Ten happiness inducing things

Ok I was caught by Sach, first time in this little blog's life that its been tagged! Sooo.. in no particular order:

1 - Big Sunday brunch in the sun with a good book at a cosy, friendly little street cafe.

2 - The energy and possibilities of a city, particularly Melbourne

3 - Picking up the phone and hearing the voice of someone I love, especially first thing in the morning.

4 - Daydreaming

5 - Friendly dogs - labs are number one on that list.

6 - Beautiful, lyrical writing, that brings alive a feeling or a moment.

7 - Hugs - proper borderline bone crushing, I love you and never want to let you go hugs. 

8 - Laughing and getting on a natural high with friends

9 - Funky gadgets

10 - Interesting conversations with unusual people. 

Kaiser, 

Cerno,  

Ravana [though perhaps acknowledging a tag might make him mortal, oops? :D ]

Tagged! You're it! [Is that even the same game? Hmm...]

Hazy shades of cramming

Made it through mid semester assessment, vaguely alive. As usual muttering profanities at the idiotic previous self that chilled out and procrastinated, leaving things till there was no later left. 

Afterwards, I got to think about why it is that cramming works. What is it about that last minute desperation, that makes learning so much easier, more efficient and effortless compared to when you've actually got time to 'learn properly'? Honest to whatever greater being there is out there, I did try to study weekly. Economics for example, at least an hour or two was spent trying to read that textbook and giving up because it was just a collection of gibberish sentences and what looked to me like random lines all over the place, wont even get started on the equations that didn't equate to anything visible. So yes, gave up and went ahead with all the kazillion more interesting things there are to do. 

5 weeks later, roughly 6 hours before the exam, rummaged through a few boxes, dug out the book, blew away the dust, sneezed for about half a hour, etc etc usual process, and opened it fully expecting a headache. Had even carefully positioned Panadols, M&Ms and glasses of water. 2 hours later, I'm positively gliding through pages upon pages of this stuff, all of which makes perfect sense and is actually interesting!! 

How does that happen?? I timed the grief inducing chapter so lovingly mentioned earlier  - took 20 minutes[!!#$%!] to read through and everything just fell into place. Kinda like the parting of the sea, suddenly vast areas of dry land where there used to be enough water to drown in. I've heard of people mentioning being 'in the zone' which might explain it, but not entirely sure what that is exactly. 

So, with a month to go for finals, I'm sitting here trying to convince myself that exams are tomorrow. For some reason myself is laughing back at me. Sigh. Winter exams suck. What little motivation survives the procrastination gets frostbite and goes on strike. A little hypnosis would be useful right about now.

Memo

Good resolutions involve cleaning, clearing, filing, organising, alphabeticalising, colour-coding and writing lists. Usually a happy process, because of course, from now on I will be organised, and efficient and responsible and not a procrastinator. In the middle of the back patting and general sense of purpose, an awful doomed feeling crashed the party. I've done this sooo many times in my [shortish] life so far. The clean desk, the suddenly filled with writing organiser. And it keeps coming back to this. It's scary to think that lucking out is most likely a scarce commodity which has been mined as if it were unlimited. Yikes. The lucky streak is going to run out. I don't want to be bankrupt!! 

Never want to do this again. There's a limit to optimism, it needs some help from reality to keep going. It's Autumn: running out of new leaves to turn.

xxx

The 'just before' sucks. Waiting for something to happen, either good or bad. For all the lasts to be over: last night, last day, last meal, last trip up the mountain, last hug, last look, last wave, last glimpse. Interesting how the airport is divided into the happy arrivals section [Love Actually!] and the often awkward departure lounges, where people are waiting for those final minutes to pass. Holding onto those, willing them to either just go on forever or disappear entirely - all physically impossible. And there's nothing else to be done really, except wait for them to pass, to get onto the process of mentally, emotionally, adjusting to the new version of existence. Weird, walking into a building, walking out half an hour later and so many things just not there anymore. 

Olympic rant

 These anti-China protesters are annoying. Agreed, China does have a dodgy [to put it mildly] human rights record, they're evasive, controlling, and the poor Tibetans are being treated terribly etc etc. Yes, just before the Olympics is a good public moment to air all those issues, thumbs up for free speech!

However, to seriously suggest that entire countries should not take part is unfair on many levels, but most importantly on the athletes who've been training for literally four years with 2008 in mind. This isn't an event that happens every year, a delay of 12 months would be bad enough, 48 months is a very long time. 

The protests should have taken place seven years ago when the Olympic committee was choosing the country in 2001. Now, it is only a question of airing opinions. The violence that has surrounded the Olympic relay puts the world to shame, with people in the 'developed' countries proving to be unable to respect boundaries. Having processions I can totally understand, there are some serious human rights issues going on, but to go to the extent of disrupting the relay, requiring the flame to be put out, is really a bit much. 

The Flame has a symbolism beyond that of just the Beijing games. It doesn't belong to any one country, and is supposed to represent Olympic values, like friendship, solidarity and fair play to name a few. Seems like there isn't much of that going around. 

If you really truely feel strongly that something should be done, boycott all Chinese products, not the Olympics. The world happily exploits the ultra cheap goods that come out of China without a second  thought, but have a huge moral dilemma with China holding a sports event? Rubbish.  Hypocrites.

Old Friends

Can you imagine us years from today,
Sharing a park bench quietly 

How terribly strange to be seventy - Simon and Garfunkel

There are so many horror stories of friendship turned arsenic: gruesome and bloody backstabbings, smashing of trust with blunt instruments, unauthorised sharing of top level secrets. Despite going to an all girls school, I managed to float through school observing and generally avoiding some ridiculously complicated friendship politics. The clean up squad was more my thing - once the missiles were spent, voices reduced to a raspy croaks and tear ducts exhausted, peace troops would be needed to clean up and sort out. That was quite fun, talking to both sides, investigating the situation, finding middle ground, clearing up what was invariably a small, deadly misinterpretation of words. Blimey, the energy wasted on drama!

There are a few people who fall into the park bench category for sure. Swallow and Glitch are utterly easygoing, happy go lucky, solid, up for anything [not always a good thing with me around] and total soul mates in a non-cheesy, non-astrology.com kind of way. Coaster is rather more complicated: the image of a vertigo inducing, erratic yet strangely reliable roller coaster springs to mind. While on it, there are moments of panic and illness, but being on the ground involves being lost and without a compass, even though I often disagree with his sense of direction. Yea, its complicated. Birdboy probably be there would too, but thats a situ still floating around in midair at the moment.

There are potentials that hover around, new friends, old friendships that would be missed terribly if they were to dissolve, but those are constants necessary for all to be right in the world.

Long distance close friendships are tough. I miss how easy it is to be with them, the short hand which cuts through explaining, the instinctively knowing when something is up without having to be told/tell. How we always, always end up having a good time getting ourselves into and out of crazy situations, laughing all the while. Even the shittiest day turns around. 

In a way, the worst part is not being able to share the good stuff. Dancing in the rain, rolling in the hail, funky concerts, beautiful Victorian buildings with ivy curling up its walls, impulsive drives, walking through the city and randomly stumbling across a jazz band in a courtyard, little country towns out of Enid Blyton, candy stores, stationery warehouses, chatting to interesting strangers, in a club, dancing to that song you know they'd go crazy for if they were here, even or perhaps especially, just feeling happy for no reason. 

Feeling a little friend-sick. 

Don't want to be my winter

It's finally arrived. That constant chill, hanging out persistently even on the sunniest spots of the pavement. Jeans and t-shirt weather has long gone, shorts rejected and stuffed into dark corners of the clothes shelves a week ago. Fingers and toes starting to get numb during the day. Finally gave in and took down all the neatly packed away winter coats, socks, beanies. So much wool. So much weight. Still resisting the electric heater: semi denial.

Last winter was a bit of a disaster overall, which might have been expected considering it was the first for this particular sunny islander. Wasn't expecting just how utterly cold and harsh and actually quite miserable it was. Finally understood seasonal depression. After nineteen years of taking it entirely for granted that going outside meant sun and warmth and comfort like a hug, suddenly its just not there. Unimaginable. In school, the crazy girl who'd choose to stay in the sun for hours if need be, that was me. Fortunately its largely sunny down under, cannot begin to fathom living in a gloomy country for more than a few weeks.

On a brighter note, seem to have got a grip this time around. Touch wood. Use a support system, keep the neurons whizzing. It's a case of watching the extremes, keeping the slips from turning into slides. Sleeping in is okay, eighteen hours a day for three weeks straight, mmm, not so much. To be fair, it was a accumulation of a kazillion different badly timed factors/incidents/judgements, as such things tend to be.

Autumn is so pretty. Trees turning a whole range of warm colours. Crispy, curly leaves floating down. Just the right temperature: cold enough to feel minty clean, but warm enough to be snug in a couple of layers. And you can still feel the sun properly. The campus is basically a garden with a few buildings built on the sidelines, so it's gorgeous in the summer, breathtaking in the autumn, bare and harsh during the winter.

Game plan is to breathe in as much as possible while its good, avoid intense Snow Patrol songs and laugh lots.

Just three miles from the rest stop, she slams on the breaks

That flash of piercing clarity where you realise, from the depths of your gut, that this is not where you want to be. Its not a logical conclusion derived after analysis, or a calculated decision after weighing up pros and cons, but a quiet sort of 'right, I'm not putting up with this rubbish anymore' which has a powerful, contained resolve.

You may have been rationally analysing along those lines for months or been miserable for ages or perhaps a quiet feeling had been sneaking up unawares for some time, but what I'm talking about is that final spark which breaks the connection keeping you in a certain place, whether it is in a relationship, a job or just waking up to what a quagmire your comfort zone has become. Rob Thomas sums it up beautifully:

She said - while you were sleeping
I was listening to the radio
And wondering what you're dreaming when
It came to mind that I didn't care

- Rest Stop by Matchbox Twenty

Somehow those last two lines capture how things just click into place in a quiet, often completely random moment.  It doesn't necessarily hail the end of self doubt at that twitching hour of 3am [MB20 again!], just that its easier to rationalise the brain back to sleep. You've passed that point where what you want, generally in my case, sanity, slips higher on the priority list overtaking whatever was creating drama.

I've always felt that 'vibrant' is too strongly complimentary an adjective to use on a person. Until I met my ex-boss. She is the most intensely alive person I've met to date. I'm going to quit while ahead and leave readers to use their imagination rather than try to describe her. Lets just say no one who met her, no matter how briefly, could ever forget her, customers were guaranteed to be walking away with a smile on their faces. She's just one of those.

She had been working at her job for over 20 years, longer than I've been alive! She's always loved it, her first job which she assumed would be her only one. We joked that she had roots entwined in the foundations of the place and she could never leave because the place would fall apart, and spirit wise it was so very true. In the last couple of years however, change of management etc etc, it became insanely, unfairly and more annoying, unneccesarily stressful for her and people kept telling her she deserved better and should leave but she couldnt. There was a massive emotional investment: her husband worked there, the team was like family, she had known all the regular customers and retailers for years. She fell ill constantly, was permanently stressed out for about two years before she reached that 'rest stop moment', a tipping point, where everything fell into place and she was able to break out of the unhealthy situation within her comfort zone and move on without looking back.

Non-mutual breakups are so messy and painful because one person has reached that moment but the other is yet to get there. And that sucks, as you can't force an epiphany. It's one of those irritating mental switches that you can lean over and juuust brush with your fingers, unable to get enough of a grasp to flip it at will. 

Just three miles from the rest stop
And she slams on the breaks
She said I tried to be but I'm not
And could you please collect your things
I don't wanna be cold
I don't wanna be cruel
But I gotta find more
Than what's happening with you
If you'd open up the door...

Reality leaves a lot to the imgination*

Italian Job 2 has such sexy moments. [Spoiler alert. If you haven't watched it yet: what was the weather like on that middle star of Orion's belt?]. Stella's introductory scene where she drives a Mini through London traffic captured my heart wholesale. At some point in my life I will own/rent/borrow/run off with/hug and refuse to let go of one of those. Don't care that they are overpriced. It's absolutely the perfect city car if one is gutsy enough to drive suicidally like she does, couldn't find a youtube clip *gasp!*

Anyway! One of the things that got the drowsy brain buzzing was the villain's Achilles heel - a lack of imagination. Specifically how this was expressed through his inability to spend the kazillion million dollars he stole. It is quite a common question, the 'if you won a million dollars/ had three wishes/ could rule the world etc what would you do?' line. Good for random conversations with possibly dodgy people on buses. If you think about it though, how many entirely unique responses have you heard to that?

The conversation early on in the movie, where they each describe what they intend to spend their share of the money on is interesting because it manages, in just a couple of minutes, to sketch a reasonably vivid image of each person's personality. Handsome Rob's drool-worthy Aston Martin is a player's car; a pantie dropping, super cool adrenaline rush. The geek speak with which Napster describes his sound system immediately assigns him the nerdy techie's place in the team, and Left Ear is for sure the cultural one with his beautiful Spanish villa and leather bound first editions, etc etc. All done in just a few cleverly picked phrases from each of the characters.

Steve Frazelli [baddie] couldn't come up with even one thing that he wanted, he borrowed off everyone else. It is roll on the ground hilarious when they realise he has very literally bought their ideas. The catch though, is that he can't possibly enjoy the spoils because they aren't 'his'. The kick-ass tv, stereo, car, house, library have nothing to do with his personality or tastes. It's like the joke about the art dealer who sold a white canvas to a multi-millionaire, assuring him that this was the newest art movement. Luxury is an experience, and therefore entirely relative. Ferrero Rochers, enjoyed infrequently, would be absolute heaven regardless of whether I'm driving a Rolls or living in a leech infested ditch. He is admittedly a one sided character, for storyline convenience, but that aside, he hasn't figured out what is uniquely extra special for him, which is not scarily not uncommon in real life!

Right now, I don't quite know what I would do with a few million dollars. There are the obvious ones I'd want to do like travel all over the world, enjoy all those currently light years outside budget experiences like cruise around the world first class, sky dive, learn to fly and then buy a plane, a boat, eat in funky, ridiculously expensive restaurants, buy into a formula one team, watch a kazillion plays and concerts, build up a massive library and art collection and generally run riot with all my friends.

There isn't any focus to all that though. It's to do with not having an overwhelming passion for any one thing in particular. Having strong opinions and an interest in a variety of things is not quite the same. Those people who have found that Something [with a capital] they cannot live without, I envy them. I like music, but don't turn pale or feel ill at the thought of a couple of months without it, unlike probably Confab and RD. Ditto with any other interest except perhaps to a certain extent human rights related things and psychoanalysing everything. Right now, if my bank account balance unexpectedly grew several extra zeros [before the decimal point], I'd probably invest it so that until I finally do figure out what I want to spend it on, it'll be sitting there, getting fatter. To be fair, I reckon its also an age and experience thing, this knowing what you want.

So what would you do with say, 10 million dollars. It sounds like a lot, but it actually isn't that much. What would you spend it on?

* John Lennon

There is an awful lot of breathing room

So, I have all these drafts hanging out in my blogspot account: some random, some reflective, some stressed out, some are actually more panicked neurons on the rampage than coherant thoughts, but they're all chilling in there, wondering what the next step is. Ideally, I would like to write them out and post them, but I've gotten to that apparently inevitable point where worries about people figuring out who I am become relevant. Damnit. Unfortunately most of my rants might be recognisable, and although most of my friends have comfortingly appalling memories it is quite posssible they will connect the dots. Bummer.

Theres no point in having a blog if you can't release what you think, what you feel, what you wish you didn't feel, feel you shouldn't think or think you shouldn't feel. And then there's the whole if a tree falls in the middle of a forest and no one knows, did it actually fall? I know now what drew me to blogging again is, more than anything else, the actual act of writing. Putting words together, taking them apart, refitting, streamlining, adding, replacing, playing. Its like dabbing at a painting for me - little strokes of the brush, enjoying the rush until it looks good, feels right. I'm not a serious writer, just an entirely selfish one. I write for me, to make sense of my little, sometimes painful world.

It was a Monday, a sunny, sparkling day because it had rained in the morning, and all the trees were a happy deep green. I had homework to do for that afternoon [of course]. Usually a last minute essay is a smooth, oft practiced process, but that day I couldn't get a line off a Norah Jones song out of my head. It wasn't boyfriend trouble, that kind of stuff actually doesn't get to me too much, it was a complicated non-melodramatic incident involving a boy I loved as a part of me, one of those quiet things that you can't really pinpoint at the time, which makes it difficult to analyse. I remember feeling restless, and uneasy but not depressed or anything like that. And then, sitting there in the library overlooking the mango tree, I started to write and write and write. A poem four pages long, I just couldn't stop myself. No idea where it was coming from, these weren't thoughts that I had consciously, feelings I was completely oblivious to. Once it finally ended, sitting back, exhausted and reading it over was such a shock. It was so wierd to be reading something composed by me, but totally new to me at the same time. At that point I realised this is what makes up for my tendency to live in denial and then be overly rational. Its the outlet that quite literally keeps me sane.

To conclude: Don't guess. I'm not that person. Seriously.

This is hypocritical of me because I love trying to figure out who the blogger is. Perhaps thats partly why I'm so paranoid, but anway, since this is my space where I get to be a brat, its shameless denial till all the animals of the ark come home.