[-41] Bureaucracy, or "Why the TSA Sucks"

So, because of our two-week vacation at the end of June, I'm trying to get everything for my trip squared away now. Has anyone else heard about this new TSA thing where everything on your documents have to match exactly?

Here's why this serves no purpose: People who use their full legal name (which, I imagine, could be way too long for normal use -- I know someone who has four middle names. Can you imagine?!) on legal documents now have to go through the hassle of using their full legal name on airline tickets, cruise tickets, whatever. The thing is, if I have both documents, this is doing nothing except creating more work for me. If, say, a terrorist got ahold of my passport and was going to use it to travel, don't you think they'd just change their airline ticket to match my passport? Sure, a bit of hassle for the terrorist, but they're laying down their lives to send a message to the US, here. I don't think they're going to mind being on hold for an hour or so with the airline to change the name on their airline ticket (although I'm not 100% sure about that, as I'm fairly certain it's a key human trait to hate being on hold). So I don't see this new regulation serving any purpose. It's not as if there would be discrepancies between the two documents and you'd catch anyone that way. Someone in possession of both documents could easily make them match each other.

Here's why, aside from serving no purpose, this is dumb: NJ driver's licences don't ask for your full middle name to begin with (only your middle initial), whereas US passports do. Therefore, my two main methods of identification do not match, and will never match. Which means that, when booking an airline ticket/cruise ticket/whatever, I'm actually going to have to think ahead about what method of identification I'll be using and book accordingly. How ridiculous. And God forbid that I might have to show both IDs at some point.

I'll put up with a lot in the name of homeland security. I never complain about lines at the airport to get through security, and I always follow their little liquids rules. My carefully packed bags getting torn apart because of a music stand in the bottom? Fine. Getting stopped at security because someone thinks my flute is a gun or some sort of weapon? Fine. Changing my name on my airline ticket? Now that's just dumb. Like it's going to hurt anyone that I prefer to use my middle initial rather than my full middle name.

I'm off to call Qantas, then. Here's hoping they won't hang up on me eight times before I finally get put on hold (for two hours).

[-43] Days Like These

I think it's days like today that I will miss most once I'm abroad. It was on a day not terribly unlike today, with not much to do, that my ambition to study in Australia was born. In many ways, Australia is one of the most exotic places you could imagine spending a semester. No, they do not speak a foreign language there (well, not if you speak English, anyway), but they have fun accents (which I hear can make them as unintelligible as if they were speaking a language you didn't understand anyway) and animals you can only find there. In one country, there is vast desert and an incredible, self-sustaining ecosystem that we call a coral reef (to be specific, the Great Barrier Reef), but which thousands of species call "home". Not to mention hundreds of things that can kill you.

On the more academic side of things, I'm curious about the development and evolution of music on an island whose society (as we know it) began as a penal colony, as well as gaining a less US-centric education.

But instead of spending this day becoming fascinated by a place I've never been, I spent it catching up with old friends and enjoying a place I've lived nearly all my life. Is it odd that I'm using these first entries of my "Australia Blog" to write about American life? Maybe, maybe not. This is where it starts, after all. Hopefully in the next few days I'll have some slightly more relevant information to write about. Things will become much busier in the next few weeks -- after all, you can't just pick up your life and move it halfway around the world for a semester without some significant preparation.

[-44] Still in Kansas

It's a cool, dark night in New Jersey. After the somewhat violent thunderstorm we had earlier today I guess it could only be expected. Still, my room is warm, so my windows are wide open, letting in some of the fresh night air.

I'm not really sure what compelled me to write here tonight. I've had this blog set up for a while in anticipation of the great adventure I hope will begin in July, but I've been putting off writing the inaugural post. Maybe I'm not sure what could possibly serve as an adequate introduction to the experiences which lie in store. But sitting on my bed here in Jersey seems as good a start as any, on this cool early-summer evening when I have no real need or motivation to do anything else.

I feel a bit as if I'm in limbo, like I'm waiting for life to begin, almost. Well. That might be a little bit dramatic. Even so, I'm trying to enjoy life in the States, unfettered by schoolwork or the characteristic drama of Denison life. But every morning when I wake up I lay in bed for a few minutes and contemplate the fact that, in a mere month and a half, I won't be staring at this same ceiling, and I won't be heading off to classes high on the hill that I love.

Rather, I'll be flying halfway around the world to a land and people and a life I don't know, to see what they can teach me, about music, about politics and government, about life itself -- and, perhaps, what I can teach them. Maybe I'm being too Pollyannish about this whole experience. Still, if I can't be optimistic about studying abroad, what can I be optimistic about? The truth is that I have no idea what to expect when I get to "Oz".

I guess that's the excitement of it all, but I'm trying not to let it pass me by too quickly. No-one could ever accuse me of being a patient person, but there are things to which I'm looking forward between now and July 9th, as well. My sister graduates from high school on June 16; my dear friend and former voice teacher will be married on June 20th. Following that, my family is leaving for a two-week-long vacation in Florida, during which I'll celebrate my 20th birthday (and the official end of my teenage years) on the 29th. There are many things I'd like to do, people I'd like to see, before I take off. Time well-spent is the best way to pass time, I think.

But still -- for today, the magic number: 44.

even now i feel its heat upon my skin
a life of passion, that pulls me from within
a life that i am aching to begin
there must be somewhere i can be
astonishing...