So I grew some balls today and finally got around to getting my ear pierced - having harboured the desire to do so for the past few months, it’s nice to reflect back on it (albeit only ten hours later) and tick it off my “To-Do List”. Let’s all gather round and look at a picture of it (warning: may be anti-climactic):

Yes, it is in my right ear. To be brief about it, the procedure was all of five seconds, and it felt like somebody was pinching my ear. Hard. The kind of pinching that elicits a reaction not unlike “What the HELL, bitch?! What the hell was that for?!” Joyous, no? I was rather happy when we walked out of the piercing place, despite the fact that a circle of blood was slowly forming around the piercing and turning into a dark crimson crust. Mmm. Yum.

Oh, you say, but that can’t be the end of it! And you’re very well right. I got home in the afternoon, and my father didn’t even notice the piercing. It took him an hour of periodically walking past me to finally ask: “What is that on your ear?” I was tempted to answer with: “It’s a ring I can hang my keys on when I don’t need them!” Because my father really is one of the most gullible people I know … despite being almost sixty years old and having a life behind him well-seasoned with experiences and knowledge. But I was a good little boy and said: “Ear piercing.”

Then, he was nice enough to ask: “What does that mean? That you’re gay?”

Cue firm nod on my part.

And then the argument (which later turned into entirely one-sided physical conflict) began. He threw his “strong personal opinion as a superior straight man” at me, in a rage, claiming that I have problems, and that by choosing to be gay, I’ve come to a dead end in terms of “normal, natural reproduction” (yeah, no shit, Sherlock - nice way to put it, though). Blah blah blah. We argued back and forth for a few minutes until he saw fit to bring the possibility of seeing a doctor about my sexuality, going to counselling, etc. And then ultimately ended with: “You’re not normal.”

Thanks, father. Thanks. Although please be sure to verify your facts next time: Your only son does not wish to be normal. There is no such thing as normal. And you are not superior to me just because you adhere to the majority of today’s society in terms of sexual preference, have been married, and had a kid. I’m increasingly grateful that he didn’t bring his experiences during the Vietnam War into things - because the confrontation would have been extended much further.

So it’s several hours after the initial fight. Conflict. Argument. However you’d like to put it. What annoys me the most - and the most ironic and yet hypocritical thing, I find - is that he sees fit to reprimand me and squash my own argument with his, and suggests counselling when he cannot see that he himself requires it. It bothers me that, as a young child, and into adolescence, he was trained in the military to switch off his emotions like a machine. And it bothers me that this has carried over to excessively into his life now, in a new country, away from our homeland, to the point where he pushes everybody away, refuses to acknowledge others’ points of view, and sees fit to be one of the biggest hypocrites I know.

You think I need counselling, father? Do me a favour. Look in the bloody mirror.

All this aside, I applied for ten jobs today. Productive, eh? And - wait for it - I’m a dunce. I applied for something close to fifteen jobs over the past two months, all of which required cover letters, and none of which I got a call back for. And I only realised today, why this is … I forgot to update the date on the cover letter. *headtothefuckingdesk* much? Here I was, in early November, sending out cover letters that had a date from late September written on them.

God, I’m such an idiot. *facepalm*

I need reliable income, and I need to get out of this house, damnit! Never has this been more important. So … raise your glasses, please! Here’s to hoping I get a job! *drinks a plentiful amount* *hic* There we go. Heh.

Suddenly, it has me thinking about exactly how much time I have on my hands. I’ll need a job soon (i.e. as soon as bloody possible), but with three stress fractures and bruised tendons in my right foot, I’ll just have to wait for a few weeks before they heal up enough to let me walk at a decent pace. The good thing about this time of year is that everybody seems to be hiring for the Christmas rush, so if I apply now or in several weeks’ time, there’s a slightly greater chance that I’ll get a job. Someone, please, whack me upside the head and remind me to update my resume in the meantime?

On an extreme tangent, it bothers me how suddenly religious this household has become. Don’t get me wrong - I don’t have anything against religion. To each their own. But when your father puts up four Nativity scenes around the house, and nails a plaque to your late mother’s bedroom door (directly across the hallway from your own) that quotes a Holy Bible verse dealing with how “man should not lay with other men” (don’t quote me on that), it gets a little irritating. I came out to the guy, what, six months ago, and he picks now of all times to start using it against me? Seriously … what. the. hell.? I need to get a job as soon as possible, so I can move out (I have an idea of where I’m going to move, but I need a flatmate or two, since it’s a reasonably sized house, and the rent is AU$250 per week).

On the bright side, now I can get away with doing nothing for the next three months without having it weighing heavily on my conscience. Now if only I could afford it (I only have AU$50 left in my bank account, and without a job, it’s not going to increase significantly anytime soon - government benefits only get me AU$70 per fortnight), I would buy myself a library and read my life away. *buries nose in a non-academic novel*

So I haven’t blogged since … late September (crap, I actually had to verify that - bad Xuan, very bad). Mostly it’s because my life’s become so routine that whenever I find something I’d like to blog about, the motivation for it goes poof by the time I actually sit down and log in to Wordpress. These days, it’s just uni this, uni that, no dancing this, stress fractures in right foot that, holy shit I have a significant other this (see what I mean by teenyboppery?), crap it’s complicated that, uni this, uni that, insomnia this, insomnia that, etc. I seem to have the time, but not the motivation. I think Amanda should donate her near-daily blogging routine to me.

Recently, though, I’ve found that friendships aren’t all they’re cracked up to be. I lost a girl friend of mine over the fact that I went into a relationship (long story short, the dude person [Thanks, Amanda] I’m seeing went out once with her best friend months ago, and everything wound up complicated and crumbling), and I realised that if the relationship hadn’t been the catalyst for our fall-out, then something else equally explosive (or, possibly, even more so) would have been it.

Surprisingly, it didn’t affect me emotionally as much as I thought it would, although she did say a few relatively nasty things (i.e. “You always knew [her best friend's name] was more important to me than you! And you wonder why I’m angry!”). I suppose it’s because we, as friends, had been drifting apart for months beforehand - to the point where, by the time the friendship actually went down to the drain, it was almost expected by both of us. Hmm.

So that’s my “Hey, let’s be a little existential and philosophical” moment for today. Feel free to tune in for later episodes.

Usually I go to bed at about 1 - 2AM, because my circadian rhythms have changed to the point where if I go to sleep any earlier, I wake up at an obscenely early time and end up grumbling non-stop until noon the next day, regardless of where I am or who I’m with. For the past seven days, I’ve been doing the whole thing where you wake up every 15 minutes, open one eye a crack and stare at the clock, praying that it’s 7:00AM when really it’s only been a quarter of an hour, then fall back asleep again. Does anybody else get this on a regular basis?

I’ve tried counting sheep (they turned into goats at one point, then phoenixes, then my ex-boyfriends amongst a herd of cows - cue me randomly making stabbing motions in the air - then sheep with masquerade masks, etc. etc.), reading until my eyes got tired (or, rather, didn’t), the old “warm milk and a hot shower” wives’ tale… what a crock of shit.

I’ve gotten rather sick of it. To the point where I’m up at 4:54AM talking to a friend on Facebook who’s experiencing the same dilemma and is thinking of going to the gym to defend his masculinity. Who the hell thinks about the gym at just shy of five in the morning? All I’m thinking about is how My Big Fat Greek Wedding is playing in my DVD player for the second time tonight and how I’m repeatedly rewinding at the bit where Aunt Voula calls out “Do you need sponging?!” because it makes me giggle.

Yeah. I’m losing my mind.

P.S. I clocked in a whole hour of sleep tonight. Not sure if I should be proud of myself or berate the front door due to lack of sleep and sanity instead.

This isn’t the first time that I’ve been subject to temporary conductive hearing loss - this same thing happened at some point during December last year and it worked out perfectly well. The upside to all of this? I’m getting better (and longer) nights of sleep than I’ve had in a long time. I’d hope for this more often, but it would involve repeated tearings of my eardrum and that just isn’t happening.

On a tangent: the Olympics are over! (Yeah, you saw it right here folks, yet another person is posting about this!) I was cavorting around my living room like a mad thing when the Closing Ceremony came to a close; I’m fairly sure I woke up my neighbours when I repeatedly shrieked “NORMAL TELEVISION!” to nobody in particular. Don’t get me wrong - I selectively watched the events I liked (diving, artistic gymnatics, pole vault, swimming and cycling), but other than that, the furore (especially in the area where I reside, as it’s filled to bursting with Chinese and like-minded fanatics) gave me a headache and a half.

My university decided to overreact and put up posters and campaigns for it - you couldn’t sit in a seat and turn around on your arse without seeing “2008 Beijing Olympic Games” staring at you from one wall or another. I mean, okay, you’re excited - we get this. But this isn’t Beijing, and the Sydney Olympics were eight (count it, eight) years ago - if it was the Sydney Olympics, maybe it would make a little more sense. If I go back to uni tomorrow for another week of shiny posters and random members of faculties talking about the excitement of the 2008 Olympics, I’m going to the Vice-Chancellor’s office to bust a cap in her ass.

Right, that’s done. Now if you’ll all excuse me, I’m going to procrastinate my two essay plans that are due tomorrow (for which I’ve done no research, reading or work, of course!) and go and watch Oprah whilst half-deaf. Lovely.