escapade please

please let me sleep in peace and scribble, doodle, and find a poodle.

right now all i am waiting for is for my exam tomorrow to be over.

i wasn’t that worried about the exam, but trent calls me up three times a day just to scream about how stressed he is and how is he supposed to know what to study? so now i’m getting slightly more frantic – i don’t even know half the topics properly, let alone blab out structured essays about them.

today i spent two hours filling out questionnaire sheets on ’social memory’, nationalism, values, goals, and political ideologies. somewhere between studying and procrastinating these past few weeks, i realised that i enjoy filling in surveys, which half-explains why i’ve been scouring the net for paid surveys. either it’s a really good investment, or they’re all just out to scam your money. i haven’t decided whether i should invest an initial amount just for registration. oh the economics!

i had a great kerekere cuppocino today, so… yum for me. though i think i will ask for one sugar next time instead of two because i don’t usually have a sweet tooth and we’ve all gotta cut down on the sugar y’know? and just to separate fact from myth, you won’t get diabetes from too much sugar. but too much sugar is bad for you, of course. moderation. moderation is always good. (except for maybe feelings and actions. i gotta admit, this came from one of the questionnaires today, and i spent several minutes trying to figure what that meant for me…… oh the joys of surveys!)

the reality of (real)love

‘What is REAL?’ asked the Rabbit one day, as they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, just before Nana came in to tidy up the room. ‘Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?’‘Real isn’t how you are made,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.’

‘Does it hurt?’ asked the Rabbit.

‘Sometimes,’ said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. ‘When you are Real, you don’t mind being hurt.’

‘Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,’ he asked, ‘or bit by bit’?

‘It doesn’t happen all at once,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real, you can’t be ugly except to people who don’t understand.’

- – Marjorie Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit

we’re more alike than you might think

dear friend,
you flatter me. inspiration? thank you, but i can’t see why. i guess it is a new start, and honestly, it’s semi-refreshing, because it doesn’t feel like the usual facade you put up (or less than usual, anyway). like kurt vonnegut said, ‘we are what we pretend to be‘. i don’t really agree with him, but i think what we portray to others more or less becomes part of who we are, whether we realise it or not. remember when we just couldn’t work through honesty and transparency? i must admit, i gave up. couldn’t figure it out, so what else did i know to do but to let it slip through the cracks… it’s easier that way, isn’t it? your writing has become more polished over the years (but if you ever write a book, i will edit it for you), even though you never capitalise your letters and still leave out apostrophes (if anything, lack of apostrophes at the appropriate places irks me to bits). it’s much more refined and thoughtful, as if you’d spent several train rides sifting through the contents of your mind. it’s still beautiful in its own way, nonetheless. and it especially shines through when there’s an element of vulnerability and real honesty.

i think it’s my turn to feel like ‘fleeting fashion’ with you. funny how we can never really be on the same wavelength – one stops trying but the other keeps on going, and the cycle never stops. i wonder if we’d converge at the same point one day, free from the webs of our words. it’s what brings us together, but also what seems to divide us. let’s hope our capacity to love never stops growing – i mean, can you even reach the brink of love? so keep the good faith up – you never know who you’ll inspire.

(even though i suppose it isn’t about ‘inspiring’ per se, but fighting the right fights and running this race the best we can.)

virtual self-construction

To hear that people are vain, even obsessively so, is not surprising. Still, though, there’s something sad about this – funny-sad, anyway. Your online self … is entirely self-created, and because it determines your identity and social standing in an internet community, each decision you make about how you portray yourself – about which facts (or falsehoods) to reveal, which photos to upload, which people “to friend,” which bands or movies or books to list as favorites, which words to put in a blog – is fraught, subtly or not, with a kind of existential danger. And you are entirely responsible for the consequences as you navigate that danger. You are, after all, your avatar’s parents; there’s no one else to blame. So leaving the real world to participate in an online community – or a virtual world like Second Life – doesn’t relieve the anxiety of self-consciousness; it magnifies it. You become more, not less, exposed.

- Audible’s Vox

I need to stop talking about food

™ 2005 – At a hawker stall in Malaysia with my cute (then) fifteen-year-old cousin being grumpy, per usual.

Finally went to the library to study today, and for lunch Wen Shu had Seafood Curry Laksa at Cafe Ami (formerly Ong’s food court at Arrow Building on Swanston), which smelt really yum. For a while back, I thought one of my favourite food was Nasi Lemak (because of my sister’s influence – you tend to get food envy, and she always ordered nasi lemak), BUT I have come to realise that it is actually CURRY LAKSA (not Asam – it’s too sour), because I always feel like ordering that and not Nasi Lemak (of course, until the food actually comes).

We were on the topic of curry laksa, with him really wanting to go to Malaysia to eat curry laksa (because he’s from Shanghai)… so I tried to insist to him that curry laksa is my favourite food (over his) but when I went back to Malaysia two years ago I hardly had a craving for it when I was there, most probably due to the heat. Which was kinda sad, because I ended up eating mostly nasi lemak, roti chanai, or McDonald’s Prosperity Burger (which is the world’s best burger, but they only sell it in Malaysia during Chinese New Year, but IT IS THE BEST). Then I delved into a whole rant about how the weather affects your eating habits – the heat does affect your cravings/desires for certain foods, unless you’ve been living there for a long time and you’re used to the heat, rarara. But of course he insisted that no matter WHAT he will still eat curry laksa as much as can when he gets to Malaysia (that is, if he ever gets there, hah!)

And if you’re wondering what relevance the photo has to this post: the conversation and the atmostphere in which we were discussing curry laksa (and the smell of the curry laksa) suddenly evoked memories of my intelligent little cousin and Malaysian food and the photos I kept taking of him, especially when he was eating.

catalyst for justice… yeah, maybe baby

‘From the 01/07/07 for one week, 500 of Australia’s most dynamic young people who have been especially selected and trained, will travel on the MAKEPOVERTYHISTORY ZEROSEVEN Road Trip. Buses will depart from Perth, Adelaide, Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne and the ACT with most Road Trips heading to Sydney.

On route the Ambassadors will spread the Make Poverty History message and inspire those they meet to take action to end extreme poverty. We are calling on our government to take action to increase aid to 0.7% of budget by 2015.’

(click on the video and watch it full screen on the YouTube page for the best effect)

Description:
This video is an attempt at exploring the self-consumed and materialistic attitudes of those of us living in rich countries such as Australia and the effect that these attitudes have on the perpetual cycle of inequality and gross injustice for those living in absolute poverty – those who do not even have the resources to sustain basic needs like food and medical treatment.

We cannot be indifferent to injustice any longer. Eradicating poverty may seem like an immense task, but we believe that it is our responsibility as a generation to stand up and speak for those that cannot speak for themselves (quote, unquote).

- – - – - – - – - – - -

The video was an optional part of the application process - a chance to show ‘a little more action [by] demonstrating [our] artistic and creative abilities, or lack thereof’ – made by Adora and I. Below is the rest of my application form (frantically filled in at the eleventh hour, hence the brevity for Section 3), and I am glad to say that I am now a ZEROSEVEN ambassador! (150 Victorians selected out of 700 applications; what can I say? I feel lucky). SYDNEY HERE I COME, woo!!!

My second new love

© Marc Johns

I’ve never really been a fan of Japanese food, but lately I’ve developed a penchant for sushi (and coffee). I still don’t understand my sudden inclination for coffee, but now I understand why coffee is ubiquitous, why it is one of the highest selling commodity, and why everybody catches up over coffee (maybe). In between semi-studying and major procrastination, all I want is SUSHI and a frothy cappuccino I don’t have time to make for myself (or so I like to think).