Bob Dylan. What can I say? The experience was like you would expect - only less shit. Sure, Vanessa and I almost fell asleep half way into his set. Sure, some idiot behind us yelled out “Maggie’s Farm” as a request even though everyone should know you don’t tell Bob Dylan what to play. Sure, our seats were almost touching the heavens. Sure, Mr Dylan sounded like he had swallowed a lit packet of cigarettes and his gruffy voice made it hard to decipher lyrics but man, we just saw Bob Dylan.

Before the show, vanessa and I had decided to get a drink because you really need to be drinking at a Bob Dylan gig. Only the thing is, when you go to the Burswood Dome for a gig you should know that it is impossible to get drunk there. It is because you are waiting for so long to get a drink and by the time you get to the front of the line, they don’t have what you want and it’s usually warm. So when we got some red wine, we had no idea that it was going to taste like absolute ass. I would say that I was disappointed, because  you always think that you have it safe when you are just going be choosing the standard drink of red wine. I am not an expert, but I assume that all red wine tastes pretty much the same. And not like ass. What a shame that was.

Some dude started talking to us and asked us why we were at Bob Dylan, just the two of us. I guess it would come as a shock that yeah - vanessa and i are god damn hippies. only we are from THE NOW. I was also a bit shocked to see some dude eating a fucking ice cream but i guess you can buy anything when you go to a concert at the burswood dome.

So Bob Dylan, what can i say? It was not the top 10 gigs I have ever been to. I would be lieing if i said it was. but being that i had seen bob dylan made the whole night very special. even if the songs were unrecognisable because they had been reworked. i guess that is what you do when you have been singing the same song for almost 40 years or more. It would get old. Someone said to me the other day “man, the Chili Peppers must get so sick of playing ‘give it away’ since it’s from 1991?. I think, Bob Dylan and The Rolling Stones must be pretty fucking bored of their songs by now!

After the gig, Vanessa and I had a mini freak out which included saying “man” and “dude” about a thousand times. On walking back to the train, some dude came up to me and asked if bob  dylan was still playing. I looked at him, i knew he was trying to be funny but he tried too hard and became a fucking idiot. So I said “um, guess” and walked away. People are fucking pathetic like that.

When Roger (formerly known as “The Boyfriend”, but didn’t like that title because it made him feel like an object…) got back from his trip to Europe, we went to Brisbane to check out Black Sabbath but to also spend time together. However, Brisbane and my health had other plans.

I was sick when we went to Brisbane. I had the beginnings of a cold which obviously did not get enough of me in June and had to come back to me. Missed me too much, you know? I felt bad as I had used Roger’s housemate’s tissues and tried my best to continuously throw out my endless heaps of used up tissues in an effort to not make me look disgusting and remain “classy” at the same time. Unfortanetly, the day before I went to pick Roger up from the airport, I had started chundering which was not at all part of the plans. I willed myself to get better but all that changed was the chundering ceased the next day but alas, I still had the runny nose which continued until Saturday.

When I get a runny nose, the tissue boxes go missing in the house. Then onto the toilet paper if I’m desperate.

I don’t mind flying. I don’t love it. I don’t hate it. It’s just like being in a car - there is nothing exciting about it. Unless you have a DVD player in there or something. But I guess even then it gets boring after about 10 minutes. Who watches shit when they drive anyway?

So the flying part wasn’t too bad - 5 minutes into it. I looked over at Roger, and his head was bowed with his eyes looking downward. He held his chin in his hand and did not blink once. I watched him for a moment, unsure of whether he was just buggered from his Hong Kong flight a few days before or if something else was wrong. When I was about to open my mouth to ask him if he was ok, he quickly grabbed my head and said in my ear “That kid behind me keeps kicking my seat and it’s fucking pissing me off.” I looked behind him and sure enough there was a little boy kicking Roger’s seat just because it looked fun. I looked back at Roger - he normally does not get that mad and it’s quite a difficult task to annoy him.

I guess when you have spent so much time on a plane, you don’t want any shit. So I asked him if he wanted to swap, he said he’ll be ok. It’s probably a good idea we didn’t because after the child had a 30 minute hissy fit which included screaming, kicking (more of the seat) and high pitched yelling, he was put in the seat behind me and told to show mummy what a good boy he can be. So for the next 4 hours, I had mister LITTLE SHIT kicking the back of my seat.

It really made me think about parenting. I am not a parent and I hope it will be a very long time until I become one - but I would not put up with a fucking temper tantrum from my child on a plane - a place where people aren’t exactly dieing to be. I would have grabbed that little shit by the arms, forced him to sit down on his seat, buckled him up and told him if I saw him move then he wasn’t allowed (enter toy/sweet food here) that he so badly wanted. Saying shit like “Show mummy what a good boy you can be” after your child has just pissed off an entire plane in the early hours of the morning is not acceptable parenting. You are their PARENT, not their friend. Who cares if they get mad at you? It’s your job to piss the child off, so do it. They might shut up and behave.

The Brisbane city was nice although the shopping was not as good as I thought it would be. I’m quite sure I was told to go to Brisbane to shop over Melbourne. Whoever told me that should shoot themselves in the foot. Brisbane was absolutely crap for shopping clothes wise! I’m not exactly sure if it’s because the women’s fashion is those empire line dresses aka dresses that make you look pregnant/fat, or because the clothes were just crap. I almost suffocated in a Supre store. It seems that even though women are trying not to call each other bitches and whores in a bid to stop men from calling us the same, we are counteracting that work as we speak. There were shirts with big prints that said “I love friends with benefits”, “Boys are just toys” and all that shit. It’s fashion and it’s fun, but it’s fucking lame at the same time. I wouldn’t be caught dead in a shirt that pretty much said I was a fucking slut and trying to look cool about it.

After dinner that night, we decided to go the to movies to see The Simpsons as Roger hadn’t seen it yet. We rushed to the cinema, but by the time we got there we learned they did not show The Simpsons movie at 8:30 on the Monday so we went to see Die Hard 4(.0 … don’t forget the POINT OH. Makes it sound FUTURISTIC). I was seated next to a woman who kept screaming and jumping at every moment that wasn’t even remotely scary (She said “I thought this was supposed to be a nice movie.” Uh… Die Hard 4?!). Roger was seated in front of a couple of dickheads who kept kicking his seat even though there was a large amount of leg room available. Halfway through the movie, he got so pissed off that he stood up, turned around and told them off. He looked scary. I would have been scared if I were them. When the movie finished, they bolted so they would not be confronted by Mister Scary Guy again.

Roger and I went on a river cruise on Tuesday which was nice. We were unsure of what the river was actually called until I looked at the map. It’s called The Brisbane River. How original. Shit. Anyway, the R.C was nice, but like most R.C’s are, it’s basically a showcase of all the rich people with their river side appartments or huge mansions overlooking the river with their own boats. It’s nice to dream of course. Nothing exciting really happened other then Roger tried to take a picture down his pants which didn’t really work out - it looks like a “Guess what this is” picture - and I took a picture of a napkin on the floor of the boat.

Riveting.

After dinner, we made our way to the entertainment centre to see Black Sabbath / Heaven and Hell with Down. As much as I was looking forward to seeing Sabbath, Down were getting me excited as well. I have had this immense crush on Phil Anselmo since I was 13. Of course it died down because that’s what happens when you get older but still it was going to be awesome to see him in person as I’ve never had the chance. The tickets said the gates opened at 7. Naturally Roger and I assumed Down wouldn’t be on until 8/8:30. When we got to the Entertainment Centre, Down were finishing their set. It was not even 8:30. I was fucking pissed off when I learned that apparently there were noise restrictions which made concerts finish at around 11 there. I soaked up as much Anselmo/Down I could get but I could not shake the feeling of disappointment until Black Sabbath came on.

I died when I saw Tony Iommi as I am a huge fan of his. But Ronnie James Dio just blew me away with his voice. He is such a little man into senior citizen status and he blew the shit out of every note he sung. His voice was so powerful and at times, almost operatic. I couldn’t believe it. He didn’t sound anything like on his records at all - better. I had found a new vocal idol. Shit, if I could have a voice as powerful as his when I am his age, I will be blessed!

There was some annoying big dude off to the side of me who kept yelling out “GEEZ-AAAAAAHHHHH” (Australian for Geezer”) to try get the drummer’s attention. He often did this during the quite moments where Iommi would play a beautiful solo on guitar which annoyed me. Then there was a dude in front of me who kept moving his head all the time whenever I would move mine until some dude pretty much bashed him in the head trying to get to his seat. It was almost as if someone had read my mind. Ahh..

When Roger and I got on the train to head back, it was not even 11pm. Just before it, in fact. We looked at each other with puzzeled looks on our faces. In Perth, we wouldn’t get out of a gig until sometime after 12 or even 1. This was fucking pathetic! Then we had to listen to some kids who thought they knew everything talk about how Nine Inch Nails and Queens of the Stone Age were “metal”. It seemed clear to me they knew nothing of the genre as the bands they were mentioning weren’t even near metal at all. I felt like turning around and telling them to read a book about the history of metal before they insult it any further. At this time I was so aggravated by a continuous cough of mine that would not go away, and listening to dweebs insulting the metal genre as time went on. At one time they called Silverchair metal and I started coughing loudly. Unintentionally of course.

When we finally got back to the train station, we were told we could not go the direct way back to our hotel and that we had to walk all the way around. This pissed us both off to no end. On top of missing Down, having people’s carelessness pee us off during Black Sabbath and listening to dweebs on the train we now had to walk practically 30 minutes to get to our hotel in a city we did not know very well. It probably would have taken 5 minutes, but since we kept taking wrong turns it took about 30 minutes. Plus, when we saw our hotel we got hungry and headed to Hungry Jacks for a quick bite and to calm down a bit.  It would have been better had we just gotten off at the stop before - much quicker too.

The next day, we went to the Gold Coast. My cough had gotten worse and with every breath I was coughing all over the place. We stopped at a shopping mall which started showing me that the whole of Queensland was not only a crap place to shop for clothes, but also contained more annoying people and crazy drivers than even Perth can boast. We returned to the hotel early and by this time I was pretty ill.

In the morning, I had woken up about 3 times to get water or because I just could not breath. On the second time of waking up (I felt bad because I woke Roger up about 3 times), I smashed a drinking glass in the bathroom simply by turning it over. Ok, that’s not the whole story. I picked it up by it’s bottom, swung it up right and it connected with the tiles and smashed everywhere. I honestly did not think it was going to do that i didn’t think I swung it that hard! I’m just too powerful, I guess.

On the plane, I was seated next to a Fremantle Dockers supporter who nudged and elbowed me the whole way to Melbourne. Roger and I joked that it would be funny if we sat next to him as he just seemed so annoying - holding up the checking in line because he was talking to the staff like they were old friends, asking a thousand stupid questions and being rude about our flight being delayed. Lo and behold my friends, there he was. Sitting right next to my seat. I hoped he would not be on the next plane and luckily he wasn’t. But by the time we touched down in Melbourne I was so sick that I rushed to the toilet and saw the Pringles again that I ate on the plane. When we took the connecting flight in Melbourne back to Perth, I rushed to the toilet on the plane and vomitted. I didn’t exactly want to vomit in the bag provided to be with everyone around me. It was embarrassing and I wanted to die. Thank god I slept half of the way but I still felt sick.

Aside from the sickness, the shit incidents, the annoying people, the crazy drivers, the crap shopping (I bought three books. THREE BOOKS. I am a nerd) and inconveniences I DID have a good time. But I would not go back to that backwards town anytime soon. They think Perth is backwards… they might get a nice little surprise if they came here.

Exams are something that cannot be avoided in everyday life. I honestly do not understand why they can’t just call them “Tests” instead of exams. The word “exams” sounds painful. People usually associate the word “pain” or a variation of the word to “exam” anyway.

I have done over 40 academic exams including high school exams, college exams and university exams. I’ve never been a fan, I’m sure you aren’t either. But I can recall the top 5 most interesting exams or instances that have occured in exams in my academic career from 2002 - 2006.

1. Nov 2006 - Going to my E-Commerce exam smashed.

That’s right friends, it was the bad time to be wallowing in my own self pity from a broken heart. I looked at the clock and realised that I wouldn’t have to leave for my exam for 3 more hours. No one was home. I was depressed. So I decided to polish off the bottle of Jack Daniel’s my uncle gave to me as thanks for helping him with a DVD. All of a sudden, it was 2pm - time to go - and I was still smashed. I drove to my exam drunk. I kept needing to go to the toilet which made the supervisors a bit suspicious until one of them came in the toilet with me. I called my tutor the wrong name on my exam paper, was barely able to hold up my pen and write, and left the exam after 45 minutes. By this time I had sobered up but I was so very drunk that I felt like I was going to pass out on the exam paper. I passed.

2. Last half of 2002 - I use a tampon up my nose so I can continue my exam.

For some reason, I was always one to get a cold in the beginning of summer - usually the change of seasons. My nose was running like crazy. Halfway through my English exam, I ran out of tissues as per usual. There were none in the class, so I got toilet paper from the toilets but ran out of that too. Being the awkward anti-social teenager I was, I didn’t want to keep asking to go to the toilets and in my moment of desperation, I reached into my pocket and undid the wrapper of a (mini size) tampon as slowly as a could as to not disrupt others and I put it in my nose. I was on the edge of the class so no one could see me from the right but everyone could on the left. So i bent down so far that my hair covered the side of my face. I finished my exam with a tampon up my nose.

3. The first half of 2001 - Petra chokes in the English exam.

Petra and I came up with this scheme to bring a whole bunch of food in our english exam because at the time, we hated english and didn’t care for it so we saw the exam as I big junk food fest. Although, she bought more food then I did. So I was not surprised when halfway during the exam, I hear gagging sounds coming from Petra. I look over and her face has gone red and she starts coughing. “What’s wrong?” I whispered, a little alarmed. “I almost choked on my spit after eating this” she indicated to a red licorice.

4. November 2003 - I stay in an Accounting exam for 30 minutes and get 65%.

Here’s the story - I was repeating year 12 so I repeated my accounting exam. As I’d already done accounting before, I was getting excellent marks in class until our mock exam. I failed - i got 31% for some reason that today, I still don’t know. It brought my mark from 70% to 49% which crushed my spirit greatly. I stopped being motivated to learn and try in accounting. When it was time to do my exam, I never studied. I didn’t have any notes. I just did not care. I didn’t care so much that I planned to only stay half an hour and leave which I did. And I got 65%. I either fluked it, or it was a miracle.

5. Early 2002 - Having an exam with no supervisors.

Apparently, there was a little mix up. Our class for the exam couldn’t move to a bigger class with supervisors because all the other classrooms were being used. So the supervisors in one room had to keep walking back and forth to check on us. After a while, they probably believed in the goodness of our little precious hearts and stopped coming to check on us, but sometimes made an exception if the volume got a little high. One girl kept clearing her throat so loudly that it made half of the class deaf until someone snapped at her to “shut the fuck up”. People were telling each other answers or showing each other their papers and someone blew up a condom while someone else took a lighter to it. All in all, I’d say we all passed.

I was known as an insane hippie in high school. I wasn’t popular, I wasn’t unpopular. And I was more than happy not to be classified as anything. I had a bunch of friends who the popular kids called us “rejects” because to them, we didn’t fit in anywhere. Now that I think back at it, I would much rather be a reject than be in any other social group. Rejects had far more fun because they never cared what anyone else thought about them.

By the time I got to year 12, I was suffering from a severe case of clinical depression which I often hid from my friends by being humorous and making people laugh. Because of this, no one really took me seriously or saw me as a threat. In fact, a lot of people probably saw me as someone who could be walked over because apparently I was just a clown.

I had a quick wit, make dirty jokes in regards to genitalia and various gasses and bodily fluids, I made rude comments about teachers who we collectively didn’t like, I constantly took hits at myself at the expense of other people… so it was no wonder that most of them who did not know me very well never took me seriously.

I was extremely emotional and always got angry. Even more so then than I do now. I cannot even put into words how angry and hurt and upset I was all the time for apparently no reason. But like I said, I always pushed it down. I never blew up at anyone because it wasn’t my style. However, there was one person who I had had enough of and unfortunately, my fuse was shortening at a rapid rate. She just happened to be on the receiving end of it.

She was new to school. New kids usually start of quiet and awkward, unsure of where they are going to fit in and if anyone will like them at all. But we readily accepted her because she seemed cool and she also seemed like she didn’t fit in anywhere. After about two days, I noticed something about her. She was quick to shoot people down, even if they were having a laugh. She retorted angrily to people who joked about her just to get her to have a laugh. If someone said something that was incorrect, she would correct them. She was an all out know it all. I don’t mind people who “know it all”, just as long as they don’t try to be a complete dick about it and make people feel about two inches tall. She did that to everyone.

Mind you, she was awesome to have a conversation about art with. We were both in the same art class. She loved painting and so did I so we had that in common. However, she sometimes looked down on me because I never took art seriously like she did. How could I? Our teacher was a flower eating Croatian lady who always got pissed off with Petra and I if we swore in our parents/grandparents native tongue since she could understand us. Some guys in our class thought it was funny to make a penis out of clay and put it on her desk. She called that sexual harassment and lost it. We called it the best fucking thing that happened that day and lost it laughing. Although, looking back I felt sorry for her.

I was also doing photography at the time. I had done it since year 8 and I was a keen student, constantly doing my work and more. I took great pride in Photography,  as I just saw art class as a place to muck around and paint dark and depressing portraits.

So during an art class, I decided to finish off my photography journal as I had finished my mosaic. The new girl was sitting across from me doing some artist assignment as I was doing my photography journal. Our assignment was still life and we had to find examples of buildings, structures, signs, toys.. any inanimate object that was not living. I remember pasting in a picture of the Louvre because I had always wanted to go there and I always thought it was one of the most beautiful structures in the world. She stopped what she was doing and narrowed her eyes down at me and said in a monotone:

“That’s not still life.”

I stopped what I was doing and looked up and her. She never looked me in the eyes and just looked down, disapprovingly at my work.

“Yeah it is, it’s a building.”

She still never looked at me and said in her matter-of-fact voice: “No it’s not.”

By this point, I was starting to fly off the metaphoric handle. This kind of behavior had been happening the whole time she was at school. People often made comments to me about how annoying she was or how they were intimidated by her because she made people feel stupid. I felt badly for them, but I said nothing. Now I was victim #43728947, and she was starting to make me angry. And when I got angry.. you do not want to be the focus of my anger.

“Um, yes it is. It’s a building. The Louvre.” I said, trying to contain my voice which was breaking because I was pushing down my anger. “I thought you know, you would think it’s cool.”

“But it’s not still life. There are people inside.” She said in that tone again.

I forced a smile and said, “But what if it’s night time and no one is in there? Is it still life then?”

She rolled her eyes and got frustrated with me. “Jessica, it’s not still life, ok?” She spoke to me like I was a child and that just put the final nail in the coffin.

The situation was getting tense because Petra and the other girl we shared our table with were looking at each other and then looking down trying to avoid the splatter of an impending blood bath. I looked at Petra and then I looked at miss know it all. She was looking at me, with her eyes looking down at my work. I could feel myself getting angrier and angrier. I was probably going red in the face because I felt so hot. And then, the floodgates opened.

“Do you know what?!” I snapped, “It might not be still life in your fucking world of fucking art or whatever the fuck you want to call it because you’re so fucking good at it like you fucking tell everyone else you are and make everyone feel fucking stupid for god knows whatever reason, but in photography a building is fucking still life. It’s not living. It’s made of fucking cement which I believe is fucking dead. So how about you just shut the fuck up about your worthless fucking art bullshit and stop pretending you know everything because it seems to me that you fucking well don’t.”

Of course, I do not remember the exact tirade but it did go something like that and I remember that I said a variation of the word “fuck” every second word (as it was like this in my vocab back then) and I stood up for myself and the little person. I admit that looking back and even at the time when the words escaped my mouth I regretted them because it was totally out of my character to do this.

She sat there silent and looked shocked. Petra and the other girl looked up at me in the same reaction, obviously also shocked that I said anything. I swear to god the whole class fell silent hearing my angry rant. I ignored it and said nothing and returned to my work. She never spoke to me again after that and I was secretly glad.