farewell to summer

We all went to Bondi beach for the last time today. The weather here is getting colder and colder every day and the beach will soon be too cold for anything more than walking on. Fall in Australia is not anything like fall in Vermont; there are no leaves turning colors and the air isn't crisp, just cool. It doesn't smell as good but then again, I'm in a city of 5 million people who have varying levels of hygiene.

I've recently discovered Cal Newport's Blog on student productivity. If you are a student, I beg you to take time out of chatting with people on facebook read even one of his posts. This guy really knows what he's talking about and provides easily understood tips for college students that are based on his experience as a student at MIT. For me, productivity is a constant battle and one that I seem to never win. I've read books and articles and subscribed to RSS feeds describing the newest hi and low tech tools for personal productivity and still I find myself writing to this blog and not working on the 2,000 word paper I have due next week. At this point, I feel like I could teach a seminar on productivity for the college student, if only I could be productive enough to actually do it.

Most of my stress (at least here at school) stems from procrastination. David Allen describes in his book Getting Things Done (which is required reading for everyone who has ever needed to do anything) that procrastination stems from two subconscious roadblocks. One, you don't see the ultimate value in completing the task at hand. Two, you doubt your ability to complete the task at hand with control and success. This is why gigantic papers often get pushed back until the night before they're due: I have no idea how to attack this paper and seriously doubt my ability to complete it with any semblance of quality. The solution? I cant write the paper because someone can't just sit down and write a paper just like someone can't sit down and paint a landscape. The paper is not a singular task, it is a project that is comprised of hundreds of little tasks that are much easier to comprehend, plan, and complete than simply sitting down and "writing a paper." Try this, think of the biggest "thing" in your life that is causing you the most amount of stress. This can be a letter of thanks you haven't written, a project you haven't started, treehouse you haven't built. Got it? Ok, now grab a piece of paper and write down the absolute first thing you need to do before any other part of that project can get done. Now write that down! Be as specific as possible. Now don't you feel a little better?

Today's track is called "Strange Answers" by Summerbirds in the Cellar off of their album With the Hands of the Hunter it All Becomes Dead. The title of the album, I'll admit, prepares you for a Thursday cover band like experience. Don't worry tho, Summerbirds is an amalgamation of Death Cab and Fisherspooner. But not the sad Death Cab, the good Death Cab. I'm temped to put up more that one of their songs because this is one of the most eclectic albums I've heard in quite a while. Enjoy!

peeing in church

I know this is going to be the second post talking about pee but I do it every day and its on my mind. You do it too, you can't run from it. Well you can, but you'd get it all over yourself.

Urinals here are essentially metal walls with drains at the bottom. I like this. It feels more natural to pee on a wall than to insert my junk into a big porcelain cup. I don't know why this is but men have always been and always will be impressed with the trajectory of anything and pee is no exception. This is why women are never allowed to operate trebuchets; their innate sense of velocity and angle were never developed as children. This is also the reason that most women are horrible drivers. That and they put makeup on behind the wheel. Let's be honest.

Today's song may be a stretch for you "I was brought up on the Beatles" folks but please give it the old college try. (Where did that expression come from? In my experience, college kids try as little as is physically possible without melting into the futon where they're smoking weed.) The new M83 album just dropped and I have yet to get my "I-don't-really-do-drugs-but-this-music-makes-me-wish-I-did" hands on it. M83 is a french band from france named after the galaxy of the same name. Here's a track off their (his) album Dead Cities Red Seas and Lost Ghosts. It's called "In Church" and I hope you like it.

kiss my feet

I was on Amazon today looking for some books. I just finished reading Killing Yourself to Live by Chuck Klosterman and I wanted to pick up his latest book IV. I'm not sure if I would read this book even if I had it; I'm still chewing on the last one. I'm not sure if I like Klosterman, I have a few friends who geek out over him but there's something about him or his character that makes me think I might kick him in the shin if we were to meet. If in a post-apocalyptic world, knowledge of pop culture was used as currency, Klosterman would could buy himself one of those uber pimp LamBROginis. But he wouldn't, he's way too cool for that. Here's the essence of Klosterman's message: I know more about music than anyone on the planet, girls seems to like me/ girls seem to get caught temporarily in my ego and spend the next 2 years trying to break free, Kiss is the best band despite them not being a very good band at all. Klosterman is one of those guys you would kill to be friends with. He has so much to say. He's articulate beyond reason. He talks constantly, and that means you have to do less work. Everything is spelled out for you and thats freaking awesome. He's the kind of person you can have a conversation with and not need to/be able to say anything more than "I know exactly what you mean" and "That's exactly how it was for me" he's your man crush for about 200 pages and then you cant wait for him to fall asleep so you can feel good about yourself again.

ANYWAY I was on Amazon and I spotted this little message on the top of the page:

(Not: Christ...?)

Nope. Not Christ. Not even close, but thanks for asking. Good luck finding him tho, he's a shifty fella. There are some people who claim to have found Jesus but they never fully disclose his whereabouts. Much like Dick Cheny, Jesus is hard to pin down (in a figurative sense of course, he was eventually literally pinned down.) Perhaps he's under the couch. Or in the lint trap of the dryer. Who knows Amazon, who knows.

I'm listening to Rumours by Fleetwood Mac. I've had a lot of arguments with my friends over the merit of Fleetwood Mac. Most of them are of the unfortunate opinion that Fleetwood Mac is a silly band with little to no relevance who play simple music. If you also feel this way, you are most likely currently digesting the most recent Explosions in the Sky album, wearing Levi's 501s that are too small for you, and thumbing the phone number of your ex-girlfriend "just to catch up." Ill say it this way too: if you don't like Fleetwood Mac please punch yourself in the head. Rumours is one of the best albums of all time. Please, take a break from googling concert pictures of The Animal Collective and give this song a listen. 

When this album was released there was a deafening amount of infidelity and pain running within the band and thus the entirety of the album is devoted to this theme. At the time, guitarist Lindsay Buckingham had just ended a very long relationship with singer Stevie Nicks;  drummer Mick Fleetwood was having sex with Stevie; and bassist John McVie divorced keyboardist Christie McVie. If you listen closely at the beginning of the cut you can hear Stevie Nicks moan "fuck" under her breath and then heave a heavy sigh before the man she's having sex with hits the bass pedal and the once love of her life plays the first gentle guitar riff of what the band agreed was a "perfect" song.

I has a shirt/peeing

I just purchased a shirt from a really nice store. i feel good about this shirt because it is a nice shirt and i know i will wear it. i was able to attain this shirt for $80, which may seem like a lot of money to some of you, but I'm filthy rich and i could afford it. i would have purchased a more expensive shirt, but there was none. i bought the most expensive shirt. now that i have this shirt the most expensive shirt that they have is less expensive than this shirt. its simple logic folks. oops im poor now.

When a woman announces that she needs to go to the bathroom she has a very specific window of time in mind: now. See:

Tina: "Oh man, I gotta pee"

Translation: "I need to physically have my ass on a toilet in no fewer than 30 seconds"

It's almost as if her bladder was wired into a pressure release value and as soon as enough urine was stored up in her small intestine she snaps into what I like to call "Toilet Tracking Mode." When you're in the car, this means pulling into the nearest KFC. If you're playing Monopoly, this means an extra $500 from the bank while she relieves herself. And if you're in the space shuttle, well, they use diapers. Men on the other hand, operate in an entirely different manner. Let me illustrate:

Bill: Oh man, I gotta pee.

Translation: "I just remembered that I was going to pee when I was in the kitchen yesterday but I didn't because there were Doritos and I love Doritos."

Now, I don't judge. You can't judge. It's impossible to judge.

Today's song is a little tune by a band named Shearwater. If you're looking for something you can ignore (a la John Cusack in High Fidelity) this have a listen. If you want something to rock out to, listen anyway and then slam on some Rihanna or The Chain by Fleetwood Mac. 

HINT: right click and "save as target" on a PC and option click on a mac. 

Also, please comment on this post and let me know how you like Shearwater. Of course, you can also say anything else you like. Select anonymous if you don't have an account and you can post immediately. yay for the internet!

this is the story of how we begin to remember

My sister is in Rwanda right now in an attempt to adopt a child. She lost a son (along with a womb) a year or so ago at birth and she's turned to Rwanda, which currently has over 650,000 orphans, to extend her family. She's much more eloquent and accurate regarding her situation than I am so i will refer you to her blog if you are interested in hearing more of her amazing story. 

Song of the day is from Paul Simon. Please leave a comment and let me know what you think. im not sure what it means.... This is for you Jess!

Cattle, sheep, and emus

what's the plural of emu? this weekend i stayed on a farm with a wonderful family. I could go into detail about wrangling cattle, herding sheep, and driving ATVs but that was certainly not the highlight of my "Farming Weekend". for two days, and for the first time since i have been here in australia, i felt like i had a home. this family was so welcoming, so generous with what was theirs. in the wake of a difficult friday afternoon, i dont think i could have had a more rejuvenating weekend. at one point, the sun was setting and i hiked out onto a high hill in the middle of the 2700 acre farm, listened to the bush and watched the sun go down. i know the picture is trite and not very interesting, im sorry. I now have come to terms with my surroundings. this is all real to me now. those who i love are far, far away from me but this is ok; there is much to love here.

With such musically critical (read: obsessed) friends, i take on a certainly amount of risk when posting a song every day. To this group of people my musical maturity is so retarded I might as well have recently discovered the Rolling stones. To each his own, but hopefully at least one person can get something from my pick here. dont pass this song off as novelty or silly; you'd be missing it.

please leave a comment and let me know how this finds you

i have a pony

i dont but i bet i got your attention. 

as you can see, my experiment below went horribly. even worse is neither of my parents said anything about it. which leads me to believe that they're not reading this either. which is kind of sad. but im over it. mostly.

i think what im going to do now is post EVERY DAY and advertise the hell out of this space. hopefully, if i can get people to come, i can also get them to stay. i hope to take the scope of the posts a little wider; things that are on my mind. hopefully these things will also be interesting to others. there's only so much you can say about being in australia. cha know?

i know ive already posted a picture like this but i like this one alot. i made it by taking 3 bracketed photos and putting them through a program that detects the properly exposed parts of all of them and creates a composite. pretty cool. i need a tripod here tho.

ok. until tomorrow, ill leave you with a song for today. Ive been getting into this band recently tho i know i should have done it sooner. they influence a lot of the "indie" bands that are hittin the waves today. "can you hear the arcade fire? check it out. (hint: if you right click and "save target as" you can just drag it to iTunes. With a Mac, just hold option and click)