The IT Guy

I witnessed something rather strange today. It was strange in the sense that the IT guy who came into our lecture, somewhere in its middle, was an alien to every other student in the lecture theatre except for me. I actually knew this boy. And I say 'boy' with intent.

A couple of years ago, not knowing which path to head on in my life in terms of career possibilities, my father recommended that I tried out an Advanced Diploma in Information Technology. I was a digital native, the computer was my oyster and I had nothing else, nothing to lose either because all the course would cost me was two-hundred dollars, which my mother offered to pay, so I figured, why not?

And so I applied for the course, was accepted, and enrolled. The first day was pretty great because the class was divided almost equally, in terms of gender. I felt comfortable. The week went by and the numbers of females began to drop dramatically. Soon, after three or so weeks, I was the only female left in a class of around sixteen males. During computer tests, they would email me the codes. I remember distinctly when we were asked to create a pizza ordering system under test conditions and an email was sent around from computer to computer, we were more intelligent in that than at anything else.

I passed with flying colours. Project management was easy. Programming was easy with a little help from the boys. Web design was the best and most memorable because I created a serial killer website offering links to supplies that they would need, general things like top quality chainsaws, axes, rope and gloves. It sure as hell scared my teacher, and every boy never looked at e the same again - clearly, I was not a girl to mess with, nor talk to. They dared not get on my bad side.

During lunchbreaks we would hack into the computers outside of the classroom, the ones accessed by all students, and zoom the screens in so much so that the login page was utterly unaccessible. We would then reserve around three computers which we left alone and used to play Counter Strike together. I soon learned to shoot really well and it became a ritualistic happening. It seemed like we would be playing Counter Strike forever, with no worries in mind.

Soon enough, Networking class came along. And naturally, I was the only one who struggled. Nobody managed to help me in this class because our teacher caught on quite quickly that people were prone to helping me. I was on my own, and having not known a thing about 'pinging' or connecting computers to invisible platforms called 'servers', I failed that class alone and never turned up again. I had passed every other class perfectly, and this class was no exception. I was no match for CISCO and had I not had a sexist teacher, I would have been, for 'help' was not a word in his elaborative dictionary filled with nerdy terms. 

Looking back on those days, there were three boys who stood out from the rest, three boys who thought they were better than everyone else, the 'alpha-males' of the computer world. I remember two of their names, Andrew and Goldie. The third I cannot remember, though I do remember he played soccer games when he was meant to be paying attention, yet managed to pass everything. The trio would not associate themselves with the rest of the class, and would spend lunchbreaks playing with a soccer ball in the carpark outside of our building.

Andrew was the IT guy today. As I sat there in the lecture, being exposed to pedagogies and creative ways around the school curriculum, I watched him fiddle with mere sound controls, things that I could have done without any diploma. He did the same things over and over - to the inexperienced eye, it looks professional, but I knew better. I shook my head. He then shrugged his shoulders, said he would be back later, and left the room - clearly he was going to Google the problem, or ask for help from his elders.

It is funny where life can lead you, and it is despicable how close-minded people can veer so far away. I bet he did not even remember who I was. Hey, Andrew! I used to sit behind you. I know you own a BMW, do not think highly of yourself because I also know that it belongs to your grandfather. Perhaps pursuing a soccer career would have proved more rewarding. It is nice to see that you have found a pair of pants that do not hang off your ankles and waft around because they are too short.

A Brief Moment without Wifi

Earlier today our internet was momentarily cut out, so I asked my sister if she could imagine what life was like without the internet. “No!” she exclaimed. “I was six!” It seemed to her so long ago, when in reality it was only thirteen years. I remember it quite vividly.

We would sit, my sister and I, outside of the house, and I remember a time when I told hr a scary story about Johnny and how he ate someone’s liver and how that someone came back to haunt him – ending it with a scream because the story itself was not that scary. So she screamed even louder and ran inside crying. We would ride our bicycles outside with our neighbor, Kira. We would play with the Vortex I received on Christmas. We would tend to our pet roosters and recall rhymes and tongue twisters such as ‘Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers’, I still remember it to this day.

We saw the sun an awful lot. We watched little television, watching only cartoons when it was switched on. We read comic books and were read fairytales to every night before we slept. We would call friends on the telephone and discuss anything and everything that happened outside of school hours. We would draw and write. We would play boardgames like ‘Connect 4’, and I would always win and I once had the entire game-board smacked into my face by my sister because of her jealousy and I remember holding my cheek in my hand and walking into my bedroom where mum was popping a boil on my grandmother’s back and when I removed my hand from my cheek the blood multiplied due to the amount of tears that I cried. We played with Barbie dolls – I owned an equestrian Barbie and I mostly liked the horses and the stable that it came with so I would unpack it, spread it out on my lawn and live a life that I did not have, packing every little piece back up and storing it amongst the mice that never seemed to die in the garage.

Then our Playstation One came along, and we would spend more hours on television. We would play the demo disc that came with it more than the actual games – I was particularly interested in the dinosaur character that roared and walked yet stayed in the same spot. I would zoom into his frightening expressions and make him roar and move him around the screen with a dark background. We would play Time Crisis and Point Blanc with the actual remote-control gun and we would play Tarzan and cry from horror at the scene of the rampage and never passed that level because of how horrifying it was. We would buy illegal copies and hold them as though they were more valuable than gold and we would play each game so many times that they would become scratched beyond repair even if we handled them with care every time. We would watch my father play Doom or Abe’s Odyssey or Driver. And still we had no internet connection, no connection to the world out of reach of our own, yet a strong connection to the world directly outside of our doors.

She could not recall all of that. The cameras we used where we had to wait for our photographs to develop rather than see their previews instantly. We took final photographs, not many of a repeated pose altered each time to accumulate perfection. We went to the video store to pick one movie to rent all week, a new-release that we would watch over and over again. We researched things in the library, collecting many books and putting together information found in them. We bonded, made bonds and broke them each within reason, unlike unreasonable broken or created bonds with people we may never have the chance to meet. We had time to treasure things, and we all moved in a slow, steady pace.

And then the wifi was connected again. We spent three total hours wondering why certain devices would not connect, changing the password and memorising it, and all of the sudden life without the internet was forgotten again, and life became fast-paced and rapid. 

Mandatory Meandering

Moving, shifting, ever changing through this journey of life, acquiring scar tissue and bruises and happiness and sadness, all sides of the dodecahedron looking shape we call life, twelve faces for each month of each year that we exist.

What motivates us? What pushes us out of our comfort zones and into places we feared to ever enter? What cradles us in moments of mental agony, when we feel that continuing to breathe cannot be possible? Why is it that most of us push on to an eventual demise, sometimes forgetting that it exists, that life will cease to be at any given time? Ernest Hemingway, my literary lover, said that "it is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end". We all are journeying to our ends, but are we taking the journey itself for granted?

It is difficult during moments of any sort of pain to see any light. The window to one's soul during these moments have their blinds shut tight, so tight that not even the tiniest of sun rays can enter to brighten up their days. In this instance one can fail to see the beauty in the world, one fails to remember their part in the world and the reason for the continuation of their journey. One eventually pulls through, but most of the time one does not. One might then get caught in a vicious cycle of self-hatred, of self-mutilation both in the physical and mental sense, and they may fall short of ever being able to reach the blind's drawstrings.

But we are mandatory. Each one of us. We each teach one another though most of us loathe the idea of school and teachers. We each teach each others lessons though most of us set bad examples. Jeffrey Dahmer taught me not to drug men and bring them back home to my apartment and eat them. Alan Grant taught me never to tour a park populated by live dinosaurs. Carl Denham taught me never to set sail towards Skull Island and on the off chance that I do, to never capture King Kong and bring him back to my hometown. Pinocchio taught me never to want to become a politician in the event of having an extended nose with larger nostrils during the flu season. Every day I am taught something on Tumblr, whether it is to love my body, to hate those who exploit and abuse animals, and to feed bees that appear to be dying sweet water to rejuvenate them. Tumblr also teaches me not to use it around others in the event that a pornographic gif pops up and dances on my phone screen beyond my control, but that is beside the point.

The point is that just like atoms, just like the molecules that make us up, we make up one another. We are crucial to the existence of others, which is why most of us require relationships to thrive, not romantic relationships necessarily. But everyone has someone, even that homeless man down the road who feeds pigeons his scraps even though he needs them to survive himself. The ocean will never feel fulfilled unless it touches daily the sand and fondles its many shells and bathes with its human visitors. The air cannot itself breathe unless it blows through the trees and tickles its many leaves, and it laughs with them and blows off through the branches of many other trees.

We are all interconnected, and though  people discriminate against the internet for taking away our lives, we should rejoice it for allowing us to meander mandatorily in a free manner, and to a larger audience.

Mother's Day

As per usual, today was another excuse for my family to gather together and share within ourselves ten large pizzas, how we ended up fitting them all inside of us  I still cannot recall. All in the name of Mother's Day, we headed out onto the freeway and placed the phone order as we drove.

And as per usual, something shook me today. One bridge in the freeway overlooks a large memorial garden, where tombstones lay in commemoration of some we have lost. Not my family though, not yet. But what struck me was looking at hordes of family members wearing black, stopping at tombstones and placing large bouquets of flowers. Little people who the idea of death is still abstract to, big people who know it too well and older people who are expecting it at any moment gathered on a piece of land underneath the freeway as we passed, unappreciative of just how good it is to be alive with people and eating a lot of fresh warm pizza.

And the fact is that I do not live my life to its fullest potential. I still sit here in my little 'everything will be okay every time' bubble and thrive in it when in reality everything is not okay. I need to push myself away from thinking critically about partaking in any activity that will prolong my stay here and push myself away from the abstract thing that is death so that I may live until my time comes. Today reminded me of that. I have my mother, my sister, my entire family, and I still choose the glow of the computer screen over them. I still choose watching videos and looking at pictures of people doing things rather than doing things myself.

I think most people are like that nowadays, though. People have become too afraid to take risks because they feel it is better to observe them being done by somebody else to avoid the pain that may come with the flip-side of that risk. There was a time when I was eighteen that I took so many risks, when I look back at them now I think of the person I was as a totally different character, someone so foreign to me. But that was when I was happier. I had a sort of freedom in anything that I did, but I had to stop it all because it was eating away at me as well, the fastness of it all, the scum that I met along the way, and capitalism knocking on my little door telling me that its rent was due.

So I have turned away from risk to acquire a different form of reward, a reward given to my mind and my pocket. I still need to reward my body, though, and that will come with the rewarding of my mentality. I keep reminiscing to that scene today. Everything can fall away so quickly. It can slip away so fast, the strongest of arms cannot hold on, this entire facade we call 'life' will not be lenient when it wants to leave us, no matter the impact we make. It was not lenient towards Abraham Lincoln. It was not lenient towards Mother Theresa. It was not lenient towards Nelson Mandela, Albert Einstein, Marilyn Monroe, Amy Winehouse, nobody. It does not accept any deals. It does not offer mercy to those who have offered it their entire lives. It does not respect any legacies or any endeavours. It wants your soul and there is nothing to do about it but enjoy it while you can.

The reason why I cringe when I think of a career is because you are paid for your time - time can never be bought back. Yes, work at McDonalds for three years as a manager, get paid thousands, that is fantastic - but all you did was swap three years of living for three years worth of money, a mere thing that the government has crafted in order for us to swap things. Even if you are not residing in a third world country, even if you are rather powerful, you are being exploited, and the exploiter is mankind.

Appreciate all that you have right this very moment. Stop all sources of exploitation and sit and listen to yourself breathe for a bit. You exist. You are temporary. So is your mother. Or your sister. Or your aunty. Or your grandma. Or yourself, if you are a female. Or any male. Everyone. Happy Mother's Day. Happy Another Day Day. Go. Live.

The Proposal: the Starbucks Girl we Don't Notice

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Most people have seen the movie The Proposal, starring Sandra Bullock as Margaret Tate, a tough, mean Canadian boss and Ryan Reynolds as Andrew Paxton, her capitalist slave. The movie follows their shaken lives as they fall in love unexpectedly after fears of Margaret having to be deported. She then proposes to Andrew, they fall helplessly in love after a large ordeal back in Andrew's hometown which includes Margaret dancing to Lil Jon's Get Low with Betty White around a campfire, and they enjoy a nice happy ending.

But one key element is ignored in this movie, right at the very beginning, when Andrew wakes up quite late and rushes off to Starbucks to obtain a coffee for himself and Margaret. Once he enters the shop, he is confronted by a large line of sleepy business people, all waiting for that cup of caffeine. Something unexpected then happens, that key in the movie: the coffee barista at Starbucks, who does not even get a name in the cast lineup beside 'coffee barista', catches Andrew as he walks in and has already made him the coffees that he always orders. He is called to the front of the line, walking past all of the hustle and bustle contained within the line, collects the coffees and hurries off to work.

This 'coffee barista' leaves her cell phone number on Andrew's coffee cup, which had to go to Margaret because Andrew accidentally spilled his coffee on his way to her office, thus sacrificing both his coffee and the potential relationship between himself and little Miss Coffee Barista, thus withdrawing all the mental suffering he will go through on his way to Alaska with Margaret. Poor Miss Barista is then denied a mention throughout the rest of the narrative, and the rest of Andrew's short-lived life. And this is key because it symbolises us, those of us who in life which is not always short-lived, are left behind despite our unusually kind efforts to get somebody to notice us.

Knowing that Andrew was running late and that he would never miss a day of work nor his morning coffees no matter what, Miss Barista had already made them and placed them on a take-away tray for Andrew's further convenience, displaying an act of kindness, of utter love and a yearning of attention, acknowledgement, notice, none of which she ends up receiving. Miss Barista is the epitome of all those in life who are forgotten, who are rejected, who perform random acts of kindness only to be left alone in the end. Miss Barista went completely out of her way, risking a morning of receiving indignant remarks from those waiting in line just to be noticed, only to be unnoticed.

And unfortunately in life, this happens to most of us. Most of us are the living, breathing examples of Miss Barista. And there are Mister Baristas, too. The film goes on never showing her again, and that makes a comment on the Mister and Miss Baristas in life - they may go their entire lives performing good deeds to others only to remain unnoticed. 

Boiled Eggs

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Where do Grim Reapers get their Cloaks from?

The grim reaper. A cloaked figure, dressed in all black, transcending through realms surrounding life and death, haunting all those in its wake. 

After searching through the internet via Google I have found no means of explanation which tells one about where the grim reaper acquires its attire from. From whence does its cloak come? Has anybody bothered to question its one fashion statement? Do some humans contribute black cloaks to these beings as a form of bargaining so that they may live a little while longer before these beings visit them and take them from their lives and loves? Surely it does not appear from thin air dressed in the way that it is, a neat black cloak covering the lengths it is meant to - perhaps there exists a tailor who creates these cloaks for the price of immortality? 

Perhaps even these beings create their own cloaks. Maybe some reapers reap whilst others sew for those who reap. Maybe even they spawn in that cloak, with one hand carrying a scythe, convenient because they may immediately get to work from the moment of their, if you like, birth. Maybe they inherit their clothing - maybe their time is too up after a certain period of time or after a certain number of reaping and then they pass their clothes onto the next of kin. Maybe the more rustic the cloak, the more ancient and the more experienced it makes the wearer, giving the wearer also a higher reputation earning them more souls to reap than others. 

Grim reapers are too elusive to interview, and that proves problematic because no human can ask it this question. No human thus will ever know where it obtains it's clothing from. And it is worrying because they all conform to one style of clothing which means that there most likely exists a large cohort of grim reapers who each must wear the same things so as to be noticed by another. That also means that the cohort exists, the number within unknown, but may multiply to exceed the number of humans which means that there may be competition between each reaper, which may be the reason behind why humans wage war - maybe they are among us and their cloaks are magical because they transform into that of the president's, or an army lieutenant. 

Either way, it would be of interest to know where their cloaks come from. Maybe they are like Macklemore and they go to the thrift shop to buy our granddads' cloaks. 

Black Paint

As I was painting the background of my canvas today, I thought a little too deep about black paint and how we all have a background of black paint that foreshadows us. We all carry it around with us yet most people cannot see that it is part of us.

We are too quick to make judgements about people. We are too quick to jump to conclusions, conclusions that are not always true, nor met. We are too harsh. We see with our eyes and not with our hearts, and that there lies the problem, for if we saw with our eyes then we would see everyone else's black backgrounds. We would see the struggle, the trouble that they stand out in front of and we would appreciate their ability to still be standing despite all of the black in their lives. Instead, we judge, we hate, we conspire. 

'Love is our resistance', Muse sings. And that is true. But love is absent, it is slowly fading away with the notion of placing sexual intimacy first. Human connection mentally and emotionally comes before the physical connection. This is why so many relationships falter, the people in them fail to see and feel the love that exists. Instead they look only with their eyes and see things for what they look like, not for what they truly are. Inside, despite the blackness, is a lot of white. We are made up of ying and yang yet people see only either the ying or the yang, when it is both elements that make up who we are. Only some blessed people see both sides.

The white part of us consists of our successes, our achievements, our morality and ethics, our sense of pride, our sense of freedom, our beliefs, our inner selves. Imagine all that is left behind if only the black is focussed on, or imagine all that is left behind if all the white is focussed on. It is crucial to our existence that we see both, that we see with our hearts, that we blind all preconceived notions and we create our own based on our ying and yang.

I have too much of both colours, and not enough people to see it all. It is problematic because they are important aspects which define me. My suffering shapes my identity, my physical form is lesser than my inner form, yet the media forces you to believe otherwise. Do not be brainwashed by society. Do not let magazines and companies dictate your thoughts and your beliefs simply for their continuous income of money, wealth and fame. Do not let their lies poison your minds. Think for yourselves. Exist, thrive, be. You are special because you are you, your suffering, your pride, it is all a part of who you are, do not hide any of it and when you find another revealing individual, cling to them like they are the last human on earth, because they very well might be, as far as your ability to connect with them goes.

Carry your black and white paint with pride. Wear your identity, be your identity, pave your own path and thrive. Create, inspire, enjoy, live. Do not hide any more. Dictate your own life, and think for yourself. Then watch how life gains its worth.

Visual Display of Affection

One thing that I have noticed about the human race in the twenty-first century is that we have shied away from displaying affection, we have been hiding behind our inhibitions too much lately, that we only watch them from afar, or from movies.

It upsets me so. We have the amazing ability to feel, to want, yet we use neither. We allow capitalism to hold us as its captives, we work from nine to five to earn enough money to spend on material objects, where we are meant to be striving for things money can never buy, like requited affection. Nothing feels better than to be emotionally understood, and to have affection stroking one's emotion. People are losing touch with their emotions and people are forgetting to feel.

One thing that liberates us from robots is our ability to feel. We have taken this ability for granted, and traded it in for money, for rushing aspects of life and forgetting to sit down for a couple of hours and enjoy the world as a blur with a pinky hue. Our lives are becoming too repetitive and predictable rather than spontaneous and atmospheric. We allow our fears to control us to an extent where our true selves are hidden deep within us, far from our surface and far from anyone's reach. 

Life is enjoyed with things capitalism has not created. Do not let those colourful bills control your thinking. There is much more to existing than purchasing things to regulate your economy. Cavemen survived without an economy, so we can too. Be loving cavewomen and cavemen. Love, and thus live. A life lived in pinky hue is bette than a life lived in a capitalist hue.

I want for just an hour to spend a conversation with someone who regulates their feelings, so that I may expose mine and share mine with that someone, so that our inhibitions can disperse and float away with old waves. The art of conversation is also dying away because of the lack of the pinky hue in life. In the loss of these two aspects, we lose our humanity, the one thing that, apart from intellectualism and common sense, allows us to be liberated from any other form of species. 

If we lose the things that we have been wired to have, then we lose our essence. To live a life without essence is to not live at all. People who 'live fast and die young' do exactly so. They harm themselves and utterly deplete the possibility of a rebuild, a repair, or a life. Imagine watching your favorite film on fast-forward - it would be too irritating to watch, it will soon become unappealing as you cannot stop to enjoy each scene as it unfolds. This is the same with your life. Do not live your life on fast-forward, nor on repeat. Keep it on play, at a steady pace, and move. The important thing is movement, for you can make a move and reveal your emotions.

If you want to live a humanly life, then exist as a human. Love. Feel. Do not be afraid. Fear is a time-waster.

The Feeble Bird from the Outdoors

The indoors sits quiet with delight

watching its keeper loiter inside it.

Its keeper, she draws not to the commotion outside

in fact, she quite prefers the silence.

Things to do, things to see, they may wait, says she

for she has interests elsewhere,

she lurks the indoors, pacing constantly

and can sometimes feel the growth of her hair.

The railroad crossing's ring-a-ding-dinging

sets her sight straight to the door,

a temptation from the outdoors, a bird along to it singing,

yet like the Raven she cries, "nevermore!

Nevermore shall I fall for that, you crude little bird!

Nevermore shall I conquer my fears!

For each time I try, the overall is quite absurd,

and I am left to my own device, drowning in my tears!

Nevermore shall I giggle like thunder,

for my laugh collects and twirls and builds,

and hurls itself outside, with it my sorrow's plunder

so nevermore, unpleasant bird, nevermore!"

Alas, the bird would not stop its crooning,

it landed on a branch by my door,

"don't be morose, I am for you behooving,

please don't respond to my help with 'nevermore'!

My darling, my darling, my little ripening seed,

why do you prefer me forgotten?

I am not that, what you curse, I am what you need,

I am nor abominable, nor heinous, nor rotten!

Do not deny me my right to adore your petite self, 

I am but a feeble winged being!

I am sickly, my wings are decrepit, I am of poor health,

You are the only form of hope I am seeing!"

"You liar," replied she, "all your falsity!

You disturb my sanctity and implore?

You flew just fine, shoo, leave me be!

I am content existing here, out there nevermore!"

"That word, that word, that abhorrent word,

seeping through my ancient ears!

The fact that you deny me, a weakly bird,

may you exclusively decay for years and years!"

© Nicole Haddad, 2014

Let not the outside world tempt you. Let not yourself neglect your inner sanctity only to be enticed by false hopes, and roused by the dangers of falsehood. Take a risk as it comes but only if you are mindful of both the good and the bad located within the risk at hand - why risk a potentially bad risk when you can risk a potentially good risk?

The bird in this poem represents the evil in the world, evil categorised by your individual moral and ethical standards and beliefs. Evil may tempt you, and you may respond with delight, but be warned that if you do you may then watch yourself topple downwards, embarking on a horrid journey never planned for.

Do not spend all of your times indoors, though. Open your door when the bird is not near, and walk on the path of righteousness and discover, learn, aspire, inspire. Be. Exist. Breathe. Enjoy. Live. Survive. Thrive. Meet, greet, depend, love, hate, learn from your mistakes and wander more than ponder, so long as you are central to yourself.

Forget things unimportant, but do not forget yourself, whence you came from, your heritage, your parents or guardians. Forget relationships unimportant but do not forget the highlights, nor the relationships that you refuse, for those may amount to something larger and more pleasant than expected.

Be friends with the indoors, and allies with the outdoors, but consider the feeble bird your fiend.

What Language Are You Speaking?

Most of the time, it seems that anybody that I converse with has no idea about what it is that I am saying. And because of this, most of the time I end up having to filter my words into 'street talk', a type of talk that consists of slang and bodily movements in order to make up for true meanings of words that once were.

I do not talk in complex terms. I just talk in terms that are beckoned to be forgotten by the greater public, because the greater public prefers a sense of simplicity in their speech amongst the complexities of every day life. And because of this, people like me are left to pretend to speak in a manner they absolutely loathe - slang. I am so amorous about America because most of the words I have heard coming from American tongue are words that are not spoken here in Australia on an everyday basis - they are words written by the finest Australian scholars, but rarely ever uttered. And that is what irritates me about having to converse with most people. It is the fact that I can converse better when I write because at least the people who read my writing have some form of interest in it, whereas when I speak people have to voluntarily focus that one extra bit, and it is forcibly done so because I can tell that they still have no idea about what I am saying.

I am tired of condensing my speech. I often sit alone in my study and release these words verbally and ravel in them with utter delight, I marvel at the words that I release because I never knew I was capable, but that is because all of this time I have been hiding them from other people, I have also been hiding them from myself. A piece of myself, a big piece of my inner self cannot be contained any more than it already is, yet most of the time I have no option but to leave it that way. My other bodily functions, like my tear ducts, begin to take over sometimes. They too speak words of their own, words that are afraid to come out. But like me talking to myself in the study, they too cannot be contained any longer.

It is a barren world for people with a constantly working intellect. It is cold, and barren, and there is no warmth. I have to make my own warmth, and I do this by writing, reading and drawing. They are the three things that I have that allow me to be myself, and allow me to thrive in a world where I am just me and not the me that everyone else wants me to be. When I am about to lose myself, I turn to these three worlds and they remind me that I am something, that my self worth should not go a day without being mentioned.

I can recall a day earlier this week when I was in the car with two people and they could not believe that I had written eighty-eight consecutive essays in the duration of my holidays. They could not fathom why I would even bother to write, and they could not understand my explanation of my first year thesis piece, about pedagogical third spaces, even when I placed the terms simply. So I dropped all talk of this and I continued on with their bothersome slang language. And they felt comfortable again, and my discomfort continued alongside their comfort. And that is the way that it is with me, my life, and my inner self. That is the way it always will be, I am afraid, because I am yet to be proven otherwise.

I am yearning to find that one build of complexities who can see through my slang and see my own complexities, who will allow our complexities to mingle and therefore enjoy my true company. But I suppose, just like a decent friend, it is too much to ask for.

Happy Birthday, Ray!

Today, we celebrated my father's forty-ninth birthday at the restaurant beneath our hotel in the Gold Coast. My mother and I had booked the night before for six o'clock in the evening.

I had not anticipated the restaurant to be busy, seeing as though the restaurant only opens for two hours a day. We were all welcomed with a hospitable waitress, and were led to a four-seater table on the deck outside the restaurant. Seashell lights hung from the walls, and old brown twigs were hung on the ceiling, providing a calm, decorative atmosphere.

Soon after we were seated, and had ordered, two elderly couples took the table beside us. "We've been keeping it warm all week, hey!" one old man joked. They sat down, exchanged warm smiles with us, and three out of the four ordered a glass of Chardonnay.

The first couple consisted of a man with a great posture in a white polo, who I will call Steve, and his wife who was wearing a funky green Hawaiian-style shirt, who I will call Gloria. Across from Steve sat a frail old lady wearing a pearl necklace and a light pink shirt, who I will call Anne, and beside Anne was her husband, who sat sunken in his chair and clean clothes, who I will call Gregory.

Steve was the happiest person of the lot. He kept cracking jokes, soothing the atmosphere even more for all restaurant attendees. Gloria shone a bright, warm smile in every direction, stopping at whoever noticed it and held it until they smiled back at her. Anne and Gregory kept to themselves - I suppose they were just keen on their meals. From my eavesdropping, I learned that it was Anne and Gregory's first night in Queensland, and Steve and Gloria had brought them to Mano's restaurant to celebrate. They raised their glasses of Chardonnay in commemoration, and to toast.

After our lovely dinner, the waitress brought out our desert, dad's last - with a lit sprinkler in the middle. The waitress began to sing happy birthday, and soon the old couples beside us joined in, as though my father was their son.

'Happy birthday dear Elly, happy birthday to you!' I could swear that at that moment, my otherwise though father's eyes became teary. He looked fragile, relaxed, happy. Steve looked happier - this was something else that would bring him attention. "Happy birthday, Ray!" he boasted, "enjoy it and enjoy every other year! Each year!"

And that was what struck me - not that he misheard my father's name but that he convinced my father to enjoy his life. And at that moment, we all saw just how precious life is.

Mindless Meandering

‘We had been trying to be adults since we were 15

When we finally reached 18, nothing changed

It wasn’t until we were lying on the bathroom floor

Drunk and high in two different states

That we realized

Age is just a number

And reality is learning there’s no such thing as being an adult

You only grow older

And if you’re lucky

Maybe a little wiser.’

Mindlessly meandering - that is the vibe that I gave off the sales assistant, rather, regional store manager, today whilst I accompanied my sister in search for new shoes.

“Shall I assist you on your quest?” A blonde head of hair seemed to have popped out from beside my sister, yielding a friendly crooked smile. My sister responded with a yes, and soon he became a whirlwind of different shoe options, constantly reminding my sister that he is only offering her some options, and that she may refuse or accept whatever she pleased. After over four pairs of shoes later, my sister was satisfied with the last pair, and spent the rest of our time in that store circling it while wearing the shoes in a self-convincing mantra.

While that was happening, the assistant continuously shot random phrases and questions at me. “So what are you doing after this?”
“Oh, more shopping.”
“Of course, of course. What else?”
I paused. Did this man want to know every additional detail? “Air con,” I wittingly replied. “Lots of air con.”
“Ugh, how bad was last week!”
“I totally melted.”
In the corner of his eyes, he watched as my sister continued circling the shop. “Don’t worry, take your time!” He chanted, helping other customers in the meantime.

My sister sat down again, and while she was adjusting the lace on the left shoe, he stood beside her and murmured at me, “I like your phone cover.” I heard him, but paid hardly any attention, by the time I did though it was too late to reply but I did anyway, saying “a bit of retro,” just as he was walking off. My mother, seated beside me as I stood, nudged me, “he just said he likes your phone cover!” He heard the entire second half of what she said. I stood there frozen. Things had gotten awkward.

Out of all of this, one thing that this man had asked me, clung to me: “So you’re just meandering?” I could not answer this man. At rapid speeds, he was asking me all sorts of questions with intellectual word use, and I could not answer because I did not anticipate to be confronted with so many questions, and I did not anticipate them to control words that evoke deep meaning. I just replied, ‘yes, very much so.” And it hit me – we all just meander. We meander our ways through whatever it is that we do – reading, writing, exercising, working, shopping. We meander through all our tasks, all our activities, and we think nothing more of it.

I spotted the above quote on my Tumblr dashboard when I got home, and my mind had quickly processed all of this together – adulthood, aging, the passing of time, we just meander our way through it. We mindlessly meander, briefly taking pauses or enjoying what it is that we are doing.

We are not mindful of the fact that we have one life to live, that at any time on any day we can be stripped of this life and nothing we have ever done will ever matter, nothing we have collected will actually be taken with us to wherever it is that we go. We are meandering so much so that nothing is noticed, that love is too fast and life is too fast and everything becomes a blur when we try to recall certain moments.

We take less time to soak in all that is good in our lives, we instead invest all of our time focusing on the bad, the unimportant, the things that make us angry, or the things that terrify or upset us. If you stop right now and recall all the good things, all the small things that you miss in your daily meandering, I can guarantee that there will be a lot more than you initially thought there to be. And that is where our problems lie, that we focus ourselves on the bad things and forget all the good that we have.

For starters, you are alive. You are breathing. You are a living, breathing, conscious mass that has the ability to do, to change, to act, to be. You exist. Stop your meandering, it will blur out all that is important.

The above quote applies to all those who meander their way through life. They are so caught up in the drunkenness, the highness of how it is to meander that they reach their later stages of life and sit there, dumbfounded, and wonder where it is that everything went, what it is that they actually ended up achieving, who it is that they ended up impacting on. Live both in the moment and for the future, and also do not forget most of your past. Your past is important because it tracks your progress - failure in something is progress too. Just do not meander.

Thank you, Lawrence.