You know that album ?

You know that album ? The one that you loved all the way through, or the one that reminds you of a certain time in your life or specific event, or the one who's songs kept you company during rough times ? Everyone has one of those albums and, for me, its " Dizzy Up The Girl " by The Goo Goo Dolls. Its the album that i will always come back to, no matter what. I was reminded of it yesterday ( by a god-awful rendition of a Goo Goo Dolls song on the radio ) and so i was playing it today, whilst i got ready for work, and put it on in the car. Its funny how comfortably i can slip back into the feelings the songs give me, how i may have changed, my circumstances, my life, but the songs resonate the same way.

" Dizzy Up The Girl " was released when i was in Year 9 and it remained my favourite album all the way through high school. I listened to it with my friends but, more often then not, i'd listen to it by myself, shut away in my room. Everyone knew " Iris " - to my friends it was a love song from a movie soundtrack, or just a really good Top 40 song, but to me it was something different. The chorus to that song almost summed up exactly who i was for the formative years of my life. I know one of you out there has blogged about the same chorus fairly recently, but here's my take :

" I dont want the world to see me/
Cause I dont think that they'd understand/
When everything's made to be broken/
I just want you to know who i am ."

Yes, its contradictory - you dont want to be seen, but you do. By one person. I think for me, that was part of the point. I DIDNT want the world to see me, EXACTLY because i didnt think they'd understand - in fact, my major problem was terrified of people knowing, and not liking the real me. I thought people would judge me, they'd find me tto smart, or too quirky, or too uncool, or too " whatever " and i lived in fear of being judged and humiliated by those judgements. But at the same time, i wanted to be broken down and just have at least one person really, truely know me, and love me anyways. I'd wanted to break down barriers and have at least one person, whether it be a friend or a boyfriend or whoever, know my innermost thoughts and feelings and ideas and be able to look at me and say " You know what ? You rock! ". And what is weird is that i found myself singing that song again in the car today - and wanting exactly the same things.

But it wasnt just " Iris " - i connect to almost every single song on the album, and those that i cant find a deeper personal meaning in are, at least, still good songs. " Slide " despite seemingly being about abortion ( i've had that discussion/disection with a friend too - i'm sticking with the abortion theory ) was the first, and only song, i have ever sung solo in front of people, and i love it for that. The only reason i COULD sing it in front of people - classmates, on a school excursion, because i was the only one who actually knew the words - is because i loved it so much. I couldnt have got up the courage to sing a song i had no feeling for.

" Name " was the same kind of thing as " Iris " - just wanting to find that someone who knew me and wouldnt go sharing my secrets with the world, who wouldnt risk my humiliation or embarrasment. Plus, it has that great guitar bit towards the end where i could imagine that Johnny Rzeznik was singing just to me. " Black Balloon " was a comfort to me when i was really depressed and contemplating killing myself. I just liked thinking that maybe someone would miss me too. I later found out the song is actually about heroin addiction, but everytime i hear it, i think back on how bad i used to be and am glad that its not that way anymore. " Slave Girl " was a cover, and not technically a fantastic song, but i liked the rhythm - it was a song i could rock out to in front of my bedroom mirror.

I have other albums too - " Tuesday Night Music Club " by Sheryl Crow, " Hybrid Theory " by Linkin Park - albums that arent technically brilliant, that werent absolute best sellers, but that meant something to me in a time and in a place and that i'll always come back to. I guess thats the best part of music- you can always come back to it, and it will, if you love it enough, almost always come back to you.

Not again

I have been reading up this afternoon, on Wikipedia ( good old Wikipedia ) on the definitions, symptoms, physicalities, what have you, of depression. Clinical depression, major depression, bipolar depression, unipolar depression, dysthmia and social anxiety disorder. And as much as i know it, it is not good for me to be filling my head with all that. But i can't seem to stop.

To make matters worse, i am having a fight ( for lack of a better term ) with my sister - she through a hissy fit for something i said in jest, but which happens to be the truth but she refuses to acknowledge, and she in turn through back an actual insult at me. She apparently does not understand the gravity of what she has said, nor how much it has hurt me or why. She has been texting me relentless for the past half hour, but i cant do this right now.

I just want to sleep.....

Dearest me

So i have been tagged, by the lovely Miss Gates, and challenged to write a post - a letter addressed to my 13 year old self. It wont be pretty, but here goes:

Dearest 13 year old Me,

Your going to have to read this very carefully, and take all my advice to heart. I know you really dislike being told what to do - you do, after all, have a mind of your own - but if you dont pay attention that independent mind that you value so dearly will turn itself in on you to the point of wanting to die. THis is no exaggeration.

Firstly, your English teacher Miss Martin, is not an uppity bitch. She appears that way because this is her first proper teaching gig so she is nervous, by the end of Yr 8, you will both have a mutual admiration for each other. She will make you think Shakespeare is cool and encourage you to write, and you will realise that the only reason it appeared that she was picking on you was because she was trying to challenge what she recognised as a feirce intellect.

Secondly, be nicer to your mother. I know you are like chalk and cheese and sometimes you feel like you hate her - HATE her - but you know what? You dont. You hate you, you just dont realise it yet. Sure, she gets on your nerves because you are really as different as two people can be but she's trying to help you, to be there for you, to be the best mother she can be, in her own weird way. So cut her some slack, ok ?

Here's the important paragraph, so pay attention. I'm going to spell this out in big capital letters, because you need for this to sink in: NOBODY IS THINKING THAT ABOUT YOU. Thats right - nody is thinking you are any of the following - too smart; too fat; not pretty enough; not cool enough; uninteresting; unfriendly; retarded, lame, disgusting, hideous or anything other crap you can come up with in that over-active brain of yours. If you keep thinking, and believing, those things you're going to do your head in. You will wind up living inside your own thoughts and you will miss what are supposed to be the best years of your life. So if you want to have a boyfriend soemtime during high school, to be invited to all the " cool " parties, to be able to shar secrets with your girlfriends without fear of being ridiculed stop believing your own, made up press and begin putting yourself out there. You will most probably suffer embarrassments at some point, but you will thank me for it later.

What else ? You're going to go on a school excursion later this year. When you are crying by the pool and Ryan asks why and he sits next to and tries to have a conversation, do not shy away. You think he's cool, make sure he knows it.
Dont stop playing netball. You'll miss it when your 23 and too old and out of shape to get back into it.
By the end of Year 12, tell Casey to pull her finger out and stop being such bitch. You know she is, everyone else knows it, someone needs to let her in on the secret. Also, when you walk out of Mr Hanson's dont just walk out while he's stalked off down to the staff room. Wait til he comes back and proceed to tell him what a c**t he is - THEN walk out.
Try to get overseas sooner. Super Cheap was a nice place to work but you cam alive when you were living away. Keep going to counselling and stay on the anti-depressants to work through your shit than leave as soon is financially possible.

And i thats all i can think of right now. Aside from being good to your family - believe me, you will learn to appreciate them - and keeping up a positive mindset, i dont want to burden you with too much. I want you to use that independent thinking of yours ( i am still you after all, i'd die without my own free will ), i still want you to make your own minor mistakes. Just trust me on the big stuff i've mentioned, yea?

Your ever-loving, slightly-screwed-up, pseudo-hippie 23 year old self.

Just read, dont ask questions....

I have just written an email to a friend whom i inadvertently offended last night whilst on a self-destructive head trip. I just wanted to briefly post one paragraph of this email, because, as i said to her, i cant fully explain what goes through my head, but i wanted to try:

Next, i'm not going to try and explain the intricacies of whats been running through my mind, little by little, slowly creeping up on me, the last few months, but i will tell you that it sucks. " Dark " periods have been accumulating for a little while now, but it seems like the last month or so ( except when i was on holidays ) they are starting to get pretty regular, and yesterday was my worst day for quite a while. There was a whole little succession of things that just added up to the point where i found myself at work, my head pounding, trying not to spontaneously burst into tears, wondering what it would feel like if i stabbed a screwdriver through my hand. I kid you not - i spent a good 10 minutes imagining myself picking up screwdriver and jamming it into my hand, just because at least then i'd have a valid reason to be in pain. I've actually been questioning lately whether i might be a bit bi-polar, you know, just for a change.

There you have it. Yes, i know, it makes little sense, but i just felt the need to get it out so that i can possibly get more than 3 hours broken sleep tonight....

Umm, yea, actually, i have....

I was asked today, by someone who had been reading my blog - have you ever thought of leaving Dubbo ? For those of you who do not know - presumably because you are not Australian and, thusly, have never heard of it - Dubbo is the name of the town i live in. I prefer to refer to it is " DubVegas ", purely because it is so NOT like Las Vegas at all.

Anyhoo, my answer to the question was " Actually, yea, heaps ". He then wanted to know why i wasnt more motivated to actually leave and not just think about it a lot. It was a brief conversation but i've been thinking on it for the last few hours. He seemed to think that leaving - that throwing myself out there in the big wide world - would do me some good. That it would force me to meet more people, different people, people who could do wonders for me. And i understand that but there are two things i keep coming back to:
1. Just how do i go about leaving ?
and
2. What if it has the opposite of the desired effect ?

Lets confront those issues, in turn. Firstly, how do i go about getting out ? Do i think of a suitable place to move to, somewhere that i would like to live, and then find a house and a job ? Or do i look for available jobs and houses and then move wherever there is work and accomodation? Do i move somewhere far enough away that i'm out on my own but still close enough to visit family and friends regularly ? Or do i move interstate, across country, and be entirely and utterly alone ? the second part of this issue is i'm not entirely sure what kind of work i would do. I have a job, a career even, but i'm not sure i want to be an optical dispenser forever and, besides that, its the not the kind of occupation that has vacant positions all the time. I'm thinking it might be difficult to find work in that field, at least in area that i would be happy to live in.

Secondly, what if the move has the opposite effect than what i intended? That is, my whole reason for moving would be to be happier - to make new friends, have new adventures, find new horizons. But what if that didnt happen ? What if i couldnt find people i was compatible with and i retreated into the shadows of depression again ? i wouldnt even be near family and friends who already loved me and could lend their support. I'd be alone, and three thousand times lonlier. Would i have to come slinking home with my tail between my legs and a dark cloud over my head?

Dont get me wrong, the more i think on it the more it is something that i will seriously look into. But it cant be something that i rush, i'd want to be pretty sure of what i was doing and confident that i could turn things around if something went wrong.

The last thing i'd want is to feel trapped again by my own decisions.

The definition of me

So i know almost everyone in the entire universe uses Facebook, so you know what i mean when i start talking about applications. I receive so many application invitations that sometimes i just add something and then completely forget about it for weeks. And so it has been with the " Define Me " application - at some unknown point i added it and it wasnt until this afternoon that i re-discovered it. Basically its an application that allows your friends to add words, anonymously, that they would use to describe you.

This is a somewhat strange concept - firstly because its anonymous so i generally have no idea which person thinks what about me, but secondly because of what they have written. Thus far i only have a small pool of words, but here is how people have chosen to describe me:
1.Reliable
2. Tough
3. Cool
4.Fun
5. Happy

Reliable i am happy to go with - i think thats fairly spot on. Its just how i've been raised. Cool i am pretty sure has come from one of my good friends, who actually, truely, really believes that i am, in fact, cool; or someone on my list who barely knows me at all and just couldnt think of anything more descriptive to write. Fun i think would go along the same lines.

It is the tough and the happy part that has me in a spin. It has intrigued me that someone out there thinks that i am tough. I'm not sure whether they mean in an emotional context or in a " she could totally kill you if the urge took her " kind of way. I'm more of a lover than a fighter so i'm working on the emotional conotation of the word. Ami tough ? I dont think i would describe myself as such, at least not right now. One day i would love for someone, perhaps the man that i love, to describe me as " fierce " - independent, proud, confident and all woman - but that time is not right now. In fact, some days i think it wouldnt take much more than the worng word to make me crumble. For someone to say, or imply, the wrong and all my bravado would completely fall away and i'd just be that empty shell again. At least one night a week i ponder my present situation, and question the future, and that brings me to tears. That is not tough. Perhaps if you c0nsider that i am no longer in the depths of depression, that i no longer want the earth to swallow me up, that i no longer have thoughts of killing myself on a daily basis, that i've beaten all that then, yes, perhaps you could describe me as tough. But personally, its something i aspire to, i just dont see it yet.

And happy ? I think i'm getting there, i'm still working on it and certainly on a day to day basis i'm one of the cheerier people you'll meet ( or at least my co-workers tell as they drain cups of coffee to kick start themselves.... ) but it makes me both oddly concerned and weirdly proud that someone would describe me as happy. Proud that someone would see me that way, because its something that i stuggled with for so longer and perhaps some light of happiness is beginning to show through; but also concerned because there are, as i've just said, moments of supreme sadness, lonliness, and isolation and nobody see them. That concerns me, because thats how i fell into the black hole in the first place. Everyone thought i was ok and really i was hiding my shit away from them all. I think for the most part i AM happy, or at least the majority of the time, its just those dark moments i still need to conquer that keeping me from being the true epitome of the word.

I guess this whole post was just me questioning what others think of me - or perhaps i might be questioning the way i think of myself ?

BIggest belly laugh of the day goes to.....

Saturday night fever

Its Monday night and i'm already pining for the weekend.... isnt that sad ? And its not because i absolute hate work ( although i am doing stocktake tomorrow and, as anybody who has ever worked in a retail environment will tell you, stocktake sucks ass ) but its because the weekend has so much more potential for fun.

I get to sleep in and then hang out. Most of the time i dont have anyone in particular to hang out with during the day but that just means i can please myself - go shopping ( ok, window shopping ), watch a movie, just drive around town with my windows down and my music turned up. Sometimes pleasing yourself can be boring, or lonely, but most of the time i focus on the fact that its the weekend... who has time to be depressed on weekends?

Its actually Saturday nights that i look forward too. I know its stupid, juvenile even, you'd think someone my age would be over going to the pub every weekend, but i'm not. I look forward to getting dressed up every weekend, seeing how sexy or stylish or cool i can make myself look on a week to week basis; to catching up with my very good friend AJ, even though she's the same person i go out with every week; to seeing who else is out that i know, so i can chit chat with them; to having random conversations in the womens loo, maybe comforting a fellow female in need after some arsehole guy has wronged her; to having the occasional flirt either with a drunk older guy who is like TOTALLY into me, or a cute younger guy who is obvious just trying it on with an older woman. Mostly i just look forward to the people watching because i'm an observer by nature. I dont claim that my local hangouts are everybody's thing - i know one of you has experienced the DubVegas pub culture with me first hand i dont remember it as being too thrilling of a night - but its something to do, to keep busy, to say that you've actually been somewhere and seen somebody this week.

And i guess thats what it, and this post comes down to - seeing people, doing things, writing stuff, just to prove i'm still alive...

Have you met my friend Horse ?

Well, i have come to the conclusion that i am just going to have to throw myself out there more - its the only way to meet people. Not just potential male love interest type persons, but anyone. New friends, colleagues, acquaintances. And, as such, i started my little exercise last night. It bore some fruit i suppose - i did have a nice little flirt/chat thing with a cute guy who was probably no older than 18 ( i'm such an old hag... ) and his friend, Horse ( and yes, apparently there was a reason for that nickname - unfortunately i investigated no further ) and had my bum squuezed about 30 times by several members of the Rebel motorcycle club who happened to be hanging out in one of my local pubs. Normally i wouldt really stand for that much touchy-feelyness but hey, i didnt want to get on the wrong side of them and get stabbed in the neck or something so i just let them fell away. So sure, i had a few random conversations with individuals whom i've never met before and that kept me amused for the evening, but nothing more than that - yet.

My new found courage, as it were, to put myself out there also surfaced today when i decided to text this guy friend i have that i ran into last night to tell him i should have bought him a drink. We've had a few kisses before and he's pretty damn cute, so hell, why not ? The least i can do is test the waters right ? Either he goes for it or he thinks i'm a stupid tart, but hey, at least i gave it a shot. The good thing is, however, that if he doesnt go for it and thinks our text conversation was just the height of hilarity, is that he isnt out very often so by the time i do see him out again he will probably have forgotten it all.

So there you be - some semi-fun and frothy from me instead of depressing shit that i seem to be posting lately. Dont worry, i've noticed it, i know its been sad crap, but sometimes my past depression hits in new waves that wash over me pretty quickly. Actually, sometimes i worry i might be manic-depressive but thats a whole other post now, isnt it ?

Am I selfish ?

Sometimes i sit alone, in the dark, and just think. Or cry. And not like at night, in bed, trying to sleep - i sit in the hallway, the lights still on in the living room, sound from the TV, and just pretend like i'm not there. No-one's there. Thats what it feels like - sometimes i am so utterly lonely that it seems like no-one else in the world exists. That not even i exist. And then i berate myself for being so stupid. I have family and friends who love me, adore me, cherish me.

But sometimes thats not enough.

Late night conversations

I'm not talking about random pub conversations, or those deep and meaningfuls you have with your friends at 2am over a bottle of wine, i'm talking about those imagined conversations, the ones you have in your head when your trying to go to sleep. The ones you want to have with people; the ones you know you have to have; and the ones you wish you'd had, but you never had the chance and/or intestinal fortitude. I had three of these last night, alone in my bed, crying over this empty, lonely feeling that kept me from sleep.

Conversation #1: You are selfish. Both of you. Your as bad as each other, and the truely terrible thing is that neither of you see it or, at the very least, wont acknowledge it. I know crazy people dont like to be told that they're crazy but its the truth - you have a problem, and its really starting to grate on peoples nerves. I dont think there is one complimentary thing i can say to, or about, either of you. You wonder why i dont come to visit ? Why none of us do ? Because i cant stand the self absorption, the bickering, the criticism, the thinly veiled insults that you apparently make in jest. Five minutes in your company either bores me to tears or shits me no end. I end up leaving you feeling either a sort of sympathy at how utterly sad you have become, or completely enraged at something you have said, or failed to say. And i'm not alone - its everyone. All of us. Strand by strand you are slowly unravelling what little relationship we already had. And thats the thing - its not like you, or I , am throwing away something precious. You have never fostered a deep, loving relationship, so i dont know why all of a sudden your noses are out of joint. I'm grown now - i make my own decisions and have my own opinions. I am not influenced by any one other person, however much one of you in particular wants to point the finger. Neither is anybody else. Its not us; its you. Its you.

Conversation #2 : I want to say sorry. You know why ? Because i screwed up.I made a mistake and the only thing i am grateful for is that i DID make it, and that i live and learn from it. I didnt love you - i think i was in love with the notion of being in love with you, and the idea that maybe, just maybe, someone could possibly, potentially, be in love with me. And i confused those two things. You were ( hopefully still are ) a good friend, the best person i had come across in a long, long time. Its partially because of you that i have opened up so much - my life is much different now because of your subtle influence. You encouraged me to embrace other people, jump into the random conversations, to not be so pre-occupied with what others will think of me.I felt like we were mentally on par - i never had to dumb things down for you, and i never felt bad for speaking my mind or being intelligent and forthright. On the odd occasion i did feel slightly overwhelmed by your intellect, your frankness, your passion for the things you believed in, but never intimidated. You were, and are, entirely different from any man i have ever met. And i think i was in love with all that - the idea of what you were and not necessarily WHO you were. Or who you could be. I see now what you meant when you said you werent who i thought you were, although i'm still not so sure yours was an entirely fair assessment. That, however, is another conversation in and of itself. This one is intended for one purpose only - to say sorry. My sincerest apologies. I miss you.

Conversation #3: You really, really hurt me. And i pretended like you didnt. I didnt have to pretend, but i did, because it was easier to turn my back and make like it was all in the wind. Gone and forgotten, out of sight, out of mind. But i loved you, whole-heartedly, a deep unconditional love that small children have, unquestioningly. Apparently, you forgot that, you forgot me, and suddenly I had a whole tonne of questions and very few answers. The answers i did get were unreliable and unsatisfactory at best. So i turned the other cheek and took another path, one that was missing a great big chunk, or rather small chunks in significant places, little potholes on the road of adolescence. I would have liked you there for my birthdays; my grand finals; my graduations. For Christmases and Easters and random family barbecues. But you hurt me, hurt a few of us, but me most of all, even though i wouldnt admit to it, and you were mentally uninvited to these milestones. I'm here to tell you that you missed out. I'm a good person, i developed that way, and you missed it. You might be able to see it now, now that i've opened that window of opportunity a smidge, but you missed it in the process. At one time, you were almost my whole world, and now you have so much history to learn, evolutionary steps to make. But no matter how far we've come, how far yet to go, things will never be the same.

Where in the world is Amy Wells ?

Well, well, well.... i find myself with a little free, " alone " time this afternoon here in Saigon and i figure its as good a time as any to mkae a quick blog. I had these grand illusions ( or should i say delusions ? ) of being pretty thorough with my blogging while i'm away but to be quite honest by the time you're done with the days activities, maybe showered, freshened up and gone out for dinner, well.... i'm stuffed. Completely friggin' cactus - i feel like nothing more than going to sleep. Not that its a bad thing at all - its been really awesome the past 10 days, always having something to do ( except when we've been on sleeper trains - as i've mentioned before, they kind of suck ).

So to skip ahead from where i was last at..... i had my clothes made in Hoi An and i have to say i'm pretty pleased with them. Three dresses tailored entirely to yours truly, which is every womans dream to have her own personal wardrobe made. Hoi An was absolute heaven on a stick really, i wish we could have spent more time there. It would have been nice to do some more shopping but also nice to just head down to a local cafe and have a drink, or an icecream, or head down by the water and just sit around. It's only a small place in comparison to the other cities we've been too and its actually World Heritage listed - its very French provincial and although it seems to be a tourist favourite it remains relatively untouched by Western ways.

From there it was another awesome trip on a train - afternoon this time, so technically not a sleeper but just as crappy - to the resort town of Nha Trang. For those of you who have been keeping up with me on Facebook, you will already know that there was a typhoon scheduled to hit Nha Trang while we were there but thankfully it didnt eventuate. It did rain the first day we were there but that didnt matter so much. Instead of heading to the beach we went to the mud baths and got all dirtied up, loosened up in the spa and then had a massage. Jealous yet ? Much.
The second day saw the sky blue so we did head out on the water for a while. I didnt actually enjoy it all too much - in fact, whilst over here i've discovered that i have a weird aversion to falling into water that i've never notcied before. WE'd been on a bicycle ride a few days previously and we had to ride on some pretty precarious paths straight between rice paddies.... i almost had a full on panic attack because i was SURE i was going to fall into the water and drown. Kind of the same on the boat, although i did swim.... i was more afraid of not being able to swim back and drowning. Might have something to do with the fact that the humidity around here is making my asthma play up and my lungs feel like theyre shot to shit half the time.

Anyhoo, one final sleeper train trip ( hallelujah! ) and we'd arrived in Saigon. Saigon is completely nuts in comparison to the rest we've seen here. The traffic is unbelieveable and the city has a real cosmopolitan feel to it. We spent the first day after our arrival doing a tour of the Mekong Delta which i can describe in two words - surreally hot. OK, maybe that doesnt make sense but the whole time we were tripping around i was either thinking how beautiful it all was or how much the heat and medication i'm were making me want to throw up. We also did a tour of the Cu Chi Tunnels this morning and i guess i was over-awed. Firstly, at the severity of human endurance - how we as humans can find such incredible ways to survive, but also be aware enough to find incredibly deceptive and cruel ways to kill others; and secondly i was over-awed at the disrespect ( in my opinion anyway ) that some Western tourists seemed to be showing. I mean, for example, there was an American army tanker on the grounds, there as an historical aretfact i suppose and our tour guide had just finished telling us how at least 6 American GI were killed in that particular vehicle. I look up and there are about 20 grown adults crawling all over it and one idiot who had lowered himself into the hold so that his top half was sticking out, and he was smiling and mugging it up for his friends camera. For God's sake, the tank was, for all intents and purposes, a tomb for some people and these idiots were treating like it was a ride at Disneyland. I wasnt sure whether i wanted to throw a rock at them or throw up.

Anyhoo, tonight is actually our final night in Vietnam before we head over to Cambodia tomorrow. We're all going out for a final dinner with our Vietnamese guide tonight ( his name is Phuong, when i get my pictures together back in Australia you all can see him ) which is going to be kind of sad cause he's a sweet little fella. Plus, its one of my fellow travelmates birthdays today so i think we'll all put on the best of our ratty clothes and party up big.

Boo yea to that and look out Cambodia!!

Rickshaws may rock, but overnight trains suck

Yes ladies and gentleman, nơ coming to the end òf day four in Vietnam... i have so much to blog about yet so little time. I am trying to keep you all updated tho so bear with me. Let me make a very short list in place of my normal rambling posts:

1. Overnight trains sêm fun at first, like an extended sleep over, but after 13 hours you get alittle stir crazy
2. My roomie í great, as í everyone on the tour. 6 Aussies, 3 Canadians and 2 Brits. Sory Sheena, no Safas
3. You can find the bét banana icecream in theworld in Hanoi
4. Buddhist cereremonies are so serene i want to cry
5. I'm curently in a town called Hoi An, home to hundreds of tailors.... cheap, tailor made clothes hểre i come!

Rickshaws rock!

Well its been a tiring journey making it all the way over ( bloody stop overs..... ) but i have arrived safe and sound in Hanoi, Vietnam. As yet i havent exactly done much - i arrived just after lunch local time and seeing as i couldnt quite manged to get much sleep on any of my plane journeys, i took me a nap. Sort of.... it wasnt exactly the best nap ever but it was sleep.

I have, however, been out and about getting lost in the neighbourhood surrounding my hotel. And, let me assure, you getting lost was completely my plan. Its my firm belief that just going where your gut takes you, getting in and mixing with the crowd, is the best way to discover things you never knew existed. Plus, then you have that excuse for when you want to take a ride in a rickshaw - which, by the way, i am totally buying for myself. All i have to do now is find somehow back in DubVegas who'll be willing to drive me around in it......

Hurrah, hurrah, the time has come!!

Freaking hallelujah - its holiday time! Thats right my peoples, in 2 hours time i will boarding a small plane for a fligt to Sydney and later this evening i'm off to South East Asia. I have been pretty much been waiting for this holiday since i returned from my stint as an au pair in the United States so my holiday is WELL overdue.

I'll be flying from Sydney, via Brisbane and Kuala Lumpur to Hanoi, Vietnam. From there i start 18 days of what will hopefully be an excellent small adventures holiday. Down the coast of Vietnam, across into Cambodia and a few days in Thailand before i have to come back and get back into the daily grind. A full itinerary can be found at : http://www.geckosadventures.com/sth_east_asia/trip_daybyday.asp?trip=2788 for those who care to look.

I will,of course, be making semi-regular posts in here if i can get access to a good internet cafe. That way, you all can pretend like you're taking a holiday with me! Till then my cherubs.... mwah, mwah!

Quick note

After last night's post, i went to bed and whats was the first song i got to hear on the radio ? " No Aphrodisiac " by The Whitlams ( containing the line " there's no aphrodisiac like lonliness.... " ) followed immediately thereafter by " Better Than " by the John Butler Trio ( " You can be better than that, dont let it get the better of you.... " ).

Excuse me but - fuck you FM Radio.

Can anyone hear me ?

I live alone. For the most part this is a good thing - i enjoy my space, my freedom, my independence - but just lately its been lonely. I dont know why. Nothing much in my life has changed, there has been no major drama that has pushed me to any brink or anything just... i get lonely.

I get up in the morning. I check my emails while i eat my breakfast, and if i have no new mail, no new messages on Facebook or Bebo, most of the time its okay but sometimes i wonder if people have forgotten me. But no matter. I suck it up, take a shower, pad around my house half naked while i iron my clothes, wash the dishes, do my hair; i can do that because i live alone, its a luxury to not have to get completely dressed until i need to walk out the door. I go off to work and, for the most part, enjoy my day. My work is not hard and i have plenty of human interaction. I love the woman i work most with - i'm kind of, sort of, not officially her boss and she is older than me, but we sometimes end up carrying on like fools by the end of the day.

I finish work at 5:30pm and most days i come straight home. Sometimes i drop into my parents house, or my brothers, usually with some excuse for having to go there but sometimes its just because i want to see someone. The days i do come straight home, i come in, slip off my shoes, get changed and turn on the tv. Always straight onto the same channel - i like to listen to the news while i potter around. I check emails again, tidy up, read a magazine, maybe put on a load of washing. I feed my fish - i started out with four, named after The Beatles, but unfortunately John Lennon was cannibalised by the other three ( almost true to real life ). They are the only pets i am allowed to have in my rental property so thusly my only company. I make my own dinner. I dont really cook as such, not like a chef or a mother - i cook some meat, sometimes vegetables, sometimes rice, on the odd occasion pasta, and throw all together with some packet or jar of sauce. Its cheating, but it keeps me alive. I like to save proper cooking for when people come over - those occasions are not very often. I eat my dinner in front of the TV - i watch The Simpsons, then Neighbours, then Futurama, in that order, almost everyday. I interact with the characters; i get excited when i watch competitive reality programs like So You Think You Can Dance; in my mind its like i know these people. I begin to wind down for the night. I usually get on the net again, see if anyone is on MSN. If they arent, i consider packing it all in and going to bed early but i usually dont. I waste time surfing the net, hoping to find something to alleviate what i usually prefer to identify as boredom.

The clock hits 10:30pm, or thereabouts and i figure i best get some sleep. I turn off the computer, turn out the light in the fish tank, lock the front door, check the back. I go to my bedroom and take off my jewellery. I have a jewellery box but nothing ever goes in there, it just gets laid out on my bedside table. I backtrack to my bathroom. I comb my hair, brush my teeth, clean my face with specially formulated Neutrogena. I stare at myself in the mirror, usually okay with what i see but sometimes i pick out every flaw. Pimple there, too many freckles, my eyebrows need waxing. I pad back down the hallway to my bedroom, my mind already ticking over. I get undressed, poke at the layer of podgy fat that lies over what would be a perfectly flat, toned stomach if i bothered with cardio. I put on pyjamas, set my alarm and turn on the radio. I cant sleep without music on, some kind of background noise, and it comforts me to hear other people talking. The radio stays on all night. I climb into bed, cover myself in sheets, blankets, quilts, depending on the weather.

And thats when it hits me. I'm alone. And lonely. There is no-one there to say " goodnight, sleep tight " to. There is no-one to snuggle into the pillows with, to spoon with, to sleep with. There is no-one who's presence will reassure me when i wake up at 2am after a disturbing dream. There is no-one who will stroke my hair, or my cheek, when they wake at 3am and want some reassuring themselves. And there will be no-one there in the morning when i wake up.

So i just lie there, alone, in the dark, lonely as ever, either trying to hold back the tears or squeezing my eyes shut, desperatly trying to get to sleep so i wont notice the empty space on the other side of my bed.

If i could turn back time...

...if i could find a way... ok, totally having a Cher moment there, but you should stop picturing me in a see through leotard and leather jacket and read on. Yesterdays post regarding being precognitive, about seeing into the future, garnered a comment from my good buddy Sonny, offering the services of his time machine. Presumably, he was offering its uses so that i could travel into the future and check out for sure whether i'm precognitive or not but, to be honest, i'm not so sure i'd want to do that. AS much as i dig the idea of being a pyschic; seer; oracle; precog; whatever you choose to call those who see into the future, i kind of like the element of suprise, of not knowing whats around the corner. However, i would consider using a time machine to go into the PAST. Funnily enough, i was lying in bed last night, only just having written that post and the topic of discussion on the radio was " If you could turn back time, what would you do differently ? " and then i wake up this morning and Sonny is giving me permission to ride his time machine which all got me to thinking - if i could turn back time, what would i do differently ?

I'm not one of these people who says " I wouldnt change anything. I have no regrets - everything i've ever done, i've done for a reason ". Fair enough, but in retrospect do you still agree with all those decisions ? I think anyone who says that have zero regrets is either seriously bullshitting or seriously deluded. So i've been thinking on the subject all day, and heres what i came up with - a small list of " Things I Would Change If I Could Turn Back Time " :

1. I would never have opted for the " Lois Lane " haircut in Year 8. I really loved " The New Adventures of Lois and Clark " ( or whatever it was called ... ) and went to my hairdressers with a picture of Teri Hatchers short hairstyle. In a word it looked - shocking. Absolutely freaking terrible. I slunk to school the next day hoping nobody would notice but, inevitably, i copped the name " Lois " for at least two weeks after. My hair has never been longer than jaw length since.

2. I would never have taken my " 100% Hits 1994 " tape into school and lost it. That tape was the last thing my uncle gave me before he died - or rather, before he killed himself - and i really regret not having it. Sure, the songs would be cheesy and old by now, but its one of the things that really sticks in my mind about him - even though he was almost 10 years older than me, we both loved music. Not the same kind - i mean what 10 year old girl likes Megadeth ? - but still...

3. I would take back the one time i said " I love you ", thinking i really meant it but, in retrospect, i dont think i did; and i'd take back the handful of times i said " I hate you! " thinking i really meant it but, in retrospect, i know i didnt.

4. I would go back and tell my 14 year old self " Nobody is thinking that about you. You are awesome, even if you cant see it. STop hurting yourself now cause its only going to get worse later ". And my 14 year old self would listen to my 23 year old self, no questions asked.

5. I would not have kneed my brother in the balls during a play-wrestle. Admittedly it was accidental, and it didnt cause any lasting damage - hey, he was an almost 2 year old daughter! - but man was he in a lot of pain. And i didnt like being the cause of that pain, as accidental as it was. So i'd take that back - sorry bro!

6. I wouldnt have been too embarrassed to sing in front of a crowd. I was supposed to sing solo at a school assembly in Year 5 - i chickened out; I was supposed to sing a duet of " All I Want For Christmas Is You " by Mariah Carey in Year 6 - i chickened out; my Year 11 drama class was supposed to do a musical version of a Venetian comedy - we all chickened out. The very few times i have ever sung in front of other people, on my own, i really enjoyed it - alas, every other time i was too embarrassed, scared of what people would think.

7. I would have loved my younger brother more, although as a 5 year old you dont really think like that. I was to young to know at the time, but now as an adult i regret that he cant come to the pub with me. I think he and i would have been more alike than my other brother and sister are. Strangely enough, i'm not sure that i would change the fact that he died - maybe thats messing with fate too much.

8. I would have admitted to myself that i had a problem, and sought help for my depression earlier. I wasted so many years worrying about what people thought of me, hating myself, wanting to die; i missed intregal teenage experiences because i was too consumed with living inside my own thoughts.

9. I would have told my Year 12 English teacher off for being such an asshole. Sure, i walked out of his class two months before graduation and never went back, but in retrospect i think the guy needed to be told how we all felt about him. He was very condescending and self-important - sometimes those kinds of people just need to be brought down a peg.

... and thats it. I was aiming for a list of 10, but i couldnt come up with anything that wasnt entirely trivial. Sure, ok, fine #1 and #5 were kind of trivial, but they were big at the time. And stuff thats big at the time but in retrospect is kind of small is actually still important, right ? Sometimes its the stupid little stuff that turns out to have the biggest impact, on our lives, so i guess in some instances it IS worth sweating the small stuff...

Sweet dreams are made of this

Have you ever wondered if your slightly precognitive ? Not really seriously, but just " hey, i wonder if ? ". See, the only reason i ask is because i keep having the same two kinds of dreams over and over - not every night but every few, maybe once a weekish, and that has to mean something doesnt it ? The dreams arent always exactly the same, but the overall theme is, so am i maybe sort of seeing some kind of future happen, or is it all just metaphorical of something else.

Let me explain. The first dream involves me having children. Like i said, the exact scenario is never exactly the same however.... i always have twins, and always two boys. Boys with curly dark hair - unless its one the times i'm dreaming of actually being pregnant, which always involves me being at the doctors having an ultrasound and finding out i'm having twin boys. Oddly enough, these dreams never involve a husband of any sort, but i always get the impression i have one, i just never see him. Sometimes the dreams involve other people - various family and friends - but always me and twin, curly headed, dark haired boys.

The second dream has only just been occurring over the past few months and, to be honest, has on the odd occasion kind of freaked me out a little. In this one i have cancer - yep, cancer. Sucks doesnt it ? The scenarios in these dreams dont differ as much as with the twins - it always involves me either in the doctors office being told the news, or me tucked up in bed, not quite on the verge of death but pretty much accepting that my time is coming soon. I dont ever hear an official diagnoses, but i always get this odd feeling that its some kind of lymphoma and it sometimes spreads into my lungs .... this is the bit that has freaked me out a few times. The handful of occasions that the cancer is in my lungs i have woken up either completely breathless or feeling like my chest is full of concrete, totally weighed down. I have also woken up crying a few times from this dream and not because i have cancer and am dying, but rather because i dont appear to have anyone to love me during this time. By anyone i dont mean family and friends, i mean a man. Thats actually what sparked me to write this particular post - in last nights dream i knew i was dying, and all i wanted was for the man i loved to hold me, i had that distinct feeling .... but there was no-one. So i woke up crying, kind of oddly disturbed. And i'm not old in this dream either - its not like i'm an old woman who's come to the end of her road, who's husband may have already passed on - i'm young, maybe only a few years older than i am now.

So it goes back to am i slightly precognitive or not ? If i am, it means in the next few years i get married, fall pregnant, have twin boys and then die from cancer. What if only one of them is true ? Maybe i'm right about the twins thing, or maybe i'm right about the cancer thing. Or maybe i'm slightly nuts and they're both metaphors for something else thats plaguing my subconcious mind.

Either way, i guess time will tell....

Where gonna share the vision....

Quick note... its 12.20am Sunday morning and i have just returned from seeing Thirsty Merc... the Merc rock much! They're an Aussie band, i love their work, the drummer and the bass guitarist are both from here ( my hometown that is, not this blog page ... ), i had been looking forward to the show for weeks and i had a fantastic freaking time.
Dont you love when things work out to your expectations?

P.S If i only could I have touched the lead singers awesomely sexy white boy afro...
P.P.S I may have had one too many cocktails, but who was counting ?

How bout you go screw yourself ?

This post is basically a bit of a gripe.... i just dont get why people have to be rude. And by rude i mean disrespectful and arrogant. For lack of a better, more refined term, it really pisses me off.
It really, really annoys me when its in a professional environment. I work in retail ( basically ) but i'm not talking about clients or customers ( or can refer to my old blog for a relevant post on that subject ). No, i'm talking about other people who i had assumed to be professionals. Evidently i was wrong.
See, i had sent a pair of spectacles back to a manufacturer for warranty. I wont delve into the full story, but basically a customer had come to me to have lenses fitted into a frame she had bought elsewhere - on holidays, in an outlet whose name she couldnt recall - and it broke whilst in my shop awaiting fitting. The brekage was clearly a warranty problem and although it wasnt my original stock, i owe to my customer to get her a new one. So i ring this company and explain the situation, how it was not bought from me and the customer could not return to the original place of purchase A) because it was in another state and B) because she couldnt remember the name of the shop. Long story short, they sent me a new frame and i sent the old broken one back for credit.
Now, i get a call on Tuesday from one the sales girls at this company telling me i wouldnt get credit on this frame, despite what i had explained on the phone first time around. I say to her that i'm a little busy but i would like to speak to someone about the situation - can i call them back? Yep, fine , no worries. Now this phone call was at 4:30pm, and my store closes at 5pm.
Wednesday morning i get a very kurt letter in the mail from this companies director, saying not only will i not be getting credit, but i " had no right nor authority " to undertake any warranty jobs on behalf of my customer. WTF ? If your frame breaks through no fault of the customer, you legally have to replace it.
Anyhoo, the letter did it for me. Not only was it kurt and vaguely rude, but it said that i needed written authority to undertake warranty repairs if i was not an authorised stockist of their frames. So i ring back, like i said i would and who do i get to speak to ? The managing director. You would think that someone of such high standing in a company would have some manners towards people who are potential customers but no.... rude, arrogant, prick. Basically, this guy ( i'm not going to use the word gentleman ) refused to listen to anything i had to say and tried to shout me down. If there is one thing i can not stand, its condescension - i am not stupid, i am not deaf, and i am not yours to trample on just because i am a woman. DO NOT TALK DOWN TO ME.

It will only serve tomake me angry, have me hang up in your ear and rubbish your company to everyone i can think of. None of which you really want.

Hero Worship

My father is a good man. Period. That sentence in itself could be its own blog post, but i suppose i should elaborate. I received a bunch of flowers at work today and do you know who they were from ? My father. What did the note say ? Simply " Just a reminder of how proud i am of my girls ".Not only did he send a bunch of flowers with this note to me, but also to my mother, sister, sister-in-law and he had a posey to give to his granddaughter too.
Why you ask ? Just because.We didnt all have a mass birthday and it wasnt some kind of Female Type Relation Appreciation Day - he sent us those flowers because thats the kind of man he is. A good man. Its not that giving people flowers that makes him a good man - its that he cared enough, that he thinks enough of us to show that we are appreciated. Because he knows that we would all appreciate the gesture.
He is a good man because as much as he is stubborn and argumentative and smart-alecky ( he is a Taurus after all - its in his nature ) he sucks it up and apologises when he is wrong ( which, admittedly, isnt often ). He is honest and heartfelt when he needs to be - and he knows when those times are. When he speaks from the heart you know that they arent just token words - he chooses his words and his timing very carefully, he doesnt just bandy about throwaway " I love you "s.
He is a good man because he is a good father- and he attributes that to his children. It his belief that he is not a good father because of his own skills, but rather because we kids taught him to be. That the fact he has raised three , dare i say it, well-adjusted, " good " children is somehow a shared effort on our part. He is modest enough ( even though he probably shouldnt be ) to believe that sometimes, just sometimes, we taught him things too.
He is a good man because he has helped me become the good person that i am. No, he's not a so-called " hippie " like me - he doesnt believe in being overtly charitable, that humans everywhere are basically good, or that one day we could possibly change the world - but he has taught me patience; humility;strength of character and strength of will. He has raised me to be a woman of substance, and to know that i dont have to please everyone. He would as proud of me if i chose to be a taxi driver as if i were elected Prime Minister of Australia ( actually, he'd probably bag me out about that, but he'd be proud ).
Lastly, he is a good man - just because. Not always because of things he does, but the things he doesnt do. Not because he says all the right things, but sometimes because he doesnt say the wrong things. But mostly because he loves me, not because he has to, but because of who i am, and sometimes, in spite of who i am.
What more could a girl ask for ?

Do i talk shit or what ?

Its 9:44pm on Friday night, which officially makes it the weekend right ? I bloody hope so because i am looking to kick back and relax. Its not that i've had a bad week, or even a bad day - just an odd day, a good day punctuated with small frusturations and curiosities. Therefore, i have decided to make a list, by no means comprehensive, of things that cropped up in my over-active mind today.

1. Why do my male clientele choose boring glasses ?
Ok, not exactly a life threatening issue but bear with me hear. For those who dont know i am an optical dispenser, which basically means I set people up with new spectacles. It sounds kind of easy but its not just selling them a frame - i need to know the theories of light and how it refracts through given indices, and just what causes, and corrects, each different form of ametropia ( see, dont i sound smarter already ? ). But this is not my point - my point is i take great care and time in choosing what stock to keep on my shelves and its like my male clientele dont care. Granted, most of my clients are at least 30 or older, but dont they wanna trendy themselves up a bit ? I know one or two young spectacle wearing guys ( who may or may not be reading this blog ) and they have smart, trendy, sexy glasses - so why am i only only tending to dispense big, old, ugly double bridge Grandpa frames ?

2. Bad posture annoys me.
I used to have shocking posture - 18 years of lugging around heavy school bags and slouching down into your seat will do that to you. However, yoga has pretty much corrected that for me and now i have a carriage that any beauty queen would be proud of. However, it irks me seeing other people slouching around, pushing there hips forward and curving there spine. And it irks me even more when certain of my petite friends stand in front of a mirror and go " aww, i'm so fat - look at my little pot belly ! ". Here's the tip - pull your stomach muscles up and in, push your pelvis back instead of forward and roll your shoulders up, back and down and voila! No pot belly and you look much more ladylike. Also, please dont come in to my work complaining that your glasses arent straight, you can see the top of them is crooked IF YOUR HEAD IS TILTED. If you have an unconscious head tilt, just a small tick in your posture, of course your bloody glasses will look crooked to you... your neck is holding your head crooked!

3. Summer is a dangerous time for ice cream lovers.
Especially those of us who are trying to watch our weight. Its not even summer yet and already i'm getting daily cravings for a double scoop of Macadamia flavour, in a cup, with a spoon, from Missy Moo's.

4. What am i going to wear tomorrow ?
Ok, this one is a daily dilemma for most females but i'm specifically pondering what to wear to dinner and then out to the pub tomorrow night. Normally i just pick something and go with it, everyone else be damned, but my best friend is coming out tomorrow because she is home for the weekend and i dont wana make her feel uncomfortable. See, i wana wear this new red dress i bought - it falls just above the knee, maybe a hint of cleavage if i wear the right bra - but i know she's going to wear jeans and a nice top, and i dont want her to feel underdressed ( i wont feel overdressed, by the same token - its not me i'm worried about ). However, if she is fine with what she's wearing and really, why wouldnt she be , i dont want her to think i look slutty. I'm not saying my dress is slutty, or even that i'm slutty, just that our ideas of appropriate pub wear are a little different seeing as i live at the pub on the weekends and she may aswell aready be an old married woman. Oh, the dilemma!

5. I want a new hair straightener.
Which is precisely why i mean to buy one tomorrow. Or do i ? I still havent quite decided. I really do want one, the question ( or questions rather ) is do i want to pay for it ? And how long am i willing to wait ? I was holding out hope that my parents would buy me a new one for Christmas, which would save me forking out the dough for a good one. However, i dont think i can put up with hair that requires straightening TWICE before i go anywhere if i want it to stay straight - if i dont straighten it twice, with about a 10 minutes gap in between straightenings, its goes back to be kinky after 45 minutes or so.

And that be all for now. Sure, there was probably other things that crossed my mind, maybe even some more interesting than the dribble i spat out above, but i cant exactly remember any of it, and you dont really want to have me ramble on much more, do you ?

Its on again

Whats on again ? The great " Amy Makeover " mission. See, at some point during this past year i had grand plans for getting back into my fitness routine, and being one of those girls that has her hair done every month and lord knows what else, and they kinda fell by the wayside a bit. Dont get me wrong - i havent supremely porked up or ignored my hair until it resembles a bunch of non-intended dreadlocks, just that i feel like i need to do some thing along those lines to fill in some odd void i have happening right now. Like taking daily walks and doing half an hour of yoga is going to make me a whole person. Does that sound vaguely ridiculous ?

I know Sheena is saying yes ( watch out woman, i can read your mind ) but to tell you the truth, i think it could go a long way in filling that space. When i was working in the States i went to the gym for an hour a day, at least five days a week. Sitting on a stationary bike, or doing God knows how many tricep dips, or bending my way into Pigeon pose somehow centred me - it was total " me " time and gave me a greater appreciation for what my body could do. Hell, not even just my body - it was my willpower and strength of character that kept me pushing up that imaginary hill , or doing one more set when it felt like my arms were going to detach from their sockets. And there just isnt anything in my life right now thats making me feel that way. Sure, i'm three successful exams way from gaining a technical qualification, but successfully completing an academic course doesnt make me feel the same. I mean, i did that successfully for 18 years of primary and high school education. Sure, i'm proud, but academia is something that always came easy to me. I dont want something thats necessarily going to come easily for me - i want something that i'm going to have to push and strive and fight for, which all sounds rather melodramatic now that i think about it.

Maybe whats missing in my life is drama and adventure and tomfoolery. Tomfoolery - thats such a stupid word. But i digress. Maybe whats missing is some reckless abandon that the Zodiac says i should possess and is just waiting to burst forth. Maybe i need to step it up another notch. Readers of my previous blog will know that my social persona, for lack of a better description, has gone ahead in leaps and bounds of the course of the past 10 months: i've gone from being the girl who went out every weekend but didnt really indulge, just hung with the same one or two people and kind of wanted more, but was just way too shy to try for it, to being the girl who lets people draw smiley faces on her back in permanent marker and lets drunk rugby players lick her face ( hey, as long as he bought me another wine ) and chats to random 18 year olds because their friends told me that they think i'm hot ( damn straight! ). The turn around in my self-confidence has been enormous. So what i'm saying is maybe i need to step it up a notch and be more impromptu - i wana be the one who rings their friends on a Friday night and says " What you doing tomorrow ? We can be in a pub in another state by dinner! " , or who calls everyone and anyone around for a bbq that lasts well into the next day.

Dont ask me how all that relates to wanting to get back into yoga, i only know that the physical and the fun are somehow forever inextricably linked in my mind.....

I am clueless....

A person goes five weeks without the internet and what does she do ? Fucks up the comments settings on her new blog page.... douche. Feel free to comment on the previoous post here.

Or not, whatever floats your boat.

I am so NOT old...

Not that i ever thought i was... but it seems like everyone else thinks i'm getting on a bit. Which i resolutely am not. At all.

Yes, i know it sounds like i'm trying to convince myself of the fact that i'm not old, but its just that i've been pondering at what age one BECOMES old, and surely its not 23? I mean what state is the world in if i'm old ? I plan on living to at least 100 years old for God's sake.... and its definately a do-able ambition. I mean, if we go off episodes of " Futurama " surely i could even be a cryogenically frozen, re-heated talking head if i wanted to .....

What has any of this got to do with, well, anything you ask ? WEll, i had dinner with an old high school friend last night, a Finnish girl ( yes, a girl from Finland ) who was an exchange student when i was in Year 12, and the more we reminisced, gossiped about who went where and who did what with who, the more it seems like Year 12 was a long, long time ago.However, i have come to the conclusion that this seems so not necessarily because i'm old, but because i'm a changed woman.... it seems like a lifetime ago because it kinda is.

But over and above that old chestnut ( readers of my previous blog will know what i'm talking about - everyone else stay tuned for further explanation at another date... ) is the fact that i seem to have a completely different mindset to most of my friends when it comes to age. We're sitting there talking last night and my exchange student friend, and my otehr high school friend we were with are both moaning about how old we're getting, and the fact that everyone else seems to be getting married, or at least partnered up. Firstly - I AM NOT OLD. Even when i am sixty, i will not be old. I firmly believe you are only as young as you feel, and therefore as young as you act. I dont wana be 15 forever, but i dont wana prematurely wrinkle up and die either. Secondly - I AM NOT OLD. Sure, if Prince Charming finds me tomorrow, sweeps me off my feet and asks me to marry him then woo hoo! If not, please refer to the fact that i am not wrinkling up and dying anytime soon and therefore have plenty f time to live it up, party ( ok, maybe on the odd occasion, sleep with ) the wrong people, or the Not Right, But So Good Right Now People, and eventually everything will into place.

Right ?

Did you just touch my arse ?

Its a valid question - so why do those male type persons feel the need to lie when i ask them ? Not that random men are grabbing my rear end every day of the week - but it does commonly occur on a Saturday night. Not necessarily a grab - it could be anywhere from a brush, to a squeeze - but it mainly happens on the dancefloor or pushing my way through a crowd at one of my local watering holes. Now dont get me wrong - i dont really mind my bum being grabbed ( its kind of flattering actually, i mean i work hard for my bum to look appealing .... ) as long as your not too aggressive about it but... why lie ? I know you did it, why not just own up ? For example, i'm on my way to the bathroom, the walk ways are crowded, some idiots are having a freaking hens meeting in the door way so nobody else can get past so i'm kind of stuck in traffic and there it is - a very subtle squeeze of my posterior. I felt it - it wasnt an accidental brush of someones else's hand as they were trying to push past - it was a squeeze ok ? So i turn around and ask the guy sitting at the table directly behind me " Excuse me, did you just touch my arse ? " And what does he say " Umm...uh... no ? " And thats how he said it too - kind of like a question, like he wasnt sure if he should be saying yes or no. And lets face it, i can also tell he's lying because his eyes have gone from my bum ( probably, i mean i dont have eyes in the back of my head or anything ... ) to my cleavage ( of which there was much last night, i was kind of overly boobalicious ). Now had he said yes, i probably would have started some kind of semi-awkard conversation with him, if only for the perverse pleasure of watching him squirm, hoping it might turn into one of those really random pub conversations you tell your friends about; but no, he looks me in the cleavage and then lies.

And, quite frankly, i'm not really into liars, especially those who squeeze my bottom without asking and then lie straight to my breasts.

As promised my luvvies

Alright, here it is - the first actual post in the new blog. Not that i have anything specifically interesting to talk about, but i suppose i should probably fill certain people in about what i've been up to in th epast five weeks.

Firstly - my internet carcked it. Yes, for the lack of a better term, my internet connection died in the arse, and it wasnt coming back. I had very good intentions of having it fixed within a few days however i cam down with some dread lurgy and that blew all my good intentions out of the water. I'm still in the dark as to what exactly what was wrong with me ( i did have some blood tests done but never went back to get the results.... ) but suffice to say it was some kind of nasty virus that kept me away from work for a week. I went four days without eating a full meal ( hey, i lost three kilos in that time period.... yay for illness ! ) and i swear Monday, September 3rd was the sickest i have ever felt in my life ( not including self-inflicted, alcohol fueled sickness.... ). I would have been quite content to curl up on my lounge and die. I did however pull myself together and manage to go to the doctor twice in order to get better. Which i did. Crisis over.

So that was the first week of my disappearance. The second week i went down to Sydney for the very last of my tutorials for my Optical Dispensing course. Do you know how great it feels to get that monkey off my back ? The tutorials i mean - i still have three exams to go before i'm fully qualified - so that monkey is still holding on by his curly tail, but it was really good to have all my practicals off my plate and know that i was that much closer to being completely finished.

Which brings me to the weekend of the 14th - how about i move houses ? Yea, its not like i havent been busy enough, what with vomiting for a week, and driving a return trip to Sydney and spending a good portion of time looking down a focimeter.... i decided to move houses too. Not that it was a major hassle, i was only moving from one side of town to the other, from one duplex to a new one, but i hadnt really packed anything due to the fact i had been dying a slow death and then galavanting around the countryside to my tutorial. Not to worry - the move went well ( ok, i still have a few lingering boxes in my garage, begging to be unpacked... i'm choosing to ignore them ) but the Saturday evening, in the middle of the move, i was off to the 2007 Rhino's Rugby Presentation Dinner. Not quite as fancy as it sounds - it was basically one the local rugby clubs having its end of year function, players, players partners and loyal supporters in fancy clothes - but it was one hell of a good night. What i remember of it anyway.... seriously, that is the drunkest i have been.... EVER. Those rugby-type people are really bad influences - i let one of my friends draw a smiley face on my back in black marker, i let a red-haired, rugby-playing police officer lick my face, i had random conversations with happily married and engaged men ( who promised they werent hitting on me, drunk girl that i was ... ) and i seem to have lost the hour between 2am and 3 am. I'm pretty sure i spent a good portion of it on the floor of the pub bathroom, because last i remember it was around 1.30am, i'm dancing with my friend Shane... and the enext thing i know i'm sitting on the floor in a bathroom stall with a bar staff member telling everyone it was closing time, everyone get out. And i only know it was 3am because thats when the bar shuts so.... yep, lets not speak of it anymore shall we ? Except to say Sunday saw me with the worst hangover in Amy history, the details of which i shall not go into. Just think back and remember your worst hangover EVER - they're all pretty much the same, so go with that.

Umm.... and the following three weeks ? Work, work, and more work, punctuated with a few study days, Saturday nights at the pub, and a roadtrip this past weekend to a small town called Moree. Was a good little weekend away - Moree is sort of known for being a " rough " town but hell, we were from Dubbo, like we care; and secondly, we had a local in tow, so we got stared at quite a bit but never confronted.Had a really good evening with our local host at a place called The Post Office Hotel - but all nights where your drinks are being bought for you are good arent they ? It is also amusing to be the object of curiousity - our host, who happens to be an attractive, single, male in his 20's, admitted to be pulled up on three seperate occasions and asked which one of us ladies he was sleeping with. Classy, men of Moree, very classy indeed.

And that be it. Thats the general gist of the five weeks i have been missing from my regular websites, chat rooms, forums and MSN buddies. Whom i missed desperately, might i add. And now? Its totally bedtime ... i just treated my immediate family to dinner at a local resturant and i am completely stuffed and ready for sleep. Sweet dreams, my pretties.....

Virgin post

Hola readers, of which i currently have zero. This is just a short message to let readers of my other blog that i am now over here - this site seems to have a much better set up and a lot better blogs on it ( shout outs to Sheena and to SonnyandDan ).
Thats it, all for now. I gotta go back to work ( freaking poo to that ) but i promise myself ( well, i wouldnt promise readers, i dont have any ) that i will right something far more substantial later this evening.