Happiness.

You stand there as though time has reversed a year. Your beautiful face, your long blond hair, your tattoos and your black shirt. My god I have missed you.

So many things flood into my head, crowding out what I actually want to say and I am speechless. For the first time in a long time. I love the way you look at me and hold me like it's 2011. I love the way you still speak at 200 words a minute, and I am the only one who understands you.  Memories float back to me and flashes of fun, happiness, peace, comfort and challenge surround me, so full and delicious. The good old days.  

Your arms wrap around me and my head is on your chest and I have never felt safer knowing you are here, with me, right now.  I feel as though I can spill me heart all over you still, and you would scoop it up and put it all back where it needs to be. You are so perfectly familiar and while things may have changed, we have not. 

Hold me, and never let me go.

The book thief... a very brief review.

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I would actually give this book 4.5 stars.

I found it slightly difficult to get into, but once I was there, I never wanted to get out.

This is truly experimental fiction, and although maybe not for everyone, I thought it was something a little bit spectacular.


View all my reviews

A short history of my career as a non, but aspiring to be, professional writer.

I started journalism in 2010 at UOW after a year of studying law. It was not what I expected. I had imagined spending hours, writing about things that interested me, getting creative with my photography and chasing stories from around the world. What actually happened was that I realized what interested me did not interest everyone else. My understanding of digital cameras was minimal at best and chasing stories from around the world required actual journalistic skills that I did not, yet have.

In my first journalism subject, where I wrote my first ever news story, I received only a low credit. Disappointing is the worlds biggest understatement. I almost quit on the spot. Until that point, I had always considered myself a good writer and I assumed everyone else did too. Although I was heartbroken at the time, I can look back now and see that this terrible mark, was the kick in the pants I needed to want to improve my writing. That is what I have been trying to do ever since.

I started a blog. It began as a pathetic pathway to express my university woes. I would write when I wanted to procrastinate from studying for law subjects and by default, this meant I was writing every day. As my studies continued, I began to practice journalism on my blog. I would have friends and family read my journalism assessments on there, before I submitted them. I would use it as a means to write about local news stories, or comment on worldly ones. I was writing reviews for restaurants, movies and books. Writing about these things was how I practiced writing for an audience, and writing in language that they could understand. Coming from a legal background where the bigger the word the better the mark, I found this difficult.

My understanding of professional writing is someone who gets paid to write. I found, while I was studying feature writing, that what I want to get paid for, is writing about food. I like to visit restaurants, then pretend I am A.A Gills, the worlds harshest, funniest and most sued for defamation food critic, and write reviews. 

I learnt that the most entertaining reviews, do not use words that take 10 minutes to pronounce because you need to look up their meaning and pronunciation in a dictionary, then check the pronunciation again online through a sound file so you can double check you’re saying it right. The best food reviews are written in simple, clear language.  They make you laugh, cringe or vomit because you understand exactly what they are trying to say. These skills apply to all professional writing and they are skills I still need to be working on continually.

I am realizing every day that I still have a long way to go if I want to be a professional writer.  I need to vary my writing, I need to write more often and I need to get some practical experience in writing for someone other than myself in order to graduate with a degree in journalism and professional writing.

I have learnt not to be selfish when I write. I have learnt that law jargon is unacceptable in news stories. I have learnt that newswriting is not for me. Although journalism was not what I expected, this is what makes it exciting. I know that I need to read more and stop bursting into tears when someone tells me they don’t like my writing if I ever want to make it as a professional. That is what I will be working on until graduation.

Victims of the criminal justice system?

Is it just me, or do many Indigenous Australian's appear to be victims of the criminal justice system?

Ironically, the system that aims to "help" people and do "justice", is bullying Indigenous people into submission. We say we have gone past assimilation and into the self determination era, and yet, they are still living by white law.

If someone came along and said to me, "You can determine your own life, you can keep your community, you can speak your language, but you must abide by sharia laws" I would be completely outraged. I can't keep my life, culture and identity if I am to be persecuted for the very things I find appealing about my life. What has happened, since 1788, is that an entire race of people have lost themselves, their culture, their identity,  for no good reason other than white people felt the need to exercise their perceived superiority. A lack of understanding led to something terrible, but then in true British fashion, like anything undesirable, it was swept under the carpet.

I can't help but feel as though this continues on today. If an Indigenous person ends up in court, it is rare that what led them to their situation is taken into account. They are punished according to white standards and no opportunities, beyond token gestures are offered to attempt to understand "why" and to rehabilitate them, in a culturally sensitive and specific way.

I do not know how to fix this problem, but one day I hope we can find an answer. Perhaps we should start by stepping back, and actually committing to what was promised when John Howard was voted in as the prime minister, and give people self determination. Step back to when an apology and all the promises that went with it was made by Kevin Rudd, and honour those words. Presently, it seems like on paper we want self determination, but in reality, Indigenous policies are simply an extension of assimilation.

Just a thought.

A moment in Japan.

It's one of those heart stopping moments. The kind of moments that literally take your breath away. It is like falling in love and like free falling from the sky. You can't breathe or think or feel because every sensory establishment in your entire body is overwhelmed with complete and utter raw happiness, at the sight before your eyes. It is everything you ever dreamed it would be and everything you were told it could be.

You will be seeing Kanji symbols everywhere for a very long time, and rather than dismiss them, you will wonder what they mean and admire their complexity, and delicate strokes. You will hear the jingles of Tokyo trains over Sydney metal forever, because they are not sounds and songs that you could ever forget, or want to.

The tradition and culture has soaked into your delicate, sheltered Australian skin and something about you will never quite be the same again. You have been in an experience that is so unique, and no one can ever take it away from you. In the darkest of days and longest of hours, as you sit at a desk from 9-5, as you cry over broken hearts, as you live your life, and grow old and your life begins to fade, the lights of Tokyo will light up your imagination. They will be as clear as they were tonight in your mind, and you will wish only to be standing back in front of them, watching your breath mist as the cold touches your soul, and wakes you from all the bad dreams you have ever had. You will want to feel the snow flakes stick to your nose and, while you may never be this cold again, you don't care because this experience, this moment, is not one that you would give up for the world. This is the world. You are in it. You love it.

Golden days

The Fallacy of Time

Time does not exist. Only clocks do. 

Where did all the professionals go?

Professionalism. We all know it's important. If you don't know, you are probably not a professional.

The problem I have with it, is that it is so clearly a facade. I have never met someone who is, in their essence of self, a professional or someone who wants to behave like one. The line between personal and professional has become increasingly blurry with the introduction of social media and text messages. When someone says something on facebook, there seems to be more room for personal judgement, comment or voice where in the past, this has not been possible in a professional environment. Does it make our jobs better? Well no. I would argue that it makes our jobs harder.

When someone tells me something on a professional facebook page, I find it impossible not to take personally. It might be good, it might be bad, it might just be plain unprofessional. Whatever the context, it interferes with my personal life. You can no longer escape the professional world to come home and be yourself, and you can no longer be yourself in a personal world, in case the professional world sees it.

It often makes me feel as though I am in limbo and leaves me wondering when I can be my true self, if ever. Ideally, I would like to go to work, come home and forget about the day, leave it behind and never think of it again, particularly if it was a bad one, but I come home to check my email, my facebook and my phone to find that I am being followed, watched and scrutinised on many levels and it is therefore simply, not a possibility. I have to stay professional all the time, despite some things that are said over social mediums being so clearly unprofessional, sometimes, just downright mean. I suspect this is an issue for almost everyone and leads me to believe that the truth is, professionalism is a facade. Social media is starting to show it for what it really is.

It leaves me wondering, if the world continues in this way, what will become of the world in which suited people make important decisions about the lives of the less well dressed and those who can't make the decisions for themselves. What will they do and where will they go when all the lies surface?