lots going on. I have a list of things in my mind i'd like to write down starting with the stuff furthest in the past moving up to now but i always seem to never have enough time to get it down and then something new always happens. Anyways, i think i left off with me looking for work. Yeah, i ended up waiting around so long for apple picking that i spent allll my money, and hanging out and reading and exploring. I don't want to write anything down twice here but uh, here i start once more with the typing.
I've been typing with one internet window very small in front of another internet window that is big and has alot of text on it so anyone reading over my shoulder will have a hard time. For some reason i want to keep this a blog where i can say anything and not have to worry about noone i don't want reading it to read it. Should one have an internet outlet to dump all their thoughts and feeelings onto? I kindof feel like my blog here is way to blah blah blah, and that I could say everything i said in my large single paragraph posts in a much shorter amount of space. So i was hanging around town, not doing a whole lot. For a while it was quite regular that I would get a call from clint callin to see what i was up to, and if i wanted to have a smoke down by the gorge- after all, i paid him a bunchof money for grass so i wanted to get that, but it seemed like the only grass he would give me was the grass that we would smoke together. So we hung out maybe 4 or 5 times after our initial meeting up and giong to that bar that i wrote about. But i ask myself if i would have called him up if he didn't have grass for me, and i think the answer would probly be no. Maybe i'm kindof reculsive, self absorbed, a lone wolf, but i think i prefer my solotude most of the time over hanging out. Or maybe it's just that hanging out can be boring, or like, i can sometimes be hanging out and be thinking about how much i want to be alone. It was sometimes like that when i was hanging out with clint; also i would be trying to remember the funny things that he said so i could write them down in point form so i could later write them down in on the internet. how lame is that?? i sometimes think it's kindof lame i did that, but another reason for me doing that is because of the number of subtle differences between canadian and australian english. I'll try and type some down now.
-Everyone here seems to say the word Reken, or something. I think that is how it's spelt but im not sure. The australian uses this word where a canaidian would say the word think, so my last sentence would have been 'I reken that's how they spell reken.'
-Australians also say yeah alot. I say yeah alot too but the australian says it a little bit different. What you'll have to do, if you know me personally, is, next time you see me, ask me to say yeah like an australian. It's like... YEAAAH, i reken we'll be workin' up west'a the Tamar there, YEAAAH, YEAAAH, we got a good long day ahead'of us, YEAAAH. I like how they say yeah, it's funny.
-They also say, How ya' goin'? instead of 'what's up' or whatever we say. they say it so often. it's pretty funny really, 'How ya goin' matey??' And then sometimes i ask them how they are going with my polite canadian accent, maybe a little jokingly, 'how are you going?'
-Everyone in australia refers to the span of time known in canada as 'two weeks' as a 'fortnight'. Everyone uses this term, it seems. Weird.
-The term for a dude, or like, a bloke, guy, young man or whatever, is Punter. PUNTER, Weird.
I have a few more but my time on the internet here is up. I'll write up some more weird aussie terms later... YEAAAAH
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Friday, March 28, 2008
downloading is illegal and you can't do it here, she says. ok well i'll write in here then. I wanted to fill my new lil mp3 gadget with some music, and i was right in the middle of selecting some tracks when i was told to stop. BLAST! i was going to listen to that at work, in the vinyards where im snipping grapes and putting the sniped grapes into buckets and occasionally emptying buckets into larger bins. yes, it's so much nicer to have music; although it does disconnect me a little from the chatter of my co-workers. But i should maybe start a little earlier, to when i first got here.
I arrived here with little money and my goal was to find work real quick and make some money , as i had brought little of my own with me from canada. It was pretty good to leave the cold, i hear it's the coldest winer in canada since sometime in the thirties. ahh, goodbye canada winter hellow australia summer. I started looking for jobs, but the only real lead was apple picking; i was told to go to an induction seminar in a week, so i wated around, hung out, walked alot, went to the gorge as much as i could.
I choose to stay in a backpackers, with the piano in it as the decider. Accross from a park close to downtown launceston. I was waiting for work and slowly running out of money. After going to the apple picking induction, on a monday, i was told to expect work by thursday. I was later told monday, and when they didn't callme or nothing on monday i called them and they said thursday, and by friday i figgered i didn't get the job. I suspect that this is maybe because i had a bad cough during the induction (((as soon as i arrived in australia, i had a bad cough- maybe from the plane ride over because it was clear that alot of people on the plane, including myself to a small extent, was showing flulike symptoms. But upon arrival i had a terrible cough. It was quite off putting to myself , and others im sure, what with me coughing up goo every so often. Usually at night, when it was the worst, I would wake up with breathing troubles. Every morning for like 2 or three weeks I would wake up and feel the need to retch up a ball of extreamly potent mucus, often interesting colors, of wich i would sometimes spit into my hand and marvel over, poking it and playing with it, rolling it around in my palm. I had never had phlegemballs like this before it was cool in a way. but kindof off putting i should say again)))
but anyways, i was in the backpackers waiting around for work. spent my savings and maxed out my creditcard before long because i kept being told i could work soon, and it's 20$ a night at the backpackers. I took to reading alot, and drawing; i'm almost finished my book of self portraits. Perhaps i'll scan them soon.
At first i was staying in an 8 bed dorm style room, or, like 2 rooms that were one room. At first, staying on the bottom bunk below a girl from hong kong who would often share her bed with her sister. Their cellphone alarm clock was an avril lav. song; they were always getting up early. Some nights I would play the piano (i printed out a huge collection of selected chopin cuts that i wanted to learn) and people liked it sometimes. There's a Kitchen, a large tv room, and a larger common room with lots of tables, couch , piano, bulliten board, fat cat, other things. At first my hong kong roomates saw me reading music in the room and asked me to play- i was kindof shy of it because there is usually so many people in the common room but it was alright when i started one night, these spanish girls were sitting really close and watching me it made me a lil nnervous but i played ok, and later the hong kongiese girls came in and filmed me with their weird technology. People can get really loud, drinkin' some beers, i usually choose these settings, where there's people laughing and hanging out, sometimes yelling and getting rowdy, singing their own songs over what im playing. Sometimes i think they don't like it, or me trying to play the piano favorites but slowly with mistakes, but im getting better always, and playing the stuff is getting to be more natural all the time. (i've switched my studies by now to other things, or things other than chopin i mean...) but anyways,
... i wish i wasn't so ignorant of this part of the world. I think it was a faux pas to not know that people from hong kong spoke cantonese. It sucks that i have only 1 fluent language, but at this point i need only to think of my language learning project instead of feeling upset at my inability to communicate outside the limits of my only language english.
Maybe i'll type about these things later,as i have few minutes left on the internet machines here. Much has happened that i still must enter into the logs, this is the beginning of a journal of awsome journeys, better than the travel writings of byron, miller, or anybody else because im writing them for me and im my number one fan. Where will i go? it's allll up to me, and how much money i have, and how much willpower i have to go everywhere, yes, i will go everywhere. maybe i could start with going back to the hostel for some lunch. I dunnno, what should i do with y day offff.??
I arrived here with little money and my goal was to find work real quick and make some money , as i had brought little of my own with me from canada. It was pretty good to leave the cold, i hear it's the coldest winer in canada since sometime in the thirties. ahh, goodbye canada winter hellow australia summer. I started looking for jobs, but the only real lead was apple picking; i was told to go to an induction seminar in a week, so i wated around, hung out, walked alot, went to the gorge as much as i could.
I choose to stay in a backpackers, with the piano in it as the decider. Accross from a park close to downtown launceston. I was waiting for work and slowly running out of money. After going to the apple picking induction, on a monday, i was told to expect work by thursday. I was later told monday, and when they didn't callme or nothing on monday i called them and they said thursday, and by friday i figgered i didn't get the job. I suspect that this is maybe because i had a bad cough during the induction (((as soon as i arrived in australia, i had a bad cough- maybe from the plane ride over because it was clear that alot of people on the plane, including myself to a small extent, was showing flulike symptoms. But upon arrival i had a terrible cough. It was quite off putting to myself , and others im sure, what with me coughing up goo every so often. Usually at night, when it was the worst, I would wake up with breathing troubles. Every morning for like 2 or three weeks I would wake up and feel the need to retch up a ball of extreamly potent mucus, often interesting colors, of wich i would sometimes spit into my hand and marvel over, poking it and playing with it, rolling it around in my palm. I had never had phlegemballs like this before it was cool in a way. but kindof off putting i should say again)))
but anyways, i was in the backpackers waiting around for work. spent my savings and maxed out my creditcard before long because i kept being told i could work soon, and it's 20$ a night at the backpackers. I took to reading alot, and drawing; i'm almost finished my book of self portraits. Perhaps i'll scan them soon.
At first i was staying in an 8 bed dorm style room, or, like 2 rooms that were one room. At first, staying on the bottom bunk below a girl from hong kong who would often share her bed with her sister. Their cellphone alarm clock was an avril lav. song; they were always getting up early. Some nights I would play the piano (i printed out a huge collection of selected chopin cuts that i wanted to learn) and people liked it sometimes. There's a Kitchen, a large tv room, and a larger common room with lots of tables, couch , piano, bulliten board, fat cat, other things. At first my hong kong roomates saw me reading music in the room and asked me to play- i was kindof shy of it because there is usually so many people in the common room but it was alright when i started one night, these spanish girls were sitting really close and watching me it made me a lil nnervous but i played ok, and later the hong kongiese girls came in and filmed me with their weird technology. People can get really loud, drinkin' some beers, i usually choose these settings, where there's people laughing and hanging out, sometimes yelling and getting rowdy, singing their own songs over what im playing. Sometimes i think they don't like it, or me trying to play the piano favorites but slowly with mistakes, but im getting better always, and playing the stuff is getting to be more natural all the time. (i've switched my studies by now to other things, or things other than chopin i mean...) but anyways,
... i wish i wasn't so ignorant of this part of the world. I think it was a faux pas to not know that people from hong kong spoke cantonese. It sucks that i have only 1 fluent language, but at this point i need only to think of my language learning project instead of feeling upset at my inability to communicate outside the limits of my only language english.
Maybe i'll type about these things later,as i have few minutes left on the internet machines here. Much has happened that i still must enter into the logs, this is the beginning of a journal of awsome journeys, better than the travel writings of byron, miller, or anybody else because im writing them for me and im my number one fan. Where will i go? it's allll up to me, and how much money i have, and how much willpower i have to go everywhere, yes, i will go everywhere. maybe i could start with going back to the hostel for some lunch. I dunnno, what should i do with y day offff.??
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
do you ever experience a night so weird and funny that you try and remember all the stuff that happened so you could write a short story about it?
So it was my first night hanging out with the locals. This dude asked me a question, where someplace was, and i didn't know but he walked with me for a while and i ended up asking him if he knew where one could find grass in launceston tasmania. he said it was hard to come by but he was actually going to sell some to a friend and he was looking for a bar somewhere near the hungry jacks (burgur king). I thought, sweet, a drug dealer- just what i was looking for after being in town for a little over a week, and looking for some stuff to smoke out in the woods. His name was clint and he seemed like a good guy, i walked with him to this bar and i kindof knew the way because i had walked around there before looking for a job. (paul has only 10 minutes left and must quickly finish this story before the library closes. So we go to this bar and immediatly go to the back where all the smokers are smoking, outside. we meet up with this old dude who doesn't seem interested in talking to me and kindof grumbles when i ask him questions. He buys me a beer though, a round for everyone. Nice enough but that kindof means i have to hang out there with all the old australians, who as i can hear had been drinking all day- the day before was the launceston cup, a state holiday to celebrate horse racing. Anyways, they were talking about how drunk they were the night before and how they'd been drinking since 10 am... that's the stuff i remember at first, but they were talking about lots of stuff, some of which i couldn't understand because i'd never heard the thick accent much before.
I put my backpack down, near an ashtray that everyone fliccks ther cigarrettes into. Some dude misses and hits my bag, comes over and is like what are you doing in here with a bag you shouldnt bring a backpack into the bar mate what are ya thinkin. We kindof look at each other a bit then he puts out his hand and says 'peaceful' i shake his hand and he says ' peaceful' again. So we're hanging out, dude who i later learned is named brenden buys me another beer, and we go play some pool. I soon learned from other peoples talking that the guy who shook my hand is NAMED peaceful; i had no idea he was introducing himself at all. Then i go into the bathroom for the drug deal- clint is really uptight about doing this and he offers me about oa half a gram of really shitty dope in a piece of paper and asks for 25$. i say no way and talk him down to 15 but still it's so much money and i can't afford it, or at least don't want to pay that much for such a small amount of shite. I ended up buying it for 20 on the condition that i'd see more of it later, give me a few buds he says he'd give me in the future. So ok at least i scored because i really wanted it ( i ended up having an amazing time smarkin it in the cataract gorge one afternoon it was so inspiring.)
But anyways, we hang out and play pool for a long time, and brenden keeps buying me drinks, i had maybe 6 drinks given to me by the end, 3 of them shots. We meet this friendly other dude and we all cabbed back to brendens. Clint is 20 or so years old, brenden is probly 60 and an extreme alcoholic, which i thought was a strange pair of buddies, and this other dude ggave me this weird wristband that said amnesty international on it and gave me his phone number. We hung out but there wasn't music just the tv. We drank beer and smoked 'chuff' which is australian for grass, and we had 'cones' which is some weird way they do it. i get up at one point to switch the radio on but it doesn't work, but the tv is so annoying it's some dramatic show with intense diologue and music, and when i go sit back down im told to be careful because you shouldn't touch a radio in someone else's house because you might get your ass beat, just sayin'. It was weird because i knew thhey were nice guys and wouldn't do that but it was just a friendly warning. And i was later told that brenden doesn't really like strangers. I couldn't really tell what his deal was but i heard that he has alzheimers and that's why he can't talk well. but if he didn't like me all that much he shure bought me so many drinks. I guess he just wanted people to party with. ahh. anyways, many more adventures have happened since, i 'll write them down later, i just wanted to type this one out before anything else.
I put my backpack down, near an ashtray that everyone fliccks ther cigarrettes into. Some dude misses and hits my bag, comes over and is like what are you doing in here with a bag you shouldnt bring a backpack into the bar mate what are ya thinkin. We kindof look at each other a bit then he puts out his hand and says 'peaceful' i shake his hand and he says ' peaceful' again. So we're hanging out, dude who i later learned is named brenden buys me another beer, and we go play some pool. I soon learned from other peoples talking that the guy who shook my hand is NAMED peaceful; i had no idea he was introducing himself at all. Then i go into the bathroom for the drug deal- clint is really uptight about doing this and he offers me about oa half a gram of really shitty dope in a piece of paper and asks for 25$. i say no way and talk him down to 15 but still it's so much money and i can't afford it, or at least don't want to pay that much for such a small amount of shite. I ended up buying it for 20 on the condition that i'd see more of it later, give me a few buds he says he'd give me in the future. So ok at least i scored because i really wanted it ( i ended up having an amazing time smarkin it in the cataract gorge one afternoon it was so inspiring.)
But anyways, we hang out and play pool for a long time, and brenden keeps buying me drinks, i had maybe 6 drinks given to me by the end, 3 of them shots. We meet this friendly other dude and we all cabbed back to brendens. Clint is 20 or so years old, brenden is probly 60 and an extreme alcoholic, which i thought was a strange pair of buddies, and this other dude ggave me this weird wristband that said amnesty international on it and gave me his phone number. We hung out but there wasn't music just the tv. We drank beer and smoked 'chuff' which is australian for grass, and we had 'cones' which is some weird way they do it. i get up at one point to switch the radio on but it doesn't work, but the tv is so annoying it's some dramatic show with intense diologue and music, and when i go sit back down im told to be careful because you shouldn't touch a radio in someone else's house because you might get your ass beat, just sayin'. It was weird because i knew thhey were nice guys and wouldn't do that but it was just a friendly warning. And i was later told that brenden doesn't really like strangers. I couldn't really tell what his deal was but i heard that he has alzheimers and that's why he can't talk well. but if he didn't like me all that much he shure bought me so many drinks. I guess he just wanted people to party with. ahh. anyways, many more adventures have happened since, i 'll write them down later, i just wanted to type this one out before anything else.
Monday, March 17, 2008
Thursday, March 13, 2008
the first time i saw a kangaroo i saw like 30 of them, driving by in the car looking out the window, there was a guy in there, farmer type, carrying a daed one and the rest of them were hopping after the guy carrying the one dead one, it was both funny and sad, them all hopping there, after their dead friend.....
Friday, March 7, 2008
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
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