Ok..

Well, holidays are over and honestly not much happened, but I said I'd update this fortnightly and I'm a man of my word! Anyway, next update will be extra special though, don't forget to subscribe.

-Craig

Just a few more things...

So yes it's been a while since I wrote anything on here, partly due to the fact that I haven't had much of interest to write, but mainly it's that I almost completely forgot that I had a blog. Also I've been settling in, making friends, attending lectures and studying the wonders of science (most of which I covered in Years 11-12). Oh, over six months you say? Well, this is bound to be a long entry then.

First I will recound the adventures that a couple of friends and I had at a place called Bluehole. Bluehole is a place resembling a lake which is just downstream of some awesome rapids, cliffs and waterfalls. There are two ways to get to Bluehole from the carpark: The first is an established path complete with a metal walkway from one side of the river to the other. The second way is to follow the river directly by leaping irresponsibly awesomely from rock to rock, scaling cliffs and stomping through treacherous thorns. We opted for the second option, and hummed the Lord of The Rings theme whenever an especially large climb was completed.

There were some particularly hairy situations, such as when Connor was venturing forth looking for a route and became almost entangled in thorns, or when the three of us had edged up a particularly high and treacherous rock face to discover a sheer drop was the only way to continue.

All of this was worth it though, the dangers were high but we all knew the basic rules of climbing. 'Make sure you are holding onto stuff' and 'move only one hand or foot at a time' were the words of wisdom flowing through my mind at particular moments of strife. The reward for our courage/recklessness was seeing some beautiful scenery, and I don't use the word beautiful lightly. Mostly because it makes me sound like a complete ponce.

To put this in perspective, when I was atop a large ridge in Mongolia, looking down at the valley that contained a frozen lake and the camp of nomads we were staying with, I would describe it as very nice. My opinion of the Eiffel Tower, viewed from the Notre Dame is that it looks pretty cool.

This isn't because I'm cynical, or that I lack the perception of the average tourist (well maybe when I was younger but still...), it is because this place is something entirely different. The rocks that I leapt from, landed on and held onto for dear life had been shaped by thousands of years of water flowing over them. They had been completely unaffected by the feats and failures of humanity at large.

And yes, I understand that the same could be said about Uluru, or The Great Barrier Reef. But tell me this, can you marvel at those landmarks of natural beauty whilst also having to navigate a way through uncharted hazards? I believe the answer is negative.

Well that's one event from the last six months explored vaguely, and it only happened a week or two ago. So unless you want to read a book I will try to give you something overarching, like a blurb or synopsis of my experiences and feelings of leaving home. I will express this in a masterful (and completely original) metaphor.

I am a bird who has spread my wings for the first time, diving from the nest that was my home (albeit only for the past few years). Actually now that I think of it, the nest metaphor doesn't work too well.. I'm a bird that left my nest and settled into another nest just below that nest, and by just below I don't mean a few thousand kilometres... -sigh- Ok this metaphor is falling apart so I'm going to ditch everything I learned from English Studies and talk like a normal person for a paragraph.

The metaphor was supposed to mean that I left home and entered the real world, which isn't entirely true. I imagine the real world would encompass actually getting a job, paying taxes and having next to no spare time. As my 'real world' stands at the moment, I have no job, don't contribute to society (beyond 500mL of blood every now and again) and my assignments and study saps only about five hours a week for me to stay on top of things.

The fact that quite a large amount of people here believe that they're fully independent functioning members of society baffles me. Actually it angers me. If I had a dollar for every time I heard someone complain about how little the government or their parents give them I wouldn't need to be a dole bludger! I often hear something along the lines of "I get paid on Monday, so I can def go out wif da bois on Friday (and then indistinctive grunts)". Well I normally say "The government is giving me taxpayer money so I'm going to pay my rent, get some food and maybe have a few beers with mates."

Actually that's not entirely true since the government recently purchased me an Xbox 360. I knew there was a reason I voted for Julia Gillard. Oh wait...

Post Scriptum (because I'm a douche that writes in a language that's been dead for millenia): Although this entry took me a few days to write, I'm going to try to make these updates a fortnightly occurence, so keep an eye out between Thursday and Monday for my updates.

Ciao