The Kat Project: 9 Lives to Live

kaitlynmarymaree:

VEGEMITE FOR THOSE WHO WANT TO DIE

(Source: gay-a-day)

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Does anybody else have designated spots around campus where they like to do certain things? I have many, and I quite enjoy my designated spots. For instance, I have a designated spot to study. I have a designated spot in the great court where I like to sit, soak up sun, sleep, or just catch the breeze. I have a designated spot where I’d go between classes to finish homework for my next class. And my favorite, I have a designated bathroom on campus where I do my most heinous business.

Well, I recently found a nice, grassy little place outside, next to one of my classes, where I could chill and surf the web. I was really starting to enjoy this area too. It was shady and there weren’t too many people walking around a crowding my business… But apparently people weren’t the ones who I needed to worry about.

On this fateful day, I had just bought lunch before coming to chill at this spot. I was quite hungry and therefore giving my undivided attention to the my sausage and bread… however, I was the only one doing so. After just one bite, I looked up to see myself cornered, one to my left and one to my right, by two ibises. If I haven’t described them before, ibises are big, aggressively unattractive birds with the body of a hen, creepy twig legs, and possibly the head of something worshipped in Egypt. They have the attitude of a pigeon and no respect of one’s personal bubble… making them the dicks of the campus avian population.

So as I was saying, these ibises stood there staring at me for a little while, and I stared back. Then they began to strut toward me (Not even creep! Strut!), eyeing my food like the vultures. I immediately began to panic. The beak of an ibis looks like it could punch a hole in a soup can. “Shoo!” That didn’t work. I looked around to see if any kind samaritan from nearby would come give me a hand but I had picked too secluded of a spot. Damn those effective, peaceful-spot-finding skills of mine!

I then resorted to making ‘threatening’ kicking motions in their directions. I probably looked like the biggest pansy because they still kept walking forward. The girlish “ughh… get awaaaayyyyy” I whined during that action probably didn’t help though…

They had now closed into arms distance and I attempted swatting at one. The tips of my fingers may have grazed the beast’s neck, but that was enough to freak me the hell out. I shot up screaming as if I was being murdered, grabbed my book bag, and ran straight for the crowded walkways surrounding the great court. I must’ve looked like a plum fool but it didn’t matter. I, and most importantly my sandwich, were safe.

After school, I was invited to go to the QUT guild bar with Brytes, England, Pierces, Nineties, and others. This wouldn’t have been so eventful if I had actually paid to recharge my cell phone minutes… I got lost walking to the bar, got to the bar, found out Pierces was out looking for me to bring me back to the bar, and spent the next five minutes pretty sure I was going to feel the violent, ‘I will tear your heart out with my bare hands’ wrath of Pierces when she got back.

However, the wrath of Pierces wasn’t that bad but actually quite understanding. All of my ‘relaxing escapes’ today have been fear riddled… I guess it’s true what they say, that the simplest of tasks can hold the biggest adventures. Or just plainly scare the bejeezus out of you.

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

I’m not sure anyone knows this because I don’t talk about it that much, but I’ve been studying. A lot. I know that the actual ‘study’ in study abroad seems like something more along the lines of an urban legend or just plain decoration, but with my major it’s more of a must. 

Today, I suffered through my first assessment of the semester: a thermodynamics super tute. 

Thank God there’s an on campus bar.

RedRoom, you’re a sanity saver.

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Return of the fundraising!

It was my mate, Laur’s, birthday so we all decided to head down to the Treasury Casino. I thought of it more as time to redeem myself from the last fundraising disaster…

Yeah, didn’t do too great of a job with that. I’d rather not talk about what happened in there tonight, but I let the money get to me, man… At one point, I had a gain of at least $20. TWENTY FREAKIN’ DOLLARS!!!!! Do you know how many packs of Mi Goreng I could buy with $20?!?!! A lot!!!

Ugh…  I should’ve known: Don’t bet against black.

Next time, though. Next time.

Monday, March 21, 2011

Well, today was the second day of suffering with the bubonic plague.

I stayed in from uni and just took a day to myself and to bond with my roomies, which meant being unintentionally serenaded by Hann in the room next door (I didn’t notice how much she sang in there because I’m usually gone most of the day, but boy does she go to town! It was almost like a childhood dream come true; my life now had a soundtrack. To mostly 80’s-90’s music too! Even though having Total Eclipse of Heart being sung while I was changing was a bit disconcerting. More so because it made me notice that my window blinds were pulled all the way up… Have I ever mentioned that there’s a somewhat popular bus stop right outside my window?)

It also meant hanging out on the balcony with The Biebs to help him test out his new iPod speakers. We played Batter Up by Nelly from my iPhone first to check compatibility. Then we played some Skrillex to see how well the speakers could handle the dub-step. Then we played Killing in the Name Of (Rage Against the Machine) at top volume just to piss off the people who lived down along the wall facing us from other tower across the court. For some unknown reason, we just can’t stand them. I already bought a bunch of water bombs from Target that are sitting on the top shelf of my desk… awaiting the day when we decide to unleash wet fury on those bastards of the other tower.. (Our wet fury unleashage had to be postponed since some room from water bombed the Zohan a few nights back. Now he plans on evicting anyone who he sees even attempting to fill one up. I think it was a bad tactical move on his part though. If he would’ve stuck with the water bombs, people probably wouldn’t have started throwing bottles at him.)

But my long day of nothing ended with a trip to Woolies with The Biebs, which led to the picture of the day. Oh, how I do enjoy going down the ice cream aisle and reading the names of all the frozen treats.

Sunday, March 20, 2011

STOP. DROP. KABOOM.

baby rub on yo nipples…

Today I contracted the Black Plague. I put Holidae Inn on repeat just because I like shouting the above verse while stuffed up because I think it makes it sound funny…

But I stayed in bed most of the day, but took a little bit of time off from doing nothing to make a demotivational poster. I was feeling a tad bitter, you know with the sickness and being busted and given my ‘second warning’ by The Zohan last night… (My first was given to me when I once unsuspectingly answered the door [for Zohan] and a toilet paper roll that had been stuck in the door to prevent it from locking dropped to the floor. Apparently this is a big violation, and I am a terrific actress who wouldn’t get off easy for feigning surprise when I saw it). And of course after I was shouted at for being a delinquent, I entered my flat to see a traffic cone and a couple of street signs piled up against one of my flat mate’s doors… obviously I truly am the bad seed of the room (I can’t even pretend to be bitter about that though; I thought it was awesome!)

But yeah, I haven’t really shown this creation of mine to anybody yet. This would put me on the fast track to getting shot, shanked, or boomeranged. I’m just saying, my nose has feelings too. And the fact that all of the offenders that this poster was made for like to pile on and overcrowd all of the Translink buses that I have to ride too just makes it worse. C’mon, y’all. With just one stick of this roll-on magic, you can help make this world a better place :)

Saturday, March 19, 2011

You know how there’s always that one person who’s trying to rain on your parade? Or better yet that one person’s whose job it is to rain on your parade? Yes… I’m talking about the Po-Po. Today, I had to run from ‘the law’…

The day started off like a regular Saturday. I headed to the farmer’s market outside because as a broke college student, I’ve come to appreciate this market over most things. While at the market, I made a significant purchase of potatoes. I really mean, whoa. I had enough potatoes to feed the whole village. And by village, I mean Australia. I don’t even know why I needed all those potatoes. They were just so cheap…

But anyway, later that day I was talking with Pierces and she was trying to figure out what to cook for her room for dinner. Being the kind and generous person that I am, I offered to give her one of my many bags of potatoes… to skip a lot of mundane details I’ll just say that it was through this conversation and the dropping off of the potatoes that I found myself at the party.

I don’t think I’ve talked much about Pierces’ personality on here, but she’s like a party nazi. She’s pretty outgoing, a bit aggressive, and at many times the center of attention.Thus, even if she’s not looking for a party, a party usually finds her. Hell, the first real conversation I had with Pierces was basically at a party. She just appeared out of nowhere, (it felt like she was already in mid-convo with me when she started talking to me) talking about her major, noticed I didn’t have anything to drink, pulled a beer pong cup off a table (where I think it was still needed), and filled it up from a box of goon she was carrying around. 

But back to the story, it wasn’t meant to be a party. Pierces and her flat mates (including Brytes, their honorary flat mate from down the hall) are really close. All of them were in the flat cooking and preparing for dinner, blasting MGMT, and people (such as myself, bearing potatoes) just started coming over. When Coolio (basically their other honorary flatmate) showed up with with a bottle of wine, it was over. I know Pierces is a party tracker, but Coolio is a walking party. Not soon after, the flat was packed, there was alcohol everywhere, the lights got switched off, and club music was blasting from the iPod speakers.

*Now enter the bad guy*

At night there was a security guard at the village. For safe story telling’s sake, let’s just call him Zohan. And you don’t mess with the Zohan. Zohan, of course, is one of the village’s favorite security guards. Just some time last week the police had to come because people were throwing bottles at him. You know you’re doing great at you job when… right?

But yeah. In mid party swing, Zohan bust into the joint, guns ablaze, ready to tear down the joint. I, along with a few others, tried being very still and hiding on the balcony. Didn’t work. He reamed us out and told us that we needed to go back to our own rooms and go to bed.

Now, I’m 21 damn years old. I wasn’t about having someone telling me I had go to bed. I was feeling all kinds of fed up, muttering things about womanhood and social injustice, as I was leaving the apartment… just to see that as Zohan was downstairs in Pierces’ apartment kicking everybody out, the apartment right across the hall was silently beckoning everyone to come in.

Well, that party was not as great. There were drinks but we weren’t allowed to speak above a whisper. I spent half of my time there writing inappropriate messages on their refrigerator in letter magnets, and the other half crouched down behind the staircase wall whispering with Brytes about how bad an idea this is (yeah… I would never survive if I was really on the run…).

After awhile, I decided it was time for me to go. I left the room, went down the hall, and pushed my floor on the elevator. As I waited (without fail, every time I use this elevator it first goes to the very top floor before coming down again to pick me up… and there’s never anybody in it), I heard something that made my spine run cold.

“Didn’t I tell you you must go straight to your room?! I don’t want to hear it! You are dirt!!! Where are you going! What is your room number?? I can have you all kicked out!!!”

The Zohan had caught somebody in the hall, and boy did he sound pissed. And the sound of his oncoming footsteps sounded even angrier. Wait… Oh shit. The elevator wasn’t moving fast enough. I already had a bit of a history with Mohan. My flatmate, The Biebs, made sure that we weren’t a peaceful room that didn’t need security guard visits during the week and Zohan already complained to one of the other security guards (who we actually love dearly) about how he doesn’t think it’s a coincidence that he always sees the same few Americans at most of the big disruptions. In short, the man hated me.

I darted through the door to the stairs behind me and leaped down two packs of stairs. I tried to keep my cool as I power walked down the hall of my floor. I had just reached my room, and was digging in my pockets for my key card when I heard a loud *DING*

shortly followed by the Indian accent that I had grown to dislike, “What are you doing out? Didn’t I tell you to go to your room and go to bed?!”

The elevator in our building is a conspirator. 

Friday, March 18, 2011

“EVACUATE… PREMISES”

My eyes flew open. My room was pitch black. I lay still on my side, squinting forward. There was a loud ringing in my ears and my heart felt like it was running the 100 meter dash. Why was there so much going on right now? “…LEAVE..” a random voice boomed again.

I was totally confused. As my eyes began to adjust to the darkness I could make out a dark figure hovering over my bed. In a split second’s time, a million questions instinctively flew across my mind. What the…? Who is that? How did he get in here? Not enough time to figure that out.

Once that split second was over, my second instinct kicked in. “Aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!! AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!”

Then my third.

My left leg lunged forward from beneath my blanket and using all the power I could muster in the moment, I kicked THE LIVING SHIT out of the perpetrator. Too bad there just wasn’t any life to kick out of it…

“Aaahh-shit!” I yelped as a sharp pain shot up my foot and my desk chair did a 360 degree spin before crashing to the ground.

“PLEASE EVACUATE THE PREMISES”

Loud beeping. Sirens. Flashing lights. Unknown white men shouting at me through some type of big brother intercom I didn’t even know was in my room…. Must be a fire drill.

I quickly threw on some sweats and, with a semi-limp, opened my door. I was greeted in our living area by questioning, incredulous stares from my disheveled looking flat mates.

“I, uh…. I’m just so angry. Ahhh!” I muttered in explanation, avoiding all eye contact. “I was having a real good dream, ya know.”

We all filed out of the building, at 4 in the morning, and stood across the street waiting for the signal to go back in. I noticed something though. Just like there are certain attitudes and characteristics associated with drunks at a party, there are also certain characteristics and attitudes associated with people at a 4am fire drill.

There’s the energetic awakener, who hops down the ten flights of stairs, skips across the courtyard, fist pumps in excitement when the fire truck shows up with all its pretty lights, and then wants to lead everyone in group song while we wait to go back inside.

There’s the unhappy camper [majority], who trudges downstairs with a one-handed death grip on their blanket like an angry Linus from Charlie Brown. Their eyes are half open and they only have one, unmoving facial expression: pissed. They come down to meet the group and say, “What type of f***ery is this? It’s usually a rhetorical question, but if you must, only answer it with complaints about the fire alarm. An energetic awakener should refrain from holding any conversation with an unhappy camper lest they want the blank stuffed down their throat.

There’s the in-denialers. They don’t want to accept that they’ve been awakened at 4 am. You can find them sitting upright, passed out against a fence or rolled up in a ball snoozing on the sidewalk. Sometimes, they even stand still, eyes wide open, amongst a group of people… still asleep. In the daytime, they’ll just think this was some inception type nightmare.

There’s the stoners, who weren’t even asleep to begin with. They just heard the sirens, saw the lights, and had a mini heart attack anyway. They’re easy to point out because they all have red eyes… and the kid bending over in the grass, holding conversation with a bearded dragon is most likely one of them too.

Then there’s the casualties. These are the people who live in the tower across from the one with the fire evacuation. And even though they did not have to evacuate themselves, they were still woken up by all the noise and alarms. They can be found on the balconies of the opposing building, yelling down obscenities to the evacuees.

Last and certainly least, is the crier. The crier is hard to spot… and this is because his or her life depends on it. Away from the immediate crowd the crier is probably sitting, slumped on the curb, shedding tears. This is because this is all the crier’s fault. And they will now have to pay a $900 fine. And stay on the lam from most of their fellow villagers for at least a day’s time.

Now one would think that having such a crappy start to your day would ruin the rest of the evening too. Well, three hours later as I headed to the bus station for my 40 minute commute to class, I was convinced of the same thing. That was when I saw a group of wild rainbow lorikeets fly ahead, swerving and making these big graceful circles in the air. Then I remembered, “Hey. I’m in Australia.”

The sky is perfect blue. The people are down to earth with cool accents. And there sky is filled with beautiful, wild parrots. And today is the beginning of another epic day, filled with all of that. There’s nothing crappy about any of that.

*Pic of the day: A pair of rainbow lorikeets that visit my friend’s balcony every morning*

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Soo…. maybe it wasn’t the best idea in the world to go St. Patty’s bar hopping the night before I would have to wake up early for a field trip in my terrestrial Australia class. As we all waited for the buses to pick us up from one of the school bus stops, everyone else talked and mulled about in a chipper fashion… while I sat on the curb, leaned forward with my head resting on my knees, thinking of mistakes from last night. I blame the oversized Asian man…

When the buses finally showed, we all piled on and headed for Brisbane Forest Park. The bus I went on headed to a sort of nature center first with a few animal exhibits. Of the animals we saw, one special one was the quoll, an endangered carnivorous marsupial. The quoll’s story was kind of interesting, but stuck with me particularly because I’ve been hearing similar stories over and over again since I’ve been in Australia. 

A good part of the reason why the quoll is endangered is because of the cane toad. The cane toad is a big, common, and pretty ugly toad that is NOT native to Australia. Awhile back, there were problems with beetles messing with the sugar cane fields in Australia and Cane toads were introduced from South America to Aussie land as a form of biological control (meant to eat the sugar cane beetles and stop the damage to the sugar cane crop). However, shit went downhill pretty fast because it turned out that the cane toads weren’t that interested in destroying the beetles. They were, however, quite interested in going at it like bunnies and reproducing as if it was nobodies business. They adapted to all types of living conditions and spread across most of the country. And due to the two big poison sacs on its back, any predator (such as the quoll) who could help control the species outbreak would die soon after eating one of the toads…

It really is a sad story and it makes you want to kick any cane toad you may come across (which most people must do because around 5-6 am the streets and sidewalks are littered with dead toad carcasses). But I hear that there is hope! Some animals, like the ibis, have learned to flip the toads over on their backs and eat them belly first, avoiding the poison sacs on their backs. However, it seems like there’s just too little too late, or maybe just too few, when it comes to the animals using this attack method.

But after the nature center, we went to an amazing lookout and talked about different types of rock formations and soil types.

After the lookout we then headed into one of the rainforests in Brisbane Forest Park. I learned about vines, the different types of eucalyptus trees, strangler figs, lungfish, koalas, chlamydia, survival of the fittest, turkeys… I just learned a whole lot on this trip. I know more about Australia’s terrain and vegetation than I do of the state in the US where I’ve been attending school for 3 years now. Seriously. I can identify a handful of eucalyptus tree by scientific name now. It’s actually pretty bad ass. 

But overall, today was pretty epic because I got to hike through a rainforest, see and walk amongst some interesting animals, and play with dirt while learning at the same time! [Ask me any question about Australia’s terrain or fauna. I dare you. Come at me with any intellectual query you’ve got. I double dog dare you to make a fool of yourself by trying to step to my my knowledge of the hills, forests, and planes. Yeah, that’s what I thought…]

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Yay for St. Patty’s Day!!!! 

All during uni today, all I could think about was that this would be my first St. Patrick’s day where I could go to a bar. The village had actually planned a Pub Crawl (or Pub Stop, I guess) to an Irish bar that evening. And despite everybody in my classes fussing at me for wearing blue (I had on a green undershirt though. I have a shortage of green clothing! Doesn’t really bring out the color of my eyes…), I even went as far as to enjoy my thermodynamics tutorial!

Back at the village, I finally changed into some green and went down to the pre-Pub Crawl (Stop) BBQ that the RA’s were throwing down. Now the sausage served on a plain slice of white bread that is so popular at every single BBQ in the Brisbane area was quite delicious. However, the celebratory green cordial that was being served along with it tasted like they hunted down the Lucky Charms leprechaun and made him piss in a cup… One of the guys standing in line popped my guinness cherry by letting me take a sip out of his can earlier, and I wasn’t an immediate fan. But after tasting that cordial, the Guinness was looking like water from the Fountain of Youth.

Now, we all left together as a huge group to the Irish Pub, O’ Malley’s, and we all waited outside together as a huge group for a short period of time outside the Irish Pub, O’ Malley’s, but I’m pretty sure a handful of us got ditched by the rest of the group once we got inside of O’ Malley’s. I figured this part from the fact that once inside, I couldn’t find anyone and part from the “Why aren’t you at the Vic?” text that I got from the girl who had been outside standing behind me in line only a few minutes ago.

But hell, I wanted to have a true St. Patty’s Day experience at a real Irish pub! So I didn’t leave for the Vic. I, along with the new streamlined village group, stayed!

What my true St. Patty’s Day experience entailed:

1. Singing slurred sounds of some (I’m guessing Irish) song with a bunch of drunken guys

2. Buying a glass of Guinness

3. Being shouted at for not being Irish by an oversized Asian man at the bar

4. Being shouted at for not properly knowing how to do an Irish jig by the oversized Asian man from the bar

5. Being followed to the bathroom while being shouted for after ten minutes, still not having turned Irish by the oversized Asian man from the bar

6. Leaving the bathroom and being greeted by shouts from the oversized Asian man from the bar asking me to explain my heritage

7. Taking the small green plastic hat from the oversized Asian man from the bar’s head because I thought it would make me feel better

8. Being reprimanded for touching a St. Patty’s Day hat while not being Irish by the oversized Asian man from the bar

9. Finishing my glass of Guinness and getting the hell on out of there to head to the Vic because I couldn’t take any more of the oversized Irish-Asian from the bar