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Villers-Brettonneux♥

One day I'm going to go there, and I'm going to see this plaque, and I'm going to cry.
(For those of you that can't read French, it basically says: "To the Australian heroes who died in defence of Villers-Brettonneux 24-25th of April 1918, the residents are thankful.")

Lest We Forget.

Making History

You think about (or are forced to think about) all the stuff our parents and grandparents have witnessed in their life times; cars, planes, radio, phones, penicillin, T.V., computers, Internet, first man on the moon.

Technological advancements, medical innovations, the kind of stuff dreams were made of (albeit, no flying cars as of yet) and people we know, knew a time when these things didn't exist.

We've seen some pretty cool stuff too though, iPods, Facebook, Harry Potter. The advances are smaller, in our life time, I think, but they affect the world in more powerful ways because while the world is a large place, it really is a small world after all.

I'm sure we'll be seeing more leaps forward soon (flying cars have got to be in the works somewhere) and i'll be looking forward to adding to the "In My Lifetime I Witnessed..." list.

"Vapoury Goodness"

I don’t know how much I like this because it's an awesome phrase and just makes me laugh or because you said it.

Knowing me, it's probably the latter.

But maybe it's both.

Whichever is cool, I like you, there has to be some reasons why and I guess making up words/phrases is one of them.

You. Interest. Me.

I don't understand most of the stuff that comes out of your mouth but it intrigues me that you know this stuff whereas I have no concept of it whatsoever. It's fascinating. I suppose it highlights how different we are but I still find it intriguing.

You were slightly intoxicated, I should also add, when we had this Dandenong to Berwick station conversation, or at least that's what "and then I went to the pub" imparted to me and the fact you had issues zipping up your jacket. But I won't judge you.

I know I shouldn’t compromise my morals or make exceptions but I can't help it. Chances are it won't amount to anything anyway so no one will ever know. Except for my avid blog readers…but that's cool, as long as I don't have to discuss it and actually face up to the fact that I'm doing what I promised myself I'd never do.

May I also add, there's something freaky going on when I just happen to get onto the same carriage as you and the same train twice. I mean come on, what are the chances? But you've done it once and I've done it once and I'm starting to think one of us has got to be stalking the other and I swear (for once) it isn't me.

日本

It is strange the way we can adapt to different cultures. Never once would i have thought that after eating dinner, while sitting on the floor, i would fall asleep under the dinner table, that still had remnants of our meal and that had an inbuilt heater and warm blankets, while watching a japanese movie without subtitles. And before i went to Japan i would have laughed, but looking back at my photo that my host mother took it seemed like the most natural thing at the time. I keep that photo in my diary to remind me of how much i can change over just two weeks abroad. I want to be able to remember every single moment of that trip, no matter how novel they are. All i want to do is go back and do it all again. All you know and presume about the culture is forgotten once your there. It has inspired me to just want to travel the world. And not just in the holiday sense, but to actually spend time living within the culture. I don't want to just go to the tourist gift shop, i want to live as others do, see the world as they do. I think that if everyone did that, we would all be less prejudiced, and there would be more peace in the world. We don't need a treaty, or a genie to grant the wish of world peace. I really don't know how i got onto world peace, i think my mind is just full of a web of connections. All i did was open my diary.

Hello again, friend of a friend i knew you when....

There is a few things i want to talk about today. I think it's mostly likely because i spend so much time on and waiting for public transport that i have a lot of time to think.
The inspiration of this story itself comes from just sitting on the bus today. I saw this guy on the bus who i recognised, but i couldn't remember where i knew him from. Its one of those things where you end up just staring at them like some stalker and then awkwardly look away when they catch you staring. Its even worse though when you can't see their face and you only get a quick glimpse at them and your trying not to make it obvious that you are trying get a look at them, but you are really itching to have a peak and figure out the puzzle. I ended up figuring out who this guy was (well who i thought he was anyway). And it was the guy from beauty and the geek who wore those Hawaiian shirts all the time. This guy wasn't wearing a hawaiian shirt or anything so i'm not sure if i was correct. But thats not where i was headed with this post. After a lot of time spend pondering about this sort of thing i ended up thinking about those awkward moments when you see someone on the train that you used to know but never really liked, or those friends of friends that you are unsure if they could remember you or not. And you don't know if you should say hello or not. And then if you do, you find yourself thinking ''umm... so what uni are you at'' while meanwhile trying to think of an excuse to depart without being rude, because all you really want to do is go sit by yourself and listen to that song on your i pod. And then it gets even more uncomfortable when their friend turns up and you're stuck trying to excuse yourself without it seeming like you're being shy or whatever. ....
And another observation today on the train was when the train stopped at a station and i looked down at a little boy, who must have been in prep, and who was crouch on the footpath and using a rock like it was chalk to draw all over the pavement. and you could look at it in two ways. One, this kid could be the next Picasso (highly unlikely looking at the skill he displayed). Or two, first chalk drawing, next he will be drawing all over school desks and carving his initials into it, and before you know it he will be graffitiing the very train i'm on now. I think the outcome of my pondering here was that we are so full of certainties of who and what we want to be, or at least we are all preoccupied in trying to figure it out, and so we see children as innocent because they have no clue, and they don't care about who they will be someday. They just absorb themselves in their curiosities. In a way i wish i was like that again. No one expects anything of you. You don't feel obliged to talk to anyone on the train that you don't want to, and you don't feel guilty for staring at people on the train. Its a freedom that i think we loose as we age and we can never regain. Oh such is life...

Sharing is Caring

So I've decided to just get over my apprehension of following the amazing thing Han wrote and jump on the band wagon to blog about a blog.

http://blankcanvasmind.blogspot.com/

The above link is my friend's blog.
He is awesome (just don't tell him I actually said that, 'cause i'll never hear the end of it).

I havent seen him or spoken to him as much as I would have liked since school finished but I came across his blog 15 minutes ago (I always knew he had one I just never knew the URL/couldn't be bothered looking).

At first glance it's kinda dank and depressing and verging on emo...I mean it's black like ALL black and don't get me wrong i LOVE black but it is admittedly a dark, scary and relatively depressing colour. But, don't judge a book by it's cover, or a blog by it's theme.

It's so him, his blog. Maybe it's just me, but I can almost hear him talking in my head, reading his stream of consciousness blog-blurts out loud to me as if I was sitting beside him.
It may be kind of weird or creepy (two things I'm more than well acquainted with at this point in my life) but I felt closer to him reading it.

I have now passed the flame in this little circle of promoting another's blog and I managed to blog about it too.  Yay me.

Bounderies

I look at a white wall and see a plain canvas

I hold a pen or pencil and feel the urge to draw on the thing next to me

I see the places the lines would go, the darks and the lights, the texture

In my minds eye colour spreads across the walls around me

And then I blink and it vanishes and I am left staring at a blank wall that is not mine to taint

Why do we like painting our walls one colour and then hang art on top of them, confining it to a square frame?

Everywhere we look we see boundaries. A human invention, created from greed and the need to find order in chaos.

In my minds eye i see a world where lines of creativity run in every direction.

And then i blink, and it vanishes.

Practice

You don't realise it in high school, but all those years of classes and lunchtimes are just practicing for the real world. And I'm not only talking about assignments and managing your time around a million things, but I'm talking about relationships. At school, if you have an argument with a friend you will most likely resolve it within a couple of weeks. Why? because you're stuck with them. You see them everyday at school. But the scary thing is, when you leave that tight knit community you don't have to see them anymore. You don't have to make up, you just move on. And hell, you even find yourself drifting away from even your closest school friends. I'm scared of that day when i will realise that i have lost a friend, because in my mind, even though i haven't seen some friends in over a month, i still consider them close friends.
And why don't we see them anymore? We're always busy, free at different times, have exams, working that day. It is exhausting to organise events, and when you do its hard to get one on one time with that one person your itching to talk to.
I'm kind of sad, because even through the last few years of high school i've felt myself drifting away from my best friend since year seven. I started to find that other people knew mare about her and her love life etc more than me, and i felt even more distanced as we started taking different classes. I don't want to be the jealous type, even though at times i have felt the green little monster inside me wanting to get out. But the further away i get from people, the harder it is to get back. I think you get to the point where you are a part of so many communities that as much as you want to, you can't keep in touch with everyone, and you cant keep all your relationships as strong as you want. You just need to take those skills you have been practicing since day one or prep in the playground days of sharing the slide and not taking those acorn fights so seriously, and organise to catch up with everyone once a month, and organise regular brunch or coffee mornings with those few who you want to keep for life. It is something that has occurred to me in the part few days. You can't just expect things to happen. You need to make them happen. So when i have a few free minutes after this post, i'm going to contact my best friend since year 7 and organise to catch up this week.
I think you get so caught up with everything that there are few who really see who you are. As said in an earlier post, only few are lucky to see the real you below all the different layers. Maybe thats your mum, or your boyfriend, or you best friend. And sometimes no one can understand someone completely. We all know the same people in different ways because each person brings out a different quality in others. I am a different person at home than at uni, and my life in music is a different world entirely. It's not like you are trying to be someone your are not, but it is more that different characteristics are brought out in different situations. We get caught up in so many groups of friends that we find it difficult to keep in touch with everyone. And thats all i miss from high school, having everyone on one convenient location, kind of like K Mart or Big W. I think now it just comes down to making an effort to keep in touch with all the different people we love, and this is where true friendship is tested.

Speed

No, not the drug. 

As in "speed, a need for."

Velocity, movement, that kind of speed. 

The kind of speed where 40km an hour can be relatively fast speeding up a dirt road but 40km through a school zone is unbelievably slow and has your speedometer creeping towards 50. 

100km on the freeway, no sweat, don't even feel it, 100km along a foreign back road in the dark and you're shitting yourself. 

Princess highway at 70km and you wish you could go faster to overtake the wanker in front of you but 70km down and around a sharp corner and you're slamming on the brakes to 40 before you go careening off the edge and into a sheep or something.

10km trawling through a parking lot looking for a parking space and it's fine but 10km almost anywhere else and you're convinced your Gran could walk faster than this with her walking frame. 

The first time you get into a car and it's terrifying, you're going so fast and you have to concentrate on so many things at once and you look down at the speedo and you're barely pushing 30. Now, on your Ps 30km is a waste of time, or only necessary for very sharp corners, in the dark, when it's raining. 

Speed.
It all depends on perspective, context, conditions, experience. 

Wipe off 5 guys, or wipe out lives.

Why am I still reminded of you?

* I'll admit I was actually nervous about posting this, but this Blog was made with the aim of purging this crap so here goes. *

Dude, why is everything reminding me of you today?

It was so long ago, another life time almost. We were different people then, that fact is undeniable, but today it all just seems to come flooding back and I don't even know why. Maybe it was our anniversary, who knows?

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"BUSTED!" - I can't even remember what we were talking about, or if we were even talking at all.

Hour long phone calls over the summer - I should've known something was up.

Lindt bunny ribbons - I remember how the bell jangled as you fought to rip it off.

"Black is slimming" - you taught me that, amazingly so.

Lending me your jacket - 'cause that's what boyfriends do.

Vietnam - you called me. Sometimes you were the most amazing guy ever.

Music - there really isn't much to say, everyone thinks they know why we loved it, but they don't.

The Rain - it never seemed quite so cold when you were there.

Maths - I'm sure you did it in every class but I just remember it more vividly in maths, holding my hand under the table. I learnt to do everything one handed that year.

Camp - I got a new best friend that day, thanks to you, and she may well help launch my career.

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Even after all the kerfuffle of a relationship:

Tickling my feet on a bus ride home - because you knew how ticklish I am.

Our DnMs at 2am - for some reason that seemed to be the time of honesty.

Art - I couldn't stand to be around you.

RAVE - We shouldn't have been acting like that, she was my best friend.

Drama - so many times I wanted to kiss you and kill you at the same time.

"Which one was year 8 camp?" - that hurt, more than I liked to admit 3 years on, but I shouldn't have expected anything more.

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Even after all these years when I don't even talk to you anymore, do my best not to see you at all actually, you still creep in, so I guess I was right to say I'd never ever be able to forget about you, first love and all that jazz. You'll always be with me, and as much as our relationship degraded into less than nothing, I don't regret it in the slightest. We were perfect, and I'll always remember that even if the thought is long gone from your mind.

You taught me to be realistic, and not to expect miracles from one who wasn't a saint.

You got rid of those little school girl fantasies of fireworks and sunsets (though I'm pretty sure we did witness a pretty awesome sunset that time we got busted for the "daylight rule"). You did fulfill a few of them too though, kissing in the rain and the "morning beautiful" text messages (you were better than any alarm clock) and I thank you for those too.

I still watch you sometimes (as creepy as that may be) but I miss you and there's a part of me that still worries about you and cares about you despite everything. Maybe it's because I know you. I know you can be an idiot, in spite of how intelligent you actually are. I know you'll get involved in bad stuff and it'll all come to a horrific, blaze-of-glory end which will land you in a jail cell or an early grave, neither of which I want from you because you deserve better.

I am thankful that I was one of the few that really got to see past the tough-guy, bad boy exterior to see the amazing guy you can be. When you want to. Or when someone gives you reason to. I was that reason then. She's that reason now, except she's doing it wrong. However, that's a topic far too bitchy for such a public space as the Internet.

I worry because I care, and I care because I loved you, once upon a time, and there's a little part of me that still does, and always will no matter what.

Glee was right.
"You forgive your first love of anything." - Rachel Berry, Glee.

We talk.

You once asked me what we talk about considering we have little in common and I shrugged. "The same things you and I talk about, except not boys."

I'll tell you what we talk about. 

We talk about uni. 
We talk about mountains. 
We talk about getting old. 
"my back is seriously killing me" he says
"I'm going blind" I reply. 
We talk about the English language and how glad we are that we're native speakers. 

We may not have a lot in common, or maybe we just haven't found it yet, but in no way does that mean we have nothing to talk about. 
I don't always understand the technical things he says, or tries to explain, but he does and he likes it and I'm sure he doesn't always understand the things I talk about but we're interested and that's what matters. 

All i want (continued)

I understand you completely Zo. I have a similar dream, that one day i will write a song that will move people, that i will be proud to play. There have been a few songs that have done that for me, and because of them i find myself loving classical music. It all happens quite suddenly; i will hear the song somewhere and by the next day i would have it downloaded on my i pod with the sheet music in front of me. Its that song which it so beautiful you want it played over and over, and want it at your funeral and wedding, and you cant help thinking that the world would be a better place if they could hear what was coming out of your earphones at that moment.
It is sad the way things have changed over time in a way. Many people don't listen to classical music anymore. I remember as i went through my early teens when i absolutely hated it because it just wasn't cool. I didn't have that patience to listen to it. I wanted fast music and beats. And i still do today, don't get me wrong, i love rock and pop and i even play in a band. As i grew up out of that stage and into the later school years, when i was sick of being like everyone else, i started searching inside myself for those qualities that would make me unique, and someone that i could feel proud of. I started focusing more on my music. As i did, and i improved, i felt greater about myself, because i found myself playing things i had once thought impossible. There is pride and there is also something else you can't describe.
When i say i feel proud, i don't mean that feeling you get when someone praises you for something, because i hate that feeling. I always feel as though people may think that i am trying to show off. I find that i feel proud of the self achievement. I am not as great with words as Zo, and I'm sure you would probably be able to describe it, but there are moments when you play music where you immerse yourself so greatly with the music that you almost feel at one with it, and everything that goes on around you is forgotten. It's not something you get from playing in front of a crowd, or doing exams, but when you are alone, just practicing.
So if i could write something that could grab at someones heart so intensely, to make them want to listen to it over and over and play it and share it, i think i wouldn't care what was to happen for the rest of my life. I don't want to be the next Mozart, and defiantly not the Beethoven (for those who don't understand, he went deaf) But i would like to write song that you would find on the soundtrack to The Piano, or Amelie. It is a dream that i am not expecting to achieve, but I'm not going to stop messing around on the piano in my free time.
I think the best achievements are unplanned, so i vow to keep trying Zo, if you keep writing. You may have already written something that is beautiful, and one day someone will be lucky enough to find it, and shed a tear over, as they are pulled into a world built by your words that is so exhilarating that they would find it somewhat sad to leave as they turn that last page. Maybe someone will make it into a movie with a soundtrack that is just as beautiful that people like myself will find it on my play list.

All I Want

My biggest goal, the one thing i want above all else is to write something so amazingly beautiful and touching it brings people to tears, like only a few pieces of unbelievably exquisite narrative have done for me.
I want to write something that people read again and again and again and each time it touches them in a different way and they find something different in it they never saw before.

I don't want to be the next J.K. Rowling, or the next Shakespeare (though I wouldn't mind trying my hand at making up words like the King of Literature did).
I want to be the next Theresa Tomlinson or Kate Constable, authors of 2 of my favourite series, or the next 'Sky Samuelle' who writes the most amazing things in her second language that are better than many native English speakers could even hope for.
Living my life by fanfiction, as I do, I come across the most brilliant pieces of writing and the worst. The good ones give me hope, few and far between that they are, while the bad ones make me question the very future of humanity itself if people can't even use spell check.

I want to write something that sticks with you, that makes you think, makes you feel, makes you come back to the same book, the same chapter, the same passage time and time again.
I want to create characters that make you hurt when they hurt, cry when they cry and, most importantly, love when they love.

This is all I want.

I'll give up my chance of Mr. Right, forsake the dream job, lose out on a McMansion, relinquish the cats, surrender the perfect family if only I can write something exquisite.
Something that will take your breath away time and again.

That's all, it's not that much I'm asking for, is it?

Change

So comes the time when i need to get a job, not for money, but for work experience.
I am at a moment in life where i know i need to change. And there is so much i want to do. But i think my main problem is laziness. I just like to have my free time.  So my mid year resolution is to get organised. I am going to get everything organised so that i can go study abroad next year. And im going to try get a job to get my dad off my back, and im going to pas my upcoming chemistry exam. Chances are that they all wont happen, but if i aim for them all at least one will get done right (odds are against the chemistry exam). I think life is all about experiences, and the more you explore, the happier you are. That is why i love walking through parks and bushland, and finding many animals and strange plants. And my most treasured moment are mostly in Japan..... And thats about it, i think i have exhausted this topic quite early.