GenesisDreams

Birthday Wishes

Friends I've finally got my computer hooked up to the net in my room, so expect to hear a lot more from me in the future... but not this weekend. I'm getting the train up to Manchester tonight and I'm going to be spending the weekend with my cousin. I will do my best to finish my "first week" tale when I get back. In the meantime I'd like to say a big HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Nash and Littlewing.

SNOW!

Travel I’m here! Prepare yourself for a long entry people because I’ve got a story to tell. Last Wednesday saw my departure from the land I called home for twenty-one years. Fragma drive me in style to the airport, and after checking in, I sat down to have a drink before I needed to go through security and immigration. Calvin and Apollo showed up, as well as Mum and my two brothers. We sat around and talked, took some photos, and then it was time for me to good. My other friends were supposed to show up as well, but I stupidly didn’t wait long enough for them, so I only got to see them from a distance after going through security. Thanks guys for coming, and I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to give you a proper goodbye. I really appreciate the fact that you all came down to see me off, it was about the best parting gift that you guys could give me. The first leg of my flight was from Brisbane to Singapore (and you guys would have already seen my short entry below from Changi airport). It was fairly uneventful. I wasn’t tired, so I watched movies and played the multiplayer trivia computer game they had, which was a lot of fun, particularly because it told you the seat number of everyone else who was playing, so I would check out the competition while going to the bathroom. After a forty-five minute stopover in Singapore I was on my way to Dubai. I slept on and off for this leg, but I also spent a fair bit of time walking up and down the plane. My back ached, I’m too tall for the seats, and my shoulders are too wide as well, so they stuck out into the aisle and got bumped whenever someone walked past. I was uncomfortable, but bared with it and eventually we made it to the United Arab Emirates. I found my connection easily in Dubai, I just followed the English accents. Most of the people from my flight weren’t continuing on to Manchester, so I wandered around by myself for a bit before following my ears to the departure gate. There were babies crying on this flight, and people coughing, but somehow I managed to get more sleep this leg than the previous two combined. I was pretty stuffed by that point, so I needed the rest. The flight went smoothly and all of a sudden we were descending into Manchester. The captain announced that it was a cool seven degrees on the ground with slight rain. Fantastic. I put my coat on, got off the plane, and proceeded onto immigration. I was proceeded in less than five minutes, the only question I was asked was “What are you studying?”, my passport was stamped, and I was on my way…. Or so I thought. I had to go pick up my baggage next and that is a story and a half to tell. I’ve got to run off to a lecture now, so I’ll continue the story a little later. It SNOWED last night! Oh and I think I've still got this thing set on local Brisbane time. It's 10:48AM here right now.

Singapore!

Travel Well I'm at Changi Airport in Singapore. I've got about 5 minutes before I've got to go to my gate and get back onto my plane. I just wanted to let everyone know I've gotten this far safely. Cya everyone!

Goodbye

Friends Ok big long sentimental goodbye and thankyou time. I'm leaving in a couple of hours, to go on an adventure that will probably be the most exciting time in my life. I'm looking forward to it, but at the same time I'm a little sad to go, to leave behind all the great friends I've made over the years. Even though I hope they will come and visit me, it's still going to be a big separation and I think I'm going to miss them terribly. I'm a little rushed right now, I've still got a fair bit of stuff I need to do, but I want to quickly mention a few of my closest friends. I've known all of these guys for at least five years, and in some cases for much longer. Alphabetically (becuase that's just the type of guy I am), first there is Ads. My Uni mate, forever battling against the injustices committed on the student body, stalwart and strong, tireless in his efforts to, if not improve things for everyone else, at least make it as hard for the Uni as possible. We share similar political and worldviews and he is always good to argue with. He is one of the Japan boys, and Ski Trip boys, and Coast Trip boys, in fact Ads has always been there, whenever we've had an adventure or gone on an expedition Ads is a part of it. All of the memories of great times that we've had, Ads has been involved. Ads and I also share a love of good books, and he keeps me up to date on good authors when I've gotten slack and neglected to follow up on their stuff. Thanks for everything mate. Calvin and I have spent a lot of time together over the recent months, and I'm glad we got that time, becuase there was a period just after high school where we didn't see each other very often. Calvin is creative and talented and quite different to most of my other friends. He does his own thing, lives in another world, and I'm glad he lets me into it on occasion. He's introduced me to all these different types of music, and I've introduced him to full depths of the wonderful world of anime. I'm going to miss our Monday night ritual and I'm thankful we made that happen while we could. Now that he has a new computer I hope he finally gets back online properly and stays in touch. Even when you get fabulously rich and famous and are living the highlife of an established author, I know he'll always stay true to his friends. Fragma is my oldest friend; I've known him since I was ten years old. We were best friends in primary school, we lived just up the road from each other and terrorised the neighbourhood on our bikes for a number of years. We somehow managed to maintain that strong friendship during high school even though we were at different schools and had moved away from each other. I spent an incredible amount of time at his place, sitting in his computer room for days playing games and listening to music and talking about everything. University came along, after a while Fragma moved over to the south side, and we saw each other less and less. Over the last six months though, since moving back up here, we've hung out with each other almost constantly, trying to make the most of all that lost time. I can't recall a time we've ever fought, or ever been angry at each other, or annoyed or pissed off. We've always gotten along, and it's the type of easy friendship that you know you'll always have. From now on we'll probably slip in and out of each other's lives, but I know we'll remain close friends throughout it all. I've already said goodbye to Littlewing. She left Saturday morning. Like Fragma, I've known her since I was ten, we lived in the same neighbourhood, went to the same primary school. Unlike Fragma though, we went to high school together and it was there that we became really close friends. Littlewing knows everything about me, and I trust her completely. We are very alike, often scarily so, and the consequence of this is that though we are very close, we also clash at times. I've said everything I wanted to say to Littlewing already, so I'll leave it there. She knows how much I value her friendship. Nash is another one of the Japan boys; in fact without him I have no idea how the trip would have gotten off the ground. We were close in high school, not so close the first couple of years of Uni, but now I consider him one of my best friends. We've had our fair share of ups and downs but we've gotten over it (thanks partly to hefty amounts of alcohol) and come out better for it. Nash is incredibly intelligent, and I admire that about him. He's also got a very dry sense of humour, which I really enjoy. The rest of us can be making jokes all day, but it's only take one little sarcastic comment from Nash to get us all in stiches. He's usually extremely calm and collected, but sometimes, not often, but sometimes, he cracks, and it's a sight to behold! I've only ever heard him swear once in all the time I've known him, and that was just before we were about to explode $50 worth of sparklers (ah our crazy teenage years!). Finish your PhD Nash, and I'll see you in Japan a couple of years from now. Ruro, we've had an interesting friendship. We were archenemies in the early days of high school, but eventually we became good friends. We give each other a lot more crap that anyone else I think, but despite that we somehow survive and get over it. I don't know exactly why it happens, but I do want to say that I respect you and value you as a friend. Thanks for organising a lot of stuff over the last couple of years when I pulled back a bit from all of that. Everyone did their fair share, but I know that you in particular helped to organise some of our biggest things (Ads' surprise party for one) and I really appreciated all the work you did. If you ever do get around to finalising your plans to go to Amsterdam make sure to drop me a line and we'll meet up. If you ever need someone to travel the world with you mate, I'm your man. Finally we have Wulfen. I consider you a better friend than a lot of high school friends. We may not have shared those five angsty teenage years together in the same school, but in same ways that's a good thing. We've hung out many times at your place, gone up the coast, or skiing, or to Japan together, and I've considered your a really close friend for a long time now. You're the most respectable of us all now, you've finished Uni completely (even though it was Griffith! ^_^), you've got yourself a fulltime job, you on track, headed the right way. You've always good for a laugh, and can take a surprising amount of crap from us all, but you never seem truly down about it, and you're always a happy constant. I'm really glad that we did get the chance to spend so much time together after high school; it certainly made these last four years a whole lot more fun. I'd like to thank all of my friends for all the good times we've had. You're a terrific bunch of guys and I don't think I could ask for a better group of friends. Then there is everyone else, my other school friends, my Uni friends, my Internet friends, my *we don't fit in any other category* friends. Sorry if I missed out naming anyone in particular. I'm a bit rushed for time at the moment, and so I had to do what I could. If I didn't mention you specifically please don't think that I'm not thinking of you. Cheers guys, for everything. I listened to a lot of songs while writing this, most notably Gomez's We Haven't Turned Around.

Fun and Study

Friends I just received an email from Noriko (the girl who doesn't want to grow up).

> hello! > how are you? > > i heard you will go to england for study from jared. > please have fun and study hard. > > o(^-^)o

Thanks Noriko, I'll do my best! Fortunately fun and study aren't mutually exclusive. Less than twelve hours to go. I had better get packing!

Possessions

Personal I don't know if I explained it here before, but the reason I'm doing so much packing and why I'm giving away a lot of my stuff, or throwing a great many things out, is that my mother's selling the house while I'm gone (in fact it goes on the market the week after I leave). We three boys have almost all flown the coop now. Jeremy left a couple of months ago, I'm leaving now, and Eddie is due to move out soon too. A large six-bedroom house is just far too big for one person. So Mum's selling up, and she is moving into the middle of the city, to an apartment at West End. She actually got a contract signed yesterday on the place she wants to move to, so she’s really excited. So my room will be gone by the time I get back, and mum won't have anywhere to put my stuff. I've lived in big houses all my life, and consequently I've accumulated a heap of stuff. As of right now though, furniture aside, all of the possessions that I'm leaving behind fit into three small boxes. I couldn't keep all my stuff, so I decided to completely start anew.

Moving, Just Keep Moving...

Friends - Games - Japan - Personal - Travel It's been a busy last couple of days.

• Firday, Fragma and I did some running around, I did some banking, paid my accommodation for the first semester, bought some stuff I needed from the shops, did last minute chores.
• Friday night, Wulfen, Ads, Ruro, Skett, Nash and I went over to Fragma's to watch some Initial D.
• Saturday, I spent boxing up the rest of my stuff. It's almost all boxed away by this point.
• Saturday night, (from left to right) Scuzzy, Ads, Nash, Apollo, Wulfen, Dublex, Jimbo, Ruro and Fragma took me out to dinner.
• Sunday morning, Fragma and I went to see Littlewing off at the airport. She is going on a tour around Europe for three weeks and so I had to say a final goodbye to her earlier than everyone else.
• Sunday lunch, relatives and close friends of the family came over. We drank some beer, watched the cricket, and I was given more advice than I knew what to do with.
• Sunday night, Fragma and I went over to Nash's to see his new PS2 steering wheel setup, then we went to Wulfen's to pick up a copy of X-COM Aftermath, and then went back to my place to play it for about five hours.
• Monday, I started the long process of burning cds of all the important stuff on my computer and I went through all my clothes and got rid of four big garbage bags full of stuff I would never wear again.
• Monday night, Calvin came over (for the last time, our Monday night routine has come to an end), and then (multitasking again) we went to Ads's place to drop of some stuff, then to Wulfen's to drop off some more stuff (I've been giving away a lot of stuff I can't keep) and then to Chermside to play some DDR, Dance Freaks and Initial D for the last time.

And now I'm here writing this. I was going to go to bed, but I wanted to get this all out now while I have the time. It's been a really good last couple of days. I spent a great deal of time with my friends and family, and it emphasised just how much they all mean to me. There are a lot of thankyou's that need to be said, but I'll leave them for tomorrow night (^_^). I really should get some sleep now. I've got a lot of stuff to do tomorrow, there are still so many things left to organise, and I haven't even thought about starting to pack my backpack! Written while listening to Moving by Supergrass.

Prelude

Personal - Quotes "I'm beginning to feel like the curator of my own museum. A huge museum no one will ever visit, looked after for no one but myself." - Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

Midori

Books - Japan - Quotes Norwegian Wood - Haruki Murakami I just finished reading Norwegion Wood by Haruki Murakami. I'm becoming more addicted to Murakami's work with everything of his that I read. He is a great writer, and his stories are so refreshing. I also think it was the right time for me to read this book. It's about going away to University, about life and love and pain and loss. It reminded me a little of Catcher in the Rye in places. I think I'm going to have to re-read it before I go. I particularly liked the Midori character; she was intoxicating, perverted, spontaneous, cute and honest.

"So I made up my mind I was going to find someone who would love me unconditionally 365 days of the year. I was still in primary school at the time, but I made up my mind once and for all." "Wow", I said. "And did your search pay off?" "That's the hard part," said Midori. She watched the rising smoke for a while, thinking. "I guess I've been waiting so long I'm looking for perfection. That makes it tough." Waiting for the perfect love?" "No, even I know better than that. I'm looking for selfishness. Perfect selfishness. Like, say I tell you I want to eat strawberry shortbread. And you stop everything you're doing and run out and buy it for me. And you come back out of breath and get down on you knees and hold this strawberry shortbread out to me. And I say I don't want it anymore and throw it out the window. That's what I'm looking for." "I'm not sure that has anything to do with love," I said with some amazement. "It does," she said. "You just don't know it. There are times in a girl's life when things like that are incredibly important." "Things like throwing strawberry shortbread out the window?" "Exactly. And when I do it, I want the man to apologize to me. 'Now I see, Midori. What a fool I've been! I should have known that you would lose your desire for strawberry shortbread. I have all the intelligence and sensitivity of a piece of donkey shit. To make it up to you, I'll go out and buy you something else. What would you like? Chocolate mousse? Cheesecake?" "So then what?" "So then I'd give him all the love he deserves for what he's done." "Sounds crazy to me." "Well, to me, that's what love is. Not that anyone can understand me, though." Midori gave her head a little shake against my shoulder. "For a certain kind of person, love begins from something tiny or silly. From something like that or it doesn't begin at all." Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood, pp:99-100 (Jay Rubin translation).

I like everything about this book, so much so that I'm going to take it with me. Sacrifice some of the scarce free room in my backpack, and bring it along. I might have to bring one less pair of socks! I'm listening to Norwegian Wood by the Beatles at the moment (of course!).

You Can Never Ever Leave Without Leaving A Piece Of Youth

Personal - Television The series finale of Dawson's Creek was on this afternoon. Joey ended up with Pacey. I wish she has chosen Dawson. I've always liked Dawson's Creek. I started watching it when I was fifteen, when Dawson and Joey and Pacey were fifteen. I've grown up with them, been angsty with them, analysed life with them. Sure it's cheesy teen drama, but I love it. The characters meant a lot to me, their problems were real, even if their vocabulary wasn't. I was disappointed by the ending, I had hoped things would turn out differently. Everyone was happy in the end though, so I guess I must be too. It's almost time to go. I've been listening to Everloving by Moby a lot lately. I'm glad there are no words. There doesn't need to be.

In The Arms Of Sleep

Personal

What Neon Genesis Evangelion character are you? I normally never do these things, though the result on this one didn't surprise me much. To quote Faithless, "I can't get no sleep."

I'm Going Back To The Start

Friends It’s been an interesting last couple of days. I’ve been multi-tasking recently. With such a short time to go before I’m off, I’ve had to make the most of my time as possible, which has meant that I don’t just hang out with friends, I get them to help me pack, or take some of my stuff, or go shopping with me. I haven’t had to time to just sit and spend some real quality time with most of my friends unfortunately, I spend time with them, but it’s normally while doing other stuff. Saturday I went shopping with Littlewing in the city. We had had an argument the night before, but I don’t think it affected our day to any great extent. I’ve always been good at putting on masks, so though we hadn’t actually resolved anything (we never do), we had fun, and it was relaxing, just like old times. Whatever they are. We had coffee, I bought some jeans, Littlewing got an mp3 player, I picked up my plane tickets, and then we parted. More than half a day gone, just like that. After saying goodbye to Littlewing I went to Colorado to meet up with Jacqui, who was in my Business Policy and Strategy group last semester. I had a lot of fun in Policy and Strategy, and one of the main reasons for that was that I was in a terrific group (it had to happen sometime in my four years of Uni). Anyway so Jacqui got off work and we went to have some coffee (she is trying to cut back, but I’m not yet ^^). We talked about going away and keeping in touch. Jacqui might actually be coming to the UK to live later in the year. I told her about GenesisDreams, so hopefully she will remember to check it ^_^. We talked for ages, and then suddenly she checked her phone and it had fourteen missed calls. It turns out she was supposed to be at a dinner for her brother who was just starting a new job (sorry for making her late mate). So we walked to the train station and said a hurried goodbye. For the last couple of weeks I had been telling everyone to keep Saturday night free, because it was the last Saturday I had the whole place to my self and I wanted to do *something* in the way a going away party. There was little actual organisation, I just said, “Come to my place.” and left it at that. Those who cared came, those who didn’t… didn’t. About half an hour after I got back from the city Littlewing came over bearing gifts (in the form of chips and drinks).We had a chat and then I left her to write a guest entry while I went downstairs to welcome rurouni, ads and nash, who had all just arrived. This first thing I did was give them a heap of stuff (I was giving out presents at my own going away party!), stuff that I wanted, but couldn’t keep, that I knew they would find useful. The rest of the guys eventually showed up, and we all jumped in the pool. We were listening to 80’s music, and getting progressively drunk, and things got a little crazy. Somehow all my pool furniture ended up in the pool, and then something else was thrown in. The downstairs floor of my house was covered in water and there were wet towels everywhere. I was great fun! After we graduated out of the pool, some pizza arrived (I have no idea where it came from) and then we moved away from the complete drunken craziness stage into a more mellow, contemplative time, where we sat around, talked about old times, and just hung out. Things had calmed down, or so I had thought. While I was off talking Gatsby, things got a little out of hand in my kitchen. I only discovered it well after the fact, and don’t worry Calvin, I thought it was pretty funny, no real damage done. Oh yes, I actually own two Mariah Carey CDs. They were presents from my Aunt, who sent them over from Cambodia and really missed the mark when it comes to my musical tastes. So the night ran down, people started heading off, or crashing for the night. I’ve missed out on a whole lot of what happened, but that’s good I think. Some things are better remembered in a happy haze, than in the harsh light of reality. I know some people thought they said some pretty messed up things, but overall I think it was a good night. Guys feel free to add your own comments (oh what you can remember) if you want. So the next day I awoke to find Calvin had skipped out on me, I guess he didn’t want to face my wrath, and so I got to cleaning up. I was planning on dropping into a BBQ that Jacqui was holding before I went out that afternoon, but plans changed and I didn’t have enough time to get down to her place and back again (sorry Jacqui). Now there is a week and a half before I go.

Missing

Guest Entry Hey, this is littlewing doing a guest entry. Michael has put this upon me and I don't really want to coz I'm not into stealing anyone's thunder or anything but here I am. Michael and I had a pretty cool day together. We met up in town and did some final "things before going away" stuff. It was pretty strange for a while there because we've been arguing again. We seem to do a lot of that lately which is stupid because Michael's going away and because we're going to miss each other infinitely. I guess we analyse things way too much and should get on with just being friends rather than worying about whether or not we're true friends. God I sound like such a girl. Guys never write about this crap.... Anyway by the end of the day it felt like old times again... well sort of. I'm sitting here now among what's left of Michael's stuff that he hasn't packed away yet, wating for everyone to come over and have a "going away drink" if it could be called that and it's funny because even though I'm sitting here with all the stuff that's going to be left behind, I don't think it's going to hit me that Michael's gone away until I come back from my trip. I admit we don't see each other a great deal and we don't talk like we used to but he's still one of my closest friends in the world. I just hope he remembers that when he's a million miles away. So I guess I'm already in a state of missing Michael and missing the past but time goes on, the world's getting smaller and forever doesn't really have to exist if people don't want it to.

No One Ever Said It Would Be So Hard

Personal Or maybe not.

Nobody Said It Was Easy

Personal It's almost over.

Room Key

Personal - Travel I didn't do very much today. It was so hot that I spent most of my time in the pool. I'm now all shrivelled up like a prune, but at least I stayed cool. My bedroom is so bare. I've taken down all my posters, my wallscrolls, everything. All my ornaments are packed away, most of my books are gone, and there are hardly any traces of me left. I once thought that my bedroom was too childish, that I had held on to all of these things from my teenage years, and that I hadn't really evolved very much from that time. In fact if you took a picture of my room 5 years ago, it would look (apart from being in a different house) very similar to what it looked like a couple of weeks ago. It's like I have a "room signature" of sorts, which represents a compressed, summarised version of me. You could tell a lot about me by looking at the things in my room. Obvious things such as what books I like, the music I listen to, my hobbies, what clothes I wear, and more subtle things such as the way I organise my things, where I put important photos, and if I make my bed (that one can tell you a lot about my personality :P). I don't really spend much time in my bedroom; sleeping, reading, and that's about it. I don't "hang out" there, I don't study there (my bedroom desk is usually completely covered in junk), and I don't spend time with my friends there (they normally graffiti my stuff ^_^). Yet it's full (or was full) of all of these things from my childhood and teenage years. Well not anymore. Most of that stuff is gone now, or boxed away. My room at Nottingham will be rather sparse (and very small compared to my current bedroom) but that will give me a chance to start afresh, to collect a whole heap of new stuff, and develop a new room signature for the new me. And it’s almost time to go. I've been listening to The Scientist by Coldplay a lot recently (thanks Brendan for reminding me of it). At this exact time, two weeks from now, my plane will be taking off on it's way to the UK.

Ranma!

Friends - Japan Over the past two days Calvin and I watched the entire first season of Ranma ½. Ever since he first heard about it, Calvin's been obsessed with the idea of a "water-changing hermaphrodite" (his words). For those who don't know, Ramna is a martial artist who, after falling into the cursed spring of a drowned girl while training, turns into a girl whenever he is splashed with cold water. His father suffered a similar fate, except he turns into a giant panda when wet. Both can turn back to their normal forms when covered in hot water. The show is fairly old now, with the first season screening in 1989, but the animation quality is really good and the humour is still hilarious even after 15 years (and really, how can it possibly date ^_^). So Calvin came over Monday night, like he had been doing for the last couple of months, and after much messing around with codecs, we finally sat down for some Ranma goodness. We made it through 7 episodes before Calvin was overcome with fatigue (I couldn't work out whether it was from laughing, or some strange illness). So we crashed for the night, to resume our watching the next day. Once we had completed all of season one Calvin suggested we drive to Wulfen's place and pick up some more episodes, but by that point I was well and truly Ranma'ed out, so we called it a day. I don't know where the time has gone since then. I did a little more final packing, cleaned up some of the mess we had made over the last couple of days, and replied to a few (long) emails I had gotten. I've got an ever-growing list of things I'm yet to do, but hopefully I will start to reduce it over the next couple of days. I'm trying to get most of my goodbyes done over the next week or so, which will leave me with a week of relative calmness before I'm off. Of course I'll probably spend most of that time hanging out with my close friends instead of making sure I've packed anything, but I think I prefer it that way. Written while listening to Stray Radio.

Just Like Honey

Friends Happy New Year everyone! I'm a little late, but then it's been a very lazy last couple of days. I ended up going to Wulfen's party for the big night. It was comfortable, all my old friends were there, and I had a lot of fun. The following night a couple of the guys came over my place (Mum’s down in Tasmania on holidays until the 15th, so I’ve got the place practically myself for the next couple of weeks). Nash had gotten a copy of Lost in Translation, and so we watched that while drinking sake. I was the only one who had seen in before, and the other guys really enjoyed it. "Let's never come here again, cos it would never be as much fun." I’ve got a lot to do over the next couple of weeks, but right now I’m content to laze about a little more.