Obscure things I'm bad at doing

My editor (ha!) tells me that posts about how wonderful my own life is aren't gonna get me far in the blogging business. Australians (and Latvians apparently!?) love a healthy dose of self deprecation and I am no different.

So here we go, some things I'm bad at doing.

1. Procrastinating properly.
A lot of people are GREAT at procrastinating. They make a damn art form out of it. They'll write letters, run, draw, go out, call someone...

I've tried out a whole lot of different procrastinating techniques. I procrasti-blog (incidently what I'm doing RIGHT NOW) I've also tried procrasti-toileting, where I decide to just go sit on the toilet and give my bowels a chance to flush out anything that might possibly not want to be there. I procrasti-shower and procrasti-clean my toe nails.

The one I always seem to fall back on (and the most destructive one of all) is that I procrasti-eat.

Not only does this mean that the work doesn't get done. I also get fat in the process.

My mental process goes like this.:

Hmm, 2000 word essay due.

I should start this. But I'm kinda hungry.

Oh god, if I just have a small snack now, I won't be hungry for lunch...

So... I should PRE- eat and have lunch now!!!

but it's too early for lunch...

So... I'll spend this whole time MAKING LUNCH, then it'll be ready by the time it's lunch time!!!

 (3 hrs later) = 

2. Apologising when I know I'm right.

Somtime you just have to. Whether it's to save a friendship or relationship or job, sometimes you just have to suck up your pride and do it.

And I suck at this.

"No.

No, no.

You're not right. I'M right.

No, don't even say that. 

You're wrong. You're totally, utterly and incredibly wrong.

Stop that. You're wrong.

You've NEVER BEEN MORE WRONG."

My solution at the moment is to write letters instead.

At least with a letter I can call someone an obscene name and then rub it out. Plus, something about the hand-writing-ness seems to work well. Something to do with being 'less confrontational'??

3. Not taking photos of/collecting/hoarding stuff that has my name on it.

The spelling of my name is definitely not common place. I was never able to find cute little keyrings with my name on it, or those little kiddy license plates... huurgh
Well, apparently it became a complex because now I'm kinda obsessed with finding my name in places.
'Elysium' counts as my name I've decided. As does the Champs-Élysées.

And so far in my life I've a vast collection of photos of movie posters, street signs, body lotions and perfumes... everything I can find with this name displayed. I even have a small square of paper, ripped from the packaging of toilet paper and stuck it in a scrap book somewhere. Hoarder?? Who moi!?

Awesome! There's a toilet tissue brand called 'elyse'! Now I can wipe my butt with my own name!

Way better than a little keyring to put on my school bag amiright?

Anyway... there's obviously heaps more stuff I suck at, but I wanted to share a few of the more obscure ones and once again I'm meant to be writing an essay and this blog was my distraction. This is the only form of procrastination I can seem to justify at the moment. Better than procrasti-eating I suppose.

The Post you Probably Don't Want to Read.

Problems. 

I got ninety nine problems but a serious problem ain't one!

I mean, we ALL have problems obviously. I just seem to be deliciously free of important ones at the moment. 

So I thought it a good idea to acknowledge this.

My current problems include:

1) Trying to distinguish between the Asian women in my class and acknowledge them individually by name when they catch me off campus. I hope this doesn't sound too racist. I just honestly can't tell!

- 'oh god, is this one Candice? or is it Pema? crap crap crap'
'....hiiiiii' *in my awkward, scrunched shoulder, tilted manner*

2) Wondering why this extremely short girl is trying to be friends with me.

- We see life from two entirely different spectrums! What on earth can she hope to think we have in common?! She views a tub of nutella as a serious eating challenge! I view it as a birthright!

3) Wondering why 89% of all the guys remotely interested in me are excruciatingly weird. Not even in an endearing weird way. Just like... 40 year old busker kind of weird.

- Is this a vibe I'm giving off? Must remedy!

4) Wondering if I should be more stressed about uni work

-Why aren't I more stressed about this? Oh god. I must be doing something wrong!! Wait. I'm only in 2 days a week and I have about 8 weeks of holidays this semester. I'll be fine.

5) Wondering why I've been suspended from twitter.

- I've literally had the account for less than 24 hrs. I must be a real twittering badass!!!

6) I literally want to do everything. How do I do this without getting sick? Also my calendar looks like a tetris game

- How do I fit everything into my life? Which events are the dependable, easily allotted squares and which ones are the horrific zig zags, moving at high speed? How many vitamin C chews should I be devouring in a day. 12? Does 12 sound about right? Should my urine be this colour??

Sorry. That's gross.

BUT, problems wise, that's about it for me.

It wasn't always this way, which is why I'm trying to revel in it now I suppose. Highschool was full of worries:

Who are my friends? Am I popular? Why don't they like me? Why am I so angry all the time? Why am I so sad all the time? Why do I have to know this? What am I going to do after school? What if I smell funny and don't know about it?!!

And I imagine when I finish this degree I'll go through my quarter life crisis. The one where you've finally got a job and started to settle into 'life'. You get past that initial hue of excitement and then start to ask yourself the big questions

Do I really want this job for the rest of my life? Do I have balance? Am I still moving 'forward' or have I stopped? Am I too old to still be taking selfies in the mirror? When is too young to start buying 'age defying' creams?

I don't think problems ever really leave us. They just hang about for a certain period of time and keep us on our toes, and then we exchange them for new ones when we enter another stage of our lives. When we don't have problems it means we've gotten too good at the stage we're already at and that it's time to move on. They're the challenges in our stories which make our character's develop and become more interesting, more resilient, more intelligent.

So anyway. I'll admit that my lack of problems does stem from the fact that I'm still in the confortable schooling system, living off the backs of my parents. But all that is going to end in 6 months. After I graduate I'll be thrust into a new world all over again so I just wanted to make note here (mostly for me so that I remember this time) that there was a time once when I did not have problems (and god knows, after my 1st half of this year, I deserve it!)

I mastered the ancient art of the Sydney Bus system.
I have not locked myself out for a good 6 months now, nor have I had another cockroach fly into my mouth.
I am (still!) the top of the food chain.
I am happy and (mostly) healthy, and pain free.
Most importantly, I'm surrounded by fun people who love me. 

In fact, the only legitimate problem I have is that I don't get to spend enough time with any of them.

And that's it.

Thanks Life.

The Story of No Pants

I have some friends from Canada staying with me at the moment. Their names are Scott and Geneva

This is The story of no pants:



So we decided to go to go out in the City. We all looked nice. I was in a dress, Geneva was in short shorts, and Scott was in white jean shorts, cut off before the knee. Big Mistake.

As testament to my incredible partying lifestyle, I'd completely forgotten that pants were a MUST for  guys. We spent about $50 on cabs, just driving around the city, trying from one place to another. Scott just wasn't allowed in anywhere! It was incredibly frustrating!

It got to midnight and we were incredibly fed up. We were at the Cross at this point, waiting in line. The bouncer came up to us, pointed at Scott's shorts and shook his head.

Desperate measures had to be taken.

Scott and I went for a frustrated walk. We began by scouring for any open shops. There were none. It was midnight. The Midnight Pants Store was inconveniently closed due to technical difficulties. Scott started asking men on the street for their pants. I told him to stop if he wanted to live.
We almost had success! A very fat gentleman (VFG) stopped on the street when Scott asked him if he wouldn't mind swapping.

Scott: Excuse me sir, would you mind swapping pants with me?
VFG: What?
Scott: Swapping pants...?
VFG: Well I don't know... I don't think I'd fit into yours.

Scott: Oh... you would. You could just leave the fly undone? maybe?
VFG: I... well. Yeah. Maybe. But then you'd need like...a rope to keep these ones up.
Scott: oh yeah... never mind. Well thank you!
VFG: Good luck to you!

We were getting even more desperate.

Up ahead, in a brilliant daze of purple neon lights, we saw a sign for a 24 hr gym. Full of hope and optimism we ran up the stairs, past the security guard and tugged open the glass doors...

...and they didn't move. They were locked.

"Do you guys have a key card?" The security guard asked suspiciously.
"No..."

Then, we decided to try out a brilliant suggestion of my cousin Rosie.

"Look" I said to the guard. "This is my friend from Canada, he literally jut got off the plane today and doesn't have a pair of pants. we can't get into anywhere. Is there the slightest chance you could let us in to look through your lost property?"

We held bated breath as the security guard pondered.

"Sure... be quick though"

And Scott was. He ran through the doors and about half a minute later we heard a pounding of tin as he was opening lockers. Three minutes later he came back with the grimiest, smelliest pair of track pants I have ever seen.

"If I'm allowed in with these, but not my shorts.... I'm going to be so mad".

So we ran back down the stairs and into an alley for Scott to get changed. Typical boy, he wasn't wearing underwear. He stripped off before I even realised what was happening and I got to see the full moon on a cloudy night. I turned away and stood in front of him so that no one else could see, and I expected him to be done in literally about 30 seconds. He wasn't.

"What's taking so long!?"
"THESE ARE DEATH PANTS. I JUST DON'T UNDERSTAND HOW THEY WORK!!!"


I still have no idea what the hold up was but I know that Scott bare-butted most of Kings Cross for a good 5 minutes before he finally managed to get the pants on.

And this was the story of how a well dressed Canadian man was not accepted into any clubs in Sydney until he looked like a grotty bogan.
THE END

Being 'an Elyse'

I used to hate it when people asked me what I wanted to be. The question started popping up around year 10 in high school and has been unceasingly relentless all throughout my entire time at university. When I was younger I was so sure.
'I want to be the man who waves the flag for the trains to go!'
'I want to be a garbage truck man!'
'I want to be a horse!'

Then, when I got to a time when people actually wanted me to be 'serious'... I was stumped.

I've been thinking about all the students about to go into their HSC, and remember being in that position just a few years ago. Trying to sort through the mess of hormones, of stress, of social politics and societal pressures, to work out not only what I wanted to do, but what sort of person I wanted to be and how to get there.

And I'm still not sure I can give anyone an answer because I don't think there is an answer. For example, you can have all your chips perfectly in place, feel as though you've got the system worked out and your direction for the next 5 years are certain at least, and then you sit down to write a serious thought provoking blog post and realise you just sat on a hill of grass covered in duck-shit. For me at least, I'm never going to be that classy, gorgeous, slim woman who is not only sophisticated and smart, but funny and likeable and speaks 12 languages fluently, has millions of dollars and volunteers at the animal shelter 6 days a week, attending cocktail fundraisers for children with AIDS at night. I've got her tottering around in my head as the 'ideal' but even if somehow I reach a point close to her, by that point my 'ideal me' would have changed to something else.

And so I've decided with a contentness of 'being in the moment' and being more than okay with the idea of being an Elyse, exactly as I am now. So I'm not going to try to give any advice to people. I don't have any answers for you. But I do want to write here quickly what I think I've figured out for ME at this point in life. Feel free to dismiss or to take any of it on board. I'd be interested to read this back in 10 years and see if I still agree with myself

1. Work out who/what you don't want to be like.
Our identities are shaped as much by what we're not as by what we are. That is something I've been learning recently.

2. Whatever you practise doing, you will become.
I'm going to practise self restraint, because I currently have a bottle of nutella bigger than my head in my room, and I do not want to become obese.

3. No matter what you think is actually occurring right now, it's not.
At the risk of sounding like a hippy, the universe is infinite. The stories of everyone we interact with on a daily basis are impossibly complex. There is no way you have a full understanding of anything. ANYTHING. And so, with that in mind, suddenly everything seems a lot less stressful and a lot more acceptable. We're not meant  to understand. We're just meant to ride it out. Everything is just an experience. Enjoy it. And if you can't enjoy it, refer to (1) and learn from it.

4. All people are people. And people are the same everywhere.
We all want to be heard and acknowledged. We all want to be accepted and loved. We all want to live without fear for our survival. That's about it.
Everyone is equal, it is humans themselves who put labels and judgement on others. My job at BWS has been the biggest eye opener to me in this respect. 12 months ago I wouldn't have spared a second glance at the homeless guy drinking on the gutter. Now I'm on first name basis with several of them. And they're nice. They're funny. They're decent people, and when you ignore them they notice and are hurt by it.

5. Our bodies and minds are capable of incredible spirituality, and the ability to be incredibly mundane.
So chose which one you're going to be.
Don't be the girl on facebook 5 hours a day Elyse. Just don't.

6.  Don't be bullied into anything.
If there's only one thing we truly own it's our life choices. So to be bullied into anything, a course, a job, a religion, a relationship, an emotion... Work out what you can compromise on, and what belongs to you and you alone. And don't ever surrender that point.


I'm sure there's more, but I can't think of them right now. If you come up with any of your own that you live by, send them to me! Maybe I'll make another blog post about random life advice from strangers!

The Tear Duct Factory

I am a tear duct factory.

This is not a fact unknown to anyone who has ever spent more than an hour in conversation with me. I've almost certainly ended up crying about SOMETHING and I'm still trying to work out now whether this is a good or bad thing.

Cons:

I can't express myself properly. When I get too angry, I start crying. When I get too happy, I start crying. When I get too excited, or sad, or nervous, or frustrated or emotional... Australia ceases to have a water problem and needs to build an ark.

It's embarrassing and frustrating.

Here's a recent example. I was going to do some psychology interviews with the army recently. I had to answer some questions on paper and then discuss my answers later with a psychologist. One of the questions was 'Do you cry easily?'

True Story.

Pros:

I'll leave it to Zooey Deschanel to explain

So.... moral to the story is. If I get into the army, I'm going to be the crying-est, most tender hearted, badass officer there is. 

And I'm okay with that.