A Procrastinator's Guide to the Galaxy

First of all, I eventually got over the loss of my perfect post. But I am not feeling nearly as inspired as I was when I wrote it, and all my posts will continue to be boring pieces of crap.

Second of all, guess what, I finished my 2000-character essay for In-Country study. I did everything in my power to put it off, including driving to Katoomba, calling my grandmother, and going shopping in the car just for cigarettes. But the powers that be finally made me sit down at my desk and pretend to feel like a student. First I started reading about Mao again. Then I just went STUFF IT and dragged out the half-done essay and just made shit up. Last night and this morning I wrote it out in Chinese (the draft was in pinyin of course, who do you think I am, superman?) and now it's done. It's boring, sub-standard, insight-into-Chinese-culture lacking, pyschological experience of living in an Asian country-town ignoring, report on the more mundane aspects of my time in Taiwan. For example: "My experience working: I taught at a kindergarten. The kids were really cute. I also had three one-on-one students. All I had to do with one of them was help memorise dialogues. I also worked at a buxiban. This required alot of energy. I had a good relationship with the boss." It's embarrassingly bad but it'll have to do. It counts for 30% of my mark for that particular in-country study unit. The other 70% is my marks at the language centre. They were all (don't tell anyone), made up by Chen Xiaojie when I emailed her telling her I needed a transcript. Thanks for the H.D., Chen Xiaojie!

Now I am going to dedicate a whole paragraph to Mark Patterson. Haha no I'm not!

No really I stayed at Mark's blue mountain bungalow the other night. Then we drove all the way to Katoomba for lunch. We went to this boring unappealing old-fogey poshy hotel called Lilianfels. There was a big poshy sitting room with couches and coffee tables everywhere, with old fogeys playing scrabble and eating $20 sandwiches. We sat at the bar. Mark chatted up the girl working there. Later he called her sister, whom he knows, and told her she was more attractive than her sister. Mark likes to compare sisters. Maybe he compares himself to his brother. Then we had $35 sirloin steaks and I got full. I tried to burp out loud to break the stuffy, pretentious atmosphere. This invokes hysterical laughter on my part, and my day henceforth becomes complete.

What else did I do in my beautiful break from uni. Oh The fucking housemates came back EARLY from Byron Bay. FUCK that RUINED my DAY. Man, you don't know what you haven't got until it's fucking BACK. I was genuinely enjoying myself. My uni break may aswell be OVER.

Other things I did were, have lunch with my Mum in Eastasia. Ooops I meant Eastwood. I saw a play of Ella's. It was too intellectual for me and I got bored. I need plays that explain everything to you. Eastasia is near E-Ping, althought ten years ago it was known by the name "Epping". Ella and I grew up in E-Ping, back when it was still Epping.

Me and Ella are going to one day become yuppies that live in Bondi. I says to her I says "but how are we going to be trendy and yuppy-like like everyone else?" She says to me she says, "all you need to do is go jogging every morning, get your hair done every six weeks, and most importantly," she says, "wear sunglasses that cover half your face like a mask." This mask-concept is very important. Everybody's hiding, is all. If you walk down the street with big-arse sunnies on you, you fit in straight away. "OK!" I says to her I says, "I'll do it! I'll even go jogging every day!"

But before we transform into the ultra-cool beings that we were always destined to be, we are going to go to Brazil and New York and Italy. I think, dear readers, that we finally have a verdict on the "what the fuck am I going to do next year?" debate. I'm going to get a job and travelle, mes amis. That's what I want most of all, is it not? Another three years of reading shit, spewing it up in essays and presentations and exams, trying to make friends with snobs, and being fucking POOR is much less appealing. Will do it when I get back.... maybe.

This morning as I put off getting out of bed, I began to seriously contemplate becoming a high-class escort. Dude, rich guys are not losers and would statistically have higher levels of personal hygiene. I could keep half the money for myself, and use the other half to send my niece and nephew to poshy private schools, where they will only associate with other affluent people and when they finish school will get jobs based on who they know rather than what they know. Noone will know their aunty Liz was a ... ahem!

I changed my mind though. How could anyone ever go through with it. Obviously people made for the job do.

Well, I have to go staple my essay up now.

Thanks for reading my blog everyone, you rock. All three of you, I mean really, you guys are the BEST.

Love,
Lizwa TM  ¶ 14:29 0 Comments

  I just wrote the longest, most passionate and articulate post I've ever written, and something malfunctioned and it was lost. The whole thing. Fuck Blogger, you have broken my heart. It was too long and perfect to bother trying to write again, and this is something that I will never forget. God it was good. So good. It was great. It was fantastic. And now it is lost forever.  ¶ 17:41 0 Comments

  Last night my sister Mel rang. We hadn't spoken in months because we had been fighting. I think the time had come when too much time had passed, which we both obviously felt, because I had the urge to call her the other night, and she finally called me last night. She said "Hi Liz." I said "Hi. Do you hate me?" and she said "No, do you hate me?" and I said "No." Then we both burst into laughter and said "Glad we got that out of the way."

But on the housemate front, the savage, aggressive French-Canadian is on the rampage and as I have reached the point of feeling nothing but contempt for him and his savage ways, I refuse to enter into negotiations with him. This of course makes me look bad, but I'm willing to wait it out until he finally moves out. The German, who is supportive, says I should 'fight fire with fire'. Like I said, I refuse to stoop to his level and stick with remaining silent and thinking philosophical thoughts about the utterly unfounded abuse being hurled my way. In Heart of Darkness , they say the author was racist because of the part where the savage the white guy just shot tried to express a final glance of perceived shared humanity with him at his moment of death, and the use of the word 'perceived' is what makes it racist, as the underlying assumption is that they do not have a shared humanity. I myself, believe I am also above my savage housemate, and do not view him as an equal or a worthy opponent.

I got 82.5 for my Chinese speaking test. I am afraid I'll only get a distinction this year. Maybe even a credit, because I've been getting poor marks for homework.

Today I had coffee with a relative who teaches at the uni. I let her pay for it without politely offering to pay for it myself and then I felt awfully rude and guilty. In a few weeks I'll treat her to coffee.  ¶ 12:16 0 Comments

  George the German guy is OK now, he sympathises with my cause and thinks Sam is horrible. On Thursday we are going to salsa lessons.

I tried to wage war on Sam last night but my womanly desire for peace took over and I remained silent. It wasn't a lack of assertiveness but just a calm and objective approach of remembering he will be gone by November and we will have two new housemates to either like or dislike or even loathe.

I should go on with my China story now. Where was I? No I can't go on with it, it will all sound ridiculous.

I think this has been my best semester at uni so far. I'm far less stressed out about tests and assignments and things because now I feel that as long as I have a basic idea of what's going on I'll at least pass or even get a credit and seeing as though I no longer wish to do anything postgraduate getting passes doesn't matter. Whoo!

Coffee time. Then I have a business chinese quiz.  ¶ 12:23 0 Comments

  Yesterday we had a speaking test for Chinese. I talked about whether love or money was more important. Then we had beer and went for dumplings in Chinatown. I got really full. Then we watched Kill Bill at my house then later everyone came back and watched Kill Bill 2.
I now have to bitch about two of my housemates. George, the German guy, is fucking annoying and I'm going to tell him the next chance I get. He thinks I am his fucking English teacher free of charge and he constantly asks pointless questions about obscure words because he believes in 'continuous improvement', and for some reason, he thinks I don't mind. Sam, one of the French-Canadians, is an uptight arsehole who grew up in a family of retarded arseholes. It is now my mission to make his life hell until he finally leaves in November. Operation Carrot-Stuck-Up-Arse. Marcus and Hugo on the other hand, are very nice, and I like them.
This week I also have vocab quizes for business and third-year Chinese, and a short-answer written exam for history. On the weekend I brushed up on my history of the Cultural Revolution and also went shopping.

I started reading this book called Murasaki the Story of Genji. It's got all this nature-related Japanese poetry in it like: snowflakes and dew looking out the window waiting for the hazy sun etc, which has inspired me to write my own Japanese style poetry:

Ugly housemate the bright orange carrot up your derriere
invokes melting snowflakes and disastrous floods

Another question about English vocabulary
and I cut off his head and let the finned creatures of the winding river nibble away at it  ¶ 11:10 0 Comments

  Just passed the classical test. I got 17.25 out of 30. The average was 17 though so I should get scaled up a bit. Today in class we all got the giggles trying to translate seemingly nonsensical ancient passages about vassals presenting gifts of jade to ministers etc. Ben and I are on the right track, tonight Leah, him and I are watchinga movie at Manning then studying at my house for the classical test together. I saw his combi yesterday, Leah made cheeky remarks about how there was room for exactly two people to sleep in the back. I got a free pizza today for picking up all the pizzas for the Architecture Society pizza day (I saw Phuong on the street who is the president) so I can safely say having a car has it's perks. I've become a bit better at the clutch, me and the friction point are becoming fast friends and soon I will be able to consider myself extra cool for driving manual.

Back to the Beijing thriller:
Not only had Sam displayed a sudden shift in his feelings towards her but he had also begun to act very strange. He seemed to be following her wherever she went around the hostel and she was practically never out if his sight. This is the point at which for her, reality split into two...

Speaking of which, it is speed that contributes to my brand of madness which leaves pot in the clear. So the other night I was very pleased to share a giant spliff with my housemate Marcus out the back door. Then I came back into my room, and got stuck into the myriad readings I haven't been doing for weeks. China in the 1960's totally came alive for me and I started thinking very deeply about other things, like my visit to the community health centre that day, where they asked me questions designed to gauge whether I was mad or not. Smart people. One of them was "if you were unwell again, and your Mum told you so, would you believe her?" and I answered truthfully, which was my mind would no doubt find a reason not to believe her. That's the nature of madness. In fact it was only then that it really hit home waht happened - how serious it was, how lucky I was that it wasn't worse, how if I was like one third of the people who suffer a psychosis, it would come back as soon as medication stopped and be officially diagnosed as schizophrenia. Another third will suffer another psychosis once or twice in their lives, the last third never will. Now we will see if I fit into this third.

Anyway reading about communal life was like watching an episode of the Smurfs. There happened to be two or three great readings which really detailed what life was like. It made me realise how bloody boring Australia is. We've never suffered any extreme social experiments or major upheavals and not that it's a bad thing but frankly it's just plain boring. This is why I can't wait to write that essay on how good or bad Mao was. It might give me a chance to talk about how amazing a period in history it was.

OK gotta go doll myself up for my oncoming flirtations with Ben.

Ciao!  ¶ 15:32 0 Comments

  I got 65.5% for the business chinese test, which is pretty much equivalent to how much study I put in for it. Just made a credit, so be it. No longer the Chinese HD student I once was, I resign myself to the fact that I now accept that it isn't all about getting super marks. And I have learnt alot - I can talk about all kinds of things in Chinese now like foreign trade, China's entry into the WTO, foreign investment in China blah blah. I picture myself chatting to the Chinese businessmen in first class when I am a flight attendant for Qantas, having gotten the job based on my spectacular Chinese language skills. Yesterday I actually read this week's chapter, in preparation for the next test, whenever that is. Then I miraculously worked on the 2000-character essay I have to for Chinese. I'm up to 1200 now, words 900-1100 bitching about the ignorant, superficial treatment of waiguo pengyou and how all people want to do is take photos with you and abuse your native-English speaker status. I didn't say it like that though.

We're reading parts of Journey to the West in literature. Today I was enlisted by the teacher to enact for the class all the different types of evil laughs the White Boned Devil has when he captures Trippitaka and Pig. Laughter all around. I hope that scores me participation marks, aswell as popularity ;-)

I'm a bit behind in Remaking Chinese Society, haven't done the readings lately, and have fallen asleep more than once during lectures. I really like the lecturer, he's so smart, and young and cute, but married. I wonder who he's married to and whether he craps on about China when he's at home aswell. Today the lecture was about the work unit system in China, how they controlled your lives. In 1999 70% of people still belonged to work units, I think that's what the guy in Golmud was telling me about how if a Chinese person wants to go overseas they have to get permission from their boss first, so if you have bad guanxi with your boss you are basically screwed.

Anyway it's now time for the second installment of my new best-selling novel.

Betty had sobered up by the time she was settling into the double room she got for her first night in Beijing. First thing's first: call the Chinese friend of her relative and organise to meet. He took her to the biggest Peking Duck restaurant in Beijing then got his driver to drive her to the Great Wall. Sam, another Aussie at the hostel, asked to come too, and she decided it was better than going on her own, even though he had already proved himself to be a snobby prick and someone she didn't like all that much. From this day, however they nevertheless adopted each other as travel mates, and resolved to go West together. Sam talked up Kashgar and the Karakorum highway like they were heaven on earth, and Betty politely said things like "oh, I was thinking of going west to Urumuqi, but I don't know, I might go to Harbin, not sure." For two or three days, they beat around the bush talking about going to Kashgar with neither of them just coming out with it and saying "Let's go together!"
Sam's moods were shifty. As Betty got into bed one night, he pulled out a bottle of vodka and got her to drink it with him. Still in her pyjamas, and that was all, they left the hostel and walked down the street in zero degree temperature to this Islamic restaurant where they sampled the "fragrant meat" dish. They continued to eat it as they debated whether or not it was dog. Suddenly they were best friends, then they were pashing and pissing off the grumpy Aussie girl in the opposite bunk. By Day 3, Betty was having a superb time, with this prick who had suddenly decided he liked her.   ¶ 13:00 0 Comments

  It's not on with the guy. Don't know why, don't care, if it wasn't meant to be, it wasn't meant to be. Ah. That's a relief, I was worried I'd have to start shaving my legs again or even brush my hair.

I had the business chinese test yesterday, I think I may have passed, but did a disappointing performance overall. It's over. Tonight I have 38 literature questions to write out for homework, due tomorrow, which I found out today, previously under the impression they were due on Friday.

On Saturday Fi is helping me christen my new car by going on a mini-road trip to Terrigal. Yay! And I think Leah is coming too. Yay!

I've been having the strangest dreams lately. Must be my new room. This morning I dreamt the Pied Piper was using his flute/recorder thing to draw all the women to him rather than children. I wonder what that says about my psychological well-being. Flutes....flute-shaped musical instruments... men, women.... NFI, man.

Had kickboxing yesterday, nearly passed out again, I am so unfit. I think there's too much carbon-monoxide in my system and that's why I felt faint. Must quit smoking. Can't afford another pack at the moment, so am being forced to stop. Haven't had one all day. Then I drove to Rose's to show off my new car. Another opportunity to practise driving. Still going off the same fuel I bought in Tumut. Having a car gives me the same feeling I had when I got my scooter in Taiwan. Freedom, independence, the kind of convenience that noone should live without!

I applied to UAC yesterday. This time it cost $41, what a rip, man. First preference is business at UTS, second is business at the Ku-ring-gai campus of UTS which has a lower UAI. Now that I have a car, it would be quite feasible to go to the Ku-ring-gai campus, with the view of only doing it for a year then transfering to city campus. Don't know when I'll travel, I care more about getting some kind of qualification to fall back on, so that if I ever do travel, it would be quite umm... feasible to look for a job that does not involve teaching English. Also, success is the best revenge, and it would be ideal to one day hit $100,000 or more and rub it in certain people's faces. Mmmmmm, yeah.

In classical they have what they call the AB-Ye structure a.k.a. the Baby Yeah structure. Now I'm just crapping on. Classical is getting much harder. I'll give you some example sentences: The state is the foundation of the world, the family is the foundation of the state and the body is the foundation of the family. If one takes rulers and vassals as fathers and sons then there will certainly be order. This is like being blind but wishing to know the natures of black and white. Why the hell am I studying classical chinese? Credit points. If you're going to do an Arts degree you may aswell do the most useless subjects there are.

Saw Dan wearing a "Keep Left" t-shirt today. He is so bloody up himself, only has time for people who are going to help his big career in campus politics. Maybe he is a government spy, planted on campus to keep the left in check. Better take my pills, or write a novel.

It was winter in Beijing as Betty stumbled off the plane, still drunk from the four o'clock tequilas at the Pig Pen during her last hours in Taiwan. "Where the fuck is my ride?" She asked herself. She sat in the airport Starbucks until finally someone turned up with a sign with her name on it. "Thank fucking god," she thought to herself. She could not wait to start showing off her chinese to the driver the hostel organised for her. She nearly wet her pants with excitement as he began to speak in a true-blue Beijing accent: errer ere er er er er er er. She was finally there, after all the organising and anticipation. At the hostel she tried to impress the staff with her chinese skills. They were unimpressed. It turned out it was no big deal for a foreigner to speak Chinese in Beijing, unlike in Taichung, Taiwan, where people nearly wet their pants with excitement when a foreigner speaks Chinese.

Fuck I have to go to class. To be continued!!!!!  ¶ 12:16 0 Comments

  Everything's fine with the guy. Now I wish to talk about my NEW CAR! It's a silver Charade, with pink seat covers, pink steering wheel cover, and in big pink letters the word "LIZWA" on the back windscreen. There's also a pink spider's web on the bonnet! I had a crash course in manual driving before taking the huge challenge of driving back to Sydney on my own. Became shit-scared as I approached Sydney, worried about all the traffic, lights, stopping, and gear-changing, all at the same time as the getting lost and doing three-point turns in side-streets and stalling at least 20 times before I get anywhere!

After I got home I was so excited I drove to the supermarket to get some sustainance and felt better at it already.

My housemates all love me now, because I began a note telling them I'd be back on Sunday night with "Handsome Housemates..." They're all like, she thinks I'm handsome? Wow! Marcus said I was like a breath of fresh air and he's very happy to have me. Don't know where that came from, but it's all good.

I hate my bank, I have to print out statements to get Youth Allowance and i've been waiting for like half an hour for it to f--king load. God.

Speaking of god, I saw the beginning of a debate at uni about the existence of god. One guy said we can't prove he exists, the other said we don't know that he doesn't exist. Nothing new. Ugh I'll just go to an ATM.

Love and Glorious Driving Appellations,
Liz-wa  ¶ 14:06 0 Comments

  Why I Will Be Single For the Rest of My Life

I came in late to class the other day and sat by myself as all the tables were arranged seperately and George* and a friend were already sitting with each other. After class, he explained that it was he who sat down next to her not her next to him because he was also a little late and it would have been stupid to both sit separately. But like, I didn't really care, but I'm led to believe that he thought I did mind, and this worries me, and I don't know what to make of it. I also said I wasn't going kickboxing coz I was too sick (he was going to come too)and then he said something about how he would make the call in the end and something or other. NFI, man. It's all too tiresome trying to figure out what's going on and I wish there would be a little less misinterpretation and a little more action (please). If everything turns to shit, I'm still stuck with these people for the rest of the semester coz they're all in classical and third-year.

To find out more about myself and what makes me tick, I found this through Google: click here Turned out to be a little off-colour actually.  ¶ 11:36 0 Comments