Everything I Know...

FINALLY he's moving out. He being my housemate's boyfriend who moved in for the summer and has now found another place to live. I'm incredibly happy about the fact that I'll be able to walk around the apartment in my underwear again and it will be nice to be able to watch TV/cook dinner/read a book without having to witness them sucking each other's face off. My boyfriend and I will once again be King and Queen of our castle.

In honour of this momentous occasion, which I will from now on call "The day I got my apartment back" I have written a list of rules for couples who co-inhabit a 2-bedroom apartment.

• If you are cooking pasta, only one of you needs to be in the kitchen. Seriously, boil water, put pasta in boiling water, heat sauce, serve. This is a one person job people. Sure, it's cute to cook as a couple, but when someone else (me) is trying to prepare another meal and there is little bench space it can get a wee bit annoying having to dodge the half-naked people who are pawing and stroking all over each other.
• Anything from the belly button down is considered pubic hair so stroking this area for him while watching Futurama is definitely a no-go. On that note, stroking his chest hair in front of me is pretty fucking disgusting too.
• Yeah, we have a ghetto download limit on our internet, so don't be downloading every episode of the Simpsons, especially when you're not paying for it.
• Eat with your mouth CLOSED. Both of you.
• When we offer your friends a beer and they drink the lot, you should probably be the one to replace the case. And when, on the rare occasion we drink some of your beers don't even dare whinge about it.
• When you invite your friends over, don't just leave them in the living room trying to make awkward conversation with me so you can both go into the bedroom to fuck.
• You're not as funny as your friends so stop trying.
• I hate your music so don't play it so loud that I can hear it in my room with the door shut with my music on.
• Wear deodorant.

Oooooh, zing! I could go on and on. I'm a bitter, bitter woman.

Well, being an Aussie, I don't get to celebrate Thanksgiving. I have the worst holiday-envy about this.

Now, I know America celebrated Thanksgiving months ago and I know that it involves people detailing what they're thankful for that year. And I know that it involves turkey. A lot of turkey.

***On a side note, my first day in the States was in New York. My friend and I were starving so we go to a bagel store ("A whole store just for bagels?!") and order a bagel with turkey on it. In Australia, you order turkey and you get 1 slice, maybe 2. So the guy hands over my package containing the bagel and I almost drop it from the sheer weight. It had so much turkey on it. Like 12 slices! I was in turkey heaven... I had to take most of it off. Couldn't wrap my mouth around it. Oh, but it was goooood***

Aaaanyway... in honour of Thanksgiving and my holiday envy, I'd like to incorporate the same sorts of ideas into our favourite holiday (well, the only holiday we don't have to share with anyone else) - Australia Day. Here's a list of the things I am thankful for:

1. My pretty apartment with wireless internet. It's nice and new and clean. It is also great for entertaining, with a courtyard and BBQ.
2. My gorgeous boyfriend who makes me laugh a million times a day.
3. My brains - without which I would be most likely to be married to my high school boyfriend (he was older and oh so cool) with 5 children.
4. My mum and dad for putting up with my shit and not asking me to pay them back the $1000 for a course I started, but will most likely never complete.
5. My sister for being not as smart as me so that my dad introduces me as "the one who went to university" He says it like that - the whole word university. I'm so the favourite daughter.
6. My job. I have a job - so I've got to be thankful for that right? Right.
7. My pantry stocked with food. I've lived the life of a destitute uni student a few years ago and am very very very grateful for 3 square meals I get each day.
8. My Apple iBook. Nothing more to be said.
9. Shows like Grey's Anatomy and House. And One Tree Hill (let's keep that last one to ourselves shall we?)
10. Summer fruits - raspberries, grapes, nectarines, plums, peaches, watermelom. MMM-mmm.

And what is a blog post without a bit of Australian whinging...
1. My whinging, whining neighbours. Especially the one who posted, yes posted me a letter telling me that I'll "pay for my innaporpriate recycling", because our recycle bin was full, so we stuck a few things in theirs. Apparently something had my address on it and apparently my neighbour can read. Dude, it's garbage!
2. This freakin' weather! Is it warm or cool? rainy or dry? windy or still? Make up your mind mother nature. I go on a weeks holiday on Wednesday and I need some sun!
3. My job sucks. I hate it.

So, I know that Australia Day was days ago, but this is something I've been thinking of lately...

Last night I came to the realisation that I don't belong to the 'Club Scene' as much as I used to. Sure, I love to dance, I love the music and I love to drink. But that doesn't mean I love how the clubs turn off the air-con to make you thirstier, and I certainly don't like the 18 (read: 16) year old girls wearing short denim skirts with 6-inch heels standing there looking like they're above dancing with the guys... and don't get me started on how I don't love the guys who come up to you with a friend and say: "Have you met so-and-so?" Thinking it's cute to introduce your clueless fool of a friend is NOT cool, nor will it get you or your friend laid - not by me anyway.

So by midnight last night I was more than ready to come home, wash the sweat and smoke out of my pores and veg on the couch watching B-grade sitcoms. I've always been the party-chick, the one who can out-last, out-drink and out-dance all of my friends. However lately I've been too tired and more or less over it all. I think it's just the clubs we go to here, they're always the same old everything. Which is why I'm psyched to be heading overseas next year. Looks like it will be a toss up between Canada and Europe now, but I can't see why we can't do both.

So anyway, this weekend went by fast, as usual, but I've only got a short week at work. I'm taking Thurs and Friday off to head down to my parent's place and soak up some sun.

Great Wasn't it just? I love having a public holiday in the middle of the week, it makes my life just that little bit more bearable.

Today I will be sampling wines in my region on a hen's party. It should be a good day except for the fact that I've never met the bride and her sister is a girl I work with. So basically I'm tagging along with a bunch of strangers...

Then tonight my best friend's boyfriend is celebrating his birthday - his 21st! - oh, so young! So we'll be partying like rock stars. He's a DJ at the club we go to and will be doing a 2 hour set which should be good (as much as I tell him I don't like his music).

Tomorrow I hope to buy a new camera to replace the one that I broke a few weeks ago. It was my boyfriend's and I was taking pictures at a party. The stupid and most annoying thing about the whole thing is when I dropped it, I was sitting cross-legged, on carpet. I swear the drop was only about 30 centimetres, but it caused $300 worth of damage. Can you believe that!? So I figure I may as well upgrade the camera for a few extra hundred dollars.

So that's it! That's my life this weekend.

Phew! Did you think this week would EVER end? It dragged it's sorry ass the whole week and finally Friday is upon us. Next thing you know the weekend will fly by and we'll start all over again.

Y'know, I walked past two men talking yesterday, and the only thing I caught one of them say was: "....yeah, life's too short..." It made me think. Am I the only person who feels like life just grinds on? I hate my job and the hatred I feel for it is overrunning my life. I adore my weekends and evenings socialising, but more and more I think to myself "There's got to be more to life than this."

Enter: My Boyfriend

"I was thinking... maybe if I don't get any work this term we could go overseas and I'll teach for 6 months in England"

Oh.MY.God. I have been waiting 2 years for those words. Up until now he's been luke warm about the idea, whereas I've picked the seaside town where I want to live, researched jobs, checked out night clubs in the area and I've even picked a local football team for him to play on. Now that he's shown interest, I'm looking at booking tickets.

Perhaps it was just a passing comment on his part, but I've picked it up and I'm gonna run with it. I went out today and bought a gigantic map and European Lonely Planet book. I'm going. And I think I'm going with or without him... but hopefully with him.

I'm not sure if it's a reflection of myself, but I've Googled everyone I know and hardly any of them achieved any major search results.

I know NO important people!

I'm a little bit everywhere in my mind at the moment. I've been talking to a good friend of mine who is planning on quitting his job, but also needing money to travel. Bit of a catch-22 situ, right? On one hand - do you stick out a job that you despise for an undisclosed amount of time in order to make enough cash to do something so you can be happy, or do you quit what you hate to do something that you love, hoping that it just turns out.

There's a lot to be said about hope. Aristotle, in his wisdon said "Hope is a waking dream." I truly believe that life without hope is bleak and uninteresting. As a child and even now I have these grandiose desires to just run away one day, leave everything behind, start a new life in an exotic location...

Tonight I watch Before Sunrise. It is basically a movie about taking a chance, being strong enough to take a risk on somebody. The main character, Celine, at one stage says: "If there's any kind of magic in this world, it must be in the attempt of understanding someone, sharing something. I know, it's almost impossible to succeed, but... who cares, really? The answer must be in the attempt.

I've decided on a new New Years Promise. Embark on an adventure to meet and get to know new people.

...am I allowed to wear a dress made from the Australian flag on Australia Day or would that be blatantly "Aussie" (read: racist against non-whites)?

I'm proud of my flag and am in no way racist or -ist in any way (ok, maybe I'm -ist against bad budgeters - but that's my job) so can I enjoy Australia Day draped in the flag that I grew up believing in or should I be ashamed? The images of the troublemakers wearing the flag like a superman cape and shouting racist slurs have tainted the experience for me...

Maybe green stretch fabric with yellow marabou feather trim is the way to go - oooohhhhh yeah! Green and gold baby, green and gold!

Oh, I'm not pregnant, but we've been talking about it all evening. We'll fall pregnant at the same time, I'll have a girl, she'll have a boy and they grow up being best friends and when they're 15 they'll realise that not only are they best friends, they're in love with each other as well. Then they'll get through high school virginally (this is not negotiable) and then go to uni together, the girl to study engineering and the boy will become a doctor. They'll marry and produce for us three grandchildren, all exceedingly cute.

Ok, so we have totally planned this out jokingly, but seriously - how COOL would that be?!

One thing we agreed on (while watching "Wifeswap") was that our children would have respect for us because they actually DO respect us, not because we have forced it upon them. We're going to be cool mums (not in the sleep-with-my-teenage-son's-friends type of way though)

Oh, and we're not allowing toy guns in the house. Full stop.

Will ever be able to describe this.

None.

While looking back on 2005, I realised I didn't really acheive a whole lot of meaningful stuff.

I managed to increase my pay packet, but to do that I had to sacrifice a really interesting and career based role to take up a boring and monotonous government position. So my number one resolution is to find a job that I LOVE and can be passionate about (few extra $$$ wouldn't hurt either).

I still ache to my very core to travel again and the good news is that it could actually happen in 2006 or, if not, I'll at least start planning a big trip for 2007. So, my second resolution is to start planning.

I've had a few health problems this year, and have had to take a fair amount of time off work. So my third resolution is to get myself healthy (that includes getting fit).

I'm 24 years old - nearly 25 and I've only just realised that I am it. I have to do this and nobody else will help unless I ask them and show them I am helping myself.