Cuppa

"Cuppa": slang for "cup of tea." I believe it's also used in England, I think.

"Tea's in the kitchen, if you want to make yourself a cuppa."

Today Saturday, which means I have two more days in Australia before I leave. Two! AHHHH! Originally I thought that I would have Tuesday to mill around a bit, but then I discovered that my bus for the airport leaves at 4 a.m. on Tuesday (for my 6 a.m. flight). Which reminds me, I need to find a way to actually get to the bus station at 4 a.m. Hmm...

I know I've been saying this continuously, but time sure flies! Before I know it, it'll be Monday night and I'll be furiously packing to go home. Even though I don't want to leave Melbourne, a part of me is ready for the sunny So Cal weather, cheaper food and frustrating roommates (well, mainly the two girls; Bobby's alright). Speaking of girl roommates, I really don't know how to act towards them. The day Christine and I returned from our travels, we discovered that:
a) someone had left my door open, even though I had left a note right ON my door asking to keep it closed. The reason was to keep Yuri out. Well, Yuri obviously got in and wreaked havoc in my room and I ended up with a chewed-beyond-repair umbrella.
b) someone had slept in my bed and tossed one of the blankets on my desk.
c) someone had left their shirt at the foot of my bed. I refuse to consider the implications.
d) someone had eaten one of Christine's packets of timtams. No, not just one timtam, or even two or five, but the ENTIRE PACKET. What's even more aggravating was that the packets were enclosed in a plastic bag and set on top of my chest of drawers, which is off in the far corner of my room. It's not like the cookies were sitting on my bed or desk in plain view, not that the action would have been more excusable if it were.
To add insult to injury, the girls denied ownership of the shirt (and feigned ignorance as to why it was in my room). Zoe then had the gall to ask me to pay for repairs to the internet. The cost was $87.50, which was unbelievable. What? I was gone for three weeks and will be in the house for only five more days, why should I help repair for the internet? In response to my query, Zoe simply stared at me and then implied that it was a house problem and I was still part of the house. -_- I paid.

Given this list of grievances against my lesbian roommates, I was all set to hate them forever and write them off as horrible people. However, last night Zoe came up to me and asked if I was free Monday night. I said I was.
"Good, because I would like to do a house dinner type of thing to see you off. I'll see if everyone else is free. Would that be okay?"
I was so astonished that all I could do was smile and then hurry off to my room. What on Earth? I was a bit confused. Why the nice gesture when you've barged into my room and shamelessly used my things? Is this supposed to be a I'm-sorry-for-being-a-bitch-now-that-you're-leaving gesture, or are you actually doing this out of the goodness of your heart? 0_0

Wow, this entire post was me griping about my roommates, which is terrible because I intended to write about what my adventures in the Whitsundays, Darwin and the train ride to Adelaide was like. -_- Damnit, this is a travel diary, not a bitching blog! ARGGH! I apologize, dear readers. I'll write a much better entry later on tonight then. For now, I'm going to hit up some museums.

Sunnies

"Sunnies": Australian slang for "sunglasses."

"Don't forget to bring your sunnies when you hit the beach!"

Highlight of today: finding out that I did well in all my classes. Yeeeea-yuh!!

Indigenous Culture and Learning - 78% H2A
Education in Natural Landscapes - 95% H1
Sport & Education in Australian Society -80% H1
Australian Wildlife Biology - 79% H2A

I know these percentages look really crappy (I bet you're thinking "why is she celebrating even though she has Cs?!") but Melbourne Uni does grades differently. Basically, H1 is the highest grade you can get in a class, and H2A is the next level down (basically a B+ or an A-). Ureshii! XD I'm especially surprised with my Wildlife Biology class, because I thought I totally flunked that final. What a relief.

I'm currently listening to Bob Marley and getting free internet from Peterpan, which is an international internet cafe. I might get kicked off any minute though, so I'll type fast. Weather is warm in the Whitsundays, but not boiling hot (it's really cool at night though). I accomplished one of the things on my Bucket List today - snorkel in the Great Barrier Reef and see Heart Reef. It was an absolutely amazing experience and I can't believe it's over already. I had been dreaming about seeing the Great Barrier Reef ever since I was old enough to watch the Discovery Channel, so looking down from the plane and seeing the famous azure and emerald-colored waters was a very surreal feeling. I wish all of you guys were there with me, it really is a gorgeous place. I took many pictures and some video clips on the video camera, so I'll post those up when I return to Melbourne. The snorkeling itself was a bit of a downer but still very cool. I took around 27 underwater photos of brightly-colored corals, fish, and clams (strangely enough, the lips of the giant clam are probably one of the prettiest objects in the ocean!) I didn't see as many tropical fish as I would have liked though, and you could tell that some of the reef was suffering from pollution and global warming. There were many areas in which coral-bleaching was really prominent and it was pretty depressing. =( The water, though warmer than Melbourne's beaches, was still chilly enough to make me uncomfortably cold after a hour. Fortunately (or unfortunately?) the tour group only allowed one hour of snorkeling in the Reef, so I made the most of my experience.

I have decided that I will now visit tropical places during spring/summer, which are the seasons in which they should be visited in. It is unsatisfying to be walking around in a jacket and long jeans on a tropical island, even if it is only during nighttime. That should never happen. I have also decided that my honeymoon HAS to be in a warm, sunny, tropical place, where I can roll around in white sand and snorkel all day long. There is no other option.

Tomorrow Christine and I will be embarking on a 3 day, 2 night sailing tour around Whitehaven beach and some other Whitsunday Islands. Woo hoo for more turquoise seas and snorkeling! I have decided (I know, I decided many things on this trip) that I will smuggle some of the famous silica sand back home. I brought some ziploc bags just for the occassion and have been planning different strategies for the collecting and smuggling process. It's going to be a very tricky operation, since I will be surrounded by fellow sailors/backpackers/enforcerers-of-the-morally-right. Everyone will be treated as a potential spy and obstacle to the fulfillment of my happiness [eyes dart around suspiciously].

Christine has been suffering from a very bad case of coughs/congestion lately, which is horrible because it prevents her from fully enjoying herself. I feel bad, because I think I gave my cold to her (I myself have been recovering relatively well). Hopefully she gets well soon!

Youse

"Youse": a slang term mainly used in Western Australia. Equivalent to the American term, "y'all," it means just that - "you all."

Brad, Rob's 6 year old brother: "Can I watch a movie with youse?"

Wow, my lack of updating is just getting worse and worse. It just hit me today that it's July. It's freaking July, you guys! It's my last month in Australia! I still remember my post in March, when I was saying how time is short and I knew my stay in Melbourne would be over before it knew it. Well, here I am. Even though I predicted that time would whizz by, its speed still caught me by surprise. Some things you just can't slow down, no matter how hard you try. I dread returning home and to my studies. Sure, the weather is nicer in So Cal and most of my friends are there, but I can't help but feel suffocated whenever I'm in Arcadia. It's kind of strange, really, because I never got homesick while I was in Australia. Of course I would feel a bit sad whenever I saw photos of my friends together hanging out and having fun, but it wasn't a crushing, debilitating oh-my-god-i-miss-everyone-and-must-return-home feeling. I blame it on all the fantasy and sci-fi books I read when I was little (I still do, in fact). It has confused my sense of reality and instilled a fervent hope that one day, I'll become a heroine who hacks down monsters and saves damsels (dudes?) in distress, or stumble into a hidden world and experience many adventures. Of course, this kind of thing doesn't happen in Arcadia, so the next best thing is to travel to a foreign country half-way across the world. See Camille run from reality. (I guess I can see why some of my friends said I resemble the main girl character from "The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi.")

Anyway, enough of that sad stuff, I must type about Perth before my fingers fall off from the cold (it feels like it's 55 F in here!) Christine and I spent the past week crashing at her friend's house. Even though it rained most of the time and the weather wasn't as warm as I would have liked, the company made it the trip totally worth it. Rob is one of the wittiest guys I have ever met and kept Christine and I laughing everyday. I don't know how many stupid arguments I've had with this guy over mushrooms, orange Eclipses (the best mints ever), and the correct way to pronounce the letter "H" (it's ay-ch! not hey-ch!) but it definitely kept me in high spirits when the cold weather brought it down. Thanks, Robbie. XD

What I did in Perth:
-Freemantle: explored the Little Creatures Brewery, wandered around town, bought Jaffle's pie.
-watched anime in Rob's room, played video games with Brad (he would wander around looking for my company XD), scare Rob when he was absorbed in his WoW, play with his mom's doggies
-walked to the cemetery near Rob's house with Melissa and Christine to look for kangaroos and got attacked by a wild duck
-drove around Swan Valley with Christine and pigged out on the free chocolate in the Chocolate Factory
-ran in pouring rain to retrieve our dinner (Domino's take-out pizza)
-went to the Aquarium of Western Australia
-clubbed with Rob's older sister, Jess, in ugly clothing and borrowed shoes (my Asics were deemed bar-inappropriate, so I borrowed Jess's pink Converses)
-biked around in Rottnest Island, which was unbelievably fun and would have been even better if the water was actually warm and not numbingly cold

Brrr! Alright, my tolerance for the cold is fraying. Before I go, I must say one more thing. I was supposed to leave for Hamilton Island this morning with Christine, but we missed our flight. Yea, that's right, we missed it. All I can say is that tram inspectors are stupid, I hate Jetstar, and timing really is everything. Anyway, Christine and I paid $70 each for the stupid missing-our-flight fee and another $40 for the shuttle to take us back to the city from the airport. -_- Today was a sad day. Anyway, I'm going to hole up in my room, curl up in bed and just spend my whole day watching anime (Christine's conked out from the cold medicine anyway). Toodles!

Chewy

"Chewy": Australian slang for a chewed up piece of gum.

Stathi: "Once I found a chewy in my fried chicken breast. That's why I never went back to KFC."

Woo hoo, happy 22nd birthday to me. Even though there's really not much for me to say, I felt compelled to make a post just to commemorate today. First birthday spent in a foreign country, yay! Anyway, Christine has been hanging out with me for the past few days. I must say, having a friend from home to explore a foreign country is much more fun. ^^ We'll be going to Stathi's farewell party/dinner tonight, and then flying off for a week in Perth tomorrow. I'm a bit sad that the Perth weather won't be as warm as I envisioned it to be though (according to Rob). Oh well, at least it'll be warmer than Melbourne. The weather only has three phases here: windy, cloudy or rainy. Yeah, definitely feeling like I could head home for sunny So Cal weather now. I guess it's a good idea that I timed it so I was leaving Australia just as the weather is getting crappy. Well, until next time kiddies!

Heaps

"Heaps": what Aussies say instead of the word, "loads," "tons," or "a lot."

Ex: "Yeah, there's always heaps of drunks on Swanston St. on a Friday night."

Highlights of the week:
Nancy arriving at Melbourne and staying with me for a couple of nights. I love her cooking and she made me enough food to last me for several nights. My Canadian roommate, Bobby, came back from his travels across Aussie and will be staying in the house for another few months. I'm glad to have his company because his extroverted, comedic humor always brightens my day. Visited some cool Melbourne landmarks, which I will definitely show Xtine once she gets here. Also finally got ahold of the boss and he paid me what he owed me in full, plus $100. That was because he failed to remember that he had paid me already for one of the days. Since he was such a bastard to me, I didn't feel compelled to correct his mistake. Yay for rent money!

Downers:
Nancy left for Tazzy today, which makes me sad because I really enjoyed her company. That lucky girl is going to be studying in Brissy for another 6 months, so I have no idea when I'll see her next. Thank God that she lives in Cerritos, which is relatively close to L.A. My friend Christine also left for the States this morning, which makes it worse because she's one of my really good friends in Melbourne. =( Luckily, she also lives relatively close by (maybe a 30 min drive on the freeway?).

Speaking of roommates, Bob and Zoe cleaned up the house today. I really appreciated their hard work, especially since the kitchen was filled with dirty dishes and the bathroom was just plain gross. It's really nice to finally have clean dishes and a clean bathroom. Now I don't want to appear ungrateful, but in a way I kind of felt that Zoe was obligated to clean up the mess. I mean, the reason why the kitchen and the bathroom was so gross was because her friends were always over, cooking/eating/spending the night at our house. This one girl, Amy, lived on our couch for at least a month. Therefore, I felt slightly miffed when I came home and Zoe went up to me and said, "Bob and I just cleaned the house. It looks nice, doesn't it? Let's keep it that way." I felt like saying, "I HAVE been trying to keep the house clean, tell that to your friends!" but of course, I just smiled, nodded and said, "Sure!" It didn't help when I went to the fridge to look for my leftover fried rice and Nancy's delicious soup and was confronted with empty shelves. Yes, that's right, the same soup I was ranting about in my Highlights section had completely disappeared from the fridge, pot and all. Zoe saw my alarmed expression and said, "Oh, I also cleaned the fridge and threw out a lot of food. I'm sorry if I threw out any of your stuff, but all the trashed things either smelled bad or was pretty old." Now that pissed me off, because Nancy made that soup only two days ago (it was a full pot!!) and my fried rice was brought home last night. What was this girl's definition of "smelling bad"?! Geez! I wanted to yell at her for throwing away the food that I had so carefully rationed to last, but couldn't really figure out what to say. "Um Zoe, that 'bad-smelling' food you threw out was actually fresh, and you just cost me a whole week's worth of meals"? All she could have responded with was "Oh, sorry," but the food will still be in the trash. Damnit, I just want Nancy's pot of veggie stew back. What a complete and utter waste. =(

Sorry you guys, I'm really trying hard not to complain in here because no one likes to read boo-hoo-life-sucks entries. It's just that a bunch of stuff has been stressing me out and I guess it's finally getting to me. I guess the biggest problem is just money. There's just so little of it right now and so much is needed. That's why whenever I plan out money-saving strategies and someone comes along and messes it up, it's really frustrating and infuriating. Whoever said money doesn't buy happiness has obviously never been poor. Anyway, I'll end this entry now before I get too bitter and angry. Hopefully, a good night's rest will clear my head. I may have to head to the market tomorrow and see if I can recreate Nancy's soup.

Whinging

"Whinging": slang for "whining."

Ex: "Stop your whinging!"

So I was quite surprised to see that I haven't updated since June 11th, which is quite bad since it's been almost a week. I actually have written two posts since that time, but had so much to write about that I didn't finish it and ended up saving them in Word documents. I'll finish those posts later and put them on Blog when I have a little more time.

I've realized that I've come across many more Epic Failures than I let on in my posts. Sad thing is, they're all mostly my fault.

I finally got ahold of my boss yesterday. I guess my coworkers got tired of telling me "oh, he's not in today, you want to leave a message?" because I pretty much leave a message every other day. Anyway, I'm supposed to meet up with him tomorrow at 6 p.m. to work out payment. Damn right I'm getting paid, you can't escape me!

Saw my doctor again today and he said that my eye lab test results came back negative for Herpes Simplex virus. Hooray! Of course, there's always the chance that the virus was dormant and so the test wasn't able to pick up the virus, but it's unlikely. Bad news is, I still don't know what's causing this infection. -_-

Nancy, my friend from Queensland Uni, just arrived from Brisbane. She'll be staying with me for a couple of days until Saturday, so I'll be playing tourguide and hostess for her. It's good practice for when Christine comes to visit me XD. Today was rainy and cold though, so I couldn't really show her around. She wandered around Queen Victoria Market for a couple of hours while I was at my doctor's appointment, and then we went to tour the Melbourne City museum. The museum is really quite amazing actually, and even though I've been there two times, I still haven't seen it in its entirety. Anyway, the museum closed at 5 pm, so Nancy, her Tazzy friend Tam and I went back to my place to cook some dinner. Nancy made this amazing vegetable stew (which I have learned and will take that knowledge with me back home) which was absolutely deeelicious! It definitely made my throat feel better and warmed up my tummy. Oh yeah, did I mention I'm terribly sick with a sore throat, runny nose and coughing fits? I feel bad for Nancy, who has to share my bed and listen to me gagging and snorting in my sleep. =( Alright, better get ready for bed.

EPIC FAIL 3

So this is my second Epic Fail entry in a week, which is pretty bad but expected (unfortunately) since my last two assessments are tomorrow. Procrastination has been something I've been working to change ever since elementary school. I remember that I stayed up until 4 a.m. to write a stupid paper on a Mission (hey for a fourth grader, that's pretty damn late!) More than a decade later, things haven't changed one bit. I think I just hate anything that I HAVE to do. I have a sort of resentfulness towards things that you have to accomplish within a given time period. Though it's highly unrealistic to do everything at your own pace, it's what I like best. Give me a slow work day over a busy, jam-packed-with-customers shift any day.

This reminds me - originally, I couldn't wait to be done with school and start working. I thought that one of the biggest lures to career work is that I wouldn't have to worry about working at home. At the end of the day, once I leave the office, I'm done - all that work will be left behind and I'll be able to watch t.v. or do whatever I pleased. No more worrying about completing math problem sets, cramming for exams, completing papers... I'll be free! Of course, now I know better. Nurses have to take exams to renew their licenses. Doctors have to complete extensive research on a patient's medical problem in order to treat them. I-bankers and businessmen have to compile countless presentations, projects, reports, etc. Every professional job has homework, whether I like it or not. I don't know why I didn't realize it before.

Sometimes I flirt with the idea of running away to an island near Australia and just never coming back home. I'll make a living doing menial labor and live in a little hut on the beach without a care in the world. Man, that would be the life.

EDIT: may I also add that I managed to lose part of my References list for my philosophy paper? I thought I saved it, but when I opened the document, it was my old file. Thank God that it's only the references. What is up with me losing pieces of my work?? Talk about killing incentive to be productive, YOU TOOK MY WORK YOU STUPID COMPUTER! AGAIN!

While I'm on this procrastinating tangent, I've been watching Wong Fu Production's blog videos (yes, I'm a closet fan). Watching them stress, joke around and hang out with each other made me realize how wonderful life would be if you could live with your best friends. I think that would be amazing. Whenever I want someone to eat dinner with me or hang out, all I'll have to do is open the door and shout down the hall. Of course, I'm well aware that there would be short-comings as well, but I'm sure if we all communicated and set down some ground rules, everything will be A-okay (optimistic and idealist side coming out). I will end the post on this happy note. Hopefully the next time I see you guys, I'll be done with my finals and be in a much happier state. Wish me luck! :)