Days 113-117: "Make Love Not War": My Aussie Halloween

Ahh finals are upon us. The idea is absurd to me. I'm basically on vacation; they can't ask me to do finals on vacation. At least the village is taking the sting out of it a bit by giving out free Tim Tams and hot chocolate every night of stuvac. (Stuvac = study vacation: the week in between class ending and finals beginning.) I just came back from one of these events, I'm quite full. Oh which reminds me, I tipped new heights on the scale today. I still think the scales I use off or that there's some different gravitational pull here because I like automatically gained 5 pounds getting off the plane, but anyway, I've gained something like 15 pounds while I've been here. I know. Its happened to everyone I know though and a lot of kids who have come and gone say once you go back to the US its not that hard to get the weight off. I feel optimistic. Maybe.

Last week I just spent a lot of time working on my final presentation for the BMRI. Thursday morning I busted up in there with my very professional green dress and sleek hair and rocked that presentation. All the work really paid off. I know I did well because of Bradley. He's one of the higher up guys who works there and he takes the piss out of (Aussie for pick on, criticize, make fun of, etc.) everybody when they finish presenting. When I finished and asked if there were any questions Bradley didn't say a word. Aww yea. Afterward I went back to the village and watched Ellen in the Well with Amber and felt victorious.

Friday was the day of our Halloween harbour cruise. There isn't an abundance of costume shops in Sydney, seeing as they don't really recognize that Halloween exists. When I went to the mall earlier in the week to look for stuff at Target and K-Mart they already had decked the place out in Christmas stuff; much to my immense horror might I add. I heard about a costume shop up King Street, but had a few back-ups picked out since I probably wouldn't make it there/feel like paying for any of it. A good friend of mine, who we'll call Moonbean, was freaking out the day before about a costume so I told her we could go as hippies (one of my back-ups) as I had two tie-dye shirts and plenty of accessories. She quite liked the idea and ended up going all out taping flowers to her skirt and making this sign to carry around that said "make love not war." Ohhh that sign...

Yea, so about 30 minutes before we have to leave to catch the boat I can't find my second tie-dye shirt. Oh yea, I mailed that home a few weeks ago with my winter clothes. Oops. I substitute this floral print top for tie-dye instead; its not an incredible costume but it suffices. The cruise is all you can eat pizza (kind of) and all you can drink. So we get on the boat and race for the pizza because everyone goes hog wild on the pizza and it runs out fast. Moonbeam, myself, and several other friends of mine are scarfing Dominoes like we haven't eaten in years. And then we get in the bar line. That's kind of the story of the night as we spent like 65% of the night waiting in the drink line. It was so great though when I wasn't in line: there was a DJ and dancefloor, heaps of Americans (a few other nationalities represented as well) in costumes, and the boat just kept going back and forth through the harbour. So I would go out on the deck fairly often and oogle at the skyline or get a kick out of going underneath the harbour bridge for the 3rd time or whatever. I'm not being entirely fair to the drink line though, there were some entertaining moments in it as well. Anyway as the night progresses they make it to where you can only get one drink at a time and downsize the cups, which is lame. However, they start to give out these orange vodka energy drinks. I'm sure you can see where this could make things interesting. I think I had like 3-4 of these in addition to several beers but am fine because I'm watching myself VERY carefully after the Avoca and internship cocktail incidents happening back to back (shiver). Moonbeam has almost as much beer as me and then 5 of these orange things and she's quite a lightweight. So its quite clear by the last hour of the cruise that she is a bit pissed as the Aussies would say (aka druuunk); oh and bouncing off the walls.

The boat drops us back off in Darling Harbor at Cargo Bar and so we all go in there. Its seems the energy level is a bit bonkers thanks to these orange things which is interesting. I'm having a good time socializing and whatever before I realize that I have a great task ahead of me: babysit Moonbeam. She and that freakin' make love not war sign are on a mission. Turns out my other close friends went back to Newtown while I was off doing something else. The two of us meet this guy who says he's from Tasmania and apparently he told Moonbeam he's going to be the opening act for John Mayer in Sydney in a few months. I know she fancies the guy and I'm quite curious as to whether or not he really is opening for JM, so while she bounces off to chat up someone else or use the men's restroom for the umteenth time (Moonbeam:"the queue was just too long for the women's!") I move in for a chat. We talk about jazz and stuff since I'm from New Orleans. And then he tells me that he can't talk to my friend anymore because she goes to Hillsong. I may not like Hillsong, but I light into this guy and tell him he needs to be stop being so judgemental. And he never mentions the John Mayer thing even though I steer the conversation so as to give him every chance to say something about it so I know he's lying. Moonbeam comes back so I let her cut in and I walk elsewhere. Some debacle ensues with this chick who's a friend of a friend trying to borrow my IDs to get in because she forgot her's that I don't want to go into. Then I head back to where I left Moonbeam and Mr. Poser. Apparently he took my advice about not being judgemental because when I turn back around I see them "talking" very close to each other's faces. Hahaaa.

When that's over I grab Moonbeam and ask her if she's ready to go. She says yes so I steer us toward the door. On the way, however, she flashes that stinkin' sign in every boy's face that we pass and they are all quite flattered as they think she's hitting on them. One of which happens to be this blonde Scandinavian dressed as a hula dancer. Blonde Scandinavians are Moonbeam's weakness. Yea, she strikes up a conversation with him. She isn't listening to a thing I say anyway so I know the best thing for me to do at this point is just let it happen but keep a watchful eye out. So I find a chair about 30 feet away from them and sit down by myself. This makes me an automatic target; Moonbeam better be so glad I love her to death. I was later pondering the nature of boys in Australia and they are just so forward. I've had boys try to pick me up in New Orleans, but its just a whole 'nother ballgame here. Behold:

First comes this tall blonde dude that knew me from the elbow trip (if you can recall one of my first entries from July I believe?). At this point I'm sitting by a hotdog stand and it smells heavenly. Naturally I start dropping hints about how hungry I am and then take it up a notch talking about how good it would be to have a hotdog. He must be too drunk to get it or too Scandinavian or something and so I end up having to buy my own hotdog. So I'm not happy about that, but then he asks me for a bite. Yea, I'm fine with that. Instead of a bite, however, he manages to eat HALF of my hotdog that I paid for MYSELF in one swoop. Ok, that really, really makes me angry. I give him a look that could've killed a small dog, and tell him to get lost. After him comes some dude (nationality indeterminable) and his friend who start talking to me about basketball. They're Chris Paul fans, so I talk to them for awhile. My Moonbeam radar goes off and I see her and hula dancer move to a booth so I excuse myself and trail them. I settle into a new spot about 30 feet away from the happy couple and am approached by some French guy no more than a minute later. I can't remember a thing about what he was saying except that I thought he was pretty dumb. I tell him I know a French phrase and say in my best French accent, "laissez le bon temps rouler!" He has no idea what I'm saying and then when I tell him he's like,"Oh. No one says that." And I'm like,"Whatever, we say it in New Orleans all the time." Then I encourage him to move along. Next come a couple of American boys. I think the one doing most of the talking was from Boston. We all know how much I love people from Boston, sheesh. But I talk to him for a bit, all the while keeping my watch. I see Moonbeam and hula boy part ways so I flag her down.

Its definitely time to go, I've had all I can take, so I excuse us and drag Moonbeam towards the door. She continues to flash that damn sign at every male we walk past while I'm yelling at her the whole time,"Put that away!" and "Give me that!" But she thinks this is really funny and keeps it just out of my reach. We're trying to figure out the best way to get home and she thinks it would be a good idea to call Liam to come get us. I know there's no way he's going to come down here and get us but she somehow manages to call him anyway. When I wrestle the phone away from her I apologize and explain everything is fine and that despite the condition of my friend here, I'm quite sober. I think that we should cross over to the other side of the harbor or walk to George St. because we don't have a lot for cab fare, but she ignores me and takes off for the nearest street where all the cabs pass and flags one down. I tell the driver we only have $15, and that manages to get us back to campus and the rest of the walk isn't bad. We pass these wasted angry dudes on Carillon right outside the village and Moonbeam gets in an insult match with them. I tell the dudes to grow up and hussle us into the village. Ah village, sweet village. I get Moonbeam back to her apartment and then wash my very dirty hippie feet before getting into bed myself. And that was my Aussie Halloween. Very hectic at times, but so entertaining just the same; I'm very satisfied. [Sidenote: while it sounds like I want to kill Moonbeam for her drunk antics, that is not the case. Every drunko deserves a good babysitter.]

On Saturday, actual Halloween, it was a gorgeous spring day. I laid out a bit and then wrote my final paper/reflection for social work on the porch at Hoochies. Reflecting back over the course, it really hit home for me how much I enjoyed it. It was by far my favorite class here and I've bonded with the other kids in my tutorial quite a bit. The professor was amazing and she encouraged me to network with the Aussie kids, which I have. So say I really get fed up with America someday I'll have some good contacts in psych/social work over here, haha. But yea, great class. It has made me consider social work even more seriously as a grad school/career path.

Sunday I went to Coogee beach with some friends to reward myself for finishing my two final social work projects a day early. The weather was so gorgeous this weekend. As I lay on the beach, I remarked to my friend that I thought that was probably the best November 1st I'd ever had. I was a huge failure after the beach though and bought myself an ice cream cookie and bag of chips for the bus ride home. After eating that I felt really gross so I went for a run when I got home. My ipod died halfway through though and so I ended up in a park playing on the swing for half an hour thinking about how much I love my life.

Today I didn't do anything of note but start researching for my Buddhist philosophy final paper. What a pain in the bum, I have such a hard finals schedule compared to everyone else. Oh well, at least I know that there will be free Tim Tams and hot chocolate awaiting me at 8 in the Well every night this week. Also, tomorrow morning I get to watch the Saints game since Monday at 7pm = Tuesday at 11am here. I have some big fanfare planned. Even during finals I really can't complain. Such is life down under I guess. Man, I'm going to miss this place (just 3 weeks left...).