We don't need no.

I had to write an essay a few weeks back on the topic of identities and how they're expressed, or not expressed, through how we use language. It was an interesting exercise and by the end of it I had basically decided I was as close to proud of my essay as I could get. I showed it to a friend, Denise. At the end of it she told me she could barely understand the essay because of the way I used language; it seemed designed to exclude people not university educated.

Despite all the snide remarks I've made all year about the University snobs (post-grad students who work as tutors but talk like they're of noble blood etc.) I have become a part of that world. It's who I am now whether I like it or not and the way I write essays and approach the world and speak about issues is so strongly informed by the privilege and density and utter wankerousness of the atmosphere I'm in at University. The further I go into this degree, the more I think I might not end up somewhere I like. Or I might lose too much of myself to recognise when I've become someone who prizes sounding smart more than making a worthwhile point or who would rather live in borderline poverty and continue studying into my thirties than actually enter the world as an adult and function independently.

I've always been that kid that can't adjust to different social situations. I'm as likely to attempt to use four syllable words during a party as in the middle of a class debate. If I stick around at Uni, will I have any hope of having friends who aren't as over educated and under experienced as I am? Will I ever contribute to the world rather than continue to live in some freaky University clean room?

When I write about identities and language, I worry that the one I'm creating for myself with every subsequent word is one I'll wish I'd never expressed.

'Cause you're hot then you're cold.

So I went to the Prom on Friday night with a really pretty girl. The best friend, of course. She wore a bright pink dress and her hair was rather big which was perfect due to the '80s theme. I was dressed as a sort of bastardised Madonna which, unfortunately, will be recorded forever on in some horrible photos. But it was a great time and I'm really glad we went. It's the first Uni related event I've been to which is rather pathetic seeing as I'm over three quarters of the way through my first year.

Speaking of, I have now officially applied twice for a Leave of Absence from second year. So next year I am no longer a Uni student, I am simply Hannah. And hopefully I can be simply me in the northern hemisphere for a decent chunk of that year. Everyone is laughing at me right now, with my wacky travel plans. I wish I could put a 'but' at the end of that but I can't. I'm laughing at me too. I'ma go anyway though. We'll see how I do when I try to be impulsive.

There are some people I am missing a lot. I've been busy lately but they're who I think of whenever I have time. Even when I don't. They make a lot of things easier just by being around. When they're not there I feel myself crumbling around the edges a little bit. And when they come back I feel things come back together. It sounds melodramatic but being with them, holding them, talking to them; it reminds me of who I am. Mainly because they're the kind of people who would never forget. That's how you get better; you spend time with people who are better. And my people are ... well, they're the best. I miss you all.

Drumroll, please.

So I've been talking to my friend, Zoe, and we've decided that we're travelling next year. Like, travelling travelling. What about school, you ask? We're deferring. What about money, you ask? We're ... working on it.

We've barely talked about it, my parents barely know what I'm on about and I barely know what I'm doing. I just know I've finally found a willing victim with whom to travel the globe and I'm gonna go ahead and do it.

And here, for the world to see, is my- far from perfect- preliminary list of countries I'd like to visit. It's weird. It's too ambitious. It's too long. It's too many things. But it's mine.

Le list:

England
Germany
Spain
France
Egypt
Ireland
USA
Austria
Czech
Greece
Canada
Romania
Norway
Switzerland
Denmark
Poland
Morocco

There's no Snoopy dance but...

I guess that I'm making up for the last few weeks by posting every day. The subject of today's blog: my best friend in the whole wide world. She's coming over in a couple of hours so I started cleaning my room in preparation (I know, right; she's a lucky girl) and found some stuff. You know the kind. Nostalgia inducing, bittersweet memory stuff. I have a best friend who has bought me gifts all over the world, that I carried around with me until it became obscene. A keyring pen from Germany I used until I'd rubbed off the decoration on the outside. Another keyring from Seattle, as well as a pen (just to keep the theme) that lit up when you wrote with it. Evidently the only thing I've tidied thus far is my desk. I'm sure I'll rediscover more gifts shortly when I move onto my bookshelf. I remember how much I missed Kat when she went overseas when we were twelve. I spent over a month waiting for postcards and trying to fill my days. I should have known then that, at twelve years old, I'd found the best best friend in the world.

Kat and I were destined to at least be acquaintances far earlier than we actually met. We were both friends with a boy living around the corner from me, along with her twin and another girl, Lucy, and as soon as we all got the acceptance letter from our high school it was decided we would all be great chums. I'd like to say we had a lot to say to each other the first day we met but the truth is it wasn't that memorable. The four of us caught the train together in the morning, awkward little pre-pubescents in oversized uniforms, and one day something clicked. Kat and I had the same orthodontic equipment fixing our teeth and from the crazy random happenstance that helped us figure this out we suddenly had plenty to talk about.

Dinners, trips to markets and swimming pools, movie nights followed. Impromptu study sessions on the train (I holding the cue cards, Kat guessing the answers) led to gossip sessions and so on. Our mothers met and became close friends. Kat became a beautiful young woman far too cool to hang out with a nerdy misfit like myself. It didn't stop her from doing so, though. By the time we graduated high school we'd been through boyfriends (hers) and breakdowns (mine)and were completely different people to when we started. The only thing that still made sense from the time we were twelve was that we were friends.

Kat, fittingly, got a job at a swanky department store and six months later is already being promoted to supervisor. Her gorgeousness, intense work ethic and sunny nature ensured she could succeed wherever she chose to be. In between sleeping through lectures and having no life, I see Kat. Sometimes she's the only friend I see outside of University and work for a month. Somehow that feels okay.

The best friend is leaving me again soon, albeit briefly, to go overseas for about a month. I'm starting to feel twelve again. I wonder what I'll do for fun while she's gone...

I am Heathcliff.

School seems to infiltrate everything. Especially with me. I can't live in the world without relating it back to what I was told by this teacher or that textbook. I quote everything. Nothing I say is mine. I'm made of other people's ideas.

I argue with my mother about Kyle Sandilands and it becomes a question of media censorship and the idea of uses and gratifications (I say there should be no editing or delay because people have a right to both hear and be heard when it comes to self expression, Michelle says that if someone is being thoroughly outrageous editing is important). I'm regurgitating other people's arguments: think Marilyn Manson and Michael Moore, among others, in Bowling for Columbine. Or, basically, the summary by Evelyn Beatrice Hall of Voltaire's conviction: "I disagree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

I discuss the situation my father and I share at work with Annie and it becomes some revision of Goffman's Front stage, Backstage theory. I bring up Anthropology practices while shopping for vegetables at the market. I quote novels when people ask me how I feel.

I can't help but assume that I'll never say anything as well as someone else will. Why try and compete? Maybe T.S. Eliot had a good thing going with the Waste Land. If I beg, borrow and cadge other people's phrases, perhaps I'll seem brilliant and not just plain boring.

So when I try to explain how and why I always express myself with other people's words ... I'll use other people's words.

the First.

So I am midway through first semester
of the first year
of my first University course.

It seemed like the right time to start something.

I always complain about being too busy to get anything done.

I mean, this is my first year out of highschool,
I've started my first adult job
and I'm trying to get ready for my first independent overseas trip.

So why not create a new blog?

I don't know if I will post every day or not.
I don't know if anyone will read it.
And I don't know if after this first post I will lose any sense of having time to do this.

But while I'm here, I guess I should post about something, rather than my lack of experience.

I need to do my assignments but I've been watching vlogs and reading blogs all morning. All I want to do right now is sit on my couch and watch a My So-Called Life marathon. What is scary about that show is that the characters verbalise stuff no-one I know would ever actually say. It's exactly how we all feel but there is confrontation in that show. That ugly thing we all avoid. At least, the people in my so-called life avoid it.

My tutor called our class the "Harry Potter" generation the other day. I wonder why we classify our generation that way. "iPod" generation, "OC" generation, "Cellphone" generation... Why not just call us what we really are? "Cyber bullying" generation, "Climate change" generation, "Same sex marriage" generation, "Nuclear testing" generation etc. etc. Because the other stuff might be superficial but it's also safe. The real things that will define us; the neo-McCarthyism of the "War on Terror", 9/11, the fear of North Korea, childhood diabetes and obesity en masse, high school shootings ... I want to throw in some positives there but all I'm thinking is Earth Hour and the election of Barack Obama. That's something I suppose.

I am the same age as Harry Potter was when he faced Voldemort. Harry Potter had one enemy. I have more than I can count and many more that I'm not even aware of yet. We all do. Go go, Gen HP.