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Browsing tag: reflections

  • August 11, 2010

    50 questions that will free your mind (Part 2)

    Part One is here.

    6. If happiness was the national currency, what kind of work would make you rich?
    I would spend very little of my time working. I’d buy, cook and eat good food. I’d travel to Europe, America, and parts of Asia. Around New Zealand. Spend days reading in the sun, lounging on the beach. I would escape winter every year. I’d write when I felt like it. I might even spend some time volunteering. I wouldn’t be in any kind of 9-5 though, I tell you.

    7. Are you doing what you believe in, or are you settling for what you are doing?

    I don’t know what I believe in anymore. I do know that unlike many journalists, I don’t have lofty ambitions…think war correspondent, political reporter, exposing corrupt business. I just want to be happy and fulfilled in what I do. First I wanted to write. Then I wanted to design, and edit. Now, I’m foundering. I am REASONABLY happy with my current role. It is about as close to what I could ask for in a perfect job at this stage. I certainly am not settling.

    8. If the average human life span was 40 years, how would you live your life differently?
    I’d be a lot less financially responsible. I wouldn’t be saving for retirement, I probably wouldn’t want to buy a house. I’d spend my time and money travelling, going to concerts, eating good food, er, refer back to question 6.

    9. To what degree have you actually controlled the course your life has taken?
    I have had plenty of outside influences on my life. Without the help or nudging of others, I might never have left home until I finished school. I would have been miserable and quite possibly had some kind of breakdown. I would never have got the internship that led to a part time job and, eventually a full time job. My life would have been very different.

    That being said, I am the one who excels at my work, whose work ethic got me a second job, who did the hard yards that enabled me to graduate. I am the one who gave T a second chance when we were young and silly, the one who decided not to give up when things got rougher than I could ever have imagined.

    We don’t have control over every single aspect of our lives, but we can maximise every opportunity that comes our way. We can sit back and let life take us where it may, or step up and chart our courses to the best of our ability. For me, I’d say it’s about 70/30 to me.

    10. Are you more worried about doing things right, or doing the right things?
    I’ve turned this question over and over in my head, and still haven’t reached a satisfactory conclusion. I’m still not quite sure how to frame it. Of course I want to do the right thing (even when it’s for the wrong reason) and I want to do those things right. Okay, so let’s say a friend is cheating on his girlfriend. Do I tell her – even though my loyalty is to my friend – making it the right thing? Or do I preserve our friendship, thus doing things right? Fuck it, next question please.

  • August 9, 2010

    On choices, mortality and nearly losing it all

    It was well past midnight. I’d stayed up late putting together a newsletter for work. I’d read a few chapters in my latest book. I checked my bank account – I’d been paid and it was looking flush. I turned off the lights, and sleep came easily to me.

    I sleep fitfully when I’m alone. Hours later (one? two? three or more?) the door slid open, the security light switched on, a footstep. He said something to me. I grunted in response, a drowsy hello.

    “I’ve got something to tell you,” he says.

    “Tell me in the morning,” I say, or least I think I do, in my semi-conscious state.

    “No, I need to tell you now.

    “Okay, fine. I’m listening.” I roll over.

    “No, you need to sit up.” Agitation.

    He needs a hug before starting to explain. I’m still not awake. Nonetheless, a bolt of terror strikes through my stomach. I anticipate the worst. I feel just how fragile my carefully constructed world is. No matter how much I save, I never feel far from the edge. Job losses. Car accidents. Housing dramas. Too many of those. Too much bad news that still makes me a little nervous everytime a call or text message comes through.

    He was in a car accident. It’s really no surprise, considering this particular group of friends. Barely friends. Mostly acquaintances. Especially this person, a person who wasn’t meant to be giving him a ride in the first place. Friends don’t drive at 160k/h through the suburbs, spinning out, smashing into kerbs and power poles and fences and nearly killing each other. Friends don’t total other friends’ cars for no reason at all. It was the scariest thing that had ever happened to him. He sat for hours, shaking, before making himself get into our car and drive home. It’s a miracle they walked away from the twisted wreckage.

    I hear what he’s saying. I understand it, in some distant corner of my dulled mind. I tell him: “I’m going to give you a hug. Then I need to go back to sleep.”

    “Was anyone hurt?” I think to ask, before trying to settle back into slumber.

    No one was injured.

    I can’t get back to sleep. My nose won’t stop running. I barely sleep the rest of the night. It’s hot. It’s cold. I must have dozed off, because I dreamt. I should just have stayed up and talked.

    He asks me to take the day off. Fridays are the worst. But I do it anyway. He needs to go out south to fill out some paperwork for a job. He doesn’t want to drive alone. I’ve never driven a manual on the motorway, and this is not the time to start, groggy and shellshocked. But I can be there with him.

    He tells me how he asked him to slow down. How time slowed as things sped up and they bounced around inside. How, when he got out, the spoiler was wedged in between the front seats. He was covered in glass. There were tiny shards inside his ears. Through it all, he held tightly onto the bottle of Lift Plus he’d been clutching, and, somehow, walked away with it. There was no car. There was no more car left.

    “I don’t think you understand,” he keeps saying. “I nearly didn’t come home last night.”

    I don’t know what to say. I can’t acknowledge how much danger he must have been in as I slept. Because I just can’t understand? Because I partly blame him? Because I can’t just say: “I love you, and I’m glad you’re safe?”

    I put my hand on his leg as he changes lanes, and hope that is enough for now.

     

  • August 2, 2010

    50 questions that will free your mind (Part 1)

    Stephany (who is an awesome blogger with great insight and determination) is currently doing a series of posts based on 50 questions that will free your mind. This was way too good to pass over, so I’m nudging in and answering them on my own time.

    Plus, I love writing about myself (obviously).

    1. How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you are?

    Considering I’m prone to snotty, teary tantrums when I’m hungry and can’t open the jar of pasta sauce (weak wrists are the bane of my life), about five. Then again, I love routine, quiet nights in, have almost given up drinking, save for retirement, and can’t wait to buy a house (and eventually do the marriage, kids and carriage bizzo). Overall, I like to think I’m more mature than my real age. Say, 25?

    2. Which is worse, failing or never trying?

    Initially, I thought never trying, hands down. No regrets. You’ll never know if you don’t make the leap. Plus, that’s the cool thing to say, really, isn’t it? Nobody wants to admit to being such a wuss that failure is their biggest fear. Stephany summed it up perfectly with this: “With both instances, you’re left with regrets. You’re left with what if’s.”
    I think, without ever really having experienced real, serious, catastrophic failure (more on that in the future) it’s difficult to say. But ultimately, I always think back to one of my favourite cliches: better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. If that applies to your personal life, I don’t see why it wouldn’t equally apply to all other areas.

    3. If life is so short, why do we do so many things we don’t like and like so many things we don’t do?

    I believe the majority of reasons for the former come down either to obligations (societal, familial, etc) and money. Oh, and health, haha. I, on the whole, dislike cleaning. I do it because it’s nasty and unhygienic not to, and I don’t want to look like a slob should people come over. I would definitely outsource this and hire a cleaner…but I’m 22 and hardly rolling in cash. See what I mean? Money and social norms. You might work tons of overtime or take on a crappy project, because you need the money, or to impress the boss (which will hopefully pay off later). We go on diets and do crazy exercise routines to get fit and hot (I guess that’s vanity as well as health).

    Why do we like so many things we don’t do? I’m really not sure what this means, so I can’t think up an answer. Anyone care to enlighten me? (The best I can come up with is perhaps enjoying having money to spend, but not wanting to learn to manage money better in order to achieve that. PF nerdgasm…)

    4. When it’s all said and done, will you have said more than you’ve done?

    When all is said and done, I hope to be remembered. And most importantly, I hope to be remembered not for being good at my job but for having been a good person, and, hopefully, touching the lives of the people I know. I probably won’t change the world in any definitive way, but I hope I’ll have travelled to the places I want to visit, had a family, found fulfilment in my non-professional interests and been financially secure enough never to worry for our welfare.

    5. What is the one thing you’d most like to change about the world?

    That’s simple. I want more fairness and equality. By that I mean everyone having the basics of life, the necessities: food, water, warmth, a home. To be safe, not to fear for their lives. And I might add, I want there to be less hate. If everyone could get along, stop fighting ideological and physical wars, well that would be just peachy.

  • July 21, 2010

    Dreams. It’s funny how they change

    I used to want to write a book. A great teenage fiction novel. I used to want to write (and play my own songs). I used to want to be famous – not Lady Gaga style famous, but a name known in households nonetheless.

    I don’t want any of those things anymore. I have no interest in reading books about being in high school, and subsequently, no interest in writing for the genre. I love karaoke and SingStar, but have a decidedly mediocre voice and terrible stage fright; short of donning a Slipknot-style mask, performing would be the death of me. I suppose I wouldn’t object to being a “name”, but seeing my byline on published pieces is enough of a thrill.

    I don’t feel like I’m giving up on these dreams; they just don’t compel me anymore. I don’t have an interest in pursuing my hobbies to a high level – it may sound like I’m downgrading my ambitions, and I guess in a way, the things I want are much more simple now. I want to live comfortably, financially speaking. I want to enjoy my work, to throw dinner parties, have board game nights, the occasional night on the town. To play entire songs again on guitar. To travel and see things I’ve only heard or read about. To feel the sun on my back on the beach, and the crisp, chilly air and crunching leaves underfoot. To eat cheese, prosciutto, and other amazing foods without worrying about the price tag. To live in a house with my name on the title and eventually, a couple of little people running around in it.

    Do you dream big? Or are your aspirations more geared towards the simple pleasures?

    {Photo}

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  • July 16, 2010

    Time vs money

    I once read somewhere that while you’re young, you should make the most of your time and put it towards earning money. The older you get, the less time you have, and thus, your priorities shift accordingly.

    That time vs money balance, for me, is very skewed. I work some wacky hours – I haven’t had a weekend off since February. I do it because a) the money is good and b) professionally, the experience is invaluable, and I signed up to do it anyway, before the money factor came in. I know I wouldn’t want to do this for more than a year or two, but for now, well…

    BF, of course, has time in spades. If he was on a solid financial footing, this would be the ideal time for us to take off and travel. It’s not peak season, and there are still some great deals to be had as the tourism industry fights its way out of the GFC. Not to mention the fact that it eliminates entirely the issue of the two of us trying to coordinate paid leave from work.

    I would love to go on a big road trip this summer. However, if T doesn’t get work before then and manage to put some money away, it’s not going to happen. And if that’s how it turns out, c’est la vie. It would probably be better to go at the start of autumn or later, anyway, because what’s the point of hitting Queenstown and not going skiing?

    {Photo credit}

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  • July 5, 2010

    Make it last forever, friendship never ends…

    {Photo}

    (Points if you can identify what song that line comes from!)

    I have to disagree with that sentiment, though. Some friendships endure. Some ebb and flow. Some, unfortunately, just peter out.

    Fresh grad Classy in Philly recently blogged about the disappointment of losing touch with people she thought were real friends. How, post-college, they stopped calling and emailing…and generally failing to live up to the definition of “friend”.

    Unlike her, I didn’t have the traditional uni experience. I moved in with BF right before starting my first semester. I lived out in the suburbs. Hell, I lived out west, and only about three other people on my course could say the same thing. I really took my studies seriously, even though first year comms was far from gruelling. I had rent and bills to pay, so for me, uni wasn’t even less of a bubble than high school, it really was the real world. Sure, I was sheltered by receiving a student allowance, but that didn’t cover all the essentials, and it didn’t cover term breaks, either.

    So I didn’t really have friends at uni. I had a couple of people I went for coffees with, and sometimes sat with in class. It wasn’t till we were all thrown together in our final year as journalism majors that I formed any meaningful relationships. Even then, we didn’t go out on Friday nights together. We stumbled home exhausted – if we weren’t going to work, or toiling on in the newsroom.

    I do, however, know what it’s like to lose a friend. We went to school together for, oh, a solid 10 years. He lived around the corner from me. We got on like a house on fire, traded barbs, and once we got to high school, walked there and back together. We put up with each other’s foul moods (you think I’m temperamental? I had nothing on him) and discussed everything from the true extent of Kurt Cobain’s talent to the meaning of human existence. He introduced me to the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, for chrissake.

    And then after years of that, we got together. The “relationship” lasted six months. It never went anywhere, physically or otherwise. Nothing had changed.

    We broke up. I got another boyfriend. He got jealous, and after a year or so of various dramas and sniping, we stopped talking. He moved over the Harbour Bridge – which might as well be the other side of the world for an Aucklander – and we went our separate ways – me to AUT, him to AU.

    Sometimes I miss those halcyon days. On the very rare occasion I run into him, I catch glimpses of the person who used to know me better than anyone else. And there’s nothing worse than making small talk with someone you could once sit in comfortable, companionable silence with.

    I’ve changed. He’s changed. From time to time, I hear updates through the grapevine – and while in some ways he’s stayed exactly the same, in others, he’s continued the metamorphosis he begun right about the time our friendship began to rot. I don’t know what he thinks of me today, but for both our sakes, I know it’s better that we don’t have contact, even as acquaintances.

  • July 1, 2010

    When things go viral

    I stayed up all night last Friday to watch the All Whites play Paraguay. I did my bit. Yeah, I’m a patriot. I didn’t even go to sleep beforehand; I was awake RIGHT THROUGH. This prompted colleagues to remark “I didn’t realise you were a fan!” Despite my concerted efforts to explain that I was still awake well past midnight, and succumbed to peer pressure on Twitter (“We’re making history here!”), I’m still down as a true supporter.

    And seriously, Twitter was going OFF. It was busy as it is at peak times. It was incredibly exciting (more so than the game itself, perhaps). John Campbell was up. Colleagues were up. The Twitterati were up. Hashtags were going mad (and #NZL still failed to make the trending topics!) I kept one eye on the TV and the other on my laptop screen, constantly hitting F5 – thanks Tweetdeck, for failing me so badly that I had to resort to the web. It was indeed a little bit of history in the making, and I was there, kind of. My was heart skipping every time the ball approached either goal, and swooning a little every time I saw Ryan Nelsen (yum).

    I even took part in the whiteout. In fact, I liked my black and white avatar pic so much that I still have it up.

    But does it really make a difference? Other tweeters know you’ve whited out your display pic. But how can the players? I loved the spirit that we’re showing, but ultimately, if the people we’re supporting don’t realise just how many of us are doing it, what’s the point?

    I actually cannot remember if I took part in the breast cancer awareness meme earlier this year (where people were posting their bra colour on Facebook), but here’s a reasoned and thoughtful piece on how it in fact excluded many cancer survivors.

    In summary…it’s great when things go viral. But what does it really mean?

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  • March 12, 2010

    But I don’t feel like a grownup

    This year I turn 22. Which puts me firmly in the ‘twentysomething’ camp.

    WTF? When did this happen?

    Can I still wear short shorts? Am I too old to eat popcorn for dinner? Will I ever be able to park properly, enabling me to drive on my own? Why do I not own an iron? Or know how to deal with any cuts of chicken, barring the trusty chicken breast?

    You know what brought this on? The fact that I was trying on a dress – and yes, I did end up buying it – and thought that it was TOO SHORT. (It wasn’t, by the way. And I’m not the kind to wear belt-sized skirts that don’t cover my ass.) The temporary insanity has mostly passed, but I can’t quite shake that feeling of time marching on.

  • February 4, 2010

    I need inspiration

    Among the list of bloggers I love is Chelsea. Read any one of her entries and you’ll understand why. Is it any surprise that she was voted most distinctive voice on 20SB?

    But I digress. Her latest entry nearly made me cry. We were right there with her, on the edge of our seats, we could nearly taste Japan and Ireland and hear that heinous ‘ra ra ooh la la’ refrain as she was literally thisclose to booking a gig with Lady Gaga.

    I am so in awe of her talent, of her drive and of her determination. I wish that I was a tenth as motivated. I wish I knew what I was going after, and was going after it with all of my heart.

    I need to work out what the hell I want, and I need to go get it. I need to live life, REALLY live it to the fullest, because I feel like I’m drifting with the current, waiting for something to happen, waiting for life to kick me in the butt, for something big to start. And I just can’t do that, because I don’t want to wake up and find ten years gone by and nothing changed.

  • December 2, 2009

    Midweek musings

    I know a girl from the States, an international student over here, with a bunch of different student loans (most of them private). She was featured in an article in our student mag saying that her repayments on all of them, once she graduates, could be around $500 PER WEEK! That’s a full-time wage right there!

    Stories like that make me so grateful to have been given a scholarship. My school was one of many with links to AUT, with two specific scholarships designated just for us. I earned one of them…and can’t actually remember who got the other one. Shame on me!

    I’ve actually been meaning to write a thankyou note to the scholarships office; I finally did that a couple of months ago. I’m not sure if anyone would have even read it, but it was something I felt I should do because I’m going to graduate debt free, which is something not many can say.

    Granted, my savings are pretty dismal. All up I have less than $4k – I’m owed close to a grand by ex-heinous-flatmate which I’ll never see, and a few hundred by T. But I’m going to be putting 4% into Kiwisaver, and I’m aiming to save 20% of my income. If T was working full time, this would be a lot higher, but c’est la vie.

    Just by the by, (tentatively), he’s set his sights on an apprenticeship in automotive fabrication. Next step: creating a knockout CV and approaching potential employers. Any tips on how best to approach a busy workshop – phone, in person, etc, chime in! I’m thinking it would be best to call up, find out who makes the hiring decisions, and try to speak to them on the phone, followed by sending in a CV or a face to face meeting.

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