Subject 1: The specimen, orange & spotted in all her glory.

Well hello there. I am Kourtney, Kourtney T. Smith. Some call me KTS, others prefer Kourtney with a K.  Occasionally I'll get a ginger, red, big red, little red, or even a Colleen or two. Yesterday Stewart, a customer who asked me to make his iced tea "brown like [his] skin" said I was "the right kind of person."  Tonight a woman envying my hair deemed me "delicious" while Patrick Sparrow, with his black eye patch, claimed I was a "flower child." All in all... I am a 22-year-old-restless soul.
"I am a child of the universe."
And why am I writing?
Well... I think the better question is, why are you reading?
It's because I'm pretty damn interesting, isn't it? 


This past May I came to the end of yet another chapter in my life: the college years.  I clicked my heels in the air, cum laude style, with my Theatre and English degrees and a large dunkin iced coffee in hand.


And now where am I?  Behind a bar, being told the martini is not dry enough despite its lack of anything other than vodka, pouring overpriced chiantis, and serving sushi in an Italian restaurant. I talk about myself on a daily basis. Who I am. Where I come from. What I'm doing with my life. You know, the kinds of questions post grads are asked when they are out experiencing 'the real world,' the kinds of questions that most fresh-outta-school kids try and avoid, the kinds of questions that are asked SO. MANY. TIMES. that you just want to take a shovel and dig the deepest of holes to bury them within to never be heard of again. Well, not me. For a while I despised the questions, mainly because I didn't really have much of an answer. But now, well now I do and it goes a little something like this...


For now, I'm a barmaid-mistress-tender so I can make them dolla' dolla' bills yo because those school loans sure aren't going to pay themselves. Plus I'm just... well, being. All my life I've been working towards something, something on this set path that tells me to study hard and do well so I can get into a good college. Well it's been a heck of a lot of time devoted to what comes next... but I've made it beyond the "required" course. I've written the papers on the subjects I hated, biting my tongue because I knew that I needed to cater to my professor's views to get that A. I've learned the way people have told me to learn and now? Well now I'm taking the time to learn MY WAY.


Since May, I've moved back in with my family. It's hard for ALL of us, not just me. 
I've worked four different jobs and train for my fifth tomorrow. 
I've dabbled in a pee-wee relationship with an alcoholic that taught me all in all, size does matter.  
I've lost some friends, gained a few, rekindled others. 
I've vamped up my room, and let me tell you it is fan-freakin-tastic. It's where the magic happens baaaby... and by magic I mean IO digital cable. 
I've bought a ukulele and am teaching myself how to play. It's a   s   l   o   w   process. I've never played a string instrument but am excited to eventually be slappin' da uke mon.


SIDE NOTE: I'm loving how this 'blogger' situation is auto saving my entry every five seconds that I am not writing. It's 
                          like a race to finish a sentence before it saves again! 


Anyways, what else? I bought myself a mac laptop.
And I spent a month backpacking through Europe by myself (other than Lola, my backpack). 8 countries. 4 weeks. 1 helluva trip. London, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Växjö (Sweden), Berlin, Prague, Paris, Barcelona, and a night in Madrid. I saw friends from my days back in Aussieland and celebrated a 22nd birthday to never forget, well aside from when I blacked out. 


I guess overall, I've been taking all that I can out of this new time of FREEDOM.
As Walt Whitman... 

From this hour, freedom!
From this hour I ordain myself loos’d of limits and imaginary lines,
Going where I list, my own master, total and absolute,  
Listening to others, and considering well what they say,
Pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating,
Gently, but with undeniable will, divesting myself of the holds that would hold me.
  
I inhale great draughts of space;
The east and the west are mine, and the north and the south are mine.  
  
I am larger, better than I thought;
I did not know I held so much goodness.
  
All seems beautiful to me;
I can repeat over to men and women, You have done such good to me, I would do the same to you.
  
I will recruit for myself and you as I go;  
I will scatter myself among men and women as I go;
I will toss the new gladness and roughness among them;
Whoever denies me, it shall not trouble me;
Whoever accepts me, he or she shall be blessed, and shall bless me.

Up next? Come April I will make my way back to the land of legalized mary and ladies in windows looking for a bite to work in Cocomamas, the hostel I stayed in, for three months. I'll get a chance to meet all sorts of travelers coming in and out of the hostel, be able to get to know the city for more than a tourist spectacle, and celebrate Queensday, the world's largest street party. Then hopefully I'll add some more loans to the pile and get my masters in ESL so I can begin traveling the world, sharing my language and spreading pieces of me as I go.

...Care to be blessed with a little bit of gingeritis?
'Scuse me while I grab my fat swirly straw and suck the marrow out of life.

-KTS

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