Category: Blog

Posted on in Blog, Exchange 2015, Writings and Musings

Everything I thought it would be

It is everything I thought it would be. The music, the lights, the perspiration and slobber, food trucks lined up (don’t walk behind those things) and wasted potentials and inhibitions served free. It’s a wave upon a bigger wave, and when your house is built on sand, it will truly and awfully, fade away.

There are small carrions left-over after. Always. You find it littered on the grass: a cigarette butt, torn cupcake wrapper, the curve of a behind on a supposed to be inflated balloon screen. There was never an if, but a when, in every single generation.

I would ask myself questions about righteousness and poor choices a disregard to a higher calling; a life driven with purpose. I do not mean it in the long-term since most have put down their feet and have entered collegio to dream, but what of the now then? Isn’t the now an affectee of the future? Aren’t we ambassadors of ourselves?

But isn’t that the great non-mystery, the human soul, restless and afflicted, torn apart by ravaging wolves of the heart. Who to be, what to be, how to become like them, when to act and where do it. There is no common misconception.

It is a matter of who you are and who you stand for. Will you outflow or will they pour in?

Posted on in Blog, Exchange 2015, Writings and Musings

To not tell much

Hey friends,

I think it is up to me to clarify that I won’t be regaling you all with the stories from up-above ‘murica whilst I’m on holiday because 1. It is a generic fact that one way or another – if I haven’t already – I will say, “it’s amazing” and in Jimmy Fallon’s words, “Ew.” Second, if ever I was to tell the egregious mishaps of missing flights and the dreadful thought of having to sleep at an airport because there seems to be no way out, well, it’s a terrifying thought that may just haunt you all in your sleeps. (Update: we didn’t end up sleeping in an airport, thank my American aunt!)

But to be fair, I will share the chaotic culmination of the first few weeks of my American fun-dum before I actually begin the story-telling of the whole university/exchange/independence/dorm-ing/sophomore-ing life of me that begins next month.

But today, today is NASA dayyyyyyyy. #partyplanet

Posted on in Blog, Exchange 2015, Writings and Musings

Nomadum

It’s a tad bit hard to post photos whilst living the nomadic life, but let me beguile y’all anyway with some of the things I’ve learnt so far.

American water tastes like melted ice cubes, and I’ve had no choice but to drink it by the gallons. Their tavern pizza can feed three grown adults and it’s slightly terrifying, everyone is super nice, I’m pretty sure Bridge to Terabithia was filmed in Massachusetts because dang flippin gorgeous, and SEAFOOD. It is cheap and I like it to infinity and beyond the borders. Apparently in some seasons, you can buy lobsters for two dollars a pound. A pound. And though I’m still not familiar with their metric system (why the heck do they have 25 cents and 1 cent and they are identified by names like what are you, dogs?), that is still heavier than your average kilo.

Also, you may or may not be gaining some weight. You’ll most likely be plateauing since you eat a lot but you also walk a lot, which is nice, I guess. Note to self: arrive in America weighing your best so you don’t feel like you have to be all Bieber ft. Nicki Minaj and beauty and the beat all them fries gains.

Tomorrow we drive to the “New”‘s: Jersey and the York so this post is probably going to follow a pretentious one but whatever.

Still don’t know why everyone has Apple Sauce,
Cass

Posted on in Blog, Exchange 2015, Production, Writings and Musings

Something intelligible (I hope)

Semester 2 blues! Ah yes, when the flu season has arrived with wanton coughing, free sniffing’s and much much non-sleeping because you simply cannot breathe…you know the great last half of the year has finally arriiivveeeed. I’m spinning around in my chair.

Why?!

Because this semester is about to go haywire out-of-the-loop as I will be joining my (currently) non-existent American pals for an adventure of a lifetime: a student exchange in a far off land, thousands of km’s away from my private space, semi-private-semi-shared bathroom with only two of the messiest, non-cleaning brothers of all time (let’s see how you both will cope without me cleaning the toilette this time), and the littlest of sisters to both annoy and dance out loud to Little Mix’s Black Magic because yes, I have wingardium leviosa’d their song in my 2015 Party in the USA playlist because it’s freakin’ catchy, okay?!

But without the judgementals and ze parentals, this grand adventure will be taking off in two days! And don’t worry, I’ll be updating y’all, fellow media students and poor internet readers who somehow stumbled upon this confusion of a blog o’ mine about how I will feel about eating my first ever NYC bagel, how I will meet Mickey and potentially cry, how I will never bump with a celebrity, and how I will go about in cheering for my favourite Falcons in a “college football” game I know nothing about.

Oh, this will be SAH.MUCH.FUN.

toodles for now~

Posted on in Blog, Writings and Musings

short story writing: 4-things prompt

In today’s class, the task was simple. Write a short story that includes these four things:

  • a place, Chinatown
  • a food item, Pavlova
  • a word, Propinquity
  • a cultural icon, James Dean

Here’s what I have so far…

You’re not one to stare. You have been taught not to, your mother’s propriety at stake, and if you do, by accident, of course, no one will ever know. Perhaps not even yourself. Maybe.

But not today.

You look pale, would you fan yourself? You’re sweating a little bit. You can’t help but notice her, can’t you? The little maid with the tiniest slippers housing even tinier feet. She’s carrying your mother’s pavlova cake as big as her beehive hair and you see nothing. Nothing but the two tiny feet, and the cake almost levitates, doesn’t it? Arriving ceremoniously on the grand table.

Your father smokes a pipe, you join him but only to drink his drink. Perhaps he’d let you drive fast today. Like James Dean. You see her move, did you see? Like a charmed snake, you want to say, but she is too small, too fragile, and you want to take her out. Away from this place. From people, apart from you, who notice nothing of her. To Chinatown, driving fast, you buy her something cool with red beans or mush, iced and jelly-like.

You need to cool yourself down. And so does she. But you first, right? Always.

But not this time.

Your propinquity to her astounds you a few moments later when you raise your hand to summon her beside you. You feel choked when she recites the other items to be served. You realise that she cannot carry the pork tray with spiced apple and potatoes, that she cannot juggle the liquor and the ice and the glasses and the demands. That her feet, by the end of the night will swell up as twice as they are now, even more, as big as yours, and you stop her.

You command her to-

And I end there because Ernest Hemingway often stops mid-sentence so he has something to come back to the next day. And that I will do in part deux, when I continue this later on.

Things I learned well, one of, is allowing the story to grow organically. To just keep writing without any idea of what the outcome will be, or what the ending should be and just let the characters flow. I think I’m going to like doing this writing exercise more often than I thought before. Here’s to breaking from what is comfortable!

Things I notice about my own writing, is that I like disjointed, jarring first paragraph-sentences. Something to ponder about for the next works…