Yes – it’s true – I DID miss out on the family party shown below (pics courtesy of my older brother and father) but labeling it as “what I’m missing” makes it bittersweet.  And quite frankly – though I LOVE dark chocolate, I like my life to be a bit more on the sugary side. :)  So INSTEAD – let me show you what I have to look forward to in about 4.5 months.  :)

This Smile

These Puppies

My precious nieces

Family Fun

Bocce Ball

Giggles and puppy play

Unconditional Love

That’s right – I have a whole lot of GOOD to look forward to – and although I may be missing out on some of it at the moment – it will be waiting for me when I finish here in Australia.

My adviser has been talking to me a lot about refocusing unconscious situational judgments.

I do it ALL of the time.  “Ooh – I missed out on that” instead of “Sweet! I can’t wait for next time!”  Or “Last semester SUCKED!” instead of “Last semester was a good growing experience.” AAANNNDDD I refer to 6 months ago as “when I was fat” when I only weighed 7lbs more than I do now!!  Problems??  I think so.

My adviser ALSO talked to me about learning to FEEL small emotions instead of rationalizing them away.

I’m the queen of logic.  Yes-sir-ee-bob! I sure am!  And guess what??

Emotions aren’t logical!!

So although I tease a lot about “hating” this or being “bugged” by that – I usually rationalize away my feelings and never take the time to ACCEPT that I feel this way.  It’s ok if this sounds confusing – it is.  :)  But the jist of it is that although I use exaggerated negative language to describe situations – I never actually ACKNOWLEDGE my feelings about the situation.  Of course exaggerations aren’t to be taking seriously and I never take my feelings that seriously either.

Anyway – I’m now working on this … and I’m just OVERJOYED about it.  ;)  HAHAHAHAHA!  teasing.

oh and I’m sorry if I haven’t commented for awhile!!  I am still a faithful reader to the people I follow – I just haven’t had time to comment. :)  I will be fixing this!!

Day 39-41

Bleeding Love COVER by Mystery Jets – LOVE IT!!

First I had an assignment due – a big one.  That was due 2 weeks ago.  I still haven’t handed it in.  Things haven’t been going as smoothly as hoped.

Day 20, 21 & 22- when I was still optimistic about my essay

Day 23 and 24 – Remember how I decided no more kissing North Sydney because HE IS A COMMITMENTPHOBE who FREAKS OUT every time HE kisses me!?!?  Yeah – that didn’t last long.  And then I went to my international adviser and she told me that she struggling to try and work with me because I’m smarter than her and my life is very complicated.  Gee – that’s encouraging. (insert glare.)

Day 25 and 26 -  I think it was about THIS point in my life when I discovered North Sydney didn’t remember ANYTHING about our meeting, his “stalk you later” phone calls and our very brief romance a year ago.  I very bluntly called this to his attention. :)  He tried to kiss and make up – I rolled my eyes and laughed.  Then I tried to do my essay and fell asleep over and over again.  Oh and I discovered I can tell the difference between fresh and not-as-fresh M&Ms. oh yes.

Day 27 – I went and met with the adviser again and this time she was more encouraging.  We determined that I’m having issues with essay writing because of my first semester as a graduate student when I had a super nasty teacher who used her dislike of my nationality to influence the marks she gave me.  As a straight 95% and above student my whole life – I lost all confidence in my ability to be a student after I received her grades and this lack of confidence is a detriment to my current studies.  :(  We agreed that discrimination and racism are out of my control and I need to try and move forward.  I decided to study in the park under the bright and beautiful sun.

Day 28 -  I actually went to class – instead of staying home sick like I did the rest of the week.  Class was REALLY good – I’m in the process of animating a girl on a swing set.  It’s a lot of fun and I can do it for hours and hours without getting bored.  A BIG relief from essay writing.

Day 29 and 30 – I’ve had insomnia like no other the past couple of weeks.  “Bones” the television series has become my nightly insomnia treatment.  It also makes for great dreams.  I’ve never been a better crime fighter/super hero/pretend anthropologist in my life. :) lol.

Day 31 – One month down – 12 more to go.

It means “I love you” in sign language.  I might have accidentally kind of said something that would indicate the possibility that I COULD be in love with North Sydney.  I didn’t mean to!!  It slipped out!!!

He said- “You need to have kids.  You will be a great mom.”  (a nice compliment bcuz he has a child.)

I said – “Yeah but finding the right guy is going to be next to impossible.  I think I’ll just settle with my dogs – they’re like my kids.”

He laughed and said, “You’re getting close.  If you mix CC+4 with -3 you’d almost get the perfect man for you.”

I said, “Yeah but I’m never going to meet someone who is perfect and there isn’t going to be a guy out there who is a cross between all the good of CC+4 and all the good of -3.”

He said, “You never know…”

I said, “What I really need is just to find the American version of you – then I’d be set.”

I CAN’T BELIEVE I SAID THAT!!!

I told my flatmate that I couldn’t believe I let that one slip out!!!  North Sydney gets scared off every time he kisses me – and then I tell him he’s like the perfect guy for me??  My flatmate said, “Yeah but do you feel that way?”  I said – “Yes.”  And my flatmate said, “Well then you told the truth.  You shouldn’t be worried about it.”

He’s right.  I told the truth.  And fortunately for me – North Sydney DIDN’T freak out – he just took it as a compliment – and things are the same as always.  :)

Mmm – I heart those yummy raspberries growing in the backyard

My puppies (who are almost 4 years old) and – ME :)

The air and the breeze and my toes in the trees

It’s not tormenting – it’s smooching noses :) She likes it – no for real.

Matty Matt’s pic for my new FB profile pic. lol.

Rain Train – (and as Aussie Erin says – SO AMERICAN!!)

Grandpa said, “Who did this to you?”

Uncle Scott said, “Is Mommy trying to choke you?”

Grandma laughed and laughed

Grandpa said, “It’s ok Scott. She’s only here for two more weeks. They will only look like cowboys for 2 more weeks.”

Mommy said, “GRRRRR!!!!  They don’t look like cowboys!!!  They’re GIRLY GIRLS!!!”

Mommy said, “And they’re SASHES not bandanas!”

I LOLd seriously – I did.  I can’t believe my blog abbreviation/acronym is VAG in A (Very American Girl in Australia.)  HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

ANYWHO – I told my mom and she LOLd too.

Ok so the tag task is to give a shout out to the tagger.  That’s Scoman from “A Name in Your Recollection.”  So here’s my shoutout!  Yo Yo Scoman!  I love reading your blog!!  It makes me smile – even if all of your readers now know me as the girl from the VAGinA blog

Task #2 – list 6 unimportant things that make you happy.  My only issue with this is that if they make me happy then they ARE important!  But I won’t pick at the challenge – I’ll just play along.  These things are NOT the core of my happiness, but they’re little things that I delight in.

1. I LOVE when the lines in the sidewalk are PERFECTLY spaced.  And by that I mean that I can time my footsteps so that I never step on a crack.  Or if a tile floor is multi-colored – I LOVE when one color is spaced perfectly so that I only step on that color and no other. 
2. Bad fashion – it’s wickedly evil of me but I love seeing someone wearing the tackiest of all things.  I laugh.  And it’s wrong – I know – but it’s funny just the same.
3. Trying gross things.  This is a little weird right?  RIGHT!  But I love mixing food together.  I know it’ll probably be gross – it usually is – but I do it anyway.  OR I also like to try gross products.  Like chocolate skittles.  I KNEW those would be foul but I had to try them.  Or pear flavored chocolate.  Or Harry Potter Jelly Belly flavors Booger and Earwax.  Or Chicken flavored potato chips.  If it looks too gross to be in a super market but they’re selling it anyway – I am SO trying it.  And I LOVE trying it even though it’s gross and I laugh about it afterwards.
4. My dogs playing with their squeaker toys.  Chloe will sit there and chomp on that thing for an hour.  Then she’ll go through phases where she’s squeaking it like a crazy squeaking maniac to a nice lulled squeak.  I LOVE it.  It makes me smile every time.  And when she plays tug-of-war with her sister – it’s the BEST!!!
5. I LOVE eyeshadow and glimmer, and shimmer, and lipgloss and flavored lipgloss and pretty lotion, and Victoria’s Secret and MAC and more eyeshadow and helping people pick eyeshadow and smelling pretty things and yeah yeah I know.  I get pretty geeked up about this stuff.  I LUV IT!!!  Take me to the MAC counter or Victoria’s Secret and I’m in happyheavenlalaland.
6. Doing things that are meant for kids.  And yes – I realize other adults do these things – but they do them WITH kids.  I just do them on my own or with any adult I can convince to play along.  Slip-n-slides, building gingerbread houses, carving pumpkins, swinging on swingsets, telling secrets, having slumber parties, sneaking out late at night.  I DELIGHT in these things.

So there you have it – 6 little unimportant things that mean a whole lot to me because they make me happy. 

Next part – tag 6 other people.  Anyone want to volunteer?  No?  Darn it!  I hate tagging people.  So I’m tagging at random.  I picked some numbers then looked at my blog roll and here they are- ~Miss A~,  CarmenForward, NicoleElkington, a la Sophia, Pinkie Larue, Empossible in El Paso.  Love all the blogs in my blogroll!!  These 6 included. 

Good night!!

Ah but my favorite one…  it’s called “go get a room.”

Just teasing!!!  My favorite one is this:

HAHA!  lol.  No for REAL my fave is simply:

Oh and THANK YOU to Dave from CafeDave because he sent me a link to find popcorn in Sydney.  YAY!!!  I’m sooooo excited!!

Ooh – it’s late.  I totally should be asleep right now – I have school tomorrow.  On Saturday.  I have school on Saturday – LAME!  And double lame because it’s Valentine’s Day!  Ah well – it’ll keep me distracted from the fact that MY sweethearts (which are none other than my adorable dogs Duchess and Chloe – aw – they’re so cute!!!!) AND any potential Valentine (like CC+4, Adorable Boy or Glitter Boy) are all 8,000+ miles away.

So I’m going to sign off for the night – tomorrow I’ll have to tell you about the crazy movie I saw, the yummy popcorn I ate and maybe I’ll even tell you about the new kindred spirit I’ve discovered (would you ever have guessed it’s one of guys who used to be one of the slackers in my group at school?)  lol.

Good night!  Or maybe I should say, “Good morning!!”  xoxo ~Daisy

Here are some things that have crossed my mind over the last little bit – as well as some pics from the first couple days of the trip.

1.I have the coolest dogs EVER and I wouldn’t trade being a doggy mommy for anything in the world.

2.I was asked out on a date by 3 different boys for tomorrow – with 100% surety that boy 4 will also ask.  Yikes!!!  4 date options for ONE DAY – crrrrrazy!  Boy 3 (aka Numero Uno Cruise Crush) will be my pick.  I’m excited to see him tomorrow.  My Cruise Crush was supposed to end at 9:00 am this morning when the cruise was over – but he asked for a 4 day extension.  lol.  As it stands now he has until I go  back to Sydney… but I don’t think it will be quite so easy for me to turn it on and off according to preset time lines.

3.Kindred spirits are the BEST!!! Royann and Tracy (center) are my two new friends. They tell people I am their long lost sister. I LOVE it!!!

4. It’s amazing how one week can change things.

5.  I’m not used to being on land yet and I keep feeling like the ground is moving.

6.The University of Sydney blows chunks. And that is so gross – yay! No but for real – who in the world says things like that? Me. Because it does. And I hate the University of Sydney.

7. Video memories are freaking cool and I need to remember to take more videos!

8.  Someone sent me a text from a 702 area code asking me about the cruise – which means they are a friend – but I have NO IDEA who it is!!!  Ooops!!

9. Remember that time I told myself I would never ever talk about my blog in public again? No? Apparently I didn’t either. Darn it! And now CC+4 may read my blog – ooh – I’m so lucky – in the oh so sucky way.

10. I’m glad I don’t have any little sisters.

11. I’m 1 lb away from what I thought my ideal weight was – but now that I’m there I want to lose another 10. Yikes!

12. I love getting my teeth bleached (it’s a sickness.) 

13. Raspberry sorbet is delicious.

14. I think I ate my weight in chocolate chips today.

15. After a week of only 4-5 hours of sleep every night I’m EXHAUSTED!!! This will be all for tonight – I’ll write more tomorrow! I hope you all had great weeks!!!

So I was right about LOSER (that’s his new name) – I’ve added our text convo at the end of this post for your drama/gossip pleasure.  It was so awesome it made we want to “woot!  woot!” forty times in a row.  If you missed yesterday’s post click here.

Want to know what Crysta (my BFF) wrote on my facebook wall?  “Nice snowman.  Where are his eyes, mouth and nose?”  Say what?  You mean those three completely deformed globs of snow balancing precariously on each other don’t count as a snowman?

Want to know what my mom said to me after watching my snowman video?  “I feel like Chloe was neglected in your video and that you are showing favoritism to Duchess.”  So mom – just for you – Chloe.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOLiFH_fOp4]

EEW!  Gross!  My dog was on my bed?  Sick!!!!  How do I live with myself? 

Oh and here is a great picture (not!) to show you just how AWESOME today has been – and yes I DID stick my finger in an electrical socket to get my hair like that.  I call this picture “Today is so Gee Whiz Awesome.”  And it is – because on any other day there is NO WAY I’d ever post such a crappy picture – but TODAY?  Anything goes.  Including LOSER!  He’s going right out the door to the dog house – no no – not the dog house – the PIG house.  My dogs live in style.

TEXT CONVERSATION WITH LOSER:

Daisy – Hey Sexy! What time were you thinking?

Loser – I’m not sure.

Daisy – Not sure?  lol.  Do you want me to play it by ear on a FRI night?  I usually like to make plans … so if you have other plans …

Loser – Yeah let’s play it by ear.  I’m moving today and then there’s ____’s party so I’m not sure what time will work.  Sorry.

(side note – _____’s party was a game day party – it wouldn’t and didn’t get over until after 10:00 PM! – so his plans were to see me AFTER 10:00 PM!!! – not cool.)

Daisy – lol.  I was saying I like to have plans because I DON’T play fri nights by ear. Xx. 

Loser – (TWO HOURS LATER) – Oh I ment (yes he spelled it wrong) to say if you need to make other plans that’s cool.  Sorry.

Daisy – Oh no worries.  I think a bunch of us are meeting up for the game and then going out dancing or to other parties after.  If you are free later you should join us.

Loser – Ok.

PHONE CALL – not to ME -  Loser has his roommate call Matty Matt and ask which game party we’re going to.  Matty Matt tells him and then Voila!  Loser decides to NOT show up.  Which ended up being pretty sweet because the party was SOOOOO fun and it would have been AWKWARD.

Brother’s old snow pants?    Check.

Snowman-building coach?    Check.

Voila!  I can now cross off “Build a Snowman” from my 101 list.  Thank you Scott Pete for helping me!!!  If you dare – here is a 2 minute video which proves my mad skillz.  Oh how I love “Reach Out” by Hilary Duff!  It was the perfect background music. 

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkLjOXAnavc]

In other news – I FINALLY designed a custom header for my writing/photography blog.  It’s about flippin time!!!

Anywho -  Tonight I met the cutest girl (a new friend of Matty Matt’s) and we hit it off instantly.  She even teased Matty Matt that she was excited to meet a kindred spirit (me .)  HOLD UP!  Did she actually use the phrase “kindred spirit?”  YES!!!  And that basically like sealed the deal because for real!  Who else even uses that phrase except for me?  lol.  We are obviously kindred spirits!!  And now we can hang out all of the time.  Oh wait – except that I’m about to go back to AUSTRALIA.

Being back home has been so much fun and I can’t believe it’s almost time to start packing again.  Everyone told me that I was going to go home (to Utah) and realize that I LOVE Sydney and be so excited to return.   They said memories are better than the real thing and when I got back to Utah I’d realize it wasn’t as good as my memories.  WRONG!!

I have the COOLEST family.  My little brother is not only a kindred spirit but a BFF.  My parents are sa-weet.   My older brother and his family are freakin’ awesome.  My BFFs are the BEST!!!  I meet kindred spirits left and right (not so in Sydney) and if all of this weren’t enough – my dogs are here!!!

12 months ago moving away from Utah to “find myself” was the most important goal in my life.  Now that I’ve left it seems I’ve “found myself” right where I accidentally left my heart – in Utah.  My most important goal now?  Moving back.

11 months to go.  I wonder if I’ll still feel this way next November when it’s time to move back for good.  I’ll laugh if November rolls around and I write a post saying instead of moving home I’m shipping my dogs to Australia.  I doubt it will happen but my life never ends up the way I expected.

And yay for me!  I can now cross off #110 – “Do a holiday picture for Christmas cards.”  I will cross off #109 – “Send Christmas Cards” tomorrow.

Picture compliments of Scott Pete’s mad photography skillz.