Thursday, November 23

Bubble-Wrapped

Posts have been sporadic, I know, and I'm sorry for it. This journal of sorts is a bit of a release for me as well as an exercise in brevity+quality rather than length+rambling (you can see I am losing the battle!). And I guess I sort of hope that you enjoy reading it too.

Lately has been .. strange. I won't go into too many details, but I'm currently not so well. On the brink of mental breakdown, I have had two people looking after me 24 hours a day for the last week. Now they have both left and it's violently quiet. I don't think my shrink would be very happy if he knew I was being left alone right now; he's up to seeing me every second day. It's all a bit full-on.

And on to happier topics of conversation! I realised I hadn't been doing anywhere near as much roaming around Melbourne as before, so I took it upon myself to do it all at once. Fabulous for my mood, bad for my figure and purse. Seraph and I went to San Churro Chocolateria on Monday. We both ordered some type of delicious white chocolate shake (mine was white chocolate and berry), and shared a plate of churros (see right) with chocolate ganache. It really says something about a churro when you have to drink a chocolate milkshake to cut the sweetness and richness! We walked away with full tummies and big smiles; as 'gourmet' churros go, these were awesome.
A couple of days later whilst at the Queen Victoria Market, we got some more churros. These were less the 'served on a beautiful plate' type, and more the 'shoved in a paper bag with a clump of icing sugar' type. But they were still lovely. It's worrying that I should be addicted to something so fried and decadent. Oh well!

The last couple of days have been rather hot, so on Tuesday Lucien, Seraph, Will and I all headed off on the 96 tram to St Kilda Beach. It was lovely - there was cloud cover, but it was still hot and windy. The water was ice cold, which Lucien couldn't handle, but I was in love with the contrast. We played with a ball, and splashed around and had fun until we noticed some wind whipping across the water. It was coming towards us, but we ignored it. Suddenly on what had been absolutely calm, glassy water, diagonal waves were coming in towards us. As we looked up on the beach, the wind was fierce; the entire top layer of sand was hurtling down the beachfront, collecting items of clothing and towels as it went. People were screaming and running, but of course, we were in the water and couldn't feel a thing.
So, we decided to make a run for our stuff and get out of the water before the storm hit. The dash across the sand to get our towels was painful; the sand was hitting my calves like needles and the wind was so strong that it knocked me over a couple of times. We ran with all our stuff up to a grassy area and crouched with towels on our heads. Eventually the squall stopped, but storm clouds were still looming angrily, so we left in favour of fish and chips. Very exciting... even if it did put an end to all my splashing and diving and pretending to be a mermaid in a black tankini.

Lucien has moved up to Melbourne with me for a couple of weeks while he has a summer clerkship at a law firm. I'm not sure how I feel about this.. I should be bursting with joy that my boyfriend, who I'm usually seperated from, will be living just a couple of metres down the hall. However, it has come with it's own little set of problems. Eating is one of them. Being a semi-unemployed student, I am quite regularly poor. This means eating relatively well at the beginning of the fortnight and then slowly as my resources dry up, resorting to having ryvitas and cheese or two-minute noodles as a meal. For days on end.
However, Lucien does not have this fund problem. So it's a bit much to expect that we can take turns in buying food and cooking, because I am simply too poor. But for him to chip in more or even pay for things, I don't like it - even though I'm barely scraping by, I like to hold on to the small vestiges of independence that I have. So it's an issue.
Another one is mess. Lucien has never really moved out of home before, nor has he ever lived in an environment where his mother doesn't do EVERYTHING. I mean everything. I am sure she would brush his teeth for him if she could. It's all very caring and everything, but he doesn't seem to get how suffocating it is. Anyway, because he rarely has to do much work around his house, he doesn't seem to get the whole 'clean up after yourself' thing. My house is a disaster right now, and although none of the mess is mine, it's very disheartening to find half a dozen empty bowls with traces of custard (Lucien likes custard as a mid-study snack) and a housemate glaring at me to clean it up. Little things, but they are irritating. I may be Lucien's girlfriend, but I am not his maid, and it makes me angry to think that all the other boys in my house truly believe that I should be cleaning up his mess.

Oh, in terms of housemates, we have some adjustments! If you have no idea what I'm talking about, see this post. Karin and Clark have moved out to much hearty celebration, whereas Raj left in the night without even telling us he was leaving. So, introducing the new recruits:

Muhammed - Overgrown man-child with no social skills. His irritating habits include turning every single light and fan in the house on and leaving them on, leaving taps running (hello? water restrictions?) and leaving a piece of fish in the fridge for several weeks. Apparently in his country it's ok to whistle at a girl or snap your fingers at them to get their attention, and he has already made some just fabulous comments about me - "Why you eating all the time?" - "Because you stress me out!"


Rick - Token gay emo man. Why token? Because he inflicts it on himself. He has the quasi-American-effeminate voice thing going on, and a penchant for peppermint tea. All in all, he's quite nice, but very shy. However, his hypochondria is tending to get on my nerves. Every passing conversation in the hallway or over the kettle has been about his migraines, his supposed glandular, his chronic fatigue, his insomnia, his anaemia, etc. He has covered his door in amateurish pastel drawings with captions like "You will haunt my heart forever" etc.

In a week or so, we're about to get another one, a young lady called Tina. And some karate people from Okinawa. And how many rooms are left?.. - one. This will be very interesting.

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