What I Learned in Australia, or at least what I thought about on my plane ride back

So I was feeling pretty bummed that my trip went the way it did. Specifically that I was coming back early, that Melbourne and especially the place I was living was driving me crazy, and that I didn't see the things I really had my heart set on seeing.
I got a happy feeling as soon as I was on the second flight out of three to come home however. I realized that the trip hadn't been a total waste (of time, money, and career opportunities) but that I had indeed learned a few things.
So I am going to try to sum up the things I learned starting with what is specific to me and then moving more general to how I think society might improve. A big leap, I know.

So number 1, don't get caught up in the moment and just rush into things without really thinking them through. Pay attention to your finances and how you will have money say in a two months' time and CERTAINLY DO NOT get into a bad situation without at least one good friend to eat ice cream with you when you get depressed about the situation you got yourself into...
2. Don't count on someone or give your heart away to someone before you really know her or him, definitely do not do this twice in a row...
3. Don't get involved with a roommate (a duh...)
4. It's nice to be in a beautiful place with beautiful weather, but it doesn't mean anything if you are sitting alone in your room missing your friends and family.
Friends and family are super super important

ok now getting on to the stuff I thought was super smart of me at the time while on the plane that I want to take to a global level.

There are two things I learned/experienced first hand in Australia

1. The more desperate you feel, the more you will consider doing.

2. The less personally invested/involved we are, the less we care.

So in Australia I went to work on a farm, making practically no money, all because I thought Australia was so awesome and that I was going to want to stay there an extra year FOR SURE. I went to work on a farm, making $100/wk just to be eligible for my second year working visa. When I got back from the farm, I used the money I made to pay my $715 rent in Melbourne for a room the size of a closet. It happened to be the start of the summer holidays when I got back so no there was teaching work and I was going to be BROKE. I needed a job ASAP so I put this add up on gumtree. I said I was looking for babysitting/tutoring or waitress work. I got the creepiest responses and not one that was actually for a decent job. Time went on and I started getting really anxious and wondering what I was going to do. Then I started going through the responses I was getting. Would you like to model? Could I massage you for $50 dollars an hour as I need someone to practice on? Could you put on something similar to leggings and sit on my face? (I shit you not, i really got a message like that) and finally could you meet me in a hotel room, I will pay you $500-1000 an hour.

Wait... $500-1000/hr. There is no way I am going to do it but that is A LOT of money. The would cover my rent for the next month and I would be able to buy groceries. If i did that three times I could also go traveling AND pay my rent, and buy my groceries... hahah you laugh even considering it. But you know what? I wasn't that broke, I had family that would have supported me if I really needed it and I wasn't living on the street. It's not hard to understand that someone in a worse situation could be tempted to do it.

Which made me realize that if you get your average person into a shitty situation (or let them do it themselves like moi), and even worse, a desperate situation, you could probably get them to do all types of shitty stuff that they otherwise wouldn't consider doing. Shitty stuff such as selling an organ, a child, a body, a soul... you know. That type of stuff.
Then I got to thinking (this was all on the plane ride by the way) if we could get people into less desperate situations, there would probably be a lot of less horrible things going on in the world. No one is really going to sell a kidney on the black market for the hell of it, you know?

Now this leads me to point two. The less invested or involved we are in something, the less we see, the less we care. We all shop at Walmart or Target or whatever similar store you have because we want cheap prices and more often than not, we feel broke (or maybe actually are really broke). So we get all these clothes and stuff there and bing bang boom, we're done shopping and wearing the clothes and we're all proud that we got this bargain. Now we see that the clothes were made in: China, Taiwan, Bangladesh, India or whatever other third world nation they might come from. Labour over there is cheaper which is why corporations go over there and most likely what you are wearing was made by a 14 year old girl in some sweat shop making 5 cents an hour. To which someone says "well better they have 5 cents than no money at all." Sure why not? I'm not even going to offer a counter argument. But the same person if told that they had to lock a 14 year old up in a room and get her to sew under the threat of her family starving or a severe beating, probably wouldn't be able to lock the 14 year old up or give her said severe beating. The same as how I could easily steal from a corporation and not bat an eye, (like when my roommate "stole" a plant from whatever store we were in and I thought it was awesome and carried it out for him) YET I wouldn't steal from a lady in the streets selling plants, or a farmer, or someone's mother (and I would have a fit at my roommate and not let him do it either.) Why? Because I care a lot more about an individual...
Or like how I could eat beef but I couldn't actually slaughter a cow myself... I'm going a little wild now but you get my point, what you don't have to actually do yourself, or what you don't have to see and can be ignorant about makes a big difference.
Where am I going with this? Right well the more involved people are, the more personalized things are, the harder it is to actually do something bad to someone. At least that is what I think.

Sooo what I'm thinking is that the world could be made a better place by doing two things:

1. Give people more support so they never feel super desperate
2. Make processes more direct, transparent and personal

Teaching people to really value community, to value life, to value compassion and kindness, basically to love I guess is what it comes down to.

Or I mean if you want to make the world a really bad place then do the opposite. Put people in desperate situations, make them afraid, make them not care about each other and then you could probably get them to do whatever you wanted really...

So ya just thinking about how easily I may have considered becoming a prostitute and how easy it was for me to assist in stealing from a corporation led me into all these thoughts.

I haven't slept in about three days so I could probably have formulated everything I am saying in a much better way. But this is what you get for now.

We should also understand that people's situation/circumstances play a big part in their values and how they evaluate situations/think/act.

Let's love more and help others out as much as we can.

Things may be Picking Up

Today I met another Canadian who lives at my landlord's other place.
We went to the beach. His name is Shane and it's just good to know another person.
He goes to beach volleyball on Wednesdays. It's 20 bucks and you play for an hour or so and then have pizza and drinks. Not too shabby. I think I am going to start going. Should be a good way to meet some people.
I've been chilling a lot with my roommate Brent as well and that is pretty awesome. We have fun and for some reason lucky things always happen when we are together. Weird coincidences, finding money in the street, getting a lift home from the cinema. It's good. I'm going to his family's place for the Christmas holidays and for New Years so that should be nice.
Tomorrow I have a job interview for a clothing store. Hopefully that goes well. If not there are two restos like right across the street where I will apply. Just for the short term. I heard that the people make $25 an hour which isn't bad at all for a fast food type place.
Things seem to be picking up. :)

Highs and Lows

I am not doing so well lately.
I think my aunt was right in saying that it was bad timing for the farm. Too bad I didn't listen.
I've got myself into a little bit of a rough spot. I do not have a job until February and my money is running low. Especially considering I will have another month and a half of rent to pay before I start working again.
I took my roommate's bike and went around the little strip looking if any places had wanted signs in the window. I didn't find any.
I put up an add for tutoring/babysitting or being a waitress on gumtree and I got the creepiest replies back. One was for modelling, one was for letting a guy training to be a masseuse massage me, and two others were pretty much for prostitution. Gumtree; not such a good place to look for jobs.
One of my roommates works at a casino and told me I should apply there so I have sent in my CV. We'll see what happens. If worse comes to worse, I can live on my credit card for a month, that will just suck a little bit.
I think even worse than the employment situation is that lack of friends and family. I feel reallllly lonely. I have to make some friends but I don't really have any connections at the moment to do that. I have my roommates but they all work and aren't around during the day. I'm missing my family and friends reaaaal bad. I guess it's all part of the experience. I don't know.

8-year-old boy parties

So I had all these games planned to help animate this birthday party and none of it was necessary. They just wanted to play guns. They played with guns for about 3 hours straight, minus some small breaks for food. Wooden guns, metal guns, cap guns, you name it, they played it.
Pow Pow Pow all day long.
At least they are easily amused.

10 more days!!!!!!!!!!

Why that's a Woolly Fence you've got there

I just learned in part how to repair fences on the farm.
The sheep escaped and they had to put new fencing up to keep them in. It's kind of funny because whatever part of the fence they escape through, they leave wool behind all over it. I should have taken a picture.

I spent the weekend with Dave in Sydney. I met 6 of his friends from Ireland and they were all super nice. We went out on Friday to a lounge called The Argyle. Saturday afternoon I went to yoga for an hour and a half and then for dinner at his friends place and had amazing food, lots of wine and a big game a scrabble. Big Saturday night on the town, I know. It was actually a lot of fun. Sunday we went to the markets and that was awesome. I got to drive part of the way home as well! Driving standard, it's intense but I'm sure it's fine once you are used to it. I'm getting better. :)

I have 16 days left on the farm. Maybe even less but I'm not sure. Can't wait to get back! Also, my roommate who is a singer/songwriter is shooting a music video on the beach and he asked me to be in it. That should be pretty kool. If it's a success I will put the video up on facebook. hahah

Shake Shake, Shake...

Your bloody clothes out after they have been hanging outside to dry in Australia because if you fail to do so you will find a black spider crawling on the inside of your shirt and down your tummy.


It is a most unpleasant sight and sensation. Gah!!! Also me and my trying-not-to-kill-things way is difficult to manage here. I don't like killing things: one because it's killing them, and two because it's not a nice feeling when they go squish but damn, there are sooo many bugs with this heat that it's almost impossible not to resort to killing shit. Luckily at the cottage I have Dave to kill shit, but he was not here when the spider was crawling along my tummy. I know I have really white skin but nothing makes you realize just how white like having the blackest of black spiders set against it. I actually didn't so much feel it at first as see something that looked a little off in the mirror. What is the huge moving black spot? *Looks down* "Oh, yep... that would be a spider... better get it off and put it outside..."

Who am I kidding, if only my reaction was that calm. It was more like this giant panic of thoughts inside my head that resulted in a verbal "Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee" The thoughts that went through my head after realizing that there was a spider crawling on me were something like (do you use quotations for thoughts?) "There is a spider on me! There is a spider on me!! Oh my god!! Is it poisonous? Spiders here are so black... Ah there is a spider on me. Get it off! Get it off!" That was accompanied by a yip of fear and disgust and then I knocked it to the floor with my hand. Afterwards I have to say that I did pick it up with a book and throw it outside. I didn't actually kill it. Well I may have in picking it up with the book cover and throwing it outside, but if I did, it wasn't intentional.

I realize I have to stop this though. At home maybe I had the luxury of being kind and compassionate to all beings, but that was because none of them could actually kill me. Spiders here can kill me and so maybe I should be more of the mentality 'it's them of me'.

Last night we had ants in our kitchen among the flies and moths attracted to the light. I then saw what I thought was a cockroach and that was it, bam, time for a MAJOR kitchen clean-up! The kitchen wasn't even bad, there were some crumbs and dirty dishes in the sink but now the kitchen is glistening, spotless, and beautiful. Poor Dave for having to entertain my somewhat neurotic ways, but I could almost feel bugs crawling on me and I couldn't stop thinking about a full bug invasion. Waking up, heading into the kitchen for breakfast, and finding human-sized cockroaches eating my oatmeal while sitting at the table type of bug invasion. You know how it is...
So everything was whisked off of every cleanable surface, all surfaces were sprayed and thoroughly wiped down, chairs, table, garbage bin, recycling and table were moved out to completely clean the floor, all dishes were washed twice and inspected (naw only washed once, now I'm just exaggerating), and anything that could contain a bug such as a box, bag or shoe was put outside.
I feel better about the world.


I'm definitely going to have to find someone that will not only put up with but that will also part take in my crazy clean-ups... this is a must.


(ps it's been 30 days that I've been on the farm!!!)

Social Event of the Year

Yesterday I went to the horse races. Oh boy, was it ever an event. People get all dressed up and many wear hats as if they were on their way to a royal wedding. I've never seen hats like that up close. I wore a hat myself. A designer straw hat probably worth at least $200. Crazy!! Social events and fashion is quite different out here although there are similarities, such as teenagers dressing as skanky as they possibly can. I remember that phase. You are just trying to look sexy but you don't really know what's up or how things should fit or how you appear to others. hahah It was kind of funny for me to see and think about yesterday. There was a fashion show and everything! Besides the fashion, there were other similarities, such as drinking. :) Everyone was drinking and we were invited to stay in this big tent with a few other families. There was a lot of wine and a lot of food and that pretty much makes for good times. :)
I bet on a few horses. One had the most incredible name of Captain, my Captain so of course I had to bet on the one. I think it had a bad start and didn't even cross the finish line though. I made my horse bets based on name alone. So I also bet on Kittens got Claws, Tha Hab, Old Mystique, and I wanted to bet on Strike Me Happy but didn't. Of course Strike me Happy was the big winner. There were about 6 sets of races with different horses in each race. Pretty kool. There were like at least 10 tables of bookies there and you got to see the odds written up either electronically with the fancier bookies or by hand in chalk or on white board with the less technology incline bookies. It was my first time at a horse race and my first time betting on horses. Very fun but I ended up losing money which is a lot less fun. However, it was "play money" given to Dave and I from the family so that made losing hurt a lot less. Dave and I lost $97 dollars between the two of us. It was an experience I will remember for a long time. Don't think I will ever turn into a gambler though. Betting is just fun and it makes watching the races a lot more interesting. I advise people with addictive personalities to stay away from shit like that though. Probably for the best.
Oh and I think I've made somewhat of a decision when it comes to vegetarianism. I will limit my meat intake to 2-3 times a week and I will eat only free-range animal meat. That means that I won't eat any beef or chicken that has been kept in a box or cage with 30+ more chickens and god knows what kind of treatment. I won't eat animals that do not get any decent standard of living. At least free range animals get to chill all day out in the sun on the farm and are fed properly and treated well for the most part. Unlike the mass production of meat that goes to supply McDonald's and KFC and all that. So products here in Oz tell you if it's free range. Chicken is clearly labelled and virtually all beef out here is free range. I will have to look up what the standards are back home and how the labelling works. Free range is more expensive but at least I know I am not supporting horrendous cruelty and animal mistreatment. That will make me feel a hell of a lot better about eating meat. Maybe one day I will become a full veggie but for now I think that this is a great start. :) I would also like to encourage others to do the same where and when possible.