My armpits are sore. It started out more on the left side and now it's a little bit on both sides. What it felt like at first was the feeling when you have hair that's used to lying one way and it gets forced to lie the opposite way and causes a little bit of discomfort. But since it's on both sides I don't really think it's an ingrown hair issue. It's not too bad otherwise I'd be a little worried, you have lymph nodes in your armpit. I don't know, maybe I should be worried...

It's two weeks away from my vacation and I'm just really hoping that nothing happens in the next two weeks that costs money. I purchased brake pads, which I should install on my car but the brakes stopped making sounds so I lost motivation. It'd be mega gay if my car broke down, I think I'd just settle for riding the train or something. I've got $1100 right now... or something like that, probably a little less due to pending transactions. Going to try to spend as little as possible in the next two weeks. I do need an oil change though... well... fuck I'll just add some oil and that'll hold me over until I get back from vacation. What else... I just need to go to my parents to pick up my passport, I need to buy a visa to go to Australia. I think I can manage to spend $300 in two weeks. Gas is going to be about $120. So that leaves me with $150 for food ($30 for the visa) which is enough but food is a thing where you can spend $1-$2/meal but then fuck yourself because you want a pint of sorbet which is the cost of 3 meals and it's not even a meal by itself. Energy drinks are the cost of a meal too. Whatever, we'll see. I know $200 is squeezing it crazy tight and I don't want to aim too high and end up giving up. But if I have $800 in two weeks, then I get paid and should have about $500 after rent and that will leave me with $1300 for vacation and the 3 days after I get back before getting paid again.

I'm really, really looking forward to going to Australia. Not only is it going to be great to see a new place, but it'll be great to see Rayna again and meet Jono. I mean, just seeing Rayna again is going to be epic by itself. Then there's Jono who sounds like a lot of fun.

I told Brandon that I'm considering moving to Australia and he said he wants to move too. He could move to Idaho and live with his sister. He's planning on applying for a job in Calgary and Edmonton. He'd like to move to Australia but he doesn't think it's really possible.

To leave your home is difficult. Not necessarily that it takes a lot of will power, because I don't really know if there is such a thing. What I mean is that to leave your home you have to see something more valuable or promising in the new place, people aren't just going to dump their life if they think it's going great. A lot of people will leave for a job, maybe for a person, but I'm leaving just to leave. I feel I've extracted all I could out of Seattle. I'm willing to just leave and sort of start anew somewhere. I'm not planning on moving to Australia permanently, but I don't know that I'll be moving away from Seattle temporarily, either.

I'd like to stray off a little bit on the will power thing. I think it's all BS when people do things that are deemed courageous or requiring a lot of will power. Sure, people are different, some might have a larger comfort zone (or you could dress it up as them "stepping out of their comfort zone" if your full of shit) of things they are willing to do in any given situation, but this idea of will power really doesn't apply. I have a theory that if you went back in time, as a spectator, and the future had been erased, that everything will happen the exact same as it did the first time around. Every decision a person makes is the result of environmental factors and brain impulses and whatnot and if you put a person in the same exact situation 10 times, they're going to do the same thing 10 times. But don't take that the wrong way. That would imply that, essentially, we have no control over what is going to be happening in 10 years. Okay, we can't change the way things are going to happen, but we do have choices to make along the way and we do have control in the sense that we can choose the best path. I guess the idea is we feel like we are in control, which is very important. Also, if we relinquished control, then things would fall apart, the process requires your input, even if it's just a result of brain impulses.

So let me talk about why I want to move and why I want to move to Australia... So I recently sort of pursued something with someone. I was just pursuing a friendship, which sounds like shit, and it is half bull shit, but I really did want a friendship, then I was open for the idea of more. Part of the reasoning there is when I think about my friendship with Rayna. When we hung out after we broke up, it was really nice. I'm not sure what it was, but I remember very fondly the times we hung out. And then when I hung out with Aly and Amanda, as friends, it was a lot of fun, really good. Then feelings got involved and it went to shit. So I genuinely was interested in a friendship, first and foremost. Well, it was an awkward situation, definitely. And I'm not one to force things if they're going to be awkward or unpleasant. So the status right now of this friendship is... dormant. So this girl, I've never hung out with her in an intimate setting, it's always been with a bunch of people around at a party. I think there's a mutual interest between us, but it's just kind of awkward when you've never hung out with someone and you never see the person outside of those parties. And maybe I'm just being overly optimistic, maybe she doesn't even want to be my friend and she messages me back and texts me back to be nice. Either way, I've basically given up on it. And as much as it sucks to have failed an attempt at gaining a new friend, I think it really helped motivate me to move to Australia. This friendship would be cool for a few months, but I'd end up in the same rut I'm in now if that worked out. I guess, honestly, I'm still hoping there's a chance for something to happen when I come back from Australia (vacation, so 3-4 months before moving there), even though it's not very likely.

What else... well, I'm so fucking tired of my job. I'm typing this up at work. There's an increased efficiency in the system(s) at work and my effort is seldom needed. I probably do 3 hours of work a day, maybe 5, but far from the 8 or 9 I'm here. I don't dread going to work, but that's probably because I have no other choice. I've tried to find a different job, no luck, at least not at the right time. I had an opportunity to get a job last year around this time but it didn't work because of school plans and the flexibility I am provided here. It's really not that bad of a gig, but it's not what I want in life.

So those are the main reasons why I want to leave, but those alone don't make me where I am. Then comes my support system, which is comprised of people and myself. Firstly is Amanda. Amanda and I have gotten back to being pretty good friends. That's nice, even if it is dumb that we just talk online, whatever. She was really excited for me to move to Australia. Then one night I got drunk and said that if I like it there, I might pursue living there. Since that, she has been pushing me to do it, enthusiastically. She said she'd visit me. She thinks it's a really good idea for me and she says that she's really glad she moved up to Alaska. So there's some pressure, someone that knows I want to do something bold and someone who can appreciate it when I do it.

Then Rayna. Rayna isn't quite as excited as Amanda about it, not that I'd expect her to be until it actually happens, because it is a process. But she wants me to and she's helping with info and also said she's researching for me. She's certainly a vital link. She said I could shack with her and Jono, which is obviously huge. She is also a source of insight, which is invaluable when you are looking to move somewhere you've never even been.

Then there are quotes. It might sound silly, but I think it's really easy to want to do something and then settle for a more comfortable option, like staying in Seattle for the next few years, maybe going to school. I try to think of these quotes a few times a week to remind myself what I want in life. One quote is "Don't be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better." -Ralph Waldo Emerson. The other: "So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality, nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man's living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different Sun." -Chris McCandless. These quotes help me to convince myself that I am making the right decision. I mean, I'm not expecting to be making much money in Australia. The incentive of moving there is not for my career, I doubt it will help my career by moving there, so I have to be reminded of why I'm doing this.