july, 2004.

i am just a girl, long before gwen stefani sang about it. my dad calls me girlie, which is ironic since i am not a girlie girl. i was a complete tom boy growing up. my mum use to say that god made a mistake by making me a girl, i hope she has changed her opinion. i didn’t like girls at all and only had boy friends. my sister on the other hand was and is a complete girlie girl. my best friend in primary school was bobby. he was very popular and considered the coolest kid in our school. i was considered his uncool sidekick. his father thought that we would grow up and get married. instead bobby got involved in drugs and dropped off the face of the planet for a long while. occasionally my mum sees him and gives me updates.

i was born and raised in australia, but grew up croatian. this was a bit confusing, but since most of the kids in my school were from other countries it wasn’t too bad. my first language was croatian and after my first day at school i told my parents that the teachers and kids all spoke funny. i experienced a lot of racism growing up. my dad taught me early on how to deal with it. he taught me to agree with whatever slur was directed at me, this always shocked the person dissing me. it’s a defense mechanism i employ to this day.

i was a very shy kid, but i have learnt to compensate for it by being the clown, the one who makes the funny voices and noises, the animated one. but if attention is turned towards me then i clam up. no one believes that i was and still am shy.

both my folks have worked all my life. my dad worked days while my mum worked nights. school holidays were hard for my sister and i. we weren’t allowed to leave the house, but we had to be quiet so as not to wake my mum. it was hard on my sister and i but in retrospect it was harder for my mum.

in my final year of primary school, sister augustine wanted to meet with my parents. she advised them to send me to an all girls school because my constant hanging out with boys was worrying her and she was afraid that i would end up a prostitute. while my dad laughed at this, they still sent me to an all girls high school. needless to say i hated it. i didn’t find a group of friends i was comfortable with until my second last year of high school.

i was an average student who could have done better if i wasn’t so lazy. in my first year of high school i got a’s in science, then in the fist term of my second year i got a c. i hadn’t done anything different so i complained to my folks. my dad went to the school and talked with my science teacher. she told him that i was lazy but had potential. that year i worked my ass off in science class and by the end of the year i got an a. i think that is when i became interested in science. by the final year of high school all of my elective subjects were science and maths based.

I went to university, the first person in my family, and studied science. i failed my first year. i wish i could say that i partied too hard and didn’t study enough, but no i had a horrible time and didn’t study enough. the university let me repeat and i told everyone in my second first year that i had glandular fever and that’s why i was repeating. i was too embarrassed to tell the truth. i studied more and in the second year of my course i became captivated with one particular professor and decided that i was going to work with him. so i studied more, graduated, was accepted into the honours year and work in the professor’s laboratory. i got the second highest score for the year, missing top stop by 1 point.

i applied to 3 graduate schools and was accepted by all 3. i decided to accept the offer from the school which was farthest from home. when i told my father of my decision, he blamed my mother for me moving out of home and didn’t talk to me for the 5 weeks i had remaining at home. so i moved away from home without my fathers blessing and with the knowledge that he was hoping i would fail so that he could tell me i told you so. a year and half after i moved he began talking to me.

during my phd i was fortunate enough to travel to europe and the usa a couple times both for business and pleasure. i received a fellowship to work at yale university for a year. during my first 6 months there i had no friends and i was mugged. during my second 6 months i met a boy who introduced me to the in crowd. my second 6 months was more bearable. i shared a house with a mature age theology graduate student who had a life size cardboard cut out of george bush senior in her spare room. the house was cheap and fully furnished so i stayed. i graduated with my phd, which my father called his monument. i accepted a job in the us to do a postdoc. my father didn’t talk to me for six months after i told him i was moving to the us. he is now speaking to me again and misses me a lot.

i’ve lost my passion for science and i don’t like the town i live in, but recently i have been making the best of it. i’ve taken drawing classes at the art museum, i am taking my photography more seriously and also taking classes. i volunteer at the local library tutoring english to non-english speaking adults. i’ve been here 2 years now, and will be here until my fellowship runs out, in another two years. i have no idea what i am going to do when i return home.

while i have been away my sister got married and had a little girl. i’ve only spent 3 weeks with my niece, she’s 7 months old now. i miss her even though i don’t know her.

kids and old people love me, it’s the people in between those age ranges that i have trouble relating to. i think kids love me because i am silly and a kid with them. i think old people love me because i ask them questions about what their life was like growing up and i listen. history fascinates me and i don’t know that many old people, so when i come across them i ask them all sorts of questions.

i haven’t had many boyfriends, and have only been in love once, he broke my heart. i haven’t had a boyfriend since, that was 6 years ago, i was over him 2 years ago. currently though i am big time crushing on a boy from barcelona. the more time i spend with him the deeper the crush gets, usually the opposite happens.