Finally Feeling Like Holidays (Johanna)

How annoying.

A couple of days ago, I was sent an email from another student at the university. The email basically accused me of being ungrateful, racist, pathetic, among other things. From what I could tell, the student was pretty much taking out all their issues of imagined inferiority on me. It was ridiculous, but it also hurt me to know that somebody out there decided on me to be the scapegoat for them to blame for all their problems, the stereotypical epitome of everything they think is wrong with the world. This is just a note to anybody else who decides to use this blog as a place to find victims – don’t even think about it. Two reasons: this blog was not set up for you to verbally abuse the bloggers, and secondly, I will verbally kick your ass.

Moving right along!

Apart from that nastiness, I’m so over holidays. Having nothing to do, or think about, or focus my days around is getting slightly tedious. But I suppose I’m grateful that I’m not supposed to be at classes; I’ve spent the last couple of days in bed with a nasty cold. And it’s raaaiiining! Matthew has been here and looking after me while he isn’t at work – these last three weeks, he’s been working at a law firm in the CBD as a seasonal clerk. Ooh! A tad bit a drama concerning that .. on his last night (Friday), he was supposed to go to a party of sorts at a bar. The plan was for us to meet and have coffee between 5 and 7pm (when the party started). So I sat on Collins St outside the 101 building from about 5:15pm. Fearing I’d be late, I tried to call. No answer. Waiting, waiting, waiting. I was sick and freezing cold, but I waited. And he didn’t call. And then at 6:40pm, Matt came strolling out with two young ladies wearing expensive coats and a lot of makeup. They were pretty, fashionable young clerks, laughing and clicking along the street in their high heels, and Matt was with them. Then there was me, looking bedraggled with greyish white skin, red eyes and nose, cracked lips, sitting there coughing and sneezing whilst holding a rapidly dying rose. In a moment of insanity, sickness and feeling utterly miserable, I ran up to Matthew and told him exactly how mad I was, hit him with the rose that I’d bought for him (it was thereafter decapitated). It was a dramatic scene, and I felt a bit guilty for making it afterwards – me sniffling, him apologizing profusely, red rose petals everywhere. But he definitely made up for it.. taking me to dinner and then ditching his party (he admitted that he didn’t want to go anyway) so he could take me home. Awwwww! Alas, now he’s back to Geelong and I can only see him once a week.

I’m feeling so positive about next semester. Luckily, the timetable gods are on my side – it’s looking as though I will have Friday off, and Thursday will be empty except for a two hour workshop/rehearsal for Theatre Studies. I’m glad to have ditched subjects that I thought would ‘look good’ for ones that I’m actually fond of and good at. Learning Chinese at high school was all good and fun, but it’s just too hard to compete here in the same class as people who took gap years to live in China teaching English there, or did language intensives on holidays there. I haven’t been in a Chinese speaking country since I was 8, and although it has ingrained a better understanding of Chinese/Taiwanese culture.. it hasn’t really given me any kind of edge in terms of language. Well, theatre studies here I come!

Being at home for the holidays has given me a lot of time to pratice singing.. which is nice. Because I’m home during the daytime, when most of my housemates are at work, I can be as loud as I like and nobody complains. My singing has really come along in leaps and bounds in the last few weeks; I found a new song to work on, The Beauty Is from The Light in the Piazza by Guettel. It’s a lovely soprano song with some interesting bits – I had heaps of trouble with the pitch to begin with, because it’s so odd. If anybody has ever listened to Sondheim, it’s a little like that in terms of odd intervals. But it’s a beautiful song. I think that it will be my audition song for Beauty and the Beast later in the year, I’m gunning for Belle so wish me luck!