So this morning on the train the song “Hotel California” popped up on my iphone and while I was listening to it I came to think “wow this is a really old song”  then it got me thinking about how its a song my dad’s generation would’ve listened to and how its one of those songs that old people would say “back in the day we used to listen to…”.  So that got me thinking about the times we’ve lived through and how we let things simply fly past,  I speak for myself mainly but generally when something big happens I think to myself “Oh wow, thats pretty serious” but then a few days (or weeks depending on severity) you just kind of forget it and not give it a second thought.  911 is a prime example of this, I mean for most of us Australians it really was just something that happened in a distant land, too far for us to really care about it.  I mean we were shocked and surprised like the rest of the world but now, years down the track who gives a second thought to 911?  We know about it, but we just don’t care.

Thinking back, we’ve lived through some pretty fast-paced times.  I mean when I was a kid I was using black and white macs (yes the screens were black and white, no colour), we’ve lived through dial-up, cable, ADSL and now ADLS2, music has changed quite a bit too, we’ve seen the rise and fall of superstars, the death of Michael Jackson.  A lot of things happen and we kind of just go with the flow which is not necessarily a bad thing.

But thinking about it, at age 21, I can easily say “I’ve lived through such and such times” to someone even just a few years younger, and I get people only a few years older than I am telling me stuff that I have never experienced (and never will)  Am I old? Perhaps. But thats not the point.  When we let things fly by us so quickly and rapidly we don’t really appreciate the significance of the times we live through, but a few years down the track when/if we start to reflect we start to realise how profound the changes we’ve lived through are.

Perhaps its a good idea to keep note of the events we might deem ’significant’ and see how we think of them in a few years, a time line might provide a visual representation of how turbulent our lives are.  This also makes me think that if I was to make a personal timeline of my own personal significant events (the good and the bad) it might interesting to see what it holds…  More on that later perhaps.

So thanks to a very heated and argument on chat about openess in sexuality vs maturity  I came to think about something very important:  The Inner Child

Lets face it, everyone has an inner child, that little kid inside all of us that says “I wanna have fun!”  I think that everyone’s desire to enjoy themselves comes from the inner child and that it is an integral part of our personalities.  In some people the inner child manifests itself more then others, in others it is suppressed more than others and needless to say alcohol seems to bring out this inner child more by removing the inhibitions we put on ourselves.

Quite often people talk about maturity vs immaturity and how some people need to be more ‘mature’.  I think thats a load of crap, most of the time people are ‘immature’ because they’re trying to have fun, and if they want to have fun then let them.  What I think happens a lot though is that people who try to have fun do so at the expense of others and this annoys people resulting in the label “immature”.  In these cases I think the word “inconsiderate” is more accurate.  For example, you can be extremely drunk, obnoxious and loud and have the time of your life but just make sure you’re not being loud towards other people who aren’t in such a celebratory mood or disturbing anyone otherwise you’re being inconsiderate.  Also people who think loud and obnoxious people on the street are annoying, you ARE in a public area, not everything can go your way so just deal with it, you can’t force your views on other people.

You can do whatever you want, so long as it is not at the expense of others.

So all in all I think the inner child is something we should all strive to seek out, it makes us happy and allows us to enjoy life.  It’s ok to be silly and laugh at silly things, its not ‘weird’ as some people may think.

We all have an inner child, we should all let it out when we can.

Well another week passes by, a somewhat eventful weekend that involved puking and and beer.  Not much to tell there…  LOL I’ve only just realised I have three assignments due very very soon, all of them final projects.  In fact all of my classes have final projects due.  Time to actually do work for once hahahahahahahahaha…

SHORYUKEN, need to plan my travels too and book some things. HUSTLE.

Peace.

Well, as per my usual crappiness at taking photos I don’t many because i simply cbb, maybe this habit will change on this trip… Anyways, its been a busy week, made an epic trip to walmart and bought some supplies ( I won’t list them here) it actually does have everything, its like a giant version of kmart, which they have here as well but walmart eats up all the smaller businesses.

So I discovered that gym membership is 50 bux a SEMESTER, thats right a SEMESTER.  AND my dorm building is right across one, (i say one because theres three of them on campus)  yeah the campus is absolutely huge.  I’ll never think UNSW is big again.  

Also to my pleasant suprise is how cheap my meal plan makes eating,  my budget is smiling more and more everyday.  Upcoming I have a 4 day weekend since every week I have 3 days off and theres Martin Luther King day on the Monday, what to do… hmmm….  I don’t really wanna spend too much on travel just yet, maybe I’ll go somewhere nearby or maybe commute back to NY for a few days.

Oh well, I’m sure I’ll think of something, hope all is well back down under!  I miss home already! =(

Well well, it seems its finally 2009, happy new year everyone! I hope you all had a enjoyable NYE!  I myself had quite an epic journey on NYE (yes thats right I said JOURNEY) I started off the day waking up at 10, my uncle took me out to yumcha (which they call dim sum here) becaue it was my grandma’ birthday.  Then he gave me a metro card so I was pretty set for transport (a metro card is like a prepaid subway card).

After that I got home and layered up for NYE, this is when the epic journey began.  First of all I was wearing two layers of pants, a long sleeve undershirt, a polo shirt, a jacket with a wind stopping layer that I got for christmas and another thick as jacket down jacket that I got from my uncle, thats 4 layers + beanie, scarf, ear muffs and gloves.  Anyway after I layered up, got driven to the station and took the subway into the city to meet up with Kirstie and her cousins.  That went well, we found each other pretty easily thanks to our wonderful cell phones.  After a very early macca’s dinner we walked to Times Square to find an entrance,  we walked about 10 blocks before we found one! 10 blocks!  I was losing hope after the 9th =( and by then it was already freezing cold.

So we got in and about 7 blocks away from times square we had to stop because it was too crowded.  So thats where we stood for the next 4 hours.  It doesn’t sound like much but when ur standing still in -6 celsius temperature it actually starts to hurt even with all those layers.  At this point they also started giving out the blue nivea merchandise with the 2009 stuff on it (if any of you watched times square on tv you’d know what I was talking about)  We only got one confectionary bag amongst the three of us =(

After about 4 hours they opened up the BACK of the block to go into the next block and we were at the front!!! When we all realised it was like a mad rush to get to the entrance, annoying really since we were disadvantaged for getting there earlier -_-”  We got in eventually however and ended up next to M&M World!  Thats where st stood for the remaining 4 hours.  Honestly the ball drop wasn’t too impressive, not after seeing Sydney’s fireworks for the last few year, but still it felt good being at time square for NYE.  Anyway after that the crowd dispersed and we went into this diner place to defrost and fill our empty stomachs.  I swear I started walking and my feet HURT.  Not from standing but from the COLD, like wtf!!! It felt like pins and needles to the max, seriously…  but after a few minutes in the diner it was all good.  We stayed and chatted for a bit and when we left it was 2am in the morning already.

The journey home was also quite epic.  My friends walked me to my station before heading off to thiers and there I stood for 15 minutes, waiting for my train to queens… until I realised MY TRAIN DIDN’T RUN THIS LATE AT NIGHT.  Luckily though there was another train on a different line that ran local on late nights;  I should explain this, here the subway operates either local or express, express is quite obvious  I guess local is like our all stops.  So anyway I needed a local train so I asked the lady at the station just in case and she confirmed that I needed to go onto the other line.  She told me a station as well but I think i mis-heard her,  I heard something-third st and 7th av.  I assumed 43rd so I walked SIX BLOCKS to find no subway station with my line,  I think now it was 53rd which would’be been much closer… Anyway  at 43rd/7th there was no subway so I kept walking to 42nd just to check and luckily there WAS a subway… but it didn’t have my line at that entrance…. BUT there was a sign that said access to E line at 8th avenue (E line was my line) So I walked another block to 8th and again FOUND NO STATION.  So I walked around and around and thought.. hang on this isn’t right, so I decided to check every corner of that intersection and finally I FOUND IT, a small entrance that I had missed.  And so finally the epic was over, I called my cousin and asked her to pick me up from grand avenue station (which I’m SO grateful for)  BUT THEN halfway through the journey the train decides to turn into an express!!! I was like !#$@$!#@$@!#$!@#T$  So I had to call my cousin and ask her to pick me up from a different station..  and this station was so dodgy…  the outside was anyway, it was like dark and under a bridge with some really run down streets.  I was scared…  Luckily there were some cops there which made me feel safer.  Anyway my cousin picked me up and got me the hell out of there THANK YOU… I got home and slept.  The End.

Sorry I know it was long but I had to tell it all, it was quite epic.

New Years Day  I slept until like 4, then Kirstie called and said she was going back to the ct and then heading back to New Jersey,  so I decided to join her and her cousin.  We didn’t do that much though, we did however go to M&M WORLD thats right 3 levels of M&M merchandise goodness (no samples though =( )  There was this awesome leather jacket with M&M logos and pictures on it and crystals and shit, selling for $3000…  GG.  Yeah there was ssome cool stuff there, didn’t buy nething though, trying to save up till later.  If I have money afterwards though I’ll be sure to come back.

After M&M World we ate PIZZA!  and this wasn’t like australian pussy pizza, this thing was like massive and it was MEDIUM SIZED WTH!  It was big… and it was good…  oh and did I mention epic, yes it was an epic pizza.

Unfortunately I didn’t bring my camera to any of these events, but Kirstie did!! So when I manage to steal her photos I’ll upload them and add them to this post.

Until then cya all!! Happy New Year!!! I hope 2009 holds great and exciting things for everyone!

So yesterday on boxing day I went shopping at Roosevelt Fields Mall with Clement and Fanny, thanks to my cousin flora for driving us there!

I managed to spend a total of $221 US LOL but I only bought two things: 

- A Leather Jacket from Top Gun ($217 incl. Tax)

- A white Shirt from Guess ($20.90 incl Tax)

NB: All prices are in USD since.

Needless to say I probably wont be shopping again for a while since I already spent 200+ this time (thats over 300 AUD)  Also afterwards I went with Fanny and Clement to Union Square and St Marks to get my prepaid phone and have dinner =)

Here are some photos (clement has more):

Well after a suprisingly short flight (apparently it was 12 hours, I was expecting 15)  I’ve landed in San Francisco.  The flight from Sydney was quite pleasant because I was lucky enough to get an aisle seat and noone sitting next to me.  EXTRA SLEEP ROOM YEAH!  Also there were a few movies that I had been meaning to watch that were on the flight, one of my more pleasant flight experiences I must say.

My plane to New York has now been delayed by 1 hour so I’m stuck here for another 2 hours since check-in was also extremely quick and went really smoothly.  I thought the airport would have free wireless… I was mistaken.  As I type this post I’m using a connection that costs $6 for a ‘day pass’  I’ll only be using it for another 1 and half hours at most so I probably jipped myself but meh.

Anyway its probably Christmas over in Australia so merry christmas to everyone! It’s not quite white here in San Fran, just gloomy like Australia’s crappy winter.  Hopeully it’ll snow soon (or at least in New York).

Bye!

First of all thanks to everyone who came and made the night such an awesome one! It was just so great to see everyone one last time before I jet off for half a year to the states, especially those who I hadn’t seen for ages!

Also thanks to Ray, Goldie, Nat and King for that awesome digital photo frame keyring, to Carina for the pinata that was sooo hard to break (I think i broke my finger haha!) and grace for the lovely swiss army knife complete with an engraving of my NAME on it… which I didn’t discover until she pointed me in the right direction.

Now I have little over a week left before my flight, I’ll be seeing some of you again before then I’m sure, but for everyone else I’ll see you all in half a year! Try not to miss me too much =D hehe.

Some photos of my awesome gifts =D:

I didn’t have a camera at the bar but other people did, I’ll upload photos when I manage to get my hands on them =)

Haha Nat aren’t you lucky you get a whole post (well sort of).  Just wanted to say take care! and have fun and you know all the rest of that stuff since I won’t be seeing you for like another half a year (more than that I think.) Don’t drink too much in Japan! We all know you’re an alco so don’t deny it!

Yeah so today or rather yesterday… we went to see Nat off at the airport, there were photos but they’re on Nat’s camera so it’ll be a while before I can get my hands on them, will post them up when I get them.  After that played some basketball in the afternoon and then went to watch High School Musical 3.

Honestly they’re just milking the series, some very generic plot I thought.  Then again noone watches that movie for its plot, one thing I did notice is I laughed at this movie more than I did the others because of the extremely corny way of breaking out into dance, I don’t remember if in the first movie it wasn’t as corny or if I became more aware of it but I don’t seem to recall laughing so much during it.  Anyway probably not worth the money to see unless ur a fan of any of the actors/actresses in the movie.  I was fortunate enough to have some free tickets that expire while I’m overseas so I have to use them now.

Well, this is my personal blog where I shall post my random thoughts, news and photos of places I go etc.  Not much more to say.  Its a simple design, didn’t take too long to make hope you enjoy it…

So to start off with I’d like to post up some photos from pre-2007,  a very nostalgic period with some good times and good memories:

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