"the world sucks, everyone's out to get me"

most of you know that i'm a pretty positive person, in fact the other day, in the pub, someone described me as aggressively positive! i just can't stand it when people spend all the bloody time moaning about how much life sucks and that they can't possibly have a good time doing anything...ever. so many people out here (not naming any names) have a very hard done by attitude to life. it's depressing and there have been times when i've found it just a tad too hard to bear. i mean i love a good moan as much as the next man but 24/7 whining kills the mood slightly. especially if those people then complain when for once i might mention that i'm not entirely happy about something...grrr!!!

but enough of that...

i reckon it's about damn time for another update of the holiday variety, so here goes it:

happy new year

so after a christmas with milly, i headed off to the mountains with thommo (one of the teachers i've become good friends with). his parents live in lithgow which is in the blue mountains, so we trundled off to see them. then after a few days of blustery winds and lovely home cooked meals we headed off on a long journey to nelson bay to meet his partner ann-margaret. we stayed with her dad and were no more than 15 mins from the beach. pretty cool i think you'll agree. on the way up thommo and i stopped for some lunch and at the time i was, well desperate (an understatement) for the loo. on aussie freeways there are very few garages and therefore the potential for a regular toilet break is limited. thommo had been making all sorts of comments about water, toilets and that sort of thing, so i mearly suggested in passing that if i could just let loose on his sheepskin seat covers in the jag! that shut him up for a while, you have no idea how long he spends with that car...so finally we reach a roundabout and what do i see before me but none other than about 20 portaloos all lined up where they're offering free tea! as i look longingly out of the window at them, thommo says 'no, we're not stopping'!!!! i nearly cried! but little did i know that there was in fact a servo around the corner where we stopped to get lunch. we pulled in and found a parking place and he hadn't even switched off the engine and i was out of the car and running, nae, sprinting across to the toilets. relief at last!

the rest of the holiday was uneventful...nah, only kidding!

for thommo's birthday we went over to a lovely little pub and drank lots of wine and on the way back i saw my second lot of dolphins. new years eve...the three of us drank 3 bottles of strawberry champagne between us, then we went to the pub...it was an awesome night with LOTS to remember! so here goes...

we went to the beach to sit and watch the fireworks at 9 and drank said champers. we then decided to move off to the pub, of course...this was the start of the 'events', let's call them. as you may or may not know, or may not even want to know, i've never had a boyf on new years eve, so have never had a proper new years eve kiss. as this is a year of new things, i decided to try to remedy this! we got to the pub and drank vodka, lime and lemonades. thommo nipped off to the loo, but that's not all he did...when he came back some minutes later, grinning to himself, i thought the queue must have been long or something, but no, oh gosh no. about ten mins later i felt hands on my waist and a rather hot guy swung round and tried to kiss me! thommo and ann-margaret were pissing themselves laughing at i wasn't entirely sure what the hell was going on! i had some chewing gum in my mouth and nearly choked on it and pushed said hot guy away. he was so mortified that he left and when i went to talk to him (well, apologise would be more accurate) he was pretty much the colour of beetroot! i felt so sorry for him, he must have had some real balls to come and talk to me. anyway, we continued to dance to an awesome band that were playing in the pub and at about a quarter to 12 we walked back to the beach and watched the fireworks. it was an amazing night. i don't remember exactly what time we went home, but it wasn't until the wee hours of the morning...

so there you go, nearly up to date...ish! more to come, see you all in 3 months!

sweet home alab...i mean essex

(cue large toothy grin)

i've booked my flights home. i'll be back on the sunday 3rd july at 6:35pm, but no doubt i'll be sleeping for the next day! it's weird coz now that they're sorted out it's made me not want to leave. i suppose because it's much more final/organised i've realised that i actually am leaving and that it's not too far away! ah well, can't wait to see everyone again and we'll have a big partay when we're all back together.

in other news...paddy's coming to visit me in 2 weeks! i'm so excited! just before people come to visit you realise just how much you've missed them. it'll be fantastic to sit in the pub in orange and talk about all sorts.

rightyo better be off, got work to do you know!

it's my life, but not as i know it

i had one of those strange awakening moments the other day, when i realised that i was actually in australia and i was well and truely installed in the life of a gappy. yer yer yer, it's taken you over 7 months to realise it! i hear you say. ha! says i. my life is very different, or is it? i had a rude awakening of how different people's lives can become...

i got a letter from a friend of mine who i used to go to school with in year 6. liz hurr, if any of you know her...anyway she moved into her own flat in L6th and then decided to leave school half way through U6th. wow for a start! then she phoned me up and told me that she was moving to america to live with her mum! anyhoo, i heard nothing from her for ages then she sent me a letter just before christmas. she's moved in with her boyf! good for her i reckon. but it brought home to me just how much lives can change. she's the same age as me and yet her life is so different to mine. here am i still 'in school' and she's out in the working world at a ski resort and in a hospital. amazing how lifes can move apart...it was only 7 years ago that we were in the same class and planning out our lives. but there you go, some of you lovely lot are out learnin stuff at uni and soon i'll be right there with you. then once the 4 uni years are over, which will go pretty quickly i'm sure, i'll be off and in the real world. i'm going to try to come back to oz for a while after uni to visit everyone and to see the bits i didn't see. after that it'll be my life for the taking.

i'm loving this year so far, there have been moments of extreme depression, but they pass sooner or later. i've only got 4 months to go so i'll be back amongst you before you know it.

well better get on with life in this place. i'm in tech today and have lots of important jobs to do...

see ya

the crimbo craziness

what do people love better than a mass gathering with friends and family and having a good time together? this is an account of my first hot christmas...

crimbo oz style

being a hobo at christmas people took pity on me and i was invited to no less than 3 different people's houses for the festive time. one of the girls in year 12 invited me over. milly is an awesome person and has replaced everyone as the m8, but only out here(!). so anyway i went to hers. She picked me up on christmas eve and we went out to her new property (her dad's grows olives and farms cattle). she'd asked if i could help out with the hay stacking. not to put too fine a point on it, it was bloody hot, around the late thirties. now this wouldn't be too bad if i hadn't been out in the sun all day and doing physical labour. we had to drive round the field and a sort of conveyour belt picked up the bales and then the people on the truck would stack it. i started on the back of the truck, but as there were two much more experienced men doing the job i thought i'd go down and keep milly company in the truck. it worked much better like that, coz i was just getting in the way (yer yer yer, as usual i hear you all cry). the only thing was that it was about 10 degrees hotter in the cab! so once the truck was full we'd take it over and take the hay off it and stack it back up in the hay shed. i went back the other day and appreciated the quality work!

eventually when we had finished and milly had nearly fallen off the top of the hay from exhaustion, we set off for yass, where we were staying.

later that night after a well earned shower and a meal of prawns (mmmm) we settled in for a night of fun. i have no idea how much i drank, only that whenever a new bottle of white came in we all had a top up! it was really fun, i learnt the nutbush (a stupid dance along the lines of the macarena or something similar), although i did suffer for it ever so slightly the next day...i was so ill (EUGH!). when i got up in the morning, christmas morning that is, i felt ok, had some orange juice and sat and chatted for a while, at which point i decided that a trip to the loo might be a good plan. the prawns made a reappearance...as i said, very very sick...

after the, ahem, cleansing i felt heaps better and was able to have brekkie and continue as if nothing had happened. it was a really nice relaxed day, we opened presents. i actually got some! the obviously thought i wouldn't be getting anything or felt that it would be strange for me without anything. anyway the point is that i had stuff to open, they were so nice to me. it was still strange that i wasn't wearing as many layers as i could. we still had the full cooked dinner, i just couldn't eat as much as i would usually, which doesn't say much really.

milly and i had long chats about everything and how annoying her older sister is, which we still do now. it was great fun. luckily they had airconditioning, so it wasn't too hot inside thankfully.

that was pretty much it really, came home to recover and ended up leaving for the beach the next day! but that's another story...