Do Something Pretty While You Can

Kind of sums up Belle and Sebastian, I think…

I Love…

…opposable thumbs!

Like, really! You should try them some time.

Also, I really shouldn’t afraid of new classes, especially Spanish ones. Everyone is awesome! Including my teacher, who is French. And funny. And other stuff.

Sorry about the lack of posts about Macau, etc. Coming soon, maybe.

Home?

You know, it’s maybe weird, but even though I’ve lived in Sydney for just on a year and a half now, I’ve still always called Ballarat ‘home’. It’s where most of my immediate family live, and the majority (by numbers) of my friends, too. But this trip back, it’s different. Contrary to the norm, I’m actually a bit homesick for Sydney.

I guess I’ve made a new, exciting life for myself up there, and when I come back, everything is… Well, stagnant. Nothing big ever changes (sans my Dad being engaged, but that’s not really a ‘Ballarat’ thing), and it seems like things just go round in circles. It’s as if I’ve moved forward, while everyone else is staying the same. Actually, that’s not true; a number of my friends moved to Melbourne for Uni this year, but I guess that’s just another reason on the list of things not to come back for. I mean, I’d love to catch up with them, but it’s hard when they’re not all in the one place.

That said, overall I don’t think there really is a physical reason for Ballarat not feeling like home any more. It’s just… Progression, growing up. Growing out, even. I’m usually pretty good at letting go of things, and letting life take it’s path, but, well, I spent the first eighteen years of my life here, which makes it rather hard to give up on.

This isn’t to say I won’t come back here – I still have my family and a lot of great friends here – it’s just that the visits might be less frequent, and I’ll miss it less. I don’t know. I don’t even know if I’m making much sense. The whole thing is just making me a bit sad. It’s like I’m losing something that’s been a massive part of my life.

Anyway, Cal’s Deb Ball is in less than an hour, so I guess I’d better get ready and all that. Should be interesting! (Elaine is angry with me, as per the norm recently… Look out!).

Sydney – Adelaide – Ballarat

I don’t seem to be terribly good at this whole ‘regular posting’ thing recently, but I’m interstate, so I’m not taking any blame! Interstate equals Ballarat, if you didn’t guess, although I also went to Adelaide for a couple of days beforehand.

The main reason for going to Adelaide, besides visiting family, was to pick up my new car, which was offered to me by my uncle, because he has four kids, but the car only has two doors. As I mentioned before somewhere, it’s a 1981 BMW 323i JPS (John Player Special). Apparently it’s more special that I originally realised, as it’s got a thing on the dash saying it’s number 45 of 50. Numbered car, omg! But yeah, I am already in love with it, it’s so nice to drive. Also, I think I am naming it Adeline, after the Elliott Smith song. I’m not really sure why; I just had the chorus of Sweet Adeline stuck in my head and it seemed to go quite well. Not completely sure yet, though.

Since I’ve got back I’ve been relatively busy. So far I’ve caught up with only three friends: Mollie, Smitty and Elaine, but I’m going out with people tomorrow evening, which should be nice. I’ve spent a good deal of time with my brother, Cal, actually, which has been excellent. It’s pretty nice being away from family for so long; you get to appreciate them so much more when you actually do see them!

I’ve had two trips to Melbourne in a row now. The first, yesterday, was with Dad, Cal, Dad’s friend Tony, and his son James. We went rock climbing and then outdoor go-karting, both of which were very cool. Admittedly I didn’t do all that well in the go-karting (maybe I’m not hoonish enough?), but I still had fun and was faster than most of the other random people out there, so it was okay. Cal, as usual, was the fastest, although kept the smashing to a minimum for a change.

The second trip to Melbourne was today, with Mollie. The main attraction for the day was the Art Deco exhibition at the NGV, which we both really wanted to see. It was amazing, and I was repeatedly reminded of Gatsby, which, I have decided, is an Art Deco novel, if there ever was to be such a thing. It pretty much embodies the whole ’spirit’ of the thing. I also got to have a delicious Victorian souvlaki (none of this NSW rubbish), which I managed to spill on my jeans.

The only problem was that is was freezing. At one stage I just had to get inside and sit down, I was so cold. On the drive home it also poured rain like I haven’t seen in quite a while, but I was happy because I got to see that my car, contrary to what I feared, does not appear to leak at all, even through the sunroof.

One final note about Melbourne: It is actually so much quieter, I can’t believe it. Combination of no buses and wider streets, I suppose. Oh, and there seems to be a much greater proportion of pretty girls. I wouldn’t normally notice, but it was really obvious! Or maybe they just like Art Deco exhibitions, I don’t know. Might have to go again… *cough*.

Oh, and apparently it snowed here the other day. Not sure if Ballarat itself got any, but most of the surrounding areas (Gordon, Ballan, Dalesford, etc) did, quite a bit. I wouldn’t know; it was horribly cold, so I stayed in my nice cosy bed till late.

It’s weird; every time I come back here, it seems to feel less and less like home, but this time seems to have been the tipping point. I think it’s happened – Ballarat is no longer my home. I guess that means Sydney is, but who would know. It’s a pretty strange feeling, I just seem to have lost most of my emotional attachment to pretty much everything except the people and the fish and chip shops (they have lamb souvlakis!). I suppose that’s what you get for moving interstate, though, right?

OMG LONG DIARY POST!!!

I’ve probably mentioned it before, but I seem to have an obsession with Mary (ie Virgin Mary, mother of Jesus). I guess it’s because I spent the entirety of my primary and secondary education at Catholic schools, but that doesn’t explain how it comes up. Usually, I’ll be in a random religious debate, and I’m usually on the anti-religion side, for whatever reason (World Youth Day, recently). But then the conversation seems to turn into a battle of the religions, with me standing up for Catholicism and Mary, for no apparent reason. Weird, but kinda fun. Anyway, that’s nothing to do with the point of this blog. But then, it probably doesn’t have a point anyway, so why not include it?

So, if all goes to plan, I will be on an aeroplane to Adelaide in approximately nineteen hours. After arriving in Adelaide, I will proceed to meet up with my Dad, brother, Uncle, Aunty, etc, and stay for a few days, at the end of which I will drive away in a nice new BMW. New for me, that is. The car itself is actually a good 6 or 7 years older than me, but what does that matter?

I will drive the car, along with my Dad and brother, home to Ballarat, after which I will spend a week partying hard with friends and family. Well, catching up, anyway. Mollie and I already have another trip to Melbourne planned, I think, which should be fun Apparently there’s an Art Deco exhibition at the NGV, which I am extremely keen to see. Also, there’s my brother’s Debutante Ball, which, strangely enough, he is doing with the younger sister of my Debutante Ball partner, Elaine. Needless to say, we’re very excited about it.

After Ballarat, I’ll get back to Sydney for a couple of days, then jet off to Macau, China, for the annual Emotum (place where I work) conference. As far as I can tell, there will be discussions of where the company is going, what’s happening, stuff like that. Lots of ideas thrown around. But that won’t take up anywhere near the whole time (~4 days), so it’s also a good excuse to have a lot of fun. Macau is apparently the Vegas of the East, so I guess that means I’ll have my first go at gambling. Who knows, maybe I’ll come back a millionaire! Haha.

Anyway, enough about the future; what about the past? The past has actually been super fun. Like, really super fun. Which leads me to hope that the future will continue in this same direction. So what has been happening to make everything quite wonderful? I don’t know, just a combination of everything, I suppose. I’ve hardly been bored all holidays, what with getting together with friends, working… Stuff like that. Tom, Steve and I have been playing football (AFL) in the park a fair bit, which has been brilliant. The only sufferer seems to be my right shoe, which seems to have a red stain right where my big toe is. Oh, and Tom’s neck, but we maintain that that was obtained taking the mark of the century, so it’s okay.

On the topic of those two people, I’ve also been getting to know them in a considerably different light recently, due to different happenings and things going on (I won’t go into detail, as it’s their business to divulge if they wish). It’s nice to just chat about things, especially when they don’t involve I.T. and uni, which can be quite rare sometimes (especially leading up to an ISDM exam and the like). So thanks, guys! It’s been nice.

More socialising has also been done with Germaine, which has also, strangely, involved a great deal of exercise. Okay, so looking over that, it could sound bad, depending on the dirtiness of your mind, but I assure you it has not been in the least dirty. The exercise I refer to is the insane amount of walking we somehow end up doing without even realising it. Not long back we caught the ferry to Manly, and ended up doing two laps of the beach. Now, Manly beach is quite long (~1.5km), so it ended up being around 6km of sand-walking. I also made a discovery: after your feet go numb in the cold, cold sand, the water feels oh so warm! At least to an extent, as long as it doesn’t splash up your legs. And, oh man, as much as I have not been eating much meat besides chicken and fish recently, there is nothing better after some time on the beach as some nice big ribs and baked potato. Mmm.

We also had another outing just a couple of nights ago, in which I discovered just how far the parks stretch along the Glebe shoreline (a long way!). We ended up walking all the way around Blackwattle and Rozelle bays, and then back over the Anzac Bridge. Pretty nice views from up there. Also, there was a cool bat that was eating plants.

I drove a car for the first time since February, too, because we decided to drive to Kings Cross to see what it’s like (neither of us had been there before), and Germaine kept getting distracted by shiny lights and drifting into other lanes. Kings Cross is quite amazing! So many flashy neon lights and stuff, it looks both awesome and oh so seedy at the same time. Needless to say, we stayed put in the car. I don’t intend to go there on a social visit any time soon.

My flatmate Rob packed up and left for the final time today, which was pretty sad. We’ve been living together for a year and a half, so along the way we’ve had our fair share of exciting moments. He’s the third last of our original Apartment 201 line-up, and Errol is due to go this month, so I’ll be the only one left. I’m getting three new flatmates this month, actually, which is pretty exciting. Hopefully they’re all nice! I’m kind of disappointed that I probably won’t be here to greet them, but such is life. I’ll put in plenty of effort when I get back, I hope.

I think that’s about it… Sorry, it was just kind of a random catch-up blog, with none of the style and prose of something like Tom’s most recent entry, which was excellently written (although sorry, you can’t read it). But I quite like just writing these diary-style blogs, so you’ll just have to put up with them in the hope that I’ll post interesting things soon.

So yeah, I’ll wrap things up now. I hope everyone is well! Wish me luck for my flight home, and hope I don’t end up in a Fiery Crash over Canberra or something. Which would kind of suck, but such would be life. Um, yeah. Depressing note go out on. Need something funny to say… Lighten up the mood.

Ah, screw it.

In Which I Make A Decision Rendering This Blog Pointless

So even as I write now, I have no idea what this blog is going to be about. But hey, I feel like writing, so it might as well be here. Actually… I have a very long email to write to a friend a very long distance away. Maybe that would be more productive.

A bientot! And sorry for the pointless blog. I’ll write something about what I’ve been up to soon (there’s a lot!).