TwentyOne Is It

I’d always thought that the Year of 21sts was going to be something to look forward to. Something nice, nostalgic– an easy, more adult way to fondly, almost-participate in circles perhaps operating past their expiry date through the beautiful rose-coloured teint provided by the free alcohol and yummy finger food. Like 18ths, in all their cruiser/highschool technicolour glory– except this time, what we’re drinking is a little harder.

While indeed, there is a pleasing lack of chronic alcopop consumption, degrees of caution exerted in the maintenance of social face is dissapointingly familiar.

Sure, at your 21st you want to invite people from your past- distant and recent- because they WERE the people that WERE there for you at various stages of your life. The thing is though, at 21 the only real groups you’ve shifted between are (generally speaking,) high school, and life after high school. Seeing people from your just-recent-but-not-far-enough-recent-for-it-to-be-a-big-deal-past and making chitter chat with them can be a bit of an effort.

Don’t get me wrong, in alot of cases seeing familiar friendly faces is lovely. And the few words exchanged in update really are welcome snippets of information. But in many others, the terrifying easiness of slipping back into  a past social bubble expired (particularly one as potent as high school,) is, well, kind of terrifying.

A recent 21st I attended is a particular standout; a giant guestlist full of faces that were kind of familiar, all dressed to impress and packed into a backyard. As I scanned more and more faces I began to realise that I’d seen these people around before, until suddenly it hit me that what I was seeing was basically an entire network– I’m talking, an entire extended network, completely preserved, in all the complexity only high school allows, thrive and pulse before my eyes.  As if I’d pushed some kind of panic button, I could literally feel my frame of mind shift; re-adopting previous frames of reference, accessing previous pockets of knowledge pertaining to certain individuals and their certain exploits with certain other individuals. Snatches of once-worn gossip I didn’t even know I knew were flashing across my minds eye like moving headlines on the bottom of news broadcasts.

But the thing is, this injection of nostalgia (however arresting,) gives off a kind of ’21st feel.’ That awkward impulse to smile and look pretty in photos with people who you no longer care about appearing certain ways to kind of sums up the whole 21st persona. When at 21sts of more, I suppose for lack of better term, ‘present-tense’ birthday-ees, it feels more just like a regular night out, and when speeches come along you laugh along without really gaining any personal involvement in most of what’s going on.You barely even feel you need to be sentimental on a occasion founded precisely on ‘coming-of-age’ sentimentality.

Perhaps that’s what the 21st milestone is all about. Perhaps that’s what 21sts are supposed to be; a kind of event everyone needs to go through in some degree of ‘foot-dipped-in-the-past-almost-awkward’ blaze. My question is though, where’s the line between re-assembling these networks for a night, making up numbers and fondly re-connecting (albeit temporarily,) with these people that form the (largely past-tense) background of our lives? Since I have no answers I guess I’ll just have to keep my analytical inner monolouge quiet at these things by heading over to the bar.

Location, location, location

Long distance friendships are tricky. Not only becuase you miss the other person being in your life as much as they were, but because they have a whole other life where they are now, ( and so do you, I hope,) and so thus the dynamic must rapidly change in order to stay temperate. ( Pun not intended. )

And the trickiest thing of all is that for most, there’s that almost-awkward point where you know eventually, ineviatbly you’re never going to be the same as you were when you were in the same place, and so you don’t really know what to say when said friend may or may not pop up on facebook chat. Unspoken currents of awkward then power through time zones, oceanic regions- stopping nothing until they’ve made you feel so ridiculous you hastily go offline and change browser windows.

Sometimes however, it must work. You go through that same de-attachment process, but there are definately cases where the two lucky individuals strike a happy chord of fence-sitting and can retain what was. To these lucky individuals I say; Please write a book and send it to me via express-post.

Sure, these days it’s alot easier to stay in touch with people. Skype and facebook definately make life alot less wistful on this front. But I mean, if we’re going to be frank, the friendship is effectively reduced to a shared reliance on these tools.

Obviously with tricky things like this there are a number of variables to take into account, but for me I owe every remaining link to my overseas adventure to Mark Zuckerburg, and the globally understood politics of facebook communication- i.e. popping up to much on facebook chat vs the more personal inbox message option. It’s funny how despite all the cultural differences between myself and everyone I met, everyone seems to mediate themselves through facebook in the same kind of way.

Perhaps this is the key to a successful long term, long distance friendship? Perhaps, even, ( get ready for the poor media pun,) this is friendship 2.0?

Aww home, let me go ho-o-me.

So it turns out that cheesy, indie-yet-still-famous-enough-to-be-known-by-everyone type songs have finally struck a chord (pun not intended,) correctly. (ok, pun intended.) This particular victory may be attributed to Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros.

in case you haven't got it yet, the song is 'home'

Yes, home indeed. By home I mean Melbourne, after six incredibly short months of living in Philly and travelling in the USA. It’s been about a week and a half since being home, and let me tell you, it’s the wierdest sensation imaginable.

Of course, on the first tier, there’s the whole, ‘everything’s so DIFFERENT here-‘ phase, where everything better about your way of life in the former place suddenly becomes a point of comparison with where you are now, ( everything worse is conveniently forgotten.) and you have a compulsion to talk about it, you know, to just let people know of the differences out there. Well, you’d like to think that’s the reason, but secretly you feel by talking about it AS the point of reference, your keeping your life there alive and well and don’t have to face the naked reality of naked reality.

Then, the second tier, when you’ve seen all your friends, marvelled at everything you’ve missed and how easy it is to slide back into familiarity, and are left in an awkward anti-climactic lurch. You have absolutely no idea what to do with yourself, awkwardly scrolling through seek.com.au in hopes of a. restacking your finances and b. injecting some kind of purpose into your awkwardly limbo-esque days.

Then, the counter-argument. The willingness of your mind to slip back into what it knows, and how it feels exactly as if nothing has changed with all of your friends. And you know that once you get through this ‘everything here is so borring compared to where I was!’ phase, it’s going to be just like you never left, a thought which all us glass-half-full-ers take as a testament to how strong your ‘real’ life here at home really is/was.

But I mean, it isn’t easy. Whilst I realize this is just natural phase of acclimatization, ( i hope that’s a word,) it doesn’t stop me looking wistfully at things that have some vauge connection with things/people/anyting related to Philly and wanting to stamp my feet like a two year old because I-miss-my-friends-and-Philly-and-I-want-to-go-back-NOW! Add a zero to that two and delete the tantrum and you’ve got yourself just pure, harrowing nostalgia.

I suppose though, from my coveted seat at the head of the glass-half-full assembly, nostalgia (whilst painful,) is in doses a good thing. It reminds you of amazing things you’ve done and whilst they are no longer a present-tense reality, it affirms their existance in your mind. I suppose the next step is folding said nostalgia into the fabric of home, put my violin away and get on with it all.

Epilouge.

So it’s been too far along to recount thanksgiving in the entirety it deserves- y’know, being the whole staple American holiday and everything and me being an exchange student as keen to absorb as much experience as my cultural pores will allow. In the interest of saving time I’m just going to say that it was a family dinner effectively just like Christmas except with many more pies and pumpkin-based products. And it was absolutely terrific- I can still taste the epic euphoria of whatever heavenly beings resided in that stuffing.

mmmmmnomnomnommm

It’s almost the end of exchange- well, it’s more then over for most of my friends, but due to my travels and a singular paper I get to hang around and watch everyone leave in a parrallel WAY too symbolic to my solo early arrival on campus for my liking.

I’m almost at a loss for words to try and summize exchange in the depth it deserves. Right now, I’m in the midst of staggered goodbyes depending on final times, and let me tell you it’s like being broken up with again and again and again- except it’s one of those ‘situational’ breakups where no-one is to blame except the fact that your situations just won’t gel. Not only are all these friends I’ve spent the last four or so months getting to know, living with, adventuring with; they all live in places that AREN’T Australia, and for us here in the lucky country, that’s basically everywhere except New Zealand. But hey. Let’s stop before a Taylor Swift song pre-emptively starts playing.

oh taylor. sometimes i think you're the only one who understands...

Being at Penn for a semester is in part like being in a movie, in part like being in an alternate universe, and part like being on school camp. You’re surrounded by the jocks television has warned you about, given access to the fabled redness of college cups- even provided with a front row seat to watch the freshman grind-offs. But then you’re surrounded by people who change any ideas of ‘working hard’ you’ve ever had, finding libraries 24/7 FULL of people and witness to the intensely awkward silence that follows the return of work in class, in the presence of fellow classmates. Come exam time, you also get to see the Wharton kids stagger from Huntsman Hall as one might from the battle for Middle Earth, laden with laptops and calculators and accounting books that weigh more then a fat small child.

But then you live with, and are surrounded by your friends all the time. You all ‘pre-game’ in one of these said rooms before heading out across the road, knowing full well you will all end up at that same bar that those socially visible frequent just as often. And you know this will happen again and again until semester finishes, and depending on who you are you’ll either head off to that job already secured via parental connections/money/internships/placements/previous negotiations. Except that I’m heading back to Australia to have this age old conversation a few more hundred times until my degree is over;

Other person: Oh so do you know what you want to do after you finish your arts degree?
Me: Uhmmm no, well… I think… you know I just… want to… keep my options open, y’know?

Yes, I could write a thesis about the ups and downs of being an exchange student and how it changes x,y, and z perceptions inside you and opens your mind to the wondrous world of opportunity/causes your sanity to cower slightly at the intensely competitive academic environment that is the Ivy League. Maybe one day I will. Maybe I’ll change the lead character to a wizard, who gets a letter at 11 telling him so before he heads off to boarding school and has a number of wacky adventures. For now, I’m just going to leave a token summation of everything that was my semester abroad.

Go on exchange. Do it. Don’t even think twice. I’m not going to lie, it’s not an entirely easy thing to do. There will be days when you feel like shit and feel shitter for feeling shit in the first place becuase your on exchange and are supposed to be having the absolute time of your life every second of every day. ( I call this ‘the exchange myth.’ Again, could write a thesis. But that’s basically the gist of it- don’t buy it ) Eat fatty food but don’t forget that you aren’t really on holiday and so stretchy pants everyday might not fly too far. Especially if you continue to expand. Philadelphia is a really cool city, and Penn is a beautiful place to see it from.

Now for final goodbyes and my real travels- stay tuned.

Ja’ime for a Day

So last weekend I went down to visit Penn State–  America’s no. 1 party college, so I’ve heard.

(Yes, I know someone who goes there. I didn’t just get commando keen with my mad tourist skillz.)

Currently residing at State’s more elitist cousin, the news of my trip met different receptions from either end. Upenn-ers, going to a school which incidentally sells ‘Not Penn State’ t-shirts in their gift shop generally just said “why?” For State-rs, it was a bit more obvious why I was there since my friend is one of them, but let’s just say inroducing myself as a visiting Australian rather then a visiting Penn student was alot more of a hit.

Penn State is BEAUTIFUL. I realize I use this word often, but it’s the right word to use. It’s in the middle of nowhere, effectively- (no offence, but it’s true,) surrounded by lovely trees and foresty-looking foliage that were all the more picturesque during fall. It’s a gigantic campus, with a few free bus loops that shuttle you around should you need to get across campus stat. Frat houses are at least 3 times bigger than any of the ones Locust Walk can boast up here in Philly and paraphenaelia is an absolute MUST when assembling one’s attrire. And as absolute much of it as possible.

There are a few ‘main streets’ with shops and places to eat and things like that- they do have quite nice dining halls with food cheaper-than-cheap if you go there though, so I can’t imagine these spots are too frequented. Naturally, I located the State equivalent of Allegro’s- $1 a slice, except you get margarita. Once recieving your slice, you have the choice to head to the ‘sauce station’ where there are three cauldrons of sauce and you can decide whether the pizza is worthy in it’s bare state or not. I bought two slices to test this hypothesis- not sure what the reddish chunky sauce was, but it was the unanimous winner.

pre-sauce, but no less beautiful

There is also this ice creamery that produces ice cream so fatty that it shies from national approval, thus only being allowed to be sold at the point of produce. This ice cream was so joygasmically fatty that I had to let it sit for a bit, melt and get a bit more viscous before my spoon had any hope of penetration.

In terms of nightlife, it’s more or less what you’d expect- frats, sororities, free alcohol (unless your in the frat,) and one poor excuse for a beer bong. (I suspect that becuase I’m a girl, they ‘went easy on me’ and poured only half a can of beer into it. They cheered anyway so I suppose I’m fine with this.) A key difference I did notice though was that everyone was more spread- (due to space, duh) which was a wonderful change, and that people absolutely cannot get enough of shots. I enjoy hard liquor as much as the next uni student who wants to skip the ‘tipsy’ phase, but at my discretion. I remember just being handed shot after shot after shot- I’m sure a few of these instances were in response to that ridiculous song- ‘ shot shot shot shot shot shot..’ etc. But hey, I’m not complaining. As a tourist, seeing party animals party is like heading to France and watching someone eat a baguette.

So, what’s the verdict? My friend also being an exchange student, it was really interesting to see how radically different our exchange experiences are. State felt really welcoming and homey, and I felt like if I had gone there, I would have easily slid into a comfortable little niche more then capable of carrying me through the semester. With the help of my trusty accent, of course. True, it is in the middle of nowhere, and being the adventurous sprite I am I can imagine this might irk me. But it is a giant campus and I’m sure, again being me, I would find places to go.

lovely greens

I also wouldn’t feel like the sole purpose of academia is to crush me into a feotal pulp via the ridiculous stream of essays and continuous assessments ( and ‘blackboard’ related tasks… I’m sorry technology but you really need to vote it off the island.) in this competition-crazy bubble.

Although I got a definate sense my friend is having a more “American” experience, (for lack of better term) I don’t for a second regret coming to Penn. The America I’m experiencing I suppose is just less accessible to most, and so I’m finding the stereotypes don’t match up quite as neatly as State manages to collate them. It’s absolutely no less wonderful though, and of course from an educational standpoint it’s almost sacreligious to stand around twirling my hair- “mmmm YEEAAH i mean like, Penn’s OKAYYY and everything…”

like, no offence, but it's true

All in all, getting to compare two different college experiences was amazingly fun- as well as being delectable intellectual fodder. Whilst a little part of me died inside with all the North Face + leggings combos surrounding me, it wasn’t enough to even begin considering ruining anything.

T-1/2.

So it’s D-Day tommorow- I’m heading out to the USA for exchange. Having said all my goodbyes aside from family members and packed my room into boxes, ( my parents chose my departure as a nice time to paint all our upstairs rooms, so in a move too symbolic for my liking, I had to paint-ready it before tommorow and strip it bare. So I’m currently sitting in a room plainer than skin-coloured tights.) it’s time to get this travel blog thing going in vauge hopes I remain motivated enough to keep it alive.

Points of interest for my trip involve;

1. Determining whether college is ACTUALLY anything like the movies. Testing the redness of these fabled ‘cups’ and attempting to buy pizza for $1 a slice. Slash checking out the frat situation…

2. Scrutinising nutritional value of the food around me.

3. Scrutinising nutritional value of the food around me vs. body mass around me.

4. Going down south once semester is over and seeing what ten gallon hats are really about.  

So yes… let’s see how things turn out.

Feed me brains

I’m living the life of the deferred right now and, no offence, it sucks.

Not only is my brain striving for sustenance, I’m keeping my eyes peeled for that fabled enlightenment being deferred apparently gives you- y’know, a BREAK from everything to really CONNECT with yourself and realize who you are and what you want to do with the entity that is your life etc.

only thing in my hands is my spatula

I have to say, I’m a little jealous of the people this works for. With every egg I fry and every coffee I make, (‘When I say VERY HOT that is what I mean. I would like this coffee VERY HOT.’- just a snippet of fun from one of my favourite customers,) I feel like my IQ recedes into itself like a forgotten shrivelled-up passionfruit.

mmm... passionfruit

I’ve got absolutely nothing against deferring. I think it’s a great idea. I was even looking forward to being a lady of leisure for the pitiful month or so I’ve got to kill before I jet off to America- laying in wait for Lady Purpose to come a-knocking at my door. But let’s be frank- I don’t really think she’s coming, and I’m getting a little sceptical about the whole, doing nothing really gives you time to open your mind and make your best decisions thing. Does cosmic wisdom only visit those with nothing better to do?

In a way, I suppose this makes sense. With no distractions, what else can you do but nothing, and let your mind slide along of its own accord? Eventually, with no pressure, it makes sense that difficult decisions and epiphanies are much less, well… difficult. That mindless daily-grind student part time jobs somehow grease the cognitive wheels and part the mental clouds logic insists on hiding behind.

Leaving yourself to simmer on something can be a one-way ticket to enlightenment or a one-way ticket to insanity. And I think I’m toeing the line of the latter. I feel almost as if the myth of deferring is an ironic parallel to smoking some peyote as a desperately less cool road to self-realization. My way, your mind stays absurdly sober and in its starvation, apparently should turn to the seemingly impossible (yet continuous,) task of pondering those wonderful philosophic morsels aforementioned. Instead, I’m just bored.

Luckily, my days of plating eggs benedicts and running Very Weak Skinny Lattés with One Sugar Large Takeaways to their designer-legging wearing owners are closely numbered. Until then, I’m not going to get any less bored. Swell.

R.I.P Mufasa

I miss the 90’s. It was a simpler time- pop stars could wear training bras without being deemed as psychotic sexual predators, children’s films were animated, and leggings were allowed temporary visas as pants.

Yep- S Club 7, The Backstreet Boys, Spice Girls… then on the flip side Nirvana, The Smashing Pumpkins, Pearl Jam… whichever way you swung, things were swell.

My little cousins turn their noses up at the animated classics my sister and I try to enlighten them with- its realistic computer animation or nothing. Apparently, kid’s films now have to appear as ‘real’ as possible to get kids to watch them. I’m sorry, when did 7 year olds become sahhh postmodern?

I’ve also been made aware of this game you can play where you keep and train dogs. It’s like a tamogotchi, except the dogs are animated and realistic, and they kind of just walk around until you touch them with the little pen the console comes with. (It’s a touch screen, because everything short of laptops these days is.) I had a tamogotchi when I was about 7 but got bored of it quickly and I’m fairly sure it’s dead by now.

And then there’s kid’s movies then vs. kid’s movies now. Then there was lots of singing. And the majority were animated via cartoon so movements and musical numbers were obviously exaggerated for dramatic effect. It was that coupled with the songs that helped teach my imagination how to work, not to mention harbour an interest in music. Now, whilst I do love a fair few of the animated flicks, and there are obvious exceptions, (ahem Toy Story, Monsters Inc.,) generally I just don’t think they are quite as rounded an experience.

whatever

Sure, computer technology is CLEVER. And you know, kind of useful. But all musical numbers in kid’s films are gone. I mean completely.  It’s all either an animal/a car with a personality realizing they don’t fit in, and go on some kind of implicitly self-searching quest which ends in them finding peace and happiness without appearing too dramatic so that no-one gets upset.

In the end of The Lion King (spoiler alert… but seriously if you haven’t seen it by now you deserve to have it ruined,) Simba and Scar fight to the death against a background of flames, just following Scar’s confession that he killed Simba’s father by throwing him off a cliff in order to become king.

Today that just sounds like a plot off neighbours. Which completely kills any budding notion of taking it seriously as a plot, so again, no one gets upset.

Maybe this is just my 90’s patriotism talking, but creative juice seemed to have more leeway. Noddy was allowed to run free before someone decided the show had homosexual connotations and subsequently stabbed it in the head, so that it was barely recognizable come round two. The Spice Girls had a song called ‘Two Become One’ which we all only realized was actually very, very sexual once childhood conceded to puberty. Well, once Political Correctness took over and Ideological and Cultural Soundness were brought to our attention.

(Slight aside but: The once “Baa Baa Black Sheep” is now “Baa Baa Rainbow Sheep,” even though this is not directly related to my rant. The original nursery rhyme was actually about wool taxes in old England.)

The 00’s aren’t really so bad. They just lack the magic of the 90’s. I wonder what the Fresh Prince ended up doing with himself. Not to mention Ash Ketchum.

Clique It.

There’s always that moment of awkward adjustment when you leave high school and move into the real world. Maybe there is even that definite point in time where the most potent choice in relation to this is presented to you, surrounded by green garnishes on a shiny silver platter.

Do I keep trying with my high school clique?

Depending on the kind of person you are, and perhaps even what uni/ tertiary institute/couch/place of work you grace with your presence, the answer to this is going to vary. But the fundamental base of it stays constant- do groups really ‘work?’ As in, are they feasible once the high school bubble bursts and we’re out there in the ‘real world,’ forced to shift our perception of ourselves from one-of-the-mass to one-IN-the-mass?

Let’s look at the idea of groups. Groups aren’t solely confined to high school- but I think the definition of group changes. In high school, it’s the same people, day in and day out, from year 7 all the way up until year 12. What group you are in stays more or less rigid, although depending on the strata of your school you may be allowed some degree of social leeway, i.e. to move in and out of your group when socially potent.

Yes- high school social hierarchy is possibly the most complex social structure I think is in existence here in the Wild Wild West. Being the analytical mind that I am, even when I myself was lodged so deep within it that even if I tried I couldn’t break the surface, I was contemplating the same kind of thing. On a much more self-indulgent level, of course. (“Naaa… we aren’t sheltered…”)

The facts are, dynamics shift. Having that secure circle of people to retreat to every lunchtime is no longer required. Strata is over- you no longer need to preserve that same sharpened level of social face. The relationship is inevitably going to have to change- evolve with the times and take a step back, or crumble indefinitely, as everyone goes their separate ways down the path of employment and further education.

In most cases, people just change. New people enter your life and with the unwritten social rules of school being literally unwritten, you don’t see that pocket of people nearly as much. Read: relationships suffer. And it’s that much more unlikely that everyone will be able to get together as a bunch as often as needed to re-assure everyone that the group is still intact. A healthy dose of meeting and greeting the new people you are surrounded with that share your interests (generally being in the same life situation as you now that school’s done,) also takes up a bulk of your time, if you want to let it.

So do we let go of the reins and fall back into this new cloud of people? Or do we avoid taking them seriously, in an act of preserving what was?

Again, like much of the stuff up here, the answer is rooted in subjective inaccuracy. But based on our little discussion here, I’m going to lean towards let go.

It’s not that I’m saying friends from high school are shit. I’m saying rigid groups don’t work, unless you completely refuse to assimilate into your new-found dwelling and insist on running as far away from change’s sharp edges as humanly possible, lest it burst your bubble.

So when/ if you get to that point (as from what I’ve understood a lot of people do,)where you really question why you are all bothering, step out of your denial and out into the rest of existence. It’s really quite nice out.