Sacrebleu! C'est une pamplemousse!

It’s a strange thing to realise that the unthinkable has happened before your very eyes. I’m too young to have been there watching man set foot on the moon for the first time and when 9/11 occurred I was too preoccupied with the fact that Bananas in Pyjamas was replaced with seven channels of collapsing wreckage.

Today was a first time experience for me, the first time I actually witnessed something I would never think imaginable. My French teacher was away.

My French teacher… how do I begin to explain my French teacher? She has the immune system of a buffalo. I hear she used to play national Women’s rugby in France for Paris. She hasn’t missed a class in two years – as punctual as a panda and as consistent as a carp. She’s been known to break the necks off of wine bottles with a single snap. One time she came into class wearing a raccoon cap and told us that she skinned the animal herself… it was awesome.

I respect her, but mostly what I feel is fear. As I flushed the cowardice out of me (she can smell fear) and prepared to enter class it became noticeable as the seconds ticked by that she was late. Now… she’s not the type to be late. There’s only one time I recall that she came to a lesson five minutes after the bell went and it was apparently because her car broke down and she had to cycle to school… from Pymble to Stanmore. For those of you who don’t know Sydney, that’s a fucking long way.

So yeah, it turns out she never came to class at all and I still don’t know why. Death isn’t even an option – I can’t possibly fathom a speeding car, microscopic antigen or lead bullet that could faze this bourgeois wonder-woman. Maybe instead of wearing that metaphorical cape today, she wore a real one and is saving the third-world as we speak. Maybe she finally muscled up the calf strength to leap over the Indian Ocean to her home country because she felt like an authentic baguette this morning. Maybe she intimidated the school’s establishment into giving her the day off and paying her double. Maybe she just rode her bike into a well.

Whatever has happened, all I can say looking back on my experience is that c'était génial de ne pas avoir français aujourd'hui.

Piqued

Underdeveloped, overexcitable,

A livewire of nervous hormones,

Adolescence; hooded sweatshirts,

Maturity postponed.

Young and vain; irreplaceable,

This cardigan is simply striking,

Dapper, level-headed, blue,

Aqua under fluorescent lighting.

Buy me suspenders, boots to match,

Shoelaces untied,

Evaporate in all directions,

You can’t say I never tried.

Poetry happened to consume, to pique,

My interests for this hour,

A giant bianco bowtie,

By which my collar is devoured.

Who cares if I’m a hypocrite;

A constant change of mind?

I’m seventeen so deal with it,

I’m incredible defined.

Inspired by Sarah Kay

This blog can be serious too.

When you have no inspiration, it’s actually really hard to write. And it’s really hard to not write because I know how much all of you love this blog and how a new post makes your day. I’m honestly a little embarrassed because I’m halfway through this sentence and I don’t even know how I’m going to end it, although I now realise as I type that halfway was a long time ago. Full stop.

Halfway was a long time ago.

When horrible things happen to you it’s understandable to dwell on them. Hardship comes hand in hand with incessant complaining to family and friends about how hard your life is – but it shouldn’t have to. Dwell if you want, but the more you moan and bitch about the infinite melancholy that is your existence the less time you spend.

No I didn’t end that last sentence prematurely. I think that we take time for granted and that when we’re refusing to let things get past us we’re not wasting time. Confused? Time is too precious and too beautiful to be wasted. When we dwell on the tiny little negative aspects of our lives that for some reason ruin entire days, we’re not spending time – we’re just aging.

Every moment you cast a sly look at that person is a wrinkle; every time you write a facebook status about that subject is a scar. Maybe when you look in the mirror you won’t see the changes but you’ll feel them. The extra weight on your chest, the increased effort it requires to take a step forward… those are the wounds. The aging is within.

Spend some time.

The best moments in life are those spent making memories out of hard times. The second you go from ‘hate’ to ‘hated’ is the second your clock starts ticking again. It’s the point in time when you’ll realise that you’ve gotten over that horrible thing. There are no ‘five steps to recovery’ – there is just your own inability to brush things off that won’t allow you to progress.

You’re only one thought, one sentence away from finishing your journey. It’s difficult to accomplish, yeah, but the moment you’re ready to put the effort in and move on you’ll realise that halfway was never even a part of the equation – you’re already at the finish line.

One step further

We clench hope.

It’s what they tell us to hold strong,

But we know - they don’t know.

We are strong! At least we

Used to be.

It’s that one step further, or closer if you will,

When that last spark is lost. The one you so desperately relied upon.

You know it’s okay: why would you lie to yourself?

Our illusion falls; crumbles with our soul.

Taking the fall for the physical being.

What’s left of us?

We clenched hope…

We fell.

They didn’t need to...

We fell.

Disclaimer: Joe is depressed, not me. Oh... Joe is the other poster on this blog. Didn't we tell you? There's two people operating this thing.  

sittinginthisroom, theoryofknowledgeclass, breathinginstaleair

Hatred. A beautiful emotion that arises from within at some of the most unexpected and inappropriate times – there’s nothing more magical than feeling every impulse in your body expel a loathing towards a someone or a something.

Today, in Economics class, I was feeling pleasant, if not a little volatile. All was going smoothly until my teacher was drawing on the whiteboard (a graph on the effect of quotas on international markets, interesting stuff). He needed a different colour to shade in an area on the diagram… and he pulled out a whiteboard marker that I lost a month ago.

I hadn’t even noticed that my marker was gone but as I looked inside my pencil case (that now felt as empty as ever) I quickly put two and two together. That cunt took my motherfucking whiteboard marker. (Okay, so maybe I left it on the whiteboard after drawing a diagram but it changes nothing.)

This whiteboard marker, this motherfucking whiteboard marker, is no ordinary whiteboard marker. One side is a menacing coal-black and the other is a serene, emerald-green – it’s one of a kind, unique beyond all other texters. It’s kind of a big deal.

When he pulled out my beautiful, treasured marker the hatred bubbled up inside me like an active volcano seconds before the lava bursts out of the crater. He then started labeling things with it, completely oblivious to my cloistered rage. It was madness, how could he not realise what he was doing? How could he not see my outrage, my face turning an inevitable beetroot red?

It got worse though.

If using my marker wasn’t bad enough, it then started running out of ink. And my, teacher, he… he… it’s hard to communicate this without getting emotional... He started insulting it! The cunt started calling my whiteboard marker ‘old’ and ‘useless’! How dare he judge it, after all I had been through!? How dare he stand there adding insult to injury, rubbing salt in my wounds!?

Sometime during my internal eruption of resentment towards my teacher and the world in general, he threw my marker in the bin. When I realised, I had too much pride to retrieve it and felt too much dejection to even cast a look in its direction.

As soon as I took a step out of the room at the end of class, all the hatred dissolved. My teacher went from cunt back to generally annoying octogenarian. I held a mini-funeral in my head for the whiteboard marker and went about my day, indifferent as usual. :)

Fuck the world.

haiku hour

Sometimes when I’m sitting in class at school I like to ignore the fact that I’d like a good future for myself and completely zone out. I do the IB and for those of you who don’t know what that is… it’s going to stay that way. We do a subject called ‘Theory of Knowledge’ where we discuss what knowledge is and other key issues relevant to my future (theory of knowledge teacher is obviously what I’m aiming for in life at this point). Of course, such a class demands that one doesn’t pay attention and thus I bring to you a quartet of haiku’s to satisfy your artistic palate. I hope they inspire you.

Haiku 1;

sitting in this room,

theory of knowledge class,

breathing in stale air.

Haiku 2;

what are things are things,

i can’t i can’t things can’t things,

i'm a cat meow.

Haiku 3;

sometimes i feel faint,

sometimes i eat pasta bake,

save me from myself.

Haiku 4;

haiku’s can rhyme too,

rhyme with glue and rhyme with jew,

jesus was a jew.

short&sweet

It’s a bit like life isn’t it? When you compare a human lifespan to the reaches of time it’s a mere blip on the radar. And contrary to what nihilists and pessimists might like to preach, life really is sweet. There’s going to be some bad experiences dotted in there but it’s kinda like the seeds of a passionfruit: they might not taste nice at the time but when all is said and done the aftertaste is something to remember. Of course, your life could be a green, unripe fruit (but that’s just the nihilist in me talking). Everyone has a purpose in life and even if you don’t fulfill that purpose you can still do a lot of awesome things on the way... reading this blog right now is a great example.

Life is too short to waste your time not tasting the sweetness. It's about time we started.

Burned

I stare over the remains of a city burnt to the core.

Nothing here, nothing there, nothing left, nothing more.

Remembering the terror that shook this hollow town.

Burning high, burning low, burning up, burning down.

I can still hear their screams, their words left unspoken.

City burnt, city bare, city barren, city broken.

Thinking back to the flames, walls of towering red.

People running, people scared, people hiding, people dead.

The orgasmic pleasure of lighting that match.

Hear the boom, hear the screams, hear the cries, hear the crash.

Nobody understands what these fires make me feel.

Feeling happy, feeling worthy, feeling better, feeling real.

Although I know that there’s something wrong inside.

Something evil, something bitter, something ugly, something snide.

I’ll block that thought out and focus on the burn.

I won’t care, I won’t stop, I won’t learn.

Cindy! This bitch be messin’ up my floor!

You know those childhood memories that cling to your fragile brain to this day? Events of horror and fear that, in comparison, make scary movies seem like The Smurfs? I had the pleasure of never experiencing such an event, or at least I hadn’t thought so until recently.

A repressed memory (the worst kind)…

Mine revisited during my slumber. Usually my dreams are comedic and completely random: a recent example being a giraffe that strived to be a pie-throwing daredevil. This dream… this nightmare, on the other hand, had me wake in fear for my life.

It was raining and dark as my doorbell echoed through the hallway (and apparently my dreams envy clichés so you’ll have to deal with them). Being your typical kid in a story I was ambitious, courageous, optimistic, pure, fearless and any/every other positive word in the dictionary. I flung the door open to be presented with a figure… a horrific demon… a zombie… zombie Hades, ZOMBIE HADES WITH RAKES FOR HANDS! All I remember is running back down the hall I came from and diving into my bed, shaking in fear. This is the time for you to grab all the positive words you mustered up earlier and to throw them in the bin. Whilst running I remembered that I forgot to shut the door behind me, so I was probably being followed by a zombie Hades with rakes for hands at this point too.

I now fear this soul-reaping man everywhere I go. Screw Samara coming in 7 days (see title reference), she means nothing to me anymore. I guess dreams take pride in distorting real-life events and returning my brain to a toddler-esque state, but this one was WAY over the top.

Although it was an exaggeration of what actually happened, I am genuinely scared of this creature appearing in my everyday life. Sort of the same as the remake of Nightmare on Elm St, where *spoiler alert* it ends via a mother getting stabbed through a mirror, and now I struggle to put my back to a mirror. But yeah, this is what actually happened…

Anti-climax time!

The person who was actually at my door was a family friend covered from head-to-toe in blood after a car hit-and-run. In retrospect, running into my room and not aiding him was a bad idea. It’s not my fault dull lightning makes a bloodied man look like Zombie Hades (with rakes for hands!!!).

Dreams suck. Why must I now walk around fearing an imaginary creature? I just want to live in fear of normal things: bees, ghosts, Freddy Krueger and Oprah Winfrey.

...Oh, don’t worry. My mother tended to the man’s needs and called an ambulance so all was well in regards to him.

And all was unwell in imagination land.