Sydney Life

As my exams creep up and I hand in the last of my assignments for the year, quite a few people at college have gone home for the study vacation to avoid the rampant (and highly contagious) college procrastination syndrome. I, in what may [read: will] prove to be a less than wise decision, have decided to stay and sit out the most dull and uninteresting study-filled *!* week of the semester... and rather than studying hard I find myself hardly studying. So while I hardly study I thought I’d do something remotely productive and add to Asako’s Wandering Thoughts with a list à-la-Letterman of my absolute Top 10 “To-Do”s [read: displacement activities] as an expert college procrastinator (in ascending order)...

#10: Drinking – I have a T-Shirt from college that reads: “Time’s never wasted when you’re wasted all the time”. Enough said. I think that qualifies hitting the bottle as one of the top ten, but seeing as though we’re all pretty much broke and partied-out, it’s not nearly as big a thing as it usually is – although the odd free glass of Brokenwood merlot shiraz at the end of a big night at my work goes down nicely…

#9: Going for walks – It sounds a little suss, I know, but the psychological effect of having to study for exams on-campus is more awful than you can imagine. You can literally do everything you need to do, get everything you need to get, and see everyone you need to see without actually leaving the grounds - ever. I once stayed two weeks on campus without stepping beyond Victoria Park! When I realised what a hermit I had become I spent a whole day from breakfast to dinner in the city just to feel a little less, well, violated. Anyway, taking short “study-break” walks that somehow result in you returning from King St three hours later with stale popcorn and a torn Dendy ticket in your hand (believe me, it’s happened!) is what avoiding hitting the books is all about!

#8: Lindt & Max Brenner – There’s nothing better than chocolate to ease those pre-exam nerves. Come to think about it, there’s nothing better than chocolate. QED. If you’ve never been the Lindt concept store at 53 Martin Place (and no, I didn’t Google the address, I know it off by heart :S) is a cocoa-connoisseur’s heaven. Apparently around 90% of their stock is world-exclusive, which means you can’t buy it anywhere else. It also means you’re eating Swiss chocolate you can’t even get in Zurich, which is good enough for me! If you’re a first-timer, must-haves include the dark hot chocolate (you get a jug of hot milk and a beaker of pure liquid chocolate and mix it yourself), the Lindt chocolate ice cream, the peanut butter Lindor balls and the Aloe Vera and Lemongrass chocolate. The best things about Lindt are the cute staff, being able to read the (mostly trashy) headlines scrolling around the Channel 7 building across Martin Place, eavesdropping, and finishing off a visit with a trip either to the State Library, the Botanic Gardens or closer to all the jewelers and high-end fashion shops like Tiffany, Fabergé, Georg Jensen, Prada, Armani and Sydney’s very own Canturi. When I’m at Max Brenner *when am I not at Max Brenner?!*, on the other hand, I like to get a $2 chocolate lick (a cheap excuse to get sick on a fondue-pot overflowing with liquid chocolate) and an Ecuadorian Chili & Spice Hug-Mug (like hot chocolate, but with chili!).

#7: Thai La Ong – my friends and I have been loyal to this place ever since we stepped our virgin-thai first-year feet on the pavement of King St in Newtown. For the best Phad Thai for $6 this side of Phuket, or the lighest, yet most satisfying Chicken Laksa (I know, I know, Thai people don’t do laksa… I read Claudia Roden too, you know!) in the inner west, you can’t go past Thai La Ong. I can say, without a doubt, I’ve eaten there at least once for every week I’ve been at uni (which is a big thing seeing as though my college meals are paid for). Fijians have an expression for someone having an affair: “two kitchens”. Thai La Ong really is my second kitchen – and I love it!

#6: Dexigner – You’ve probably noticed by now that three of my past four spots have been occupied by activities that either require drinking or eating… or both. My 6th Top tip for procrastination (and my #1 online haunt) is Dexigner.com, the world’s “leading online information service for designers and artists”. It comes before Wallpaper* magazine as my absolute design bible and it’s a website I check daily before I even check my email. I have Dexigner to thank for having my poster exhibited in the International Biennale of Graphic Design in Brno in the Czech Republic, and for having a postcard design selected by the Architectural League of New York earlier this year (but that’s another story…). I love Dexigner and it loves me back – or at least I think it does!

#5: YouTube – YouTube just went up in my books with its recent surprise acquisition by Google. If you haven’t “Broadcast Yourself” yet, YouTube is basically the online media provider leading the charge in online video content from both commercial broadcasters and news conglomerates, and from the humble wannabe-directors, musicians, comedians, politicians, journalists, linguists, home-video enthusiasts and just about “anything else”ists throughout the world. It’s worth a visit, but it’s not worth the time you end up spending on it! My favourite YouTube video du jour has to be the one I found through a link on Dexigner: the Swedish design quartet FRONT has been working in Japan on creating furniture directly from 3D sketches, proving it is “possible to let a first sketch become an object, to design directly onto space”.

You can view the video by clicking the play button below:

#4: Cleaning – Anally retentive as it may be, don’t knock it till you try it, I say. Cleaning to avoid study instantly turns a task worthy of cringes into something you actually want to do (and smile while doing!)… and do again. And again. And once the dirt-removal stage of cleaning is well and truly exhausted, there’s an endless amount of ‘organising’, ‘sorting-out’ and ‘arranging’ you can do before you have to find something else to divert you from your studies. Cleaning is something you can revisit daily as there is always something else to clean…

#3: Sleeping & Working – Sleeping and working (that’s paid work, all you Youth Allowance slackers) are both excellent ways to get away from the lecture bricks and are great in that doing one eventually requires the doing of the other, and vice versa. Right now I’m working every night of the week waitering on Darling Harbour and, apart from serving the likes of Heath Ledger, Simon Baker, Bob Downe and Sandra Sully (ok, the latter two aren’t anything to write home about), the pay’s great and the novelty of talking to travelers or training new travelers rarely runs out. And after a big night at work there’s nothing better than sleeping (“aaah sleep, that’s where I’m a Viking!” – Ralph Wiggum) in until the very last five minutes of breakfast at college, which usually finishes around 10 on weekdays and 11ish on weekends…

#2: Campos – There is no substitute for having the best coffee in Sydney within 5 minutes’ hung-over meander. Campos, right next to the Marly on the corner of King St. and Missenden road in Newtown is a godsend, and if you haven’t been, go now. I mean… stop reading this and go! NOW! The New York Times claims Campos alone is worth the flight, and it damn well sure is! And no, I have not made the flight, but I’ve made similar. And christ was I craving a Campos… It’s an almost-daily habit for me (it’s only not daily because sometimes I don’t have the money) and has become such a pastime of my college friends that we’ve achieved “regulars” status; quite an accolade for Sydney’s busiest (and I think one of its trendiest) coffee shop. If you’re up for coffee everything’s good, affogatos or iced coffees with coffee ice cream are best in hot weather, otherwise if you’re taking beans home go either the Superior, Dark City or Mina Santos blends for a killer cup of percolated.

#1: The Network – the absolute greatest pastime known to uni students in the history of universities. And yes, I would even put that before sex, drugs and rock’n’roll. Or even college drinking… For reasons beyond my control I can’t say much about the network. ‘File sharing’ is a vague way of putting it. To say that you can watch practically any movie, any TV show (at free DVD-quality streaming), or listen to anyone’s iTunes – whenever you want – is probably more accurate. I love the Network more than I love Campos and Dexigner combined, which is saying (and perhaps also revealing) a lot. I know it sounds terrible, but of all the things I’ll miss about College and uni in general when I go home to Canberra for the holidays, the network will probably come in second in my “things I miss most”, with friends coming first.

Well that brings me to the end of my Top 10, and also has taken a whole chunk of my precious sleep-time, so I’ll leave it there. Good luck studying!

Until next time, poppets!
xox