Wednesday, September 29, 2004

Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear

Sunday, September 26, 2004

So I've had a pretty good weekend.

Friday night was a bit of a lost cause because all I did was hang out with my tweezers.

Lucky I got my rest though because Saturday was a BIG day. The CityTreasureHunt was good fun. SO tiring, but good fun. I wasn't very Sydney-smart though so I wasn't really competing. Next year though (yes I'm going to do it next year!), I'm gonna train myself mentally and physically for it. Very fun.

Last night we all headed up to Broadway for Foj's (+2 other people +minh) birthday party. Needless to say, I was a little trashed by the end of it all. But you know what? I had a really good time. A little everything-but-drunk fun isn't too bad. Plus, I met a whole lot of new people, hung out with the girls, talked to the boys... lots of fun.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MINH!

... so ok, I'm not a good story teller. This is more my style isn't it:

One needs to stop caring to stop feeling
One needs to stop feeling to stop wondering
One needs to stop wondering to stop hoping
One needs to stop hoping to stop hurting

s/One/Nel/g

With that in mind, I don't think doing any of that is easy. Not easy at all. I was thinking this morning and I realised I'm still looking at that door. I'm working on it. I can probably turn away from the door, but I'll always have the doorknob etched into my hand.

In the words of Llewol... eat that. Bye.

Friday, September 24, 2004

So, last night I was thinking about the extent that my past has shaped my attitudes, personality and my decisions.

(I don't know how much I'm gonna share right here. Let's see how I go.)

Unlike most people I know, high school life for me wasn't the best time of my life. I know this because I see the way people talk about their high school years with a sense of nostalgia; I ask people "high school or uni life?" and I realise, under no circumstances, that I'd never really consider my actual high school life as a good memory in its entirerty.

... ok I'm being over dramatic.

High school wasn't bad. I made some really good friends, I grew up, I experienced things, I had fun. But it was those events, broken relationships, times of desolation that made me who I am today.

The people at my high school were different. When I look at who my friends are these days, I discover the type of people that I wish were around back in the day so I didn't have to experience everything I did. I had few real friends back then and I relied on my out-of-school life to keep me going.

Point is, I was never super comfortable. I was a drifter. Many of the relationships I made were surface relationships. They were fragile.

I hurt people without thinking. I got hurt. It wasn't easy.

It makes me wonder. It made me wonder whether I'd be more confident, less careful, more aggressive towards my relationships these days if I had a past where I was always accepted, always protected and never made to feel isolated.

I've had to depend on myself for a lot of my life. I think it's how you grow. When you know that things change, people change and little is CONSTANT, you have to adapt. You have to think before you act. You have to be mindful about how different people may react to things you do. Because we don't all have the same value system.

With that, I also want to add that... I'm still not perfect. I still offend people unknowingly, I can still be selfish, but I'm working on it.

That's it. Bye!

Wednesday, September 22, 2004

Destiny's Child - Illusion

Allright. I don't know what I'm doing here. But I want to blog. But I honestly have nothing to blog about.

Um, so this week's been mediocre.

Monday night, I slaved away on my HCI assignment. That subject hurts me to the bone (somehow "hurts me to the bone marrow" doesn't sound that good... but if it did, I'd use that). It's physically painful. Not because it's particularly hard, it's not. It's painfully easy and useless.

Woke up Tuesday morning to finish the sucker off. Handed it in at the tutorial (where our tutor talked about the difference in her voice when a sentence ends in a '.' and a '?' - like really?) and skipped the lecture.

And lucky we did, coz I reckon if we actually went to class, we woulda gotten stuck on Parramatta Road on the way home because of some fire at Newtown-ish.

I also got my retainers in the morning. Which pretty much ends the whole braces/dentist-once-a-month chapter in my life. Kinda nostalgic about it if you ask me.

Today (well, yesterday now) is Krissy's birthday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY COUSIN!

That's it. See? Told ya I had nothing to say. Bye!

Sunday, September 19, 2004

PMS is great. Now back to regular viewing...

On a Monday I am waiting
Tuesday I am fading
And by Wednesday I can’t sleep
Then the phone rings I hear you
And the darkness is a clear view
Cause you’ve come to rescue me

Fall, with you I fall so fast
I can hardly catch my breath
I hope it lasts

It seems like I can finally
Rest my head on something real
I like the way that feels
It’s as if you know me better
Than I ever knew myself
I love how you can tell
All the pieces, pieces, pieces of me

I am moody and messy
I get restless and it’s senseless
How you never seem to care
When I’m angry you listen
Make me happy it’s your mission
And you won’t stop till I’m there

Fall, sometimes I fall so fast
When I hit that bottom crash
You’re all I have

How do you know?
Everything I’m about to say
Am I that obvious?
And if it’s written on my face
I hope it never goes away

Saturday, September 18, 2004

It was much simpler when...

... the only man who I loved was my Dad.
... the only man who I found happiness in was my Dad.
... the only man who I wanted to tell everything to was my Dad.
... the only man who I was afraid to disappoint was my Dad.
... the only man who could make me cry was my Dad.

Then life messes you up and you can never go back to that.

Thursday, September 16, 2004

When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.
-- HELEN KELLER

Monday, September 13, 2004

UNCLE JOEL: Nel, your smile is different. There's no more blingbling.

HAHA. What a cracka. I'm gonna collect all my "no more braces" jokes... if I remember to.

In other news, I'm sick for the third time this year. ARGH!

Ok and does theOC have to take over the world? It's on tonight too! Gosh.

That's all. Good Night.

Saturday, September 11, 2004

Suddenly 30

THE VERDICT: I laaaaaaaaahved it!

Are you surprised? More later. Bye!

-- EDIT --

It's almost 1pm on a Saturday afternoon, and I'm in my bed, blogging.

The world's fantastic.

Figure I should tell you what happened in the past week. I don't wanna bore you though so I'll just give you the pseudo-interesting bits.

SITPP Assignment One (I said pseudo-interesting right?) came and went this week. Well, it came a while ago, but it officially went yesterday when we handed it in... after a long night of tidying up, padding, trimming, you know the sort. My three troops cramped up into my room (and if you've seen my room, the word 'cramped' is almost an understatement) and worked until the wee hours of the morning to get the thing done. The End.

I was de-braced! Yep, my teeth are free! "Free at last, free at last! Thank God Almighty, I'm free at last!". I've gotten the usual questions. The procedure was a lot more quick and easy than I expected. I didn't even know they were off until the dentist said "Ok you're done!". I was expecting a long and awful process of bracket removal, but it was the polishing and cleaning that took most of the time. It doesn't feel that much different actually. I'm not used to my new smile, so I don't wanna do it yet coz I liked my braces smile better for now.

Night out with the girls last night to watch Suddenly 30. Goes without saying that I adored it! Can't say a great deal about the plot being amazing or thought provoking, but seeing Jennifer Garner looking so beautiful was enough for me. And thanks to K-Mart, we have it on DVD! Wee! Best anniversary present EVER! (Just kidding! Happy 5mths Veed and K-Mart!)

... and I'm out.

Sunday, September 05, 2004

LESSON of the DAY

... Not everyone wants to hear what I have to say a lot of the time. Sometimes silence is needed to keep the peace.

That's it.
Possibly continuing on with last post's theme... THE PAST
How important is someone's past?
... and more importantly...
How much of someone's past is relevant to the make-up of their current character?
You hear it said many, many times. How we learn from our past experiences - whether they be good/bad experiences, good choices or mistakes.

MISTAKES

mistake: n.
1. An error or fault resulting from defective judgement, deficient knowledge, or carelessness
2. An unintentional error

We all make mistakes. Some of them were intentional at the time, and it's only when you look back on them months or even years later that you realise how clouded, misguided or defective your judgement was. Some mistakes are petty and can be forgotten within a short period of time; others become a burden for a very large part of the future.

So does the burden every go away? Does the burden of a mistake ever expire?

How can it?

When you first meet someone, when you initially start to get to know them, don't we want to know what their past was like? And isn't it in our nature to automatically judge people because of their past? Sure, some people are able to see past another person's mistake - accept them as part of a misguided part of their life... but there will always be people that rely on the fact of a person's past and be unable to get past them to get to know the person NOW - the person who has potentially learned from their mistakes.

Then there are a whole set of unforgiveable mistakes. Each person has a different idea of what actions are part of this set.

So what happens when you meet someone that considers one of your past misjudgements as unforgivable? Is it even worth pursuing that friendship/relationship? ... when it's more than likely that, no matter how young/misguided/naive/blind/immature you were at the time, no matter how long ago it was when you made the mistake - it's always going be part of your character resume for that person.

Not many people enjoy remembering their past mistakes. Even more don't like to be judged because of them.

I'm one of those people. It's because of my past mistakes that I've realised how important it is to consider a person's CURRENT character instead of digging up a past that they don't want to remember. For some, mistakes are a means for gaining a similar realisation.

Just something I was thinking about. Bye.

Wednesday, September 01, 2004

Something was brought to my attention today.

Apparently I portray a 'good girl' persona, I make out to be some sort of 'angel'.

But you know what? I'm not. There's no way I deserve to be put on that high a pedestal.

It almost physically hurts to hear people tell me that I'm some sort of role model.

To tell me I have no blemishes...
To tell me I've never done anything to hurt anyone...
To tell me I can't possibly be capable of doing anything wrong...
To tell me that I know how to handle situations best...
To tell me I'm "not that type of person"...

... is telling me that you're being deceived. That you're just one of the people who have talked to me or read my blog and assumed that I'm a 100% 'good girl'.

I have just as many demons as the next person. Just to set the record straigh.