that's disgusting.

The combined fortunes of the 3 richest individuals in the world are greater then the combined GDP of the worlds 48 poorest countries.

African rat squirrels & having no plot.

In Africa, there were squirrels in my bed. Rat squirrels, to be specific. 

regular squirrel (Seattle).

One of my wonderful house mates, Lindsey, had literally just arrived from Virginia, USA.

It had been a long flight, the time difference was appalling and to make matters worse - her bags hadn't made the distance. Neither of them. She had no clothes, no peanut butter and not even a toothbrush. She was tired, a little stressed (understandably) and due to the wonderfully unpredictable internet connection in our household, she couldn't even got a hold of home. She went to bed.

me & Linds.

Now, being me and thus an idiot, and overly competitive at times (okay all the time), I had made a bet with my other house mate, Stacie. Our house had three bed rooms, and my room had two beds. I thought, without a doubt, that Lindsey would get her own bedroom because why in the world (I thought to myself) wouldn't she, if it was available? Which it was. And when the alternative was putting her in with messy, messy me? I was so confident, in fact, that I bet two weeks worth of washing up, and laundry. I also left all my stuff thrown around the room, including - all my dirty washing, laid out on the spare bed.

"my" room.

I came home after being away, and found Lindsey, much to my dismay (as I loudly vocalised) moved into my room. And so basically, poor Lindsey arrives and I greet her at the door with, "WHAT, you're in my room!? That's devastating! Why would they do that!?". A pretty good house mate and welcome I think.

And to make matters so much better, she goes to bed early. 

Now I'm a light sleeper. Text messages, small noises, little lights, they wake me up. As do, as I found, rat squirrels in my bed.

There was a family of them, and they ran over my toes. And so, in the early hours of the morning I screamed (I never scream), I leaped out of my bed, which involved ripping off my mosquito net, I high tailed it to the other side of the room, and I flicked on the light as fast as I could.

my enclosure.

 Lindsey, after a few hours of restless sleep, of course had a near heart attack upon my revelation, and sitting up in bed, wide eyed and terrified, asked me what on earth was wrong.

I explained to her about the rat squirrels. And it slowly dawned on me, I was in Africa. I slept under a mosquito net. I am a ridiculous individual. Rat squirrels don't exist. And after about five minutes of heavy breathing panicking, and checking under all layers of my bedding, I aplty concluded that "I think it was a dream" (but it was just so real) and I went back to sleep.

And so Lindseys first impressions of me were first, incredibly insulting, and second, a little more then crazy. Welcome to Africa! Australians are insane.

the 3 greatest house mates ever.

And it's stories like that, (^) true, and full of ridiculous me's that I find it just so, so easy to write. I'm a writer, I write. I even wrote a story entitled that last semester. Let's be honest, it was incredibly pretentious. 

And this semester (hence the lack of blog posts), I'm doing my final, major writing subject. It's called "Writing Portfolio," and we have to produce something of publishable quality. And for me, well I had a brilliant idea. 

like taking a photo this direction. a brilliant idea.

The theme for the piece has to be "chaos and creation", but aside from that, our options are free. Screen play, short story, creative non fiction, or poetry - the world of words is our canvas, and we, well - we're only left to paint.

And I had this brilliant idea. I scrawled and dreamed and created a whole new world, an entire existence. What if people's inner chaos (like insomnia, internal conflict over a decision, depression, mental illness, confusion, guilt and unforgivness etc) manifested itself externally? So internally sick people were externally sick people? And people literally wore their mental state, on their outside?

this was a "chaos" of a photo I could find.

Did I think about it? Yes. What would that world be like, entirely geared toward inner happiness. Would there be a booming cosmetics industry, or would there be an emphasis on natural beauty and equality? Would it really be that different to our own? You would not be able to “fake” emotion, if it manifested itself externally. It would be a way to explain the coupling of poverty and sickness, there is no happiness, and so sickness manifests itself. It would be a cycle. Prosperity doctrine would be preached in churches and certain types of creativity and expression would be looked down upon. There would be a culture of silence in not sharing your problems or worries with other people, other then perhaps - professionals. You would never involve yourselves in other peoples problems.

not relevant to anything.
i'm just going here next weekend.
& I'm excited.

What others ways could inner chaos manifest itself externally? Appliances would stop working, the weather would be terrible, the swing would break if you swung too high. You would trip, your skin would scar, the sleeves of your tee-shirts would fall off and your hair would, in long, stringy clumps; fall by your way side.

And in this world there would be a rehabilitation hospital. Where the sick people are sent to get well. And in this hospital, two or three people would meet. And the goodness in their relationship (there’s the creation part) would bring about internal and external healing. The good would beset the bad.

Kiama.

I have three characters. Russia, an ex prostitute, and a walking STD, who tried to glue her hair back on with human spit and sticky tape, Pepe, an HIV orphan, covered in skin lesions and manically depressed, and Christopher, an artist and an anomaly, perfectly well on the outside – but sent to rehabilitation because of his strange habits, and the things he finds most beautiful. He makes murals out of blood, and paints with bird poo, completely disrupting the social order. The three are placed in an apartment together and my story would be, what happens next.

textbreakeruperer.

And I tried to write it, but with a 2000 word word limit I failed miserably, and as any writer could attest to, writers block is very, very real. I got cranky, quickly, and although I forced out a plot I ended up declaring that “writing was stupid and I really shouldn’t be doing this degree because I’m not very good at it, and I hate it and this sucks”.

foot cookies.
because I bake when I'm mad at writing.

And having to hand in my first draft I was stumped. And so I scrapped all my ideas, and writing like this now, I just wrote. About what is on my heart and what is real to me, and produced – over the course of 4 days, 7000 words of very real, very personal pieces.

Hamilton Island.

And so I’ve written about love, and HIV, strawberries, Africa and God help me; international long distance relationships.

because this is a not a good photo.
and I feel it will never make an appearance again.

Today, I was told by my class mates that they are wonderful, and by my teacher, that they are unusable, as they are memoirs, not short stories, and they “have no plot”. 

A little bit like this blog post.

And so, I guess I begin again.

103.2

What it is about hearing your own voice? I can’t stand it, really.  I get embarrassed that everyone has to hear that voice of mine, every time I open my mouth. I apologise! It’s awful, and I think I say “um” about fifteen times a sentence. But this morning, I got the time off work, I made sure I was back from my run, sucked it up, and sat by the radio – ready to hear what I’d already said.

The whole thing kind of reminds me of this part in my favourite movie. The best movie of all time:

Just like when I was the medal bearer at the closing ceremony of the Arafura Games. Just like when I was standing at the open end of child birth in a Papua New Guinean hospital. Just like when I hopped on the plane from New York, bound for Africa, I sat this morning, and couldn’t help but ask myself, how am I on radio? how do I get myself into these situations?

In think God thinks it’s funny that I’m an introvert, and don’t like public speaking. He’s certainly been stretching that muscle of mine.

But, what an incredible opportunity!

Getting my blog, and my photos plugged? I just don’t understand how these things keep happening! (answer being God).

But I’m thankful, so thankful. And so, in light of that, here’s a few of my African favourites, the very ones I talked about. Some repeats, some new. But each remind me of the people, memories and personalities behind and within them.

Each and every precious one!

 Now I just need to pick 12 for a calendar. Any requests?