a little annoyed

.

Lets get serious

now.

one year.

in the last year, i have been so many different versions of myself that sometimes even i find it exhausting so i've no idea how my boyfriend feels. I am passive-aggressive, refugee advocate, drunk party girl, naive idealist and most of the time - passionate idiot. there is so much to fix about the world and mostly it just seems unfixable.

one thing is for sure though - the time that i spend on christmas island were the most love-filled weeks of my life. art class with the single, unattended adult males would consist of drawings of love... for their countries, for their wives and for their families. one man held up a charcoal drawing which featured a heart and a simple phrase 'all you need is love'.

i'd have to beg to differ though and i wonder when i went from love-song listening romantic sod to critic. to anti-cryptic. to holding the sugar coating and only wanting the raw grit of it all.

i often find myself dreaming in thomas moore-ish utopian idealism. where people were honest about their intentions and actions and acted upon them accordingly.

i've always (and still do) believed that my father is the most incredible person in the world. he's been my hero since i can remember and every single day he gives me a new reason to admire him. we talk politics at the dinner table, discuss conspiracy theories and pretty much debate americas foreign policy.

i met a man on christmas island last year who is the iranian 33 year old version of my dad ( of course not as awesome but the closest i'll probably get ). he has eyes that are knowing and enough compassion and love for the whole entire world. despite a difficult life,he has a sunny disposition and an unmatched smile. i've visited him once in detention and i did not want to leave. he actually looks like one of my really old friends. one of my old best friends. except that he recites kahlil gibran as if he is gibran himself. i love his character. i love his spirit. i love the promise of hope that he holds in his eyes. i love that people have tried to emotionally break him but he just can't be broken. he'll probably never change.

i hope he gets his australian citizenship. i pray that he does.

honesty is always the best policy

Andy Pausch once delivered what was called 'the last lecture: really achieving your childhood dreams'. He was an American Professor who delivered this speech just before he lost his battle to pancreatic cancer in the middle of 2008.

To me, his most poignant message was one about criticism. The core note was that those who criticize us only do so because they care enough to.

unbuntu

Crystal clear blue water. Sunshine. Purple sunsets. Beautiful people. Pure souls.
Eyes which are telling and smiles that are infectious.
This, my friend is Christmas Island.

There are people in our lives who we will never forget. I can honestly say that I think about the wonderful hearts I met on Christmas Island every single day. I’ve been back for a while now and still, nothing makes me feel that alive. I have learnt so much this year. Like how to really stand on my own two feet. Like how to make the best out of a bad situation. Like, exactly what I want.

No number of words or pictures or late night phone calls could ever encapsulate how ironically beautifully I see the world nowadays. Because just as I saw its beauty, I also saw its chaos. I also saw its bureaucracy. I also saw its many faults. The most difficult thing being – that I also understand them (or at least can kind of see what the policy considerations are) so it’s hard to flail my arms around, jump, scream and call for justice. So, here I sit with my arms folded in my lap; I’m admitting defeat. I am admitting that the power of one is no power at all when the fight you want to wage is too big. Am I right?

Martin Luther King Junior (more than) once said that ‘the ultimate tragedy is not the clamour of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people’. I refuse to be an appallingly silent good person because that is not the way I was brought up. My father stood up for what he believed in Vietnam and he paid the price for that. I will always be sympathetic to the plight of the refugee. But beyond that, what will I do?

I have started a research project. A big one. On behalf of the organisation which I volunteer with. My fight will start with this. I know that slowly but more importantly surely I will work towards a bigger picture fight with all of the passion and enthusiasm I have been lacking.

It’s something really tiny at the moment but I know it is just the beginning. Just the roots. Of a project that is yet to flourish.

You don’t think I can do it?



Watch me.

penned in my internship diary not long ago.

Nothing worth having comes easy and for things to be done properly, it just takes time - like multi-layered jelly, like making the perfect gift, like healing a broken heart.

Sometimes (well, many times) in our life we are met with difficult situations which we're not sure how to navigate through. My advice would be to surround yourself with friends, spend more time with your family and most importantly, work on becoming a better person.

Yesterday I found myself sitting on a pew admiring the architecture and grandeur of a beautiful little church that took me to a far away place. Cathedrals and churches have always been constructed and designed in such a way to make you feel small in the presence of god. The high ceilings, the stained glass windows and the elongated nature of all its little pieces just reminded me that there must be something more than this. It revoked in my heart, the romantic sentiment that someone is watching over me. It reminded me of a little thing known as 'divine providence'. I think it was only natural, then, that I questioned why things unfolded the way that they did and further, if and why I deserved it. There are some things in life though that we will never understand.

I am above the weakness of seeking to establish a sequence of cause and effect, between the disaster and the atrocity.
Edgar Allan Poe


I am a girl who is a week and bit away from turning 21.
I am a girl who wishes she could save the world.

I am a girl who couldn’t be happier.

inappropriately giddy

i will never forget the way you used to make me feel. when you would whisper sweet things and make me smile. i was working back then four days a week and doing a million and one assignments all the time. when we would talk during the wee hours of the morning i always felt like i didn't need anything else in the world. you became somewhat of a refuge. i miss sharing stories with you. sharing secrets. sharing songs. i guess it was only natural that in the last couple of months i've come to realise how much i actually cared about you. its worse now because it's like a scar that i should have tended to all those years ago. its worse still because you were there for me when i needed you at the end of last year and you really shouldn't have been. i stop myself every day from contacting you because i know its not fair.


you are perfect and i figured it out too late.