womanizer woman womanizer you're a womanizer oh womanizer oh you're a womanizer baby you you you ah you you you ah womanizer womanizer womanizer

I took this photo in the cubicle I occupy at work. The title of this photo is "a couple of things that I hate about boys."

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So. I've decided to leave Australia and return to the United States about a month early, on April 30, in part to attend a good friend's wedding, and also, I must admit, because I'm missing a lot of stuff back there. I've got no complaints about Australia (except for the postal service!!!), but I've really come to appreciate so many things about America and American culture that I just took for granted while living there.

I will save my full "what I learned about Australia" post for the end of this blog, but I will summarize it like this:

If one were to use the metaphor of hackneyed stereotypes about women to represent both Australia and the United States of America, then Australia would be the hot, shallow high school cheerleader, and the US would be the hooker with a heart of gold. So chew on that for a while.

Anyway, unlike most of my posts here, this post has an actual point.

Due to my having moved up my date of departure, I am now at the halfway point of my stay in this great nation, so this is a good time to write about how my time has gone so far

So I came here for self-discovery, I guess. I didn't know what I was doing in the US, so I figured why not not know what I'm doing somewhere more interesting, somewhere that has koalas, and somewhere that would be different enough that my day-to-day existance would require paying a little more attention. This plan actually turned out exactly as I'd hoped. Having to live more consciously made it easier for me to pay attention to who I am, and I've learned a lot about myself, most of which had been right in front of my face the whole time, but I had to travel halfway around the world to see it. Cliche cliche cliche.

Anyhoozles, the most important thing that I have learned is the importance of setting concrete goals for oneself, that are small enough to be attainable, but lead to some larger goal. This is so that one does not feel like a shiftless fuckup for the rest of one's life.

So I have decided/discovered the following:
- I think that I would like to be a graphic designer of some sort.
- Therefore, I will attempt to expand my skillset/experience/portfolio/etc to the point where I can apply for entry level graphic design jobs at some point, to find out if this is a good plan.

To that end, I have set for myself the following goals:
- Before I leave Australia, using books, downloaded tutorials, etc, to become proficient enough in Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, and Dreamweaver that I can claim to be proficient on my resume without setting myself up for horrible embarrasment. So far this is going really well.
- Research a good intro to design course, either to take in Australia or in the United States. (For a variety of reasons I am thinking that the US is a better bet on this front.) This I have not made much progress on.
- Move to New York when I get home. I need a change from Boston, and NY is still near my family. Also, a plurality of both my friends and enemies live there and, last but most, it's the best place for me to go as someone who's exploring graphic design. Plus I have got a pretty solid potential roommate lined up!
- Also I need more money, so I am now on a financial diet and plan to spend my last two months in Australia living and working at some sort of luxury island resort in order to help save. Oh hell yes. Hawaiian shirts are part of the uniform. My lease here goes until February 25, so I will deal with that in February.


So that's it. I'm excited to go back to the US, but I'm not in any hurry to leave here and still look forward to my remaining five and a half months. I'm so stoked to see my friend get married, and already have a super hot date lined up for the wedding.

And finally, in sadder news for me but happier news for said date, I'm starting a new temp assignment next week that sounds interesting and would be a nice job to get extended, so this Monday I will be shaving off the mustache, which I have dubbed "the ole flavor saver."


A lot of the times, when I feel that life is really bad, I forget that life is actually pretty good and it's just my attitude that's bad. (Thanks for the insight, Buddha!)


And that is what is up with me.