[ a s h l e y ]

It's been a while since I last wrote on here. I hadn't given up on blogging, but rather lost inspiration and grew frustrated with my constant inability to articulate what I want to say. However, coming to the end of my last ever summer holidays, words seem both to flow and fit. It's strange how summer seems so much fuller of life than any other time of the year.  Although summer seems to stretch into the distant horizon, prior experience tells us that it doesn't last forever and so we fill our days with things that make us feel alive. Everything adds up to a summer holiday: riding motorbikes, swimming in rivers, letting the sunshine warm my skin, playing cards, road trips, mix cds, movies, the circus, second hand bookstores, guitars and jandals. From where I'm standing, my summer holiday was one of the best I've ever had. It sounds crazy, but in the 3 months or so I was free, my thoughts have come together in such a way that I feel about five years older. At the end of year 12, the idea of leaving school terrified me. Me being in my last year of school, standing on the brink of everything I had never been before was one of the most horrifying ideas I could fathom. But three months later, I feel older and wiser, and maybe I've whipped my thoughts into attention, but I feel ready to grow up and take responsibility for myself for a change. Summer taught me to enjoy the little things and appreciate every second for what it is. I know that's a cliché, but I can't help but think that it has become overused for a reason. When things can change so suddenly, why spend one second fretting over the small stuff? We've all had those moments. Sometimes they stretch out for days, and other times they last merely a minute. We've all experienced those times where everything feels so perfect that nothing could ever be so great again. In some convoluted way, it's depressing. You know that everything after that will always be held up against the watermark of that moment and for the most part, everything will fall short. For some reason, I had plenty of those this summer. I learned to live in the moment and enjoy the way the sunlight shines through a cup, or bask in the glory of a missed friend's smile.

Speaking of missed friends, it was an absolutely surreal experience to be back in Australia. I travelled the same roads but was detached simply because I no longer belong there any more. I could catch up on the gossip without getting involved, and I could say my goodbyes with ease, knowing that, although my friends will be as such forever, my life no longer is heading in the same direction as theirs. I think I told anyone who will listen last year that I was different in Australia, and I realised the truth of that statement. For some reason I feel so much more secure in myself with those friends and in my old hunting grounds, but oddly enough that security travelled with me to New Zealand, albeit dimmed. I feel more confident, more assertive. I've finally come to terms with who I am and who I want to be, and what I need to do to make that happen. At the Joyce Meyer seminar at parachute, I was in the process of hugging myself, repeating self affirmations, and I realised that (shock! horror!) I love who I am. I know I'm imperfect and God knows I have a plethora of traits to work on. However, I can appreciate me for me, and enjoy the journey until I get there.

That's enough of that. Thank you if you made me smile in my holidays. Thank you if you made an effort to see me, or if we had a laugh together. If you're a new friend I've made, thank you for the opportunity to spend time with you. I appreciate it more than you ever could realise.

Here's to '07.
feel good all over. even inside out.

i just hope you understand: sometimes the clothes do not make the man

Come closer now
I know your desire is to be desired
Steal a kiss yet and call us friends
Distance is the thief in which you conspire

Time and time and time will tell
Time will tell or tear us apart
You're miles and miles and miles away
Silence reveals where we really are

You only stand to break my heart
I can tell it by the way you run away.

we pass the time of day to forget how time passes.

heres a blog entry from a blog i like to read. i dont know why i like this but i do:
No writer escapes the craft without becoming (or maybe he was to begin with?) both masochistic and narcissistic. I'm not talking about staring at himself in the mirror all the time or asking his lover to whip him (though I'm sure plenty of writers are those types as well). It's a bit more subtle than that.

You find it in all kinds of fanfics. Author's notes. Lengthy introductions a la Orson Scott Card. References to "the first author" in textbooks. The beginning of an internet publication with "I know I haven't written in awhile, but..."

See, authors are always a bit crazy. We know we're irrelevant and we know that no one cares how long it's been since we wrote or what kind of great excuse we have. All they care about (if they do) is what we've produced. If it's good, they will read; if it's not, try again.

The writer is both the ultimate extrovert and introvert, all in one package. To the writer, every piece of work is achingly revealing of him; to the reader, every piece of work is either irrelevant or achingly revealing...of the reader. People do not gaze upon a piece of art and say, "I think the artist was trying to tell me that he feels ____." Viewers look and say, "I feel ____. That is what the artist was trying to say"--even if that is the opposite of the truth.

Face it. People don't care enough about others to read in order to learn about other people. We read to learn about ourselves. We both read and write to look in a mirror, to see our own ghastly features reflected back at us. When we write we are forced to understand, and that's the scariest thing about it all. Once you've seen what you really look like, you can't turn back. Even if it hurts.

i have a list of things i want to achieve in my life. i think i'm getting there with a few.

some people are so fucking judgemental. it's crazy how much we care what other people think, and in response, end up gossiping about others; doing to them what they do to us. who the hell wears eyeliner to school just because it's mufti day? or boots? or a miniskirt? perhaps i am deluded but that just not comfortable. me? i picked the cleanest thing off the floor of my room that wouldn't be considered awful by the masses. maybe i have it wrong, and mine is the unhealthy attitude. maybe i should get dressed up and wear heels or $700 jeans or a dress. i think i like my attitude a heck of a lot better. 

i am so effing confused with everything. well not everything. just a few things. i can't be bothered explaining this here, but i guess i think i have things sorted out in my mind and all of a sudden its not right any more. that didnt make any sense at all. think of it as a slippery bar of soap that i have in my hand and the tighter i grasp it in order to have a firm hold, it jolts straight back out again. and what do i do? i pick it up again is what i do. idiot.

i have to write a seminar. ugh. i dont really get the whole seminar thing. grrraah

i danced today for the first time in a long time. i feel good. and it was good to get that out of my system. this inexplicable happiness has been following me around for awhile and to be perfectly honest i think it was scaring people slightly. i'm just too chipper. i wrote a birthday card today for someone i dont even know. isn't that weird? sometimes i sit back and look at what i'm doing and realise that i must look like such a strange kid to any spectator. but i dont care. i just smile and bounce along. my happiness is infectious though. i get emma happy in maths (and that really is required, after all. integration? no thanks) then again, i dont know if the random felicity is gone or if it's still hanging around. guess i'll find out.

[wow. i'm really in a writing mood tonight. ever have those days? where you just feel like typing and typing and... no. i expect you don't. ]

oliver starts next week and i get a few days off to do maketh them up. should be amusing. and if not, i guess it's better than hanging around at school. breaks up the monotony, if you get me.

weell i'm off now. peace.

xx a

Hey. So. I’ve got (count ‘em) 13 minutes left in this media lesson, and I have no study to do, no articles to write, no-one to talk to. Blogging? Sure. Why not?

So where is everyone?

• Emma.
  She is sick. And let me tell you, if she isn’t better by Thursday, there will be hell to pay. Considering that my only other lunchtime friend, Brigette, is going to be away, I will be le loner if she isn’t there.

• Lachlan.
  He is no doubt bagpiping somewhere or some other form of “music practise” (read, skiving off class somewhere as usual.)

• Steph.
  Just where is Steph? I don’t know. Do you know? Well I don’t. perhaps “giving blood”. Hm. A mystery.

In other news: Steve Irwin is dead. That’s actually really, really sad. Realy sad. Call me crazy, but I thought that guy was invincible. He was involved in about a thousand crocodile attacks and stuff, and he gets killed by some freak accident by a stingray that wasn’t even trying to kill him in the first place? Weird and scary and sad.

Tara: “at least he was doing something he loved.”

Luke: “I don’t think he loved being stabbed in the heart by a stingray.”

Ugh. I have a media test tomorrow that Ms Lakeman has just decided she’s setting. Yeah, I should probably be doing that whole study thing. Oooh. I get to be editor. I think. I applied, am not sure if I will get it but think I possibly will, on account of my grammar related twitch.

I want to celebrate! Three guesses? Nah. I’ll just tell you. Netball is finished for the season! Jump for Joys! I thoroughly dislike netball for a number of reasons:

a) It is a stupid sport, in which girls are catty and bitchy and rude.

b) I’m not particularly good at catching and throwing and stuff.

c) My team is horrible and rude (except for Emma. Love you long time) and someone *cough*sam*cough* yells at me often. For doing nothing. Nothing, I tell you!

d) My coach also hated me. If I did anything, she would just like, look the other way, but if anyone else did something similar, she would praise them to heaven...

kay well theres the bell....

Why is it that all of a sudden, guys are getting a heck of a lot less manly? Now, I’m not talking about metrosexuals, although the two phenomena may be related. No, I’m talking about what has been dubbed “the advent of the geek”.

First, I’ll give you a little background. The label ‘geek’ originates from performers at circus sideshows who would perform in a geek pit, and swallow live animals and bugs and occasionally bite the heads of chickens. Don’t ask me how the circus geek became the math geek, but these days it refers to a person who is “interested in technology, especially computing and new media”.  I’m not sure exactly when they became “cool”, whether it has something to do with internet being the popular thing, or whether it’s simply due to the cyclical patterns of fashion – what was in last year is out this year, and we’re simply sick of the jock. Some sources say it’s linked to the re-release of the original Star Wars in ’96 and’97, and others say it was made cool by Seth Cohen from The O.C.  But I digress.

I’m not saying that I like a guy wearing his pants so low that his ass crack shines in the glory of God. But a little masculinity above the pocket protector is often welcomed. Mitchell, a self confessed geek says “geeks can be normal”. That one can go straight to the tui billboard. However, geeks are essential in today’s society - for example teen movies wouldn’t be the same without the stereotypical geek having his head flushed in the toilet. Let’s face it. As much as we assert our equality there will always be stereotypes. However, it is becoming harder to determine the difference between the all out geek and the middle man, the guy (or girl) that dabbles in the ‘paranormal’ (the closet star wars addicts), or the fully fledged chess nerds. They aren’t quite a ‘geek’, but they’re definitely not a rower. Is the line really that defined, or is it becoming blurred? With the introduction of the ‘goth’ and the ‘emotional’ (emo) we can no longer group these outcasts together under one banner.  We can’t claim that geeks start crying in the corner of a supermarket when you say “hi”.

Steph, a year twelve student warns “Be nice to the geeks. You’ll end up working for one”. They hold their unwieldy power over us even now. After all, they hold the keys to the PAL tutor room, and we have to go cap in hand with a broken internet connection.

We always expect the geeks to gain academic colours, to provide undying commitment to the chess team and to sit in the library at lunchtime playing counterstrike.  But what happens when they start being accepted into the ‘higher’ social strata of rowers and princesses?  Who will fill the lofty shoes of the PAL when we can’t get onto the internet?  Who will man the lighting box during all those year 7 and 8 socials, and who will ‘checkmate’ the chess board of our lives? Just where would we be without the wind beneath our wings?  The geek! Live long and prosper! Nanu nanu.

There are some quality New Zealand artists out there, and many of them have cracked the international market. The D4, Shihad, Exponents, Steriogram, Bleeders, Deja- Voodoo, Supergroove: they can cut it with the best here and overseas, and yet, the media industry continues to pre-package us the next star, and beg us to love them. I’m all for supporting local music - and considering that we’re being inundated with American music, it’s something that needs to be done on a larger scale - and yet, I want to support quality music. Emphasis being on the quality. Maybe they’ve done the hard yards before New Zealand idol, but somehow I don’t think that standing in front of a camera singing songs someone else wrote and performed before them qualifies them for stardom, here or overseas. The money could still be spent giving struggling musicians a helping hand, but I’m sure there’s less aggravating ways to do it. These shows that supposedly seek talent simply hunt out another flash-in-the-pan one-hit-wonder.

Unfortunately, though, New Zealand Idol is not the only reality T.V show out there. My Restaurant Rules, Survivor, The Amazing Race, The Apprentice. Quite frankly, the list goes on. Emma, a year 12 student says, “I think that some of it was all right the first time, but it’s been dragged out a bit too long. There’s been too many New Zealand Idols and Survivors.” The “stars” have become disposable, pathetically needy with naked ambition. They’re crowned Sole Survivor, or Apprentice, or simply The Winner, then go on to sell their story to the trashy gossip magazines, and are promptly forgotten.

While reality T.V continues to be aired, our gossip magazines will continue to be cluttered with half- baked “stars”. T.V personalities will be famous for being a personality, rather than for their talent. Our music industry will fail under the sheer volume of shallow, manufactured stars that block the truly talented from getting the attention they deserve. And I will still be forced to watch the middle aged obscurely famous New Zealand T.V personalities trying to spell ‘onomatopoeia’ simply because there is nothing else on.

first time I saw your face
I must admit I was feeling just a little bit out of place
so young and stupid didn't have no plan
I was just walking in the sand
I was just walking with my shoes in my hands
didn't have no plans
you so pretty with your hair all a mess
your eyes so bright and full of happiness
and I could not find the words to tell you how you are making me feel inside
I just stood there before you and smiled

well I wanna know you, wanna kiss you, wanna love you
wanna show you there will be no one else above you 
and you're mine
baby, well you're my sweet, my sweet little baby
you should belong to me
oh smiling and free
yes you should be loving me
you should belong to me

I remember yesterdays
the hours we spent together and the games we used to play
one thing I have learned, oh it hurts me to say
you can never never ever never go back again

I wanna show you wanna kiss you wanna love
wanna show you there will be no one else above you baby
when you're mine, when you're my sweet my sweet little baby
you should belong to me
smiling and free
oh you should be loving me
yea you should belong to me