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'.

Confide

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I am three years into my teaching degree at the moment. This means that after October next year, I will allegedly be fully equipped to be able to teach students ranging from Preps to Year 12s.

This means that in much less than a mere year and a half, assuming that I can land a teaching position, I will be standing in front of the classroom with approximately twenty-five pairs of eyes looking at me, yearning for a role-model, yearning for assistance, for a chance to be heard, for a chance to show their worth. Twenty-five pairs of eyes will look unto me and await my assertion in varied subjects. They will wait for the reinstating of classroom rules, for their chances to introduce themselves to one another, to learn what they do not yet know, to be inspired, to evolve.

But nobody has yet mentioned to me that students need, more than anything else, to confide. It frightens me that in my cohort of fellow pre-service teachers, there are some who cannot even spare ten extra minutes to assist in group assignments. There are some who would not reserve a seat for you if your wheelchair broke, there are some who care not for the quality of learning, let alone the quality of teaching. It frightens me because how then are their students to confide in them? How are students to accept the quality and need for education when some teachers are not willing to offer it?

The worst thing is when I am seated in a lecture or a tutorial and some of my peers behave in the same manner as any bored student would, considering not our lecturer and their attempts to tell us all that they can before we are fully qualified. These same peers would go on to be teachers who enforce the need for the respecting of themselves - how can one acquire respect, though, when they do not themselves give it?

I gained a huge amount of clarity two weeks ago when I was introduced to a new lecturer. She had been teaching in high school for over thirty years, and lecturing for the past six years. "Now it is time for me to have my respect," she said at the beginning of the lesson. I thought nothing of that, until some students began to walk in late. She bucketed down on them like acid rain, demanding a medical slip the next time anyone was late. Those students trembled silently for the remainder of the class. It was a discomforting feeling, being taught by her, but I learnt something from it all - she is right. How then would we be like as educators? Running late because we slept in? What principal would allow us to retain our jobs if we had this attitude flowing from us when we expect it never to come from our students?

Pre-service teachers need to realise the impact they will have on students. Thus far, I have not learnt about any of it in my university setting, rather in school settings. Children notice everything. Sometimes I forget to notice that.

Morning Fog and Silent Hill

If anything, apart from video games contributing to my excelled skills in problem-solving and my ability to converge and connect with students and their interests, they have, along with horror movies, contributed to my sense of paranoia so much so that I have fallen more into delusion than Cheech and Chong watching a thriller.

Today I drove to university at around eight in the morning. The temperature was around four degrees celsius, and there was a blanket of fog so thick around me that I was afraid of accidentally inhaling a cloud. I thrived on the excitement, though. I immediately gained an adrenalin rush because of hardly being able to see the road beneath me or the cars around me, which was a dangerous thing altogether. I managed to pull through, and I might have exaggerated my lack of vision a little, however there is something that I cannot exaggerate;

And that is my imagination. My imagination is a force that I recommend you do not reckon with. My imagination stretches far and wide like the original map of the world, and it stands taller than the tallest towers in the world and lower than Hades' dirty toenails. It is heavier than the conglomerated weight of all planets in existence, and is an ever-growing thing. It is on a complete other level, and that is what differentiates my thinking process to that of others.

There are many benefits to my differentiation, however there is moreso one large negative aspect that I wish did not exist. And that is my imagination's ability to grab all that it witnesses in scary movies, and replay them on a larger scale and a more detailed and evolved scale than the original footage it remembers, scaring me terribly. Today, my imagination did not cease to surprise me in a nasty manner, and fortunately for it and unfortunately for me it had the right atmosphere to do it in.

Looking out onto the pasture in front of my university car park, and having taken the photograph above, one thing came to my mind: Silent Hill. My mind decided to imagine Silent Hill and all of its ghastly images. I was praising the Gods for having been surrounded by other students who were equally as amazed by the fog as I was, not to my level obviously, otherwise I would have been running to class and that would not have resulted in any success due to the fact that I have not ran since my primary school relay sports games. 

I must admit, though, I do mildly revel in my imagination. It makes things very entertaining. Had I not had the imagination I currently have, I would have just seen the fog as fallen clouds - or just as mere fog. I would have walked to my class without the constant fear that I was being followed by demonic entities, assuming of course they would leave their warm and comfortable beds in such weather.

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.

Kickstart

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For many, university is a place of academia, a step closer to achieving a career goal, and a leap deeper into student debt. That mixture is what I aim for, however what I consider university to be to me is a kickstart back on track with my life.

When I am on a break from university, I feel as though my life is jumbled up. I fall out of any routine that I once had, and I ruin my sleeping and eating patterns. I lose myself again. All the gain that I would have gathered from every sense of my wellbeing flies away from my grip, and I again fall into the well of despair that I annually attempt to pull myself out of.

I celebrate the coming of holidays as much as any other student, though. I finally acquire headspace. I start plotting places to go, things to do, things to see, road trips and projects and such, and I indeed pursue them - the thing is that  pursue them all too fast and they are over early, leaving a lot of time for me to, yes, procrastinate.

I suppose then any course that I choose to undertake in the future, including the courses I have taken and the course that I am taking, are utterly worth the price that I one day must pay back. Along with paying for an access to education, I am paying to get my life together. I am paying for clarity, for direction, for self-worth. 

I have met amazing professionals, most of which still communicate with me to this day. I have been reborn as someone that I never saw myself as being. When I was eighteen years old, I had no idea what I wanted to do, and if one asked me where I saw myself in ten years I would have honestly replied with death. I was in a bad place, mentally, and I saw no light at the end of the tunnel I caught myself in. I did not see a way out, I did not see any educative possibilities. I thought that I would acquire a job and live off whatever job I acquired - I had no luck. I thought that I could live off youth allowance, and I did for a while until they required me to either get a job or study. I went job-hunting again and failed, so I decided to enrol in any mere course. I chose Professional Writing and Editing.

I loved that course, but I was highly distracted with my youth and my inner confusion. I did not know who I was, and I still had no sense of direction. I dropped out of that course when I had not long left to complete it, and sought after Information Technology. I flourished in it. I was the only girl, and that was to my advantage because I always had help whenever I needed it. I excelled in web design, programming and project management - I was beginning to see myself as in I.T. expert, until I had a networking class. I tried to pass but failed, and again, gave up on the course. Then I was stranded.

Until the Diploma of Education Studies came along. I was surprised that I had gotten into it, and I did not take the first semester seriously at all. Something then lit up inside of me when I heard the possibility of being able to get into the Bachelor of Education if I pass the diploma. I suddenly wanted that opportunity. I me into that diploma thinking that I could never get into university, and then I was given the option, and I took that option by the reigns and steered it in one direction: up. Now, I am pleased to say that I am excelling in what I do, and I am enjoying what I do.

But I want more. I hunger for more. The Bachelor has given me a kickstart into the educative life, and it has pushed me to want much more than a teaching job at a local high school. I want to study beyond this and hopefully lecture. I have a dream that one day I will walk into a lecture theatre and place my powerpoint presentation up on the projector and talk about that topic for a whole hour, and later go in-depth for three or so hours. I am education hungry, and I have university to thank for that, for now it has kickstarted my realistic career goals.

Give whatever you doubt a chance, because sometimes the things you doubt turn out to be the things that you need. They could be the colour your life is missing. Unless of course those things are drugs, cigarettes or alcohol, because, you know, they are not good for you.

Thank You

My drives home from university are fantastic because the way that I drive is completely opposite to the direction peak hour traffic goes, or stops, rather. I drive past hundreds and thousands of cars stopped on the opposite lane, their drivers desperate to get home after a long day of work.

It is rare that I see something interesting on those drives, seeing as they are quite repetitive and not much happens on the freeway anyway. I drive in a straight line, the car on cruise control and I slow down and speed back up to one-hundred depending on the people driving in front of me. I have the music blasting in the meanwhile, and the back windows each down an inch. My head tilted, my eyes open three-quarters of the way, my anticipation building to visit my toilet and to lounge on the sofa after a long day of listening to people talk.

When I get off the freeway, and drive down the main road to turn onto the other main road which leads me to my home, nothing interesting really happens either. People attempt to race past me after having been glued to my rear for ten minutes, and still end up caught at the traffic light ahead, having achieved nothing except for wearing their brakes out a little more all to feel as though they are more superior than I, speeding to get to their destinations. Do they not realise that we all have some place to go? Some place to be? 

A couple of days ago, however, something interesting did happen exactly halfway between both main roads. Something I have not witnessed in a while, something I now consider rare: the exchanging of manners. The turn from the first main road onto the next holds a pedestrian crossing, one mostly missed and one I always am sure to remember, seeing as I would be absolutely traumatised if I ever ran another human being over. And I was lucky to stop that day, seeing as the car in front of me zoomed straight through the pedestrian crossing almost wiping out the lady who was about to cross.

Seeing me approach fast because my vision was blocked by that car, she remained stopped at the pedestrian crossing, not daring to cross even though it is her right to and my right to give her way, just in case I myself would run her over. But I came to an immediate halt. Even though it took me long to see her, I managed to spot her and I stopped just in time, not considering the cars behind me but considering this poor woman who looked petrified at the fact that she had almost gotten run over.

Instead of crossing and swearing at me, in the first few steps she took, she turned and faced me and mouthed very clearly the words 'thank you'. I smiled, and nodded. It was a moment that froze for a while, because of how scarce it was. Its infrequency is known to me and it amazed me how she took the time to slowly mouth those two gratifying words, making sure that I caught each one, taking her appreciation a step further. I am sure that the inhabitants of the cars behind me were mouthing a replacement word for 'thank' which ends in the same letter, but I care not.

What I do care for is the lovely display that the lady put on for me in turn for me allowing her her right as a pedestrian on a pedestrian crossing. People need to slow down and place themselves in the shoes of others. We need to be compassionate towards strangers because we are strangers to others too and we would want the same thing.

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.

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.

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.

Parking Fines are not so Fine

Parking fines are certainly not 'fine'. They await you on your worst days and lurk on your windshield, somehow expecting you to swoon at their preposterous sight.

The fine itself, measuring around seven centimetres in length and three centimetres in width has your infringement number in big, bold numbers, and then continues to state your offence, usually something quite small and worthy of an appeal though most appeals are not granted or accepted, and have a barcode on the side, the scanning of which immediately shows the permanence of your penalty.

Seventy-two dollars, mine states. I am to pay seventy-two dollars because I purchased a daily parking permit. Yes, I purchased one. So why, you ask, did I get a fine, then? Well, I parked on the kerb, outside the university car park, and I purchased a daily parking permit from the university car park. That there is the problem. According to the blond man wearing a council worker vest, with a face hostile and apologetic at the same time at the sight of my distraught face, I was meant to have purchased a daily parking permit from the machine across the road on the footpath, because I apparently parked in a 'council area' and not in the university area.

This man proceeded to tell me all of this seven minutes after my lecture had finished. Had I jay-walked across the street like the group of people waiting with me at the traffic lights and risked paying a two-hundred and fifty dollar fine if I was caught or risked getting run over because I walk at the speed of a turtle, I would have made it to my car in time to not catch this devious white coloured slip snuggled under my windshield wiper, curled up against the window in protection from the morning chill.

So there I stood, like a good citizen at the traffic light, awaiting my rightful turn to cross, so that if I were to get run over and remain alive I would sue the person who ran me over and receive a huge amount of money in compensation for the pain or loss of limbs I would receive. It took seven minutes for the little red man in front of me to turn green, so I crossed the road, whistling away and smiling after having photographed my favorite stencil artist's new stencil being placed upon one of my university's building. Baby Guerrilla, you are amazing.

And like the fool that I am, I saw the bright yellow vest moving about my car and assumed that the man wearing it was photographing either the car in front of me or behind me, so I did not run to stop him because I thought that the person whose car he was photographing was quite unfortunate. To my dismay, I realised that it was my car. I was heavily confused -  purchased a daily parking permit, why was he fining me?

"You didn't buy a ticket from the machine on the road. Once I print the ticket, I can't take it back. Sorry." My face portrayed that of a recent widow's. A fine day, a fine lecture, a fine stroll after a fine photo taken of a fine piece of street art in the making being mounted up by a fine street artist, was all ruined by a fine. One fine. 

It took seven centimetres by three centimetres to ruin my entire day. That, and the fact that whilst parking at my other campus I scraped the side of my car onto some large car's tyre. The large car and its tyre are fine, my father's car, not so much. 

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.