Resume building ...

Once you graduate from college there is no going back to add extra extracurriculars. In Oz I was the International Student Representative on Student Council, State Women's Officer for a National Student Organization, Editor of the student mag, and a volunteer at the Koala rescue center. I'm not tooting my own horn but rather trying to show the vast gap between Oz and here. Besides a full load of classes, 20 hours a week of work at minimum wage, and trying to keep my sanity - I had no extras (and frankly no time for extras). But ... in the interest of resume building, and because its probably a good thing to do, I joined Habitat for Humanity on campus as the secretary. Here's the irony, I tried so hard not to take the minutes at the SRC, inevitably it fell on my shoulders every once and again - as the Secretary minutes and records are my main task. HASSAHHH!

If you can physically "toot your own horn" I'll give you a dollar.
(must provide video or real life proof . nonrefundable . nonredeemable . nontransferrable)

Dream deferred ...

Have you ever had a dream that was so strange it stuck with you all day, made everything tweek just a bit. Its not necessarily a bad dream, or a negative effect, its just that everytime you let your gaurd down - it comes back to the scene from your minds eye.

Last night I dreamt I was shot 9 times, the bullets were longed in my midsection. I felt myself get shot, I felt a stinging feeling for the whole dream. It was a compilation of the house I grew up in, the classes I have today, members of my present and past family and actors. Yeah - tell me thats not strange, how do you get Adrian Paul and Jimmy Falon in the same setting? I remember intricate details about everything, having to drive myself to the hospital after dropping my sister off at school, a hunting store that doubled as my politics class, being on a train with several other people showing them that I had been shot and telling them I was running late. I made reference to assignments I had due today. It was all quite surreal - but the strange part - the one face I can't remember is the man who was sitting in his dark blue old muscle car who shot me.

But I guess thats one for the cosmo's to figure out. This past weekend was a bust: I didn't get as much study done as I would have liked, Levi didn't come visit and we didn't go to Sig Ball, and I spent Sunday ill. The cars haven't yet been sorted out, classes and work are still progressing, and to state the obvious - life goes on.

Status quo ...

So gay they wouldn't let it play with the other kids ...

http://www.progressiveboink.com/archive/appalachian.htm scroll down and download .wmv

This is a promotional video from Levi's school - Appalachian State University. The video was deemed so bad that they wouldn't even use it. It is so funny it was featured on a VH1 televisoin show about Funniest Internet Downloads. You have to have sound!

Where are you?

Answers to the question - Where have you been?

5. I was a political prisoner - I spoke out against the horrors of speedos.
4. I lost my nationality and had to go find it.
3. I was here, where were you?
2. I went to a place that is perpetually scorching hot ... oh and then I went to Australia.
. . . And the #1 answer is . . .
1. I was playing Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego - the Travel Version.

Feel free to add some to the comments section and I will put them in the list :-)

Axioms for today ...

1. Everyone has a photographic memory. Some don't have film.
2. He who laughs last, thinks slowest.
3. Those who live by the sword get shot by those who don't.
4. On the other hand, you have different fingers.
5. Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.
6. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say will be misquoted then used against you.
7. I wonder how much deeper the ocean would be without sponges.......
8. Honk if you love peace and quiet.
9. The 50-50-90 rule: Anytime you have a 50-50 chance of getting something right, there's a 90% probability you'll get it wrong.
10. It is said that if you line up all the cars in the world end to end, someone would be stupid enough to try and pass them.
11. You can't have everything, where would you put it?
12. If the shoe fits, get another one just like it.
13. Shin: a device for finding furniture.
14. It was recently discovered that research causes cancer in rats.
15. Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

Media whore ...

I hadn't realized when I left the US two years ago that the media here was so self-obsessed, don't get me wrong there are a vast number or anchors and presenters that aren't (ok maybe not vast) but the major networks - its so different to the media in Australia. The media here are more concerned with graphics and sattelite images, music and tickers, that the actual information gets buried. I have to weed through the human interest stories on Witchita Kansas to hear current national news. Although in the US's defense there is a much larger population and much more competition in the market. The personalities of each presenter override usaful information they might be providing. I have given up - now I just read Reuters and AP online.

We had 6 channels in Australia - and I thought NBN was bad. HA!

Work widdle work work ...

So if I didn't already mention I work at a library, the College library - so its quiet, my schedule fits in around my classes, and its close to my building. But because its so lax, I have plenty of time to think and ponder and stress.

The car being broken is upsetting and debilitating. I am not sleeping well because I can't leave campus, I haven't gone for a drive up to the blue ridge mountains yet to clear my head. I haven't gone to study in the local park or had a chance to visit friends in the region. This weekend is the Ball, either you ridicule it or you look forward to it all year - unfortunately for my sanity I fall in the latter category. But I'm not going, I have 5 options of shoes I could have left back home and a dress that I won't find any other sane reason to wear. Worse yet - that means that I may not see Levi for another month, if even then - thats if the car ever gets fixed. Considering the longest we have been apart in the last 2 years is 6 days (and that only happened once) - its frustrating to say the least.

My integration back into the school social structure is more unbalanced than I imagined. Don't think me a fool - I did not expect everyone to sit on their hands and wait for my return, or even to reserve my place in their circles - but I am finding that I have to reestablish the heirarchy within my social circles to make room for myself again - a taxing process.

Other than the general "culture shock" school is the same, quizzes, tests, essays and eventual exams. It still hasn't snowed and I am not getting my hopes up that I will go sledding this year at all.

This forum is mine to vent fairly anonymously - for whatever reason, its great procrastination.

sputter sputter kick kick ...

Well my car is currently the largest frustration pustual in my life. There is something wrong with my shiny Ford Probe. The car runs like a dream, the gears shift, the gas mileage is a relief - but it doesn't want to move. It will shift gears but when the engine says go - the car doesn't. So its getting looked at on Monday (hopefully) to figure out if the transmission is gone or if its just some silly little thing near the transmission (like a pump). If it needs a new transmission, thats $2500, for a car that only cost me $500 - I think not. What makes things worse is there is no public transport in Boone NC, so there is no alternate way of Levi getting here next weekend for the Signature Winter Ball. My last as I am a Senior, the only other I went to was my Freshman year so this was actually going to be the fun one. I can't drive down to get him, which means all bets are off. I was actually looking forward to that light at the end of the tunnel - well we need a new bulb.

I will just bury myself in work and try and distract myself from the matter at hand.

Why exactly do we need to feed online pets?

My neopet died because I forgot to feed it, my livejournal got dusty because I never wrote in it. I find myself back at school, sedentary for the first time in over 2 years and needing a new outlet for my grand schemes and mental notes. "I'll wait for you in Baton Rouge" is a lyric from Counting Crows Goodnight Elizabeth, the current inspiration flowing out of my mp3 player.

To give a quick synopsis of life up to this point - I am a college senior in Virginia USA. Only a few months ago I arrived back from 18 months living in New South Wales Australia. Before that I spent 6 months living in Limerick Ireland. I had a life here before I left, I pressed the pause button and hopped the nearest tugboat across the Atlantic. Australia was only supposed to be a taste, I never expected to stay for 12 months of overtime. I never expected to build a life. I gained friends, comrades, love, a history, and a future in that place - but I couldn't stay forever. Little known fact, you cannot have two lives on pause at the same time. I had to choose, to give up friends and my independence to backtrack and press play on a "me" whose shelf-life had long since past.

I missed my family in the US, I missed my friends in the US - but with all that came a past I had no filter on. Starting over in OZ meant that I controlled how much people knew about me, how much they knew about the life I had. It also limited the number of embarrassing stories that they knew - unlike my sisters, but I guess that is there job. I was anxious to get back though - to see my family, to help my family - to fill my new neices and nephews with sugar. I missed the country where I wasn't always first identified as a foreign object. I actually missed the people who knew all the dirty details but I knew would never use them against me.

I now cannot choose - I don't think I can do another 2 years not watching the kids grow up, not being there for the friends who have waited patiently for my promised return. I can't leave everyone high and dry again, communicating to most of the people I care about over the phone lines and vast internet cables.

I have until December (but realistically June) to decide where I want to be in my life. If I choose the US I risk loosing my 6'3'' Australian souvenier when his visa expires. I risk loosing the strongest love that I have felt .... well, ever. If I choose OZ I have to give up my family, the kids that I look forward to playing games with, and the friends that I laugh with - again. I also inevitably give up part of my indentity that resides in the embarraring tales and back story of my life. Now for the kicker, if I stay I have to give up my Australian friends, that I laugh with, my friends kids, who I look forward to playing games with, and a surrogate family. I cannot be in both places, stretched as thin as I possibly could go I cannot reach across the continental US and the pacific ocean. There is no fair way to decide.

Since I cannot have both, the options are opening up for me to have neither. I have been looking into a carreer working for the US government in Germany and across Europe. Its actually exciting - realizing that I am eligible for good careers that I am interested in.

- - - I value both of the lives I have built, everywhere I have been, most everyone I have met: my history and my future but now I am searching for where my destiny will take me next.