The Week I Protested at Parliament

The last 4 days have been spent camping. That is right, B the princess, braved the ground, the dew and even went without a GHD for 3 nights! All for the cause of Human Trafficking. I went to Canberra, the capital of Austalia, with World Vision, to campaign against the use of Child Labour in making chocolate. Every person who learns that Cadburry and Nestle, and all the big chocolate companies use slave labour are horrified. To learn more visit, http://www.don'ttradelives.com.au/ Seriously, this is a massive issue, and the more people that become aware of it, the faster we can change the problem.

I met the most amazing people over the last 4 days. There were teenages to adults, 15 to 25, all passionate about making a difference in the world. The younger teenagers were more mature than some of my friends, and new where they were going and what they wanted to do. The older ones, the guys my age, were all studying politics, law, international studies. I was so inspired by their passion to change the world.

Check out my other blog http://www.abolitionistdiaries.wordpress.com/ for all the info on the week and world issues/how to stop slavery. But I will say this here...I walked on the green manicured lawns outside parliament, protesting, with banners, drums, and chants, to stop human trafficking and child exploitation in chocolate manufacturing! And I was in the paper...I'll put that in next post!

The thing that got me the most, was that everyone has a different part to play. Whilst I was the only actress out of 150 people, everyone accepted who each other were. There are times, when I wish I were a lawyer, or politician. Where I want to be smarter, have more influence in the decision making arena. But I know I'm entering the industry I'm meant to, where I can influence the media and people who look up to the 'pop stars' and 'movie starlets'.

Everyone wants influence. Deep down everyone wants to see change happen in something.

What do you want to see changed?

x o x o

I am a TV series addict. But not the CSI’s and Criminal Intents. It's all about The OC, One Tree Hill, of course Sex and the City, Grey’s Anatomy, Ugly Betty, Beverly Hills 90210, and The Hills. And back in early 2000's, Dawsons’ Creek, Rosewell, Ally McBeal, Popular, Friends, and the Gilmore Girls.
You get the point. Anything with girls, falling in love with hot boys. Topics of like, crushes, love, best friends, cat fights, betrayal and if the fashion is good, then it is a must! I even think blue robes are kinda sexy after watching so much Alex in Grey’s.

And now, I have developed a new addiction. Gossip Girl. Now I know I know, I’m totally behind. Like duh, Gossip Girls been big for the last year, but I don’t have cable, so I miss it. One of the girls from work burnt me a copy of season one, and I watched it all last night. Now I’m pretending to be Serena in knee-high socks and sticky lip gloss. My blonde hair is even curled.

So here’s my Gossip Girl style update.
B (obviously me), has been seen chatting late at night with D in the car outside his hotel (where he actually does live…I am totally channelling it aren’t I!). But G (my bff) might have developed a little crush on the new boy D. B isn’t sure yet what her feelings are, as D is still so unsure about how long he’ll be staying here for, so G is asking if she can move in on the smouldering D.

And B may be more into D than she’d like to admit.

xoxo

The Single Leppor

I experienced the single torture on Saturday night.
Friends, who are now linked to the Previous Friends I Used to Dine With Category of my social mind, shafted myself and 5 single girls to the end of a table.
Bek and I (who is factually the only friend I give permission to read...and is actually dating a 21st Century version of James Dean) arrived 20 minutes late, had Loz rearrange the table so we could sit with her, and spoke excitedly with the Birthday Girl over our outfits and shoes. In come couple number 31...and suddenly the perfect night is whisped up into a furry of seat shifting. I'm not sure if it was the Birthday Girl or Nick-The-Dick who I have had hideously disgusting experience with, that forced us from the table with our friends, in favour of couple #31. It doesn't really matter. Fact is, we were placed, at the end of the three tables of our 'closest friends' and their husband-boyfriends-fiances, with the other 3 late comer singles. And one by one, we realised we were the single table.

I guess in moments such as these when you want to through a Prima Donna tantrum and storm out like a Maria Carey, composure and cocktails and fake smiles are all you can do. And so we sipped out Martini's and Cosmo's flirted with the Black English Waiter and pretended we didn't want to leave, in favour of some 'single party' where 'poor single people' mingle.

And thus, my conclusion is, I dislike couples. I vow, never to be That Couple. To many friends are falling subject to that fate. Those who vowed they never would when we were single girls sharing Champers and Hot Tubs late at night. (Bek, for the record you are not in this category!)

I will be an inclusive couple. I will be friends with all the singles who feel like lepper's and aliens. The world is cruel to us socially deformed girls without a boy's arm or wallet for support.

Did Sex and the City teach us nothing?

Dior+Vogue=Fab weekend

Hot off the Christian Dior Runway...I love this look! Sheer and daring with the subtlety of beige!

The tu-tu is just oh-so-hot this season! Embrace your inner ballerina, or 1999 Carey Bradshaw.

Get dressed up, paint your nails red, throw on your highest heels and enjoy the weekend!

Stolen Emotion

I miss you.

We’ve only hung out properly once.
We’ve only had four real conversations, two were on the phone.
I tell you more than I tell my friends,
You understand me better than my father.


I pulled away involuntarily.
I regret not being so open.
I guess fear does unwarranted things to emotions.
I’m sorry for the way I looked at you last time.

Can I get back into that sacred space that arises from nowhere?
Do you think its ok for me to tell you my secrets?
You asked my of my heartbreaks, I kept it inside,
I’ll let you in next time, please mind the step.

I trip and fall over my confusion.
I let the asthetics of wordly opinion cloud my convictions.
I lost the sentiment of reality.
Was I Sleeping Idiot-Beauty to let you walk out of the room without a kiss?

Closing the College Chapter

I kept my head down and my thoughts locked tight to myself, afraid everyone else could read how insecure I was. The binge drinking, chain smoking, multiple-boy kissing girl of 18 - my first day of college 4 years ago.

Today marked my last lecture.

There is a sense of nostalgia, even after the toughest 4 years. And the best. An acting school, a bible college, a leadership development programme and a theology degree, all mixed into what has been my life, longer than anything else has.

I no longer smoke, I haven't been drunk in 3 years, and the last boy I kissed (apart from acting) was a boy I loved 2 and a half years ago. It is like going into rehab and coming out a different person.

I made best friends, watched friends fall in love and get married and fall pregnant. I developed who I was. What I wanted, what I didn't want. I decided I want to be an actress, and that social justice was my purpose. But most of all, I found God.

He was always there, I had just ignored Him. I had played the ignorant fool we too often fall subject to. I had asked Him to help me when I was 16 and getting busted for shop lifting, I had prayed that Adam would fall in love with me at 15, and I had said my nightly prayers all through High School. But I never understood Him. He's character, and purpose, and grace. The reason I chose to 'give up my life' for something bigger than myself.

I graduate with a Bachelor of Theology Majoring in Acting and Theatre Craft, (try saying that fast), but it's not the paper I really care about. I care that my life has been completely transformed. I still have blond hair and wear the same dress size (though my style has improved significantly), but my character and what I believe is completely different.

Discover who you are, and enjoy the adventure.

Weddings, Sexy Actor and Moving Out

Given the current financial climate, acting jobs are far and few between;

My agent is mildly absent;

And Sexy Actor was in class last night;



It was a pash scene. And my friend Tori got him! I'm somewhat relieved I didn't ahve to kiss him, because it was The. Best. Kiss. I've. EVER. Scene. I saw her face, she had fallen in love. And I was trying my hardest to concentrate on the camera I was operate. He then sat on the couch next to me, and told me about his romantic getaway with The Girlfriend. I'm sooo not interested.



It was like plucking eye brows forcing myself into work today. I started at 12, so I spent the morning with my favourite people, and D, drinking coffee and popping into cute boutiques. (I got a fabulous little black skirt on sale!) I love Sydney life. I'm thinking of moving out and living in Kirrabilli with my Bestie, Gabs. Kirrabilli is on the Harbour of Sydney, overlooking the Opera House and Harbour Bridge. I could get a ferry to work, stroll through the historic buildings of the city to work, with a large coffee in hand. I've always wanted to live somewhere glam, like NY, but I realised, my cities got pretty cool spots! I can be totally fabulous right here, sitting at sidewalk cafe's with my bestfriends.



On the D front, I don't think I'm interested. Again, I'm trying to force a friendship into something it shouldn't be, just because I want the security of someone who loves me. I want him, but as a friend. As a brother. Besides, his doing Mo-vember and the mustache looks hideous! Think 80's porn star.



I attended a wedding on the weekend...my 5th this year, and counting. It was hilarious! The brides father had planned the day, minute by minute. It was a case of Father of the Bride meets Meet the Fockers. There were tears from the bride all day, tears of joy of course. The groom just stared at her. The 5 bridesmaids stressed over her veil, and the 5 groomsman checked out all the single girls. At the beginning of the reception, we had a run down of how the night would progress. Exhibit A

at 9pm you will all have finished your deserts and make your way in an orderly fashion into the adjoining room.

9:05 Dani and Ben will cut the cake

9:10 They will have their first dance

After which you will all dance to a mixture of music from the Golden Oldies, to 70's classics, 90's love ballads, with a little RnB thrown in for you youngsters. (Hello it's a 22 year olds Wedding!)

At 9:30 we will clear the dance floor and enjoy the tearful father daughter dance

And at 10:15 we will make an arch way and farewell the couple off to their honeymoon.

No joke, at 9pm, after 2 hours of speeches, the MC gets up and tells us to quickly finish our deserts, we're behind schedule!

But it was a beautiful wedding, but not beautiful enough to convince me I'm anywhere near marriage!

The Kind Advice of the Department Store Ladies

At the beginning of the year, I spent six months working for a designer in a Department Store. Unfortunately it wasn't some top end, most wanted designer. She designed for the older women, with classic money to spend on boring cardies cost $450 each.

I was the youngest person working there, by 40 years. There were 5 ladies, all glamorous and ageing ever so gracefully. And they taught me worldly wonders. I thought I would share a few.

1. The power of classic red lipstick. It brightens any dull day. Apply after meals and blot, with a gloss over the top, it can stay on for hours. Just don't chew it off.

2. A string of pearls goes a long way. Invest in the real deal, or just a cheap $20 fake-a-rooney but no matter what the occasion, they always go down spectacularly. Just look at Carrie in Sex and the City running around town on NYE with her string dangling delicately over her PJ's.

3. Be polite and respectable to people older than you. Use Mrs. or Sir. unless instructed otherwise. I had priceless conversations with older women, and men, and heard incredible stories, from a writers point of view, just through showing a little respect.

4. No matter what the rules, coffee should always be aloud at work. We used to always get in trouble for sneaking coffee's in, and sitting in our little stock room for 11 o'clock coffee and chocolate break. I thought it was funny, that middle aged women still giggled over breaking the rules.

5. It is possible to have a successful, happy marriage, and still be glamorous, even at 60.

3 out of 5 of the women were still happily married to their first husbands, one was married to a Frenchman, which I thought was cute, and the other dated more than I. They all wore gorgeous high heals, and patterned stockings. And as young adults had been actresses. What are the odds. Everyone of them had been an actress. I vowed never to become a shop girl again to avoid being stuck there till retirement.

One more valuable piece of information they imparted in my short time with them was this. You don't have to marry what appears to be Mr. Right. You don't have to wait around for The Knight to gallop along at a blinding speed and whisk you off. You can get out and love life. Date a few men, get a broken heart or two. But live life fabulously and daringly.

And so, whilest surrounded by doting couples, I will hold my head high, and not worry if D is he or not. I will not search the face of every man I see any longer, trying to find the spark that means he's for me.

I also learnt from these ladies, that black is the most fashionable colour, throw a coloured wrap around your neck, and teamed with the pearls and red lippy, you're always ready in glamorous heals.

We worked across from the shoe department.

Sex and the Sydney City

Some of us are trying to do work!

My desk sits at the bottom of the stairs, welcoming the predominately elderly as they arrive to visit the gallery and enjoy the café, designed specifically for the aging. While our office staff pass me by and I enjoy this relatively 'younger' crowd, there are moments in my day, between complaining members of the organization with their wasting-my-time phone calls, and long loud lunches of women catching up, that I want to run screaming. I work for a non-for-profit organisation, that looks after old heritage buildings and beautiful properties. As you can imagine, this draws on the heart strings of the above 70 crowd, with nothing to do but visit old gardens and make phone calls, complaining to me about the state of our City and the councils tyrannical reign, pulling down old buildings. Somehow, it always becomes my fault that there is to much development, or a property is not listed in the yellow pages, or someone hasn't received their bi-monthly newsletter. I mean seriously, do they realise I am at the bottom of the food chain?

Right now, I am trying to do media reports, reading about politics, answering phone calls, usually two or three at once, and listening by a bunch of 70 year old women visiting their old school, screaming like 15 year olds and carrying on! They spent 15 minutes trying to climb the stairs behind me, stood under the old school emblem, told me stories of the scary headmistress and won't seem to leave. Ah, hello, there are people running a business here!!!

In other news, I watched Sex and the City movie this morning. It always fills me with a sense of nostalgia, a sadness for growing old, this impending doom that it will happen, yet I know I will do it with my friends. I have a SATC group. We are literally one character each. R

Rachel is Samantha, her latest claim to fame is that she 'f*cked a guys brains out' in the front of a Catholic church next door to her uni the other night.

Kylie is Miranda, a hard working, tough little bitch. This friendship is a little on the rocks. She seems to resent me a little because I have other friends then her, and in a recent move to escape her life down here, she met and boy (a dick head if you ask me) and moved 7 hours north to the capital of Nowhere. She begs me to come and visit, and I decline. I'd rather soak my feet in horse poo then spend a night in Nowhere. Besides, I'm saving for my big OS adventure!

Chez is sweet Charlotte. Chez and I are the ones who at 17 decided not to have sex because every one else was, and to wait till our wedding nights. One little mistake on my behalf - oops - but she stands strong in her convictions. She's the sweetheart of our group. The driven PR agent who mediates between bitchiness and is still finding her voice.

I am Carrie. I'm not sure if its because I don't fit any other category, or because I often fall into the paradigm that the world revolves around me. I like to think it's because I'm the most fashion savvy, or the witty writer. What ever it is, I'm happy being Carrie. She stands for something great. Episode after episode revolving around being single. Finding Mr. Right. Or Mr. Big. The most heartbreaking moment in all of film - k maybe not all - was when Big left her at the alter. Did anyone else's heartbreak too?

I like to think of us girls as Sex in the Sydney City. We're catching up tonight. It's been about a month. In that time, Kylie is still in No Man's Land with her abusive boyfriend, Chez and Rach have finished degrees, moved to the city and started working full time, and I am rearranging my life big time. We will have sushi for dinner, and talk about politics and fashion, and pretend life isn't happening. We will meet our sexy men for Salsa dancing, and go home, no longer living 5 minutes from each other like we did when we were 16. We will act as if we are the girls who have just finished school, exited about the future and life starting.

Well it has started, and it has taken us by surprise. I want to grow old with these girls. I want to find myself on my 50th birthday, dressed head to toe in designer, looking "Fifty and Fabulous" and know I did life with my best friends.

These are my favourite lines from my favourite songs. Some are all to cliche, others are songs you may not know, but go listen !!!

I could stay awake, just to see you sleeping
Aerosmith

She gave you a look that sent you to the moon.
"Bella" - Angus and Julia Stone

I'd rather spend my life pretending then have to forget you for one whole minute.
"Crush, crush, crush" Paramore

That maybe Hollywood was right:When the credits have rolled and the tears have dried,The answers that we have been dying to findAre all pieced together and, somehow,Made perfectly mine.
"Needle and Thread" Sleeping at Last

You have stolen my heart
"Stolen" Dashboard Confessional

Here I go, scream my lungs out and try to get to you, you are my only one
"Only One" Yellow Card

You're the closest to Heaven that I've ever been
"Iris" Goo Goo Dolls

Breathe out, so I can breathe you in, Everlong
"Everlong" Foo Fighters

You look wonderful tonight
"Wonderful Tonight" Eric Clapton

I would like to compile these lines into seemless moments, of fragile perfection, where there is only room for you and I.

Lonely Posting!

I am feeling very lonely on these pages. I want my blogging network back!!!

So things with D are going really well. I organised a massive day on Saturday where we go into to housing commission and do heaps of work. Running teams, fielding calls, knowing where everyone is and what they are doing. We even painted a house for a lady and she complained about the colour and we had to re-do it on Sunday. D had to work, but he called me to see how it went. What a man! After one conversation he actually cared enough to call!

Last night at church, I seriously thought I was going to pass out, my panic attacks were so bad. But once we started chatting and laughing, I felt as calm as the waters of the Red Sea. We talked for hours, and laughed, and I introduced him to all my friends. It just felt natural.

We still are just getting to know each other, but it's an incredible level. I've never connected so quickly to anyone. I feel like he reads my soul. It's too weird.

And I think right now, it's just friends. And that makes me happy. So what if he isn't my fairytale, he's amazing, and I'm so glad I'm even his friend!

I don't have any funny stories today, the weekend was to stressful.

Tomorrow is Melbourne Cup Day. For those of you who aren't Australians it is THE most fashionable day of the year. Entire ranges are created, fashion shows are organised and fashion editors are stressing over this day. At 3:30 tomorrow, the Country stops to watch a horse race. That is the fuss. A horse raise.

Oh but the dresses! And the HATS! That is really what it is all about.

I have to choose a dress! I need to make my head piece. We are having high tea and champagne at work to watch the race tomorrow.

I will win best dressed! Or at least my pink cup cakes will be the favourite of the day!