underneath the sycamore

People always complain that love hurts. I can imagine that falling in love might hurt, because anything which involves falling would generally induce some form of pain. But love is great. Or I at least assume so, because it's what we all strive for in one way or another, isn't it? Love doesn't hurt. Disappointment hurts. Expectations not being met hurts. Lack of trust hurts, and shitheads disguising themselves as princes certainly hurts.

But so much of the time, it isn't even these things which causes the greatest amount of pain. It's the bruised ego, the "Oh fuck, well that trumps all of the stupid things I've heard and believed through the years", it's the humiliation that makes you bury yourself under layers of quilts and mull over all the good reason that flew out the window once you heard "Yes".

You then convince yourself that it's not love, it never was, you're too young to understand love, people can go through life without ever experiencing it. But in reality, it's whatever you wish for it to be. Some people look at green and see blue. To me, they're stupid, but maybe they really do see blue. And unless I have the ability to swap eyeballs, then it is what it is. (NB: It happens with blue and purple, too.) So the denial is only a result of the process of losing what you thought you had ... Or didn't have. At least I know my love for fries will never fade.

To get you all through the rest of the week!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGth7aSd0EM

walk my way

A long period of special inquiry is required to arrive even at a valid hypothesis. This does not stop the amateur psychologizers. Armed with a smattering not of knowledge, but of undigested slogans, they rush, unsolicited, to diagnose the problems of their friends and acquaintances. Pretentiousness and presumptuousness are the psychologizers invariable characteristics: he not merely invades the privacy of his victims’ minds, he claims to understand their minds better than they do, to know more than they do about their own motives … The harm he does to his victims is incalculable. People who have psychological problems are confused and suggestible; unable to understand their own inner state, they often feel that any explanation is better than none.

- Ayn Rand

missing: baby hat

I should have mentioned these during the evaluation today! Happy times before my hormones turned me into the angry midget I appear to be. I really do like you, promise ...




You amaze me

cosmic love

Things that I am incapable of:

- Maintaining consistency
- Blowing my nose with one hand
- Tolerating stupidity ("Afghanistan seems like they always have wars going on hehe" toolbox in my class at uni, you know who I'm talking about)
- Leaving people alone (ie. pushing them like a button, beeping like a reversing truck)
- Finishing a meal without feeling like a freshly rolled sleeping bag
- Steaming silky coffee milk

Things that infinitely frustrate me:

- Inconsistency
- Lack of personal space
- Ragged cuticles
- Not being able to recall where I've previously seen TV extras
- Crooked frames that I'm unable to straighten in public areas for fear that the staff will accuse me of attempting to steal

I'd forgotten about this photo! I haven't used this word in a long time, but I really do look spastic.

let's go home

Everyone on earth has a treasure that awaits him. We, people's hearts, seldom say much about those treasures, because people no longer want to go in search of them. We speak of them only to children. Later, we simply let life proceed, in its own direction, toward its own fate. But, unfortunately, very few follow the path laid out for them - the path to their Personal Legends, and to happiness.

If good things are coming, they will be a pleasant surprise. If bad things are, and you know in advance, you will suffer greatly before they even occur ... The fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself.

- The Alchemist Paul Coelho

The burden of tomorrow and the pain of yesterday ensures that the present will never be treated the way it should be. When you're consumed in a moment, caught in the melody of a song or the beauty of an amazing landscape, you're never happier than you are at that point in time. It feels like for a minute or so, your mind is free with clarity, which some people achieve through meditation but which always leads my mind along the path of "Black; with my eyes closed all I see is black; some call it a colour but some people define it as a tone; now I'm thinking of rainbows, except the violet stripe doesn't really exist" and you can imagine how it goes on. But this is how it plays out every single time, as predictable and Turkish delight and Belgian dark chocolate.

What's in the box?

Dance dance dance

Also, words fail to express how AMAZING this is. And because I'm not a heartless person who steals, kudos to Jess Loves Fred!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyARHscb8mU&feature=player_embedded

Ponyfish

So apparently I give into the head tilt despite being shot by a photographer with 20+ years of professional experience. This little outing actually made me realise what awfully tense mouth muscles I have. Is my discomfort captured accurately enough? This trip was shorter than my bus ride to uni on Monday which took 75 minutes ...

Featuring the person who more or less got me to where I am today!






I love puffed oats. Like, a lot. I bet there's a Facebook Appreciation Group dedicated to them. There should be some sort of milk substitute that keeps your cereal crunchy. I have faith that scientists will work it out in the next 5 years or so. Until, for me, breakfast becomes JUST RIGHT.

two tales

When I die, I want to have subconsciously shared so much of myself with someone that they'd be able to write a book about what I was like, what my face became when I felt bored or disgusted or over the moon. I want someone to know all the ins and outs, how my face always found the crevice where the arm met the back of the couch when I napped, how I would get up in the middle of the night despite the cold if I could hear the shower dripping, how I preferred to sit facing the back on trains, how I hated my iPod to be set to shuffle. I don't know whether or not people memorise the details of those around them. It's what separates reality from fiction. Narrators in stories cannot get enough all that signifies less than nothing, and yet in reality when people die, those left behind kick themselves for not remembering their last hug, last kiss, last laugh. I want someone to look back and remember the things I did which made them want to flick me off the face of the Earth out of utter irritation, and the things I said which made them feel the way nobody ever could and ever would.

"It's not Mak Mak"

Monica: "What if I was still fat? You wouldn't be dating me, that's for sure."
Chandler: "Sure I would."
Everyone: "Oh, yeah, right. Really...."
Chandler: "What? You guys really think I'm that shallow?"
Ross: "No, I just think Monica was that fat."

the end's not near

The end is so far away I can't even see it from where I'm sitting on my computer chair that mother always adjusts way too low down. Today I accidentally cut myself and bled all over the Sportsgirl counter whilst serving customers, hehe. I think someone took home a sweater with my DNA on it. Apparently I cannot begin an assignment til my hair is completely dry and oh hey, what a great time to clean up the mess on my table that took months to create! I have a bundle of yellow fur on my lap, and a cup of tea on my desk .. And I tell myself, time and again, that I will end this abusive relationship that does not even provide me with the slightest amount of self-satisfaction. You and your stupid gummy desks and crappy over-priced food and your bus lines, OH MY BANANAS YOUR BUS LINES, it's like that thing with the Chinese people and if they walked in a line the line would never end because that is how fast they procreate over there, and moreover it's so eerily ironic because 90% of UNSW students must be Chinese. This is going nowhere.

untitled

My appallingly unsuccessful, blurry attempt to say Japan - please don't go.

Nagoya, 2007 - GOOD TIMES.

sheer brilliance

'Man's basic vice, the source of all his evils, is the act of unfocusing his mind, the suspension of his consciousness, which is not blindness, but the refusal to see, not ignorance, but the refusal to know. Irrationality is the rejection of man's means of survival and, therefore, a commitment to a course of blind destruction; that which is anti-mind, is anti-life.

"Productive work" does not mean the unfocused performance of the motions of some job. It means the consciously chosen pursuit of a productive career, in any line of rational endeavour, great or modest, on any level of ability. It is not the degree of a man's ability nor the scale of his work that is ethically relevant here, but the fullest and most purposeful use of his mind.'

And this one is for you, the one to whom I owe many a hazelnut latte and salads full of avocado and other mushy foods:

'If some men do not choose to think, but survive by imitating and repeating, like trained animals, the routine of sounds and motions they learned from others, never making an effort to understand their own work, it still remains true that their survival is made possible only by those who did choose to think and to discover the motions they are repeating. The survival of such mental parasites depends on blind chance; their unfocused minds are unable to know whom to imitate, whose motions it is safe to follow. They are the men who march into the abyss, trailing after any destroyer who promises them to assume the responsibility they evade: the responsibility of being conscious.'

- Ayn Rand; genius, Objectivist and exquisite author of many a book, including The Virtue of Selfishness

sadness is my boyfriend

I have decided on a male baby name, Cooper, even though my child will inevitably grow into a non-baby with time. I am very tired and there are socks that have been sitting on my table waiting to be worn for over two weeks - tomorrow will be the day. She started it! Picking blistered skin hurts. Basket; basket-maker; guy who didn't bring enough money. I'm three and a half months in with a roti baby. TEFL/TESL please be my friend. These books are so dense. I cut myself a fringe. I miss Jessica Chu. MY FRIEND IS AN AWARD-WINNING POET! Will I be missed?

admit it, just admit it!

Who wants to play SPIN THE BOTTLE?!

Spin the bottle.

(Okay, so this is supposed to move, like a jif or a gif or a G6 .. but it's not. Life sucks.)

today, tomorrow

Pelvic pain
Suspender tights
Lunch no thank you's
Sliding horizontally across stairs
Wrinkly blisters resembling baby possums
I could walk down these stairs of words happily

Backspace - dislike
Lifts that are out of order
Mouldy bread (mouldy peaches)
"You looked like you had the shits"
Not knowing if you're more embarrassed or ashamed
A community of unwanted hairs congregating on the sofa
Dance dance dance, grind grind grind, fun fun fun, sun sun sun

MRP high 5
This is so you!
That's sad, don't ever say that again

so i don't venterator you, you don't venterator me

This makes me teary, every single time.

"No, you don't get it. I need it to be over, I need it to be over, because I can't take this anymore. Yes, I love Luke, and yes, I wanted to marry Luke, but I didn't want a life separate from Luke and that's all he could give me. I don't want that. If I'm gonna be with Luke, I want to be with Luke and he didn't get it, and I waited, God, I waited. It's like Luke is driving a car, okay, and I just wanna be in the passenger seat, but he's locked the door and, so I have to hold onto the bumper. You know, I'm not even asking him to open the door for me, just leave it unlocked, and say come in, but no he - he didn't do that. So, I'm hanging onto the bumper, and life goes on and the car goes on and I get really badly bruised, and I'm hitting potholes, and it hurts, I mean it hurts. So yesterday I had to let go of the bumper, because it hurts too much - it hurts too much."

Snakes, snakes, snakes on a plane, relentless snakes, snakes on a plane! [Fist smacking palm all the while, love it].

Feliz Cumpleaños!

Have I mentioned that I love you A LOT?! Happy 21st!

ten minutes (in your pants)

I like the person I become when I'm travelling - curious, exhilarated and eager (something I never am, apart from on my resume). It has a way of bringing out the best in me, a personality that is hindered when faced with too much familiarity. I am able to enjoy solitude to an even greater extent, discover you don't have to be lonely when you are alone. To be free of petty obligations and the expectations that come hand in hand with social responsibilities that I could all too quickly release a number two on. Things suddenly seem more achievable, more within reach; even if we have yet to establish what it is that we are dreaming of. And that's why there is joy in discovering new ways to bring about an abundance of happiness in your life. For some, smiles lie in the simple things. But for others, there is no venturing beyond the superficial and that which, to me, resembles fish scales. And all I want to do is scrape it all away, but something tells me that sooner or later I will fail to care about the emotional capacity and catalysts of happiness of others. Because we're all too busy trying to figure it out for ourselves, and we all hit a point where we realise that genuine consideration is impossible to extend to all, and purely reserved for those whom we deem to be deserving. Good things in life should never be, and never are, forced.

It's so dissatisfying to come across as something other than what we wish to portray - but more importantly, how we really are (or believe to be. I also cannot pinpoint my obsession with discussing this issue, but probably because I have time and again failed at this in reality and am somehow trying to redeem myself.) We retrace our steps and our words with the knowledge and regret that opportunities to display our innermost selves were responded with half-hearted attempts to not only establish almost two decades of background, but to make it known that we are aware that the next two decades to come will be affected by this past. Then again, people are constantly either choosing to reminisce or trying to forget the past, neither of which do us any good or aid the problem currently at hand.

smish smash

Is there such a thing as too much leopard?


HAY FRIEND

I SAID HALF-HALF

What is this obsession we all have with seeking answers to the unknown and confirming the obvious? I cannot fathom how great an amount of destruction must be to result in a change of pace for us all, to interrupt the cycle of life as we know it. For something out of this world, and of our minds. Things are supposed to be, expected, predicted, assumed. We have and we share disappointments, surprises, grief. Irrespective of nationality, age, gender, we go through the same assembly line processes as millions of others without the realisation that we do. And what we believe makes us unique makes those millions think the exact same thing. Everything we do, the lives we lead, are so in sync with everyone around us that they become not only our bearings but also our limits, whether or not they are apparent. The only answers we can give are in the form of a passcode, or a pill, despite their lack of effectiveness. If only we could live without answers, but that would mean living without questions, without our minds ticking the way that they do.