world nomad

Hello my friends!

It's been a few days since I last updated - so apologies for that... It's been wild but then it's been like this since I arrived. The days are blurring into each other but I know I have done and seen some pretty cool things recently. The most random was that I got my labret pierced - another piercing to add to the collection. The guy who did it was really nice and made me feel quite relaxed about the whole process. I really like the result and it looks symmetrical so I am happy. For those still wondering what a labret is... its the spot under your lip about half a centimetre down.

I have a room in the hostel now sharing with a Brazilian girl called Raphella. I was in another room before with an Italian girl also named Raphella but due to some communication problems and bookings I have had to move. Both rooms are nice and comfortable if not a little tiny for two people. They are painted a blue sea sponge and are now named the marine or fish bowl rooms because of the ornate fish drawings around the ceiling. It's cute and tacky all at the same time.

San Francisco State University is good if not a little fustrating at the best of times trying to get into classes. The system is so ridiculous trying to sign up for classes... you can sign online for some and not others, when a class if full you need to smooze the lecturer (and it helps to have a cute Australian accent) or beg and plead. At the best of times all the information is available but most of the time you have to look around various internet sites and gather all the info you need for classes, books, and other bits and pieces to get a full picture of a unit. I know realize how easy the QUT system is and how much I took it for granted. So far I am taking a mishmash of classes. There is Asian Plays and studies where my crazy Japanese lecturer talkes about his family and other non related things for half a class, Theatre Imagination which is far too easy for my own good, Stage Management which I haven't quite figured out yet and a random class called Homophobia and Coming Out but then I am not enrolled in that just yet - but by tomorrow I should have a better idea. I'm not sure what they would teach us but I am gathering it's more a queer history class. I would also like to take up a Tae Kwon Do class but they are three mornings a week starting at 8.00am and I live an hour travel from the uni so that might not fly so well. Other than that most of my lecturers are great, classes aren't too hard and the campus is beautiful - but we've covered that subject.

Last night was a goodbye dinner and drinks for Mary, a worker at the hostel but I wasn't really in the mood to party slash I was just out of sorts for some reason. So I went upstairs to my room to uncover the chaos that is American television. On one channel was a show about dwarfs called 'Little People, Big World', an entertaining but slightly obscure show... then came the show about a family of 18 living in Arkansas. That was perhaps the most entertaining and Kris came up for a righteous badgering of the family which included a series of children who all started with the letter 'J', and 8 children sharing a bedroom and a pantry that outdoes any IGA. Another than those two shows there are a number of infomercials, news programs, chinese and spanish soap operas, bad 80's movies and a whole lot of nothing on. American television is generally as pretty bad as the newspapers are and don't get me started on newspapers.

I'm off to see Micheal Franti show at the Golden Gate Park for Power for the Peacful Festival http://www.powertothepeaceful.org/info.html as well as Suicide Girls (a burlesque show style concert), Ani Difranco and That One Guy. There are an amazing collection of artists playing, acting, drawing and having fun in San Francisco which means there is ALWAYS something to do. As well as individual concerts there are so many festivals and events like the 'Cholocate Festival', the 'Leather and Bondage Festival', 'Chinese Autumn Festival', Halloween coming up and a bunch of other things... no shortage of creative arts and crazy things going on. I am loving this aspect of San Francisco and would really like to get involved in something which I can be proud of.

My list of things to do:

- Go to Earthdance Festival September 15-17

- Explore more of Chinatown and head down to the Autumn festival they have

- Bike over the Golden Gate Bridge

- Camp at Yosemite for a weekend

- Head to the farmer's markets

- Visit Alcatraz

- Have a vegetarian night at the hostel... yummy

The list goes on and soon I also have to figure out what to wear to the halloween party in the Castro district... It's massive and everyone is already thinking what to wear and putting in so much effort - there will be some great photos taken that night.

For now I am signing off and thanking you for getting down to the end of this post

Luv RobyN