Friday, April 20, 2007

The Fear.

Fire...



Fear. Once instilled it is present in the subconscious. Sneaky. Illusive. Subtly, it affected my deeds and actions. My mindset. I think alot...fear crept into my thoughts. Violent fear. Irrational fear. An absence of perspective. Just fear. Unjustified fear. Unneeded fear. Fear that consumed me. Fear that ruled my thoughts. Fear that led to hateful, childish thoughts. Fear I never realized I had...until now.

But the truth caught up with me. The healthy dose of reality that came with my new found freedom in university made me realize what fear has done to me. Fear instilled by those dearest to me. Fear instilled by the ones whom society dictates we should trust.

I am not stupid. I will not let fear rule my life. Truth is truth. Yes, in truth, some things are meant to be feared. But let the fear be justified and put into perspective. I no longer fear the fear. Irrational and violent thoughts be gone.

It took effort and time to realize what the fear had done to me. To my mindset. To my way of thinking. Effort that included mental effort, my use of my brain to consciously focus on what needed thinking.

My mind is now aware of the fear. My life will now have to catch up. All the time wasted away. Meaninglessness. Wasted years. I have a golden opportunity now to catch up. I am 21 and in control of my own life. I have to catch up before the golden years of my youth are over.

Nobody seems to understand. Those whom I turn to for support turned me away. Laughing. Talking only about things they want to hear. "Wasnt the weather nice today". Like something some bloke I'd bump to on the street would say. Predictable. Monotonous. Meaningless.

Perhaps I will write one day about my experiences trying to overcome the fear.

Friday, April 13, 2007

The McDonalisation of Me.

Ladybirds!



No, i didnt just make up that word. McDonalisation is real (It has to be, we learnt it in class!). The world has become more and more fast paced. Efficiency is everything. Remember the good ol' days when you had to cut and squeeze oranges if you wanted to have orange juice? Well, people started getting lazy and invented canned orange juice. Of course, they still needed picks to open the cans until someone invented the can opener (50+ years after the invention of the can!). But that wasnt enough. Now we have snap open cans.

I've become quite inefficient lately. Too much grey's anatomy (no, not the medical textbook. Im talking about the TV series) it seems. My first exams are this friday. We had a lecture on complementary medicine today that stressed the importance of mindfulness based therapy and it's importance in making patients feel better. I have to become more mindful and focused at the task at hand. It just seems so hard to set my mind and do anything these days. I tell myself to study but end up doing other things instead. This has to end. It's time to become more efficient. I want to study. Well, previously I had to plan and make time to study. But I would cleanup my room, cook(!), write my diary, make my bed, do the dishes, do the laundry, watch Grey's Anatomy... then study. It's like squeezing oranges to get orange juice. I have to be more mindful. Snapping open cans of good ol' study goodness. Quick. Efficient. Focused. The McDonalisation of me.


Nadielle: I wanted to bring them back...but decided not to. I was carrying a vacum cleaner and I had some work to do that weekend. Even back home and in college, my thoughts tend to run astray as I burn the midnight oil.
I'm starting to miss home and those sweet treats would have kept reminding me of that I miss dearly... well, let's just say I want to save that warm fuzzy feeling for some other time :-)

Sunday, April 08, 2007

Hello!!! Anybody there?

Hello!!!

I've been in Australia for two months now. Life here has been so hectic that I never really had time to myself. Every consecutive weekend was packed with things to do. I guess that is ending now. For the first time, I'm finding myself with free time. It's easter and most people have gone home. The halls are quite empty. I guess that's when the homesickness starts to creep in. It's not that bad, but I am starting to feel it. I miss home, my mum's cooking, chubbykins (lil bro), Nasi Kandar...





Sweet memories...

To the one who knows: I was in BigW looking for a vacum cleaner when I stumbled upon them. My heart turned to mashed potato after walking past the candy section. Of course, I remained cool and macho in front of my friends who were with me but they were quite puzzled why i took out my camera (of all places, in Wall Mart) to snap a picture all of a sudden. :-P

Thursday, April 05, 2007

Angels In Richardson Hall. White Party 2007.


Angels have come to Richardson Hall! 4th February 2007. Pictures were taken under the cool UV lighting. I've learnt alot about low light event photography since the toga party, but this party was even more challenging as the lights were even dimmer! My yield was only about 3%. Took close to 400 pictures, but only a handful were acceptable.




Ollie and his special someone. After a passionate kiss. Ollie is Richardson Hall's dedicated latin dance instructor. He conducts free mambo lessons each week for hall residents. I've been going for a few weeks now. Together with the Dance Sport salsa and meringue lessons at the campus center, I'm becoming more and more competent at latin dance. Kinesthetic knowledge has always been my weakness... but that is changing. I can feel it :-)





This picture is dedicated to all the people who asked me why I dont post pictures of myself on my blog. I'm a photographer - behind, not in front of, the camera. Well, I lent someone my precious for a few moments to take this picture. Capella, MYSELF, and some (confused?) guy who came into the picture and wrapped his hand around me at the last moment. Capella's 3" taller than me btw. She's crouching a lil in this picture.



Richardson Hall ppl, I've set a signup sheet outside the shop. Write down your monash email address on it if you'd like to recieve some pictures from the party. Thanks to everyone who posed for pictures. Sadly, many pictures taken were not acceptable due to poor, .. very poor, lighting. But the ones that came out had nice colours.