Re-arranging.

It's amazing how much joy can be found in the rearrangement of a bedroom. I was in great need of a layout change of my bedroom as I was beginning to feel too crammed, even though my room is quite big. Anyway, the change isn't that big, I just flipped the bed and desk around but my room now feels so much more open. My desk is now in front of my window (good or bad thing? - I might daydream now...) and my desk is on the opposite side... and I love it! I had so much fun doing the actual rearranging... Mum was home the whole time and offered to help when I needed it, then she came up and looked at it and couldn't believe I did the whole thing myself - may you know, moving a queen bed by yourself with limited space is hardly light work. Anyway, it's all done, everything is in its new place, and I'm happy.


I love my bedroom.

My to do list.

Sometime in the next month or so I am going to:

1. STOP biting my fingernails.
2. Declutter my bedroom and deattach myself from my primary school projects.
3. Practice flute more everyday.
4. Keep my room tidy.
5. Limit myself to less than 5 Facebook checks a day.
6. Destress.
7. Save money and stop useless shopping.
8. Print formal photos and make an album.
9. Broaden my appreciation for music.
10. Stop texting in class.
11. Go driving.
12. Limit myself to just one episode of 24 every day.
13. Continue appreciating my cat more.
14. Help out around the house more.
15. Keep adding to this list until I'm happy with the new me.

I CAN DO IT.

"we cannot do great things on this earth, only small things with great love."

it's so heartwarming when you see random strangers doing something nice for someone else. and no matter how mean or unkind someone looks, there is always something surprising about them, such as their generosity, that immediately takes back any thoughts you once had about them. for example, while waiting for my brother outside the barr smith library at adelaide uni yesterday afternoon, a old homeless man was wandering around searching the bins for plastic bottles that he could later trade for 10 cents each. just as he started searching the bin opposite me, a man sitting next to me started drinking his gatorade very fast and when he finished, he flattened his plastic bottle, mimicking the homeless man, and then walked over to him and said 'here you go, buddy', gave him a smile, then walked down the stairs. the sheer gratitude and warmth that you could immediately read on the face of the homeless man as he turned around and watched the man as he walked away was what you can only see after a situation like that. it's almost as powerful as the gratitude on the face of the old lady when the teenage boy, that you previously thought was stuck up and obnoxious, gives up his seat on a very crowded bus and opts to stand for the rest of the bus ride if it means the old lady has a seat. the surprise on the face of the elderly when one does something lovely for them like that just goes to show their shock that all of generation y really isn't as bad as they think.

it's when you see smiles like this that you really know you've made someone's day.

"good manners: the noise you don't make while eating soup."

one of the things i value most about my beautiful mother is her ability to make amazing soups. i'm sitting here in my study lesson now (studying of course, for what else could i possibly be doing?), drinking (eating?) mum's homemade pumpkin soup and wondering how she does it. i don't think she even follows a recipe, and i used to think that food this good could only come from following a recipe. it just has this kind of texture that can't be beaten, and it's the only food that can immediately make me feel better when i'm feeling sick, tired or stressed (usually the unfortunate combination of all three). soup this good can't be ordered at a restaurant, nor can it be attempted in those horrible packet mixes that you can buy in aisle 4 at the supermarket.


it can only be created by mummy.

"it always seems impossible until it's done."

i could just about hear the sigh of relief that continuously floated around the room like a mexican wave when my year 12 english studies class finally handed up our supporting studies at 1.30pm today. abby came around, holding out her hands and it felt sooo good to hand it up... i've always enjoyed handing up assignments, but the hell we've been through with this particular one just made it even better. when we looked at our slaughtered draft and comprehended how much work we still had to put into the assignment, that little flicker of hope just seemed to diminish immediately and the quote title of this blog was totally relevant to all of us. it actually did seem impossible because there was still so much more to go, even when we thought we had finished. it seems the author's ideas and intentions are just never ending and there is never enough to write about when it comes to writing out a supporting study. it seems you can only get it down if you ARE the author, friends with the author or have some kind of pyschic connection with the author. i did not achieve any of these with neither f. scott fitzgerald or jane austen.

if i had these babies on my desk though, i might have been okay.




i will never fully understand the mind of jane austen. ever.

"in school, i could hear the leaves rustle and go on a journey."

there was something extremely satisfying about today's lunch break. even though we were still studying and caving into the pressures of year 12, sitting outside was so refreshing and it made working so much easier. the sun was shining (even though it's now officially winter - mega YAY!) and escaping the study room was so nice. random conversations still took place (as they do - we have now come face to face with the reality that NO one can spend a study lesson in silence), but it suddenly felt that we weren't doing work, simply by being outside. it struck me as kinda odd, and i wonder if the success of students would be much higher if the school was situated outside. if there were no such things as classrooms or study rooms, everything was just done outside. that would be amazing. we could breathe the natural air, not the stuffy air that is forced into our lungs during school time and we could just enjoy the sunshine.


hmmm. i might put it to management.

"the trouble with our times is that the future is not what it used to be."

i often think about the future that my children-to-be will grow up in and how it will compare to the times that we have grown up in. i don't want my children to be raised in a world that is consumed by technology, starving from famine and eaten alive by global warming - i want them to be raised in the circumstances that i was raised in. it's the only thing i DON'T like about the future - it's exactly that. the future. we can't foresee what is going to happen (and no, i don't believe in psychics) and a single individual can't stop what is going to happen. in order for anything to be done effectively, the whole world needs to come together as one and agree to put a stop to it. which is impossible because of the nature of humans. if we were all willing to work together and cooperate, then our year 12 modern history class wouldn't be studying what they are now, and a child wouldn't be dying every second from a lack of drinking water.

this is what i see right now when i think about the future of the world:




now that i've got that off my chest, today was a good day.

"i see my path, but i don't know where it leads. not knowing where i'm going is what inspires me to travel it."

so i'm sitting here in the downstairs study room during my double free contemplating life, as i usually do. it often occurs to me how sick i'm growing of year 12 and how i just want to get out of adelaide now before it starts to become too difficult. i know this is far from the right attitude that i should have right now but after hearing about where various people have been and where they are going in the future just makes me want to see it all. there is something so satisfying about seeing a different part of the world and wherever you go, you can't see it all. even in adelaide there is so much more that i am yet to see but it just seems that adelaide is so small and simple compared to other places throughout the world. my parents are about to start planning their trip to europe in 2012 and just knowing that i'm not going to be with them and they're going to see everything before i am feels funny.

i'm still yet to make one of those awesome world maps with the different coloured pins to show where i have been and where i still want to go. i know that when i finally get around to doing this, the map will be overloaded with one certain colour and only a few of the other colours (you get the idea of which is dominating...). but i think doing something simple like this will just inspire me to get out there more. it might not be possible at the time (perfect example throughout this year) but i will make it happen, somehow.

i'd be more than happy to stay in a place like this all my life if it meant seeing every inch of the world.



my husband better be into travelling.