Adopted

That Zimbabwe boy I met at the bus stop, Tapiwa.
We went for a job interview together and we got it, we start tomorrow.
Couple of days ago at Uni I met all his friends and I feel like I just got adopted by a quarter of my city's Zimbabwean population. They're all serious studiers, so I've been holed up in the library and the computer labs with them, studying and studying and studying and playing weird math games. I have never had this much fun at Uni before! They're fucking hilarious!
I'm trying to remember all their names...
They're trying to make me remember their handshakes.
They're teaching me to swear, I can say 'Hi, how are you?', 'Fuck You!' and 'What's Up Bitch?'
Can't spell them though but I can say them and they like to spring it on me.

I'm sitting there quietly absorbed in my assignment and then I get an expectant hand shoved in front of me and a "Say it Tamble!" and so we do the fist, knuckle, palm, arm sliding, shoulder banging, finger tickling shake and I say "What's up Bitch" in Shona and they all laugh and clap.

I had dinner with them, they think it's funny that Australian kids can't cook. So they're teaching me...why do they all like chicken so much?

Right this second they're attempting to teach me gangsta slang, it isn't going to well because every time I go to open my mouth to say what they wanted me to say I just start giggling and I can't stop. I'm supposed to be saying 'poppin' right now but I just can't do it. Can't get it out past the laughing!

NAKED!! Dress Three...

Oh My God! I am so EXCITED! I just found a bunch of old CDs with stuff on from my computer that broke a few years ago, it started stuffing up and I had the good sense to back up most of the things onto some CDs. Then I forgot about them and I just found them now when I was looking for Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon soundtrack...Rev got me thinking about Chinese music. Go blame him because I just found the naked pics of me!!! WHOOOO!! YEAH!!! My tits are so nice! Anyway apart from naked DeTamble I also now have a whole heap of my old favourite songs from back in highschool. *high fives self* And Everybody Hurts - REM is on one of the CDs, I can't even begin to express how much I have missed this song...

On another note I like people's disregard of mouse pads at Uni. They're all pushed to the back of desks, strange that we all seem to have this universal hatred of mouse pads.

On Monday I was sitting at the Uni bus stop waiting ever so patiently with my Green iPod and I was on the second last seat, which is positioned so that I may lean against the wall but the last seat is not in such a wonderful position and so this boy came and sat down and being tired and there being no wall he just lay down on the seat and his elbow smacked into my knee. He apologised and I graciously forgave him and anyway he lay there, his head all of six inches from my thigh and he kept glancing up at me and smiling and cause he was cute I smiled back but generally tried to ignore him. Didn't work, we got talking, his name is Tapiwa, he's three days younger than me and has just moved here from Zimbabwe. A Zim boy. They're getting quite the rep at my Uni. We got on well and we hung out on Thursday, it was hilarious I had so much fun.

I know several Afri boys but no girls, so I have a question for you Ugandan girls. Do they always like to touch your hair constantly? See no White boys are allowed to touch my hair, it's just a known rule, for every girl, well I can only speak for White girls cause they're the only ones I know but I'm sure it must be the same for all girls, even girls from Mars. Don't touch our hair, first your hands probably aren't that clean and second you're messing it up!!! The White boys know this, and they never try to touch our hair, they know they're going to get slapped if they do. The only time they're allowed to touch our hair is if we're fucking them. But the Afri boys, noooooo, they love to touch my hair. It's all 'Hi Tambs' and a milisecond later their hands are all over my hair. Get off!! I'm not Buddha, stroking my hair will not bring you luck!! And it's not just the occasional brushing it off my face or something, it's constant, their hands are just touching constantly, wrapping it around their fingers, rubbing my head, pulling my hair for fucks sake one even started plaiting it!! WHAT THE HELL! I never tell them not to, I'm always too shocked and also quite amused so I just let them be. But please, why do they do it? The White boys never do it, it's just the Black boys! WHY? WHY? WHY?

TELL MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Welcome, Bitch!

Alright, Princess, this one is for you.

Australia's private (fee paying) and state (government) schools have always had a fear/despise relationship.

You see a group of private school kids walking down the street and they pass by one State kid and the Private kids all shut up and look away and the state kid walks through the middle of them, head held high.
State school children despise Private kids for being conditioned by their parents and their school to all be the same, to be weak little snobs. They can't even look at the State school kids, not even when they're in their groups, they can't handle anything that is different to them.
Private kids are terrified of State kids. I know, I've been to both sides and State kids think that the Private kids hate them, they think that's why the Private kids refuse to look at them but it's not true. Private kids won't acknowledge the presence of at State kid simply because they are scared of them.
It's not surprising though, the horror stories that come out of State schools, I'm sure you can imagine them...if you're having trouble, think hard drugs, alcohol abuse, sluts, violence, rape, suicides and children who are so depressed the only thing left for them is the pain as they slide the knife into their wrist.

But this wasn't what I wanted to write, I actually wanted to tell you all what happened in my first week of State school and why I was there.

I went to a Girls Private Catholic school and I was in trouble constantly. My hair was too long, I talked back to the teachers, I had my own opinions (which is why I am a blogger), I lied and forged my way out of every single PE lesson for over a year. I kissed the other girls, I flirted with my teachers, both sexes and I would walk the the kilometre to the boys school during lunch breaks and...well, you can guess :-) I even lied to the police once about a girl who disappeared, I said I knew nothing and then one day my Principal caught me in a compromising position with a boy down the side of the library and I was told that if I didn't get my act together I would be asked to leave. So instead of getting my act together I switched schools. Just like that, within the week. I chose a new school, I saw a girl in a uniform I liked and asked her which school she went to and off I went to enrol myself. So I switched, the dreaded switch, the switch you never ever make, from Private to State.

I loved it! It was like I'd come home. My third day there a Senior girl walked up to me in the bathroom, shoved me against the wall and snogged me. I was a little startled but no matter, some hot girl was kissing me and her hands were wandering ;-) Then she stepped back with her little posse "Welcome to our school, bitch," and off she went. I really liked the school, like really. It's was fucking awesome! Especially the Principal, I used to visit him every morning and I would flirt and he would give me a jelly bean. I rather miss it...

Smirks and Feels Proud

This is what Ashton Kutcher thinks of Australia:

Your favourite travel experience in Australia?
Ash: I did a 13-day tour of Australia knocking off Melbourne, Sydney and hanging out in Byron Bay. It was pretty extravagant — learnt how to surf and I drank a lot of beer. I mean Australian girls can drink, I mean I've never been so impressed with a woman's ability to hold down booze in my life. I went to college with a lot of alcoholics, but let me tell ya, Australian people can really put them back and I appreciate it. I appreciate it and I actually saw the sunrise over Bondi beach one morning because it was a long night, it was actually the end of a long night it wasn't really an intentional morning thing but we went to this fence we had to climb on this cliff to watch the sunrise from the east that was pretty fabulous. That's where the sun rises, from the east.
R: How romantic.
Ash: It was romantic; I was hitting on the publicist. There was a Fox publicist in Australia and I really thought I would close the deal but she was just a stiff gal, she would not.
R: It's all business with these girls.
Ash: And that's the trick about those Australian girls because you think that their drinking so much that it's going to make things easier. It doesn't, it really doesn't make things easier you know. You really think you've got a one up but you don't.

Mountain Surfing

Once upon a time, many years ago, two young children invented Mountain Surfing.

Now, Mountain Surfing is a strange and dangerous sport which DeTamble loves. I'll tell you what it is and I'll tell you how it came to be, so picture this...

DeTamble's version of Mountain Surfing, as displayed yesterday afternoon.

Dance, skip and generally bounce like a little goat up a steep mountain path. Wear your favourite blue summer dress, leave your long hair flowing down to your waist, place your green nano Apple iPod tenderly in your pocket, play Youssou N'Dour at the highest volume and hang the earphones around your neck. When you reach the summit after an hour or so, turn and laugh because the trees are so tall and so many that there is no view. It doesn't matter though, the view is not what you climbed for, the steep, dry, dusty, rocky path is what you came for. Stand, silent, survey the descent, note the larger rocks, the rising roots, the log which you will have to leap over, the sharp corner, the branch you will have to grab to prevent flying off the path. Now slide a foot forward, search for the unsettling, rolling feeling of the stones beneath your shoes, when you find it, don't fight it, let it carry you. Have you found it? Good, then run! Run slowly, the rolling stones will give you the speed, like riding a mini land slide. Whatever you do, don't stop running, or the slowed momentum will stop the stones rolling beneath your feet and you will crash into the nearest tree! It took you over an hour to reach the top but minutes to reach the bottom, you're flying, it's like skiing, but mind the rocks and don't forget to jump over that log! The gravel is flying beneath your feet, propelling you forward, don't stumble, keep the stones rolling! Then BAM! You're speeding down the side of the mountain at 5 metres a second and you come skidding out onto the path below, causing a shocked cyclist to slam on his brakes and stare at you, his mouth hanging open. You giggle at his surprised face, flick your hair over your shoulder, brush a few wattle flowers off your dress, tilt your head, give him a chirpy 'Hi' and a disarming smile and wander off. Glance back, he's still there, staring after you. Poor thing, he's never going to work out what a girl was doing up the mountain by herself or how she managed to come flying down it with such speed as to skid across the three metre path in front of him without lifting a foot. But see, that's the fun of Mountain Surfing, by the time you reach the lower half you don't need to run, you're going so fast you just need to hold out your arms for balance and occasionally jump over a large rock. Think of your shoes as the board and the rolling, sliding stones the sea, hence the name, Surfing. It's a high speed, adrenaline sport and it is stupidly dangerous but so much fun!!

I guess it's not a sport though, I mean how many people climb a mountain for the specific point of running and sliding down it? Can't be many. Or maybe there are lots of people, perhaps it's an underground sport, yet to make the proud leap into the Olympics. Do you do it? Are you as stupid as I am?

Once upon a time, many years ago, two young children invented Mountain Surfing.

These two children belonged to a larger group of children who all lived on a community farm. Some days the children would go and help their parents in the fields or they would be sent off to walk the six kilometres to the letter box and some days they were just allowed to play. Now, one day these children decided that it was time to climb the mountain that towered above the western side of the property. They'd heard tell that there was a waterfall up there but no one they knew had actually seen it, so they decided to find it. They set off early in the day, after filling up on an extra big breakfast since they knew they'd not be home for lunch. They left the farm house, clomped across the narrow wooden bridge, skipped past their caravans, raced up the hill, dodging the cow pats and thistles and started up the side of the mountain. After a while they found a goat path and followed that, up and up they went, for hours. The path they were using started to fade but they were still no where near the top. They stopped and flopped down into the cool grass, no one spoke, they were happy just listening to the whip birds and the blue seeking bower birds. Suddenly David sat up, "Water! I can hear water", he cried. The children sprang to their feet. "Where? Where?' they chorused. David set off at a run and his friends sprinted after him, crashing through the undergrowth, ducking branches, leaping over fallen trees. They burst through the trees and came to sudden halting stop feet away from the edge of a cliff! David crept to the edge of the cliff and stared down and there, only six metres below was a beautiful, crystal clear pool and a water fall was spilling over the edge of the very cliff they stood upon. Bradley and Michael were sent down to see how deep the water was below the falls, to see if there were any rocks. Their voices echoed the all clear up the side of the mountain and Tom, being the most reckless, slipped into the fall and went flying over the edge in a spray of white water! The rest of the day was spent in a giddy, water logged happiness. And then it was time to go home, the sun was low and they had three hours of path to traipse down. They all raced up the rocks to the waterfall for one last flying decent but they were careless and the rocks were slippery and one of them fell. Little Galaxy* slipped and fell onto a rock, he landed on his back but his head had slipped below the water. There was a stunned silence, even the water seemed to have stopped flowing and then everyone moved. The girl at the top leapt off the side of the cliff and swam towards the younger boy, trying to push his head out of the water. The older boys stopped climbing and slid down over the rocks, racing into the water to pull his limp body off the rock. Galaxy's eyes flickered open and he began to cry. Blood was pouring from his head and the bruises were already appearing on his small body. A hurried plan was made, the older boys would carry him to the top and between them and the other children they'd carry Galaxy home but they didn't know how hurt he was or how long it would take them and the sun was getting lower and lower. So the two fastest children were told to run home and find the adults! A boy, Liam and the girl who had held Galaxy's head above the water scurried up the cliff and ran. The path was steep and there were many small rocks, making them slide, losing their balance and grab for the nearest branch. After a while of trying to run, overbalancing and gashing their knees it occurred to them that they shouldn't fight with the sliding, rolling, tumbling rocks and so Mountain Surfing was born. It hurt, they wore no shoes and the rocks cut into their feet but they made it to the foot of the mountain so fast they had to stop and stare back up at it to make sure they really had reached the bottom. They looked at each other for a moment, surprised and then they began to run again. The sun was twinkling through the top of the trees, the light would be gone soon, so they cut through the back field, running through the thistles and stinging nettles, brushing away tears with dirty hands. Reaching the barbed wire fence they flung themselves under it, grazing their faces and then they split. The boy ran towards the farm house and the girl sprinted into the fields screaming out for a parent. Torches were grabbed and the fathers ran off towards the mountain. The two children wanted to go back to show them the way but the mothers took one look at them and forbade them to leave the house, since they were both covered in blood from the hundreds of cuts that etched their skin. Hours later they came back and the doctor was waiting for Galaxy, nothing too serious, a broken wrist, concussion and severe bruising to his torso but he'd be fine.

The children were forbidden to ever go back up the mountain and they obeyed...for about a month. Except the next time they went up it wasn't for the waterfall, it was to teach the other children to Mountain Surf, but this time, they took shoes.

--

*Galaxy is his real name. What can I say, our parents were hippies. Galaxy, Tripty and DeTamble...the rest of the children were blessed with more normal names.

Goodmorning Sunshine!!!!!!! The Earth Says Hello!!!

DeTamble is back.

DeTamble is good.

DeTamble is highly amused.

DeTamble is laughing at Comrade as he hurls himself off a cliff!

To Hunk

I'm not going to Uni tomorrow, I can't face it, I'm too depressed.
I feel like I'm dying, this is the worst time ever. I feel like fuck :'(
I think I should run for the hills, away from my own thoughts. Thinking things like this, and especially feeling like this is something I go out of my way to avoid. I feel broken around you. You waltzed into my life, skipped over the threshold, ignored the razor wire, armed guards and ferocious and ill-tempered guard geese, plonked yourself down on my bed, stretched out and started reading my most precious book and I'm left standing in the middle of the room
staring at you and wondering how the fuck you got in and why the fuck you're lying on my damn bed looking like a God?!?!

Who the hell are you?!?!

Ash Angel

I feel lost today. I woke up confused, the Weather is fucking with my mind. I even heard a rooster crowing for the first time since I was a small child living in the middle-of-no-where-Australia.

Ginger came over this afternoon, she said she is quitting work, I understand why, the place we work is horrible. The only reason I stay is because it's hard for children to find jobs here that will allow you the flexible hours to study. Ginger doesn't study, she lives at home, has every need catered for and pays nothing. I envy her, I dream of quitting but then the sharp reality that I would be left standing in line at a homeless shelter, hoping that tonight, maybe there will be room for me. Some days I wish that someone would come in with a gun and just shoot me so I never have to go back to that place.

The thought of her leaving me alone in that place is depressive. Amby left last month. Bee is still there but we aren't allowed to speak to each other any more because the new boss is a psycho.
And Tom, he has become a know-it-all workaholic who has sold his soul to 'the company' and it disgusts me and in turn he despises Ginger and I for daring to dislike and disregard 'the company'.

After she left I went for a walk, the smoke is gone and I'm missing it intensely. I don't know why though, it seems stupid to miss. Normally I walk along the main road but today I turned left and went straight into the bush. I don't know where I went exactly, I walked for hours, mainly through overgrown spiky grass and dried, broken branches. My legs are covered in scratches and my feet were black with soot. I found where the fire had been, I felt like making an ash angel but that would have been silly. Instead I went down to the dried creek bed and dug a hole in the gravel until a long black snake came by and I vacated. I climbed a tree instead and swung upside down from a branch until I got bored and wandered along the storm water pipe for a kilometre. Eventually I found a house that bordered the creek and crept through their back yard and back onto a street. I don't know why I went exploring, it just made me feel worse, lonely and wondering what happened to all those children I used to play with. Sometimes I wish I hadn't moved so often as a kid, I am 19 and I have lived in 18 different houses and one of those houses I lived in for four years. We moved so often I was rarely enrolled in a school and spent most of my time playing alone by whichever creek was nearest to my house.

I'm feeling dead today and it certainly wasn't helped by your email. You there, with the glasses and short hair, you know who you are. Revenge, don't do it. I'll never forgive you and I will never speak to you again, though maybe you would like the no speaking part and if so, just say and I will be out. Gone. Like I never existed.

Rise My Sun

It is almost 5am and I am still awake. I am swamped in neglected study. I have been awake all night fighting with an assignment. I have an exam in 5 hours time and I'm not really prepared for it. This past month I have fallen seriously behind with my studies, I'm even a little ashamed by how long I have been neglecting them. Let's all blame Hunk :-D In fact I was hoping to catch up with Him tonight but circumstances didn't work out. I spent a good hour feeling sorry for myself but I guess it was for the best, since I know if He was around I would have got no work done at all. Not that I've got much done anyway.

Here, everything smells of smoke. Brisbane is surrounded on three sides by mountains and almost all of them are on fire. The city is covered in a light rust haze, everything and everyone smells of wood smoke and burning eucalyptus leaves. The fires this year are safe, almost unnoticeable, if it wasn't for the red smoke drifting across everything and the scent, this is what Australia smells like, burning trees. Some years are very bad, once my school was evacuated because the smoke was so thick you couldn't see more than 10 metres in front of you. School was cancelled the next day and I stood in my backyard and watched the ash fall like snow. The smoke lasted a month, I forgot what it was like to breathe fresh air. My school jumper still smells of that summer. I've washed it over and over but the smoke just won't leave it.

I'm hoping the sun will rise soon since it's very cold and I can no longer feel my fingers, I want to go stand underneath it and steal the warmth. Until then I'm just going to have to entertain myself by watching the smoke whirl underneath the street lights and maybe think about possibly traipsing back to that horrible assignment...maybe.

Edit: Exam is done and assignment is handed in, so you can all stop giving me shit now! :-)
Oh and walking to the bus stop this morning, that was not fun. Within the hour and half from posting this to leaving the house the smoke had gone wild! I couldn't even see the bottom of the hill and when I finally got down there it was just thick with brown smoke. It was horrible. My eyes were watering, my throat stung and I thought I was going to suffocate and/or choke to death. Nasty. It was pretty bad at Uni too, the fire alarm went off and the buildings were evacuated. I was really worried I wasn't going to be able to get back in and finish my assignment, but I snuck away from the security men and slipped in the side door :-)

Where Are You?

This is for Ugandan Fan! You swung by mine a while ago. Where are you? Come back!!

For everyone else, Hunk, it's in the end comments on the post below this one. See, scroll down to the previous post. Click on comments. Scroll down. That's all you are getting. Don't get too excited. It's nothing like what you want.