Wednesday 9 November 2011

A brief trip to normality.

Now, I'm going to take a quick break from my usual subject matter to talk about something important.
When you're in a place like a boarding school, it's very easy to feel isolated, even when you're surrounded by people. Sure, your mates will always be there for you, but there's a constant feeling of loneliness. A desire for... companionship. I began to feel this towards the end of grade 11, and it was all brought about by one very special girl, who I would grow to love more than anything in the world.

It all began with a friendship. When I first met this girl, I immediately knew she was different. The moment I set eyes upon her, I knew that she was like nobody else I'd ever met before.

So we began as just friends, talking mainly through texting and the internet, and meeting occasionally. eventually, I began to develop feelings for her, but being the big mach man that I was, I tried not to let them get the better of me. Over time, these feelings grew until I just had to be with her. Little did I know she felt the same way, but was also afraid to show it. Eventually though, through "an arrangement" and a few not-so-subtle meetings, we learnt of each other's true feelings. And so it began.

A relationship is sometimes a tricky thing to understand. Your partner can make you sad, angry, confused, every emotion under the sun. But at the same time, they can make you the happiest person alive. How does that work? I dunno, but I love it.

So really, I was the happiest I'd ever been. Until I fucked it up. A stupid mistake very nearly cost me what had made me the happiest guy alive, cost me a lot of trust, and destroyed in seconds what i had built over months. But I resolved to never let what I love slip away from me. No matter the fights, the pain, the hurt, the anger, the sadness, it was worth it. Just to be able to call her mine, and know that she loved me and I loved her - it was worth it.

I don't know what really kept me going sometimes. To know that I had ruined what had kept me going, ripped me apart inside.


And to this day, we have our problems. We have our fights. We have the late night arguments that leave us going to sleep pissed off and waking up pissed off. We have those days where we just want to give up. We disagree and say things we don't really mean. But in the end, it's worth it. It's worth the fights, worth the tears, worth the worry, just to know that I'm fighting to keep what I love, and doing my best to keep it right. And although there are fuckups and disagreements, trust issues and arguments, it doesn't change how I feel.

Fight for that which you love, because to know that you tried and failed will always feel better than letting it go and thinking "what if...?".

Saturday 22 October 2011

Tripping, of the bad variety.

Psilocybe Cubensis. A psychoactive mushroom, oftentimes found growing out of cow manure. Contains the chemicals Psilocybin, which metabolises to Psilocin in the body and loves to act on the serotonin receptors in the brain. Often called "magic mushrooms". Now, of all places to locate a large paddock of cows, with opportune growing potential for these fungi, why the hell did they put it at the back of a large all-boys boarding school? I don't know, but me and my mates sure were appreciative. Maybe at times a bit too appreciative.

Let's talk about my bad trip.

Now, it was the first or second night back in boarding. Grade 10 I think. I had returned from holidays with my first psychoactive experience fresh in memory. As far as I knew, these mushrooms brought only boundless joy and euphoria to an individual, and no bad could come from their repeated and frequent use.

Boy, was I about to learn the lesson of a lifetime.

My friend "The Bird" had been harvesting mushrooms that day, and as the afternoon came he approached me with five or six large golden-top mushrooms. I was eager to begin tripping, and downed them as fast as I could. You see, I was yet to learn the golden rule of psychoactives: set & setting.
Set refers to your mindset. With psychoactives being a mood enhancer, one quickly learns the right mindset for tripping. If one is in a good mood, they will be in a better one, if one is in a bad mood, then will be in a worse one. Easy to understand, yeah?
Anyways, setting refers to where you actually are. Usually to trip you want a nice relaxed atmosphere, with not too many people around and nothing to stress you out. Therefore, a person can have a fun or relaxing trip.
Well uh, my set and setting wasn't the best. My set: just gotten to school, slightly homesick, worried that I was going to get caught on mushrooms. Setting: in a dormitory, with supervisors and rules ever-present.

Uh-Oh.


Within half an hour of eating the mushrooms, I was tripping balls. Sitting in the dining hall, all I could see was my spaghetti twirling around on my plate, like a bunch of worms fighting for territory in the earth. Drinking green cordial made me imagine of slime, dripping down my throat like the sloppy excrement of a Steven Spielberg creation. Pudding, chocolate mousse. Need I say what that reminded me of?
Once I finished dinner, I practically ran to our smoking spot, with the ground swaying beneath me like some sort of nightmarish roller coaster. Upon lighting a cigarette, I could imagine every individual molecule of poison and tar making it's way into my lungs and bloodstream, coagulating and forming pits of cancerous cells in my body.

This wasn't going well.


When I returned to the dorm, I realised I had a roll call. Jesus Christ, I thought to myself, this was fucking brutal. A mindfuck on a scale that I couldn't even comprehend anymore. Sitting down in the common room, the floor rushed up to meet my face. An eerie orange hue appeared to coat everyone around me, like a bad fake tan, reminiscent of the Jersey Shore cast. But I was still my normal colour, what was happening to me?

The worst was yet to come.


Sitting in my room during the allocated study period, I pulled myself together. A bit. I decided to do my homework, where I had to write a detailed description of what a ritual is. Let's just say, I found my schoolbook outside my window the next day with the words "A ritual is a certain set of practice-fuuuuuuuck this brooo, I'm tripping balls fuck this." with several "sad faces" and weird Escher-esque drawings underneath. Last time I try homework on shrooms.

After study, I raced out again for another cigarette. By this point in time I was convinced that I was the last sane person on the planet after a semi-apocalyptic situation where evil spirits had found their way into people's heads and turned them into zombies. Everyone was my enemy, so I had to move in the shadows to avoid detection. Once I got back to my bed I hid underneath the covers for about 3 hours in order to protect my brain.

If you've never had a bad trip, it's impossible to imagine what it's like. It's like every bad feeling you've ever experienced, any amount of grief, anger or loss, comes back and is concentrated into a few hours in your brain. The terror is indescribable. While trying to hide myself under the covers of my bed from the evil spirits flying around my room, this was going on in my brain. Eventually, I decided I needed another cigarette.
Walking through the dorm with just the eerie glow of the emergency exit lights showing you the way is a very strange experience while you're tripping. The whole time I was walking, I was calm and in control. But suddenly, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up, as if I could sense someone or something watching me. I turned around and looked along the corridor, and saw a... thing, a shadow, a spirit, whatever you want to cal it - racing towards me. I stood there in shock while it just raced into me, and as it hit me all I could feel was cold. And with the cold came sadness, a wave of emotions racing over me like the shadowy blackness of whatever it was I had seen. So I continued on out to the verandah and rolled a cigarette.

And while I smoked, I cried. I cried and I cried, for everything and anything I'd ever done wrong. For the people I'd hurt, deliberately or not, I cried. Until there was not a tear left, I cried.
It's an odd experience, crying on a whim like that. But the next morning when I woke up, I knew I wasn't the same, but I definitely felt better. I felt like I had acquired some form of greater knowledge, maybe not in academic terms, but in life terms. After that night, I knew more about myself than I had ever imagined.

Wednesday 5 October 2011

The nights

The nights are prime-time. At night, the fun happens.
At a boarding school, you are under constant supervision. However at night, most people tend to fall asleep right? And thus, the night becomes your biggest friend.
There's the sex, drugs and drinking that make up the reasons for you to stay up, sneak out and turn into a menace to society. But also, there's something else. You're in control, you're doing what you want, nobody is telling you what to do! And so that's why you go out, you go to the parties, drink rum with the boys on the oval, smoke pot at the shack, get laid in the school hall, and cause havoc in other dorms. You're in control.

So story time. There was this one night, a Tuesday if I remember correctly. I had gone to bed, head pleasantly buzzing due to certain chemicals stimulating the CB1 and CB2 receptors in my brain, and I had pleasingly embraced the tender arms of slumber. 
That was until about midnight, when a mate (we'll call him G), came and roused me, tempting my sleepy brain with pilfered rum, beer, vodka and leafy greens. Of course, being the level-headed fellow I was, I promptly jumped out of bed in order to sate my curiosity regarding the whereabouts of more.
Soon enough, the source was revealed. A group of my good friends had pilfered several cartons of alcoholic beverages from somewhere (the location shall remain nameless), and had promptly decided that a half built house on the cross country track, located immediately adjacent to the school grounds, was the place best suited to consume these. In addition, another friend had made a trip in order to pick up some "leafy greens" (if you know what I mean).
And so eventually, a semi-large cohort of friends were there. These included: "G", "Yeah Man", "The Bird", "Eli", "Andy", "Jaw" and myself. In time, "The Chaser" joined us, upon returning to the dormitory after a late night sex session and finding me absent from my room. If memory serves me correctly, the night consisted of us getting catastrophically intoxicated, notoriously weird and just generally rowdy. With the group consuming well over 6 cartons of alcohol and fifty dollars worth of high-grade leafy greens, a complication must be imminent, right?
You betcha.
Around four o'clock in the morning, G was overcome by intoxication. On the newly laid carpet in a half-built house, his body decided it was time to reject the contents of his stomach (which had a pretty, fluorescent red tint to it, the aftermath of one to many red Vodka Cruisers. Obviously he needed a good night's sleep if he was to be awake and ready to go to school in four hours, so The Chaser and Andy were commissioned to take him to bed, while the rest of us went our separate ways, our night quietly drawn to an end.

Overall, much fun was had, and the week after was spent completing a rigorous community service program, getting rid of the leftover alcohol in the most efficient manner, if you know what I mean. 

Friday 30 September 2011

What this is really about.

I don’t really know why I started this blog, or what it’s about...  I guess I want to tell my story. To be honest, I’m kind of a bit confused where to start. I mean, the most logical place to start would be to be at the beginning, right? Maybe when I first stepped foot in boarding school, and walked in to the double room and laid my eyes in the raised bed and desk underneath, coupled with a cupboard? It’s hard to explain that feeling when you first walk in. It’s like... a sudden realisation. A sudden realisation that wow, this is your new home. Your parents weren’t bullshitting – they really would send you to boarding school if you fucked up again. Then they leave, and give you your goodbyes. You can hear your dad talking to you, trying to give you some advice on living away from home, but you aren’t listening because you can see your mum crying behind her sunglasses. You know she’s trying to stay strong so that you’re not embarrassed, but all you want to do is hug her and tell her you’re going to straighten yourself out. Because despite everything that’s happened, you’re not going to let her down again. But of course, in time you do. You fuck up again. You have to make those phone calls again and just accept the fact that you’re a fuck up. A grand fuck up, maybe, but a fuck up none the less.

So yeah, that’s what this blog is about. A fuck up. A fuck up who called a bluff and realised too soon that they sure as hell weren’t bluffing. A fuck up’s stories about fucking up. Occasionally you fuck up and get caught, but hey, live and learn.

Just try not to fuck up.

Thursday 22 September 2011

Life is a storm my young friend. You will bask in the sunlight one moment, and be shattered on the rocks the next. What makes you a man, is what you do when that storm comes. You must look into that storm and shout,"Do your worst, for I shall do mine."

A memorable passage;

As an atheist, I was surprised to find a bit of meaningful scripture, but this one really strikes home when you're in an environment like that.

John 15:13: "Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends."

(New testament - New International Version)

Friday 16 September 2011

Schedules;

Grades 9-11


6:30 am - Wake up -> get dressed (in school uniform) -> go and have some breakfast

7:30 am - Morning jobs (sweep corridors, clean tables, take bins out etc.)

8:20 am - First class starts

10:15-10:45 am - Morning tea

12:25-1:15 pm - Lunch

3:00 pm - School finishes

5:45 pm - Dinner

7:00-8:00 Study

9:00 - Bed

NB - If you're a smoker, put smoke breaks in between each of these.


This is the schedule that you are expected to live by, day after day.

Thursday 15 September 2011

A brief overview.

So really, I'm just starting off with this whole blogging thing.
During high school, I was enrolled at an all-boys boarding school. During my time there, friends of mine and I got up to a fair bit of "mischief". I think I'll just use this blog as a tool to put these stories that I have out there, without really compromising me or anyone involved.

Please note: the likelihood of these stories being completely accurate is extremely low. Most of these stories contain events that I, as a good student and lawful citizen would never even consider doing.

But hey, believe what you want.

BORLES?

|Bor|n Limit|les|s
=Borles