VolaciousNet

Ahhh.. the joys of assignments! Well, it’s not so much that i’m procrastinating.. I just don’t know where to start!!!
Got a moderately big day tomorrow.. need to go into work early tomorrow morning to fix up pay and finally tell centrelink that I’m earning money. Apparently they get quite shitty if you don’t tell them. Then going to a lab, which is pretty bloody hard.
All in all, I have something like 8 assignments due in the next week and a bit. Not very pretty. I’m shitting myself about the one due on Friday… I have to write some matlab code which can take a recorded file, analyse the spectrum of the sampled audio signal using fourier transforms, and distinguish between certain voice commands. In essence, a speech recognition program. Fucked if I know where to start. But hey.. will try.

This is going to be a testing week. I don’t know what I have been doing these past 12 weeks, but it hasn’t had much to do with uni. I have a month until exams.. I need to pull my finger out and get into it. I won’t get to see Adam much unfortunately.. both of us are quite busy. He dropped around briefly this afternoon, and wasn’t too well. I’m a bit worried about him.

So this is it boys and girls. I’ve had enough fucking around this semester.. once again I’m going to be fighting to keep my scholarship. I need to pass, and its going to be a challenge. But as long as I get some momentum up this week, and maintain it, then I should be ok. Self-discipline.. and that involves getting some regular sleep, regular food, and going to uni.

I envy people who have a natural motivation for uni. I’m perfectly capable of everything, I just can’t be assed.
I can do it. If I just keep a steady and regular pace, I can get through this. Just keep swimming… just keep swimming

Procrastinating, as usual. So many assignments due in this week. Of course, my first task is to clean the house. The other, of course, is to write in LiveJournal.
I read through another one of my old entries today, and came across this particular one.

2nd October 2001
	&nbsp		So much has happened since my last entry that is would be pointless trying to write it down in one go. There is no doubt the struggles of the past 10 months will not be forgotten, as it probably will be one of the most difficult times in my life, not including what is yet to come. What I write here does not come easily or quickly to me. Over the past couple of weeks, I have had to come to terms with my feelings of sexuality. I have a strong feeling that I might be gay. As the first entry in this diary states, “I had better not tell, because it is not entirely straight“. What I first thought was a phase has gone on for four years. I went through a stage about a month ago when I was extremely anxious and depressed and would have to be one of the lowest points of my life so far. Things have picked up since then as I have started to accept the way I am. My writing here is disjointed because my mind is still very confused and contradicting. I will write small amounts at a time so that comes out clearer

Yes, I remember that post well. That was the day I finally admitted to myself I was gay. It took me ages to write down that entry back then, and I seem to recall I was in tears at the time.

I’m not as well as I thought I was.
I’ve just spent the entire day, doing nothing, eating nothing, wanting nothing.
What’s happening?
I’m scared. Scared of myself. I’m reminded of what happened 3 years ago, when I would sit at home, not wanting to get out of bed. Not wanting to face the world.
I sit at home, alone. It’s getting dark outside. I was to see Adam tonight, but apparently he’s not feeling well. I told him get get some rest, so he thinks that I’m not wanting him to come up, and that i’m conspiring something.
Life wasn’t meant to be easy.

Just out of curiousity’s sake, I decided to dig up my very first written journal, started when I was in Year 10. At that time, I was only 14 ( about to turn 15). I remember this time, as it was when my hormones were finally kicking in ( I was a late developer) and I was starting to realise my attraction to boys. The following is my very first written entry.

Sunday 7th February 1998
	&nbsp		I suppose this is another shot at making a diary, only this time I’ve been asked to by the school I have not been in a good way lately, and since this diary will more likely be read by other eyes, I had better not tell, as it is not exactly straight. So until I can think of something to say, I had better shut up.

It brings back a lot of memories of when I first started getting strong feelings for other boys and realising what they meant. The line “not exactly straight” is naturally a double entendre. Reading over other entries in my diary, it is not surprising that my school friends remember me as a sad and troubled kid in high school. I will insert other random entries in my diary now and then. I am always intruiged by the progressions that a human mind can go through.

Wow! It’s been a fair bit of time since my last update! As always, Gus’s life is twirling and twirling through the maelstrom that is life, desperately squinting through the fog of war in the hope of finding a path.
Just got home from work.. was pretty good! I thought it would be a shithouse shift, at the Convention Centre, but it turned out to be quite interesting! It was a dinner for Prudential, for 2,500 drunken Japanese businessmen who were over here for the week. Well, I have to say the Japs know how to throw a good party, and boy do they get into it! Just before starting my shift, who do I bump into but Andrew, ‘s bf! I caught his eye, and we both reeled back in shock! I don’t think either of us expected to end up working together at the same job! The night was entertaining, the highlight of which I would have to say was Olivia Newton-John, who even for the ripe old age of 50 still has an amazing voice and one of the most mesmerising smiles I have seen in a long time! The Japs absolutely loved her! Camera flashes of unbelievable quantity went off all night. They love their electronics! Most of all, they knew how to have fun. RSA went completely out the window, and they got completely trashed and nearly all 2,000 were dancing to Olivia and later to the Beatles (yes I know they were only impersonators, but the hair was a spot-on match!).

I also got a SMS from Adam.. he tells me that he’s managed to find a way to go back to uni next semester! I’m really proud of him… I really wanted him to get back into uni… he doesn’t realise just how intelligent he is, nor does he know how much opportunity he has. I’m trying to get him a job at Nosh over the next week or so. I will have to leave a few nice words for my boss.

ADSL!!!!

Best of all though, I HAVE ADSL!!!. Yes, after waiting all this time, and putting up for so long with dialup, Dodo sent me an email stating that I had been provisioned at the Refern Exchange and was ready to go! I picked up my modem from the post office, where it was waiting for me, hooked it up, and got quite a shock! I had ordered 256/64, and whilst they got the upload speed set correctly, they seem to have accidentally set the download speed to 1536 Kbps (1.5 Mbs), which I tested and found to be right! So I’m getting unlimited 1.5 Mbit downloads for the grand price of.. wait for it… $30 a month!!!!!! So naturally I have 10 episodes of Scrubs waiting to be downloaded, as well as the first 6 episodes of Season 4 QAF. So yay! I’ve got a static IP address, and I can get a free DNS record through Abbotsleigh, so I need to choose a hostname, and then I will be ready to host my own mail server, webserver, and whatever else I like ! yay!

The Fam

Well, yesterday was busy. I got a chance to see all of my family, driving all over the north shore. I promised to go and see mum, as she recovered from surgery. I bought her some nice flowers and wrote her a nice card, and I think she was genuinely touched by it. I just wish there was something else I could do… I will have to think up other creative ways to reassure her that her kids are always there for her. The doc said that the full masectomy was a success, but they’re going to have to get the pathology results back to see if they managed to contain all of the cancer, and whether it managed to leak into the lymph or blood system. I talked to mum for over an hour, but she was still very tired from the anaesthetics. After that, I went to see James and Natalie. Thankfully, James was looking a lot healthier than when I last heard from him. I got to talk to them for a bit, which was great. I don’t always realise how close I am to my big bro. And I got a chance to hold Timmy… my god that kid is gorgeous. Although I have come to terms with the fact I may never have a child of my own, it is still painful. They seemed to be doing well though, which I was happy about. I dropped off by home to pick up my oil heater, and ran into Dad. Had a nice scotch on ice with him, and talked about what was happening with him. Overall, I am glad that I am still able to talk very openly to all members of my family. It’s something that hasn’t really happened for so long.

Why, Johnny, Why??

One thing has disturbed me this week, and that is the actions of Johnny H and the dirty politics he is playing to win this election. I am very saddened by this move, and to a point similarly so by Labor’s move to support it. This has caused me to ponder about certain things.

I’ll put it down right now bluntly… Australia is not ready for homosexual marriage. I realise other countries are starting to move on it, but lets face it, let’s not bite off more than we can chew over here. We’re not ready yet. I agree though that I would like to see some sort of legal recognition for gay couples, for the purposes of tax and superannuation. I had a little think about what marriage means the other day in the car after seeing my brother James, his wife Natalie and their baby Timothy. The purpose of a marriage, in my view, is to bind a mother and a father together for the nurturing care and raising of another human being. A baby child is a fragile thing, and the complexities of the present, with the fast-paced dangerous nature of modern society, whoever cares for the child will need the support of a partner at all times until the child is old enough to be self-sufficient. This is the ancestral definition of marrige.. the mother and the father, which religions have sanctified.

I realise very well that gay parents are just as capable of raising a child in a caring household, but this in itself does not neccessitate a marriage between them. Legal partnership recognition, yes, but not marriage. Thus this is not the part that saddened me the most about Johnny’s announcement on Wednesday. He blatantly criminalised gay adoption and disallowed recognition of marriage outside the country. He is now preying on people’s homophobia in order to play dirty election politics and create a political wedge. I always knew that the Liberal’s policy was to not endorse gay marriage, and this didn’t bother me. But this blatant play on homophobia, it took me by surprise and disillusioned me. In a way I shouldn’t be too worried. The bill will never be passed in time for the election, and with that statement, he just lost it. Labor decided not to take up the political wedge by not taking the unpopular vantage point of legalising gay marriage, which not only appealed themselves (Labor) to the conservative floating voters, but also clarified the Liberal’s stance as homophobic.

So I have decided that I will not support Johnny in the next election. Although I will not vote Labor, as I can not endorse their economic policies, I will be interested to see what Latham can do with the top job. He lacks the hardline unionist stance of Bob Hawke, and the absolute cluelessness of Paul Keating. I just think Johnny has gone overboard this time, and the Liberals wll have to reorginise themselves with a new leader before I’m ready to get behind them again.

Ahhh.. WHAT A WEEKEND!
So much to say, such little time to say it. Well, I don’t have to go to uni tomorrow, so i’m going to sit here, with a nice Johnny Black on ice and a cigarette, and type it all out. I shall put it behind a cut because.. well.. there’s a lot of writing and I know people have short attention spans heh heh I have lots of cool photos though!!! lol

I shall put everything in chronological order.. then I can think clearly in logical blocks.. is the best way I think!

The Trip Down

Finally got my act in gear at around about 2pm, packed the car and set up the GPS for the trip down. Getting out of the city was hell.. some wanker decided to break down in the M5 Tunnel, and caused havoc naturally. After a few carefully chosen expletives from me, got on with the task and got down to Picton. Picked up Adam there, it was great to see him again. We went the back way down to Moss Vale to pick up Chanel, and the road was absolutely spectacular.. driving down the back roads of the Southern Highlands countryside. The sunlight filtering through orange deciduous trees… it was very romantic in its own sense. Picked up Chanel in Moss Vale and headed down to Canberra. Made good time on the highway, got to Canberra in good time and met up with the rest of Adam’s friends, who proved to be a very cheery bunch. Met Adam’s good friend Matty, and his bf Owen, and whilst Matty was cute, I couldn’t take my eyes off him because of the striking facial resemblance he had to Timmy. We went out to some place down the road, near Civic, for drinks and to meet a whole lot of new people. I tried my best to be as charming as possible, but I was still extremely tired from the drive down and the 2 hours of sleep I managed the night before. Because of the early start we had to make the next morning, Adam and I retired for the night at about 2130 hrs. Tried to get to sleep on the floor of the living room, but wasn’t exactly very comfortable. I am told I dosed off every now and then, but probably not a lot.

On the way down to Moss Vale, Adam told me the full story of what was happening with his health, as he has had to see a lot of doctors and specialists lately. Well, after going through so many tests, they still don’t know what’s wrong with him. They’ve ruled out some nasty stuff, including cancer, but they still need to do more tests and possibly more surgery. They think his kidneys may be quite damaged, so they’ve said “no alcohol and no cigarettes” to him, as well as trying to lead a healthy lifestyle. As a result, he requested to me in the car then that I quit smoking, for his health. Lol… he’s got me there. I think he knows that I’m not going to quit for my own health, but if it’s for him then I wouldn’t hesitate. So yes people, I’m gradually cutting down the ciggies over a week to achieve a minimum of 1-2 a day, plus social. I told him that it wouldn’t work for me to go cold turkey, so I’ve planned a few phases of reduction. And I don’t mind it either. Of course I’m worried about his health.. his docs think it could be largely stress-related, so at the very least i’ve just got to minimise stress!

The Abercrombie Valley

Well, woke up on Saturday morning at 0545, and crept out of the house attempting not to wake anyone. HOLY FUCK is Canberra cold in the morning! Anyway, dragged the boy into the car.. I think I was much more awake than he. The sun was just rising above Canberra as we left the city, and stopped off in Goulburn by the Big Merino to refuel, get me a STRONG coffee (ohhh did I need it) and ask about the conditions of the road ahead. I had chosen to take the back route to Bathurst, which was to take us through Crookwell and the Abercrombie Valley. I had been warned by many that this route was quite dangerous and difficult to do, as is was quite bendy and partly unsealed. You know me, I love a challenge! Anyway, left Goulburn and headed off some absolutely gorgeous country roads, through dense fog and piercing dawn sunlight. This is why I love country driving! Anyway, since I knew that there was NO chance in hell of police being on that road, I happily pushed Tasha (my ’91 Laser) up to 130 and took her around the bends. Arrived in Crookwell and noticed a huge wind farm with something like 19 windmills. They were HUGE! Not as big as the experimental ones at Hampton, but I decided to pull over and take a few shots anyway….

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������Morning at Crookwell

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Caption:�Two of the windmills at Crookwell. Each blade was about 20 metres long, and even at this time in the morning, they were spinning up 2MW of power each.

Anyway, continuing on our trip, we shortly hit the unsealed road, and boy did it get fun then! Tasha hung on the corners for the most part of it, I was using her gears to her full potential. A few drifts here and there, but nothing serious. I did have Adam in the car, so I was behaving myself. The warnings people gave me were right.. it sure as hell was a treacherous road. I wish I had my brother’s modified WRX! I should tell him about that road.. he would love it !
I think a really amusing part was coming down towards the Abercrombie River, and noticed that there was stock on the road. Whilst most of them were off to the side, one particularly bright sheep decided to run out directly in front of me! Of course, hit the brakes, making very careful not to lock the wheels (no ABS in this old girl!) And the sheep was running for its life trying to outrun me. Thankfully, by the time we made contact, I was only doing a few kms faster than the sheep, so all it got was a nudge up the ass. All was fine, but Adam and I were pissing ourselves laughing after!

Gliding at Bathurst

Well, since I was rostered on as Duty Pilot for the weekend, I was quick to launch into “Gus the responsible and professional pilot” mode and start to organise the operations at the airfield. Adam was quite perplexed to see such a change in my behaviour I think! I showed him around the aircraft, which he was quite intrigued by! I arranged to get first flight in the morning in the club’s flagship, the DG-505 Orion (the same glider as in my user pic). Adam of course was apprehensive, and quite scared. After all, he has seen me drive. No wonder he was pissing himsefl! Anyway, got him strapped in and signalled for the tug to take up the launch. We started rolling, and although I couldn’t see his face (was sitting behind him) I knew he couldn’t contain his excitement. I gently lifted the aircraft off the ground and attained formation behind the tug, and which point he squealed with delight. I swear this is the best part of taking passengers for the first time… that initial feeling of being free from the ground. We climbed behind the tug and I did my best to make my flying as smooth as possible. I talked to him a lot, as I would any other passenger. At 2,500′ AGL I pulled the release, and we were free from the tug. He gave another squeal then, as he realised that we were on our own! Thankfully the DG-505 has a brilliant glide ratio, so we were able to travel quite far without losing any heigh. I took him over Mount Panorama, where he got this shot…

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������Mount Panorama

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Caption:� Taken from the glider, of Mount Panorama and the racetrack around it. Last time I was up, they didn’t have the “Australia” part written underneath… interesting

Anyway, After that adventure over Bathurst, I flew back to the airfield and circled around one of my friends who was doing a practice outlanding in a farmer’s paddock. Decided it was time to go down, and set up for landing and landed it very nicely if I don’t say so myself! I think the interesting thing was (which of course I didn’t tell Adam at the time) was that I had only flown that particular glider (the DG-505) once before! Anyway, got on the ground and he seemed very pleased with himself at what he had just achieved! So I took this photo….

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������Adam’s First Flight

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Caption:� Immediately after landing after Adam’s first flight in a glider. I think he looks like he enjoyed it

Anyway, for most of the rest of the day, I committed myself to doing my job as duty pilot for the day, orginising and running the ground operations for the club. Nothing exciting there… but there were big changes to come when I decided to have one more flight

Just before operations finished for the day, I decided I needed to have just one more flight, so I managed to persuade Adam to jump in the Puchacz and go up with me for a short flight. I think he knew I wanted to do aerobatics, which he was piss scared of. I said to him “I promise I won’t do anything that you’re not comfortable with”. We took off similar to the other flight. Once in the air and released, I considered my options for what I wanted to do. Part of me thought “he’s not comfortable enough with aerobatics… don’t do it to him”, and another part said “yes of course he’s not comfortable, few are, but all who do it love it. Maybe you just need to take him out of his comfort zone a little and show him how much fun it is”. I regrettably chose the latter. I took the glider away from the airfield, sped up to 90 kts, and pulled back on the stick. The aircraft pulled G’s, and I brought it over for a smooth loop. Adam was not impressed, and only then did I realise how much I had fucked up. When we landed, he said very little and I knew I was in the shit. I knew immediately what I had done was breaking my promise to “not do anything he wasn’t comfortable with”, and not only had I fucked up as a pilot, taking a passenger beyond their limits, but I had fucked up as a partner and broken a promise. I felt absolutely terrible. As a pilot, well, I had learnt my lesson there, as you always do when you fly. You learn from your mistakes, and I was angry at myself, because of the pride I take in my flying. But moreso, I had hurt Adam when that was the last thing I wanted to do. I just wanted him to enjoy his flight.

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������Very Thomas Crown Affair…

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Caption:� Adam and I by the DG-505. Everyone says it looks so very much like the glider from the Thomas Crown Affair

The Drive Back / My Fuckup

Well, not much was said for the start of the trip. I was feeling absolutely terrible. I knew I was quite emotional, as was he, especially considering how tired we were. For some reason, John Mayer started playing, and I was asked to pull over. I won’t go into the details of what was said, as now it is not important. Both of us were crying at one point, words were said but considering our highly emotional state, our feelings were amplified towards the point of being unreasonable and illogical. I tried to talk as calmly and logically as possible, and eventually we sorted things out and watched one of the most beautiful sunsets over Blayney. Anyway, drove back to Canberra the back way through Cowra and Yass, which was good as I was in no state to go down the Abercrombie Valley again. Averaged about 130 the entire way.. made Canberra in good time.

When I got to Canberra, we met up with all the others and had some pizza etc etc. I was SO absolutely tired. I had driven for 7 hours that day, as well as run ground operations and flown twice. NOT to mention that I had gotten about 1-2 hours of sleep the night before, 2 hours the night before that, and had just had a very emotionally draining time with Adam. Not only all of this, but I had decided last week to scale down my A/D’s and have the weekend free of meds. I couldn’t help it. I went outside and cried uncontrollably. I thought about my parents, my brother, my situation, and of course my mind drew everything to its worst possible conclusions. I knew that what I was thinking was not rational and I just had to bite my tongue, not do anything, and get some sleep. Adam came out and comforted me, which was absolutely great. We guided me up to a bed and I took a sleeping pill to shut my mind up and just knock me out.

Tourists in Canberra

Well, finally got some sleep. I think we slept for something like 12 hours. Had some hella wierd dreams, but all was good. Woke up a bit groggily, sharing a single bed with Adam. Naturaly, first thing in the morning, feeling a little.. well.. y’know, and I don’t need to go into details as to what ensued! The amusing thing was, after we had finished, I noticed above the bed was a Holy Bible, numerous prayer books, and a picture of the Virgin Mary. We had crashed in the bed of Matthew, and extremely devout catholic, and not only blatanly christened his bed, but under the watchful gaze of the Virgin Mary and pictures of Jesus. That’s it.. I’m soooo going to hell!!! Bwahahahahahahahahaha !!

Anyway, got up, had the obligatory shower, coffee and cigarette, a few games of Uno with the others, then decided to head out and see what Canberra had to offer! I wanted to go to the Questacon (Science and Technology Musem… yes.. I’m an engineer! hahaha) and so we headed out there. A lot had changed since I was last there 10 years ago! I loved all the exhibits and the interactive nature… I got this photo of the lightning display….

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������Zap

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Caption:� The tesla coil and the 10,000 V of electricity arcing through the air. Not a bad shot I reckon

Another interesting thing was putting on the helmet that records brainwaves and enables you to draw on a screen by thinking. Adam put it on, and it displayed on the screen his brainwaves. I put the helmet on, and the brainwaves displayed went completely wierd! The frequency and amplitude of the waves more than tripled, and was much more chaotic! Adam said it was the nicotine.. heh heh

Took a quick walk outside, to the Mall, between Capitol Hill and the War Museum. Canberra, even though it is insanely cold and not a lot goes on, is surprisingly photogenic. Haven’t been and had a good look around the capital for a bit, so that was nice. Of course, I had to fulfil another fantasy and kiss my special boy on top of Capitol Hill at dusk, with the sun setting behind Black Mountain and casting a firey shadow of light across Parliament House.

Anyway, after this blatant display of cheesy romanticism, we collected Chanel and headed off back to Sydney. Reached Moss Vale by 7, making excellent time, then Adam and I decided to stop off in Bowral for a nice dinner together. Went to a nice Chinese Restaurant, and had a great talk about Life, the Universe and Everything. I really do enjoy having someone I can philosophise to, and have them offer their own opinions. I really enjoy having someone to challenge me intellectually and philosophically. I believe that it is such an important aspect to look for in a partner. After enjoying that, I regrattably dropped Adam home and headed back to Sydney, arriving back home at 10:30 pm.

Such a weekend! I thoroughly enjoyed it! So much happened, and went through so many emotions. Things are still very strong between Adam and I, and I still have such great hopes for us.

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������Adam and I

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Caption:� Adam and I at Crookwell just after dawn, with the giant wind turbines in the background

Well, according to my GPS, I drove over 1200 kms this weekend. Tasha (my ’91 Laser) did very well and didn’t skip a beat. I got home though to the lights not working and a god-awful smell in the house. Not the nicest. Of course, Sarah didn’t know that we had circuit breakers, let alone where they were, so she did the typical ummm… girl thing and left it until I got home, and promptly went to stay with her bf. I checked email, only to find 5 MBs of Dad’s porn forwards in my inbox (thanks Dad!) and then checked LJ to see what everyone had been up to over the weekend, only to be disappointed by a completely lack of anything really interesting going on. Come on people! Write up what’s going on… LiveJournal is the only way I get to keep up with the goss, see what people are thinking, when I don’t have time to do the whole social thing!

And so ends another day!
Just finished work.. big function tonight. Worked at the Hordern Pavillion, for good ol’ Johnny H and his boys. Wasn’t too bad… I had a few MP’s on my table, which was right next to the PM’s table. Lots of big names though. A few quirky things:

Why oh why did the even have to be hosted by Alan Jones?? Interesting.. I thought he and the PM had a big fight a few weeks ago :p

Whilst he was rehearsing, I heard Kamahl sing the national anthem, forget the words, and sing the last few lines out of tune. I swear the live version was lip-synched

Why does Peter Costello have to be THE most annoying speaker ever? He tries so hard to have a sense of humour!

I know I’m a Young Lib and meant to be supportive, but my god did Johnny talk a lot of crap tonight!

Politicians really are full of shit. And drink waaaaay too much! Chatted to a few though.. they get much more lively with a few glasses of wine in ‘em.

I was quite entertained by the 400 or so protesters out the front at the beginning. Do they actually realise that they people they are protesting to simply walk past and joke about them once they’re inside?

In other, more… shall we say serious news.. Mum rang this morning and told me that she had a surgical consult and will have to have a full masectomy on her right breast. For those that don’t know what that means, she’s going to lose her right tit. I think she is a little scared. She said Dad doesn’t care, but talking to him today it’s definately affected him. I just don’t think he knows how to deal with it. Apparently my brother is so sick at the moment he can’t walk. I will have my mobile on all weekend and try to stay in contact with them all. I’m sure Mum will need as much support as I can give her. She’s got a fire inside her keeping her going… I just hope it stays alight.

I need a break, people. I’m heading out of this godforsaken city tomorrow at 2pm, and leaving all this shit behind. At least for a weekend. Spending it with Adam, and hopefully will come back feeling a thousand times better. I wish I had my laptop though! I would be able to send a post from Bathurst. Oh well. Can’t have everything!

You are a GRAMMAR GOD!

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Ahhhhhhh… another day, another set of events.
Fell asleep on the couch last night after staying up until 5am, writing important emails, tidying up my life, etc. I decided well in advance that I would have to call in sick at work today.. the fact that I was ill during my shift yesterday made it a lot easier to convince my boss. That, and when I called him I was getting some blood tests done. It was just for thyroid function, but I didn’t tell him that! heh heh. I just need a break and a good sleep.

I feel so worn out, but still in control. I woke up this morning and went to uni, to see my best mate Dave. He was looking a lot better than the last time I saw him, but he’s having tough times as well. It’s always amusing how our lives work in such parrallels. It’s good to have such a good friend though.

I gotta keep making sure I’m taking care of myself. my sleep patterns and diet are suffering again, so I must keep my health in mind. With everything that’s going on at the moment, I’m going to really have to make sure I’m in good stead so I can handle it all. I have to say though, I couldn’t be more lucky to have the friends I do, and especially Adam. He doesn’t realise (nor would he accept) how much strength i’ve gained from him. I’m so excited about seeing him tomorrow… I’ve really missed him this week.

Oh oh.. and on a brighter note.. I got a letter in the mail today telling me that I’ve actually won something! Last weekend, I walked past a professional modelling photography agency, and put my name down for a competition to win a full photoshoot, with makeup etc and $250 towards photos. Whilst I didn’t win the grand prize, I *did* win a free modelling photoshoot (valued at $180), plus $75 towards photos. So yay! Karma is a wierd wierd little bitch

On another, complete random note.. these drugs are doing wierd things.. for some reason today i’ve been horny as hell. Don’t know what it is exactly.. for the past month or two my libido has been extremely low.. but for some reason today is another story.. oh well! Must be something I ate… :p

Anyway, I need an early night tonight. No excuses. My mind is still working overtime, so it looks like I’m going to need a Stilnox tablet.

Gussy’s Random Pic of the Day

Sarah and I on our final night in Vanuatu. There you are.. a picture of ma girrrrl! Not a bad shot methinks

Gussy is an uncle!!!!

Congratulations to James and Natalie Stewart, proud parents of Timothy James Stewart, born at 1530 hours, 4th May 2004, at the SAN Hospital, Wahroonga. He weighed in at 7 pounds 10 and 49 cms.

Yes! It’s finally happened! I’m an uncle! James called me at 4pm yesterday to tell me the good news. Of course, we had to go and see the little tyke! So I got on the train (I let my folks borrow my car that morning to get home from airport), and promptly remembered how much I hated public transport. Up to the San, found the ward, and I swear I have never seen a pair of happier parents. For a woman who had just been through 8 hours of labour, Natalie was looking surprisingly well! And my brother.. well.. he was beside himself! He still can’t believe he’s a father. As for the kid… well…. I’ve seen a lot of ugly kids in my lifetime. Usually when they pop out, they are the ugliest little things that you’ve ever seen, and everyone says “awww.. it’s so cute” and then promply throws up as soon as they’ve left the parents. However, this baby was actually really cute!!! Quite amazing actually! Anyway, took lots of photos with big nice big uber-Sony, which I got back just that morning.

It was a little bit wierd for me actually. I couldn’t have been prouder of my brother, but being in that room sorta hit home for me. I would never be able to experience the joy of fatherhood. I held that little baby, and thought “Wow. This is as close as I’m going to get… enjoy it”. Still, I tried not to let it damp my spirits.

It has been quite a day full of ups and downs actually.

I survived my mid-semester exam – yes… sat it, got out… will live to fight another day. Not hoping for the best marks.. don’t expect them. Just want *some* marks. Better than nothing! My recovery is gradual, but as long as its happening, that’s all that matters.

Dad has been diagnosed with cancer – Well .. that one did come as a big shock. Maybe I should have that one in bold like the whole baby thing, but I had a good talk to Dad about it. He found out that he had prostate cancer a few days before he left for France, almost a month ago, and decided not to tell me until he got back. He didn’t seem to worried.. apparently the cancer is contained and he will go in for surgery to get it removed next month. Still, is a sobering experience. He hasn’t had the best run lately.

R.I.P. Roly Thomas – On Wednesday 28 April 2004, Roly Thomas, 25, committed suicide at The Gap at South Head. I went to school with Roly, and our parents were good friends and colleagues. He was seeing the same psychiatrist that I was at the time. His death is such a tragedy, unnessecary, and he will be sorely missed. My best wishes to his family and friends.

Gussy’s Random Pic of the Day

Timothy Stewart with Uncle Gus !