Procrastinating. (Penny #12)

"Procrastinate today, because the world might end tomorrow."

So, while I was meant to be working on a couple of assignments, I couldn't help but feel the incessant tug of the internet far too strongly to actually pay attention to what I was meant to be doing. Tentatively, I opened up a new tab and thought, 'I'll just look up this one thing, before I forget.' And so, by the end of the day, I had spent hours on Gmail and Youtube and ended up watching a variety of entertaining and nostalgic videos.

Well. So much for my plans to finish my Textiles assignment by the end of the weekend. All I can really say at the moment is that I've finally discovered how truly awesome Yuki Kajiura and the members of FictionJunction are. I'm also starting to realise how ridiculous my range of interests may be. They go from anime and manga, to Jpop, Kpop and Asian music in general (I listen to Thai music too - Tata Young FTW! ^^), to a variety of novels, short stories, fanfiction, journal articles, art, music, not to mention my fascination with steampunk, vintage and gothic clothing, as well as gemstones, computers, programming, etc, etc. The list goes on.

On another note, my friend recently made it as one of 12 finalists for the Sydney Young Writer of the Year Award, so cheers to her! I really do hope she wins. ^^

Well, I guess that's all for today. This was a really short post. Not that anyone cares. Or reads. Or even responds. Hmm. I feel like I'm talking to myself. Life is like that, I guess.

Penny #11

"I've had great success being a total idiot."

~ Jerry Lewis

-


I've been getting told off recently, for being happy for my friends' successes and not ever getting anywhere myself. I do enjoy my fairly carefree life. And I'm not very happy with the idea that, just because I'm not doing anything that will ever 'get me anywhere in life' in my parents opinion, I'll never actually get anywhere. I'm starting to wonder how many school kids on average get told they'll be total failures on a regular basis. I know I'm just being childish and that I should stop complaining about a lot of these things, but really, is it all that bad that I've dropped Maths and Sciences for the HSC? I was never any good at them anyways. On the other hand, I do actually enjoy my other subjects, and wouldn't it be better to continue something I'm doing well in and enjoy rather than take up some subjects I completely fail at and hate?

My brothers say to take risks while you're young, so you don't regret it when you get older. My parents only seem to want to force their expectations on me. *sigh* Oh the trials of my life, so trivial and insignificant in comparison to the rest of the world.

Well, I think I'm done rambling for the moment.

Don't Try to Make Sense of This. Seriously.

These past few days I can't help but feel an acute sense of 'loss' in my world. Unfortunately, I don't really know what it is that I've lost. Is it time? It makes sense considering the large amount of things piling up on my to-do-list, as well as all that homework I don't feel like doing (I'm probably the biggest procrastinator you'd ever meet.) There is a certain amount of loneliness that probably appears whenever my brothers leave to go out and have fun while I'm left behind (I blame school for this), but it's pretty normal, so that's probably not it. There's also the whole art/writing block which has been bugging me -- but, really, there's no time for me to focus on anything but the homework I am, evidently, not completing.

I suppose it's very hard to pinpoint these things exactly. I have a mind which focuses on myself, naturally. Apparently the constant battle between morals and self-satisfaction seems to be doing something to my emotional state -- well, frustration is the obvious result.

I went to Borders yesterday. There was a massive sale since they were closing down, but I got there pretty late. It had to be one of the most depressing things I've seen in a while; rows and rows of empty shelves. It didn't help that I didn't even manage to grab a few books at a bargain price, because anything I wanted was gone already. I wasted about ten minutes there, searching vainly for something of value in that small pile of leftover books that nobody wanted. When I left, I left with nothing.

As expensive as they may be, a book is a book, and I love them. Bookstores were among my favourite places to be and I don't go out much. Money saved was used on books. Every time I walked out of a book store (be it Angus and Robertson, Borders, Dymocks or QBD), I knew I could come back with more money and buy another book. Unfortunately, now that my local bookstores have been shut down, I have to search for new ones, or order online (something my dad completely disapproves of). Therefore, it's going to be much harder for me to buy books and I won't be able to browse through my favourite bookstores anymore.

This has been bugging me since yesterday.

Really! With technology developing the way it is, one day electricity will be the most valuable resource to the point where humanity will be completely dependent on it. And when there's a blackout everyone will panic and there will be chaos. I can imagine it right now. Serves you right for getting rid of my bookstores dammit.

Yes, my rambling tends to lead nowhere. Listen to the title of this post and don't try to make sense of this.

Penny #6

"All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once they grow up."

~Pablo Picasso

Picasso is a very quotable person. :)

If you were to compare the me in primary school to the me you see now, you'd probably wonder what went wrong. In primary school I was winning awards, I was at the top of the class, I was so goddamn proud of myself it was ridiculous. Come high school and I'm averaging everything, then the marks got lower and lower and lower. Why? Lack of motivation is one thing. Bad teaching? Possibly. (I am of the opinion that the best teachers are the ones that can give a person the motivation to complete a task and do their best at it) Parents are a big influence obstacle as well, constantly badgering you with negative comments about your subjects and how much you fail at life.You have the choice of trying to please them, or completely ignoring what they say.

In primary school I had a dream. I wanted to write and to draw and paint and do all sorts of ridiculous things -- but not build a spaceship. I never even thought of that. I should build a spaceship.

... Huh. I just went off randomly there...

We got our reports this week. I didn't do so great. The teachers kept going on about how much "potential" I have. You get the idea. I'll leave it at that. Have a nice life. ^^

And School Is Back So Soon?

The problem with hanging out with people older than you is that they finish school first. I'm talking about family here and, as the third youngest of seven children - anyone who knows me would know I'm the third child of four, but I see my cousins as an extra three siblings, considering how close we all are - I've been given the honour of watching the majority of our family start their lives outside of school. This isn't so bad, especially in a family where everyone communicates well and helps each other, but once you see them out, enjoying their lives, studying what they want to study, earning money, driving around, living independently and generally just doing new things, you can't really help but feel a little left behind.

To give a little background here:
The two youngest children in our little group (my little brother and my cousin) are both five years younger than me (and half a year apart in age) - it's probably worth noting that my middle cousin and I are also half a year apart in age, while his elder sister is five years older than me. My older brother (the other middle child, as we call him) is only a year older than me, while my eldest brother is three years older than me. This is without including my baby cousins, both born last year, and, coincidentally, half a year apart in age as well.

Being much closer to the older part of our group than the younger part, I've seen my cousins and brothers finishing school without breaking a sweat, and going on to start work and study and actually enjoy their lives.

In contrast we have me: still in school, procrastinating on just about every subject possible, miserable, possibly depressed (so they tell me, though I highly doubt it), extremely frustrated, stubborn, and stressed (this is due to my own personality. I know it. It doesn't change anything), too eager to skip ahead, to get past all this "pointless" stuff and move onto working on something I'll actually find interesting. Now I know high school isn't pointless. One should not shirk their high school education, even if they're heading for a more creative subject! But that's beside the point. The point is that I wanted to get out and move on with my life - I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who feels this - after twelve years in school, in which, half the time, I'm doing something that won't be relevant to my life whatsoever. The process of study, study, study, with hardly a room for breaks, except during school holidays, is probably what a normal person from my school would do. I, on the other hand, sit there dreaming and wishing and wondering when the hell will my life begin? In other words, procrastinating, and longing for the next year and a half to pass by as quickly as possible so I can be doing something that's interesting, rather than sitting around, "studying".

To put it simply, I'm the type of person who starts things but doesn't finish them. I'm the type who loses interest the moment it becomes too much of a hassle to try. No one should ever look up to me. My god, I'm a terrible role model.

The only reason why I bring this up is because the school holidays have ended and we go back tomorrow. In term 1 I realised that I've become increasingly moody as the weeks go by, hating school to the point that I would rather go to the hospital than go back there (a large exaggeration, of course). Every week goes by slowly and weekends are spent wondering where the hell my life is going and how much I've screwed up. As routine as it is, I do drag myself to school every day. My inability to get sick gives me no excuse to stay home. Every Sunday night I agonize over the fact that I have to attend another week of school starting the next day. Mood swings are abundant. Eventually, I end up asleep without having done any homework.

I'd actually be very interested to get my mental state evaluated by a professional, however, I doubt that will ever happen, and this is all probably just me stressing over school or something.

I honestly don't know where this post is going, so I'll stop here. Enjoy your life while I try to think up something else to blog about. :)

Childhood Memories

You hear everyone saying they want to go back to those days where all they did was laze around and do whatever it is kids do, but I actually think they're better off where they are. Take me, for example, with my love of Disney movies and anime. I never actually got into such a craze for either of them until I reached year six. I find you can't really appreciate them much at a younger age either, unless your incredibly smart...

Anyways, the point is: the older we get, the more we appreciate things in our childhood. That is, unless you're inconsiderate or you just forget - I mean, you can't expect everyone to remember everything they did as a kid. You can't expect everyone to think like you either, so I'm sure a fair amount of people will think I'm spouting nonsense.

I really only brought this subject up so I could ramble on about the things I watched as a kid, my favourite of which was Anastasia, something that wasn't made by Disney. I loved the plot and the music, which I think is all that really matters. I have to say, nothing really matched up to it (in terms of kid's movies) until Tangled came along, with it's superior animation and just as great songs.

The entire story of Anastasia has that whole 'search for identity' theme (now you know I've been doing too much English homework) which I'm pretty sure a lot of us wouldn't have understood at the age of six. Not to mention large words like 'reliquary' or at least a quarter of what the characters were saying. I mean, who actually got that Rasputin was trying to get revenge on the Romanovs by slaughtering them all? I just knew he was the bad guy. And even though they were pretty straightforward in pointing out that Dmitri was a con man, I don't think I actually understood it until I rewatched the movie years later.

Come to think of it, there's a lack of Anastasia fanart in comparison to all the Disney out there. Such a shame.

I'm refraining from ranting on about anime because I'll probably end up God knows where with it all. Besides, it seems a little strange to do so, anyways.

One day, I'll structure all this better and write something more interesting. Until then, have a nice life. :)

Drinking Games

This will be much, much less about drinking games and much more about the aftermath. Just to warn you. :)


Now yesterday, my uncle got married. I have to say, it was a pretty hectic day, but by the time we got to the reception, we were all pretty tired. Now my dear brother, the eldest one (because, yes, I have more than one brother), had set out with a goal to reach by the end of this reception:

He wanted to get smashed.

In some ways, that's okay. We're all pretty young and I'm pretty sure everyone goes through that experience eventually. But then again, not everyone was a groomsman at their uncle's wedding. Nor did they drink an entire bottle of Hennessy in less than half an hour without eating or drinking anything else throughout the whole day.

Yeah, he was gone by 9:30. We found out that he was a pretty happy drunk, at the start. He tried to drink more because he said he couldn't feel the effects but we managed to stop him. Less than an hour later he'd disappeared along with my other two uncles (not the one getting married). We found them outside where he was crying like hell and babbling some crap about how bad he felt about something. Then he went on to the whole drunken, "Thanks guys. You guys are great, man, just great."

I've gotta say, it was hard not to laugh.

We left at about 11pm. He ended up throwing up in the car. All over his suit, too. And my jacket. And then, he passed out. As if that wasn't enough trouble, he'd stopped moving. We had to literally drag him into the house. We ended up leaving him on the bathroom floor. Luckily for us, someone in the family is studying medicine and knew exactly what to do (not to mention he'd apparently gone through this himself). Apparently a person can get permanent nerve damage when this happens to them. That's how far he'd gone. We had to keep watch over him too. Just to make sure he doesn't choke on his own vomit or anything. This would've been fine if it weren't for our mother (also drunk to some extent), who over-reacted in an extremely annoying way and wouldn't leave him be. Somehow I think she caused just as much trouble as he did. *sigh*

Well, there's a portion of my life I felt the need to rant about.
Have a nice day.
:)