rest in peace.

Over the past year, three people under the age of 25 have died from my hometown. No, they weren't my best friends and I haven't even spoke to some of them in years, but at some point, all of these people have been in and affected a part of my life. My heart goes out to those who still knew them on a more personal level and all those who are hurt by these tragedies. I have either gone to school with or worked with these people, have shared millions of laughs, and know their families and friends. One death is hard enough, but we are looking at three in the span between January and August. Drug overdoses, suicide, and car crashes have taken these people away from the world and every single time the phone rings to report the news, my heart shatters into pieces for their young age, their families and their loved ones. Just wanted to take a minute to remember these amazing people and share my short and sweet experiences with each one. Thank you for those memories and know that we will be passing on those memories forever. Rest in Peace Rachel O'Brien, Ricky Jaros and Jon Halverson. You will be forever missed.

[7th grade choir concert]

Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of Rachel and I from back in the day, but I did take this of all the girls outside Bethel for our Spring choir concert.

I met Rachel O'Brien in first hour on the first day of 6th grade. All the boys liked her and I had a serious case of the green-eyed monster. She heard my laugh and saw my chubby rollie-pollie-ollie body running to the water fountain and thought I was handicap. Despite this fact, by the time Mr.Vigardt's homebase? (homeroom?...what the hell did we call that last hour of class?) rolled around, we had hit it off as friends. Rachel could always make you laugh. Whether it was doing an impression, making a silly face or telling a joke, she was always gushing with goofiness. We drifted apart as the years went on--different interests, new friends--the typical high school girl reasons for losing touch. I'm so sad I won't ever get the opportunity to hear one of those jokes again. I'm so sad I didn't try to rekindle our friendship or help in any way. I knew so much of what was going with her through the gossip and the grapevine (evil, high school bullshit), and never did anything to stop it. For that Rachel, I'm sorry. Just know there are millions of people that would give anything to see your smile again.

Getting my first job at Champps Americana in the middle of my hometown of the NB with Shannon (one of my very best friends!) seemed to be one of the greatest things that happened to me in the spring of my senior year. Then I met Ricky Jaros and it quickly became the ABSOLUTE best thing EVER! I thought Ricky was SO sexy and my heart jumped every time he would speak to me. I didn't really know him all that well, but it really tore me up when I heard about his car accident today. I'll never forget this one day at work that I was excitedly working with Ricky. We were both putzing around at the host stand and he came up to me with one of those plastic rings out of the vending machines. He flirtatiously slipped the ring on my finger and gave me a little wink. Pretty sure my entire world stopped. All because of Pretty Ricky. When Shan started seeing Tyler (another one of the Champps crew...), the opportunity to see Ricky outside of work presented itself. I was taken at the time (and madly in love with my boyfriend, I might add) so I knew nothing would happen, but I was still excited to get out of the kitchen and expo-line setting with him! That night, me, Shannon, Tyler and Andy (another server) all had drinks and hung out at Andy's apartment. I had so much fun with Ricky--talking nonsense, playing games and taking pictures. He got fired from Champps not too long after that and I haven't heard much of him since until today. It's strange because I was thinking about him the other day. When Ellie brought up his name, I thought it was such an odd coincidence that he had just crossed my mind. Unfortunately, the news behind the name wasn't anything I wanted to hear. You're in our thoughts and prayers Pretty Ricky.

Jon Halverson and I went to school together since I was in Kindergarten. I knew who he was, but we never really crossed paths until my sophomore year and his junior year of high school. He was in my boyfriend's group of friends and started dating one of my best friends. Naturally, we all hung out all the time. Halvo introduced me to the wonderful world of marijuana. He was always down to have a good time and we let our minds take us on all sorts of crazy adventures all together. Emily and Jon went through some dark times where we didn't see them for a while. I missed her terribly, but I was surprised by how much I missed Jon as well. Over the time of hanging out, he wasn't just Polski's friend anymore--he had become my friend too. After I went away to school for a while, I got a message from Emily saying they were getting better. Treatment and support were helping them to clean up their act and I was so excited to get home to see them. The first time we all partied together back at the U of M house, they were both proud to show off their sobriety. I was thrilled. :) Every time I would go home over the past 3 years, the U of M house would bring us all together and we'd get down like the old times. Jon and Emily were always there--so in love and ready to reconnect with all their old friends. Jon would always be the first to ask how Chicago was going and catch up. The last time I saw Jon was only weeks before he died. I had come home for Easter weekend and without fail, we headed down to the U to get our party on. When I arrived, Jon was already there jersey-ed up with Bulls gear and ready to get down. We smoked a few bowls and he told us about his plans to go to culinary school, Emily's plans to move into his apartment and upcoming travel plans. I got wind of the suicide nearly 10 days later. Pure shock took over and I thought it was just a joke. A cruel joke at that. None of the boys had heard yet and it wasn't until I heard the funeral plans that it actually hit me that I wouldn't be seeing him when I went home the following weekend. All of these people's deaths are tragic, but Jon's will ache forever. We may not have been the best of friends, but we were always together. We were always around each other. He was the most incredible boyfriend to someone I love and treasure very much and a great friend to so many others. I still cry every damn time I see your picture Jon. I went to get a photo from his Facebook to include in this post and I saw that the picture above was set as his profile picture on April 5--days before his death. It just hit me all over again. Love you Jon--we're still thinking of you and missing you constantly.

xx, Amanda.

how i wish.

[Le Love repost]

With everything I do, I always wish you were here.

I see these incredible sights and experience once in a life time opportunities.

All the while, I'm thinking about how much you would love to be doing these things.

Not even necessarily with me.

Just knowing you, I can picture the way you would react or what you would say if you were the one to be doing them.

Most times I think about what it would be like if we were doing them together.

I think I need to be doing them on my own--branching out and learning for myself with the help of the extraordinary people around me.

But that doesn't mean a part of me doesn't still ache for you to be next to me.

Darwin update later.

xx, Amanda.

epic fail.

Helloooo all! :)

Backtracking a bit, the ABC party was absolutely insane.

Some may say it was too insane, seeing as how it resulted in the loss of camera #2 and my leather jacket. Boo.

And possibly because there were people running around in bath mats, bubble wrap, entire showers + curtains (yes, it really happened), and other countless household supplies.

Woke up with a pounding headache that lasted for most of Friday.

Pretty much a fail of a day besides heading to Pinewood with Sam and Daisy to consume footlong Subways, and in my case, an entire litre of milk with one extra-doughy M&M cookie.

Next it was off to try to watch Jersey Shore which turned into a 3 hour ordeal due to internet issues in Daisy's room.

Skipped out on dance because Tom had studying to do, but had a nice steak dinner (more food) with Alex and hung around with Kevin, Miguel and Nikhil for a few hours and continued to eat approximately 4 slices of pizza.

Seriously, such a whale in Australia.

Saturday was an even bigger failure than Friday.

Attempted to set an alarm for 10 am to head into the city for the day, but apparently I forgot to turn it on and ended up sleeping until noon.

Good work, Amanda.

The only noteable part of the day was Daisy making me and Sam English mac&cheese. Yummm.

We were incredibly excited to go out in the city for a night of proper clubbing, but after drinking goon while singing in my room with Jackie for a good hour and heading to the Deakin projector room for a relentless game of Arrogance where I was forced to down a glass of goon, Jameson and coke mix, and mysterious punch, I was pretty much down for the count.

[GOON = boxed wine; the only thing we can afford to drink in Oz]

Quite literally down actually. Daisy found Sam and I snuggling on the pavement outside Deakin around 10 pm, and we were both cuddling in her bed by 10:30.

So much for making it to the city at all on Saturday.

At least the early bed time got me to wake up around 7 am wondering why on earth I was in Sam's bed.

This put me on a fast track to having a productive day.

After failing miserably all weekend, I forced myself to get ready and head downtown Melbourne.

As I was not the only failure of the weekend, we had a few minor setbacks to take care of before we could go to the city.

If it was possible, Sam also had more of an epic fail of a weekend than I did. Leaving her passport, credit cards and keys on the bus the day before, Sam took me an Mary on an exciting adventure to the bus depot. The CLOSED bus depot, I may add. (Ammendment: The bus depot was not actually closed; we just went to the wrong door. FAIL).

Of course the bus depot was in the middle of nowhere, so we took a while to figure out where we were going, but got on our way and made it to Flinder's Street!

Got some Hungry Jacks and Sam realized her pump was broken. Sorry Sam, it just really wasn't your weekend.

[HUNGRY JACKS = Australia's version of Burger King]

We ran around to nearly every pharmacy on the blocks between Swanston, Little Collins and

Collins to find that not one of them sold syringes.

Apparently people are not diabetic in Australia.

We decided to just head down to Queen Victoria Market, where we had originally planned to go before all the chaos of Sam's life or death situation came about, and found a pharmacy that sold syringes.

Thankfully, no death for Samantha Efrusy on Sunday, August 22nd. The Queen Victoria Market is a huge trade market that sells everything from food to clothes to art to wigs. (I really need to get one of these wigs). We only had about an hour there before closing time, so we will absolutely be returning.

Next, it was off to the discount camera shop to pick up lucky camera #3. I got a lovely Nikon Coolpix touch-screen camera + memory card for about $150 US dollars which made me incredibly happy, but I am still going to protect this baby with my life.

After searching for a French workbook at a few book stores (I am still currently looking for an interactive French workbook that will help me to relearn French...if you have any suggestions, please send them my way), we stopped off for "the best juice in the world."

While this South American treat was quite delectable, it was not the best juice in the world.

As a spur of the moment decision, we attempted to get my face pierced, Sam's nose re-pierced (for about the 50th time) and Mary's tragus, but unfortunately everywhere was closed.

All I wanted was to come home with a camera, a French workbook and my face pierced.

1 out of 3. Rough odds.

Got some cute clothes and shoes though, and had a WONDERFUL time wandering around taking ridiculous touristy photos all about Melbourne. We even found the Melbourne version of the bean!

Aimless wandering through the Greek precinct and Chinatown eventually lead us to our final destination--the Eureka Skydeck Tower.

The Eureka Skydeck is the tallest residential building in the world, and the 5th tallest building in the world in general.
Melbourne is such a gorgeous city and seeing it all lit up at night was incredible. The lights sparkled on forever, expanding further out than my vision could even stretch.

Exhausted and hungry, we decided to eat at this Greek restaurant called Kouzina.

We filled our bellies with delicious souvlakis and bougasta and had some bonding time.

It felt like we were sitting there for hours sharing funny stories, life lessons and crazy experiences.

Perfect end to a lovely day.

And it made the whole feeling of failure wash away.

Although I would've felt much better with two little studs next to my eyeball and a French workbook in hand.

Tata for now, xx.

great ocean road.

I realize I haven't written much about what I've actually been doing here.
Too busy being a big emo baby and writing about socks. :/
Haha, but I am done with the sadness--told you it was just a phase!

This past weekend, Monash Abroad took all of us DePaul kids, Loyola kids and any other internationals who wanted to out on a drive along the Great Ocean Road.
[GREAT OCEAN ROAD = A 243-kilometre (151 mi) stretch of road along the south-eastern coast of Australia between the Victorian cities of Torquay and Warrnambool. The road was built by returned soldiers between 1919 and 1932, and is the world's largest war memorial; dedicated to casualties of World War I. (Thank you Miguel's Facebook).]

Well anyways, this past weekend was one of the best yet.
The trek started early in the morning on Campbell's tour bus of fun.
Seriously, best tour guide ever.
Drove for a while until we reached the largest surf museum in the world! (AKA, Surf World Museum) in Torquay (which is also the home of Quiksilver!)
We watched a documentary about these two Australian boys who decided to surf the 50 states.
It was hilarious and nice to see home! They represented Minnesota really well too, so that made me smile :)
You can get a glimpse of the video at-->SURFING 50 STATES.
Sooo funny.

Next it was off to surf lessons of our own!

Besides the fact that it was absolutely FREEZING, surfing was, for the second time, AWESOME.
I'm really disappointed that I didn't grow up in a place that surfing was the norm.
I absolutely love it.
And for only going twice in my life and having absolutely no upper-body strength, I'd say I'm pretty good.
Stood up once and rode in on my knees quite a few times.
The conditions were horrendous though and the wind kept knocking us around. Nevertheless, it was a super good time.

Made a few more stops along the way to where we were staying for the night and saw some wild koalas and crazy birds.
I absolutely love the wildlife in Australia. So different than anywhere else in the world.
Even if some of the animals are scary as hell and make strange noises.

That night my tour group stayed in an actual home rather than a hostel in Apollo Bay.
It was just like being at summer camp all over again with bunk beds and all the girls in one room!
We had our own little kitchen and living room, plus a room with a pool table where we got our drink and dance on.
After everyone pitched in to make ourselves a delicious little meal, we started the party.
<---Wannabe. Of course busting out the oldies tunes like SPICE GIRLS and Sarah played me a little Grease 2 Cool Rider. Went to the local pub and hung out with everyone and went back to the house for a little dancing on the pool table. Typical. Woke up sideways on my bunk bed around 7 am, just enough time to get a decent hour of sleep before heading off to the rain forest. Rocked out my zubaz for the entire day, despite mocking and comments from everyone and their mom. Got the comment, "Either you were really lazy or super hung over to be wearing those all day." I'd say it was a good combination of both, but really it was for the absolute high fashion and style that those babies exude. Whatever, they made for some great photos anyway.

On the way home, we made stops at Loch Ard Gorge and London Bridge. We also stopped at this absolutely gorgeous beach and actually got some sun while we were there. The helicopter tour of the 12 Apostles was one of my favorite parts of the day. I'd never been in a helicopter before and we got a great view of the formations caused by thousands of years of erosion. Doesn't sound very lovely, but it was actually incredibly beautiful.

The three hour drive home wasn't too bad since I passed out for most of it, but we also had some good sing-alongs and chats to pass the time.
The trip really showed me how much I love and care about these people already. We had so much fun together and it really just felt like a little family.
It also gave me a huge bite from the travel bug!

I've been in Australia for nearly 2 months now, which means only a little over 2 months left!
I know that sounds like a lot, but these 2 months have flown by so quickly and I'm sure the next 2 don't plan on slowing down at all.
All I want to do is travel and see as much of Australia and the surrounding areas as I possibly can.
Who knows when I'll be down here again and I just want to make the most of it while I can.

Next weekend I'm heading up to Darwin, which is in the Northern Territory of Australia. I thought I was going to be braving it alone because I'm flying out Wednesday and everyone else is flying out Friday night, BUT Miguel literally called me seconds ago and told me he was able to make it with me. Very exciting news!
I'm sure I would've been fine to go on my own, but it'll be nice to have someone else to explore the new area and make the most of our time there.
Finally going somewhere warm! It's supposed to be in the 90's, so I can't wait to get my sun on.

The following week we are going on a trip to Broken Hill with our Australian Idol class.
This is meant to be like a trip to the outback and I'll even get to ride on a camel!
We get back the day before my birthday, so I basically have 3 weeks of events to look forward to!

Tonight is the ABC Party in the city, so that should be awesome!
[ABC = Anything but Clothes] I think I'm using these cheap-y little bags that Monash gave us at the beginning of the semester to construct some sort of dress/outfit. We'll see how it goes.
Then tomorrow I'm going to hit up Chapel Street for dance class.
My friend Tom introduced me to this wonderful little dance studio called The Space and I've taken a couple of hip-hop classes there. They have huge mirrors and I've gone a bit early or stayed after to work on turns and mess around there. I refuse to lose my dance skill while I'm away for the year!
Haven't actually gone out on Chapel Street so I'm pumped to do that after class tomorrow with my friend Alex. :)

This weekend is already shaping out to be a great one and I think we are going to top it off by doing some sight-seeing in Melbourne on Saturday.
So really I just have months and weeks ahead of me to look forward to!

I do miss you all terribly though! Don't get me wrong.
Just skyped with Mom and the little ones for a bit, but they don't have a camera yet so only got to hear their voices.
I'm pretty positive that I'm going to come home around the 10th of December.
Probably head straight to the Chi and spend a week or so there and then head home through Christmas and New Years until I'm off again on the 7th of January!
Of course, that all depends on my travel plans here and cost and everything, but tentatively that sounds pretty good to me.

I'm off to try to construct my ABC outfit...
Love you all, xx.

procrastination.

So, I really should be doing homework so I don't need to worry about anything at the sleepover at Sonika's tomorrow night, but I just keep finding myself reading random blogs and notes that other people have written. I'm too tired to create anything witty or inspiring of my own at this point, so that'll just have to do. I came across the Google verb thing where you write in your name + a verb in a Google search and note the first thing that comes up. (Ex. "Amanda needs").
Here's what I got...

Amanda needs to pee.
Amanda looks like she is pouting here.
Amanda says: We lie to make it seem like we're not Little Miss Bitch.
Amanda wants a Hug'n'Kiss.
Amanda hates good music.
Amanda asks: Is print dead? (HOPE NOT!)
Amanda likes to distract herself with silliness. (Accurate).
Amanda eats my meat.
Amanda wears sexy chaps and rides Marshall like a bronco.
Amanda was arrested for possession of crack, prostitution, a bar fight and her misdemeanors of drinking during probation and for stealing pearls out of the bank safe box.
Amanda loves lesbians. (Fabulous).

Update on Great Ocean Road soon!
xo.

socks.

I fucking hate socks.

Maybe they keep your feet warm when it's cold outside and can sometimes make shoes more comfortable (ex. tennis shoes while working out feel better with socks), but other than that socks just suck.

Have you ever fallen asleep with socks on?
I don't comprehend how people can do that.
One time I decided to moisturize my feet with lotion and trap the moisture in with socks overnight to leave my feetsies soft and delicate.
Not only did I have trouble falling asleep, but I woke up and had a terrible day.
I fully blame the socks.

Socks under the sheets are just wrong. Plain and simple.
Like the genius that sent in the PostSecret above said, it feels as though you are putting your feet inside a foot prison trapped with heat and discomfort.
To this day, I don't think I have EVER worn socks to bed after that horrible experience a few years back.

On top of that, there is the issue of socks while doing laundry.
You don't even want to get me started on socks and laundry.
First of all, laundry is a horrendous activity in and of itself. Then dealing with the damn socks…ugh.
On average, I probably end up losing three socks every time I put in a load of laundry.
Where the hell do those fuckers disappear to?
This makes the already tedious job of matching the socks together in pairs even more of a hassle.
There are probably at least five lonely, pair-less socks floating around in my drawer at the moment.

In all fairness, socks do (usually) help with the problem of stinky feet.
Back in the day, on one of my thousands of trips to Disney World as a child, I decided to boldly show my hatred for socks and didn't wear them for a week straight with tennis shoes while running around, getting 8 year old wild at the theme parks.
My feet looked all pruney, you know, the way they get when you've stayed in the bath-tub for too long, and smelled (smelt, if we were in England) like foul fish for the following week.
That's when I learned that while there are many downfalls to socks, sometimes they are a necessity.

Hm. And that's a rant about socks.
Probably should've used that time to write my Australian Idol paper, but I think this will be a bit more enjoyable for the public to read.

That is all, xx.

lost.

Struggling a bit today.
I didn't get much sleep last night. To-do lists, school, traveling plans and worries had me tossing and turning until nearly 5 in the morning.
Actually having to tackle the tedious, never-ending list was even worse than laying awake thinking about it.

A weird funk has kind of taken over me lately.
I don't know if it's just because school is getting to be a bit more difficult, or if all of our upcoming trips and activities have me stressing out, but I'm just not being my usual happy-go-lucky self.

Surely it's just a phase. Life wouldn't be life without ups and downs and twists and turns.
No matter what happens, it is not the end of the world.
Little obstacles may present themselves, but nothing is going to ruin this experience for me.
While Australia may be a bit more complicated than home (and sometimes I fail to see the logic of some people/situations), I'm sure I'll be able to feel my way out and make it through.

Feeling a bit lost and weird is normal.
Especially when you're thousands of miles away from home on basically the furthest most continent possible.
Still, it would be nice to have some people here to make the going a bit easier.
Always missing the fam.
A Braden kiss would be nice right now.
An Andrew Polski snuggle.
Gram's witty banter in person rather than just over Facebook posts.

But luckily, I've been doing this for a few years now.
While it doesn't always make it easier, at least I know I can survive it.
And when the going gets tough on my own, I know I have some exceptional and life-changing people already on my side to help me navigate through this crazy Australian adventure.
That's another post for another day.

And tomorrow is just that--another day that will hopefully be funk-free.
What do you know, tomorrow is Tuesday, which means FREE pancakes.
I'd say free pancakes = a pretty funk-free start to any day.
Sleep would probably help too.

Good night, Australia. Good morning, America.
Love you all, xo.

inception.

“Why is it so important to dream?”

…

“Because, in my dreams we are together.”

Although sickness and over-exhaustion played a prominent part, the real reason I didn’t want to open my eyes that day was because I knew when I did, you wouldn’t be mine anymore.

You wouldn’t be there, holding me the way your delicate dream arms so lovingly wrapped and held me in.
The silently whispered “I love you’s” would be nothing more than fairy-tale language, manipulated by my own fantasy into exactly what I wanted to hear. Your warmth, smile, laugh—it would all be interrupted by the reality of our 10,000 mile emotional and physical distance.

Why is it that a continent and then some can’t even keep me away from you? Time zones, hours, new faces, new places, a WHOLE NEW WORLD, and you still seem to be the starring role in the one I continuously try to re-create for myself.

We don’t even know each other anymore. How can I still be so involved in someone who I see for a total of two or three months over a twelve month period? Why are my heart and mind still so invested? No matter how hard I try to tell myself something differently, the fact of the matter is:

You are still the last thing I see every time I close my eyes. And more often than not, you’re usually the first person I meet in the only place where it still makes sense for us to be together.

I guess you’re implanted in my head.

xo.