Ebb and Flow

This past week has been a week off. But don't worry, friends, that doesn't mean that it's been a boring week. On the contrary, I have quite a bit to talk about in today's installment. Hunker down ladies and gentleman, boys and girls. There are many fun and exciting stories to tell if you care to listen in.

The week's events have been like one big carousel that always stops at my ICS huge, enterprise-level website project that I've been working on. It's seriously a beast. I dunno how we're gonna get this done. I dunno how, but we are. I'm gonna get tons of shit done tomorrow for it so that all I've gotta do next week is testing and CSS work, and then all of us together will build the main servlet for the backend. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, all we need to do now is get there.

I know that all flew over most of your heads, but it's been a quintessential part of my life for the last several weeks now, so . . . it goes in my blog. Tough noogies.

Another stop on this whacked-out ride is the constant pain in my left foot. I . . . really don't even know how it started. Tuesday night my left big toe just started hurting. It felt like a cramp, so I assumed that's just what it was. A cramp. A boring, happens-all-the-time cramp. I went to bed and the next day it was still bothering me. It wasn't so much the toe as it was the underside of the knuckle of it, like right on the side of it toward the inside of the foot. It hurt so much I couldn't walk on the area. My friend Jane figured that it was probably a good idea to get it looked at if I had trouble walking on it, so she kindly offered to drive me to the La Trobe Medical Center.

The doctor looked at it and he deduced that it was probably a bruised nerve in the metatarsals, or maybe a swollen piece of bone. Either way, the diagnosis was metatarsalgia. The prognosis? Keep off it. It'll go away. Well, gee, thanks Doc, that was $50 well spent. I probably would've ran on the treadmill for an hour if you hadn't told me that. Something tells me it's gonna take awhile to heal because, well . . . I've gotta walk around. Now I've got a limp, and it's funny cuz I can't limp around without reminding myself of House.

Speaking of which, this week's episode was stellar. It's been awhile since the real humor of that show has been brought to bare, and it was firing on all cylinders. I love how the writers know to use all that humor as a way to break down the audience's defenses so that the touching moments in the story don't have to be over-the-top to be effective, like the one at the end. If you've seen the episode, you'll know what I mean.

While the limp has hindered my mobility slightly, I have not let it hinder my headlong pursuit of Grace. Thanks goodness because, even with a slight setback on Thursday (I'll get to that), I feel like this could really be going somewhere.

Before I really get into the goings on between us this week, I'd like to take a moment or two to wax emotional. Ok, I've had crushes before, but I haven't been this seriously hooked on a girl since high school. She's just *really* cool. Everyone I talk to always says the nicest things about her, she's beautiful, smart, motivated, and most importantly . . . I think she sees me for me, and actually likes that I'm a nice guy. I just can't get the girl out of my head you know? It's at the point where if this doesn't happen . . . yeah, it's gonna suck. But not at the point where it'll suck so much that'll it'll take days out of my life. Everyone I've talked to about this (that being limited to Jane, Sarah, Emma and James) also seems to think that we'd make a good couple. Decide for yourself:
Even I have to agree . . . that's the kind of picture one could put on your mantelpiece or in your office.

Anyway, so, last weekend, before she and almost everyone else who lives on campus took off for mom and dad's we were talking about when we met at the Intercollege night and how it sucked that the only picture we had together featured Rowie giving me bunny ears. She said that we'd definitely have other chances to get a better picture. I figured this was kind of hinting at the same fact that I was hinting at: that I wanted to hang out again. Out of nowhere she mentioned that she was coming back to campus to work her shift at the library on Thursday and that we could hang out. This was looking better all the time.

Fast forward to Wednesday. I was chatting in main chat . . . when all the sudden she starts chatting there, too. I PMed her, bewildered. Turns out she decided to come back a day early because she was bored at her parents place. Later on that night a group of us got together to go out and get some groceries and some beer and stuff. It was Harsh, Sarah, Ashy, Grace, and I. Now, I had some inklings that maybe Grace liked me. So I was paying very close attention to what she did and said.

So let's start keeping score, shall we? Sarah and Grace come over from Glenn in Sarah's car. Sarah is in the driver's seat . . . Grace is in the back. This is pretty strange, but, as usual, I get the bitch seat, so I'm sitting right up next to her. Could she have planned it that way? Maybe. More than likely wishful thinking, but to early to say either way. Either way, I'm sitting about as close as one can sit to a person and during the drive over I make her laugh and giggle several times. I'll count these all as positives.

We get to the supermarket and all pile out of the car like clowns. I limp along and Grace stays right there by my side. She knows Ashy and Grace, but only met me once. I figured that I would've had to go over to her, but no. We walked from one closed grocery store to another open grocery store, and all the while she just stayed right there with me, walking side by side, talking and laughing and getting to know each other. I count this is a big positive.

The next thing I pick up on is much more subtle. We walked in to the supermarket. All Grace and Sarah were there for was alcohol. I was there for a few non-alcoholic items. These involved us going in separate directions. Now, everyone knows this little hard-to-describe moment. It's that moment when you're talking to someone you want to stay close to and keep talking to, and they have to break off suddenly and go somewhere else. And it catches you offguard. But you don't want to be caught offguard, so you overcompensate for it. You know what I'm talking about, I know you do; we've all done it. Well, she pulled that little double-take as I broke off to go get groceries. This is another positive.

On the way back we're in the backseat. Grace volunteers for the middle this time, and I'm on her left and Harsh is on her right. Harsh, Grace, and I are all little enough to sit fairly comfortably. However, I notice that you could fit a whole arm between Harsh and Grace, yet Grace is sitting so close to me her elbow is more or less in my lap. Whether a conscious act or not, it's a good sign. Another positive.

We all got back to Chisholm and decide to go up to tower one where Harsh lives, and Ashy more or less has adopted it as a home, so we'll say it's where she lives, too. I had plans to work hard on my ICS assignment tonight because I thought I'd be spending the evening hanging out with Grace the next night. So I make it known I'm thinking about heading out. Protests all around. Grace not the least of which. She wants me to stay awhile. I count this as another positive.

The final one is something that is also very subtle. At one point I got up to go to the bathroom. I came back, and Harsh is sitting where I was, as the table has shuffled a bit. Now, on the bench, there's an empty seat at the end, Harsh, and Grace. The empty seat is the obvious choice to sit, but Grace slides over a bit anyway to make room. I didn't wanna seem ridiculously obvious about liking her, so I thanked her and just sat in the obvious place. But this is another positive.

So that's no less than 7 positive signs in one night. That ain't half bad. At this point, I think it's pretty clear that we're more-or-less keen on each other. But I want this to happen naturally. We're still feeling the situation out. But here's the kicker: we're still on for tomorrow night. Even better, Ashy, Sarah, and I are gonna go bug Grace at work, walk her back, and then we'd all hang out and have a quiet little drinking party. PERFECT. A spark or two flew on Wednesday, then on Thursday I'd strike while the iron was hot, so to speak, and it would have been the PERFECT opportunity to let the deal seal itself naturally, with both of us on the same page. Or at the very least get a lot closer to that goal.

Then Ashy had to fuck it all up.

This girl . . . I just don't like her anymore. She's just an attention whore. No, she's just a whore. Or at the very least a sex addict. In any case, she decided it'd be a good idea to use her MSN name to broadcast to the world how much sex she wasn't getting. It started "4 days". And then she'd continue to count up. Like, 4 fuckin' days without sex was the absolute end of the world, and each day afterward the MSN message would unveil a new level of agony about not getting laid that day. It's repulsive. Desperation is a foul-smelling perfume. I'm reading this and, just as I delete her from my MSN out of pure disgust (because I simply don't wanna read that shit anymore), I think to myself: "And I messed around with this girl?!? What the FUCK was I thinking?"

Case in point, as I write this, she posts this in main chat:

[04:54] lahdidah
[04:54] s
[04:54] e
[04:54] x

Any questions?

You're probably wondering to yourself how Ashy managed to sabotage this for me. Sarah, Ashy, and I are sitting in Sarah's Glenn flat at about 9 at night. Downstairs are 5 guys I don't really know playing poker. Apparently, one of these guys is the latest guy that Ashy wants to fuck. I know this because Sarah keeps teasing her about it. Anyway, so, at about 9:30 we go to the library. We bump into Grace and embarrass her a little, then wait outside like good little soldiers for her to get off work so we can all follow the Yellow Brick Road home.

Ashy is complaining about her stomach being full of alcohol, meanwhile. As if that's anything new. Catching Ashy sober is like catching George W. Bush being eloquent. She's a tank, though, and she'll pull through.

Up until getting back to Glenn, things are going great. Grace looks beautiful, as usual. She's walking close to me. She notices my limp is still there and asks about it. Showing concern is always a good sign. Not that I was really trying for the sympathy vote but . . . hey, if you got it, flaunt it, right? Grace heads back to her flat to change and stuff after work, and we tell her to meet us at Sarah's in a bit and we'll hang out and drink lightly and just have some casual fun. Ashy starts cutting up cheese and tomatoes and laying out crackers on plates. And I think it's nice. That's a cool thing to do - good for you Ashy. It'll make things cozy, and that's always nice when hanging out with close friends, the desire of one or more of them to be more than that notwithstanding.

Here's where Ashy fucks up my night. She grabs this stuff, and then announces that we're going downstairs. She doesn't ask us our opinion of this. She doesn't bother waiting for the guest we just invited over. Hell, she doesn't even bother to ask the guys if they want people interrupting their poker game. But that doesn't matter. Ashy's got an agenda (or, more appropriately, a libido), and she's in charge.

So I begrudgingly follow behind Sarah, who follows Ashy, who no doubt follows the scent of fresh prey, and we unceremoniously barge in on the poker game. Doogie, the only guy I know and have only met very briefly, once, looks less than amused. The other 4 default to indifference because we came with food.

Here's why I have a problem with this scenario, other than the inherent rudeness. I am already a little more tipsy than I'd like to be. That's my own fault, I mixed my own drinks a tad too strong. But now, I'm uncomfortable. I'm around people I don't know. I'm in a place I don't want to be in. I don't even have a fucking chair to sit in. I have to find some comfortable way to sit on the ground without putting any real weight on my foot. And I'm pissed off at Ashy. A long story short: I'm not in my element. This is no way to wax romantic. I'm also uncomfortable because, while I know Grace isn't interested in her in the slightest, Doogie is sure to hit on her.

Basically, this is the situation where one starts to panic about things not going right, and tends to overcompensate as a result. I just felt all my cool and confidence draining out of me. I won't walk through any more details because there's really nothing left to say. Other than a good picture, nothing happened. The flame of the night before was allowed to dwindle, but hopefully not die. Although she did offer a hug when I left.

I'd really like that to be the end of the story, but it's not. After we all go to our respective homes, Ashy PMs me in main chat on DC. She's kinda drunk, kinda lonely. She wants to come over. Now I . . . I have no doubt in my mind about where she's going with this. But I let her come over anyway. Why? I don't know. Maybe I just wanted to see if I was right, give her a chance to exonerate herself of the slut label. Maybe I wanted to see how my willpower would hold up. I don't know. And it doesn't matter, either way, she came over.

It started much like the last time. Lots and lots of hugs. Long, elaborate ones. I simply stood there and tolerated it. I didn't offer the hugs, I just hugged in return. Then she sits me down and gives me a massage. I hate to say it . . . but fuck was that a good massage. Seriously, she could've just sat there and did that all evening. And that's the mindset she wanted me in. Because shortly after that . . . she started making out with me. At first . . . I went with it. Hey, it's been six months since anyone's even touched me - I'm allowed to enjoy the attention no matter who it's from or why I'm getting it, even if only for a moment or two.

You'll be happy to know I did slowly come to my senses and handled the situation very diplomatically. I very slowly just stopped returning her advances until she got the hint to go. And I sent her packing. No more was said of it, nor do I think any more will ever be said of it. It would have been so easy just to throw all cares out the window and just say . . . to hell with it. But I didn't. Adult life isn't about the easy path. Nothing meaningful ever comes with ease. The struggle is what gives meaning. And I wasn't willing to do this without meaning. Never mind the fact that she's the one who ruined a night with someone I've struggled for.

The good part, though, is that I already know that how much Grace likes me could be a moot point. I'm leaving in 2 months. It may simply be that Grace isn't willing to get involved in a relationship that has an expiration date. Neither am I, really. But she's worth the try. You never know what can happen in two months. You just never know.

But even without her . . . there's still hope. I have a lot of friends here who all say that not only them, but the people they know that I've met in passing all think I'm awesome. They loved meeting me and they talk fondly of me. That's a really good feeling. I can't remember the last time I felt that way. Jane, Sarah, Trevor . . . James and Emma . . . Richie . . . you guys are fucking awesome. Seriously, you people in particular have a way of always making me feel like family.

And it's because of these people that I realize I have other choices. Here, I'll give you an example. Here's a picture that was taken on Intercollege night (and is really funny). That tall drink of water, drunkenly pulling a drunken me right into her breast . . . is Rose. Clearly, she's very attractive. She's a really free-spirited girl. Pretty much the exact kind of girl who has no interest in me whatsoever. Ever. I met her when I was hanging out with Jane on that weekend before I went with her to that pub music night. The best part is she has a great sense of humor, so she probably found this picture funnier than almost anyone else. I remember talking to Jane about it and how Trevor said that I should find out if Rose is single. Turns out she is, but, as I told Jane, a girl like her wouldn't be interested in me. Jane told me that I should be so sure . . . it was indeed very possible that she could be.

And then, on top of that, it seems another of Sarah's friends, a blonde girl named Jak, has taken a liking to me. On Thursday she called Sarah and the phone was passed around, and she asked to speak to me, and we talked a bit. And she randomly mentioned that I was "such a great guy". I'm not really saying all of this to toot my own horn. I'm saying all this as a way to convince myself that I really am a special person. And that it's ok to learn to love myself as I am.

It's also a way to help me relax about the situation with Grace. I tend to let myself get uptight about stuff like that - the waiting drives me nuts. But if I want any shot at this going well, I need to stay cool, calm, and collected. I need to firmly believe what will be will be, and that if I don't get her, there are other fish in the sea that are also great catches, and are able to be caught.

At the very least, perhaps this . . . whatever it is, will bleed over when I get back into America. Maybe . . . just maybe . . .

Aussie Doozy of the Day:
Their word for 'dinner' is 'tea' . . . which I think is just silly. First of all, almost no one drinks tea during it, and you can certainly 'have tea' and not mean eating in the slightest. Nevermind that tea time is traditionally in the early afternoon as an after lunch snack.

Sprung Again

Oh man, I'm in trouble. Murphy's Law is fucking me over again. Seriously, this is not supposed to happen. Not now.

*sigh* I was at the Centurion competition last night and, like just about everyone else, I had a good go at it and unabashedly got pretty damn drunk. I managed to get through 52 shots of beer before the carbonation started getting too much for me. And all this whilst I was dressed up as a typical emo rockstar, eyeliner included. Yes, I have pictures to prove all of this. And of course about an hour later I had another beer for good measure.

Then we moved over to Glenn college for the Intercollege Rock Party, and were awfully surprised when they were playing techno and house and dance music. I'd go into all of that but there's really not much more to be said. It's not the big story here. Despite my heinously drunken state, alcohol isn't why I'm in trouble.

I met Grace. *sigh* And I like her. Like, really like her. And we hugged. And took a very adorable picture (minus someone being child-like and giving me bunny ears). And just . . . ugh, she's sooo cute. I just wish I hadn't been painfully drunk. Before I met her, I knew she was a cool girl and all, but I could've easily gone either way with it without another moment's thought. Now . . .

Damnit. This is NOT supposed to happen, not right now. I'm two months from leaving; I can't ask her out. That's just not fair. I mean, even if it all worked out, we'd be getting to the peak of our twitterpated stage right as I was leaving. It would lead to broken hearts. Even if all that were not so, I really don't wanna be like, the 20th person to ask her out this week.

UGH. Why do I do this to myself? Even more antagonizing is she might actually like me back. She seemed genuinely excited today about meeting me and she expressed interest in meeting again in the near future. All of which could be something, but also could be nothing. I don't know which I hope to be true more. The question is: should I put it all out there; should I risk my heart getting crushed for this girl? A better question: can I really like her and not?

Aussie Doozy of the Day:
(Note, this does not link in with the above post, so don't read into this you sick bastards.) Did you know that, statistically, Australian women are the most likely to put out on a first date?

The Shortest Post Ever

Dry Kill Logic were awesome. Sydonia and Mammal were awesome. The drummer from Sydonia was REALLY awesome.

I'm doing a Centurion tonight and that's awesome. And Grace will be there, and that's awesome because Grace is awesome. Perhaps we will make out in a drunken stupor and that'll be awesome.

I realize neither this post nor the last have Aussie Doozies. Centurion and the possibility of making out count.

The end. That's awesome.

Politics

I'm sure you remember student elections at whatever school it is you go to, and it just so happens that it was student elections week last week. Of course, people got stopped all the time by these people handing out flyers and pushing their agenda on you. And it was my turn I suppose.

Last Thursday I was walking from my 2nd to last to my last class of the day, passing in front of the Burchardt Library (which I should probably go to more often in an attempt to do work ...). It's the end of the week, and these guys are getting desperate, so getting past them requires you to almost literally be a ninja. One grabs me as I'm walking and opens with some sympathy: "I know you're probably sick of hearing about the elections, but if you could do me a favor and vote for Catalyst (the name of their running group), that'd do me a big favor." A good strategy at this stage of the game.

I say: "I'm sorry, but I'm an exchange student. I'm gone at the end of the semester, so I really have nothing invested in this."

The next thing he says is . . . "Well . . . don't you hate communists?!?"

I'm take aback by this a bit and I stogdedly answer "No."

He asks "Well, don't you hate what they do?!"

I reply calmly "I guess I have some trouble with some of the implementations of it . . ."

He goes "Hmm, this really isn't going too well for me . . . oh, well. We're all for students rights and equal treatment, so vote for us!"

"Equal Treatment" eh? Apparently not for communists . . .

This happened to be the same day as the Black and White party that was being thrown on my buddy James's floor. It was a cool little party but it crashed WAY too early. I got there at about 9 or 9:30 after going to the gym and people were already breaking up and going to watch movies. Luckily, though, people came back later on in the night and a good time was had. I even made some really nerdy physics and math jokes that I'm, uh, way too embarrassed to repeat here . . .

After that I ended up back at my tower instead of going off to the Eagle Bar with friends, which ended up being the correct decision. I ended up staying up and talking with Trevor, his girlfriend Jane, and his friend Ben(?) until the wee hours of the morning. It was a lot of fun, lots of laughs and great conversation. In my book, that beats annoying dance music, BO, and alcohol any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

The following Saturday I had an interesting experience or two. I needed to go food shopping, and Trevor's girlfriend was going because she needed to pick up stuff for a going away party for someone and gave me permission to tag along. I did. And there were far more people than just Jane and I. I was introduced to two new people: Salena (whom the party was for) and Dylan. There was a 5th person. I person I've met before but have probably mentioned only in passing if at all. Rod.

The first time I met this guy was pretty randomly while I was hanging out with James and Emma in their tower 1 kitchen. He was just around. This guy was really an oddball. He'd flip-flop between an Australian and American accent so many times - in what I now understand to be his attempt at flattery - that at first I had no idea which he was. He kept saying he was leaving . . . and walking out the door . . . and coming back in. He would talk in round, sweeping generalizations that sound intelligent on the surface, but are clearly just designed to make us think that.

We went to Safeway . . . and the whole time - I'm not kidding about this - the boy (which is an appropriate thing to call him, if you take his maturity level into account) followed me around like a puppy. We got back and everyone else went toward his tower and I went toward mine . . . which are in opposite directions . . . and he went in my direction. He claimed to be just checking his mail in the office. And took the long way to get to the office. I think someone has a crush on me.

Now, all those who know me know that I have no problems with gay people at all. To paraphrase Dennis Miller, I care so little about the differences in human sexuality that I refuse to treat homosexuals like a Faberge Egg. Someone being gay is not a distinction for me. Even with they hit on me, it's just someone I'm not attracted to. But gay or not, Rod's creepy either way.

Just yesterday I was going to meet my assignment partner at the lab to get some work done and he passed me by on the way there. He was about 20 steps from his tower at the time . . . and he turned around and followed me all the way to the building, asking me when I was leaving for America, if I was sad to leave, etc. It's kind of sweet and flattering in a way . . . but he's just CREEPY.

Anyway, enough of that. Jane's OTHER friends (and I use that term very loosely with Rod) are all cool people. That night we all sat and drank and ate and had a merry blast. I even got invited to come out with them to a pub the day after. That was a particularly interesting situation because Sunday night is music night. This isn't kareoke or even an open mic. It's just . . . a singalong. Everybody brings instruments and there are songbooks stuffed to the gills with old Irish folk songs, amongst others. And they just take turns singing songs. If you know it, you sing along. You're welcome to spectate and encouraged to participate. Should I go again, I might play a song or two. Who knows. I know a few that might fit in with that crowd. No one will know them, but fuck it. :)

I suppose I better wrap this up. I'm going out to see Dry Kill Logic tonight and I don't wanna be late. I'll blog about that concert afterward.

Sprung

As just about every high-school student knows, the absolute pinnacle of comedic success is the ability to make someone pass liquid out their nose. I can't claim responsibility for the punchline that gave the necessary 'punch', if you will, but . . . hell, I will anyway.

I was showing my buddy Trevor a comedian by the name of Dana Gould. Most of you probably don't know him at all; he's not very well-known for his stand-up comedy outside of Los Angeles. But he's one funny fucker. He was once a writer and currently executive produces for The Simpsons, which is a prestigious title to be sure. Anyway, there was a bit from the CD on the now infamous Tyson-Holyfield fight (the CD was from 1998, k?) where he was commenting on how Tyson got banned from the sport:

"Why do boxers necessarily have to fight other boxers? Let's widen this perspective of the sport a little. I mean, wouldn't it be great . . . 'Tonight! In the LA Coliseum! One night only! Mike Tyson versus 200 retarded school girls!'"

It was at this point that Trevor, who had unfortunately just begun to sip his sarsaparilla . . . which he then ended up spewing out his nose like a soda fountain onto my carpet. I haven't laughed so hard in what seems like years. Sorry Trevor, good sir . . . but that was some funny shit. :)

In other news, it is Spring! For those of you in the Northern Hemisphere, that must be a funny thing to read, but well . . . it's true. In true Spring fashion, love is in the air, both amongst the dive-bombing birds protecting their nests, and amongst people. And, hey . . . skirt and tank-top weather is definitely a plus in my book. In honor of the annual season of twitterpation, I figured I might give a short list of girls who have caught my eye recently. It should be noted ahead of time that actually attempting to win over any of these lovely creatures would be comparable to when I applied to Princeton. A nice thought but, yeah . . . get real.

This won't be too crude but . . . yeah, men are gonna enjoy this post more than women. Sorry ladies.

*ahem* So, without further adieu (and in no particular order):

• Karishma - I have never even really met her, but she lives upstairs from me, and every time she passes by just . . . holy Buddha. Top-shelf Indian women can be so ridiculously exotic . . . *swoons* She's just got this totally innocent kind of beauty that brings you to your knees. That's the best I can explain it.
• Marion - If you're first thought was "Maid Marion", go ahead and stay there. That "innocent beauty" comment also applies to this antagonizingly cute little blonde girl from - of all places - Massachusetts. I've only talked to her once or twice, and I've been far too tongue tied to get a decent conversation going, but even that once or twice was worth the effort. Although, her utter refusal to give me the time of day leads me to believe she's a little stuck up.
  
• Japanese Class Girls - Rachel, Tanielle (which is just an awesome name), and Melissa - Holy hell. Holy hell. Holy hell. This must be said once for each of them. Tanielle I find particularly intriguing because, not only does she ride that fine line between cutie and full blown hottie with distinction . . . she's uncharacteristically shy for a girl that looks the way she does. She almost never speaks. It's a quality that ought to make her more boring, but seems to serve only to make her that much more intriguing. It makes me anxious to know what she's like behind that shell of hers.
• Grace - This is a special case.
  

I've never actually met her. And I don't really know what she looks like (although the rumor mill has spoken favorably). She's just this girl that occasionally talks on the DC++ network here, and for no particular reason at all we started an impromptu friendship. She seems like a really sweet girl. Kind of halfway in between as shy as Tanielle and as stuck up as Marion. She's got some confidence . . . but she doesn't carry herself like she's God's gift to men.

And, the poor thing, she's just gone through a bad break up. Her boyfriend was an asshole, and she knows it. But it's still a break up, and it still sucks. Anyone who knows me knows I live to help others when they're low, and she tended to come cry on my shoulder. I . . . I just feel so bad for the poor girl. She's slowly coming to terms with this; not only the asshole breaking up with her, but the reasons she ended up with him in the first place. But Cam (her ex) leaving has created a sort of power vacuum and guys from every corner of her life are rushing to fill it.

It's like . . . have you ever seen Can't Hardly Wait? Other than being the never-ending story of my life (minus the ending thus far), it's a perfect analogy. Grace is like Amanda. She's just broken up and all these guys have just been lying in wait for this moment when she's single again and pounce on her with no remorse, making it that much harder for her to deal with what she's going through. It just pisses me off. All these guys are so interested in what they want but not one of them has stopped to think about her. What about what she wants? What about what she needs? Now, obviously I'm interested in her if she's made this list, but it's only fair to be honest about that with you. Personally, I have nothing invested in this; I just wanna help her out if I can. Someone's gotta put her first, you know?

When she decides she wants to date again, she will. Obviously she'll have no trouble getting back on the scene. If she picks me, awesome. We can have a little fling and I can teach her a thing or two about why it's good to give the nice guys a chance, and with luck we'll stay friends for a good long time. If she doesn't, well, I go back to USA in 2½ months anyway. No big deal. With luck we'll stay friends for a good long time. It's a win-win as far as I'm concerned.

There's my short list. There are a TON of great looking girls around here, and I could theoretically keep writing it to infinitely, but I figured I'd keep it to the creme de la creme for brevity's sake. I gotta sleep sometime. Especially given this MONSTER of an ICS project that my team needs to get on and but soon. We have about a month to put together an enterprise-level website for the Surfing Club at La Trobe. The best website in the class will be used as their actual site and the team that wins gets a free surf trip. I don't care about the trip, but fuck would that look good on a resume. I'm dedicating Thursday and Friday to a crash-course in JavaScript and re-learning my CSS skeelz.

In closing . . . I'd like to say I've felt really good the past couple of days. I've felt like I normally only feel when I've stayed up all night. Loose. Cool. Confident. In control. I like it. When I get in this mood I feel like I can do anything. I don't experience it nearly often enough. And it's an attitude like this that's gonna give me a fighting chance to get girls like I've listed above; nothing less will do. Maybe this time it's here to stay? :)

Aussie-Doozy of the Day:
I have noticed that stores around here have a tendency to open and close whenever they damn well please. Posted hours are more a guideline than a rule. By contrast, in the US posted hours are practically scripture; nothing short of an emergency is gonna shut those doors early.

What a Croc

I remember sitting in the cafeteria at Lowell High School. I think we must've been Freshman, maybe Sophomores, I can't recall the details that finely. It could have been both years. But I distinctly remember that a running joke we had involved my friend Mike (who has the unfortunate surname of Cox). As high school students are wont to do, we'd often tease each other, never getting too mean, but just enough to ruffle some feathers. Mike was very tall and lanky and - I dunno how it came up that we'd make fun of him this way, perhaps it was in reference to a South Park episode - but we'd often take turns displaying our most stereotypical Aussie accent and yell "Why lookie here! We've caught ourselves a big, goofy one! Now we're gonna light 'is balls on fire!" It infuriated him, but he always laughed along with us.

I remembered that as the news about Steve Irwin's death has practically stampeded over the Internet. It even wound up on Slashdot, of all places. It is a big event, I suppose. It's perhaps the most humbling death to occur in awhile. I mean, here's a guy who's job was to stare death in the face and laugh - actually, no, closer to sticking his head in its mouth whilst giving it the finger - practically everyday of his life. The fragility of our mortality is somehow hammered home even truer when a man like that finally loses the gamble. And of all things from a stingray. I've heard around that the number of deaths from stingrays is of the order of the same order of magnitude of the number of deaths from falling library books. It's quite ironic.

I wonder how much ill will about him there is amongst Australians. He has done a lot of good for the country in terms of wildlife conservation, ecology, and certainly tourism, but has done so by assuming the Paul Hogan stereotype and becoming a caricature of Australian culture and society for the rest of the world to giggle at. I don't agree with his sentiments on this at all, but Trevor down the hall actually was happy that he died. For my part, I feel it was a needless death, and I truly feel for the young family he's left behind. He did what he loved. And he made people smile while doing it. Not to mention the entire generation of kids that he's helped nurture a love for nature in.

Other than that, there's not much worth telling. I spent my weekend in usual fashion, avoiding homework and upending my sleep hours again. The Chisholm Ball was this past Wednesday, but I haven't a lot to say about it as it was a most unremarkable affair. It was something of a glorified high school social, if made slightly more blurry thanks to the open bar. Aside from the alcohol there was no difference as far as I was concerned. All dressed up and nowhere to go except back where I came from, and window shopping of beautiful women in between, but never buying; never buying.

I suppose the only other thing worth mentioning before I bid you adieu is that I've set up a MySpace music account for my pseudo-band Real and Rational. Music has always been part of my life, and it's something I'll always want as such, so it's time I get serious about it and put this web-authoring skills I'm learning to work in a way that will benefit me. Nowhere to go but up, right?

Aussie Doozy of the Day:
What do you think of when you hear Sarsaparilla? Probably an old western movie, right? Believe it or not, they sell it here in grocery stores right along side Ginger Ale, Ginger Beer, and Cream Soda.