Stu's Rusty Bucket

Sunday, November 30, 2003

tj’s

Tonight i sent my folks a link to my trailjournal site here…

read a few other peopls entries and left a few ‘hiyas’ in guest book…

ooooh bring on the trail! i am ready NOW!

Thursday, November 27, 2003

hmmmm what a lazy day

was cranking out code like a madman today.. for well.. most of the day.. then my boss says.. “well.. I’m off.. Ive got.. a meeting” and goes.. so we all stop work more or less, cuppa tea or 10… bitta chat.. some phonage…

you know how it goes when both bosses are out…

then his wife rings up.... hmmm “oh he must be at the dentist.. ok” aaah so it was a meeting with his dentist! hahah

anyway today was kinda bludgy…

i reworked my budget today.. the kind of budget where you dont spend a single p and hoard every pound and just dont eat for the next 3 months… hahah…

damn supermarket brand food!!

i think i can do it.. with all bills covered, things paid off, no debts, etc.. i should have 2k pounds for my hike. thats all expenses everything… thats what (quick! to the currency conversion site! [url=http://www.xc.com/ucc]http://www.xc.com/ucc[/url] mm not bad. 3.5k! suhweeeeeet… even better when your predicted budget gives you 2.8k.. but who knows what expenses might turn up between now and leaving.. so 2k is a nice base pool…

hmm if i didnt have that damn car loan to still pay off even when not owning a car anymore… ohwell…

hell, no debt whatsoever (ok ok damn car payments dont count!!) nothing but a blank visa!!!

just realised i havent factored some insurance in yet.. damn… will have to visit the bankvamps tomorow…

Wednesday, November 26, 2003

hehe

well all is quiet on the east-london front… land lord came last night.. sorted things out.. as soon as he left they started aruging… hahah

its been totally quiet tonight… i slept with me earplugs in last night.. dunno if it helped or not..

anway.. things are quiet again.. good…

93 or something days till i hit the trail… and counting!

got my ‘work in a store’ program next week… working at leadenhall hmv… which is in the heart of banker territory.. so i get to be nice-nice to dumbass bankers in suits…

‘yes i think your wife will love this dolly parton cd!’

‘snoop doog xmas carols, your grandmother will love it!’

Tuesday, November 25, 2003

…

i feel like an old bloody man who cant do anything for himself. geeeze. i’m not even 30 and i feel like i’m gonna be 80 or something....

i really wanna go to bed.... i think one of them has left and the other is packing things up. landlord is coming round tomorow night. i will be in the pub all night i think. get home late. thats the ticket.

i’m taking my passports to work. taking the laptop would be too extreme…

..

holy fuck she just set the matteress on fire while i was phoning the landlord at marcus’s request. shit there is no way i can sleep tonight..

.

my flatmates are fighting and it makes me sick. literally. i hate it. i could handle myself fine and have been in a fight or two, but this domestic shit is different for some reason. i dunno. brings the bile up in my mouth and get all bloody worried.

shit was smashed. yelling at the top of their lungs. i hate it. i avoided it (mistake) until she started screaming at the top of her lungs. fuck i didnt want to deal with this shit. its the same shit all over again, just a different couple this time… so i raced out. she was just standing there screaming at teh top of her lungs.. then started overtuning the whole room.  alex was just taking it all as she tried to squish him with the bed. i think he hit her. i didnt see it, but looks like she will have a shiner on her cheekbone. not really sure. fuck.

then i got mad.

i rang my landlord and passed the phone over.

its quiet now.. but if it kicks off i’m ringing 999 and calling the cops. i dont want or need to deal with this shit.

i’m shaking like fuck right now. i hate this. i wont sleep at all tonight. every noise will wake me up. i’m shaking with adrenaline and with dread.

got my earphones one and the music up loud. i’ll be deaf soon. its as if i cant hear it, its not happening. its quiet so i dont want to hear it, i dont want it kicking off again.

i got like this when i watched my uncle break my mums fingers, sorta thinking, this shit is not happening. were family. i never intervened.. to this day i still feel that. i watched my uncle break my mums fingers and i coulda done something. sidekicked him thought the bloody sliding glass door.

everytime i see/hear/get stuck in some domestic violence i remember the scene on christmas day with my mum and my uncle. my mum who has done everything for him, fucking everything.

and the bile comes up in my throat and my guts turn over and i start shaking. i tried to hide. i tried to not hear it. then the screaming. fuck the adrenaline is like a switch. bam. i was in there. i hate this shit i hate this shit i hate this shit. i;m gonne be stuck awake all night, fucked for tomorow when i gotta hit deadlines.

it was all in french so it coulda been about the fucking bloody tv remote or some bloody stupid shit i dunno. whatever the subject it was serious enough for her to get a shiner. bloody shit. i feel awefull. i dont like them. i dont like her, but stick an asthmatic in an asbestos factory, i dont wish it on anyone.

i feel like a prisoner in my room now. i just wanna get out of here. i hate this shit.

i dont mind living where i do, with my tiny room, and all the crap of the area. the kicked in front door. the stabbings at the station. the shootings down the road in forest gate station, all the shit around here. i just hate the people i live with. why cant they all just get along. how hard is it to be nice or just not rise, not retaliate, not bloody anything. its not fucking had.

im an atheist so i aint gonna pray but i’ll just wish they get along. i think they love each other from what i have seen in the past. so where the fuck does this blackness bloody seep from? if you love someone why the fuck would you argue over a tv remote or taking all the blankets on the bed or whatever the bloody cactus they were arging over.

arse.

the shit is going cactus.

it annoys me that i let other peopl impact on my life.

bile tastes like bloody raw prune juice with battery acid mixed in it. burnging your throat. like its trying to seep out your skin and get under your fingernails.

selfish bastards.

11:30pm…

fruiten cacken. so many hours of the night left. nothing is open at night, so i cant go out anywhere, no place to go… i just wanna be away from all this shit.

sam had the good idea to fly home to melbourne tomorow. good luck mate! hope you get a job. nice idea, but still i’m not for melbourne just yet. not for home.

home…

where is my home now… ?? i realised today when I was talking about home, it was ‘mums house’ not ‘my home’… i’m not sure when this change happened. its always been ‘home’.. but i guess its not really anymore.

sure i’ll always be welcome, but now i feel, i guess, that its theirs, not ours, and i’m just a visitor now. heh. kinda funny when i think about it. now i dont have a place to call home…

that makes me a little sad…

“I was hanging upside down from the overpass
Waiting to discover something about the world
I couldn’t get with the program
And I couldn’t listen to them
It was like trying to think in reverse
And I don’t want to slide into apathy
And I don’t want to die in captivity
But these monsters follow me around
Hunting me down, trying to wipe me out”

there are things i miss about home, that, even if you had them somewhere else in the world, as in identicle, it wouldnt be the same. kinda stupid i know…

so what do I miss?
* flake! fish and chips.. flake (shark) has no bones. and grills awesomly… and flathead fillets… (besides tuna, the only two kinds of fish i eat...)…
* melbourne the city as a whole.
* the yarra, going along the banks just down from flinders street station…
* riding on trams.
* the gardens around the exhibition buildings in the center of the city…
* driving into town and seeing the arts spire....
* the dandenong ranges, gembrook forest…
* going out to my uncles farm… i used to grumble bout going out there but i secretly loved going (cant show too much enthusiasm!)

for fucks sake something else just got broken.. no yelling tho.

* going to pubs and hearing live bands in places like the espy

i feel sick. my ares could melt plastic right now. and its a doing a good job on the upholstory of the chair… i want to go to bed but not in this state.

the pessamist in me says the kitchen is full of knives and someone is going to get it.

sometimes it would be nice if the pessamist didnt voice his opinion and let the optimist say i should go to bed…

i cant be arsed finishing my list of things i miss about melboune.

Saturday, November 22, 2003

Burning down the house…..

what can I say, robbed in the last 20 seconds of a suddent death draw for the world cup…
oh well. we did it to the kiwis. cant really complain.

Going boozing with Sam tomorow up at Angel. Hopefully it wont be raining.  Poor guy has to fly back to australia during the week!! ohwell…

its been very English(tm) weather. It rained all night and all day. Its pitch black and cold…

Last night was interesting.  The absolute idiocy of my hated flatemate shone through. (The french bird). She was boiling oil in a saucepan on the stove and anoter lot of oil boiling in the shallow frypan… Next thing she is baning on my door, the kitchen is full of smoke.. she only tipped half a liter of oil over the burners (its electric) which cought fire and went into the tray under the electric elements.

Stupid bitch. Every night they fry up oil and make chips. Apparently she has set fire to the stove before which my other flatmate (the one I get along with) had to take care off… She turned everything on high, then went into her room and watched tv, forgetting it was on.

So I clean the entire kitche yesterday afternoon. Washed all the dishesh laying around, did the benches etc… By Lunchtime today my lovely french couple had the entire sink full of all the clean dishes, now covered in shit and filth. food scraps, salt piles and oil all over the benches.

AAAAAAAAAAAAargh. They only wash things when they need to use them, and dont care that anyone else needs to use the damn suacepans…

I really wouldnt be surprised if they do set the place on fire when everyone is at work oneday…

Got a xmas card from my nan! The envelope has cool little stickers all over it.

Thursday, November 20, 2003

mmmmm

I’m pigging out on Haagen Dazs ‘Cookies and Cream’ icecream.. I know I should be saving money but I cant help it! its sooooooooo nice n nummy n cold! nnnnnnnnngh....

Wednesday, November 19, 2003

Three cool things today!

One, my passport turnedup at work.. and Lo, the US Embassy stuck in a page! Wai!!! My VISA is in!! whooo.. I have a year to do my 6 months!! so sweeeeeeeeeeeeet!

Two, my pocketmail device arrived. Cost me 15$usd. Ebay rocks!! Its an Oregon Scientific PM-32 model…

I cant ‘test’ it without opening an account, minimum is 3 months.... hmm… all I want to do is make sure it all works…

my machines ID is 0.. which looks very sus.. its supposed to be a 9 digit number.... hmmm

Third, a package came from Dharhan today.... I dunno If I’m sposed to open it or not.. its very ‘scenty’!!!

Tuesday, November 18, 2003

phone convos…

I think its about time to update this before I sack the hit.
Managed to get my christmas presents sent home! hopefully they will arrive before christmas.

Mum has sent my pocketmail over! so I’ll get to play with that before I take it on the trail… This is the lil dodad I’ll be using to write my journal with on the trail.

Also spoke to Joy tonight! That was cool. My calling card gets more minutes calling america than it does australia!! hahah not bad. 400 minutes for 4 pounds… Spoke for like an hour or near enough. Bout lots of things.

Its nice to put a voice to the email! hahaha

hmm my flatmates were up and about during the convo, so I couldnt shout down the phone ‘Yes England hats France and French people too’ (since they are french) so it was seruptitiously referred to as ‘that country’… hahahahha

But we had a good chat.. I think i did most of the babbling tho…

shit its 12:45am and I need to sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.

night ppls

Friday, November 14, 2003

AAAaaaaaaargh

So i went down for my visa today… Got there at 8:30am… queued up for 45minutes just to go through security to get into the embassy… Got to the front of the line, and the guy checking info sees I have UK and Australian passports and puts on some fake accent that made him sound like a south african with a dodgy afrikaans voice. I just smiled at the bloke…

Once inside, and security checked, I queued up in a line for another 45minutes to get a NUMBER to have my visa interview. So I hand all my documentation over to the woman (everyone who works in the embassy is american), and am given a ticket…

So I sit down in the room. Its strange. Like Dr Who’s tardis. Its full of everyone waiting. Few empty chairs.. About once every 15 minutes someone goes up to a window, so the churn rate is really really low. But the queue of people coming in is constant, ywt nobody was leaving. I couldnt work out where they were all hiding…

So anyway, after waiting for about 1hr and a half, I get called to the window. OK! Here it goes, Im thinking about my spiel, my story, etc. Ive got my battle plan all sorted…

Problem was, she didnt want to know!  AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!

So she looks at the mileage chart joy did (I printed it out! hehe)…

her: “You have dual citizenship? Australian and UK?”
me: “Yep” {cuts me off}
her: “Your walking the Appalachian Trail”
me: “Yes, -” {cuts me off}
her:  “Going Northward”
me: “Yes -” {cuts me off again}
her: “Walking?”
me: “Yeah I’m -” {cuts me off}
her: “Walking?”
me: “Yes, hiking.”
Her: “ok.”

It took all of about 10 seconds.
“We will post your visa in the mail”

whooooooooooooooooooo!! I’m going to merka!!!

stomach lining

stu sick. bleahgh. one end. stu sick. bloop. other end.

fucking stress.

leaving in 5 minutes to walk to the embassy. got my 12 inch stack of paperwork.
gonna detour by the dunnys again before i go i think. id swear ive been eating for 12 people non stop, i dunno where its all coming from.

stomach lining tast goooooooooooood.

Thursday, November 13, 2003

x

ive got my interogation tomorow and i’m fucking stressed. ive made myself bloody cactus coz of it.  i hate this shit. two things been running through my head all day

1) the damn marathon man scene ‘is it safe’…

and

2) what if they have my records??

i hate being sick. worse, i hate making myself sick!

us government interrogation!!

i just know i’m not gonna get my visa. i just know it.

Tuesday, November 11, 2003

Reno 911

Was watching Reno911 tonight… hahah quite amusing. its like an american version of ‘The Office’ but with police as the main characters…

I caved in on the Store shit. I’m gonna temp in some place near Liverpool street or something. I decided not to rock the boat when I’m depending on my last 4 paycheques

Sunday, November 09, 2003

Fatso

I want to have a pet wombat named fatso....