Let the Holidays Begin

Arrived in Sydney on Thursday morning and the weather was perfect. I went straight into the office where I had a bit of fun poking around at all the staff member and had a bit of catch up with most of them. Friday was spent meeting people after people and then early Saturday morning, I left for Wollongong, a town of 250,000 people about 160 km south of Sydney. 

I was there to present at a conference, but it wasn't a spectacular conference, really. I was going to train straight back to Sydney that night, but was peer-pressured into staying the night, which I did and attended the gala dinner. The dinner was good - had a lot of fun, networked with a few significant individuals and then we headed into the city for a big night out. I did not really drink, but I sure did dance my heart out. 

This really super cute boy also chatted with me all night - he looks really young, but he's 19 and he is a major cutie. We spoke about his past, his present and his hopes and dreams. I really want to mentor this boy because I really do believe that he can do great things.

Anyway, didn't get home until 3.00 am but spent the next day on the beach munching on a big breakfast (with bacon - makes everything better) and a good cup of coffee.

North Beaches - Wollongong 

Got back to Sydney that night and had a night out with Brett and some of our friends. That boy is getting gay-er and gay-er each day, but still awfully cute. Apart from his lame jokes and social skills or lack thereof, it was good to see him again. 

Bronte Beach - Sydney

Spent all day the next day meeting my mentor and just chilling at Bronte Beach with my mates. Got home at midnight last night and off to Stradbroke Island tomorrow at 6.30 am - hopefully that's where my real holidays begin. 

Stradbroke Island

Be jealous! I'll have some good time on behalf of youse. :) 

Falling in Love All Over Again

Melbourne is the second largest city in Australia and probably one of the prettiest as well. I know it is of no comparison to Sydney but I am not a big fan of Sydney.

I've blogged about Melbourne quite a bit and I've always been a fan of Melbourne. I was planning to move to Melbourne but the weather in Brisbane totally stole my heart but coming back to Melbourne, apart from the disgusting weather, feels like falling in love all over again.

The people that I know, the variety and abundant of awesome food and cafes, the quirky, edgy, rough places, and the subtle European culture combined with a unique Australian twist makes Melbourne a bit more livable and elegant than the other cities.

I'm a huge coffee fan and you find tons of coffee places in Melbourne. Melbourne is also home to some of the largest sports in the world, e.g. the Australian Open and the biggest comedy festival, e.g. International Melbourne Comedy Festival.

Other than that, its just been an amazing week of meeting some of my closest friends, some newly met and some that I've made over the interweb through various collaborative projects. One of my good friend from high school is here as well and we've been hanging out the past few days and it's just incredibly weird but refreshing in a way hanging out with someone you've known for the past 11 years.

A year ago, Nic also introduced me to a friend of his who is from Melbourne. We had a few chats but never really long chats because he's a bit shy and slightly more quiet, which at that time, I thought he was just being antisocial so we never really talked much and never spoke since.

A year later, Nic asked me to introduce him to some friends, and I looked back at our Skype log and realised I've actually spoken to this Dan guy before. So I had a chat with him again, which was more like, "Hey, Nic told me you're a bit lonely and want some friends. Can you give me 5 mins to pack and I'll come chat with you". I know it was awkward but I was actually packing. So half an hour later, I had a 10 mins chat with him and offered to meet him when I get down to Melbourne and he agreed!

On the day we were supposed to meet, I totally forgot about it, so I arranged to meet him the day after, and he said okay. At the very last minute, he got nervous and cancelled, but then about 30 mins later, he said its cool to meet again. Lol.

We met and we chatted. He was awfully shy and quiet, but we got over the awkward silences after a while and hung out for 2 hours. And then we hung out again the next day for about 4 hours, which is kinda cool. I think it was about 2 hours later that we finally broken the ice and I pushed all the shyness and quietness out of him, and we just became good friends.

Aaaahh... Melbourne. How I heart you.

PS: I also love the very, very artistic side of Melbourne.

Featured Comment 2: wtf?

So, this week's featured comment goes to the most random, wtf, drunkard comment from none other than Taylor. I don't wanna know what this boy is on, but he's definitely on something when he posted this comment, I reckon.

saturday morning? what are you talking about, it's still friday night dummy! ;) it's not physically possible to watch a movie in the future... I mean how would you know what the plot line is? Are you telling us you invented a time machine? Holy shit man really? Dude can you tell us how you did it? Can I travel forwards in time too? I would like to play the stock market please and win back the money that I lost at the casino tonight. Please email me and let me know at which times you are not using your time machine so I may borrow it. Thank you, best regards, au revoir, bonne nuit ami....

-Taylor (the one and only, when are we getting friggin married already... CAESER!!!)

This was in response to my post yesterday, Remember Me.

And to that random Caeser person, if you're reading this, email me. beautifoolchaos [at] gmail.com . We missed you and have something for you. 

Alright, so I also did another post to be posted today, but its Featured Comment day, therefore I decided to post it tomorrow. It's an audio blog and this time, after all the feedback from you guys, I decided to not put any audio on, so be very pleased!

And in Kayess' words, it will make your "ears jizz with joy". Disgusting.

Remember Me

My housemate rented this movie and left it on the kitchen table. I thought I'd have a quiet Saturday morning and put on a DVD, to start the day. So, I got out of bed, made breakfast and had a 5 mins chat with my housemate.

After she left for work, I put on the DVD and spent the next 2 hours tranfixed to the visual box.

It is a romance movie, and it is your ordinary movie.

But it has an ending you just wouldn't expect. I don't know what it is about today, or the week that have been, or the week that's coming up, but this movie really had a big impact of me after watching it, that's for sure.

I hope you're having a great weekend wherever you are. Lots of love to you and I hope you're well.

Happy Disposition

~ Sweet Disposition - The Temper Trap

You were born to live a life and to be happy. You started talking, started walking and started making friends. You go to school, make lots of friends, spend most of your days with your friends and your life is all about either your family or friends, or both.

Some way along the line, you hit puberty and you started to understand sexuality. You tried to be straight, in the hope that it is all but just a dream. You dated girls, you made love for the first time and you thought you were in love. You broke up, you cried and you missed her.

You finish school, go to university, make even more friends and lived a decent life. You slowly forget that you were born to be happy. You also started to think about your sexuality more and more, and it hurts you that you cannot tell your family or friends, because of fear.

You fear that they will reject you, you fear that you will have no control over the spread of the news, you fear that if you tell one person, everyone will know, you fear that life will be different after that, you fear that this will mean a different lifestyle, you fear you will be the gay kid. Or you actually fear about fear itself - you don't know what you fear, you just... fear.

You started a blog, make some golden friends and became more comfortable with your sexuality. You slowly garner the courage to come out to one friend. It went well, so you told a second, and then a third and slowly more.

You found a boyfriend, and you live happily ever after.

Maybe the last part is too much a fairytale.

***

This week, I am thankful for many things, and one of them is to Taylor - my pilot boyfriend if anyone still remembers.

It's been a full-on two weeks - juggling full-time work, starting a project/non-profit organisation, being social and trying to run the necessary errands. It hits you in the face and I've been known to overstress myself, lose my sense of humour and then crash.

It's at times like these, I am eternally grateful for friends who send me random text messages to keep me laughing, random phone calls and the random visits from my friends bearing beers.

I am also thankful for bloggers like Brett who provides me much humour (and worry), and Taylor who, this week sent me an email that had me giggling. He also sent me a few naked photos of him and trust me, this boy is a major cutie. Add that with his very random emails and excellent sense of humour, that's why he's my boy. :)

PS: He's not really my boy.

Featured Comment 1: Hate Mail

Since I hardly reply to any comments because I find it challenging to keep up and I have a backtrack of emails I am yet to reply to, I decided to have a featured comment at the end of every week instead.

I do read your emails and comments, and I do read almost all the blogs of my commentors - so if you've commented on my blog, I read your blog.

I decided to post one from the week before because its hilarious. After my post on What Would You Do? about a blogger that I found out was lying about several things that he's told me, Dean wrote this as a joke:

I confess. Aaron is talking about me!

I've secretly been lying to everyone all this time.

My real name is Roberta.

I'm a 300-pound, silver-haired woman in her late 60's.

After my third husband left me I became despondent. All of my nine children (who are all named Bobbi-Jo) were grown and lived far away.

And after my many cats died suddenly I was then all alone.

While surfing the internet one day for coupons to Lane Bryant, I discovered the blogging community.

I read about all of your interesting lives and grew jealous and spiteful. So I concocted a fake blog and have been deceiving everyone ever since!

It feels deliciously sweet bamboozling all of you pathetic souls!

First I infiltrated the blogosphere, next I conquer the free world!!

Bwah ha ha ha!!!

-Roberta

P.S.: Sorry Aaron, I couldn't resist! I thought we could use a little something to lighten the mood!

For this week, I had to feature this comment because its the first ever comment criticising me, and I felt that I have to justify myself. The comment came after my post on The Mysterious Blogger. A reader called William wrote:

I am surprise nobody has said anything except continuing this gossip nonsense. First of all, you don't know what the truth is.(you suspected that he'd harm someone. Give me a break!) And I really don't think it's your place to judge. So what if he fabricated, again, it's none of your business. This whole thing sounded really petty, so disappointing coming from you.

William, you really point out a good point and a part that is much needed in the whole situation. I don't know the truth and therefore I had every reason to be worried about the well-being of the young ones. I don't think I am judging, nor am I "gossip"ing, I was merely stating my observations and findings. I didn't mean to create any gossip from my statements. It's my business if I personally had a strong connection with someone and considered that person a friend. Furthermore, when it involves other people that I know of, I have every reason to be worried as well. However, I do agree that its important people don't start making assumptions and adding bits and pieces that's not evidence-based to the whole story though, to avoid any kind of gossip.

It's About Us

A few weeks ago, after a long tiring day, I came home and checked the mail box to find a small, perfectly packaged square looking mail addressed to me. The stamp said it was from Chicago, and immediately, I knew it was non other than the beautiful, beautiful Dean Grey.

The background story is, a few months ago, a group of artist bloggers decided to put together a collaborative art project as a form of encouragement and to show our love and appreciation for Dean, who obviously is a significant individual to the whole community and gave many people lots of inspiration, love and laughter directly or indirectly, and its a way for us to show the project is not so much about an individual or a particular person but about the community. It's about us.

Now, I know, technically, I am not part of the community because my painting is as good as a 5 year old, but hey, I'm trying alright. At least I managed faked it, and they accepted me.

My masterpiece - some say its comparable to some of Picasso's greatest work. And quite clearly, if you can't feel this art piece, you're just not open yourself enough, or you're just shit at art. Face it.

Now, having said all that, thank you so much for the mail art, Dean. It's an awesome surprise after a full-on day, but most of all, they are beautiful! I absolutely love them. Thank you!