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April 29, 2006

My Thoughts for the Week

I am not too sure why, i seem to be losing my vibes. I've not been feeling quite right these few days. Perhaps depression is starting to set in, perhaps i'am not quite used to Melbourne and perhaps i'am homesick. Perhaps it is the workload. I'am not sure.

Regardless it is clear to me that things have to move on, time continues ticking and the cogwheels of life will always be in a state of perpetual motion. That such mood swings occur merely in passing. It is 10pm here now and my day has been particularly lazy. I had a really sweet afternoon nap. Perhaps it is the weather, this cozy climate constantly encourages people to hibernate in some form, to close ones eyes and let morpheus takes us into an alternate realm beyond our physical senses.

Today, i've also been reading alot online about a certain Hans Christian Andersen. You might not know him but he is the famed Dannish author of alot of fairty tales that we might have read when we were young. It started with me watching the tv, and seeing a grand performance attended by royalty to celebrate the life and works of HC Andersen. His works have known international reknown, and his statues sit in Copenhagen. It struck me that this person must have been exceptionally brilliant and well regarded in his days if 200 years later today, he still commands such attention.

And so i wikipedied this person and again i am reminded how ugly and dystopic the world we live in is compared with the world in tv, where everything is scripted, programmed. Everything is fake. HC Andersen was abused as a child, and was shunned by his peers for his physical unattractiveness. He was also homosexual and never married or had children. He was a loner, a shrewd and was discriminated. And only through writing did he find pleasure and an outlet to express his thoughts and ideas. All this was conveniently ignored in all discussions of his life in museums and in public.

And i learnt that the Little Mermaid didnt get to be with the prince. Instead she died and turned into sea foam and then into a spirit of the air for a mermaid could never be loved by a human. She wanted too much; she wanted a human soul, and forbidden love. Both of which were unattainable.

But of course disney portrays this otherwise. Talking fishes and singing lobsters, kind seagulls and an ending in which 'they lived happily ever after'. That was not the way the story was written or was meant to be told. And that is how our world works. Everything is always painted to look prettier, to look nicer, to make it something other than what it is.

Why do we consistently keep blinding ourselves to what which is reality, why do we whisper into our own ears, sweet lies and bend reality into what it is not and in the end only serve to hurt ourselves even more. Why do we want more when we can settle for less. The world has no place for petty idealism. There is no such thing as a white lie. They are all lies, regardless of their nature. And lies but serve to hurt ourselves in the long run.

Truth may not be as palatable, but at the end of the day, truth is the only thing we are left with.

April 10, 2006

The Week, Pictures and Quotes

Quotes express a thousand thoughts;
Pictures a thousand words.

My week begins roughly like this. If memory serves, my monday begins without much sleep. On tuesday i went to school in the afternoon, afterwhich when i get back i went to a students hostel called Arrows to work on my model with a partner. This i did, all through the night.

After that was done, we brought it to school and presented it to the tutor in the morning, i would have to say our model was the best in class by far. For the love of Vitruvius, some of the models had crooked parallel structural parts; and the poor folks had to remade the whole thing. Pity. After that session and a lecture, and 28 hours of surviving on caffeine and taurine, i decided that the next logical chemical to have in me was ethanol, so we went to a lounge called bunkers. Towards the weekend i went clubbing with some of these fine people.

I was walking past swanston (a street) when i saw this fine V6 Ultima 3000cc Camry and nostalgia started to overwhelm me, so i took a photo of it. :)

On thursdays, we went to a workshop in Fitzroy, 4 of us in a car, to work on some columns for our shelter project. So we drilled and sawed for 3 hours and got back, to build the structure on which i was sitting on.

And this just to fill up the page, i took photos of myself when i was bored and/or drunk.

To end all this, i guess i find this quote most relevant for my week, and maybe perhaps yours too.

The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one. - Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger