly fainted. It was beautiful, completely covered in delicate lace, with elbow length sleeves and a full skirt. "I actually thought of you when I got that one" she said, and explained that an old lady had brought it in just before Christmas because she didn't want to give it to an op shop. And then, wait for it, ohmygosh she offered to give it to me in exchange for helping her out!! A $60 vintage lace dress for 2 hours work aarrghhjfgkblefulr!!! She said that heaps of people have come in and wanted to try it on, but it hasn't suited or fit anyone. IT FIT ME PERFECTLY! I was like;

Unfortunately, the man at the camera shop declared my camera officially dead, so the only photos I could get of it had to be on Louie's ipod...

Isn't it amazing? Sorry about the bad photo quality, but I will take some more when I get a new camera.

Speaking of new cameras, I found this little one hiding at the back of an op shop last week...

It's in great condition aside from the dust, and I checked the internet to find out that you can order film for about 11 bucks a roll. So excited to try it out! Eeep! Want to know the best part? It cost me all of 50c. Aaaand they're selling on ebay at the moment for $30-$50. Yep :) I also bought this cd called "complete 90's volume 5" even though it was scratched beyond comprehension. Imagine my surprise when I put it on in the car and the spice girls started blasting out of my speakers. What an incredible day, and an incredible way to spend a dollar ;)

Quote of the week.

2011-02-02T03:38:00.000-08:00

“Harry Potter is all about confronting fears, finding inner strength, and doing what is right in the face of adversity. Twilight is about how important it is to have a boyfriend.”

—	Stephen King. Freaking YES.

January's Resolutions.

2011-01-30T02:21:00.000-08:00

It's almost February, and I have had a whole month to get together my "New Year's" resolutions. This is what I came up with;

Be more daring; I always chicken out of things because the nerd in me hates breaking rules. I always worry too much about every possible consequence of my actions, and so I end up talking myself out of some pretty fun situations. I'm young, I can only afford to make stupid mistakes for a few more years before I'm truly expected to have grown up. So I plan on taking full advantage of that this year. Well, maybe just a little.

Say "yes" more often. This one goes hand in hand with being more daring. But it's a bit milder. Things like going out for dinner with a group of new friends, going out to a new place, or joining a club or something that I am not 100% sold on. It also means that I say yes to hanging out with my family more, going to the skatepark with Louie or going swimming with Mum. Hopefully this is going to get me more involved in, well, life!

Learn to appreciate good wine; The days of drinking goon and juice are (hopefully) far in the past, and I would really like to be more knowledgeable about wines, and be able to taste the difference between certain types. To actually know what I'm drinking. The hard part is actually liking the taste, but I guess that all comes with getting used to the flavour. This will be a work in progress, I think.

Eat less sugar; It's seriously getting out of control. No explanation needed.

Become a kiteboarding expert; Just kidding, I am determined to have a go after I was too sick to do it in Thailand. I had a look at the uni clubs, and they have one for kiteboarding which looks fun. Hopefully they don't expect me to actually know what I'm doing- but it means that I will meet some people who do!

Do at least one fitness event; This will give me a goal I can work towards, and means I am less likely to slack off if I am dedicated to run in an event. Whether it's a 5k, 10k or a marathon (HIGHLY unlikely) just having at least one under my belt will make me feel better and give me something to build on next year :)

Call people rather than texting or facebooking them; This goes without saying, I am overcoming my phobia of talking on the phone, and it's so much better to actually have an old fashioned conversation rather than just wall posts. It means more to both parties anyway.

So I will have to keep you updated throughout the year as I (hopefully) check them off the list. And as for last year's resolutions, how far did I get? I found a list of just 3 resolutions that I had written down around this time a year ago, and it was funny to see how little the act of writing it down actually made me want to achieve them, despite what everyone says. Here they are, resolutions in review;

Get fit; Up until I injured myself in June, I can say that I was almost the most athletic I have ever bee. Running everyday and actually enjoying it. But with all the traveling I have done in the last year, excercise kind of fell by the wayside unless you count all the walking and bike riding we did just to get from A to B.

Get thinner; Over the course of year 12 I beefed up a little bit, as a result of too much food, no excercise and lots of sweets to get me through the essays. I made a conscious effort to be more healthy, and despite putting on weight in America, I have actually done quite well. Right now, I am around 8 kilos lighter than I was this time last year, and a couple more and I'll be stoked. Just have to keep an eye on all those sneaky snacks!

Get fun; I am always in awe of people who seem to just bring fun with them wherever they go. They always look like they're having a great time, always smiling, and have interesting stories. Well, after spending almost 6 months traveling I am never short of stories to tell, and I have made a conscious effort to make the most of everything I do. I try to see the good in every situation, and am finding it easier to laugh about things that go wrong. I don't know how much fun I bring to the table, but I'm enjoying myself more and more.

New year's resolutions are a bit controversial, because everyone feels obliged to make them but never as determined to see them through. That's why making then at the end of January is best, because you don't get caught up in the excitement of the new year and all start flailing resolutions wildly into the breeze. Let's hope my strategy works!

Quote of the week.

2011-01-28T17:49:00.000-08:00

"I used to pretend to get cramps, because I thought that it was what happened when you got mature..." -Louie.

New Crush!

2011-01-28T01:23:00.000-08:00

I must admit, I have a weakness for doe eyed girls with chocolate hair and quizzical expressions, and my new fave- Diane Birch, is no exception. I know she's been around for a while, but I couldn't help but post a few photos. Isn't she just magical?

And she shares my love of hats! It was meant to be.

In Recent News...

2011-01-24T02:04:00.000-08:00

Got my wisdom teeth pulled out last week, all four of them. So I have spent the week looking like a horribly greedy chipmunk that has stuffed my cheeks full of nuts. It go to the point where I had to lock myself in my room because my super-tactful family could not help but to collapse into fits of laughter whenever I would come into view. Any attempts at holding a normal conversation have been utterly futile, and so I have pretty much been enjoying the delights of my own company for the best part of a week. In their defence; every time I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror I couldn't help but have a sneaky little chuckle. And, just for you guys, here is a picture of my in all my puffy glory.

HAHAHA How pleased do I look?

So this morning, I went down to the newsagents to buy a pen, and everyone just stared at me. I had thought that my puff had gone down a little, but it wasn't until I got home that I realised that my face has actually just started to come out in some pretty sweet bruises. What a great way to attract some attention looking like I have recently had the absolute crap beaten out of me.

Also, I nearly ran over an old man today on one of those awful little scooter-mobile things. And I can say- without a doubt- that it was 100% his fault. The damn people on scooters here, I swear to God. They just wizz around like crazy in thair own little world, not even sparing a thought for anyone else. You actually have more chance of being run over walking on the footpath than on the road. It's ridiculous. He just shot right out in front of me, forcing me to slam on the brakes. I nearly wet my pants. All he did was this awkward apology/hand flailing/stammering mess of embarrassing gestures, much to my bemusement, whose queerness in no way made up for the fact that he nearly gave me a heart attack. But he was old, and so let's all show some respect *ahem* and forgive and forget. The people that I absolutely cannot stand, however, are those who are not old/decrepit/injured/amputees yet still persist in riding around unnecessarily in those mobility scooters for the simple reason that THEY ARE TOO FAT TO WALK. Now that's a bit of a one of those situations where the cause is the effect is the cause and so on and so forth. I can't remember the word right now but i know it starts with a 'P' maybe...? I'll come back to it.

Anyway, something else that happened today was that Louie wrote a rap song about me in his notebook. He sang it to me in the car on the way home from the skatepark and it actually made me cry. It was all about me looking out for him, and how I got my wisdom teeth out, and how he doesn't want me to move away in a few weeks. If he lets me, I'll scan it on/ type it up on here for you to see because it's so gorgeous. Such a Louie thing to do.

I'm feeling a bit better today, so I'm thinking of heading out tomorrow to tackle some of the 11 op shops in Ballina. Hopefully all the punk rockers didn't clear out all the good stuff over the school holidays and I will find some sweet things. Fingers crossed for me :) And make that a double cross because unfortunately my camera died on the aeroplane on the way home from Thailand, so I have been on the phone with the old insurance company all day trying to get something sorted out. So there won't be too many photos for a while, though I am pretty stoked for an excuse to shoot some films over the next few weeks- especially if Louie and I go on the long awaited "road trip" that we have been planning (planning is not really the right word) for since about September. Other than that, it's just business as usual!

Forgotten Souls; the people who changed my life.

2011-01-19T16:46:00.000-08:00

If you have read some of my previous posts, you might have come across a short recount of the two weeks spent volunteering in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. While I was there I managed to get a few photos of the children in their home. Some of these pictures might be a little confronting for some people, but I assure you that what you feel won't even come close to what I felt actually being there. When I first walked in, it took all my strength to keep a straight face, and not to gasp or recoil from what I was encountering. Having never worked with disabled children before, I was instantly overwhelmed by the extent of their disabilities, and the lives that they lead in this home. It was literally the end of the line for these children and infants who suffered from varying degrees of physical and mental disability, who had been abandoned, abused or orphaned due to HIV. I was lucky enough to meet an amazing group of girls from the UK who had been volunteering at the centre for a few months. Unlike me, they had all done a degree in something like speech pathology/occupational therapy, and had quite a lot of experience with disabled children. Despite this experience, they were quick to tell me how overwhelming they had found it in the beginning, and just how underprivileged these children actually are. The "Nutrition centre," as it is known, is literally the end of the line for most of these kids, and is the only thing between them and death. One little girl had been brought there after she was rejected by no less than NINE NGOs. Nine. She was about two years old, and each of them had turned her away. I found myself fighting back tears again, something which happened almost every day. The things I saw and the stories I heard absolutely changed my life, the way I see others, and the way I see myself. I hope that in sharing some of what I discovered with you, that you can shift your perception in a similar way to what I have done.

The group of children who I spent the most of my time with. This room is the activity room, where they receive the most interaction and fun out of the whole day. In this photo they are playing a game where they pick an item (such as a sponge) from the bag and take turns in feeling it.

This little boy is the grandson of one of the women who works at the centre. He spends every day in the activity room with her and the disabled children. He seems to be developing normally, with no disabilities. I can't help but wonder what the effects of this upbringing will have on his development. He oscillates between playing with the other children, to helping his grandmother care for them. He often gets fed up with them and will play by himself in the corner. I spent a lot of time with him because he was always craving the attention and interaction that he does not get from his playmates. He is one of the most adorable and lovely children I have ever met. Every morning, when I walked into the room he would press his little palms together and bow his darling little head, greeting me with "sua sudai" and the sweetest smile on Earth. My heart absolutely melts for him.

On the first day, this girl- Kom San- left me with 5cm scratches on the back of my neck. She is cheeky and very affectionate, always wanting to be hugged and played with. On the third day she bit me so hard I nearly cried, and ripped out a handful of my hair. The girls think that maybe she has 'pica,' a disease in which the sufferer will eat anything and everything, and so we were constantly grabbing crayons, dirt, toys and plastic from her clenched fist as she attempted to smuggle it into her mouth. Unfortunately, the centre does not receive enough funding to test for this disease.

This boy is one of the happiest kids in the entire place, despite his obvious disabilities. He can never move on his own, and gets so excited when you sit him upright and he can see the world. His smile and his laugh were enchanting and contagious, and I couldn't help but warm to him. He spends most of his life in a wheelchair which is horribly unsuitable for his body, and so he is strapped in with velcro and rope, in what appears to be one of the most uncomfortable positions ever. When they wheel him down the corridor, it is not uncommon for them to put a kid on top of him, and let another one push the chair. It is a surreal sight to see.

What an incredibly inspiring and amazing woman. This lady works all day, every single day. She is often alone in the room with all the children at once, and so her job is just so unbelievably difficult. She earns $20 a month, which is one third of what she would earn at the dog food factory that operates across the road. The love that she has for these children is phenomenal, and her devotion to caring for them and improving their lives is even more powerful. I don't believe how people can be so congratulatory of other people for such minor things, when this woman goes unnoticed and unappreciated every single day.

I really liked this girl. I say 'girl' in reference to her demeanor, because she is actually 23 years old. She was quite a bit more intelligent than the others, and would join in with all the activities we did. Her favourite was colouring and dancing. She loved to clap along with the music, and the look of joy that spread across her face when you clapped along with her was just incredible.

I was so curious about this young boy from the minute I first saw him. He spent almost the entire day curled up in a ball in the corner of the room, one had covering his eyes, the other hand dug deep into one of his ears. Whenever one of the ladies would try to bring him over to join in with a game, he would begin spinning furiously on the spot to try and get away, breaking free and running back to the corner where he would bury his head into the join of the walls and try to block out the world. I got the chance to ask one of the other volunteers about him, and what I learnt just crushed me. He is 13 years old, and one of the most severely autistic children they have ever encountered. When they found him, he was chained to the floor in a room of the house, he had been there his whole life. The only human contact he had ever had was the few seconds it took for his parents to shove food through a flap in the door. For the first few days I was there, he would not even come near me, a look of horror flashing across his face whenever I tried to engage him. I spent hours just sitting next to him, or rubbing his back which he didn't seem to mind. He wet his pants often, about every 15 minutes, and so I gained his trust through always having a clean pair of pants for him. The next week, he was thrown into the wading pool with all the other children and he freaked out. Scrambling over the edge of the pool, he reached out for me with terror in his eyes. Instinctively, I picked him up out of the freezing water and he clung onto me for dear life, his little body felt like a shuddering block of ice through my now saturated clothes. It was such an emotional moment for me, standing there with this child in my arms, his face buried into my shoulder and his little hands clinging to my shirt. The boy who had not even been able to look at me the first day now trusted that he would be safe with me, he closed his eyes and knew that I would protect him.

The activity area.

Every day before lunch, they got the children up and put music on to dance. You can see Theri clapping away, having the time of her life. I think they really enjoyed this activity because they could move however they wanted, and often children from other rooms would hear the music playing and come running to join in the dance.

These are the toys that the kids played with every day.

This is Sok, a curious little boy. He is 12 years old, and always looks like he is high. He loves when you massage his hands, or run your fingers up and down his forearm. Sometimes he will just sit and grin into space and sometimes he would go crazy and throw things at all the others.

It was hard for me to capture this girl who sat in the corner in the sun every day. She would spit into the air just to see the pattern it made against the light. She wore that helmet because she suffers from epilepsy. She wasn't in the activity room very much, so I didn't get the chance to get to know her as well as some of the others.

As I was leaving on my last day, I came across this infant that had been left lying in the hallway. About 3 meters to the right were the doors to the centre, which opened out to a big open grassy space. There were dogs and kids running everywhere, and someone had just left this baby lying here. It was surreal.

This whole experience completely changed me. Meeting these children and the women who cared for them, I could not find anything to complain about in my own life. On the first day, I was choking back tears. I won't lie to you, I was scared out of my mind. The groaning and moaning sounds that filled the air terrified me, and when I happened to glance into the "malnourished room" I was nearly sick. Beds of emaciated children who could have been 6 months or 6 years old, just lying there waiting to die because despite being government funded, they cannot afford to put them in a hospital or connect them to a feeding tube. But when I went home that night, feeling like I was moving in slow motion, there was no way that I couldn't go back. How selfish of me to say that I couldn't cope, couldn't handle being there when these women spend every waking moment at the centre and are desperate for volunteers. So I swallowed my fear and my prejudice, gathered together all my will power and determination, and went back. Each day did not get easier, I didn't look forward to going there, but when the ladies thanked me and told me they were so grateful for my help I knew that I had made the right decision. I can only hope that they realise just how much they changed my life.

Wow.

2011-01-14T04:03:00.000-08:00

Man Lives on cliff and talks down suicide jumpers for last 50 years

Meet the Australian Who’s Saved 160 People from Suicide

Don Ritchie lives across the street from the most famous suicide spot in Australia: A cliff known as “The Gap.” Most people would move, but Ritchie’s stayed for almost 50 years—saving an estimated 160 people from suicide.

So what’s his big secret? Ritchie wakes up every morning and looks out the window for “anyone standing alone too close to the precipice.” If he sees someone who looks like they might be contemplating a jump, he walks over and… strikes up a conversation.
He just gives them a warm smile, asks if they’d like to talk and invites them back to his house for tea. Sometimes, they join him.

“I’m offering them an alternative, really,” Ritchie says. “I always act in a friendly manner. I smile.”

Ritchie’s house might be the worst real estate ever. One person a week commits suicide at the “the Gap,” the cliff he lives across from. It’s protected only by a small, one-meter fence, despite its legendary reputation as a suicide spot dating back to the 1800s.

But the former life insurance salesman says he doesn’t feel “burdened” by the fact that people are always contemplating jumping to their deaths outside his house. In fact, he and his wife Moya see it as a blessing: “I think, ‘Isn’t it wonderful that we live here and we can help people?’”

Ritchie, who basically sounds like the nicest guy in the entire world, is 84, and has spent much of the last year battling cancer. But, as you might expect for a dude who’s managed to live across from a fucked-up, tragic place, and not become a casualty himself, he’s optimistic: “I imagine somebody else will come along and do what I’ve been doing.” I hope so.

Oh Chuck.

2011-01-11T03:32:00.000-08:00

The following is the philosophy of Charles Schultz, the creator of the "Peanuts" comic strip. You don't have to actually answer the questions. Just read the e-mail straight through, and you'll get the point.

1. Name the five wealthiest people in the world

2. Name the last five Heisman trophy winners.

3. Name the last five winners of the Miss America Contest.

4. Name ten people who have won the Nobel or Pulitzer Prize.

5. Name the last half dozen Academy Award winners for best actor and actress.

6. Name the last decade's worth of World Series winners.

How did you do?

The point is, none of us remember the headliners of yesterday. They are not second-rate achievers. They are the best in their fields. But the applause dies. Awards tarnish. Achievements are forgotten. Accolades and certificates are buried with their owners.

Here's another quiz. See how you do on this one:

1. List a few teachers who aided your journey through school...

2. Name three friends who have helped you through a difficult time.

3. Name five people who have taught you something worthwhile.

4. Think of a few people who have made you feel appreciated and special.

5. Think of five people you enjoy spending time with.

Easier?
I love this!
The lesson: The people who make a difference in your life are NOT the ones with the most credentials, the most money, or the most awards. They are the ones who care.

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.

2011-01-10T21:40:00.000-08:00

Aha! Finally, after weeks of agony, the unsightly clump of straw on my head that had previously been masquerading (with limited success) as hair has been fixed. For some unknown reason, I had thought it a good idea to dye my hair a ridiculous shade of blonde (let's not kid ourselves-it was yellow) the week before embarking on a 2 1/2 month journey to a place where there was no way in hell I was going to be able to maintain it. I spent most of my time trying desperately to ignore the re growth that was possibly one of the most horrendous displays of bogan-ness I have ever exhibited.

Before....

After!

I did ask for dark blonde, but kind of ended up with brown. I freaked out when I realised how dark it was, but now I actually really like it. I'm just glad to be looking more like myself and less like one of those horrible troll dolls.

New love.

2011-01-10T03:39:00.000-08:00

Currently jumping, dancing and skipping my way around the house to this fantastic wonderful genius of a song. Can't wipe the smile off my face. Thanks C!

Snapshots

2011-01-09T19:12:00.000-08:00

So on the flight from Luang Prabang to Chiang Mai I thought I'd better check out the safety instructions on the card. Apparently this is what you do if you start heading towards water. Lifejackets are so overrated anyway...

Now this was really cool. There are two rivers near Luang Prabang. The Nam Ou, which is green and the Mekong, which is brown. I took this out the window where you can see the point where the two rivers meet and flow as one. How magic is that!

Christmas morning! We are opening the present that the boys bought us. It was a set of four big wishing lanterns that you light and they fly up into the sky like a hot air balloon. Definitely one of the coolest presents I got. We had so much fun, and I even got to play Santa and leave out presents for everyone :)

My Zorro tan. How horrendous is that?!?! Ugh. This is what happens when you combine too much sun with too many malaria pills and only one pair of shoes. Stylin'

Well its kind of just sells itself really. Please somebody try this at home and send me a photo. I would just die.

New years day.On the way back to our place, I fell asleep so many times and belted my head against the window of the car. (It was bumpy ok) The pain of smacking my face on the glass was not enough to stop me from falling asleep again and again. By the time we tumbled out of the car, the thai guys in the front were laughing SO hard. I found those glasses on the beach, and managed to get that hat from someone who was obviously stupid enough to have it painted by one of those people charging about 50 bucks for a hat paint. My expression is suggesting that I am still hurting from the car trip.

Our little bungalows and cute little beach :) The best ever.

Ok so this one is a bit gross, actually really gross. It was in the market in Saigon. So those frogs were all alive and hopping around (trying to) but the worst part was that tray on the right. You can't even really tell but they are frogs. They had been skinned and had their heads chopped off. It was farked. EVEN worse, they were still hopping. You can see on the ground one of them that has hopped out of its tray. Ugh. And they stank!

One morning I woke up and heard all this noise outside in the street. I looked out the little window and there was a marching band going past. it was closely followed by this enormous truck with flowers on the side, and a huge crowd of people following behind. They were all dressed in white, so I think it might have been a funeral or a memorial, but I can't be sure. It was so crazy to watch them try and squeeze the truck down the tiny little street, but they managed it somehow! I'm glad I managed to get a few snaps before they disappeared down the road.

Dinner on the beach. This is where we ate almost every night on Phu Quoc. It was so beautiful!

Phlwerrr.

So we spent 6 hours like that. Comfy!

There were little pigs in the back of his motorbike. It was weird how normal this seemed. Sometimes there was just one giant pig in there that took up the whole basket. The poor dears :(

I don't know if that even counts as a vehicle.

As we were driving along there were all these kids bathing and swimming in the water by the road. When we went past they all ran out towards us, waving and yelling. These two were the closest, and they were so pretty!

Angkor Wat. It was meant to be sunrise so I'm not sure why it was so blue...

HOME!

2011-01-08T04:25:00.000-08:00

Oh my goodness. Im sitting in my own bed for the first time since october 20. Just had what was only the 4th hot shower in as many weeks. It was heaven. I'm all spritzed with perfume and feel like the queen. I nearly died when I saw my little Mum at the airport today, she was waiting there all little and cute by herself. I just wanted to hug her forever. Oh there is so much joy in being home. Not necessarily being physically home in my house, but being surrounded by familiar things, being surrounded by my family. Louie is yet to come home from Dad's though so my attitude is quite likely to have done a 180 by next week. Not to miss a beat, mother darling has invited Rex and Col over for dinner tomorrow night. So as of right now I am putting together a really REALLY long slideshow of all my photos so that we can keep them entertained for as long as possible. I might even have to supplement the collection with some landscape shots from google images. It feels so weird to be typing away on my laptop again, considering the amount of random places I have updated from in the last 2 1/2 months. I do realise that the entries kind of cut off with still a month of the trip to go, but tomorrow I will fill in the blanks a bit and FINALLY show you some pictures of the adventure. Gosh I feel like I don't even know my own blog anymore, and I don't know if I even like having all our travel things on here. I might have to ship them over to another site while I wriggle around and get this page back to what it was before. So I will be back to normal (normal?) in a few days. Oh oh! Also, I have some super exciting news about this new thing that I am involved in but which I am not allowed to tell you about until it's launched. I don't know what to expect from it because I don't have that much info yet (they must have anticipated my inability to keep a secret.) ....but as soon as it's all out you will be the first to know! Yipee! Ok I will go and get some sleep so I can save up my energy for tomorrow night. I'll leave you with this picture of where I was this time last week. Night!

the gibbon experience.

2010-12-22T17:26:00.001-08:00

sunday morning. We woke early and got to the bus station half an hour before we were meant to leave. Apparently eveyone else had a similar idea, because by the time we got on the bus there was only one seat left. Thinking id be standing up the whole way, i braced myself for the journey, but I shouldn't have been so doubtful of the lao way because they had it all covered. Plastic chairs were loaded into the aisle for those of us unlucky enough to have missed out on a seat. It wasn't so bad at first-before we started moving-but after the first three blind corners my poor chair legs were barely hanging in there, let alone my screaming arms. every corner I was up on two legs, trying my hardest not to snap the flimsy plastic seat or end up on the people next to me, all the while determined to maintain some level of composure. After about 2 hours, we arrived at our destination. A dusty little unknown village called don chai, nestled cosily against a roaring highway. Before leaving luang nam tha, we had experienced a little bit of trouble explaining to the driver that we wanted to get off there, (this is where we would be picked up the next morning by the gibbon people) but we figured it couldn't be too hard to spot. Realisation dawned on us when we were promptly offloaded under a sign that read 'don chai' on the edge of a highway, literally in the middle of nowhere. To try and avoid looking like lost fools to the other people on the bus, we stuck our chins out and began walking purposefully in one direction only to find about 10 bamboo huts and a pack of mangey dogs. Shit. Luckily, there were some monks watching us from a temple up on a hill and they started yelling to us, 'where you go?' All we had was a piece of paper saying 'mr I-deng's guest house and restaurant' and so Claire yelled out 'do you know mr I-Deng?' They all pointed immediately back the way we had come, and so we lumbered off like unco-ordinated turtles under our packs, asking anyone we saw if they knew mr I-Deng. The highway was so dusty that every 30 seconds we were enveloped in a gigantic plume of dirt as a semi trailer roared by, just you're averaged roadside village experience. Everyone just kept pointing down the road until the very last place, where we finally found the elusive 'restaurant and guest house' which would be more adequately described as 'dusty shop of random snacks with a little room in the back.' We plonked our things down and got some lunch, and then were joined by mr I-Deng's two young daughters- Ghanda and Aiv. They taught us to speak a little lao, and also gave us a lesson in traditional dance. We made origami and played cards, and the next morning the younger one got me to braid her hair for school. So cute! At about 11, we were picked up by the people from the gibbon experience and drove along the most ridiculously steep and bumpy track until we reached a little village. We walked from there into the jungle for about 2 hours, until we reached a cool little waterfall. From there, we hiked up a maze of steps to our first zip line. excitement rippled through our group of 8 as one by one we clipped ourselves on to the wire and made the leap of faith off the platform. When you jump, you shoot forward instantly, flying through the trees on either side of you until suddenly they disappear and you're 100m above the jungle canopy, flying over a valley between two mountains. The view is breathtaking, and you have to pinch yourself to get your brain to realise it's actually happening. A few more zip lines later and we saw our treehouse. It was so great -very tarzan- with a little kitchen, table and mosquito nets hanging from the roof over our beds. The shower was the best though; two walls behind you, but infront was just a small railing and then the most incredible view of the jungle, from a cool 70m up. The next few days were amazing, zipping through the jungle on about 20 different wires, fighting off leeches, climbing mountains, eating jungle food and ducking through the dark caves made by the thick bamboo plants that bent over the path. It was an experience like nothing else, and by the time we got back to little don chai our bodies were aching and we were covered in mud to prove it. We got what tasted like the best meal of our lives, and then steeled ourselves for the bus ride back up to luang nam tha. Waving goodbye to the others, who were going to huay xai, we asked Mr I-deng when we should expect the bus to luang nam tha. "Oh maybe 1 o'clock, 2 o'clock, sometimes 3 or 4" came the reply, accompanied by vague gesticulations and a little chuckle. So we decided that all we could do was wait and hope to flag down the bus (because it wasn't actually stopping) when it went by. As we waited, a shiny silver van pulled up outside the shop. The first man to topple out was a beaming chinese man in a hawaiian shirt, clutching a glass of bubbly. "hey hey!" he yelled, raising his glass, still beaming, doing some awkward kind of grapevine step across the dirt in his loafers. He was closely followed by a gaggle of men in ralph lauren polo's, the kind of rich business men who go on holiday but can't bring themselves to unwind enough to go without a button up shirt. within seconds they had swarmed the building, plucking bottles of scotch from the shelves and acting all charming-or so they must have thought. Having just come from 3 days in the jungle, the last thing we felt like doing was posing for photographs with drunk, over-friendly chinese men. One guy was trying to communicate something in broken english, and kept sliding up along the seat. A lady who must have been his wife started saying "my husband" and bending and straightening her elbow. I couldn't decide whether she was threatening us or just demonstrating that her husband has quite a good range of motioon in his joints. Who knows. About half an hour after they left, we spotted the rickety old bus motoring down the highway with a gigantic cloud of dust billowing out behind. I darted out onto the road and waved it down, and we climbed aboard amongst bags of rice, computer parts and confused people who had though we were missionaries. Go figure. We got back safely to luang nam tha and had the best nights sleep in a good week, all in preparation for our journey onwards.

december 11th.

2010-12-22T17:13:00.001-08:00

Yesterday we had one of the best days of our trip. It was so much fun. We had met up with simon and lau, the danish guys we had met in vientiane, and we decided to visit the waterfalls with 3 other girls we had met on our travels. We got a tuk tuk out there and payed the driver a little extra to wait for longer than 2 hours (which is the usual limit). We went in and sw all the moon bears that they had in the rescue centre, they were so big and fluffy-like nothing we have back home. Most of them had been rescued from poachers and bile farms. We chatted to them for a while, then walked up to the first lagoon. We all kind of stopped and stared because it was so beautiful! The water was a creamy blue colour, bright aqua and almost milky around the edges. We decided to keep walking up the hill until we dound an even bigger lagoon with a waterfall and a rope swing coming out of the tree! it was so cool except the water was so freaking cold you wouldn't believe it! The best way to get in was to just launch out on the rope swing and jump straight in.. Simon and lau went first, but when I hit the water it was so cold that it knocked all the breath out of me and made my skin burn. Refreshing! We found a little cave underneath the waterfall, and soon discovered that the lagoon was home to the same little fish that had nibbled our feet in siem reap. So funny! Anna, one of the girls with us, had what she thought was a secret map to a hidden swimming place, but we followed it into the jungle only to find a big hole and the realisation that we suck at reading maps! We started climbing the regular steps up the side of the waterfall, and then spotted the 'danger no swimming' sign which-according to the map- was our cue to turn right towards the falls. We followed this little path through the jungle, and then came across a waterfall that we had to climb up. We had all gotten dressed after our swim so we got soaked again scrambling up the rocks as the water gushed down over us. When we got to the top we were all grinning at the sight of the huge waterfalls cascading down onto a small lagoon and rock shelf-our own secret place halway between the top and bottom of the falls. Despite feeling like we had frost bite all over, we got back into our bathers and started exploring all around. We found this awesome cave that went right back into the rock wall, underneath the wall of water. Following simon's monkey man walk up the cliff, we founf a cave with a little secret pool in the bottom. The colours were the best though! These crazy bright jade spirals coming down from the roof, and rocks under our feet that fels like spongey plastic, filled with millions of tiny holes. We walked all the way to the top and played on the fallen logs in the calm pool above the falls. It wad amazing how slowly the water moved at the start compared to the speed it got rushing down the other side. We slid back down the other side because it was so steep and muddy, and went for one more rope swing to finish off the days. On the way back we passed all these concrete bears lined up against the wall of this building and tried to take photos with them. We tried climbing up to sit on their paws, and claire has the best picture of us scrambling up these animals in vain. When we eventually got up there, all these japanese people started taking photos with us, one lady even put her arm around me haha. We bought some bananas and pineapple for lunch and made our way back to the tuk tuk. On the way we saw a lady roasting bananas, and she let me swap some raw ones for some barbequed ones which pretty much made my day! We piled back in the tuk tuk and started off home, everytime we get in one of those things it feels like we're soldiers about to be deployed on a mission somewhere. A few minutes into the journey i climbed out onto the back platform, followed by simon and claire. We stood so that our heads popped up over the roof of the tuk tuk and we got an amazing view of everything! It was the coolest ever- flying through the mountains with our hair whipping out behind us, waving at all the kids we passed on bikes and hanging on for dear life as we hurtled around the bends at some ridiculous speeds (sorry mum!) gladly, we made it home safely and everyone did their own thing for a little while before meeting for dinner later on. We went to this place called utopia which was really incredible. It was set on the side of a mountain, with a bar, a garden as the dining area, beach volleyball and a bamboo platform covered in cushions and little tables where you could sit and look over the river. We ordered some dinner (claire was late following a mad dash down the street after realising she had an hour left to enrol in uni) and sat there for ages just chatting and hanging out. Instead of dessert, the boys decided it would be fun to get one of those massive shisha/peace pipes to share seeing as we had never tried it before. They apparently ordered apple flavour but it tasted like liquorice. One of the strangest sensations ever, we felt like the caterpillar from alice in wonderland. Everywhere in laos shuts at 11, so we were sound asleep by 12 after a lovely/crazy day of being real hippies! Sadly we left the boys behind this morning, but we will meet up with them again for christmas in chang mai. The next few days we will be having the best time ever at the gibbon experience- ill let you know how it goes!

the epic bus jourrney (33 hours)

2010-12-08T00:00:00.001-08:00

We got on the bus in siem reap at midnight, with tickets that said we'd be in vientiane by the next evening. On the way to the bus we met two girls who told us their friend had done the same trip in reverse and said it was the most frightening experience of his life, and he had thought the bus was going to drive off a cliff every 2 minutes. Absolutely crapping our pants, we got on what was meant to be a sleeper bus that turned out to be seats. This didn't matter anyway because the trip was so terrifying we didn't sleep a wink. Although we didn't see any cliffs,both of us sat bolt upright and wide eyed for the whole 4 hour trip, as we careered around corners and sped like crazy into the dark. Three days earlier, the same journey in reverse had taken 6 hours. Back in phnom penh we were dropped at some random bus station where they were blaring hip hop shit music at 5am. We were so happy to get on the next bus, even though that wasn't a sleeper either. It was ok though because we had two seats each, and passed the time experimenting with different ways to sleep without falling into the aisle at every corner. We stopped for lunch at another random roadside place and the lady sitting opposite me on the bus bought a giant fried tarantula. Back on the bus, I watched in horror as she crunched her way through the legs so painfully slowly and then started pulling apart the abdomen. I was in shock, it was so repulsive. We got to the laos border which was just a little shack with a flag on it where we had to pay to get our passports stamped for some corrupt reason or another. When we got to pakse though, we got on the coolest bus ever. Walking up the aisle, we got to our seats which were actually just a double bed, two pillows and some blankets. Not the safest ride but definitely the most fun! We befriended this gorgeous cambodian couple opposite us-the only other foreigners on the bus, who shared their fruit and dinner with us, and laughed at the whole 'bird foetus' episode that I talked about before. As we arrived in vientiane, we piled into a tuk tuk with everyone else and sped off into town. One of the most memorable experiences of our trip will be driving around the capital that morning to the tunes of 'funky town' and 'kung fu fighting' that blared from the boom box at the front of the truck. What can you do except laugh!

freaky food

2010-12-07T23:50:00.001-08:00

We've been traveling for about 7 weeks now and have definitely had our fair share of new experiences. Some of the most memorable being the weird food we've tried.
In Phnom Penh, we tried these amazing pork dumplings which were steamed in pots on by street vendors. They also did ones with sweet pumpkin so Claire was set! They were so soft and sticky, obviously a health food! Haha. We've found that they prefer to use pumpkin in desserts rather than in actual meals, and even pumpkin juice is pretty popular! We stumbled across this awesome vegetarian buffet in Vientiane last week, and they had what is one of the most ridiculous desserts i have ever tasted. you get a bowl of kidney beans, then pour coconut cream over the top, add some squares of black jelly and this weird sugar syrup, and top it off with splash of pumpkin juice. surprisingly, it was so freaking good we went back for seconds...duh! Haha.
On the bus on the way to Laos from Cambodia we stopped at some ridiculous hour of the early, early morning to grab something to eat. Climbing down from the bus, I spotted some boiled eggs at one of the stalls and so i grabbed 4 for us to munch on later. It was only as i was halfway through peeling the first one that i realised it wasn't a boiled egg. Turns out half developed chicken foetus is a perfectly legitimate snack in laos. Lovely!
One of our all time favourites are the simple yet divine roasted bananas, or check anh in khmer :) have a look for yourself, dont be jealous- well roast you some when we get back!
Oh my god, i just remembered, last night we went back to visit this lady who named herself 'mumma lee' when we met her the other night. She is a legend! everywhere in vang vieng you can buy pancakes/burgers/sandwiches from vendors on every corner, but mumma lee made us the best thing ever! A toasted baguette with fried banana, nutella, coconut, peanut butter and chocolate. She even let me help with the roasting and chuckled away to herself as we declared our love for her and her sandwich. Funny, funny night!
Just this morning, we walked through the market and saw water buffalo hooves wrapped up like bunches of flowers, as well as something that looked alarmingly like a skinless puppy grilling on a grate at a stall. Ugh.
All in a day's fun in indochina.

ODA

2010-12-03T20:38:00.000-08:00

When we were in Siem Reap we set aside an hour or so to visit an orphanage that my uncle had donated to. I don't know what we expected to find, but we could never have anticipated just how amazing this place and these people are. The orphanage is called "Orphans and Disabled Arts" and is located in the Angkor Wat complex.
We had planned to visit for an hour, but we stayed the whole afternoon, captivated by the stories of the children and the people who care for them. There were times when we were both sitting so still, trying desperately not to cry as we were so overwhelmed by all that we were being told. This is one of the best organisations in the world. Every single cent that is donated goes directly to the children-you can see it. It was just incredible.
Please take the time to watch this short clip, which explains about their lives.

Tragedy.

2010-11-22T18:21:00.000-08:00

So this morning we woke up to phone calls from our worried parents, who had spent the morning listening to the news of the stampede at the water festival. We came home early last night, so we managed to miss it, but we are still a bit shocked about the whole thing. The crowds were absolutely insane, like a giant mosh pit swarming down the riverfront. Apparently there were heaps of people on one of the islands, which is connected to the mainland by just one bridge. At some point something has scared the crowd, and people have started trying to get off the island as quickly as they could. This has created mayhem on the bridge as people were crushed as they fell down, or dived over the bridge into the water and drowned. The whole bridge was decorated with colourful lights, but somehow these wires electrocuted people who fell into them-only horrifying the crowd even more. We are so upset that the joy of the last 3 days has ended like this. Such a sad day for the entire country because millions had come from provinces all over Cambodia. The Prime Minister has declared Wednesday (tomorrow) a day of mourning, so we are just kind of playing it by ear as we don't know what to expect/what is expected of us. You can read more about the incident here.

Of all the things.

2010-11-21T04:08:00.000-08:00

Of all the shops and sights in Phnom Penh, Claire and I today succeeded in finding what is quite possibly the only thrift store in Cambodia. Needless to say we had the BEST DAY EVER. We bought about 4 kilo's of stuff each (we measure our purchases in mass now that we have to carry them everywhere) and it was only $7 for each of us! We spent 2 hours in this little store, running up and down the aisles of clothes, dressed up in god knows what and having a ball. We got tops, skirts, jumpers (Claire; Well I am going to uni in Melbourne and it's cold there...") and a bathing suit each. Hopefully tomorrow we can get a few snaps and show you all what we got! The day didn't start out too great, our grand plans of a sleep in were shattered when Claire's Dad called at 6:30, but soon we were up and bustling around, chugging down our morning coffees. A little too quickly though, I managed to throw up again. Yes, it has become a regular occurance for some reason! Lovely. After our shopping, we went back to this cute little frozen yoghurt place on the river front, and watched the boat races from the second storey. So incredible.
Yesterday we went to see the S-21 prison/ genocide museum. I can't even begin to explain what that was like. We had been reading books and studying the history of the place as well as talking to other people who had been, but nothing could prepare us for what we felt as we walked in. Halfway through the tour we were both crying our eyes out as we tried to wrap our heads around everything that happened. But it's like trying to understand whats at the end of the universe. Freaking impossible. The thing that got me was the look in the eyes of every person in the images that lined the walls. Hundreds and hundreds of mug shots of prisoners and Khmer Rouge fighters. They all had this haunting look of sadness, fear and defeat, and their eyes were just piercing into you. I could barely look at them, the same look repeated in every single face, from babies to the elderly. It's making my skin prickle just thinking of it. It definitely made us realise how insignificant all our problems are, and how pointless it is for people to bitch and fight about nothing. I have never appreciated the simple existence of my friends and family more. Love you all :)

My Day!

2010-11-19T02:47:00.000-08:00

So this morning after some issues with transport yesterday, I decided to rent a bike and do the 8k to work like that. I got the bike ok, and everything was going great until I set off without a map (thinking that I'd be super fine with just some street names written on my hand...) or a helmet-they hire out bikes, but nowhere seems to have a decent crash hat. About 10 minutes into my journey I realised I was completely lost, so I decided I would just ride around until I saw something familiar and go there. I passed the same people at this one stall so many times that by the last time they all pointed and waved. Nice. I eventually found the road I was going on, they're mostly all numbered streets, though they didn't think to actually line up the numbers when they did it so you get St, 123 right next to st 217, and crossing st 186. Confusing is an understatement, because then they have 3 different names for each main road as well. Argh!
Anyway, I soon discovered that being on a bicycle is perhaps more dangerous than being on the back of a moto, if that is at all possible. You have (almost) total control, so you feel in charge of where you're going, though you just have to follow the traffic up onto the pavement or through puddles and god knows what-just try not to put your feet down! You have to go fast to keep up with the movement of traffic, and you have to concentrate on everything. All the time. It's almost better to zone out and use your peripheral vision because you can't ever keep track of everyone on each side. The navigation itself is not too bad, it's just like skiing or snowboarding. Give way to people ahead of you, but be mindful of anyone behind, get the hell out of the way of someone out of control, and try to swerve around the huge slow ones. I swallowed SO MUCH DUST. Luckily I had my sunnies to keep it out of my eyes. Riding in a dress is always interesting, but trying to keep your knees hidden, your mouth covered and your bag secure all at once takes it to a whole new level.
When I got to the centre, none of the other volunteers were there, and neither was the lovely lady with the adorable grandson (who kissed me on the cheek yesterday. Aw!) who usually takes charge. I walked into the room and there were two people I had only ever passed in the hallway, sitting waiting for me to get the party going. I was thinking "Öh God help me, where in the world am I right now?" but I just got on with it. Said hello to them all, did the 'welcome song' and got out some games. At about 9, the ladies just left. It was me alone in a room with 10 severely disabled kids, who must have just taken it as a cue to go nuts. I tried to feed them their snack, but it ended up strewn all over the room, crushed into the floor. One of the girls ripped out a clump of my hair and proceeded to eat it, and one little boy just pooed right in the middle of the floor. Ugh it was so bad. At 9:50 the lady came back with a basket of boardshorts and swim nappies, and motioned for me to change them all and take them outside. That was fun :| More wee. Haha yesterday I slipped in a puddle of wee and nearly went A over T. The lady was laughing so hard and mimicking me for about 10 minutes. So funny. We went outside and she had set up a wading pool, which was cool. But she just kind of chucked them all in it and started washing them all together. One little boy who is autistic and hides in the corner all day was freaking out in a massive way. Quivering in his little white trunks. I picked him up and he clung onto me for dear life, which is so out of character for him. I was soaking wet in a second, but my heart was absolutely breaking for this little thing who had buried his head in my shirt, whimpering and crying. I had to dress them all again, without towels, which was great but I managed. When the other girls who work at the school asked if I wanted to visit their afternoon class, I was not saying no! As much as I want to keep doing as much as I can with that room, I just couldn't do it today. I was in tears by about 11, and just needed to get out.
For lunch I had bbq bananas! So weird! They were hard and salty on the outside, like a biscuit or crusty bread, but then they were sweet on the inside. So strange, but lovely!
After that I went to see the school part of the building, and it was so great just to be around some kids that could fully understand what was being said to them. They were so freaking cute! One little girl-the only one in a class of boys-reminded me of myself when I was little. Before the class started, she was helping to teach me Khmer numbers and the alphabet, but when the teacher asked her to recite it all to the class she was so shy that she freaked out and forgot it. The poor dear. Some of the girls had made a parachute which we played with for a while, and the kids were so excited! They were squealing and jumping and laughing. It was so great to see.
On the way home on my bike, I was confronted with the biggest crowds I have ever seen. Thousands and thousands of people- walking, pushing carts, carrying things, riding wagons- all on their way into Phnom Penh for the water festival this weekend. We had heard that they would come, and so have spent the week preparing for the mosh pit that apparently engulfs the city every year. Hopefully we will get a glimpse of the boats racing on the river, or see some of the performances. I read that, at this time of year, the river actually reverses in direction as the floodwaters come from the lake out to the ocean. Seeing the size of the river the other day, I couldn't believe it, but I guess it is just one of those things! How awesome! We are having a great time, missing our families and everyone back home, but super excited for the weekend, and loving the guest house we are in. They are simply adorable :)

Brand New Eyes,

2010-11-17T04:21:00.000-08:00

Today was my second day volunteering at the orphanage in Phnom Penh. The first thing that I realised about the place when I arrived yesterday, was that it is not so much an orphanage as a home for severely disabled and abandoned children and adults. Technically referred to as a "Nutrition Centre," it is home to almost 200 children and adults, most of whom are both physically and mentally disabled. I don't know how to describe it, or where to start, so I'm going to just keep typing and see what happens. I was dropped off this morning at about 9am. The Khmer man that took me out there introduced me to the director of the home, who was lovely. She didn't speak a word of English, but she had kind eyes. We stayed in her office for a while because there were a couple of problems with my placement. There was a bit of an issue regarding my lack of experience working with disabled children, considering that most volunteers there are recent graduates/currently employed as speech or occupational therapists, or at least have some form of nursing experience. I, however, seem to have gracefully slipped through the cracks and ended up miles from the other volunteers. I told her that I would give it a go and try my best, helping out wherever I was needed most. And so began my day. I was taken on a short tour of the building, which was surprisingly big, and as equally surprisingly empty. There was no furniture, and some of the rooms were completely bare. Cream walls. White floors. The hallways are long and thin, with bright sunlight flooding in at the ends-an eerie thing to see in such a depressing place. The bare rooms made me feel uneasy at first, but I think the simpleness of them can be calming for the autistic kids that can't handle too much stimuli. In the first room I saw, there were mattresses and pillows laid out over a 5x5m area, on which 25-30 children were lying. This group of kids were the most severely physically disabled ones in the centre, and so their bodies were all contorted and strange. Some of their expressions were horribly vacant, and I won't lie- it scared the shit out of me. The staff were lifting them up and down, playing with them and singing to them. All the while there were songs like Öld Macdonald"playing in the background. It was a feeble attempt to distract from the haunting sounds of groaning and moaning coming from the other rooms. The second room was better, the kids were more "with it" and it was great to see some smiling and laughing, it was great to see some conscious awareness! The room I worked in on the first morning was one for older kids, who weren't so physically disabled, allowing them to move around in various ways. It was all ages, from 3 years to 28, but that lady could well have been 4. I met two Khmer women and two English volunteers, all of whom are amazing. The volunteers have been there 3 months as a part of their degrees in something like speech pathology and occupational therapy- I can't really remember. Meeting them, and speaking with them over just 2 days has made me determined to do as much as I can, even if I am overwhelmed and a bit scared. In just 2 and a half months they have completely transformed every aspect of the centre. They explained that when they first arrived, the children would just sit and play with plastic fruit for 3 hours at a time. Then eat, then play with plastic lego or something for another 3 hours. Shit. If you weren't disabled before that, you certainly would be after a few weeks! Now they have integrated all kinds of sensory and interactive games, dancing, stories and singing. Which has really had a visible effect on both the children and the minders. The majority of the kids in that room seem happy enough, but there are always a couple who aren't quite as peachy. I was asking about where the children come from, and where they go after the centre. They said that most of them have been abandoned in homes, at hospitals and at the gates at random times. They really come from everywhere. Just today I met a little blind boy who had been taken to 9 NGO's before this place, and he had been refused from every one. It really is the end of the line. One of the little boys sits in the corner, curled up into himself with his nads covering his eyes and ears. The girls explained that when he was found, he was alone in a room in this house, chained to the floor. No one would be ok after that. There is one little boy in thr group who seems to be developing normally, and the girls think that he is the grandson of one of the Khmer women. I can't help but wonder what the effects of this upbringing will have on his development and his life in the future.
The two Khmer women that work in this room are just beautiful. They deserve more credit than anyone working for any aid agency in the world. All the women who work there (I have not yet seen any men) have such love for the kids, and that is what keeps them doing it day after day. They earn just $20 per month. I was saddened to hear that they could triple their wage if they worked at the dog food factory across the road. It just makes me feel sick. Because of this factory, the entire complex reeks of dog food, I have been told that you "get used to it" after a while, but it still makes my stomach turn. Most of the women at the borey also live their, and have moved their families in to little flats in the complex so they can still work their 24 hour shifts. Yeah, 24 hours. They get days off, but mostly spend them working elsewhere to supplement their income. During our lunch breaks, I have been able to get to know some of the other volunteers, As you might imagine, they are a group of the most dedicated, passionate and loving people I have come across, and they really inspire me. They were saying today that they are so glad I am there to help, because the centre is desperate for more volunteers. When I asked why they don't have enough, they explained that it is not a very kitsch or glamorous job, and people stay for a day but can't handle it. They said that in Cambodia, and similar countries, at the moment there is a serious problem with regards to "tourist orphanages."They told me that particular homes have taken advantage of the fact that certain types of volunteering has become a popular trend with westerners, and they are using it to make a profit. Volunteers who are looking for something a bit more superficial out of the experience; a photo of them with a group of smiling Khmer kids for their facebook, a nice little addition to a resume, or just something to brag about to friends at home, are being used by these not-so-great places as a way to make some money. These orphanages create bogus and completely pointless "English classes" and charge ridiculous amounts for people to volunteer. It is really sad because the kids get screwed over from both sides of the spectrum; they learn nothing, waste time, and have to cope with constant disruption as volunteers rotate every couple of weeks. Even though I would have loved to meet some regular cambodian children, I am happy to think that I'm in a place which needs and appreciates me. I will keep you posted on what's going on, but I have to go because Claire and i are going on a mission to find some cake! :)

Crossing the border,

2010-11-14T16:01:00.000-08:00

My diary entry from 1:30pm, on the bus to Phnom Penh.

Just crossed over the border into Cambodia, and what a strange experience that was! Dogs and chickens running everywhere, dust clouds filling everyones eyes, nose and mouth until you can't breathe. 'There is a gap of about 300m between the Cambodian side of the crossing and the Vietnamese side. Between the two points are rows and rows of casinos and clubs, with signs saying "Welcome to Ha Tien Vegas!"We decided that the rules must get a bit foggy in this dusty no man's land, so it would be the perfect spot for something as dodgy as a mini world of casinos. The only semi official thing about the crossing was the stamps, the security checkpoints are pretty much just little huts in the sand, with guys in hats propped up behind a desk. It was unnerving relinquishing our passports for even a second, especially when we found out that our group had somehow ended up with some other guys passport-he was going a few hundred k's in the opposite direction :S

We walked through the sandy wasteland for about 600m, got some stamps and a visa, and piled back onto the bus. The whole interior of the bus was completely caked in the red dirt, so when we finally had to change buses we all looked like we'd been on safari with Bear Grylls for a week. We drove through the Cambodian countryside for about 4 hours, and finally arrived in Phnom Penh 3 hours behind schedule. Stepping down from the bus steps is like descending into a churning ocean of tuk tuk and moto drivers. Absolutely overwhelmed, we tried to find our bags amongst the growing pile whilst fending off the yelling and grappling. "Lady! Lady!"they scream, grabbing your arm and trying to pull you over to their tuk tuk before you go with someone else. "Guesthouse!" "Hotel"-they yell anything to try and get your attention. I have never been so glad to look up and see two people I know, standing amongst the swarming crowd. Lucy and Rob (two people we met in Vietnam) picked the four of us up from the bus and walked us to their guesthouse just around the corner. We checked in, and then made our way to the market- delirious with hunger! There were 8 of us at dinner, and I think we ate them out of work! We pointed at a handful of random things on the menu, and for about 2 hours the dishes just kept coming! So much food. It was such a fun thing to do, actually having to figure out what is on your plate. Thank God it was dark because I don't know how much I would have eaten if I could have seen it properly! Haven't been sick yet though, so fingers crossed :D

Can Tho.

2010-11-14T06:54:00.000-08:00

Ok so I'm jumping a little bit back in time, to tell you about the night we spent in Can Tho before we went to Phu Quoc Island. After an amazing day of touring the Mekong Delta; drinking tea, eating local fruits and seeing how they make coconut candy and rice wine (an interesting combination) we pulled into the riverside town of Can Tho. The bus ride hadn't been bad, but we were ready to get off asap when we saw ourselves stopping outside an amazing hotel in the main street. As we pulled up, Claire and I squealed with delight, hypnotised by the glow of the neon signs reading "jacuzzi"and "sauna." The reality soon set in, however, as we realised that we were dropping off two people from the group who could obviously afford to pay a little more, and thought themselves to be above the "simple accommodation"offered on the brochure. We were most certainly put back in our place as we turned the corner and made our way, on foot, through the flood waters in the street beside the jacuzzi hotel. Damn. Haha. We didn't let it get us down though, because we thought we would freshen up and treat ourselves to a nice dinner. Armed with a fistful of cash and some clean clothes, we ventured out into the streets of Can Tho. The streets themselves left a bit to be desired, but the riverside area was just beautiful! Parks and walkways stretch along the bank, which is dotted with little benches and statues, as well as street vendors and restaurants. We walked for a little while, but then got this uneasy feeling that people were staring at us. Little eyes followed us everywhere, people on bikes were craning their necks to look back at us over their shoulders, groups of girls looked at us, then talked to each other and all stared again. We started freaking out. First I thought that maybe I had a piece of toilet paper hanging off my pants or something, then we started thinking that maybe there is some secret way to wear your scarf that means you're a prostitute, and we had somehow accidentally stumbled upon it. We decided to get off the street, and so we ducked into the first little restaurant we came across. From the minute we walked in we were treated like queens, it was incredible. We both had sauteed vegies with lemongrass and chilli. Absolutely fantastic! We paid for it, and thought we would retreat back to the hostel, considering how uncomfortable we felt, and thinking that maybe we were offending people somehow. The girl out the front was staring at us but trying not to make it obvious. Sweet. We went to leave, and said thank you to her as we passed, at which point she started absolutely gushing over our "beautiful skin"and my blonde hair. Who would have thought that being pasty as would bring such compliments. We asked her if we were doing anything wrong, or dressing strangely, but she just said that we were beautiful and had lovely *pale* skin. Very flattered (in a weird way) we left the restaurant with a little spring in our step. You might say the compliments went straight to our heads, and we decided to wander up the river a little more seeing as we were 90% sure that we weren't advertising sexual favours. A group of 5 people-4 girls, one boy- approached us shyly about 100m on, and asked if they could talk with us to improve their english conversation. They were adorable! Especially the boy, who was the vietnamese version of Carson from Queer eye. Haha. They were pretty great at English, and we sat with them for a while just chatting about life and school in vietnam. It's always a tad awkward, but they were the same age as us, so we had heaps to chat about. They bought us each these gorgeous little roses that a lady was making from ribbon on the street. They also got us each a bird that she had made from this ribbon. We were so flattered! They thanked us for talking to them and we wished them luck in their studies. We were so happy to have met such great people, and felt really lucky to have had that chance to talk to people our own age. Then these four little girls came running over to us, no doubt they had seen the roses and birds, which we gave to each of them. Their little gap toothed grins were just priceless. We took a photo of them with their gifts, and I'm smiling now just remembering the way they skipped and jumped back to their parents. It was such a good feeling to see them so happy and amused with such trivial little things. Compliments, lovely people and cute kids. Needless to say, we loved Can Tho!

Phu Quoc Island

2010-11-10T19:11:00.000-08:00

For the last 3 days we have been in absolute paradise! We arrived safely after a hellish journey from Saigon, complete with taxi drivers trying to rip us off, lots of yelling in Vietnamese and some seriously dangerous cramming in a minibus. It has all been worth it though, we are staying in a little bungalow about 50m from the beach, complete with hammocks, a little porch, lots of sand and a gecko which we named Loretta. The power only comes on between midday and 8:30pm, so that makes things fun when you forget a torch! We have been strolling down to the beach every morning, having breakfast (and the BEST coffee) with our feet in the sand, sipping out of coconuts and getting massages, jumping in the sea to cool off and then just like that it's dinner time and we're faced with the biggest decision of our day, what to order! It certainly is a far cry from the lives we were living this time last year! On the first night, we treated ourselves to some incredible cocktails, and lounged in the ocean-which was like a bath. It has rained a couple of times, but usually only at night, and we are managing to score some beautiful sunny days. A few days ago we got some coconuts and got the guys at the restaurant to chop them open for us. That was all fine until we thought it might be nice to roast them over the barbeque-to the absolute bewilderment of the locals. Everyone crowded around to stare at the weird foreigners with no idea how to eat a coconut, and we were equally as confused that they had never even tried it. As we sat down to eat, I sprinkled some sugar over the top to sweeten it up a little, which was obviously way too much for the old lady sitting opposite who began shrieking with laughter and collapsed into hysterics. I had to stop with the sugar for fear of causing her a heart attack! We met up with the 9 people who we had been seeing all the way down, so we have had a few really good nights with them. We spent almost the whole night in this one deserted bar called Amigos, just the 11 of us playing card games and hanging out. It was so much fun! Then last night we thought we'd venture out and try somewhere different, but that backfired when we ended up in what was obviously a strip club and filled with ladies that were definitely actually men... That was fun. Most of them went off to Cambodia today, and so we are waiting to hear how it goes before we book our trip. It's so weird to think we are nearly done in Vietnam, but at the same time it feels like we have been here for years! We are missing some home comforts, muesli, our own beds and our families, but we are having so much fun. Today we are looking at another day lounging in the sun, most definitely some more Vietnamese coffee, and possibly a dip in the ocean. Wow, life is hard.

Recent events.

2010-11-07T19:25:00.003-08:00

Ok so I have been a bit lazy with updating lately, but we have had a pretty full on couple of days! in the last post, we were heading off to dalat on the night bus. it was a serious journey (12 hours!) but we managed to sleep most of the way. Luckily we werent near the bathroom this time, but we might as well have been because the b.o coming from the guy below us was actually the scent of death! I spend most of the trip with a packet of chips over my mouth and nose to try and block it out. Ugh im shuddering just thinking about it. Anyway, we got to nha trang and it was underwater like they had predicted. We were congratulating ourselves on deciding to go to dalat until the driver stood up and said that there would be no busses to dalat that day, and he couldn't guarantee there would be one in the next week. With nothing else to do, we decided to get back on the bus-another 12 hours on the dreaded bus! that passed pretty easily though, and pretty uneventfully, and just like that we were in saigon! That night we were so exciting- we went and tried fruit shakes at like, 5 different places to suss out the best ones. We stayed in this horribly dodgey place with cracks in the walls and a rooster literally just outside, weird because we were on the 4th floor...The next day i was feeling a bit sick, so i went back to the (different, obviously) hotel while claire went to see the museum and stuff. Welll, thats what she told me she was doing. He came back to the hotel about 8 hours later looking like she was about to faint. She managed to get so completely lost that she went about 5 ks in the wrong direction and had to get a school girl to tell her she was in district 5. We were staying in district one... That night we met up with some of the other backpackers who we seem to bump into in every town, to this place called le pub. We had a couple of drinks and then this random 34 year old vietnamese guy was trying to impress someone on our table so he bought everyone cocktails (sweet!) and started talking about his job (accounting, not so sweet) Needless to say, we took full advantage of the situation, im not one to say no to free mojitos! After le pub we jumped in a taxi and went to this club called apocolypse now. We had so much fun! It was absolutely packed, and the dancefloor was massive. They played heaps of western music, but i think it as half half tourists and locals. We haven't been out together properly in ages, so it was probably the best night so far :) we got home at around 2, because we had a 6am start the next day. We got out of the taxi and realised that the hotel had locked us out! Freaking tthat we'd have to sleep on the street, claire started frantically ringing the doorbell until this lady opened the door. The poor thing, im not going to lie, she looked like hell. She had about 20% eye openage happening-maximum. Im surprised she even made it to the door. We laughed for about 45 minutes about it when we walked up the millin steps(not exaggerating) to our room. The alarm went off about 3 hours later for us to get up and go to see the cu chi tunnels. It was 2 1/2 hours to get there, but the man driving had attatched this god damn clanging charm to the bus. It was like someone scraping their knife wrong on a plate, or nails on a chalkboard. But LOUD. I thought i was going to have a breakdown halfway there. Wasn't helped by the fact we were pretty hungover. We were tip top by the time we got there and found it really interesting. Our guide was great, and i even jumped in a hole. We got to run through the tunnels, using the local one rather than the tourist one which has (ironically) been widened to accommodate for fat westeners. Go figure. I went first because i couldn't think of anything worse than beingandwiched in ntunel between two slow and sweaty people. I pretty much ran the whle way, but at some point i had to crawl, there were parts in total darkness, and every now and then it just dropped away below you. I freaked at one point when whacked my head on a couple of bats on the roof of the tunnel. Delightful. That night we went for dinner at this place we'd been to the night before. We had come across two restaurants opposite each other, that had exactly the same menu's. This is not uncommon in Vietnam, as it seems that as soon as someone finds success doing something, everyone sets up an identical enterprise right next door. We decided on the on the left, and sat upstairs looking back down on to the street. We ordered soo many fruit shakes (only 50c each!) and the waitress took down our meals. She disappeared downstairs and 10 seconds later we saw her run across the road to the other place. Naturally, we were a little confused as we watched her, but this only intensified as we saw her clip our order to street vendor stall just outside what appeared to be the kitchen. We actually sat and watched our meals being prepared on the street from the second floor of the opposite building. Haha! When the food was ready, the waiters loaded up their arms with plates, crossed the crazy street traffic and came up the stairs! Despite the curious arrangement, the meals were amazing! I got a whole roast pumpkin, with the middle cut out and filled with risotto. Best ever!

Hoi An

2010-11-02T01:33:00.000-07:00

Today is the last of almost 3 days in the so called "sleepy" town of Hoi An. We have had a pretty interesting time, but still can't figure out if we like it or not. Driving in to the town, we were so excited and fell in love at once with the old style houses, the colourful boats on the river and the prospect of getting any garment at all made to fit you perfectly. That's where the trouble began. I'm a pretty indecisive person in general, but when you have hundreds of different patterns, materials, styles and modifications to consider, you can get very confused very quickly. Just choosing which tailor shop to go to (there are over 200 in the small town) is a mammoth effort in itself. There are even places where you can get shoes made to fit you exactly, complete with your own design and colour. We went to almost every shop, hoping to find some kind of sign that this was "the one" but after a whole day and a half of wandering, we just picked a couple of random ones and hoped for the best. Claire got 2 dresses, a suit blazer, 2 pairs of shoes, a silk shirt, skirt and 4 dress shirts made in various locations around town. This made it interesting when we had to co ordinate multiple fittings at different times, the difficulty in actually finding the places only adding to the fun... It is a novelty to have clothes made this way, but as we are all finding out, it can be really unnecessarily stressful! I was so overwhelmed for the entire time that I only just got a dress made today, with this adorable lady who completely restored our faith in Hoi An and the tailoring business in general. She was sweet and gentle, and really did want to make us happy as her customers. When I couldn't decide on anything, she told me not to buy something for the sake of it, because it would never be right. She made Claire the most beautiful things out of everything she bought, and so e went back every single day. She was so happy when I finally decided on something, and spent the afternoon helping me plan it. The enjoyment she got from making the things for us really showed, and made the whole experience really wonderful. We have spent the whole of today telling everyone to go there.
There seems to be a group of about 20 of us (backpackers) who all end up in the same towns at around the same time. It is the most bizarre thing to be walking down the street in a Vietnamese town and bump into people you know more often than you would at home. It's great though, we all went out last night and the night before, and feel so lucky to have met such an amazing group of people. We had a couple of cocktails at a good spot after dinner, but were keen to head back to the hotel by about 11. The weather has been a bit horrible, with flooding and rain, so we weren't surprised when it was drizzling as we started walking home. Two minutes later it had turned into a torrential downpour and we were stranded out in the street getting absolutely soaked. All we could do was laugh and run, trying not to slip over or fall in a puddle as we tried to navigate our way past bikes and what appeared to be waterfalls coming off the roof of every shop. It was so funny.
This morning we got up bright and early (we didn't need an alarm clock because we have been woken at 6:30am on the dot every morning by some man hucking up his lungs in the next room. Yummy.) and decided to hire a couple of bikes. We spent a couple of hours just biking around, seeing some of the less busy areas of Hoi An, where it is much more peaceful and there are less hoards of camera wielding foreigners. We stopped at a little food market and Claire got into this massive bartering argument with one lady, who stole her money then gave it back and succeeded in confusing the hell out of me. It ended with Claire in possession of 4 lychees and a smack from this crazy laughing lady.At one point during our ride, a man went past us on a motorbike and looked at us over his shoulder for long enough for it to be a little creepy. About 50m ahead he pulled over and got off his motorbike, and proceeded to unzip his pants (yes, it is what you think) and shout "hello" as we went by. I think he was after a bigger reaction than us just looking the other way, but we're still unsure just what he was trying to achieve.
On a lighter note, there is this one lady walking the streets of Hoi An who has made my stay in this town completely worthwhile. She is old and slow, and is the master of what can only be described as heaven in a bowl. You can hear her from miles away, this incredibly distinct call of what sounds like "Cow Hong Laow" but is most probably something completely different. It is (apparently) boiled down soy beans, and is one of the hardest things to explain, let alone make it sounds as appetising as it actually is. It has the appearance of natural yoghurt, the consistency of jelly, and tastes like sweet porridge. She puts grated ginger and some kind of sauce on top, which tastes a bit like golden syrup. Oh my god. Today, I saw her across the street and heard her calling out whatever it is she calls, and my stomach literally somersaulted with excitement. I am pretty sure I ran across the road to her I was that happy! Claire just laughed but it was most definitely the best part of my day!
Tonight we are going on the sleeper bus again, 12 hours, but hopefully we can snag a seat that is more than 2 feet from the toilet. We have decided to bypass Nha Trang because it's waist deep in water, but are heading for the higher ground of Dalat instead. Altogether I think we're in for 20+ hours of travel. Good thing we bought books!

Top Gear and the Knight bus.

2010-10-29T17:06:00.000-07:00

On our last day in Hanoi, we booked a sleeper bus to take us on the 12 hour journey down to Hue. When it pulled up just after dinner, we almost died with excitement. It was pretty much a replica of the Knight bus on Harry Potter. It was so cool! There were 3 rows of beds, each of them bunks, and everyone got a little pillow and blanket. I took a couple of photos but the hostel computer wont let me upload them, so when we get to another one I will put them all up. Oh my gosh you can not even believe how great it was. The funniest thing was that it drove like the Knight bus too. We were swerving in and out of traffic and dodging people left and right. It was so much fun, though not the best sleeping conditions there ever were. Luckily we had anticipated this, and had taken on a little vodka which meant I was out like a light after about half an hour, despite all the excitement and the novelty of the experience. The novelty wore off pretty quickly though, because unlike Harry Potter, we had to spend 12 hours on the bus. The beds were really comfy-but about 2 inches too short-and when I woke to the swerving and honking of the bus I was astounded that I had actually slept at all! At around 5am we nearly skittled a water buffalo that was being herded across the road in some little town. The driver slammed on the brakes so hard that everyone slid forward until we were all awkwardly crumpled at the foot of our little beds. Everyone's bags slid halfway down the aisle, and I was laughing my head off with this old Vietnamese guy who was opposite me. It was that hysterical "I'm pretty sure we just narrowly escaped death" cackle that made the whole situation even more funny. Claire slept through it though and so wasn't as enthusiastic as she could have been about survival when I woke her to tell her about it 2 minutes later. She didn't miss out though, because we spent the following 4 hours swerving in and out of oncoming traffic, forcing trucks off the road and side swiping God knows what. I swear we passed about 5 pelatons of school children who must have had a major ride if they were up and cycling at 5:30am. At one point, I nearly got knocked out by a flying bottle of water that kamakazeed off one of the tops bunks as we crossed 3 lanes of traffic to avoid a sausage dog on the highway(?) Hahaha. I have come to accept that the road rules are; the person who is going the fastest and beeping the loudest gets right of way. It was no wonder that a lady came running and vomited all into the bus stairwell, which was conveniently located to out immediate right, just next to the most foul smelling toilet you will ever come across. Ugh. I shudder just thinking about it. I used almost a whole bottle of perfume trying to do something, anything to make it better. We arrived safely-finally-at around 9am, and were picked up by the hostel car. This place is beautiful, such a chilled out area. Free brekky, coffee and tea all day, cocktails for 50c at happy hour, the most amazing friendly staff. Oh it's paradise.

After arriving we decided to go and see some of the sights, we asked the people at the hostel to give us the best and cheapest way-so they ordered us 2 guys on bikes to take us around (sorry Mum) At 11:25, two nice looking chaps rolled up and introduced themselves and Thung and Chi. They got us all suited up and away we went. It was so much fun. I have never been on one of those scooters and it as surprisingly relaxing, nothing like being on the back of a real motorbike. The seats were comfy and really big-I guess they cater for all sorts of fat tourists! We went to this one pagoda which they explained was one of the most significant structures for Buddhists, and was surrounded by an old school for monks. There were little monks chanting in their class, which was the most adorable thing I have ever seen. They wore grey or brown robes, and had their heads shaved except for the fringe. It was such a serene and peaceful place, right on the edge of the river, a world away from the bustle of the roads. We went to the tombs on 2 emperor's after that. They were enormous! First we went to Minh Mang and then after, Khai Dinh. They were both so beautiful, and so ornate. Really overwhelming. The first one was sprawled over an enormous area, incorporating a lake and many gardens. You could clearly see the chinese influence in the design, whereas with Khai Dinh it was the European influence that showed, and the mosaics in the actual tomb covered everything and were just incredible. I think we both preferred the second one.

It was such a great way to see the country, because they took us on all these back roads and through mountains. It all kind of fell apart though after the last tomb, when they said we had to pay them when we got back to the hostel. We freaked out because we had already payed the people at the desk when we booked, and they had told us that the drivers never ask for money. Long story short, the guys we were actually meant to go with rocked up just after we had gone! These two had pretended to be our hired guides! We figured it all out in the end, and managed to have got a better deal than we first had organised-plus a bit of excitement/freaking out. Haha! Wow that is long as, I'm going to go wake Claire and get some free brekky :) Bye!

the lovely notes project is very sweet. is it working? i hope so.

2010-10-27T20:29:00.001-07:00

I haven't had much time to check it since I have been away, but it seems that people would rather keep the notes for themselves than pass them on. It is a little bit sad, but I guess it is a good thing that they like them so much. I guess we will have to wait and see how it all goes.

Tell me your secrets.

Halong Bay

2010-10-27T17:45:00.000-07:00

We booked into a 3 day/ 2 night tour of Halong Bay at the backpackers, really excited to get out of the busy city and into the open air. This is my journal entry from the second day;

"Right now I am sitting with Claire and the others on the most beautiful little deserted island somewhere in Halong Bay. It is literally a strip of sand at the base of an enormous limestone karst, and we are surrounded by what seems to be just mountains of tropical forest. We are sleeping tonight in tiny huts with low roofs and no walls, made from bamboo and dried plants. They are actually on the beach; when you step out of them you step onto the sand and can walk 5 meters to the water. The ocean is warm, and such an intense jade colour. Apparently if you swim at night, the plankton light up the sea as they swim away from you because they contain phosphorus, lighting up the ocean. We are sleeping in the most secluded part of the beach with Joan and Rachael (our Canadian friends) There is a boat for wakeboarding and tubing, a volleyball net on the sand, a ping pong table and a bar and kitchen area for hanging out. Last night we were on the boat overnight and it was so much fun. Claire and I had a neat little room to ourselves with our own bathroom and everything. It was funny because there was just a showerhead coming out of the wall of the bathroom, rather than a separate shower, and the floor was sloped for it to drain out. I have never seen anything like it before. We had lunch in the dining room, which was the middle of 3 floors on this old boat, and then went kayaking through the towering limestone karsts. It was amazing! The air was kind of misty, so it gave the area this eerie, magical feel. After dinner we all sat on the rooftop deck and had a couple of drinks and just chatted with everyone. We met some really cool people, and laughed so much as we were playing games. One girl got really drunk and started stroking my hair and telling me that I should enter a dolly modelling competition, but she kept calling my "Byron Bay Claire" which was kind of awkward because by the time I realised it was past the point when it is ok to correct someone, so I just let her run with it! The next morning we gathered our things nice and early and jumped on a boat to bring us here. It was the most amazing boat ride, the sky got clearer with every corner we turned, and we went past the floating villi\ages which out guide had told us about the day before. He said that the sea people never ever touched land, that for their whole lives they lived on boats and pontoons. They believe that if they touch just one foot on land they will be cursed by a ghost. There are two kinds of funerals they have because they don't bury their dead on land. There is a sea funeral; where they lower the body into the water in a casket with holes in it. They leave it to decompose for 3 years and then they go back to collect the bones which give good luck to the village. The other one is a sky funeral, which they also practice in the hills of Tibet. When someone dies, a monk will take the body to the highest peak in the area and chop it to pieces with an axe. They ring a special bell and eagles come and take the pieces to feed to their families. It really embodies the concept of the circle of life, though it is a little confronting."

In the afternoon on the second day, just after this was written, we went on a banana boat ride. We thought it was going to be pretty tame, so I wasn't too worried when my life jacket didn't fit. I had to wrap it around me without zipping it up, and just use the buckle to fasten it shut. When we got out there though, we realised that it was less "romantic cruise" than "vicious death machine." They were flipping us off every 30 seconds, and it was quite dangerous because eight people falling off the one thing into the same spot never ends well. As I soon discovered. One time, I was flung off with everyone else, and as I hit the water, I smacked head first into someone else. I felt my nose crunch as I landed, and then I was pushed under by another person landing on top of me. Coughing and spluttering I popped up on the surface, conveniently being strangled by my almost non existent life vest. I turned around and everyone's jaws dropped when they saw me. My face and chest were covered with blood. I could taste it and feel it running down my face. All I could think was "Please don't be broken, don't ruin out trip" as I climbed into the back of the boat. Needless to say, that was the end of my banana boating career. It swelled up like you would not believe, I looked like Shrek. Still do. It had stopped bleeding now- 2 days later, but still hurts like hell! Claire and I had planned to do a massive bike ride trip today, but we're both feeling a bit worn out so we thought we would get coffee and a massage instead. Haha! We went to the best Indian restaurant last night and realised that this time last year we were in our English exam. Oh my god. It is the best feeling to be so far away from all that, out exploring the world. Just doing whatever we feel like and not having to please anyone but ourselves. We are having a blast! Going to put some photos up soon, so you can see everything I had described! Bye :)

Hanoi

2010-10-23T16:52:00.000-07:00

We got to hanoi in the end, after spending a pretty interesting night in the KL airport. We managed to get a bit of sleep in starbucks, but they woke us up when they were closing and we had to go sleep in Maccas. Haha. We came across this shop that sold all kinds of lollies and fruits, and things, but they had the weirdest things! We saw dried fish that was so crispy it looked like potato chips, and this weird thing that had a label saying "chicken floss roll"-we didn't try any! We have spent 2 days and 2 nights in Hanoi so far, what an amazing city! It is so full of life and character-and so, so busy! We went out for lunch the fist day we got here, and when we went to pay the bill was 40,000d. Not really understanding the money yet we took a while to work out that it had cost $2 for both of us! Oh my gosh. We have experienced so many sights and sounds and tastes in the last couple of days it is almost overwhelming!

Some of the highlights;

Seeing the beautiful lake, it's amazing how calm the benks of the lake are despite the crazy city all around it. We have walked around it a few times on our way to various things, and it is always an amazing sight. We were walking along on the first day, we saw a bride and groom posing for photos on the river bank, she had the most beautiful dress, and looked just like a doll-absolutely stunning! She didn't look very happy though but we just assumed it was the heat. About 50m on, we saw another bride getting her make-up retouched before getting a photo taken. Surprised by the coincidence, we kapt walking and thought nothing of it, but couldn't ignore the situation when, 70m on, we were surrounded by a sea of brides, grooms, wedding parties and photographers. There were so many! It must have been a magazine photoshoot; grumpy, skinny, pretty brides, standing next to bored, flustered husbands, Photographers literally grabbing their faces and turning them roughly, pushing the couples closer together. It was such a weird thing to see, but then yesterday we went back, and there were more! So confused!!!
Going to this amazing coutryard for dinner, where they had massive tables in the middle and food being cooked at stations all around. We sat at this communal table, opposite a lovely Canadian couple, and looked over the menu. Everything was only $1 per dish, so we assumed they were little serves. We thought it would be fun to order a few different things and share. We got a vietnamese pancake, vegetarian dumplings, fried rice balls, soup and chicken skewers. The waitress and waiter started laughing at us halway through our order, but assured us that the serves were small when we atarted freaking out. The liars! When the pancake came, it was this MASSIVE meal! It was bean sprouts, prawn and chicken(?) in this fried wonton, set out sort of like a giant piece of ravioli, with a 20cm diameter. We got given rice paper rolls that you had to full with the pancake, some greens, and dip into chilli sauce. It was the best ever! And after that, we went to this place called "Fanny" which has the best ice cream in Hanoi. We ordered ice cream sushi! Which was coffee, strawberry and vanilla sorbet, rolled up with sesame seads on the outside.
The Hoa Lo prison was an intense experience. It wook us a while to get through it because we were so overwhelmed by it. They still have everything set up like it used to be, and you can see marks on the floor where the prisoners were, and the guillotine that they were still using up until the 30's. So freaky.
Exploring the city is he best way to see it. Just walking down streets and following what looks good. You can always find your way back, but we have found that when you get lost you discover the best things!
We went to KOTO yesterday for lunch, it was amazing, and the people were so sweet and so lovely. What a wonderful place.
Meeing some great people. We are staying with the loveliest bunch of girls, and we went out last night with Joan and Rachael from Canada. It's great how everyone is so friendly and can offer so much advice.
We have mastered the art of crossing the street! The road rules apear to be; pedestrians give way to cars, motorbikes give way to pedestrians, and cars just plow through everyone and the motorbikes swerve around them. The best way is to walk slowly across the street at a constant pace, avoiding cars, and the bikes just swerve around you. You have to fight everything you know not to sprint across, but it seems to work well in some bizarre way! Claire nearly got hit by an old lady riding a bike, who did an endo and then started yelling at her in vietnamese. So funny!

Lowlights:

Trying to be scammed on our first day by a girl pretending to raise money for orphans, and then another girl doing the same thing the next day.
Taxi driver taking us to the complete wrong place after doing laps of the lake to get the fare up.
Things we wanted to visit being closed.

What's ahead;

Tomorrow we are going to see the perfume pagoda.
The next day we are going to HaLong Bay for a 3 day/2 night cruise which we are super excited about.
Going to see the water puppets at some stage.

So far we are having a blast! Spending way too much money because we cant resist all the beautiful things, but that's how it is! Excited for the next part of the trip :) I'll try and post some photos soon, so many already!

halfway hell.

2010-10-21T01:28:00.001-07:00

So we arrived safely in Kuala Lumpur despite some pretty intense turbulence on the way over. We got through customs by 7am and thought it would be fun to head into the city for a bit of a wander around. We jumped on a bus and then another train, and found ourselves right in the midst of everything. Walking through chinatown was a mission in itself, so too our uncanny ability to sit in places that we really werent't meant to. Did I mention the heat? Oh man. It is stuffy and humid to the max, and that smell of spices and incence floats through the air everywhere you go. . We had the biggest luch and the most amazing market. It had so many wonderful silks and woven things, we grabbed some cookies but didn't get up enoough courage to try the ice cream sandwich- literally a slab of ice cream between two slices of wonderwhite toast...yeah, incredible. right now we are back at the airport, its 4pm and our plane doesn't leave until 6am tomorrow. Lus we have the added bonus of looking and feeling like we have just been run over by a semi trailer. Yay! We are just hanging in there now, dreaming of vietnam and having a place to sleep other than the terminal floor. :)

Leaving town.

2010-10-19T03:59:00.000-07:00

Tonight is my last proper night in Australia, this time tomorrow, I will be ready to get on the next plane to KL. How scary is that? We have been planning this trip the whole year, saving our pennies (well, Claire's been saving) and dreaming of the adventure we'll have. It seems so crazy that it's just around the corner, that it's finally actually about to happen. Oh yeah, I got my P's today! Freaking Jesus god finally. Haha. Sad thing is that I don't really get to enjoy it before January. Yeah, by the way, we're away until then. So the rough plan is, arrive in North Vietnam on October 22, spend 3 weeks making our way down the coast, stopping wherever we like on the way down. Over into Cambodia by November 15, we are signed up for a 2 weeks volunteering program in Phnom Penh. We are teaching/working in a school/children's home. Even though we won't be able to help out too much in 2 weeks, we thought that it would mean we were a bit safer and it's always nice to know someone's looking out for you. Up to Siem Reap, we are going to stop in and visit an orphanage that my uncle donated money to, to help them set up a running water system. Hopefully we can do something to give them a hand, even if we just hang out for a bit. From Cambodia, we're going up into Laos, where we will spend almost a month roaming around. We will do all the touristy things, go tubing in Vang Vieng, do the gibbon experience in Huay Xai (living in tarzan style houses for a few days) trek through the hill tribe villages in Phongsali and hopefully be in Luang Prabang for Christmas. I think Laos will be my favourite place, but who knows! From laos, we'll fly into Bangkok, and catch a sleeper train all the way down the coast to Ko Pha ngan. New years is the full moon party which is going to be crazy, but we are right on the other side of the island to the party area, so hopefully we can reatreat to our beachside bungalows if it all gets too much. After that, we will find our way home by early January. Woah. I don't really understand anything I just wrote so I hope that if you're reading it you managed to get some kind of rough idea out of all the bullsh. Ha. If we are near the internet for a long enough time, I will keep updating the blog, but apologies if I am a little vague or hard to understand. Oh my god so excited/nervous/scared/freaked out/happy/idon'tevenknow. This is something that has to be done though. It's weird to think that when I get back, I will be a different person. Not completely, but everything changes you, every experience makes you that little bit different from before. Hopefully I will be wiser, smarter, more insightful, more caring and just better in general. Hope it's good. I hope you like who I am when I get back. I wonder if you'll be able to notice the changes in my updates, that would be cool. Haha hopefully Claire and I still like each other when we get back. Another thing to wait and see! Love you all! Goodbye Australia.

Totally crying my eyes out right now.

2010-10-14T16:33:00.001-07:00

And it doesn't help that I'm at work. Shouldn't have watched. My heart is breaking.

Last Minutes with ODEN from phos pictures on Vimeo.

Russell.

2010-10-06T16:33:00.000-07:00

So yesterday I got home and walked in the door to see Louis taking photos on the webcam of him and what appeared to be a bundle of blankets. "Hey Char" he said brightly, "meet Russell." He turned around and thrust the blanket towards my face, and I realised that there was a magpie sandwiched in there somehow. "Oh my god Louie. Put the bird outside. Bird. Outside. Outside with the bird. Bird. Out" was all I could manage, haunted by vivid flashbacks of that time on holiday when I was seven, and thought it would be cool to show Dad that there was a bird sitting on my shoulder. He was inside the supermarket. Needless to say, the bird did not approve of the supermarket environment and I watched in horror as the park ranger smushed it up against the glass with a hessian sack, completing an afternoon of bird screeching, father yelling, tear streaming fun. Anyway, Russell went outside and Louie obviously decoded my expression to mean "What the fuck is even going on and why is the birds name Russel?" and immediately launched into a wildlife warrior style story of how he rescued Russell from the storm outside because he couldn't fly and he was looking sad standing in the rain. We left him to sort out his demons about the rain for a good half hour, and then Louie thought it might encourage him to embrace life a little if only he had a bit of bread to nibble on. Fast forward about an hour and I look out the window to see Russ standing in the backyard with a forlorn expression amid what can only be described as a mountain of bread. Millions and millions of tiny little pieces of wonder white, covering every inch of visible ground in a 30cm radius of the bird. I think Louie thought that if he made it so the only thing Russ could see was bread, he might take the initiative to try some. No such luck. That's when I realised that something was definitely wrong with the bird. "Bobs," I suggested tentatively (I have called him that since he was a baby-there wasn't someone else there) "Maybe we should put Russell in a box, make him comfortable." Out of the corner of my eye I saw the bloody bird fall over sideways and start twitching, never a good sign. We got a cardboard box, lined it with newspaper and put Russell in it. I think he took that as the sign to give up on life. He started having this violent seizure and there were feathers going in all directions, I didn't know what to do so I just said stupidly; "Hmmm, Louie I don't think Russ is feeling to great right now." Haha shit. He proceeded to die there and then, the whole rigor mortis and everything, until he lay awkwardly in the bottom of the box. "Should I dig a grave?" he asked. the rest of the afternoon was spent constructing a shrine to Russell and holding a funeral in the back corner of the garden. I can't help but hope to God that Louie's little bird had a brain injury/life threatening issue before he adopted him. I guess we'll never know. Rest in Peace Russ.

Tea Party.

2010-10-04T23:32:00.000-07:00

I desperately want to throw an afternoon tea party. Oh it is consuming me. Every time I think about anything else all of a sudden my thoughts morph into something tea party related. I want cupcakes and those little triangle ham and pickle sandwiches. I want to wear my white gloves and sip on english breakfast from fine china. I want a darling rose centerpiece, and a sea of beautiful guests. I want to make this happen. The thing is, people don't have the time to come to a tea party. They all have work or school or something more important to attend to. I really want to make this work. If everyone brought a plate of something- like they used to do back in the good days- we could have the most magical amazing garden party and everything would be great. Just look at it!

Oh I really want this to happen. Let's say, if i invited you to an afternoon tea party, would you come? Would you bring something to share and dress up sweetly? It would make my day!

My new ride.

2010-10-01T03:48:00.000-07:00

...

HAHA totally kidding. :| As if I could afford something like that. No. This, my dear friends, is my latest purchase;

All $25 dollars worth of sweet, sweet bicycle that Mum bought off Dunks when he went back to Victoria. See, I didn't even pay for it. Ha.

So it has this impressively cool basket on the front, which I don't think is even meant to be a basket because it is tied on to the handlebars with these tiny pieces of wire.

They seem to hold it there pretty well, and it holds loads of stuff, except you have to be careful because when you go over a bump it jerks and flips up towards you, like the hoopla thing you with pasta in the colander, tipping your things out into your lap. I have a feeling that it's a little small for me because my legs stay bent the whole way around the pedalling motion. Like, bmx bike bent. And whenever I catch my reflection in a shop window I'm all hunched over because the space between the seat and the handlebars is cosy at best. It's not much to look at, but I feel like the mother of a really hopelessly pathetic child in that I don't see it the way other people do. I look at it and see a fierce piece of machinery with a basket that instantly triples it's awesomeness and lovability. No matter that I look like a circus clown riding it, and even though we have only been together for a few days, we have already made some lasting memories. Yesterday I woke up and thought "I don't want to miss this beautiful morning, I'll do the gym class tonight." Oh I'm totally lying again, I thought "Fark being up this early, I'm going back to sleep." Then during the day I started feeling guilty somewhere between my 4th and 5th affogato, and thought I'd better do some kind of exercise. I was scheduled to leave the house at 4:15 on my trusty new bike, but at 4:00 out of nowhere came this GIGANTIC STORM. It was raining so much you couldn't even tell the raindrops apart-it was just a constant stream of water. There was thunder and lightning and everything, but I wasn't backing down. I put on Mum's bright yellow heavy duty raincoat, and put all my gym stuff in a plastic bag in my basket and ventured out into the rain. I looked as homeless as a homeless person could ever look. It was so depressing. I laughed as I rode through actual rivers on my two wheeled mean machine. The path was so flooded that the bottom half of each pedal cycle was actually underwater. You know that feeling you get when you jump off the jetty and water goes up your nose? I got that feeling because the puddles were spraying up so hard into my face haha. Good times, good times. Today we went to west Ballina together, then on the way home we stopped at one of the op shops along the highway. I spent the best 20 bucks of my life. Got some amazing things which I will post up here soon. I shouldn't have spent money on clothes but I could not bring myself to leave the shop without them. Ah.

Got my life back at 12:15.

2010-09-28T04:54:00.000-07:00

This morning I woke up and I thought I was dying. At least 95% dead. My vision was all blurry, my muscles ached and I had the worst headache ever. I rolled over to look at my clock, which is actually just a pocket-watch hanging off a naked barbie, and it said I had been asleep for at least 11 hours. What the heck. I thought that maybe I was feeling bad because my room was so dark, like how flowers shrivel up at night but come out in the sun. I don't know why I thought this, but in my delirious state it seemed like a perfectly logical explanation. I rolled out of bed onto the mammoth pile of clothes and books on my floor, and pretty much crawled outside onto the lounge chair. I felt like Bear Grylls in the Sahara, dragging my dehydrated carcass across the bricks and out into the sun. I collapsed onto the chair, and as I lay there I realised how much of a bad idea it was. The sun was so hot I thought I was on fire. My head throbbed and I could feel my pasty vampire skin burning on the spot. I closed my eyes trying to block out all the feeling in the hope that I wouldn't have to move anymore.
I lay there for about 20 minutes just willing myself to feel better, and gathering the strength to get me to the kitchen.
A good half hour later, I staggered into the house, bracing myself on the kitchen bench. I gathered together an assortment of about 10 pills from Mum's health corner of the pantry, and washed them down with a good strong coffee. This got me as far as the couch where I collapsed face first into the cushions and fell asleep again. Again! What the hell? I lay there wanting to die, wondering how in the world I am going to cope in Vietnam with our days packed with actual things apart from slow and painful death. But as I was walking through the house, at 12:15, all of a sudden I felt fine, I felt fucking great! I was on top of the world, and out of nowhere I launch into this crazy planning and cleaning spree. I cleaned the bathrooms, picked up all of the crap off my floor, washed the dishes and cleaned the kitchen, heck-I even scrubbed the bloody toilets. I was in the mood for planning, oh! What a day to make plans, grand plans! Grander! Bigger! Im going to cook a three course meal for dinner that involves some sort of flambe, I'm going to become an artist and sell my paintings, I'm going to learn guitar, and piano, and I'm going to get fit, so fit, look at my brand new training program! Oh I love planning, I plan everything. I plan my day, plan my week.I make lists, oh the lists! So many lists, lists of what to take overseas, lists of what I eat, what movies I'm going to see, things that I want to do before I die. When I'm in these moods I am the queen of lists.I love them, even though I know that most of the things I'm planning wont even happen ever. But I enjoy making them.
I have been having weird dreams about animals lately. No, nothing like that. I mean, the other night I had a dream that I was being eaten alive by wolves in a swimming pool, and then there was that one about being chased by a family of snakes, and then last night I dreamt that I was rescuing a puppy from this gigantic swing made out of logs. HA! I wonder what I will dream about tonight. I wish you could chose what to dream about. They always feel so real! Once I had a dream that Justin Timberlake invited me back to his place and started trying to make out with me and I was like "Ew um, I'm 14 and you probably have a billion diseases." I thought I was being completely logical in a not-so-weird situation but then I woke up and realised what I was dreaming about and freaked myself OUT! Haha. Anyway, I'll tell you what I dream about :D

Formspring answers,

2010-09-25T22:10:00.000-07:00

Whoever you are, you made my day. I've decided that formspring is not just for cyber-bullying. Haha.

I hope these shoes are waterproof.

2010-09-24T00:12:00.000-07:00

I hate people who drink milk out of the bottle. I can't stand it. They're the type people who go through the '12 items or less' checkout with 18 things, or the people who always seem to text you when you're right in that moment before you fall asleep and scare the shit out of you. Well, dear people, today I have become one of you. That's right. I drank from the carton. I've done it before, when I was little, but it was always a sneaky, half a second gulp before I put it away. Today I opened the fridge, grabbed the milk, had a few sips and put it right back. I didn't even use it for anything, just drank it. As soon as I did it I felt myself morph into one of them. *Dark, ominous sounding music* Those leave-20-tops-on-the-fitting-room-floor, not-covering-the-food-when-it-goes-in-the-microwave people. And it felt good. It's sad to say that drinking milk from the bottle counts as one of the baddest things I do on your average day. And it was soy milk, so it's not like anyone else is going to drink it anyway. I have decided however, that I have had such a good karma, pay it forward, smile with your heart day that I am entitled to at least a little horrible slob behaviour.

This morning I got up at 6:30. Which is pretty frecking early when you're currently me. Which doesn't really make sense because you're not me, and most likely will never be, but if you're anything like the current me then you get the picture. Oh my god that's so not even relevant to the story, I'm lost. Okay. ANYWAY, I'm kind of glad that my alarm went off at that particular time, because it conveniently interrupted an insanely vivid dream in which I was being chased by a family of snakes. Not kidding, a whole family. Probably something to do with the fact that I was thinking about the next Harry Potter movie, for which I had seen the trailer the night before (Super excited about it, btw.) which, obviously, contains snakes. Well, one snake. But yeah. So the reason I was up so early was so that I could go to help out one of mum's friends in this cafe she owns. She is super sweet, and is short staffed at the moment, so I offered to give her a hand before I went to my body balance class. I spent the morning chopping veggies and peeling avocados, as well as labeling all sorts of amazing foods. Kind of harsh to have to write it all out and not get to eat any of it :( Ah, and so goes the pain of my terrible life. Haha. I did it for free because I was going to be in Alstonville anyway, and I felt like doing something nice.

At 9:30 I went to what I had been told was a 'body balance' class, but which turned out to be a yoga/tai chi/meditation session. The full hippy experience was on offer today! So off I went, to this little place called "Happy Mountain" -yes, the name does give it away, to any clear thinking individual-which I obviously am not. As soon as I step into Happy mountain I am hit in the face with a cloud of incense so strong I almost fall over. I move up the stairs cautiously, pushing my way through the smokey vapours, like tarzan pushing aside vines and what not in the jungle-or so I imagine he would do so. I go past candles and little arrangements that I have no idea are actually legitimate shrines, I just assume that someone ran out of space for buddhas and leaves upstairs... When I get up there, there is the sweetest, most welcoming, light aura omitting hippy woman there to greet me and welcome me into this strange and wonderful place. She's decked out completely, checking all the boxes with her burgandy hair tied loosely underneath a pink and silver scarf, her shoulders draped with a dark shawl, loose yoga pants, bare feet, nose piercing and beautiful smile. She stands at the front of the class, her hands pressed together at her chest, welcoming us into this 'sanctuary of peace and light.' Her voice is like honey; soothing, sweet and calming. She instructs us to bow to our 'inner light.' And so the fun begins.
We do an interesting combination of different stretches, strength excercises and breathing/meditation. It is all very relaxing and peaceful. Except I have to stop myself from laughing a few times. There is this one pose, called "observing the clouds," which looks exactly as it sounds. You stand with your feet wide apart, hands on hips, and turn your shoulders to the side, leaning back as if you're looking at the sky. A whole room full of people doing this looks absolutely ridiculous. Especially when the roof is low.

Another of my favourites is the oh-so-dignified "Himalayan pose," which goes a lil' somethin' like this...

Achieved.

After my enlightening visit to Happy Mountain, I went back up to the shop and put in another 3 hours of decent work. I found myself actually making the food, as well as taking orders and serving coffee. By God I make some mean thai fish cakes. Haha. It was a pretty fun day, and I don't really mind working for free, especially since they were all so nice. I think I am doing it all again tomorrow, with an even earlier start. Plus today I sent out a few more lovely notes in the mail. Oh oh! I almost forgot. Yesterday a lady called me to say I had somehow acquired a free hair, make-up and photo shoot session worth $450 for free as part of some promotion thing I can vaguely remember signing up for online. Unfortunately for me, it happens in Sydney so I couldn't afford to go. But luckily for Kate and Shannyn, who do live in Sydney, they are now participating on my behalf, and I can't wait to see the photos :) All this goodness is making me feel like Jesus, I'll be walking on water next week. Maybe not. At any rate, I'll be able to get away with leaving the trolley in the middle of the car-park at Coles! As for right now, I'm off to eat some peanut butter out of the tub. Peace :)

lookbook.

2010-09-23T00:30:00.000-07:00

So I finally got around that damn "Error 503" that has been haunting me forEVER and uploaded a new look. I know, go and sigh about how superficial and vain it is etc etc. But we both know that now you have lookbook on the brain you're going to spend the next 3 hours (at least!) trawling pages and pages of looks, taking notes about what you absolutely must buy next time you go shopping. Which is going to be tomorrow. Haha. It's a curse isn't it? I never get any decent hypes, but I like posting it all the same. Click the button if you like it :)

How does this even happen?

2010-09-22T20:51:00.000-07:00

The Prize Doesn’t Always Go To The Most Deserving

Irena Sendler1910-2008

A 98 year-old German woman named Irena Sendler recently died. During WWII, Irena worked in the Warsaw Ghetto as a plumbing/sewer specialist. Irena smuggled Jewish children out; infants in the bottom of the tool box she carried and older children in a burlap sack she carried in the back of her truck. She also had a dog in the back that she trained to bark when the Nazi soldiers let her in and out of the ghetto. The soldiers wanted nothing to do with the dog, and the barking covered the kids’ and infants’ noises. Irena managed to smuggle out and save 2500 children. She eventually was caught, and the Nazis broke both her legs, arms and beat her severely. Irena kept a record of the names of all the kids she smuggled out and kept them in a glass jar buried under a tree in her backyard. After the war, she tried to locate any parents that may have survived and reunited some of the families. Most had been killed. She helped those children get placement into foster family homes or adopted.

Last year Irena was up for the Nobel Peace Prize. She was not selected. Al Gore won - for a slide show on Global Warming.

I'm sorry, but fuck that.

The unreality.

2010-09-18T00:41:00.000-07:00

Im dizzy. It feels like my head is a million miles from me feet, perched precariously on my shoulders. I feel like I'm falling, expecting to hit the ground I close my eyes but the impact never comes. Maybe I'm flying instead. Yes, I'm flying, or floating. I don't know, and I'm trying to figure out if I care either way when all of a sudden I'm walking. Slowly, concentrating on moving forward, hunched over I let the racing thoughts in my mind bounce off my back in all directions, trying to hold onto the one that keeps me taking another step. I sway with each movement, drifting aimlessly down the corridor. I can't see clearly. There is a fog in my brain. I can't be sure if this moment is actually happening now or if it was yesterday, or last week, or in five years. It just doesn't feel like now. It feels like the shell of now, as if this space of time simply crawled out and left behind it's skin, like snakes and cicadas do. My eyes won't focus on anything, every movement is slow and cumbersome, such an effort. I move my arm to push open the door but it feels like it's moving through water, or maybe it feels like it is water. And suddenly I'm sitting at a neat little desk in my brain, just behind my eyes, looking out at the enormous world. The desk is crowded with spinning knobs and buttons, with no pattern or order whatsoever. I search fruitlessly for the de-mister button, and then realise that I wouldn't even know what I'm looking for. I press buttons and turn dials trying desperately to control this heavy, lethargic mass that I am unwillingly responsible for. My chest tightens, it's hard to breathe. The walls press in on me from every side, I'm struggling under the crushing weight, dizzy and suffocating in the fog. I push a lever and the body lurches forward, gripping to the bench to stop the world from spinning. I stare out the window at the mirror, searching for my reflection in this enormous vehicle. I stand there for months, or maybe it was only a second, or a day. Searching, waiting. But all I see is black emptiness, filling the eyes that stare back at me from a face I don't even recognise.

Wisdom.

2010-09-15T22:43:00.000-07:00

So yesterday I had to go to the doctor's to get my typhoid injection before the trip, and because Mum was working I got the undeniable pleasure of having my Grandad and his partner Col (they're gay) take me up to Alstonville. Unfortunately I had forgotten that the nurse goes on lunch from 1:00 til 2:00, so we rocked up at 1:03 and I actually nearly shot the receptionist when she said we had to come back in an hour. I don't know where all that intense rage came from. You know when you're going along about your daily business all fine and then all of a sudden something little happens and BAM, you morph into this soul scorching rage demon from hell. I actually had to speak to myself and tell my brain that it wasn't the lady's fault and that it most probably was my brain's fault for forgetting the nurse goes to lunch at one. So like a completely normal person I was standing there at the desk with them all looking at me expectantly whilst I was having a silent screaming match in my head, complete with eye twitching and the works.

So anyway, I wandered aimlessly around this little country town with the olds for an hour just "hanging out" or, as Zac so eloquently put it; "working on the inheritance." Grandad so firmly believes he already has all that he needs in life, that he simply refused to come into any shops at all. He literally stood in the doorway of each shop and watched us while we looked around. He's mostly deaf too, so Colin would spend the time in the shop bitching about Grandad and his poor attitude. And my god can that old man bitch!
At one point, we passed a man trying to fix something to the handle of one of those blind person walking sticks. Colin goes: "Pffft, that man isn't blind! He just pretends to be blind so he gets more attention." Then Grandad tried to stick up for the poor guy shouting "He's got tunnel vision!" (because he's deaf and he shouts everything) and Col goes, "Oh we've all got bloody tunnel vision don't we? Doesn't mean you have to romp around with one of those great ruddy sticks and all." Haha. He comes from England so everything he says is in this posh accent and he has the darling habit of spitting a bit when he talks.

He sent me this video on facebook that day which was 3 'little people' doing Beyonce's single ladies dance. He says to me "My sister sent me that. She knows it gets to me. I can't stand midgets. No, no, I actually have a phobia of them. If I see one in the street, the hairs stand up on the back of my neck and I feel cold and clammy. God forbid if one might touch me or look at me or speak to me, I think I might actually faint. It's a serious phobia. The video is a bit politically incorrect, but I guess it is actually politically correct because it's the little people doing something for themselves that they want to do." Oh man.

Last time we had them over for dinner, Col started talking about how he couldn't go shopping because he was getting too fat. The conversation went like this.
Col; "...and we went into Big W to get jeans, no it might have been K-Mart. Rex! Where was it where I got those jeans? Was it big W or K-Mart? Rex! The jeans, do you remember-"
Rex; *yelling*" Those brown shoes? But aren't you a size nine?"
Col; "Oh for fuck's sake. The jeans! Jeans! you idiot."
Rex; *yelling* "Shears? What shears?"
Col; (to us) "And you wonder why I'm going fucking insane."

Links and Thinks.

2010-09-13T02:31:00.000-07:00

So today I finally looked up some of the websites that I had saved in my phone, and thought I'd share them with you. Hopefully there are some newbies in there that you can use to procrastinate and avoid doing whatever you're meant to be doing right now. Haha. P.S Save about 3 hours and a pot of coffee for the last link.

This first one is a bit full on, and kind of made me want to vomit. In a sea of weight loss and diet blogs, this one definitely changes the way you see the world. Especially if you don't need a special device on a stick to wipe your own a....
http://biggerfatterblog.blogspot.com
It is a blog written by someone who calls them self "Fat Bastard" and, well, I'll let it speak for itself...

“The days of justifying our fatness by lying and saying we have a mysterious genetic or metabolic disorder are over. We now freely admit to and embrace what the fat haters would call gluttony. We are fat because we eat huge amounts of food and we like it.”

This one is hilarious, and a bit similar to "Look at that fucking person" but just from Walmart. Oh and it's funny because some of the people I saw in there, made me want to die. haha.
www.peopleofwalmart.com

Another goodie is regretsy. This person just has the most random things to say, and the blog is great for trawling when you're super bored and sick of reading people's attention seeking status updates and all that shittery. It's mostly just funny stuff that has shown up on etsy, which can also be a great site on a better day. i actually just spent most of the evening on it laughing my ass off.
http://www.regretsy.com

Shameless plugging of my other sites;
www.thelovelynotesproject.blogspot.com -- Nothing too busy right now, but keep checking back for updates!
www.icharlot.tumblr.com -- A collection of my favourite photos, quotes and inspirational business.

Aaaand lastly, it's no Philosoraptor, but it has the same effect.

Sometimes, this would make a lot more sense.

Ok I lied, one more. If you really feel like some deep thought, click here and let me know if you solve one. I'll buy you some chilli chocolate. ;)

Quote of the week.

2010-09-12T03:58:00.000-07:00

Mum: Oh that kid reminds me of someone! Who's that little singer...
Me: Justin Bieber?
Mum; No! That skinny little guy with the tattoos that everyone thinks is good looking but isn't.
Me: Justin Timberlake...? Jared Leto?
Mum; Nah, Rob someone.
Me: Robbie Williams?
Mum; Yeah, Robbie Williams.

Oh Muz.

Losing it.

2010-09-11T22:36:00.000-07:00

You know how you have those days where you look around and realise that no one is really looking out for anyone, and everyone is just in it for themselves. I don't know. Some days you just need someone or something to reassure you that everything isn't going to shit. Today is one of those days.

Funniest thing happened yesterday though. There was this weird noise coming from the kitchen, it was like a beeping/ticking sound and I was looking everywhere and couldn't figure out where it was coming from. I yelled out to Louie to come in and have a look to see if he could find what it was. He walks in and stands still for about 5 seconds, and then starts bobbing up and down to the sound of the noise going "Snape, Snape, Severus Snape..." Oh I nearly died I was laughing so hard. Sometimes he can be the sweetest little boy. Oh, and the noise was coming from the smoke alarm.

I'm sorry. I've written about 4 paragraphs of absolute bullshit that I have chosen to delete rather than laser your brain cells out with. Ugh my ability to string together a half decent sentence is gone. I'm going to go and continue to drown my sorrows in a mammoth cup of chai and chocolate brownies. Adieu.

Is it wrong to sabotage someone's diet?

2010-09-07T02:43:00.000-07:00

That is this weeks million dollar question.

So today I went to the doctors and found out I have to take malaria tablets for the entire time I am away. Every day. Right now I am super pumped about the fact that I will be arriving at Kuala Lumpur airport with 100 little white pills in tow. Sweet.

A little disappointed with myself for not having seen season 3 of gossip girl yet. I went to hire it today but it was 12 bucks for 3 days so I turned around and stormed out of the shop. Yeah I think I probably made a bit of a scene-turned really fast and bee-lined for the door. But I was pretty pissed off. Haha I must have looked so gay.

Lol. I searched for "idiot" and this came up. Other tags included 'fat' 'poser' 'not skinny lol' and 'whoore.' A little harsh, little harsh.

Speaking of gay, good one Stephanie Rice for posting "sucked in faggots" on her twitter account. Seriously? If someone had even posted that on facebook everyone would have thought "what a wanker." The fact that she is someone who is semi famous just makes it even worse. Way to go, hero.

I finished making most of the little notecards for my project, if you haven't read about it yet you can do that here. I plan on handing them out soon, but I don't want to do it all in Ballina, and I want to actually hand them to the right people. So I will keep you posted, and keep putting updates on the project blog. The best thing about the project at the moment is that I get to use my typewriter which is amazing fun. I am loving it. This morning I sat out on the lawn and typed away in the sun, it was magical.

Another little project I'm working on is making some necklaces. I bought a whole lot of little glass jars from the craft shop and I'm making little potions to put in them. At the moment I have a list of about 5 including Felix Felicis, Polyjuice Potion, Instant Darkness Powder and Amortentia. I think they're really cute and I can't wait to get them done, I'll post a picture when I finish it :) And yes, I got the idea from that photo I put up a few posts ago.

This is a photo I took of Louie on the weekend. It is one of my favourites of him because it's his real smile. I printed it out to frame for Mum today.

Took my SD cards into the camera shop to see if they could get my old deleted photos off them. When I picked them up it had cost me $40. Got home all excited and ready to see all my old pics but I load them up and it's about 100 photos that I already have. Fuuuuu- God I love spending money on sweet nothings.

Cigar Madness.

2010-09-05T05:20:00.000-07:00

So I brought home a couple of really nice cigars for Zac from America, which he was pretty pumped about. Because he was up over the weekend, he got one out on Saturday night and him and Arty pretended to be gangster's for a bit while I took some pictures. Personally, I thought it tasted freaking horrible and smelt like death, but the boys seemed to enjoy it! Here they are, and yeah, Arty stole my hat. Ha.

Ahh that is only a couple of them but it's taking ages to load so that will have to do. I'm knackered from the weekend. Louie's grand final today so I was on photography duty there all game. They won by heaps but I didn't really get any good shots, need a zoom lens for sure. Oh well. Booked my flights down to the island yesterday so I will be there for almost a week in October. Really excited to see everyone so I'm already planning out things to do. Actually really looking forward to some good sushi :D Ah heaven.

Earth.

2010-09-02T21:41:00.000-07:00

I saw this video this morning on some morning show. By the time it had finished I was actually bawling my eyes out. It is such a sad and beautiful thing. You have to watch it. The guy in it has cancer, and it is a birthday video for his wife. Personally, I would have liked it better without the other people in it, but hey. It's amazing.

I just watched it again and cried, again. You can just feel his heart breaking. It's so unfair that something so shit happens to such beautiful people. It really makes you take a step back and realise that your problems actually don't matter. It brings you back down to Earth and shakes all the petty dramas out of your mind. Like when you clean a window and you don't realise how much dirt and stuff was on it until you get it all off. That's what this video did to my brain. So I couldn't not share it with you. Hopefully it had the same effect.

Quote of the week.

2010-09-02T03:28:00.000-07:00

Ok so we were at lunch today (Louie, Dad and I) and we were talking about something-I can't even remember what-and the conversation went like this:

Dad: What do you reckon Char?
Char: We'll I'd prefer if [option A] happened, but then again I am a bit biased...
Louie: Wait! Wait. *really puzzled and shocked expression* Does that mean you like boys and girls?
Char: No, honey. That's bisexual.

The two guys sitting at the next table nearly choked on their braised beef salad as we spent the next 10 minutes explaining the difference between being biased and bisexual.

Then Louie finds a bush rat and decides to feed it his pancakes but somehow gets bitten on the finger. Fyi this thing was the size of a freaking turkey. Then he nearly cried when the lady at the other table told him he needed to go straight to hospital and get a rabies shot. We left so quickly we nearly ran out without paying. Oh family lunch, how I love you.

This photo is the best. Flipping love Totoro. Might hire it tomorrow.

Turkish Delight.

2010-09-01T19:13:00.000-07:00

You know when you see a picture and it just makes you feel happy? Well, I have collected a few of my favourites from all over the internet to share with you and make your day that little bit better. :) Don't mention it!

I am really determined to make this dress/jumper someday soon. It is actually amazing.

Oh so cool. It's like living in one of those chocolate and cream rolls. You know the ones that you used to get when you still called recess 'play-lunch'? That was just me? Oh...

Ok so I lied, this one makes me want to cry. I want to go. I hope someone goes. The poor man.

bdjfklsmgfj. So freaking awesome. I want to make a necklace with this on the end. Agh love it.

This is just pretty.

haha.

I love this one piece. Tried it on about a month ago and I can tell you it didn't look like that on me.

Is it sad if you wake up on September one and think this?

Hate when this happens.

SMORES! Definitely teaching the family how to make them this weekend.

That's all the loveliness for today. Talk soon!

Spare the change.

2010-09-01T02:03:00.000-07:00

If you had asked me 18 months ago what my biggest fears were, I would have said number one is being buried alive and the second is change. The first one is kind of obvious...duh, but you have to read into the second one a little. I thought I was being all smart and economical at the time, because 'change' incorporates so many bad things all at once. Death is change, new things push you into situations and experiences that make you feel uncomfortable. Moving house forces you to leave behind a part of your past. By breaking up with someone-or beginning a new relationship-you risk disrupting whatever balance you have in your life already.
I spent my life doing drafts and rough copies of everything, everything, so that I could know exactly what to expect and I didn't have to trust anything or anyone other than myself. I saw it as being prepared, being safe and being smart. But now I am starting to see it differently.

November 2009, the first milestone, the final day of school. It is a day that you hope for and dread, the day that you never think will actually come around. You hold onto that last week like hell, but it just flies past. It is terrifying to think that you step out of the gates and into the world, that you're on your own for sure. But it comes around and it goes past and you wake up the next day and it's ok. You haven't fallen off the edge of the world, and you certainly aren't alone.

A week after that, we moved. Just packed up and got out of there. I was on schoolies at the Gold Coast with about 40 people, and one by one they went home, but I just stayed there. No massive farewell party or anything, just kind of faded into the distance. It was sad. Really sad. But it was a new chapter in my life. Oh now I'm sounding like a motivational speaker. I'm even boring myself. Haha yay for me. But anyway, I was terrified about moving, and upset to leave everyone behind, but I think that coming to Ballina has been the best thing for me. It has certainly opened my eyes and shaken me out of that small mindedness that creeps up on you when you live in a place like the Island.

June 16th, 2010.
I get on a plane at Brisbane airport and as it takes off it hits me that I am heading to the other side of the world, completely alone. I literally don't know anybody that I will be working or living with, and all I have with me is one suitcase and a couple of maps. Talk about a new experience!

June 18th, 2010.
I get to camp a day late, and I am the only one not in uniform so I stick out like a sore thumb. It is actually one of the most awkward moments of my life. I start speaking to myself in my own head.
"Stop being a pussy and just introduce yourself to someone."
"I will I swear, not her though, she wasn't looking at me"
"What about her?"
"Mmmmm...too late now"
"Just do it. What's wrong with you?"
"Ok umm....."
"Oh for fuck sake, I'll do it"
So yeah, it was a good start. :| But by the end of the day I had met so many sweet girls, and some of them even turned out to be my best friends there, and I cried my eyes out when they had to go home. How strange is that?

August 17th, 2010.
I wake up in New York city for the first time. I can feel the city all around, it's like, there's this energy that runs through the air and it's exciting and new and I can't stop smiling. I have 8 days ahead of me to fill with whatever I want, and I don't even know where to start.
Before I went away, I meticulously planned everything. I was one of them. I literally had all my days mapped out, down to where I would eat lunch and dinner as well as designated time to wander around the streets. When I got there though, it went out the window completely. I look at it now and wonder what the fuck I was thinking, having it all set out like that. I just woke up every morning, and went out at night not even knowing what to expect, not knowing what I was going to do. It was the best. We got lost in Brooklyn and stumbled upon thrift shops and markets and cute places to eat, I discovered a pretty intense basketball game in Greenwich Village where they played inside this metal fence like something out of a movie, we smoked cigars with random people at 2am, and fell asleep on the subway waaay too many times. I walked along a garden path high above the city, where the grass and plants grew wild and crazy, and spent so much money at lids (the hat shop) that they made me a member. I even got my own card. New York really is the city that never sleeps, and the people are what make it so amazing. Everyone I met, except for one stoned mexican guy on the subway, was so sweet and welcoming. I got invited to hang out with different people every day, and anybody, anywhere is always up for a chat about everything and nothing all at once. Before I went, I was warned not to go anywhere by myself, and told not to be offended if people were rude because "everyone in New York is mean and horrible." I can tell you for sure that I didn't experience that at all. I had the best time ever, saw almost every corner of the city and loved everything about it. You absolutely have to go. All of you.

Aaaand so, somewhere in all this craziness and adventure, my fear of change has evaporated. I don't freak out at the thought of having to introduce myself to someone new, or go somewhere I haven't been before. I love the thought of fresh starts and new looks. Of trying things for the first time. It makes me excited for the future, for my trip later this year with Claire, and for...well...life!

Comments.

2010-08-31T14:51:00.000-07:00

I checked back to that website this morning and people had posted a few comments on the look. I'm being totally vain right now but whatever. I thought I was going to get absolutely shut down but people were really nice, and seemed to like what I wore. It's crazy how they assume that the look has been 'put together' with a lot of thought, when really the only reason I wore those two together is because my other jacket was red. No high tech styling genius is hiding away in my brain. I spent that whole last week just wearing whatever wasn't dirty, and when that ran out, I wore whatever smelt the least bad. Hahaha. Yay for hygiene. Anyway, here are a couple of them, I couldn't print screen them all so I got the most recent. Somehow i don't think Jack is into fashion. Creepy motherflipper.

Oh so last night, funniest thing ever. Arty is on this new health kick where he is doing a bazillion sit ups every night and trying to eat healthy. We were all sitting watching tv together, a rare occasion in itself, and he was doing sit ups on the floor. I looked away for a second and when I looked back he and Mum had started there own little strongman/woman competition. It started with sit ups, then clap pushups and dips but fast forward 20 minutes (yes, 20 minutes) and Arty is in a headstand against the wall doing pushups and Mum is heckling him from the couch. He then gets up and holds Mum like she's a little kid and starts throwing her up and down in the air, funniest thing ever. We were all crying we were laughing so hard. Then he puts her over his shoulder and starts doing squats. Takes the term "Home gym" to a whole new level.