Sitting in university on a Sunday day observing the world go by

Dear blog, my confidante of last resort. I am writing to you from melancholic enclosure of the Melbourne Uni Law building. It is strange to sit here. Familiar voices speaking familiar conversations drift around me. But when I turn there is a disconnect and all I see are strangers; the uni kids diligently at work on their assignments, ipods on, apple laptops busily a-typing (because you can always count on the lawyers to be the role model populist alternates), their whole world distilled down to assignments, deadlines and grades (and who's doing who).

Gosh... even the sounds of the laughter is the same. This place is removed from time and space. A sunlit realm where intentions are pure, causes are just, goodwill towards all mankind is overflowing, debates are passionate and full bodied (backed by weighty rhetoric), ideals indestructable, possibilities limitless, wallets thin, power zero. It seemed like an infinite yesterday since I was here, blissfully unaware of the world outside the institution. I often have pangs of longing, wishing I could walk back into those golden moments. But one can never imitate a uni student: one must either be one or a sad pretender and I will not and cannot do either. It would be a waking nightmare and a sleeping dream.

This must be the feeling of age.

Reverse cha cha poker

Ok. Just savoured the bitter taste of humble pie. Lost my Friday winnings + one & half buy-ins. I played poorly on two hands but in general my play was ok. I busted on some nasty hands: my nut flush got knocked in the teeth by a straight flush... top pair + kicker (AK) got kicked in the groin by trip 10s. The list goes on.

Lessons learned? Fate and luck often has a greater say than skill. Humble pie is best served in small portions. Otherwise one could really get stomach ache eating it.

Friday night

I'm sitting here in the dark on the balcony of my apartment, a dram of liquid gold on my left and a half smoked stick of etheral gold on my right. Master of the universe and ruler of none. A young turk ended in his conquest: in this case the poker tables of StarCity.

It was a successful night. Mind clear and the right balance of luck and guile. Tripled my initial buy-in without any setbacks in a two hour sit down. Cashed out near the top without regret. I was tempted on leaving to set the whole chip stack on Red as I was leaving but thought what's the point - money's just way one keeps count and the feeling of winning is priceless. Why counterfeit it?

Money's just the way one keeps count. The arrogance and truth of that statement come in equal measures. It's true as long as one doesn't care and as long as it has no value other than the material (and meaningless) things it buys. But I do have a purpose for it just that there isn't enough zeros there yet to make it meaningful. And the end game buying some phallic trophies. I can't stand the wannabes - the bald aging men in their red Ferraris coverting youth and despoiling beauty, the young 'bai jia zi' - prodigal sons - rightfully losing the rightful spoils of their inheritance, etc, etc and so forth. No I think money = the right to vote on one's vision for others and for the world. And I'm keen to bring forth my solution to a better world.

Master of the Universe. It's pretty lonely even as a adept. And perhaps the path will become even more barren the further one climbs. It probably has nothing to do with the climb but more with me and the evolution of me though in the two are inter-related.

These cigarettes are making me sick. I should stop. This and that. Too dangerous. Full stop.

Walking home

Walking home this evening along a dark tree lined street, I suddenly turned the corner into a bright yet mellowing dusk. The sky was shades of blue tinged with gold and blushes of red.

It was equal in beauty to sunrise and my heart lifted in wonder. Nature reflected Life and Life reflected in Nature. Sunrise, the beginning - a time for hope and wonder. Sunset, the final moments before night - a time for serenity and reflection at the moments passed. A grandmother walked by with a young child in hand. I nodded and smiled and she smiled in return.

If one was to make any wish for someone dear, I think it would be that their sunset be filled with contentment, warmth and family.

Thought shadows

When thoughts are put to paper it is making common something that is unique and often indescribable like: ambrosia on the lips, the weight of love, the hurt of betrayal, the bitterness of regret, the peace of contentment. Words just form the lines of the colouring book that our mind fills in...

But then again, if we don't give form to our thoughts won't they just fade into purgatory? That seems a little sad. Even as a shadow, is it not a better existence than that fate?

Past writings

There's a lot of good stuff in some of my later journal writings. Too bad I can't be bothered transcribing here. What's the point? I write only to myself or anonymously and this medium is just as transient as paper and inferior to the memory of the thought.

Anyhow each piece of writing is a child of mine. I don't want to clone the poor bastards.

An opportunity

To gain, one must sacrifice; to move forward, one must take risks.

Life threw me an opportunity today. I grabbed it. I just hope that I have the ability and dedication to mould it into something truly precious. I have something to prove here; to myself and to others.

God's Will

I've always had a problem with those new age youth groups where everyone seems so happy, holy and full of passion. How can one be human and be so one dimensional? Where is the questions, the doubt and the conflicts that makes one's belief have depth and one's soul have grace?


I've since given this much thought and I've come to see many of the issues that have bothered me. The one that stands out is my firm belief that contractions lie at the heart of all things. What is white without black? What is rich without poor? And how can one understand or be good without the presence and the understanding of evil?


Therefore it is for this reason that I perceive the joyfulness, virtuous, onemindedness of those electric guitar playing, heads rolling, hands waving 'new age' youth Christians as repulsive, sanctimonious and shallow. I feel they use religion as a drug - they are addicted to feeling holy, they are addicted to painting the world in black and white and seeing people as either the chosen or the damned.


Give me instead the flawed vessels humble in their sin. Give me the tears and grasping of people seeking salvation in their own personal, desperate ways. The world and its people are grey and although God made us in His image, he coccooned His essence in a mortal mind and body. Therefore we have the vital spark but it shines out of a shuttered globe into the thick fog of this world, an infant world lost with only a memory of the sun.


I am a child of sin seeking to understand his Father, seeking to do His Plan with my mortal hands.

Samsara

Humans have given romanticism back to the gods and in return assumed the right to degenerate

A Saturday night

I walk the streets, no longer a boy, yet not a man; drank, yet am not drunk; sober enough to see the void within and without. Surely there is more to this polyester world than the empty momentary bouts of passion and rage. The homeless, asleep in their misery, awake in their futility - wrapped in cloth against the winter chill, awake in their wide eyed lust as the young in their mini skirts, designer jeans and loud laughs and voices give sound to the hollowness of existence. Maybe it's just me. Give me a few drinks today and the alcohol makes me a dark philosopher; contrast to that of yesterday where in the sunshine of friendship, hope and life we laughed and drank to the promise of tomorrow.

Perhaps this is the reality that crystallises with age -despair at an increasingly loveless, colourless world where white rabbits are shot, where the wolf eats the pigs and sleeping beauty is passed out in ER. Oh stars above, show me the light that once comforted and guided the lost mariner.

I, You, me, She

I sat at the ferry docks awaiting the next ferry home. Young couples walked about, many of them dressed in colourful costumes varied in their degrees of sexiness, absurdness and commonness. It was a festival but I was tired. The ferry docked and I walked aboard and upstairs; sitting at my usual seat at the back on the left hand side next to the open windows. A cool harbour breeze blew and I began reading my novel.

I dreamed a dream. In it I saw a mountain. A huge mountain that began with virgin forests and reached upwards to the clouds above which the straining eye or the imaginative mind could see, a snow capped peak and a tiny speck (a temple? a hut?); companion to it. Around the mountain stretched vast plains - a black sand plain to the left and yellowing grasslands to the right.
It called to me this place. The vision was a place but what it promised was journey. Oh how my unstill heart ached to climb that mountain and walk those plains! How I longed to search those lands for me; and also perhaps, She.

When I awoke, I created You and then set You free. You the traveller, You the loner, You the searcher. You were to wander where I could not. You, the shadow of I. You, the soul of me.

My girl

Circle of Life - the symphany of joy and sorrow

What is love if not happiness?
What is happiness if not loss?
What is loss if not despair?
What is despair if not love?

Life is full of circular relationships and perhaps this isn't one that everyone believes holds. But nevertheless bittersweet melodies play in everyone's lives at some point and perhaps drives our hedonistic lust to embrace our existence.

Me

There's an inner me: quietly contemplative, sensitive and a melancholic. Perhaps like a poet, afraid to be happy because happiness is meaningless when it is so inevitably fleeting.

There's an outer me: brash yet awkward, outgoing yet shy. Sometimes fun and always given to excesses. A rough shell that yearns for a life of its own.

If I stood at the cliff overlooking the world how many of Me would give in to temptation? How many would stand fast? If I travelled to the ends of the earth what would I find there? Rocks and the sea? Myself and emptiness?

Between these two caught is Me. A dreamer and a nihilist, an optimist and a pretender. Form without form, thoughts without beliefs... at least some of the time.

Life is like a hand of cards - sometimes you get dealt a killer hand and you win, sometimes you get dealt a shit hand and you lose, sometimes you get dealt something and you don't get to win or lose.

Lost a lot of money in Monaco today. There was a message there I'm sure. I lost a lost of marignal hands and when I actually hit on the hand, the dealer was hiding in his little hole (played Caribbean stud). To top it off I lost my wallet at a toll booth on the way home... The only wise thing now is to release stress and the Roman toga party and 1euro booze is doing just the trick

Life is like a deck of cards - the Joker turns up more times than you think.


P.S.
Fellow men, Communists, women

Be good to your Momma

Left Venice two days ago rather regretfully I must say. Such a fantastic city and a tourist's paradise. Drove through Italy today and tonight ended up in Nice. Very nice scenery and packed with people. Hopefully will have time to see Monto Carlo (and punt??) before heading back to Southern Italy.

Even the Grannies drive fast here in Europe. At 150km I'm still getting overtaken by balding men and Grannies in Volkswagons.

David & other Italian sights

In Florence today. Spent 2.5hrs of my life on the a 30°C sidewalk queing to see the famous Micheanglo's statue David. Some guy tried to cut the line towards the end and XYZ inspired incited the whole line into riot level aggression at this tragic little French man in his little red shirt (felt sorry for his kid though) with which ended his ambitions. The indignation, the injustice! I think the truth was everyone was just bored and pissed off we'd lost so much of our life sitting on pidgeon shit and getting slow baked in the sun.

Yesterday we saw the 'field of miracles' (aka. the Leaning Tower of Pisa and everything surrounding it) and paid €15 and waited 2hrs to climb it for 20mins... It leaned, and there were good views but that was about it. There was much more fun to be had seeing what photos one could take with the tower (coming to the photo section soon - The Monster of Pisa)

I was impressed by the Vatican city, the Pantheon and Rome in general. But so far it seems Italy is filled with high entrance fees and wait times for otherwise mediocre (but 'must do') sights. Another thing the pizza here is DEFINATELY NOT AS GOOD as Lygon St pizza or even Dominos for that matter.


P.S.
A word of advice. If you want to see David buy a postcard or if that isn't enough, see the plaster of paris version instead.

The Pickpocket

A few days ago in Rome some gypsie looking guys tried to pick pocket me. I think one guy tried as I was getting onto the bus (I only felt a nudge) but failed. A little later I noticed later the same guy stand close to me on the bus with a couple of his buddies closing off most of the view and try again. This time I actually saw a hand touch the move downwards under a jumper he was carrying almost as if he was trying to scratch his leg. I was wearing a baggy pair of shorts and saw his hand actually move a little into the pocket but the wallet was too far down and I was staring hard at him. Unfortunately at that moment we got to a stop and they quickly got off as I started abusing them.

Goes to show:

1) Being short and wearing baggy pants isn't so bad
2) Being bald is not only cool on the head and saves on haircuts it also helps scare off the gypsies
3) Italians don't only go down in soccer, they do it on buses and on the streets too

Trip Highlights - my surviving All Stars.

I´ve been lazy. My aim of keeping a blog and journal of my travels in Europe had fallen by the wayside early in the trip approximately 120 empty beer bottles ago and neither memory nor will is enough to resurrect it. My last entry in my journal was a summary of my travels in Morocco about a month ago and well... this is only my second blog entry. So I´ve decided now to compile a Trip Highlights - my surviving All Stars. For ease they will be chronological order and in point form. Here goes.



Early Berlin (April 18th to April 25th)

• Arrive in Berlin after 36hrs flying drunk on beer and spirits (don´t take United Airlines - their idea of air hostesses is 60yr old men who think they´re women and 60ton women who are too Woman. This begs the question why the weight restrictions on these planes?? Just fire a couple of the big ones)
• Ran around the Pergammon museum seven times
• First taste of Fine German dining - the curry wurst + beer combo
• Oooh aaaah at the Berliner Dome, my first encounter with European churches
• Realize beer is cheaper than bottled water... give up drinking water
• Lose my first camera

Amsterdam (April 25th to April 28th?)

• First afternoon enjoyed the ´modern´ Amsterdam men´s toilet (the Tree v2.0) - a sheet of metal wrapped around a pole a couple of times. Later ate a weak space muffin (0.2g) at Bulldogs Coffee Shop whilst watching the lady next door prepare to Open Shop (at night). XYZ encourages me to eat more cake
• See The Amsterdam Sex Museum and look at depraved historical Jap art, the predecessors to Hentai - old men only, no monsters
• Visit a really cool tulip farm and ride XYZ around on a two seater bike. See first sight of windmills and visit Leiden, a fantastic traditional Holland town with the best tasting waffles I´ve had this trip
• Go on a ´Grand Holland sights´tour. XYZ doesn´t like the tour so we skip the afternoon half and argue with the tour office to refund us our money
• The tour office gives up and gives us canal cruise and Van Gogh museum tickets. We celebrate by visiting Greenhouse Effect Coffee Shop. I convince XYZ to try the cake and we each order a slice, me banana and her chocolate (1g a piece). Head to docks and jump on first canal cruise. Halfway through the cruise shit gets out of hand. XYZ goes numb and I start laughing at cog jokes, really freaking out the couple sitting across from us. We sit for another hour on the boat but the effects of cake last until the next morning
• Give up drugs and go back to beer

Still more to come next time

Europe Trip

Europe... seat of the Western Civilization and a steaming brewpot of cultures and people. I began my travels in Europe mid April, 2007 with the view of seeing as much of it as I could within 3 months. So far I've travelled through a fair part of central Europe - Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Czech Republic and a few interesting places in the South - Morocco, Portugal, Spain. In the next couple of days I will be moving from the Czech Republic to Vienna in Austria and onto Budapest in Hungary. There is the slight chance that I will be visiting Switzerland after that, though given the tight schedule - flight from Stuttgart, Germany to Rome, Italy on June 19th, this may not be possible. From Italy onwards I intend to fly to Cypress and travel via the islands to the Greece peninsular. By the time I finish there it will be late July and there will be a flight waiting for me to Shanghai, China from Frankfurt, Germany and then finally back into Australia where a job and Life awaits.

Travelling is a step out of reality.

I found that going through so may places at such a quick speed is like flicking through the National Geographic and seeing only the browns and the greens that is Africa - you get the feeling but not the full substance. As a speed traveller you're only ever there to see a few notable landmarks, ohhh and ahhh at a couple of cultural relics and talk to other English travellers - usually Canadians. If you're lucky you'll be able to sit at a cafe and absorb some of the atmosphere. If you're unlucky you'll be hit smack in the face by some local filth thrown at you in a foreign language by a socially maladjusted individual. A lot of the time an encounter like that is enough to colour your entire experience and memory of that place and for some people is enough to develop into a prejudice not only against that individual, but against his whole family and all his countrymen. That's why its always good to stow away pride in your backpack and keep handy a phrase book of common local abuse to dish out with a cheery grin and a 'fuck off, don't spoil my day' attitude. Fortunately most locals are friendly towards travellers and I've never stopped being grateful and surprised at the lengths they'll go to help out a lost alien like myself.

I sometimes wonder what life is like for people in the places I visit. The beggar on the street, the harried business man, the persistent market vendor, the jolly drunk. Not only their lifestyle but also the internal makeup of these people. One of the questions that I always ask myself is: are we really all that different? From what I've observed thus far I don't think we are. I suspect that at the base level we're all pretty similar, driven by the same sort of love, hate, ambition, etc forces. I think the perceiveable differences mainly lie in society´s preachings on outward appearances which determine embarrassment levels. Underneath that at the mid level things like education, religion affects the tolerance of for new ideas/culture and morality, etc and this gets thrown together into some sort of belief system. But at the surface level I think it´s just about what looks right to the rest of the people.

The world and its people without the dressing is a salad. All we taste is the sauce.