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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.

my refuge

Picture Above from left to right.
My table, clearly.
1.Painting my friend Amani generously and kindly created for me 'for the soul walks upon all paths, the soul walks not upon a line, neither does it grow like a reed. the soul unfolds itself like a lotus of countless petals.
2. 'the jar' with exactly seven of my favourite coins
3. a collection of jane austen classics and a stationary stand my eldest sister painted and decorated for me.
4. Babushkas my second eldest sister bought me on a recent trip to Melbourne.
5. A creation by my little brother Sam.
6. The calender I get every single year ; Delbard Roses.
7. A container I bought in Rockdale after my first HSC exam with a girl named Jeremae - contains post-its, eye drops, band aids, rubber, sharpener etc.
8. My thermos that I take everywhere and use so much that it slants to one side.
9. The back of my chair that I painted with my brother ; seize the day indeed.

_____________

prince henry asks the cometesse 'is there anything you don't do?' to which she replied (spreading her arms apart and looking into the sky) 'fly'

ever after is my favourite movie.
i can recite every line.

i love drew barrymore. i can relate to so many of her quotes

I am obsessed with ice cubes. Obsessed.
- i used to eat them all the time as a little girl and get in lots of trouble. lots and lots and lots of trouble. when questioned about whether or not i had ice in my mouth i would mumble 'no...' with a mouth full of ice.

the rest are self-explanatory.

I love romance. I'm a sucker for it. I love it so much. It's pathetic.


When things are perfect, that's when you need to worry most.


I don't know anybody's road who's been paved perfectly for them, there are no manuals, you don't know what life has in store for you.


“I miss you when something really good happens, because you are the one I want to share it with. I miss you when something is troubling me, because you are the one who understands me so well. I miss you when I laugh and cry because i know that you are the one that makes my laughter grow and my tears disappear. I miss you all the time, but I miss you most when i lay awake at night and think of all the wonderful times we spent with eachother;for those were some of the best times of my life.”


love takes hostages

the centre of my universe

When we were young mum and dad would take the five of us to see the fireworks every new years eve. Dad would perch my sister and i on his shoulders and mum would clutch onto little Sammy. We would watch in awe as the fireworks lit up the night sky and sent thuds through our bodies. We would wait all day in the usually uncomfortable heat but it didn’t matter because we were together, as a family.

Ever since we were young dad would talk endlessly about the importance of foundations. He would talk about how we should always strive for perfection and build strong foundations. He told us to approach life and learning the same way a builder would a house. He told us that family was the foundation of everything good in life and that without strong foundations everything would eventually topple over. He couldn’t be more right.

Dad has always said that his favourite time of the day is dinner time because that’s the only time he gets to do what he loves the most – spend time with his family. As we’ve grown up though what was once a daily occasion with the seven of us has been reduced to Sunday nights. Every Sunday night at the Nguyen household is family night. My sister and her husband come over and we are sometimes graced with the presence of one of my sisters boyfriends (rarely though). Tonight my sisters boyfriend came over for Sunday dinner for the first time and it was absolutely wonderful. We joked and laughed about things we did when we were young as mum and dad watched on. I love nothing more in this world than to see that smile on their faces. Mum always makes a really funny joke or whips out her catchphrase ‘who care no one die’. After mum has stuffed us with whatever my brother in law requested for dinner she cuts up fruit and we go on our merry way to play board games or watch 60 minutes.

Mum is absolutely the most beautiful and strangely strong yet delicate person to bless this world. No one makes me laugh as much as she does and there is nothing in this world that she wouldn’t support me through. To this day, i still find that her lap is the safest place in the universe and to this day, when shit hits the fan i still curl up into a ball and rest my head on her lap as she gently holds me. She gets involved with everything that I do and changes her mood to suit mine. During examination period she is a centre of tranquillity and a source of inspiration. She lets my room fall into total disarray without complaint, tidies it when i’m at the library, buys a million boxes of green tea and always makes fish leading up to my exam. She is young at heart and she helps me to keep things light-hearted and fun. When we get a new game she always gets involved and whilst it is initially frustrating to get her used to a new console, she ends up completely owning it.

Dad is and always will be my hero. I will talk about how amazing my dad is to anyone who will listen. He could do no wrong by me. When dad comes home from work I greet him in a comically formal way and if he doesn’t laugh back I know not to bring up jokes, politics or well, anything at the dinner table. Dad owns his own company and built it all by himself from the ground up on his own like only an absolute hero could. The thing that i have always found the most amazing about him is that he runs it completely on his own yet he never brings his work home, never complains about his often twelve hour days and never ever lets it interfere or dim a light on family life. To this day, i still think that the only place in this world higher than heaven is perched on his shoulder, the one i would sit on every new years eve with my sisters hand in mine.

I love that at the end of the day i come home to such a beautiful family. While we are all very similar we are undeniably individuals in our own right and it keeps things interesting. My family is an absolute treasure that i will never take for granted and i am really proud of them. With every little step that I take and every little stumble that I endure, I know with my entire heart that I will never need anything more than these seven (soon to be eight or nine) people. Frankly, to ask for anything more would just be plain greedy.

watch me

It’s really easy to panic, sit down and feel simultaneously helpless and defeated but there is so much to be gained from taking a leap of faith. When I first arrived, it took me two minutes to instantly plan my escape but armed with my sleeping bag, two pillows and an unshakable determination, I pushed on. I just experienced (no doubt) the best three days of my entire life in a tiny trip away with some of the most amazing people in the world. My heart has never felt so full and my mind has never felt so free. In the last week I have faced many of my fears, taken chances and learnt so much about myself.

I was thinking the other day about how sometimes the end of something is also the beginning of something else. It was there in the hospital room that I thought about how contradictory the atmosphere would be between the different walls. It was again at the airport that happy hellos were met with sad goodbyes. It was there, centre stage, at the masquerade ball which signified the end that I could slowly feel the beginning of something new rupture in my heart. I will never be able to listen to I got a feeling the same way again and without shedding a tear.

I guess that the moral of the story is never be afraid of goodbyes but rather, embrace them. Take chances and chase your dreams; there are many people out there (sometimes even your own mind) who will tell you that you can’t. What you have to do is turn around and say ‘watch me’.

wheel.

i sometimes make my own desktop images which comprise of all my favourite things in life. just a little something to smile about. i love getting creative; i find it therapeutic.

this year is (undeniably) a year for new beginnings. now, more than ever i am trying my best to chase my dreams. sometimes we find ourselves in situations which we just can't fathom. well, maybe we're not supposed to. i like to think that the world works in a logical and round-a-bout way but i'm starting to realise more and more that i am wrong. i am starting to understand that just because you love something one second, it doesn't mean that you will in the next. sometimes the only explanation you will get exists solely in the dictum 'shit happens'. in an attempt to find clarity in all this mess, i am reassessing the things around me. i am re-directing my energy and trying to find my feet. just figuring out who i am and futher, who i would like to be. i'm sending out a message in a bottle.

so here i am turning a new leaf, starting a blog and never looking back.

arrivederci