There's not ONE game in this arcade!

The above quote is from Tansey and boy did I laugh. We went to one of the shopping arcades here in Cairns and she didn't know that an arcade isn't always a place for video games. It's an easy enough misunderstanding but it was pretty funny.

So we've started our adventure and the last few days have been almost overwhelming they've been so amazing. We started off with a record 16.5 hour flight per the flight attendant. Due to headwinds and a late start out of LA that pushed our travel time up exponentially. This caused us to miss our flight out of Melbourne so we had to fly to Brisbane and then up to Cairns. Nothing like doing a whole city-hopping tour without actually getting to see the city. After 24 hours of time just in the air, we arrived in pretty good shape. Our hostel, the lovely Caravella Backpackers Resort on the waterfront, upgraded us to our own double room and we went out to get dinner. Cairns is a very tropical place that seems really similar to Hawaii...with the addition of cockatoos and giant fruit bats that fly around at will. Our first night at sunset the sky filled up with the bats in flight like a scene out of Van Helsing. I have to say they creep me out quite a bit but really they just look like foxes with bat wings. Bizarre. Our first day we spent wandering around the town. We did a bit of shopping at the mall and did my favorite thing to do in a foreign city - Visit the grocery store. It's by far the most fun ever and there were plenty of funny names of things and novelty items we got to purchase. Don't worry we got pictures and there will be a whole separate "Hilarious Products" section once I finally post pictures. After dropping our purchases we wandered down the beach for a couple of miles to start. It's a little weird because the water almost completely leaves the harbor for low tide. We made our way over to the botanical gardens and did not realize just how far they were, so we walked, and walked, and walked. This seems to be a theme with me and traveling. We were so tired, sore, and cranky by the time we got back for dinner we could have died. However, it was SO worth it as we happened upon the rain forest boardwalk in the center of the gardens. It was a real rain forest where it actually happened to rain on us and it was so strange and lovely all at the same time. There were butterflies hanging all over the place and giant caterpillars straight out of Alice in Wonderland. Well worth the pain.
The next day we got relatively early and decided to hit the Cairns Tropical Zoo. It's low season so there weren't many people there. We had wallabies and kangaroos come up to us right away because they must have smelled the feed we'd been given at the entrance. The little kangaroo grabbed my hands and ate right out of them. It was amazing. The whole place was just medium sized but everything was so hands on it was like no zoo I'd ever been to before. We attended most of the feedings and talks and the red panda bear was by far my favorite. Well, besides the koalas. I kept pondering how to smuggle one out of the zoo but figured the odds of success vs. the jail time probably wouldn't be worth it. We got to hold one for a picture which was super cool. Tansey ended up in bed early and I went outside to write but ended up running into a lovely couple from London who had just checked into the next room. We chatted until late about everything from the boyband 5ive, to Dexter, to Americans in Europe, and various other topics about life. They were great and reminded me why I like to travel and meet other likeminded people.

The next day was our Great Barrier Reef trip. I had no idea what to expect because I have been plenty of places that have no lived up to expectation. We decided to go out with Passions of Paradise and after a couple hours sail out of Cairns we found ourselves at a part of the reef called Michaelmas Cay. It's a very smelly island full of thousands of birds but you're there to dive and snorkel so the beach was really just a taking off point. The water itself is a beautiful deep blue, until you hit the reef where it turns green. The bits of water that you know are reef are dark dark blue/brown and you'd never guess that underneath is the most amazing thing you could ever see. The coral and whatnot were so many different colors and moved with the waves in some sort of symphony. We saw reef rays and a giant turtle and HUGE oyster-looking things that breathed and pulsed. Purples, yellows, reds, pinks...fish with beaks, square fish, round fish, long fish....seriously so beautiful I had to try not to cry. After about an hour and half we went in for lunch on the boat and the move to Paradise Reef, the second snorkel location. This one was a little deeper and further out. Because of the depth of the water when you looked down off the side of the reef it was like looking into a swirling cathedral full of fish as far as you could see. Amazing! After that it was time to head home. The way back was so much fun though. We made friends with the staff and had a great time. I was exhausted but we'd made plans to go out to this bar/restaurant called Vibe. We'd been keeping pretty early hours and thought we'd do something different for our last night, especially since it was Friday. We thought we'd hit upon the local gay scene as we walked in to boys in nurse uniforms and various other costumes. Turns out even the straight boys dress up like weirdos so it makes it all very very confusing. We had a drink or two, made friends with a kid who was absolutely my friend Matty from home, and had a great time. Tansey managed to slip on an actual banana peel and I laughed until I cried. How does that happen in real life? We ended up back in bed by 11:30 and that was good enough.

Today was laundry day and our flight to Sydney. It's rainy and it took forever but it's a lovely city that's very London-esque from what we can see. I think I'm going to like it very much.

April Showers Bring May Panic

It's April already. I can hardly understand how we got here. The semester has flown by and now I'm a month away from graduation. This has me extremely excited and extremely scared all at the same time. I'm looking forward to actually receiving a paycheck and not spending every minute slightly panicky at the homework I should be doing but am not. I'm trying to decide what I want to do, or rather, what I think I might want to do while understanding that once June rolls around, finding my ideal job will simply turn into finding any job that will allow me to keep paying my rent. I applied for a dream job in Paris. I want it but I also want the one that's going to be most right for me. Since I have no clue what I'm doing I'm trusting God to work it out for me. I think that goes with pretty much everything about my life.

So what have I been doing the last few months? That's a fine question. The start of school and start of my internship took up the rest of January. I got an interim roommate since my friend Beth moved in temporarily to save money for her move to London. She was fantastic to have around. We made good food, we drank good wine, she brought home chips and ice cream at appropriate times, and provided excellent company and conversation. I was desperately sorry to see her go a couple of weeks ago. However, I'm happy that she is living out her dreams and made it to the city she wants to be in. We were busy before her departure making sure she got to see the parts of LA she wanted to see, and then the subsequent going away gatherings. We then ended up in Las Vegas as her send off. I only had two days between that and my spring break trip to NY/DC. I just got back from that yesterday.

The trip was fantastic! I landed in New York only 20 minutes after my original eta, which is a miracle since I missed my first flight and had to fly standby on a different route. I had no problems with the first flight but the second one was nothing but stress. I ended up not making the first flight to LGA from Chicago, then I was 16th on the standby list for the second one. I didn't think I had a chance, but so many people didn't show up, that in a very dramatic ending, three of us were escorted onto the jetway so they could let us on immediately if the computer hadn't glitched and there were indeed free seats. There were! And I made the flight. Marion, whom I used to stay with when working in Pearl River, picked me up and after a giant debacle with my bag and an unexpected drive to JFK to get it, we picked up a ton of White Castle and went home for a midnight snack. The next day we just hung out until it was time for drinks with my friend Siobhan. We had a really nice visit but Saturday morning came all too early and we needed to be in Manhattan by 11am to pick up my Paris friend Rachel from her bus. She came all the way from Philly to see me!

Adventures with Cousin Eddie

I promised myself I'd write tonight since classes were cancelled for tomorrow. Get well, Professor! I started my job as a development intern on the 11th, which was a week before school started so I could ease my way back into having to get up in the morning. It's amazing the kind of atrophying that two years of no Monday to Friday job can cause. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday of last week exhausted me! It went really well, though, and I'm very happy to have turned down what was my first choice of NBC Universal for where I am at now. The people are a-typical hollywood and are actually really nice! They are also very fun and creative which makes me feel comfortable enough to ask any little thing I need to know. I was nervous to hand in my first script coverage (for those who don't know - 'coverage' is the term used for the notes/synopsis that's written after reading a screenplay.) Essentially I have to pick apart someone elses work and say what works and what doesn't. It's been an excellent learning experience for just having started. It will also be great for when I relook at my own script, and having to write three days a week has gotten my creative juices flowing so I actually want to come home and write my own stuff. It really is true for me that the more I have on my plate the more I actually get accomplished. Too much free time has been a crippler and I'm feeling more like my old confident 'I could run a small country' self.

I think the lesson for this month, or really for my life, is gratitude. I am so thankful every single day for all the amazing things God keeps bringing into my life. Everytime I turn around there is more money coming in from unexpected sources just when I need it most. I can wishlist an internship and it just appears. My class schedule magically works out to be exactly what I need. Sometimes how it all weaves together is a mystery and sometimes its blatant and wonderful to watch work.

The trip to Arizona for the holidays was pretty fantastic actually...surprisngly so since we were fully expecting a nuclear meltdown of some sort. I was just grateful not to have to make the drive to Colorado again.

Shannon came in super late Christmas Eve then we drove straight to Arizona. Since I had to be up to cook the turkey I got about 30 minutes of sleep. Dinner was a truly delightful feast and I was so happy to see a few of my most favorite cousins that I hadn't seen for years. There was alot of good conversation, alot of good teasing, and of course, visiting. That night the cousins went to see Avatar at 10:45 so by the time we were home I'd been up for over 32 hours straight. I was delirious. We had one slight bump in the weekend with our very own distant Cousin Eddie from National Lampoons. It would be rude to describe my disgust here just in case he should find his way here...but it's so very tempting. One thing is certain, there are some people that you just like right away, and there are others that have such bad, nasty energy that you loathe them immediately. This guy was the latter and what's worse is that he seems sheisty and suspicious. Anyway, the time with my family was great other than that. Shannon and I drove home Sunday and didn't do much until New Years. We spent that at a friend of a friend of a friends "Crazy Hat" Party. It was pretty ok, at least I was with my friends...at least those friends who were in town. Shan then deserted me and I spent that week getting everything in my house and life squared away in preparation for the coming crazy semester.

The house has been amazing so far. My friend Beth needed a temporary place to stay before her London move so she's been keeping me company. She came home with a supply of wine, chocolate, and potato chips the other night just when I needed it most. A fact that has only made me love her all the more. I will be sad to see her go, but glad for a couch to sleep on when I go back to London. And speaking of travelling...with the unexpected windfall I am very much being responsible and keeping it in a safe place just in case I can't find a job by the first of June. BUT there's a big part of me that keeps planning trips in my head for right after graduation. Another month in Paris would only cost me 3k, and Australia/New Zealand would cost even less. I'm only really entertaining the latter since I do really want to meet my goal of all six populated continents by the time I'm 30. I hate even thinking about the fact that my time is quickly running out! I have gotten to do so many amazing things while being unemployed the last two years, but I don't want to be greedy, so we'll have to see how it all pans out. If I get a job before graduation I'm SO there. I have penguins to see, and koalas to hug...and hobbiton to visit of course.

Finally settling in...

So I posted the old post late...so I'll continue here...

Last week was moving and interviewing and Thanksgiving. Julia decided to have the orphan Thanksgiving at her house this year. Quite a few friends were out of town but 13 people still came and I split dinner duties with Julia. Of course there were plenty of others who contributed amazing dishes... I had to be there early since the turkey was my responsibility as usual. Yams, like last year, seem to be the bane of our existence and two spills smoked us out of the house. My eyeballs will never be the same again. My 5 dollar turkey was the best one I have ever made and the rest of dinner was fantastic as well. We had a great time hanging out in the Tiki Bar at Julia's new little complex and had an after dinner game of Apples to Apples that was truly hilarious. Somehow the night went haywire and we ended up karaoking in Weho. I finally rolled home around 3am exhausted. It was a really nice time.

My end date for surviving last week was last night once I registered for school at 7pm. I have all the classes I need including the addition of my Paris transcript so I can skip a class. I keep getting these quick pangs of panic that there's something I should be doing or something that I've missed. I suppose it's just end of semester jitters. Last semester I completely forgot about a final and I'm not looking to repeat that anytime soon. I have two major French presentations next week, two papers, and those are before I have to start gearing up for finals. Regardless of my worries I'm sure it'll be fine once it's all said and done.

I'm slowly getting used to my new house. My first night was a little weird. I kept getting up to check random things, the bed wasn't so comfortable, and so on. The next nights were great. I adore my new mattress that my body doesn't half hang off of. The best part of the house is that I can relax finally and not worry that my every movement is disturbing the neighbors. I can play my TV as loud as I wish, I can let the dogs run around at 11pm without having to get after them, it's fantastic. I'm having my first little get together on Saturday before everyone leaves for the holidays. The tree is up with lights on and I nearly have all the debris put away and in it's proper place from the move. There have already been some fun nights of wine and cheese and conversation, and I feel really grateful.

'Adolf Hitler is always the answer...'

Life has been busy which has been fantastic for reminding me of just how much I can handle when it's required of me. I've been in lazy student mode for far too long. Mainly I had just been trying to survive French but with graduation looming it was time to step up the game. I have been continually reminded of how God sews everything together for you when you're on the right path. Big changes seem to come all at once, and everything started with a simple text message from a friend a little over a month ago that launched everything into high gear. The text was from a friend who rents a great house in the Studio City hills and she wanted to know if I wanted to take over her lease as she was moving out of state. After a few miracles and some negotiation I decided that it was an offer too good to not accept. The house is amazingly spacious in a really nice neighborhood approximately one mile where I live now. It has everything I could have wished for and more including a huge fenced backyard where the dogs can finally run free. My gracious friends came over on Monday and got the majority of my stuff moved in 5 trips. Tomorrow we move the furniture. Let's cross our fingers we girls can get the couch out of the house without it plummeting to the first floor. It's a grown up house for a grown up life and it finally gave me the space I needed to invest in a grown up girl bed. I'm excited!

After that unexpected surprise I have been focusing on figuring out how I'm going to pay the bills once I graduate. My new title of 'writer' has been helping me figure out what I might enjoy doing in the entertainment industry since PAing is not something I have any inclination to do. Film develoment and producing just kind of started to shove themselves in my face since that mostly has to do with script finding, rewriting, enhancing, etc. I also realized that if I wanted a job in entertainment even as assistant to a CEO that I would need some experience to put on my resume. The best way to do that is to intern. After a total scheduling fluke (read: miracle) cleared my Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays next semester I decided to start applying all over town for an internship in that field. My wish list for an internship included somewhere close to home, where people were really friendly and not at all 'Ari Gold', and maybe, just maybe, we wouldn't have to dress up every single day. The very first response I got had all of these things and after a quick interview they offered me the job on Wednesday. I accepted it immediately as they have done some crazy good movies and have been doing it for a long time. I am trying my best not to be intimidated and nervous. There was a time I pretty much ran the world at my old job and had no problem balancing a dozen things at once, but it has been a long time since so much was required of me. It is also intimidating to know I'll have to write for my job and have everything I write, read by the founders. Somewhere inside I am fearful that I'll suck. I'm just trying to remind myself that this isn't brain surgery and that when I interviewed for my old job I had no idea what they were talking about when they interviewed me and explained the job. I just knew that I needed the job and that I would learn what I needed to know. I'm trying to keep that in mind for this new adventure. Mostly I am lazy and the longer you sit, sequestered on your couch, the easier it is to forget how productive you used to be. I need to reawaken the side of me that adores being crazy busy, and now doing something I really love should only make it more sweet.

Do you want to play a game?

Even though I was stuffy and a little delirious I had SO much fun yesterday. Well, after the heinous French Civilization midtermI had to take, I had fun. Matty texted me on my way home from school to come over and play video games. When I got to the house he was ridiculously excited and asked if I wanted to go on a treasure hunt. Of course I did! He had found some sort of Redbull hunt on Facebook where the company had hidden cases of their new shots all over the country. You follow the clues to various locations and you get to keep the cases you find. Easy right? Yeah, not so much. We drove over to Burbank and stopped for clue number one. The case was supposedly hidden behind the bus stop on Olive and Maple. I spent most of the entire time worrying that we were going to be arrested by studio security, while we both were very aware of how ridiculous we looked loitering near the bustop while Matty tramped through the shrubbery. There was no case to be found. We went to our next stop - the back of the WB. Us trying to look nonchalant went right out the window as we dove through the giant WB topiary on Riverside. Still no Redbull. A few gigantic man-eating spiders. No Redbull. We made one final stop at the Dimples parking lot but it wasn't in the cards for us. Still we had a great time, probably the most fun one can have during midterms.

Shannon just left me on Tuesday...AGAIN. Admittedly it was against her will but still. We had a nice low-key time while she was here. We had tickets to Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios on Saturday and had a fantastic time. We managed to smuggle in some rum but I'll never tell how...however, there are photos. This year was themed after the SAW movies so there were plenty of actors in black wigs with pig masks running around. One managed to camp out right over my left shoulder. One of the best parts of the night was in the Halloween maze when a giant headless dummy jumped up from off the bed scaring the crap out of Matt. It was a fun night but we were all exhausted by 1am.

School is humming along but it's been like being dunked into a pool of cold water this week and next. I've hardly had any homework or projects so far so all of this preparation and work for midterms has been killer. 2 down, 4 to go... if I can just not fail I'll be excited, and that's saying something for me. My 300 level French courses have sucked out my desire to overachieve. I'm taking today off for the most part. I geniusly scheduled my upper division writing exam for tomorrow. Smack in the middle of midterms. It was obviously well thought out. No big deal really, I just have to be up at 6am on a Saturday to do an SAT style essay in 90 minutes or less. At least it'll be done with while I'm in battle mode. After that test and this semester I will only be 6 classes away from finally having my Bachelor's. Go me.

"Everybody has to leave the darkness sometime"

I was reminded by Amy that I haven't been blogging lately. Things have been just busy and off for the last 6 weeks or so. Sort of a snowball effect of family visits, sickness, and just being off my normal routine in general. The universe has been pushing me into overdrive with this whole 'fixing myself' thing. Sometimes I'm honestly unsure if I will survive all of this becoming. I feel unstable and crazy one minute just to feel more solid and sure than I have ever been the next minute. I'm like one of those springy doorstops we had in our house when I was a kid. We'd flick them and they'd jerk back and forth like crazy until eventually they became still right in the middle. I'm hoping once the shaking stops that is where I find myself.

Shannon was here for a visit which was fantastic. It went way too fast. Mom came a couple weeks after that and that also went incredibly quick. Tam's Mom and Aunt are here now and this is how it's October 4th and I have no idea where the last two months have gone. Shannon is coming back on Thursday so it continues. I have kind of calmed down about school. It is what it is and however it ends up I'm sure it will be fine. I'm surprisingly calm about graduation looming and the giant black question marks that sit on the following months in my mind like unlocked levels in a video game. That's really the lesson though isn't it? Even the next moment has one of those giant question marks as we really only have moments to walk through. Anything can happen. The scariest and most wonderful part about life... I really must stop taking so long to update because all I can think of are broad life themes to write about when there have been plenty of laughs too.

One thing that's been popping up lately have been discussions of motivation, interpretation, and how that all ties in with acceptance of one's self. Accepting myself in all of my imperfection. It's the last piece of the puzzle, the master key that will open all of the other doors, fix all the other parts of myself I don't like, the coup d'etat or whatever. It sounds so simple, yet it has taken me 28 years, 5 months, and 20 hours to figure out it's the one thing holding me back from waking up one morning to find that the person in the mirror is everything I have ever wanted her to be. As someone who is completely emotional in how they interpret the people and world around them I spend alot of time doing my best to never ever ever make any mistakes in my interactions with others. This is of course inevitable in spite of my best intentions and when it happens it devastates me. I am the first person to punish myself harshly and endlessly for any careless word that hurts someone else, or to worry endlessly if someone misinterprets something I have said with the best of intentions. Forget the times I've really messed up! I can't seem to find a way to get over it and let myself off the hook. I can't let myself have a bad day, a crazy moment, a slip of the tongue, a judgemental thought, any sort of weakness...none of this is acceptable. The truly hilarious part is that I would never even think of judging anyone else for the same things.

My friends say stupid hurtful things from time to time, they get drunk and act like complete idiots, they do amazingly thoughtful things, they have great successes and great failures, we are always friends and no matter what kind of day it is I love them anyway. I am terrified of not being perfect because what if people figure it out and choose to walk away? News flash! They already know that I'm not perfect! (insert gasp of horror here) Apparently I'm the only one who was unaware that my 'imperfect' was showing. When I was more overweight I'd always keep my stomach sucked in so I was constantly tense. I couldn't allow myself to relax, and I always wondered how it would be to stop holding my breathe all the time. I finally stopped doing that, but I haven't quite figured out how to do the same thing with my soul. To release and just let myself be and not be afraid. I see other friendships and relationships where one or more people have some serious neurosis or lash out or do any number of annoying things and someone still loves them, someone deals with it and puts up with it anyway because they love them for who they are. And lets face it all of us have issues and neurosis. I love others unconditionally but yet I cannot do that for myself or truly believe that someone else will too. But that was yesterday you see, today is a new day. I hear everyone complain about everyone else as is inevitable with any group of friends but we are all still invited to the next get-together, we still can laugh together, love each other... I have to have faith in myself and in the people I've chosen to have in my life that we mean the best for each other, even when we jack it up. I have to accept that I too am talked about, that I will sometimes be in need of forgiveness, that sometimes I will sound snotty, that sometimes I will go too far, that I am flawed but not fatally so, and that people will love me anyway in spite of these flaws, or better yet, because of them.

PS. My friend Felix sent me pictures of himself in Istanbul and Rome and said that I inspired him. It made my week and I'm so happy for him. Go Fe!

PS.2 It's finally getting cold and I bought boots today. Whoohoo!! Sweater time.