In 2010...

I brought in the year with two lovely ladies, drinking continuously and watching Catherine Tate sketches.

My two favourite local bands broke up - Crux and Bare Arms. That was painful.

I played some magical cemetery shows and Jura Books shows with so many talented people. I can't even describe to you how blown away I was every single time.

I saw The Black Lips, experienced Conation's reunion, met Frank and Steph from Gallows, had an awesome dancing session with the Sick Fucks at Garage Nitez, discovered Sticky Fingers when they recorded at TAFE, laughed my arse off at the Graf Orlock show, felt proud when Corpus finally released their EP/album and witnessed some brilliant performances at the first Gaza Flotilla Fundraiser.

I graduated from my audio course and had to say goodbye to the dear friends I had made in my class. We would drink and smoke before class, make terrible jokes, fail classes together, have long winded conversations about all things great and wacky, tease the film students and laugh at everything.

I worked on a music video that did not turn out the way I had wanted it to, but that's okay. I recorded Thylacine, engineered at a number of Blacktown City Council, Bankstown Council and Bankstown Youth Development Service functions and events. Harry and I held a sound PA workshop at Blacktown Youth Services Association. I went to Integrate with Pete and we checked out the Bruce Jackson seminar. He was the dude that used to own JANDS and is founder of Apogee. I was the stage manager at the second Gaza Flotilla Fundraiser.

I was rejected by tens of employees but eventually I started working in a telemarketing call centre for one month and gave up on it. I met some great people there who I will never see again but the job just ate away at my conscience every time I'd sell raffle tickets and know for a fact that only fifty percent of what was being donated would go to the charity.

I worked in a market research call centre which was smaller and probably the best place I've worked. I knew people that already worked there which gave me the opportunity to get to know them better. Millward Brown was filled with artists and students and travel junkies and happy souls. I was only there for three months but I'll be back, motherfuckers.

After working very hard to save money, spending way too much on grog, cigarettes and food, and filling out paperwork that would fill up an entire truck, I finally got on the plane that I had been waiting to embark for almost two years. I flew to Chicago, the Windy City... the Smelly Onion. And I'm pretty sure I had goosebumps the whole time. That's twenty hours of goosebumps, by the way.

I did all the touristy bullshit in the first two weeks and loved it but then I got bored and I had to find a job for real. I had applied for my social security number and got screwed over by bureaucratic bizness. I finally received the card in the mail, presented it to my employer who gave me a hug and said "I was going to have to let you go from training if you didn't have this card so thank you for finally getting that to us". Okay. So now I'm employed at PeopleScout, another call centre. Or should I say "center".

I also fell in love, had my heart broken and am still in the process of piecing everything back together. But that is what happens when you put too much of yourself out there. At least there was a lesson learned. Everything ends. Don't even worry about it.

I've been to basement shows, collective shows, bar shows, house shows, theatre productions, concerts and in the summer, I watched a number of jazz and blues bands play at Millennium Park. I've met musicians, painters, writers, producers... and general nuisances. I've played an open mic and I have plans to play more before I go home.

I've been to Cleveland, Ohio and Madison and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. And the Midwestern adventures on the Megabus will not end there.

I've lived in a South Asian neighbourhood in a bungalow with a couple of Indonesians. And I've lived by myself in an apartment in a hipster wonderland. Next week, I will be living in the same apartment but with a woman who will be back in Chicago after traveling the West Coast.

I have been broke, I have been lost, I have been exhausted. I have been ecstatic, enthusiastic, inspired. I have been drunk, stoned, sick. I have been curious. I have been pretty. I have learned a great deal about the nature of human beings and myself.

Bring it on, 2011. Bring it the fuck on.

-S