Birthday blues

It was my birthday a few weeks back. I'm now 24. I didn't have a party and instead had a nice dinner with my parents, my brother and 2 friends from up North. It was nice, but I was kinda hoping for a party to compliment it. In early March I made a Facebook event for a party which would be held on a Saturday sometime in April. Sadly however, the invites never got sent out to anyone since apparently April was a too demanding month for my roomies...

The big two four isn't concerning me as much as I thought it would. Maybe it's because I know for a fact that Tom feels insecure about his age - he's 27 and hence the oldest in the house. I managed to settle his fears earlier today by claiming Andy (the couch bum aged 31) is officially the oldest resident in the house.

I vaguely remember getting drunk with Hibbert and Susan a few days ago and telling them that 'I wanted to get punched in the face'. At the time, I was trying to communicate that I wanted to feel some youthful exuberance before I got older. But for all the right reasons, they thought I was seeking some masochistic pleasure. After a painful 20 minutes of discussion I finally managed to get them see what I meant. For the record, I don't actually want to be punched in the face, I just want to ward off the seductive call of the corporate world for as long as I can.

My anxiety about getting older isn't what has been worrying me too much as of late. What's been occupying my mind most of all is this feeling of inadequacy which I can't seem to shake. Apparently I've been carrying my insecurities about my intelligence for at least the last 17 years. I've been reading 3 independent psychological reviews that were conducted on me at varying ages in my past. The common trends in all of them are: 1) Poor comprehension 2) Poor memory 3) Poor concentration and 4) A low self esteem. I can only wonder how being put well outside the glamorous Da Vinci program in English and many other subjects affected these 4 things. On the bright side though, I managed to tell the psychologist "I bet you compliment everyone's drawings, not just mine" right after he complimented my drawing of a stick figure. Pretty badass for a 7 year old, right?

I suspect this anxiety has made me quite hypersensitive towards my roommates. Jasper and Lachie are both kind and interesting people when talking to me individually. However, they mutate into very different people when around other company. In a group of people Lachie will tend to take advantage of my passive behavior and be more sarcastic and rude towards me. It's nothing too cruel - after all, most of his calls are memorized one liners my brother gave to him when he was living here. Japser, however, talks about me behind my back and will typically resort to more physical forms of embarrassment. He mocks my clumsy and aloof nature with his village friends and sometimes pinches me discreetly as I walk past him because he knows I won't make a scene in front of other people. At first I dismissed this as simple immaturity and attention seeking, but as of a month ago, I started cracking the whip. Well, I guess it would be more of an elastic band than a whip. I've spoken to Lachie and Jasper both individually and together about this in the hope that they would be more rational than irrational. I was wrong. Although I've convinced Jasper to stop physically hurting me, they're persistent that I'm overacting and that it's all in good fun. They keep telling me that I should 'fight back'. Even if I did want to fight fire with fire, I don't have the wit, social skills or communication skills to do so. More over, I really don't want to! I shouldn't have to be an asshole to stop being treated like an asshole. Even if it is in good fun, they should respect a roommates desire not to get mocked. Right? My patience is running thin, and off the cuff jokes about my intelligence is starting to make my blood boil. I'm afraid that if I can't convince these two to stop treating me this way, I might explode in rage at a seemingly innocent joke about my intelligence.

In other news, Jasper was surprisingly well behaved when we went down to Jervis Bay to go camping with one other guy. It was a bit of a sausage fest (both literally and metaphorically - we had sausages every meal), but it was still really great to spend close to 8 hours a day on a beach soaking up the sun. I found the sound of waves crashing on the sand a relaxing break from the high frequency hum of the air conditioner in my office.

Where was I? Oh that's right, I was having a massive winge. Sorry, I'll talk about more interesting stuff like places I've been and different alcohols I've drunk in a later blog. For now, it's all about feelings n' shit.

These latest events have really made me seriously consider moving out. A few things are chaining me back to the Animal House though.
1) If I move out and move in with people with real ambition, then I can say goodbye to Uni parties forever.
2) I have pretty much no other 'friends'
3) I'll be one step closer to walking into the jaws of 'The Machine'. (Obviously 'The Machine' is run by 'The Man').
4) My dad thinks I should move out

Either way a short term solution is needed. I need a good middle ground between my socially stunted Engineering PhD colleagues and my roommates. I need to get more involved with the community. I'll also try and dig up some embarrassing stories about Jasper and Lachie. Because this time, it's personal.

Pizza! (I know that doesn't really describe this post very well, but I figured it's attention grabbing and it sounds nice)

I went to the beach a week ago. It was a bright Saturday morning. The sunlight was so bright that if you listened carefully you could hear the flies and small bugs sizzling in the distance. I'm perfectly aware of how white I am, so I decided to pack a bucket of sunscreen with me. Wait wait wait, there's a joke here somewhere - ok ok, I'm so white that the sunscreen I put on was a darker shade than my skin! Ok, shut up at least I'm trying some impromptu comedy. I'm sorry if I don't spend every waking hour thinking of ways to be funny on my blog. Where was I? Oh yeah, I was being barbecued on the sand. When I went to work the following Monday, one of my work colleagues had the observation skills to not just notice that I was wearing sunglasses while I got sunburned, but also realize the exact type of brand of sunglasses I was wearing too! The aviator signature had burned a small tattoo into my face.

Umm what else? Oh yeah! I'm expanding my horizons and improving n' shit. I've decided that I'm going to learn how to cook a few different foods. I made homemade pizza the other day (with a pre made base of course). I added sooooo many ingredients and it actually turned out really well! Olives, eggplant, zucchini, cherry tomatoes, cheese, prawns, mushrooms, tomato paste, and fetta cheese sprinkled on top - it had it all! My parallel universe slob clone would be proud and my parallel universe high achiever clone would be reluctantly sympathetic.

Speaking of improving n' shit, I've been growing my hair out for ages now. At least 6 weeks I think. I want to claim that it's a post modern fashion statement, but secretly I just like the idea of achieving really long hair. I guess it'll be good to look back in a couple of years and be able to physically identify my lowest point in my life.

Andy is back too! He was on our couch for about a month not paying rent then traveled to Melbourne in search for a job. I guess it didn't go so well because he's back in Sydney and has already started moving the food from some of the shelves to make room for his clothes and tooth brush. I personally like the guy a lot even though my roommates are losing patience. I know he's probably just being nice to me so he can feel more welcome in our house, but it's still nice to have someone to chat with during and after work.

Oh yeah! Most importantly I've got a job with SpoonFeedMe! It's not a full time job, I just work 5 hours/ week on top of my current job. I'm happy with the arrangement because it'll be a good way to test out the company. My first task has been to investigate equipment to buy for the company to make good quality videos. I definitely invested a few more than 5 hours of my time into this, but I don't really mind since I'm being payed $30/hour. Plus I really want to do a good job because it's a $7000 decision! Dan is a very organized and intelligent bloke - he's pretty much a Jewish version of Josh Kelson.

Speaking of Josh, I still haven't met up with him since he moved about 15 minutes drive away. It's a shame because I really liked the idea of working with him on weekends to build his website.