An Open Letter to my Diary

Dear Diary,

When I flip through you, the ink on your pages doesn't form words. They're bloodstains, covering the walls after a brutal fist fight. Scars nobody can see, hidden beneath the clothing. A river, winding and snaking through the canyon it sliced out of its path.

I never used you to practice my cursive, or to draw little hearts with some girl's name attached to "Smudski." It wasn't some autobiography, blankly documenting my day to day life. There was no war to frame my struggles, no massive societal uprising or change that would have someday seen you published in bookstores around the world. The Diary of JJ Smudski would be titled, "An Angry, Angry Child."

As I read back through these pages, I got emotional. I wanted to cry. I could remember the nights-- sleepless, of course-- that I would pick you up and scribble out my anger. At people. At the world. At myself. And I read what I wrote, angsty and distressed at age 9, age 13, age 17, and all between... and I wish I could respond.

I wish I could tell you things would get better.

I wish I could tell you that you'd make the friends you wanted.

I wish I could tell you to stay away from her.

I wish I could tell you how to stand up for yourself.

I wish I could tell you not to say those things.

I wish I could tell you the truth.

And all of a sudden, diary, you've given me a moment of utmost clarity. You see, today, when I opened you, I opened you to vent once more. I wasn't planning to read through you, but all of a sudden, there I was, sitting with myself in a seventh grade classroom, urging myself not to cry. There I was, playing basketball with my past, telling it not to sweat missing the three-pointer. There I was, whispering the perfect comebacks to insults thrown at me years ago.

Five years from now, I'll open this book, and I'll want to waste another page with anger. But maybe I'll read through, and I'll see this entry, and it'll calm me down.

Because things got better.

Things will get better.

And, future JJ Smudski, they'll get better for you too.

Don't run out of pages,

JJ Smudski

I am so blank.

I am so afraid.

I'll pick out little objects around the room. The more interesting, the better. It's a corkscrew with a little slide out bottle opener? Oh, that's so cool, where can I get one? Is that a new TV? I had no idea you could install apps on them, now. My, your couch is so comfortable, did you really get it from Ikea? My eyes dart here and there around the room, picking out interesting little things that will distract the person I'm talking to if I start to delve too deep. Something I can bring up quickly. Something I can pretend to notice and marvel over until whoever I'm talking to forgets that I was finally about to open up to them. Other people prefer talking about their own lives anyway.

I am so confused.

I stand up straight, I look at your eyes, I do not try to speak. You are talking. You are explaining something, or asking me to do something, and I'd like to allow you to finish your thought. You pause for a moment, and give me a strange look. I'm about to ask what's wrong, but then you start talking again, slower this time. Strange, considering the urgency you showed before, but I'm in no particular rush if you aren't. I continue to listen. You're repeating yourself now. I wonder if you realize you're doing that, but I'm patient enough to let that slide and allow you to finish. Finally, another pause, and then you begin explaining-- in detail-- something you just said. A word, usually. Something I've known the meaning of for years. I'll interrupt you now, because your lack of faith in my intelligence is insulting. Of course I know what you mean, what makes you think I didn't?

"Well, you weren't saying anything," you respond.

I am so hateful.

My entire life, I have been taught not to objectify women. I was taught not to degrade them, not to abuse them, and not to emotionally manipulate them. I was taught that each and every woman has a beautiful heart, soul, and mind. That women should be cherished and adored. That their work and their voices are important to humanity. That they shouldn't be reduced to their body, and that they are never, under any circumstances, a sex toy. I've been taught that men and women work best when they work together. That men and women should lift each other up instead of tearing each other down. I was taught, from a very young age, that every woman deserves the utmost respect. Each one of these moral certainties was taught to me by the Catholic Church, an organization I've since been "informed" is hellbent on waging war against womanhood as a whole.

I am so creepy.

I'll analyze everything you said to me as I fall asleep that night. Were you trying to make some sort of implication with that statement? Did you disregard my response because you didn't care what I had to say, or because I reminded you of something you care about much more deeply? Were you, dare I say it, flirting with me? I'll analyze every word, every inflection, every face you made while we were talking and try to convince myself the conversation went well. This is necessary, because by the time I'm lying in bed, analyzing everything you said, I've already gone over everything I said. I went over it on the bus-ride home. God, why did I say that? How could I have said it better? Would you have responded differently to that? Could we have taken the conversation in a different direction? What if we had? Would things have gone better? Worse? And somewhere in the middle of all of this rumination, I glance around the bus, notice the people staring at me, and clamp my mouth shut. I hadn't even realized that I was muttering every sentence I could have said to you under my breath. 

I am so blank.

They've got that smile on their face, oh God. That kind of guilty smile, the one where they're about to say something mildly offensive that will probably be much more entertaining (to them) than it is offensive (to me). And then they say it, maybe with different words, but always with the same structure--

"You know, you're much smarter than I thought. No, really, I kind of thought you were an idiot when I met you. I mean, I know now that you aren't, but..."

And they expect me to take it lightly. Outwardly, I do. They don't think that way of me anymore, why should I express my anger? But I'll ask them, still, what made them think that. They never know. They're never able to tell me. It was just something about the way I acted. I don't act smart, you see, so it's not so obvious. They start to assure me after that. It's a good thing, really! To be consistently mistaken for an idiot, yes, I can certainly see why that's a "good thing." Sure. And as they power through their half-assed explanation of my apparent dim-wittedness, I can't help but notice their whimsical, nervous smile that hasn't quite gone away, and I start to wonder what my face looks like when I'm talking to people.

Fast Food Etiquette Part 3: Aussie Fast Food, Ranked by an American

Fast Food: Is your greasy, little, guilty-pleasure, fake-meat and trans-fat stuffed sandwich a staple of American culture? Or is it a staple of the Western World as a whole? I, like many before me, believe the latter. Any society where a bright young chap with a ten dollar bill can treat himself to a hot, dripping burger or a spicy, over-sauced taco in less than 3 minutes is a society where the virtues of civilization have prevailed. Australia, down under as it may be, is on top of its fast food game. Today, follow me, as we explore the familiar, the exotic, and the delicacies of dirt-cheap fine dining down under.

10. Subway

"Hi, Can I get a footlong Spicy Italian?"
"...a footlong what?"

This was about the moment I realized that while the fast food chains surrounding me had familiar names, they would not have the same menus. I got really embarrassed, apologized, and then asked somebody else to go before me so that I could look at the menu and find out what Subway actually does serve in Australia. The nice thing, though, was that the sandwich-making method remained the same. Also, it was the only place in the country where I could use imperial measurements without somebody giving me side-eye and ranting about how screwed up America is for not using the metric system like *the rest of us* (I would usually nod and agree, yes 10s are easier to understand, no I did not pull "5280" out of my ass).

The Gem: The Pizza Sub, which is only my favorite menu item because it was the only one I ever ordered.

9. Macca's

Known abroad as "McDonald's."

Having experienced a different menu at Subway, and being familiar with the idea that McDonald's tends to conform its menu to the culture of the country it's in, I walked into Macca's excited to find out what surely-delicious and culturally important food I could order from them.

But nahh, the menu was almost exactly the same. Pity.

The Gem: "Create Your Taste," better known as "HOLY CRAP MACCA'S IS LETTING YOU BUILD YOUR OWN BURGER NOW!!" ...This fantastic reality is due in part to the widespread prevalence of electronic touchscreen ordering-kiosks in Australian McDonald's locations. So now that America is on it's "raise the minimum wage" kick, we'll probably have this one soon too. Somebody told me that they're already testing it at some American locations.

8. Pizza Hut

Pizza Hut in Australia tasted almost exactly like Pizza Hut in America. So I already know what you're thinking, "Gross," "That's gross," "Why would you even include it on this?"

Because if you ordered for pick-up online, you could get a large pepperoni deep dish pizza for AU$4.95, which, for those who haven't been thinking in conversion rates for the past five months, is less than four American dollars. That's why.

The Gem: The Four'N Twenty Stuffed Crust Pizza (pictured above). For those that don't know, Meat Pies are all the rage in Australia. Not as a fad or anything, they've been all the rage pretty much since the dinosaurs went extinct back in the 1890's. And if you're into Australian football, then they're quintessential. Anyway, for just about the best limited time offer to ever grace this Earth, Pizza Hut teamed up with hilariously named "Four'N Twenty Meat Pies" to create a UFO-shaped pizza with a crust stuffed to the brim with Wilbur, Sally, and all of your other favorite farm animals. The first time I got one, I ate the whole thing in one sitting.

7. Red Rooster

Possibly the only restaurant whose logo looks like a bird being spanked, Red Rooster is the first Australian-based fast-food joint on today's journey. Mostly because America does a damn good job of cultural imperialism, but also because it's the worst of Australian-based fast food. But I mean, like pizza, even if it's bad... it's still pretty good.

This restaurant is basically American KFC mixed with Boston Market. You'll understand why I specify "American" KFC a couple of entries down. But the gist is: Chicken sandwiches, chicken wraps, chicken legs, chicken breasts, whole chickens, and a multitude of side-dishes claiming to be home-made. The sandwiches were big, which I appreciated, but the price was too, which I did not appreciate.

The Gem: Uhh, Fried chicken. Of any kind. Is a gem. Duh.

6. Pretty much any Kebab place

Lies, lies, lies-- I never went to a Mr. Kebab. I did go to individually owned Kebab places all over the city (and country, tbh), though. Think "subway," but with a delicious, chunky-meat wrap instead of a sandwich pretending to be fresh and healthy. As one of my flatmates so elegantly and lovingly put it this semester, ".........Kebabs!"

The Gem: Lamb tastes really good in Australia. Like way better than Lamb in America. Maybe it's because they have so many of them. Or because they're really close to New Zealand... which has SO many of them.

5. KFC

One of my top ten favorite moments of this semester occurred while I was walking to KFC with some Australians. They were talking about how much they loved KFC (it's much more popular and widespread down under than up top) and I decided to ask, "Do any of you even know what Kentucky is?"
"...Is it a way of preparing chicken?"
"No, no, it's a city isn't it??"
"Wait-- is it in Louisiana??"
I still have no idea whether or not they were screwing with me.

The reason, I think, that KFC is so widespread in Australia is because the menu is completely different. They basically only sell chicken sandwiches. It's like a Chic-Fil-A, except you don't feel vaguely homophobic eating there (which is ironic as it is, because you're quite literally eating a cock). Also, they sell Mountain Dew in whatever their milliliter equivalent of a 20 ounce bottles is (I never bothered to pay attention. 650 maybe?), and that was always satisfying to me.

The Gem: The Zinger Chicken Taco. You see, Australia has this little problem that I like to call "Taco Bell Deprivation," because its citizens are deprived of Taco Bell (#ThanksAbbott). Australian KFC, which is owned by the same parent company as Taco Bell, is helping to cure this famine. Get this: Australian KFC is selling CHEESY GORDITA CRUNCHES with SPICY FRIED CHICKEN inside instead of fake beef. It is glorious. And it tastes just like Taco Bell.

4. Lord of the Fries

This place would be the Australian equivalent of an A&W restaurant, if people went to A&W for their crappy hot dogs and not their root beer floats. It's also the closest I was gonna get to Awesome fries in this country. You get these really thick, crunchy fries, and they have like 15 different sauces you can choose to put on top. My favorite? French Canadian sauce, which was just gravy and cheese.

I never had one of their burgers (I'm really not big on burgers, watch as I dispute that claim in the next entry), but their hot dogs were on point. I would pretty regularly get one with cheese, bacon, jalapeños and spicy ketchup. And they were long, which made the whole dining experience lenthy and filling.

The Gem: The Tijuana dog, which I just describe above. I could eat that for meal after meal, especially with the gravy fries. Just not the ...digestive stress.

3. Hungry Jack's

Known abroad as "Burger King."

"Wait, What??"
You heard me. Burger King is called Hungry Jack's down here. I don't know the specifics, but "Burger King" was already trademarked when it decided to expand to Australia. Personally, I like this name better. It makes me... hungry, I guess. Good for marketing.

It's a little known fact that Burger King tastes better than McDonald's back in America as well, but somehow, Hungry Jack's tastes better than Burger King. It's probably the fact that, unlike McDonalds, Hungry Jack's actually changed up their menu down under. Yeah, they've got whoppers, but they've also got stuff like "The Aussie," which has egg and beetroot on it (like just about every other Australian burger I ate), or the Peri-Peri-cheese burger, which I never actually tried, but have been told is "Like, literally the best."

The Gem: The Hashbrown Cheeseburger, which is exactly what it sounds like.

2. Guzman and Gomez

Imagine your life. Not bad right? Like it isn't the coolest life that's ever been lived, but it's definitely not mediocre either. You're in a good place. Things are looking up for the most part. You are loved.

Now imagine that life without Taco Bell, Chipotle, Q'Doba, or Pancheros.

That was my reality for the first couple of weeks I was here. No Mexican fast food in sight. I felt my life had no purpose, no direction. I told people I was "roughing it" because dammit it was just so rough. Without Mexican fast food, I was lost... and Guzman and Gomez was the light.

Tacos. Quesadillas. Nachos. Burritos! Churros! ENCHILADAS! CULTURALLY RELEVANT ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES! AND IT WAS FAST FOOD! My flatmates and I embarked on a string of bad eating-decisions after finding this place. Most of which was spicy. All of which was delicious.

The Gem: "Enchilada: Pick your favorite burrito, and we'll put cheese, guacamole, and sour cream on top!" (sorry for making you drool all over your favorite shirt, you should probably get that in the wash).

1. Pie Face

Coincidentally enough, I found out about this place on March 14th. Walking down the road, realizing that it was pie day, I asked my flatmate if we could stop in and grab a pie. He. Said. No. (Understandably too, we were running a bit late and the tram we needed wasn't even running. Stupid grand prix). That night though, I stopped in to grab on my way home. I was expecting, you know, like Grand Traverse Pie Company, like it would be full apple pies and maybe chocolate cream or pumpkin... you know, desert, right?

This is when I met the Australian Meat Pie.

Imagine a fast food place. A fast food place without a door. Basically a counter on the side of the street... selling freshly baked, hot, flakey, pie-shaped Hot Pockets. But Better.

I didn't know what I was getting myself into, that fateful march fourteenth. What would follow was a bittersweet love affair between man and pie, where the man would chomp away on a delicacy he knew he would be separated from indefinitely in just a few months' time. A few weeks' time. A few days' time. Tomorrow.

Wait what?
What?
What!?!?!?!???

I gotta get to pie face. I'm leaving tomorrow, I need one last Aussie meat pie.

The Gem: This store is a gem in itself. It is one of the things I will miss most about Australia, and something I hope desperately will appear in the United States at some point in my life.


But now that I'm coming home tomorrow, holy crap I cannot WAIT for Taco Bell.

Things I've Learned about America while Living in Australia

"Culture shock" is such a cliché, which is only part of the reason that I'm not going to use that term. Living in Australia hasn't been a culture shock, given its relative similarity to the United States. You know, when compared to like... Somalia or something. They aren't by any means the same, but there are a lot of similarities. When I first got here, the similarities between the US and Straya stood out a lot more than the differences. Hey, I could go to KFC and pick up a Mountain Dew, walk around the city or hail a taxi to get home. I bought some textbooks, walked to lecture, had a nice snack at the university union, and walked home. Friends and Big Bang Theory were on TV. Jurassic World was "coming soon to cinemas." I'm never more than a few minutes from a 7-Eleven. It was less of a culture shock, more of a "hey, everybody's talking with a different accent."

Culture shock? No. The real differences revealed themselves over time, until, finally, a couple of months in, there they were, staring me in the face, challenging me to think about how they compared to my own country and culture.

Here's a sampling of important things I've learned:

America is a police state. Our federal government spies on us. Our airports deem invasive measures necessities. Officers shoot people they could just as easily immobilize by tazing them. I can't even walk through my own neighborhood without being stopped, questioned, IDed, and searched if there's an officer there to witness it. I'll be the first to admit, while I'm in America, I am afraid of police officers. I am afraid of being stopped and accused of something that I didn't do simply because I am young and dress like a much more rebellious person than I am. Why am I afraid of this? Because it has happened to me multiple times. And I have the advantage of living in a community where an officer isn't going to pull a gun on me for making the wrong move-- an advantage that a lot of people throughout america do not have. And then, one day, I'm walking down the street in Melbourne, and I see a police officer standing next to a building. She looks up at me and I think, "Great, here comes the once over, she's gonna look at this beanie and flannel, and then come up to me, ask for my ID, ask where I'm headed, ask if I have any drugs in my pockets, ask to pat me down..." and as this situation was playing out in my head, the officer smiled at me, said "G'day!" and continued going about her business. ...This situation has played out in exactly the same way every single time I have seen a police officer in this country. I guess it's because here, police are actually meant to protect people, not just make money for the state. I'm honestly kind of dreading having to deal with it again when I get home.

High Fructose Corn Syrup has no excuse to exist. I don't mean to brag, but they use real sugar in this country, and things (soda/pop in particular) taste a heck of a lot better. One might say, "Alright, but HFCS is economically feasible because it's a byproduct of corn processing and therefore much less expensive." That's fantastic and all, but it kinda ignores the fact that HFCS is a known carcinogen and is highly addictive. A lot of people will discount those last two points if it's something with perceived benefits, like nicotine or tanning... but HFCS makes the product taste worse, so there isn't even that excuse. We shouldn't be putting up with the corner-cutting.

Sugar has no excuse to be in ketchup. All of that about HFCS being said, much less sugar is used in the food in this country. It's not in bread, or crackers, or ketchup, or really anything that isn't specifically sweet. And you know what? It doesn't need to be. Foods that aren't meant to be sweet taste just as good without sugar, and quite frankly, I'm pretty sure I owe that for some (if not all) of the weight I've lost here.

The drinking age really should be 18. When we talk about lowering the drinking age, people get defensive. We can't do that! People will start drinking even younger than they are now if that happens! We've gotta keep alcohol out of high schools! A lower drinking age, what a scandal! ...Except, hey, as pretty much everybody in the world knows, the legal drinking age has absolutely nothing to do with when people start drinking. Culture, on the other hand, does. Take America, for example. The drinking age is 21, yeah? And most of the people I know started drinking between 14 and 18, because high school parties happen, and everybody at least knows somebody with an older sibling (assuming they don't have one of their own). That's something that's just sort of part of American culture. Now let's take a look at Australia, where the drinking age is 18, and everybody I've asked has said they started drinking between 16 and 18. Did a lower drinking age put alcohol in the hands of high schoolers? The answer is: No more than it already does in America. We shouldn't have to wait to become an adult twice. Adults should be allowed to drink from the moment the state recognizes them as such.

The United States Dollar needs an update-- badly. Dollar bills are easily torn, easily copied, and practically get destroyed when they get wet. But these are just realities of having money, right? According to pretty much every other developed nation in the world: Wrong. Money here (and just about everywhere else these days) is waterproof, borderline indestructible, and is very specifically made to make counterfeiting damn near impossible. Different denominations are also different colors and lengths to make grabbing the right bill easier (with the added bonus of the "you can't pull the whole bleach a 5 and print a 20 on the paper so it passes the iodine test" thing). I looked into why the dollar bill hasn't joined the rest of the world in the future, and guess what I found out: the way it looks and feels now is "Classic." ...Yeah, that's literally the reason.

America exports more than you think... and imports less. They watch American TV. They watch American movies. They eat American fast food and shop at American stores. They drive American cars more than Americans do. That's not just Australia, either. Meeting other exchange students has taught me: that's the entire freaking world. But it's not like they just get everything from the states, they have their own media too. They have their own fast food, their own stores, their own everything. And how much of all of that makes its way to the United states? I'm rounding down a little bit here, but essentially none of it. It's a shame too, Americans are really missing out on some of this stuff (I'm looking at you, Pie Face).

America is beautiful. I know, I know, I'm in arguably the second most beautiful country in the world (just behind the one I'm visiting in three weeks), why am I talking about America? Here's why: America is comparable. Don't get me wrong, Australia is much better, and I'm not by any means calling America third, but... I keep seeing things and thinking "Oh, this reminds me of this place," or "this reminds me of that place," and now that I've taken the time to really appreciate how beautiful another country is, I keep realizing over and over that I have never truly appreciated how beautiful my own is. And now that I've experienced what real traveling is like... there's no way I'm gonna be able to stop myself from taking every opportunity to venture out appreciate that beauty when I come home.

This is by no means an exclusive list, and I'll probably realize a few more when I get home... but hey, it's definitely something to think about.

To Stand Out in the Blur

All of a sudden, time seems to stop. Nobody else notices, though. They're all still laughing with each other, leaning on the walls or stepping back and forth in place, another moment gone from just another day. Ordinary. But not for you. You look around the place, feel the wind in your hair, the sun on your neck, and you feel your smile. I mean really feel your smile. It's not just a placeholder, or the expression you've got plastered across your standard mug. It's a smile. A real smile. Like you've just finished laughing at a great joke, but nobody's said anything remotely funny. A true smile. A bit of pure happiness so bold that you didn't even notice it take control of your face. The type of smile that can stop time just long enough for you to think, "I will remember this moment for the rest of my life."

These are my favorite moments. Everybody's favorite moments, probably. Sure, you've got memories of good vacations, or class field trips, or concerts, or the things you did that deviated from your day to day life. You've got good stories to tell at parties, good stories for the ears of your closest friends only, sad stories you keep bottled away, the embarrassing stories that shaped your insecurities, and these are all solid memories... but the little happy moments are the best. Sitting on the roof and watching the sun set, just the three of us. Diving into the pool in the pouring rain, fully clothed because we were soaking wet anyway. Rolling down the windows and blasting that Fall Out Boy song to drown out our own terribly belted renditions. Realizing it's four in the morning, we'd really been talking for that long, and, holy crap, I'd made a new good friend. That one time Katie Pfannes made a "that's what she said" joke. Those fleeting, happy moments that stand out in the blur of the years gone by.

For me, most of those memories involve roller coasters. They're my favorite thing in the world. I'm totally obsessed with them. I check amusement park news daily. I read forums discussing rumors about what's gonna be built next at major amusement parks. Is Cedar Point getting a 223 foot tall Bolliger and Mabillard dive machine with a vertical drop and four inversions right next to Raptor and Blue Streak in 2016? Yeah, probably, and you would know that if you were as obsessed with roller coasters as I am. My friends call me a "walking encyclopedia" when it comes to this kind of stuff. We go to amusement parks, and they ask me questions about the roller coasters to try and trip me up. Who built this? What year? Which of these roller coasters is older? How tall is this? How fast does it go? Guys, stop trying, I can even tell you how many people ride the damn thing per hour.

But whenever I do something new, whenever I hit a landmark in my obsession, I have one of these moments. One of these fleeting moments, like hey, this is happening, and I just can't stop smiling.

I remember my first one, age four or five or something at Geagua Lake (back when it was Six Flags Ohio, and Sea World was still a separate park... and the park in general still existed). It was one of those little kid roller coasters that only gets to like 12 feet off the ground and runs the track twice because of how short it is. I'd spent most of the day at the park waiting with my mom while my dad and my oldest sister rode the bigger roller coasters, my other sister going on a couple with them. I remember looking up at them and thinking they were robot monsters. They reminded me of my transformers toys, which I often left mangled in mid-transformation because of how obnoxious they were. But then, hidden away, we found a roller coaster that my tiny brain could process... and I rode it over and over again for the rest of the day, smiling like crazy. I didn't realize, then, that I'd always remember that smile.

For the next couple of years we had season passes to Kings Island. They have slightly bigger "kids' coasters," and for a while Runaway Reptar and Adventure Express fun enough for me. But at age seven something happened. There's this little non-coaster ride that we would go that's right next to this massive, multi-inverting roller coaster called the Vortex. My older sisters and my dad were getting in line for the Vortex, while my cousins and I were supposed to be getting in line for littler, "safer" Shake Rattle Roll, but I absentmindedly followed the former. My mom saw this and raced after me, pulling me from the line and saying, "No, no, no, you don't want to ride that," and pointed up to the twisted metal monster I almost got in line for. Not fully comprehending what she was saying (and still thinking I was getting in line for Shake Rattle Roll) I said, "Yes I do." It took a minute, but I finally realized what I was in line for, and went with my mom to the smaller ride.

Those of you know know me well, though, know that I don't like admitting when I'm wrong. So I stood by my statement. Yes. I want to go on that huge, metal, monster-looking thing that goes upside down one, two, three.... uhhhh six times. And when we got off of Shake Rattle Roll, I went straight for it. My mom pulled me back again, telling me that I wasn't tall enough. Defeated, I moved on with my life.

That night we left Cincinnati, and I read in the park map that I was absolutely, 100%, definitely tall enough to ride the Vortex. It became my goal. We were going back in three weeks, and I would not stop talking about how I was going to ride the Vortex when we did. My dad said to me, "Why don't you go on the website and find out a little more about it?" perhaps believing that seeing actual statistics about how tall it was, or how fast it went would dissuade me from riding it. My parents were scared that I was too young for big roller coasters and that I would get hurt, but they were going to let me make the decision.

Bad idea.

I went on the website to read up on it (148 feet tall, SO COOOL!!) and soon after, I was going back to them telling them about how I was going to ride every roller coaster in the park when we went back. The one that flipped you upside down backwards, the 200 foot tall one, the 300 foot drop tower, the giant disk-pendulum that held you upside down, I was gonna go on evvvverrryything, and I knew every little fact there was to know about every ride at the park.

I was actually terrified, but they didn't need to know that.

That was only until I got to the top of the lift hill though. Riding that drop, flipping through those loops, screaming through the corkscrews... I loved it. I couldn't stop smiling. I got off the ride and got right back in line.

I was hooked.

Cedar Point and Kings Island and Busch Gardens and Kings Dominion and Michigan's Adventure and that roller coaster on the side of the expressway in florida and community fairs with creaky little roller coasters that I was terrified were going to fall apart but I went on anyway and thirteen years later, every time I ride something new I still smile like crazy. And for that reason, I remember my first ride on every roller coaster I've ever been on. All 58 of them. (my goal is 500, and I hope to have 80 by the end of this year).

Fast forward to 2015. I'm in Melbourne. Not Melbourne, Florida, I'm in Australia. A country that isn't exactly known for having great amusement parks (I knew what I was getting into... I looked into before I committed to the trip). In fact, the amusement parks here are all really small. Don't get me wrong, I'm totally going to them (next week, actually), but the week before last I did something better.

Going on a new roller coaster is fun and all, but this time, I went on an old roller coaster. A really old roller coaster. The oldest roller coaster in the world to be exact. The Scenic Railway, at Luna Park Melbourne.

And as I was standing in line for it I was looking around, thinking, holy crap, this is like... the coolest roller coaster related thing I've ever done. This was about to be a landmark for me. As I looked around at the people around me, laughing with each other, shifting back and forth, and just having a normal day at the crappy little amusement park in their neighborhood,

Time stopped for me, I was smiling huge, and I thanked God for that moment, that memory I would have for the rest of my life.

It was pretty fun, by the way. Kind of bumpy, but that was expected. There was even some air time (you know, like when you feel weightless going over a hill?). Not the best roller coaster I've ever been on, but definitely the oldest, and definitely one of the most likely to stand out when I think back on my life.

More Adventures from the Other Side of the World

This entire continent is a work of art. For example:

A bit of clarification:

A lot of people asked me what I meant in the title of my previous blog, "More Like Mel-Sunbourne," and I realize now that there was a pretty obvious disconnect between when I left America and when I arrived in Australia. A bit of information that I found out upon arrival: Melbourne is NOT pronounced Mel-born. It's pronounced Mel-burn. Also, don't put American emphasis on the R, you'll get made fun of.

Also, when I say I'm doing things in two different hemispheres, simultaneously, I mean two different hemispheres from the hemispheres that I am normally in.

Now that that's taken care of...

More Stories!

White Night

They're all about festivals in this city. This week, there was White-Night, a literally all-night-long festival with art and music all over the streets of the central business district. Buldings were lit up with holographic murals, theaters were offering free art films, drum lines were walking through the streets and stopping to allow people to mosh around them, people were walking, running, dancing all over the place... it was crazy. The city was (and, you know what? is) alive.

Also, the bars stayed open all night, which only made things more enjoyable.

Night Market

For those of you I haven't told, Melbourne (no! even in your head, read it correctly: mel-burn) has this huge open-air market called Queen Victoria Market. For those of you familiar with Ann Arbor, it's basically the Farmer's market, except it's about 25 times bigger, it's open almost every day, and people actually go there. You can buy anything there. Fresh fruit and veg? They got it. Fresh porterhouse steak? They got it (8 steaks for AU$15! ...which is like 12 real dollars). Clothes? They got it. Souvenirs?  They got it, and a lot of you will probably be receiving gifts because of that. Hats? Designer shoes? Dog food? Wallets and watches? Bed spreads and matching towel sets? They got it. They got it all. You can buy literally anything legal at this place (and probably several illegal things, too). The only downside is that they are usually closed by 2 or 3 in the afternoon.

And then there's Wednesdays.

Wednesdays during the summer that is, and this past Wednesday was actually the last one. Even with my limited time to experience it, though, it blew me away. What is "it," you ask? Night Market.

On Wednesday nights during the summer, the market reopens with food stands from restaurants all over the city, accompanied by several bars, live music, and entertainment. To sum it up in one sentence, I exited a pavilion to watch a guy juggle flaming knives while eating a basket full of churros. It was invigorating. Thousands of people were walking, laughing, and eating all sorts of inter-cultural food that was being prepared (grilled, pulled, smoked, rotisseried, mixed) right in front of us. The smells? If only there were words for it.

The fun thing was seeing signs labeled "Philly Cheese Steaks" and "Real Louisiana Chicken" and just knowing right off the bat that they were probably doing it wrong. But the really fun thing was eating a kangaroo steak burger that tasted better than any burger I've ever had in my entire life. Hoppin' good flavor. Ahem, flavour.

Wrong-Side-of-the-Road Trip

"Hey, do you wanna come camping on the beach and surfing with us next weekend?" is not a sentence I would ever rationally say "no" to. And so, one of my roommates, seven of his friends from back home and I embarked on what some, including me, would call an adventure. We rented a couple of campers...

...from "Wicked Campers," a somewhat hippy, apparently common, and incredibly racy (more on that later) rental company. These campers were actually pretty comfortable to sleep in, given the sleeping location...

Instead of hard ground beneath us, there was nothing. And the floors of the tents were padded.

The trip itself was epic. Day one, we drove down to Torquay to check out the beach we were going to surf at...

...Between bluffs, apparently. From there, we just drove along the coast, finding more beaches, running through the waves like we were on Baywatch, screaming "WOOOOOOOOO!" off the edges of cliffs, and we even found a lighthouse!

The fun thing about this lighthouse is that I'm pretty sure my dad has pictures of it that he downloaded off of the internet on his computer.

Then, the really fun part, we found a campsite, set up the tents, and made a bunch of burgers on a gas grill. It was great, camping in the middle of February? Unheard of. Also, every time a big bit me I freaked out a little bit that it could have been poisonous. I'll get back to you with developments on that front.

Day two: Surfing. We got up extremely early to head back to the beach in Torquay and surf. We took lessons (me for the second time, refresher I guess), learned how to "move with the board," and the caught some much larger waves than I was subject to on the Atlantic. Still got up on my board though! Which I'd call a pretty big success. Next stop? Ripping. I'll let you know how that goes from Sidney or the Gold Coast.

Next up was a tourist's dream:

For those of you with crappier computers, it's the entrance sign to Great Ocean Road, the hundred-kilometer, winding, mountain-side, ocean view slab of pavement that has been described by many as, "Holy s#!t, un-f^(king-believable!

A couple of points from the picture;

• No, we are not driving on the wrong side of the road.
• Yes, that is one of our campers in front of us.
• Yes, the car actually says "your thighs won't touch if my head's between them" on the back. It wasn't the worst thing about the car.
• The worst thing about the car, not pictured, was the giant portrait of a naked woman painted on the side of it.
• Remember when I said the rental company was racy?
• Yeah.

So Great Ocean Road was scenic,

beautiful,

stunning,

and really, just altogether unforgettable. I wish I had better pictures of it, but I was a little too entranced to be on my phone every few seconds.

Veering off for a bit, and wandering into the jungle (WARNING! SNAKES.), we found another nice bit of natural beauty.

Looking wasn't enough, though. We were on an adventure, weren't we? So we climbed through and over the rocks to get right up to it, stand in the mist, and enjoy the rush of the waterfall.

That night, same deal. Cooked and camped the night away, and the next day was just an exhausted drive back.

Broken Down

One more notable thing about the trip, our car broke down. Sort of. In the middle of a town called Forest, which was in the middle of the forest. We'd been running low on gas (ahem, petrol) for quite a while, and finding no servos on the Great Ocean Road, we turned off of it to find one... only to drive 30 kilometers down a windy, mountainside, literally, the drop off was centimeters from the side of the forest road... that didn't have a single petrol station. We stopped in forest (after passing the sign and making smart-ass remarks, "Thanks! Thank you sign for informing us! Forest! Who knew we were in a forest! I wouldn't have guessed,") to ask somebody where the nearest station was, and they laughed. About 30 more kilometers down the road, and then take a left. And then he biked off. The other camper (the naked lady one) had to find us and come to our rescue with a portable tank.

Driving on the Left Side of the Road

is so much easier than it looks.

Uni Melbourne

Did you pronounce it correctly in your head this time?

Sorry Northwestern, University of Melbourne is officially the most beautiful school I have ever seen. For those of you familiar with Ann Arbor, the whole thing looks like a maze of law-quads, mixed in with the occasional Ross-style building. The library I'm in right now looks like the first floor of Alice Loyd on steroids, and ALL of the lecture halls are all more akin to 180 chem than 140 lorch or the MLB. Today was my first day of classes for the semester, which is weird because it's been so long since I've been in classes... but also not weird because they are so similar to how classes work in the United States. The only real difference is the Australian perspective on what I'm studying.

That, though. That's like 70% of the reason I wanted to come here. A new perspective. Here we go, into the semester. Full swing. Let's get this party started.

More like Mel-Sunbourn

I'm gonna warn you right off the bat that you're gonna get sick of me telling you that I'm doing things in two different hemispheres, simultaneously.

It is currently a warm, sunny, 25 degrees in Melbourne, Victoria. I'm reclined on the third (or rather, 2nd) floor of my townhouse, legally (by two years) sipping a bottle of alcoholic cider, and looking out on a cluster of 200 meter tall buildings scraping the sky... in two different hemispheres, simultaneously. This week, I have met kangaroos, wallabies, wombats, Tasmanian devils (which are terrifying, by the way), cockatoos, dingos, koalas, and the world's smallest penguins.

I love this continent.

Stories of note

International Waters

Qantas airlines has free everything. I mean, except tickets, but the in-flight movies, meals, drinks, blankets, pillows, and headphones? Free. All of them. It was a nice break from American Airlines, where a single complimentary ginger-ale was the extent of their free things. The stewardess leaned over (I hurriedly paused The Social Network and pulled off my headphones) to serve me dinner (Beef rigatoni and butterscotch pudding that tasted like nothing, because I was on an airplane) and asked what I'd like to drink with my meal. A thought went through my head-- I was on an Australian airline, could luck be in my favor?

I asked her, "Is this flight employing the Australian drinking age, or the American drinking age?" with a specific downward inflection on the words "American drinking age" to imply disappointment if that were the answer.

She laughed for a good ten seconds before replying, "Australian, love. What'll you have?"

What I expected to be a long, boring flight ended up being a long and deep night's sleep, thanks to a couple of mini-bottles of shiraz. So deep, in fact, that I did not experience any jet-lag whatsoever the next day.

Stanley Street

"So do you love your apartment, or do you love your apartment?" is an exact quote from one of the agents from the company who set up my housing in Melbourne. The other one said something along the lines of, "Oh, you're living at Stanley Street? Lucky f**k."

By "apartment," they are referring to Semester in Australia's newest, and "by far the nicest" (another exact quote) location in Melbourne. Semester in Australia is a company that sets up affordable, hassle-free housing for students studying abroad in Australia, and they did not disappoint. I'm living in a spacious, three-story townhouse with a rooftop terrace in West Melbourne (a district so small, we're encouraged to simply tell people that we live in North Melbourne... a district so nice I wouldn't be surprised if the architects simply said, "Okay, we'll just mix all of the best aspects of downtown California and downtown Europe into one location.").

This is the view from the roof:

Yeah.

Wallaby Way

We booked this tour trip to Phillip Island ("we" being my roommates, some of one of my roommate's classmates, a dutch girl and I, and "Phillip Island" being one of the most beautiful places in the world). Before we got to the island, we stopped for lunch at this sanctuary for the rehabilitation of injured Australian wildlife. We legitimately had no idea that we would be stopping at this place until we were pulling into the parking lot. The tour guide told us where we were, and ended his statement/spiel with, "It's a bit cooler today, so the kangaroos and wallabies will probably hop up to you and interact with you. Feel free to buy some food to feed to them."

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Two Australian dollars ($1.60 in real money) later, we were walking down this trail past a sign with a silhouette of a wallaby next to an arrow, and we were surrounded. The little guys were timid, hopping around us until we poured a bit of... uh, well it looked like rabbit food mixed with corn kernels into our hands, crouched down, and held it out to them. Then they were digging their little noses into our hands, gobbling it up.

And then as we kept walking, we met some slightly taller friends...

But if we're friends on facebook, chances are you already knew about Roo, here.

The Phillip Island Penguin Parade

...Is exactly what it sounds like. After a trip to a stunningly scenic coastal path, which, oh, right, here you go:

...We went to the southern beach of the island, which was one of the southernmost points in what they called "mainland Australia" (by which they meant Australia that isn't Tasmania, because we weren't on the mainland) to watch hundreds of the world's smallest penguins waddle ashore to return to their nests and feed their families at sunset. I'd have pictures, but cameras weren't allowed. It was the most adorable thing I have ever experienced.

And it was in two different hemispheres, simultaneously. :)

2015 will be the best year of my life, so far

That's my new years resolution.

I'm a classic case of "drop the resolution right away fever" or whatever the kids are calling it these days. "Eat healthy" always turns into "Eat a salad with a couple meals a week and starve yourself when it doesn't work." "Do more homework" turns into "Stare at the book for a little while and say you tried." "Work out more often" turns into "Pretend to lift, using Cheetos as weights." Vague, because-it's-the-new-year goals don't work.

It's not like I don't go after my goals, I just need proper motivation. "It's a new year" isn't enough. Oh, hooray, our planet hurtled past an arbitrarily defined point relative to a massive flaming ball of nuclear fusion at several hundred thousand miles per hour, I guess that means I should have a beach body. Uhhhhh

I think it's time for a different approach.

We make resolutions because we want to make ourselves better. We want to make our lives better. Our world, our relationships, our jobs...

Why not just resolve to have a better year?

That could mean working out. It could mean having more fun. It could mean being more kind in the morning. It could mean making new friends. It could mean mending a relationship with a long lost friend. If we approach every situation thinking, "How can I make me/this/you/life/today better?" we can have a positive influence on our own lives, and on the lives of everybody around us.

And at the end of this year, I'll look back and think, "Wow. That was the best year of my life...

Let's do it again."

Happy New Year! I hope it's going to be the best year of your life (so far), too.