Here's the deal sparky: June 2007

wellll.... I uni is officially over. i officially only have about three weeks until i have to move out of my house and onto my friends' couches. and i offically have less than two months left. so so scary/sad/crazy. I'm not in the least bit ready to go home, i really do love the life i have created for myself here - and the thought of saying goodbye breaks my heart.

Here are two pictures of me and my four best friends.. my four rocks.. the four people here i couldn't function without. They were both taken at Mahalia's 21st birthdya party:

(Left to Right: Bel, Katie [/Tools], me, Chloe [standing in the back], and Mahalia)

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

I have been spending a lot of time lately reflecting on my time here, and both the way i have existed within the space around me, as well as the way i have changed over the past year. In the process i ended up typing out a really really long rant about my current head space and my thoughts on leaving. I wasn't going to post it in here... but i guess i will. I realize that i have posted millions of pictures, and typed out quite a few stories... but i dont know if i have ever actually articulated my feelings in relation to this new world i have found myself exisiting within. So, i am going to post the rant here. Again, it's just a ramble stream-of-consciousness -- but i owe it some of you. Especially those of you that have helped make me coming here possible. so here we go... a long winded rant:

I've been feeling quite scattered lately. I think it's because my brain is trying to be in too many places at once, and absorb too many things at once. it's starting to dawn on me that i have literally under two months left. I mean, let's not get ahead of ourselves. the actual physical process of packing up, going to the airport, and the specific moment where I have to turn away from my group of friends, and walk into security in order to fly 36 hours.... has not yet become a concrete reality.... but the fact that i'm officially on the clock is in fact very very real.

Leaving is something that’s on my mind as of late, and it’s definitely one of my largest fears right now. It just doesn’t seem real. How could this world… this life… that I have created for myself, how could it possibly only be temporary? I mean, (hopefully hopefully hopefully hopefully) the friendships will hold on, but just the fact that I wont exist in this space seems completely and totally ridiculous. This is my home. It’s taken ages for me to get my feet on the ground, and finally I feel like I understand where I fit in. I’m not just a floater, I have developed relationships that have changed me, and that I cannot imagine having not had earlier in my life. I have met people that I have not only learned a ridiculous amount from, but who I honestly and truly care about and love… who I feel protective of, and who i want to continue to explore my relationships with. I feel like I’m being cheated of time with them. I mean, you know when you look back at pictures and you remember how you related to someone at a particular moment in time? And as you think about that relationship, you realize how much you have grown and come to understand each other in a stronger and more honest way? Well that’s how I feel when I look at my pictures from here. I know that there is still so much of a future between me and the people I know here, and I hate HATE HATE that I’m not going to be able to explore that in the way I want to… at least for a while… at least unless I’m able to find a way to get back here… or they travel or something.

I’ve never really experienced this before…the feeling of literally having no idea when I’m going to see someone again. It’s so so so terrifying. Usually I leave someone and I know I’ll be back the next year… or the next summer… or the next winter break… and we’ll be together again… but I just don’t know now, and I hate it. And while I have to tell myself that everything happens for a reason, and that the world isn’t as big as we make it out to be, and I have so many more years a head of me, and you just never know where you’re going to end up, and we live in an age of e-mail and facebook and myspace and messangers and text messages……… but even so, that’s obviously not the same as physically being with someone. Physically sharing experiences.

And it’s also hard because I miss people back home like crazy too, and I also know that there are more experiences to be had with them as well... and I don’t want to make it seem like i’m wanting one over the other. I really just want my cake and to eat it too. That’s what it comes down to. I want everyone I love to be in the same space… and yet separate.. because worlds colliding stresses and weirds me out.

Lately I’ve been finding myself taking a step back (and I’ve attempted to explain it to people but either it just doesn’t come out right… it sounds ridiculous… or it doesn’t make any sense)…. But yeah, I’ve just been finding myself taking a step back as I’m talking to someone and just suddenly realizing – I’m in Australia and I’m talking to someone I could very very very easily have never known existed. But they do exist, and I do know them, and I know details about their life that only friends know, and I am part of their life, and I always will be in some way – even if it’s just like “you remember that American girl that was here a few years back….?” – and it’s just a really amazing feeling that apparently cannot be articulated in words at all. It’s just a feeling of…. “Wow… life is amazing.”

I mean, when it comes down to it… Australia was never ever a place I thought I would go. It was always just that place on the other side of the world….that seemed too far away to even think about. I definitely think I only really realized that it was actually physically possible for me to come here when I was at that abroad fair and they suggested UTS. Suddenly it was like, “whoa… I could go to Australia (?!?!?!).” It had never even crossed my mind, and it was a serious –realization- --as strange as that might sound. Honestly, that fact that it WAS a –realization- is, I think, one of the reasons I chose to come here. I’m not the kind of person that has a specific location in mind that I just HAVE to go to before I die or I wont have LIVED. So, I realized that a place existed that I had never even considered going to…and it just had to happen. And it did!

So anyway, yeah… I dunno, I guess feeling such a deep connection to Sydney is kind of intense for me. I don’t think I’ve ever felt this specific way towards a place before. I mean, yes CPC is a place that means a lot to me… as is SLC… as is Oak Park and Chicago… but still nothing quite compares to Sydney – and I’m sure it does have heaps to do with me basically restarting my life and building it on my own.

I guess it all comes back to an intense feeling of being ridiculously lucky:

I’m lucky I met the right people.
I’m lucky they let me into their lives.
I’m lucky they wanted to get to know me.
I’m lucky they wanted to show me aspects of their lives that they don’t show most people.
I'm lucky they placed as much trust in me as i placed in them.
I’m lucky they took the time to understand me.
I’m lucky they wanted to spend time with me at all.
I’m lucky that I felt comfortable enough with myself to put myself out there week after week.
I’m lucky that I’m strong enough to endure rejection and intense loneliness.
I’m lucky that I didn’t let my downs outweigh my ups.
I’m lucky that I allowed myself to be affect by my surroundings.
I’m lucky that I was given the opportunity to venture out of my comfort zone.
I'm lucky that i allowed myself to be always open to new experiences.
I’m lucky that I was able to figure out a way to stay for an extra month.
I’m lucky to have developed friendships that made me determined to stay.
I’m lucky for the one on one time I have experienced with so many people.
I’m lucky for the nights I have spent with large groups of amazing people all of whom I considered friends.
I’m lucky to have had a familiar face greeting me when I arrived in Sydney.
I’m lucky that I was able to share half of my experiences with Amanda.
I’m lucky to have been put on my own and therefore forced, for the first time in my life, to be somewhere on my own.
I’m lucky that I now know that people exist in the world who I connect with but who I don’t know yet, and I’m lucky to have met some of those people.
I’m lucky that I was able to create a life for myself across the world.

I’m lucky to be here at all.

But again, I’m not forgetting that I have a wonderful life back in the states with amazing people and fantastic experiences – and a part of me is absolutely looking forward to coming home and continuing that life there (I wish I could say ‘resume’ but we all know that a year has gone by and things have changed…). I’m excited for my 5 days in LA with Desiree. I’m excited about coming home and seeing my parents, Mo, Maddie, Emily Hanna, (<-- or whoever is still around), Emily Sugrue, my neighbors (Kim, jenny, matt, and the kids), and if I’m lucky the SLCers who are in Oak Park – Caitlin, Emma, and Matt. I’m excited to maybe be going to CPC for three days, or if that doesn’t happen, those 3 weeks or so before I head back to NY. I’m excited about NY too! Living with Caitlin, Matt, Jel, Erin, and Allison right nextdoor to Amanda, Jillian, rosie, and Daniell. And chill sessions with Emma and Justine. I’m determined to meet up with Justine (C.R) in the city this year. It’s going to be amazing!

But the thing is… I guess right now…for the next two months (and probably longer)… you are just going to have to put up with my intense romance with Sydney. My desire to experience and recap any and all experiences I have with Chloe, Katie, Mahalia, Bel, Maddie, Poppy, Elena, Marie, Beck, Anna, Nick, Gemma, Shorty, Anita, Karola, Joan Mariee, Emily, Emma, Megan, and many others – because I want to remember as much as I can.

alright rant = over. and now back to picture show and tell.

here are just some random pictures of some of the people mentioned above from Wed nights out:

anita and me @ the Newtown Hotel

Bel DJing at the Newtown Hotel

guess who!

Emily and me

Joan Mariee and me -- her hair was so intense that night! haha!

Katie and me

my favorite picture of bel and me

Me, anita and bel

Bel and me bein' pretty.

quiet night in with Chloe and Mahalia

So few weeks ago a friend of mine (Gemma) invited me to go on a random adventure with her. She had a car, and so we jumped into it and just started driving with no desitation in mind. Here are some picture from that experience:

Gemma at our first real stop - a nasty beach off the side of the highway.

Cookie (our partner in crime) getting dirty in the sand

Cookie getting cleaned up in a shower we came across

Gemma attempting to dry Cookie off after his shower

and then we happened across a market. at one stand they were selling two swords for two dollars:

a few blocks later we came across a REAL beach. Manly:

we drew in the sand: "Italian Bunny"

"Where is the Sunset?"

Random photo: how i felt during my final weeks of uni:

well uni ended and what happened? IT GOT RAINY! REALLY REALLY RAINY! The way Sydney has looked for almost 3 weeks straight (my roof and the view from my roof):

Broadway

That globe thing in the distance (towards the top right corner) is the top of the Broadway Shopping Center

brrrrrrrrr! so cold! so cloudy! all the time!

well even with the bad weather a certian speciall occasion still continued at usual-

PHOTOS FROM MY 21st BIRTHDAY:
a night called Cherry at Slide on Oxford Street on the night of June 10th -- Pirate themed: