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Weh. Been an exhausting few days and yet for some reason I feel more exhilirated recently.
Tuesday night, I went out with Annie, an old high school friend, to celebrate the last of her exams. It kind of amazes me that I still am in contact with her. I was very close friends with her for almost the entire duration of high school but then somewhere at the end, we had an abrupt falling out. It was so long ago I can't even remember the reason, but it was serious enough that we had stopped talking. When I was forced to change high schools, I don't think I even told her.
However, I guess somewhere along the way we just put our differences behind us (more likely we both forgot we were ever angry at each other), and are still friends now. I don't even see her that often but just sitting talking to her can sometimes be more fun than going out with a big bunch of people to a club or bar. She's a "real friend". This is a passage I wrote to someone in an email once in to explain my definition of that term:
"I was thinking the other day about friendship. I believe that there are two types of friends (this does not include "acquaintances") - real friends and situational. Situational friends are....well, it's kinda self-explanatory. I'll give you some examples:
1) Co-workers. You are really close to them at work and you share amazing experiences with them. However once you leave that job, you tend not to really keep in contact, or they drop to acquaintance status.
2) Travel mates. I went on a trip with my friend and about 13 of her friends once. I didn't know any of them. We stayed in Mt. Martha for about a week and I became really close to a lot of them. But like co-workers, after we returned to our regular homes, we lost contact.
Now, /real/ friends are different. You connect with them on a deeper level and they remain friends with you across all situations. Sometimes you lose contact with them, but when you do meet up with them again, they haven't dropped to acquaintance status - the quality of the relationship still remains and you feel as if the last time you saw them was just yesterday. That core connection is still there because it is too strong for time to weaken. "
I have very few friends like that these days.
I met Annie at her house before we went out and it felt so strange. I had not stepped in that house for at least half a decade. It brought back so many memories and - as I often do - I felt as if that distant time period had only been yesterday. Sometimes I think to myself, "Am I old? I must be old because it was so many years ago that I was young." *lol* Weird, eh?
Annie was in a different bedroom to the one that she had been in when last I had been there and she had one photo of me pinned up on the wall which I didn't even remember having taken. I assure you, it is very disconcerting to look at a photo of when you were recongisably you (ie. not when you were a baby or when you were so young that you hadn't yet grown into your body and thus looked incredibly disproportionate) without being able to remember the place or situation in which it was taken.
Photos are very important. I wish I had more photos of everything and everyone. Kinda hard cos I got such a(n endearingly) shitty camera. The number of photos I have seen of my parents when they were young could be counted on my thumbs (*hehe*), but now my generation is in a new age. We are in a time where we have both liberty and technology at our disposal. Just think of the pictures that we would be able to (but probably wouldn't) show our kids when we're in our forties:
That photo your friends took after you passed out and they thought it would be funny to draw a penis on your face. The shot where you're leaning back with a halo of hash smoke curling towards the ceiling, a giddy smile betraying your mental vacation. A picture of that hot guy you went out with for so long but who is totally not your current kids' dad.
When we are old, with wrinkles creasing the corners of our eyes, hair thinning at our temples and eyes that have dulled with age, we will be able to look at these photos of when we thought we were invincible, when we thought we were It.
Photos of when we were spectacularly stupid and truly alive.
...that was an extreme tangent.
.....so after we left her house, we went to the Evelyn on Brunswick St and I got incredibly, almost-got-hit-by-a-car-ingly drunk. =D
Var
sent a postcard on 6/28/2007
Wow. Just wow.
I have been very tired and getting very little sleep lately. And it's not just because I have been working overnight shifts. Well...okay. It's partly due to the overnight shifts. If I hadn't been under house arrest as RA then I guess I never would've bothered trawling through my laptop.
At any rate, it just so happened that I stumbled across some old posts from my role-playing days and my GOD. Unbelievable entertainment. There was so much about my characters that I didn't remember and my writing seemed SO much better back then!!
For those who don't have a clue as to what I'm talking about, I'll copy/paste an explanation I used to have on my old "unstable" website:
"Role-playing (at least, play by email role-playing) is pretty much like writing a story with a bunch of other people, but where each of you only has control of your own characters. It's something of a huge writing exercise for me, not to mention a great source of ideas and inspiration, and a good way to meet other writers."
Now in my geekier days when I was online in every waking hour that I wasn't at school (and even sometimes when I /was/ at school), I was heavily involved in role-playing. I started when I was about 15 and didn't stop until about 4 years later.
People probably read this and think, "Pfft. Role-playing. Just stupid Dungeons and Dragons bullshit." Well yes. Dungeons and Dragons bullshit. BUT there's more. There is an incredible amount of politics which is involved in any group online interaction and role-playing was never an exception. I quit partly due to that (in addition and as a subset: annoyance at certain stupid players), partly due to boredom with the games that I had been in at the time, but mostly due to lack of time/access. Last I played, I was co-running the Laurell K. Hamilton rpg, "Time of Chaos", and the responsibility became too much, I guess. But instead of cutting down, I just cut out.
Seeing that since moving out, I have not really been able to be online more than once a week or so and only to check mail in a public computer lab, it seems to ultimately have been a good choice. But reading my old posts and reconnecting with my strongest and most loved character (Varya Filenns) makes me miss it dearly.
Only in hindsight am I really able to appreciate the world of role-playing. I described it earlier as being like writing a story, but it's so much different to any normal book someone might write. Because each person only has control of their own character, each time they post there is an incredible amount of insight and detail placed in their actions, thoughts and feelings (at least, by the good players). When all the posts are read together, the resulting "story" from the mouth of each character is so much richer than a normal novel that you might pick off a book store shelf. There is so much more personality and there are so many more - /visuals/.
In normal books, you usually only get one perspective from the main character and everything is in there to drive to the point of the plot. Anything else is considered unnecessary, something to be scrapped by the editor in the name of succinctness (is that a word??). But in rpgs, the story is endless. There is no need to hold yourself back from divulging into the deepest, innermost musings of thisfictional character whose life you have complete control of. Rpgs are completely character-driven - and in my opinion, it is honestly the best kind of literature around.
I have a sudden intense urge to rejoin, but I know that it would be for the worse. I would probably create a character, be really excited, join up, post a couple of posts, then quickly grow lax in my responses. This would piss other players off and eventually I would decide (once again) that I do not have enough time to merit membership.
Thus, two brief requiems:
- Siva, Hazel, Duves - you guys were the BEST people I ever played with. I had amazing times with you guys IC and OOC and though we've always been hemispheres apart, I will never forget all those retarded AIM conversations and crazy-amazing j/ps. =D
- R.I.P. my beloved Var. I abused you often but please understand that it was all out of love. I guess this will be the third and last time you die.
Var
sent a postcard on 6/25/2007
Okay, so last year when I decided to defer, I was pretty clear-headed. Knew exactly what I was going to be doing. Now it is 7 months later and I am more confused than I've ever been in my life with no idea what I'm doing. I really need to get my shit together and sort this all out. Academic objectives:
- complete my uni degree at Melbourne Uni
- complete my uni degree well
- complete my uni degree without being miserable and half-assed about the content of my studies
- ie. do something related to writing
- ie. transfer out of Bachelor of Arts & Sciences and transfer into straight Arts
- use my uni degree to get into Professional Writing & Editing at RMIT so as to gain some industry experience and hopefully land some connections and/or a job Personal objectives:
- stop moping
- for fuck's sake stop moping
- get away from Melbourne and everyone
- ie. go to America/Canada
- be financially stable from now on
- ie. have a well-paying job with decent hours which do not clash with studies
- to not waste my money
- to publish something Now all of this has to coincide and work together. My original plan was to go away for a month and then return, but I couldn't seem to go through with it. Every time I imagined what it would be like, it was me, alone, on some tour bus learning the boring history of some monument or another. And the idea of going out and then coming back, alone, a stranger, one tiny speck among the masses...it wasn't appealing. And it definitely seemed like a waste of money. I can't go somewhere and do nothing. I can never just do nothing. It makes me insanely restless. On the other hand, I am insanely restless right now, here in Melbourne. In desperate need of escape. So I revised that idea and upon further consideration realised that what I actually wanted to do was /live/ somewhere else for a while. I want to go somewhere where I don't know anyone and start a new life. I want to build my own life from the ground up and forget about all the negative influences of the past which have put me in the position I have been put in now. I want to begin a life which is completely controlled by ME.
I was in a long-distance relationship a while ago and whilst trying to find ways of making it work geographically, I stumbled across a program in which I would be able to secure an overseas job and accomodation before even leaving Australia.
At the time, it seemed like it was out of the question because there was about 6 month minimum commitment, so I had planned on doing it after I graduated (ie. about two years from now). However, that was before it occurred to me to defer and I'm at a point where I feel like leaving /right now/.
Unfortunately, the program is seasonal and I think that the applications are closed. I will ask around and if I can swing it, I will live overseas for the rest of the year and then come back to resume my studies in 2008 - and still have relatively stable finances. If not, though, I might make a snap decision to undo my second semester of leave of absence and go back to study in July/August, then defer either first or second semester next year after applying for the job.
In the meantime, have been entering writing competitions. Have also recently discovered old novels which I started writing when I was 14-16. Very interesting.
Am quite low as of late, though. Erratic sleeping, loss of appetitie, eyes fucking with me, regular migraines, general depression. One of my "friends" says that it's due to "Seasonal Affective Disorder" or something. Dunno if it was a genuine suggestion of if he's just making up bullshit to cover up the knowledge that it's probably mostly his fault that I'm like this. Hmph.
Appetite thing bothering me though. Funny how the less I eat, the more meat I seem to gain. *frowns* However, I weigh less now than I did when I was happy with my weight/appearance. I think my body has recently decided to store fat in all the wrong places. Thinking about seeing a doctor. Maybe a psychologist is more in order though. Whenever I look in the mirror now, I feel like my reflection is growing older and sadder. I used to be worried that I look too young and now I'm scared that I look too old. Huh.
Back at the gym again, though. Das ist good.
Var
sent a postcard on 6/23/2007
I work at a hotel and one of the housekeepers is this old man. When I was first informed of his existence, he was referred to as "Grandpa". He is Turkish and speaks little to no english.
There was one day when I went up to check a room and he was in the next room cleaning. When he saw me, he beckoned me wordlessly. I followed him through to the other room and he lead me into the bedroom where he knelt down, lifted the edge of the sheets and made insistent gestures underneath the bed. It was only after I joined him in his kneeling that I realised he was trying to indicate to me that the bed frame was cracked.
Whenever he works, I can't communicate with him directly to give him orders. I have to call his manager who then calls him and relays the message to him in Turkish. I have worked next to this man for at least two months, seeing him almost five days a week, and not once have I shared a conversation with him.
I wonder if it is maddenning to him to spend so much of his time in silence, quietly yet diligently performing his duties with not a soul to speak to.
I imagined him once, driving home after work. The house would be a small, cosy villa with a wide, well-manicured garden, deep red roses lovingly entwined with the iron security gate. He would push open the door and step out of the cold into the immediate warmth of Home, instantly greeted by the delicious smells that only the best of homecooked meals can produce. Thunderous footsteps from around the corner followed by high-pitched giggling would announce the presence of two of his grandchildren, both red-faced with excitement as they chase each other into the kitchen. Following them in, he would see the young adults of the large, Italian-style family gathered at the table, with his wife and his daughter-in-law cooking, one with her hands covered in flour, the other carefully peeling carrots. As soon as she caught sight of him, his wife would immediately drop what she was doing and move to embrace him. She would be so happy to see him that she wouldn't even stop to wipe her hands before taking his face between her palms and placing a great kiss upon each of his cheeks. She would further express her pleasure at seeing him with a string of Turkish endearments.
And then, he would part his dry lips, clear his throat - and speak.
Var
sent a postcard on 6/22/2007
My friend and I were talking about this. The whole guys and saying "I love you".
It's some strange phenomena where guys will never say it when things are good, but only as a guilt-trip or when they're leaving you.
My own personal experience:
[1] X says it after he has broken my heart about 8 times, broken up with me about 10 times and after he has told me that he is not looking for a relationship, just something casual/no-strings-attached. He says it after I've moved on.
[2] Y never ever says it while we're deep in the relationship, while it's good. The closest he got was to say "I don't not love you" and "Ditto". Then when he's butchering my heart, when he's telling me that he'd rather see other more local girls, when he's saying goodbye forever, he says, "Oh but I love you".
...FUCK.
Black is the new black.
Masochism is the new romanticism.
"Steph. Wake the fuck up."
Var
sent a postcard on 6/11/2007
Okay, so I finally updated after three years. This is still in construction due to the fact that I no longer remember how to do anything web design-related (including how to customise Blogger), so if you meet with deadlinks or things which generally just don't seem to make sense....suck on it.
=D
Var
sent a postcard on 6/09/2007
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