Mark Time

Recently I received my report card.

I must admit that it was a bit of a disappointment, especially considering my results last year at the end of grade ten.

But because I had previously received my marks from my last exams in class I expected the results that I got.

But this didn’t make them any less disappointing.

I know that I had a bad first term, what with everything happening on top of the fact that it was hard enough stepping up the BIG jump that is between grade ten and grade eleven. So I pretty much screwed that term up, by my standards. But I do think that second term wasn’t really much better, in retrospect. I still managed to obtain a smaller yes but still existent accumulation of c+’s . I know that some people say that a c+ isn’t that bad but see the thing is that for me it is bad. And in term two I managed to gain just one. But see the thing is, this c- actually, was also accompanied by a d+ which is even worse. And to top it all off, it was for chemistry. I suppose it would have been ok to get it for anything else but just not a science. Seeing as I do three science/maths subjects that would leave English, maths or drama. And you know, I have thought about it so hard, having been now placed in the situation, and I have tried and tried to decide on one subject that, if I had to screw up, I would screw up that one. But see the thing is that I cant decide on one subject to fail. I’m just too competitive and even SOR which really doesn’t matter, still matters because I cant stand seeing a mark that is below a b+.

I have a problem though.
When I am actually doing the assignment, sometimes, I forget what it feels like to receive anything lower than a b+ and so I become lazy and don’t complete the assignment or study as hard because sometimes I feel I have better things to do. No, not better things to do, just more fun things to do.

Hopefully though, this last semester taught me my lesson.

I am terribly embarrassed by the overall marks of some of my subjects on my report card.
I am particularly embarrassed to admit them to my three best friends, who are the most likely ones to read this.
Which is why I am now going to write what the overall marks for all of my subjects, so that the three people who I don’t want to tell can know and I can also say to them I will never again have to be embarrassed by my marks.

Maths – B+
English – B+
SOR – B+
Physics – A- (I would just like to point out that I am third in the ranking in the grade.. im quite proud of that mark!)
Chemistry – C+
Drama – C+

Those two last marks will never happen. Needless to say, those last two marks are my most embarrassing, particularly the second last. But I still shouldn’t be getting b+ because I know that I could do so much better. Im almost sure that if I did even 15 more minutes a day of homework then I would be at the VHA range. Its ridiculous because thats what all my teachers seemed to think in my interviews.

So what im saying now is that this semester I am going to do better and work harder and get better marks in all my subjects. And my reward at the end will be a lovely school award, something which I have never gotten but always wanted to get.

I will do this, and I will try harder, because I KNOW that I can.

Another thing

Just another thing that happened today..

I just want you to know that when you are happy, i am happy.
When you're sad, i am sad.
Thats why, when you told me there was problems at home, problems with the girl, that nothing was going right for you today, that you felt shit,
i also felt shit.
i felt it my personal mission to fix things for you, because i couldnt bare seeing you so unhappy.
Even if it meant hurting myself to get you happy again, i would do it.
Like getting you the girl, which would probably hurt me very much.
But i want you to be happy.
You didnt give me the chance yet to do that, but i hope i can, because i cant bare to see you like this.
although i must admit it to you and be honest.. you have no idea how much i have wished for you to not be with the girl. I'm sorry.

I hope it all gets better for you BB, you and M both.

'Beauty' is only how you see something.

I wasn’t sure what to write about today but I really wanted to write something so here’s my train of thought for the night.

I was fixing up my myspace profile and I wanted to put a particular picture in my about me section that is really a magnificent photo. It was taken by my parents friend Mad-Aussie (as he is known on the internet). Earlier in the year he and his wife went over to Western Australia for two weeks or so. MA is very interested in photography and, because he can, he has a very professional camera worth at least five thousand dollars. Needless to say, this camera takes excellent photos. You would certainly hope it does after what it cost!

Anyway, he took some fantastic photos in Western Australia, especially of the natural beauties that can be found there (beaches, forests and such). One such photo is this one.


Now I love this particular image for many reasons, not the least of which it being so amazingly abstract and perfect; he has managed to capture the raw beauty that the earth has so magnificently, able to show its splendour and yet still portray that us humans are no match for the earth, to show how strong the earth really is. When I look at this image its like I can feel the roughness of the rock against my skin. Its like I can feel the rhythmic pull and push of the waves, and hear them in my ears. Its like I can feel the softness of the clouds brushing my cheeks and feel the slight breeze playing with my hair. I suppose this is no thanks to the good quality of the image because it was taken by such a good camera. But it also intrigues me for two other reasons.

Number one is the circumstances in which I first saw it, but I wont say anything more about that :P

Number two is because I know for a fact that this image has been photoshopped.

MA is your typical “computer nerd”; his job is to make websites for other companies. So naturally he knows a lot about computers and, having more spare time than some, he also has the ability to play around a lot on the computer. He used photoshop on all of his photos, even just to put his stamp on there: Astro Visual Photography. However, with this image he spent a fair bit of time on.

He actually took three images of the same thing. In each image he focused on one aspect of the whole picture: first the sky, then the rocks and finally the sea. See, when you take a photo, most of the time only one part of it turns out how you want it too, with perfect colouring and exposure and colour saturation and a hundred other things. So if you concentrate on just one object or section in the picture and get it perfect you can then combine it with another image that has concentrated on a different section of the same photograph. This is exactly what MA did, took three photos of the same picture, each one concentrating on a different section. He then took the image into photoshop and merged the three together, creating the final photograph.

I think he should be commended on his creativity and ability to create such a wonderful photo!

Anyway, knowing how the image was created reminds me of something I have previously said, about how you should always look at the good things in life instead of the bad ones. But what this image made me think is a little different.
Life isn’t beautiful. Its only you who makes it beautiful.
The reason this picture made me think this is because the actual place where the photo was taken is not actually as enchanting as it appears in the final picture. Its only how MA has photoshopped it that makes it beautiful.

Sometimes life may seem ugly. But thats only because thats how your seeing it. If you change how you see the world then it will magically become much better.

Appriciate what you have and your life will seem more beautiful.

_________________________________________________

You can view more of Mad-Aussie's pictures on PhotoBucket:
http://s166.photobucket.com/albums/u104/Mad-Aussie/

Why I Did It

This post was written 11:16pm 21 July 2009

Once there was a girl. She was seventeen and had the perfect life; the was beautiful, she was smart, she had the best boyfriend that anyone could ask for. She also had a wonderful social life. At least every second weekend she would gout and party; get completely drunk and have the time of her life. She always felt safe though because her boyfriend was always by her side to keep her out of trouble. After one particularly big night out, it was four in the morning and she had to leave a party because she had an exam on the next day. Needless to say, she was completely off her face and in no fit state to do anything really. However, she knew that she had to get home so she got into her car and started the engine. Her boyfriend knew that she was in no fit state to drive and he offered to take her home. However, she being a stubborn girl, told him that she would drive. After a short argument, her boyfriend let her drive. After all it was only around the corner..

She never even saw the truck coming.

She woke up in hospital to the quiet ‘beep, beep’ if a heart rate monitor. Her mother was crying while she told the girl what had happened.. How the amount of alcohol she had consumed that night had affected her inhibitions.. how she had gone onto the other side of the road.. How the truck couldn’t break fast enough and sent them into a tree..
The girl listened to all of this in stunned silence. But she knew something was horribly wrong..
She asked her mother about her boyfriend, where was he, was he ok? Her mother just shook her head, silent tears running down her face,
“Oh honey, he died in the crash.”
The girl just felt her world slip away. She felt everything come crashing down around her. She felt her heart shatter into a thousand pieces.

Her only injuries had been a large and deep cut in her left forearm made from the windscreen glass. But her more painful injuries were not physical. She knew that it had been her fault that her boyfriend had died, her fault that there was one less person in the world, her fault that he died before his time. She blamed herself for everything so much that she spiralled down into depression and caused her parents to be so concerned about her that they sent her to a councillor. The councillor helped her to understand what happened but not to blame herself for it. Eventually she was able to get her life back on track; she finished grade twelve and started a uni course. One day she looked down at her left forearm and realised that she could barely see the scar where she had been cut in the accident. When she looked at her arm, everything came back to her. She recognised that she could have avoided everything if she had just done the right thing..
From then on she never got drunk and never let her friends drive drunk either.
She learnt from what had happened.

Thats the best why do describe why I wrote that blog. Writing it was like looking at my scar – remembering and recognising everything that happened and putting it all behind me. I never meant to hurt you by writing it and even while I was writing it I knew that there was a possibility that you would read it.. and it hurt me again, knowing that you could be hurt. But I knew that I had to write it so that I could forget everything that happened.

You can never get over something if you don’t recognise fully what that something was.

The one secret I was determined to keep from you was how much you were hurting me, because I knew that letting you know this would hurt you and I could bare to have you in pain. Thats why I never stood up to you because I knew that doing so would cause you pain and I just couldn’t do that to you. I rathered that I was in pain than you were. Somehow, I stupididly managed to convince myself that you reading that blog wouldn’t matter, because you would still understand that I love you so much. I didn’t realise that yes, you do realise this but that my blog would cause you so much pain that, for now at least, whether I love you or not doesn’t matter.

Im so sorry that in healing myself, in writing that blog, I broke you. I can only hope that it will be quick healing and not leave a scar.
I never realised that the words ‘I love you’ wouldn’t hold enough value to show you how I feel. But I do love you and I more than love you.

The 27 Things I Learnt Today

I learnt a number of things today.
What I mean is I learnt more things than I usually do. Well I at least remembered the things this time.

So.
1. I learnt that sometimes bad news hits you hard, especially when you least expect it.
2. I learnt that sometimes you feel like you can’t cope with the bad news, that it will suffocate you.
3. I learnt that I had been hoping for something for a long time.
4. I learnt that telling myself not to hope made me sub-consciously hope even more.
5. I learnt that I knew all along that this was going to happen.
6. I learnt that after being told it had happened, I could so quickly spiral down into unhappiness, despite my best efforts not to.
7. I learnt that something can stay at the forefront of my mind for endless hours, and even leave my brain half awake while I am sleeping, to worry about it.
8. I learnt that I would once again blame myself.
9. I learnt that I am incredibly selfish and will not try to act happier around people, so as to save them pain as well.
10. I learnt that if I have a worry on my mind, I will think much clearer, I will do more work in class and not be distracted easily.
11. I learnt that I will get worked up about something rather unimportant in the light of everything else, something so uniportant I wont even tell my best friends because, to be honest, I'm slightly embarressed by it, me making a huge big deal about something so small and something that I'm taking for granted, something like one boy, one lovely, perfect boy.. NO. He may be perfect, but he may not be for me..
12. I learnt that I will do anything to prove myself to someone, even if it’s a fruitless attempt.
13. I learnt that I will do this sub-consciously.
14. I learnt that happiness is so much easier to maintain than sadness is.
15. I learnt that I can only be unhappy for so long; after than my happiness seems to catch up to me and I get a MASSIVE high, where I am literally bouncing off the walls.
16. I learnt that once I don’t have my friends to distract me anymore I will go back into misery-mode.
17. I learnt that (surprisingly) going to work was able to clear my mind and not make me bitter about what had happened.
18. I learnt that giving someone a smile, even if it’s not real, will make you, and them, actually smile for real and be happier.
19. I learnt that packet liquorice can be “fresh”. (as opposed to packed liquorice that is not fresh..? if it isn’t fresh (past the use by date) then it shouldn’t be being sold!)
20. I learnt that I love some people more than I thought or realised that I did.
21. I learnt that I need to remind myself to be positive, and that I should.
22. I learnt that I need to practice more for my choir audition! :S
23. I learnt that I miss a friendship.
24. I learnt that, this time, I have the power to be friends with her again and that will use this to my advantage (i.e. be friends with her again :P)
25. I learnt that “I need somebody to lo-ove, I – need somebody to lo-ove!”
26. I learnt that things are never as they seem.
27. I learnt that I should always have hope.

I have hope in this.
Please don’t let me be disappointed.
Please.

p.s. does anyone else think its a little.. disturbing that none of the things I learnt today were from my schoolwork and will help me get a good OP..

OH WELL.

A [Nasty] Suprise

I knew that it was coming.

I knew that it would hurt.

But i didnt realise it was so soon or it would hurt so much.

Harry Potter Vs. Twilight

So in light of the new harry potter movie coming out, I thought it was high time that I blogged about Harry Potter vs. Twilight.

So like quite a few people in this world (I would say about one third of the twilight population and about one seventh of the Harry Potter population) I am a HUGE fan of both Harry Potter and Twilight. I know quite a few people who are MASSIVE Twilight fans, and cant stand the name ‘Harry Potter’ and also visa versa. Quite often I find that I need to decide which one I love more, Harry Potter or Twilight?

The answer took me a while to come up with.
But its quite simple.
I don’t like either more than the other.

See they are such different stories, to compare them would be an insult to both.
Twilight is a love story, a little action, a few moral lessons, but mostly its a love story, an absolutely beautiful, wonderfully written, absolutely extraordinary love story.

Now me being a rather ridiculous hopeless romantic, according to Kate, I love the whole idea of a perfect man, such as Edward, for such an ordinary girl, such as Bella, who, I might add, I feel I can understand particularly well, seeing as I see myself exactly the same as Bella sees herself. Being well brought up on traditional fairy tales, I think that Edward’s and Bella’s story is so enchanting it just has to be put as number one. I dont think that another author could have captured the rare and undescribable essence of romantic love, as well as Stephenie Meyer has.

On the other hand is Harry Potter.

Harry Potter has encaptured the imaginations of millions of people worldwide, rather than just the small category of teenage girls and a few mums, which is who Twilight appeals to. I started reading Harry Potter when I was seven; I will never forget the day that my Aunty Sue gave me Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone for my seventh birthday. I remember thinking (and I now realise that this is attribute to the atrocious blubs that always adorn the back of the HP books) Why would I want to read a book about an eleven year old boy? None-the-less, I started reading it a few weeks after receiving it. I might just add that up until this point I HATED reading, probably because my library consisted of the books given to young primary school children meant to be read aloud. Personally, I found the stories about little John and his dog, or Jane and her doll rather boring, always having had a rather large imagination and been read hundreds of children’s’ books by my parents, the most dominant being the complete works of Blinky Bill and Winnie the Pooh.

From what I can remember, I fell in love with Harry’s story from the first page. He was also a character I found I could identify with, even though I was only seven. See I have never had any particularly good talents, never been the best in my field. I was and still am near the top in most things, but never at THE top. There have always been people better than me at everything and both Harry and Bella are like this. Most heroes of fictional stories are just that: heroes. They are very good at something, or lots of things, or they are particularly kind or lucky. This has, I sadly admit, never been me. This is perhaps why I love and identify very much with both the characters of Bella and Harry.

Harry’s story is full of magic and action and morals and one needs a very big imagination to read the story and fully appreciate it. Reading it as a seven, eight, nine, ten year old I was so enchanted by his world and the world of wizards. Here was a story that combined the ancient world of magic with our modern world; this had not been done before, and if it had then not with as much imagination than what J.K.Rowling had used. Her plots are so intricately designed that it takes ages of thought to unravel them; one could NEVER guess the ending, and I think the final ending of the seventh stunned us all.

Because both Harry Potter and Twilight are so important to me I find it impossible to compare them and to decide on which one I love more. It would be like comparing a river with a star: simply impossible to decide on which one is better because they are both so different but so beautiful.

I love to read both of them, and I still do, numerous times in a year.
Every time I read one I forget about how the other is so brilliant.

And that is why I love both of them and will continue to do so, I would say, for my whole life.

I need to tell you something, something important

I think its time that I told you how I feel.

Its been said by others before me and it will be continued to be said by others after me.
I just cant seem to find the right words to say it.
As I have previously said, the English dictionary doesn’t contain enough words to express how I feel.
Others seem to find the right words.

But I cant seem to be able to.

It seems like what I am feeling, no one else in the world has ever felt before.

How do you make me feel this way?
Tell me your secret, so that I can play this trick back on you.

Perhaps I should make up my own language?
Or use the language of love, French?
Whatever one I used, you would not understand me.

Is that what I want?
No.
See, the thing is that I want you to know that I fell for you.
Im just scared of you tell me that you didn’t fall for me.

Listening to Snow Patrol at the moment.
They at least had the right words to say how you can’t have the right words.
I don’t quite know how to say how I feel.
Those three words are said too much, but not enough.

I cant describe in words how you make me feel inside.
Its not love; we’re not close enough for that.
But its the want of loving you that makes me feel this way, and I want to give in to that want.
But how can I if you cant love me back?

How do I fuckin tell if you want to love me back?
Give me a sign, it would be so much easier.
Perhaps you have given me plenty, but I just didn’t see them.

Perhaps you could have loved me at the start
but I just left it too late
and now someone else has stolen your heart.

I don’t know why you talk to me
Or why I talk to you
All I know is that when im not talking to you
All I can think about wanting to

Why is it that you always start talking to me first?
But you then take 5 minutes to reply to anything I say?
Is that a sign? For what?
Why is it that you call me names, say things that warm me inside?
But then talk to other girls like they're the only ones in the world too?

Im sick of pretending that you don’t matter to me.
Because you do.
More than what I think you should.
But I don’t see how I can help that.
I don’t know if I want to know if you understand, or feel the same way.
What if you don’t?
But what if you do?

I don’t know if I should take that chance, the chance of our friendship, which is more than friendship to me, just to know if you feel the same way.

I really just need you to say it first.
But because you haven’t said it yet, is that another sign that you don’t feel that way?

I don’t know what to do.
I don’t know what to do.
I don’t know what to do.

The only thing I can do right now is tell you how I feel.

In French.
Je pense que je suis tombé pour toi. Vous me faites le sentir comme le soleil, vous rendez me le sentir beau, vous me faites le sentir comme la fille la plus chanceuse au monde quand vous me regardez. Veuillez me vous dire sensation la même manière.

In my own language.
Sdfklh ioahoie ndiuohf ohnf oi oihfnal oif o lkhasdoi hiosdpohe oiahsdfhi asd fiehaf oihjf iosd hoipe ioshiode oihsdohfioeurn cf a a fjoihl djjdfioek d salisdhoiadoihljsdo oihosdfhoidfh oidhfhoasoid ajihashdhfoihoih aoihdh jsoh doihfohofof.

In English.
I think I’ve fallen for you. You make me feel like sunshine, you make me feel beautiful, you make me feel like the luckiest girl in the world when you look at me. Please tell me you feel the same way.

I know that sounds corny.
But that isn’t exactly what I want to say.
What I want to say isn’t in the English, or the French or even my dictionary.
What I want to say isn’t words.

BB I hav nothing else to say.
I don’t know if you read this, or even if I want you to.
But at least I know that I have written it.

Please don’t leave me.
Because I think I can already feel it breaking.

It's over.

I never want to confront that again.

It’s over and done.
All is not well, but it’s as close as I expect it to be, and im happy at how it is at the moment.

Now that I have written about everything, I want to put it all behind and start afresh. A new beginning, a new start, with nothing in the past holding us back.

When I reflect back on everything, I realise how bad it really was. But at the time, I just kept telling myself it will get better, it could be much worse. I realise that this in fact made it worse, me not acknowledging it, but even with hindsight I know that I could have never confronted the problem.

I am just a non-confrontational person. And the bigger people see me as being weaker, and so take advantage of me.

I know that people take advantage of me.
I know that they see my kinder nature and use that to their advantage.
I would just rather them do that, if it’s not hurting me that much, that confront them and hurt them, even though sometimes they are hurting me so much.

I hope, I pray with all my heart dear God, that neither I nor anyone else has to go through what I did again.

Thank you God for listening to my prayers and answering them, making it all better. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

I Never Knew..

I never knew what was going to happen.
I never knew that what made me so happy could make you so angry.
I never knew that I would cry all of my tears and eventually have none left to cry.
I never knew that there was a different type of pain.
I never knew that it could hurt so much more.
I never knew that I could ever hate you.
I never knew that I could love you so much.
I never knew that loving a person could make them hurt you even more.
I never knew that you had so much jealousy in you.
I never knew that I would cry myself to sleep every night.
I never knew that I could be so angry.
I never knew that I could be so hurt.
I never knew that I could hate coming to school so much, because I knew that you would be there.
I never knew that something so unimportant could screw everything up.
I never knew that I could feel like I was breaking apart.
I never knew how much I trusted you.
I never knew how much love overlooks every flaw.
I never knew that you could come crawling back.
I never knew that I could ever be so confused and hurt.
I never knew that a person who I knew for four weeks and live on the other side of the country could be one of my greatest sources of comfort.
I never knew that I would just sit back and let you destroy me.
I never knew that I could always feel so close to breaking down in tears.
I never knew that this would affect my whole senior schooling.
I never knew that, in a room full of people, I could feel so lonely.
I never knew that I could actually doubt whether you loved me, even when you said you did.
I never knew that simple things can be the ones that hurt the most.
I never knew that I would ever even consider moving schools.
I never knew that I would understand why people commit suicide.
I never knew that I would understand how people cut themselves.
I never knew that the unsaid things were the most important.
I never knew that I would keep it inside of me, tearing me apart, almost until it got unbearable.
I never knew that I could feel so vulnerable.
I never knew that you could make me feel this way.
I never knew that you could hurt someone so much.
I never knew the other side of you.
I never knew that I would think some things about you.
I never knew that I would ever bitch about you.
I never knew that I would feel guilty for what you had done to me.
I never knew that I would feel guilty for being happy.
I never knew the cost of what I asked for was.
I never knew that I would ever doubt you.
I never knew that I would shy away from your friendship.
I never knew that I would feel guilty for doing so.
I never knew that my home could be such a safe haven from you.
I never knew that every time I started to heal, I would be torn apart again and again.
I never knew that I would be so stressed.
I never knew that school would be so hard.
I never knew that you could make it so hard, just by being there.
I never knew how much I would want to please you.
I never knew how much I would hate myself for doing so.
I never knew that a “joke” could actually be the truth.
I never knew that you would think of me in that way.
I never knew how much it would hurt for you to do so.
I never knew that the other type of healing took so long.
I never knew that you can never be completely healed for some things.
I never knew that I would sit for hours on my roof in the freezing cold, praying for you to have what you wanted, just so that it would be okay between us.
I never knew that I would be so desperate for something but so helpless to achieve it.
I never knew that I would feel so guilty, so angry at myself for what you were doing to me.
I never knew that I would blame your actions on me.
I never knew that I could feel so helpless.
I never knew how much jealousy is a part of my life.
I never knew how much jealousy would shape my life.
I never knew that I could ever feel so indecisive.
I never knew that I would feel like shaking you, hurting you so much to make you wake up and see how you were hurting me.
I never knew that you could be so blind to see that you were hurting me.
I never knew that I would blame this on myself.
I never knew that I would try and pretend that this was nothing.
I never knew that I would tell myself that it could be worse.
I never knew that I would hear someone, many people, call you a bully.
I never knew how bad it had really got, until it had gone.
I never knew how much it had affected me, until it had gone.
I never knew how much I was stressed, until it had gone.
I never knew that I was failing because of you, until it had gone.
I never knew how unhappy I really was, until it had gone.
I never knew that I was depressed, until it had gone.
I never knew how good life was, until it had gone.

I never knew that when things got better, they really do get better.

I never knew how hard this would be to write.
I never knew that I would ever have to write it.

I never knew that I could still love you so much, even after all that has happened.

I love you and I always will. Just allow me time to heal first.
Thank-you with all my heart, and I’m sorry.

Never Enough Words..

Just a follow up on yesterday’s blog.

I was reading a book this morning, Handle with Care by Jodi Picoult, and I came across a paragraph that sums up (much more gracefully than I had) how sometimes there are not enough words to say how you feel.

The world would be a much easier place if, instead of handing over superstuffed syllables all the time, we just said what we really meant. Words got in the way. The things we felt the hardest – like what it was like to have a boy tough you as if you were made of light, or what it meant to be the only person in the room who wasn’t noticed – weren’t sentences; they were knots in the wood of our bodies, places where our blood flowed backward. If you asked me, not that anyone ever did, the only words worth saying were I’m sorry.
Handle with Care, Jodi Picoult, page 397.

It seems I’m not the only one who thinks that there are never enough words to say the most important things.

Compliments

Compliment (noun) Statement of Praise: someting said to express praise or approval.

A compliment is a funny thing. It can be a lie or a truth. Generally it is meant to make someone feel good about themselves, about how they look or dress or act, or anything really. A compliment is the most common form of a lie; everyone has to admit that they have lied to someone by giving them an untrue compliment, so as to not hurt the other person’s feelings.

Some people give out compliments easily, both true and untrue. Others find it harder to give compliments, for various reasons. There are positive and negative aspects of both types of compliment-givers. I know people who are the “easy” compliment-givers and I know others who are the “harder” compliment givers. And I have noticed that the easy compliment-givers expect more compliments in return than the hard compliment-givers.

I have noticed, and also regretted in some ways, that I am the harder compliment giver. I have tried to find reasons for this and none of them seem to quite fit the reason why I find it hard to give compliments to other people.

Perhaps it’s because I don’t like receiving compliments myself?
Or maybe it’s because I don’t notice if someone is looking particularly nice on day?
It might be because a lot of other people give compliments and I don’t want to be repeating what someone has already said?
It possibly may be because I don’t have the right words to describe what a feel without sounding corny?

Whatever the reason is, I always feel uncomfortable and out of place when I give someone a compliment, even if it’s something like ‘your hair looks nice today’ or ‘that was a really nice thing you did’. I can say it to another person later on but never to the person’s face at the time of occurrence.

I find though, that the English Dictionary doesn’t contain enough words to express how I feel. I have never been very good at emotional situations; not happy or worrying or excited situations, I’ve never had a problem with those. But the really deep situations, like saying ‘I love you’ to someone and really mean it or to comfort someone using words because I can never find the right ones. I think that the old saying 'Actions speak louder than words' is very relevant to me. I do know some people who that saying doesn’t really relate to them; they use words an awful lot and don’t find it hard to say something and really mean it (to say something and not really mean it too, for that matter) but not me.

I think it may come with being shy. Even though I am far from shy when I am around people who I know really well, my shyness is still there when it comes to saying how I really, really feel. I don’t even say ‘I love you’ to my parents very much at all, perhaps maybe twice or three times a year? For some reason the words feel like rocks in my mouth and I can’t seem to spit them out. Like Calamari once said
“The more you say those three words, the less meaning they have.”
This is so unbelievably true, more so than I think some people realise.

The same thing is true for compliments for me; if you tell someone that they are beautiful every single day, eventually the words loose meaning and you can’t ever give that meaning back to them, which in a way is sad.

So always be careful what you say and how you throw your compliments around; after a while the start to lose meaning. Perhaps show your feelings in a different way: smile at them or make them laugh or help them do something. This has much more effect and even better is that it never loses meaning, no matter how many times you do it.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m sorry to my friends and family, and acquaintances and even just people on the street. I know I don’t give out very many compliments but I try to show how I feel with means other than words. But the truth is that I do think that ALL of you are beautiful EVERY SINGLE DAY and I thank you for making my world a more beautiful place.

Fairies & Shirley Barber

I was in Emily’s room the other night, looking for a particular book of poems (from which in fact the poem “On the Ning Nang Nong” came from) and I got slightly distracted by the books from my childhood. In particular, the magical fairy stories written and beautifully illustrated by Shirley Barber.
Did anyone else ever read the fairy stories from Shirley Barber as a kid?
Perhaps you may recognise her artwork, which is truly remarkable and magical and so unbelievably enchanting... well at least I have always thought so and still do, especially looking at them now.
So of course I decided to read the stories again, but mainly I looked at the pictures, which have so much incredible detail that one can be captivated by them for hours. The garments of the fairies look so light and flowy and graceful; the fairies themselves are all extraordinarily beautiful and their hair enchants me so much the way it is so long and beautiful and their hair pieces just make everything look so perfect...

Can you tell that my biggest childhood wish was to become a fairy?

The little girl saw a shooting star for the first time in her life. She had heard about them before of course; all proper fairy tale books have including the wishing upon a star story before.
“Daddy, look!” she squealed, “I saw a shooting star!”
“Quick, make a wish!” her father told her, “If you were the first person to see that shooting star then you can make a wish upon it! It might even come true!”
So the little girl squeezed her eyes tight and wished with all her might
“I wish that I could be a fairy.”

Fairies always looked like they lived in a magical, faultless world where everyone was beautiful and kind and helped each other. Their world was perfect.

Even as a very small child it appears that I somehow knew that the world was and still is imperfect, and perhaps this is why I wanted so badly to become one of those stunning fairies and live in a land far off...

Now I have a better grasp of our world and I have come to a different conclusion.

Our world is perfectly imperfect.

There are certainly some very ugly things in our world: poverty, murder, rape, betrayings, stealing, pain.. the list is endless.

But also endless, and I believe even more so, is the list of all the wonderful, magnificent, glorious, perfect things that there are in our world.
It is these things that make our world perfect.
Because our world is perfect.
It has the most perfect balance of perfect and imperfect things in it, and this is what makes it so remarkably perfect and flawless, indescribably so.

Please, let’s keep our world so.
Continue to appreciate the perfect things here, but never forget the imperfect ones.
We can try to eliminate the bad things; we never can but because our world is ever-growing so is the number of bad things. The thing is that it’s the good things that need effort to make happen; the bad things will just happen anyway. If we want to keep the balance then we must compensate the growing number of bad things but creating a contrasting growing number of good things.

This takes effort, but I believe that we can all do it.

Don’t ever forget the good things, for becoming bogged down in the bad things will never help anything get better.

This is for those who may believe they have a problem now. Remember the good things, because it always, always gets better. I’m not saying that your problems don’t matter; I’m just saying that there are other more important things to worry about.

Wow I'm proud of myself!

i really am!
look how much i've written!
its amazing!

it seems i wont have any problems finding stuff to write about.
but i am sorry if what i have written about so far is a bit boring.. at least its helped me :)

yay i just got skype working with bendigo and now we can talk!
:D

The argument with Mum..

It seems like the moment I wrote about teenagers being stupid and only thinking about the now I became one. I was completely out of line and I know it and im sorry mum for causing you pain and annoyance by continuing to argue with you over the computer, when I know that everything you say is actually true.
Yes, I am addicted to the computer and no I don’t think I could “quit” it cold turkey, just like you said.
Yes, I know that I always bellow down the stairs and on the rare occasion have I come and asked you properly and nicely to unblock the computer, just like you said.
Yes, I know that it’s for my own good that the computer shuts down at nine o’clock, just like you said.
Yes, I only go on rubbish sites and no they don’t help me in the slightest educational way, just like you said.
Yes, I know it doesn’t matter what every other family does and what other people think, just like you said.
Yes, I know I spend too much time on the computer, just like you said.

I’m sorry mum. I really do love you and I promise, promise to try harder next time.

The funny thing is that normally I have quite good arguing skills. I just come up with the best things to say and I can turn peoples words on themselves so easily.. admittedly I only argue with mum and dad like that. I don’t argue with my friends at all. I can’t think of a reason why but no one argues with friends. It’s not that they are more important than family members, it’s just a different sort of relationship. Anyway, the annoying thing while arguing with mum last night was that just five minutes before, I was actually venting about how stupid teenagers were because they only think about the now in my blog, and I was arguing till I was black and blue in the face with mum, trying to make her see how important the computer is.. When I know full well that the computer is not important, no matter how much I may say it is, and I know full well that I could do without it quite happily. I know that the only reason I go on the computer is to talk to two people (and blog now I suppose haha) and it wouldn’t really matter if I wasn’t friends with them, but once again I was being a stupid teenager and putting a lot more importance on the things that don’t matter in the slightest once you leave high school. It made it a bit more difficult to argue my case to mum when i had just been blogging about how stupid it was..

Wow this blog really is good for self-reflection! I think I really will blog regularly or as regulary as I can because it will be good for me :)

Well I better start getting ready to ride to Pebble’s house (this shall be her nickname until I can think of another one, so im sorry my owl for copying :P) We shall hav fun playing truth or dare! hahaha

I'm actually coming back!

omg can u believe it?! i am actually coming back on to write another blog!

hmmm now what to write about?
well today i went shopping. and spent a fair bit of money. at supre. :S
that isnt so good. but what i bought was good! i will where it to the city on monday :)

i seem to be going a lot of places these holidays. i think they will end up going fast :( that sucks because that means that i will hav to go back to school again more quickly. back to study study study. hrrumpph. i kinda like school but i dont. i used to like school quite a lot, it was always fun to see your friends of course and learning stuff was great too. i never had a whole heap of homework, i could always cope with it. but going into grade 11 that kinda changed. i knew that it would be harder than grade 10 now that it really really counted towards something (even though it still doesnt but the thing is that it COULD) and so i wasnt looking forward to it that much. and it seemed like i was totally right! it didnt help that i had other things to think about but more on that later. its kinda scary when you know that you could be doing so much better at school work and yet you dont care? i was actually originally quite proud of myself at first because i never really got out of the school thinking habit over the christmas holidays. but then stuff happened that made it a lot harder to be concerned about school work. maybe its a stage that all teenagers go through. If it is it sucks. I really do hate not caring. But what I hate even more is that you just cant be bothered to care because there are so many “more important” things to think about. And the thing is that those “important things” are actually not important at all. Just the stuff like boys and friends and looking good and being “cool” and going to Chermside and texting people and going on msn and myspace and.. there are so many stupid insignificant things that we worry about that don’t make the slightest difference the moment we leave high school. Thats what I hate about teenagers – they live in the right here, right now and the really stupid ones don’t give a rats arse about stuff even in a few months time. Maybe thats why they count how long theyve been going out with their bf in months or hav phone plans that only last for 30days. Teenagers are so stupid and frustrating. I talk like im not one, but sometimes I look at them and think “You are so immature and childish.” And it frustrates me! But then sometimes I sit back at myself and think “hang on your acting childish now too!” but I cant tell if its just the people im around of whether I actually act like that..
I think im getting better now that the other stuff isn’t bothering me so much anymore (although it has changed me quite a bit and that affects me now) and I can concentrate more on my school work. But I do know that I didn’t do as well as I could hav this term and I feel incredibly guilty at that. I hav done hardly any flute practice, in fact I could be doing some right now! Arrrgghh I will later.. see thats what I always say! And it seems like I don’t care –

And thats where the computer shut down and here begun another argument with mum about the computer.
AGAIN.