In the middle of all this emotional turmoil and weirdness, something wonderful is happening.

(No, for all of you who only read my site for vicarious smoochies, it's not romantic!! Silly friends...:P )

My writing folio, which began as another SAC that I had to get through, has turned into the love of my life.

Not that either of my pieces are particularly stunning - although one of them is maybe the most intensely personal piece of writing I've ever done - but that I am loving returning to my creative writing. I've always known that I could write creatively, but it's been a bit of a dormant talent. Last year I did bits and pieces, some of which I loved to (I was going to say bits. Then pieces. Some writer I am!) death, but this...this is different.

On top of my abilities as a writer, I am being consistently recognised and called upon in my capacity as an editor, to help others with their work. I never realised before how useful I could be in this way... and it's a great thing to know that your opinion is valued, your constructive criticism is helpful, your knowledge is important.

Anyway...it's a pretty amazing thing, to have beautiful and unexpected growth in the midst of the darkness. It makes me feel somewhat worthwhile.



NB. Part of my 'teacher' ambition is that teaching is a job that will let me write and work, simultaneously. Supposedly. (I can always take a year off and let my husband work! Yay for *occasional* patriarchy ;) :D)

my head is filled with heavy concrete sludge
so weighted, when i swing it
it hangs bluntly of its own accord
coherence is a struggle
i don't want to be anywhere
of all the places i could be
here is safest
thinking here is sterile
ordered
without dusty trapdoors
that open underfoot
hear the screaming downwards
into the darkness

I've had a pretty rocky week.
My grandmother died yesterday, which kinda threw my family somewhat. We knew it was coming - she had a stroke last week - but home has still been a weird and difficult place to be. Not to say that other places have been much better.
My friends have been very supportive, on the whole, but they still don't get it much. The funeral's on Wednesday so I'm not going to school that day, which means I have all this work to catch up before I even get it. But the really scary thing is that I don't even know how to act at a funeral. Or around grieving people. I've never really known anyone who died before, or anyone who was close to anyone who died before. I can't even imagine my mother dying.
So that's pretty screwed up all by itself.
On the other hand - and this seems pretty trivial, but it's strangely comforting - I got full marks in my latest Politics sac, which I was sure I'd stuffed up completely. I'm loving writing folio...I've written both my pieces, I'm down to the last stages of editing. (If anyone's interested, I'll post them! Comment...)
This friday my friends and I are going out to a jazz club (funtimes) and out to dinner afterwards. On thursday, my lit class are going to the theatre, to see Soulmates - which is *great* (I saw the dress rehearsal). So, I do have stuff to look forward to. I'm even going to a formal friday week, which is a lovely excuse to dress up and drink champagne, and have fun dancing with friends.
But I'm still feeling kinda ... dulled.
This week just can't pass fast enough.

Now that it's over
I just want to cry
Because it had to happen at all.

I'm silent enough to hear
The tapping of keys a corridor away
On the other side of the world
Someone is crying

When you see a face
Part by part
Like you've never seen it before
It's detached...

And I want you so much
To hold me away from the rest of the world
Maybe if I touch you
You'll keep me here
My safety line
My connection.

I wish someone would touch me
I can feel it
In the back of my throat
the shivering
the sense
the skin of a peach
I want you.

"When troubled thoughts are on my mind
When nothing seems to ease the pain
I know where to turn
There is a place that I can go
There is an an answer to my prayers
In Lord Jesus Christ

And that name I will lift on high
Declare his glory to the heavens
And my life I will give to him
To be like Jesus is the way I want to be

Lord please forgive my selfish ways
Place your hand upon my heart
Strengthen my will
For what I have I give to you
Use me for your righteous plan
Let Jesus light my path

Lord I want to be your servant
Give me courage where I roam
Strengthen others to join with me
To be like Jesus is the way we want to be

There's nothing I would not do Lord
Whatever your will desires
Show me the way to your holy face..."

- James Van Cuylenburg (one of my friends, and the most amazing musician...)

Right. So, I have stuff to say. How unusual.

Today was the last first day back at school I will ever have. Now THAT is bizarre. I don't count the start of next term - that term is only two and a half weeks long for crying out loud. And then...well, except for exams it's all over red rover. We were counting weeks in English today...even the teacher was counting...I can't wait....

And you know what is really bizarre, in light of the whole "I can't wait"-ness of this moment? Simultaneously, I can't wait to go back, in 4 or 5 years, and teach myself.

That's right. I'm going to be a teacher.

So I guess this isn't going to be my last first day back after all. Hmm...

I'll talk a little more about that later. I think it may come as a bit of a surprise to a couple of people (ok, almost everyone) so it deserves more time than I have right now.

Also...

In recent humourous (that so looks like it's spelt wrong, but I know it's not) events, my mum and I filled up a couple of bean-chairs (like beanbags, but with structure) this afternoon. It was ridiculous. By the end of it - and the task itself was crazy, frustrating and bloody funny - there were tiny polystyrene balls all over the bathroom floor. (Luckily we remembered to put the plug in the bath. There were polystyrene balls filling the bottom of the bath too. We learnt from the last time we tried this - yesterday....lol....) Anyway, so once we'd finally finished our backbreaking endeavour - and yes, it is really hard work! - we got the vacuum hose up from downstairs...:D Anyone interested in a really cool Physics experiment (yes, you Josie!) should try watching the swirls made by polystyrene balls when affected by suction. It was awesome...my little brother and I almost had a tug-of-war fight over the hose when we realised how cool it was...For once it was nice helping my mum with something.

On a totally different note, I'm still checking out sexual harassment stuff for my English Folio - we start writing next week. (Because of the way it's assessed, we have to actually write it within a limited time frame, but I need to do all my research first.) I did find one pretty cool site - www.vix.com/pub/men/harass/harass.html - but it's also pretty old. If anyone just happens to stumble across anything interesting - as you do in your spare time, look up harassment sites on the net...right...maybe that's just me then ;) - let me know!? It would be soooooo useful. In the meantime - it is actually pretty interesting. Probably because I like Politics (and anything related) so much.

Tonight I read through quite a bit of Sometimes Gladness, a collection of Bruce Dawe poetry. (He's a really well-known and critically admired Australian poet.) Although we're studying it for English - or we were - this was extra stuff. I was curious. I really love it...his writing is so beautiful, and uniquely real. He writes with great insight about the mundane and ordinary, bringing out the inner beauty of everyday life. If you have time, I highly recommend checking some of it out.


There are some nights when you go to bed glad that it is empty of anything but you and your teddy, and others when you wish that there was someone substantially bigger there to hold onto. Even if it's just so you don't lose your sense of gravity and sleepwalk off into thin air...

I wonder which tonight will be.



PS. I was considering making this an update completely free of punctuation, but I don't think I could bring myself to do it! Maybe next time...

...with least sound.

- Bruce Dawe

Are fully, the best thing in the world.

Especially when they happen late at night. There's something about that time, you know, when everything around you is quiet and still, the connection seems almost more intense. Especially when you don't expect it. It sneaks up on you in the subtlest of ways and suddenly you're laughing...

People are unbelievably special. Not just a few of them, or specific ones, but all of them. I guess there are some people in whom you just can't see it sometimes. But when you're lucky, and you meet the right ones...it's sparkly magic. That connection...and you all know what I mean by 'connection'...when you finish each others sentences cause you're so on the same wavelength...

And you miss it when you've had it and it's gone. Or you have it for a second, and wonder if it'll ever come back again. Or you wonder, almost obsessively, about whether the other person felt the sparkle, and is thinking about you too...remembering specific moments and chuckling to themselves...you think it'd be pretty amazing if they were. But somehow, you'd understand it too. Because isn't that what you're doing, right now?

What do you wonder about? Everyone has a little dream, a little voice in their head suggesting, hoping, for a specific future to occur...What does yours say?

Which song do you wish was written about you?
too many! but the ultimate...Maybe it's the way, by James Van Cuylenburg, one of my friends. The most beautiful romantic song I've ever heard.

which book character would you like to have been?
Well, I am Ce'Nedra (a David Eddings character) except I'm too tall, but I would like to be...hmm...oh!! I know!! That girl who finally gets Silk in the end...um...

what is the most played cd in your whole collection?
This is a tough one. Alex mix CDs #2, #3 and#4 are up there, as is Bernadette Peters' Sondheim Etc...And my Aspects of Love double CD for storytelling listening is always good.

what's your favourite day of the week and why?
Friday, Saturday, Sunday! All of the above.

what is your shortest relationship?
ummm...this is really a question about what counts as a relationship...I'm thinking drunk guys at parties who I evade after the first ten seconds of the party are the top of the list here! or evil blind dates your friends set you up with who you struggle through coffee with then bail ASAP!

how many dead people have you seen?
None. But a couple of dead pet cats...:(

what is your favourite finger and why?
I'd have to say my right hand index finger. It's the one I use the most. But my thumbnails are my favourite fingernails...:)

quote me something from memory...
"I like my nipples the way they are!" It's a long story...;)

define 'love' without using a dictionary...
That feeling you get when you realise that you would put another person ahead of yourself, to your own detriment, and be enormously glad about it. That's the best I can do.

the KLF burning one million pounds, genius or pathetic?
uh, what?

the last thing you said to one of your parents was?
um. no idea. probably either "thankyou" or "you look nice" (to my mum) because those are the things I say most frequently. or at least in the last couple of days. oh no, it was "turn the internet on please!"

when was the last time you threw up?
I do actually remember this. About three or four years ago I went out with a friends family and we went to this really greasy place for dinner. I cannot eat greasy food. I was so sick, it was disgusting, and I remember looking at the toilet going "I will never eat food like that again! Ever!" and I haven't...it was foul.

Please please tell me now, is there something i should know?
I am poking my tongue out at you right *now*!

Guess how old you'll live to...
As long as is necessary for me to do all the stuff God wants me to do here!

And on your gravestone it will say?
As if I know! I hope to live for another 70 years yet! Hopefully a bit more will happen!

What is your greatest fear?
I agree with Jace. Living alone, rejected by the rest of the world. And being unable to learn for some reason...that would be the worst.

Who is your worst enemy?
Ummm...too hard!

what colour are your socks today?
navy

is fat a feminist issue or a three letter word?
both!

what's your favourite colour of spaceship?
raspberry pink! it's a new thing!

Tom Cruise's brace, 'go Tom!' or 'what a dork'?
tom sucks, just generally. and he had cool teeth before.

fact or fiction?
everything is fiction, to some extent.

found it, found it and lost it, or still looking for it?
Found it and waiting for it to find me. Simultaneouly ;).

So I'm going out tonight to a good friend's 18th, at which I am anticipating dancing, kareoke, good company and lots of fun. I have a gorgeous outfit all picked out (it really is :)) and am planning to spend the next hour or so straightening my hair and otherwise getting ready.

On one level I am excited and happy. So why do I feel so ambivalent on the other?

The more I want to forget the things that are coming and kick up my heels, revel in unconsciousness, the more I remember that I have to go back to school next week. But I WILL have fun tonight. I am determined.

But it's not all bad...I dunno...I guess I just need to enjoy my sloth while I can.
That was my first thought when I woke up this morning: "In a past life, I would've been a sloth. (Or possibly a hippo.)" Seriously! Maybe this is what happens when you stay up late watching Buffy reruns too many nights in a row.

And the more I can remind myself that it is FUN to be single, the better :). (Plus, think about all the fun flirting possibilities! ;) )