Nitor

For someone who claims to despise the beach, WHY HAS MY FOOT MADE CONTACT WITH SAND THREE TIMES THIS YEAR? THIS IS NOT OKAY. I was on the verge of threatening to shave all my hair off because I was eating my own hair due to the wind whipping it into my mouth. My temper level is at an all time high when I'm at the beach.

I busied myself taking photos, which I ran out of things to photograph. I busied myself penny boarding, which I gave up on because of the brick-like cracks everywhere. I busied myself reading, which I also gave up on because of the goddamned wind in my face and book. Then came the flecks of rain and I just gave up on everything and wrapped myself in a towel, counting down the minutes till our Korean BBQ buffet.

Highlight at the Korean BBQ buffet would be Vivienne's odd creations - Grilling watermelon and mixing ice cream and yoghurt together. It was strangely... nice. Then we drove around looking at houses covered in Christmas lights. There were these two particular houses that were insane. Their lights and decorations were flashing in sync to songs played on a radio station. All nine of us sat in a row, on the curb, watching for a long time with sleep washing over my eyes. It was a nice moment, minus the mosquitoes.

While driving to all these places, I got to be pick the car music. I realised that my friends haven't heard of the kind of music I usually listen to, which made me think, Australian indie pop/rock and alternative bands don't get enough recognition, both in and out of the country. So here is a playlist of my favourites. There will be bias involved because I saw The Jungle Giants a couple of months ago.

▶ It's Nice To Be Alive by Ball Park Music
▶ Plans by Birds Of Tokyo
▶ This Fire by Birds Of Tokyo
▶ When The Night Falls Quiet by Birds Of Tokyo
▶ Time And Place by Last Dinosaurs
▶ Weekend by Last Dinosaurs
▶ Rocket Ship by San Cisco
▶ Fred Astaire by San Cisco
▶ Wild Things by San Cisco
▶ Mr Polite by The Jungle Giants
▶ She's A Riot by The Jungle Giants
▶ I Am What You Want Me To Be by The Jungle Giants
▶ Come And Be Alone With Me by The Jungle Giants
▶ Young by The Paper Kites

Humans Of New York

I am usually the type to stand in front of my chosen scene then wait for everyone to walk out of the range of my shot no matter how long it takes to get the "perfect" photo with minimal people in it. Or sometimes I would go to the extent of editing stray people out of my photos because I think they "ruin" my shots.

Brandon Stanton is my favourite people photographer because he makes me want to take photos of complete strangers, ask about their life stories and hang onto every word they say.

Humans of New York is a compilation of Brandon Stanton's photos made into a book. He basically goes around taking photos of people on the streets of New York then asks them a simple question or strikes up a casual conversation then captions his photos with quotes from these ordinary people. He then posts his pictures daily on his Tumblr and Facebook that I read everyday like a morning paper (except I don't read morning papers). We get a little window into these strangers' lives and I really like how real it feels.

I think my favourite thing about Humans of New York is that it shows everyone has a story and they're not just another mundane person living their mundane life doing mundane things. (My overuse of the word 'mundane' made that sentence sound mundane towards the end. But you get my point?)

Tantillus

It is strange that one day you are considered a teenager and the next, you are not, according to the orbit of the Earth around the Sun hitting the same point of when you were born however many years ago. I still get nervous driving without parental supervision, still think eating gum in class makes me a badass, still laugh till I'm gasping for air at Nickelodeon shows and I still can't cook (unless instant noodles and premix pancakes count as cooking).

So for my birthday, I had breakfast with my group at The Chalkboard Cafe. I had the breakfast tasting platter, which had a bit of everything. It all tasted really good and was worth the trek there early in the morning.

Afterwards we went shopping for a bit around the city then two hours of karaoke. It was a nice catch up with everyone after the aftermath of uni exams and assessments. Now two months of no responsibilities before flying across the Pacific Ocean with a majority of this lot. I'll try make the most of the summer break being as unattached to the air conditioning in my bedroom as possible. Which means I have to go outside and do things in the heat. Help.

Aureus

How cool would it be if you could see bokeh in real life? Like you're lying on some patch of grass, where a dog has probably chucked a dump on before, staring off into the distance and there's these light coloured dancing balls hiding in the trees. (If you can't tell, I'm obsessing over the bokeh in these photos all taken by Andy.)

So I finally hung out with Andy and Annie at Newtown after uni. We explored the main street a bit, got accosted by RSPCA recruiters ("What did I tell you about smiling at strangers?"), ate at Black Star Pastry and Guzman y Gomez, saw Janice Lee (known as 'jayesslee' on YouTube) with her husband eating at a Thai restaurant and kept walking back and forth wishing the window that separated us would disappear like for the snake at London Zoo in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.

We went back to uni and chilled on the grass for a while, watching people at the quad graduate and rooting for a guy to drop his laptop on his face. It makes me wonder if that'll be me one day. Not the dropping laptop on face part (been there, done that), but the graduating part. The things I want now, and the things I want for my future are two completely different conflicting things. Yeah... Anyway, then I played in the ball pit and it was all fun and games until I saw a booger looking thing stuck on a ball and had to get out of there ASAP.

Coogee

My favourite kind of beach is the one I’m not in. I don’t like the feel of salt and water stuck all over me. I don’t like the change rooms and bathrooms there. I don’t like the thick and sticky feel of sunscreen. I don’t like how the beach air turns my hair into twigs. I don't like waves smacking into me, determined to knock me over. I don’t like how the sand makes it twice the effort to walk - I’ve already gone out of bed and made the effort to come all the way out here, why would you make it more difficult for my willpower to walk?

But I went to the beach with Trang anyway, because I have been a potato for far too long.

The only thing I liked was the rock pool. The lack of sand and fortress of rocks made me forget I was at the beach for a moment. There were also little crabs and fishes. I tried to google "how to hold a crab at the beach" so I wouldn't get snipped, but all I could find were instructions to dig holes for crabs to fall into. Thanks, wikiHow.

I came home and excitedly told dad that I saw crabs and his first reaction was "DID YOU CATCH ONE" then quickly became sensible and told me it's illegal to take them home. IT'S LIKE HE KNEW MY INTENTIONS.