Went to O week today. Made some friends, got lost, scored freebies, signed up for a few things, got lost again, etc. All in a day's work.
It was HOT. The sunlight was strong and bleached and clear, and you got an idea where the saturated-style of the Newcastle brochures came from.
The campus is HUGE. And it is exhausting getting lost there, in the heat. It's all very exciting though.
The Design building is so AWESOME. It has two stories, and a loft, and it's all very scaffold-esque, sort of. Maybe not. Like, industrial. That's it. But it's made of corrugated iron, so it's scaldingly hot and stuffy in summer, and freezing in winter.
The lecture halls are GI-NORMOUS. Maybe not, but to me they were. There's quite a few people in my course, and being surrounded by all these design-y people, who are at least a little like-minded, was gently gratifying.
I met a girl name Gee. She wants to do web comics. She was pretty cool. Different. She had short, lightly red hair and long black jeans. She carried a heavy shoulder bag around with her, with a laptop and books and perhaps a sketchpad inside, and she reminded me just the tiniest bit of Tea. Minutely. Microscopically. It was the bag.
What else? They had a huge rusted sculpture of a spider.
Ee and I got lost. My fault this time. We managed to get OFF the map.
I re-met Bri and her friend Ta, but we didn't speak much. Didn't have much oppurtunity, I suppose.
They had jumping castles. {? I know.} And the campus has two bars/pubs.
Live entertainment.
Welcoming speech.
Etc.
I might report more tomorrow.
But yeah - It was HOT. Especially walking around in the sun.
{Ee and I had to ask a Tradie to help us find our way back to the Great Hall. He was nice.}
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Sunday, February 22, 2009
ouch.
The University of Newcastle has a system called 'myHub' that's a student think that hosts all your tidbits. I'm not a computer person, so I don't know all the technolingo, but yes.
I have been billed.
Look over head. There goes Indi, hurtling into debt for the first time.
I have been billed.
Look over head. There goes Indi, hurtling into debt for the first time.
You're back
You don't wonder this time. You slip to the other side of the cyber space.
The girl is there. She is moving around above you, so perhaps you are on the floor, or on a chair. She is tidying her desk. As you watch, she moves a Stanley knife, folds up some scraps of brown paper (does she have an environmental concious? Is she recycling?), moves a pair of dressmaking scissors amd shifts about a bottle of PVA glue.
Where is the book? She is packing up. Is she finished?
Looking carefully, you see her fingers are covered in peeling glue, as if she is shedding her skin there. The window is open, you see palm trees outside, and the roof of a house. The sky is very blue behind the clouds. You cannot hear a thing other than the tapping of keys on a keyboard.
She is wearing a purple shirt and her eyes are cast down. You see her eyelashes twitching as she looks from side to side. But you can't see her irises.
For some reason, you really, really want to.
She picks up a ream of brown paper and moves out of sight. You are left with the desk, and a poor view of it. You make out the handle of a paintbrush, chewed-looking, with veins of blue in the cracks. You can see a digital camera, and some newspaper. Does she read the newspaper?
The girl is back. She suddenly glances at you - she is reaching in to press something. She doesn't see you. A button?
A button!
N-
The girl is there. She is moving around above you, so perhaps you are on the floor, or on a chair. She is tidying her desk. As you watch, she moves a Stanley knife, folds up some scraps of brown paper (does she have an environmental concious? Is she recycling?), moves a pair of dressmaking scissors amd shifts about a bottle of PVA glue.
Where is the book? She is packing up. Is she finished?
Looking carefully, you see her fingers are covered in peeling glue, as if she is shedding her skin there. The window is open, you see palm trees outside, and the roof of a house. The sky is very blue behind the clouds. You cannot hear a thing other than the tapping of keys on a keyboard.
She is wearing a purple shirt and her eyes are cast down. You see her eyelashes twitching as she looks from side to side. But you can't see her irises.
For some reason, you really, really want to.
She picks up a ream of brown paper and moves out of sight. You are left with the desk, and a poor view of it. You make out the handle of a paintbrush, chewed-looking, with veins of blue in the cracks. You can see a digital camera, and some newspaper. Does she read the newspaper?
The girl is back. She suddenly glances at you - she is reaching in to press something. She doesn't see you. A button?
A button!
N-
Saturday, February 21, 2009
my DOG is more social than I am.
My sister, her boyfriend, and her-friend-that-is-a-boy are playing pool downstairs on our old rickety table. There are six empty beer boxes beneath each hole because the netting has been chewed through, and each time someone gets a point, is an idiot, conquers or loses miserably, there is this THUNK! as faux-ivory ball hits tile.
My dad is down there, playing with them. My mum is just outside, near the screen door, offering loudly any remarks and staying involved as she relaxes back with a beer, her face to our garden, which is very green but also grey due to the cloud cover. My dog tip toes around it all, weaving amongst legs of people and chairs, staying part of the party.
And then, walk upstairs, thunk-creak-thunk-wooden-groan, up into the quiet upper-storey of the house where the incoherent twittering of our lorikeet pair bubbles through the verandah door. Follow the sound of distant music, and turning a corner, past the kitchen where all is still, you will find me. Me. Me, sitting at my desk, quietly, staring into space. Perhaps with a milk-moustache - I haven't looked in the mirror yet. {There is nothing like a glass of cold milk when you feel like it}. But yes. I am here, listening to music that ranges from classical to bizzarre. Soon, I will be hammering, making my own brand of noise - but that. is not. the point.
Am I a recluse? Am I dooming myself by participating in such antisocial behaviour? I can hear the psychotherapists now.
Argh.
When I'm not being a smarty pants, when I'm not being sarcastic or getting worked up; when I'm not feeling a little anxious, when I'm not being loud, when I'm not running fast or dancing with energy - I often feel like I'm the black sheep in this family.
I don't want to be a recluse like my grandfather, merely because I do what I want to do.
And who knows? If I got involved down there, I might really have an awesome time.
But, I don't know. It just - it's like, like what Missy Higgins sings, I'm a triangle trying to squeeze through a circle.
I just don't fit.
(wow. That was really a jump to acknowledge. But, I don't know if I can say it was a lie. Is that bad?)
My sister, her boyfriend, and her-friend-that-is-a-boy are playing pool downstairs on our old rickety table. There are six empty beer boxes beneath each hole because the netting has been chewed through, and each time someone gets a point, is an idiot, conquers or loses miserably, there is this THUNK! as faux-ivory ball hits tile.
My dad is down there, playing with them. My mum is just outside, near the screen door, offering loudly any remarks and staying involved as she relaxes back with a beer, her face to our garden, which is very green but also grey due to the cloud cover. My dog tip toes around it all, weaving amongst legs of people and chairs, staying part of the party.
And then, walk upstairs, thunk-creak-thunk-wooden-groan, up into the quiet upper-storey of the house where the incoherent twittering of our lorikeet pair bubbles through the verandah door. Follow the sound of distant music, and turning a corner, past the kitchen where all is still, you will find me. Me. Me, sitting at my desk, quietly, staring into space. Perhaps with a milk-moustache - I haven't looked in the mirror yet. {There is nothing like a glass of cold milk when you feel like it}. But yes. I am here, listening to music that ranges from classical to bizzarre. Soon, I will be hammering, making my own brand of noise - but that. is not. the point.
Am I a recluse? Am I dooming myself by participating in such antisocial behaviour? I can hear the psychotherapists now.
Argh.
When I'm not being a smarty pants, when I'm not being sarcastic or getting worked up; when I'm not feeling a little anxious, when I'm not being loud, when I'm not running fast or dancing with energy - I often feel like I'm the black sheep in this family.
I don't want to be a recluse like my grandfather, merely because I do what I want to do.
And who knows? If I got involved down there, I might really have an awesome time.
But, I don't know. It just - it's like, like what Missy Higgins sings, I'm a triangle trying to squeeze through a circle.
I just don't fit.
(wow. That was really a jump to acknowledge. But, I don't know if I can say it was a lie. Is that bad?)
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Good Evening, Traveller
I am stepping through the computer screen, and I am reaching out for you to pull you through. Take my hand?
I am faceless to you. I am almost and imagining. But my hand and yours are linked together, and I am pulling you through to my side of the screen.
Just look there, I say, this faceless stranger who's blog you just happened to stumble across, and who, quite suddenly, has lured you to somewhere else. Vaguely you are thinking how rude this is, so you only half hear what I say, but you are curious too, and when I gesture through the screen, to the figure at a wooden desk, you follow my hand awkwardly.
There at the desk (it is strewn with pieces of paper, you notice; two gluesticks rise from the white foliage like thick shoots, there is a tangle of measuring tape curled to the side, a ruler and a pair of scissors half-submerged and half-visible, alongside small bricks of blue tissue-packets.) sits a girl who isn't looking at you, and for some reason you cannot help but to wonder what colours her eyes are.
She is a mop of red hair to you - a tangled, messy mop - and she is carefully cutting and pasting in a peaceful, distant way.
You realise she is slowly binding herself a book.
You don't know how you reached this conclusion, but you are right. The girl with the red hair is binding herself a book.
She is making, at the moment, envelopes for the book. She cuts out a folded piece of paper, and then glues little accordian-like folded bits to the inside edges, making the envelope bigger. While you watch her, she folds up, carefully so as not to tear the fragile paper (why is she using such fragile paper?), a piece of paper torn from an old copy of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe into another concertina, and glues it to an old envelope.
Why is she binding a book?
She is making a book because she is thoroughly fed up with searching for the perfect notebook elsewhere. And she has decided to make her own.
So she sits there, still not looking at you because she doesn't even know you are there, completely in harmony for the time in her surroundings. Ovals of light, little rainbows, whirl backwards and forth continously as sunlight ( the first for weeks) is scattered by a crystal hanging in her window, which is behind her.
You want to know what colours her eyes are. You want to know if it is silent there where she is, because it looks so, but all you can hear is the whirr of her laptop and the clicking of keyboard keys from somewhere you can't see.
Then, I am leading you away again. I am taking you back to where you were before. I tug at your conciousness and you follow effortlessly, as if you really did want to return, and not keep watching the girl with the red hair, binding a book, with eyes unknown to you.
Noise. What noises surround you?
Listen for a moment, tell me what they are.
And now, you are back.
The girl is gone.
I am faceless to you. I am almost and imagining. But my hand and yours are linked together, and I am pulling you through to my side of the screen.
Just look there, I say, this faceless stranger who's blog you just happened to stumble across, and who, quite suddenly, has lured you to somewhere else. Vaguely you are thinking how rude this is, so you only half hear what I say, but you are curious too, and when I gesture through the screen, to the figure at a wooden desk, you follow my hand awkwardly.
There at the desk (it is strewn with pieces of paper, you notice; two gluesticks rise from the white foliage like thick shoots, there is a tangle of measuring tape curled to the side, a ruler and a pair of scissors half-submerged and half-visible, alongside small bricks of blue tissue-packets.) sits a girl who isn't looking at you, and for some reason you cannot help but to wonder what colours her eyes are.
She is a mop of red hair to you - a tangled, messy mop - and she is carefully cutting and pasting in a peaceful, distant way.
You realise she is slowly binding herself a book.
You don't know how you reached this conclusion, but you are right. The girl with the red hair is binding herself a book.
She is making, at the moment, envelopes for the book. She cuts out a folded piece of paper, and then glues little accordian-like folded bits to the inside edges, making the envelope bigger. While you watch her, she folds up, carefully so as not to tear the fragile paper (why is she using such fragile paper?), a piece of paper torn from an old copy of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe into another concertina, and glues it to an old envelope.
Why is she binding a book?
She is making a book because she is thoroughly fed up with searching for the perfect notebook elsewhere. And she has decided to make her own.
So she sits there, still not looking at you because she doesn't even know you are there, completely in harmony for the time in her surroundings. Ovals of light, little rainbows, whirl backwards and forth continously as sunlight ( the first for weeks) is scattered by a crystal hanging in her window, which is behind her.
You want to know what colours her eyes are. You want to know if it is silent there where she is, because it looks so, but all you can hear is the whirr of her laptop and the clicking of keyboard keys from somewhere you can't see.
Then, I am leading you away again. I am taking you back to where you were before. I tug at your conciousness and you follow effortlessly, as if you really did want to return, and not keep watching the girl with the red hair, binding a book, with eyes unknown to you.
Noise. What noises surround you?
Listen for a moment, tell me what they are.
And now, you are back.
The girl is gone.
Monday, February 16, 2009
And then there were three
Are you reading this Jay, in some random distant service station? in your new home? or on the road?
Jay left with the dawn today.
It is nine:ten am and Ess, Tea and I have been awake five hours now. It's strange to think of it that way. We've woken, driven, eaten, juiced, said goodbye (perhaps not in that order) and now drift about Ess's house in a state of slightly heavy wakefulness.
I sit on a tartan sofa chair. Tea reads beside me. The sound of the shower has stopped in the background, but Ess has not yet returned.
I have the feeling Tea's eyes are straying to this as I type, for she has a tendency to do that, but I avoid her eyes as if they aren't. It's sort of like a game. An invisible, silent game.
I imagine Jay on the road. I think she would be asleep. I wonder if it's sunnier there, if the morning light peels back around the car, as if summer were still behaving like summer; because it is still wet here, even if the rain has stopped for a while.
Ess has returned. She is tidying up the kitchen. Apart from the clatter of plates and cups, it is comfortably silent.
For breakfast, we had fresh porridge with banana and honey, and fresh tea Ess brewed from the apple-mint leaves in her garden, poured from a small brown teapot.
We also juiced some apples and berries, and the pulp lies piled in a container on the bench, all yellow and purpley-blue and red, like a mess of watercolour, while we muse over what to do with it. I think we're going to make a slice.
As Jay pulled away from her house, Ess and I ran after the car for a few seconds, our shoes slapping against the wet road. Our feet stopped but our arms continued waving, and as the car rounded the corner I said softly to Ess - "And things'll never be the same again."
Our thoughts are still with you Jay, and we hope everything's wonderful, no matter how intimidating it may be. I caution you not to rearrange your room too much - your flat mates might think you have OCD. I hope you have a good window in your room, and that the view is alright. I really can't imagine what it's like.
The last few days have been very...tumultous. Very draining. There has been alot to think about and alot to deal with. It's as if the weather anticipated this, and lowered a blanket of rain around us, confining us inside physcial, mental and emotional walls. It's time to think, Indi, whispers the rain, time to know and time to work things out. Time to grow. It's voice is all a hush, its breath cold in my ear, on my soul. But it is encouraging, and persistent, and it thrums softly: Time to grow. I will cleanse you.
The sun hovers somewhere beyond the clouds, nestled in silver linings, and it comes soon. I hope it shines through Jay's window, and warms her, and lets her know, for the umpteenth time, that it is all okay.
Everything is okay and good.
There is a cardinal sort of magic to all this. If cardinal is the right word. From the East we are splitting: Me North, Jay West, and Ess and Tea to the South. Fire, Air, Water and Earth. We are four distinct entities, but we are irrevocably, intrinsically connected. We inspire, support and nourish each other. It's nice.
And that's all I really have to write for now. So, all our love, Jay, and take lots of pictures so I may live vicariously in Canberra through you!
Jay left with the dawn today.
It is nine:ten am and Ess, Tea and I have been awake five hours now. It's strange to think of it that way. We've woken, driven, eaten, juiced, said goodbye (perhaps not in that order) and now drift about Ess's house in a state of slightly heavy wakefulness.
I sit on a tartan sofa chair. Tea reads beside me. The sound of the shower has stopped in the background, but Ess has not yet returned.
I have the feeling Tea's eyes are straying to this as I type, for she has a tendency to do that, but I avoid her eyes as if they aren't. It's sort of like a game. An invisible, silent game.
I imagine Jay on the road. I think she would be asleep. I wonder if it's sunnier there, if the morning light peels back around the car, as if summer were still behaving like summer; because it is still wet here, even if the rain has stopped for a while.
Ess has returned. She is tidying up the kitchen. Apart from the clatter of plates and cups, it is comfortably silent.
For breakfast, we had fresh porridge with banana and honey, and fresh tea Ess brewed from the apple-mint leaves in her garden, poured from a small brown teapot.
We also juiced some apples and berries, and the pulp lies piled in a container on the bench, all yellow and purpley-blue and red, like a mess of watercolour, while we muse over what to do with it. I think we're going to make a slice.
As Jay pulled away from her house, Ess and I ran after the car for a few seconds, our shoes slapping against the wet road. Our feet stopped but our arms continued waving, and as the car rounded the corner I said softly to Ess - "And things'll never be the same again."
Our thoughts are still with you Jay, and we hope everything's wonderful, no matter how intimidating it may be. I caution you not to rearrange your room too much - your flat mates might think you have OCD. I hope you have a good window in your room, and that the view is alright. I really can't imagine what it's like.
The last few days have been very...tumultous. Very draining. There has been alot to think about and alot to deal with. It's as if the weather anticipated this, and lowered a blanket of rain around us, confining us inside physcial, mental and emotional walls. It's time to think, Indi, whispers the rain, time to know and time to work things out. Time to grow. It's voice is all a hush, its breath cold in my ear, on my soul. But it is encouraging, and persistent, and it thrums softly: Time to grow. I will cleanse you.
The sun hovers somewhere beyond the clouds, nestled in silver linings, and it comes soon. I hope it shines through Jay's window, and warms her, and lets her know, for the umpteenth time, that it is all okay.
Everything is okay and good.
There is a cardinal sort of magic to all this. If cardinal is the right word. From the East we are splitting: Me North, Jay West, and Ess and Tea to the South. Fire, Air, Water and Earth. We are four distinct entities, but we are irrevocably, intrinsically connected. We inspire, support and nourish each other. It's nice.
And that's all I really have to write for now. So, all our love, Jay, and take lots of pictures so I may live vicariously in Canberra through you!
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Friday, February 13, 2009
true. false.
true.
Coldplay's Viva La Vida album is perfect for long, rainy twilit drives.
true.
There is little like listening to Regina Spektor on rainy dim-lit mornings in your bedroom, the air cool and crisp with a premature breath of autumn, an art exhibition awaiting you in the Sydney distance.
true.
Inkdeath is of a special sort of brilliance - the squirming-goodness-excitement-inside-you, smile-bringing-eye-crinkling-intoxicating, dark-late-rainy-night-pages-rustle-smell type. Through all the darkness emerged the light. Emerged the happy, warm ending. Now that's writing - something so strong, subtle and innately beautiful it cannot be lost in translation.
false.
Packing for a single night trip requires only one small bag.
false.
My bottomless bag is bottomless.
false.
How much a person means to you can be summed up in words or pictures, even if a picture tells a thousand words, and there are a thousand pictures. Words, no matter how wonderful, can equate to a touch, or a woven conglomeration of feelings deep, deep inside you.
true.
They can try.
true.
They can simulate. But only if they are perfect. They, like windows, offer possibilities that are always unique in their interpretation.
false.
Time slows or quickens. And I'm not lazy, frazzled or disorganised.
false.
I don't feel comfortable that way.
true.
I have to leave now.
Coldplay's Viva La Vida album is perfect for long, rainy twilit drives.
true.
There is little like listening to Regina Spektor on rainy dim-lit mornings in your bedroom, the air cool and crisp with a premature breath of autumn, an art exhibition awaiting you in the Sydney distance.
true.
Inkdeath is of a special sort of brilliance - the squirming-goodness-excitement-inside-you, smile-bringing-eye-crinkling-intoxicating, dark-late-rainy-night-pages-rustle-smell type. Through all the darkness emerged the light. Emerged the happy, warm ending. Now that's writing - something so strong, subtle and innately beautiful it cannot be lost in translation.
false.
Packing for a single night trip requires only one small bag.
false.
My bottomless bag is bottomless.
false.
How much a person means to you can be summed up in words or pictures, even if a picture tells a thousand words, and there are a thousand pictures. Words, no matter how wonderful, can equate to a touch, or a woven conglomeration of feelings deep, deep inside you.
true.
They can try.
true.
They can simulate. But only if they are perfect. They, like windows, offer possibilities that are always unique in their interpretation.
false.
Time slows or quickens. And I'm not lazy, frazzled or disorganised.
false.
I don't feel comfortable that way.
true.
I have to leave now.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
of stars
there are people who are insanely special. You must have encountered at least one of these people in your life's travails; in a glance, in a momentary encounter. In passing. They have that special something, like an aura. You feel refreshed after being with them, for however brief it was. You feel all...golden, sort of. Like their shimmer has left a little residue on you. A feeling of contentment and good fortune bubbles up from somewhere within you, from your centre, past your heart, up through your throat till it swells in your mouth - and suddenly, you just HAVE to smile.
I imagine what it is like to be one of these people. Just - completely and utterly good. Do they ever have negative thoughts? Do they ever argue with themselves, or doubt theirselves or their goodness?
I like to make people laugh, even if it is at me. I often wonder what it would be like to make people's lives better, just by being there. I would love to have such a talent: to calm, reasure, comfort, and make someone happy - all in a glance. In passing.
I am fortunate enough to have contact with people all golden, like stars. They don't make you feel any dimmer - rather, they enliven you, they make you shine.
Heedlessly, we cannot help but to gravitate towards them.
I think I would like to be a star. Perhaps if I work hard for it, I will be as entitled to it as those to whom it is naturally given.
I have it within myself to shine. I must.
I imagine what it is like to be one of these people. Just - completely and utterly good. Do they ever have negative thoughts? Do they ever argue with themselves, or doubt theirselves or their goodness?
I like to make people laugh, even if it is at me. I often wonder what it would be like to make people's lives better, just by being there. I would love to have such a talent: to calm, reasure, comfort, and make someone happy - all in a glance. In passing.
I am fortunate enough to have contact with people all golden, like stars. They don't make you feel any dimmer - rather, they enliven you, they make you shine.
Heedlessly, we cannot help but to gravitate towards them.
I think I would like to be a star. Perhaps if I work hard for it, I will be as entitled to it as those to whom it is naturally given.
I have it within myself to shine. I must.
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