"Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself."

"Unfortunately, a super-abundance of dreams is paid for by a growing potential for nightmares."

"Ideologies separate us. Dreams and anguish bring us together."

"What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world, remains and is immortal."

   

Empty spaces where past prescence lay
the bounty from your last day
linger on

Things to do before the 27th of Feb.

(1) Buy: clothes! - casual and dress, backpack, foundation!, shoeees, pjs/bras :),

(2) Decorate my room - T. 

(3) Improve confidence w. a certain demographic

(4) GET MAC FIXED/CHECKED 

(5) Attempt to watch SBS news nightly

(6) FINISH MY BOOKS - start on Book Thief.

(7) Dye hair?

(8) GO TO THE DOCTOR FOR A BLOOD TEST!

You cried wolf,
The tears they soaked your fur, the blood dripped from your fangs
You said, "What have I done?"
You loved that lamb, with every sinful bone
And there you wept alone.

Things i accomplished/failed to in 2011 and things I plan to achieve in 2012.

2011:

 - realised my mistakes and my weaknesses/embarrassments
- started doing a degree i love.
- made an amazing set of new friends
- and felt like others left me behind
- was way too selfish for a significant proportion of the year
- improved my marks
- pushed myself
- got drunker than i ever have.
- and through other means... 
- judged people on things i shouldnt have.....
- got fucked over.
- felt lonely
- sacrificed things I loved...
- attempted to get back on track.... Still not entirely there.
- improved confidence. but still not entirely there.
- felt happiness and contentedness. even if it was only for a while.
- started exercising..


2012: things I wish to achieve.


- Remain happy.
- expand my social circle.
- go to more concerts.
- confidence. confidence. confidence. Don't get shy.. be friends with everyone.
- Be content with being single. Be happy with myself. If it happens it happens.
- Don't be lazy.
- Exercise more. 
- Keep this.... and SAVE FOR EUROPE
- europeeee !
- Do volunteer work/internship etc. - something of significance
- listen to more music.
- watch better movies.
- watch the news more and stop watching trivial things.
- put myself out there a little bit more... But only a little bit.
- be less discriminatory. judgmental. Love everyone. 
- read more books !!!!
- succeed in uni,


HERRO 2012.

I look upon the winter’s night, my ice tipped nose is contrasted to the infinity of the night-sky, my breath is wisping across the crisp air like viscous spider-webs. In that moment I felt as if I was waiting for death, tightly holding onto the infinity of an instant. My heart was pulsating, my lungs were falling with each swirl of air…. and then the darkness swelled over a drowned me under its nothingness..

The precise details of my life have diffused away and now only relics of memories remain. The fragments of discordant memories whimsically dance through my mind. I cannot recount the money I earned nor even my career, rather it is reflections of belonging, love, loss and friendship that remain in the reflections between light and sleep…

1927…

The red-tinted circus lights filled me with excitement. Upon arrival my mother and I stood in awe at the elephants, their height reached beyond anything my ten year old self could conceive. The whim of candy coloured popcorn, the sparkle of costumes, the elegant moustache that sat humbly upon the ringmasters lip, fused together in a spectacular show which I greeted with wide, wide eyes. I met Frank on that night, I remember him telling me fabricated stories of how the elephants were fed with popcorn, how acrobats took pills to render them weightless to carry out their motions with elegant grace. I knew he was lying, yet I remember remaining silent as we drew ourselves into our own reality… I remember attempting to suppress our trills of squelching laughter as we watched the show.. thereafter becoming my first best friend.

1932..

Drunesdale was the secluded town enveloped with shrubbery. It was where my grandparents had lived. When I was a fifteen, I remember spending hours gazing at the clouds, playing in reflections of sunlight and shadows dancing upon the waves. I remember by grandpa would play unperturbed tunes on his acoustic guitar.. the notes would bend and whimsically reach up upon the trees. It was here me and my grandparents would walk, we would dream, we would pretend the world did not exist… it was our momentary sanctuary of solace secluded away within the natural realm. 

It was here my grandma had taught me to paint, I remember I would hold the brush awkwardly, unsuccessfully attempting to scrawl out the reflections of light across the sheets of candy coloured paper. And she told me this would be easy? The paintbrush’s path would loop and curl, yet it unveiled no more than messy discordant blotches of ink. My grandma then after taking the brush would gracious and effortlessly, inscribe an exact mimic of the rifts of the beaches and the infinity of the sea. Drunesdale possessed an unattaible beauty.. the concotion of its overarching trees and the memories of my grandmother’s tender smile render it has a place that will perpetually resonate with me.

1946..

I steadied myself stoically as I attempted to restrain the tears that accompanied the letter. I had married Frank in 1940, together we had owned a porcelain factory before being deployed on the Western Front in 1943. Until today, I hadn’t heard from him, instead being lost within the cavernous blood of war. The words revealed “McMillan, Frank.” The letter read “Born in London, 23 December 1915, died, July 1943. Paris. Businessman” twenty nine years of life summarised in those 13 words. Fear, sadness, uncertainty, a swirl of emotions seeped over me. I remembered then how my grandma had told me she would loose herself in painting.. for the next year, day in, day out, I would paint, I could incubate the landscape, object, person.. and slowly fall away from all notions of reality.

1955..

Under the fog of an early morning August, the car crept along the T4 highway. The deep sea swelled and the seagulls cried as we reached the house that sat humbly upon Redgrain Rd. Drunesdale. My children, Madeline, Dean, Sally as the “Captains of the HMAS Blue” embarked upon a “mission” to explore the vastness of the surroundings. They ran through the trees that now glowed gold within the shadows of the sunrise, and wet their shoes as they played within the grass dripping with dew. I had lived in London for several years and I was never suited to the tedious monotony and homogeneity of the city. I looked upon the endless sky.. Here, I felt I could regain the youthful spirit my 15 year old self once embodied. Here, I was emancipated from irksome obligations. Here, I was able to procure spiritual enrichment.. and I knew that my children would too have the eternal affinity this place I had once held..

….

Then all light is extinguished…. I flicker into silence, blackness, nothing. 

intelligence does not quash ignorance. so fuck you.

you are a walking contradiction, and you do everything you think you stand against.

 

"All the world 's a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts."

- Shakespeare. 

I learnt it from my grandmother, she taught me how to play monopoly. She understood the name of the game is to acquire. She would accumulate everything she could and eventually she'd become the master of the board. And then she'd always say the same thing to me, she'd look at me and say 'one day, you'll learn to play the game.' One summer I played monopoly almost everyday, and all day long and that summer i learnt to play the game. I came to understand the only way to win is to make a total commitment to acquisition. I came to understand that money and possessions that's the way you keep score and by the end of that summer I was more ruthless than my grandmother, I was ready to bend the rules if I had to to win that game. I sat down to play her that fall, I took everything she had, I watched her give her last dollar and quit in utter defeat and then.. she had one more thing to teach me.. Then she said now it all goes back in the box. All those houses and hotels, all those railroads and utility companies, all that property and all that wonderful money, now it all goes back in the box.  None of it was really yours. You get all heated up about it for a while, but it was around for a long time before you sat down at the board, and it will be here after you're gone. Players come and players go. Houses and cars, titles and clothes, even your body. Cause the fact is.. that everything I clutch and consume and hoard is going to go back in the box, and I'm going to lose it all. You have to ask yourself.. when you've finally got the ultimate promotion when you've made the ultimate purchase  when you buy the ultimate home when you have built up financial security and climbed the ladder of success to the highest rung you can possibly climb it.. and the thrill wears off, and it will wear off, then what? How far do you have to walk down that road before you see where it leads? Surely you understand, it will never be enough.. So you have to ask yourself the question.. What matters?

i will try, to fix you.

i was happy in the haze of a drunken hour, but heaven knows im miserable now.