My roommate, H, was on the dole (welfare) and all day long he'd drink warm wine-inna-box and smoke off of a bong while simultaneously listening to the stereo and watching t.v. He'd alternate the sound between the two. Twice a month he'd turn in an application at a McDonald's that he knew wasn't hiring so that he could stay on the dole. Once a week he'd go play basketball with some friends. He was a massive guy, I swear at least 7 feet tall and not skinny, but I always forgot how huge he was because he was always sitting in his chair (he was quite possessive of it), doing the whole wine/bong/multimedia thang. Sometimes his friend Beagles (that's not quite his name, but it sounded like that to me) would come over and join him in these activities. They were both super-nice, super-fun-to-talk-to and never once hit on me. As a 20-year old woman who was not too bad-looking and had trouble letting dudes down, this was greatly appreciated on my part.
And then: the ladyfriends. There were a ton of international students that all hung together, because we were the ones that wanted to go out and experience all kinds of stuff. The Aussies would always try to put you off a week or two but we all wanted to make the most of our time there. At the core of my particular network were 4 American ladies: Ja, L, Ji and C. It was Ja who I met first. I was walking across the Uni and spied a hott lady with the lower half of her head shaved, the rest being in extensions, and a big tattoo on her skull. It was too much for me to resist and so I caught up to her to tell her that I liked her tattoo. I was flabbergasted to discover that the first random person I talked to in all of Australia was another American.
Adventures! Oh, the adventures we all had together. I can't even start to write about them here, because which ones would I choose? Crashing the houseboat? Whirlwind Tasmanian expedition? Dressing up as the Spice Girls (yup, really)? Camping with the monsters? My 21st birthday? Big fruit statue tour? Too much to choose from. I kept in touch with them all for a long time, but now it's been 4 years anyway since I visited any of them (they all live on the west coast now and I'm a midwest gal). I still love them, though, and I miss them.
On another note entirely: I have a very loud laugh at times. I also laugh a lot. Mostly when stuff is funny, but also when I'm nervous, or sometimes to highlight a point in a story, or other times when laughter may not be the most appropriate response. Same thing with smiling - I smile too big and not always at the right times. They're both handy defense mechanisms, but it's gotten me into a bit of trouble in the past what with people misinterpreting why precisely I am smiling/laughing. In general, though, I like other people who also laugh and smile a lot. I think this is probably a fairly universal sentiment but I also think that I notice it more than a lot of other people do.
To your left (or perhaps above, depending upon your screen's resolution): defect structures in smectic 8CB. It's my favorite liquid crystal and this picture is quite different from most of those I've taken of 8CB. It's like an impressionistic pastoral scene! In LC!
