Yuletide Greetings

Merry Christmas All! Here I am soaking up my second white Christmas ever and this year I'm doing it in style. I am proud to say that my very first blind attempt at a Turkey was a total success. I am just that good. I even have a weeks worth of Turkey sandwiches to look forward to. Ah things are good. I am trudging along patiently towards full mobilisation... I am walking reasonably normally, starting work again this week and if all goes well (touch wood) I am just 2-3 weeks from strapping in. All that remains now is to plan my new years celebration...

On the Road to Recovery

The surgery was a complete success. I was out for just over an hour and in the facility for just over 3. It's quite a quick process really and finally, FINALLY I am on the road to recovery. I have many weeks of severe boredom to look forward to. Gamecube, television, internet, guitar... I may even resort to a book or two, who knows to what depths I will sink. If anyone has any other suggestions please let me know. It's going to be a painful road. At least days like today with over 60cm of snowfall portray one hell of a pot of gold at the end of this nasty rainbow.

It was pretty funny in the operating theater. The anesthetist started asking me all these questions about drinking and stuff. Seemed a little odd until I finally worked out that's how he works out how much anesthetic to use: the more you can drink the more drugs you need to knock you out properly. Turns out I need a lot. It's a strange sensation as the sedatives enter your bloodstream: feels like you're being injected with mercury or something; lovely. I thought it was especially appropriate that he made several suggestions for dreams I should be aiming for while I was out. My favorite was the Swedish lap dancers. Such a classy man.

Vingt-quatre

Not a lot to report at this stage, just been sorting out a driver and time off work for my surgery next week. For such a fucked up series of events I'm pretty damn chipper / excited about it all. Whatever gets me riding I guess? Also been trying to work out how to best celebrate my birthday. If I do it tonight or tomorrow one way or another I will be excluding a few friends because of work commitments they have. What's that you say? Why can't you do both? Well kiddletts, I am not the young and spry party animal I once was (yes I know that's a load of crap but I do have to take it easy while I am injured) and so I feel I should pick one or the other. What ever is a boy to do?

The many facets of James

1. A name which, in Hebrew, means "one who supplants." A variant of the name "Jacob." 2. In the Bible, James was a brother of Jesus. As a man, James is also believed to have been the author of the book of James (the Epistle of James), found in the New Testament. 3. The most common nickname of James is Jim. - James loves cuddling with his cbear. A guy who cannot make his own decisions, so copies his buddies. Steals girlfriends, lifestyles, and generally pulls a Single White Female to make up for not having a real personality. Man! Has James ever slept with a bitch his friends didnt test drive first? JAMES is the #1 most common male name. 3.318% of men in the US are named JAMES. Around 4064550 US men are named JAMES! A derogatory term for someone who is a homosexual. "Look at peter, he is such a James" It is amazing what you can find on The Urban Dictionary

America is another world...

America is an amazing place. I just saw a commercial that reminded me of something you might see on Beyond Tomorrow back home; the difference is Americans actually market this stuff. This little thing here is like a creepy crawley for your house. It randomly roams around vacuuming the floor. Fascinating stuff eh? In other news, I met with my surgeon yesterday and my surgery has been confirmed for next Thursday. Wish me luck kids. I am praying for a speedy recovery...

Mature-Age Students

In my desperate attempts to expediate my surgery I have discovered a few things. One; individuals working in health care services readily assume that the general public are complete morons and effectively take offense at anyone who has the slightest idea of what they're talking about. Two; certain things are in place that cannot be subverted. Certain procedures, certain waiting times, certain protocols, certain acres of trees need to be culled to make way for a seemingly endless acreage of paperwork. When pressed for an explanation as to why all these things are necessary one is inevitably met with confusion, bewilderment, anxiety, defensiveness and ultimately resentment. I have in mind a series of cunning ploys to pit competing surgeons against one another in a bid to gain my hefty private patient fee, but hesitate to impliment them out of fear of incurring the wrath of a wayward arthroscope. Finally I have discovered, through a process of elimination, that part of a surgeon's training at medical school involves the removal of people skills. Perhaps being able to effectively communicate with human beings in a civilised manner interferes with one's ability to make people's insides work good and stuff and junk.

Fighting the system

Here I am, sitting at work. Things tend to be a bit quiet around here, as I suspect they will remain for a few more weeks while the season picks up pace. The computers here block just about every web site you can imagine but it's amazing how many you can try when you are this bored; so here I found one that I can get access to. Now I will just have to come up with something to write about; because I know you all hang off my every word. The requests for more frequent entries are constantly flooding in to the point where even in my extremely bored, invalid, house-arrested state I can hardly keep up. As much as I struggle to avoid going on about my medical condition it features largely in my day to day life. At the moment I face a struggle to get my surgery brought forward as quickly as possible. It is incredibly frustrating to know that with every day that passes is another day shaved off my post-recovery riding time. If he wasn't the only orthopedic surgeon around I would have been a little less calm about his indifference to my situation... Still smiling... Still smiling.

In other news, in just 8 short days I will be yet another year older. 24. How the time flies, every year I have said I don't feel a day over 17 but I suppose that is no longer true. We have all been through a lot these past few years. David is getting married, eternally single people are settling down into long term relationships, James has what could loosly be termed a plan for the future and is actually accepting some responsibility. Funnily enough none of this is all that scary any longer and has been accepted as normal. I think?

Majesty

I have been having great difficulty coming up with things to write here that don't pertain to my medical condition; understandably the whole thing is ever present in my thoughts. A minor event comes past mildly noteworthy. I was asked to cover someone's shift in the Alpine Ski School hut yesterday; a day when the maximum was somewhere around minus 26 not accounting for wind chill. Oh what fun! 30minutes on the Gondola up the mountain was pretty painful... And here I was thinking I was overdressed! But with the weather lately has come an incredible amount of snow. Expecting something along those lines I took my camera to work with me. This is a pretty amazing place I am in eh?
The view from my lounge room; can you imagine waking up to this every morning?








The majesty of the sun setting over the mountains in Canada is awe-inspiring.








This is the view from the back window of the Ski School Hut, the amount of snowfall we have had here in the past few weeks has broken all kinds of records...


And as for my knee... Well, surgery it is. And the recovery time? Well I still don't have a definite answer on that. I could be snowboarding in 3-4 weeks or I could be home in 3-4 weeks. There isn't really an area in between: it is one or the other. I am looking at premature arthritis and an effective allergy to high impact activity. Can someone remind me how a split second can result in a lifetime of regret? Don't worry about me though, I'm still smiling... just.

My professional medical opinion

OK. I have had the MRI and everything went OK. Now I just need to sit and wait for the report to come through, see the doctor, get an appointment with the orthopedic surgeon etc etc. From what I understand I have a small fragment of bone/cartilage that is loose in my knee and causing the surrounding areas aggravation. This is purely my speculation but I think I found the fragment on my MRI images (they gave me the scans on CD to take home) I could be completely wrong but it's amazing how much you can imagine when you're stuck at home doing nothing.
And if you think that's a kick in the teeth? You should see the weather today. It has been absolutely dumping down with snow; all of my housemates are up there on the mountain as we speak. This is what I can see from my balcony. Please excuse the stint of complaints I'm going through at the moment but this is pretty damn rough.

Quantum Mechanics and Parallel Universes

You know; if this was some kind of bizarre reality where I could ignore the fact that I was unable to walk; things pretty much couldn't be going better for me. I love my job (from what I have seen so far, admittedly I am still in training) I meet all kinds of people, I am fascinated by the products that I sell (not to mention getting free access to lessons whenever I like) and I am kicking ass.

Unfortunately however this is reality and I have done some sort of severe damage to my knee the extent of which I will find out shortly after my super-fun adventure trip down to Vancouver to get an MRI on Monday. MRI, for those of you who were otherwise unaware, stands for Magnetic Resonance Imagery. It is technology similar to that used in CT scans but is more effective in detecting soft, living tissue. My condition is one of two (or both) issues. 1) There is a rogue fragment of bone floating in my knee cartilage that has chipped off from one area or another and is aggravating the surrounding area. This is a fact, I saw for myself on the X-Rays, it is highly likely that this has been there for some time and isn't causing any problems. 2) I have bruised/torn the meniscus plate; a small cartilage disc that acts as a cushion between the femur and the tibia. The latter is by far the preferred situation as it may mean I will have a full recovery in as little as 3 weeks, whereas the former... Will mean intense surgery, loss of employment and most likely an early and defeated return to Australia. As much as I love Perth, this is not exactly what I had in mind for my return...

The Bubble Bursts

Well. I had a good run. I have ridden this wave for a long time. I have had quite an adventure and a lot of good luck. It has been fantastic. However, all good things must come to an end and bad luck finally caught up with me. In the most retardedly everyday of activities I have completely screwed my knee. I just got home from the doctor's office and the news was a little... well: bad. Best case scenario I am off my feet for 6-8 weeks. Worst case scenario? Well lets just say that the words surgery and going home were brought up. I am going into physio for the next couple of weeks until I know more accurately my situation. Pray for me kids.

News is getting a little slow

As the title says. News is getting a little slow. Yesterday my hangover was spent watching Rocky 1-5. Followed by a little American Dad and a bit of Family Guy. What a fun filled day that was. Oh yeah. But if you thought THAT was exciting news: I got a call from my supervisor this morning telling me that my start date has been brought forward to the 13th. This is because the mountain has been scheduled to open early! I will train for five days MOnday-Friday and then get the weekend off. The weekend that the mountain opens! Seriously; things just fall into place for me lately. As you can see conditions up here so far aren't the best. So fingers crossed for the next couple of weeks.

All our dreams are washed away

Yesterday was incredible. It started snowing around 10 in the morning and didn't stop all day. We're talking 6 inches of snowfall. Bare ground was suddenly completely covered. If it is like that down here in the village we can only dream of what it is like up on the peaks. (Seriously, we can only dream as the cloud/fog cover is pretty intense) Everyone was so excited, this kind of thing suggests the possibility of an early season. The lifts could open in mere days! I jumped online and quickly ordered my boots. Last thing you want is the lifts open and no gear to ride with! (Did I mention I scored myself a free board?) All that is left to get is bindings. Sweetness. I went to sleep with dreams of riding in my head. I awake this morning to the worst thing possible; Rain and plenty of it. It has been going on for hours. I can hear the screams of all the little snowflakes: "Noooo!!!! I'm melting... Oh what a world..."

Everyone can relax; James has arrived

Whistler, British Colombia. That's where I am. Moved into my place last night and it's pretty nice. Less than 10 minutes walk from town. Share with some ok blokes. The season is shaping up nicely. Halloween is looking promising; my costume is pretty badass. I'll post all about it once I have pictures to go with it. Got myself a guitar at a ridiculously low price from a pawn shop and it's damn good considering. Still have a cold though; after tonight I'm going into solitude until I'm cured. Must be done. Stay in touch kiddies.

As the big day approaches: what is James thinking?

While the big day approaches, less than a week now and I will actually have my own place on the mountain, you would think that images like this one would be what inspires me and instils me with a feeling of hope, awe and excitement.

But the sad truth is that it is images like this one that are what really motivate me. Yup; this is a picture of pretty much every one of my worldly possessions stacked ever-so carefully in the corner of my hostel. Do you have any idea what it is like to live out of a bag for 5 months? No really just try to picture it. You can’t spread your stuff out, you have to constantly be locking away your things and conscious of where you have left something, you can’t get any new stuff for fear of not being able to fit it in your bag. At this stage my bag is absolutely 110% full. I had to buy pants and a jacket for boarding? I am going to have to wear them on the bus. So you know what I am going to do Monday night? No, not walk outside and enjoy the mountain air. No, not go down to the local bar and meet people and start to do some social networking. You know what I’m going to do Monday night? I’m going to unpack. Slowly and carefully unpack and put everything right where it is going to stay for the next six months. Hulla-fucking-lujah.

Digging up the past

I know many of you might be looking at this just because you are bored and have nothing better to do. Good for you. But if you REALLY have nothing to do. You should check this out:

http://members.iinet.net.au/~jthorpe1/

This is a little site I made way back in the day while in high school. Half the picture links aren't working but some of the content deserves a second look. If any of you know David Kennedy at all this is an absolute must. Pay special attention to the David section and the first comic competition. Does anyone remember what Kenny used to be like? I miss him.


Likewise for the Miles section as well as the Quote of the Day. And finally, if you check out the few remaining working links in the Drawings section; you may easily reach the conclusion that I took way too much acid in high school.

Timberland

Hey kids, once again it has been too long since I have written on here and I should really do a bit more in this department. The whole reason I started that blog to keep some sort of record of my travels because God knows my memories from them are pretty much non existent.

One of the best things imaginable happened a few days ago. I got a job on the mountain. Actually, not a job, THE job. I am the sales host for the Ski School in Whistler. Which is not only a pretty cool and prestigious job in itself but it also make doing my CASI certification that much easier. Only catches were that I don’t start for a month and staff housing was full up so I would have to start looking for a place to live; a more expensive and shittier place… But yesterday I got a phone call and more good news! I heard from the recruitment department and apparently people employed as part of the domestic recruitment fair had positions reserved for them in staff housing. I rang them up yesterday and it’s not 100% but I’m pretty sure I can move in on the 30th of Nov. This is fantastic news for one; finding a place was going to be a real pain two; staff housing is by far the cheapest option (about $300-350 a month from what I have heard) and three: I really wanted to stay there for the social aspect.

I got a haircut today. And once again, like every other haircut I have had on this continent (except for one: thanks Sonia! xo) I got absolutely butchered. Although to tell the truth this one isn’t nearly as bad as the last two. After the one I got in Montreal I found a big clump of hair next to my ear that he had completely missed. I’m not surprised the way he came at me was like an uncoordinated Edward Scissor Hands. Now I just look like a regular army boy. Love it.

Lately it seems like whoever walks through the door to my room at the hostel is my new best friend. Finding drinking buddies is essential for keeping myself occupied until I start work. Earlier in the week I was hanging out with a guy from Victoria (the state) and yesterday I went shopping with a guy from Canberra. Last night I went out with a guy from the UK. It’s all a bit crazy really.

I was also supposed to be going out with Richie (my friend who I stayed with at the hostel in Montreal, also went to Québec city with him) tonight but turns out he has to pick up his grandmother from the airport. She is flying in from India tonight.

I tried on these boots yesterday and they are the most comfortable things I have ever come across. In the store they were $315 but I found them online for $199 so I’m pretty happy about that. Once I get an address I’ll get them posted out from the US. Although; I have been told that in working for the mountain I get 20% from their stores in Whistler so I’ll take a look around there. Only catch is that I can’t get a reduction on items already on sale which is exactly what I would be looking for. I am really pulling out all the stops on the boots and easing back on the rest of the gear. Boot fit and comfort is paramount in snowboarding whereas the board and the bindings are less of a factor so I’ll find some cheapies in that department.

So everything is really starting to fall into place and the next 6 months is shaping up to be, to put it mildly; pretty bloody awesome.

This is me trying to tone down the awesomeness of my life so I don’t make those of you who thought you were making the best and most responsible life choices feel too bad about having done so. That’s just how nice a guy I am.

Home away from home

Does anyone still read this thing? No seriously. I wouldn't be surprised because I never update it. Right now I am in Montreal for my last night. Nice and reasonably timed flight at 7am tomorrow. That is going to hurt. The boys are going to kick my ass with 99c shooters at Peel Pub tonight; it's going to hurt. Thanksgiving weekend down in New York City was wild. It was Phil's birthday on Sunday so Saturday night at Sigma Phi Epsilom was absolutely debaucherous. 3 kegs, beer pong, boat races, keg stands... you name it. Frat life is exactly how you would imagine it. I don't know how anyone gets any work done. No really, how does this shit work? Animal House wasn't lying at all. The only thing missing was a Toga Party and Dean Wormer's wife. This is going to be a sad departure; Montreal has become a second home to me. Having said that; where is my first home? From here I am headed to Edmonton for the weekend. Don't ask me why because I can't answer that. I have time to kill before the season and should probably see more of Canada than inside Sir Winston Churchill's. After a quick look around town there it is back to Vancouver for a week or so; catch up with some friends there and then the big one: Whistler. The last straw, the last round of interviews before crunch time. Whistler awaits. This season could prove to be something else entirely. Wish me luck peoples. Peace and much love from the Chateau on the Plateau.

You Are Samuel Adams

You're fairly easy to please when it comes to beer - as long as it's not too cheap.

You tend to change favorite beers frequently, and you're the type most likely to take a "beers of the world" tour.
When you get drunk, you're fearless. You lose all your inhibitions.

You're just as likely to party with a group of strangers as you are to wake up in a very foreign place.

What's Your Beer Personality?
http://www.blogthings.com/whatsyourbeerpersonalityquiz/

Obligatory Update

Due to popular demand, here is an obligatory update. What is going on abord the James Train? Nothing terribly surprising to tell the truth. I am back in Montreal for a week now, heading back to Vancouver on Wednesday. Basically been partying too much and I think my bad influence on everyone here is starting to wear thin. Time to flee. Have a job interview on Monday for Whistler in the Ski School; should go pretty well and if I get the job, sweetness for me. That is one hell of a foot in the door for my CASI certification which is just months away. The hard part will be surviving until then. A life of alcohol is a fun life, but it takes it's toll. Today Richie asked me to give him an overall picture of my trip so far, it was interesting to sit down and take stock of what I have been doing. It's been quite a rollercoaster ride.



Some of you may have received an email from me about Facebook. I know it sounds like just another lame social network thing but this one is different and good. The reason I mention this is because you can see pictures from my whole trip on there. Check it out sometime when you've got nothing better to do, not that anything better than that is imagineable... Later kiddlets

Listening to the new JT album I came across this. Needs to be shared.

4 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
Bring Sexy Back another way, September 14, 2006

Reviewer:

suchalady (take your pick 92392, 98422 or 92284) - See all my reviews

This song sucks. The only reason why it deserves 2 stars is because his voice has improved. JT doesn't sound as girlie as he does on his other songs. He is really fine, but him having an orgasm probably doesn't sound too manly. He needs to bring sexy back another way. He needs to stop singing and get into the gay porn business. He can show us his sexy back and put his girlie voice to better use.

Taken from Amazon.com without permission. If this is in violation of any state, federal or international policy please contact me and I will remove this entry immediately.

Quote of the day

I almost wish I had a quote of the day section on the blog just so I could justify putting this up. I saw the final episode of The Amazing Race and they interviewed one of the runners-up. [I was] "Just given the oppurtunity to go around the world... money can't buy that." Duh... I want to be on reality TV.

Australia takes another blow

It has been a bad week for Australia. First, possibly our most famous icon is killed in a freak accident. The second of its kind; ever. Those are pretty shitty odds if you ask me. Someone said to me "he couldn't have died in a more archetypically 'Australian' fashion. Maybe they were right. If Steve Irwin were to go, it would have to be a giant shark, The biggest crocodile known to man or... the most peaceful of all sea creatures? But today Australia was kicked while she was down. Peter Brock, one of the greatest drivers in history was killed when his car hit a tree during a race. Steve, Brocky: we'll miss you guys. Its not going to be the same without you down under.

"So James, what is your favorite aspect of Vancouver?" Gee, I don't know, there are just so many things... where to start? Could it be my locker that smells like old weed? Or perhaps the dirty band-aid I found stuck to my elbow upon waking up? Perhaps it's not just the hostel that endears me about this place... Maybe it's walking around for an hour, trying to be responsible (getting a social insurance number, getting a Canadian cell phone, going to the doctor) only to discover that everything is closed at 10:30am on a Saturday morning? Oh wait, I have it. I nearly forgot the best part. I am smack in the middl eof the gay district: rainbow flags, bondage stores, shirtless crazies and scores of men with bad haircuts walking the streets hand in hand. Not that there is anything wrong with that. Damn I love Vancouver, why didn't I leave Montreal sooner?

What a crazy night. This kind of thing has to be recorded. Got back to Montreal from Quebec city yesterday, dropped off the car and moved into my friends' place on Saint-Urbain. Alex and Simon are from Leeds on exchange at McGill University and right now its 'Frosh': the orientation week before they start their classes. Goes without saying there is a fair bit of partying going on. Last night me and Simon went to one of the University residences: an old hotel that has been fitted out for students. Pretty nice place with lots of cool people. We hung out there for a while in a couple of people's rooms having a few beers there before we went out to the club. Everyone gathered themselves and got moving, all piled into the elevator, decended a few floors... then it started jolting up and down. We all got a little worried. We checked the elevator capacity: 18 and there were 17 of us, I suppose I have put on a few pounds but this is ridiculous. It was really hot in there, people were anxious and nautious: things looked grim. Eventually someone called reception from their phone and told them what was happening, they called the maintainence team and they were on their way. One of the girls was too drunk and feeling pretty bad and needed a shoulder to cry on. One of the other guys in the lift had had his eye on her for a while and wasn't too happy about this. Things started to get awkward... People sweating having trouble breathing, freaking out, sitting on the floor, yelling. I was trying to lighten the mood, talking to the other guys, joking around. That didn't fly too well with some of the more anxious amoung them who preferred to be in silence. Quite a situation there. Finally we got out thanks to maintainence, who preffered no flash photography? Interesting... Some people headed home after the stress and the rest of us found our way into a taxi. Arrived at the club with my fake arm band and walked in... only to see the girls I was with couldn't get in. I made a U-turn to help them out. After doing some hefty smooth talking I managed to get my arm band ripped off, get the girls in and walk away with my tail between my legs. Go me. Thankfully while waiting in line at the other bar my friend saw me and got me right in and everything was good. Needless to say I had a few drinks that night... And so it continues.

Quebec city is amazing. Its so much more French than... well France! The architecture and everything is gorgeous, the girls here aren't bad either. Unlike Montreal, not everyone can speak English which really surprises me, its like this isolated haven away from the English speaking world. My French is coming back to me more easily than I had suspected and most people are happy to speak to me in French, once again; unlike France. I would love to stay here longer if I could and I am even considering coming back before I start the ski season./ the more I think about it, the more I realise that I have a long time before the season starts, perhaps I should go over to Vancouver, secure myself a job, and then come back here to French it up until I can start working, I suspectI won't have a problem getting work either, after all, I am brilliant. I keep putting off booking my flight as well, I want to stay in Quebec longer and longer! I forget how much I enjoy speaking French with people, I am a bit mean at times though, I was completely taken aback last night when a bartender (who's English was terrible) was conjugating her French incorrectly! she used a feminine form where she should have used a masculine, I wouldnt let that slide at all! I had another very late night last night and am of course ridiculously tired now after a good 5 hours of sleep. but this is my only day in quebec city so I have to get up and going and get some serious sightseeing/touristy stuff in, off I go!

Love and Laughter!

(picked that one up from the lovely Sally Roberts)

Feeling obligated, or at least in some compelled to write something here, it's been a while. Montreal is a beautiful city... So I've heard. I havn't really seen a lot of it, spending most of my time partying and sleeping very late. Now for example, having rolled out of bed and eaten my breakfast: it's after 1pm. La vie est belle. The one touristy thinge I have done is jump on the subway out to the Olympic stadium and the biodome. The Olympic stadium couldn't feel any more like what it is: a massive facility built to accommodate thousands of people in the early 70's: now basically abandoned. The biodome is nice, an indoor animal habitat, but it is remarkably like the one I saw in Houston. Pretty much identical really. I have met some really cool people at this hostel and have been having some good times. Loads of pictures (to be added when accessible. and random drunken anecdotes; ask me sometime. For now, its getting on a bit in the day, at least 1:30 by now and it's time to go back to bed. Later kiddlets.

Last day at harvard. Heading up to Montreal in the morning. This is where things will start to get interesting. I have heard many things about this city, and the trend is for the info to involve debauchery to some extent. Doesn't sound like my kind of place at all.

My diet here is getting interesting, thanks to my friends at Bruegger's (TM) I have been inspired to adopt a jewish style cuisine. Bagels are seriously underrated. This is my favorite concoction to date: a basic omlette, tomato and black pepper on a cream cheesed bagel. Doesn't look too bad eh? (Like that? I'm practicing for Canada)

Boston, not for much longer... Jumped on a bus to New York on thursday and just a few short hours (9) later I was at Sam Dicker's place in Long Island. Most of my time there was spent watching movies, playing video games and hitting a few dingers down at the driving range. While I did hit a few decent balls, no one will be surprised to hear I suck at golf. Went to see a Mets game on Saturday night, man that was slow, between the rain, the field prep and the '86 Mets lineup reunion thing, I was semi-suicidal by the time the game started. My experience in Houston was just a tad more lively.


Sunday morning it was time to go; Dan Dicker offered me a ride to the Bus Station in China Town, it was good to see New York from a non-public transport perspective; of course cuddling up to Sam's dad is not without its merits.

Getting Amy from the airport worked out well and carrying 50kg of luggage on the subway is always a good laugh. Pity about the housing situation though. The rest of Amy's housemates arrived and were less than impressed with their situation. Despite her's being the worst room, Amy is far from being the primary instigator of the unrest. The result is that they are going to break their lease and each find alternative accommodations. This hasn't exactly brought out the best in people and Amy is a little stressed out right now. Poor little (homeless) chook.

Sunday night we all went out for a meal/drinks at Cambridge Common. It was an informal meet and greet for LLM students here at Harvard. It was a little difficult for me at times to explain what I was doing there but generally everyone seemed nice, I just had to try the conversation away from law whenever I could. Between us; Amy and I easily drank as much (if not more) than the entire group (about 16). We be representin' Down Unda. Aiiight.

Camp is behind me now. It was such a mess and it all still seems very suspicious. On one level I really want to know what happened but on another, probably a smarter level, I want to just move forward. I have been in Boston for eight days now. Living in my sister's apartment. Two of her housmates have already moved in: a married couple from China, Frank and Angela. I randomly end up in long discussions with Frank about some strange things. Language, Religion... The Crusades?

I have been filling my time with movies and the gym mostly. Trying to sort out my time in Canada is yielding few results so I am leaning towards leaving that for when I am actually there. Place to stay in Montreal might be a good idea... should get on that.

Rachael and Adrien came down from camp a few days ago. It was good to see them again. Rachael is a wonderful person and I hope I get to see her again sometime. Adrien hadn't pulled all summer so we decided to head out to a gay bar near Fenway Park. It was a bit of a laugh. Eventually Rachael got kicked out for having alcohol. She litterally held my beer for 10 seconds while I was trying to fix my camera, that girl must have been stalking her or something I swear. We didn't particularly mind, the night was coming to an end anyway.

At this stage the plan is to head to New York tomorrow and stay for about 3 nights. Amy gets in on Sunday and I am going to help her get into her place and settled. Then it's up to Canada and looking for work. Little nervous about that. I hope I don't end up blowing too much money before I get settled.

All good things must come to an end. Preferably not having involved the state troopers. Here I am in Boston 12 days early. I have been fired. All summer long I have been buying alcohol for the other counsellors as have many other over 21yo's. On this occaision however, that alcohol made it to campers, and a lot of them and now the shit has really hit the fan. To be honest I don't know if I'm a fugitive or not, the camp is obligated by law to report this to the police. My plans are now all messed up and I don't know what to do. I don't even know if i should stay in the country. Wish me luck kids...

Here we are at the end. Camp is winding up, kids leave in a week and everything is quiet in The Realm. Glad but sad. Green and White is over, and The Mighty White Pirates emerge victorious. Here is our fearless captain Geoff Cox putting in all his intensity, I have quite a collection of intense faces but I won't put them all on here, hilarious as they might be.
Being on the white team, white paint supplies were short, like my attempt at warpaint using suncream and baby powder? I heard the phrase "what the fuck is wrong with you?" several times that day, but I wore it proudly. The tug of war was a tie which was shameful, we had so much more weight on our team it was absolutely abysmal not to completely kick the other team's ass, but no, it was a tie, virtually no movement from the starting line.

Now as things wind up I set my sights elsewhere, following camp I will be headed down to boston to help my sister settle in at Harvard and wish her a happy birthday. Then it is on to Canada to commence my great job search, wish me luck kids: I'm going to need it.

Hot and humid and unable to sleep. Such is life in the New Hampshire woods. We are in the middle of green and white at the moment. Competition is rife and everything has been turned on its ear. The camp is divided into White Pirates and Green Gladiators: emotions are running high. So far I have competed in the swim meet, volleyball, the spelling bee (disqualified on a technicality: not saying the word first!!!) and staff soccer.

Apparently I am set for a kayak regatta tomorrow, should be interesting! At the track meet this morning I gathered a lovely collection of mid-sprint facial expression shots to be posted soon. Billiant.

The competition is pretty intense. Americans live for this stuff, they feed off it. It's quite incredible to watch; the passion, the fury. You begin to see rifts in the social structures and cattiness rears its head. Step up or step aside. Injuries are many and sympathy is rare. I love it but the end of this week will be warmly welcomed. Along with a well deserved ale or two...

a lot has happen since i last logged in here, and yet nothing has happened at all. my day off in conway was nice, it was completely relaxed, i stayed in a nice hotel, bought lots of junk from walmart and ate some good food in a couple of restaurants. it was a good break from camp life. the rest of the week went along smoothly the weather has been nice and warm and driving on the lake couldn't be better.

since then i had another day off. a bunch of us hired a pontoon boat and went out on the lake with far too much alcohol. it was a great day, drinking, music and diving into the lake at our leisure. keeping in true camp form we did a post-swim count off each time because safety comes first. and thats how we keep it here at camp robin hood.

towards the end of the trip things got a bit dangerous though, i was later informed that i refused to give up the helm and took the pontoon back to the marina. leigh tells me that i could barely walk and yet i pulled up to the dock flawlessly. go figure. i got back to camp a little leathered and didnt really feel like hiding away from... well everyone, i am kinda lucky to still be here to tell the truth, between playing 1 on 1 soccer with 12 year olds and singing very badly with a guitar i couldn't be much more fortunate not to have had a catastrophic encounter with a senior staff memeber, big thanks to my saxon boys and scribe girls for essentially keeping me out of trouble there. i shall forever remain grateful for that. i woke up the next day with many cuts, grazes and bruises from trying (poorly) wrestle my kids (some of them are pretty solid 16 year olds),

parents day was on saturday, we had been warned that we would have our craziest day of the summer, having more children, less time, and having to drop parents off at the dock each time we take them out. the morning was insane. so many kids, so many parents, such chaos. i was half relieved and half disappointed when the afternoon sessions were rained out. im sure the parents wanted nothing more than to see their kids shine on the lake.


roger (still here) and sonia (gone) tell me this girl doesn't look exactly like penelope cruz. go on. tell me.

today is a pretty solemn day in camp. some of the best campers and a few of the staff left at the half way mark, i am especially gutted as some of my favorite kids are now on their way home. there was a spanish contingency at camp and they brought such an amazing energy to this place that i can see already missing from robin hood. andreas bernar all the way from madrid was one of the most energetic kids in our bunk. always smiling, doing backflips off the dive tower and screaming out crazy spanglish sayings.

between the spanish kids and the staff who left, i feel like i have lost some people i had grown very close to.
andreas in the dining hall.

things are going to be very different here on in.

just in case you thought i made up the story about being a waterski instructor. here is me doing some wakeboarding at camp. such a nice day...

rainy day here on a thursday. just sitting here dealing with a few emails before breakfast ony my day off. plan is to head into conway and get a hotel: nice comfortable bed, a solid shower and go out for some good food. can't wait.

yesterday was a bit stormy so work was a bit stop/start. im still one of two with a driver's licence which is getting rediculous. we are supposed to be rotating between driving and shore assistant but cant really do that just now. be good to mix it up. even though i love it, its the best job in camp: too much of anything is a bad thing.

played team handball for the first time yesterday. i had never heard of it before but its basically like international rules football. for those of you who know me will also know that contact sports aren't exactly my forte. in fact i have never played a contact sport in my life so this was an interesting experience. it was good though, i sucked at first not knowing what the hell was going on but i got into it a bit more eventually and put up a few respectable plays. can't wait to play again. today i am so sore. not to mention it probably wasnt the best idea for my finger to play volleyball everyday for a week and then get stuck into some pretty agressive handball.

ok, im going to be late for breakfast, all of you keep up the news updates from around the world.

later kiddlets.

Campiness

Sunday night after the staff meeting (complete waste of time) we played a hell of a lot of volleyball, I’m getting quite into that sport. Its good fun and you can do some impressive stuff with it. Our last game was pretty intense and we didn’t finish up until almost 2am. What devotion. Earlier in the day I had been playing some 1 on 1 basketball with Roger Guesswein: for a 15 year old kid he is pretty incredible, probably the best in camp. He’s 5’11” and can shoot over my defense pretty much every time. I asked him to teach me to play and just a few small tips and I improved dramatically. The game score was 14-21 in the end and I was completely knackered, I think he went a bit easy on me, but only a little. I think I’m going to keep at it over the summer and maybe even be a respectable player over the next 6 weeks. I can’t believe its been over 3 weeks here and 2 with the kids already. Yesterday was photo day: group photos, photos with the specialty staff etc. They will be put up on the camprobinhood.com website eventually but I think you need a password to access them. I will work on getting them downloaded and stuff, should be some good pictures of the kids/other staff and me.

Right now I’m on duty with the lancers (13 year olds) which means I have to make sure they all go to bed, lights out and stay quite. I’m here from 9:15-12:15 and it can get a little boring… iPod, laptop and a lot of bug spray seem to help. I can see the yeomen (11 year olds) bunk from here and I thank the powers that be that I am not over there. They are all devil children I swear. Running around, sprinting out of their bunks, screaming, starting wars between the other side of the cabin, deodorant bombs, you name it. The guys on duty there sound like they are going crazy trying to settle them down. This is yet another reason I feel like the luckiest person on camp. Aside from a couple of guys who harass me to let them sneak out to get some ‘guaranteed poon’ my kids here are pretty quiet and well behaved. After about 10:45 they are all out and quiet. Life is good. Having said that, these kids are so horny. All the want to talk about is sex. Was I like that ten years ago? Probably a bit, but not quite that much.

Today was beach day. This may sound relatively straightforward but the logistics of moving 350 kids and 120 staff 2.5 hours to Ubunquit, Maine for a day on the beach boggles the mind. It’s crazy. The staff are divided into duty groups to spend 30mins in the water monitoring the kids. Sound simple? The water is cold. In fact, cold doesn’t really capture the temperature of this water. It is fucking icy cold daemon spawn reproductive system destroying mucho frio death water. My toes took about 10 minutes to regain feeling after I got out. That kind of endurance cannot be good for you at all. The kids ran in and screamed and ran out again lasting all of about 2minutes. I hope it was all worth it. Aside from the water the day was very nice, sun was shining, sand was nice, I got a bit of a nap in, bit of beach gridiron. Fun all round. My tan is getting a bit ridiculous these days, all the hairs on my body are completely blond, my skin is a really really dark red, everyone thinks that I am burnt everyday but that’s just the way I am, thanks for the Scottish blood pappa. Sad that I am going to be in Canada for a year after this: I’ll be a whitey again in no time. What a waste.

Between yesterday’s basketball/volleyball and today’s football/volleyball I’m damn sore. As most people know I’m not exactly the most athletic person around and I have really dived in the deep end here. Burning the exercise candle at both ends. I love it though, it’s going to take some work but I plan on having a fundamental level of hand eye co-ordination before I leave this place. My finger’s improvement has slowed a little, I should probably not be playing basketball and volleyball until it is completely healed but things would get very boring and I would be

A couple of photos were taken today but I was too scared to take my camera into that seething pit of hyperactive, wet, sandy children. Would have been good to get some more, I will try to get copies off Leigh and Maria, they took a couple of good ones.

That’s enough for today. No major events coming up any time soon that I’m aware off, back to work as usual tomorrow

cant always be smiles und sunshine. things have taken a turn for the worse. yesterday was my day off and i went into boston, more of that in a bit. in the evening we got a call from camp. some of our kids got caught smoking on camp. not good. 5 kids are being kicked out. its their last year as campers and this is kind of a big deal. the atmosphere here is pretty solemn, much like a funeral, hugs and crying all round. i feel bad for them but they were very stupid to be so careless. this is going to have a big effect on the rest of camp. they are missing out on the whole summer just as it is beginning.

this place is strange for me, it is my entire world. aside from the occaisional email from home, my contact with the outside world is 0. good, but strange.

my finger is improving slowly, still not cured but im doing well. happy about that.

yesterday was pretty excellent. got in the car after breakfast and headed for boston, about 2.5 hours later arrived at bush's house. fantastic place: huge mansion with an amazing yard. beautiful day. it was incredible. his basement was full of pool tables, ping pong and air hockey, i will always remember that place as where i first played the greatest game ever invented: beerpong.

very hard to explain so ask me to show you next time im around, basically you play ping pong with beer cups on the table that need to be hit or sunk into. very fun, competitive, athletic and gets you completely inebriated. games get very heated and people can make some amazing comebacks. coming back to camp was rough, had to get up at like 5:30am and drive a long way. a quick stop for coffee was esstenial and get i still could barely keep my eyes open. today is going to be a long day as well, need more sleep but cant just yet, got to get back to work.

hope you kids are enjoying the updates, keep in mind this is mainly to keep track of what i've been doing for myself. i have the memory of a goldfish.

peace out

life down on the water is pretty tough, there are days when we are busy, but there is a lot of time lounging so far. i think it will get busier but so far im coping. here are a few of my neighbours (sailing/waterfront staff) hard at work. life sucks dont it?

still camp goodness. not a huge amount of new stuff. camp is still good, waterskiing is still good. my broken finger doesn't actually seem to be broken, or at least its healing really well considering. i have about 70% functionality back already, in just one week! yesterday i went wakeboarding and didnt hurt myself. how good am i?

geoff's birthday was crazy, took up a whole restaurant with camp staff and got well roasted. no one more so than geoff himself. (pictured)

i took my day off on thursday and we drove to portland, maine. took us a bit longer than it should have: but not bad considering we had no idea where we were going, it was my first time driving on the right and we got caught in an amazing storm that reduced visability to nothing, not a damn thing, we all feared for our lives.

thats all for today. peace out.

camp goodness. camp is going well in case you hadn't guessed. people are great, kids are great and im generally having the time of my life. i have been teaching skiing for about 4 days now and its reaslly fun, its rewarding helping kids get up on skis, correct their posture and even learn a few tricks. their faces are amazing: both hilarious and inspiring. you can really tell when someone is enjoying themselves and when they are just hanging on for their lives. today is rained out, can't ski in the rain: its like bullets shooting at your eyeballs, i tried that yesterday and it wasn't fun.

saturday the kids got here and it was all a bit hectic, i being the awesome athlete that i am managed to break my finger playing basketball within an hour of them being here. go me! its been a while now, i was so depressed at first but now it seems to be healing really well and im at about 60% functionality again. this morning i even played a bit of guitar with no real problems. with any luck i should be skiing again by the end of the week.

tonight there is a bit of a thing in the dining hall: they are making a set and doing deal or no deal. my kids, the saxons (oldest boys) are doing the 'commercial breaks' from the sounds of it, its going to be bloody hilarious. i dont know if they have proacticed it enough not to be an awkward mess but i'll see soon enough. im going to take my camera down and possibly even get a movie or two happening. sweet.

last night was e-tard's birthday so we took him down to the whittier and got him pretty boozed up. i dont know how the fuck he was so chirpy this morning, he is just one of those people, i was fine i just needed a nap so i slept through dinner :( good thing i got my jerky supply.

tomorrow is my first day off, we're going to head into conway and possibly get a hotel room with a decent shower: oh yeah. i dont have to be back on camp until breakfast so that should be a solid day out.

ok i better get ready and head down to the studio. hope to hear from you all soon back home with some news. peace out kiddlets. beast!

hey all, hope everyone is happy and healthy in their respective parts of the world

things at camp are going far beyond my expectations. i will try to be as humble as possible about it but i dont think i can. i can't really describe my elation right now. we just got our bunk assignments (we have just been randomly spread
around so far and tomorrow we move where we'll stay for the summer)
there are experienced counsellors called group leaders who put in
requests for who they want in their bunks. i got put in an excellent bunk and many people are jealous :D. everyone here is so complimentary as
well, no one seems afraid to tell me what they think about me (at least the good things?) and its really a bit overwhelming... i have been getting great responses from the directors about my driving, skiing etc. i am basically
the only international who has managed to crack the tight circle of
americans who have been at this same camp for up to 11years in a row.
11years!

last night was crazy. there is this chinese restaurant in town where
basically everyone went, they dont seem to care about ID unlike the
rest of the country so people young and old basically took over the
whole place and drank ourselves silly. i slept through breakfast and
am now dying of hunger. im starving at meal times at the best of
times! the food here is generally surprisingly good, healthy options
and tasty treats. its great. i have to go now and head into town for a
supply/food run and check out the place. tomorrow i have to take my
boat drivers test. i really need to pass and i need to do more study,
i did pretty well on the practice run (93%) but i hear that the
practice run is a lot easier.

internet is hard to get to because im so busy all the time, any free
time i have i need to take a nap, its really going to be a full on
summer! i thought everyone here would be geeks and not drink but it has been beer beer beer so far. another thing: americans smoke a lot of weed. a lot. a stupid amount in fact.

its all a bit disjointed i know. im going out on the water tomorrow and hopefully sitting my test. kids get here on saturday and then the shit hits the fan, should be fun! speak to you soon kids. james.

hey all. updates are few and far between but its a hectic life i lead you know.

friday didnt exactly go to plan, basically took it easy all day and then headed out. first up we went to a club called hush, a damn long way out of town and we kinda got lost and had to double back a few times. there are freeways everywhere here, so you miss an exit and you're screwed. did i mention they have big trucks?

hush was pretty full on. huge line of cars, valet parking only. inside it was pretty cool, reasonably priced drinks loads of people... but after being there for a while i realised that the crowd were a bunch of knobs. they stood on the dancefloor barely moving; occaisionally sticking their hands in the air like they just dont care. awesome. funny how we only realised it was crap when we were loaded. there was some salsa music outside so we shook our groove thang for about 30 mins and fekked off.

we went to an after hours bar downtown and quickly discovered that you cant get alcohol after 2am! that is completely insane. nuts crazy and generally stupid. matty made some calls and discovered that there was a bar somewhere a ways down the road that sold drinks on the sly. just ask for 'orange juice' and you're good to go. the catch? its a gay bar.

i have the best luck with this kind of thing dont i? dont get me wrong, there were a few girls there. about 2% female. the rest of the crowd have the impression that if you looked at them twice were would be walking home with a distinct difference in your stride. you know me though, a few 'orange juices' and i was dancing up a storm: as long as i had a protective barrier of the 3-4 people i knew i was ok.

sunday was awesome. my first baseball experience and i loved it. beer, peanuts and the baseball song. somehow i managed to know all the words to half the songs, i have no idea how. "the stars in the night, are big and bright *clap clap clap clap* deep in the heart of texas"

not only was it a great game, but the astros (houston) slaughtered the braves. 14-4, and whats more baseball isnt nearly as complicated as it looks. in fact its amazingly simple. the atmostphere is good fun too. sunday night was pretty hilarious. we went to some bar out of the way, had some extremely strong margaritas (the tipping system has its advantages) and before you know it: jessalyn was an absolute mess. im talking in the top ten of all messy people of all time. thrown out of the bar, tried to steal matt's car, tried to leap out of said car on the freeway, broke up with matt, did some crying, kicking and biting. we eventually got her safe and sound to her friends house where she passed out and we kept on drinking, playing poker and watching movies. great stuff.

monday we were supposed to go to schlitterbahn but we were all a bit worse for wear and slept in instead. we opted for the closer but smaller cousin: six flags splashtown. good but not amazing. the tornado was this big funnel thing the you get shot down into and fly all over the place. very cool. we took a couple of pictures with a disposable but i doubt they will turn out, it was all a bit hectic. the day ended with papacitos (the mexican place where matt, jessalyn and john all work) followed by a sports bar, pool and beer. and that was houston. today im having some food with jess and john and then flying out to new york city tonight. rico will join me tomorrow and then its camp on saturday. at camp i will hopefully be able to get some photos online and attach them to this blog. stay tuned.

its been good hearing from everyone back home, keep up the good work, for the non-emailers: shame. actually this trip everyone has been good so its ok.

speak to you soon kiddlets.

hey kids, flew into houston after a very excellent 5 days in vegas. little bit down in the $$ department but overall i think it was value for money. some amazing stories/adventures/pictures

caught up with jessalyn (a texan friend of mine i met in france) yesterday, we went to have lunch at a place called the cheesecake factory, it was very good; i was expecting something crappy, the logo is even the same as the place back home but its actually a really nice restaurant, one of the healthiest meals i have had in a long time: santa fe salad. delicious! she then took me around for about an hour: another restaurant called the aquarium which is more like an aquarium that serves food, we just had a look around there, there is a big cyllinder almost 3 storeys tall with fish in it, i also saw this strange thing that looked like a cross between a swordfish, a shark, a platypus and a stingray. very strange. then i came home for a nap (my flight was delayed and i hadn't really slept at all) then we went to a bar at the other end of town, very very texas. it was pretty dead so we had a few drinks and moved on. went to jessalyn and matt (her boyfriend)'s friend's place where they were playing poker. you would think after a week in vegas i would get away from gambling but no such luck there. i didnt bet much and lost horribly. poker is not my game.

after a quick stop at Whataburger(where the kitchen staff insisted i was someone famous) got back here pretty late (about 5am) and slept until three. i just got in from a stroll down to the imax museum where i saw a couple of exhibitions, one on inuits, one on acient iraq/mesopotamia and then one called bodyworks. that last one was mindblowing. it was an exhibition of a process called plastination: its where they take corpses etc and preserve them so that they are freestanding, they look like plastic models but they are actually the real thing. you werent allow to take photos but i snuck in a few anyway. the most impressive was of a guy riding the biggest horse i have ever seen. i got a snap of it but it wasnt so good because it was on the sly. ill show you anyway. it doesn't capture the size of this thing, standing next to it was quite.. whats the word? belittling? something like that.

the place im staying at is very cheap but kinda dingy. i think i might have to fork out the extra cash and move, besides turns out im not at the best end of town, cost me $40 for a cab out last night. ouch. its the only hostel in town so i might have to switch over to a hotel. im not exactly meeting fantastic people at this place so the main advantage of hostelling isnt really there. everyone is very sombre/shy/quiet. friendly but boring is the best i can do.

tonight im just going to take it easy and read/relax. its so hard to eat well here, there are take out places everywhere and markets etc are all a long way away. ie. need a car. i get my licence back in a few days but i dont think i can afford to be hiring a car, maybe just one day but otherwise ill just have to stick with crap food. the museum i was in had a macdonalds inside. dont see that back home...

tomorrow im headed out to a waterpark called schilterbaan. apparently it is very excellent and worth the 2 hour drive. jessalyn's plan is to stay there from open till close and then head out for friday night. i think that plan is insane but i've never been one to turn down a good dose of insanity.

running out of ideas here so keep in touch ya'll, fire some questions my way im feeling very incongruant here.

check out the photos/videos from a most excellent vegas party i was at. watch the whole video: me and rico are in there a couple of times:

http://vegas.napkinnights.com/mov/view_movie.php?id=6

back in san francisco after a lovely five days in petaluma, northern california. a beautiful town about an hour from San Francisco. partied heartily with some youngins and did a bit of freestyling in the barn. fully sick. sorry, i mean it was so bomb.

tonight i got talking to a guy on the street. i'm starting to get a hang of when someone wants something from you and when they dont. this guy didn't, so i talked to him. he was clearly a little off balance. but only enough to make him interesting yet not scary. we talked about how paramedics smoke, how cheap cigarettes are here compared to australia (about 1/4) and then he said, with a deadly straight face. wait for it... that he was a prophet of god. i wasnt quite sure i heard him right so i played along. he went on to explain that the police had been giving him a hard time because lately he had been making bad things happen: like some very seriously bad weather at the golden gate bridge. "sure they don't mind when you make good things happen, but when bad things happen; that's when they get upset"

i could make some sort of witty remark about this, but i think i speaks for itself on one level or another, so i'll leave it there.

hungover and achieving very little. check out is at 10:30, its now 3:30 and i just got my deposit back. it was quite a night. i just about got into a fight with a bunch of americans for telling them they were ignorant. we all knew it had to happen sometime, lets just hope its an isolated incident. hell, stranger things have happened. i then discovered that the paper bag and its not illegal trick doesnt work, and a friendly officer (looking very sexy in black) was kind enough to pour my beer down the drain. just as well, i was hammered. don't really remember much last night but the resident icelandic boys tell me i was 'difficult'. me? never. getting picked up shortly to head out to petaluma, fun capital of california so im told. can't wait. i think i will definately have to come back to this state after camp. i didnt give it the attention (sobriety) it deserves. had my first round of american mcdonalds today. surprisingly tastes like australian mcdonalds. go figure.

hola chicas, how's things? i will try to talk down my news a bit so you don't get too jealous while you're sitting in your little cubicles/rooms/toilets with your big pile of books and no drunken obnoxious james' spicing up your lives. ok?

last night i went out with a few guys staying at the hostel. just for a few beers, some pool and stuffing around. was nice to have a beer. havn't had one since sydney. was surprisingly hungover this morning considering how little i drank. that was irritating. today did very little. walked around, got a phone, and then i sat and read in union square. when i looked at the time it had been 3 hours. didn't feel like that long, i think i may have even got a little sunburnt. me. an australian. getting burnt in california. the shame.

i've been trying to find bill bryson's other book on the US but to no avail. sucks. i have been enjoying this book immensely and i have almost finished, when i got about half way through i decided to buy a little packet of post-it notes and i have been marking the spots where i have laughed out loud. there are quite a lot of post-it's in there. i suppose i want to go back later and use them for little points of inspiration when i write. the idea of being a writer has for the first time seemed plausible to me since reading this book, a lot of the things he does are reasonably quotidienne but his style of writing makes up for that, and i can see myself starting to think in a similar way. i wont give away any of my secrets just yet, but i have come up with some pretty funny stuff from the most mundane of daily events. then again maybe my view of reality has become skewed thanks to how little i enjoyed LA. still, my positive outlook makes me think i might go back when i have a driver's licence again. everyone deserves a second chance: even a tacky, boarded up, sprawl of a city like LA.

i've been a bit down today really. the amount of crazy/homeless people around has really been getting to me. you just have to completely ignore them, which really pangs; but what else can you do? there are hundreds of them here. and most of them are clearly drunk, drugged or have been so drunk/drugged up in the past that it has had a lasting effect on their motor skills. san francisco is an affluent place really. i shudder to think what poorer places like new orleans, detroit, new york are like. im actually a little scared about going to nyc. its going to be hard from what i have heard. everyone except you says its fucked up.

in a way i feel obliged to do more touristy things while im here, and in a way i feel like i can't be fucked. i did the bridge and that just about killed me. i keep being told i MUST do alcatraz, but i dont think i will, i think i might top things off tomorrow by going to berkeley and doing one of the tours there. with 18 nobel prize winners from one campus there must be something of note there.

i havn't been staying in touch with as many people as i should have. at this hostel you can only use the internet for ten minutes or so and i seem to use about 9:55 on writing here, so you should feel very special indeed. i have a long list of emails, some dating back to february, that i need to reply to, but i need to be in a certain frame of mind to give them the attention they deserve. which doesn't happen too often.

for those of you who have an interest in well... stuff: i was thinking of looking into re-enrolling at UWA and doing a bachelor of education, which is a year's supplementary study on top of the degree i have done, and then rather than going back home, just applying for an exchange in sweden/canada/usa. but probably not canada, why would i want to go there?

After just two days in LA and already I'm on TV; talk about perpetuating the stereotype of this city. After I was done with the newscrew I headed into Hollywood, up to the sign for some pictures and then back down to the boulevard. I was going to stick around for some American Idol filming but then I slapped myself across the face and decided better of it. I wandered past the Chinese Theatre and took some photos of a storm trooper and Eddie Murphy's hand prints in the pavement from 1987. I also found a star on the Walk of Fame for one Jimmie Dodd. Not a nickname I wanted to maintain but it was a photo waiting to be taken. I then did a bit of a trek to the bus and made my way to Santa Monica and checked out the beach/pier. It's a nice places but today was particularly windy and that dampened things a bit. I walked from Santa Monica pier south to Venice beach, thats my exercise for the month! How am I going to supersize myself if i walk off all my In and Out Double Doubles?? Venice was pretty cool, people working out, playing basketball, playing tennis, rollerblading, walking their dogs (90% of which were chiwawas) and such. I had heard that it was full of freaks and was pretty disappointed when it was all pretty normal. The freakiest thing I saw was a guy with no arms and no legs hooning down the sidewalk headfirst on a skateboard. I was trying to figure out how he the speed up. Then I began my marathon effort to get back home. Lots of walking and a couple of (nearly fell asleep on) buses later and here I am. I think it's naptime. Actually, burritos first. Later.

I'm doing it all over again. So far so good. Right now I am standing in Sydney airport, its 10:30 on Monday morning and I have certainly felt better. I have had a good week over here on the east coast. Oli and Monique very both hospitable and entertaining. Monique discovered taxis charge a puke fee, oli screamed something about pies and ran off down the street after an unsuccessful scuffle over the only set of house keys, and we quickly discovered that energy drink-induced heart palpitations are a bit disconcerting. Getting into Sydney Gemma was an enthusiastic host taking me out on a touristy day of opera houses and bridges, beaches and ferries. Although her commitment was put to the test when i suggested we dine on Kangaroo/Emu/Crocodile pizza. I really wanted to savour one last piece of australia before i left. Really. Just had my name read out over a loudspeaker so I should probably get on the plane. Later Cuzzes.