The Apple Falls Far from the Tree

There lies a partial explanation as to why students favour foods of a fatty basis rather than foods with a somewhat healthy basis, especially upon the observation of my current university setting, and it has crossed my mind that this is due to the susceptibility of humiliation.

One instantly draws attention to themselves after taking a mere bite from a crispy fresh apple, sending the juices from within it flying onto their peers who are quietly sipping away on their innocent protein shakes, or munching away on their seemingly quiet muesli bars. One panics as they do not wish to continue spraying their peers with natural juices, so one attempts to chew the apple in a way between not looking like they can fit the entire apple and their fist in their mouth, and opening their mouth enough so as to not bite into their inner-lip lining instead. This proves a difficult task, but one proceeds to chew into the apple at varied speeds, with their mouth opened at varied sizes.

But one soon finds that despite their best efforts, their apple crunching either dismantles their peers' thoughts, or the apple juices soak them. One's apple crunching sounds should not be undermined, for they can bring focus of even the most focussed of minds, particularly in the longevity of a literary in-depth discussion of a classic novel. One would assume that they would be spared by the apple and its noisy and messy injustices seeing as one is making a healthy choice by choosing a fruit over preservatives, but one is highly mistaken.

Apples are deceiving beings. They exist not to draw you away from the doctor, but to rather use that force to draw you into humiliation to the point where you feel the need to seek mental help for one, feeling victimised by an apple, two, being able to converse with an apple to the point where it victimises you and three, that you personified an apple so much so that it began to speak in the first place. The apple schemes all of this, and always in this order, so be weary of this mischievous lunchbox snack. It is the one fruit that has the ability to turn you into a fruitcake, and the one fruit that holds the ability to turn you into a vegetable. Be very wary. 

I would suggest before you decide to bring an apple into a classroom setting, that you should remove its sticker of identification as an apple from whatever origin, stripping it of its dignity, and cut it up at home. Yes. Slice into it, slice it into less than a half, slice it into quarters, into eighths, into tenths, twentieths, whatever you can manage. Slice it until it becomes weary and small, so that when you eat it in class it has no ability to humiliate you and when it is angry from this fact it cannot act in any way because you have either eaten it or it is so thin that it cannot utilise any of its decapitated body parts against you.

Only then, my fellow friend, will you defeat and conquer the deadly and vexatious fruit that is the apple. Only then may you continue to consume healthy foods in class without drenching your peers or attracting too much attention. Heed my warnings, for the apple does indeed fall far from the tree, and it also has relatives willing to assist it in whatever it needs.

A Costly Talent

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I have never quite been a fan of compliments because I do not know how to react to them. This has always been my problem, and it especially was in existence when I had 'happy birthday' sung to me when I was younger. Though, I do admit it still gets to me now. However, now moreso than 'happy birthday', there is something else that I am not a big fan of when it comes to compliments.

And that is the classic compliment, "wow, you are so good at art!" Thank you. Really, I appreciate the compliments that I receive for my artworks, it keeps my spirit high and almighty - and that there lies the problem, for when my spirit is high and mighty and my bank account is high and mighty and my university art unit is high and mighty, then crazy things occur wherein I lose a great deal of money to ensure my consistent receiving of compliments. And today, that happened.

Today I spent just under three-hundred dollars on art supplies for my new art unit. They were compulsory, but had I not been graciously encouraged by my artistic admirers, then I would not have been caught in a situation where I feel like I am paying with my flesh for something that will go to some unit results. To be honest, something more than just paint or pencil goes into my artworks. Invisible blood, sweat and tears. I go through so much effort firstly to devise the concepts of new artworks, and then comes the execution. Both do not occur on one day each, as much as I would love them to. They take up my mental and physical stamina, and these invested things are priceless. 

Having lost so much money thus far that I cannot afford to lose on artworks that have been seen and critiqued once weigh out the feelings of my so-called talent. I feel as though I am doing all of this for no reason. I am not capable, or I might be, of opening my own gallery, though the choice was granted to me today in my second art unit, a unit where I also have to spend around this much money on supplies. I just wish there was some sort of support system for artists so that they could acquire all of the pricey things at ease. Had I not had some sort of income, I think that I would draw far less. Unless I stalk areas of wet concrete with a wooden stick in my hand. 

Art itself should be priceless, and its supplies. I wonder every day how Picasso made it before he was famous - how did he afford all of that paint? All of those canvases? It frightens me. It also frightens me how art is becoming less and less of a thing in secondary schools. All this money, all that disappearance of art classes, all that effort going to the same pay cheque as someone teaching another subject like Japanese, I am beginning to wonder if Art is a useful skill at all.

Things to Do

Every time I feel a sense of boredom overcoming me, I find it rather difficult to imagine anything to do that will occupy myself so as to alleviate my ennui with life. I find myself instead procrastinating about things that I want to do, instead of doing things that I need to do.

It is effortless to fall into the misconception that there is nothing to do. I have begun to realise that that is your mind attempting to fool you in order to severely stall whatever it is that you must do. I have so many things to do, in actuality, so much so that it seems rather impossible to execute them. My to-read-list, for example, spans across four pages, with book titles and authors branching down two columns on each page. This list expands weekly, and I frighten myself when I look at it and think of all the books that I already own that I have not yet read, and I am frightened even more when I look at the slow rate that my reading has gotten to as of late.

I always have to prepare for university. Whether it is printing unit guides, finalising my timetable, procrastinating on my results page, checking if I have overdue library books, or staring at the many other options available on my university website. I even have the checking out of other university websites to tend to, to ensure a smooth sailing into another course after the completion of the current, yet I do not bother. This is partly due to the fact that each time I sit at my desk, I am overcome with and overwhelmed by the amount of mess that sits there that I, on several days, promised myself I would tend to.

I must not forget to mention my bookmarks bar, which expands daily. I have always hated the idea of bookmarking websites because they end up never being visited by myself again, and that is happening all over again. My webpages' borders are cluttered with sites aching to be revisited - it reminds me of my desktop, the place that I once promised never to clutter but I ended up breaking it, yet again; I always break this rule a certain amount of months after owning a new device, particularly when it comes to my mobile phone(s).

I enthral myself with these actions. I know that they are nothing to be proud of, and I know that procrastination is the biggest distraction attacking students all over the world, but I wonder if there is a way to combat it? I know for a fact that if I go on to research this I will procrastinate some more, just like the time that I had a presentation due and I looked up procrastination videos to ironically place in my presentation and instead, ended up spending the rest of the day procrastinating myself, by watching other YouTube videos. It was a dilemma.

I always wonder if this sort of procrastination is beneficial or not. I know that it is not due to the sense of mistaking my lack of activity for the lack of activities, but it could be productive in the sense that I could use that time to plan my next moves. I know that I certainly do this, I have done so on multiple occasions and the things that I come up with from these times prove rather extraordinary, and I cannot perform in the same way with a different approach. But at the same time, I move as slow as the tortoise when it races the hare. The only reason I continue, though, is that just before the race is over, I beat that hare by far.

I do not know what to think of all of this. I suppose it is my way of coping, and my way of performing. I would not have it any other way, despite how slow-paced it all seems at times. I think I will just have to remember to do things when I feel as though I have nothing to do. And I suppose feeling that I have nothing to do is mildly escaping them.

University: Sink or Swim

I am so overwhelmed at the moment. Just when I thought I could get a grip on university and its requirements and the whole teaching gig, I cannot. It has taken its toll on me simply because it has scared my interests away, and now they lie elsewhere and it has become strikingly more difficult to get them back.

As a pre-service teacher, I am experiencing the backstage scenes of teaching, the curriculum and the repetition in it all. Students think they have it bad when teachers repeat everything, but to teachers it is habitual and required. I am losing taste in all of this because I feel that I can be more, that I am capable of more than wasting my life away repeating things to people who have their minds on other things. I can be more than eating an apple during a lunchbreak at a dull coloured desk listening to the coughs of colleagues. I can be more than a nine to five job – five in the morning, that is.

It is just too demanding, especially for a person with such broad interests as mine. If I had things my way I would live in a secluded house on a secluded hill and write for a living, painting and drawing in my spare time. Nothing else would be of any importance. And I would thrive that way. My passions have not been spreading out to students too well, I think, and that is why I am feeling less passionate. Though, it is hard to feel passionate when you have a curriculum laying out your entire year in principles and expectations.

Days where I think teaching is not for me, I wonder what is, and I wonder what suffices. And then it all comes down to money. If I had a copious amount of money then I would own that secluded house on that secluded hill and I would not have to worry about anything at all, and I could output my dreams onto canvas and paper with no deadlines and no hesitations. I would have my headspace and my peace whilst keeping all that I desire. But life does not work like that.

Life requires you to communicate with people you would rather not breathe near. Life requires you to be things you are not comfortable in being otherwise life packs its belongings and rolls on without you. Though we cherish deceased heroes, we do not talk about them all the time. They are just as forgotten as the past season until it comes up again and I loathe that. This makes me feel that all of this is worthless. What is the point of me going out of my comfort zone only to be even more uncomfortable?

And then I remember the excited look in some pupils’ eyes. I remember my dedication pouring out of me and into others, and I feel empowered again. Though I might not be classified a hero for the world, I know I might be the hero of some. Time will tell, and though it is difficult I must pursue. Whenever I hear a person demean a university student I will offer them one of my unit guides and watch as their faces drop. Because it is only in experiencing something when we learn about it.

I will sink and I will swim and I will sink and swim again. But that is the life I have chosen and that is the life that will bring me closer to that secluded house on that secluded hill.

Nanna Naps

There is an extreme lack of control, an inability to maintain any sense of control or any chance of regaining control once a young adult is lounged on a comfortable leather sofa after a long, tiring day, for once one does so, they fall into a peace that no monster can destroy.

'Nanna Nap', the fault in every young person where if they work a little too hard in their day, they will fall asleep at a spontaneous morning before the dark evening sets in, a powerful sleep wherein they nod off, wake up, and nod off again, continuing the cycle until they fall into the mental realm of all elderly, the point of no return, the inverted peak of inactivity. No young person is safe from this, it is a fault in their wiring because they are wired to initially explore and experience, not conform and comply - when they do end up conforming and complying, they tire themselves to an extent where they fall into a mental state that is inevitable to all those wrinkly occupants at nursing homes.

Young adults who are affected by these Nanna Naps usually are tertiary students who cannot afford to be anything but productive. These naps eliminate the possibility of productivity, and when waken, these  victimised young adults are faced with the daunting possibility of momentarily forgetting the time, day, month, or year that it is. Be it that these Nanna Naps are short, but they are long enough to destroy the young adult's sense of time, their sense of spatial cognition, and their hopes and dreams. These futile naps can destroy every potential of a future, whilst masking themselves with needs, wants and desires. Soon enough, at one point in their difficult day, the young adult would need some sleep, they would want to nap, and have the desire of rest, and the only thing that can give them all three is the Nanna Nap.

Nanna Naps have illusory benefits, in fact they mostly have no benefits at all. At the time they are initiated, young adults fall into the myth that they need it, that it will help them in getting through the rest of the day, when the truth is that the Nanna Nap cunningly steals away the rest of the young adult's day, and abolishes their ability to fall asleep later that evening, when insomnia crawls in and takes over. The young adult then finds themselves in a situation where they cannot prepare their bodies for the demands of the following day, and struggle throughout it when they finally wake after their alarms ring thirteen or fifteen times. They drag their bodies in a lifeless manner, involuntarily duplicating the movements of the walking dead, and have to rely on energy drinks or caffeine or both to keep their eyelids from caving in for the rest of the day, until, of course, they find the urge to, once home, partake in a Nanna Nap again.

Victims of both the vicious cycle and of capitalism, young adults have no means of escaping their daily fates. They must commence their lives, napping at strange hours and waking up years, or so it seems, later. Though they have no sense of control of Nanna Naps, Nanna Naps, as cunning as they seem, actually exist for the welfare of the young adult's mentality. They briefly calm the young adult so that they do not derail themselves from the track of life, and offer them a period of repose, wherein there is no essay nor exam nor experience awaiting to trouble them, where a fleeting utopia calms them, and provides them with the opportunity to release their thoughts. 

We all require Nanna Naps, as devious as they sometimes are. They are the student's guardian angels, the student's alternative to a getaway, and a student's nightmare. They are both beneficial and detrimental, but there is no escaping them. Nobody can escape a Nanna Nap.

Embarrassing Situation One: Free Parking Ticket From a Stranger

Today, somebody I did not know paid for my daily parking ticket at my university. That stranger, either from a New Zealand or partial African-American descent, well spoken, looked a little like Alicia Keys, though I could not make further accurate comparisons due to the large nature of her sunglasses.

Driving down the street towards my university, the opposite lane usually contains drivers exiting – people entering tend to drive slow and maintain direct eye contact with those on the opposite lane, looking for a rolled-down driver’s window, with a tiresome hand sticking out of it, waving a daily parking ticket. So, trying my luck today, despite the fact that I had four dollars beside me in the console waiting for the entrance of the ticket machine, I drove towards the university slower, seeking out a waving hand of glory.

No luck. Until, of course, just as I was about to turn into the gravel car park. I see a rarity, something all those who drive into the university car park seek: a lady, waving a daily ticket in my direction. It took me a little while to process that today my luck was in line, thus I braked a little further from her. I did not even take into account stopping the car closer, seeing as my arms are short. So I stopped, the traffic stopped behind both me and her, patiently waiting as I claimed victory over the free ticket. “Here, darl, there’s no point in you having to buy a ticket! Enjoy your day darl!” She beamed. But no, it did not quite happen that easily, that fast, remember, my arms are short.

So I tried reaching out my hand. I tried a second time. She stretched out further. The distance between us, though, remained wide, wide enough to fit two parking ticket machine dispensers and a person collecting a ticket. “Wait,” I told her, “I’ll get out, I’ll just put my car in park.” I do not know why it is that I had to explain my actions to her, but I did. I think it was because I could not believe that it was happening, and that people were still patiently waiting behind me and her. So, seeing as I was driving a different car with a different hand-brake location for the past week and seeing as I had become heavily accustomed to the location of that particular hand-brake, it took me a while to realize that in this car, the hand-brake was sitting right inside my hand, while I was moving my foot looking for that other non-existent hand-brake.

After finally coming to realization that, like when I lose my phone and desperately search the world for it, the hand-brake was inside my hand the entire time, I pulled it up and placed the gear on ‘P’, and quickly jumped out of the car. “Thank you so much!” I crooned, to which she then replied, “you’re welcome! Enjoy your day, darl!” But the story does not end there.

The story ends with utter humility. After having forgotten the location of my hand-brake, I thought that, in the fleeting moment of acquiring something for free, nothing else of an embarrassing manner would occur – I was wrong. Wronged by the car seat, in fact. When I drive, I also have to accommodate my short legs, so my seat, naturally, was pushed all the way forward. I did not notice, in the commotion that surpassed when I had to leap out of the car in fear of impatient onlookers, that I had left it that way, and to appear like a naturally gifted driver, I attempted entering the car again swiftly. My attempt was blocked, though, not entirely by the fact that the car seat was pushed right out to the steering wheel, but also by the fact that I had not positioned my knees properly for a polished re-entrance. 

So I sat there, most of my body hanging out of the car, shifting in multiple directions as I tried to squeeze my legs past the steering wheel. Minutes of struggle proved the outcome otherwise. So, I decided that there was nothing else to do but to get out of the car again, making sure all onlookers knew exactly what I looked like so that if they saw me again they would reminisce on this embarrassing moment. After getting back out, I tried again to enter. I almost got in, and with a few more squeezes I had to get out yet again. This time, this ensured that everybody knew what I looked like. There is no form of escapism.

I was finally in the car, squeezing a final time and pulling the chair all the way back because squeezing did not work, and I drove off immediately after taking the hand-brake off and propelling the gear into ‘D’. I did not even stop to push my seat forward. I sunk into the seat so that my legs would reach, and drifted into the gravel car park, drifted into a parking bay next to a ticket machine, and turned the car off. I sat there laughing to myself, at myself. I was laughing so loud, not realizing that my window was down and that there were other forms of human beings standing in the car park now staring at a strange laughing stranger.

Through my humility, I gained a joyous feeling from the choice of a good deed made by that young adult. I am glad that I am not the only person out there who believes in sharing parking tickets, seeing as it is indeed ridiculously costly to purchase one for a couple of hours of class. The car park is not too protected, either, so basically I am paying to leave my car on once particularly placed and now shifted pieces of gravel next to other cars owned by other students, in hopes that prospecting thieves do not turn up in the proximity of the university institution to steal my car that has a free daily parking ticket.

Awesome Artists

"I'm Damian. 
Or D. 
Or Dude. 
We're going to be drawing all kinds of sh*t. 
Dead sh*t."

There is something about artists of all sorts that simply makes them stand out from those who are not so creative. This is certainly the case with my new art teacher, today.

There were around six of us lined up at the door ten minutes before the class starting time, as Damian walked past. He looked back at us, and shook his head. 
"Early? Really? What is wrong with you, this is university!"
"We're excited!" a student explained.
"Oh you are, are you? Don't worry, I'll change that."
From here on, the class just got even more interesting.
"I'm not going to read the unit guide to you, because well, you're not five-year-olds, and to be honest I didn't even write the unit guide, so I don't even know what's in there. But you will. When you read it yourselves. Alone."
I could not believe how he kept a straight face after everything he said. He said the obscene word used instead of poop to describe everything, in a negative and positive manner. He is so laid back that the class, initially running for three hours, only ended up running for one. 

Damian has taken Mister Schneebly to a whole new different level. Praising Fridays, he hurried on to the large Apple computer and played some music while he went off to do things. We, slightly unsettled, settled in almost immediately. He made everyone bring their tables and desks forward to the computer when he returned so that he could show us examples of Dutch still life paintings, a group of photos that he also did not compile. He did not even think that he would be able to explain them all, however he managed to because, well, it was a collection of photographs of paintings of fruits, anybody could explain them. The way he did though, suggested years of academic study, which I thoroughly enjoyed because it was mixed with an urban style of communication and gritty wit. 

And that is the future teacher that I aim to be. Somebody unique, strange, straight to the point, witty, funny, supportive and all the while intelligent. I want people to look up to me and while they are looking I want their vision to shake because they are uncontrollably laughing at my wit and constant sharing of humour. I will confuse my students with rhetorical questions that actually turn out to be questions and then lead them back on the path of learning by offering them simplistic and secretly complex ways to go about things, to solve things and increase their academic abilities. For to follow the curriculum strictly is to blindly lead, but a leader needs eyes because they are the navigators.

Creative people are interesting. Give them a chance, and the tip of the iceberg will surface revealing a bigger picture, a bigger amount of personality characteristics and do not let them intimidate you. Enjoy them. Because if a creative person pours themselves out onto you like a fountain, drinking from that fountain is more refreshing than spring water. Trust me. There is a lot to creative people. More than meets the eye. We just like to hide because when hidden, we are elusive and comfortable. Sometimes it all becomes too much and we find potential creativity enjoyers. Be a creativity enjoyer more often so people like me can show you our worth. 

I look forward to my second week having this Damian fellow as my art teacher. I do not know what to expect next week, when I have to bring in fragments of my life in object form and arrange them in interesting ways to draw them. It should prove interesting, though the only real form of still life I have ever drawn is a Red Bull can or a bottle of Corona. I think I will do alright, not too exquisitely but rather decently.

The Animosity of Bookshops

Bookshops to me are like a large, new forest to a dog desperate to pee, with trees not urinated on by any other animal just yet - so many territories to mark, and the forest is its oyster. In that same sense, despite having been touched and picked up and put back by so many strangers, my mind deviates from the fingerprints located on the covers and focuses on the subject at hand: books. Books, everywhere.

And today, I stumbled upon one of these bookshops. It was not much of a stumble, mind you, because today marked the day of my first lecture as an Education student in her third year, and in that lecture it was as though I fell asleep and dreamt that the lecturer asked of us to purchase four novels - only I was awake, well and truly awake and it really happened. I instantly thought of the two hundred dollars I had in my bank account and how I would happily spend them on class texts and class texts alone, alas the minute I set foot in the bookstore, which is not out of the ordinary as I am always buying class readers, I sensed something was different. Something quite large had differed from my last visit here. There was a change in the layout of the books located within the store, and more importantly, a larger variety.

And when I say large, I truly mean large. I am emphasising the largeness of the variety I was faced with - take your idea of 'large' and expand it thrice its size, and that is indeed the variety I was faced with today. When I say variety, I mean different objects for different purposes all encompassing my very interests - graphic novels, comic books the size of novels, decorative art journals, decorative writing journals, decomposition books, assortments of pens and pacers and other stationery, fiction books, non-fiction books, everything and anything in the literary sphere that aroused my interest was there. I could not think. I stood there, overpowered by these inanimate objects, all of which screamed "buy me!"

With all my excitement somewhat contained after having spent my first five minutes in there with my mouth wide open with amusement and awe, I headed to the shelves where my class texts were located. They had over-stocked them this time, and there was no need to viciously attack someone in order to take their book which was rightfully mine in the first place even though they had been in the bookshop longer than I have and had had full ownership rights of the book that I now held: I do not do this anyway, but when the time comes that books become scarce because of the amount of ebooks and the continuous transformation of technology, I will do all that I can to ensure that books that I want will be acquired by me, by all means both necessary and unnecessary.

The line itself to legally own the books I held was like an immobile stampede. I stood there, struggling to carry the weight of the compiled papers in my hands. I felt as though I were a vulture too full to finish off the rest of the deer that a cheetah left me. Too neglectful to abandon the deer, I soldier on. I was inspired by the continuity of the others who took part of this financially educational stampede, and took pride that I was further ahead in the line than most, having to cramp myself against a bookshelf rather than another spontaneous sweaty human. 

The books now await the scanning of my eyes. I shall pounce onto each page like a hungry lion, seeking to kill the readings and take from them my serve of nutrients, which will enrich my mind. I still adore bookshops, despite the animosity of being in one.