almost end of the week update

I have been lazy. Forgive me?

So here's what I've been up to this week:

sent out summaries of research findings (finally)
- sent copies of thesis to participants who made requests
- received request from city council to present findings at a mini-workshop (! hahahaha)

applied for first job, wednesday 11am
- received call from company, wednesday 3pm
- phone interview
- second interview friday morning (blah, job not as interesting as I thought it would be)
- to know in a week or two if I got through to the third and final interview

finally bought clothes in KL
- topshop dress (that takes care of CNY)
- basic shorts

finally got a hair cut

And in between all of this, the usual going out, getting high, and a smidge of baking. I like KL best at night. You can't see the filth and the riff raff then. The lights wink at you as the car passes through the city, denizens of the city slave away in their little high rise cubicle-prisons.

Bright lights, city nights. Stay in the car, turn off the lights.

I read this some days ago and meant to link it but forgot: on kindness
food for thought. and something to aim for.

mumble mumble grumble

this is because little miss E is complaining about the lack of posts. so here's what's been going on the past few weeks. pre-caffeine at that, no less (see what I do for you!)

1. KL irritates the life out of me. It's like having a fat, painful blister between your toes, chipping nail polish, boy problems, split ends, and being in a constant state of hunger all at the same time. Times ten. The general lack of civility, intelligence, eye candy, etc gets to me.

2. I'm off to Ipoh today for an overnight eating trip with the usual suspects. Which is the only reason I'm awake this early.

3. When I'm not half-heartedly browsing the online job sites (really don't know what I want to do now. fuck.), I'm cooking stuff, eating stuff, going out, bumming, or day dreaming. Still haven't sent out a summary of my research findings, mainly because I've been too lazy to look it over and send it off.

4. I'm trying to shrug off the attentions of not one but two of my idiot male friends (one of whom is the one you helped by giving out the Syd address) gently but firmly. Not easy. I might have to outright ignore them for a month or so. I don't know. Give me coffee.

5. The dogs are as psychotic, clever, dufus-ish, and adorable. Didi acts like a human and has the intelligence of at least a 5 year old child - she knows how the gates and doors open/ latch.

6. I'm hungry now. Time for a caffeine shot. More when I get back. Happy? Twit, I blog more than you do.

tug

I'm spending the day packing up the last many bits lying around my room. The people from the shipping company are coming in another hour or two to pick up the two boxes of books and miscellaneous items. Everything else which can't fit into my luggage is going to be left behind until April.

I'm already compiling a list of places to visit in April. La Perouse for the fish and chips I had yesterday, easily the best I've had in memory (which might not be saying much considering my memory storage but it was good), bills, mundo gelato, ichi ban boshi (maybe).

I feel like yanking out every last blonde/ copper hair on my head. They are bugging me today. Who messed with my follicles?

burn

I wonder what it would be like to go out with a normal, decent man. For a change. Bring me one? After I detox that is.

I don't know where to start with the day's events. I don't know if I should, so I won't. Strangely, it doesn't hurt the way you would expect it to. It's already reached saturation point I guess.

On the upside (or maybe more on the strange side as well), it was another day where people kept smiling at me. In the faculty corridors, on the road. Whatever.

I saw whales for the first time. They were just off the shore at Maroubra and I could see their tails flipping and occasional spurts of water. Also got burnt (thank you impromptu-beach-trip-without-sunscreen-at-noon). The straps and the hemline from my dress are on clear display. Genius.
-walks around the house muttering ow ow ow ow-

IT has been read by people other than my supervisor by now. Duncan told me that today was the date all theses were to be passed back to the Honours coordinator. After this the two different markers' scores will be tallied and there will be the Honours committee meeting to discuss the results before they are released. The thought of other people reading, having read it terrifies me, just a little. It has been put out there for strangers to see. An open book.
Dinner was good.

I miss my people.

hatchoo!

The company was good. So much so that I failed to notice until much later that the food wasn't actually as good as I remembered it to be. The deep fried prawn, chicken, fish, and mashed potato thing were lukewarm bordering on cold and the sashimi was dry as if it had been prepared a few hours ago. But I ate it all anyway. The whole dinner bento box (this is where you break out the applause). Not bad, but not what I remembered it to be.

The barbequed squid was good though.

Fucking sydney is fucking freezing. It's been like the middle of winter for the past two days - 15degrees out, plus rain, plus knock-you-over wind. Really. Thank you. I felt a cold catching this afternoon but dinner seems to have chased it away. Also chased dinner with a walk through the city (late night shopping Thursday, y'know! shops open til 9! excitement) and something I haven't had for years - one of those Japanese green tea ice cream things encased in wafer with red bean in the middle. Eating ice cream when it's cold is really counterintuitive. My head says no, my tastebuds go 'yes please!'. No prizes for guessing who wins. And because my tastebuds are self indulgent, the rest of me couldn't try on clothes. Which of course means a return trip is necessary.

And contrary to popular belief (really people, I do have some sense of morality that actually functions now and then. And it's functioning full swing right now) I am being good and staying away from all of them nasty liddle (or not so liddle) addictions. Mind over body.

The bad news is that the same ethics are also starting to hammer at me for all of the following reasons:-
i. eating unsustainably farmed food - meat and veg
ii. eating unethically grown meat
iii. eating un-local produce (both meat and veg again)
iv. eating processed 'food' and junk
In sum, contributing to the 'military-industrial complex' that fuels bad health and divorces people from nature by so easily turning that cow into an unrecognizable patty with corn filler.
It's also bad for the environment.
read
M. Pollan compacts the contents of 'the omnivore's dilemma' here AND offers solutions too. You will need an account with the NY Times to access the article, but it's free. Alternatively you could wait until the next time you see me in person and get the lowdown from me, significantly simplified and edited for content depending on the inconsistencies of my memory. Just sign up for an account dammit, save us all the trouble :p

Whether this will impact my eating habits remains to be seen. Because my carefully nurtured ethics are coming up against my culturally-ingrained apathy and cynicism. Activism vs. defeatism. Sit back and watch.
See, this is where all my energy is being redirected.

This weather calls for Miles Davis. It's a thing I have. Jazz goes well with hibernation. hibernate. zzzzz

It's nice not having anything to do. :)

today

I spoke with a man with the most brilliant blue eyes I have ever seen. They were jewel-toned, the colour of sapphires. Blue eyes and black hair get me every time

I amused myself by observing a pretty bubble head in the library

I picked up a copy of The Omnivore's Dilemma

I was offered a gingerbread man for oktoberfest

I smiled a bit at every head that turned

I had my usual large skim latte, one sugar and banana bread, toasted and buttered

I shivered in the wind

I relished every minute here because I know they are coming to an end

a note

we can't have everything in life, and we shouldn't because if we did, we wouldn't appreciate it



strive for perfection even if it is unattainable because it's about the journey as much as what you reach for.

grace

philosophy:
how you climb up the mountain is just as important as how you get down the mountain. and so it is with life, which for many of us becomes one big gigantic test followed by one big gigantic lesson. in the end, it all comes down to is one word. grace. it's how you accept winning and losing, good luck and bad luck, the darkness and the light.

- off the bottle on my desk. amazing grace.

12.23am

I remember a friend of my sister's asking me, sometime late last year:

"Jeen, do you find that things get more complicated as you grow older?"

The answer is obvious enough. We grow older, we collect more experiences, more memories. We learn that people, things aren't always or even usually the way we think they should be. Our preconceptions get challenged, our ideals get broken. It's not a bad thing, that's just the way it is. You become richer for the experiences you have had, but they come at a cost too. Moral decisions become difficult to make when you see other people lapsing, "if everyone else is doing that, there's nothing wrong". Peer pressure, the tyranny of the masses, but the masses is composed of individuals like yourself. It's a vicious cycle, the one reinforcing the other.

But learning more and having more empathy for the position of others also contributes to this complication. When you learn to see how the other side feels, imagine what the other must be going through, simple decisions driven by self-interest become un-simple. Who is at fault? What if no one is to blame? Who do you put first? Must you put anyone first? Is there a solution to satisfy both parties? Black/white ceases to exist.



(I like being able to write short short sentences. Such a contrast from those 5 line long ones in IT)

yes, I'm disappointed in you
but we are only human after all


I suppose that's something I don't get, wilfully making the choice that you have knowing full well that it will hurt you in the end. I cling too strongly to my pride to consciously let myself do that which might be, is a fault on its own terms.

I guess in the back of my mind I'm afraid that I too might falter the next time I see S. That I might be prey to the same vulnerabilities try as I may. But then again things between S and I are not what they are between the two of you.
A lot has happened between April/May and now. And he is not a person who could stand up to me or who has earned my respect. I will hate myself if I succumb against my will again. Remember this.