Josephine's Theory

Music and Nausea

2006-05-20T12:33:00.000-07:00

Last night a buddy and I went to see On Holiday at Buffalo Club. They had an awesome energy and played a sweet show, short as it was. Bored after the live show ended, we walked over to the Media Club not knowing the line-up. Turned out a band called Sweetheart was playing, which we soon learned was unfortunate. They weren't exactly bad, but they weren't worth $10.

The vocals were largely inaudible, and when they could be heard, the songs revealed themselves as energetic but bland and indistinct. The base player once or twice jumped off stage with his cordless and mingled among the (not very enthusiastic) crowd as rockers are expected to do, which annoyed me. It's cool if said rocker is, you know, good, but here it felt as if the guy was trying to get the crowd to pretend they were sharing some vibrant connection with him, which they weren't.

I was also annoyed that the lead guitarist and the basist consistently stood, hips-tilted, with their mouths thoughtlessly gaping open. I can't decide if this reminded me more of Elvis (don't get me started on my beef with Elvis) or Ken barbie getting road head in his pretty plastic convertible. Either way they gave me the shudders.

I fled to the bathroom when the lead singer, his first plea failing, started practically begging that people "please stand up, come on, please." We left shortly thereafter.

Sometimes you can't beat showing up at random gigs; last night was not one of those times. Luckily On Holiday counteracted my Sweetheart-induced nausea enough for me to stomach a 7-11 burrito and a long walk home.

A Brief History of Last Night (and This Morning)

2005-12-31T14:02:00.000-08:00

A Brief History of Last Night:

Ron and Amar come over and have a couple of brews to get things started with Chris and I
We meet up with Caffrey, Rhett, Ed, and Paolo at Kingshead Pub. The attendance consists of us and about five others. Still Steve and Paul's cover band Monkey Bar kept us pumped.
People started seeping in and finally the place was kickin'. Plus Stash, Brian, Weldon and Nelson eventually ended up with us too and we were like some unbreakable St. Pat's fan force for our old high school teacher Steve. A year after first seeing him play live, I'm still impressed that come sunset, our old Catholic private high school teacher turns rockstar. Steve made my night when he dedicated Land Down Under to me last night, the same song he dedicated to me at the last show of his I saw before I left Vancouver one year ago.
After hours of moshing/dancing, midnight came and went, Ron and co. taxied home and the rest of us headed down the street to Malone's.
Some creepy old guy tried to impress me with his Sci-Fi knowledge and also by using the contentment he feels from sledge-hammering as a construction worker as an allusion to "many other things" Eugh! I'm sure he'd be a nice guy if he weren't trying to pick up, but unfortunately he was, so it was my intent to cut off conversation with him. That is until he offered to buy both me and Nelson doubles. How often does a guy get offered a drink?! I couldn't say no.
A few minutes later (the gin and tonics done) Nelson walks away. I mouth "save me" but he keeps walking!!!
Two minutes pass and Nelson returns running! He grabs my arm and yells "Quick! your brother's getting beat up outside!" I freaked out and sprinted after him right out of the bar. I was ready to destroy whoever was hurting Chris.
Then Nels tells me that was the "save".... It was so believable even I bought it! Chris's only injury was his popped knee cap from dancing a little too vigorously.
We walk across the bridge towards downtown with a random Australian.
We shout "Happy New Year!" to all passerby, sometimes inquiring into their night. I asked one man if he was just getting off work (yes he answered). A minute more's conversation led to receiving his business card and being offered his services if we have any upcoming private parties. He walked away and I looked at the business card and laughed. His company title was "Boys of summer" and the front of the card was a glossy photo: the very same man wearing construction boots and short shorts, skin glistening with oil, and he posing provocatively. The people you meet at 3:30am on New Year's Day...
A failed series of attempts to get into bars (that all close by 4am) ended in a much needed meal at Denny's.
We lost the Australian somewhere along the way, Ed and Amar bussed to Ron's place, and Nelson, Chris and I got home at 6 am. Just enough energy left for a pingpong showdown in the basement before crashing.

See Ya 2005

2005-12-30T13:58:00.000-08:00

It's the last day of 2005 today and I think this warrants an entry.

For Christmas my bro Matt gave Chris and I tickets to the Bedouin Soundclash show at the Commodore. To be honest I hadn't heard of them before but it turned out to be an awesome show, if only for their 'when the night feels my song' song. The opener, Mike Relm, Dj'ed up a fury. I know almost nothing about the world of DJs but this guy blew my mind. He did an amazing job of mixing, plus he sliced in silent dvd clips on a big screen projection which he'd rewind/fastforward to match the record mixing. At one or two points he matched the mouth movements of the projected characters to the sound of the record, which was insane. It's hard to properly describe it but the guy's unbelievably talented and if you haven't heard of him before I definitely recommend checking out his stuff. I say he beats the main act.

The three of us went to another show (this time the Town Pants) a couple of nights ago at at the Buffalo Club. The Town Pants were great, but the openers, Run GMC, were crazy. Why did they call themselves RunGMC? don't ask me. They are nothing like Run DMC. In fact they're a country band and one of the members only job is to wear thimbles and play the washboard. And as far as I could tell, the sound manager's job was to stand on stage, or more accurately wobble on stage, with his shirt unbuttoned to expose his well-established beer gut, bop along to the beat as best as he could, and periodically meddle with the buttons on the soundboard. And he gets PAID to do that! Seemed really nice, though the poor guy almost fell off the stage when I went up to give him five.

ok I'm bored. See ya around.

Cycling in Cambodia

2005-12-11T06:06:00.000-08:00

We're in Cambodia! For the last couple of days we were in Bangkok, doing some intensive shopping and celebrating Ian's birthday. This being my third time in Bangkok, I'm surprised that the city which I initially found super busy, polluted, and charmless is growing on me. The more time I spend there, the more relaxed I feel amongst all the shouting tuk-tuk drivers hoping to scam you into a commission-earning tour of shops you don't want to visit and all the lady-boys madly batting their eyes hoping that you'll take them back to your room.

I can bare it, but I'm glad to be off. Cambodia is probably the poorest and least developed place we're been so far. We're in the second biggest city, Siem Reap, so it's not anything extreme, but it's still a world away from the developed tourism industries of Vietnam and Thailand.

The day long ride here from the Thai border was definitely an experience... Dodging the lies of a man who led us to an money exchanger and told us that nowhere else in Cambodia could Thai baht be changed to Cambodian riel, we got onto a 'minibus'. It was the bumpiest, loudest ride of my life. The roads we took (for about 8 hours in total) could hardly be called paved, and by the end of it I was covered in a layer of orange dust that had come in through the windows. I was sure I would get sick, and that I surely wouldn't sleep, but was glad to be wrong on both accounts! It was a bit like being in a cradle (a very loud, dirty one, that would every so often rock too hard and hurt your neck). In the end I think it was better than any smooth ride could have been--I got to see heaps of rural areas and interesting people (like a guy holding an oozie), and the red liquid sunset on the misty horizon (corny and cliched but accurate) was unbeatable.

Today we rented old about-to-break bikes and drove out of Siem Reap city to the outskirts. Somehow we ended up having a drink with a family and their neighbours on the straw deck of their home (a shack). One guy knew some English, so he taught us some Khmer (the Cambodian language), and the kids were super excited to see photos of themselves on the display screen of Chris's camera. Nice people, so I'll forgive them for thinking Chris and I are dating. Continuing on our biking adventure we somehow ended up meeting a 16 yr old boy who showed us an old Hindu temple and relics, made of stone with Sanscrit writing and images of Hindu gods engraved. Then he took us to have soup with his aunt! (He's an orphan without siblings).

It's days like this that make it all worth while. Photos to come soon!

8 days until I fly home!

Catching up on the last long while

2005-12-07T07:46:00.000-08:00

OK, so this is the third time I'm attempting to write this blog entry. The first time the computer froze just after I'd finished writing it, and the second time I couldn't finish because we were about to get on a bus, SO this third go is going to be short and chunks of stuff will be omitted, because at this point I just can't be bothered.

The half moon party on Ko Phangan was lacking in that it didn't meet its reputation. This was most likely because it was raining so very much (the day after we left they shut down the airport due to flooded runways). We decided to go full out anyways, and nearly ridding the local store of its Thai Red Bull supply, ingredients unknown and unmonitered, we headed to the party in the forest like animals to Noah's ark. And I have to say wearing a plastic bag was actually quite fun. Somewhere along the line I lost my flip-flops in a brown river of rain. This didn't phase me at the time, but had I known this would lead to me buying rip-off Birkenstocks in Bangkok which in turn caused my left foot's arch to swell and blister, I think I would have tried harder not to lose them. Anyways, it was a good way to say goodbye to Ian and Lydia before we meet again in Bangkok.

Hanoi in Vietnam was stellar, with heaps of personality, but for a few days the only thing I associated with it was its overabundance of motorcycles. The thin streets are always full of them and there is never a silence as instead of using traffic lights, people just honk loudly every few seconds to let you know they'll hit you if you don't move (surprisingly we saw only two accidents). Trying to cross the street is essentially an extreme version of Frogger. I got to wondering how a blind person could survive in a city like Hanoi, where you risk your life every time you go for dinner. Not an hour after I mentioned this to Chris and Ron, no joke, we saw a blind guy crossing a street using a cane to direct him. The thing is, he accidentally knocked the kickstand of a parked motorcycle, toppling it over! The worse part is that there were literally over a hundred glass bottles of Coke stacked on the back... Guess I got my answer.

Just outside of Hanoi...

Being rowed by Vietnamese women en route to the only-accessible-by-water Perfume Pagoda, a Buddhist shrine within a mountain cave...

We also
took a wicked two day boat trip in
Halong Bay...

Visited the Cham Ruins, Hindu relics from the 4th century irrevocably damaged from bombing during the Vietnam-American war. It was still raining and Chris bought a sweet hat...

N

Now we're in Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) still trying to regain circulation in our legs after the three night 40 hour series of bus rides we took from Hanoi. I ate a stuffed snail! Today I fight back at the colony of ants that has invaded our room, and tomorrow I fly to Bangkok. My motivation to make this third attempt at a blog entry interesting deteriorates by the word so this is the end!

The adventure begins!

2005-11-23T21:54:00.000-08:00

Bye D Floor...

And goodbye Union College...

Hello Southeast Asia!

It's been a long year, but after a gradual and gruelling goodbye to Australia, I'm finally back in Southeast Asia. Ian, Ron, and I flew into Singapore, where we met up with Lydia and Chris.

Chris's Singaporean friends who picked us up at the airport.

We stayed in Little India. It was a bit odd being the rare white female walking on streets lined with truckloads of just-got-off-work Indian men, but this just made the sudden shift in worlds more exciting. We were only there for a day, just long enough to grab some samosas plus some unidentified food at a wicked restaurant where we were the only foreigners.

Getting reaquainted with the local brews

Next we flew to Ko Samui, an east-coast island in Thailand. When we got in it was late and we were... tired... so we got in the van of the first person who approached us. She whisked us away down unlit potholed roads and then unlit back alleyways, finally stopping in a place where there were no lights whatsoever besides the light from our van. I had forgotten that this kind of thing is totally normal so I was a bit at unease, but sure enough five minutes later we were pushing two single size beds together for Chris, Ron and I to share in a dingy beach bungalow.

A windy morning just outside our bungalow.

We woke up, ate, and left for the island we actually wanted to be on: Ko Phangan. Mode of transport: catamaran, which incidentally doubled as a rollercoaster, no joke. We sat on deck and held on tight because it honestly felt like one swift turn and we'd fly off into the wide, wide sea! Weirdly it wasn't nauseating at all, just really really fun!

The BEST part was when we spotted a man in the distance in a little fishing boat wildly flailing his arms at us. We pulled over and it turns out the guy's engine had broke and he'd been stuck at sea overnight, for about 20 hours in total! So yea just the regular, saving a man's life...

We've been lazying the days away so far. Drinking fruit shakes all day and cheap beer all night at the beach bar just down from our beach huts. One night the lizards and bats decided to join us too!

It's weird to have left Brisbane but soooo good to be backpacking again. And it's only just begun! Woohoo!

Goodbye Matt and Jenn

2005-11-14T15:06:00.000-08:00

Hello hello everybody,

So what's the news? Well, I'm (almost!) done exams and in less than one week I'm flying to Southeast Asia for another month of backpacking!

Matt and Jen left Union this morning for their trip in New Zealand. God I'm going to miss those two... Over the last year Jen has become the epitome of a good friend. It's odd to pass her room knowing that it's empty and that I can't go right in and collapse on her bed. And I don't know where to begin with Matt. He's just a truly amazing person. Unfortunately time moves along and drags me with it! So I guess I'll just have to be content with appreciating it all for what it's been. Hopefully we'll all keep in touch and if things work out right, we'll all see each other next summer at the Calgary Stampede!

But for the moment, I just want to shake off this empty feeling. It sucks to be here waiting for my flight out while those I've grown closest to leave. I really can't wait to get on a plane back to Southeast Asia, get distracted with backpacking, and get all of this off my mind.

In other news, I've fallen in LOVE.
With Vegemite.
Seriously.

DAYS UNTIL I LEAVE AUSTRALIA: 5

surprise! I'm still here!

2005-10-23T18:51:00.000-07:00

Well hello hello,

It's been a long while since my last update. The guilt's getting to me and so with no further ado, voila La Vie de Josephine, the return from the abyss.

Let's talk about vaginas. That's what the pink leaflet for the Vagina Monologues, now posted on my corkboard, shouts. Holly, Jenn and I went last week and get this: the power went out five minutes before show time!!! After 45 minutes of taking silly photos of ourselves (until a feminist in the backrow yelled at us to stop flashing... the camera flash that is) we began to think the show would not go on. Luckily the cast decided to proceed with a handful of flashlights. And so, in almost complete darkness, the actresses began to shed light on the too unacknowledged subject of the vagina. Among many amusing accounts, supposedly based on real interviews, one chick with a buzz cut (and dressed in a busty, spiked, black pleather dress and wearing slabs of red eye shadow) did a scene on moaning. I'll leave that one to your imaginations. The power did eventually come back on: the actress said "and THEN my husband had an affair," (the theatre lit up) and the audience Oooed, ahhed, and applauded. Ironic?

Besides talking about vaginas, I've also had the good luck of taking a few getaways. A weekender to Byron Bay (where Dennis slept in the hostel shuttle van because he couldn't figure out how to open the door to our room in the middle of the night) and a daytrip to Burleigh Heads beach on the edge of the Gold Coast were both memorable.

Five days of hiking on the Overland Track in cold Tasmania beats them both though. Ron, Holly, Jill and I flew down to the southernmost part of Australia, Tassy, and hiked hiked hiked... and played with a pregnant wallaby named Rodriguez. In total we walked about 70 kilometres, which I'm pretty proud of because we're talking constant ups and downs, a couple of mountains, mud, patches of rain and snow, and best of all we did it all with 20 kilogram packs on our backs. Everyone warned us to buy thermal underwear, boots, and gators, but of course we decided to wing it. So while all (and I mean all) the other hikers we encountered wore such gear, we became known as the crazy Canadians in jeans and runners. One day we walked 25 kilometres (it took us a solid 8 hours) but this cost us some arch and knee ligament injuries so after that we eased it up to 3-5 hours of hiking per day. At night we slept in (cold cold COLD) wooden huts, wrapped up with all of our dry clothes and huddling together for warmth. We also ate a lot of chocolate. This is probably boring you so I'll cut it here. Suffice it to say it was a challenging, AMAZING experience, but I wasn't complaining when we finally got to take a shower, even if it was in a trailer park since the hostel was full.

Back in Brisbane, heaps of other sweet stuff has happened as well. Damn, I really should have been keeping this blog updated... In short...

There was the masquerade boat cruise--a scenic cruise along the smelly Brisbane river with a DJ and all the tacky dance moves you can fathom.

There was Union Ball at the golf course...

And there was Race Day--a day where all university students get the day off school so that they can get dressed in their snazziest outfits, drink champagne, and go to the horse races!

That pretty much sums up the big stuff, though I'm sure I've forgotten something... I'll try to throw stuff on here more often so you can hear about the smaller things that would otherwise slip my mind...

As for now, my superhero duties call... Up, up, and away!

Driving down the coast

2005-07-09T00:18:00.000-07:00

Hello world,

I have 16 minutes on the clock and haven't actually thought about what I'll write in this entry. It's just been so long since the last one that I feel guilty and it's time.

Over the last couple of weeks we've been driving down from Brisbane. The road trip associates have changed from way back when we first set out from Union College in our van, Lucy. It began with Craig, Holly, Gary, Ron, Ian, John, Todd, and myself. Together we conquered Nimbin, a small town full of hippies whose lives' work is to legalize . No joke. I didn't actually count, but I think I'm underestiamted when I approximate that we were asked 25 times to buy weed, within the half hour that we were there. A cultural experience to say the least.

In byron bay we were joined by Chris and Marcus. Instead of Byron's world famous sunshine, we were greeted with rain, hoards of rain, rain so heavy and incessant that Byron Bay was not soaked, not drenched, but flooded. Eventually we gave up on the place and headed out, but not without difficulty, having to teach Lucy to swim through foot deep water before reaching relatively dry highway. (and by dry I mean drenched, but at least besides one sectionw e had to detour around, not flooded).

Craig, John and Gary left us here and we headed onwards and downwards to Sydney where we were joined by Stan. too much happened here to record, but we'll point form it with ten dollar champagne, a man in a blow up santa suit, a well dressed man sleeping in the back of a stranger's car, and hiding out illegal refugees.

Holly and Stan left us, and we hit the BLue Mountains for beautiful hikes along the blue misted mountain side (from the Eucalyptus mists).

Ahhh five minutes left!!

Ian left then, and we drove onwards in nameless car #2 for Canberra, where everyone wears black, and little Albury, and FINALLY Melbourne.

Minutes are draining and I'm almost out of time. Tomorrow we're heading for the Great Ocean Road road trip. We haven't named our car yet...I'm thinking something along the lines of Dust Eater?

any suggestions welcomed. peace out homies.

The pandemonium of exams

2005-06-23T04:09:00.000-07:00

I just came out of my second exam... My head is flushed with Morrison, Swift, Rhys, and Rushdie... Gah exams are no fun, and I've still got one left in the morning! Honestly, some of my good friends have left Australia never to return (this is where I feel sad because I may never see them again!) and I'm still stuck in my dorm room studying... Egad. But it's all good, exam stress is almost over! Once that's out of the way I'll finally be able to think about travelling!

Chris arrived a few days ago and has been in and out since (which is good because Brisbane's been grey and rainy lately--feels just like Vancouver!) One weekend left in Brissy and then WOO WOOO it's off to Byron Bay, followed by the rest of Australia's East coast and eventually New Zealand for two weeks! Snow laden hills, here I come!!!!!

Laptop speakers attack typist's wrists

2005-06-14T03:53:00.000-07:00

Most of the time I don't like tv, but lately I've loved it like Michael Jackson loves kids (arguable simile, as today the jury found him "not guilty" on all accounts... He celebrated with a slumber party). Yes, I agree that in general television numbs the brain (not to mention metabolism) but we've run out of creative procrastinations (see sunglass-balloon party entry below). We've finished The O.C., we've finished Desperate Housewives (which we've affectionately shortened D.H.), we've finished Lost, and now we're making our way through One Tree Hill. This is an all-time low. The cheese factor of this sitcom is unbelievable, I'm sure it'll win a teenchoice award if it hasn't already. Fifteen episodes left in this season...we should be done by Friday.

Ron's laptop speakers are attacking my wrists with electric shocks, it must be a sign to stop here. Chris is coming to Brisbane in four days!

Procrastination turns into Sunglass and Balloon Party

2005-06-02T05:30:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow morning, many of us have a final exam in our Marine Science class. (And Holly and I actually also have an English test tomorrow). As such, we'd been studying in our rooms since dinner until.... The phone rang. It was Jenn calling out an invitation to a study break on F floor, "but you have to wear sunglasses to get in, that's the rule" So I did, as did everyone else.
It started off as a sunglass party...

but became a hybrid sunglass/balloon party when someone brought out a bag of balloons...

All in all, a very successful procrastination period.

Life in Brisbane

2005-05-31T05:30:00.000-07:00

I've been away from Vancouver for four months and eighteen days now and I haven't posted anything online (besides some photos http://photobucket.com/albums/y50/Joeyphine/).

I've sent out a few mass emails, but I think the time has come to return to the old art of webposting, with a fresh start. Thus, Josephine's Theory.

2005 to this date has been active for me. I've backpacked through Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and Laos, and now I am living in Brisbane Australia, where I'll (generally) be until the end of this year. Brisbane has heaps to offer, loads of sunshine, rugby, good bars, Aussie rules football (AFL), and my place of residence: Union College at the University of Queensland. One of Brissy's best qualities though is its proximity to many other great Australian scenes. I've had the chance to visit the Gold Coast's Surfer's Paradise (where, after 1.5 hrs I was splotchy with blistering red burns!), North Stradbroke Island (where we camped on the beach), Heron Island, Kingscliff Beach, and, a short flight away, the Whitsunday Islands (on the edge of the Great Barrier Reef).

Anyways, so here I am in Brisbane. There's no way I can rewind and cover what's happened thus far (the last paragraph was an attempt...) so I won't bother. A few photos are below to give a bit of background. (Sorry about the horrible photo dimensions)

Where I live:

After backpacking through South East Asia, Ian, Ron and I are finally in Australia!

Jenn and Ron hanging out on a Saturday in the Great Court at the University of Queensland

During Easter Break Jenn, Cecilie and I went to Airlie Beach to take a 4 day / 3 night sailing trip, and on our way to the docks to leave we noticed the astonishing sunset...

I threw a piece of pineapple over the side of the sailboat and several fish swam up to eat it:

While sailing, we made a stop on Whitehaven beach, famous for its sand that squeeks when you walk on it

Some photos from our camping trip to straddie:

Holly and I gave surfing a second try. Holly's not bad but I'm definitely a poser at this point.

Sunsets are cliche... but the sunsets on Straddie were unbelievable and worth showing.

Us girls and boys at Straddie

One Morning three of us ran barefoot to the farthest point of land you can see. It took us about 45 minutes. When we got there we went for a short swim and then started back for camp. We soon realized it would take at least 1.5hrs to walk back, and we'd surely burn, so instead we hitched a ride on a 4x4 truck that was driving along the beach front

Our Marine Science class trip to Moreton bay...

(Below: Ian, Holly, and Sabrina)

Holly on Heron Island. The island is 100% a reef formation