My Bali Dreams

Two things happened today:

1. We're moving apartments: Will and I are going to Thailand for 2 months to visit our friend Keely who will be moving there in September to teach English. We decided to move because it's just really disheartening to have to pay what we pay for rent at the fabulous place and not be physically present in the apartment. However, we can't move out unless we find someone to sign our contract over to. We'll see how we go.

2. We're going to Bali: In light of all of this 'extra' money we will have available because we will be living in a cheaper apartment. There was an ad in the paper today about this new all-inclusive resort opening up in Bali by Contiki Tours-- an exclusive travel agency for 18-30 year olds. All inclusive for 7 days for around AU$1200. FYI: it costs at least that much just to buy a plane ticket OUT of Australia so, the face that meals, accomodation, activities are included in that price is amazing. Too good of a deal to pass up. When Will mentioned it I knew it was a sign-- a sign that we were meant to go to Bali and have a proper 'romantic' vacation while sipping drinks at the pool bar in an exotic Indonesian paradise.

3. Going to Bali is completely conditional on us finding someone to sign our lease over to, unfortunately.

On the home front: Last night Will and I went to my friend Joeline's house to eat dinner. I thought it was going to be a rather quiet dinner with just the 3 of us, possibly with my friend Samantha too, with a bottle or two of wine. Not so! When we get there, she lets us in and we go to the living room and I see a few balloons on the floor. "How festive!" I say to myself. When we walk into her living room, the light suddenly comes on and just about everyone I know here jumps up and yells "Surprise!". I was so surprised! The 'dinner' ended up being a party to celebrate our 5th year anniversary (which isn't due for a few more months...but any excuse to party is a good one). It was so great. I had already had a few of my favourite vodka-lemon drinks before arriving at the dinner, so its not necesarry to mention that I had a first class ticket to drunkland. The food was fantastic, the wine was good, the atmosphere was great and Joeline even went through the trouble of getting a vegan (yes, I'm vegan now--no longer vegetarian) cake from some bakery. It was just so wonderful. Its time like these when you realise that you've got friends when others go out of their way to do such a nice thing like plan you a surprise anniversary party. Afterwards, a few of us went to Honkey Tonkey to party some more and dance the night away. Good times.

Melbourne is starting to grow on me, I'm going to miss this city when the end of our time finally comes around!

Like an Old Basement

Apparently some of the units in our apartment building are for sale-- ours is one of them. So for the past couple of days some people have stopped by to inspect our place, see if they like it. The process literally takes under two minutes. On Monday I spent a few hours cleaning up the place and making it look presentable. I might as well have not even been in the apartment because no one even spoke to me. Today the same guy came buy with two other potential buyers. They looked around, commented on the fact that is was smaller than others they had looked at. I'm sure there isn't much difference between the apartments here, they must all have the same hideous red fake leather furniture and inappropriate lighting.

One of the guys who came to look at the place smeledd like an old, moldy basement. It must have been the older guy. It was as if he hadn't been 'used' or 'opened' in a long time.

That Back to School Smell

So today was my first day of school again. I've been in school for at least a decade and I still get that butterflies-in-my-stomach feeling. As if I've never been to school today. I can tell this is going to be a good semester and it's semesters like these that make me love being in school. I have two units this semester, both worth 12 points (24 points is the max per semester): Spanish Studies 8 and Language for Special Purpose. Four good things happend today:

1. My financial aid came today, all at once instead of in bits and peices with strings attached.
2. My course packs for both units cost under $20 total

3. Spanish Studies 8, an undergraduate translation unit, had a total of 4 students, all girls, including me. And none of us are Australians! Oh, but next week one of my friends will be joining us and she's half Chilean, half Spanish born in Australia.

4. Language for Special Purpose is all girls and only has 7 students. Even better, after the lecture we have have tutorials according to language pairs. I'm the only Spanish speaker in the class, so I get my own tutor to discuss my translations with. How great it that?

I had class in a new building today, the Law building. I always pass in the way the my usual building, the Menzies. Inside, there seemed to have been some sort of party going on, possibly some beer pong and beers. Did you you know Australian universities aren't as uptight about alcohol at university sponsored events? You can serve beers right on the green in the middle of campus and cook some sausages on the Barbie (BBQ). There is a German Club on campus, I'm sure they drink beer whenever they can.

Good-bye wheels of goodness

It's been 48 hours since I've been vegan. I'v been vegetarian for 5 years now and I've evolved alot since I decided to become vegetarian at 18. 18 is a late compared to other vegetarians I know, but when was the last time you met a vegetarian Latina? I have yet to meet one. I'd still be a meat-eater had I not discovered a book on vegetarianism in my highschool library during one of my many lunches spent there. I opened it up and flipped through some of the pages. "You mean I can actually choose not to eat meat?" Well, I decided to become vegetarian because I wanted to be cool. To whom, I have yet to figure that one out. When I do things that I think are cool, it's rarely to gain approval of others. Fast track to first year of uni 8 months later in Spain, I found myself in an non-vegetarian-friendly cafeteriea where my meals consisted of oranges, bread and butter, orange-coloured mystery soup, french fries and the occasional egg. Needless to say I encountered the freshmen -10. Fast-track to the end of the semester in Belgium where I saw a documentary on how animals get butchered- quite brutally.

I spent my first two years of being vegetarian, eating heaps of cheese sandwhiches, pasta, frying the hell out of food and eating gummy candies. Somewhere along the line I've made the connection with the neatly packaged animal flesh at the supermarket with those round disks they sell at Hungry Jack's inbetween bread with the animals that once roamed in the fields. I find meat repulsive and I just don't think that an animal should have to die because I want a quarter-pounder with extra cheese. Who really knows why animals were put on this earth, but I personally think that it wasn't for me to do what I wish with them. They weren't put here to give me eggs, to give me cheese, to give me milk. I think that if I had my own chicken, which at one point I did, I'd eat its eggs, but only when it layed them. But I think eggs are gross even thought they taste good, I think it's like eating what grows inside the womb. What have I done for them lately?

I don't object to others eating meat or being non-vegetarian. I'm don't impose my beliefs on anyone, just as I don't want any Christians/Catholics/Jesuits/Methodists etc. knocking on my door asking me if I reckon I'd like to live in a world where lambs and lions play together in peace. No thanks. Plus, never in a million years would a lamb want to play with a lion. You can tell right there that they're trying to sell you lies. I have a story about those Scientologists. That'll come later, for now I'll just tell you that if you're ever walking down Newbury Street in Boston and you see someone standing in the street giving out 'free' personality tests, walk the other way.

Just do it.

No, really. It's ok.

So, I guess I've been in a somewhat pouty mood lately. I didn't get fired from my stupid job, so things are fine really. I've been in a really nostalgic mood the past few days. Just thinking about things I did when I was younger or things that have just happend in general. My favourite memory of today was finally 'winning' a ribbon in a contest. When I was younger, elementary school through 9th grade, I was really into track. I was a pretty fast runner, that was my thing. I ran. When it came to other races like, egg races, sack races, two-legged races, balloon squashing races, I never won anything. Plus the general atmosphere of such races is just good carnaval-fair type fun. If you win you jump up and down, if you lose you still smile and have fun. I remember once I had won a ribbon for placing in a two-legged race with my younger brother Aleksy. We got in 4th place but still got a ribbon. I was sooo excited when we crossed the finished line that I threw my hands in the air, as most people do when they win or get excited about something. When I threw my hands up in the air to cheer at myself, I realised that that was the first time I had thrown my hands up in the air like that. When I would run races, I always expected myself to win and I did, so there was no excitement in that. I just remember trying to 'fit in' with everyone else at the finish line by showing my enthusiasm for the event. How weird I felt, how weightless my arms felt. I had always imagined that when one threw their arms into the air, they were somehow supporting the weight of the air and heavens that had always existed in the area above their heads. When I told Will this story his reply was, "Poor girl...". I don't know whether that was sarcasm or pity, I think it was pity though.

I throw my arms up in the air now at the slightest bit of excitement or enthusiam these days and it is usually accompanied by a "Yeahhhh!" and a small jump. That way it seems like I actually am pushing the air up. I think the mistake I had made that day years ago, was that I had both feet firmly on the ground when I through my arms up. Naturally, that would feel quite strange. I had it all wrong I realise.

Taking a Step Back

I decided that I would take a step back and re-evalation my 23 years of life on this god-forsaken planet- just to make sure that I'm on the right path, to make sure I'm doing everything in my power to avoid the 1/4 life crisis. It's not just a myth, you know.

The first big decision I made (deciding to move in with my mother when I was 15), all by myself, was one that I regreted for a long time. But then I had another opportunity to un-regret that decision (I moved back with my father in Costa Rica). Little did I know that I was escaping the heat of hot desert, only to jump straight into the flames of hell. Yes it wasthat bad. I escaped a world which revolved around my bastard of a boyfriend, the guettos of Miami, girls with potty mouths, weekly police raids and descriminiation because I 'talked' like a 'white' girl (read: educated and a vocabulary that expanded far beyond using f*ck as a verb, adjective and adverb). I lost some of my innocence or naivety when I moved with my mother, by the way. And no, it's nothing to do with anything sexual. But little did I know I was entering a world, much, much worse. A world without friends and freedom, academic competition, promiscuity (of my classmates that is) and MAJOR depression because of those things.

Had I stayed in Miami, I'd have made my mother happy but would have slowly killed myself inside by staying with my long-term machista boyfriend who was slowly but surely making sure I was reduced to the size of a grease spot on the kitchen wall. Had I not chosen to go as far away as possible for college, my past might have followed me to Europe.

Had I not made the decision to leave Miami, moved to Costa Rica, only to move far, far away to Spain a year later, I wouldn't have met William B. Smith. In the blink of an eye my past was erased.

Re-evaluation and evaluation:
1. Lived, worked and studied in Spain for almost 3 years
2. Had the best couscous ever in a small village deep in Morocco (probably in Fez)
3. Purchased a $350 SLR camera and 'forgot' it on a bus to Valencia a few months later
4. Got stranded in Valencia because all trains and buses back to Sevilla were booked until the following day
5. Spent a month in Leuven, Belgium visiting a friend I hadn't seen since 4th grade.
6. Completely forgot how to speak the English language while sitting in a hotel room in Amsterdam. Enough said.
7. Wandered around the red-light district in Amsterdam at 3am looking for the 'bad guys' who sell treats to strangers, just to see if they existed.
8. I moved to Australia without giving it a second thought
9. I pretended to be Brazilian once, at a club, and people believed me.
10. I've been to a rave in a suburb of Madrid, that was built to resemble a castle but had a volley ball court outside....

If I would have decided that after graduating from Northeastern with a degree in Art, that I was just going to go out into the world and find a job, next year when I turn 25, I know for a fact that I'd all of a sudden myself lost and depressed in what they have coined to be the quarter life crisis. "What am I doing? Where is my life going?"

After evaluation my life and what I've done, I've come to a quick realization that I don't have TIME to have a quarter life crisis. My life is booked straight through 2008. I don't know exactly where I will be living until then or what I will be doing, but I do know that it will be some where remote where I can take bucket baths under the stars and eat millet cakes for lunch or somewhere deep in China where you have differnt slippers for entering each room of your house and it's forbidden to share fruit with others.

Did you know that in China you aren't supposed to share fruit with others because it's bad luck? Imagine!

The Weakest Link

Apparently that's me. I was asked to "not come in on Monday so that I could take a long weekend". I was instructed to give them a call Monday afternoon. I was just so tired today. Will and I stayed up until 2:30am last night planning our futures for the next 3 years. Apparently that didn't fare to well with the big bosses because I was asked for a second time "if I was having problems understanding the question" because I was working very, very, VERY slowly. Come on! You have to be an idiot to not understand that if the answer is "A" then B, C and D are wrong. Of course i understand the question, I was just too tired to work any quicker. I hate this job so much, the only reason I need it is to buy my ticket to Thailand.

I may soon be unemployed again. Darn!