One of my goldfish died the other day. I know they're not meant to live all that long but it's weird all the same. As a family we grew pretty attached to it, possibly because we gave them all names and personalities. The fact my sister and I named most of them after cricketers is neither here nor there, we're still waiting for Whitey (also the name of one of my external hard drives...) to get back into the test squad. This one was named Bhaji after a certain foul tempered Indian spinner. He won my 'Fish of the Month' award several months running, though he could never comprehend the trophy presentation ceremony. We ended up burying him in the backyard under the lemon tree. I've been to friends' places where their considerably larger, more tangible pets have been buried in their backyards and the feeling is still similar for some reason. Lousy emotional attachment.
The parents went out a couple of weeks later and bought a couple of new tiny fish since they reckoned the three remaining ones were starting to look sad or bored. One of them is the same sort of breed and the other is a sort of black and gold colour. We made an agreement that we wouldn't name them until they actually lived for more than a month or so, but I've started calling one of them Baby Bhaji... and so the cycle begins again.
It's almost the end of the month and I've been pretty quiet on the blogging front, what with the new semester and all. It took me until week three to truly feel like I'm in the second semester, such was the hangover of the first semester. All it took were a couple of near all nighters to get me started again, and thanks to first semester I no longer require what most people refer to as sleep (since it's so overrated) so I can work a lot more effectively. One of the unintended side effects of that semester is that I'm fairly used to putting a few more hours into work so I'm managing to keep on top of things for now. Of course I'm still as lazy as hell and I didn't help myself when I bought Civilisation for my iPod. So long productivity, greetings turn based strategy!
If you've bothered reading this far, thank you once again... I shall reward you with a random factoid that will only make sense to last semester's survivor group.
- The following words will hereby be excised from my vocabulary: compelling, dilemma.
- The following words will be given additional precedence: idle, hammer.
Something tells me I've missed a couple of words here and there.
It's not half as funny until you try reading it out aloud.
And now for some more nonsensical photos, conveying jokes that perhaps aren't really jokes. On the tram to uni the other day, I came across a fairly ironic pair of posters.
As the Lee Harding (shudders) album title goes, what's wrong with this picture? And whatever happened to that guy, is he still "entertaining" troops in Iraq? As if post traumatic stress in a war torn area wasn't enough. Ouch, harsh.
Cool, apart from a somewhat buggered bonnet all seems well. And a nice poster for the new flick 'Drag Me To Hell'. And not even five metres away there are posters for...
Nickelback! Who says irony is dead. As the Queen might say, "One likes One's pants around One's feet". Huh?
I didn't think it'd be too difficult a task to find a photograph where all three judges were in the same shot. It really makes the other two look like shunners and Preston seem like the shunnee. I know, another made up word... I'm sorry. Secondly, seeing as Preston works for The Age I fail to see how they of all people could not manage to find a half decent shot of him that doesn't look like he's about to eat someone whole.
This shot in context seems fine enough without the cropping. It's still a little scary but his head doesn't take up the entire shot so it's not too bad. Or they could use that creepy photoshoot (which can be found on the Matt Preston fan page on Facebook) where he's biting down on a bunch of chilli peppers while trying to be seductive. Either way he's on the list of my new heroes.
Speaking of heroes, I came within half a metre of meeting one of them the other night. I went along with my sister to see Paul Dempsey at the Newtown Workers Club on Tuesday night. I had to apologise profusely for making her wait who knows how long since I was stuck at uni for a bit longer than I hoped and made up for it by buying her dinner and paying for tickets. Never say I don't care, because it just isn't true.
In any case we needn't have worried about getting there on time since there was easily enough space for everyone. We got a spot near the front though so I can't complain. I had no idea what to expect from the set, the only solo material I had heard so far were the two singles and they certainly sounded promising. I wasn't expecting him to play any Something For Kate material but he played 'The Astronaut' and 'Pinstripe' at Glen(n)'s repeated inebriated requests. The rest of the solo material was pretty solid even if I can't remember the majority of the song titles. Paul's live work is excellent, he often puts a different spin on album tracks to give them a new lease of life which makes seeing him or SFK always worthwhile.
As I said before I was came really close to meeting the man, but my idolism got in the way. Potentially meeting a personal hero means near instant paralysis and a shit eating grin on this face of mine, and this usually lasts until that person leaves the room or calls security. It's not really my fault, I'm just scared of saying something incredibly stupid.
I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to write in full the extent of what happened in my studio this first semester, so much happened and yet seemingly so little was produced. Without going into too much detail those who did not have prior bookings to go overseas pretty much stuck behind and worked on this thing on a daily basis with very little time for a break. Perhaps I'm lacking the correct 'attitude' in my approach to the entire thing but there weren't a lot of opportunities to catch up with friends over this past month. So when I caught up with a bunch of non-architecture friends last Saturday I seemed to appreciate the entire thing a lot more than usual.
The day was fairly intensive transport wise, being in transit for a lot of the day zipping from place to place. I had to stop by uni first in the morning (as was often the case over these holidays) to do some work and check on things and that meant jumping on a train at 9am on a Saturday in the middle of winter. On the platform at Heidelberg this crazy old man walked past me holding two bags of shopping, muttering under his breath while making a bold fashion statement by wearing shorts. Perhaps you don't need trousers when you've got a lifetime of bitterness to keep you warm, something I look forward to doing in later years.
After performing my duties at uni I rushed down to catch a train to Croydon just to play cards. I really shouldn't bother going such long distances just to do things like that but there are times when I absolutely need to be playing cards. This was one of those times. The trip from the city to Croydon takes about an hour so I passed the time sleeping or listening to music, my default public transport stance. Cards didn't go too bad, I came third overall and fun was had for all. Afterwards I hitched a lift to the station and jumped on the new bus back to Heidelberg, where the trusty Vengabus was waiting in the car park. I used to catch that bus every day to school, and having a new bus route replacing the bus where I spent many a morning and afternoon wasn't as odd as I first thought. I guess it is only a bus route after all.
For the sake of retaining dignity in the years to come I shouldn't put this into writing but my driving experience is limited at best, and I haven't had all that much night driving time under my belt. So it was probably fortunate that it was dark because I managed to flip one lever too many and ended up with the windscreen wipers on for the entire trip home. Any attempt to switch it off ended up making them just go faster or even worse the water nozzle would trigger, making it just as well the wipers were on. I did manage to get rid of them after I pulled into the garage after fiddling around for a couple more minutes though.
After gracing my family with my presence for a quick dinner I hitched another lift from a friend and went to what is probably our group's favourite restaurant, The Pancake Parlour in Doncaster. We refer to it as the Stoner Parlour since it never closes and those ads on the radio seem to think stoners are their primary market. I haven't seen many of these guys for the majority of the holidays and it was a bit annoying that uni kept me away from the remnants of my social life for so long. That stuff didn't matter much once we got there though, I regaled them with stories of my triumphant occasionally superior card playing skills over those noobs and they replied by doing parts of the Thriller dance. Seems apt really. Contrary to popular belief the Stoner Parlour is not full of stoners at 10pm, in fact it was full of normal looking folk that made us look like the weirdos, what with our bad singing and pretend zombie movements.
Looking for some time to burn we then went back to my place to watch The Ashes until 1 or so. Haddin produced bye after bye without fail and it was fun watching my friends predict byes with staggering accuracy. This was probably the first time in ages I let people come over to my place. I often have people drop me off but letting them into the House of Chiu is another matter entirely (I came up with that phrase during Year 12 camp while pouring water for friends at lunch). I once had a bunch of friends over my place back in Hong Kong and I had a ridiculous time trying to prevent them from breaking anything. Ever since then I have had this aversion to having anyone over, or at least in large groups I can tame with pepper spray, or a large trap door inhabited by an equally large trap door spider.
I was pretty buggered by the end of it but it was definitely worth it. In the seemingly never ending shitstorm that is my studio, this was the textbook definition of a perfect day.
Join me next time when I drag you to my definition of hell.
Now that my work for semester one is largely out of the way, it's time to catch up on my beloved blog, the place I put my writing effort into when I'm not writing hastily written, poorly researched essays or letters of complaint to various media outlets over their treatment of the programme "Extreme Paintball". A few weeks back I had to head into uni over the weekend. However it wasn't all bad, I got to drive the Vengabus down to the train station on my ownsome. I know that's not a word but it feels right.
Right now I haven't been driving into town because I haven't had all that much experience driving despite my full licence status. My sister successfully downgraded my driving skills by hogging up all possible driving time practising for her multiple driving tests. I won't say how many because I lost count after a while. As a result I am possibly the least experienced fully licensed driver in the state (not as bad as Alan Davies in that episode of Jonathan Creek where he drives in first gear down a highway) but I am working away at that one trip at a time.
As per usual, while semi proofreading I have forgotten to explain how we named our car. It's a tribute of sorts to one of my favourite shows ever, "Get This" and the late Richard Marsland who was forced into an impromptu performance of the Vengabus live on air. It didn't matter that he used lyrics from two Vengaboys songs, it's not like anyone can still remember the lyrics to any of their songs anyway.
Here's to years of competent driving and adequate parking. I'm done with this post, onto the next one!
At this rate the birds will be going through my bag looking for food. Why don't they go get a job or something?
The other night I spoke to an old friend for the first time in more than eight years. Just talking about what we were doing with ourselves brought up a lot of things from the past and what could've been.
Online reunions of this sort are proof that Facebook is not a complete waste of time. No, it's only really 70 - 80% wastage. It was through the site I discovered my friend had already been married with a kid with another on the way, and he's a year younger than me. I saw his baby photos online and he's possibly the most adorable thing you've ever seen. He told me he was taking up further studies at night school, presumably to provide a better life for his new family. It's a lot of work but I love the feeling that he's preparing for such an exciting future. I think part of me is jealous that he seems to have found exactly what he wants in life at such a young age, I wish things would line up for me so easily. We used to be that close back in primary school, I guess he'd classify as a best friend during those simpler times. Goes to show you never know what time will do whilst you've been away.
While our conversation was a welcome respite from the happenings of uni life, I lay in bed for what felt like an eternity lost in thought. Regular readers will notice I have a fairly vivid and weird imagination, and that night I found myself dreaming up scenarios where I'm living an entirely different life based on my memories. It's sad enough when you have to move away from what you know and all the people you have come to love. I've been doing that for a lot of my early years and truth be told I never fully got used to it. I always picture each significant move not just as a separate part of my life, but an entirely new life altogether where people and places are left behind for a new incarnation to take hold.
And what else do we leave behind? Besides these things, in my mind the greatest thing left behind is possibility. Because I left Hong Kong to come here to Australia I dropped out of contact with so many people. And I am often left wondering how I would've turned out if I had never left. My nagging suspicion tells me I may have turned out like some of my nastier relatives (being in a place like HK does things to you after a while) but the personal relationships end up feeling like loose ends without a satisfying conclusion.
Yet despite all these things, I do not wish that this path never occurred. While I certainly regret doing certain things I suppose there's no point dwelling on them all day long. The other day I was chatting away with some of my fellow studio detainees and some of them suggested that taking it was the worst decision of their lives. While I admit the workload has been ridiculously high for such an invisible outcome and a lot of stress has come out of being at uni almost every day from the beginning of semester up until now, in my mind I still feel that the silver lining makes some of it worthwhile. In this studio I have met many wonderful people (and some not so) who I may not have met otherwise.
Having this conversation was pretty good for me though. It's making me think I should head back there again some time soon. I definitely need a break from uni, especially given I haven't had much of a winter break to speak of. At the start of the year a friend floated the idea of flying up to visit my other best friend from my former high school life who now lives in Singapore. That now seems like a very good idea indeed, now to get some money and make it happen...
In case I forget down the track, the title of this post comes from the Kurt Vonnegut novel Slaughterhouse-Five. It's the first real book I've had the chance to read in what seems like forever and it's a great read. The main character becomes 'unstuck' in time, causing him to randomly leap back and forwards through his life. In this way even though he experiences his own birth and death several times over, he does not really die because he can see the entirety of his existence. It's definitely worth reading and I'll be looking for a copy of my own some time down the track.