Stars Are Blind

I got back to Australia and had been lucky to meet a blind guy at my bus stop before I left. I say lucky because he happened to live in my building and happened to have a room for rent when I needed it. I had no idea what it was going to be living with someone who was blind, but I shouldn’t have worried. Benny Boy is an amazing guy. He gets through life better than I do. He’s got a rockin social life, makes his way around town to the gym nearly everyday and has a fulltime job. It probably sounds naïve, I just didn’t know blind people could be so self-sufficient. He made being blind look easy! We became friends over the course of the year, but I drove him nuts because I wasn’t as tidy as he is. The guy is a neat freak, but I guess you would be, too, if you couldn’t see if you were about to touch something gross on the counter or trip over something someone had left laying around. He had a psycho girlfriend for part of the time I was there and that was interesting. He dumped her and she went crazier! His friend, another S, from work is like the sassiest guy alive and I loved listening to him talk. It was great living with a blind guy cause I could walk around naked or semi-naked and not have to worry about him catching an eyeful. The only other problem I had living there was this time I didn’t have the ensuite room, I at least still had a bathroom to myself, but it was the bathroom across the hall, so I always had to time going to the bathroom when Benny Boy was away. I know it’s not normal, I know I’m a freak, S and my family and my friends tell me all the time. I just can’t help it.
S and I had a fun year. We went horseback riding and did some cave exploring in the Blue Mountains for my birthday. We stopped in Penrith for Pizza Hut and ate it in the parking lot and this has become known as our “spot” It’s a big joke though as Penrith is a few hours from here and one of the biggest holes in the world. But when we are stressed I say, “Hey S, let’s hit up our spot” We haven’t gone back yet.
S’s birthday is right after mine and I got him a surf lesson since he had so much fun in Kauai doing it and then we went for a 4 wheel drive trip around the Stockton Dunes. Our driver said he’s seen Great White Sharks from his car in the surf line there. We saw some kind of big eagle on one of the dunes and we got to go sand boarding. It’s like snowboarding, but on your butt and on sand rather than snow, and then you have to hike all the way back up the dune yourself.
We also did a 2 night trip to Hawk’s Nest, in Port Stephens, and that was a nice, relaxing time away. It was getting to be winter so hardly anyone was there. We just went for long walks on the beach and ate good food and chilled out. It was good to get away as S is always stressed about work and I was stressing about the next 6 months and doing internship, interviews, and senior projects, as well as a mini senior thesis.

Banned From the Back Porch

I know I'm posting heaps, but I don't have a job right now and I wrote down like 20 entries before putting the page up to give everyone the background on me being here and I was hoping to catch up to present day fairly soon is all...
I moved in with a girl, A, whom I didn’t really know, but had met a few times as she had worked with S and was friends with his friends from the movies. She was a really nice and really quiet girl. You would describe her as sweet, in a good way. I knew we could get along at least reasonably well because we both liked the same music!
Everyone knows I’m a freak about the bathroom (like I can’t go in public, won’t go if anyone’s home, etc.) so A was nice enough to let me have the bigger room with the ensuite so that I would feel more comfortable and not have to plan bathroom trips. Believe, if I'm staying at S's or at a hotel, that shit (literally) is planned.
For the most part we got on. We didn’t become best friends, but we didn’t fight or anything either. She had a boyfriend, J, who had started to move in with us or at least that's what it felt like to me and I wasn’t comfortable with that, but could also understand that to them it wasn’t a big deal and truthfully, if S had lived near by, he probably would’ve stayed over quite a bit, too, and I wouldn’t have seen that as a big deal, either (when the shoe’s on the other foot, right?). They were in love and wanted to spend all their free time together and he still lived at home so of course, it made sense to hang at our place. I just hadn’t signed up for having 2 roommates so they were cool enough to respect that. It was not a huge surprise at the end of our year together when she wanted to move out with J, but it wasn’t done on bad terms or anything. I was bummed, but it made sense that they would live together as their relationship had reached that point. So we thought out apartment was sold and they’d find a new place and I’d find a new place/roommate. They ended up getting to keep the apartment, and I moved one floor up in the same building in the end.
At this point for school, I had to get out in to schools and start practice teaching. I was so nervous and I generally hate new things but it ended up going ok. I also had started to make friends at school (as in uni ;) ). The one I was closest to was T and she and I were bitchy and entertained ourselves by making fun of other people from our classes. I was also hanging out with S’s friends from high school a lot, but I’ll talk about them more later as they are all characters and deserve their own post.
I went back over the Californian summer and we took an awesome family trip to Mexico. We rented a house a few hours outside of Puerto Vallarta and we had the best time, eating, exploring, swimming, and laying at.
My parents loved S from the time they had spent with him and we had been dating for two and a half years at this point so they could see we were pretty serious. They really wanted to meet S’s parents and brother as they had heard so much about them and knew they had to be nice for letting me live with them when I needed to. I was doing this weight loss challenge from Mom and Dad then with the prize being a trip to Hawaii if I lost the weight. I didn’t lose as much as I had planned, but I got myself pretty healthy and lost quite a bit for doing it all on my own. Mom and Dad invited S’s family to come to Hawaii with us. S’s Dad wasn’t really in to the idea, S’s brother D said he hated America, and S’s Mom was all for it. S’s Dad and brother eventually came around and we set the trip for after the New Year.
I missed Thanksgiving for the first time ever because I had another round of practice teaching that week. I went home after it was over and this time, S wouldn’t be around for Christmas.
I worked for my parents, helping them to clean out their house as they were getting ready to move to Santa Cruz for my Mom’s work. I didn’t think that that would be the last time I’d be in my childhood home, I thought the housing market was slowing down and they’d be there for at least another six months, but I was wrong and never did get to go back to that house after I left then.