28 Mar 2004

Picture this situation: a crowded subway tunnel just before peak hour begins. Corporate types busily rushing to and from the station, each intent on their individual final destinations. Suddenly a harried-looking woman with an armful of folders and papers trips on her heels. Everything she has been holding spills out on the ground in front of her, in dire risk of being trodden on many times over. She kneels down and struggles to gather all the loose-leaf papers and miscellaneous pieces. Who comes to her aid? Is it:

a) The slim, briskly walking businesswoman dressed in a sensibly monochromatic suit, not a highlighted hair out of place and makeup immaculately applied,

b) The elderly man, head covered with thinning grey and face full of laugh lines, wearing ironed brown pants and an argyle vest resting neatly over his substantial paunch,

c) The pale, slouching youth dressed head to toe in black, in a baggy T-shirt bearing a skull and crossbones motif and numerous silver chains snaking in and out of various pant pockets, or

d) None of the above – all three just walk on past, leaving the woman to fend for herself?

If you guessed a, b, c or d, you were wrong. The answer? The businesswoman, the elderly man and the slouching youth. As soon as the crash of the folders hitting the floor resonates down the tunnel, they are there on the floor with her, working together to pick up all the far-flung items and handing it back to their owner. When all the dropped articles have been recovered, they leave with a smile and a ‘no problem’, just three kindly souls meeting by a chance of fate.

And okay, I know how corny and contrived the whole scenario sounds, but it really did happen, even though I’ve never expected it to either. It’s these little things, these seemingly insignificant gestures of compassion for the fellow being that warm my heart and restore my faith in humanity.

Was at the supermarket the other day (supposedly buying lunch meat but secretly adding to my stockpile of chocolate and other junk food I should really be cutting down on…). I saw one worker expressing her triumph over fitting fourteen chickens in the roasting oven at once. And I swear the server at the deli counter was looking at me when I asked whether the sausages were already cooked like I was some ignorant girlie – though I suppose I WAS still in school uniform.

I was perusing the aisle of apples, peaches and grapes when suddenly the lights are cut off and we are thrown into a collective semi-darkness. Someone out the front mock-yells doom and one attendant muses to another what it would be like if everyone started to run out with all the food. The emergency lights gradually flicker into creaky life and suddenly the manager of the store is running around with a newfound urgency – is it just the supermarket power system or are the other stores down too? There is a community sense of relief and the general feeling of emerging from a drama together when we are told everything is okay, to rest assured that it was nought but a temporary blackout – until the head checkout chick informs us that the registers are down and it could be a twenty-minute wait to get them functioning again. I’m not leaving without my deli meats so I make myself a nice little niche by the magazine shelf and flip through a copy of NW. (Apparently Jen is jealous of the time Brad’s spending with his sexy female co-stars.)

They got the registers up and running in about five minutes though, so I got home without a lot of time lost. Turns out it wasn’t just the supermarket; it was the whole shopping centre as well. Which gave way to a myriad of conspiracy theories from my overactive imagination. Then I realised top-secret government projects operating in the walls of my little local shopping centre was a really stupid theory, and gave up on that.

You know what? Don’t you think that it’s really sad that a blackout in the supermarket merits a reasonably long and detailed entry in my blog?

27 Mar 2004

And yet another entry on an event that is starting to become a central part of my life – ballroom dancing lessons.

JV came over to my place a bit early, so we ended up spending some time in front of the bathroom mirror fixing lip-gloss, hair and all such girly beautifying things. This cumulated into us leaving for the class about ten minutes later than usual, and DD stopping for petrol along the way did not abate our increasing panic about getting there late. (What usually happens when the girls arrive late is that there aren’t enough guys to go around – which means dancing not with a muscled blond hottie, but with one of the old fogey dancing instructors with wrinkled leathery hands.)

Sadly, this turned out to be the case; though JV got herself a dancing partner (lucky bitch!) and I got stuck with wrinkled old woman. Great. As we started making our agonisingly slow way around the circle (not only did I end up spending way too long dancing with the oldie, but I got stuck on the not-so-hot side of the hall as well), I scanned the room surreptitiously for any signs of Jake. Seeing none so far, I start to panic. How could he not be there?? The hot guy who is rapidly becoming my main reason to look forward to ballroom dancing lessons?? Fortunately for me, he turned up about half an hour later. Looking as gorgeous as always, I might add… He got plonked halfway around the room from me and let me tell you how much it pissed me off when my current partner and I got moved back because the non-hottie was kicking the dude in front of him! Then just as I was getting closer to him there is a blockage in the circle because some of the girls weren’t moving to their next partner and I got moved back again. Fan-frickin-tabulous.

All too soon it was the mid-lesson break and I hadn’t gotten a chance to dance with Jake. I tottered along to find JV and grab myself a cookie. We’re joined by C, G and various other people, including B with her fixation with John’s arse. (“Have you seen his arse? I was staring at it all through the Nutbush and it is absolutely perfect, I swear!”) I spot John, Jake and a few less hot guys a few metres away, not surrounded by a group of girls – just our luck! (In a good way of course.) I urge our little group to go over and talk to them – hell, I’m not going to pass up a chance to talk to Jake! B is mortified and runs away when we try to drag her along. The rest of us approach them, and the first thing Jake says is “Hi [insert my name here, I’m still not going to tell you…].” Aargh!!! He knows my name!! And he doesn’t proceed to say “Hi C, hi G, hi …” whoever, which means he’s not just the type of guy who remembers everyone’s names either!! Of course he could just be thinking I’m totally ugly and feels sorry for me and that’s the reason he’s known my name even before I got to learn his, but let’s try not to think about that… The rest of the conversation in our new little group gets awkward and dries up and John wanders away – that’s NICE of him – but I don’t care. Jake knows who I am! Without knowing who everyone else is too!

(B reckons Jake is a bit stuck up but I don’t notice it at all. I think he’s damn fine, as you know all too well… Meanwhile Loserboy, as in Loserboy who has asked R out four times and has been rejected four times – get the hint, dammit – asked me what I was doing on the weekend. Which was really scary. And then I got stuck with him during the waltz and he was bragging about having his L plates and it was starting to get uncomfortably conversational for my liking!)

The rest of the lesson passes in a frenzy – we’re doing the progressive barn dance and the music is getting more and more frenetic as I spin, spin, spin to the next partner, about to fall off my heels but just catching my balance in time and feeling the tension and excitement in the room build up and rise to an exhilarating crescendo until we’ve all got a manic look in our eyes and the music comes to a crashing end. By this time we are all completely hyper and the boys gather in the centre of the room and start jumping up and down singing/chanting/yelling the school cheer. It’s suddenly turned into a mosh pit and the rest of us in heels are backing as far away as possible so as not to get trodden on. JV, L and I decide to go join the boys in their strange bonding ritual but cannot manage to find an opening among the sea of male testosterone. Oh well, it was worth a try …

We left pretty much straight away which was a darn shame because everyone else was still in there talking and laughing and going crazy. Apparently the dancing instructors had to resort to turning the lights out to get them out of the hall. Which cracked me up.

Next week’s the social night, where we get to pick our partners and our music. I can’t wait.

26 Mar 2004

There’s this girl I know. I don’t like her much; she’s not my kind of person. She’s bubblegum, empty-headed and wears way too much eyeliner for a girls’ school. She spends a lot of her time checking out her ass in the corridor mirrors and talking about vacant, meaningless things. I look at her sometimes and wonder how on earth she can be so perky all the time, how someone can actually be that shallow and never think about the deeper meanings in life. Other times, I just shake my head and let it pass, because I know she’s a lost case. No doubt about it.

But then I was told she wasn’t always like that. I was told there was a time, back in the ancient recesses of memory, when she had promise, when her head wasn’t yet filled with talk of air and fading glitter. Back then it was she who was ostracised for her looks and lack of interest in all that was shallow, kept at a condescending distance by those who she now considers friends. As ‘they’ all say, if you can’t beat them, join them – so she did, and became the person she is now. It’s such a shame, I thought at the time, such a shame that she turned out like this.

Then I learnt about her mother. Oh, her mother, and I begin to feel real empathy. This person I know has been brought up in a household stuck in a time warp of the fifties, where the qualities of a good housewife are prioritised above those of a dynamic, freethinking individual. It’s really quite sad that here, in this age and society, there is still a girl out there who is being told things like growing too tall will make you less attractive to members of the opposite sex, and that there is no future for women except to grow up and marry some so-called suitable man. Can you imagine being brought up like that? Being an impressionable child with hopes and aspirations for the future, and then being told there is no future but for one of childrearing and submissiveness? All I know is I am forever grateful that I wasn’t born into a household like that. When I look at this girl now, I can almost find it in my heart to feel sorry for her and her lost dreams.

And do you want to know who she is? Well, she’s the one who I call Ditz.

25 Mar 2004

Been looking at the photos taken at ballroom dancing last time. We’re in computer class and C has put the photos up on the school folder, so half of us are congregating around the one computer to see the photos. Our teacher has just about given up trying to control us and make us go back to actual work. There is one of Jake! Albeit a bit out of focus, with his head down, but hey, it’s still a photo! There are possibly a few more out there. Because something like a hundred photos were taken, and C’s only put up about thirty. The ‘good’ ones, she says. We’re having a general conversation and the picture with Jake in it crops up. Lisa – jockish sort, freaky abs, has the strangest fashion sense – says he’s cute, but he’s interested in one of the starry-eyed chicks, the (SLUTTY) Indian girl. Which really does suck. But then again, it’s Lisa talking, Lisa who mixed up M and this other dude, and is convinced that M has a thing for May. Not wanting to sound arrogant or anything, but… So I’m not absolutely sure about the reliability of her intel. (See, the Americans ARE getting to me!)

Bear with me and this temporary fixation with Jake, okay?

23 Mar 2004

My mother decided to give me a haircut. Just out of the blue, she tells me she’s going to cut my hair. I’m like what the hell? I’m not going to let you get anywhere near my hair! No! Not the hair! But no, guess what? She decides to layer it as well. Her logic goes something like, if the hair on the inside is shorter than it is on the outside, the hair will curl inwards instead of sticking out in wonky angles. Er, I’m sorry mother, but it’s not going to work like that – the hair is still going to stick out at wonky angles, just at A MILLION DIFFERENT LENGTHS!

So I’m standing there, trying not to move a single muscle, because she’s managed to get me shit-scared that if I make any sudden movements the scissors will just fly off and cut a big random chunk of hair out. She’s cut a good length off and stands a distance away to admire her handiwork. Hmmm, she says, still a bit long for my liking, why don’t we cut it a little more? I make her promise to trim it just a little, but apparently she is also working on the hairdresser’s principle of cutting your hair fifteen centimetres more than you specified. While she’s happily snipping away, I can feel her fingers tremble ever so slightly as the blades struggle to go through the hair. I start to worry. After quite a lot of this she says you know, maybe these scissors are a bit blunt. You don’t say!

Then when my mother is done with her ‘trim’ my once-glorious hair is half the length it was previously. As I’m bemoaning the loss of my long, dark locks, she tells me it’s perfectly fine. If anything it makes me look more ‘youthful’. She’s like, who wants to have really long hair and to look four years older than you already are? HELLO??? Earth to mother? I’m not even going to dignify such a stupid question with an answer. Jaysus.

22 Mar 2004

Aaargh. I am officially losing control of my life. Why the hell is it that the educational institution always decide to stuff all the tests and major assignments at the end of the school term? Is it some kind of sneaky conspiratorial way to make us all submissive school tour-leading robots? Granted I have been a total slacker and procrastinator for most of the year so far, but still! Suddenly I’m working four hours straight of homework and have like two tests/assignments due per day. It happened at the end of second term last year as well. I’m thinking this is going to end up an annual ritual. Not good. Definitely not good.

21 Mar 2004

But wait – there’s more! It gets even better! Not only are we going to chuck you in the bush for five days straight with no showers and the sheer monotony drilling into your brain, but let’s throw in a history teacher who decides to walk one and a half k with no pants on!

We went sledding down the river in those big baggy wetsuits (and voilà, instant hips – size 18? At 170 centimetres? I don’t THINK so) with our thermals underneath. Mr History had absentmindedly forgotten to bring his, so he was wearing his bathers instead. And let me tell you, a 50+ bearded, suited professor-type in Speedos is no pretty sight. So we’ve finished sledding for the day, and are changing out of our drenched clothing into another outfit (using ‘outfit’ in the loosest of terms), and believe me they were drenched from repeatedly falling off our sleds (or my sled anyway…), even with the wetsuit on top. Seeing it was a pretty calm and humid day, Mr History decided to just throw on a shirt and some boots on top of his Speedos, fling on his backpack and keep on walking. Why oh why wasn’t he wearing any pants?? I will never look at Mr History the same way again.

Then there were the birds. On the evening of our second night out, I was sitting in my tent having a little bit of ‘quiet time’ when suddenly there’s this hoarse voiceless shrieking sound coming from somewhere in the vicinity. I’m like whoa, what the hell is that? I bolt out of the tent … and there it is again! It sounds like someone’s coughing up a hairball – in a tree. What a psycho breed of bird. And on the fourth night there’s this pathetic, drawn-out moaning sound coming from the river. And I thought how ironic it would be if it wasn’t a bird at all, if someone was actually being strangled in the bush and we were all just sitting there thinking it was a bird. God, those outback creatures …

I am never going camping of my own free will again. Not even if they paid me.

20 Mar 2004

I have just spent the last five days going through the most horrible experience of my life.

CAMPING.

Now I'm not talking about those half-assed school 'camps' (though ours was school organised and absolutely unescapably compulsory) where you played games all day, had a nice hot shower at the end and got a comfortable bed to go to at night. We spent five days out in the 'great rugged outback' getting progressively grimier and smellier. No showers, no flushing toilets, no running water and great clouds of dust and flies all frickin' week. I honestly cannot fathom how people could live like that for most of their lives and actually ENJOY it. I am a total city girl, born and bred.

For the sake of friendship and laziness, we decided to put four people in our two-man tent. (A record! Last year we only managed four people in a three-man tent.) It wasn't that bad, actually, even though we only got like half a person's space each and I was constantly woken up in the middle of the night by the condensation from our body heat and the soggy tent covering me face. (I'm telling ya, I so got the dud side of the tent!) It wouldn't have been bad at all if it hadn't been for the rocks and sticks littering the ground constantly digging into our sides and backs as we slept. I swear, it was a conspiracy against us! Those trees were evil. The sleeping mats they gave us really weren't much help at all, despite taking up most of the space in our packs.

Our packs! OH MY GOD! We had to carry three days worth of food for fourteen people in as many packs. Not to mention all the pots, trangeas, bits and pieces and fuel they gave us with it. Speaking of fuel, they sure gave us a hell of a lot of it - about six bottles for four days which was pretty ridiculous considering how tiny the metho burners were and how we only used them for dinner. What, did they want us to burn down the bush or something?

My pack wa seriously a third of my weight - which is no mean feat in light of how much I weigh ... We carried them everywhere except when we sled down the river. It was agony taking them up and down the practically vertical slopes. Agony. And really boring as well; all we did every day was walk from one campsite to the next.

I have never been so glad to see a flushing toilet! First thing I did when I got home was run into the shower and admire the way the water flowed out of the tap. An actual flowing tap. I spent like an hour in the shower washing off five days of accumulated grime. And then my hair was clean!

Thank the lord I don't have to do that ever again.

13 Mar 2004

A row of white roses, laid to gentle rest on the floor of a city sidewalk. A thousand white roses, a thousand sentinels to guard the memories violently shattered in a single moment. Each rose in lieu of a farewelled life, a silenced dream.

How can they hope to understand? They have not seen with their own eyes the last smile of a girl with the unfulfilled promise of life cut off by the death machine. They have not heard with their own ears the fragmented screams rendering the smoky air. They have not smelled the acrid stench of charred dead. They offer empty public condolences, meaningless words already drying in their rotting mouths, but they cannot understand. The voices of the deceased will linger in the minds of the survivors. Stained eternally with the clammy touch of souls ripped from this world, the survivors are doomed to remember for the rest of time. But they do not know. They will never know.

The tenacity of human spirit belies its cruel impermanency. In a second it is lost, resigned forever to be another mark on the chalkboard of all-powerful death. For life is brief, and happiness but illusion. No matter how much or how little you have accomplished, death will always be the champion at the end of a slow and futile race.

The gift of this world is too precious to waste. Make of it what you can before death’s chilly hand snatches it away.






< Footnote: This is dedicated to the victims of terrorist attacks all over the world, especially to the hundreds of dead and thousands of injured resulting from the devastating bombings in Madrid on March 11. My thoughts and best wishes go to all who have been affected by this atrocity. >

8 Mar 2004

Still on the topic of ballroom dancing:

I have decided that I’ve got the hots for Jake. He’s one of the good-looking blonde ones (blond! There I go again) with a really nice smile. And, according to John, ‘no shame’. (John goes, hey Jake, yell out Sophie across the room for me coz you have no shame. And then Jake actually does it without any thought. Which I found really cute. Whether it’s the ‘no shame’ part I was attracted to or the total compliance part (aargh, scary dominatrix thoughts popping into my head) I’m not sure, but I thought it was very sweet nonetheless.) Last time he wore sunnies for a bit during the second half of the night (the porn star look), which in my judgement errs on the side of dodginess, but he looked good so I forgive him for that…

He’s a little shorter than me, while wearing heels though. Oh my god, I just read over that last sentence and it did NOT sound right! I mean he’s a little shorter than my when I’M wearing heels, not the other way round! (I’m imagining Jake in heels and I almost fell off my chair…) Which is not tall at all for a guy but hey, I’m not complaining!

I’ve been walking around all day with a manic smile appearing sporadically on my face and I’m so unusually perky running on less than seven hours of sleep the night before. (I’m the kind of girl who desperately needs her eight hours or Mr Grumpy comes to stay.) It’s silly, I know, because I’ve seen him for what? A grand total of five times or something, and now I seriously can’t stop thinking about him. Rationally I’m absolutely aware that it’s just some fickle schoolgirl crush but yet I’m infatuated, to tell you the truth. Perhaps it’s my total bloody lack of social life that’s done it. I’m so flat out of opportunities to flirt with members of the opposite sex (not that I’d flirt otherwise, but you know what I’m getting at) that I’ve grabbed out and latched onto my only chance for romantic interaction for god knows how long.

Ah, the pitfalls of unrequited adolescent lust. It’s really quite depressing.

I wonder if I can somehow manage to let him know I’m interested? God I hope he’s not already taken or heading that way. Because that would really suck.


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