Etc

I’m separating my entries into categories…it may take a while to sort them all so bear with me. The categories will be:

 

DAY TO DAY – personal entries about what I’ve been up to…mostly for my own benefit so I can contain my paranoia about amnesia.

OH, YOU PRETTY THINGS – photos of people who are aesthetically pleasing. Models, mostly. Male models. Skinny ones.

COPY & DESTORY – all things relating to zines.

MUSIC FROM THE MOTHER COUNTRY – music from Former Yugoslavia. I’ve sort of unintentionally turned this blog into a propaganda machine for music from the 80s to emerge out of that particular country.

PRETENDING TO BE A PHOTOGRAPHER – for all the photos I take with my film cameras.

 

A few other things: Dalibor & I saw Friday the 13^th the other day – what a hilarious movie! So many bad horror movies have been released in recent times and I’m loving it; Jasmina and I have been synchronised a few times in catching the train home which has been fantastic because the long journey home gets so boring, especially when sleep deprivation kicks in and I can’t even convince myself to do some readings for uni…or when it’s peak hour and I can’t move inside the carriage; I’ve been running on so little sleep, sometimes making it through days at uni on as little as two hours….so yesterday afternoon I wanted to take a nap around 5.30….but continued sleeping right until 11.30 this morning!!!!!; my crush on young-hot-Tifa is reaching unhealthy levels…

It’s all happening

I’ve been forgetting to update. Things have happened.

 

Third year started and already there is so much work to do, but I love my subjects and it’s been really good seeing people again (especially Allie) and getting back into some sort of ‘normal’ routine. Although the early starts aren’t so good. My subjects this semester are Politics x3 and General Education x1: Propaganda & Satire; Australian Foreign Policy; The Art of Political Science; Introduction to the Australian Legal System. My politics lecturers are amazing. I have my favourite professor for one subject, Dr Levey, so I spend Tuesday mornings basking in his greatness.

 

 

 

Drawings by Allie (paying attention during Australian Foreign Policy, obviously).

 

I went to the Mardi Gras for the first time, except the crowd and trying to find friends in the complete insanity meant I basically didn’t see the parade at all. Still, the vodka + rum was nice, and seeing people I hadn’t seen in a while was good too.

 

    

 

My Wog friend Alex had a horrorpunk themed birthday party which was a lot of fun. Messy and fantastic. Kylar and Jack came as my replacements for Annie and Zig. A vey wasted girl in Kings Cross was nice enough to share her cigarettes with us. They were Vogues and actually quite nice. I made Alex a mix of music from the mother country (well, MY mother country). This was the track-list:

 

Van Gogh – Klatno (live) : Belgrade, 1997

Elektricni Orgazam – Nebo : Belgrade, 1981

EKV – Ja Znam : Belgrade, 1983

Azra – Krvava Meri : Zagreb, 1980

Prljavo Kazaliste – Noc : Zagreb, 1979

Riblja Corba – Necu da zivim u bloku 65 : Belgrade, 1982

Idoli – Moja si : Belgrade, 1982

Zabranjeno Pusenje – Guzonjin sin : Sarajevo, 1988

Partibrejkers – 1000 godina : Belgrade, 1984

Sarlo Akrobata – Mali covek : Belgrade, 1981

Elektricni Orgazam – Odelo : Belgrade, 1982

Bijelo Dugme – Pamtim evo deset dana : Sarajevo, 1974

 

    

 

Hung around Liverpool a couple of times and saw The Unborn with Jasmina which was actually quite scary. Also, Gary Oldman is brilliant!

 

  

 

Morgan and I helped Zig out with a COFA project which involved photobooths. I got to wear an eyepatch!

 

I fell in love with this poem:

 

Rhododendrons

 

It was the dream
I was allowed
to touch you in.
We were strangers.
You kept your eyes closed.
I cannot really say
if there were rhododendrons
or anything like music or
even if I asked you.
Only your blue skin and the pleasure it gave you –
the way you moved,
the way you caught your breath
whenever my hands moved
so I kept on moving them.

-Thomas Lynch

 

& ten more copies of Feels Like Friday #7 sold at Sticky in Melbourne!!!!!!!

Ne spavaj mala moja muzika dok svira

The other day I was lazing around on campus with Zig. We were supposed to get our new IDs but the queue was too long. Instead we drank amazing Coffee Cart coffee, smoked Marlboro Golds, took photos, ate sushi, bought books and migrated from one sunny patch of grass to another four times.  I keep forgetting that being a student isn’t just about that….that there is work to do as well. Still, I’m really looking forward to starting the semester. People to see/meet and things to do and things to learn. I’ve been reading from “Munitions of the Mind”, the text for one of my subjects – Propaganda and Satire, and it’s really interesting. The subject I’m most looking forward to though is The Art of Political Science…not just because it interests me as a subject but because it’ll be taught by my favourite professor, Dr. Levey, the one who told us this joke: “what do you get when you mix a member of the Mafia with a post-modernist? …….an offer you can’t understand.”

ALSO: check out Andrew’s new blog, where music nerd meets real life nerd who likes to talk about science…..and stuff; Kylar is back from overseas and has posted new music on his blog so go have a listen.

& finally (I can’t post an entry without something Eastern European in it, can I?), since I’ve posted Zeljko Bebek and Alen Islamovic here, I thought it was a bit unfair to not post any Tifa. I didn’t know much about Tifa when I was starting to like Bijelo Dugme. Maybe because he had the shortest time as their singer or because I was so distracted by my crush on Islamovic…? When I saw them live in concert, all of them had gone well past their use by date but Tifa was the worst, acting really inappropriately on stage and being so fucked up by the end of it that he couldn’t even come up on stage for the final songs which they all sing together. It’s really hard to find footage of Tifa but what I did find on YouTube is AMAZING. Tifa was this beautiful drug-fucked incredibly talented singer and I have fallen a little in love with him. I was going to post one of those big Bijelo Dugme power ballads but the video was really poor quality so here is what is apparently Tifa’s first concert with them.

I know your name, I’ve danced with you

Tutoring going well – boring and repetitious and more work than I get paid for but the girl is nice & it’s $25 more than I was making previously; Kylar is back, yay – K-Rudd impersonations & Cuban cigarettes & bubble gum cigarettes & amazing, amazing things at the MCA & stories from the Americas; excited about upcoming zine fairs (Wollonghetto on the 5^th of April; MCA on the 24^th of May); excited about Feels Like Friday #9; the boy is lovely; I’m pretty excited about starting the third year of my Bachelor of Arts, although the idea of essay deadlines and early mornings is not so pleasant; my zebra-print curtains are too awesome; had my last trip to the dentist today, finally (although I still need to get a crown on my root canal & get one more wisdom tooth taken out, but those things can wait).

UNSW, FTW!

 

Miss Zigwamp bought me this book for my birthday. It looks so fucking good! & those are my new curtains…which will be put up soon.

Yesterday I walked to Bonnyrigg Plaza to buy a few things I needed….a half an hour walk all up, approximately. During that time I was harassed from THREE different cars. One even pulled up so he could make obscene gestures. What the fuck is wrong with the male gender?

Zig, Dalibor & I went to UNSW today to abuse the generosity of O-Week organisers by making badges and t-shirts. Unfortunately the screen-printers turned out to be at COFA and we were unwilling to make our way there in the heat. So my sweet t-shirt design will have to wait. O-Week sort of frightens me. Everyone is too excited and it’s always too hot. The upside being Coffee Cart coffee, lazing around the Library Lawn & running into Allie (and finding out we’re doing two of the same subjects – yay!), as well as buying a few readers, thereby avoiding the massive bookshop queues. I’m really looking forward to starting uni again. I’ve become somewhat of a sloth during the last four months…I think/hope uni will make me feel like I’ve got some…….purpose? At the very least I won’t be sleeping in every day and doing little else but drinking coffee and watching Law & Order.

 

These are the badges I made today. I was expecting them to have the giant badge machine again so my pictures were a bit too big for this badge size. But still. I love the Sid & Nancy one.

Wait, WHAT?

ENGL2321 Twentieth Century: Modernism and Modernity – 81 DN
HIST2060 (Un)Making the Third World B – The Americas – 65 CR
HIST2511 US and Conflict in the Middle East – 66 CR
POLS2020 Sex, Human Rights & Justice – 75 DN
POLS2048 International Security – 71 CR

How did this happen? I did barely any work, paid very little attention, skipped lots of classes and handed in pretty much everything late (sometimes weeks late). I expected to fail one or two subjects. I am a little disappointed with my International Security mark because that was my favourite subject and I’ve always had Distinctions for Politics but oh well.

ENGL2321 – I attended only Monday’s lectures because I had a clash with History for the Wednesday lectures. I tuned out completely when I was there. I relied on Zig’s notes and my skills at bullshitting to get me through. Mostly I was just there because I had/have a crush on Dr Kate, the lecturer/tutor. HIST2060 – it started off so well, viva la revolucion and all, but then I turned into capitalist scum or something and stopped going to the lectures, and skipped more tutorials than I was allowed to because my tutor was an absolute imbecile and everyone in the tutorial, except Clare, was a moron. HIST2511 – I really, really enjoyed this subject but it was a little on the difficult side. The lecturer’s accent was so amusing. POLS2020 – another subject I enjoyed but found a little difficult, just in a different way. There was a big split between people who were all about the law and people who were all about the principles of human rights, and people like me who wanted to be all Law and Order: SVU about it. I never got to say what I really wanted in tutorials. I handed in my essay, which was worth 60% of the mark, very late and it was just a rant about how prostitutes are just doing a job, which basically had no research behind it. Oh and I pretty much never did the readings and didn’t attend many lectures. POLS2048 – I loved everything about this subject but I was lazy and handed things in late and didn’t focus much. Boo. I hope Dr. Billingsley (he has a Facebook fan page!) will remember good things about me and not this mark because I want to suck up to him for an Honours project.

Either I’m a genius or Arts is too easy. I have my money on the latter.

Thursday, 20th November

 

 

On Thursday I went to work. My job somehow manages to make three hours seem like the longest time in the world. It also doesn’t help that a lot of the people I call are very rude. My supervisor tells me I take it too personally. The good news is that they’re relocating to Bondi Junction which should help improve my mood when at work. St Leonards is just a little too quiet and depressing, and the office is dark and horrible. It will also be easier to get to work from uni because there are buses going directly to Bondi Junction from UNSW. I still need to find a job that is closer to home and that gives me longer hours. Preferably something that doesn’t make me want to kill myself. I really want to work at PSC in Liverpool but I don’t know much about skating. ALTHOUGH, I have met Tony Alva and Tosh Townend! I should put THAT on my resume! (Although Tony looked a little more like this when I met him.)

 

After work I met up with friends for dinner at a Spanish restaurant in the shady part of Pitt St. It was: Kylar, Zig, Morgan, Jack, Lee, Jasmine-from-uni & Morgan’s friends Mark and Anita-I-think-is-her-name?, and Annie joined us later on. Being a vegetarian, gluten-intolerant, picky eater isn’t helpful when eating out. Luckily there was a lot of wine. Also, good company. I’ve gotten so used to hanging out with one or two people without those people ever actually hanging out together, that it’s a bit strange when I’m around a big group of people. Still, it was nice. And I liked the people I hadn’t met before so that was good too. After dinner, Annie, Kylar, Jack and I went to Oxford St where we were going to see Warhorse play at Exquisite Corpse but figured they’d finished by then so we just hung around instead; were joined by Morgan, Mark and I-think-her-name-is-Anita in the gutter, had various strangers talk to us, etc. One of the reasons that gutter parties make life better is because of the random strange people that one encounters whilst in the gutter.

 

So Thursday was good.

 

  

(Photos: stolen jewellery – a fork from the restaurant and the little muscly man from Kylar. Fisheye photos by ANNIE LY - Jasmine, Kylar & Jack; Kylar, me & Jack; me, Kylar, Jack, Morgan & Mark.)

 

I want a haircut that says who I am

Just a few quick things: I finished the Essay of Doom last night at around 3. My computer started dying on me right at the end from some weird keyboard malfunction but luckily my dad’s computer was working just fine. So I am ACTUALLY on holidays now!; yesterday I had a really great conversation on MSN with Dee who is currently in New Zealand. Sometimes it amazes me how much more comfortable I am talking to people I’ve only known for a little while than people I’ve known for years; I heard Ohana on FBi a while ago and wrote down their name to look up but never did until today. They’re great!; my review of an N.W.A compilation tribute album is up on The Dwarf: have a look; Channel V is making me remember all my embarrassing crushes from back in the day – Billy from Good Charlotte, Tom from Blink 182…

 

Things that are good…

 

      

When the smack begins to flow, I really don’t care anymore

Yesterday I was sitting outside St Leonards station before heading home from work and an old man with a long-neck in hand came up to me to ask for a cigarette. Then he started talking about how he is “from the clinic” and I had no idea what he was talking about so he explained how there is a methadone clinic nearby which is run by a man who was “on the needle” for twenty-six years and was a hardcore criminal to support his habit and has since cleaned up and opened up a rehab centre! The man I was talking to, Billy, has been clean for nine months but now drinks a lot. He has a two-year-old son called Alex. It made me so…sad? I really wanted to sit there talking to him for hours but I was cold and had to head home and he was having trouble stringing sentences. Before I left he asked me if I had any change. I hope I didn’t contribute to fucking up his getting-clean process but I guess that’s his decision and not for me to meddle with. And I gave him three more cigarettes and my lighter before I left. He looked so surprised that I was willing to shake his hand. I guess ‘normal’ people mostly avoid him. It made me realise I should stop dwelling on my trivial problems.

 

Positive: I’ve written 815/2000 words for my essay.

Negative: It’s all really poorly written and has no point and the essay is now so late I don’t even know if they will accept it, so I’m really likely to fail another subject. The even worse thing is that I really enjoyed studying this unlike the other subject I failed, Political Economy, which was the bane of my existence.

 

Positive: Looks like I’ll get out of having to work again today.

Negative: Because I am sick again. My body hates me.

 

Positive: I had the funniest conversation via emails with Annie yesterday.

Fucking with me cos I’m a teenager, with a little bit of gold and a pager

 

   

Coming straight outta Compton is the latest compilation tribute album to the “world’s most dangerous group” N.W.A….

 

I’m writing a review for The Dwarf instead of writing my essay.