bless 

Move

Sticking this in a (virtual) neuron for later, as Peter Carroll would say. In my dream, we moved to an apartment in Singapore that felt very, well, un-Singaporean. Flat roofs, reasonably tall apartments with courtyards, fading chalky paint and ornamentation. It seemed more like India, or somewhere further into the continent. I had no idea what we were doing there and Lily was still supposed to be going to school in AU. She had a cheap weekly plane ticket. I want this to be the travel bug in my subconscious  telling me to get moving; home is always close by when flying is a cheap ticket. Hopefully I'll draw this later, I don't think it actually looks anything like what I have. This was about the same time last year that I started having the strange dreams and it would be pretty damn cool if they start happening again.

In nothing new, I'm trying to be more involved in the community (pharmacy + arts). Things that I've applied for recently:

- so many pharmacy jobs. soo many. I've put off following up applications because... I don't know, I didn't want to seem overzealous. Obviously I was an idiot before but now that I'm desperate to get my foot in the door, I have very few fucks to give about what they'll think of me anymore. I have a few to chase up after next Fri. 

- theatre front of house. still on my to-do list c.2011! can't stop me

- volunteer work. it'd be nice to be on the local scene. 

- extra pt load. this might be the last thing I need on top of a ft load but I think I really want to try this. 

Olivia said I might be one of those people who can't decide on doing one thing, and she probably didn't mean it as an endearment. Lots of love to her though, she taught me much. This is probably when I'll have the most time on my hands so I may as well give it all a go. Shoot for the stars and land on the moon, right?

Pause

most popular girl in town. mona lisa 2012

Right yeah deep title. More like I've pretty much paused work for way too long now, but wow that photo was from over a year ago. Sometimes I retain vivid mental images and that must've been one of those moments (aside from it obviously being archived forever as a photo, duh) because it still feels so damn recent. Time is moving so quickly. This is the worst time to reminisce but it's too late and I did it and it's made me realise that so much has happened and changed since. If ideas and surroundings change, can people still stay the same? 

I'll come back to this later before I spend too long on here. Tonight's been a dramatic one but tomorrow seems more promising. I'll have fresh optimism to carry me through, endless hope for the people I care about, and energy for the shit I have to take care of. Good night. 

+

It didn't feel right to end on such a negative post and I still feel like procrastinating (I'll regret this in about half an hour) so I'm going to make this post a positive one. I've been consciously mentally conditioning myself to deal with things lately and this is the strangest way of coping I've tried, but whatever works, works. It could be worse. Just gotta get through these next 2 weeks and then holidays! h o l i d a y s

Things I plan to do these holidays

• work, get money $$$$$$
• dear any pharmacy in Sydney, pls hire me 
• spend time with family. I'm going to have to work hard on this one..
• spend time with friends 
• spend time well
• draw everything. get better and then get somewhere. 
• Iceland
• master studies 
• garden. I might be too ambitious with this one but I want to get some kind of plant nursery going.
• read
• develop my film. develop that roll from the holga..! 
• document my time better.
• travel
• TAS
• Blue Mts 4ever
• ride my bike! 

Queen B

So I never properly listened to Beyonce until last week when I fell into an awful slump and holy jesus did she turn my week around. It must've been a combination of her tunes + me reaching the end of my tether, but I am absolutely certain that her voice is magical. No doubt about it. I would've lingered on the problem for even longer otherwise. 2821 got me so bogged down in confusion it felt like there was no light at the end of the tunnel and just no place for it in the bigger picture. Thankfully it makes a bit more sense now but I've still miles to go.

Sistahs gotta stick 2gether. Girl power woohoo.

Also, a new header! The previous one was kinda ugly and I didn't like it anyway. This one's a bit of a return to the first one and I'm enjoying it a muuch more. Simple, but not static. I might have just realised that that's the kind of life I hope for, which gives me the perfect segue into what I wanted to talk about: life right now.

There's been an atmosphere slowly growing around certain people and lately it's starting to become toxic. What's worse is having to share the breathing space with them. The generational and cultural gap is widening and becoming more apparent in my family.

Sometimes I feel like I can't stand my sister but at times like these I (hopefully she does too) realise we're in the same boat. Things that my mum/grandma say are just so fucking shocking yet their attitudes are incorrigible and Lily and I end up on the receiving end of a narrow-minded reeducation. I guess the proper thing to do would be to just keep my head down until I can move out but I'm going to note this as a very distinct change in my own attitudes. I'm fairly sure that this time last year the plan was to just stick around home and take my time saving up until I could be financially comfortable on my own. Maybe I've matured, maybe it's just become more obvious or intolerable now that we're all in closer proximity, but I want out. I'm sure Lily wants out too and if money were no object we would be so out.

I understand that it's a cultural thing for the hierarchy to be the way it is but given that we are getting older and they brought us up to think, they were way too optimistic to expect us not to question authority. We do have valid ideas, but if they're unwilling to consider change or /empathise/ then whatever that's how they are, old people, middle aged people. I'll just stay under the radar. Hopefully the narrow mindedness isn't genetic. Considering that it's infected 2 generations though.. hah.

In other news, I feel like I'm directing way too much effort in being grumps towards other people. Maybe to much effort to begin with. I just imagine everyone's busy concentrating on their own stuff and I'm bugging people left/right/centre because I can't deal with being by myself for a few weeks. Right about now the doubts start rising and they tell me to depend on no one, abandon attachment, expect little, and find a cat who will love me forever. Joy. I miss my people.

Holidays come at meeeeee plsletmepassthough.

Also fuck CD.

HNMR of caffeine. Drug of choice for the next week. 

Sam. Street prowler, do not feed.

Chain whip, engage!

Free cassette

The new spoke

ew

Unicycle

Lily and I got to chill with Sam on our way home from the shops. I think s/he might've been the same cat I saw that night. Sam will lie in front of you until you move too close, and then will roll over for a tummy rub and then follow you for a bit before breaking your heart and leaving you. 

I got around to fixing that (2nd!!!) broken spoke today after picking up the tool kit from Minh. Removing the cassette and re-assembling the QR would probably have been the hardest but if I had to do that again it'd probably be much easier. 

The locking on the cassette has a little triangle printed on it, pointing in a direction to "lock". All I had to do to unlock it was twist it in the opposite direction while engaging the cassette with the chainwhip. Feeling ready and equipped with my plan, I quickly hit a stumbling block because I was too weaksauce. I ended up having the recruit Lily to help pull on the tool in the other direction and after she gave up, I did it a little longer before it finally loosened. From then on it was okay but that took way too long. 

Reassembling the QR was also a hassle because I didn't note the order of the little eyelet bits so when I put it on, it didn't screw on properly/tight enough, meaning the wheel was all kinds of wobbly and unroadworthy. After lots of trial and error (mostly error), i noticed a spare piece that I forgot to put onto the nut end(??? terminology?), and then did more noticing when I saw that both sides had the same part. Mirroring the other side, which remained in the right order, proved successful and I landed myself a functioning wheel. 

I'm not entirely sure if the wheel is true though - it probably isn't; the spokes got a couple of flicks and I just listened to them singing the song of their people. The verdict was that it sounded close enough - I have all my spokes and they have similar enough tensions so it's good enough for me. I'll figure it out some day but for now I'll take it. 

Today's been a good day.

Fuck 2821 though. Our report's taking shape and I've done my writing parts so I'm pretty pleased with how we're going so far. We've still got a few days left to finish it and prepare for our presentation, which I am slightly more worried about. Its significance was completely diminished though when I found out it was only worth 10%. I say that, but for this subject I'm probably going to need every percentage I need. The small incremental assessments have lulled me into a sense of complacency but now that the semester's ending they're going to start adding up. Hopefully all goes well. 

I'm not too worried about the oral assessment, though I'm not sure if i should be? Some part of me is kind of excited to do this but that's probably too optimistic, from what I've been hearing about it. Then again, stressing out won't do much good either. Preparation is going well for that. 

And once my time frees up, maybe I'll be able to get my drawing back on.

Aaaand that's all for this news update.  

Queen B

A work mate just shared her new song and it was pretty exciting to see her still out and about and making music, but it left me missing some of her older stuff. After listening to a couple of tracks, it made me even sadder to think about the direction her life took a couple of years back. Sure she's making a come back now but it's almost unimaginable how much grief her fame and publicity must have caused her.

I'll never forget the primary school summers with Britney loud on the car radio while my family road tripped all over, me and Lily singing shamelessly in the back seats. Hours were spent watching and rewatching her SNL skits and at that age it was the funniest shit on the planet. If I could find it right now, it'd probably still be hilarious as hell. She was a total babe and even my parents loved her. This one's for my childhood queen. Love forever.