Countdown: 192
Goal: $7500
Current Funds: $1900
$5600 to go!
Some of that money is almost definitely going into my car. I'm not so keen about that, but Logan's dying I think. Had a nice lil nothing week, filled with silliness, from hanging out at Paul's place doing nothing special to going to Jeremy's 21st which was packed with drama students and the music played all night was almost entirely showtunes and musicals. They were all very nice people, but then, who else would Jeremy be surrounded by? He's such a genuine guy. Oh yeah and I jammed with Neo Sunday night, we practiced Rising Fighting Spirit way too many times, now we can sort of play it okay, but anything we record it on is subsequently destroyed by the higher, slightly more shrill tones Marcello produces. Apparently Neo called his guitar Zion, but he seemed less than enthusiastic about the name =P
Monica and I declared a contest to see who could serve the most annoying, stupid and/or selfish person in a 7hr shift on Friday. She was at an Optus shop in The Glen while I went to Narre Warren. Subsequently I had the best shift I have ever had in Narre Warren after 4 and a half years. I didn't even get so much as a FROWN. I even somehow fixed the horrible printer by myself, which nobody had done before (it's brand new so we'd always have to call tech support a.k.a. Rowland). Everybody was freakishly patient and relaxed no matter what happened. Instead of sooking about how the printer had taken her money and not printed her work, one woman told me "oh don't worry about it there were bound to be teething problems ... " a middle eastern lady whose only words to a coworker had been foreign swears was smiling and saying "thankyou" repeatedly to me after I served her! One guy approached me and asked, "Where's the complaints box? Nah, just kidding, this place is great I love it!" That ACTUALLY happened. It was nuts. Some of them even started going the other direction, sharing heart-warming stories about how their son won an OAM for his work helping the blind and such. It was unbelievable! And so I have decided to publicly declare what I have always in my heart known - I am the Prophet of the Irony Gods.
***
Got in touch with Kris The Awesome German, he studied in China for about 4 years I believe. I asked him about universities in China. He's recommended me a place in Yunnan. Having crunched the numbers I'm guessing to stay there for one semester would set me back around $AUS3500, so I'd bump that up to $4000 to be safe - this includes school fees, accomodation and daily expenses, but not the transport to get there/insurance/travelling after. (And of course it's dependent on the $AUS not getting any weaker or the RMB suddenly getting way too strong ...) I am going to seriously consider this as an option for next year.
Speaking of options for next year, I also mentioned to Kathryn in a bit of an offhand way that I had a desire to do volunteer work. She's also quite keen to check that place out so I might do a little asking around (i.e., Maxine who's going there at the end of this year, Monica who already has - both of whom for volunteer projects, Aunty Shoba/Eugene for some local tips and perhaps to find out if there's anybody I could say hi to over there). We've tentatively agreed to aim for January/Febuary, in which we would like to do some volunteer stuff and then wander around checking the place out.
***
Just last night I watched an Andrew Denton thing where he was interviewing people who suffered from mental illness. Within the first 5 minutes I was taken back to my high school days. These people had heard voices, saw things, suffered from bouts of paranoia and delusion, run around screaming in the street and recieved no help, loathed the side-effects of medication and many aspects of the mental health care sector. The most striking thing for most people who watched this I think, might have been how articulate and self-aware many of these people being interviewed were. These were, of course, people who'd admit that they were sick and needed some sort of help, but to somebody who hadn't given their sort a chance it would have been really eye-opening to listen to them speaking like fairly normal people who'd simply had horrible traumatic experiences, caused by a glitch in their own minds.
I felt like I'd closed my eyes and turned my back on my own experience. Yes, I sorted myself out early, it was only about a year or two that I'd been "sick" and I even managed to keep passing until Year 12 where I got decent marks, with the help of many many wonderful people. I had never become the guy in the street who mumbled about the people that watch him, but for a long time I was worried I might. My absolute number one fear has always been that I might one day end up recieving ECT - shock therapy. I broke down in school many times in Year 10 and a few in Year 11, the biggest being when I ran headfirst into a locker before homeroom and started screaming gibberish at a bully. Then there were these ridiculous rumours about the other crazy stuff I'd supposedly done that went around and gave my paranoia the perfect environment to fester in. I also began to develop theories about extra-dimensional beings who were controlling my life by writing a book about me, all the little dramas that went on were clearly for their entertainment. And I always felt so lonely, I wished I could find somebody who understood what I was going through, or that I could myself understand. Very drama, very emo, yes.
The morning I went crazy in front of everyone, the school called my therapist - they'd already had their eyes on me because the rumours had actually started a little bit before I majorly flipped out. Later I was told after the vice-principal told her what had happened, Jeanette immediately replied, "and I bet he didn't lay a finger on anybody." I found this touching, to say the least. I realised that what was going on with me could have been much worse, while I sometimes freaked out there were still times I had my whole mind, my whole awareness. It was around then I started going to Yun Yang, and I found myself becoming more and more self-aware, and learned about how to issue more self-control and assert my personality over the crazy. I learned not to blame myself for the afflictions I couldn't help, but still take responsibility and work on working with them. It took a very long time to do this properly. My own experience combined with the Buddhist teachings led me to consider many other aspects of the human experience to be "afflictions" too - for example when so-and-so is angry, that's not *who* they are, it's something that's taken over them at that point because they hadn't reached a level of understanding/control which allowed them to control it. Just like I never wanted to go crazy, I doubted people really wanted to be unpleasant for no reason, and so on.
I think as I got better and better at getting people to think of me as "Mykal that weird guy who wouldn't hurt anyone" as opposed to "that nutcase I can't understand", I started to distance myself from these past experiences. I've become less patient and more easily thrown off balance because I'm no longer angry enough to want to prove anything, and I was happy simply thinking I was not so crazy after all, instead of appreciating what that really meant to me when I was trying to convince myself of it.
My experience was really a series of near-misses, I had episodes but every story I've heard about people flipping out has been 100 times worse than mine. I'm in the middle, between the crazies I wished I could know and the normals I wished I could understand. I just got mini-episodes, I suppose. I think that any sort of mood swing that affects a person's judgement/self-control is like an even minier ep. If I can keep that in mind, I'm sure my compassion and respect for others will increase - the fact that I've forgotten this part of my past is probably the reason I've been lacking in it a bit more these days.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Hasaam Abruptly Recalls Own Definition
Countdown: 199
The week was dull and empty and I continued to wonder what I was doing with my life etc etc etc.
Friday night I was about to go to sleep when I got a phone call from Adrian, apparently he and Patrick and Jason all felt like a "scavenger hunt" so I drove over there to find a list of silly dares, helped come up with a couple more and watched them assign points to each one. Then I got paired with Jason and we agreed to rendezvous back at 3am (it was about midnight at the time). Dares included:
Commit Mosery (apparently this is the legal term for the act of exposing oneself to a blind person. For some reason, nobody went for this one).
Go to another state
Glad wrap some fool's car - me and Jason did this to Adrian's car, and of course by the end of the night found they'd used the same wrap to cover mine.
Get breathalised - the plan was simple: go to the copshop and explain to them we'd been at a party around the corner and wanted to make sure we were right to drive home. But apparently they need to have "reasonable cause" or something, which makes no sense to me. We failed.
Climb a tree 10m high - we combined this one with "T.P. a tree" and "sing humpty dumpty while wearing a condom on your head" to much success!
Have a shopping trolley battle - combined with "spit from 20m up" by doing both at Fountain Gate shopping centre. Mooned nobody on the way out, since this was also on the list, but it didn't quite count as a combo.
Oh I'm also missing a little hair from my right arm cos I got it waxed, that was an easy 25 points!!!
By far our proudest combo was "buy a stranger dinner" and "take a sexy photo posing on a stranger's car". We achieved this by approaching somebody at the drive-thru (remember this was 2:50am) and explaining the whole game, summing it up with "so basically, if you allow me to pose sexily on your car I will pay for your meal. How much is it?" The driver, who had three piercings in his left eyebrow alone, replied in quite a mellow tone, "sure I'll help a couple of fellas out. It's just 9 bucks."
Adrian and Pat beat us essentially by doubling up on many dares which we didn't - most of the time they did each in separate locations and so forth, so it wasn't as dodgy as it might sound. Their sexy poses involved being shirtless. One dare was to "egg the other team". Me and Jason, being as paranoid and cowardly as eachother, rightly suspected an ambush at the last minute at Adrian's house. So we showed up shoeless and topless to ensure we didn't get too messy. About 2 eggs were thrown at us and we sure felt silly!
The next 2 and a half hours were spent debating the points system, some of the points allocated to some of the dares just seemed silly. Also, although Jason and I loved the idea of making interesting combos, Adrian was not happy with our method for acknowledging them in the score, which involved multiplication, and frankly did seem a bit excessive.
It was a lovely wake-up call. Then I went and hung with Bobbi in Pakenham after work the next day, and as usual we chatted about travelling and I had a severe allergic reaction to her lovely cat.
Last night was the Youth Interfaith Dinner Thingy. It really was a fantastic evening, the weirdest part being that I got to see the Mak-K-Babs guys again! Apparently they've always been followers of the Baha'i Faith, and they remembered me as their most loyal customer who they "slipped free souvlakis to every other day"! Haha, we hugged and I told them that, even though it was a coincidence, I basically stopped eating meat when they stopped selling kebabs. Oh and also I had to give a speech to everybody about "How my personal dreams and aspirations compare to my faith beliefs". I was actually quite happy with what I wrote, but was disappointed with my presentation, I'm still doing a bit of that awkward staring at my paper thing, but it was definitely an improvement of the sheer terror I'd experienced in China, or the pissweak effort of my 21st ad-lib failure (the highlight of which being "thankyou mum and dad for being very naughty 21 one years plus nine months ago"). As I'd hoped, I learned a bit about different faiths, Mormons and Baha'i in particullar, there was excellent food and warm company. Andrew Williams got up and did an acapella of a couple songs that matched the theme of the evening because he didn't think he'd need his guitar (how could he NOT have expected them to invite him to sing?!) The Mormons were represented by their choir, who were very good too and some lovely Sikh girls sang their version of hymns in another language (sadly I've forgotten what it was) while playing traditional-looking instruments that sort of resembled a conga and acordion. Edmund and Chewy were present, Edmund enjoyed himself enough that he stood up when we were all asked for "suggestions to improve nights like these" and rambled for about 5 minutes while everybody laughed at his standard chatter (including "your food was so good, and the potatoes were huge, I had like three and now I truly understand what pregnant women are feeling when they have triplets inside them" and a story about something silly that happened on their table) and some nearly cried from laughing when all this amounted to was "oh and so yeah I think it'd be good if we played some games or something." ... I think this was funnier if you were actually there.
And then of course, I had a lovely picnic today in which I ate avocado again for the first time since that awful experience I had about 5 years ago. Oh and got to spend time with Adila, who taught me not to be afraid of spiders by sharing vague details of an old Islamic parable about how they saved Mohamed! Good on them =]
Now this is what I'm talking about. It's funny how in a handful of days, I spent some time with at least one representative from school, uni, the Temple and even the library (although I sort of prefer to put Adila under the header of "awesome random") and got a handy reminder of how awesome it is to just hang and/or do stuff.
The first two reminded me through experience of some simple things that I've been trying to tell myself for weeks now - that there's plenty of fun to be had at home and stuff to get done, and that the world is huge, parts of it can come to you, but it will always be there when I'm ready and able to go check it out - and it'll never be too late, so if I gotta chill another couple hundred days, no biggie at all.
The interfaith thing gave me the usual spiritual euphoric sensations and all which are quite uplifting as well as the confidence boost I enjoy from successful rapidfire exchanges with strangers, but because of that speech, I was forced to actively think again about what I believe and how I live it out. What I said was honest, if a little corny at points, but it definitely sorted my head out and I'm finally feeling 'normal' as I thought I was supposed to after graduation.
As for today's picnic? Well, it was just good. It was simple and it was nice, clean fun ^^ Sort of a nice chance to give my freshly-formatted brain a little test drive. In other words, I feel like I got a lot more out of the day thanks to all of the above, which is definitely good because there was plenty to get out of it!
The week was dull and empty and I continued to wonder what I was doing with my life etc etc etc.
Friday night I was about to go to sleep when I got a phone call from Adrian, apparently he and Patrick and Jason all felt like a "scavenger hunt" so I drove over there to find a list of silly dares, helped come up with a couple more and watched them assign points to each one. Then I got paired with Jason and we agreed to rendezvous back at 3am (it was about midnight at the time). Dares included:
Commit Mosery (apparently this is the legal term for the act of exposing oneself to a blind person. For some reason, nobody went for this one).
Go to another state
Glad wrap some fool's car - me and Jason did this to Adrian's car, and of course by the end of the night found they'd used the same wrap to cover mine.
Get breathalised - the plan was simple: go to the copshop and explain to them we'd been at a party around the corner and wanted to make sure we were right to drive home. But apparently they need to have "reasonable cause" or something, which makes no sense to me. We failed.
Climb a tree 10m high - we combined this one with "T.P. a tree" and "sing humpty dumpty while wearing a condom on your head" to much success!
Have a shopping trolley battle - combined with "spit from 20m up" by doing both at Fountain Gate shopping centre. Mooned nobody on the way out, since this was also on the list, but it didn't quite count as a combo.
Oh I'm also missing a little hair from my right arm cos I got it waxed, that was an easy 25 points!!!
By far our proudest combo was "buy a stranger dinner" and "take a sexy photo posing on a stranger's car". We achieved this by approaching somebody at the drive-thru (remember this was 2:50am) and explaining the whole game, summing it up with "so basically, if you allow me to pose sexily on your car I will pay for your meal. How much is it?" The driver, who had three piercings in his left eyebrow alone, replied in quite a mellow tone, "sure I'll help a couple of fellas out. It's just 9 bucks."
Adrian and Pat beat us essentially by doubling up on many dares which we didn't - most of the time they did each in separate locations and so forth, so it wasn't as dodgy as it might sound. Their sexy poses involved being shirtless. One dare was to "egg the other team". Me and Jason, being as paranoid and cowardly as eachother, rightly suspected an ambush at the last minute at Adrian's house. So we showed up shoeless and topless to ensure we didn't get too messy. About 2 eggs were thrown at us and we sure felt silly!
The next 2 and a half hours were spent debating the points system, some of the points allocated to some of the dares just seemed silly. Also, although Jason and I loved the idea of making interesting combos, Adrian was not happy with our method for acknowledging them in the score, which involved multiplication, and frankly did seem a bit excessive.
It was a lovely wake-up call. Then I went and hung with Bobbi in Pakenham after work the next day, and as usual we chatted about travelling and I had a severe allergic reaction to her lovely cat.
Last night was the Youth Interfaith Dinner Thingy. It really was a fantastic evening, the weirdest part being that I got to see the Mak-K-Babs guys again! Apparently they've always been followers of the Baha'i Faith, and they remembered me as their most loyal customer who they "slipped free souvlakis to every other day"! Haha, we hugged and I told them that, even though it was a coincidence, I basically stopped eating meat when they stopped selling kebabs. Oh and also I had to give a speech to everybody about "How my personal dreams and aspirations compare to my faith beliefs". I was actually quite happy with what I wrote, but was disappointed with my presentation, I'm still doing a bit of that awkward staring at my paper thing, but it was definitely an improvement of the sheer terror I'd experienced in China, or the pissweak effort of my 21st ad-lib failure (the highlight of which being "thankyou mum and dad for being very naughty 21 one years plus nine months ago"). As I'd hoped, I learned a bit about different faiths, Mormons and Baha'i in particullar, there was excellent food and warm company. Andrew Williams got up and did an acapella of a couple songs that matched the theme of the evening because he didn't think he'd need his guitar (how could he NOT have expected them to invite him to sing?!) The Mormons were represented by their choir, who were very good too and some lovely Sikh girls sang their version of hymns in another language (sadly I've forgotten what it was) while playing traditional-looking instruments that sort of resembled a conga and acordion. Edmund and Chewy were present, Edmund enjoyed himself enough that he stood up when we were all asked for "suggestions to improve nights like these" and rambled for about 5 minutes while everybody laughed at his standard chatter (including "your food was so good, and the potatoes were huge, I had like three and now I truly understand what pregnant women are feeling when they have triplets inside them" and a story about something silly that happened on their table) and some nearly cried from laughing when all this amounted to was "oh and so yeah I think it'd be good if we played some games or something." ... I think this was funnier if you were actually there.
And then of course, I had a lovely picnic today in which I ate avocado again for the first time since that awful experience I had about 5 years ago. Oh and got to spend time with Adila, who taught me not to be afraid of spiders by sharing vague details of an old Islamic parable about how they saved Mohamed! Good on them =]
Now this is what I'm talking about. It's funny how in a handful of days, I spent some time with at least one representative from school, uni, the Temple and even the library (although I sort of prefer to put Adila under the header of "awesome random") and got a handy reminder of how awesome it is to just hang and/or do stuff.
The first two reminded me through experience of some simple things that I've been trying to tell myself for weeks now - that there's plenty of fun to be had at home and stuff to get done, and that the world is huge, parts of it can come to you, but it will always be there when I'm ready and able to go check it out - and it'll never be too late, so if I gotta chill another couple hundred days, no biggie at all.
The interfaith thing gave me the usual spiritual euphoric sensations and all which are quite uplifting as well as the confidence boost I enjoy from successful rapidfire exchanges with strangers, but because of that speech, I was forced to actively think again about what I believe and how I live it out. What I said was honest, if a little corny at points, but it definitely sorted my head out and I'm finally feeling 'normal' as I thought I was supposed to after graduation.
As for today's picnic? Well, it was just good. It was simple and it was nice, clean fun ^^ Sort of a nice chance to give my freshly-formatted brain a little test drive. In other words, I feel like I got a lot more out of the day thanks to all of the above, which is definitely good because there was plenty to get out of it!
Thursday, June 18, 2009
You'll Go Hasaam If You Keep That Up
Countdown: 205
In the old days where I was striving to get as many shifts as possible with the good ol' Casey Cardinia Library Corporation so I could a) survive away from home while studying and b) save for a massive holiday, Tracy, who I consider my work-Mum, would hear whispers of people complaining about me and pass them along so I could stay one step ahead. In the old days, when I wasn't really sure about what needed to be done, her tips were quite helpful. A few people who used to complain that I was useless etc got turned around, and a couple whiny bitches were left. I indulged my curiosity/amused myself by pandering to their egos etc, felt proud of how I could outsmart them and 'trick' them into respecting me even if I couldn't just appeal to their sense of reason directly and fairly. Anyway, I thought those days were over but apparently there's still a couple sooks making petty complaints about all the horrible things I do and it's costing me shifts. Workplace politics are silly. I have a guarranteed 3 hours at Narre Warren and only because Tracy stuck up for me. I should have another 3 but they were off the table before Tracy heard people were sooking about me again. The weirdest part about this whole thing is, I was still in my little hazy can't-wake-up mentality up until the point where I heard about this bullshit. I think it was the fact that it was something small and petty that really did the trick.
It was an attack on my pride of sorts, me being told I was missing out for really ridiculous reasons, somebody suggesting that I was something that I wasn't, all that kind of childish stuff. "Stuff this, I don't have to let idiots push me around, I'll kick all their arses, figuratively" was the basic thought process I believe I underwent. The rest of the shift went really well, I felt confident and I suddenly regained my ability to properly engage anybody I served as if they were a real person again, something I've lacked since my self-esteem took that massive blow a month or so back.
Come to think of it, I always seem to accomplish the most when somebody tells me I can't do something based on the idea that I personally couldn't handle it owing to some sort of weakness in my character. Apparently I'm very proud of my character =P
I doubt myself a lot, I question the point of pretty much everything these days, I spend a lot of time afraid especially around people because I just couldn't understand them. All that used to keep me going and seemingly confident was the idea that if I was more useful, people could depend on me. If I could help other people, then that would provide some sort of connection with them, it definitely seemed like I was understanding them. As wanky and pretentious as it sounds, I could pull myself out of the stupidest mood if I thought somebody needed me. But lately the problem is I've started to feel that I hadn't really accomplished anything, and that the idea of really connecting with and understanding people was outside of my grasp. Again, rationally speaking, this is all very silly, but I suppose I was struggling to get my mind to run on any semblence of rationale. Underneath it all, nobody really runs on common sense or logic, but some people have a foundation that's a lot more simple than mine - I'm not being arrogant here, I think that's a lot more sensible, too! Wanting as much out of everyone as I did was too big an ask, I was always setting myself up for a fall there. I forgot I do have some simple base urges of my own, grounded in curiosity, competitiveness and pride. When I doubt myself and somebody suggests there's something wrong with me, I believe them, and often become shy/self-conscious as I do everything I can to correct it. I'll quite readily believe that I'm not really all that great. But when somebody suggests I am a lesser person because of flaws I don't have/I do, but no more than anybody else - I get this massive surge of self-righteousness as my brain lights up and reminds me of just how awesome I am =P I won't accept that I suck THAT much, either. I too strongly believe in the ideal that we all have potential to be as awesome as anybody else underneath it all, I suppose.
So there you go, that problem's nearly completely solved, after far too much build-up. All it took was a wanker or two. Soon I'll be capable of feeling like I can do good in the world again xD
In the old days where I was striving to get as many shifts as possible with the good ol' Casey Cardinia Library Corporation so I could a) survive away from home while studying and b) save for a massive holiday, Tracy, who I consider my work-Mum, would hear whispers of people complaining about me and pass them along so I could stay one step ahead. In the old days, when I wasn't really sure about what needed to be done, her tips were quite helpful. A few people who used to complain that I was useless etc got turned around, and a couple whiny bitches were left. I indulged my curiosity/amused myself by pandering to their egos etc, felt proud of how I could outsmart them and 'trick' them into respecting me even if I couldn't just appeal to their sense of reason directly and fairly. Anyway, I thought those days were over but apparently there's still a couple sooks making petty complaints about all the horrible things I do and it's costing me shifts. Workplace politics are silly. I have a guarranteed 3 hours at Narre Warren and only because Tracy stuck up for me. I should have another 3 but they were off the table before Tracy heard people were sooking about me again. The weirdest part about this whole thing is, I was still in my little hazy can't-wake-up mentality up until the point where I heard about this bullshit. I think it was the fact that it was something small and petty that really did the trick.
It was an attack on my pride of sorts, me being told I was missing out for really ridiculous reasons, somebody suggesting that I was something that I wasn't, all that kind of childish stuff. "Stuff this, I don't have to let idiots push me around, I'll kick all their arses, figuratively" was the basic thought process I believe I underwent. The rest of the shift went really well, I felt confident and I suddenly regained my ability to properly engage anybody I served as if they were a real person again, something I've lacked since my self-esteem took that massive blow a month or so back.
Come to think of it, I always seem to accomplish the most when somebody tells me I can't do something based on the idea that I personally couldn't handle it owing to some sort of weakness in my character. Apparently I'm very proud of my character =P
I doubt myself a lot, I question the point of pretty much everything these days, I spend a lot of time afraid especially around people because I just couldn't understand them. All that used to keep me going and seemingly confident was the idea that if I was more useful, people could depend on me. If I could help other people, then that would provide some sort of connection with them, it definitely seemed like I was understanding them. As wanky and pretentious as it sounds, I could pull myself out of the stupidest mood if I thought somebody needed me. But lately the problem is I've started to feel that I hadn't really accomplished anything, and that the idea of really connecting with and understanding people was outside of my grasp. Again, rationally speaking, this is all very silly, but I suppose I was struggling to get my mind to run on any semblence of rationale. Underneath it all, nobody really runs on common sense or logic, but some people have a foundation that's a lot more simple than mine - I'm not being arrogant here, I think that's a lot more sensible, too! Wanting as much out of everyone as I did was too big an ask, I was always setting myself up for a fall there. I forgot I do have some simple base urges of my own, grounded in curiosity, competitiveness and pride. When I doubt myself and somebody suggests there's something wrong with me, I believe them, and often become shy/self-conscious as I do everything I can to correct it. I'll quite readily believe that I'm not really all that great. But when somebody suggests I am a lesser person because of flaws I don't have/I do, but no more than anybody else - I get this massive surge of self-righteousness as my brain lights up and reminds me of just how awesome I am =P I won't accept that I suck THAT much, either. I too strongly believe in the ideal that we all have potential to be as awesome as anybody else underneath it all, I suppose.
So there you go, that problem's nearly completely solved, after far too much build-up. All it took was a wanker or two. Soon I'll be capable of feeling like I can do good in the world again xD
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Blog Blargh Hasaam So Soon?
Countdown: 207
Monetary Goal: $7500
Current Funds: $1,400
$6100 to go.
It's too soon to tell whether the unnoteworthy increase in my savings is indicative of the way the rest of the year will go, I barely got any shifts last week. Got woken up in the morning to be told they want me to work 6-8pm tonight, and I said yes like a sucker. It's making me consider the second job thing a bit more strongly. Had a good 8 hours in Pakenham yesterday, they were pretty nice and odd people there. Will have to remember to bug Bobbi since I'll be in Pakky on Saturday too.
Sitting around the house doing practically nothing makes me wanna leave sooner, and in theory it wouldn't be too hard if I lined up a half decent job or something to just pay for insurance and airfare and just bail, but I think there's an important lesson for me to learn before I do anything silly like that, and as I keep saying a big part of it has to do with patience.
Been feeling a lot more detached from people these days, possibly related to the idea that getting stuck on a certain type of person slowed me down and held me back. I think this is a silly mentality, but there may be something to take from it. I shouldn't let people affect me too much - and that's not to say I've been sitting around the house crying through my eyeliner, I just haven't felt like going out or doing anything. It's like I'm waiting for something to happen ... I'm used to enough things just happening to me and never really needing to take much affirmative action. Between high school, work, uni, work, temple things, fawning over some girl, etc, there's only ever been so much in the way of gaps between for me to go out and actually live life or whatever. Now that it's all gone and it feels as if I've run out of ideas ... seems a little silly considering I'm yet to really get creative. Going overseas at this stage would be just another way of imposing some sort of structure on myself to make things happen. And yes, I'd get lots of living done too, but why should I let myself feel like there's no life to be lived here? That's just childish, narrow-minded and silly.
Drama used to be a good way of fueling some sort of passion. Fear and drama and concern for others. But I'm a little bored of drama, it just burns me out and achieves very little. Fear has done nothing but hold me back and doubt myself as well as those around me, and worrying about how to get rid of fear has also proven to be about as pointless as chasing my own tail. Experience would serve far better to give me confidence than trying to rationalise, it always has. As for worrying about other people ... I'm thinking there are better ways to go about it than the ways I do. It's hard. I think I'm doing the right thing most of the time, and it seems to work out okay at least half the time. But it's as exhausting as it is energy-boosting. All that's left is humour, and the fun stuff. I should get onto that instead of sitting around wondering about what to do with my life, I think =P
Gotta wake up ^^
Monetary Goal: $7500
Current Funds: $1,400
$6100 to go.
It's too soon to tell whether the unnoteworthy increase in my savings is indicative of the way the rest of the year will go, I barely got any shifts last week. Got woken up in the morning to be told they want me to work 6-8pm tonight, and I said yes like a sucker. It's making me consider the second job thing a bit more strongly. Had a good 8 hours in Pakenham yesterday, they were pretty nice and odd people there. Will have to remember to bug Bobbi since I'll be in Pakky on Saturday too.
Sitting around the house doing practically nothing makes me wanna leave sooner, and in theory it wouldn't be too hard if I lined up a half decent job or something to just pay for insurance and airfare and just bail, but I think there's an important lesson for me to learn before I do anything silly like that, and as I keep saying a big part of it has to do with patience.
Been feeling a lot more detached from people these days, possibly related to the idea that getting stuck on a certain type of person slowed me down and held me back. I think this is a silly mentality, but there may be something to take from it. I shouldn't let people affect me too much - and that's not to say I've been sitting around the house crying through my eyeliner, I just haven't felt like going out or doing anything. It's like I'm waiting for something to happen ... I'm used to enough things just happening to me and never really needing to take much affirmative action. Between high school, work, uni, work, temple things, fawning over some girl, etc, there's only ever been so much in the way of gaps between for me to go out and actually live life or whatever. Now that it's all gone and it feels as if I've run out of ideas ... seems a little silly considering I'm yet to really get creative. Going overseas at this stage would be just another way of imposing some sort of structure on myself to make things happen. And yes, I'd get lots of living done too, but why should I let myself feel like there's no life to be lived here? That's just childish, narrow-minded and silly.
Drama used to be a good way of fueling some sort of passion. Fear and drama and concern for others. But I'm a little bored of drama, it just burns me out and achieves very little. Fear has done nothing but hold me back and doubt myself as well as those around me, and worrying about how to get rid of fear has also proven to be about as pointless as chasing my own tail. Experience would serve far better to give me confidence than trying to rationalise, it always has. As for worrying about other people ... I'm thinking there are better ways to go about it than the ways I do. It's hard. I think I'm doing the right thing most of the time, and it seems to work out okay at least half the time. But it's as exhausting as it is energy-boosting. All that's left is humour, and the fun stuff. I should get onto that instead of sitting around wondering about what to do with my life, I think =P
Gotta wake up ^^
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Golden Hasaam
Countdown: 212
Location: Cranbourne. Still =P
Monetary Goal: $7500
Current Funds: $1,127
$6373
Starting Over
Well it took a while but I finally woke up. I think the brunt of the emo is over and I'll finally get on with the whole life-living thing. Yeah, it's none of your business (heck I'd probably explain it to anybody who could be bothered asking directly if you didn't already know) but there was a little bit of a bump in the road, I had to come back home to fix it and then I took my sweet time getting over stuff. Now I've promised Nana I'll be home for this Christmas so there's little point skipping the country with my minimal fundage only to turn around abruptly once again! I also figure I'd like to get some proper New Year's stuff done, oh and I intend to be in Melbourne for the Ben Fold's concert I now have a ticket to. And I owe somebody money. Oh and my car needs something done to it but it keeps not having problems and then having different problems so I have no idea what'll happen with that ...
So! Next year will involve some sort of overseas charity work, an excuse to check out Yun Yang Si in Taiwan for a little bit but mostly English teaching in ... well, I haven't decided yet. Japan or China. There are pros and cons for both, I suppose. I have 200 days to sus out details, anyway, so I'm in no panic as of yet.
But as for the rest of this year! Well ... I have no idea, actually. I'll have to get a TESOL Certificate thingy, just because it'll mean I can get a better teaching job next year.
I would like to get involved in some sort of charity thing, but I don't wanna overload myself like last year to the point where I can't do anything relaxed and fun. I might have to get a second job, so I'm gonna wait until Semester 2 starts at the unis and see what shifts I get before I start hooking onto extra commitments.
Yeah this is a bit dull but hey I never said I'd be interesting, heh. This blog entry is just sitting here to remind me to get my arse into gear. If I think of other things I need to get sorted out, I'll post them too for my own benefit.
The countdown is to January 10, 2010. I just felt this was enough time to properly recover from whatever I happen to get up to in the Near Year, but hey maybe for the sake of it I will leave on this day. The financial goal is just something that I think is more than reasonable for me to expect of myself to be able to put aside in that amount of time if I actually get my arse into gear.
Oh and I've been cooking a bit lately. Generally speaking, I'm pretty pleased with the results!
Location: Cranbourne. Still =P
Monetary Goal: $7500
Current Funds: $1,127
$6373
Starting Over
Well it took a while but I finally woke up. I think the brunt of the emo is over and I'll finally get on with the whole life-living thing. Yeah, it's none of your business (heck I'd probably explain it to anybody who could be bothered asking directly if you didn't already know) but there was a little bit of a bump in the road, I had to come back home to fix it and then I took my sweet time getting over stuff. Now I've promised Nana I'll be home for this Christmas so there's little point skipping the country with my minimal fundage only to turn around abruptly once again! I also figure I'd like to get some proper New Year's stuff done, oh and I intend to be in Melbourne for the Ben Fold's concert I now have a ticket to. And I owe somebody money. Oh and my car needs something done to it but it keeps not having problems and then having different problems so I have no idea what'll happen with that ...
So! Next year will involve some sort of overseas charity work, an excuse to check out Yun Yang Si in Taiwan for a little bit but mostly English teaching in ... well, I haven't decided yet. Japan or China. There are pros and cons for both, I suppose. I have 200 days to sus out details, anyway, so I'm in no panic as of yet.
But as for the rest of this year! Well ... I have no idea, actually. I'll have to get a TESOL Certificate thingy, just because it'll mean I can get a better teaching job next year.
I would like to get involved in some sort of charity thing, but I don't wanna overload myself like last year to the point where I can't do anything relaxed and fun. I might have to get a second job, so I'm gonna wait until Semester 2 starts at the unis and see what shifts I get before I start hooking onto extra commitments.
Yeah this is a bit dull but hey I never said I'd be interesting, heh. This blog entry is just sitting here to remind me to get my arse into gear. If I think of other things I need to get sorted out, I'll post them too for my own benefit.
The countdown is to January 10, 2010. I just felt this was enough time to properly recover from whatever I happen to get up to in the Near Year, but hey maybe for the sake of it I will leave on this day. The financial goal is just something that I think is more than reasonable for me to expect of myself to be able to put aside in that amount of time if I actually get my arse into gear.
Oh and I've been cooking a bit lately. Generally speaking, I'm pretty pleased with the results!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
