Hmm What's Been on my Mind?

The past two weekends, and possibly the next two, I haven't really 'done' much. Ever since my Brissy trip I've just been chillin' here, bored a lot of the time, tryin' to finish assignments and prepare myself for finals...Maybe I said this before, but I can't wait to get outa TSV and explore more areas of this continent. It's drivin me crazy. The heats driving me crazy. The humidity, the lack of money to venture out (the necessity to save for upcoming trips), the stress from school, the nothing much to do anymore besides the ush. Its all drivin me nuts. However, its nice being away with really, no pressure to do or be anything that I'm not. People here rock. Speaking of rock, I've downloaded heaps of new music, so, if you're interested, I'd love to "share the wealth" of the spritualy delighting and good feeling music with anyone and everyone (whenever you may run into me). I've also played the old guit a lot w/ my friend Steph and her gf Jackie.. singin' random songs to make a good time out of passing time. Another thing that keeps me up is 'the knowing/realization' of what I'm bout to do in the near future..things like surfing the net for the best places to skydive in NZ..the NZ/AUS exchange rate is amazing by the way. We bascially get 33% off EVERYTHING in OZ and 40% off everything in NZ! I'm down with that.
Hmmm...what else... I've learned many German words thanks to my German roomie Jan (pronounced Yawn). He's really cool....I've also figured out that no matter how much I sometimes miss Oregon, its trees, air, water, friends, snow, sea, music,,,,,,I want and I am going to travel for as long as possible. It would be amazing if any OG friends would come. I refuse, after graduating, to settle down and work in one place 5 days a week, unless that place is someplace new, and what I do interests me. However, as of now I have no clue what interests me most so sheeeit!. Anyways, we'll see what comes my way. And, if you see me ever conforming to a corporate slowdown of settling down, at least while I'm in my 20's, PLEASE slap me and remind me of what I said before.
Hmmmmmm. People are cool. It's always awesome to meet good people. I LOVE good people. They make my day. I also love interesting and open-minded people, and real people...I'll be honest..kinda scared to go back to USD in the spring... I'll miss the good people I've met here too much. You know who's a really good person? Let me tell yah.. Barack Obama.
Yep, lets talk politics now.. a lil. The presidential race has constantly been on my mind. Earlier today I read an artical about one of Obama's campaing rallys. It explained how there was an ocean of people waiting for our candidate to speak. There was people playing music. There were hands waving back and fourth. There were people on eachother's shoulders so they could get a glimpse of him. They weren't heckeling. They were smiling. Hopeful and excited. About 100,000 people all coming together, it explained, black, brown, and white, together, with the vision of hope that reaches beyond onself. I really almost shed a tear when reading this.. anyways, heres a youtube link you should check out. It's hilarious...http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=N6ya39slPgs...
anyways... if you've made it this far, thanks for readin'. Hopefully my next blog will be more exciting... goin back to Noosa soon and I CAN'T WAIT!!!! and hopefully good stories will come out of that. For the mean time, keep on keepin on, take care, and promote awesomeness!

no title/little political rambling

Just finished watching Donnie Darko... Great movie. I thought I was crazy...sheeit. Perhaps its a film that reflects cause and effect? God's path? Time travel? Regardless, it was an interesting watch and would recommend it to most people.
anyways, if anybody's been watching the election coverage back in the homeland, I'm sure its freakin intense. I've been browsin' the main headlines, youtubes, cnn, and nbc websites and it sounds like Obama's doin great. I just can't get over the fact of how desperate the McCain campaign is getting however. Earlier I felt a little sorry for the guy because he just isn't running the campaign which he wants. Infact, his campaign has taken so many screwed up twists that he's been resorting to harsh, degrading, and unbelievable campaign tactics lately. Now, I feel no sorrow for the old man for he is launching crude and threatening tacktics towards my man Obama. I'm scared that, for when Obama does get elected, many angry and racist right wing conservatives wouldn't hesitate to retaliate against their loss and try and take out their opponent who only want's to make America more truthful and fair for everyone. Obama is not a socialist. He is not a fucking terrorist or muslim either. Also, who gives a f*** if he was associated with a Weather Underground member from over 30 years ago, who now is a well respected professor that contains more knowlege in his baby toe than McCain's running mate for vice president. The bottom line is... look at the differences of character, truth, and common-sense between the two campaigns.. Listen to what they are talking about and what they are saying. You will find Obama much more centered about preaching his world view/defending himself and McCain centered on rippin his opponent appart. It's sad and pathetic.
Anyways..Mom just called, saw my puppy on skype. ha. told me how shitty the economy is.. how everybody's loosing money. Gotta say thanks to President Bush and every other greedy bastard out there. Sorry if this writing is a bit angry and strong but that's just how I'm feelin right about now. All this politics/economy shit is distracting me from concentrating on school. However its also interesting..Sheeit.
What else.. went for a hike yesterday n took some sweet pics. hmmmm. but that's about it. might go back down to the sunshine/gold coast in november. .. saw abunch of europe pics on facebook. n friends, to those of you who are there, I'm happy for yah it looks sick..The closest thing I got to Oktoberfest is a freakin beer pong tournie next to our dining hall. ha. Anyways, lookin forward to lectures ending, and then my new zealand trip, and then to more contingent trips of lifeeeee. peace

. O n T h e R o a d .

On Wednesday, September 24th, my friend and I had bought a ticket to Brisbane after previous plans had fell through. Once again, spontaneity and lack of thinking (first started in middle school) had set the course for what was to come. We arrived in Brisbane at 11:30, downtown at around 12am. Not having booked hostel reservations, Mat and I walked the streets for about an hour only to find that every single hostel in downtown Brisbane was full. Fortunately, three girls that were on our flight had their hostel reservations screwed up, were then given an empty room to stay in; so Matt and I seized the opportunity and bunked up with our friends (in this creep ass hostel) while enjoying a 60 dollar drink card (that the girls were given, but then gave to us) in the remaining bar that was still open. I'll spare the details, but it ended up being a pretty sweet first night in Brisbane.
Day two we took the train to Surfer's Paradise (funny name for a city). Apparently people surf there. The hostel that we stayed in contained people from all over the globe, but I'd like to mention our crazy South African roomie who would never sleep and our Italian roomie Fabio who was, well, reminded me of some crazy Italian. Anywho, we ended up seeing some friends from San Diego who are studying in Sydney and chilled w/ them for the night. The second night in surfers we were conned into a pub-crawl consisting of over 400 people (including some from uni). It was a shit show. Many good looking people. And we ran into an ol buddy Grant Walker from Laguna Hills. However, by the end of the 2nd night I was ready to move on and escape from the trendy and yuppie club scene.
The next day we caught a grey hound to Byron Bay, Australia, AKA my new favorite place. What used to be an artsy, bohemian, musical town where canned heat and other great bands played at, is still the artsy, bohemian, musical town with just more people and a little more money goin around. Jack Johnson actually owns a house 5 clicks down the road. We stayed at a hostel containg two Swedish girls, two German girls, and then two french girls. What a dream yah? Nothing really happened but it was funny because while we were hanging out, everything I would do they'd say "oh that's sooo american" and make a big joke bout it. Hmm. Anyways, the second day in Byron Bay we took a tour to the little town Nimbin (aka little Amsterdam) through "Jim's Alternative Tours". Boy was that a doozy. Have you ever heard of the Merry Pranksters? Well lets just say same idea here for Nimbin. As I stepped on the bus, amazing, chill, and insightful music was blasting. After picking everybody up, we began our hour drive towards the little town while Jim narrated the drive with stories and his favorite music. He also gave us advice about how to tackle nimbin. Again, I wont go into detail, but the Nimbin experience was quite amazing and out-of-this-world and I would definitely reccomend this tour to anyone who is looking for a genuine and strange experience. So on the drive home, everybody was in sort of in a different state of mind. Jim would take us through long rolling hills and wild corners with certain songs programed to fit every bit of it (we even climbed a huge hill just to play his 5min12sec song to play while rolling down the 5min12sec drive down the hill). After an hour of driving around beautiful countryside, we stopped at this old american hippie's house. His name was Paulie and he moved to Nimbin from NY in the 70's. After offering us fruit, informing us about his way of life, chilling in his little lakeside deck, and going on a little forest trek, we hopped back on the bus and drove through a rain forest, stopping an a 128 meter waterfall, stopped to pick up some food, and finally, finalllly all 25 of us were dropped off back to our hostels. WHEWWW! what a day. We loved Byron so much, we decided to skip our Fraser Island trip and stay in Byron for a total of 3 nights, the last being spent at an alternative hostel called Arts Factory. Arts Factory reminded me of a hippie commune packed with musicians and all different races of hippies that you could wonder up. This is also the place where great bands used to perform in the 70's.
Byron Bay was amazing, but we had to keep on trekin'. We headed up north past Brisbane in our just rented "Wicked Campervan" ('88 toyota van stuffed w/ a bed n kitchen) towards the Sunshine Coast to a town called Noosa. It comparable to being the "Laguna Beach" of Australia. There were many little ritzy and yuppie restaurants with tons of teens running around with their families. Everything closed at 12 but during the daytime, surfing was the number one activity. Mat and I rented surfboards for two days and walked around to different breaks (however the condishes weren't that great).
So I've also noticed that the girls in this part of Oz are more attractive than up in TSV. Sorry tsv but its true. There are more backpackers, more city folk, more beach goers, and just more people. On our last night in Noosa, just before we were about to leave the Koala Hostel, this girl tapped my window n asked me a questions about the van. To make a long story short, she ended up being an extremely cool, funny, and very cute girl from Switzerland which is extremely awesome. We talked for a long time and wanted to talk for more, but matt and her friend wanted to leave. Hopefully, someday, I'll meet up with her again n pick up where we left off. However, unfortunately, FB just told me she has a bf. wtf. Well, whatever happens is how it happens.
Anyways, today I woke up next to some beach south of Noosa, jumped in the ocean, rinsed off, drove to the Steve Erwin (God bless his soul) Zoo called the Australian Zoo, checked it out, then drove back to Brisbane, hopped on a flight back to Townsville, and just like that, my lil adventure was past.