Something for the rest of us

After a successful day being good and shopping around London with a friend today, I attempted to treat myself by spending the rest of the evening retreating at the local park.

Listened to "Iris" and remembered exactly why Goo Goo Dolls used to be my favourite band two years ago. Proceeded to listen to all their songs, new and old, in my iPod with the occasional odd repeat. Their new(ish) album actually isn't as bad as I thought, shouldn't compare it to Dizzy Up too much.

Kind of liked this song.

"Soldier"

When you came back I knew you'd have a story
You need someone to ease the pain of living life
You're like a soldier in the fray, seeking shelter
from all the madness that you've seen raining down now

I know things change, your world has slipped away
I know things change, but you're living like a soldier who's caught in the fray
Don't lose your faith, it's not so cold, it's not too late

When you were naive you were so invincible
and you laughed at anyone and anything that ever got in your way
But now the mirror shows the change and you don't see that
you're sinking back into the crowd, an echo fading

I know things change, your world has slipped away
I know things change, but you're living like a soldier who's caught in the fray
Don't lose your faith, it's not so cold, it's not too late

And I never thought I'd see
you living on your knees
A slave to some disease
that holds you captive

And you can look inside of me
but the answers that you seek
and everything you need
is all inside you

I know things change, your world has slipped away
I know things change, but you're living like a soldier who's caught in the fray
Don't lose your faith, it's not so cold, it's not too late

Good Life

"Woke up in London yesterday, found myself in a city near Piccadilly don't really know how I got here…"

That was me today! Except I know how exactly how I got here - caught the red double decker bus number 11 so that song could keep playing in my head and I could see what the singer was on about. 

Before I'd gone to the consulate with an almost complete stranger today, I had planned to meet my friends anywhere of their choice, with my only request being that the place be somewhere "iconically London". When it was time to finally meet I snapped and backed out on the phone and made myself purposely uncontactable for the rest of the day.. just because a plan hadn't been made, I think. Why snap? Been in a bit of a bitchy mood these past few days. Tried to attribute it to rainy "London weather"! jk there's a heat wave.

 If I were them I wouldn't have had a plan either. After that call I sat in Starbucks thinking up a plan for an hour and then giving up the planning and taking the next bus to anywhere. Plans complicate everything. You just end up anticipating, and then you break when a minor detail goes wrong, which it often does. I tried to get to Piccadilly with that red double decker but ended up following the tourist couple in front of me to get off a few stops earlier at Trafalgar Square anyway. Okay not that relevant.

I took myself to the National Art Gallery of London, where I stayed right up until it closed and I'd still not seen everything in it. 

This stuff was the kind of art I liked. Monet, Manet, Raphael, Titian, Michelangelo, da Vinci, Matisse, Cezanne, Picasso, Van Gogh, Boticelli. Oil paintings, Renaissance, impressionism - hundreds of years old, capturing things that have fascinated everyone universally. Facial expressions, people, nature, Christianity. I particularly love Van Gogh - I'm going to study his life one day. He was untrained and unappreciated all throughout his life, lived so poorly, contemplated priesthood, yet he could paint like no other. He just perceived the world differently, literally - he suffered from epilepsy and psychotic attacks, and I love that we can experience just a bit of what he saw. The same simple subjects, just stroked on a bit differently, yet still recognisable (pay attention Picasso).

I loved Monet of course. His experimenting with different lighting, studying the composition of light and colour in water and simple floral gardens. I loved that I got to see his actual house and garden, Giverny, while I was in France, so I had a comparison. To be honest, I couldn't draw direct comparisons. The garden was stunning sure, but Monet really did make it his own.

I compared this with Degas' "Beach Scene". The scene was completely imaginary! He didn't have a direct physical model in front of him, which I think is pretty clever. I also love his ballerina dancer series, where he could emphasise beautiful movements using pastel through textures and blurry contours.

To funk it up a bit, there were these cool peep show perspective boxes by a Dutchman, van Hoogstraten. It was a play on optics and perspective, giving the illusion of a 3D interior of a Dutch house. It forces you to move your eye at the right angle through the peep hole to get a better view, like how our eyes would do it naturally. Genius.

Art galleries are cool because it's that place you can wander around aimlessly, mapless, and still manage to not look like you're completely lost to the strangers around you.

(Christina) Hello UNSW! Have we met...?

24/07/2013

Dear Google,

I have been communicating with you quite frequently as of late, and I wanted to just let you know that I feel your input into our friendship is not adequate.

I ask important, detailed questions and I expect accurate and comprehensive advice in return.

I have asked you question after question, for example, ‘what do I do with my life’, and ‘how to get over yourself and help others’ and ‘how to stop thinking and start acting’ etc.

Your replies just aren’t personal enough, I’m sorry to say. Too many forums with others asking the same questions and no ready made answers. Please do something about this or I will have to consult a human instead.

Sincerely,

Penna Banana

SO anyways. Back to reality.

I have like a billion bags just sitting around the apartment. Luckily no one is at home so I can pack as I usually do; by emptying everything everywhere, using up heaps and heaps of room, and eventually putting it back together in some sort of temporary ‘order’ in bags.

I thought, OK! I can have one bag for tops, one for pants etc, but then I realised my jumpers needed one and a half bags, so it messed up the whole system and now theres a bit of everything in each bag. No clue where anything is.

I have to somehow take all these bags to creston.

Don’t have a car, don’t have a bus ticket.

I was fully planning on doing 3 or 4 walking trips but its bloody cold outside.

ARGH ok let me just go for it.

*** ***

Okay so several hours later im back.

Just took a while figuring it out like one of those brain teasers, and was thinking of how to take the bags in the minimum amount of trips possible; found it was 3.

Which meant one trip was 2 huge bags AND my guitar. I thought I may as well start with the hardest load. So there I was with 2 hands and 3 handles to carry trying to get to randwick for a bus ticket.

Several swear words and embarrassing falls later I get to creston. It’s a bit sad moving my stuff from the apartment back to uni. 

And feels like I'm going backwards in my life to be moving back into the same college, starting a new degree for the 3rd time and knowing I've wasted 2 years of your life due to my lack of motivation for living, stuck, in the imperfect real world that everyone else lives in, preferring my entertaining thoughts that can take me anywhere. 
All the while, I am waiting for a piano to fall on me; that huge event that I expect to instantly change me, and set me in my place in life, curing me from searching.

Am i ever going to stick with anything? Or keep on my toes for want of THE PATH in life i am 'perfectly suited to' which in reality probably doesn't exist? Hah, i know the answer. 

It relates to faith in God. And it means I have to have humility and patience to be okay with the PROGRESS at the pace He allows. To start where I am and live in the skin I've been given.
I just have to keep up my apparently unfruitful attempts at living fully present for others, ignoring my incessant restlessness that has been with me my entire life.

Going to bed. Goodnight.

*** ***

25/07/2013

New day! Today I am transforming my life. Into a normal woman instead of a pathetic hermit. Gonna learn how to use make up and buy some, and then set up my room at Creston College really decoratively instead of blank walls like my rooms of the past 19 years of my life (never occurred to me that it was necessary to make it look good)

THEN force UNSW to fit me into their overflowing music class

TONIGHT go out to the new Coco Cubano car tonight on campus with my friends for some chitchat over a smooth wine; sitting under dimmed lighting in the classy bar of warm wooden and brass tones. Crossed legs, hair in place, slow jazz.

I enjoy imagining that scene more than living it actually, cos in reality I’d probably get caught up wondering if the people on the inside of this bar act the same as they do Monday to Friday outside the bar, or if they adapt their behaviour to match the scene;

and then I’d lose track of my friends’ conversation.

How the hell was I even blessed with such incredibly good hearted friends I will never know, but I thank God for it every day, and I hope that they will not see how pathetic I am and leave me.

I still have one subject left to take at uni. Trying to expand my interests; see if there is this perfect subject area that I absolutely love that I haven't discovered yet. Maybe im artsy not sciencey…? I've always done science because its safe and i know i can do it, but the arts are more interesting. Science only gets interesting with the higher levels of physics- relativity and shit.

So far: chemistry, music, psychology, maybeeee physics…?

ADIOS, MACBOOK AIR

BIENVENIDA, REAL LIFE

Time

They say there's always a time and a place for everything. Isn't it crazy how much it influences everything? Today we went to Camden Markets and I saw the dude behind me get completely drenched when the wind blew and water splashed all over him from the marquee roof. It fell only on him. He'd just gotten there, and the water could have fallen at another spot or time, and not splashed on anyone (thereby saving me from laughing hysterically and appearing rude…) Jokes aside, I always wonder how certain things could have gone, better or worse, if it had happened at ever just a slightly earlier or later moment. Because so many other things - important things, people's lives sometimes - depend on such insignificant random events.

Forget the wish to go back in time! Imagine if we could predict just a step ahead. If we could train our instincts to know exactly when to say certain things to people to achieve the desired effect. To know how to instinctively integrate and account for various factors like mood, sugar/energy level, hunger, context, so perfectly that you can say the "right" things at exactly the right time. Give that perfect piece of advice that that person needs then and there. How to phrase things in a way that they'll listen. Now that's a talent that if I had, I would feel like the richest person alive. But there's a downside to such a talent. What if that perfect mood formula never comes, and you're still waiting? Sometimes that opportunity would never come and you've just lost an opportunity to at least get even a part of your idea across because of your stupid need to phrase things "perfectly" and say them at the "perfect" time.

Wow I sound like a brainwashing control-freak Nazi so I'll just leave it there.

It's time to begin isn't it na na na na na na

Responsibility

Our traveling group separated today one at a time, as our various flights were all at 3 hour intervals from each other. I was the second-last to leave, and Caren and I spent most of the afternoon picnicking at the beautiful St Stephen's park in Dublin. We watched the swans, the ugly ducklings; we talked, and watched people. There's a heat wave, and we loved it because it had that Aussie summer feel to it. I'm really going to miss these two girls, they've just been the best and we all got along so well even though it was just three weeks.

Now I'm on the flight to London. New sights, new journey! And new struggles. I've been trying to mentally prepare myself ever since the flight attendant made me turn off my phone and stop blogging a little while ago.

I don't know how to act. Is it better to prepare myself or do I just go with the flow? The latter has always worked for me. It can potentially work again, and will be the much easier path. It's kind of like alcohol: I feel a little bit nervous/anticipating but I know that when we meet at the airport in a few minutes I'll forget the bad stuff, it would probably be like old times. I'll be light-hearted and even forgetful of everything.

But this has to be different because now I know these ten days could be my only chance to make the difference I want to make. And the result I want is radical, even impossible in such a short time span. But so absolutely vital, more important than so many things in this world, and I must not take it lightly. This is my wrong I have to right.

How to approach. With an open mind, with no judgements. That's what the right answer is. HOW. I wish I could just forget my prejudices. They shouldn't even be there in the first place! There might be a fuller story I don't know. I wish I had the personality that could do it with more ease. There's so much information I wish I never knew before I started this challenge, because it's going to be in the back of mind alll the time, and the hardest is if you have to hold some of it back from someone that used to know so much of what was that was there.

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Spain

Okay I'm going to go home in September. I've been trying to get hold of the Spanish Consulate for the past hour, and all they do is keep passing me on to another number or faulty address or broken link and eventually hanging up on me, fecking retards. (That's how they say it in Ireland).

Top of the mornin' to ya. 

(Christina) Pizza or stroganoff? and stuff

17/07/2013

Did you know people in coffee shops don’t like it if you take their plastic forks?

It was very sneakily done I feel, I swiped it smoothly; and felt a pair of eyes burning my back. I turned around to see a waiter murdering me with his glare. I felt bad. I slyly looked to see if they had an eftpos machine, and they didn’t.

So I casually ordered a coffee, knowing that waiter was watching me, and on the verge of shooting me.

Then I asked the barista if they took card, and after he said no, I acted dissapointed and said sorry thanks, I don’t have cash. Bye. Don’t look at the waiter.

At least it looked like I was intending on buying something there so he could rest his suspicious mind.

I’d bought a chilli tuna can from coles for lunch, trying to be all healthy and all. I was at Wynyard station, bumming for a few minutes while my train to Penrith was arriving. Hurry up.

I’d just gone to St Patrick’s 10:30am mass at Wynyard and having seen two people I know there, I had run out at the end fairly fast before they saw me, doing the typical mental debate over whether i should face my social fears and say hello or leave.

But yes, I left. Then felt terrible that I had focussed on such a silly question, and consequently missed the whole point of being at church.

You know what, Penna!? No one gets as stuck on things and thinks as much as you.

Let go a bit!

Why do you have to complicate the most simple things?

State of origin tonight! Yeahhhh bru. Not really all that keen, i don't know the rules.

I’ll gladly watch it though, since my flatmate loves it and I don’t want to dampen her spirits.

19/07/2013

Laaaa di da di da. No schedule.

Okay, a to-do list:

1.    Go get blood test at kingsford

2.    Visit yarraton, say prayers

3.    Figure out about uni enrollment mix up at student central

4.    Go for bike ride over lunchtime/arvo

5.    Clean up, make nice dinner for g and g

6.    Go to mass at 5:40pm

7.    Eat dinner

What should I study? Chemistry, music. That’s all I know so far. Perhaps I should take physics. But that might be pain for no reason.

Astronomy would be tops.

Zoology would be cool too. Wait, no that would be boring.

Who invented the line, ‘just do whatever you want to do’? It causes a lot of pain, because it is assumed that doing what you ‘want’ is the easiest thing; surely everyone knows what they enjoy.

No, its easier instead to have what you ‘have to do’ laid out infront of you, where your only task is to try to get through it, instead of having to get stuck on the idea that its not even what you should be doing.

I have had a brainwave. Imagine buying a motor scooter in italy, and making your own tour (aka no plan, make it up as you see it), just go wherever. Stay at relatives', see the sights etc. I could sell it again before i go home.

Off to get a blood test.

I’m back! Following my list for once! Up to point 3 but didn’t do point 2.

Ok crap, what subjects do I take!

I have no goal, really.

What do I do?

Eat.

No, don’t eat, don’t do that, you just got healthy again from eating too much yesterday.

Its raining, I cant even go for my much loved bike ride. Oh well, all you get to see is just streets and more streets and its barely even worth the effort.

I hate the city!

Wow, i so love our flat! I think I've learnt from my flatmates that putting in effort to make your home look homely is totally worth it. If you are considering the expensive nice rug to the crappy cheap one, get the nice one.

You'll be seeing it every day, and you'll forget how much it cost one week after you get it.

Christina: Enrol, doofus.

Penna: In what? Ok talk to dad about subjects, he might have some good input.

Christina: No, don’t do that, i’ve discussed it so much with him. Over it! Just put anything down.

Penna: BUT if I do that though, il end up studying half heartedly and give up like usual, thinking I have to do something else.

Christina: No other option, I don’t have any interest in anything else.

Penna: Put down anything. Enrol now.

Christina Penna (finally united): Okay, I will! Good! Made a focus for myself for the next half hour!

Maybe im just a really lazy person!? Its actually laziness, that’s what it is!

Ok. That’s it, I’m gonna enrol in anything, and stick with it.

I’m going round in circles. I’ve said all this before.

I think I’ll make beef stroganoff tonight.