Why transgender and transracial is not the same or please don't ask me serious questions at bedtime.

The other night as The Boy and I were laying in bed cue sexy music, he turned to look at me as if to say „I love you more than anything else and I promise to do all the dishes in our new apartment“ and yet what he actually said went something like this: If being transgender is socially acceptable, why isn't being transracial accepted? Because it's the same thing if gender and race are constructs.

I can only assume that this sentence was either due to a spontaneous and quickly-remified speech impediment and that he will actually be in charge of dish washing in our new place, or a sly torture attempt to ruin any chances I had at getting a good night's sleep. I'm going to assume the former – but it has played on my mind since then and so I will answer his question as best I can.

Because white people.

Done.

Ok maybe that wasn't a complete answer– but that is what it comes down to. Now I know some people are going to get up in arms over this and just trust me, I will explain myself – just let me get to that.

First up: Transracial has traditionally been used to describe children whose race doesn't align with that of their adoptive parents. Dictionary.com however– which is to the Oxford or Cambridge dictionary as WebMD is to a doctor – defines it as „involving or between two or more racial groups.“ So, depending how strictly we view race and how far you are willing to look back: Almost everyone could count themselves as transracial by that definition.

However, that didn't answer our question. In order to explain why transgender and transracial are not the same thing to The Boy, I used basic feminist (oooh the F word!) theory, as did he: Gender and race are constructs. What he forgot to add is that a construct needs a central point, something to compare everything to. For gender – men are this central point and women, transgender people and people who don't identify with any particular gender are therefore 'the others.' For race, white people make up this central point, meaning anyone that is less than white cannot be considered white.

Enough theory for today!

So let's put this into perspective with some examples from both sides of the argument:

1. Children born to parents of two different racial backgrounds will never be considered white even if one of their parents is and they identify as such. Obama is an excellent example of this. He was raised by his two white grandparents and white mother and had little contact to his Kenyan father – and yet his main claim to fame in years to come will probably be as the first black president.
2. On the other hand, many children of native people all throughout the world were stolen from their homes during the 19^th and 20^th centuries in order to re-educate and raise them in an anglicized environment – in other words – to make them white. But this didn't actually make them white, these children would not grow up to be recognised by society as white, even if they personally saw themselves that way.
3. Michael Jackson: Vitiligo (a disease which causes skin depigmentation) and dangerous amount of surgery or not, Michael Jackson was never considered white, even when he was so pale he made my foundation look like bronzer.

And yet Rachel Dolezal (Google her) only had to get a fake tan and a perm to be accepted as black, which comes back to my point about white people. Transracialism as The Boy believes to exist, is a one-way street. White people can choose to identify with their immigrant forefathers at any time and yet maintain their privileges (Ooh the P word!) but people of any other skin colour or race cannot gain white privileges even if they identify as white. What Rachel Dolezal did is not being transracial. It is being racially manipulative and using her privilege to deceive people. She didn't grow up being black and share their experiences, she could (have) wipe(d) off the fake tan at any moment and go(ne) back to her life as a white American woman and yet she chose to be black, or possibly she truly felt black, but the point is that whilst the privilege of choosing a race was afforded to her as a white person, it is not afforded to people of other races.

Transgender is aligning your gender identity (rather than your assigned gender) with your outer appearance and behaviour among other things. Options for transitioning vary according to country and culture but in countries currently more accepting of transgender people we see people from diverse racial backgrounds transitioning. It is a two-way street, not a fair street admittedly, one side definitely has a lot more traffic lights and road blocks – but at least there are two lanes.

Transracialism doesn't offer that, if race is measured by a group's differentiation from the central point then everything is measured by whiteness. White people are therefore the default that get to choose where 'the others' land on their manufactured scale. When white people have this privileged position of choosing who goes where, they can also choose where they want to go - but when the others don't get the same opportunity (which they don't), then it is not this utopian idea of transracialism where you go to a build-a-race workshop and pick out what works best for you as an individual being compared to transgenderism, but rather white people identifying as whatever they want, no matter how tenuous the link (I'm looking at you 14^th generation American Irish people!) and yet forcing their own racial views and identities onto 'the others' and this cannot be compared to the transgender movement.

Like I said, white people.

Hope all is well.

Hotdogs - Life's reward for surviving IKEA

You know what's not fun? Furniture shopping. Two words that strike fear into the heart of any man, woman or child who has ever entered the misleadingly friendly-looking doors of their local IKEA.

Furniture shopping is awful. Everything about it, from deciding how much you want to spend, to being disappointed that 200€ won't cover six chairs, let alone a table that doesn't pose a health risk is a nightmare. I feel my skin crawl just thinking about how many more visits The Boy and I will have to make to various hell h

oles before our new apartment is fully furnished. I don't know what it is about furniture stores that press all my murder buttons, but as soon as I walk in that door and The Boy says „what should we look at first?“ I want to bring up every petty, little thing that he does or has done wrong over the course of our three-year relationship and (verbally) skewer him for it. I'm sure this is a natural response seeing as IKEA is a well-known relationship killer and the hotdogs are only available at the end of the shopping trip (probably as an incentive not to rip each other to pieces until the end) and I can see why it tests relationships. I thought furniture shopping would be fun or possibly romantic, picking out the couch we'll watch TV on, looking at the cutlery I may or may not use to stab him if he doesn't let me get the mattress I want, but it's not. You constantly realise that the other person wants to put ugly, useless things in your home. For instance: I do not need a coffee table, a coffee table is only there to stub your toes on and collect junk mail, beyond that it has absolutely no purpose. The Boy however, needs a coffee table. I tried to explain to him that the floor holds drinks just as well as a toe killer, but he requires one and I, being the awesome girlfriend I am, compromised – all I need is for it to have a drawer to store the toes I will inevitably lose to the table's sharp corners in. But The Boy doesn't want a drawer, he also doesn't want glass and needs it to be a certain height – knee height, so I can kiss my knee caps goodbye as well. I said it has to be higher - he said lower, I liked an oval-shaped one – he wants a rectangular table, I specified a certain colour - he wants a different colour, and so on and so forth until I lay on what was almost certainly the designated break-up couch, howling about how I regret signing the lease and watching him kick the drawers of a coffee table I can't have because it has drawers.

This is what furniture stores do to people. You know why the restaurant in IKEA is in the middle of the trip? It's so you can take time to apologise for all the awful things you have said and done, before you say and do a few more awful things on the way to the hotdog point. Everyone warns you that furniture shopping is awful but no one says why. It's not just because you have different tastes, it's not because it is a lot of money and stress and a big life change. It's because it is so banal that if it weren't for the soap opera, you would realise that you are spending precious minutes of your life deciding whether to get a 20l bin or go for the 30l. That, mixed with the rage chemicals they spray on you as you enter those misleadingly friendly-looking doors is the ultimate test of a relationship. The hotdog point is the reward (also where they give you the antidote for the rage chemicals – never skip the hotdog).

Luckily, we now have the internet and we can buy everything our home needs without ever setting foot in a furniture store. At first, The Boy suggested we go in and look at the stuff before we order it, but he has since come around. The less time you spend standing in a furniture store wondering whether you should get the blue bath mat or the brown one the better, because ultimately – you just want to live together - and that can't happen if you are forced to abandon your partner before the hotdog finish line in order to get the blue bath mat that you both know will go better with your decor.

Hope all is well.

Who's your mama?

As I am writing this, it is still International Women's Day. A lot of people won't know this, won't care or possibly both...if you belong to either of the latter categories, I advise you to stop reading.

I am a feminist, an international dirty word. I have never understood the anti-feminist movement. How can someone proudly and  publicly declare that they are against equality? Sure, most of them say they are against female-surpremacy...as if that were the aim of feminism. The rest question why it is called feminism, when it calls for gender equality. "Why isn't is called humanism?"  you'll hear people ask. And you know why? Because women are still paid less, because one woman a week dies (in Australia alone) due to domestic violence, because in 31 US states, rapists have access to the children they father through rape. Those are just three reasons feminism is called feminism and not humanism - because if women were even close to equality, there wouldn't be such disgust at them asking for it. 

The other day, I went out with a single girlfriend of mine. She was chatting up guys and having a great time - at one point, a guy who was super into her asked his friend to chat me up, so that I'd stop looking like a fish out of water. It was a karaoke bar, like all classy establishments are on weekdays, and girls were belting out Taylor Swift's Shake it off - so naturally he asked me if I was a fan. Ok, not naturally - I was bopping along and singing too... #noregrets. So he asked me if I was a fan and I said "Of course, who doesn't love a girl who is obsessed with cats and comes out as a feminist  after admitting she'd been mislead by what the movement stood for for so long?" 

Cue eyes glazing over.

The answer? People who are allergic to cats.

Why do people get so up in arms about feminism? Do you feel this way about the civil rights movement? About LGBT rights? What is so strange about a woman not wanting to be harassed by drunk men in cars as she walks home alone at night? About her wanting to be paid the same as the men she works with? About her wanting to be able to choose whether she becomes an astronaut, a housewife, an engineer, a nurse, a lawyer, an actress - without a stigma? What's weird about men expecting the same thing? - How many male nurse jokes are made? How many men don't want their wives to be bringing in the bacon, for fear of being emasculated? And how many people really care whether a job is performed by a man or a woman? And seriously: Why do men slow the car down, cat-call or wolf-whistle and run - what was achieved by doing that? 

Enough questions yet?

In the words of the great Ice Cube "you better check yo self before you wreck yo self" ( https://vimeo.com/72206541 ).. Ask yourself why you feel this way, ask where your feelings stem from and whether or not you could be wrong. 

I'll leave you to your pondering, and I promise not to get so serious on you next time.

Just remember that International Women's Day is a time to celebrate the achievements of women now and throughout history, achievements that are just as great as those of their male counterparts - so why not be equal in actions as well as words - then maybe we can discuss this humanism name change... 

Hope all is well.

If photosynthesis is good enough for them, it's good enough for me.

Can we talk semantics for a moment?

Real. Just as I dislike the incorrect use of the word 'literally', I strongly disapprove of the incorrect use of the word 'real'. Let me paint you a picture:

All over the world, places like New York and Melbourne are currently being hijacked by paleo-proud, green smoothie drinking hipsters and health nuts alike. I have no problem with people wanting to be healthy - all power to you - but do you have to tell Every. Single. Person. About. It? I know you see avocado and spinach as being superfoods, that will somehow magically help you grow a unicorn horn and defeat Voldemort, but does that really mean that you have to blend them together with every other healthy food you can get your cave man hands on? I mean, I like cucumber, but I don't put it in my tea every morning just for a vitamin boost. Also, the paleo diet? I understand that the cave men had it hard, only eating mammoths when they could take one down and otherwise having to eat berries and whatever else they could find for nourishment. Thankfully, we are now lucky enough to have supermarkets - and evolution has done its job, so that our bodies can now digest a smorgasbord of delicious treats – do we really have to deny evolution everything it has worked so hard to achieve?

Whilst I'm at it, let's discuss treats. Not every food needs to be a treat. It doesn't need to be you being naughty/cheeky or some other terribly misused adjective. It is food: put it in your mouth, chew and swallow - and then be grateful that the food was available to you in the first place. I don't need to hear about its protein contents, or about how much green tea you drink a day to keep your metabolism as speedy as the little mouse Gonzalez. Eat and remember, it has not been that long since our own forefathers endured subsistence living and if that doesn't bring it home to you – maybe you need to volunteer your time and smoothies to someone for whom food is not just a treat.

Back to semantics: Real. The Oxford dictionary describes 'real' as being: Actually existing as a thing or occurring in fact; not imagined or supposed. So following this clearly defined linguistic blueprint, we can safely assume that any form of movement, edible substance and human condition is, in fact – 'real'. Real exercise, real food and real life (respectively). In fact, putting the adjective (or in some cases adverb) 'real' in front of things, that already existed before you added an unnecessary describing word to them, is more likely to make people question whether you just escaped the Matrix, than make them want to change their lifestyle. Harping on about how amazing all those real superfoods are, just makes people think you really need a cheeseburger and telling people to get real - to jump into real life? I must have missed my own birth there, silly me, let me just hop to it then!

I am not advocating junk food for breakfast, lunch and tea of course, or any particular diet/exercise regime for that matter - even if I did finish off last night's schnitzel for brekky. In spite of my own opinions, I do not intend to get in anyone's way. So go ahead, blend those chia seeds into every meal, suck down a questionably coloured smoothie and pay your respects to your neanderthal ancestors.

Just don't tell me about it.

Hope all is well.

Don't be a Douchebag.

Ok so I need to write something on a slightly serious note - if only to get my feelings out so that I can get back to studying.

I study in Germany, and whilst it is difficult to keep up sometimes and incredibly frustrating that I can't express myself as succinctly as I would be able to in English, I still manage. But I can't describe the frustration I feel when people tell me how "cute" my German is - as if I were a 7 year-old at a dance recital or something - or worse, they repeat what I said, trying to copy my accent. I specifically have problems pronouncing 'R' and I feel a certain sense of shame when I have to repeat a word several times before anyone seems to understand what I am trying to say. I know that no one means to offend me and that it is really just my pride getting to me, but none the less I have this to say:

I fully believe that foreigners should learn the language of any country they choose to move to. It's a sign of respect and will also make their lives a lot easier. But by the same token, their host nation needs to respect how difficult it is to learn a new language, how terrible it is to have to wonder if the person you are talking to is understanding anything you are saying or how frustrating it is to know you're making mistakes all over the place, but knowing you have to bash through anyway in the hope of achieving fluidity if not complete fluency. Native speakers of all languages (I'm not singling Germans or English-speakers out here) need to put themselves in the foreigner's shoes - which I can assume most people should be able to do - after all, Europeans are forced to learn English at school and we in Australia are also required to learn a foreign language. I'm not saying that you can't have a giggle if someone asks for "Nasenpapier" because they don't know the word for tissue, or when they directly translate something which has a completely different connotation/meaning in your language ('gib mir Fuenf' is high five in German - not 'I need another five minutes'), but consider how embarrassed and uncomfortable they are probably feeling and how much effort they are going to in order to learn your language.

I still feel embarrassed every time that I have to speak German, it certainly doesn't stop me speaking it, or from learning other languages, but it does make my pride scream for mercy. I don't intend for you to read this as a 'Giorgia's pride got hurt and now she's ranting' kind of thing, but by all means take it as that if you will. To be honest, I think my pride has well and truly been swallowed by now, but if nothing else just do me a favour - think before you call anyone cute.

Hope all is well.

Passions - urgh, the word makes my skin crawl.

I study history and slavistic - which is basically a mix of slavic languages, things that happened in the past and extremely limited job opportunities in the future. I love history though. I've loved it ever since I picked up my first Horrible histories book and have secretly wanted to study it ever since I saw Ms Grenache desperately trying to talk people into taking history as an elective rather than choosing sports science like everyone was planning, she had a powerpoint and I could name every historical figure and date on it - it was then I decided my olympic shotput career was going to have to be put on hold: History was calling. I love learning about things that happened 100 years ago that have since been completely forgotten by all but a few - a few who have then decided to dedicate their careers to studying some obscure event most have never heard of - let alone care to learn about...but mostly I like history because I'm good at it. I remember dates and I have a knack for boring people with obscure facts that they could really have survived without.

But I had other hobbies (I'd say 'passions' but it's inaccurate and it's one of those words (like 'moist') that makes my skin crawl) growing up, mostly I've dumped them to allow time for drinking and spending far too much time on trains, but at least I tried.

1. I used to do tap, jazz and ballet. I know it's hard to imagine that this talented dancer took lessons for around 8 years - but I did. Mostly mum bribed me into going to dance class with horse riding lessons and shiny swarovski things - she had to - I hated the costumes, the teachers, the other girls and most of all I hated dancing. I was rubbish at it too, I can't think of a single time I was in the front row - and considering I was always the shortest.... Krystal and I set the dance room on fire once. Well, almost - sparks were flying. Some irresponsible adult left frayed electrical cords dangling right next to a socket...what were two seven year olds supposed to do? Lose out on an opportunity to cause fireworks and possibly cancel dance class? Never. So I dared Krystal to shove the cords in the socket and she did...the lights went out and sprayed sparks everywhere - our teacher made a strangled squeal and rushed us al out of the room - success! Krystal's parents later asked her if she'd jumped off a cliff because I told her to - answer? Probably, but only if it meant Ms. Lombardo would have to give up on ballet lessons for the week and send us all home early (she sent Krys and I away with the dance school's first ever strike - "strike two and you're out!") Luckily, my electrical safety skills have greatly improved since then - my dance skills however - have not.

2. I played the violin for a while. I sounded like I was strangling a cat for about six months there - but in the two years that I played I'd like to think I got better - then I switched to the trumpet for a week, then to the oboe, then back to the violin before settling for singing because well, my friends were doing it and I was not immune to peer pressure.

3. Singing. I was much better at that. Although how good is difficult to say: I once got a last minute audition with the Australian youth opera - sounds more impressive than it was. I forgot to put in a request for an audition because I thought they were open and I only got one by default when another girl cancelled - shows my dedication really. I learned my song that day, wandered into the waiting room and immediately realised I was out of my depth. I was surrounded by prissy, pretentious prima donnas practising their scales. I kind of coughed a bit, prayed for the best and waddled into the audition room trying to look prim. Unfortunately I was so concentrated on trying not to look like a lost child in a school uniform among a sea of girls in formal dresses with their hair and makeup done, that I forgot to sing. Luckily, the old dude running the auditions forgave me and let me mess up the song a further three times before he started to interview me. He asked me my name, I asked him his - the whole audition board laughed hysterically...that old guy? Richard Gill - Head of Opera Australia. My bad. He then asked me about my favourite operas and singers - I'd never seen an opera and my knowledge of opera singers was limited to Pavarotti - and by that I mean I knew his name...So I told the truth. I told him that I didn't listen to opera and I didn't really plan on starting. I told him that I was listening to the Presets and System of a down on the way to the audition and that I really liked Rise Against's new album. Needless to say, he was a little confused.

Somehow I didn't get into the youth opera...probably for the best.


Hope all is well.

Life's necessities.

Pascal and I have been together for over a year now, the honeymoon period is over and we are beginning to notice some of each other's stranger habits. The list of Pascal's weirdness goes on and  on: he is the CatMan. Cats love him in a sick and unnatural way - even Bubba who is quite possibly the hatiest kitty ever throws himself at him. Pascal eats like a machine and always keeps a periodic table on him - Then there's his chest hair: it's Batman-symbol shaped - he's extremely proud of that... but for now, he'd like me to focus on my oddities - so here they are:

1. I must sleep with my ears covered. I'm not quite sure why, I assume it's because growing up, I was a little obsessesed with this short-lived TV show "Animorphs," ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXWopol5VeQ ) where a bunch of teenagers met some friendly aliens (for no apparent reason) and were given superpowers which allowed them to transform into any animal that they focussed upon. These powers then helped them save the world from the evil aliens who'd put mind-control slugs into people's ears whilst they slept...icky right? So now, 14 years later I still think about that at night and have to keep my ears hidden between pillows, doona and hair. Pascal thinks it's amusing to uncover my ears whilst I sleep, therefore leaving me vulnerable to alien slug attack. Ass.

2. I am still afraid of the dark. So much so that I double check my closet is tightly shut at night and run to my bed once the lights are off in order to hide under the doona for a bit (till I think the coast is clear). I'd say this is embarrassing but it could be worse. I cried in front of a bunch of ten-year olds last year at Christmas because I was cold. Sure I was 18 at the time and was wearing four pairs of thermal socks and two whole ski suits over one another (I looked like Frosty the snowman) - but my toes were sore from the cold and those kids looked far too hardy to be 10...I regret nothing.

3. Anything that is to be eaten with a spoon will be done so with a teaspoon. I don't like big spoons. They're plotting something. Just like people who don't drink and those who prefer riding a bike to walking/catching a bus.

4. There is nothing creepier than the intro to EA Games - the one where it's all a bit too quiet and then some horrible voodoo group chant EA GAMES before a hellish voice comes out of nowhere and whispers "Challenge everything." ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPYkOMj-3iI ) It's the stuff of nightmares I swear. I used to turn on my playstation and then leave the room until I felt the intro had passed - in fact I still leave the room if I feel there is any risk of hearing that...

There's more but I feel I've written enough about myself for today. So I'll leave you with a completely inaccurate joke:

How many redheads does it take to change a lightbulb?
None. They prefer to sit in the dark.

As long as that dark isn't infested with monsters, mind-control slugs or gamers.

Hope all is well.

Joy to the World

A new sibling is on its way. Not in the traditional sense - that would require a stalk or a heron or whatever bird it is that wraps up crying, pooing, sleeping bundles of joy and drops them at your doorstep - no, this is more the birds and the bees type of 'on its way' - it should arrive sometime around the end of April from the sounds of it.

Now in spite of the fact that I will be 20 years old by the time this baby comes along and therefore be the same age most of my family members are when they are expecting/already Mamabears (not my plan to follow in their footsteps by the way) and that little I-live-on-the-other-side-of-the-world problem - I fully plan on being an excellent half-sibling. Complete with embarrassing toilet-training pics at their 21st (when I am 41).

In case you're wondering which parent is knocked up I'll give you a hint. It's not Mamabear. She felt she'd done well the first time but Dad and Gina are giving it another crack and good for them, hopefully it (they don't want to know the gender - therefore condemning their child to being clad in neutral colours such as green and yellow for the first few months of its life) is adorable and they don't name it anything weird like Mercedes or Schappelle - not names that push the kid in the right direction.

In other news: I'm coming home in March, I'll stick around for five weeks, see if Gina pops and if not I'll meet the kid at some other point. So if you want to - you know - hang out. I'll be around for the first time in two years.

As for what I'm up to: The new semester has started so I'm quite busy at the moment. I've decided my German is good enough for now and started with a few new languages - Spanish and Russian. Mostly just so I can have the title of Polyglot. I'm pretentious that way. In my head I imagine that once I speak all three languages fluently, plus my native English - then some old hobbit-like man will come out of nowhere and present me with an oversized novelty cheque and tell me I've reached language level awesome - I really hope that's how it works...


Hope all is well.

P!nk Prüfungen

I hate P!nk. I hate her ruining a perfectly good exclamation mark, I hate her pretentious try-hard uplifting songs like Bridge of light and god knows what else, but mostly I hate that her music actually challenges the position of most hated song in my head (at the moment it's Miley's new one - We can't stop - please, for the love of god STOP). Seriously P!nk - stop wearing low cut clothes, you look like a man and quit it with the 'I will save you with my intensely meaningful song" music.

I hate it.

Ok now that is over I can admit that I have my first exam in German next week and am having mild-panic attacks. Mostly due to the fact that I have never had to write an exam in German - well except for the German as a foreign language tests - but this is real this time - I can't pull Puss-in-Boots eyes and pray for the best this time, plus my classmates aren't from Equador and Bora Bora this time - they're real Germs....like the ones you see in movies eating Bratwurst and wearing Lederhosen.

So my plan of attack is to learn all the material before the exam, then go talk to the Professor and tell him everything I know (and use Puss-in-Boots eyes) so that in the case that I epically mess up in the exam and freak out- he knows I know it and gives me an excellent mark anyway, and then if all else fails - I can always call him racist and run out crying. That'd also be an option....

Just kidding, actually it should be fine. I feel about ready to write an essay on it now really, I speak more German than English nowadays anyway - surely it can't be too hard to write what I say, just gotta get that  general habit of talking nonsense two-thirds of the time under control... That being said I had an exam in English the other day and realised how terrible my english has gotten after I couldn't remember the word for exclusion and wrote 'not allowed to join in' instead. I'm hoping that particular prof thinks I'm foreign too - racist...

Anyways study to do, snacks to eat.

Hope all is well.

P.S. New haircut

Just a little tip...

My housemate is a notorious note-leaver. I only have to start scaling the stairs to see the first helpful little post-it note sticking out the door, which if I were the hulk, would almost definitely make me go green with anger. Frankly I'm always surprised when I open the door to fnd that she hasn't gone on a rampage and simply post-it-noted the walls to oblivion - at least not yet...

Ohhhhh they're always such passive aggressive commands great little tips though - Giorgia it would be LOVELY if you would take out the rubbish, Giorgia it would MAKE MY DAY if you'd mop the floor, Can't WAIT for the microwave to be cleaned when I get home - p.s. Don't use the sink - YOU blocked it with YOUR scraps.

I hate notes. They make me want to passive aggressively set fire to her basil plant that sits on the kitchen table, that or sun-dry the those food scraps she hates so much on the kitchen bench...

Actually I really like both of my housemates though, they leave me alone when I need to study, eat their healthy salads whilst I sit there scoffing pasta and icecream for the fouth day running and only complain minimally when I start accidental parties...which happens more often than accidents really should.

They're clean which I am...well, ok maybe the post-it notes are warranted...but at least I am direct and tell my house mates when something is not up to my very low house-keeping standards - but these post-it notes have now started teaching me to be passive aggressive about these things. Last week I even did one of my housemate's dishes rather than ask her to clean up the mess that had been sitting in the sink for two days -

So I have begun collecting the post-it notes, sooner or later she'll run out and then she'll have no way of communicating except to speak directly to me. She'll come to my door and ask how my day was, we'll chat for a while before she gets to the real point - a complaint friendly suggestion, at which point I will look her in the eye and reply....in post-it notes.


Hope all is well.

Nickleback-itis

In the history of music, many artists have suffered from the terrible Nickleback fever - it starts with a hit and then turns into album upon album of the same song with slightly altered lyrics. Whilst others take a long time to develop the disease (take Greenday's awful new album(s) and Bon Jovi for example), some bands - the Prodigy for instance (the band that brought us hits such as firestarter and voodoo - a mixture of drug-fueled shouting and someone banging whatever instrument they find within arm's length), have seemingly been founded with the disease.

That being said, I still love Greenday and no amount of excessive German radio time for Bon Jovi is going to make them any less excellent....

This time last year I was preparing for my first festival ever. Actually, I think I was trying to sell my ticket in a facebook group to avoid having to go to my first festival ever. Funny that, becaue instead of selling the ticket, a girl by the name of Eva responded to my frantic "SOMEONE BUY MY TICKET FOR A FESTIVAL THAT STARTS IN THREE DAYS OMG OMG OMG" post with the suggestion that I go with her - a random - to a three day festival - and so I did.

I was useless at that first festival. I only brought bread, cheese and poptarts with me to eat, bought my sleeping bag on the day, forgot sunscreen, wore the ugliest clothing imaginable (not to mention that my hair was actually sticking to my face) and I did not know any one; but I did meet Pascal - who seems to be into greasy hair and snakeskin gumboots, because he gave me real food to eat and sunscreen so that I made it through that first festival alive.

My point in telling you this is not to get all lovey dovey, it's just to point out that he is a festival lifesaver - and he possibly saved two more people this year when we went to Rock im Park.

I'm not sure if Joe ever quite knew what was going on - the fact that the first question after buying a ticket to this festival was "where do we sleep?" followed by "how do we get there?" would suggest not...but I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. I certainly enjoyed the excitement on he and Basti's face at the suggestion of breakfast - as if Pascal had to offer first in order for them to be allowed to raid the groceries. Basti, a die-hard metal-head made the mistake of following Pascal and I to watch bands to "see something new," - I took him to Dizzee Rascal...He looked a little confused and a lot horrified. That, along with us never finding Joe again whenever he wandered off (until that night at the tents) and then on the last day after he'd left, finding a stockpile of his rubbish in the corner of his tent like a little magpie's nest, not to mention the fail BBQ that took at least an hour to get going (I have no Aussie BBQing prowess I'm sorry to say) made for an interesting festival. It was great though and  highly recommend Aussie's check out Volbeat, Royal Republic and Bastille...assuming they haven't made it to our little island home yet...

Well, that's it for the day. I have to study for upcoming exams.

Hope all is well.

P.S. Trying to get home next March for six weeks.

Krystal Clear.

It has now been over a year since I have been home and whilst I hate to admit it, I am kind of home sick some days.

Krystal, one of my oldest friends is about to turn 18 - June 10th, a date she is counting down to desperately - fair enough considering she's in her second year of uni and two years younger than everyone around her.  I'm sad I won't be there for her birthday to pinch her cheeks and taunt her about how she's the baby like I always do, nor will I be there to be a terrible influence like I was growing up - which must come as a relief to her parents - one more birthday when they don't have to worry that I'm going to hit someone in the head with a hairbrush, talk everyone into getting into their sleeping bags and sliding down the stairs or go puppy hunting with Krys in secret until they are forced to get her the dog of her dreams... 14 years and I won't be there to help her take the leap into adulthood by dragging her to the casino for her first drink, gamble and club all in one go - that makes me very sad indeed - but on the bright side; I do have a terrible Skype connection and can occasionally make it function well enough to see people in slow-mo with their mouths moving completely out of sync, that and maybe a bottle of Jaegermeister in the mail shall have to cut it...until I can talk her into a little euro-trip that is.

Apart from that I miss all the obvious things like my family and friends, mint slices, vegemite, australian slang and accents, the beach even though I avoided it like the plague for fear of turning into a lobster and having sand in places sand should never be. I miss family reunions over Easter, Flippin' Pancakes in Sassafrass, it not snowing for four months of the year forcing me to layer up until I look like the Michelin man. I miss shops being open on Sundays, bogans starting fights at the bus stops and Knox City....I miss Knox. I miss going there and always running into someone I knew, chilling in the food court and window shopping with friends after school. I miss shops like Target and Myer. I miss working at Maccas (McDonalds) so many hours in a week that I start answering my phone with "Would you like fries with that?" and baking cupcakes with Magenta on holidays instead of using the time to study. I miss Halloween at Heidi's and Wednesday night dinners with the family and countless other little things that make the place a home.

That being said I'm happy here in my new home, and there are things here I prefer to Australia - inexpensive casinos, alcohol and clubs for example Krys ;) and a million other things, but I'm going to avoid another long list and instead prepare for my job interview - sadly no fries are on offer at this particular bar, but maybe I can get them to add them

to the cocktail menu....

Hope all is well.

Doggy Dial-Up

I am in a bus. This bus has wifi. Oh the wonders of technology, soon we will just hook up little routers to our dogs so that we are connected on even the shortest of walks - or alternatively we could just not be a massive bunch of cheap skates and get an internet flat rate on our phones....but I like the doggy dial-up idea better....

I'm heading to Nuremberg  the city in Bavaria where I did an exchange two years ago. I will see my exchange family and we will merrily go and drink copious amounts of beer together at Bergkirchweih, the region's big(gest) beer fest. I will drink two litres of beer, pee like a stallion and then - under Laura's instruction - be dragged on one of those drop-towers of death that make your stomach come out your mouth and your lungs drop out your...you get the point. Maybe if I drink the beer fast enough I'll look green naturally - without needing a satanic roller-coaster or two to hit that point....we can only hope.

And in no relation to anything that I have said so far at all: Uni is excellent. No one can ever quite describe just how excellent uni is. Uni keeps you busy with everything from parties to the pile of homework you come home to at the end of the week, but I somehow like studying; yes, it offers me a range of pointless new facts to bore my family members with so that we can wonderful conversations like this:

Me: Hey, did you know that...
Mum: ...No! No I didn't.

Mamabear has learnt over the years that the best way to get me to stop talking is to never let me start - Pascal hasn't learnt that yet. Unlike Mamabear - he foolishly lets me get started and is then forced to just sit there and listen. One time he even got shiny eyes as he pretended to be interested in my discussion of the third accepted gender (males acting and dressing as females) in Native American culture, although in retrospect those could have been  tears...best not dwell on that.

Anyways that's enough for one day, I have a beer fest to hit up!

Hope all is well.

Eurovision 2013: At least they spared Switzerland the humiliation of being in the finals

And so it was that time of the year again, a beautiful time filled with white spandex and glitter - it was Eurovision time - and oh how we celebrated.

Now as I explained last year, Switzerland always loses (unless they cheat and get Celine Dion) and there is a great drinking game to go along with the song contest. The rules are simple, all one hundred of them: http://www.webtender.com/handbook/games/eurovision-song-contest.game and you'll find that the game makes the epitome of trash TV bearable, some might even say enjoyable! This year I played it with 11 others as we watched Denmark sing themselves to glory - well, we kind of played it - Mostly we just drank copious amounts of alcohol any time the horrors of Eurovision became too real for us. Each time that happened, we'd simply drink ourselves back in to the wonderland where people in morph-suits weren't doing acrobatics whilst men in tight, white spandex thrusted away to an 80's beat  - don't judge. You don't know what I've been through!

Speaking of being through things - I have decided that exactly that: "You don't know what I've been through!" will be my excuse to get out of anything and everything that I don't want to do or admit fault to - Oh I'm sitting in your chair? Well you don't know what I've been through! I forgot it was your birthday? You don't know what I've been through! I ate the last cookie? Let's just say YDKWIBT for short.

Anyways back on track: So after the votes were called and the very undeserving Denmark won (Romania had my full support), the police were called. Ok, so maybe it didn't happen exactly like that but for some reason or another; one of my friend's hater-housemates called the police rather than just knocking on her door and asking us to quieten down like the normal German night-dragons do (Koennt ihr bitte ein bisschen LEISE SEIN?!?!?!? *spoken as a death threat*) none the less that ended things and we headed off on our path of destruction to upset all of my neighbours whilst we were at it. Then nothing interesting happened for a while, there was a lot of dancing to 'Thrift shop' and then we found ourselves on an island. 

Now obviously at this point you're either thinking a) wow, this whole wonderland thing really got out of hand, or b) seriously, where is this going? Actually the little island is situated in the middle of town; there we fearfully ran away from the spawn of satan A.K.A. swans and I proved that I shouldn't be out without my glasses after incorrectly identifying a duck as a fish. We frolicked, we danced, I tried to make people swim in the refreshing river water and then after finding out that not even the 24-hour Doener place was offering food at 6:30am we settled for breakfast cake and after setting an alarm for 4pm, I finally fell into bed sometime after 9. 

The end.

P.S. Romania should have won: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OV3xp5ZXSYA

Hope all is well.

Backtreet's back ALRIGHT!

I have not written in a very long time, but as Pascal is on my case about writing again, I might as well bite the bullet - can't say it'll be entertaining though because I am incredibly happy/borderline smug at the moment and that never makes for good writing...people want tortured, haunted writers to write their deepest darkest secrets down - Or Harry Potter - either or really. None the less Imma give it a shot and skip the part where I went to Finland with my Mum for Christmas (totally molested Santa and ate a reindeer to boot) (also I cried in front of 10 year-old children coz I was so cold...dignity is overrated), I'll also skip the part where I got fired from the easiest job ever for being unpleasant to customers (I hate people. It was never going to go well), not to mention being escorted out of said workplace after flipping at the boss for going three months unpaid...

So we'll just pick up at the point where I got into university. Yes, I Giorgia, avoider of the German sprechening, am now studying entirely in German. It' actually going rather well too, the professors all think that I am barely literate and regularly direct entire lectures at me as if extreme eye-contact is the key to understanding forced migration in the 20th century, I have also already put those classmates who thought it was giggle-time in their place (I actually held up a class for a moment to ask a girl what she thought was so funny about my German...she squeaked - clearly a jealousy issue) and I have found a group of friends that includes the necessary token giant to hand me stuff that I can't reach.

Things are excellent.

But there is a downside to everything (see? Tortured writer coming through) and mine is Archivkunde. the study of the Archives...evil stuff. I'm pretty sure my professor actually takes pleasure from the extreme boredom of his class. It has gotten so bad, that people have actually started bringing in their iPads and are clearly playing games and taking selfies the whole time - can't say I haven't pulled a few Archivkunde duckfaces myself... Luckily I'm pretty sure this class only requires attendance and a short speech in order to pass, if we were supposed to be taking notes I'll be impressed if anyone knows the difference between storing tax papers and setting all the archives on fire...

But I have a class now, slowly learning latin - because that's the kind of pretentious, idealistic student I have become. That being said, I am studying history and Slavic studies so it might be time to idealise myself a job after my degree...Would you like fries with that?

Hope all is well.

Catch up #2

Ok so yesterday I left you with my exciting adventures in Spain. I could talk about them all day really but, in an attempt to avoid gloating about how awesome it was - imma move on. (Note what a good person I am - I didn't even whip out the 10,000 photos of all the sights and people from my travels that you've never seen or met to show you....)

We're now in Zurich in Early-November 2012....

1. I went to visit a friend there after a loose invititation along the lines of  'feel free to come visit if you want' was given. In retrospect, I think it was kind of like those invitations I give to people when I have a big bag of chips or something - 'would you like one?' - I'll ask them, but of course their answer should be no, because if I only wanted three-quarters of my chips then I would have bought a smaller bag - get your own... And so with a half-hearted invite, offered very late one night two weeks before in mind, I found myself standing under a really fat and ugly thing/piece of art, that was supposed to represent the guardian angel of Zurich, waiting for his tardy ass to turn up (admittedly I was also running 2 hours late by that point too...) It was a pretty great weekend actually, I went to museums, spent a lot of money, went to museums, spent more money...I have privately-renamed Switzerland 'little-Australia', because only Australians would look at Swiss prices and think 'well, I've seen worse.' 10 francs for a beer? That's only $10 or so and we are out on the town after all....Germans though...Germans freak out.

And so they should, here the cheapest beer is something like 20 cents...

2. And Budapest. I went to Budapest to visit an awesome girl I met in Valencia and spend a week with the boyfriend I had abandoned for five weeks to go Spain. Budapest is my favourite. It is the magical fairyland of cake on a stick, thermal baths and lots of other stuff - but frankly you had me at cake on a spit. (Germans also have their own version of this...Baumkuchen...I love Germans). God I loved Budapest; it is magnificent, it is beautiful and it is super cheap. I will be going back. I can't pinpoint exactly what it is I loved about Budapest so much...maybe the giant castle on the river or the food or the Parliament building...but it's just...

Go there.

And that will be all for now. From then (a.k.a. now) on the simple story is that I had to quit travelling and get a job (or three as it turned out) to fund my studies and now spend my time either working or arguing with fools at the Rathaus over Visas, tax file numbers or...yeah, don't get me started.

Hope all is well.

Catching up #1

Ok so it's been a while - a very long while.

Here's post #1 catching you up on my life in-between...

1. I went to Amsterdam, it was off to a good start when somehow in ridiculously unlikely circumstances it turned out that my boyfriend's sister just happened to be catching the same train half way with me...at 5am in the morning. That would have been ok if not for the fact that I had a) been avoiding meeting his family for weeks beforehand - knowing that I'd get all awkward and make a terrible impression and b) been on the lush for about 5 hours by then. By that time my trusty friends Russian Standard and Jose Cuevo were joining the party and I found myself teary-eyed and saying goodbye to Pascal at the train station (note the tears...) Then his sister appeared out of no where - having recognised him - and probably regretting it, was forced to sit next to me, trying to make conversation in whatever language I felt my emotions would best be expressed for about an hour before I fell asleep on her for the rest of the way...

I'll admit it wasn't the my best impression I could have made...

2. I was in Amsterdam. Not my favourite place in the world, mostly because the whole place smells like weed and the few places that don't smell like weed smell like hookers. Ok ok - maybe that's a little harsh. It was actually pretty great -  I went with Ash and we rode bikes around and ran over tourists, ate burgers from vending machines and stared at windmills and hookers in windows (I can't even begin to describe how weird the whole thing is)

3. I was in Spain for a month wearing sun dresses and working on my tan (Well, not really - I need only think of the sun in order to score a hefty burn), trying to learn Spanish whilst my fellow Aussies and Germs were freezing their butts off and being useful to society by working or studying.

I regret nothing.


I tried to learn Spanish in Valencia - failed, but found that my terrible Spanish was often more than most Spaniards spoke. That's not to say my friends and I were efficient or always got what we wanted - with one of many requests lost in translation leaving my friend with a whole peach on a plate after ordering what she thought was peaches in cream..the peach was brought to her in a haze of confusion on every one's part of course...

I became a share bear (kind of), living with three other people in a small cabin and living through more than one storm that nearly blew our whole cabin away After Spanish classes and storms were over I went to Barcelona and stared at Gaudi's work (not my style Imma admit) and Madrid to...I don't know, be in Madrid?

And then I went to Montserrat and saw the famous mountain monastery and Toledo with it's ancient city on top of a mountain (both day trips from Barcelona and Madrid respectively and both better than the main cities) but I don't have anything amusing to say about either and I wanted to try to keep this brief - so with that, I bid you adieu -



Hope all is well.

Belgium - Chocolate, Chips and Children.

This week I went to Belgium with my boyfriend of two weeks. Well actually, we've been dating for about three months now but between the German need to take things slow and my probation period to sus the person out in case I've unwittingly picked up a serial killer, we have only officially been together for two weeks and hence we decided it was time to go on holidays together.

As you do.

Whilst we'd originally planned on going on a roadtrip, thus offering Pascal many places to discard my lifeless corpse on the way through Austria, Italy, France and Switzerland, the car broke down the day before we left and we were forced to make an emergency blind booking - ending up in Belgium.

It was awesome.

I not only survived, but I ate more chocolate, waffles and chips than I thought was possible. We saw Smurfs, the works of my favourite artist Rene Magritte and had an apartment on the fifth floor with a private balcony spanning the whole outer rim of the hotel which we managed to book on a random deal that saved us almost 80% of the normal rate - life was good.

Of course there were some minor hiccups...

Whilst travelling I like to take a photo of every second thing I see, so naturally as we were walking along the streets of Brussels and I spotted a fortress/tower thing I needed a photograph of, I completely lost track of what was being said all around me. Unfortunately it seemed that this was the moment Pascal decided to utter those three little words that Romeo whipped out after knowing Juliet for all of ten minutes like a creepy stalker pervert... Now I'm a one trick pony when it comes to keeping my mind on track (note my launch into how much I hate Romeo and Juliet), and I had already decided I wanted a photo of Pascal in front of the tower; So despite my extreme girlish happiness, gushing and such in the moment; not two seconds after I told him I didn't hate him in return I leaned in for a hug and whispered "now get in front of the tower" sweetly in his ear. Well at least I thought it was sweetly...turns out I sounded more like Golem threatening people for the return of his precious. Now Pascal doesn't like his photo to be taken at the best of times. If it must be done he grimaces and looks like he's hurting inside - but somehow this seemed to be even more awkward - did I ruin the moment?

At least my social faux-pas was nothing on Pascal's. As we sat in a little church somewhere in Bruges, a little girl dressed in a short red skirt, pink jumper and knee-high, shiny black boots walked past us. I remarked that she was adorable and that I loved her little boots, to which Pascal replied by suddenly turning into something out of Mean Girls and calling her a special S-word that wasn't sweet or sassy, (or sexy...just for the record). Unfortunately for him, her Scottish father was sitting next to me and overheard it, but for what it is worth Pascal was in his own little world and kept repeating it, completely disregarding her father talking under his breath and giving him death stare from four feet away - I grabbed his arm and speedily dragged him out at that point...luckily no black-eyes were received this trip.

Well I better go for a jog now, work off all those delicious waffles I ate you know?

Or maybe you don't...

Hope all is well.

Achievements.

So I bought a 'Deutschland Pass' this month which basically entitled me to go anywhere, on any train I liked within Germany as many times as I liked to truly realise just how utterly useless Deutsche Bahn is.

And boy was it useless.

I think for every hour I spent on a train, I spent another waiting for said train to turn up. "Please excuse us but today's train, scheduled for 5:45, has now been rescheduled for 10:45. Have a nice day from the Deutsche Bahn."

For what it is worth though, when I wasn't living on a train, I saw some awesome places and swear I saw like 50% of Germany's churches. I went up to Berlin for three days just because I could, going out with a friend to some club called Berghain that she made me wait an hour and a half to get into and got home at 9:30 in the morning after talking these two Dutch guys into buying us a box of dunkin'donuts goodness and then I went to Koblenz and played 'spot the castle' with the million fortresses that line the rivers' banks.

I also hit up Freiburg at the edge of the black forest, Ulm with it's giant cathedral, Lindau at the border of Germany, Austria and Switzerland where the lake tried to kill me and a million other places. My favourite though, was probably Kassel where I saw the Documenta, which is an art show that seems to have taken over the whole city. I hate art galleries. I generally think they're the place people go to die when the golf course is in use, but this was amazing. The galleries, theatres, historical sites and hotels were overflowing with art so the park was filled too just to fit it all in. They say you need at least four days to see it all, but a week is advisable if you don't want to rush...awesome. Sadly I only had two days there before I had to head home because my pass ended and I didn't want to actually have pay for Deutsche Bahn to be useless, lest it encourage them...

Anyways that was my very dry and informative post about what I've been up to (I remembered that was the original point to this blog after all), now to plan my next trip. The boyfriend (oh yeah and I have a boyfriend now - his name is Pascal and he is German) (and lovely) (Imma stop bracketing things now) is taking me on a roadtrip through Switzerland and Italy on the way to France...Life is good.

Hope all is well.

The Poo Shelf.

Now there are probably only two reasons you're reading this: a) You normally read my blog or more likely b) you saw the word 'poo' in the title and wanted to see what all the fuss was about...

Well I'm here today to talk to you about the great german invention - the Poo Shelf.

Normal toilets....

Here's one I prepared earlier...

Eww. No.

Anyways it's probably not what you think. I mean it's not a shelf in the German's pool rooms (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5KbMolsUPA) or even a cupboard where they keep all their toilet related collectables. It is in fact a shelf on the inside of the toilet that...well, makes creating collectables a lot easier....

Not that they collect - I hope.

Now in Australia during the great droughts of like, every four years, older people liked to reminisce with me (and I'm sure any other young person they could freak out) about the good old days when the 1970's slogan "If it's yellow let it mellow, if it's brown - flush it down" was in force.

German toilets....

Eww old people. Just eww.

However, it strikes a certain chord with the Germans, not that they let anything mellow of course, but they are very health conscious and environmentally aware, so they have a little catchment in there so they can take their time checking how things are going on the inside...and just in case they want to take a sample or two before they let it - slip out of their grasp - for lack of a better term...

Well actually there were many better terms, I just felt that one induced the worst images.

*evil cackle*


For what it is worth though these things do seem to be more common in the north of Germany, where people actually want to look at what their body has been digesting for the past 10 hours. I rarely see them down here in BW or Bavaria - I guess we're not much for a long farewell...

That being said, neither am I. So with that I say -

Hope all is well.