Villawood

A friend texted me two days ago, asking if I wanted to visit Villawood detention centre with him.  Almost without a second thought, I said yes...  I was quite cavalier about it. In that moment, it was just an adventure out West, something to make me think about how much Australian politics sucks *facepalm* and then I'd come skipping merrily home.

I'm still coming to terms with the experience. Tonight is the second night in a row that I haven't been able to sleep properly because my mind's just been whirring and whirring. In the silence of the night it whirs harder and louder. It's been exacerbated tonight by the fact that I went on a picnic today to Mrs. Macqurie's Chair with my nephews and their babysitter/my friend. The bewildering contrast, between the harsh reality faced by living, breathing people in that cage and the mirthful frolicking of toddlers under the sunshine in what is arguably the most beautiful place in Sydney, is a bit much for my system to process at the moment.

Keeping in mind my limited understanding as a relative bystander, here are a few salient points that strike me:

1. Everything I've understood thus far of the situation has been filtered through the mass media. Regardless of whether their political predilections conjure images of evil "boat people" or victims withering behind bars, what they present us is essentially an abstract caricature. Given the limitations of, say, a newspaper article, this is obviously understandable... but they also get locked into our imagination as such. This might sound a bit silly, but for the first time, the realness of the situation has struck me with full force. Aylum seekers are actually real people, people who giggle at bad jokes and need to brush their teeth in the morning. One of the men I spoke to reminded me so much, in his mannerisms and speech, of one of my closest friends from school. This line from A Little Princess, one of my favourite childhood books came to mind: "it's just a coincidence that I'm not you and you're not me". My conversation with him left me feeling so bewildered and it was a strange, out-of-body experience. Thankfully not treating them as tragic victims of destiny but obviously not negating their horrific experiences, the banter was as natural and flowing as with anyone and yet, despite their genuine smiles and ours, a dark cloud perceptibly overhung us. To me, it made the whole situation even more heartbreaking, the reminder that this isn't just a grand, sweeping, Shakespearean tragedy. Regarding it as such makes it so much easier to "other" them to us and say "oh yeh, terrible situation, garn" and then just move on with our petty lives.
2. Extending on the first point, putting a real, human face to the misery humans inflict on each other has completely changed my perspective. I live in such a cottonwool world! The biggest tragedy that happens in my life, quite literally, is my mother nagging me to clean my room or having to get home before my parents become too grumbly. My greatest stress and uncertainty is what my marks are going to look like, and that's something that's almost completely in my own hands. I'm definitely not someone who wants that much but I barely have to wish for something and it's in the palm of my hand. From this standpoint, reading about things, much as it might even move me to tears, is nowhere near enough to let me properly understand any situation that is so far removed from my own. Book-learning can only ever get you so far... it's two-dimensional and such an incomplete, reductionist version of reality. Not that I'm saying that I have a perfectly clear picture of the situation with my 8 hours that I spent in there, as a guest. What I'm trying to get at is that it is so easy to forget the importance of being in touch with people, who are at the crux of the issue but I feel, are somewhat marginalised in academia and politics. Ivory towers and all.
3. My third point is going to sound incredibly cliche but that doesn't make it any less true. The entire situation is just bewilderingly ridiculous. Our behaviour as a society, towards people who ask so little, and after everything they have been through, is beyond despicable. In an industrial area that sells timber furniture we cage people who have suffered the very worst of circumstances, like livestock! These cages are ringed with barbed wire, surrounded by dust and machinery. For years, intelligent, capable men (and women, but we only met men) are made to languish in the uncertainty that they may be sent back to hell for no reason other  our pettiness. The worst of it all is what they have to do there. From what I could see, nothing! They have no purpose but to wait and that emptiness of purpose, particularly in such bleak surroundings is the most dehumanising thing I can think of in the whole world. They may have a square meal, their lives may not perpetually be in danger but I can understand people being able to maintain their sanity under tyranny and violence more easily than in a detention center. Imagine sitting in the same room you're in now for years and years, waiting, pining for basic conditions of normalcy,but a) not knowing when that will come, or b) with the very real possibility of being tossed to the lions instead. Any resolution is possible at any moment. Four years is a really freaking long time to spend like that!
   
    Asylum seekers are victims, not criminals! Need I mention the UNHCR convention? Ok, say that you do achieve that freedom, you've already lost all those years in the cage and probably several more before that while fleeing... so the best years of your life are gone. Lots of asylum seekers have PTSD. With BOTH major parties treating you like a political football (to quote dude on QandA), being villainsed and stigmatised in this way must make it nigh on impossible to try attain normalcy. If politicians are so concerned about jumping the "queue", why don't they try and make sure it actually EXISTS. Make it accessible! I could rave on and on about this, but I shall stop now.

My mind is boggled anew that I really live in a society that lets this happen, that I know so many people who encourage it. If you've mentioned this to me before, please know that in that moment I wanted to scratch your eyes out... even if I love you otherwise. I really, really don't understand this side of the story, the lack of empathy or the miserliness. Are people actually evil? Why do you think they are any less productive members of society than anyone else? Why does this xenophobia flare up so strongly against people who are already destitute? Why did my parents have any more right coming here because they could pay for the airfare? The points above are just the things that have struck me as some of the concrete truths that frame the issue, but there are a million other confusions that continue to swill around my skull, that I struggle to even thread in words.

I am definitely, definitely going back.

PS: Just noticed the number of times I used the word "bewildered" in this! Not going to edit it out, because really I am just very, very bewildered.

If you're interested: http://www.therefugeeartproject.com/

ON RELIGION

"Left" in this post refers to the broad section of people who aren't Liberal voters (or anything even crazier than that) so basically everyone on my newsfeed is about to hate me.
Cheers :)

I'm a little angry right now. Facebook is usually full of crap but maybe I'm on an edge from other stuff  and this just has pushed me over. I'm actually so agitated that I'm having trouble even typing.

This does not happen often. 

I don't understand how so many leftist people justify their anti-religious bigotry to themselves. Coming from a corner that generally promotes love, tolerance and not demeaning people based on their sexuality or race ot gender or anything else, it boggles the mind. I'm sick of seeing my newsfeed flooded with people labelling religion as the "opiate of the masses", and God as a fictitious creature for the mentally deficient. The snideness and contempt is disgusting. It's disrespect on the most basic level, not even veiled like in the case of casual racism/sexism. HOW do they reconcile themselves to this inconsistence! What is going through someone's mind when they post this crap, in perfect knowledge that it's going to be appearing on the newsfeed of people that have actually told them they are of faith? It's so callous.

I'm starting to think that their selectiveness exposes that their moral compass only becomes relevant if it happens to be a "fashionably" leftist issue at that moment in time. In the long run, this is destructive! Universal love and tolerance is fucking UNIVERSAL, not dependent on whether you agree. I'm not denying your right not to believe in God or publicly state that is the case. I definitely wouldn't, given that I used to be atheist myself, for a while. I have a problem with the treatment of people of faith as if they have half a brain.

I'm trying to smother my anger and look at it from their level. I think the reason that people act this way is because of an incomplete, two-dimensional unerstanding of what religion is. You're only looking at structures that have oppressed people and started wars. Religion is not a monolihic institution. Sure, it has been used to suppress people, to start wars. To close off excellent ideas. But! Did you know, religion is a force that has shaped the lives of people over many millenia so it actually spans a LOT OF THINGS. Some things start somewhere, branch off into completely different directions which curl and tangle over each other. New branches sprout, others deaden and drop off. It is so ridiculous to reduce something that has seeped deeply into the lives of people, into different dimensions of their existence, in this way. To conflate ALL of religion with this thin slice of destructiveness and totally marginalise how much meaning it has for so many people, is ridiculous. Has it occurred to you that this negative reductionism is EXACTLY what fuels the kinds of bigotry that you typically stand up against?

There are as many religions as there are people. Religion is the framework that we use to try and reach God. It is made up of people. People are crazy. Hence, religion is sometimes flawed, but that doesn't invalidate it altogether. I’m not sure where I read this analogy, but it's excellent. Take religion as being represented by a banana. The most important part of the banana is the flesh inside, the core, but we’re all paying attention to the peel, the symbolism and ritualism that surrounds it. The reason we even gave God a name and face at all is just to make him easier to relate to and less abstract and... mystical.

Angry rant is over but I think I'll keep going.

All religious texts, while they may be rooted in divine inspiration, have also been filtered through the pen (quill, whatever) of a man and it is important to exercise some discernment. How do you judge what to ignore? It's a difficult, complex question, but I think if they disregard the value of universal compassion (INCLUDING THE NATURAL WORLD!) and mutual respect in any way, or are predominantly destructive/suppressive then they should be dropped. Yes your book has a lot of good things in it, but it isn't a substitute for a brain!

manifesto!

 I have around a week till my exams are finished. I had plans to intern with Navdanya, Vandana Shiva's seed farm but because the people that work there are inefficient turds so that ain't happening no mo'. My heart shattered into itty bitty pieces when this realisation dawned on me. Here is the exact image from my pipe dreams of how I'd spend my days:

It resonated with me in every way possible: it's quiet, removed from my life, I love mountains, the institution itself is spectacular and corresponds in every way with my own ethical and philosophical (Gandhi-esque) convictions.

BUT NOW I'm a bit shitty at Destiny for having dangled the dream before my nose, then cruelly snatching it away. I'm going to make believe that I'm there, sit in my room this summer with some chai and this picture in front of me,

and read books.

And paint.

This post is rambling and silly. It's about two excellent days I've spent in the recent past that have just been so refreshing after endless essay-writing in the last month.

On Thursday I spent the day with a girl who lives down my street and among many fascinating things, we spent a lot of time discussing art. I guess I talk about art with a lot of my friends but I've finally found someone whose sensibilities completely resonate with my own and more importantly, we spent lots of time discussing art making. It was a good day.

 The day following that, after not finishing my essay (again) I went to Chanel's spectacular Little Black Jacket exhibition with Annie. We wandered through the Rocks markets, bought some strange macarons and cake. The bar we were going to for Dasha's birthday was full so we ended up in the Lansdowne (classy, eh? but FUN!), where we had dinner and drinks. In search of dessert, we gallivanted around Newtown where I nearly got run over by an ambulance (oh the irony!) decided on gelato and for lack of anything better to do, went to sit in Victoria Park. At this point Dasha and Saro disappeared somewhere. It was midnight and we lay down tired, giggling, gossiping, arguing for around twenty minutes about stupid things. It was so exhilarating! One of  the many jewels that studded our conversation:

J: see that huge star there?

A: that's a lamp post.

In retrospect, this is not really so funny but for some reason, at the time it was. We laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed. At one point it wasn't even about the joke any more, so much as laughing at ourselves for laughing so long. We had sparklers left over from the cake, got over-excited and pretended to be Harry Potter characters, scarily all knew the lines exactly. It was great. We also pretended to be fairies running and twirling, nearly setting fire to ourselves because we were a little inebriated after all.

 Then I went home.

End of story, didn't really have a point eh. Yes, it did!! It's made me want to paint again for the first time in more than a year! yay! I'm going to paint that very scene.

time passed, fast

LAST DAY OF UNDERGRAD B.P.E.S.S. I know I have honours next year to look forward to but it won't have the same space for the juvenile thrills of passing inane unfunny notes in lectures or occasionally skipping tutes to peruse bookshops in Newtown by myself. Life is good now and I don't like change!

Everyone doing an arts degree complains at some point that wider society doesn't understand its value. If you think you have it bad, try studying social sciences with Indian family and Indian family friends who can't acknowledge the legitimacy of anything outside science/medicine/engineering/accounting (the last one grudgingly). Anyone who knows me well enough would agree that the thought of me dedicating my life to any one of those is quite laughable. So I do laugh it off... and am amused, more than anything else at any standard Indian gathering when X uncle asks me what I do and my response makes him almost visibly recoil. His expression is strained as he tries to grapple with the strangeness of what I've just told him and for some reason, of all the words in the title (bachelor, political, economic, social, sciences) only one sticks out.
"So... you're... going to be a politician?!?!?!?!" I can almost see the cogs in his mind creeeaaaking to a halt as he decides that I'm not going to be a good person to introduce to his son after all.

Which is a good thing.

I've never really tried to defend myself and typically just go along with the jokes, which are unoriginal and pathetic.. something about being homeless and/or a cardboard box. To me the answer is so mind-numbingly obvious, like the equivalent of trying to prove that oranges aren't square. I mean, imagine if we really lived on a planet populated by just accountants and engineers and scientists! These vocations may help to make the world "efficient" but not functional. The social sciences, as far as I can see, are essentially the study of what holds the fabric of society together and hey maybe I'm biased, but that seems to me like a pretty damn important thing. Human society is not comprised of atomised, rational individuals and the spaces between us aren't just filled with gadgets, bank loans and roads/bridges. Nothing in your life is apolitical. Besides this, an arts degree teaches you how to think, for God's sake, why is that so underrated? I found this yesterday and it blows my mind:

Twenty years after my own graduation, I have come gradually to understand that the liberal arts cliché about teaching you how to think is actually shorthand for a much deeper, more serious idea: learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed. Think of the old cliché about ‘the mind being an excellent servant but a terrible master.’

And I submit that this is what the real, no-bullshit value of your liberal arts education is supposed to be about: how to keep from going through your comfortable, prosperous, respectable adult life dead, unconscious, a slave to your head and to your natural default setting of being uniquely, completely, imperially alone day in and day out.

The so-called real world of men and money and power hums merrily along in a pool of fear and anger and frustration and craving and worship of self. Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. The freedom all to be lords of our tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the centre of all creation. This kind of freedom has much to recommend it. But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talk about much in the great outside world of wanting and achieving…. The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day.

That is real freedom. That is being educated, and understanding how to think. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the rat race, the constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing.

The real value of a real education [has] almost nothing to do with knowledge, and everything to do with simple awareness; awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, all the time, that we have to keep reminding ourselves over and over:

This is water

-David Foster Wallace

That said, if I were to sum up all I've learnt in the last three years, all I know for sure is this: People are shit. We're all going to die. Maybe in light of the former, the latter isn't such a bad thing. Maybe I would be better off with a commerce degree after all...

PS scenario with X uncle has actually happened. Sometimes he's an aunty

about to EXPLODE from cutesy

HillsBus again ft. hippies

The last post (read that first if you haven't) seemed to interest a lot of people and provided fodder for more conversation on the bus, which in turn, is feeding back into this...

First, a glorious text I was sent about a week ago:

Somebody on hillsbus was eating mandarin pieces with toothpicks as chopsticks :///

Then she went to the back of the bus and lay down to sleep with her ass in my face.

Rai and I caught the same 620X last Friday with the horrible man who starred in the previous post. His reaction to us was ambiguous, not sure whether he was intimidated or trying to be intimidating. I was reeeeally tempted to sit directly behind him again, to pick up the threads of the conversation where we had left off last. It didn't happen, I am a spineless worm.

I've had many interesting bus conversations since I wrote here last, but none have have stuck in my mind and continued to whirl around as much as this one with Simran. It was a while ago so it's a little blurry how much of this was actually spoken and how much was tacked on later in my imagination when I replayed it in my head.

After some random banter, we somehow landed on the topic of cultural sensitivity and what a warped idea of it most people seem to have. The fact that I'm Indian does not mean I want to talk to you about butter chicken. I mean, I especially don't want to, being vegetarian and all. Nor does it (or our films or yoga, or henna) constitute any significant part of "Indianness". Exoticising a culture by stripping it down to gimmicky, superficial things like this is demeaning. You're reducing it to something that's really two-dimensional and ultimately, not as legitimately "real" as Western culture.

If you're reading this and cringing at the fact that you've done this around me, just take this as something to keep in mind. Some of my favourite people in the world are guilty of it all the time. I don't really begrudge them because it's obviously not something that people do malevolently, so much as for a conversation filler. Besides which, that may be the depth of your knowledge on the culture (disturbing) so it's not like you have anywhere else to start (just don't) 

Anyway, then we moved on to discuss stupid Tree of Life salesgirls in bindis and harem pants. I actually love that shop, their cotton dresses are just luverly... but occasionally when I walk in, I cringe a little at these girls who think that, in donning the clothes that they do, they somehow are a greater authority than me on my own culture. Yes, that's actually how a few of them act. You might think I'm being excessively bitchy here, but it's a lot more sinister than it seems at first glance.

Mainstream society abstracts stuff from its original context, shakes it around, completely confuddles what it really "is" and then imposes the reinterpretation on the people it really belongs to, often as a frivolous, disposable trend. I read something years ago about how destructive this has been with naive Americans. It just isn't nice to hijack and trivialise things like that... ESPECIALLY when it comes to religion. Ganesh and Saraswati are NOT funky trinkets to hang around your neck. The Swastika... let's not even go there.

This brings me to the hippies. Most people are surprised when I say I dislike them. Though I agree with the ideas they theoretically espouse, what did they actually do, apart from strum and smoke pot? Not a lot. (rhyming! heh I am so clever)

When we were in India earlier this year, my family took a short trip to Haridwar and Rishikesh, two important places of pilgrimage. Rishikesh, a town at the foothills of the Himalayas was beautiful. The Ganges were amazingly blue (it's still pristine at this point, gets messed up further South) and it made me feel all floaty and happy. Until I saw the scraggly hippies scattered along the pavement, nursing bongs and putting lots of effort into looking as nonchalant as possible. I know it's a totally irrational but something flared up inside me and I got really, really mad. The sanctity of the place was being tainted by some complete wankers who were so goddamn smug and self-important just because they were in the "East", had dreadlocks and stupid "om" pendants.

 

kk I love the Beatles, but.

All in all, what an I saying? I don't mean to imply in any way that white people should completely stop interacting with other cultures for fear of corrupting them. All I ask is a little more respect and some acknowledgement that some things run deeper than you can understand or even perceive. Another person's culture is not something you can just slip on, and it is no less meaningful or sophisticated than yours. Also, India's only an example I took to illustrate something that's universal. 

I'm all hyped up and kind of tempted to rewrite the first part of this for Honi or something because I really wish more people were aware... but you know. Most prob. won't :)

P.S. Don't take this too seriously, it's just a delirious 2:00 am rant. I am prone to exaggerationz

My love to HillsBus xx

I'm juggling between work, piano class, gym (ok I hardly ever bother with this one), social life, uni, readings (umm) and occasionally stuff with societies. I love being busy, but I really need some time to myself and some SLEEP, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD! I don't feel like myself any more. I'm not used to being on my toes constantly, and my typically meandering, whimscal thoughts are being uncomfortably tethered by practical things... it's all just a bit alien to me. It doesn't help that I kept running around during the winter break. I should have just stayed in my cave and chilled with SRK. In the middle of all this, the one thing keeping me sane is... HillsBus

When I meet people at uni and tell them I live in Cherrybrook, the conversation will predictably move like this-

person: Cherrywhaaat?
me: (sigh) It's near Castle Hill/Pennant Hills/Hornsby... like, Hills district?
person: oh... shiiiiiiiiiit, how long does that take you?
me: uh, up to two and a half hours door-to-door one way but it really depends on the traffic. Usually less
person: whoa that sucks! Why don't you move out?

It doesn't suck. I love public transport! It is the organising principle of my life, and I'd probably be a different person without it. It's a buffer zone that lets me catch up on sleep or finish off my readings. It's the time I just sit and meditate on life and people and... things. It's the time I amuse myslef by inventing colourful life stories of stuffy, suited, irritable old men  affable co-passengers. I also like to pass time by staring at people out the window and judging their clothes/lives. If either or both my parents are with me (not uncommon), I sweet talk them into giving me sum moar $$$$$.

I've met so many cool people on the bus, some of whom I now consider to be pretty close friends. Last week I struck up a conversation with a girl I very vaguely recognised as a friend of a friend I'd met years ago.  She happened to be on the same bus on the way back too and we bantered like old friends about Margaret Thatcher and parents and hipsters. She was lovely, but I sadly can't remember her name. I also have public transport to thank for keeping up friendships with people I probably wouldn't otherwise go out of my way to contact. And how could I possibly neglect to mention the times I've fallen in lurve on the magical M2? The best part is that I can just sit and be besotted with a stanger at a distance, without him opening his mouth to shatter the illusion of his perfection.

Of course, you have your characters: drivers that cruise past you even though you're flapping like a bird to signal him and the next bus won't come for another hour, cranky co-passengers...

So I was on the 620 with Rai last week and our conversation, fascinating as always, ranged from student politics to flippant gossip to questioning the value in democracy (courtesy Tocqueville), and back to flippant gossip. At one point she said if she wants pads she can just say so to her father, and it's no big deal, seeing both her parents are doctors. I said I can't imagine doing that to my dad, ever. We wandered into the topic of Jane Caro on QandA, and that saying "vagina" should not be tabboo. An old man in front of us twitched violently, turned around and proceeded to berate us for five minutes: "the whole bus could hear you and you're making a fool of yourself" "have no respect" "talking non-stop" and... "highly inappropriate".
In my head I was responding:  "Speak for yourself, you're the man  directly in front of us, not the whole bus. I mean, duhhh you can hear us", "we're hardly being rude/vulgar", "since when was talking a crime",  "OHHHHHHHH THE IRONY! LOL" but I'm a wuss so what passed through my lips was "I'm soooo sorry", multiple times even as he kept ranting. I need to grow a pair. Rai put him in his place with some hilarious staged whispers which made him visibly uncomfortable. Cherrybrook is such a conservative backwater, WHY do I live here?

All in all, it was quite funny.
HillsBus FTW

adventures.

After the breakfast mentioned in the previous post, I studied a while in the library and then attended a lecture from AWS about battery hens. Needless to say, (refer to previous post) it was hardly filled out and we were all women! The lecture itself was pretty confronting. I walked out of there with a fiercely pro-vegan argument raging in my head, even as I thoughtlessly scoffed down a jacket potato stacked with cheese AND some cakes (yes, plural) from a bake sale. It took me a whole 10 minutes to realise something was a bit off.  I've continued to screw up almost every day since then BUT I will do this! As a tam brahm reared on thayir I guess that vegan may be a bit of a stretch but I can try to stick to lacto-vegetarianism, i.e. cut out the eggs.

Anyway. It's week four and I'm already doing an all-nighter, which is a bit ridiculous. I have a group presentation tomorrow for an assignment which involves being on talkback radio. My group is fantastic! I love them all. Highlights included:

• Complaining about my grandmother's wedding dress which I recently inherited. I'm pissed off because it's full of moth holes, and my cousins got all her jewellery
• Being smited (well I'm sure he thinks that's what happened) by Ray Hadley about Gillard and the law firm thing
• Trying to be a conspiracy theorist and argue with "the golden tonsils" on 2SM till we realised half way through that we were actually saying the same thing! 

And here's a skit we're planning to open tomorrow's presentation with:

 

Radio host: “And today we'll be talking about how immigrants cause global warming, which doesn't exist. Give us a call with your opinion on the best way to dye Julia Gillard's hair her real colour. Green.”

Punter (to themselves). “mhmmmm! I hear you sister! I'm going to ring up and tell this girl how right she is!! That'll show those lefty greeny boat people what's what!” -picks up phone-

Gandalf: “Welcome to radio 2 gigabytes. Do you wish to speak to Jalan Ones?

Punter: “Why yes, as a matter of fact I do! I want to tell her how right she is”

Gandalf: “Well she's certainly not left. YOU SHALL NOT PASS!!!!”

-Punter breaks down crying”

Radio Host: “Next we'll be talking about the top three reasons that women are unconstitutional”

Punter 2 (moi): “Oh no she didn't!!!” -picks up phone-

Gandalf: Welcome to radio 2 gigabytes. Do you wish to speak to Jalan Ones?

Punter 2: Why yes, I want to say how wrong she is. Was she hit on the head by a crapload of stupidness as a child?

Gandalf: Jalan Ones was never a child. YOU SHALL PASS!!!

ohhhh boy.

scientism

I woke up at 5:30 this morning for the Greens' wom*ns breakfast. That's no mean feat on a winter morning, particularly when, thanks to GOVT2603 I was already quite sleep deprived AND with no weekend on the horizon. So I was a bit grumbly as I got on to the bus, vowing to never attend another one of their events if I got bored at this one... but it was really good :) We discussed something that's been on my mind recently. A girl studying vet science from the Animal Welfare Society was complaining about the faculty and how strongly they were resisting to her attempts to inject some moral feeling the department and address some of its practices. I found it strange that this would even be a point of contention in the vet department, I mean they are supposed to be people that dedicate their lives to SAVE animals after all. The conversation branched off into scientism, which interests me a lot as an arts student who constantly has to defend my choice of studying the humanities around other Indian people. Unless they've just been stunned into an awkward silence when I mention what I do... which is fine, really, it just saves me the bother.

Science is not apolitical. Nothing is apolitical. It shouldn't be allowed to form its own ideology in society, because abstracted from its implications on the real world it can be profoundly destructive. I read a book by David Suzuki, a Canadian environmentalist last year, describing the reductionism inherent to how we conceptualise science, focusing on microsystems instead of learning to understand the world, or even an organism as a complete system. This fragmentation leads to a distorted, mosaic version of reality, which  hinders our ability to coherently draw connections between our actions and their implications. Reductionism also fosters the attitude that science is value free... which is really, really not true.

Vandana Shiva's (I LOVE HER) critique of modern science and its acceptance as a universal and value free system:

Instead, they view the dominant stream of modern science, the reductionist or mechanical paradigm, as a particular projection of Western men, originating during the scientific revolution. The privilege of determining what is considered scientific knowledge has been delegated by men, and for the better part of history restricted to men. By and large, this has led to the alienation and stigmatization of women as non participants. The machinist metaphors of reductionism have socially reconstituted nature and society.

courtesy: wiki :p

Shiva was a prominent nuclear physicist who became a really important figure in the chipko (tree hugging) movement of the 1970s and now she's an ecofeminist. She won the Sydney Peace prize a couple of years ago.

I came across this quote in a tute presentation this week and I thought it was amazing:

"Science gives us no answer to the question, what shall we do and how shall we live?”
- Leo Tolstoy, 1898

Frankenstein stands as an important case in point. Read it

 I guess what I'm saying overall, is that we need to stop thinking about science as something which exists in its own bubble, and stop allowing scientists to pretend it is. What also pisses me off the most is when we allow its positivism  to leak into other disciplines... like economics, which is underpinned by mechanistic models, social darwinism. There's plenty more to say because it's a subject I've been thinking about for ages but I'm really tired and I have class early and I'm a bit strung out for many reasons. I probably shouldn't have even started writing this in the first place and just slept. Sleep deprivation tends to numb my brain and my 7 day (mediapol) week is a bit crazy. AND I have a string of 21sts. Speaking of which, I'm sorry but I just had to delete the previous post...

*FACEPALM*

Though I love it very much, the Indian film industry can sometimes be a bit embarrassing. REALLY REALLY REALLY EMBARRASSING, GOD WHAT WERE THEY THINKING!

It's the poster for a new (low budget) film
Rai: "Where's UTS?"  

I only watched one Indian film in the whole holidays and it had to be Cocktail. It was soooo bad. I can't deny the eye-candy though... and I'm definitely not referring to Saif here. Too many films released this year have been awful!

This post needs a silver lining... here it is:

Looks interesting, though I dislike all three lead actors.

music and carnatic music

My sudden turnaround and decision to learn carnatic music nearly gave my parents whiplash. It's such an integral part of my life now!

I decided to write this after a small-ish Hindu festival thing a few days ago when, as is customary in most religious events, me and my mum were invited to sing a few lines. We did, and from the corner of my eye I noticed the fiancee of a family friend, not accustomed our ways, flinch a little. We aren't bad singers and my mum especially is actually very good. I'm ok as long as I have her as a security blanket to overcome my natural shyness around lots of strange people. Anyway, I found it quite interesting and it got me thinking on the differences between classical Indian music and the-rest-of-the-world-music.

I normally don't think too much about what I'm writing here, but this has made me scratch my beard a bit. It's awkward. First of all, though I may have learnt on-and-off for more than ten years, there are many people I know, much younger than me with much more talent and knowledge, so I don't know if I really have the authority to say much. Secondly, I'm not sure the disparities even could be captured in words. Language is limited and art is a subjectively lived experience, after all. Finally, there's the fact that my appreciation of music, like any other form of art, doesn't involve any complicated thought process. I just let it wash over me and if I like it, I simply... do.

So then what do I write about? Well there are a few points that jump out.

Carnatic music has to be understood deeply to be loved, you can't just wander into it and like it. It's technical and complicated in its metre, tonic, the system of ragas, etc. There are lots of rules and specificities that have to be strictly followed. Yet it's far from being mechanical and improvisation is a key factor, which is really quite an important point where it deviates from Western systems of music. Also,  it relies much less on "sound", much more on melodious complexity and intricate nuances. If you don't understand this all carnatic music essentially sounds the same, and maybe, bad. What really warms me to itc is the fact that you can't dress it up with any frills or embellishments. It's honest.

I read this biography of Rukmini Devi a few years ago and there's this description by Yeats (da poet) of her bharatanatyam dance performance, but I think it's quite applicable to how I see carnatic music:

"The sheer beauty in human rhythm lifted me to a state of aesthetic bliss. The theatre was filled with a presence rather than a personality. Here there was no pandering to sensation or sentiment. Here was a call away from the half-Gods of mundanity to the celestial realm in which one becomes a partner in the divinity that shapes not only our ends but the creative beginning of things."

Whewww, not sure what he's on about in the last part but his statement regarding "a presence rather than a personality" really struck me. Here's the thing: on one hand, the vocalist is at the crux of the performance, but on the other, there's something to it all that completely transcends him/her.

 

This is all making me sound like a huge classical Indian music nerd but sadly, I'm really not. I never practice between lessons and would probably sooner listen to... you know, whatever I listen to on spotify.
 

quick update!

Whoa too many posts in a week, I need a life. That said, this will only be two lines, so doesn't really count. I changed the address thingy and it needs explaining.

SO I was listening to Edith Piaf's La Vie en Rose which is one of my favourite songs. The line goes, "je vois la vie en rose" or: "I see life in pink (rose tinted glasses)". La vie en brun (brown) just refers to the fact that I tend to complain a lot on this blog. Coincidentally, it's brown. I am also brown.

cya x

neglecting animals

The last week of my life has sucked.

I'd been super busy these holidays until last Wednesday, when it all suddenly... stopped. I've forgotten how to be with myself, and where I would normally rejoice in the freedom and watch movies/read books/paint, I have been filling the vacuum by reading the Daily Telegraph (srsly), stalking facebook (UGH!) or watching crap on youtube. Not all of it's crap, actually, Jane Eyre definitely isn't, and I found these old 50's educational documentaries for young ladehs. They are so funny! Anyway, among the other pathetic things I've done in the last few days, I started re-reading posts here, some for the first time since they were written. Something is definitely wrong with me because when I got to the part about street dogs in this one, I was suddenly overcome and just... burst into tears! I'm not usually a weepy person at all, and I am emotionally quite uncomplicated, so it's not like I had something repressed inside, or anything like that.

Eventually I was back to my normal self, albeit a little bemused. Then I started thinking. Why is human society so pathetic when it comes to taking animal rights seriously? On the one hand, animal activism isn't taboo like environmentalism or feminism might sometimes be. It doesn't raise eyebows in the same way, but unfortunately it doesn't draw much more than lukewarm responses either. Practically everyone will AWWW!! at cute kitties on the net, but why aren't there any hacks on campus, inflamed  about their plight in the same way they would for refugees or marriage equality? No subjects taught that address the issue? Well I assume that's the case, haven't actually checked. Why aren't they having any spirited debate *cough* on QandA about the barbarity of vivisection? What about the people that stop me in Glebe/Broadway? They're always on about poverty unless it's the Wilderness Society (which I've actually signed up to, they seem solid) who always feel the need to make their selling point: "imagine, if your kids can't get to see the Great Barrier Reef...". I have this problem generally with a lot of green campaigns, the human-centricity of it all.  Most crucially, just HOW is something as vile as hunting for leisure not criminalised? Yes I've heard the "overpopulation" story...  well, there's also an overpopulation of Indians in India, let's all pull out our shotguns and take them down, why don't we?

It's not considered politically incorrect to speak crudely of animals, as it is o women or coloured people, but both of these until recently used to be acceptable... so might we hope that things will change in the future? Nah. Our superiority complex is entrenched and the animals don't have voices to fight back with, so I doubt it. Not to mention that it also goes against the interests of capital. I assume that in part, people have been desensitised by well, eating them. I also partly blame the Abrahamic religions (I'm sorry guys, but this really irks me), specifically, the bit where Adam and Eve get chucked out of Eden and God says they are his own beloved creatures and they have priority over the rest. Who knows, maybe He was being sarcastic but it slipped past them. I really don't know, but this story doesn't make any sense to me.

I have definitely found my calling in ecofeminism. Maybe. I'll explain what that is in a later post, it's a little complicated and the wikipedia article on it is a bit rubbish.
Good night my lovelies <3

EDIT: bored, so imma add more words. Soz, flippant/pointless:

I want to write about the third-wave feminist influences on Indian movies these days... what with this Sunny Leone girl (who's like... not even that pretty) and The Dirty Picture, etc. etc. I haven't actually seen an Indian film in months though. hmmm

I don't think I will ever want to be an author again. Writing stories is even more painful than marking them.

Babakiueria

Learning about land reform in PNG and Africa has lately piqued my interest in indigenous Australians. I've been reading up a bit, and I also found this again after a really long time. It's brilliant.

Anji in brief

I've always found the concept of an autobiography stupid (Gandhi's excepted) so writing this feels strange. But this is not an excercise in self-aggrandisement, I promise it actually has a specific purpose. I've noticed that some of my closest friends don't completely "get" me, maybe because some important topics have just never come up in conversation before. If they haven't come up before, there's a fair chance that they also won't in the future and this bugs me.  It's so bizarre when I realise that people I've known for most of my life have no idea that I used to live in Singapore or that I like to paint or that I'm a recovering drug addict.  Inspired by a certain brilliant picture posted on facebook, I've decided to write this to fill in the blanks. It's nowhere near as cool as the drawing and it's about me after all, so you might not find it too scintillating.

Where to start? Well, I was born in Sydney, then my parents got bored and moved to Singapore just to try it out, but they changed their minds and moved back. I went to primary school here, then high school and now I'm studying a bachelor of Political Economic and Social Sciences (B.P.E.S.S.) at the University of Sydney. Don't worry if you can't remember all of that, even my dad can't. I'm majoring (is "majoring" even a real word?) in political economy, pretty sure that I will also be doing honours also because uni is fun and I'd like to put off having to think about scary things like a job. I should have an idea about my thesis by now... all I know is that I am definitely interested in the Washington Consensus and anti-capitalism. I have a fixation with Africa but that may or may not wane by next year. If I do really well, I'm considering either a PhD afterwards, or law... but law sounds dull.

 Oh and I'm not really a recovering drug addict, GOTCHA!! AHAHAHAHAHA.

I've been fond of painting for a while, but it's very casual and I'm only just getting into the theoretical side. I started learning piano recently and returned to singing classical Indian music, i.e. carnatic. Since I was about seven, I've been learning carnatic music on and off. For most of my life I absolutely hated it and my mum for forcing me to persevere. After a long break, I decided to take it up again at the end of last year, pretty much just to prove to myself that I'm not whitewashed. Even if my reasoning was idiotic, (duhh I'm not) I'm glad that I did so because now I really like it.

I wasn't even slightly interested in the world at large till I watched the Motorcycle Diaries in year 12. I was more into literature and stuff, so most of the political views I hold are admittedly, still kind of rough. This is another very good reason that makes me want to stick around uni as long as possible, because getting a job would probably be stifling. I generally identify myself with the far left of the political spectrum: legalise drugs, marriage equality, fix the environment etc. Though I'm majoring (is "majoring" even a real word?) in political economy, my ideas on that aren't very firm either, because the contradictions and tensions of the real world have made me extremely confused. Capitalism is shit but I have no idea whether it needs to be scrapped entirely or if it might be fixed. I don't think the latter is going to be fruitful but the former is too scary. In my opinion we should ideally live in simple, small self-sustaining communes, but I don't normally tell people that because they'd think I'm batshit crazy. I consider the environment to be the most important thing that should be consuming all our attention, yes, even above poverty and human suffering. I've mentioned before that I'm a fan of the deep ecology movement, especially ecofeminism, and talked here about how strongly I feel about vegetarianism. Overall I'm pretty cynical about humanity, uhh yes I should be changing that thing on the left.

I've also expressed my views on religion before, but I should mention that though I consider myself to be a religious person, I don't adversely judge most people who aren't; in fact, I probably sympathise with them just a little. This is because I fanatically value sincerity in people over almost anything else and most people that think they're religious are just narrow-minded dogmatic sanctimonious cray-cray zealots. On the other hand, many atheists are some of the most earnest and honest people I know. But though I can accept their lack of faith, I detest the kind of antitheism Dawkins peddles. For similar reasons, I dislike Evangelism and have some smaller issues with organised religion. I think it's intrinsically personal... really, just mind your own business!

So I'm going through that phase again, when I want to do everything. I'm going to paint and read up on the history of the world in the rest of holidays. I'm going to try some creative writing (?). I also decided to join the Greens and even followed up on that decision, but a squizz through their facebook page is giving me the impression that some of them are crazy... not necessarily a bad thing I suppose, but crucially, it drove home that this will probably involve a lot of arguing. Besides the fact that I'm quite shy around strangers, I'm just not a confrontation person. I can rant about crap here and I can write impassioned essays but I hate fighting. Hmmmmm, verrons!

Speaking of which, I also hate facebook. I really, really hate it and how it distorts natural social relations. By the end of this year I'm going to delete my account! It will be scary. Nobody checks their email any more, so this will probably be my main form of online communication and I promise I'll try to answer my phone more often :)

Now that this is done I'm not sure that I want to post it on facebook, or even send in a private message. It's making me cringe a lot, so I'm going to just leave it here in the hope that the right people chance upon it. There's plenty more I could rabbit on about but I'll leave it for you to find out the natural, human way. urgh

*HUGS*

just to reiterate, I'M REALLY NOT A DRUG ADDICT, OK?

Burqa and the Bikini

This needs a better title but I can't think of one :(

While I was driving through Dural this sunny morning, they were debating this (again) on the radio. It seriously pissed me off. This has to be quick because I have to study, so it might not make much sense.

Maybe it's not the burqa that's oppressive and maybe it's not the bikini either. Maybe what's oppressive is the discourse itself, the fact that it is so prominent in popular media. I think the population of my high school was greater than the number of people in Australia that wear them!

The debate is always so polarised... "RAH RAH OPPRESSIVE! RAH" or "chiii objectification, sexualisation", but human psychology is complex and nuanced, so please stop assuming you can read exactly what it means to her. We spend too much time attacking symbols and sidelining real feminist issues (yes Jess, they DO exist... sigh). If you ask me, they're both essentially two sides of the same coin. One side looks at woman as an object (sometimes) and and the other is essentially the same but shrouded in mystery, given a forbidden fruit-esque treatment. It should be more obvious to people that there's a lot more to a woman than her body or what she puts on it. Oh, and I really hate it when right wing people pretend feminism is really the reason they don't like the burqa. Bitch please!

P.S. OMGOMGOMGOMGOMG THEY'RE MAKING JACKFRUIT PAYASAM ON MASTERCHEF AND I AM GOING TO BURST WITH EXCITEMENT! It's for a Tamil wedding. Unsurprisingly, some of the derr-brained comments from the contestants are making my skin crawl: "this is such a cultural event, it's so beautiful"......................... WTF does that even mean?? Sigh, they're well meaning I guess.

P.P.S. Just read over the :)! post, definitely wasn't entertained. MORE WTF

The False Heart

I said to Heart, "How goes it?" Heart replied:
"Right as a Ribstone Pippin!" But it lied.

-Hillaire Belloc

! :)

So, I'm all high and stuff, my fingers are all shaking, and my mind is racing.

I've had a pretty bad cold for the last few days and haven't slept for more than two hours in the last two nights; none of which were yesterday. My body is reacting to all of this very strangely and I feel like I'm wading through clouds! My mind has retained a little reflexivity to recognise that some very strange thoughts are passing through it, so I've decided to capitalise and type whatever skims through. Maybe I'll be entertained when I read it tomorrow. Maybe you will, too.

It's challenging, because this state has also induced in me a heightened sense of unco-ness besides the fact that my fingers are numb from the cold. So while my thoughts flow torrentially, they are squeeeeezed to a trickle by the time my fingers release them. I would turn on the heater, but... I'll live :/

I started linking these on faceworld, and I'm not sure whether I should continue to do so.

When I started my tumblr account, it was to sieve through the mush that is my mind and try to write to myself, honestly about myself.  Over time, I found that a number of people started following me, which was totally unexpected. I subconsciously started writing... for them. This was belying its purpose, so I deleted tumblr. I think I'm falling into the same trap again. The first few minutes after I post, I keep looking back at the stats, wondering who's reading right now or why I have so many fans *cough* in Latvia and Russia (no, really?) and whether they're thinking that I'm full of crap. I'm also worrying that it's betraying exhibitionist tendencies in me, something I absolutely HATE in other people, also the reason that I tend to limit my general facebook activity. But then again, I don't want this to just be re-read by me... lame!

I had a pretty epic chat with Raihana on the bus back home today that made me realise/reflect on some things. a) All of the people that I'm really close to (I lub youse) are so different! b) I like people with strong convictions d) and parentheses heh e) I tend to think in feelings, rather than rational thought. The rational part only comes to me after conscious effort f) I don't want a real job!

We skimmed all the different things we want to do in life. I think I'd like to be an academic and just think about things a lot, though I don't know yet whether that's something I have aptitude for. I'd also like to be a hermit with nothing but the clothes on my back  and I'm actually serious about this one sometimes. I want to have children (how I looove children) and I want to live overseas/travel. I also want to be an painter but... :'(

In unrelated news, I've decided to get involved in student politics, maybe, next semester. I've maintained for a long time that student politics is pretty retarded, but I want the experience. Last real semester, after all. 
 
So I watched this film some time ago and I really liked it.
You should watch it too, if you like pretentious French cinema:

Lila Said That 
 (the girl's hot) click for English subs. I found parts of it disturbing. So if you're sensitive, look at THIS INSTEAD!

My previous post related mostly to contemporary Indian films, which, ok, I like well enough. But they have nothing on the old ones! Admittedly, some were terrible but if we push those many bad eggs to the side, the honesty and magic and overall loveliness of films before the 1980s is unsurpassed. The clip above, from a 1965 strange, existential-ish film Guide epitomises this. The choreography is inspired and Waheeda Rehman is spectacular! What's not to like about her- so much beauty, grace and dignity... all in all she's practically a goddess. The fact that she's also South Indian makes me very happy.

I stole this off some obscure corner of the internet: I'm really interested in the deep ecology movement.

I've also been watching some really fascinating documentaries about the Amish, but that's enough youtube clip posting for now.

Eeeeekk...headache

Indian cinema

On the subject of the arts...

There's some "Bollywood Star" show on SBS today that looks terrible, and I just came across the most condescending review of a film I really like in the NY Times. My love for Indian films borders on reverence so in the face of a pile of uni work that needs to be done, I'm going to write this post.  For that reason it's not going to be very exhaustive. Just going to clear up a few of the skewed perceptions many people have...

Firstly, don't call it Bollywood. The term was coined by some British journalist who meant it as a term of derision.

Putting Indian and American films on the same platform is like comparing apples and (no not even oranges,) nail polish. The fools that call it "kitsch"or "hammy" do so,  from a vantage point that gives them no real perspective and all they can see is an exoticised caricature. They misrepresent the most fundamental aspects of what constitutes an Indian film, of what an audience expects when they enter the movie theatre. We are perfectly aware of the fact that they do not actually mirror real life, thank you very much. And why should they? Many of the differences are a projection of the fact that Indians are a different, probably more emotionally unrestrained people. An outsider cannot see beyond the singing, glitter and louder acting, but there are subtleties that underlie all of this. Someone who has seen enough of the glitter and colour is kind of numbed to it and can appreciate what is worthy of apreciation. And they are amazing!

In short: just because you don't get it, doesn't mean it's no good. If that were the case, Indian films would not have the highest viewership in the world. The Western-centricity of the Western world is unsurprising but soooo irritating. Then again to be fair, I have to admit that most white people in Indian movies are cast as sluts/stupid/cunning... which is not nice. 

Another important fact that needs to be acknowledged is that Indian films are not monolithic. There are several industries within the country, each producing movies in different languages. The kinds of films mentioned above only form one of many genres. Here are some trailers (with subs) to some awesome and diverse Hindi films from the last year. Not really the best ones but I couldn't find subtitles on my favourites.

Kahaani: my favourite this year. Surprising, because I don't usually like thrillers but I loved its feminisim and Vidya Balan is awesome. No subs, but it's basically about a pregnant woman looking for her missing husband

Dhobi Ghat: all arthouse-ish and all

7 Khoon Maaf: a really, really dark film about Susanna and how/why she kills her 7 husbands

Priyanka Chopra: I dislike, but she's amazing in this!

 

  No One Killed Jessica. More Vidya Balan! :) but honestly I didn't like it much 

Based on a true story

P.S. Slumdog sucked.

edit: so I watched 2 minutes of that SBS show just then. vomit. VILE!

Tolstoy and art

I just clicked on something strange and now the whole layout of blogger seems to have changed. I'm confused.

5 days, 5 posts failed. Not surprising is it.
 ***
I think this will be an interesting post for most of the people who I know read my blog. Art here is referring to all creative pursuits of expression: literature, dance, etc.

I stumbled on an essay on Tolstoy's What Is Art? (1896) a long time ago and have since been trying to get my hands on a copy of the book. It's so fascinating! Tolstoy's views mirror my own in so many ways, though obviously (because I'm not a genius that wrote the greatest book in history) mine are much less sophisticated.

exhibit A: a goddamn stuffed shark (R.I.P.), valued at $8-12 million

I started deliberating on this question when I was seriously introduced to the world of post-modern art in high school. I really did not understand what I saw, and was pretty confused by some of the gushing praise extolled. In spite of friends' and the internet's attempts to justify it, I remained unconvinced and dismissed post-modern art as mostly bs... especially where there is such a fanatical emphasis on originality, and being "interesting"/confronting is so highly valued. That doesn't make sense to me. Today, my position has loosened in some ways; even if it won't ever leave me wonderstruck, I can form a mild appreciation for contemporary art.

Back to Tolstoy: bullet points are stuff I copy-pasted from the internet.

First of all:

• "Art is not a pleasure, a solace, or an amusement; art is a great matter. Art is an organ of human life transmitting man's reasonable perception into feeling" 
•  "Art is a microscope which the artist fixes on the secrets of his soul, and shows to people these secrets which are common to all."

I think this an excellent definition. I used to believe that art was intrinsically linked to beauty on some level but I have since changed my opinion on this. Art expresses universal emotional realities and its most important quality is its sincerity... I don't like art for art's sake or art that is too self-aware.

•  Art is the uniting of the subjective with the objective, of nature with reason, of the unconscious with the conscious, and therefore art is the highest means of knowledge.

I'm not so sure about this part...I don't see what objectivity has to do with anything. But of the "unconsious with the conscious" etc. etc., yes. Tolstoy was a moralist, and I would identify myself as such also. His belief that art and spirituality were intrinsically connected resonates with me, but I don't think all art has to be spiritual, and I won't necessarily demean what he would consider more "base" art. However I do agree that spirituality (in the broadest sense of the term) is its loftiest goal.

Exhibit B:Onement 1
hmmmmm...

• According to Tolstoy, good art is intelligible and comprehensible. Bad art is unintelligible and incomprehensible. If any incomprehensible form of personal expression may be called "art," then the definition of art gradually loses its meaning, until it has no meaning at all. Art does not belong to any particular class of society, it must be accessible to all

I mentioned to somebody once that I don't like deconstructing art and rationalising it. This led to an argument which I definitely lost, because I couldn't properly express my feelings on the matter. When I see a piece of art its impact should wash over me like a wave. I don't think I should have to work for it, as if I am being held up to some standard, and not it.Simply, if I don't get it, I can't like it! I hate taking things apart to bits and trying to analyse it scientifically (as if that's possible). It kills the magic and I don't believe that art is an intellectual pursuit in that way.

nb: Don't take it to mean here that I am demeaning subtlety or sophistication. It's just that after a certain point (though it's difficult to delineate exactly where that might be) subtlety turns into mush. Read the above bullet point again.

That leads me to another point: we should get rid of the distinction between high and low art. Everything can be enriching and valuable in its own way. My bookshelf for example: it has random Filmfare magazines, a few fashion magazines, comic books, Harry Potter, lots of classics (but not the silly orange penguin ones), poetry, picture books (I reeeeeally like picture books) and a few of the bestseller types.

One of mine: I did this in bed one night in yr 10, mostly with fingers and a paddlepop stick. I can't find it now :(

 I entered this in a small exhibition a few years ago...

flushing modesty down the toilet, I like this a lot :p

PS: I know that most people in the 21st century won't agree with me, including the specific 4-5 people that I wrote this for. I hope you don't take it that I pooh-pooh your version of the story After all, if art is subjective, why can't our definition of it also be?

Nostalgia

I'm setting myself a challenge: 5 blog posts in 5 days. I also have two 40% essays (5000 words) to complete at the end of these five days. They were actually due a few days ago, but the Arts department at USyd is delightfully generous with extensions. Dunno, just a challenge for challenge's sake.

beloved fruit sticker collection...
apparently it's gone now :(

One day, I was trawling over very old pictures on bookface. It's been two and a half years since I left high school and sometimes I wonder how that much time has flown by so quickly. And then I look at these photos and it feels like a lifetime ago! I miss it very much, when I think back to how comfortable and simple life was. That said, I reeeally wouldn't want to go back to my 16 year old self... you will see why shortly

.



funny things we did with Jacyntha's hair



our swinging "masquerade" party in year 11

awww! Rai's birthday

LOL I'm so sorry Mansi, couldn't resist

Sorry Ryen couldn't resist either...
old... but gold

Star Trek English ext. expedition =]

fun times in chemistry

Chilling on the lawn.
This picture (along with the group photo and sticker
collection)  epitomises everything I love about high school.

Spot the Eastern European :p

magical bread models... for some
reason, this was incredibly funny at the time

not even sure what I thought I was doing here...

or here...

or indeed here

 
 But I'm much more refined now, I promise

Dork. But somehow, I feel that everyone should be that way in school... you have more fun.
 I'm realising (gently prodded by someone who mentions it at least once every time we meet) how much I've changed. My entire worldview has completely shifted and I'm quite sure that if I met my teenaged self now, we would not be seeing eye to eye. I think I'd actually hate her. It's a worn cliche but  university has opened me up to the world; not only through formal edjikashun, but I've also met so many interesting people with diverse such views.

Two and a half years ago, I would not have been falling in love with (eh... mild crush) random French hippies I met on the street. Indeed, I would definitely not have spent hour after hour watching youtube clips of a former alcoholic drug and sex addicted, batshit crazy comedian:

Russell Brand! oooooooo

AND then bought his Booky Wook 2. While the above is true, he's also incredibly funny, attractive, vegetarian, spontaneous, refreshingly honest and darned smart. I like.

EDIT: WHAT WAS I CRAZY?? SOOOO NOT IN LOVE WITH HIM ANY MORE!