How is it so close to 2018 already?

Yes I know its been a while since I have done any updating on this blog, honestly, I’ve just been trying to hold it together these last six months. Coupled with financial strain and I guess a lot of personal stresses with my own mental health and social circles, the second half of 2017 has been a steep learning curve.

What have I been doing you may ask, and funnily enough, I’m asking myself the same question. The short answer is not that much. I finished second sem of uni, and I enjoyed most of it, apart from Torts, which I did find interesting, but I found it archaic and inaccessible for everyday people, who can’t afford to hire a private lawyer and take things to court. Also, the subject was taught poorly, literally 2 sentences worth of feedback on the one assignment we had during the entire semester and the exam was just ridiculous. I wasn’t that prepared for it, but having two paragraphs of facts for four different torts and making students go through negligence twice, is just cruel.

In amongst actual academics; I’ve felt absolutely ostracised at Halls, my grandmother passed away, I’ve ridden in ambulance after a friend self-harmed, I broke up with a boy, my friend’s fathers suicided and felt utterly useless because there are no words you can say, nothing you can do to make it better, a boy dumped me, two close friends betrayed me in ways I didn’t think were possible, I realised that my anxiety existed outside of high school, tried self-harming myself and the relationships in my extended family have completely broken down.

I guess that sounds like I’ve had a tough 6 months, and yes it has, I’m sure people are going through worse but my problems are still real and they still matter. But there have been good things going on in my life, I’ve found the people who stick around when the times get tough, I didn’t fail any of my subjects, I went to things even though I wanted so badly to curl up in bed to avoid the people who were there, I’ve had some life-changing conversations with other people, competed in MUNs and Moots, I got my license, I had two very different relationships and gained so much insight from both, I got a Residential Adviser scholarship for next year, building towards bigger and better things.

Taffy, Natalie, Sana and I at Turner Ball

What would I do without you Clauds.

There are some things I cannot explain this year and I guess one is that is some eerily well-timed run ins with people I used to know, at uni, and reminiscing with them for forty minutes about our old lives and talking about our lives now, and still feeling the same pull you felt towards them you did back then. And driving, I mean, fuck I would have got my license a year ago if I had known driving myself around felt this good. The other thing is Scouts, I should go back and I want to, it’s just hard to go back after your time in the wilderness.

Since uni finished though, I have been sitting on my ass a bit, fgs I made it through the entire of Friends and How I Met Your Mother. Like last year, I am not looking forward to an underwhelming Christmas and hoping that NYE will be slightly better.

Do I have a plan for next year? Well vaguely, but I haven’t written anything down. Off the top of my head, it’s having enough money to live, managing my time better, improving my grades and exercise habits and having more self-preservation- I guess open-mindedness and trust will only get you so far. Vague enough for you heh. My host sister from Aarhus is coming to Melbourne soon, and its whats getting me through the days, I look forward to it every day, I’m tearing up just thinking about it.

Dave, Taffy and I at MRS White Ribbon Night

 

I went to go see Hannah Gadsby at Hamer Hall not long ago, and it was fucking sobering. She just demanded the audience to hear the brutal story that the lightness of comedy tethers in its reins. I mean this in a good way. She’s funny af, but this woman will not be silenced and I applaud her. Also shameless plug to the TV Show Please Like Me by Josh Thomas, it gets me through the hard times.

Anyway friends, as always this is an odd, non-structured blog post, I promise I’m trying to be more positive. Night x

Since I’ve been gone

Yes, it’s been quite some time since I’ve updated my narrative, and I suppose now is a better time than any other, i.e 11.22 at night.

Beachy

Since last time, I moved out of home, I started University, I am shedding some of my skins or perhaps they are just becoming thinner. In short, life happened/ is happening.

I worked two jobs over Summer, actually I think the second job helped me realise how terrible the first one was. I don’t really want to dwell on it, but safe to say I won’t be going back to the hospitality industry in a hurry.

What ultimately drove my decision to go straight to Uni, was my desire to get as much independence from my family as possible. Little Flinders and property for so long have felt like a very stifling and restrictive place for me.

I decided to move into a uni residence, which is great because it’s a max 10 minute walk to class. I’ve met lots of interesting people here in all their tangled glory. It hasn’t all been positive experience, that’s to be expected. I’ve made some intimate, intense friendships with beautiful, kind people and I’ve also lost one due to forces beyond my control. Upsetting but inevitable.

Uni

 

Dine- In

 

As for academics, Law is tough and Global Studies is very engaging but also difficult to pin down.

As the seasons are changing, I am really starting to miss Summer and the endless tan days. The cold, although something that does not bother me, is already wearing a little thin, even though it’s only May. Right now it’s difficult to articulate everything that’s changed, things aren’t resolved clearly in my mind.

I’ve left a lot of the ways I’ve identified behind me, for example, I realised at the end of School that I’d so long identified as a high-achiever that I didn’t assign much meaning to my education without being so. Which quite frankly, really bothered me, I don’t want my self-worth or my who I am to be boiled down to how I perform in institutionalised structures.

Scouts is also another thing that’s changed. I haven’t been to a meeting since December. It’s in one way very nice to be free of Scouting for a while, but lately, I’ve realised just how much of my identity was formed around it and my relationships. I was with some friends out in Healsville, it just hit me how foreign it felt to be without people who had known me for 10 years. I do have a support network at Uni, but it’s very different and needs much more articulation than the one I had at Scouts and at home.

My friend Jess, is leaving on her gap year in less than 2 weeks and isn’t coming back until October. I’m pretty emotional about this because Jess and I have been through a lot, we’ve been best friends for the last 10 years and there’s barely been a week since we met that we haven’t seen each other at least once. At the same time, I’m really excited for her to be travelling. But it’s so bloody scary to think that we won’t see each other for 6 months.

Life without Scouting, which I think is good for me at the moment, has nevertheless left me feeling overwhelmed by the weightlessness of it.

It’s definitely not to say that I haven’t been seeing my friends from vents, but it’s different now, I live in a different area and everyone else has different things going on in their lives.

the bro – the photographer

On a more cheerful note, I have been doing lots of things this year; I went to my first protest, picnicked at a beautiful dam, White Night, watched Circ Du Soleil, had some excellent late night walks on campus, danced until I dropped, participated in Live Below the Line and so many other things that I can’t remember right now.  Enjoy some photos, honestly, I think they’re a better reflection of life over the last 6 months, although I can’t say that it entirely accurate because a lot of my everyday experiences on campus and in halls, I forget to photograph really.

Picnic at the Dam

Demo

White Night- Swanston

White Night Abstract

Circ Du Soleil – Australia Day

I guess it comes with the territory of uni and moving out of home, but romantically, I’ve had a few encounters. I don’t care to elaborate too much on the internet, but I feel a startling conflict between my desire for intimacy and self-preservation. I’m trying not to be so controlling and analytical, I want intimacy but I think so far the desire for self-preservation is winning out. I don’t want to be that person who disconnects from such vulnerability,  but there we have it, I feel like a young Michael from The Cat’s Table.

Anyway, that’s going to be all for now, maybe I’ll have reconciled myself a bit more next time I write (and finished more of my assignments). Its 1am, I’m meant to have a tute in 9 hours (which I haven’t prepared for at all) and to top it all off, I’m going to a Ball with halls friends the same night.

If you’d like to donate to Live Below the Line, the educational charity, then just follow this link. I’d really appreciate your efforts, even $10 can go a long way in changing a child’s educational future.

 

 

Back to Straya

Bushrangers Bay, Victoria

I’m back in Melbourne, bring on Year 12. I’m saying this now mind you haha.

The Ultimate Australian Playlist

Alright so I made this playlist sometime ago, before I arrived in Denmark but I wanted to post it because I thought it was relevant to Australian cultural expression of our values and some of the important issues Australia has and is debating. And of course some of the classics ie. Stayin Alive. Also I figure that I’m really going to miss home.

Power and the Passion- Midnight Oil
Dear Science- Seth Sentry
Working Class Man- Jimmy Barnes
Time Poor- The Basics
From Little Things Big Things Grow- Paul Kelly
Who Can it Be Now-Men at Work
Holy Grail- Hunters and Collectors
The Lucky Country- The Basics
Stayin Alive- The Bee Gees
Four Seasons in One Day- Crowded House
Chase That Feeling- Hilltop Hoods
True Blue- John Williamson
Caught in the Crowd- Kate Miller Heidke
To Her Door- Paul Kelly
Better Days- Pete Murray
Awkward- San Cisco
Trembling Hands- The Temper Trap
How To Make Gravy-Paul Kelly