Bing!

Look, it's my head!

I woke up at 4am today and went back to sleep. Then I woke up at 4:30 and was really, really awake. This was quite bizarre as I normally struggle to get my arse out of bed before 6am, and even then I'm still not awake.

After taking a shower I took the advice from one of my new favourite blogs zenhabits and wrote a list of all the things I wanted to achieve today. I sat there in the silence of the morning, with only my thoughts buzzing around my head, jotting down goals for the day, intermittently looking at my new-ish whiteboard (with bigger goals that I have to achieve on it) for inspiration.

I've chugged through most of my list and I feel like I've achieved quite a lot.

There is a post on zenhabits listing heaps of reasons for getting up early in the morning. I tried a few weeks back to reset my body clock with no luck, so I pretty much gave up. It just occurred to me now that yesterday I was reading about altering behavioural habits. I couldn't think of any behaviour that I wanted to change... but now it looks like I have.

Looks like I'll be my own guinea pig for the next month or so.

An Irish Blessing

As you slide down the banisters of life, may the splinters never point the wrong way.

skool is cool

This term I have my Counselling Skills 2 class every second Saturday. It's a pretty good group of people and my teacher is fantastic (it's the same one I had for Interpersonal Communication, I love her).

In the morning we did a practical exercise and I got teamed up with this chick Alex. We were asked to pick a real problem that wasn't too big or deep, or something that we had some "energy around" to talk about for 20 minutes. Alex was the counsellor, I was the client.

I spoke about all the shit that had gone on last weekend which had led me to feeling pretty shit. She barely said a word, and just listened (but she let me know she was listening through non-verbal communication, and asking the odd open question). It was the first time I've done one of these practical exercises and really got something out of it. By the end of the session I felt like a massive weight had been lifted from my shoulders, even though I thought I had already dealt with all the emotion surrounding the issues.

It makes me realise what a difference counselling can make to someone's life.

When we were debriefing after the session, I used Asteroids as a metaphor to describe my experience. I realised that a few things had happened in quick succession before I'd had time to process them. All the emotions snowballed into one big, heavy weight which seemed too much to bear. When I broke the big "ball of shit" - as I so eloquently put it - down into smaller pieces, they were easier to understand and process. I kept doing this until all the emotions were gone (or blasted away).

Uncultured

This past weekend I was faced by some inner demons.

I went to several bars over the weekend catching up with friends who were in Sydney from out of town, and I also tried (unsuccessfully) to have a bit of a boogie at a dance party (shit music). For the most part I found it unbearable, and didn't stay much longer than an hour at each venue.

It's no wonder I usually self-medicate with alcohol to endure blaring music, overcrowded venues and drug-fucked idiots. And why the fuck were they playing porn on the TVs in the main bar of the Oxford Hotel?

I realised that I would have had fun if I had been drinking. It's not that I think that I can't have fun without drinking, I'm just going to have to be more selective about where I socialise if I want to avoid things that piss me off. I should keep in mind that it was Mardi Gras, and everywhere was crowded, and people like to overdo it at this time of year.

I also tried to get some study done over the weekend and my brain didn't like that idea at all. I read so much, but very little of it sunk in.

I caught up with George on Sunday afternoon for a chat and something he said hit a nerve with me and it compounded with all this other shit that was going through my head. By the time I got home I was pretty down in the dumps. There are a few people I would have liked to have talked to to sort my head out, but I knew they were unavailable. It always seems to happen like that (not that it happens very often).

I stuck on a couple of episodes of Kablam and that cheered me up a bit (and made me feel a little less like a grumpy old man). Yesterday morning I sent someone an email detailing what was going on in my head and it helped me unjumble all the emotions that were overwhelming me the night before.

So I'm feeling OK today. Not great, not good, OK. And that's fine with me.

There is a drinking culture that permeates through all of Australian society. It's impossible to escape, and as long as I'm not drinking I'm going to feel a little isolated.

[I realise this isn't the cheeriest post, but it ain't balloons and confetti all the time.]

Eight bucks

I feel like I've been writing quite boring content recently. I thought that I'd share something with you that happened over the Xmas/NY break which I thought was quite funny.

For New Year's Eve/Day I flew up to Lismore to attend the Tropical Fruits festival. The night before I left I was lying in bed with a million things running through my head. I thought of a few extra things I should pack the following morning including an insulated bag for beer, some paper plates, a picnic rug and some cutlery.

The following morning I jumped out of bed and hastily packed these extra items while I made sure the house was locked up and that I hadn't forgotten anything I had thought of the night before. Before I knew it my friend, Marc, was downstairs waiting in his car to take me to the airport.

After arriving at the airport I checked in my luggage and made my way to the security check. Surprised that no-one made me remove my belt, I waited at the end of the conveyor belt to collect my carry-on luggage. It was only then that I noticed that my bag had been put to the side. I tried to catch the x-ray operator's attention, but he told me to wait. A couple of minutes later I was attended to by a supervisor asking me if I had any knives in my bag. Shit! I was in such a rush that I'd packed the cutlery in my carry-on luggage instead of my checked-in luggage. The guy was friendly enough, and I told him he could keep the butter knives, Lord knows what havoc I would wreak on the plane with them!

I ran into some friends at the gate, and they all proceeded to make fun of me. Lesson learned.

Flying home from Lismore (a small regional town) the security system was much different. Upon checking in, the staff member asked me if there was anything dangerous in my bag. "No" was my reply. No X-ray, no metal detector, nothing.

Two days later, back in Sydney, a friend arrived from out of town. I the spent the following four nights staying with him, with a bag I'd packed. At the end of his stay I took him to the aiport to see him off on his adventure to Melbourne. Not thinking I would be taking the bag I'd been living out of to the airport, it never crossed my mind to scrutinise what was inside it.

I showed my friend to the security screening area after he'd checked in, and I placed my bag on the X-ray machine conveyor belt. I saw the operator pull it off the conveyor belt and put it through the machine again. By this stage I could see the screen of the X-ray machine, and I could also see my pair of handcuffs sticking out like dogs balls. I had a bit of a chuckle to myself and told one of the attendants that I had some handcuffs in there.

He didn't seem to see the humorous side of things.

"Please come over here, sir"

I followed him to the table. "Sorry, mate, I have some handcuffs in there".

"Please remove them from your bag, sir."

Condoms, lube, there they are, handcuffs!

"Do you realise it's a federal offence to bring handcuffs into an airport?"

"Shit, no, sorry, I completely forget I had them in there!"

"I may need to call the federal police, I'll just check with my supervisor"

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

After chatting with his supervisor and pointing at me, the supervisor, a lady of small stature with a thick Russian accent came over and started talking to my friend. They were both talking AT each other.

"EXCUSE ME! These are my handcuffs, can you please talk to ME!", I exclaimed.

The woman told me that I wasn't allowed to bring them into the airport.

No shit. "Keep them, they were eight bucks."

"Did you drive here, sir?"

"No, we caught the train"

"You can go and put them in your car if you like"

"No, we caught the train"

"Oh, you can't take them into the airport, if you like we can hold onto them until you leave."

WTF? Weren't you about to ring the cops on me?

"Keep them, they were eight bucks"

Then the guy with so sense of humor chimed in.

"They're not even real"

No shit, Sherlock. Eight bucks.

We walked away, and after the adrenalin rush subsided I realised what a bunch of cunts I was dealing with at security.

Seeing as my next flight is direct to NYC, I'd better be extra careful about what I pack in my carry-on. Maybe I'll just check all my bags in.

Testes, testes. 1, 2, 3.

I've got a new phone and hopefully this will pop up on my blog