Istanbul

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Marriage is a funny thing to watch after the couple has been together for over twenty years. Shame is eliminated, and aspects of jealousy turn into products of hilarity. 

This is highly the case with my parents. They have been married for over twenty-two years now, me being the product of their sensational honeymoon. I can recall one recent night when From Russia with Love was on the television, and after a copious amount of intimate scenes, my mother thought it necessary to reflect on one of her marriage proposals.

James Bond had happened to be in Istanbul, and that kicked off my mother's story. 
"He promised to take me to Istanbul as a honeymoon. He said that if I accepted his hand in marriage we would leave right away."
My father was quick to inquire before my sister and I. It was as though his ears perked up at the sound of this treachery. "Who?"
My mother laughed to herself. "You wouldn't know him if I said his name!"
He tried again, this time a little more frustrated than the last. "Who is it?"
My mother gave up and surrendered to my father this mysterious man's name. "Josef."
"Josef?" my father erupted into laughter. "Josef! Josef backwards is fart, 'fes-we' in Lebanese, means fart! You were proposed to by a fart?"

My mother laughed. "The power of jealousy!" she exclaimed, "you are so jealous!"
"I'm not jealous!" replied he. "At least my name isn't fart! Go to Istanbul with fart, I don't care!"

It is interesting how despite the lengths you make in life, your past always lurks in your subconscious. Your past always has a way inside your current life - if you are smart, though, you laugh your past off and leave it hanging around in Istanbul, awaiting your arrival that will never come because you are far better off in Melbourne, Australia, honeymoon-less and farting along with and on your spouse as the rest of your family members crawl off into the distance, suffocating.

In the Core of a Juicy Apple

It is a peaceful night. It is what I have been yearning for all day. I decided to end it with a nice warm bath. I hopped out of the shower and felt both thirsty and hungry. 'No, Nicole,' I thought, 'do not eat something that you will regret eating. Just have some water and you will feel fine.'

I drank some. I was no longer thirsty, yet still hungry. I walked to the fridge, peered inside, rattled around with a few plates and shut its doors. I then proceeded to walk to the cupboard. Cheese and biscuits did not entice me enough. So I chose an apple.

This certain apple came from a bunch that we have bought from our local grocery store. I have never had apples this tasty in my life. They are large in size, and rich in both flavour and moisture.  The one pictured above is the second one that I have had today. The first one, I cut up prior to eating it, de-coring it, and that is the way that I usually approach the consumption of apples. But tonight, I decided to stray from the usual.

Mid-crunching into this superb apple, just when I trusted consuming the rest of it without looking at it, a strange taste interrupted the delicious sweetness that my tongue had gotten itself accustomed to and acquainted with. A strange, bitter taste that was not pleasing to my tastebuds at all. I looked away from my computer screen, and dared to look down, and to no surprise at all, I saw what I had anticipated. This apple was too good to be true.

The one time today that I do not cut an apple prior to eating it, I bite into the nest of a worm. A little white worm, equally as juicy looking as the apple itself. My teeth, ravenous intruders to its sanctity in a naturally-sweet space, hungry for more of its surroundings. This is probably the sixth time this year that this has happened to me, that instead of de-coring an apple, I bite into it only to find myself intruding on a worm's personal space. Thankfully though, this time I did not take half of the worm with a bite of its home like I did the other six times.

Now, I do not only regret eating at all tonight, but I regret choosing something healthy instead of something destructive. I have learnt, for the seventh time, that in the core of a juicy apple waits a white worm equally as juicy.

The Walking Dictionary

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Ever since I have plunged into my literary interests I have been considered my family's personal dictionary.

It is interesting. Coming from a family that lacks academic interest, I have now become their portal into the accretion and scaffolding of their vocabulary. If a member stumbles upon a word that they cannot identify, pronounce or define, I am summoned to assist with all three elements. 

Sometimes it comes at a great annoyance to me because of the fact that I have such high expectations laid upon me. Indeed, I am a literary fanatic. Indeed, I tend to read and write a fair amount and I tend to divulge myself in the creation and appreciation of all forms of academic essays, and indeed I tend to know and use uncommon words, however it is inequitable of anyone to fall under the assumption that I am the personification of a dictionary.

I am content in conversing in a converged manner, that is speaking of things that are unknown to both me and the person that I am conversing with, because that improves both of our knowledges on things unknown and makes the conversation quite interesting. But to be placed on the pedestal wherein those sitting on it are deemed the givers and explainers of all things English is not the place that I would like to sit.

I can understand that that is the commonplace for me in an educative setting, for only in that scenario can the exploitation of my mind and what I know and what I can offer be justified. However in settings where people place themselves below me and place me so high that if I cannot solve their word riddles I am kicked down below them, I am not content with. 

I do not consider myself that overly intelligent to begin with. I am acquainted with certain individuals who I do consider to fit that descriptor, and I am appreciative of their funds of knowledge however I do not exploit them, for it would be like drinking from the fountain of youth and draining all of the liquid so as to stop anybody else from getting younger, and to deplete the entire point of the fountain itself. 

Sleeping In

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It is a fact in most cases that a child takes after her or his family and their habitual activities which range from eating to sleeping. Apart from eating, sleeping patterns in my family have heavily influenced me. 

It was Sunday morning. I was awakened due to my bowel movements. It pestered with me at 7:30am, so I got out of bed and tended to its needs. The house was unusually quiet. I bumped into my mother who also happened to be awake due to her bowel movements - perhaps another habitual family trait that we share - and upon inquiring into why the shop has not yet opened, she notified me that it would in an hour. My father opens the shop late on Sundays so as to acquire some more sleep. She asked whether I was up for the purpose of homework or not, then went back to sleep. The house was then terribly quiet yet softly alive with the sounds of snores. 

We are like a little community. Rather, a little herd. A rebellious little herd. In fact, if we had been a herd, we would be the type of herd that hogs the drinking area excessively due to being so full that we cannot move. We would lay there immobile after a large meal and a large drink of fresh water to suit, out of scheduled hours, so long that we would annoy all of the other herds and be exiled from the land which we would have once called home.

Alas, we are not a herd. We are a quadrant, we are a group of lazy humans who share a passion for food, movies and sleep. We would prefer waking up late each day and on the days where we must wake up early, share the hatred of having to do so. Parting with our beds is no simple task, yet we push on. We do not actively support each other, yet we passively are there for one another in our supportive actions. Or lack of, when it comes to the acquisition of sleep.

How then, can one break free from a habit such as sleeping in when every person that is surrounding that one shares that habit? Families frame who we are, and since I am a lazy person, preferring chocolate over the company of others, who has a pale complexion from avoiding the sun and enough weight to remain warm without heaters and who enjoys sleeping in, then I suppose you are acquainted with my family too.

Art: A Reimagining of the World

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As a student majoring in Art as well as English, I am seldom asked what Art means to me unless my reasons are wanted to fulfil a criterion in an assessment. So today, I had a reflective look into my most desired form of recreation. I decided to pick it apart and look at it from an utterly different view. And I found that when the act of creating art is broken down, it becomes rather interesting.

Looking at an artwork allows you a long and meaningful glimpse into the mind of the artist. It shows you the breadth and width of the artist's mind, spanning moreso deep into the form that the artwork comes in. My 'Fragmented Self-Portrait' is a canvas with my face split into two artistic forms. When I completed it, I thought nothing of the delivery to my recipients. I thought no sort of liberating reactions would come from their viewing of it because I did not see the point of being amazed by a self-portrait. But I was wrong. I only realised now that my audience did not take, or so I think, an interest in my face alone, rather in the portrayal of my face and the background and the context and what it all could mean. Subconsciously, I suppose I wanted people to attempt to decipher it, and I had achieved just that. With its accompanying poem, it stands tall today in my art coordinator's office, waiting to be hung in the university as by the order of the Dean. That art piece stands as a reminder that a viewpoint proves rather interesting once exposed, particularly in the art form, no matter its content.

If you look at objects as objects, then you will identify them as objects alone and you will find it difficult to stray from thinking that what you are observing is an object and not the mixture of hues and lines. The creation of Art is a recreation of our world, in its simplest context, portrayed complexly - or simply, depending on the style of the artist. Artists thus see the world differently, like the way a scientist sees the world through atoms and metaphysical existence, artists see the world as pigments and textures. We offer another veneer to reality, one that is implemented through creative stylisation, promoting harmony within artistic elements and principles.

Art itself is a reimagining of our world. It is not always the realistic depiction of something within it, which it can be mistaken for, rather it can be the most surreal or abstract replica of it. Art can never be identical to that which it represents, this it is mimetic of aspects of our reality in the same way that a realist fiction text represents society. The most special thing about art, though, is its ability to do this through the eyes of the artist. And the most peculiar thing about it is that it comes in many forms, not just the illustrative kind - it comes in the form of music, dance, media and crosses into varied domains.

That is why Art is crucial when it comes to students. If one cannot think, act or express in an abstract way, then one grows up living a bland existence, lacking enrichment and lacking excitement. 'Earth', as the picture above describes, becomes 'eh'.

The Wizard of Oz and DNA

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Upon viewing Tom and Jerry and the Wizard of Oz, something crossed my mind, and that is what role the Wizard of Oz actually plays in the story.

Emerald City itself can be metaphorically viewed as a land of rebirth, with the Wizard representing a scientist, one that specialises in the genetic modification of persons, or perhaps the personified version of what we deem 'God', animals and things so as to grant them their very desires. Each character visiting the Wizard of Oz seeks a trait change, whether it be physical or mental, Dorothy set aside in the time being because she desires a 'home', or to 'go home'.

It is of peculiarity that the characters chosen to represent the wanting of a trait are particular animals or things - the tin-man, made of cold steel with a hollow inside seeks a heart. This can be metaphorically seen as cold humans seeking emotions, so to speak, seeking a to love and to be loved, seeking to push out the coldness within them and replace it with warmth.

The lion, what is meant to be a brave leader, the king of the entire jungle, seeks out courage. This could represent all those persons who act confident in order to feel as though they are and in order to avoid others thinking that they are not. True courage, though, is what is needed because one may fool others, but one certainly may never fool themselves. What is the point of appearing confident when one can be and feel confident? Alternatively, the lion can represent persons fighting their inner demons, and they want the courage to be able to see a new day without prematurely leaving the earth.

Finally, the scarecrow. The scarecrow could represent all those in society who are loaded with falsities, or hay. The scarecrow seeks a brain, seeks the desire to think cognitively, to think before it acts and to act realistically.

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One could argue that Dorothy is a conglomeration of all three characters. She seeks a heart so as to love truly; she seeks courage so that she may face reality when she returns to it; and she seeks a brain so that she may not let those like Almira Gulch get their way. The taking of Toto, thus, can be viewed as the taking of her innocence, yet she retains her innocence throughout her journey and thus remains true to herself in this rebirth of some of her traits.

Tess of the d'Urbervilles

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At times where I have a copious amount of tasks to complete, I loathe having to feel accountable for reading six novels in less than ten weeks. But in forcing myself to immerse myself in varied forms of literature in a short span of time, I have found the burden in the lack of time lifted from me because of accurate-to-the-text film adaptations.

Tonight I viewed the 1998 film adaptation of Tess of the d'Urbervilles, and I must admit that the very beginning bored me. I thought that the next three hours of my life would be filled with regret, but little did I know that it would indeed be so not because of the lack of plot, rather the depth and breadth of the plot to the extent where the outcome and the events leading up to it upset me. 

And what is more perplexing in this entire ordeal that is the storyline is the fact that apart from Tess falling victim to rape, she fell victim to other forms of abuse, the most crucial being blame. In fact, the very moment that Tess was raped proved itself the most innocent of ordeals compared to the ones that attacked her thereafter. 

Coming from a traditional family where marriage between man and a 'pure' woman is still valued above all, especially above food which is surprising considering my mother cooks for an army every day, my anger speaks for me, or it would if it could at least. The entire time watching the film, I felt horrible for Tess as the subject of 'purity' was thrown around. And that brings me to the argument that I always put forth for my mother to justify - why is it that brides are to remain pure, and it does not matter whether grooms are or are not? What justification has anyone as to the retaining of a woman's virginity for her wedding night, and not the retaining of the groom's virginity on his?

And I never have received an answer for that. I suppose that I never will. I am content with the fact that what my family believes and what I believe are two very different things because on the case of equality, traditions value anything but. 

The Ice Bucket Challenge

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I would like to take a moment to show my appreciation of all of society's role models who have taken the time to create and share on their social media sites videos of themselves having buckets of ice floating in water poured onto them.

I would like to show my appreciation to the 28 million people who have actively taken part in the latest band-wagon craze, that has surprisingly not yet been the leading cause of the rapid increase of pneumonia - I await the news headline for that. 

I would like to show my appreciation to all those who have made themselves prone to the acquisition of pneumonia by dousing themselves in icy cold water in order to avoid contributing money to the charity responsible for finding the cure of Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, formally known on all social media platforms, or formally known, rather, as of late, out of absolutely nowhere, as 'ALS'.

And we have this buffoon to thank - Chris Kennedy, a golfer from Sarasota:

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This man thought it was necessary to perform this strange act to raise awareness for 'ALS' - how? Quite frankly, I do not know. I am hypothesising that temperatures have soared so much so in America that most of its population now finds it necessary to have an icy shower and peer pressure from the sharing of the recordings of these showers have created the reenactment of this in countries all over the world, like my own, Australia, who is currently suffering from temperatures probably lower than the temperature of the icy cold water itself, otherwise known as 'winter'.

But really. I appreciate all of those celebrities whose videos continue to flood my news feed on Facebook. It is so nice to see fresh drinking water being put to good use! Who needs all that water, anyway? It is perfectly fine, it is not like we need to walk for kilometers and fetch it from a well and walk all the way back to our homes in order to share the bucket of water we walked so long for with the rest of the members in our family who are dying of malnutrition and the lack of food but need to maintain their water levels just to see another sunrise. No. Not at all. By all means, please, let us all join hands in harmony and waste water, film it, upload it and watch scientists look into microscopes that will assist them in finding the cure for ALS, a disease that kills two Americans per hundred thousand a year, because who cares about the 5 million Africans who die every year from hunger and thirst, an average of ten every minute? Certainly not former president George Bush. Nor does Bill Gates - but then again, Bill Gates cares for nobody.

I look forward to seeing more of these 'ice bucket challenge' videos - maybe one of those videos will actually contain a person who cares for the cause and not for the publicity! I hope we continue to film them until plants overrun the planet and they eat humans because of the lack of water left. Bathe, precious humans, bathe in the greed of your benefits and sense of denial. 

Nymphomaniac: Human Qualities

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"The human qualities can be expressed in one word: hypocrisy; we elevate those who say right but mean wrong, and mock those who say wrong but mean right."

After having viewed Nymphomaniac vol. I and vol. II, keeping aside the fact that I have been mentally scarred from the realistic depiction of graphic sexual fetishes, I have found within it a quote that encapsulates my holistic view of society in its entirety. 

Be wary - from the outside, I appear to be a very charismatic person, bursting with confidence and enough energy to light the whole of New York in the event of a power outage. My smile defeats that of the Cheshire Cat, and I bounce around like an impatient bubble trapped in a safe. But on the inside, I am the complete opposite. I have to fight numerous demons every morning in order to appear the way that I seem, and it pains me that society is content with that.

I have found it difficult to maintain friendships. This is a problem that I have carried with me ever since I was quite young. It is one that I think I will never shake myself out of. I sit incognito, idle, watching peers invite other peers to outings and events and I wonder why one never swings my way. I sit there and attempt to list all the possibilities and I never seem to find even one underlying cause. So I play the blame game, and blame myself for no particular reason at all, and I leave that be. Not anymore, though.

After hearing this quote, I have driven myself to an ultimatum: I do not care. I will not leak the best of me unto those undeserving. For humanity truly does run on hypocrisy. For years I have seen indeed the elevation of "those who say right but mean wrong", those people who act as though they value you when they truly have no care in the world whatsoever. And for years, I have been the one mocked because I "say wrong but mean right" - and by wrong, I mean keywords, or lack of. I remember distinctively a time in high school when my peers were conversing about sexual encounters and I sat there immobile. I was not only naive, but I had better things to think and talk about. Nobody wanted to hear it, thus I held the wrong keywords necessary for peer converging, hence my wrongness. I was wrong in that I was that strange piece of puzzle, its origins unknown. I still am.

I can easily shut down. I can easily wipe away all of my thought processes and creative abilities in order to become one with the status quo, in order to blend in with all of those who hide behind facades and who hurt and demean only to improve their own physical and mental statures. I can easily leave my soul behind in a glass jar with the lid sealed shut every morning and go about my day like a clone, like a robot, and come home with an empty mind and a full bank account. But why would I want that? Why must I drain myself of all vibrancy in colour and become dulled with moroseness? Dulled with a way of living that kills me and not my enemies?

Let my enemies prosper. I surely hope that they do. I surely hope that while revelling in the vicious cycles that they call their 'lives', they never stop for one moment to ever consider me nor mine. Because as of this moment, they are nothing to me. Nothing but peas in a hypocritical pod.

The Sadness in Some Arranged Marriages

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Two generations ago, in my family, it was rather normal for a young woman's marriage to be arranged, particularly if she were twelve years of age and if he were around twenty years older than she. And one generation ago, it was perfectly normal for first cousins to marry - that my parents are indeed first cousins is entirely beside the point, though.

Two years ago this month, my sister was piecing together the requirements of her Media assessment task. She was to create a piece of film depicting the theme 'life and death'. She decided firstly to ask the sweetest couple in our neighbourhood who are around eighty years of age and hold hands wherever they work to partake in this project, and they agreed so long as we provided fruitcake and tea. That was easily arranged, they came to our house and shared their story with us, he, being a German boy, who asked she, being a Polish girl, to the dance, and they were inseparable since. After briefly digesting the preserved cherries and other fruits found in the cake, they were off to be filmed holding one another and puckering their lips and pressing them to one another's.

And that part of my sister's little film was sensational. Despite the awkward kissing scenes and the fact that once you watch it, you realise my sister stood there like a creep recording old people sharing saliva, it was a beautiful sight. In contrast to the sight of the other footage, that is, which contains my grandma Loris. Her husband, deceased for almost thirty years, is remembered by one of our families in one photograph, a singular black-and-white portrait of him sitting alone, smiling. My sister made her way to that family's home to film some footage of it and Loris. "Act sad," my sister directed. "Act sad. Look like you're crying. Stroke the photo. Look sad." Crying from laughter, more like. The footage my sister ended up with was a happy Loris dancing and slapping a photograph of a man no longer here, of a man that she put through emotional turmoil when he was in our midst. 

And it had me thinking - arranged marriages as such are utterly sorrowful. Just as sorrowful as the marriage of my second grandmother, Samia and her husband George. George is over twenty years her senior, and there is not one moment I can recall where they have gotten along with one another. In the photograph below sits their original love for one another, which is rather minimal, and in the photograph below it sits a photograph which shows the reactions they gave to my aunty asking them to pose in a loving embrace. 

In the situation of Loris, though, one would think that despite being forced together, having shared a bed would have made them compassionate to one another on a human basis. I am not sure how her husband was. I never had the opportunity to meet him, however I know of him, and I know that he was a lovely man. And it saddens me, the fate of people in arranged marriages. It is almost dehumanising to partner one with an older spouse.

A Child's Imagination

As a child I had quite a large imagination. In fact, I can safely say that my imagination is larger than the imagination of anyone I know, which possibly explains my mild paranoia, my fear of the dark and my fear of some toilets.

But as a child with a large imagination, and as a current young-adult living with the continuum of this enlarged imagination, I know that without it the world would appear dull to me. My imagination keeps me entertained, even if most of the time it frightens me to the extent beyond where scary movies attempt to reach. My imagination has also assisted me thoroughly in my educative journey.

Had I not been an imaginative individual, I doubt my creativity would be at the level that it currently sits. In a split second, I can think of things that most of my fellow classmates deem 'strange', 'unusual' or 'weird'. But just like the way I have, they soon succumb to the fact that my ideas are not as repulsive as they claim them to be, rather they ignite the spark which hones in all attention that is otherwise rather difficult to acquire.

Straying from my imagination's aiding in my academic progress, if you have watched the newly viral video shown above, you will understand the reason as to why I found it necessary to speak of this incident that has brought forth immediate reactions based on hilarity. The video above shows a toddler reacting rather heavily at the fact that his father caught his nose, or caught his ear. Some may view his reactions far-fetched, exaggerated, yet I view his reactions as an early sign of high intelligence later in life. This toddler can see things that others cannot, and indeed, his father is laughing at him now, however I am predicting that this child is no laughing stock in his future.

Critical awareness only benefits humans later in life, when they disperse away into realism from living a life circulated around imaginative thinking. If one cannot start at the realm of imaginative thinking, then when they reach the realm of critical awareness they will suffer and fail to be as critical as academia requires. Differentiating from my sister, who unfortunately does not share my wild mind, per se, and differentiating from most of my peers, I have found this to be somewhat true.

Imaginative thinking should be encouraged more in the education system, for I believe it plays a role of large importance, larger than that of critical awareness. This child is an example of the strength of the mind and how it alters perception so as to allow him to believe that his ears and nose are detachable. 

Anger Management: Mel

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Wherever Charlie Sheen goes, the objectifying and demeaning of women and patronising of physical appearance follows.

The other night, after flicking through numerous television channels and stacks of infomercials, I decided to stoop so low as to watch a show starring Charlie Sheen: Anger Management. It just so happened that that particular episode, Charlie and the Slumpbuster, contained, with no surprise, the demeaning of a woman due to her stereotypical lacking of so-called 'appealing womanly features'. It was as though it was timed to play when I was yearning for something to watch, and it angers me so that such an episode still exists in this day and age.

As a woman who does not befit the stereotypical womanly look, I am appalled that apart from magazines and movies, television shows are still playing a part in making someone like me feel like utter rubbish, like a disregarded water bottle that never had a chance to be reused. It seems an insurmountable task to produce a television series that does not insult or criticise those who are already criticised and insulted enough by the rest of society. And I have television shows like this to blame.

The episode, titled Charlie and the slumpbuster, featured a woman named Mel who had recently poppd into Charlie's life after having been his 'slumpbuster' when he slept with her when they were much younger. I searched through Urban Dictionary and found that a 'slumpbuster' is defined as:

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Mel basically was 'an easy score to get [Charlie's] confidence back up'. He slept 'with someone [he] would never otherwise associate with'. The entire episode was then based on Charlie pretending to be interested in Mel so as to prove that he never was not interested in their youth, but only ended up being completely appalled by her entirety, including her figure as shown in the still below, which, mind you, is not at all a bad figure for someone of her depicted age.

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It is awful to depict a woman who does not dress, act or speak provocatively as someone who is unattractive, as someone who is worth sleeping with only if you wish to stoop as low as her depicted level, as someone who means nothing but an easy-score, or a one-night-stand, or even worse, as someone who is a 'slumpbuster'. The majority of women who Charlie sleeps with in this series are younger than Mel, wear revealing clothes and speak in a way that late phone-sex line operators do. When someone like Mel comes along, though, she is considered highly unsexy and is immediately considered reproachable. 

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How are we expected to treat one another in this society? We have television shows based on the rejection of older women being contradicted by advertisements based on the sexiness of older women, and we have the overall judging of every type of person in existence. Not to mention the advertisements that encourage people to file complaints about inappropriate shows... I think that if more people thought like me, the people working for that company would constantly have their hands full.

Tattoo Therapy

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Upon coming across the television show Rhod Gilbert's Work Experience (Season 2 Episode 3), I found that the main character, Rhod, and a sub-character, Maria, raised within it an interesting point about the giving and the acquiring of a tattoo.

Rhod asked Maria, "what's it like being a full-time tattoo artist, Maria?" to which she answered, "you get to meet loads of interesting people with lots of different stories, and you become a part of their life." Rhod then said, "one of the things that I have noticed about this place, is that it seems to be the heart of a community." In response, Maria said "yeah, yeah. It's like therapy for them [and] me, if I need to get anything off my chest... If I didn't tattoo I think I'd be a counsellor." Then, Rhod added: "everybody says tattoos are addictive. That once you get one you want more, and more?" "Yeah," Maria replied, "it's the whole bonding experience. They come back for that. It's the boost of peace when they're done. You know, you feel good."

Having a tattoo myself that I acquired when I was eighteen, I knew nothing of the bonding experience that it brings. The man who tattooed me, an old man in his sixties who resembled a stretched animated garden gnome with hygiene certification, grunted and huffed as he tried several times to position my head in the right way so as to reach the back of my ear. He told me continuously that I should not stop breathing, and that was about it. After a couple of hours I had gotten my first tattoo. He did not inquire about why I was getting what I was getting. I felt no "boost of peace" after it, I just felt a boost of ego because I had rebelled against the image of a perfect daughter that my parents held so dearly onto.

Months before getting my tattoo, I had become obsessed with watching LA Ink, and watching Kat Von D tattoo "loads of interesting people" indeed. Most of them were famous. However, they all had a story linked to their spectacularly executed tattoos. I think I watched it moreso for the stories towards the last phase of my obsession. It was interesting to see an image put to the story, whether it be parents who died in a car accident or a brother who had died in a war, or relatives in their younger years - whatever the subject matter, it was always shrouded with utter sentimentality and that made the tattoo being done more and more appealing to the eye, knowing that the mind was captivated. 

And it was always the reaction of the recipient that complimented the entire episode. Seeing their faces light up as their sentimentalism was revealed to them on their skin for the rest of their lives, etched in their flesh and beaming the same beam as they did in the original photograph that the tattoo spawned from. I suppose if tattoos and the act of giving and receiving tattoos were seen in this light, that they will cease to be known only merely as works of art located on the bodies of unfriendly unapproachable bikies who did jail time for using a person's blood as petrol for their motorbikes.

Ballroom Dancing

Sweaty hands, trembling from nervousness. Calling out across the room to appease friendship and not intimacy. Giggles, smiles, twirling. While this experience is normal for every private school girl who practices with a brother school for her social, I consider it nightmarish.  I always think of the bad side of my childhood because that is all I really can remember. 

As a scale tipper, I have grown up experiencing things no child should. I have had experiences with society that still traumatise me to this day. I have been bullied to the extent where I am surprised that I am still somewhat mentally strong. I used to come home with severely grazed knees each day from school because a particular group of boys thought it was funny to watch the overweight girl in their class fall over. I probably have encountered a large amount of bad situations but I have most likely blocked them out of my mind. I am thankful for not being able to remember the entirety of my childhood. 

I remember distinctively, though, my experiences with ballroom dancing with male partners. Of course, I was the only overweight girl in my cohort. Naturally I stood out. This was a time when fat shaming was not frowned upon as much as it is now. I practically had no hope finding a suitable temporary dance partner, and this was difficult to accept seeing as the entire purpose of this activity was to ensure that we find partners to the debutante ball. I never found a partner, so I never attended. The boys were lovely - to the other girls. Some boys held not my hands but rather one finger on each hand. Most did not dare touch me, like fat was infectious. Others laughed, swayed their arms and spoke to their friends until I switched to another boy. My confidence was shot right down. And at lunchtimes I had to put up with my peers talking about how handsome the boys were and what a lovely experience it all was. I never could agree about anything so I would sit alone and draw. 

I think that is why I do not share connection with childhood acquaintances. We had the same events that we attended but we did not share the same experiences within those events. Those events were all so difficult for me because of my burdening weight. I understand if nobody understands because you cannot empathise fully unless you experience the site of trauma yourself and I understand completely that people who are not overweight do not comprehend why people who are overweight have so many traumatic memories. But the fact is that we do, hence our inability to enjoy things that we are meant to enjoy. 

Ballroom dancing was meant to be an enjoyable event. I do not remember anything enjoyable from it though. Watching the class of girls and boys dance through their part of the ballroom dancing experience was uplifting in that the overweight girl was treated well, and degrading in that I never was treated well in my youth. 

Man-Made

I was thinking the other day - if you remind yourself that your morals and ethics are ruled by man-made theories and laws, then those laws and theories become useless, inapplicable. Why should someone else have agency over your life?

Think about it. Everything that is not natural has been created by man. Laws are man-made - who is to say you cannot drive over the speed limit? Sure, the laws of physics suggest that it could prove dangerous in the event of a crash due to the speed you are going, but driving slow and crashing also can prove dangerous.

After years of being obsessed with serial killers and the motives which drive them, I think that I have finally hit the key commonality that they share, that they realise, either subconsciously or consciously, that most things forbidden are man-made. And now that I have come to this realisation, it has become harder for me to justify the things I do or the thoughts that I harbour.

Once you realise that everything is indeed man-made, then everything loses its meaning. When someone creates something, that something is meaningful to them alone, and it takes observers some time before they actually can find a connection with that something - most, though, do not. And that is how I feel about everything. That unless you are the creator of a certain law, a certain moral code, a certain strand of ethic, then it becomes difficult to connect with it, hence why some of us stray.

What defines us as 'humane'? As 'lawful'? As anything, really? Is it right to consider everything as it is? Man-made? Is it fair that most of life loses its meaning because most of what concerns a 'life' is also man-made? What then is justice? What is evil? What is good? And why is it not bad? And why is bad not good? What is bad, essentially? And is it justified by one's opinion or the opinion of many? And if it is the opinion of many then why do they overrule those who do not justify bad in that way? And what of sins? Do we really sin? Are we really punished or is punishment the idea of some person who thinks that scolding someone for performing in a way they do not see fit, is in itself fit?

These are big questions. This is a big concept. I think I have hit the tip of some iceberg. At least those are not man-made.

The Voice of English

Ever since I have taken the path towards being an educator, the oath of writing an essay a day and the willingness to teach English, I have been criticised. People question my motives. People wonder why I sacrifice so much time. Some people wonder why I even bother, especially considering that it is English that I adore.

Today, I have answered all of those questions in one simple gesture: the act of kindness and understanding. Today, I have liberated myself from self-labelling as a 'future educator'. Today, despite needing one more year of essay writing and group work, I have granted myself the label 'educator'. 

Today, I witnessed yet another student who has fallen into the cracks of our education system, and that student is one of a Chinese descent. Chan* has been in Australia for around two months now. She is not at all fluent in English, and she had always been sitting around doing nothing when I taught her class. Two lessons ago, I found out about her origins and took her onto my wing. Ever since I found out, I have been describing instructions to her in a simplistic manner so as to ensure her understanding.

There was something special about today, though. Having set homework tasks based on Romeo and Juliet in the last class, I had not expected Fiona to even comprehend any of the task choices. I was proven wrong. Upon asking the students as a whole in today's class if anyone had completed their homework, not one person had responded. They all either looked down, looked up or looked sideways. "Well," I said, "that's very interesting because Chan, who knows hardly any words in English, managed to write an alternate ending for Romeo and Juliet with the help of a translator." the entire class was dumbfounded.

Having volunteered to help Chan fix up her internet account in the IT department, whilst waiting for the IT people to return to their workstations, I stood with Chan in the hallway and spoke to her about her life in China compared to life in Australia. "I have so many options here," she told me. "In China we have boring subjects. We don't have cooking classes even." It occurred to me that we take our education system for granted here. We indeed do have many options. After that brief discussion, Chan said, "homework?" and proceeded to open up her English folder. She pulled out a tidy sheet with handwriting on it, which was the alternate ending to Romeo and Juliet. 

I asked if she could read it to me just so that I could check whether or not she had written it, at least f she could read it out she would have some sort of understanding of it. And she did. She even laughed at all of the funny parts, marvelling at how humorous her writing was. She was glowing. I asked her if she wanted to read it to the rest of the class when before we finished from the IT department. She looked down, and said "maybe they laugh. Maybe they make me embarrassed." I told her "if anything, they should feel embarrassed that you can write something in another language!" 

She did not end up reading it. But I did guilt trip the rest of the students by mentioning her completion of a task. And in the entire delivery of my lesson, she was smiling. She was fully attentive, trying everything that I asked of the class. All it takes is consideration. I imagined myself in another country, that speaks a language foreign to me and I cringed. Chan is so brave. It is not fair for those who are not familiar with English to be left behind. English is an important means of communication, and students born here that are fluent in it should grant themselves lucky, because out there, there are students who have no idea about what is going on, and they are looking for somebody, anybody, to assist them in learning.

It just takes that extra effort. Not at all strenuous, and all the while extremely rewarding. For the rest of my stay at my placement school, I will continue to ensure that Chan is receiving every bit of help that I can offer because she is one of the students who has a care for what I have to say - why would I not want to hear what she has to say as well?



*name changed to protect privacy of the student

Robin Williams: the Dangers of a Facade

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As we all now have come to know, the king of comedy has passed away. Robin Williams reportedly committed suicide, asphyxiated himself. While many are mourning the loss of Robin due to his enormous sense of humour, I cannot help but think about something else.

I think that people are so fixated on his facade of happiness and humour, that they are forgetting the tragedy in all of this; the worst part of Robin Williams' passing is knowing that someone who appeared so content was the utter opposite internally - that someone who lived his life ensuring the happiness of others had a limited amount of his own. Millions of people are fighting depression and it leaves me feeling morose knowing that another has lost the arduous battle it brings to its victims. 

Suffering from depression is not the simplest of tasks. It consists of a lifetime of mental struggle. It digs a dark abyss into the sufferer's mind and expands deep into a depth where an end is unseen - if one were to throw a rock into it, they would not hear the sound when it reaches the bottom, mainly because for most sufferers, there exists no bottom. They thus fall into a loophole of darkness, a barren mental realm where no light thrives. They float in it and when they cannot barely make their way out of it, they find themselves caught there, their bodies having no choice but to remain immobile as their owners leave the world behind.

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Just then, a tribute movie containing Robin Williams was televised: Mrs Doubtfire. Though I have seen it hundreds of times, this particular viewing had me catching on two quotes that I otherwise never noticed.  The first, dressed as Mrs Doubtfire, Robin says, "this is not a way of life... it's just a job." And I thought deeply about that quote. Figuratively, it is representative of his role as an actor and a comedian - just because he pretended to be happy, it does not necessarily mean that he was. In saying that, the general public needs to keep in mind that actors are humans with careers too. They act as their job requires, and they take off the acting mask when they reach home, and in his case, Robin unfortunately did not mimic his mask.

Another quote stuck out to me - this was when Robin, not dressed as Mrs Doubtfire, rather dressed as his second character, Daniel, says to his movie wife Miranda in discussion of their divorce, "you want me to pretend everything's all right? Put on a happy face? Smile?" And I think that that quote there highlights the issue with people failing to understand why he has prematurely ended his life. If they are in a state of discontent, it is difficult enough to have to act like they are not so as to protect their self-esteem, let alone the difficulty they face in having to keep that act constantly so as to ensure recipients are content. And all actors and actresses face this problem. Fans are simply too demanding. But life itself, existence, is much more demanding. Once the acting is turned off, once the wearer is temporarily relieved of the mask, reality kicks in and life becomes difficult to deal with again.

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It is a strange phenomenon for someone who is so terribly melancholic to act as though they are happy. Greek tragedy began in 5 BC. I remember taking a sociology class, wherein my tutor mentioned a theorist, MacIntyre, who believed that man is 'a storytelling-animal'. He continued, 'I can only answer the question ‘What am I to do?’ if I can answer the prior question ‘Of what story or stories do I find myself a part?’' In saying this, MacIntyre implied that we retell stories in order to know ourselves better. We act in order to fit, and thus falls Robin Williams. He acted, I hypothesise, as a form of denial; it is safe to say that he clearly fooled everyone, however the main person he fooled was himself. In pretending that everything was okay, he believed it. Even for a short amount of time, even if he knew that it was not, he believed in that moment that it was, and he reveled in that moment, and that is what made him a great comedian. 

I would certainly know this because it is the case with me. For as long as I can remember, I too have been dealing with depression. It is something that I cannot shake from myself, and I have grown to accept it despite its unhealthiness. I know too well the use of a facade to mask my true feelings, and unfortunately it is something that cannot be helped. So I understand why Robin did what he did, and as a fellow human sufferer I am saddened not because I lost a favourite actor, but because I lost a fellow brother. Laughter is truly a medicine. It is helping me overcome my darkest thoughts, and to see everyone else's reaction to my humour makes me even more happy, so much so that I forget that I was ever sad.

Let me paint a picture of how it is to live with depression, or at least grant you a painting from my ongoing experience of it: imagine a little girl. Let us name that little girl 'Life'. Life has wanted her own heart balloon ever since she could walk. One day, she found one caught in a tree. It was a red heart balloon that was filled with helium. It sometimes was so strong that it would almost slip away from Life. Life held tightly to it, until one day, a large wind picked up with it Life's beautiful red balloon and it flew out of Life's reach. No matter how high Life tried to jump, that balloon would not come down. Depression sufferers are that balloon. Some come back down to Life, and Life repairs them and inflates them again and they fly despite all of their beautiful scars. Some never return to Life.

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We find ourselves starting most conversations, following with a greeting, with 'are you okay?' But I find that we do not really expand on that. The other person in the conversation either lies and says that they are, or complains about complaining, or begins to tell the asker reasons as to why they are not okay. And the asker may or may not take it under their wing entirely, but I think that we do not delve deep enough into asking someone if they truly are or are not okay. And I think that if we started to, instead of using it like a secondary greeting, we would notice that a lot more people than not are wearing masks.

'R U OK? DAY' falls on the 11th of September each month. It is the only day of the year by this company commemorated to making sure that somebody is okay. I think that this day should outstretch to the length of 365 days. We need to be asked each day what we are feeling, because there goes by no day where something does not bring someone down, where something does not pull up that red balloon from Life.

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Depression is a real illness. It continues to claim the lives of many. In order for sufferers to be strong, we have to bond with one another. My hand is held out for whoever wishes to hold it. Our world can be so barren, but if we unite we can help each other feel less alone in this. Nobody should ever feel that they are the only one going through this tribulation, because the reality is that a lot of people are, and the main ones are those who pretend that they are unaffected.

Rest in peace, Robin Williams.

The Death of a Poetic Era

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As an English major, I am struggling to find the perfect link to sustain the nourishing feeling English provides in the teaching of it to students with an abbreviated speech lifestyle. I feel that everything is too fast nowadays due to this verbal and textual abbreviation - life, our emotions and our very experiences are too abbreviated. And it is becoming all too common, all too fast.

As part of my placement experience at a high school, I have been assigned by my university to bring forth a project which I see as beneficial to the school and its students, particularly one that harnesses my majors. So I decided to focus on English and its very art, in particular, poetry. I decided this because I wanted to give a voice to the outsiders, to those who feel that they cannot express themselves - you will be surprised at how many students have no personal opinion about things!

So I ran a poetry workshop. I made it appealing for all sorts of learners - the visual, the kinaesthetic, the musical, the linguistic, the logical, the intrapersonal, the interpersonal, the musical, all of Howard Gardner's Multiple Intelligence theories. And I thought it extraordinary the lengths I went through. I made attractive posters, and made a plan to collate all of the varied poetic techniques I would have taught students into a final slam poem that they would perform at the end of my two-week block, boosting their oral and performance skills as well, all vital in order to thrive academically. 

The number of students that attended went from six to two in four sessions. Then one. I could not believe it - what was I missing? I made it engaging. I placed bulletin notices that rhymed. I incorporated varied interests, even catering for those interesting in writing rap music. I touched on all elements. I asked several students to attend - their responses varied from "I can't write poetry" to "no thanks" to "maybe". 

Poetry is so beautiful. It is everything a soul could ask for. It is everything students could ask for in the middle of a bust day. But it was something rejected. Even those two who attended towards the end were bored halfway and began to doodle all over things instead of sticking to the poetic task. So I did the thing I feared the most about this project: I gave up.

I revised it entirely. I now run origami workshops. Students come in, fold pieces of paper to their amusement, trash the area in which they are folding paper, and leave. I cannot believe that language, the most beautiful communicative tool since the uttering of cavemen and cavewomen, is being trashed like this.