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We last left off with Goob drifting off happily into dream land during his first night in Australia. Let’s tune back in and see just what kind of shenanigans he ended up getting himself into.

I woke up Friday morning revived and ready to roll. Which is a damn good thing, because that also happened to be Oktoberfest and even though the closest to Germany most of my mates have ever been is eating a German sausage, I knew they were going to celebrate the day in full fashion. So I drug myself out of bed, performed the ritual known as “daily hygiene,” and by noon was heading over to Bar on the Hill with Hannah and Keeley to meet up with everybody.

After sculling my first beer of the day, I spent the rest of it slowly getting Socially Happy and catching up with people that I hadn’t had a chance to talk to the day before. I wasn’t planning on going out since I wasn’t too keen on getting hammered my first functional night in Aussie, but around 2200, Emma came by and asked if I wanted to come out with a few folks. Something told me it’d be a damn fun time, so I decided what the hell and accompanied Em, Rach, Matty, and company out to Customs. Final verdict = excellent decision. The Spitfire didn’t make an appearance (more on that later), but I still managed to have a freaking blast.

It’s weird, during the four months I was in Australia, I didn’t really hang out excessively with Emma. I guess it wasn’t so much that we didn’t hang out, but that we didn’t really have any crazy adventures together. The first one I can remember having with her is on Josh’s Farewell in June as she chased me around campus as I drunkenly blazed past everyone. Now that I think about it, that isn’t so much an adventure as her being kind and making sure I didn’t end up passed out in a ditch. See, even that wasn’t fun for her! Anyways, like I said in my last post that was read three times by Waynus and Jaime each, Emma actually cried tear of joy when I showed up unannounced, so I knew we’d have to do some fun things together while I was visiting in order to make those tears well deserved. And did we ever.

Friday nights were my nights of craziness. I was there for three Fridays and each and every one of them was a blast. The first Friday (Day 2) was amazingly fun mainly due to the fact that I hung out with people I didn’t hang out with nearly enough my first time here. Of course, by the end of the night, thanks to all the Oktoberfest drinking I had done earlier in the day, I was drunk. Luckily, so was Emma, and we had quite a time making it back to Teds. I’m not really sure how I ended up on the train with everybody, but as we were getting off, Emma came up with the brilliant idea to hide in the bushes and scare everybody as they walked past. I thought it was such a fantastic idea, that I immediately agreed to it and we dashed into the nearest pile of bushes we could find and prepared ourselves to give everybody the fright of their life.

Only problem was that we were the last two people to get off the train.

After sitting confused in the bushes for a few minutes, it finally dawned on us that we weren’t gonna be scaring anybody that evening except for the spiders around us. We stumbled out and began to walk back to Teds when we were struck with our second brilliant idea of the evening - to go lie on the oval and stare at the stars! We detoured to the nearest oval, plopped ourselves down in the middle, and gazed upwards at the clouded sky for quite a while before we realized that most of the starts were obscured. It was also at this time that I realized I was lying in a giant mud puddle and spent the rest of our journey back to Teds saying, “I’m all muddy…I think we were lying in mud!” Needless to say, when we finally made it back to the dorms an hour after everybody else, we were giggling uncontrollably and congratulating each other on a job well done.

The next day (Day 3) happened to also be Garden Party, which was the last dorm function of the year. It’s basically a Hawaiian themed event where everybody gets drunk and then the yearly awards are given out. This is also the only time where I refrained from drinking while everybody else got hammered, which is the only reason I mention it. I was quite proud of myself, as you all should be. See Mom, I’m not an alcoholic! Instead of drinking, I spent the night with Keeley and Simon chasing around a very drunk and a very loud Laura. Lesson learned from that experience? Never again be sober when everybody else is drinking! (Shut up Mom!)

The next few days were spent hanging out and just enjoying myself. I went to the computer lab every four days or so since my only source of income right now is helping people work on and update their websites. The rest of my afternoon / evenings were spent just hanging out in people’s rooms and talking. It honestly felt as if I hadn’t even left. I’d wake up around noon, make some lunch, and spend the next few hours wandering the corridors and knocking on people’s doors to hang and chill.

Eventually there was the Ben Lee concert (Day 7, I think) that was, simply put, un-fucking-believable. I had never heard of him before, but it seemed as if everybody and their cousin was going to his concert, so I bought a ticket and figured I’d put some faith in their music selection. And boy, was my faith ever rewarded. I instantly fell in love with his music, rushed back to the dorms to download every song of his I could find, and listened to them over and over and over and over…. You can find some of my favorite songs of his over on the right hand side of Shyzer in the revived Radio Blog, which I haven’t properly configured yet, but which is working nonetheless. My top three would be Ache For You, No Room to Bleed, and Cigarettes Will Kill You.

That Friday (Day 9) was Valedictory Dinner and also the night that would turn out to be the second crazy drunken night of my visit and possibly, the best night of all. The funny part is that I hadn’t even planned on going out or drinking, it just kinda happened. Like I said, Valedictory Dinner was that night and so I borrowed a dress robe from somebody who wasn’t in town, put on some decent looking clothes, and snuck into the dinner even though I didn’t live at Teds anymore. The dinner was quite delicious, the wine, which was served with it, was actually not half bad, and most importantly, I wasn’t caught or kicked out. After dinner, everyone began to make their way back to the dorm and I noticed that a few people had drunk their fair share of wine. One such person was Neri and before I knew it, we were looking for somebody to drive us to town so that we could buy cake mix and mix it with vodka. Random? Of course.

Yeah, needless to say, I ended up going out with her, Emma, and Matty that night and man oh man did it turn into one of the best nights in recent memory. We never did find our cake mix to combine with vodka, but we did manage to get amazingly drunk. Well, let me rephrase. I managed to get amazingly drunk and it’s completely Mexico’s fault. See, the Toohey’s Old that I love and enjoy so much just wasn’t doing the trick. I kid you not when I say I drank 6 or 7 of them within two hours and wasn’t even buzzing. I was baffled as to how I could be drinking so much and not even feeling it and so I began to complain that I couldn’t get drunk off the beer. I wasn’t bragging, oh no, I was complaining. You see, I wanted to get drunk that night and so I asked if anybody knew of something that might help me solve my problem. That’s when Emma piped up with the now classic line of, “TEQUILA SHOTS!!” Yeah, that did the trick.

Within minutes, we had done a few tequila shots and I was well on my way to Drunkville, population: Me. As we switched to another bar, Emma and I ran off to look at the Harbour Angel and truth be told, that’s the point where my memory became fuzzy. I vaguely remember Casey buying me another beer, dancing in the Brewery, and finally seeing some Germans to shoot down in my Spitfire.

Ok, about the Spitfire. I’ve got no idea where it came from, but whenever I get blindly drunk, my brain starts to think my body is a World War II era Spitfire fighter jet and that everything around me is a German enemy plane. The Spitfire first came to fruition on a camping trip with Dave, Jeremy, and Nhan back in July of 2004. We all stayed up late talking and drinking and sometime during the night, I began to run up and down the camp strip making airplane noises, pretending I was shooting down Germans, and screaming “Take THAT Hitler! Eat that Nazi scum! BWEAR!!!!!!!!” It was one of those things where you wake up the next morning, spend a few hours going, “Hey, do you remember what I did last night” before finally moving on. But when I went to Australia, the Spitfire began to make a comeback and basically, whenever I transform into a Spitfire, all my mates in Australia know that I’m officially gone for the evening and that it’s gonna be a long night of chasing me around as I personally turn the tide of the war for Britain and for the rest of mankind in general.

Eventually, we made it to the bus stop and by “we made it,” I really mean “Matty and Emma managed to corral me.” I don’t remember this, but I was told the next day that while waiting for the bus, Matty kept whispering in my ear, “You know, Emma’s really a German. So is the bus!” and I kept freaking out and running away. Once the bus finally came, Emma said it took every ounce of persuasion in her to get me to board the “German” bus and that she was hitting Matty the entire time for making me scared of it. Once we finally boarded, though, I took the seat directly behind the bus driver. Emma sat across from me, Matty sat behind her, and Neri sat behind me.

There was actually a seat between Neri and myself and somewhere along the ride home, a guy sat between us and started talking on his cell phone. Now, I don’t remember leaving the bar or getting on the bus. I hardly even remember running around town as a Spitfire. But one thing I do remember is some guy threatening to kick my ass and telling me that I was a wanker.

You see, as Matty, Emma, and Neri explained it to me, the guy who was talking on his cell phone was talking loudly. He also had his back to me. So, being drunk and the natural smart ass that I already am, I began to mock him. I started mimicking talking on a cell phone and for most of the ride, I simply made an ass of myself. Matty and Emma said they were literally in stitches laughing at me and I’m told Neri did her absolute best trying not to laugh so that she didn’t give it away to the guy on his phone that I was making him look like a dick. However, all of the other bus patrons could clearly see me and apparently I ticked off some guy who simply saw me as a drunk American who didn’t belong in Newcastle. So, as his stop was nearing, he stood up and walked towards me angrily and began to ask where I was from. Being drunk and knowing deep down in my brain that I was in no condition to fight, I cowered in the seat and told him I didn’t want any trouble. He just kept talking shit, threatening to do this and that, and I just kept nodding before he finally got off the bus. I then spent the rest of night recapping how I almost got beat up. In fact, Emma recorded some of my reenactment in this video.

The best part of the whole bus event was that as I was getting off, the bus driver stopped me and thanked / praised / congratulated me for doing the right thing. I don’t think I’ve ever been more proud of myself while being drunk than at that moment. Matty summed it up best when he said later on:

“You were being a complete dick to the guy behind you and yet somehow you were congratulated by the bus driver! I’ve never experienced two completely different emotions on a bus than I did last night. I went from being in stitches by laughing at you to wondering if something serious was about to happen.”

Good thing somebody had my back, because had that guy decided to start punching me, I doubt I would have been able to even lift my arms in defense, much less get a single punch off. Anyways, the night’s events were far from over. Being praised by the bus driver was the absolute last moment of the night I remember. The hour or two that followed are still a haze to me and the only recollection I have of them are from the photos I have and stories I’ve been told. If you couldn’t tell from the first video, we went swimming in the pool that night. It was actually myself who was hell-bent on swimming and now that I think about it, I’m trying to figure out if anybody else actually went swimming with me or if they all just stood around staring and laughing at me. Oh well, it doesn’t really matter now, but Hannah managed to record a video of me begging people to swim and of me reenacting the praise I was given by the bus driver.

Like I said, I managed to go swimming in my boxers that night and luckily found a towel to dry off with. Matty helped my climb over the fence and as the night was winding down, I decided it was time for me to sleep and start my journey towards the massive hangover that was soon to come. Laura was gone for the weekend and I had been staying in her room, which was on the middle floor of West Wing. Emma, Matty, and Neri all went to bed and I ventured off to do the same in Laura’s room. At least, that’s what I thought I was doing. My memory picks back up around 0530 that morning as I was woken up by two people wondering just who in the hell I was.

Remember how I said Laura’s room was in West Wing on the middle floor? Well, when I was climbing the stairs to her room, I didn’t count correctly and I ended up on the top floor. In my defense, I went to the correct room location. I just ended up in the room directly above where I should have been. The door was unlocked and the lights were off and I guess I just figured the floor looked like a wonderful place to sleep, so I collapsed down on it and dozed off. The problem was that a guy named Steve and his girlfriend named AJ were naked and sleeping in the bed right next to me. Judging from the time we left the pool until the time campus security was called for an intruder, I was asleep on their floor for a good two hours or so. But eventually AJ’s leg dangled off the bed and as luck would have it, hit my face. While sleeping, my hand grabbed her foot, which woke her up, which freaked her out, which woke up Steve, which made him get up to investigate, which caused all hell to break loose since some drunk guy was caressing his girlfriend’s leg.

They woke up to me, soaking wet and in my boxers, wrapped in a towel, sleeping on his floor. Kinda like I look in the picture above. He flipped the lights on and asked who the hell I was and as my brain slowly began to wake up, I wanted to know the same damn question! Who were these two people in Laura’s room when I was supposed to be the one staying there! And why the fuck were they in the bed that Laura had been letting me use? As we both continued to yell at each other, I noticed something odd. Laura didn’t have clothes all over her floor. Laura also had stuff on her walls and I could have sworn she had a laptop and not a desktop computer. After about 90 seconds, it finally dawned on me and I sprinted out of the room without a word, raced downstairs, and collapsed into Laura’s bed.

The next afternoon around 1730, I woke up to Hannah crash tackling me and Keeley laughing drunkenly into the mirror. They had just gotten back from the races, which I had skipped in favor of sleep, and soon I began to remember the events of the previous night. All the while, people were walking by Laura’s room congratulating me on freaking out Steve and AJ and it suddenly all came rushing back to me. I finally tracked them down, apologized, and was relieved to find out that they thought it was hilarious once they were told that the half-naked drunken guy in their room, “was just Goob.” We all agreed that it made a great story and I then went back to Laura’s room to spend the rest of the evening cursing whoever invented hangovers.

The rest of the week was filled with more chilling, hanging out, and your basic college dorm activities. I knew the end of my stay was nearing, so I tried to spend as much time just talking with people and enjoying their company. Before I knew it, my last Friday had arrived (Day 16) and it was great. I won’t really get into it, but after hanging at Customs with just about every single one of my mates, I decided to walk to the beach alone and spend some time figuring things out. I’m not really sure how many hours I spent there and I ended up symbolically tossing some things into the ocean, a la Top Gun (coughmywatchcough), but it was one of the most therapeutic night I’ve had in years.

The next few days and nights I began to prepare for my departure. However, during my last night there (Day 20), Emma got a bit tipsy and wanted to walk to Warabrook, so Matty, Alina, and myself accompanied her during her journey. Again, hell of a night. No, it didn’t involve any drinking, but it involved what I love so much more about this place. We basically just sat out on the dock, looking at the stars, and talked. Plus, there were the two shooting stars that…well, I think I’ll just have to save that story for another post.

I know to some, it may seem like the only reason I love Australia is because of all the drinking and such I did there since that’s basically all I talk about here on Shyzer. But honestly if that’s what you believe, you couldn’t be farther from the truth. There’s so much more about that place that I love that doesn’t make it onto Shyzer. It’s more than Toohey’s Old Dark Beer or the now infamous wine in a box I drink. It’s the people that I love, the environment around Teds, and the attitudes of everybody. I can’t accurately express how loved that place makes me feel, so I don’t even bother. Pictures can’t capture the way I feel when I go back there. Words can’t portray the excitement and content and joy and everything else that mingles inside me while I’m just sitting on somebody’s bed chatting or looking up and down the table in the dining hall or going on walks in the middle of the night across campus. I know I can’t do justice to the way the people there make me feel, so instead I simply write about the only thing that I think people back home will enjoy reading about; my fun adventures I have while I’m there. I just want everybody reading this to make sure they get the right interpretation. It’s this and this and this that make me love Australia. Not this or this. I can’t stress that enough.

I had told people I was gonna leave in the middle of the night without saying anything. I didn’t want to have to go through another round of tears and farewells, so I figured the best course of action would be to leave in the middle of the night without anybody knowing. Of course, telling people this defeated the whole purpose, but I couldn’t simply avoid the question of when I was leaving all together. But, on Wednesday night (Day 20), I basically wandered the corridors late at night going from room to room and talking to as many people as I could find. Around 0245, I finally discovered that everybody had fallen asleep and I knew what had to be done. A few days earlier, I had hidden my bags throughout the dorm and so I went and collected them all, got ready to go, and wrote a few letters that needed to be written. I slipped them under their owner’s respective doors, quietly thanked everybody for a kick ass time, and slipped out under the cover of darkness to catch a train into Sydney.

I’m not even sure how I made it back to the states. I must have stood in the Sydney Central train station for a good 30 minutes contemplating just saying, “fuck it” and going back to Newcastle. I wanted nothing more than to not come home, run back to my second home, and stay there forever. But I finally willed my legs to carry me over to the train, which was headed towards the airport, and board it. A few hours later I was sitting on a plane, staring out the window with tears streaming down my face, wanting nothing more than to be back at Teds. But I knew I had to return home and so 38 hours later, I was greeted by Colton saying, “RYAN! YOU CAME BACK!” and spent the next few hours hugging and playing with my siblings.

Virginia is where I am now. Its where the people who love me most in this world live (besides those two oafs down in South Carolina!) and its where I need to be right now. Make no mistake about it, I love my family more than life itself. I love every day I get to spend with my siblings. I love reading A Pigeon Finds A Hot Dog with Colton every night or the look on Jules’ face when I tell her she can sleep in my bed with me on the weekend or having Clay ask me if I know of any good books. I love kidding with my mom about drinking rum and cokes at 10 in the morning, and talking to my dad about his days with the band, or having Tommy call me to ask which side Norway was actually on in World War II. This family I was placed with is perfect for me, so when I call the people in Newcastle my “Second Family,” don’t think I’m turning my back on the one I already have.

But at the same time, don’t even think about kidding yourself. Australia is where I belong at this stage of my life and I simply can’t wait until the next phase of my plan is executed

Come on, did you really think I wasn’t planning on going back sometime soon?