weird mood

We've been here for about four months now and have had straight sunshine and humidity. Let it be the week of final exams, the last week where everyone's together and then departs, for the storms to roll in. Last night was one of the most impressive lightning/thunder/tropical rain storms I've ever witnessed. The streets were so flooded that a kid's taxi couldn't make it take to the airport; missing his flight. The huge explosions happening above me rattled the walls and window of my room waking me up.. I thought about going outside and watching the display, but that didn't happen. I was sad because my roommate dunk (aus) and my other roommate Jan (Ger) had left, n here I was all alone.. in a dark room.. knowing that I'm one of the lone survivors of the George Roberts story, and I too will be victim to leaving very soon. That day, I had taken my last final after two days of mind-fucking-intense-studying. I sat next to the door, which was a bad choice because people were waking in and out the whole time and the 'dragon' lady, who had administered the tes,t was leaning over me. Also, lighting/thunder and intense rain was pounding the building I was examining in. It was awesome, and now I'm finally done and free for the next two months before I have to go back to SD. The feeling I got after I finished my last final, was like the feeling I got after graduating high school, but better. It's releaving yet scary. Independence is a handful. For the next month, I get to expolore more of Australia and spend a fair amount of time in New Zealand before I return home to Portland. I finished the task of school, and for now, get to tackle the spirit of travel. Just tonight at the uni-club, I think it was Kane that told me to keep on growing/experienceing/learning for wherever else I go. One thing I got from bein in Oz is knowing that I never wish to be normal, a drone...and that there are good people everwhere. I hope my prescence here has, for the most part, enlightened or left a positive impact on the earth and those who I've come in contact with.
It was nice to have a 'base' here in Townsville to where I could develop great friendships and use this 'base' to travel to and from other parts of Australia. Its extremely sad to leave that situation, but I'm curious and eager to move on of course. Brooke left the day before yesterday, Rachael and Drew today.. me tonight (this morning at 4:15). So, tomorrow it's Melbourne, tueday it's Sydney, and Friday New Zealand. If anybody's gonna be round those place hit me up on facebook or 0406558487.

Swat-Vac

Swat-Vac: Definition- Week off before finals for the purpose of studying or, for the more folksy type, to travel the depths of Australiaaaa....

Just when you think your trip couldn't get more interesting, it does!

Day 1:
After eating heaps of Mackers (McDonald's) and waiting in the Townsville airport to depart to Brisbane, we were finally told that our pilots had ran into an episode of food poisoning, and that we wouldn't fly that night. SHITTTT! our plans our RUINED!! ...so we thought, but not exactly... we decided to rape the airline of all its amenities and got a free hotel that night in Townsville, met some middle aged miners who were on their week off, took a taxi downtown, drank heaps of Guinness, came back to the hotel around hmm 3:30, bought two McChickens... went to bed to wake up only 3 hrs later.... great start to our trippp, other than the canceled flight of course (but we got a free flight voucher which I'm using to fly from Melbourne to Sydney wooo!!)...
Day 2:
Waking up super early to catch the next flight to Bris, we arrive at the airport at 7:30... flight was supposed to be at 9... ended up wating 3 hrs for an engineer to fly up FROM Bris and inspect the plane so WTF!! .. delayed flight yet againnnnnnn.. so finally, we get to Bris, and after hours upon hours of train/transportaion rides, we arrive in Noosa, at my friend Evan's cousin's House... IT WAS SICKKK!! Cool aussie girl, chill hippie dude, drug dealer, and a Korean that doesn't speak English. I met up with my friend Carmen from Switzerland that night (she's a real cutie) at an Irish pub while the others got smashed elsewhere.
Day 3: Swam in ocean... boarded a greyhound headed for Hervey Bay (base of Fraser Island). arrived late to our smelly nasty hostel room.. ate some subway which took forever to get ahhh...
Day 4: Woke up super early and met everyone on our Fraser trip. Later, we boarded the ferry w/ everyone and our 4x4 and met some cool ass people including two american doctors who live in Byron Bay..who eventually gave me a ride back to the airport a week later. On Fraser (the world's largest sand island), we saw a cool ship wreck, and set up camp/cooked dinner, played cricket/rugby which the british take EXTREMELY seriously.... slept on ground. ahh.
Day 5: Next day we headed to a sweet lookout, our group consisted of 4 americans (us), 4 british, 1 scottish and 1 Norwegian named The Hoff. The brits were cool and the Hoff was funny as shit. I love scandanavians. The other cars didn't like our driving and started spreading roomers about us.. but there were sweet people there like a bunch of cute sweedish girls/more brits, but amazinly, no other americans, australians, or germans. I absolutely loveee scandanavian accents... they are soooo coool...After, we went to some other cool part of the island where we had lunch and took it all in ahhhh. That night was a mess.. bottomless spag w/ tons of food and whiskey everywhere... Dingos also came into our camp lookin for food... but I guess they can get aggressive sometimes and eat little children.. hmm. not good
Day 6: Last day on Fraser.. went to Lake McKenzie on Fraser which had the clearest, more pure freshwater everrrrr. not to leave out the finest grains of sand... Quite the place to chill. Once we got back to the mainland, we weren't able to catch a bus back to Noosa that day so we got a free hostel stay. The night ended up pretty good, partyin w/ everyone one last time, w/ the sweedish girls, brits, and the Hoff. Great time.....
Day 7: Bus back to Noosa..Hung out with Carmen (Swiss Carmen), took a hike with her to a Noosa view point... then we all ate dinner and met up at the Irish pub... later met up w/ those american doctors....got pulled over by a cop and had to take a breathalizer test which I thankfully passed after havin 1 glass of wine. sheeeit. the legal limit here is .05... so that freaked us out a lil bit.. but all is well... said bye to carmen, went home n crashed.
Day 8: got up, cooked brecky, went surfing, got a ride from the doctors to brisbane... shopped a little, boarded my flight.. flew back to townsville, Nowwwwwwww one day later.. I'm here procrastinating my studying hmmm.
Anyways, the trip was a blast and wish, again, that all my homies from the mainland could be here with me. Some day we will all be and travel together.. But for now, I'm off to the books and studyin so I can get done w/ my final and say hello to Melbourne, Sydney, and finally NZ!!! wooo!! peaceeeeee..

Born-again American

There are a thousand thoughts running through my head right now... I am and have been in a euphoric mood for the past 12 hours. The reason is of course; Barack Obama, winning in a historic, land-slide victory, will now be the 44th president of the United States of America. It started out senior year of high school, two years into Bush's second term, when I asked my college writing teacher Mrs. Oliphant who she wanted to be president in '08. She told me of the young, black, inspirational, yet new-to-the-scene Barack Obama. Over one year later, after watching Barack's honorable and intelegent fight against Hillary, I was hooked. I've never logged onto msnbc.com/cnn.com so many times within the span of a few months. The race between Obama and McCain started a whole new round of excitement for me.. and the rest of the world. The economy crumbled, debates roared, negative adds poured onto television, hatred within the campaigns (especially on the right) became public, but, through all that, Obama stood strong, confident, and real.
Today I woke up at 7:55 am (2:00 west coast time) to watch election day on Australian television. I skipped part of my materials class to run to the uni-bar and watch the election happen on the big screen. As I walk in, about 15 Aussies were sitting down with a huge dry-erase board tracking the latest voter turnouts. I thought that was cool for them to even give a shit about the US election. But I was soon told that "when the US sneezes, OZ gets a cold." (think about it) I bought a scooner of extra dry (aussie beer) and sat down at a table with a print out of the times the polls close for each state. At that time obama already had about 204 electoral votes to McCain's 146. More American students trickeled into the bar and sat down with me. We bought more pitchers and within an hour of nervous excitement, Obama-284 popped up on the screen with a statement "Barack Obama President Elect of the United States." We, and the rest of the crowed 'freaked'. Shedding many tears, hugs, hollers, and fuck yahs, we celebrated the newfound victory of our 44th President Barack Obama. After watching McCain's consession speech, Obama finaly aproached his stage in Chicago facing hundreds of thousands of his people. [Really quickly: I want to point out that McCain is a good man, however the fact that he chose to hold his election night party at a spa, with special invited donor guests only, compared to Barack's open-to-the-public "woodstock" style election night party just shows how different the two parties are; and shows how Barack Obama is willing to reach out to people.] After giving one of the most important and inspirational speech of his career yet, Barack waved good night and we cheered more.
Since Barack's victory, I've never felt soo frekin happy about being an American outside of the country. I hope that the world will look at Americans in a new light, worlds relations will grow stronger, impressions of Americans will grow better, and that of course, our country will take this opportunity to work hard and do only good; all for the advancement of world peace, cleanliness, and harmony. If you oppose Barack Obama, that's okay I guess. But be mature and open-minded about the issue.
Anyways, tomorrow I leave for Brisbane to spend a week on the beaches of Noosa, Australia before finals start. I'm grateful to be doing what I love (traveling), and wish all of my friends back at home were with me to celebrate Barack Obama and my wonderful journey through Oz. For all the friends I've met here in Australia, I love you all, and because the time we have with eachother is shrinking, lets rage the last one or two months we have together. Also, let us meet up multiple times in the future until we grow old and die. That goes for everyone. As for now, I hope my Noosa trip brings much spontaneous excitment and craziness as the previous treks have....... Thanks for reading this far if you have... and I'll leave you with a little joke ha....
Q: What does sex, a sheep, and a mother alll have in common?
A: OHHH! BAHHHHH.. MAAAA!!!!!!!!!!! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!