Tick Tock

I have not exactly taken a restful time for myself after finals were over. I mean, technically, we had the following Monday off work because it was our Labor Day. But, besides that, I only took on more hours and more responsibility at work. So now, work is not the ease of computer playtime (though obviously, still some because I am at work at present) and is now burdened with order forms, invoices, voicemails and various other interruptions and complications.

The other day, I also had several meetings to go to in addition to my rather full work day. I went to the office of my financial aid person (who is actually helpful, shock of shocks) and saw her "Perpetual Year Calendar" on the wall, totally erased. I thought it was odd to see her typically full board empty and told her so. She told me that she just thought it best to start making the next year's schedule and have a normal calendar to keep her up to date for the next couple months. She needed to start planning for March at the end of October. While this in itself was quite astounding, I was also struck by the title of the thing: perpetual year calendar. Good Lord.

I would have preferred Perpetual Calendar, Reusable Calendar... but no. Perpetual Year. The forever, ongoing, unstoppable force of time; the one event (Happy New Years!!) that marks that passage of time was wiped away with a little Windex. I suddenly felt like watching some Office Space and doing absolutely nothing.

Instead, I went to work like a good little worker bee. To make me even more disappointed with myself, when I got my official staff ID card today, I was giddy as a schoolgirl. I am wearing it even now, though it hasn't been activated yet. I am a sad, sad little worker bee.

Modern Romantic

My brother pointed me to this article by Maureen Dowd. She's a woman discussing feminism and the idea of being "woman" over the years. It's really interesting (albeit a big long) the comparisons she makes with being feminist. For instance, the number of women who take the husbands name in marriage has gone up in recent years. This is apparently an obvious cue that women have lost their self respect. I am oversimplifying her article a bit, and I do encourage you to read it yourselves, but it begs an interesting question: what does it mean today to be a romantic?

I guess I am implying this from a female perspective, but me wanting a boy to buy me dinner and bet he one driving makes me non-feminist. And I think that realising it's an opportunity to get a free meal and not worry about driving makes me more masculine, stereotypically speaking. So think of all the traditional romantic gestures, flowers, chocolates... none of them challenge the mind that I ought to acknowledge having.

But then, the apparently "ideal" courtship of equals that Dowd describes requires me to have a witty, biting "salty battle" that is reminiscent of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie in Mr. & Mrs. Smith (note that she did take his last name). So I am to have exhausting intellectual banter constantly to remind him that I am his equal? Please.

Is there a politically correct way to have romance and love? Then my brother pointed out oh-so-cynically that marriage doesn't even work out a lot of the time anyway. Which is true and he should know from his days spent in the courthouse (working, not being a client). With divorce and prenups and name changing battles... I believe I am getting frustrated.

Perhaps the point is that if two people are lucky (and I do mean that it takes a certain amount of luck) to make it work, do we really need to challenge that with what example they are setting for the rest of the world? And perhaps that makes me the modern romantic. I still think there are a few lucky ones out there that can make it work. I don't know if it makes me happy to be a romantic, or pity the world because I am a romantic by its definition.

Huzzah!

Just a quickie to say that my brother now actually writes in his blog. Do check it out.

Halloweenie

I would just like to comment that while everyone I know that isn't in New Zealand is celebrating Halloween with candy and ridiculous costumes, I do not get to celebrate that holiday. So here are the things I miss:

• candy corn
• watching all the girls dress up like whores because it's socially acceptable
• costume parties
• little kids trick or treating
• the fact that it's really truly fall by that time and the smell and the leaves
• fake spider webs everywhere: stores, daycare, house windows, restaurants
• candy apples
• pumpkin patches
• hayrides

Things I don't have to miss: the halloween specials of the Simpsons. Sweet relief.

"Thanks!"

There's a commercial over here about a kid who is trying to print off a picture of his dog. The basic gist of the commercial is that the little boy needs help with everything... except how to use this technology for printing out this cute picture of a dog. When the man who's been helping him says, "Nice picture", the kid replies, "Thanks!"

Now, this commercial might well be international. It occurs to me that I couldn't even tell you right now what kind of accent they have. But even if you haven't seen this commercial, picture a kid that's about 5 or 6 saying (and really meaning), "Thanks!" It reminds me of my days working in the daycare because you get to to hear the language with a strange kind of impact. When a kid calls you a doo doo head, he means it. Try and think of the first time you heard this horrid insult. Then the first time you used it because you were so incredibly angry. Granted, it starts to lose some meaning over the years as you hear more appropriate terms to express your anger (albeit just as silly). But then you can hear the times when a kid is first learning to say, "Help." Not the scream for assistance in an emergency, but when she is trying to stack these blocks with all her might and they keep falling and you get a look that could melt the Grinch's heart and a weak little, "Help." You somehow know you've never heard a "help" that meant it more than that little girl did.

The same goes for this little kid saying, "Thanks!" He truly means it. I think the world might be a better place if we didn't randomly spit out phrases like thanks, you're welcome, how are you, and sorry. Imagine the power of our language if we spoke like kids first learning what the denotation of words is and using them appropriately. I hope that every thanks I ever say sounds more like this little boy than like a former cashier who was paid to say please, thank you, and come again to every person who entered the store.

Or this commercial just had really good casting. You know, whichever.

Annika the Accountant

It's finally happened. Someone has put me in charge of a company's finances. God save us all.

To recap, I work at CFI:NZ (that's a little CSI joke) as the lunch time receptionist. The full time receptionist just took a job in a different division of the company. While she studies for her finals and trains for her new job, I am taking over for a wee while. Also to recap, I don't know how to do anything here. I answer phones, reply to email messages and book our seminar rooms. The big part of the receptionist's job is invoicing and billing. I got a quick training session on how to do all of the invoicing and billing in two hours yesterday. Today I had to do the rest of the billing that had piled up over the past few weeks. It was really scary.

Fortunately, I think I actually know what I'm doing. The funny thing is, I don't actually do anything with money. I just file this, make two to four copies of that, highlight this line, add these numbers, and repetitively file it all away on Excel. These are not my strong suites, except for highlighting. I aced that class at uni.

Again, as silly as it sounds, I love it. I feel very knowledgeable. I know the financial coding for everything (it's on a list), and it feels somehow important. But, I realise this puts me in a non-positive light considering I am Orwell's prime candidate for surviving 1984 - I just file and forget. Some things I shred, some things I keep, I am a little machine.

Whatever, it's my first real job besides teaching and I like being a productive cog in a machine for once. :)

Flight of the Bumble Fly

The weather in Dunedin is finally nice. That means open windows and that means more killer flies. Well, honestly, they aren't killer flies. They are just massive, which only increases their ability to annoy with their equally massive buzzing. New Zealand doesn't believe in screens on their windows, and I have to say, I am starting to agree with them, except for these huge flies.

This morning, I opened my kitchen windows to let in some fresh air. As I was sitting at my desk, I heard that stupid buzzing. Sure enough, some huge, dimwitted fly had wandered in through the kitchen window, but liked to slam its head against the (closed) windows over my desk in mad attempts to get out. Sigh. Well, I tried to help it out by opening the windows above my desk, but the fly still slammed into the closed portions of glass. I tried to help shoo it with a piece of paper, but it just thought I was trying to kill it. It scrambled into a spider's web (so that's what happened to Snerdly) which was just comical because the fly was at least three times larger than the spider. Then, I kept yelling, "Up! Go up! UP!!" As if the fly could understand me. Now it just saw a human screaming and coming at it with a piece of paper. It fled from me back into the kitchen. Since my kitchen is tiny and me-free, I closed the door and hoped it would just figure its way out. I sat at my desk and saw it stumble out into the free fresh air again and I cheered it on, "Good fly, good boy!"

Can you tell what happened next? You know you can. You can almost feel it.

As if now my voice were comforting to the fly, it wafted back in through the windows I had opened above my desk. Such profanity was let loose on this poor fly. They'd be quite easy to kill, but I figured it wasn't his fault that he was big and dumb and annoying. So I shooed him again into the kitchen, closed the desk windows and prayed he'd go away. It's gonna be a long summer.

Little Brother

Sayeth my brother: "At the home-coming game, graduating law students throw canes over the crossbar of the goal post in a pre-game ceremony. If students catch their cane, legend claims they will win their first case. If the cane is dropped, the case will be lost. The custom originated at Harvard and came to the UW-Madison in 1910. The attached picture is what I looked like shortly after catching my cane this past Saturday. For more history of the tradition, go to: http://www.law.wisc.edu/lore/cane.htm"


How can I not be proud of my brother?! And who doubted that he would win his first case? P.S. - This makes me miss Wisconsin.

Go Rockstars

I've been catching tidbits of some pretty crap shows recently. I like to have noise in the flat and when I don't feel like having a CD on, I toss the TV on and hope for the best. But after shows like Rockstar INXS, NZ Idol, some show where Gene Simmons is telling little kids how to rock out, etc, I realised a very important quality of successful musicians - it's all about sex.

Or at least, it's all about being sexy. I would try and put up some examples, but I fear it would expose the limited and dated amount of music videos I see here, so just think about any music video that comes to mind. I can think of a couple that are more angry than sexy, but they still incorporate a different kind of "mean and angry sexy". And yes, that's a technical term.

My new idea is that we should have a person who is a phenomenal singer, but not obviously male or female. Like, at first, the song should be on the radio for ages, then another one (and naturally this singer must be a success). Then, when the video came out, everyone would think, "Wait, is that a guy or a girl?" Which basically means, which of my friends and I are to think this person is attractive? Who is to lust after him/her? Give me some direction!

Also, I don't think it should be blatant enough to be a gender bending "Statement", because that puts all these political pressures on it. Maybe it would just be vague enough that it would be like a real life Pat from SNL situation. No one wants to ask the biggest rockstar of the day what he or she is packing in the pants. It would change the concept of successful musicians today... for like two and a half seconds until some paparazzi found the singer out of costume and ruin it all and change the whole point. But still...

SIDENOTE: This reminds me of when I (probably shouldn't have at my conservative Catholic high school, but did anyway) taught my students what ambiguous meant based on the Ambiguously Gay Duo of SNL. They didn't know what it meant. They assumed it meant "really obvious" or something because of the way it was done. They were laughing and they didn't even know why.

I'm not Lost

In case you were wondering where I had vanished to, it's pretty much my bed. You know that cruel twist of fate that pushes you directly out of finals, deadlines, and stress into your sickbed? Yeah, that always happens to me too.

So while I am celebrating the long-anticipated end of the school year, and that I finally have a decent flat for next year, and that it's actually sunny and warmish today... I am also basking in my warmer still bed. Sinus meds are my favorite.

So fear not, my (probably three - and they're all related to me) blog readers. I will be back with what I think is clever writing soon enough. But for now, I sleep.

Heart Attack

I almost had a heart attack today. I printed off my hefty thesis and took it over to The Print Shop to get bound for turning in. Kelley and I picked them and wandered over to the education department to drop them off, discussing how odd a sensation it was to turn in such a massive document. As I stepped into the elevator, I scanned to the back of my paper... and it ended on page 34! It was meant to end on page 59.

Gasp! Heart attack! Where were my pages? Crap! (And other "crap"-like words!) Luckily, it all worked out painlessly and all, but I hate having those heart attacks. We turned in our whopping papers and then I ate a tuna and cream cheese sandwich. Because if that doesn't merit a tuna fish sandwich, I don't know what does.

Surreal

Today is surreal. For several reasons. I have been working on my 480 (minithesis) since March. It is now done. I mean, it still has to be bound, but it's done. My first ever 60 page paper. And it's done. Done. People talk about it being like child birth and it is. I have spent about 9 months preparing this thing and now it's just going out into the harsh world. That's a weird feeling. Done.

Secondly, I volunteered for a scientific experiment at work. So every three hours, I have to drool into a container for a full minute. That makes receptionist work difficult. My boss covers for me as I drool in his office. Weird.

Thirdly, I am at work all day. I don't work full days because of the restrictions of my student visa, but I am working and also working on papers. It's weird to be in the deepest mode of revising and hear, "Excuse me, can you tell me how to order more paper for the photocopier," or "Annika, it's time for your saliva again!"

It's an odd little day. By dinnertime tomorrow night, I'll be done with my first year of grad school. My responsibilities will include five hours of work a week (on the books) and knitting. Sweet relief.

Stress Dreams

Alright, I don't need to re-emphasise that I am in the finals days of revising my mini-thesis. But stress levels are reaching an all time high. I mean, these are rivaling my days as an AP/Honors high school senior. (And you people think I'm high strung now... you talk to my classmates from high school!)

I have been keeping myself level-headed by working a lot. By logic, that would mean that I am too busy to be worried and working on the paper makes me less nervous. Well, perhaps. But anytime I am not working on my paper, working out like a madwoman at the gym, or deliriously into some crappy nighttime drama in a desperate attempt to calm down before bed, I am a little preoccupied with deadlines. Last night, however, the stress dreams began.

The dream was that my brother and I were trying to find a place to hang out on New Year's Eve and for some reason were unable to find anyplace. We met up with a kid that I went to grade school with (but won't mention because we weren't ever friends really and it's weird that he turned up in my dream) to help us on our mission. We were apparently in Chicago because we ended up hanging out at Oprah's house for a while because we went way back from a time I had done her hair or something. Her living room had a cool feature where the floor would scale away and it was ocean, complete with scary fish. So my brother, kid from grade school and I picked individual fish and had them fight each other. They were all scary looking with big teeth and there were sting rays everywhere. We were dangling off the couch watching the fish compete. Well, the fish got a bit competitive and jumped up. I (of course) flinched by rolling over, aiming my face away from the big sharp teeth of my brother's fish. But it bit my arm, hard. I woke up and realised that I had been sleeping on my arm and my fingers actually did bite into my other arm because I'd actually flinched. Now, my left arm hurt as tiny drops of blood started forming in four neat crescents and my other arm started stinging with pain because I'd been sleeping on it for ages. My neck also cramped up from my sudden jumping. I was in quite the state.

Maybe TV isn't the answer to peaceful sleep. Perhaps I should invest in some fine, aged Bourbon.

USA, I Miss You!

Even though I hate to admit it, even I miss home from time to time. While these are the years where "home" is highly questionable (Is Milwaukee home? Valpo? Dunedin? Anywhere?!), I still feel that I will, at some point, come back to the States. Today is a day in which I miss my home country. Before I list off a couple of things I miss, I would like to make this disclaimer: I am ecstatically happy here in NZ and am very much looking forward to the year-ish I have left year; but, c'mon, it wouldn't be healthy if I didn't miss home a little bit.

1. Jimmy John's #6 with no tomato (they always fall out of the subs). Ah, provolone and avocado... And that big ol' pickle??
2. Having a car; and more so, having a reason to have a car. I miss driving a half hour to Beth, Bath & Beyond and then to Barnes N Noble for a coffee. Just because.
3. The idea of distance. Here, an hour drive is far. Back home, that was my daily commute to and from work.
4. I miss having a couch. Now, I suppose I could have one here, but it just isn't practical in a single person flat. At least in mine this year.
5. Mexican food. We've been over this: they don't do Mexican food here. The first thing I want when I get into the States is a cheese enchilada. STAT.
6. Proper vegetarian food. Okay, well, processed vegetarian food. Remember veggie corn dogs? Veggie burgers?!
7. Decent shampoo that doesn't cost fifteen dollars. Scratch that... decent anything that isn't exhorbantly priced. Towels, toothpaste, mouthwash, makeup... forget about it!
8. Mostly, proximity and contact with family and friends.

Oh, lists. But seriously, I am doing fine and loving NZ; perhaps paper writing has finally gotten to me. It is a rare day that Annika admits missing anything. Maybe you can help me out though... where do I miss??

This Just In...

It turns out, after much debate, that I am not cool. Though it is questionable whether I have ever been cool in my short existence, it is certain that I am not anymore.

My neighbors, however, are extremely cool. I can tell because they do cool things like have parties until the wee hours of the morning for the past three nights; hang outside on a blanket while tanning, drinking beer, listening to music, and chatting each other up - in front of my window. It'd be weird for them to do it in front of theirs. So they sit and watch me write my papers and struggle through finding books and articles while turning the music up to cover the sound of the gears grinding in my head. They also play sports inside. I'm not sure what sport it is, although I am sure it involved repeatedly throwing a ball into the wall we share.

I try to think, "Oh, they're just kids. They're enjoying their youth and their collegiate experience." But instead, I think, "You ungrateful criminals! You are so bloody lucky that I live next door instead, well, anyone else!"

At first, I was cool. I thought that they must be having the time of their lives. Now, I know that I am not cool because I think they are being awful and I wonder how their studying is getting done - after all, finals are quickly approaching! Maybe it's a good thing the stupid, biased university rules are making me move for next year. My uncoolness vibe might rub off on the whole building.

Another List!

I realised that it's been a while since I updated my massive readership on my latest obsessions. Actually, this just may be the second time ever. But I was reading a book today about a crazy old man (this is really peripheral to the plot) kept a journal full of nonsense that couldn't have mattered to him in his daily life, let alone to any other readers. So, naturally, I thought, I should update my obsessions list!

And no, I didn't miss the point.

1. curry flavored ramen noodles: in all fairness, these are Yum Yum noodles, but they are super cheap like ramen. I can eat this for lunch and dinner in the same day. And have for the past several days. Worry not, I supplement with vegetables.
2. cinnamon raisin bread: It reminds me of cinnamon raisin English muffins that I used to eat with my dad when I was little. They are not English muffins, but these pieces of toast don't even need butter they are so delicious.
3. anti-condiments: I don't like condiments in general as they tend to add salt, fat, or sugar where it isn't otherwise, but I am especially anti all condiments right now except for soy sauce. It's a classic.
4. books: You may be thinking, "Annika, you've always loved books, you book lover, you." Well, you'd be right. But I have been choosing books instead of watching the Simpsons, sleeping, and sometimes second helpings of food. Ah, back to the good ol' days of appreciating a book.

Well, that's it. Don't you feel so updated now? And I feel better for having informed you.

Skinny Dipping

I debated whether to tell the skinny dipping story, although it is in no way indecent. So here I go. Sorry, parents.

It all started innocently enough, with people at the backpackers sitting around after dinner, drinking. (Doesn't every skinny dipping story start that way? Or is that horror movie?) I need to say that I wasn't honestly drunk; I'd had only a couple beers. But the subject of skinny dipping came up.

A brief interlude: I love skinny dipping. I love everything about it. This wasn't my first experience hurling myself naked into an ocean and I daresay it wasn't the last. There's something nice about going to a new place and really getting into it. Nothing between you and this new experience. That being said, I shall continue.

Keep in mind, these are people that have just met that day. When skinny dipping came up, I said, "Oh yeah! Later on, we should do that." (Some people need a bit of liquid courage - but not enough to make jumping into the ocean dangerous.) Well the group had that kind of tension that implies this internal dialogue for everyone: "Well, I'm on holiday... but I can't go skinny dipping; I don't even know these people... but I don't even know these people, what harm can it be?" That kind of tension is enough to make me happy anyhow; you can hear people's horizons being broadened.

Later on, we all decide to go down to the beach... and only three of us jumped in. With a whole crew of people armed with flashlights and cameras stayed ashore. I lost my new anklet to the oceanic gods (chalk another one up to the ocean), but it was so much fun!! No indecent pictures were taken; I inspected them carefully. And it was a good moment to see the group that was heading down to do something adventurous and to be able to place yourself into the smaller group that actually jumped (and have a great story to tell from it)!

Moral of the story: go find a large body of water; remove clothes; jump in.

Appearances

Do you ever have those days where you really look in the mirror for the first time in ages and you think, "When did that happen?" I'm not saying that I am suddenly 43 years old or that I didn't realise I had a bruise on my face or something. I just realised I was a lot older than I used be. You look at yourself in the mirror daily, but it's always in a deconstructing fashion - brush hair, brush teeth, put on eyeliner. I just saw myself today and thought, "I might need to stop saying I look 12."

Then, as I was walking to work this morning, I looked up at the construction that's been going on up the hill since I moved in. There's a huge building there! Now, this might sound like I should have noticed, but it was so gradual. The only constant in life is change. Hm.

Then, all this surface thinking made me remember a comment of my dad's: you are always sending a message with the way you look (he usually followed this up with "make sure your statement isn't 'I'm stupid.'"). I then realised that it's super easy to pick out my type of guy. Look for the scroungy-hippie-hipster-esque looking guy who is contemplating the sky, a tree, or a book and I'm pretty much sold. I then naturally tried to figure out what message I was sending and who I was attempting to attract.

Unfortunately, I think the system is flawed because my message is "I'm cold." I have been having a very hard time adjusting to the cold again. I think it takes some time for the cold to seep back into your bones. So I have been wearing enough layers to make my mom warm ("Nice and warm!"), which is really a measure of practicality rather than attraction. So maybe I'm attracting nice, practical guys.

Boo.

Oh No, You Didn't!

I am going to take a slight detour from my Fiji adventure stories to bring you an everyday one. We do know how addicted to telling stories I am. I was multitasking at the gym, as I like to do to distract myself from the fact that I'm, you know, working out. Also, in a recent effort to save money, I have decided all magazine reading must now be done at the gym, for free. So I was reading up on some notes for a meeting I had later that morning, reading over material for my 480 (mini-thesis paper), and reading a magazine. Now, my opinion might be biased because I had been reading such academic, dense reading prior to it, but I fell in love with this Kiwi magazine, Next. It had articles that were actually about something besides hair and nutrition, but they also kept my attention. They still had some pages dedicated to fashion and home decor, but it had achieved perfect balance. Then, I saw an article that referenced Sex and the City. I was home.

In case you've never met me and never read any of my previous blogs, I love, nay adore, Sex and the City. I can also assure you that no women's interest magazine I have ever seen has discredited the show in any way (ah, foreshadowing). I started reading the article, whose complaint dejour was that there is no singles life in New Zealand. You basically need to be near a cultural, technological center and all those are imbued with young students. There is no NYC of New Zealand. "Amen!" I cried, inwardly. Then it started inquiring about how we understand the "singles scene" as a culture. Then it went into a diatribe of how my favorite show ever demeans women, perpetuating the myth that single life must consist of meaningless one night stands, alcohol-drenched faux pas, and chain smoking. It snidely commented something like, "You don't see that happening on Dharma & Greg or Mad About You... because they happen to be married."

Now, I understand my bias for the show. Still, I must insist that these comments come only from commercials and not from the content of the show as a whole. Honestly, I think the attitudes on S&TC are a bit more honest about life in general. One night stands happen; there are still smokers out there; people do use drinks to socialize and network in the real world. Also, these characters do not imply that their way of life is utterly glamorous and/or desirable. Instead, they flounder through mistakes, hoping to learn from them and from each other. They ask a fundamental question: What constitutes "growing up" if you don't have the typical benchmarks of ring, dress, baby, and mortgage?

Perhaps Next magazine has an issue with the fact that they don't substitute career as their meaning of life. The question of S&TC really is an important one to discuss and I don't think the writers are claiming an answer. But considering the magazine did acknowlege that cultural norms tend to ignore the fact that many young people in the Western world are waiting until their 30s to get married, maybe we should allow more than one voice to answer why.

Ocean 2, Annika 0

Alright, paper is handed in, flatting situation is underway, all of which means I have time to write again. So, needless to say after my first snorkeling expedition, I was less than thrilled to toss myself again into the merciless ocean. However! I am not a quitter, so I decided to try again. Different beach, different water, no scary fish (hopefully). I grabbed a facemask, snorkel, and flippers and waddled out to the ocean. I jumped into the water and immediately got a mouthful of salt water. Ew. Hm. I tried again, only to be again mouth-deep in water. I decided something had to be wrong with the snorkel and got another from the large bin of snorkels (hygenically pure, I'm sure). Same scenario. After again peppering the air with some well deserved language, I regained my composure and decided to try again in spite of the fact that nothing is more disgusting than a mouthful of dirty sea water. (It must be dirty; fish pee in it.)

I decided that Kelley's super duper fancy flash snorkel must be better so I got that. Better. But alas, there were no real fish, plants, or anything of real interest near this beach. Blast. Snorkeling had conquered me again. But then we went aboard the Seaspray, a booze cruise with all drinks and food included in the price (Did I hear a challenge to overeat and drink the price paid? I think I did!) on which we went to see the island Tom Hanks filmed Castaway. Because we had stayed on a boat for a night as part of the tour and I had not leapt from the boat into the ocean (mostly because I'm a coward, but I blamed bikini distrust), I decided the time was right. A few of us decided to jump in from the boat and snorkel in to the island. I stepped up to the edge... and was pushed. :) Either way, I got in the water, but again salt water invaded my mouth and, unfortunately, my stomach. More obscenities. "Why is it impossible for me to snorkel?! Why?!" I did the swimming equivalent of stumbling in towards shore.

Well, let me tell you, I do not pity Tom Hanks' character. Being washed up on shore here was no treat. I was bashed, literally bashed, onto coral from the waves. I was scratched everywhere! It was so shallow and the coral was so high that it was impossible to get in (at least anywhere near where we came in) without donating approximately two pints of blood to the ocean. I sat on the beach, but still in the water, letting the ocean clean out my newly perforated body and cursing the day I decided to love water.

Kelley, God bless her, decided that I could not come all the way to Fiji and learn to hate snorkeling even though I insisted snorkeling hated me. She took me out, cut free, to the drop off where I saw a blue (and I mean blue) starfish and she brought a sea cucumber up for me to see (they are gross). Fish did swim near me, but none attacked and I felt bad for being anxious about some fish that swam quite close. They seemed perfectly nice, looked nothing like my fish attacker, but still... they were so close! So the moral of the story is: the ocean is too big to attempt on your own. And it hates me.

Pout

I need to take a minute to pout. I realised I was first pouting when a person sitting next to me at the library, a complete stranger, said, "Wow. I've never seen someone actually pout like little kids do." After a hefty glaring, I realised that yes, my lower lip was protruded, quivering dangerously. And so my story begins.

I have a paper due at ten am. It is currently 4pm and I am approximately half finished. It will not take much longer, but my goal is to be done by 5.30pm in time for class. I don't like writing when it's dark out. Usually, I can do this with no problem. I hole up in the library with my legal-Napster-like-program blasting some Bright Eyes (perfect for studying) and go at it. Well, today, I had to get my keys out because they have my removable drive on which my entire life is saved. As I was getting it out of my purse, I saw the piles of Fijian sand still stowed away. Pout. This time last week? Asleep on a hammock in the sunshine, waves splashing at my feet. Today? Writing a stupid paper for a stupid class for a stupid degree. (Feeling a wee bit bitter today.)

Then, I am typing away at a mad pace when my computer just turns off. No warning, nothing. Off. Well, after hitting the on button and muttering strong enough to make sailors blush, my computer is up and running again. I lost about half a paragraph, but that's it due to my incessant clicking of the "save" option. I start typing again, and my computer shuts off again only about ten minutes later. After resisting hurling my laptop down to the floor below me in front of the tech guy's desk, I took a walk to sooth my anger. After the third time of such spontaneous shut down, I went down to the tech guy who proudly proclaims, "Prolly a virus!"

I have had three viruses this year already. I have two different virus detectors, one of which updates itself, then runs a check every morning at three am. I also have spyware that I run on a weekly basis if I'm not feeling too paranoid, otherwise two or three times a week. I do NOT have a freakin' virus. He pokes around my computer for approximately two life times and says, "Nope, nothing obvious. Hope it doesn't happen again." Ever cool, calm, and collected, I said, "You'd better hope not. Or I'm using your computer to write my paper while you figure out what's wrong with it."

So, now, here I sit, convinced that my Napster-like program is malfunctioning, convinced my computer will shut down on me again, convinced I will be writing til the wee hours of the morning. No music, no Fiji, no fun. Just me writing for ages in the dull library noise that I detest. So my lower lip protrudes a little bit; so sue me.

Whoops

I promise that I will put up more stories and finish the terrifying saga of Annika the Snorkeling Champion, but alas, I have to write a paper for which I have not yet begun to research. It is due in 24 hours. Whoops! :)

Holiday will do that to you!

But I do want to take this opportunity to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LEIF!!! (Again, the date is on New Zealand time, but it is currently his birthday in the States.) Also, happy birthday, Greg - best friend of Leif; also, happy baptism birthday to me! Such a time for celebration.

Attack of the Killer Fish!

If you think this looks like an innocent fish... well, you may be right. To be completely honest I've had a heck of a time finding a photograph of the culprit fish and may even be perpetuating racial fish profiling. But this looks like the fish that tried to attack me; it looks more like it than any other picture I can find. Who would have thought google would flounder at the phrase "mean fish who tried to attack me when I was in Fiji"?

Snorkeling seems like it would be right up my alley. I love to explore things and I like the ocean. Logic would follow that I would enjoy exploring said ocean. Not so. It's scary down there - it's like the opposite of claustrophobia because the enormity of the space and the unknown is utterly daunting. But I can handle a wee bit of snorkeling before I freak out. My first venture out was in a horrid spot, with shallow water and high coral. While thinking, "Suck in that tummy!" I courageously wandered out to the drop off. As I was going, I put my hand on the ocean floor to see how much room I had - I looked down at my hand and saw that my hand was touching a giant fuzzy clam thing! I freaked out, tried to leap into a fetal position and scratched my foot on some coral. Whoops. Bad idea. I swam quickly away before the clam could open up and snatch away my hand.

The drop off is simply cool. There's no if, ands, or buts about it. There are all kinds of fish I have never seen, big massive sea plants that are bigger than me, and colours you don't see in everyday life. But all this kinda scared me; I was anxious, but not terrified. I like to know what's going on around me and seeing a plant that is larger than me makes me steer clear. Then, the fish swim all around you. I comforted myself with repeating, "They don't want to touch you any more than you want to touch them!" This, however, is horrifically untrue.

That cute bugger you see above swam past me, stopped dead in its tracks, looked me in the eye and dive bombed my face. I kid you not. So I tried to shoo it away with my hands. Turns out, this motion, in water, only attracts said fish. At this point, I naturally screamed (without getting a drop of water in my mouth!) which did frighten away said fish. "Aha!" I thought, "Vibration is my oceanic friend!" So I started to swim back to shore through the only non-coral infested pathway and who did I find? Said fish and his buddies, back for revenge. They were ahead of me on the path and I had to follow them. So I did so, and whenever the fish would turn maliciously around, I would growl loud enough to keep them away.

However, one snuck up beside me (blast the lack of peripheral vision in a face mask) and tried to attack. Again jumping and growling simultaneously (I was clearly getting better at this game), I cut my leg on some coral. The fish had won this round, but I would come out on top.

Dum, dum, dum.... To be continued??

Fiji in Review

I'm getting requests for the happenings of Fiji. I have decided to attack this in list format because... well, because I enjoy lists.

The Number Game:
3: times I went snorkeling
9: times I cut myself on coral and/or sharp rocks
0: romantic holiday flings
3: skinny dipping people
2: unfortunate pictures of the skinny dipping
43: emails awaited my return to civilization
3: packages of Fijian peanut biscuits consumed by the traveling trio
2: cigars smoked
1: courageous jump from boat to ocean in bikini (or was pushed... whatever)
4: people going to LA following the Fiji trip (none of which was American)
1: approximate handfuls of sand taken out of one of my cuts
2: times a fish attacked me while I was snorkeling; also number of times I screamed underwater

Funny Quotes:
"What a funny looking dog! [it was a pig]"
"You gotta cross your arms over your chest, yell, 'Dingo! Dingo! Dingo!', look 'em in the eyes, and back away slowly."
"Uh-oh, Kelley, avert your eyes from the Fijian rugby field lest we crash! [said multiple times roadtrippin' to and from Suva]"
"Oh, he's not 16 yet." followed by me thinking, "Ew... I'm going to hell." (And no, I didn't touch him!!)
"...by the twilight's last gleaming... um..." [Kelley and I, under pressure and the influence of alcohol, forgetting the lyrics to the national anthem]
"Surgery, surgery!" [said by my flamboyant, favorite bartender as he fixed up one of my cuts]

Around the World: (countries represented on the trip)
Columbia
France
Brazil
England
Scotland
New Zealand
Austria
Slovakia
Australia
USA

Activities:
snorkeling
swimming
kayaking
underwater cave trip
climbing around rocks
booze cruise on the Seaspray
Kava ceremony

Points of Interest:
went to the island where Tom Hanks filmed Castaway
went to the Blue Lagoon
we found fluorescent stuff on the beach at midnight
we were one of two groups of white people we saw in the whole of Suva and both parties went immediately into McDonald's (to use the toilets)
Kelley got offered to buy weed (she said no)
a girl got bitten/stung by a sting ray

Okay that's all I can think of for the moment. I am sure more stories will occur to me and get elaborated upon in the next few days and weeks. As for now, I am missing my peeps as homecoming in Valpo is upon us. Sigh.

Boo for Home

Well, I'm back. Back to rain and cold. I will spend the next few days living in the library. But! The holiday was AMAZING!!! I will post pictures and details later. You know, when I'm not exhausted from travels. :)