2000-and-something

It's 2:38 pm on the 31st of December, 2009. My nostaligic complex has begun to set in and it's making me uncomfortable. I'm squirming in my seat as I write this. The clouds are moving too fast and the shapes they're making remind me of the past year. A puff of substance and then the year was gone. For some reason I always get like this at the end of the year. Ever since I was 10 I have had the insatiable urge to write down my memories from the past year and what I'd like to improve on. 9 years later and I'm thinking of giving up this tradition as it's done me no good to dwell on the past, but my head thinks otherwise so I'll write down some goals for next year. I guess if I'm going to start anywhere it would be to suck it up and forget about it/improve it if it can be improved. This goes for all things: life, health, relationships with others, health being my main priority. I'd like to stop socially smoking and drink less alcohol. Financially, next year I'd like to improve on the amount of money I saved this year and save an additional $8,000 to go towards my travels at the end of my degree/start of my new life. Next year I'd like to take more film photos, or at least have hard copies of my photos. Being able to hold a memory in my hand is far more soothing and refreshing than flicking through pixels on a website. Sophie suggested I write more, which I'd like to do. Perhaps more short stories, though, and less diary like brain explosions. I'd like to learn more about my degree and get more involved, instead of nagging about the keen beans that always seem to know everything. This year I will be a keen bean. I want to learn more about the world, see more of the world and be more involved with gaining knowledge, especially when it can help my career as a teacher. Finally, I'd like to surround myself with my friends and family. The ones that truly mean something, that aren't just there to go out and party with, but the ones that give me reason to trust them. Next year I'd like to take control of all the small things that bug me and turn them into something positive. Stop letting myself get angry for the acts of others. Think positive. Think positive. Think positive.

.

Ugh. My heart is such an idiot.

The Dear Diaries: Part Two

Dear Various customers,
Hello, how are you? Thats good. Listen, I'd just like to clarify something for you: I'm not french. Nor am I Greek, Turkish or Italian. Why you are so interested in my heritage is unkown to me but the constant questioning and assessing is starting to get quite old. Oh and just because I work in an Italian restaurant does not mean that I know how to reply back to you in Italian you old, rich creeps.
So lets get a bit of clarification happening here. My biological Grandfather on my fathers side is Czechoslavakian and my Grandmother on my mothers side is Polish. The rest of me is allllll convict. Awesome, I'm glad we have this sorted.
Signed,
Fake Frenchie

Unconsciously Conscious: Part Two

Sometimes I want to drink coffee with two sugars all day until I become sedated just waiting waiting waiting for my metal heart to explode but some people say that I don't have a heart anyway and sometimes I believe them because I'm so cold and I'm so bitter and I don't let anyone in and I just want to lay down somewhere quiet and wonder why I'm like this and why I'm so scared of people and why I wait and wait for something that I'm not sure is coming and just listen to music and pretend that it can transform me into something that I'm not and sometimes I want to yell at people and tell them to leave me alone and to stop pressuring me because truth is you have all crumbled me down into a million pieces and locked each part of me in your secret wardrobe and swallowed the key and now I'm reduced to nothing and sometimes I wait for someone to come and put me back together but I know you aren't coming because you don't care anymore and you say we are too different but the truth is that I don't really know who I am anymore because I've dropped pieces of my personality in lakes and rivers and they've washed away and sometimes I can't even take photographs because I'm scared of documenting dark times like this because I don't want people to ever feel the way I do because it's torture and sometimes I want to run so fast that my lungs burn and catch fire and sometimes I want to sit under water and see if I can convince myself to start breathing and sometimes I wonder if I'm even real or is this just a big game to see how long I last and when I drink wine I lay on the ground and convince myself that I can stop my heart from beating and sometimes I think that if I shut my eyes for long enough I'll disappear.

The Dear Diaries: Part One

Dear Boy in tight jeans,
Sorry, but you look ridiculous. Your legs are about the circumference of my arm and quite frankly this makes me feel uncomfortable. Are your legs too skinny? Possibly. Are my arms too fat? Most likely.
....
.
...
Ok, so I lied. I find your nonchalant charm endearing and I quite like your jeans. I'm just jealous. You have a nice haircut, too. Your worn-in vans make me think that you're a skater and I dig that. Oh, and you play bass really well.
Signed,
Jealous Girl.

Things That I Like

In no particular order, these are things that I enjoy:

• That washing powder/sunlight smell that your clothes and sheets have after the washing/drying process.
• Walking places.
• Thinking about situations that never eventuate but are pleasant to think about.
• The fact that I do not listen to heinous music.
• Dancing when there is noone else in the house (and not just a wee jig, I'm talking full blown intense dance moves...so shocking that if you ever caught me doing such things I would mentally wish myself to death).
• Life through a lense; taking snaps of people when they aren't looking and are acting natural. No posers, puh-lease.
• Studying people, their movements and expressions
• Crazy questions off little kids when I'm teaching. For example, "Miss Kent, why don't snakes have legs?"
• Biking with my ladies.
• Drinking red wine with good company.
• Hair and head ornaments. This means bows, head scarves, head bands, feathers, flowers etc. The possibilities are endless really.
• My Thursday morning coffee which is made by a complete babe (he pours it into a love heart EVERYTIME *swoon*).
• Living the uni dream.
  
• That moment in time when you're at a gig and you finally get over the "everyone-is-so-staring-at-me-right-now-I-bet-I-look-like-a-weirdo-tapping-my-foot" phase.
• The country side somewhere in between Yass and Jugiong (especially in the Spring time) when the hills are unnaturally green and the sky is a perfect cloud free hue of blue.
• Laughing at silly things until I hurt.
• Dinner dates. Actually, any form of dates.
• Tights with no holes in them.

Uhm, thats all I can think of for now.

I Hate the Beach.

Yes, I do. I will not lie. I absolutely loathe Summer and its contextual companion, Le Beach. It is the worst combination of the year.
When people are down at the beach frolicking about practically naked I am sitting at home watching day time television and eating my sorrows.
The beach is sandy, sticky and uncomfortable. Sand gets in every nook and cranny of the items you take to the beach, it scratches your sunnies and gets in between the buttons of your phone.
You know how those annoying people shake the sand off their beach towel and it goes all over some innocent soul that doesn't even want to be there in the first place? Yep, I'm that innocent soul or rather, sandy soul.
You know those guys? The ones that go to the beach just to check out the 'talent' and poke fun at anyone that does not look super hot and babein'? Yep, they ruin the beach. They are meat heads whom I would rather not run into.
I can understand how most people like the beach. Sure, its a nice place to cool off when its super hot outside. Its a nice place to burn yourself to a crisp so you can get that non-orange tan. But for the obsessively body conscious (OBC) that place is like a frickin' war zone. OBC people account for about 1 in 20 beach dwellers. You can spot them from a mile away slowly but surely stumbling over the sand, finding a spot amongst the tanning bodies that isn't too close to someone else but not too far away as to draw attention to oneself. They peel off the many layers they have warn to the beach (unfortunately it is impossible to peel off the winter coat you have developed over the cooler months-I have tried) and immediately drop to the sand like a bag of...er...sand and try to execute their next move; do they lay in the sun and get frazzled, pretending to be asleep, or dare I suggest get up and wander to the water for a dip that could turn into a soak if anxiety sets in and OBC person cannot extract themselves for fear of looking like a beached whale. Whatever OBC person chooses to do, the most exciting part of the beach trip is putting an end to the beach trip.
The beach is heinous.
...
But really, it wouldn't be so heinous if I looked like Zooey Deschanel.

Signed,
OBC lass

Bikes & Wine.

Last night some friends and I rode our bikes to the Brewery to watch a friends band play. Reluctant to go at first because of my Friday morning/afternoon/night commitments, I eventually gave in to peer pressure and pulled Heidi's bike out of the garage. I have to admitt that I'm fairly nonchalant when it comes to noticing other people and my immediate surroundings, HOWEVER as I was walking my sweet ride out of my driveway the girl next door was also doing the same. We both noticed that we were simultaneously doing strange things late at night and broke out in smiles as she asked if I knew certain people. I replied with a yes and it turns out we both have mutual friends, and on this particular night, bike riding friends. As we were riding along the beach path I couldn't help but giggle incesantly the whole trip. It was dark and six of us were barreling down a footpath, inappropriately dressed to be riding a bike, wobbling all over the place. Needless to say, we arrived safely. Throughout our time there we all drank wine and pitchers of beer and ultimately got a touch rowdy. This morning when I awoke my ribbs were sore from laughing so much the previous night.
Oh, the gig was good but thats not the point I'd like to make. My friends feel no need to impress me and I feel no need to impress them. We share a common sense of humour among ourselves and I feel unusually comfortable being myself around them. They dont care what I'm wearing, how my hair is cut or what brand my accessories are. They let me shove my camera in their face with no displeasure and we laugh and tell jokes about the most ridiculous things. Times like these make me realise how lucky I am to be able to study, work and have the most amazing times with new and old friends.

Unconsciously Conscious: Part One

I have this uncanny ability to be able to push anything from my mind and feign ignorance towards the most gut wrenching memories, even when tempted to replay those futile moments inside my mind. Sometimes it works too well. I believe there is an underlying reason we were programmed to remember such things. When you block out the worst parts of someone and only have the good memories, whats to stop you from making the same mistake again?

I Still Love You

Originally uploaded by offal fick.

Point & Shoot With A Purpose

My housemate and I were walking to Camera House yesterday to purchase some 120 film for my Holga 120 CFN. She brought up the topic of analog photography and how she feels there are too many billion photos available on the internet today. This got me thinking about a subject I'm really passionate about-the essence of photography and why we choose to capture the moments we do.
I think the reason why we take photos has been lost in transit, somewhere between the moment we were shooting 35mm film on the family point and shoot, choosing only a special occasion to taint the films surface, to the overwhelming introduction of digital photography in every nook and cranny of our technological lives.
Heidi and I reminisced of the times when we would go to the local camera store with our Mum to get a roll of film developed, not knowing what the outcome of those 27 unviewable shots would be. The photographs always ended up being that much more special; snaps that we couldn't remember taking were gems, the faces of our friends and family beaming up at us from the photograph (more often than not my face was screwed up in a squint because Mum had to have the sun behind her).
Photo albums were raw, sequential documentations of our favourite moments captured on film. Organising photo albums was one of Mums yearly jobs. She brought out the photo box which was filled to the brim with happy snaps from her teens all the way to the present (so many medium format photographs to die for!) and trawled through the silly moments, the birthdays, the bloopers, the Christmas lunches and the holidays, sequentially ordering them into an amazing page by page documentation of her life.
Photography has lost the emotional connection between subject and the photographer. Cameras aren't being used to capture memories and document them as a special point in time. They're being used to advertise oneself to a world wide audience, a quick, ego stroking upload to remind people that yes, you did get a hair cut or buy that expensive dress. Which brings me to my next point, the point and shoot debate. People are so obsessed with being in the picture that they take the picture themselves. I remember those times when an innocent passerby was asked to take the family photograph. This required Dad to show him how the camera worked (which I find hilarious, as there was only one button you could push). Next, we would all look at one another hoping that this individual wasn't some criminal that was going to take off with the beloved family cam. The photograph would be taken, a swift "Thanks mate!" would be uttered and we'd be on our way.
Repping a Digital SLR myself I know I sound like a hypocrite but what I'm trying to get at is an acknowledgement of that fantastic moment when you give yourself one chance to take that perfect (or not so perfect) capture; letting it be, treasuring its flaws and hiding it safely away, ready to look at it in what seems like an age to come.
Pointing and shooting with the intention to freeze the moment, savour time and carry that moment with me is the reason I pick up a camera.

Blue Skies Are Calling

blue skies are calling
Originally uploaded by tess roby

Check out more of this on flickr. It reminds me of that transition between the cooler and warmer months when people are itching to go to the beach but the water is too cold. Left to stand dry on the sand, they're fantasising about what is to come...