procrastination

true story: i always update when i have the most homework to get done.

thanks to anzac day i've had a FIVE day weekend... and yet here i am, late tuesday afternoon, already planning on waking up at 4:30 am to finish my essays. typical.

life has been so unexciting in recent weeks that it's nearly painful. in the span of a couple days, my living plans for next semester fell through (meaning i will be spending my EIGHTH semester in a dorm-style residence. just kill me.) and i found out that studying abroad is a no-go. needless to say, i have been in an absolutely horrific mood the past bit.

i think i mentioned in my last post that i joined choralfest. it's sort of a joke, but i've met some cool people. i also made the decision to start a 2-week game of mafia at college. i invited about 30 friends on facebook... and a couple hours later, over 50 people had rsvped "yes." i ended up having to cap the game at 100 people in an effort to avoid a complete organizational nightmare. i've actually met SO many people through it and people are getting really excited for it. i think the boys are going to get pretty into it :) some of the assassination assignments couldn't be any funnier... so i can't wait to witness them. "you must kill ________ with a handful of glitter in the toilet." somehow a game revolving around fake killing has at least partially pulled me out of my funk. haha don't know what that says about me...

it's hard to be stuck in college when i feel like i could be spending my time on far more important, fun and exciting things. life made me so happy last year--i was ecstatic to wake up in the mornings. i'm learning that elation like that is hard to recreate when my life has fallen into a monotonous cycle of worksheets and gossiping. i keep telling myself that i only have two years left, but at the moment that feels a bit similar to "forever." it's been over 2 months since i've been on an airplane... which i think, actually, is longer than i've gone in the past year. my brain has been set on the "next destination" mode for so long that it's going crazy trying to segue into the "right now" mode. it's like life claustrophobia. i think maybe i'll go to melbourne for a long weekend, if for no other reason than to change things up a bit. i'm also going to see if i can get a position volunteering a couple hours a week with an organization called "radio lollipop." depends mainly on how far away the hospital is by public transport and if i can get a blue card. hopefully it'll all fall into place!

i know this post makes me sound ungrateful, but i definitely am not: i have an incredible life. it's just hard to compare it to those glimpses of pure bliss last year where all the things that were supposed to matter did and all the things that weren't didn't even cross my mind. it's unfortunate that you have to be a college grad to join the peace corps.

HA!! someone's take on australia.

blah

so the other week i realized that the freshers here were still in middle school when i first started at CC.

that should pretty much sum up how i feel about life at the moment.

birthday came and went. we pretended it was my 21st, got dressed up and headed to a beautiful bar on the river. got lots of free drinks, which is always good.

spent a few days at stradbroke island over easter. went on the worst dive of my life (lost contacts, not enough weight, then too much weight, lost buddy, gagging into my reg, skipping the second dive due to insane sea sickness), but enjoyed some amazing star gazing and beaches. also randomly had my tarot cards read at a hilarious little market, where i was told that i would live happily ever after and have eternal sunshine. those were a lot better than aaron's; she was told that her mom would die, she'd break both her legs and lose her job. hahaha.

classes are busy and pretty pointless. they're really easy, but it's hard to stay interested in topics that have absolutely no relevance to the real world and/or are covering topics i learned in fourth grade. "what is a noun" was honestly one of the lectures in my class. college life is wearing me down--lots of stupid drama and teenage angst.

i suppose i should've known that there would be no way to top the past year. i mean tanzania, fiji, director of edina's tennis program, spending some amazing time with a beautiful boy, being with incredible friends 24/7, working at an aquarium, germany, holland... yeah, definitely impossible to beat a year like that. just makes it that much harder to come crashing back to reality: dumb classes, obnoxious, immature, self-centered people, and trying not to get peer pressured into destroying my liver every weekend. i honestly do not believe the people who thought college was the best years of their life.

my flawless plan of studying abroad for a year won't be happening anymore, so now i'm just busy trying to find a nice apartment and get the heck out of college/university as fast as i can, all while filling out worksheets about commas and semicolons and reading about sociological theories from decades ago. i'm also trying to wrap my head around the fact that i'll be in the same city for an entire 3 years in a row. it just seems so... boring. confined. uninspired. take your pick.

i would happily give up drinking champagne at fancy bars and meal plans for going back to our electricity-free huts in fiji or the massive bug infested guest houses at peace house. it's unfortunate that volunteer programs in cool places are so ridiculously expensive. if i won the lottery, i think i'd just head back to africa or someplace else and volunteer forever. if the whole lottery thing doesn't work out, maybe i'll just pull an "into the wild" and head into the middle of nowhere... minus the deathly shrooms/dying in an abandoned school bus part, of course.

and oh yeah: i signed up for college choir and attended a hillsong church service, which was a bit ridiculous. we skyped with an entire congregation and people read the bible off their iphones. and there was a worshipping mosh pit on stage. over 43000 people attended a hillsong easter service, just to give you a sense of how big it is.

just remember: not all who wander are lost.

splashing through the sand bar, talking by the campfire, it's the simple things in life like when and where. we didn't have no internet... sippin' whiskey out the bottle, not thinking about tomorrow, singing sweet home alabama... catchin' walleye from the dock, watchin' the waves roll off the rocks, [he]'ll forever hold a spot inside my soul. we'd blister in the sun, we couldn't wait for night to come to hit that sand and play some rock 'n' roll. --kid rock

if you hold on to the handle, she said, it's easier to maintain the illusion of control. but it's more fun if you just let the wind carry you. --storypeople

highs and lows

the past few weeks have definitely not been my finest time at UQ. i'm not sure whether it's due to an incorrect dose of thyroid medicine or the fact that d-day is rapidly approaching (23rd birthday... which means i will be SEVEN years older than some of the students here) or overall dissatisfaction with mean girls, drama and excessive drinking, but i am ready to just hurry up and graduate and do something more meaningful with my life. most people revel in routine and the comfortable--i'm learning everyday that i could not be more opposite.

on a high note, classes are going substantially better than last semester!! it makes me sad to know i most likely won't spend my career out scuba diving anymore, but in the present, graduation actually seems like a possibility now that chemistry is out of the picture! whoooooo! i'm taking a cool creative writing class and a wayyy less cool "fundamentals of writing" class, but i have an amazing tutor. it's a lot more daily work than last semester, but one of my finals is writing a short story. pretty sweet.

on another high note, an american exchange student, an english exchange student and i just booked tickets to spend a week in new zealand in june! thank god... it had been a while since i was plane-ticket-less/upcoming-destination-less and it was making me severely crabby. we're flying into christchurch, renting a car and hoping to get in snowboarding, hiking around milford sound and... well, we'll pretend for my mom's sake that we won't be skydiving. hot air ballooning and street luging are pretty high on the to-do list as well. you only live once, right? i'm trying to convince aaron, another american girl, to spend a long weekend scuba diving and sandboarding with me on stradbroke island during our mid-semester break at the beginning of april. all i know is that i need to get out of brisbane for a while or i'll go completely insane!

i'm still trying to plan out what i'll be doing during our "winter" break in july. hopefully a job will materialize soon (yet another low of the moment... have spent hours job searching to no avail) so i can fund an adventure of some kind that does not involve teenage girls and union college. i was searching online and found a volunteer program where you live on a sailboat in greece and track dolphin pods. i've realized that prostitution and/or drug dealing may not be beneath me if it means getting on that sailboat :) i was really hoping that i could do 2 more semesters at UQ, then a year abroad and then finish my last here, but i just found out that i have to stay here for a total of 2.5 years before i can study abroad. that's 3 semesters longer than i've been anywhere else, so it seems a bit daunting.

this week is crazy busy with lots of assignments/papers due, college idol on wednesday night, dinner with carolyn on thursday and going out for my birthday on saturday (we're pretending i'm turning 21), but hopefully that will be enough to distract me from the gutting email from the study abroad office and unemployment woes!

'i watch the stars from my windowsill. the whole world is moving and i'm standing still.' --the weepies

'she told him that she believes in living bigger than she's living now, but her world keeps spinning backwards and upside down... she said he said live like no tomorrow. every day we borrow brings us one step closer to the edge. where's your treasure, where's your hope if you get the world and lose your soul?... life's more than fame and rock and roll and thrills. all the riches of the kings end up in wills. we got information in the information age but do we know what life is outside of our convenient lexus cages?' --switchfoot

oops

i've been terrible about updating. life is pretty standard at the moment. classes have started which are keeping me INSANELY busy. writing is definitely easier that chemistry (as in, i don't feel like vomiting every time i have to go to class), but it's a lot more daily work. some of it is pretty stupid (we're learning how to use commas) and some is challenging, but so far it feels better than anything math-related. i'm also taking a really cool sociology class called "human bodies, society and culture." last week's lecture was about tattoos, piercings and body art. some of it was quite disturbing. in fact, i think it's convinced me to never get another tattoo or piercing again. (i can hear my mom cheering from here). i mean, labia piercings? ARE YOU SERIOUS?!

anyway, i will post some pictures from the past couple weeks. red week (first week of classes) was spectacular. conor came up... down... over?... i don't know geography... for crommie bunker: back to the future. very entertaining.

me, meagan and izzi at crommie

hot glasses, hey?

hot mess.

some of the new (and returning) americans at dunder bar

getting ready for ladies night at dunder

i'm back.

well, i'm back in oz. i ended up skipping sydney and heading straight to brisbane, where i spent a few days with lisa, a friend from scotland. she managed to keep me awake the entire first day and even cooked me a delicious dinner!... so i think jetlag has been pretty non-existent. the 3:30-4:30 am wakeup calls have more to do with the horrendous time difference with holland than still being on MN time :)

yesterday was move-in day... SO hot, humid and rainy. ugh. i opened up my boxes to find that a brand new pair of heels (worn once!) were covered in mold. it was pretty disgusting. but my room has been kate-ified, so i'm feeling a lot better now that i'm not living out of a suitcase. my hall consists almost entirely of aussie guys!

classes started today but i have the world's best schedule. no classes on mondays or fridays and my earliest class starts at 10! yeah, pretty amazing. i've spent the day finishing unpacking, running random errands and checking items off a monster to-do list.

it's both good and strange to be back. i thought i missed the boys while i was in MN, but it turns out that is only a fraction of how much i miss them now that i'm back. there are hardly any international students living in college this semester, so it feels really different than it did last semester.

as much as i love oz, it feels like my heart is stretched pretty far across the world at the moment. my grandpa is in the hospital after a major heart surgery, where he's been now since before i left for school. he's surrounded by family... so part of my heart is there. my very best friend for the past 6 months is in holland, so part of my heart is there. and everyday i can't stop thinking about tanzania and the kids at peace house. a very large part of my heart is there. this week at college is "red week." in other words, an event has been planned every single night so we can all go out and get wasted. it's definitely fun, but it doesn't fill my heart up like singing and dancing and pretending to play netball with the phs students did. i can't stop missing it.

hopefully once classes start and i settle into a routine, i'll become more content with just letting myself be fully here now. if nothing else, i have a break in july that i can go adventuring in :)

we got older and i should have known (don't you feel alive?) that i feel colder when i walk alone (oh but you'll survive). so i may as well ditch my dismay (bombs away). circle me and the needle moves gracefully back and forth. if my heart was a compass you'd be north. risk it all 'cause i'll catch you if you fall wherever you go. if my heart was a house you'd be home. --owl city

slow down

calm down

don't worry

don't hurry

trust the process. --alexandra stoddard

best year ever.

one year ago today, i was spending my first day in tanzania.

life has been such an adventure since then. in the span of one year, i've gotten to safari and volunteer in africa, scuba dive in fiji, pet kangaroos and bbq on the beaches of australia, snowboard in germany, and visit some of my favorite people in the netherlands. i've been in craters and oceans and lived on a private island. i've met people from countries i didn't know existed and seen some amazing things. i've gotten to work at an aquarium where i feed 7 ft. sharks and 350 pound turtles.

i am so blessed. i've also learned that there is no point in sitting back and watching life unfold without you. dream big, extravagant, silly, wild dreams. and then do everything you can to chase them.

it is very strange to be heading back to UQ, but i'm actually excited. this will be the first time since september 2004 that i've returned to the same school after a summer vacation. this is epic, folks! i'm changing majors and my best friends are gone though, so despite being in the same location, i know it will be like starting over again. as cool as it is to be friends with people around the world, i'm learning that it can also be very difficult. time differences, expensive phone calls, and expensive plane tickets might make having world-wide friends more fun in theory than real life. it's definitely emotionally taxing to be in a perpetual state of missing people who live thousands of miles away. if only i could win the lottery, life would be perfect.

1 week and 1 day until i'm headed back down under on a one way ticket. unsure of when i'll be back stateside. i'm in the process of trying to figure out study abroad--yes, i can study abroad from abroad! i'm thinking india or south africa. my mom is thinking... canada? i'll probably end up someplace in europe within the next year or two, which wouldn't be too bad either :)

i'm still trying to plan out my first few days in OZ. currently i'm scheduled to fly into sydney and spend thursday-sunday there. the big draw is that the gay/lesbian mardi gras parade happens to be on saturday! hundreds of thousands of people from around the world fly in to witness what's been ranked as one of the top 10 parades in the world to see. however, i might be interested in flying into brissy a couple days before classes, getting settled back in and hitting up the beach for a few days. we'll see!

time to start packing... always an adventure. this time i will NOT spend $400+ in shipping and i will NOT spend $400+ in excess baggage fees! sheesh. i should've just bought a friend a ticket last time and had them check my bags!

and when i'm not with you, i know that it's true that i'd rather be anywhere but here without you... --safetysuit

leap and the net shall appear. --zen saying

...and maybe when a person doesn't buy the lies anymore, when a human stops long enough to realize the stuff people say to get us to part with our money often isn't true, we can finally see the sunrise, smell the wetness in a Gulf breeze, stand in awe at a downpour no less magnificent than a twenty-thousand-foot waterfall, ten square miles wide, wonder at the physics of a duck paddling itself across the surface of a pond, enjoy the reflection of the sun on the face of the moon, and know, this is what i was made to do. this is who i was made to be, that life is being given to me as a gift, that light is a metaphor, and God is doing these things to dazzle us. --donald miller, through painted deserts

...set out with big dreams running through her mind... she was jumping right into the deep end on a leap of sweet, blind faith. it's about hoping, it's about dreaming, it's about never not believing. it's about taking a walk out on the wire and never looking down. it's about living instead of dying. it's about spreading your wings and flying. it's all about trying. --little big town