This one time, at base camp...

Base camp was unreal! I absolutely loved it and had heaps more fun than I thought I would. Loved it, loved it, loved it.

Yes, I did poop in a hole in the dirt.

Yes, it did rain.

Yes, I was sleeping.

Yes, I did get wet.

Yes, I did get eaten alive by mozzies (mosquitoes)

Yes, the top of my head did get sunburned. Badly.

Yes, they did tell me to wear a hat.

Yes, I went three days without changing my jocks or showering.

Yes, I absolutely loved it.

Yes, I would do it again in a heartbeat.

So now, let me tell you as much as I can about base camp. We arrived at the base of Mt. Beckworth on Friday afternoon and began setting up in our groups. There were three groups, all lead by fourth year students, with two leaders over everyone. My group had a total of nine people:  Myself, Joel, Jack, Matt, Will, Emily, Kelly, Jessenia, and our fourth year leader, Louise, aka "Terps."  Our group quickly named itself Purple Haze and got purple bandannas to wear throughout the camp. We laid down some ground rules, then set up camp. Now, when I thought "base camp" I thought tents. Wrong. We had two huge tarps, set up lean-to style. After setting up our tarps, we played lots of get-to-know-you sorts of games and really got close to each other. Then, I made a dinner of deviled sausages  (which were a huge hit and several people said they didn't eat that good at home) and we played some night games including the "chocolate game." I also go to spend some time talking with Heather, the department head for Outdoor Ed. She's a really nice, really cool lady from, get this, Ontario Canada. And there's more, she grew up ON GEORGIAN BAY!  My favorite game we played was a story telling game (of course). We sent two people off while the rest of us "came up with a story," when really, what we did was establish the rules. When they came back, we told them they had to guess the details of the story to figure it out, only what they didn't know was that if their questions ended in a vowel, we answered "yes" if they ended in a consonant, we answered "no" and if they ended in a Y we answered "maybe." Essentially, by guessing random details, they themselves wound an extravagant story about catching a forest on fire, the firemen floating into space, and knocking down a satellite which landed on my house, where I put out the fire. We then went to bed, where I slept outside the tarp to see the stars. However, it was cloudy, which meant I really couldn't see too many stars. Also, the clouds meant I got rained on during the night and quickly relocated to the tarp. I slept very poorly.

Day two, we woke up and had breakfast of oatmeal and went and played games for several hours with one of the other groups who had dubbed themselves "The Emus." We had a great time and had a lot of problem solving games which helped us work with each other as well as the Emus. Following that, we ate lunch of a taco-salad type wrap. We then packed up or tarps, loaded up our packs, and headed off into the bush. We got a crash course in navigation and set off to find various points on our maps. The, we were all taken individually to various points around the mountain and told just to reflect on nature/camp/ourselves/etc. for the next 30 min. I had a great time for that 30-40 minutes. This is what I wrote

What a rare moment this is. I'm on bushwalk on Mt. Beckworth and they've given us 30 min on our own to go and reflect. I'm at a peak, sitting on a boulder overlooking everything. Everything. I passed a kangaroo coming up here, except Terps said it was a wallaby. It's all the same to me. Another one just hopped by not 10 meters away. I'm dirty, sweaty, itchy, and smell bad, but I love this moment. I keep thinking about the crazy journey my life has taken to get me here. Seriously, it's unreal. A year ago, if you had told me I would by on top of a mountain in Australia, by myself, at this time, I wouldn't have believed you. This whole experience is still so surreal, I can't believe I'm here. It feels right, though. I was so unsure before, but now, I know it's right. I just can't get over how crazy this is. No one I will ever know will ever have this experience. That mekes all of this special to me. This moment--these short 30 minutes--are totally unique to me and my life and I'm so happy for that. My life is changed because of right now. This is living. This is happiness. This is my life. This is right.

We reunited after our "reflection" and Terps gave us the location for our camp that night and told us we could go off on our own to find it if we wanted. Of course I did. I left five minutes after the first group left and arrived at camp at least 15 minutes before anyone else. We set up camp, made dinner of pizza pasta, played more games, and went to bed with NO MOZZIES. I slept so well.

By the morning of day three, I had embraced my filth and no longer cared about trying to stay clean. However we all woke up to a rather unnerving sound which, for me, may have been scarier than for the others. I woke up to the sound of very angry sounding dogs barking. Mind you, we are way out in the bush. My first thought:  are there wolves in Australia? My second thought:  Dingoes. Turns out, there were trucks parked a few hundred meters away and the owners had left their dogs tied up in the back while they went off. We had pancakes for breakfast and did some orienteering. For those of you who may not know, orienteering is when you get a few points on a map and then must find your heading to them and search for a pre-placed marker in that area. We were told to work with people we hadn't yet worked with. I worked with Emily and Matt and announced that we were team "getting done first." We did. We then hiked to the summit of Mt. Beckworth and hung out, played games, ate lunch, and met up with The Emus. The last thing to do was debrief and get back to the buses. I challenged the Emus and told them we would beat them back. We did.

We got back, quickly unloaded, and got to our units for a MUCH needed shower.

I'm so glad I went and had so much fun. My group and my leader were amazing and I couldn't have picked a better group. Our personalities clicked very well and very quickly and everyone was supportive of everyone else. Terps was awesome and treated us like adults, not children, and really helped us learn for ourselves. I'm actually pretty bummed that I won't be with these same people for the next three years of camps.

I'm exhausted and need to pack and get myself ready for my trip to Cairns tomorrow. I'll update when I can but for now, here's some photos from camp.

Dinner

 Chocolate game. 

From left (Heather, Jessenia, Terps)

 Tarp 

 Ready to go on bushwalk 

 Below is the view from camp the second night 

 Camp night two 

 Looking south from camp 2 

 Apparently I look scared in tents 

 Pizza Pasta 

 Getting ahead in the morning 

 100 year old tree at the summit 

 Summit view. Wind farms waaaaaaaaaaay out there. 

 At the summit. To the left, Purple Haze, to the right, Emus. 

Sorry, I know this was a long post but I had so much fun on camp and it gave me a huge amount of confidence in many ways which I'll need, going off on my own tomorrow. 

Cheers mates

XOXOXOX

~Daniel 

Bombs Away

Last night was a lot of fun.

We went to Bluestone at about 9:30 and Bombs Away was supposed to go on at 10:30. I honestly couldn't tell you when they went on, but it wasn't 10:30. It was really odd, though, there wasn't a big introduction or anything like that. It just went from too loud club music to live, too loud club music. It took me a little bit before I realized, "oh, this is Bombs Away." Some of my mates had been making a lot of noise about how they had VIP passes and were going to get to be on stage with Bombs. I was standing next to the stage and saw Egypt up on stage. He pointed to his red wristband, which I'm assuming was the VIP tag, and flashed me a thumbs up and gleeful smile. So, I walked up on stage. Just walked up. Security? Nope. Turns out a VIP pass wasn't all that necessary. At one point, the lead singer or whoever, jumped into the crowd and went crowd surfing and Will grabbed his hat. A nice souvenir. Not to be outdone, I went up on stage and tried to walk off with one of the microphones that wasn't being used, which didn't work out for me. One of their sound techs saw me and told me to put it back. No luck.

The music wasn't really my thing. Not at all. It was just an 808 dance beat with a lot of bass that they would yell a catchy hook over. I was painfully unimpressed and that's all I'll say about it or I'll rant forever.

We (Me, Will, and Benny) left Bluestone for a club around the corner called Haida. It was a lot smaller and had a sort of hole in the wall feel to it. The music was a lot better, too. Will and I ran into the owner and talked to him for a while and he ended up buying us drinks. Will's "Bomb Squad" hat that he had gotten from the show was a big hit and there were a lot of people trying to snag it off his head and kept asking if he was with the band.  I also ran into a guy who just loved that I was from the same town as The Simpsons. That actually happens a lot.

We got back around 3:30 and I made a bacon, onion, tomato, and cheese omelet before bed.

Tomorrow I leave for a three day basecamp which should be pretty good. April 2 I fly out to Cairns for five days, then to Sydney for three days, then to Albury to spend a few days with Will and his family before we drive back on the 14. I'm torn that I don't get to spend those last few days in Melbourne but I'm going to try to stay up there from the 25 to the 29th. It's a super long weekend for me.

Oh, and Will injured himself dancing. Classic.

Hope everything is going well with you and yours.

Stay classy
~D

Today

Today was a good day.

Today I got a little overwhelmed with school, realizing I had two papers to write by the end of the week.

Today I skipped lunch.

Today Maryjane skyped me and I had a wonderful conversation with her and Alison. I hadn't seen Alison since I left and she told me to shave my mustache. She told me she wasn't going to shave until I did. I hope she can live with that.

Today I cranked out both papers I had due. Tomorrow I'll edit them.

Today when I got hungry, I had leftover bacon and mushroom risotto and grilled cheese.

Today Res Tea was actually good.

Today I decided if I was an MC, my name would be Phase...or Phaze...or Faze...
                                              ....but if you wanted to take that name for yourself, I'd be cool with it.

Today I got to skype with my parents.

Today I got an email from my grandfather.

Today I told Alex and Teish a bedtime story. It runs in my genes.

Today I heard new music from my boy Loogey.

Today I cleaned my room.

Today I ate bulk amounts of chocolate.

Today I watched a few episodes of Big Bang Theory to celebrate finishing my homework.

Today I'm tired and ready for bed at midnight.

Today was a good day.

Not every day can be a good day. Sometimes you have bad days. But that's okay. Just remember on those bad days to breathe. It's not a bad life, it's just a bad day.

I'll see you in a few short months.

I hope you had a good day, too.
~D

Continuum

If you're just looking at this post, check out the one before this, they're probably both new to you.

As promised. Here are some recent photos

I don't care who you are. This is just gorgeous. 

 Lamb Wellington with Port gravy and Port. 

 This one's for you, Grandpa Larry. 

 Megan Massacre on the cover of Inked

 Above and below are pictures of Sam Clark's tattoos. Mind=blown. 

I was cooking tonight and realized it's going to be hard for me to say goodbye to everyone here. I worried for nearly half a year about saying goodbye to everyone in Springfield. It took six weeks for everyone and everything here in AU to become familiar and family. It won't be as hard for me to say goodbye here as it was there, but let the vicious cycle begin. Bring on the reverse culture shock. 

So much love to everyone in the US who has kept in contact via anything. You all are the best. 

~Daniel 

Itching

I'm itching to be tattooed.

I woke up this morning and Will asked if I wanted to go into town and get tattoos, just for the sake of it. I would if I wasn't heading up to the Great Barrier Reef next week. Nathan encouraged me to get the latest issue of Inked Magazine because Megan Massacre--a gorgeous model and brilliant tattoo artist out of NYC--was on the cover of the Australia/NZ issue. I'm so glad I got the magazine because it highlighted a lot of really great shops/artists in AU. One artist in particular, Sam Clark, completely blew me away. His work is very colorful, hugely realistic and lifelike, and very abstract, as well. Check him out if you care. He's worth your time. I emailed him today to see if I could get an appointment before I go back to the US. Fingers crossed.

Yesterday was Friday, which means I made tea for everyone. Taco night was a huge success in some respects and a flop in others. It was a success in the way that it was SO delicious and quenched my hankering for tacos, however, it was a flop in the way that nearly everyone had gone home and I only was making tacos for four people, which I didn't know, and had enough food for eight. Oh well, I used the leftovers for a taco salad today.

Tonight, I'm making lamb wellington with Port gravy. I'm also reserving beds in hostels in Cairns, Sydney, and Melbourne and buying my plane tickets. Easter break, here I come. I'm also excited to try a Cabernet that I bought last night by Wine Men of Gotham. Speaking of wine, I bought a bottle of Port for the recipe tonight and tried it last night. It's called The Wise One, and it was very good. I had never had a Port before and really enjoyed it.

I met a guy named Egypt the other night, I don't know if I told you that. He's been hanging out more and he's a solid bloke.

A few days ago, I left my door open while I was gone. Alex and Teish took this opportunity to cover my windows in blue and red sticky notes which spelled out "ALEX TEISH [and a heart]." Speaking of Teish, I was reading my tattoo magazine yesterday in the kitchen and I heard Teish throwing rocks at the widow. I came outside and she told me to "Hurry! Me and Marrie need you right now! You have to come! Please, hurry!" So I ran across to Marrie's dorm and found that the dire emergency was that they had papers due in 20 minutes and wanted me to finish doing Marrie's citations and proofread Teish's paper. I told them they should have found me three hours ago.

Have you ever heard of declassifying your Pineal gland? It sounds really interesting and I have a friend doing it. I'm interested to learn more about it. Look it up. Knowledge is power.

I'll probably post again later tonight with pictures of the wellington and other stuff.

Take care guys. I'm glad you're reading.
~D

Just Look Up

First of all, it is now my mother's birthday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!!!!!! She's a pretty great lady and also happens to be the best mom I've ever had. Everyone here always asks me how I learned to be a good cook and the first thing I always say is "I have a really good mum." And it's true! Good job, Mom, and thanks for being so great and trying so hard and being so supportive over the years. I'm sorry I'm not there to wish you happy birthday in person and hug your neck.

Life has been good. It's all been at a nice steady keel and I'm enjoying the stability.

I got to skype my brother today for the first time since I've been here. It was really good to see him. I've missed him more than anyone or anything back home. I also got to meet the new puppy--Cash--and can't wait until I get to meet him in person. It was funny, the first thing my brother said when he saw me was, you're growing a mustache?? Yes. I still am. Yes. It still looks awful. Yes. I am aware. No. There is no sign of me shaving in the near future, even though Teish tells me I need to, every day.

The cook off I was going to have against Alex has been changed to a cooking collaboration (upon her request) and the menu looks something like stuffed chicken breast or escalope of chicken with bacon and mushroom risotto and cheesecake. There will be pictures. I'm pretty sure that my Friday meal of the week for everyone is going to be tacos and I'm always excited about tacos. Yes, Dad, with the fried shells, just how you taught me:)

I've heard back from everyone I was planning to holiday with over Easter and it looks like I'm on my own. I'm actually pretty excited about being on my own, traveling Australia for nearly three weeks. I told Tyler and he said "Wow, talk about character development." I've always admired people who have just lived out of a backpack and hostels without a plan or care in the world. Pretty soon, that's going to be me. Great Barrier Reef, to Sydney Harbor Bridge, to the finest dining in Melbourne. Get excited!

Today I wrote during the day and, after dinner, went into town with Ash for some much needed grocery shopping. I also grabbed a bottle of Sake because tomorrow is "International Night" at Res Tea and the theme is Chinese. I figured you can't have a proper Chinese meal without sake and several of my mates have never tried it and I'm keen to introduce them!

The sky is so clear tonight. Milky Way clear. I took a few minutes, found a quiet spot on campus and just laid in the grass for a while to take it in. It reminded me of one of my favorite memories with my grandpa while we were in Canada and the whole family spent over two hours on our backs taking in the stars. I remember my grandpa, in awe, simply saying "Just look up." I sleep with my blinds open every night and stare into the sky before I'm going to bed. It makes me feel so small, and so significant, thinking that out of the whole expanse of everything out there, I'm here.

I met a guy from Egypt today. He actually lived in my room last year. He's white. He lived in Cairo during the revolution. He was a real cool guy and it reminded me of Courtney and all her stories from living through the revolution.

I talked to my friend in Tasmania today and she remarked how fast time is going by. It is. It's crazy to think about the fact I've been here almost six weeks now. It's blown by, just like everyone said it would.

Black Tar is coming along quite nice. I'm experimenting and doing things in it that I've never done in other work. I'm enjoying it. I'm also enjoying the academic writing I'm having/getting to do. It's sort of comforting that I still enjoy doing critiques and responses and research. It makes me feel like I'm in the right major.

Anyway, that's all for now. You stay classy out there.
~Daniel

Magic Trick

My bank account did a magic trick this morning when I woke up and suddenly had all my funds in it. What a relief!

So I'm going to tell a story on myself, but first I have to give some background.  One of my friends back home, Loogey, just released his new hip-hop album and it's fantastic. I've been listening to it for the past three days straight and can't get enough of it. Now, I credit my interest to good hip-hop to my very good friend, Tyler. Over the years, hip-hop has developed in our relationship to bring about one of our favorite activities which is to go into my basement late at night, turn on some loud freestyle beats, and have ourselves a rap battle. The best part is that we rap into a mic which is plugged into absolutely nothing--it really just makes us feel better about it all. Tyler always wins and we always have a fantastic time, no matter how good, bad, or horrible our lines might come out.

So, I talked to Tyler yesterday and we read each other some of the things we've been working on and he told me that an exercise he used to do was just freestyle to himself all the time in his head, or while he was alone in his car, etc. I've done this before and it's done a lot to help me write, not only in poetry, but in prose. Keeping this in mind, it's now just after midnight and I've walked from my unit, across the quad, to the laundry to pick up my washing, and back, all the while piecing together a long, coherent verse that I was really proud of. I capped the verse off in my head and dumped my laundry out onto my bed, forgetting that I had placed my box of powdered detergent at the bottom of my basket. I had covered my bed in soap and spent the next 20 minutes carefully trying to salvage the situation. I ended up not sleeping with my comforter, which was still covered in soap, and this lead to a very cold and poor night's sleep. But, as my grandfather would say, these are the kinds of problems to have.

Now, after typing that whole, rather long winded story out, I'm wondering if it was really worth it at all...

I spent most of yesterday, as I mentioned in my last post, planning my Easter vacation. I'm revamping things to try to go up to Cairns to visit the Great Barrier Reef and then spend an extended amount of time in Melbourne. Will also invited me to spend some time in Aubry. So we'll see.

Here's a story I don't think I ever told you. During the first week or two of school, I ran into Georgia at the club. Georgia is a girl from Ballarat that attended Missouri State on exchange last semester and who talked to me, at length, during orientation about coming to uni here. It was really cool to run into her and let her know how things were going!

Cheers guys.
~D

MC Origami

St. Patty's Day.
I stayed in and babysat last night. One of my roommates drank so much before going out to the club that he got lost between the unit and the cab and didn't make it. I kept and eye on him for the rest of the night and bandaged him when he left his hand on the hot stove. Sometime around midnight, a girl came into our unit and asked if I was going out. I told her no and she told me she had just brought Jacko home and that he was in bad shape and I should check on him every now and then. I immediately went down to 13 to find Jacko clinging to the bathroom sink trying to get water. Ghost white, he couldn't stand, couldn't walk, couldn't speak, couldn't sit up on his own. I took him into his room, took his shoes and jacket off, gave him some water and a trash can to spew into. I rolled him onto his side facing the trash can and turned off the light. I went back a few minutes later and he was passed out. I checked on him a few more times through the night and this morning he said he didn't remember anything past The Bridge, which was the pub he was at before he went to the club and threw up on the dance floor.

I rounded out the night by getting out of bed at 3:00 to make pancakes for everyone else who had come home.

Today I started planning my Easter break vacation. At this point, it looks like I'll be heading off on a three day base camp, followed by five days in Gold Coast (although I'm thinking about going up to Cairns in order to be closer to the Great Barrier Reef), followed by three days in Sydney, followed by four days in Melbourne. I talked to my best friend, Tyler, today and I told him how perfect Melbourne sounded and how everything I wanted to do sounded just like the sorts of things we did in NYC a few years ago. I'm really excited about Melbourne and might take a few random weekends just to go there on my own, stay in a hostel, and explore the city for myself. I told him how I realized the only other time in my life I might get to do this would be in another five years or so. Maybe. If life went just perfectly like that. Thinking about it, I thought it would be the best vacation/life experience to come back to MEL in a few years with Tyler and my brother and just live for a month. Just. Live.

I'm hoping to go skydiving in Sydney and climb the Harbor Bridge.

Tonight, I cooked two steaks for Ash that, together, weighed over 2.2 pounds. It was glorious.

 Steak and deep fried goodness. 

Take care guys.

Fight your demons every day you can. You won't always win. But you'll always lose if you never defend yourself.  

~D

So Many Titles

I wanted to name this post several things:
Holding Out On Me
It Might Be St. Patty's Day
Wake Up Call
Some Things Don't Wash Out

So, let's start from the top. Last night it was one of the roommate's birthdays. We were trying to figure out what to do about dinner and I asked him what his favorite food was. After a long moment of thought, he told me his favorite food was Chicken Paramasean. Easy enough. While I was collecting money and ideas from people before going grocery shopping, Ash told me to pick up few liters of oil so that he could fill up his....wait for it...DEEP FRYER!!!!!!!! He'd been holding out on me. I asked him what his problem was and why we hadn't been deep frying EVERYTHING for the past month. So we made some french fries (or "chips" over here) and they turned out perfect. Thanks, Nathan, for getting me a deep fryer for my birthday. The practice has payed off.

It might be St. Patty's Day if, while eating breakfast, you look out your window and see a guy hanging upside down and attempting to drink a beer out of a stein. Also, it might be SPD if, when you wake up, no one his home because they've all been out at the quad since 9 am. There's a fair amount of people with 5L Heineken kegs out on the quad. I don't know what the time frame is for them to finish them, but I'm sure they will. Everyone's getting amongst it here.

I've never been so happy to get a 7 am wake up call in my life. Since arriving, I have painfully discovered how obscenely difficult it can be to get money wired internationally when you are the only person who is allowed to touch your bank account in the US and you are thousands of miles away.  However, yesterday morning, after jumping through an endless number of hoops, my bank in the US called me to confirm my details and tell me they were finally sending my money. Even though this process has been painstaking, I've learned how to rub two pennies together and make three!

About a year ago, one of my friends, who is also one of the best drummers I've ever known, introduced me to the band You Me and Everyone We Know. Their album They Say Some Things Don't Wash Out, has been a good listen these past few weeks. Speaking of...I need to go do my washing.

A few more details about the past few days. One of the guys in 13 got Teish's room way worse than I have. He stole her mattress, pour water over her blankets, toilet papered her room, and smeared chocolate sauce all over walls. What I want to do is saran wrap her door so when she comes home late at night from the club she just bounces right off it.

Hip hop. First of all, huge congratulations to a good friend of our household, Logan Smith, aka Loogey, on his success with his new release:  A Genesis Mixtape. He's been making great strides in local hip hop in Springfield and I'm stoked for his success. Check it out and download it for free at http://www.mediafire.com/?nczn316s9vz0j5c Also in hip hop, one of my favorite artists, Slug, of Atmosphere, is coming back to Australia to tour with Evidence in May. He'll be in Hobart, Melbourne, and Sydney and I'm hugely excited to make at least one of those shows.

I've been asked by the Study Away office back home to post a video to YouTube about my experience in AU and answer a few scholastic-type questions. So you can probably look forward to that in the upcoming weeks.

Lastly, we all stayed up ridiculously late last night for no apparent reason. I announced I was going to bed around 2:30. Somehow everyone ended up in my room asking me what we had in the US that AU didn't have and asking me to say different words with my American accent. I think I ended up getting to bed around 3:30 or 4.

 Bridge from campus to Res

My new baby

I'll cap this off with two final questions. 1) Does having a dirty mustache make me more of a hipster? 2) Has anyone heard from Alison Jenkins in the past few weeks? I haven't heard from one of my best friends in a hot second and I'm not down with it. If you see that girl, let her know. Or hey, just text her and tell her I miss her and want to talk to her! 

Nathan. Get a webcam so I can Skype you already. 

Thanks loves 

~Daniel

P.S.
Right after I published this I found this little guy on my floor! Critters.

Retaliation

Remember that time I short sheeted Teish's bed for the second night in a row? She didn't make a big deal about it. However, in the morning, I couldn't find my ID card. The card that gets me into the unit, my room, and dinner. I left my door open and went to class anyway and, when I came home, knocked on the door until someone came to let me in. Teish came to let me in and told me she would give me my ID back if I promised to leave her room alone. Well played, Teish, well played.

Yesterday was a productive day. It was actually too productive. I did homework all day and caught up on all the readings from my different classes. I stayed home, stayed sober, and didn't go out. I made chocolate croissants and went to bed at 11. However, while I was busy being productive, I forgot about one of my lecture classes. Oops! No worries, though, I got the notes online and talked to one of my friends in the class.

This morning, I woke up before my alarm feeling great. Except I woke up before my alarm because it wasn't going to go off until tomorrow at 8:15. Still, that's okay because I don't have class today. It's a warm, cloudy day with a nice breeze out. Loves it.

When I first moved onto Res I was really bummed because I got assigned to South instead of BG with my international friends. Last night, Alex, the RA from BG who I challenged to a cookoff and backed out because she knew she'd lose, told me she had just talked to Reno, the guy in charge of all of Res, and told him that she wanted me to move into her unit because one of her kids was moving out. As tempting as this would've been three or four weeks ago, I knew I wasn't going anywhere. Still, minutes later, I saw Teish and asked her, "Teish what would you say if I told you I was moving to BG?" She got a horrified look on her face, turned around and started screaming for Alex--my roommate--yelling "Aleeeeeeeeeex! Something terrible has happened! America is moving to BG!"At this, not only Alex, but everyone in my unit and in my sister unit got very upset, girls and guys alike. So I came clean and told them I wasn't leaving to which there was a collective sigh of relief and hugs all around. It was nice to see that I'd be missed in my unit.

I got to Skype on of my very best friends, Tyler, yesterday. He showed me his new leg sleeve and told me that the next session he had scheduled was to finish the sleeve by getting a big, angry crab on his knee cap. I'd like to get an octopus tattooed on my kneecap some day, but I'll let him tell me how bad it hurts, first.

I get headaches at night most every night, and I find it harder and harder to fall asleep.

I heard everyone come home from the club last night around 12:30 (an early night) and go quiet down around 1. This morning, on the kitchen table was a mess of bowls, caked with dried easy-mac. The best one, though, was a bowl full of water with a block of ramen noodles sitting in it and the flavor packet just floating on top. I turned to Will and said "This is what happens when I don't cook for drunk people."

Take care guys, I think about you a lot.
Yes, all of you.
~Daniel

Avalon

So, I'm thinking about growing a mustache or whatever you'd like to call that thing that grows on my upper lip. I know, I know, it's absolutely atrocious and truly awful. I know it looks terrible and creepy. I know it just looks like I have some dirt on my face. But I still want to do it because, I mean, why not? What do I have to lose?

We got our final member of unit 14 today. Philpot. Phil is apparently a legend on Res. This is his third year on Res and everyone knows who he is. He's an outrageous character. He's also a pro snow skier, hence, why he's been gone for the first three weeks of Uni. He's been off skiing around Europe and such. No big deal. He seems like a pretty fun guy to be around, and I hope so, since he's the next room over. But let me sum up the legend of Philpot in just a few sentences. Last year he was an RA and got sacked (fired) for "encouraging drinking games and excessive alcohol consumption among the residents." Living up to the legend, he got completely blind (drunk) tonight around 8 pm and has been a very outspoken and unreserved person. I'm not against this, I'm just against this being an everyday event. However, he did invite me to go to the beach with him and his mates in the next few weeks to have a crack at surfing. "You can't go to Australia and not at least try to surf," he told me.

I killed it in my narrative and text class today. We were discussing a short story and picking apart the layers of literary devices. Luckily, my ENG 351 class last semester made me sharp and ready to go to town on the layers and layers of subtext involving a monkey's paw. I was so keen. Killed it. Go me. And thanks to my professor, Matt Calihman for being so expecting so much of us last semester. Shout out. Whoop.

Next.

I realized that I've been writing a cookbook in my free time here. Watch out Springfield. I'm going to wreck your tastebuds when I come home. I came up with four different meat loaf recipes today. Get amongst it.

Teish came into my room last night and told me she couldn't figure out how to get into bed. Short sheeting: success. So I did it again tonight.

Lastly.

I've been having the worst time getting to sleep. I toss and turn and think about life. I do a lot of soul searching when I should be sleeping. Even with sleeping meds. It just doesn't get it done.

So, remember, the next time you make a beef wellington, serve it with port gravy.
(40g butter, 1/4 cup flour, 1/4 cup port wine, 2 c beef stock)

~D

Weekend

My long weekend was painfully uneventful. I went to bed at a reasonable hour every night and woke up at noon every day because I didn't have anything better to do. I cooked a lot. I made a Shepard's pie that'll make you slap your momma. I had the realization that I should cook with lamb as much as possible while I'm here because this is the cheapest I'll ever be able to buy it.

Just about everyone is home and it's kind of nice to have the unit loud and bustling again. I'm not so lonely.

I skyped one of my best friends, Hannah, today. That was really nice.

I spent most of my day at Emma's house watching Footie and trying to understand it. She gave me a huge stack of cooking magazines to read through and I've marked up all sorts of pages. I have so many new ideas now and I'm really excited to start trying them. I think one of the things I'm most excited about, though, is a recipe for a Port Gravy to be served with a Beef Wellington. I've been trying to come up with a way to give my wellington that extra edge, and I think I found it. Also, it turns out I left my phone at her house and Ash called it a few times until she called him back and said she'd bring it over tomorrow after class.

Tonight, for tea (which, by the way, when I say "tea" that means dinner or a meal of some sort) I made a burger that was just...huge. I stuffed it with onions and cheese and mixed the mince with salt, pepper, garlic, herbs, parmesan, and Worcestershire. It was good.

I was reading cooking magazines in my room when Will came in and told me that he told his mom that I just sit home alone at Res during the weekends and she invited me to come home with Will for the weekends! He said it would probably be a few weeks before he'd head back home but, hey, at least I'll have somewhere to go and something to do some of the time! Plus, Will is a real solid guy and one of the guys here I've gotten close with. We share a lot of similar tastes in music and tattoos, so I can't see how this would be a bad thing.

By the way, I tried Vegemite the other day. It wasn't horrible. It wasn't good. But they say if you don't like something, it takes a total of eight times to fully make up your opinion on it. So, I'm definitely open to having it again.

I think it's weird that everyone back home has spring break around now. I totally forgot about that. But check this out. I've got two and a half weeks off for Easter. BAM!!!

 Making this Shepard's Pie changed the way I will make mashed potatoes forever. So perfect. 

 Working late on Black Tar

 In the words of my man, Tyler Forster....SO YOM!

 Ash snappin photos post-meal 

Ash used these to write "Hey, call me (and then a number)" on the windows of our unit, using the numbers of several of the girls in our unit. He got in trouble when the girls phones started ringing... 

You remember Teish, right? The girl whose (is it whose or who's?) room I toilet papered two nights in a row and constantly terrorize (all out of love and good sport, mind you). Well, I short sheeted her bed. Can't wait to ask her about it tomorrow. 

Cheers loves

~Daniel 

Picture Books

If you're like me, you don't always like reading.
If you're like me, you get excited when you see pictures in a novel because it means that's one less page you have to read.
So this post is going to more pictures than talking.

This sandwich reminds me of one that my brother, Bret Stockton, and I made one time.

Cheese. Eggs. Fresh has browns. Sauteed onions. Tomatoes. Basil. 

 I went on a walk. By myself. It was lovely. 

 Photos. Words. They don't do it justice. It was elegant. 

 It would take some serious effort to find woods this dense in Springfield. 

This was a 10 min. walk from my window. 

One day I'll hop the fence and make it up that hill. Does it remind anyone else of Lion King? 

Have a good day guys

XO

~D

Starch. It's What's for Dinner

Don't forget about my YouTube channel youtube.com/danielernce there are a few new things up there. If you're curious about how the toilets flush over here you can check that out. I posted it upon special request from John Wallace--the artist who has done the tattoos on my arm.

So. Starch. When I started cooking tonight I could hear my mother's voice in my head telling me that it was a very starchy meal, but I did it anyway and have no regrets. Tomato-basil risotto and sauteed potatoes. They're two solid dishes to make but also easy to mess up if not given the proper attention. I've got it down, though.

 Also, here's a GIANT ant I killed in the kitchen. At least an inch long. 

Did I ever tell you I caught a lizard in my unit within the two hours of arriving in Australia? 

Everyone went home for the weekend. Really. Everyone. I'm the only person left in my unit and I think there's only one person in our sister unit--Steve--on exchange from China and he doesn't come out of his room. So things are unusually quiet in our unit. Emilio, a fourth year, one of the three full-time staff members on Res, and an overall really nice, solid guy, came by the unit three times tonight and commented on how quiet it was and how good it smelled. I spent around three hours casually cooking and cleaning tonight. I really enjoy being able to cook for just myself and not have any time constraints or pressure. I can really put some extra effort forth and try different things and not have to worry if they don't turn out.

After dinner, I was bored and remembered a recipe for chocolate croissants. So I made them and had some coffee with them. Then I made more and tried them with a Cabernet, trying my best to be French. The coffee was undoubtedly a better pair. I saved four of them to have as breakfast in the morning.

 It was tough to get them the right consistency in the middle and not burn the tops. But they still tasted good.

It's shaping up to be a real relaxed, laid back, and quiet weekend here on Res and I'm looking forward to what tomorrow has. 

Cheers loves 

~Daniel 

The Big Bad Wolf

Every club plays the same music and every club plays some song that I'm assuming is called "The Big Bad Wolf." I find it horribly obnoxious and if I haven't said this before, the club scene is NOT my scene.

The beach party was outrageous. Bended Elbow is a huge venue and there were over 1,500 people there. I can't express how absolutely mobbed the place was and if you got separated from the people you were with, it took easily 20+ minutes to find them again. The sand dance floor was cool...until anyone thought it would be really funny to throw the sand so it would get stuck in your hair, clothes, or land in your drink. It was definitely a wild experience. I started gathering people to go home at 1 and we left sometime around 2:30. Needless to say, I'm so glad I don't have any classes on Thursdays.

 My beach attire 

As promised, here's another bit from my latest project--Black Tar. 

An Excerpt from Black Tar 

            Now, let me explain to you how it feels to come down—to withdrawal—from ecstasy. Before the come down, you are literally having the best time of your life. When you’re on ecstasy, everything is interesting, every conversation you have is deep and thought provoking, when you touch something, you can feel every minute detail, down to its atomic structure. You can feel how everything you touch is connected to the rest of the world. Everything you do is the most fun, has the biggest rush, is the most entertaining thing you could possibly do. Every song you hear has the best groove, the best beat, and the most intricate lyrics. You can feel the music inside you, in your bones and your guts. Cigarettes are like candy and sex? Don’t even get me started on sex. Just don’t. You feel awake and more alive than you ever have in your whole existence. Now, consider all this, consider you’ve been feeling this way—having the time of your life—for around 4 hours and suddenly it starts to fade. The absolute best feeling you’ve ever had starts to fade. You search for another pill, a half a pill, powder residue, anything to keep your roll going, but you find nothing. So, slowly, you begin to fade and come back down from cloud nine. Things aren’t as fun and the conversation isn’t as interesting. Restless, you return to a normal and now painfully boring reality. The disappointment is immense. Now it’s six, seven, maybe eight hours after you took the first pill. You’re totally sober again and your body starts to react in a real way to everything you’ve put it through. You’re dangerously dehydrated and your mouth is still dry even after an endless amount of water. Your body starts to get tremors and your hands, feet, and face start to tingle and go numb. Your appetite has been suppressed and now you need food but you don’t want to eat because you feel so violently ill and the very thought of food is so appalling it makes you gag. Every fiber of your body is weak, so weak you can hardly support yourself. Your eyes burn from being awake all night, or has it been days, but you feel so physically awful that you are incapable of sleeping. Your head starts to throb and your vision begins to tunnel. You feel hot and cold all at the same time and your breathing is shaky and raspy. You’re sweating and the sun streams in from all directions like knives. Paranoia sets in and you realize that your pills were highly likely to have been cut with cocaine or heroin or meth or God knows what else. You keep thinking you can hear other people walking around your vacant house and every noise is amplified. Your heart is beating out of control and being aware of it only makes your more nervous—more afraid—and your heart beats faster. This is coming down. The more it happens the more familiar it is and the better you can try to handle yourself. But it doesn’t matter how “used to it” you are; it’s still the worst feeling in the world. 

It sounds like everyone here is going home for the weekend. Literally everyone. I enjoy having the unit to myself but it gets boring pretty quick.

Cheers!
~Daniel

Shadow Days

Hold the phone.

John Mayer released his new single today called Shadow Days. If you know me, you know I'm all about that! I've been prowling YouTube and finding various new Mayer songs and loving it.

South (remember how Res is split up into three communities? North, South, and BG?) had commencement dinner last night. We all got dressed up in blue, which is when I found that black is the new blue, and went down to have a fancy night of dinner and funny videos and speeches from South. We had rack of lamb for the main. It wasn't the worst thing I've ever had but you know it can't be that great when they cover it with gravy before they give it to you. The bar was open and I decided to change things up and be the only sober cat in my unit which actually proved to be hugely entertaining. After a few hours of dinner, speeches, and videos, the night was rounded out by some live entertainment of two guys and an acoustic guitar. I have to hand it to them, though, they were really good.

About half of South came back to Res and continued on the party while the rest stayed to enjoy the entertainment. I capped off the night by making a grilled cheddar and marinara sammy and a round of pasta.

Remember that cook off I challenged one of the RA's to on the 25th? Well I spent about two hours yesterday coming up with menus. So let me know what you think. This is my take on "Surf 'n' Turf"

Menu 1:
     Starter:  Pan seared sea scallops served over crispy pancetta and wilted radicchio that has been tossed with a apple cider vinegar and sugar dressing.
     Main:  Italian rack of lamb with red wine sauce served with garlic mashed potatoes and brown gravy, and steamed broccoli.
     Dessert:  White chocolate cheesecake with a white chocolate and brandy sauce, served with a raspberry sauce.

Menu 2:
     Starter:  Lobster ravioli served with vodka sauce
     Main:  Beef wellington served with garlic mashed potatoes and brown gravy, and steamed carrots tossed with garlic butter (thanks mom)
     Dessert:  either a chocolate souffle or a dark chocolate cheesecake, topped with raspberry sauce and garnished with white chocolate shavings.

Any thoughts, opinions, or comments? If so, comment or email or facebook me! I want to know!

Tonight is the beach party at Bended Elbow (a pub in Ballarat). The plan was to have 5 tons of sand brought in and spread around the club and the attire is singlets and bathers. However, apparently there was a slight miscalculation and photos have surfaced of not 5 but 20 tons of sand being unloaded at Bended. I've been told by upper classmen that this is the biggest party of the semester if not the year. I'm sure it will be a good time, I'm just wondering if anyone has thought about the fact that it's going to be real cold tonight and everyone's going to be in beach attire...

 Dinner!

 Chrissy Rad (my RA) and Loz

 Dinner

 Loz and Ash having a time 

 This cheesecake was actually pretty good!

 Loz grabbed my camera for a bit. I have about 10 photos similar to this. 

Teish and Ash 

Anyway, hope you and yours are doing well in life. That's all for now and I'll post another excerpt from Black Tar in the next few days.

"I'm a good man with a good heart, had a tough time, had a rough start, but I finally learned to let it go." -JM
~Daniel