somaustralis

CU journalism students (me, Erin) invite you to:

INCANDESCENT:
CU Photojournalism Exhibit 2005
A Celebration of the Work of Student Photographers
Twenty-Five Framed Photographs
Sunday, May 1, 6 to 9 pm
Koenig Alumni Center
University and Broadway, Boulder
Show and Reception (including free food and wine/beer for those of age)

Please let me know if you are coming for sure.
Cheers, Erin

i am officially returning down under on the 13th of may.

i will be back on july 21st.

This test only has one question, but it's an important one. Don't answer without giving it serious thought. After the test you will be able to judge your moral turpitude.


The test features an unlikely, completely fictional situation, where you will have to make an important decision. Remember, your answer must be honest but spontaneous.


Please scroll down slowly - this is important for the test to work correctly.




You're in Florida...




In Miami, to be exact.




There is chaos all around you - caused by a hurricane and flooding...




..torrents of water all over you.




You are a CNN photographer....




..in the middle of this disaster .....




... trying to take a Pulitzer prize-winning photo.




Houses and people are floating around you, disappearing into the water...




..nature showing its destructive power...




... ripping everything away.




Suddenly you see a man, steering a big van...




He is fighting to prevent the van being washed away by the water and mud...




You look closer...




..and, suddenly, you recognize him - it's George W. Bush!




The raging waters are about to sweep him away, forever...




You have two options. You can save the life of George W. Bush, or you can shoot the picture of your life...




..the death of the world's most powerful man.




So here's the question:
(Please give an honest answer)














Would you use black & white or color film?

1. FIRST NAME: erin
2. WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE? ireland, or something
3. DO YOU WISH ON STARS? yes
4. WHICH FINGER IS YOUR FAVORITE? the middle one on my right hand is quite useful
5. WHEN DID YOU LAST CRY? when i left ricky at the airport in wellington
6. DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING? for the most part
7. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCH MEAT? lunch meat is generally disgusting
8. ANY BAD HABITS? falling for boys in other countries, drinking, sleeping in
9. WHAT IS YOUR MOST EMBARRASSING CD ON THE SHELF? oasis: what's the story, morning glory?
10. IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON, WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU? maybe if i was a guy
11. ARE YOU A DAREDEVIL? when the opportunitiy arises...i went skydiving in australia and i don't mind picking up lots of crickets
12. HAVE YOU EVER TOLD A SECRET YOU SWORE NOT TO TELL? no
13. DO LOOKS MATTER? yes, but that doesn't mean if you're insanely hot people are going to like you, and it doesn't mean if you're hideous that people won't like you, everyone has different tastes (lamest answer ever)
14. HOW DO YOU RELEASE ANGER? writing, painting/drawing, drinking, complaining
15. WHERE IS YOUR SECOND HOME? dunedin, new zealand
16. DO YOU TRUST OTHERS EASILY? depends on if they appear trustworthy
17. WHAT WAS YOUR FAVORITE TOY AS A CHILD? a stick horse named penelope, or maybe my plastic dinosaurs or transformers
18. WHAT CLASS IN SCHOOL DO YOU THINK IS TOTALLY
USELESS? world art history II was nearly unbearable, but i did only go 8 times the whole semester, i just dislike having to pay for it...grunt
19. DO YOU HAVE A JOURNAL? a couple, and they're real ones, too
20.DO YOU USE SARCASM? never
21. HAVE YOU EVER BEEN IN A MOSH PIT? quite a few, got a concussion once, gouged by spikes another time, probably got my bulged spinal disk in one as well, i'm so fucking hardcore
22. WHAT DO YOU LOOK FOR IN A GUY/GIRL? sexy hair, good fashion sense, cuteness, a sexy accent helps
23. WHAT ARE YOUR NICKNAME/NICKNAMES? those would be "hooley" and "rin/rinny"
24. WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP? yes
25. DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF? never
26. DO YOU THINK THAT YOU ARE STRONG? what the hell kind of question is this? physically, i'm of average strength for a girl, i'm more emotionally strong than in the past...uh, yeah
27. WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM FLAVOR? i don't actually like icecream that much...i do like green tea icecream though
28. SHOE SIZE? 8
29. WHAT ARE YOUR FAVORITE COLORS? red and black, but only together
30. HOW MANY WISDOM TEETH DO YOU HAVE? none
31. WHO DO YOU MISS MOST RIGHT NOW? ricky
32. DO YOU WANT EVERYONE YOU SEND THIS TO, TO SEND IT
BACK? no, i want them to post it in their...LIVE JOURNALS
33. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW? my sister and her husband watching law and order
34. LAST THING YOU ATE? a chewy ginger snap
35. LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE? rebecca
36. THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT THE OPPOSITE/SAME SEX? physically, hair and shoes, if they're speaking, whether they sound intelligent/funny or extremely irritating.
37. DO YOU LIKE THE PERSON WHO SENT THIS TO YOU? mike rocks
38. HOW ARE YOU TODAY? sore from moving, but well fed, clean, anxious to call my boy
39. FAVORITE DRINK? chai or english breakfast tea
40. FAVORITE ALCOHOLIC DRINK? speight's/ rio margaritas
41. FAVORITE SPORTS? hockey, football (the european kind), actually cricket is rather interesting once you figure out what the hell is going on, iron chef, horse show jumping
42. HAIR COLOR? reddish brown, the front is still kind of black..
43. EYE COLOR? brown
44. DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS? indeed
45. SIBLINGS? older sister, kaleigh, younger sister, carla
46. FAVORITE MONTH? either june because it's warm but not insanely hot, or october because it's cold but not insanely cold and halloween's at the end
47. FAVORITE FOOD? sushi or macaroni and cheese
48. LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED? the way of the gun
49. FAVORITE DAY OF THE YEAR? holidays are usually overrated so...my favorite day of this year so far was last saturday, spent in the mountains in a hut building snowforts and fighting the cold war
50. ARE YOU TOO SHY TO ASK SOMEONE OUT? no. and if i want them bad enough, i'll just jump them.
51. SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS? scary movies with happy endings
52. SUMMER OR WINTER? summer
53. HUGS OR KISSES? both
54. RELATIONSHIPS OR ONE NIGHT STANDS? relationships, tho i wouldn't say no to billie joe or angelina
55. WHO IS MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND? who ever needs to procrastinate, so probably rebecca
56. WHO IS LEAST LIKELY TO RESPOND? george bush
57. WHAT BOOKS ARE YOU READING? dude, where's my country? the jungle and 1984
58. WHAT'S ON YOUR MOUSE PAD? no pad
59. FAVORITE BOARD GAME? scrabble
60. WHAT DID YOU WATCH ON TV LAST NIGHT? i don't have a tv
61. FAVORITE SMELLS? ricky's smell, roses, pine trees, vanilla
62. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU THINK OF WHEN YOU WAKE
UP? either, damn i wish i wasn't sleeping alone (if i'm sleeping alone), aww look how cute (if i'm not sleeping alone), or how many times can i hit the snooze button?
63. SAY ONE THING NICE ABOUT THE PERSON THAT SENT THIS TO YOU. mike, mike, he's the man, if he can't do it, no one can

return of the king was amazing. i wish i was back there.

PS - i'm also back in the country. the godforsaken US of A. grunt.

hey, i'm at the library. it's my last day in dunedin. possibly ever. i have mixed feelings. i'm happy to be getting the hell out of here because everyone is gone and there isn't much to do besides drink. not that i'm complaining about that. but i'm ready for some traveling. ricky left on tuesday morning, i won't go into the details right now of how much that sucked. i'm visiting him in a week in fielding, however, which i think is some kind of black hole of a town. some accidental void in the middle of nz. kris is still around, however. last night we went out, drank a buttload of beer, played pool really, really badly and yet still managed to win 4 games in a row. and then, and THEN! to my delight and surprise, they showed a HOCKEY game in my latest favorite pub, the bowler. and not only was it a hockey game, it was the fuckin' avs. and not only was it the fuckin' avs, but they were playing that stupid disney team, and they kicked their asses. word.

so. right now fiji is looking sketchy. mostly because i don't have any money. i am off right now to see about possibly changing my ticket. so i may be home earlier than expected, like december 2nd or 3rd but i presently can't figure out the time change to say exactly when. great.

so, dunedin. you've been fun. the nights on the piss with all those cool people just run together in to one fond memory of beer. my friend christie just stopped to talk to me. she goes to DU so we can hang out when i'm back. but...it's all kinda sad. leaving it all behind. there are many things i'm looking forward to doing and many people i'm looking forward to seeing upon my return but...home is scary. i'm trying to prepare myself mentally for the shock of climbing back on the wagon and facing real life again. it's not going all that well. dunedin is fun, but i might stifle if i had to live here. at the same time, tho, i don't want to leave. when i decided to do this trip, i guess i didn't really think about the coming home part. and honestly, it didn't bother me too much up until the past few weeks when i realized how attatched i'd grown to new zealand and dunedin life, and to ricky of course, and to my kiwi friends, and yes, even some of the americans i'd met. it seems like an exercise in torture - leave all your friends behind to go off to a far away country for 5 months. make a bunch of new friends that you have to leave. the worst part is not knowing when i will see them again. obviously i've grown to care quite a bit about ricky because we've hung out nearly every day for the past couple months. we've become best friends but doomed to be torn apart. so that worst part is building these new and interesting and caring relationships that have to stay here. and i can't very well bring anyone home with me. so i have to stay in long-distance contact and try to forget how much i will miss them. it's left me with a really empty feeling. i don't know how i'm going to fill it back up. hopefully with a little nephew and a bunch of dear friends i certainly haven't forgotten about.

see you all in about 2 weeks.

so...i just wanted to let everyone who reads this know that i no longer have internet access or a phone at my house, yay!! so...that sucks. if anyone has anything desperate that they need, please call me. so if no one hears from me for a few days, i'm not dead. thank you. i suppose that is all.

the great pumpkin has arrived. i'm going to be, perfectly predictably, a pirate. although, i might throw in a liverpool football jersey and some punky spikes just for good measure. i will take pictures. yay!

did you know? that while in colorado one must drive to wyoming and be 18 years of age to purchase fireworks, in new zealand, one can get them at kmart at the ripe age of 14? this public service announcement has been brought to you by watties tomato sauce: "it's not what you think it is."

Went to this place called Crazy Horse Tattoo today and got myself a tattoo. I'd been contemplating what exactly I could stick on myself for all eternity that would be a reminder of my time spent in New Zealand. I've been thinking about getting some kind of constellation tattoo for quite awhile, since I am, after all, an astronomy major. The Southern Cross is unique to the southern hemisphere and unique to New Zealand becase the constellation adorns the national flag (Australia, too). I decided to take this simple design and add something of my own. To me, this tattoo is a reminder of my travels and my experience. When I look at it I'm going to have little flashbacks to all the things I did and all the people I met while down here. I like this particular constellation because it served as a guide for people travelling in the oceans of the southern hemisphere as well. So I think of it as a kind of guide for me, personally, through life. Something to point out where I'm trying to go and where I've been. And all it took was a bit of money and less than the time it takes for AEnima to play all the way through. So, without further ado, here's a picture:

www.heavyglow.com/southerncross.html

Look, I’m posting!

This weekend, I got the hell out of Dunedin and went camping with some people. We left town about 4 in the afternoon on Friday, after saying we were going to leave at 1 and then running around doing a bunch of things we forgot to do. I didn’t really know exactly what we were doing in the first place, otherwise I may have planned better. At any rate, we did finally leave. We drove all the way across the island to the west coast to a town called Fox Glacier. We got there at about 2 in the morning, so we decided to camp in the middle of some guy’s cow pasture. That was fun. Listening to the cows moo all night while probably sleeping in their poo. Anyway, it was a place to sleep. A lumpy place. The next morning we got up, hoping to see Mount Cook and various other peaks, but of course it was cloudy and they were all covered. We drove to the base of Copeland Trek, strapped on our packs, and got moving. The trek took us about 6 ½ hours. It’s incredibly scenic and amazing. We crossed a bunch of rivers and hiked mostly through rainforest. Some of the trail is marked out, but generally there are just orange triangles nailed to trees directing you where to go. The rainforest was mossy and green and crazy. The trail runs a bit along this huge, deep turquoise river. I swear they filmed the end of the first Lord of the Rings there. So basically the trail runs through this huge valley, with giant green peaks on either side. At the top is Mount Cook and a variety of other snowy points, and at the bottoms of the valley are more snowy peaks. The first day we didn’t get to see much of these, as the clouds were pretty low. We crossed a bunch of places where there had been landslides. This proved rather difficult. I need some climbing skills. There were also these really sketchy bridges that crossed some of the more intense rivers. Only one person on them at a time…look like they’re about to break any second. Fun! Like some kind of reality TV show! Never in America! 6 ½ hours later we made it to the hut. There were a bunch of other people there as well. What’s special about this hut is that it’s right next to a natural hot springs with natural hot pools. We took advantage of these. Some of them are just right, some are really quite hot. Pretty sweet spot. We stayed there that night, cooking pasta for dinner. Mmm. Got up the next morning, strapped our shit on and took off again. Another 6 ½ hours back to the car. It was pretty intense. I was wearing my Vans, of course, because I don’t have any other shoes here. It was kind of an experiment…and I conclude that Vans do not make very good hiking shoes. Anyone want to guess how many blisters I have? Both of my pinky toes are also incredibly bruised and smashed. Yummy! When I got home I read the eulogy of my Vans and had to go get some new shoes. They’re Converses…I don’t know how to feel about them. But I couldn’t’ find any suitable Vans, and I wasn’t about to wear flip flops around town. Anyway, the weather was just PERFECT. No rain, not too cold, not too hot. And it was clear on the way down. So I have pictures, many pictures. I will get them up someday I supposed. I also have to say something about sandflies. They’re fucking ANNOYING AS FUCKING HELL. Someone was saying that mosquitoes are worse. NO THEY’RE NOT. Every time we sat down anywhere, the flies would come. Billions of them. They land on you and bite you and you get welts. And they itch like fuck. I mean, you maybe get 4 or 5 mosquito bites in one outing. I have about 30 sandfly bites. I probably killed about 700 of them. God damn. They suck ass. In the end, it was all worth it. I got out of Dunedin, outside, and the scenery was just…wow. Pretty damn cool aye. I also drove for the first time down here. It’s not as difficult as I imagined. And the highway back to Dunedin is windy and copless. So I was cruising. And I didn’t kill any opossums. Anyway, I have two finals on Thursday and Friday and I haven’t started studying yet, and I’m going to see Kill Bill with Ricky Ricardo tonight, so I better get on that. Cheers maties!

so i will officially be home on december 6th. evening, i guess? i'm not sure. it's going to be a long, 28+ hour day though. i will arrive from the sunny beaches of fiji hopefully to the snowiness of denver, but probably just the cold, cloudiness of denver. ok. whee. maybe i should post more stuff.

it's snowing!! how weird is that? it never snows in dunedin. very very rarely. and here it is, in spring, large flakes falling on my face. whee! i didn't expect to see snow until i got home!

at craig's request:

Los Angeles - Auckland, rt $556, at travelocity.com

so...you just have to find a way to LA. and $556.

i want some $%&*ing input, people!!!!

www.badgerbadgerbadger.com

honestly.

i had been having a hard time sleeping lately.
to fill the endless blank hours of wakefulness i go out wandering
the streets.
i felt guilty about visiting people too late at night or too early
in the morning.
for this reason i mostly kept to myself.
this morning, though, i went to visit a friend of mine.
it was eleven AM.
not too early.
he'd just gotten out of bed, hungover.
he was about to preparee my 'hangover breakfast' - a fried egg and
strong black coffee.
the coffee maker was hissing on the stove.
he cracked an egg on the pan rim and dumped the contents in.
a bloody, semi-formed chicked foetus sizzled in the hot oil.

http://www.talklikeapirateday.com/

there's still time!!!

iAuggie: One small step..
SetTheRaytoZero: one giant leap for platypi
iAuggie: Stay away from me, my feet are mildly poisonous.
SetTheRaytoZero: i almost spit tea on my keyboard
SetTheRaytoZero: didn't you say a few ppl were hospitalized every year from platypi
iAuggie: I think I read that somewhere.
SetTheRaytoZero: The male Platypus has a sharp, hollow, horny spur about 15 millimetres long on the inside of both hind leg ankles. This is connected to a venom gland which produces a very strong toxin. The spur can be used in defence against predators (the venom can cause excruciating pain in humans and is strong enough to kill a dog.) but the fact that it is restricted to the male - and that the gland reaches its greatest development in the mating season - suggests that it is normally employed in aggressive encounters between males.
SetTheRaytoZero: bandicoots!
SetTheRaytoZero: numbats!
iAuggie: Puggle!
SetTheRaytoZero: don't forget wombats
iAuggie: And echidnas! Dear GOD, the echidnas!
SetTheRaytoZero: the echidnas are in the same family as platypi