Page 20 – Back for Seconds

Chapter Thirty-Five: Growing Old and Growing Up (~jinghan)

Note from the Author: Sorry for writing everything out of order. Such is life.

July 18th 2011

It's 11 am approximately 20 years after the day I was born and I am still in bed. For the past few years (the teenaged years) birthdays have come and gone with excitement or disappointment or most commonly both, but this year I'm just lying in bed with a serenity that I've forgotten that birthdays can have.

I'm suspecting something devious from my boyfriend because I was deviously evil with his birthday surprise and when one is deviously evil one should always be wary of revenge attacks. My phone buzzes to tell me I have a new text and I pick it up not knowing what to expect.

It's actually a text from an old high school friend. "Happy birthday! We should totally meet up for lunch some time." To you this may seem like merely a standard birthday text, but for me it put a warm glow in my heart.

Back when I was a young and selfish fifteen going on sixteen, I decided that I would not announce to everyone that it was my birthday because it seemed so monstrously arrogant and besides people would remember it was my birthday without me nagging them about it... right?

Ironically, it turned out to be an arrogant act, and it seemed that not as many people cared about my birthday as I thought. But what crushed me the most was the friend I thought cared about me the most had remembered my birthday wrong and I spent the rest of the day being completely miserable and hateful of birthdays. It was only later (or perhaps now) that I realise that just because someone forgets your birthday doesn't mean they don't care about you. And this particular friend was just the sort that was forgetful and didn't take birthdays to heart.

I was touched that she happened to remember my birthday this year, especially since I hadn't expected to hear from her.

I manage to roll out of bed by 12pm to let my boyfriend into the house. "Have you had anything to eat?" he asks me cautiously.

"No. I'm starving."

"Well..." he says cautiously again, "I was thinking I could take you out to lunch... or breakfast... I mean brunch at the cafe down the street you were telling me about. Only if you want to of course..."

"That would be really nice!"

Aw how nice, my boyfriend was taking me out to lunch on my birthday. So that's what he had been planning all along. We have strawberries and raspberries on pancake with ice cream. And he wants to go look around Maling Street shopping street, and I remember that I need to get some sour peach hearts from the lolly shop because a friend of mine hadn't tried them (!!) . And we go to the park and he keeps pausing to send things on his phone, which is a little bit rude... and suspicious, so I don't say anything. He did say he had invited a few more people to a casual dinner I had semi-organised and left in his care.

I want to go home and rest and be warm before going out to dinner so we head home. I get myself a glass of water. He uses the bathroom. I bounce up the stairs to my room and open the door and see a lot of balloons...

Wait. What?

I do a double take: there are balloons EVERYWHERE, on my desk, on my bed, on the floor up to the level of my bed and there are some balloons strung across the ceiling saying "HAPPY BIRTHDAY".

What? How?

I hear some giggling coming from the balloons.

Wait. What? Balloons don't giggle do they?

"I can hear you..." I say accusingly. (But a little bit hesitantly incase it was just the balloons giggling to themselves.)

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY" and all these people I wasn't expecting to see jump out from what I thought had been merely a pile of inanimate balloons.

We laugh and take pictures and then go out to dinner with other friends. It's only later in the quiet wake of all the birthday frivolities while trying to find my pyjamas while shuffling knee-high through balloons that I have time to take in and admire the amount of effort put in to blowing up all the balloons (480 of them to be exact). I certainly did not expect anything like this...

But perhaps the not-expecting is the key to enjoying one's birthday. All those selfish teenaged years where I've hoped dearly that someone would do something cool (like fill my room with balloons) for me on my birthday, and wrestled in vain with expectations and disappointment... This year, instead, I had discovered how much fun it was to plan something cool for someone else's birthday. In the end by simply looking forward to the simple joys of a day I had had the best birthday ever... even if my boyfriend had just taken me out for pancakes.

Watch out world. Jinghan the no-longer-teenager is here. She's all grown up... but certainly not grown old. Now excuse me while I go play with balloons.

Chapter Thirty-Four: Feathers In Her Hair (~jinghan)

26th July 2011

I'm wandering around like a lost soul outside Melbourne University because I am supposed to be meeting some people in a vague location.

"Hi, do you have a moment?" It's a girl looking for people to subscribe as donors to the Save the Children.

Usually I stop to talk to the people who are doing this sort of work because I like getting to know what different organisations are out doing in the world, and usually I'm too young to meet their minimum donor age of 21. Or maybe I'm only so bold to stop and talk to them because I know I won't meet their minimum donor age...

But I have to run away to my meeting, so I smile apologetically at the girl.

"If you have time later, stop by and have a chat with me!" she calls after me cheerfully.

When I run into the same girl again as I'm leaving uni, I of course was obliged to stop and say hi. I have to say I was a little bit disappointed that she did not seem to recognise me. But then again maybe she's seen a lot of people today and I was just one of the nameless ones who didn't stop.

The conversation of course tends to this questions, "do I have to be over 21 to donate?"

The answer is not what I expected though: "Actually, no you don't, but we do have a policy that you can only donate a maximum of $20 a month."

The tables have turned and I find myself on new territory. Do I do a smile and dash? "I love what you're organisation is doing, but I'm really sorry because I don't really have an income at the moment," is my first instinct. But I'm stopped in this train of thought by the fact that I actually do have a decent stash of money at the moment that will be funding my exchange trip.

I'm doing the maths in my head as I continue the conversation. With the amount of money I have in my savings account I have about $20 interest every month so I could afford to make something like a $5 or even $10 donation monthly while still having some for myself...

"You know I think I might actually think about this. Is there a minimum monthly donation?"

"Yes, $20."

Oh...? "Didn't you say the maximum donation for someone under 21 was $20?"

"Uh, yes. It's also the minimum."

Oh. "Um can I take a form and think about this before signing up?"

"Well actually we can't give you a form. And we sort of like people to sign up on the spot because otherwise plenty of people would procrastinate their way out of it. You know how that is." She laughs.

I laugh too. It's totally true. I want to say "unfortunately I'm the sort of person who lets all sorts of obligations chain down my heart and can't forget things I've promised that easily," but I don't because it sounds like an excuse.

And while I'm thinking this, I notice that the girl has feathers in her hair. They're cleverly attached so that they seem to grow from her head among her bright red untamed hair as if she were some half-bird spirit. Maybe it's this or maybe it's something else but I find myself saying: "Ah, what the heck, I'll do it."

The girl smiles and asks me various details as she fills in the form. "What's your birth date?"

"July 18th 1991"

"Oh wow, it's your birthday soon isn't it... no wait! It's just been your birthday! Happy birthday."

I walk away with my copy of the subscription form, I'm feeling proud of myself and thinking: "thankyou for the birthday present."

Chapter Thirty-Three: Exchange Rate (~jinghan)

This feels like coming out of the closet. It's nothing that exciting actually. Just that I'm going to America on exchange for a year and I haven't blogged about it yet.

I guess the reality hadn't set in yet.

When I say to people, "sorry, I won't be here for that, I'll be in California on Exchange for a year. Yeah at UC Davis, near San Francisco." I think it feels like bragging. But what it really feels like is that I'm telling other people a secret that I've neglected to tell myself.

A fresh start

I'm fairly certain I have ADD.... I can't seem to choose one degree and stick to it.... I think it's mainly because post-grad law is where my passion truly lies. I guess I should explain!

I've now transferred to Commerce (still at Melbourne Uni), so Im starting over as a first-year.... again! I've always known I wanted to do post-grad law, it was just I couldn't decide what to do in-between. I loved Arts, LOVED it. But I couldn't help but think how unrealistic career prospects were for a double language major, and the other majors for Arts really did not interest me in the slightest. So I'm officially a first-year Commerce student. I didn't apply for any credits because doing a double major (accounting/finance) in Commerce means I only have room for 4 breadth subjects and I wanted 3 to finish my French minor.

I see now where all of the student contributed money goes. The Spot and the ICT library (opposite the Law Building) are kind of amazing. I'd recommend everybody check out the new ICT library; luxurious is a word that springs to mind. They still haven't fixed UniWireless (the campus' Wi-Fi) though, it works on occasion (to say the least). How pointless is a library with so many power points that doesn't even have a functioning Internet connection.

It's only second week and I already feel like I'm behind in my reading. I thought there were a lot of readings for Arts!! I was clearly kidding myself. Though in Arts, the readings are required, in Commerce they're "recommended". The Oxfam Group I'm a part of also has a lot of exciting upcoming events. We're doing a stall for Fair Trade and Anti-Poverty Week (in conjunction with other university groups). It's pretty exciting, so expect to see it sometime around September.

For the moment, though, I need to catch-up on some Methods reading. Until next time!

P.S. Hope you're all enjoying this amazing early Spring weather.

Chapter Thirty-Two: Find Your Own Dreamtime (~jinghan)

Its surprising how little one knows about Aboriginal Australian culture despite having grown up in Australia all your life. I remember going to Central Australia in year 9 camp to Uluru and wanting to respect that the Aboriginal people did not want tourists to clime the iconic "heart" of Australia but not really understanding why. Other than that I think we were told very little about our indigenous culture.

Later in life, despite being a religious outsider, I started to grow fond of the immense and culturally rich Catholic Masses that I attended as a chorister and school girl. I'd like to think that when I visited the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris and tried painfully to block out the raucous tourist buzz and distracting flashes of photography (despite signs asking specifically for talking and flash photography to be avoided) that I really started to realise what I didn't in year 9. And even then, its only now that I'm drawing that connection between the two situations.

Dreamkeepers: A Spirit-Journey into Aboriginal Australia
By Harvey Arden, coauthor of Wisdomkeepers

It was a book about aboriginals by someone who was very very likely Caucasian. Maybe I wouldn't have picked it up if I hadn't have been supposed to be studying for one of my exams. "What was a girl of Chinese ethnicity to care about Aboriginal Australians? Let them Caucasians fester in their guilt, I've heard plenty too much political word-mincing and have other cultural issues to worry about." I didn't actually think this... but maybe I did?

I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm not interested in politics; there's too much word play for a simple-hearted mathematician like me. And everything I had ever been told about Aboriginals was political bla. Except for once: when a special speaker we had come in for our breadth subject (Knowledge, Learning and Culture) had told us about how Aboriginal ways are set in in finding patterns in the land and seasons and keeping tradition steady while western modern culture is a culture of perpetual progress. This nicked my interest.

And I guess it was this tiny nick that made me pick up the book.

I flick past the first few pages to where the real book starts. It reads:

"You'll never discover the blackfella's secret," said the Aboriginal man in the flowered Hawaiian shirt, sitting on the concrete veranda of his small house just outside the remote port town of Wyndham, Western Australia, drinking a can of Diet Coke and confronting the two unannounced visitors before him with distrusting eyes.

...

He continued: "So don't you whitefellas come round here sniffin' after our Dreamtime stories like all those others do, those anthros and those journos and all them. Sure, maybe you get me to tell you a story from our Dreamtime, then you take it and write it down in your book and sell it for a million dollars. You white blokes are all the same. Can't you understand? It's not mine to give you, that story. I don't own it. It's the property of my people...

"I'ts like... it's like a watch, a cold watch. Like I'm wearing the cold watch my father fave me and you ask me the time. So I tell you the time. But I don't give you the watch, too, do I? Whitefella now, he asks for the time and then he want to take the watch too! That's the Gadia way, the whitefella way. So don't you come here askin' me for any of our Dreamtime storis. Get your own Dreamtime. Don't take ours."

The words stung. I confess, I had hoped to garner a few stories form the Dreamtime on this "spirit-journey" of mine into Aboriginal Australia.

It wasn't what I had expected, I guess, like the Aboriginal man had, I had expected some Anthro waffle. This was in-your face stuff. This was real people, lingo and all. You know it's real when it feels like a conversations and the words like "blackfella", "whitefella", "Gadia" and the thickly pronounced "Awtha" start making their way into the vocabulary of your mind. When I talk to someone I can't help adopting their accent, anthro waffle doesn't do that for you.

It wasn't what I had expected. It was written by an American. And if my word's anything he's maybe written a better book than any Australian has.

Here's a favourite passage of mine:

"So I'll talk to you fellas awhile and speak of some things," he went on. "Ask me questions if you like... but remember the same question's got different answers for different people. Maybe they're true for you, maybe not. And never forget - everything's a mystery anyway. Once it stops bein' a mystery it stops bein' true."

Most of the book was just a "yarn" as they put it, between blackfellas and the looked-down-upon Awtha who was there to steal a dreamtime. But I found the language oddly poetic. And I can't stop thinking upon that last line. "Once it stops bein' a mystery it stops bein' true." could almost be a line from Keats "Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty."

The book didn't give you a lot in terms of facts or figures. But it was honest. Or maybe for that reason it was honest.

"This is my brand, my identity. We have to spill our blood on the earth, spill our blood in the country to make it ours. Once we spill our blood there we belong to that country. When another aboriginal looks at those scars, he knows where I'm from, what my country is, who I am. He knows my identity and I can look at him and know his.

"But these days my people don't belong to their country anymore. [...] Our people don't know where they're from anymore. They don't know their frandfather or grandmother. They don't know why they're on this earth. They hurt. They hurt in their heart. They dry up like a desert. They're empty drum inside. Got no life inside 'm. That's why they want the grog so bad. To make the hurt go away. To make it wet again inside.

"So they get into all kinds of humbug and kill 'mselves and each other. [...]

"And it's all because they don't know their right place. They don't know their country anymore. They don't know their borders, their boundaries. Everyone needs to know their place and where their border is. If they don't know that then they don't know their own identity. [...]

"Even worse, today's generation, they don't want to listen. They've lost it and they don't want to know it. They don't want to know who they are. So that's why I go around teachin' about Aboriginal identity. Teach white people, teach black people. Teach 'm about Aboriginal culture. I'm tryin' to give the Aboriginal back his identity... That's my work, that's my life."

As I copy this out from my library book that I've held on to for the maximum possible time my library will let me (it's due tomorrow), it mildly reminds me of reciting bible passages in the school chapel. Words from another culture, another time, far removed, and yet in there something catches me and relevance rings out.

"They don't know why they're on this earth," I read again. And for some reason it makes me wonder. When was the last time I touched the earth?The real earth - not turfed grass, concrete, the sole of my shoe or even potting mix spread over real earth. When was the last time I touched the real earth? And more importantly how often do I really touch this real earth?

Suddenly it feels important to me.

"Everyone needs to know their place and where their border is." Where is my sense of place? Where can I find my dream time? No, no, I don't want your dreamtime. I want my own.

"Even worse, today's generation, they don't want to listen." Oh dear!

Maybe just questions and uncharted thoughts in my own mind for now, and maybe forever. But I have faith that beneath all that I've learned from touching and talking to people, from those Catholic Masses and this (and all the other) books a little seedling Dreamtime is taking root. And that I will find my place in the world.

Where is your place? Your Dreamtime?

Chapter Thirty-One: Club, A First Experience Story (~jinghan)

Note from the Author: Written on and about a Thursday five Thursdays ago. Only one of the previous statements is true.

Not the sort for hitting people over the head with. Not the sort you find in a deck of cards. Not even the sort where people come together because of some common hobby or culture...

Shivering in the midnight streets of South Melbourne with the unfamiliar rub of nylon stockings between my thighs and nothing on me but my driver's licence, a phone and some cash, I was standing there in front of a - that's right:

A night club.

Okay, some of that is a lie. Me and my friends, we weren't quite in front of the night club yet, we were about 20 meters down the road. My friend was changing into her heels and ahead of us was an intimidating looking crowd of indiscernible young people surrounded by what looked like temporary fencing puffing away at little white things in what I later realised was the smoking area outside the club.

The actual club (from the outside) was nothing more than a grundgy looking door with some couldn't-care-less people propped outside. This wasn't really what my first impression was. I was too busy trying to be enthusiastic and optimistic about this - my first experience of a night club that is.

Oh right, why am I here? One of my friends got it into her head that one should not be twenty and have not yet experienced a night club. And to be fair, I had been curious for a long time.

The couldn't-care-less people looked at our ID in a couldn't-care-less way. And we walked into a even grundgier looking foyer and passed coins and our belongings through a mere gap in the wall that was supposedly the cloak room, but really looked like the backside of a stage prop. This wasn't what I really thought at the time. I was too busy trying to be enthusiastic and optimistic.

After that we edged, hesitantly glancing at each other, into a possibly grundgier room (it was too dark to see) full of people, alcohol and mind throbbing music - that I later realised wasn't really music but was just noise. But I didn't think that at the time because i was too busy trying to be enthusiastic and optimistic.

I think in films and fantasies people glide into a club and are approached by interesting people and whisked away into the social atmosphere. I can only describe what we did as aimless wandering. Also, some of the people looked underaged. Or perhaps that was just their behaviour that made me feel old? There was this look-at-me feel in the air that I was sure I had out grown when I was 15. And even then I had found look-at-me people intimidating, you know the sort I mean: the girls with enough eye make up to anchor a ship and the such. No wonder people feel the need to drink so much when they go out. The look-at-me intimidation was bloody suffocating.

Oh yeah I did drink. I ended up buying a beer. Corona Extra - I chose it because it looked pretty and the only communication that was possible was point and nod. I found out it had cost me $9.50 when I got my change back.

Oh, did I mention I'd never drunk a whole beer before?

The bartender had wedged a lime into the top of the bottle. I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do with it so in the most awkward fashion possible I slid the whole lime into my mouth until my lips enclosed glass and tipped the bottle back a little. It didn't taste half bad, actually. It was only when I had to slide that whole lime wedge back out of my mouth that it started to feel awkward.

I squiggled the lime into the neck of the bottle, and it was my friend for the next hour. Somehow having the cold glass bottle in my hand and the tangy fizzy beer in my throat made it okay for me to not care. I don't mean, be drunk and not care about what I'm doing. I mean, not care about what those look-at-me sort people are up to and would think of you. (I mean, when you wonder what those look-at-me people are thinking of you, then you've fallen for the trap.)

The beer was flat and warm after an hour so I didn't end up drinking it all.

After some less-aimless sitting, drinking and "talking" we decide to hit the dance floor. (Oh and just to clarify: "talking" is different to talking - the latter happens when there is no blaring music harassing one's ear drums.)

Now this was the part I was curious about, because I like dancing. I like being a little un-self-consciously-crazy when some good music is coursing through my veins.

Yeah, well, forget about that, what I assumed was their idea of music was really repetitive noise. My friend had brought ear plugs because she was a speech pathology student and knew too much about loud noises and damaged hearing - we thought she was pretty dorky at the time, but in retrospect I regret not accepting her offer. Is that a permanent ringing in my ears? Oh and that's definitely a mighty crack in my belief that I can never get bored of music so long as I can dance to it.

Of course I didn't think this at the time, I was trying too hard to be enthusiastic and optimistic. We were there to have a good time after all and I didn't want to shoot the bird before I got a chance to fly. Don't get me wrong, we sort of did have a good time, hanging out with good friends and having new experiences together.

But the club didn't make as much a contribution as I had imagined.

It was a mere 2am when we left, a little dazed and a little relieved. And I have to say I've gotten "I want to know what clubbing is like" out of my system. Not to be regretted, but no hurry to be repeated. So there you go: my first clubbing experience.

---

For a fun tutorial on how to go clubbing, pick up cute accountant chicks and legos check out this awesome short film: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXOxOB-xjpA

Shiver me timbers and hoist the mainsail!

Funny how a few comments can really change your mind about something.

I'd told a few people that I was considering changing to Arts this semester.

Obviously I'd brought it up a few times during this blog; I was just going through my posts and I've mentioned it jokingly a few times, eventually getting more and more serious.

I never went through with the application to switch. Chickened out. Fell into the trap of Arts-graduates-can't-get-a-job-so-you-should-just-keep-sucking-at-Science-and-maybe-have-money-someday. I suspect that's a total fallacy: what good is it at being crap at a career path you don't even like?

Actually no. I like Science. Love Science. I'm just can't seem to find a field that really interests me. Evolutionary biology is really interesting but... Well, to me, it just seems mostly made up. "Humans today do X because cavemen probably did X for reasons of Y and Z." That and there aren't any majors that focus on evolution alone.

I also told a few people. Talking it through with Gaylord my boyfriend (That's a codename by the way, isn't it the best name ever?) I only ended up confused. Again, that old fallacy holding me back, "seriously-you'll-never-get-a-job-as-an-Arts-Grad" playing heavily on my mind.

I spoke to one of my Uni friends about it. (actually I should give her an adorable nickname, if I remember rightly she found this blog one time, so there's an off-chance she'll read this maybe?) Let's call her Faith. She seemed disappointed I didn't make the switch to Arts. Sorta made me think about how disappointed I was in myself that I couldn't do it.

I think it also has a lot to do with my parent's expectations of me - Mum always wanted me to be a Doctor. When I said I could never do it, she said I should be a Dentist. I took to that idea well enough for a few years but I know it's not something I could ever do. In terms of the workload to get the qualification, in terms of even being in a dental surgery - they give me headaches after a few hours. I think it's the lights, or maybe the sterile smell. So I thought I'd do a Science degree, thinking maybe I'd magically come across a subject I'd love.

Well, I did. But it was a Breadth subject.

As an aside, how can anyone hate the Melbourne Model? I get so much angst about it from students at other universities, the occasional "hahaha, you have to put up with the Melbourne Model, have fun spending years at University!" This makes no sense to me. And heck, even if it was a case of spending longer at uni - I like it here. So, nyah.

Back on topic.
So after this deliberation and general confusion, I noticed Ron's comment on my last post, Rollin' With It. And, you know? A relatively objective (is there such thing as a totally objective opinion? Nah.) opinion really helped. It made me go off on a mental tangent, wondering why I never use Melbourne Uni's services. I'm sure there's a few places I could go to get help with these things, to get opinions and course advice. At the end of semester one I decided it would be a good idea to speak to a student advisor at the Eastern Precinct Student Centre. However after emailing them, they told me to ring them. I rang them, the call was disconnected. I rang them again and had to wait, then I couldn't get an appointment at any time suitable to me. Gave up there.

There's also been an occasion or two when I thought I should use the counselling service at the Uni. Never did. I know it would be beneficial at those times but I suppose it has always felt like I didn't need it enough. Enough? Are those things even quantifiable? It's a little irrational.

On a positive note I get to dress like a pirate on Wednesday! The last time I dressed like a pirate I was at a pirate metal concert. I'm hoping the lovely Jinghan will also dress up, so I don't feel like too much of a nob.

To conclude, pirates are awesome, and so is doing what you actually want to do. ARR.

Also: Thank you Ron!!!

My results[Daniel]

It's a funny thing to look at your results and know that the mark you recieved was unfair. Even before the results came out I knew, in my heart of hearts, that this subject was going to get marked down regardless of what I put into them, my premise, my point of view was against that of the tutor. I don't mind a critical analysis of work, but simply saying something is wrong doesn't help me at all, it only makes me less likely to develop my own point of view. I.... I don't know, the moral of all this is more or less if you don't think you're getting anything out of a subject, switch it otherwise you'll feel that you've wasted a subject.

Of course you can say the opposite for a lot of things, you find a tutor, a subject, even just a group of fellow students that you enjoy, then stick with them. You know that you'll be getting something of value from the subject.

It's strange ... even now I find myself getting furious about what happened and knowing that if I just swallowed some pride and wrote exactly what the tutor wanted (a piece agreeing with his views) then I'd be alright I'd have a decent mark. Just without freewill, selfworth, or any semblance of integrity. Sigh* it's still infuriating even after writing this, that or the other.... Gargh I really should just let it go, but it just irks me so much that .. I don't know. It's enough to turn a person off writing forever. My own sabatical from writing (not just here but on another blog, my own hardcover, online) is proof enough of that.

I will work at the problems found in my writting, regardless, but there is no way that I will let it be degraded to such an extent that the critic against it has no basis other than personal preference. I'm allowed to have an opinion, in fact I'm supposed to express it to the extent that it leaves me breathless, but no, that's not the viewpoint of all tutors at Melbourne University. <- That's not to say that all tutors have this fault, it's entirely the opposite, I've had a range of great tutors that have helped clear up expression, and clarify ideas, which has lead me to have high expectations. This tutor has failed that perception and has left me feeling dissapointed after 2 and a half years of happiness at university.

It's horrible to wake up to this realisation that not everyone at uni will teach you right. Kind of like noticing that Santa isnt' real or that your parents didn't get together in a fit of disney "true love" romance. It's dissapointing... actually hell it's the most dissapointing thing I've had all year, a tutor who didn't teach :/

As for holiday stuff not related to uni, I've had three 21sts in a row (+ work), a holiday in Mt Macedon and a subscription to Voiceworks (cool young and Australian writers).

Anyway till I work down my previously posted list - Cya!

Daniel/Yoddeuss

Rollin’ with it.

Hey howdy friends and lovers, it's been... a while... since I checked back here. I feel like I've been busy, yet in reflection, I've done very little. But then, I don't think it's how much you're doing that defines busy, but how absorbed you are.

Little things are still my fascination. =) Today all I've done is the washing, the dishes, vegetable chopping, and reading stories on the internet while my boyfriend is at work. FEMINISMHELLYEAH. ^_^ (seriously though it's great he has a job. Although I no longer have the distinction of being That Daughter Who Ran Off And Went Out With The Unemployed Artist. Bummer.)

Last time I checked in here I was thinking of changing courses, swapping into Arts instead of Science. I didn't go through with it.
Instead, I changed my major to Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. I'm not sure if it will interest me more than my previous intended major. I have a few subjects from year one that I need to catch up on, so my course will probably take 3.5 years instead of 3. But that's okay. I do love the Uni lifestyle. And there's a certainty to it.

Although, Arts is becoming more and more appealing. Feminism has become increasingly of interest to me, that and the history & philosophy of science (rather than science itself). But it's still a really tough call to change over, even though I know I'd do so much better at these subjects than the ones I'm currently enrolled in.
I guess it just feels a lot to me like I wont ever find a job if I take up an Arts course. Which really saddens me, and makes things hard.
I'm going to do a Gender Studies subject as breadth this semester. I'm looking forward to it quite a lot, unlike.... Every other subject I've taken so far. Hmm.

Ah! I'm a volunteer for both Open Day this year and a Mid-Year Orientation Host! I'm so so excited about that! And I'm very glad that I volunteered. It's these little events that tend to help me overcome my crippling self-doubt; I'm clearly no born leader but I do love to guide people around, *and I can do it.* Even well. I think it just goes to show the importance of stepping outside your comfort zone, especially for people like me, who aren't so self-confident.
(side note: I really hope they'll let me dress like a pirate again. ARRRRRRR!!!)

I'm still living with my boyfriend. He lives closer to the university than I do, and his room is warm and snuggly compared to my old place, which has a serious mould infestation. (You should see my old man shoes from the 1940s! THEY'RE GREEEEEEN. I was disgusted and excited, and more than a little tempted to wear them like that!) I really like the other people he lives with! And the house itself is gorgeous! And there's nothing like coming home after a long day of studying at Uni to watch Avatar (couldn't find a decent clip on youtube that wasn't fan made. Fandom, sigh. Seriously though go watch that if you haven't seen it. The characters are brilliant.) or Invader Zim with your significant other. Who gives good backrubs, yo.

I'mma go enjoy my holidays by doing as little constructive as humanly possible.

Chapter Thirty: Griff (~jinghan)

PostSecret is an ongoing community mail art project, created by Frank Warren, in which people mail their secrets anonymously on a homemade postcard. Select secrets are then posted on the PostSecret website, or used for PostSecret's books or museum exhibits. (Wikipedia) And every now and again I go to the blog site and read through the secrets, revelling in the beauty and the fear present in such truth. What I see in it is that the human race shares so much common feeling, and yet we still struggle with truth within ourselves. I always wondered whether I'd ever have a 'secret'.

I don't like the word Grief. It sounds too much like asking for... something. Attention? Pity?

---

When you've lived nineteen and a half years of your life without having to deal with death, you start to believe that you'll never be touched by Grief. (Goldfish don't count, even if you cry.) And I thought I had got away without when my grandmother passed away in the early months of this year.

I hadn't.

Instead, I had run away from myself.

No more uni. No more exams. I spent the first week of post-exam holiday meeting up with friend every day of the week. But at the end of the week, exhausted and with no where left to run...

I picked up a book: Chosen By A Horse a personal memoir by Susan Richards. I was about three quarters of the way through the book when my drink bottle leaked on it and I spend a night drying it page by page in front of a fan-heater and then a few days airing out the spine and then a few days pressing it under some heavy books to flatten the crinkled pages. I flicked opened the still slightly crinkled pages and read on from where I had last been up to. In the end, the abused horse she took on from a local animal rescue society dies.

To love without an echo is the death knell of the soul. Foolishly, the soulless body grows anyway. marches into the future without it's nucleus, without its self, bonsaied by this echoless love. Hotshot's [a horse] grief was big and bold, as unrestrained and open as his affection had been. Like mine. Lay Me Down [the rescued horse] had given us that, an echo. For me, it was the first I could remember feeling such love and then such grief, the first since the numbing years of my childhood and then alcohol.

It wasn't that I related to the situation, but something in the openness of the mentioning of grief that struck a deep sadness within myself. I couldn't sleep after that. So I found a soft nostalgic playlist on my ipod wrapped my doona around myself and cried. I cried for discovering a terrible truth; I cried for the fear of the truth; I cried for the beauty of the truth; I cried for the loneliness of the truth.

I have a secret: I thought I had got away without grief, but all I had been doing was running away from myself.

At times during the semester I had felt like I couldn't think, couldn't concentrate, maybe I had in fact I had been avoiding it. I was stressed when I was doing things, but even more stressed when I wasn't. I was, I regret to realise, angry at people for reasons I could not grasp, and were not their fault. I was overly dependent and suffocatingly so on people who could not help me. And now I was feeling empty and scared. Like I had run away from myself, and now I was lost. I felt like I was someone on the outside but fading into no one on the inside, and it seemed a terrible fate. I would much rather be someone on the inside and no one on the outside any day.

Now, perhaps, is the time to stop running and refind myself.

I don't like the word Grief. It sounds too much like asking for... something. Attention? Pity?

...Help?

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