just a kid who dreamed it big

break it downnnn.

that is all.



not really.

hi. lara says to talk about her, but i'd prefer to talk about my week. which she was in, albeit generally as a guest star. unfortunately. because i've not really been at home this week--yes, alix has actually been going out and doing holiday stuff. woot.

on monday i worked. on tuesday i saw pat and went to bible study. on wednesday i went to the eu (on-campus christian organisation) orientation day, which was fab and so inspiring and exciting, and then went out to dinner to celebrate the brief return of her coolness herself, miss kirsty e, to sydney from her new abode of canberra. thursday i shopped for a little while and managed to spend a fair chunk of money, then went to ker's to watch a couple of dvds before work. on friday, i went shopping again and spent more money on some awesomely kitschy shoes and this fab yellow top i've been pining after, and then i went to work and youth group. on saturday i worked again, and then claire and i went out to balmain to catch the cruise band, brown sugar. playing, as in. to catch them playing. not to like, play hide and seek and catch them. or something.

so: earnt money with which to shop, shopped, saw my great kooky wonderful friends. not least of all claire, who ran far far away where i couldn't see her, which sucked. namely the gold coast. and really, i don't care if she was having fun or not, coz i missed her and wanted her to come home. selfish any? yeah. we had a great night out on saturday (yay, i beat phil out for 'claire time'...since valentine's day it's officially become a competition. or battle of the titans, if you will. not that it's really a battle at all, because everyone knows i kick his butt at everything, especially four-unit maths questions. but i humour him. you know how it is). this going out business is mightily tiring, but overall, it's been fun. it's been nice to get a bit of distance from home, even though things are floating along calmly at the moment. i've been making a really conscious effort to bite my tongue and be loving towards my parents even when they're being a bit less than loving towards me. and despite the fact that they can't seem to say it, my parents don't want me to leave again, so they're making an effort too i think. yay for effort.


some fab links, just as a sidenote:
http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/end.php
a remarkably accurate depiction of the world's political sphere through an illustration of the end of the world (plus, they say 'woot' and 'word' and 'yo', so it's cool, hehe)
http://www.whiteboydj.com/babygotbook/
just check it out, watch it. the funniest thing i've seen in ever. yiew. i like big bibles too!

sounds gracing my eardrums: anberlin, paperthin hymn

i dare you to lift yourself up off the floor

9.30am: awoke, stumbled from room whilst fumbling for my red glasses, ate stupid coco-pops, read a bit of who magazine to get my mind off the whole cereal thing, showered, plucked eyebrows, got changed.
10.30am: grabbed some rockin cds--everything from joss stone to sons of korah to silverchair to the streets. closed up the house, locked the doors with my awesomely kitschy pink patterned keys, threw on my earphones and let switchfoot drown out the sounds of the motorway and of my feet as i trudged to the station.
11.02am: caught train to central.
11.34am: caught train from central to parramatta. an experience since i don't think i've ever really been there before.
12 noon: met random boy. ok, not that random. and no, i didn't like get myself raped in parramatta or anything. not to pay out rape victims. eep. anyway. i met pat at a friend's eighteenth the other saturday, and we hit it off. or at least we argued about christianity and discovered a mutual love for drama, coldplay, and the chili peppers. both of which needed to be explored further. pat's a country boy (i forgive him, just!), from the blue mountains, so parramatta was the go due to the whole travelling distance thing. i had mixed feelings about spending the day with him, not apprehension as such--a bit of bemusement, because, after all, we were both coming a fairly long way to see each other even though we'd only met once and spent at least half that time arguing. but hey, pat's hella cute in the tall, well-dressed way that i so like, so i definitely wasn't dreading seeing him. (read: alix is in a truthful mood today. watch out.)
12.15pm: followed pat's intition all the way to parramatta westfields, an atm, and a pretzel world outlet. ate pretzelly-goodness and reminisced about the cruise. wandered around the shops aimlessly, stopping only when i sensed a cd store coming up. went to a clothing store pat reccommended, where i convinced him to buy a (very) pink top that i promise he'll pick up in. mm go my persuasiveness.
1.30ish: meandered (love that word) down to the very ugly poo-coloured parramatta river. sat down and started pouring over cds, but...this guy doing evangelism work came up straight away and pat agreed to listen to what he had to say. i'm telling you, the kid is interested, even if only so he can disagree about christianity in an educated way. but still. i didn't even have to work to get the conversation around to the important stuff. we talked life, we talked death, we talked sin, we talked creation groaning, we talked sacrifice, and we talked love. it was pretty draining. but those are the conversations that matter; and, even if pat's lack of understanding about the true extent of hell's horrors and of god's unfailing love is preventing him now from grasping what a big decision he's making by turning his back on his creator--maybe these are the conversations that will eventually lead him to renege that decision. maybe.
3ish: got subway, ate subway.
4ish: caught different trains to different destinations.

we're pretty similar really. ok, so there's a fair bit of disparity between our respective uais, but then there's an almost equal amount of disparity in the amount of effort we respectively put into the hsc. drama students. music tastes. height. style. oversized sunglasses. a penchant for pink shirts (hehe). a love of bowling. on-pitch vocal cords. a talent for holding a conversation. strong views. a stubborn streak. i'm finding myself wishing he would just hurry up and become a christian so i can consider liking him. because he's very nice, and pretty damn fine. but i've seen friends travel down that path, and i know better than to put anything else before god's love. it's the harder, more frustrating decision, but it's the decision that accords with god's wishes for my life. and how better can a decision be than if it has the sanction of the lord?

sketches for my sweetheart the insomniac

please could you stop the noise i'm tryin a get some rest?

from all the unbornchikkenvoices in my head?

huh what's that?

i'd forgotten how much i love that song. actually, that band. i so dig that whole angst-wrenched bleeding heart lyrical poetic mess. go radiohead. a couple of years ago i listened to ok computer on repeat basically every afternoon when i came home from a school day i'd hated.

the quintessential drama student, i am frequently accused of practicing such evils as melodrama and hystrionics, maybe even both at th same time; the more tired i get, the more those labels justify themselves. hell, what else is there to do but overthink everything that ever happened to you ever when your eyelids beg to fall and your muscles yearn relaxation, but your head refuses to shut down? constant churning, wheels turning. instant replay. exaggeration, modification, perversion. my brain doesn't stop.

what i've done today, what i'm doing tomorrow, what i'm planning, what i'm dreaming, what i'm needing, what i've failed at.

who i've hurt, who i've helped, who i've engaged in meaningless banter, why it's meaningless, who i've confided in, why i chose them.

boys. girls. parents. sisters.

what i want.
what i want to change.
what i want to change about myself.

why i think so damn much.

why god has put me right where i am and directed my feet into the future.

why i can't dance (particularly if god is directing my feet).

why boys smell.

why life seems more tragicomic when god turns off the sun and i turn off my bedside light.

why i care so much about what i look like, and what i don't look like.

why i'm better at spelling than multiplying.

why feet are so unattractive.

why chocolate tastes so good.

why my motives aren't pure.

why i can't get away with semi-random semi-literate ranting like thom yorke can.

lord unchain my hands

the premier's awards, today, were mightily boring. (basically it's a nice award whereby my good friend bob goes 'yeah, i've had a bit of a gander at your hsc results kiddo, and fair dinkum, i like em.' or similar.)

i got this cool glass trophy though, which i haven't even broken yet! and i didn't even stack it once. and, seated in alphabetical order, i ended up next to this nice chick who was about as cheeky and rebellious as i was feeling so we whispered throughout the whole ceremony--as all 916 recipients shook The Bob's hand and smiled as the flash went off. and we snuck out and bought some glorious fudge during rehearsal toilet break, so we devoured that during the ceremony as well. good times. her name's keira and she's doing some combined health-related degree at the cumberland campus this year. cool kid. quoted bring it on ('awesome! oh wow! like totally freak me out...') and that 'i like big butts' song with me. so she's fun in my book.

in (slightly) more earth-moving news tonight, i had a talk/debate/whatever with my mum this morning and she is no longer pretending i don't exist. which is a good thing.


sounds gracing my eardrums: the darkness, love is only a feeling

perfect

last night was the first bible study of the year. since i'm a newcomer to the study group, and i've been feeling pretty emotionally fragile these last couple of days, i made a big effort to stay focused and involved, to be confident about my ideas and my opinions, and to attempt to articulate myself well. we're studying the book of james for the next few weeks, and though i had intended to read and make notes on the book in its entirety before the first study, it didn't happen. i did, however, go through the first chapter last wednesday, just before the crazy badness went down (check out my sad white chick homie lingo, hehe).

james was most probably written by james, eldest brother of jesus. the apostle james was martyred years before the letter's composition, and neither of the other two jameses (hehe) mentioned in the new testament were well-known or influential enough to have introduced themself simply as "a servant of god and of the lord jesus christ." it was probably written to christian jews scattered from jerusalem in about 47/48 AD, so about ten years after jesus' resurrection. in contrast to paul's letters, which were generally addressed to the gentiles, james presents issues from a jewish perspective.

as we covered last night, james 1:1-11 presents three main ideas: perseverence, wisdom from god, and humility.

1.) perseverence (vs 2-4):

consider it pure joy, my brothers,

whenever you face trials of many kinds,

because you know that the testing of your faith

develops perseverence.

perseverence must finish its work so that you

may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

we should look on trials with 'pure joy'--not enjoying them as such, but recognising them as god-given opportunities to develop perseverence (in faith, in trusting god and his 'big plan'). perseverence in turn creates 'maturity' and 'completeness', which translates into godliness, that is, a state of becoming what god desires for our lives. trials can thus be used as a tool for becoming more godly. this doubles back: the more godly a person is, the more able they shall be to cope with trials and tribulations.

matthew 5:11-12: (jesus said:) "blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you."

romans 5:3: not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverence; perseverence, character; and character, hope.

1 peter 1:6: in this (the promise of heaven) you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.

2.) wisdom from god (vs 5-8):

if any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask god

who gives generously to all without finding fault,

and it will be given to him.
but when he asks, he must believe and not doubt,
because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea,
blown and tossed by the wind.

that man should not think he will recieve

anything from the lord;

he is a double-minded man,

unstable in all he does.

james turns to the man who is under trial, and has not the wisdom to deal with it or comprehend god's working amidst such hardship. he calls for us to ask god for wisdom, to pray to god that he will grant us wisdom for attaining godliness in heart, thought and deed. the focus of the struggling believer's prayer is a desire to live in accordance with god's wishes. the 'doubter' james speaks of is 'double-minded' and 'unstable', tossed around and uncertain in his belief. but there is no middle ground. you either believe, or you don't. you are commited, or you're not. this doesn't mean that if you believe you won't doubt, or fail to live up to god's perfect standards--because both are inevitable. but it does mean that a 'double-minded' man, whose moral focus is split and whose butt aches from fence-sitting, cannot expect anything from god, because if you are not for him, you are against him. so one could almost translate verse six to read: 'but when he asks, he must believe and not not believe.'

3.) humility (vs. 9-11):

the brother in humble circumstances

ought to take pride in his high position.

but the one who is rich should take pride in his low position,

because he will pass away like a wild flower.

for the sun rises with scorching heat and withers the plant;

its blossom falls and its beauty is destroyed.

in the same way, the rich man will fade away

even while he goes about his business.

these few verses are pretty complicated, and at first glance fairly jarring to rich westerners like myself. suffice to say that riches are meaningless, and the pursuit of wisdom for godliness, through perseverence, is all-important. james doesn't talk about the rich in a positive light due to situational issues--he is, after all, writing to a predominately poor sector of society, and, at least generally, condemning rich non-christians. the message for us is not that all rich people are going to hell, because god has blessed us with those riches andand he himself placed us in our privileged position in australia. inherent in these verses is a stark warning against the temptation of wealth and a plea for us to avoid having a heart for riches.

with a view to eternity: when jesus returns, the poor will no longer be poor, but the rich will lose their wealth. wealth and earthly possessions are temporary, and ultimately insignificant.

sounds gracing my eardrums: missy higgins, katie

passion's overrated anyway

i hate breakfast food. i really, really do. i'm not a fan of any kind of cereal (though i'll eat coco-pops over anything else, just because of the chocolate flavour). and i'm utterly sick of having two pieces of slightly-burnt toast, one with a little bit of jam, and one with nutella (chocolate fix again).

i used to eat toasted (well, actually, grilled, because we don't have a toaster in our house so we use the grill--yeah, i know it's weird) blueberry bagels every morning. i put butter and sugar on them. that sounds strange, but try it once and you'll understand the appeal. divine. but then, for no reason at all, my mother decided to stop buying them. so now every morning i dread breakfast because it tastes so bad. maybe if mum hadn't taken away my bagels, i wouldn't start every day on such a bad note, and then i'd be happier and maybe more able to sustain relentless criticism from her?

i'm also partial to hot porridge smothered in brown sugar. but do we have that at home? nope.

hehe. yes i know it's pathetic. but stuff is so messed up that even the little things are getting to me.

711, keep me warm

ok, so my last post was mostly an attempt to channel my inner emo child, crying black eyeliner tears. tongue-in-cheek, if you will. but nonetheless, life has shown once again how abruptly things can turn spectacularly bad. the dysfunction that is my relationship with my mother has reared its ugly, ugly head, bubbling to the surface (as it always does). last time she told me to leave, i promised myself that i would do so the next time she made it clear that i wasn't welcome in 'her' house--so, on thursday night, i ran. away. from my parents, and unfortunately my sisters.

claire came to pick me up, and patiently listened to my angsty rantings and tearful frustrations. living on a mattress in claire's room was welcome distraction, even if it was only prolonging the inevitable. meanwhile she drove me to work and to youth group and to work again so i could pretend to be my normal, eccentric, happy, confident self. (however, how natural my 'normal' social state is was, i think, shown by my uncanny ability to fake it these last few days. hmm.)

having finished five long hours teaching kids to swim with a frozen smile plastered across my face, and having mulled around claire's room for a couple of hours in an effort to put off coming home, i rang the doorbell to my mother's house (after all, i hardly feel welcome). thankfully, mum was asleep and the door was opened to reveal lara's beautiful face. apparently, as i later found out, if mum had had her way i wouldn't have been allowed home at all. talk about love. anyway. then i retreated to my room, unpacked my bags, hung up the clothes scattered over my bed, tidied up the piles of books and paperwork and cds...and put myself to bed. i have a feeling that i could actually be getting really sick: splitting headaches, aching glands and muscles, sore throat, and of course the horrible cough i've had for almost a month.

getting away taught me a few things. firstly, that moving out and forcing my parents to allow me independence is a viable option. how many times have i been told that i am utterly incompetent and completely dependent? to an extent, this is true. but there are options; the christian organisation at sydney uni, for example, offers great living assistance and rental opportunities, and centrelink provide monetary support to full-time students. the second thing i learnt impacts on the first. my friends, and in particular claire and jono, have proven themselves selfless and compassionate and caring and concerned, not just in kind words but in practical help when i needed it most. i am so very bad at sharing my problems with others that my friends don't generally get a chance to prove their support of me. claire says it's because i'm so good at listening; i inspire confidence in people to express their own problems, often at the expense of my own. maybe she's right: the other week, at about 3am at an 18th that was slowly winding down, this random guy came up to me and launched into his life story, suicidal tendencies and all. sometimes i get a bit resentful towards my friends because i feel like i end up giving heaps of emotional support to them without recieving any in return. but in truth, it's my fault because i don't share in the first place. ker, bel, eirian, all those kids, have offered to have me if i need a place to stay, also. and they totally rock. but anyway, my point is that now i am certain that my incredible friends will be there to hold my hand if i do decide to go it alone. which makes moving out an option for me.

there's one major problem with me moving out though
i'd have to learn to...cook.


in other news, it's valentine's day. yiew. i'm not a fan of valentine's. yeah sure, there's the whole commercialism, consumerism, invented by hallmark, questionable motives of valentine writing to his jailer's daughter. but to be perfectly honest, i think i'd quite like it if i ever had someone to share it with.

i'm pretty sad huh.


sounds gracing my eardrums: massive attack, inertia creeps

why does it always rain on me?

(check out the angst.)

life/death

bleeeding
... ...painn

deyghhh hatred anger venomous lying yelling screaming spite
llovr?
choices, pain and life OrR life and pain

mental
***anguish**

#smirking passion
RYUNNING AWAY


leave me alone

through misconception

i am so glad i was wrong.

last night was fab. claire and i had an awesome time. the boys, ok, men (it sounds so incredibly dumb and cliched but seriously, there's a massive and obvious difference), picked us up from town hall; we went to arthouse for pre-dinner drinks (where, to claire and my dismay, we got asked for id--as per usual), and then to an italian restaurant on darling harbour. it was such a good night.

why 'men' and not 'boys', i hear you ask?
1.) hello, we went to pre-dinner drinks. and they never considered letting us pay for ours.
2.) well, they didn't get asked for id. hehe.
3.) they're incredibly respectful of us and genuinely interested in what we have to say and getting to know our personalities (as opposed to getting to know our bodies. eek.)
4.) they can hold conversation for a good four hours, no worries.
5.) they're secure enough in their own masculinity to be able to handle my frequent jokes about their manhood.
6.) they drove us all the way home, like almost an hour out of their way, without being asked. just to save us the train trip. i'm like "are you taking us to town hall?" and deni's like "something like that" and proceded to drive us home.

ok, there are more reasons than that. it was just the general vibe. (note that some boys are so close to being men that it's not funny--the wonderful philmeister, for one, would have little trouble fulfilling most of the above six points, albeit probably without the same level of confidence as eric and deni. but then, ten years of inexperience can hardly be held against lovely boys like phil.)

probably one of the best things about last night was the totally platonic nature of our mutual relationships. i completely misjudged deni, or at least, he was acting totally out of character on the cruise with his flirtatious behaviour towards claire the gorgeous. very few arm pats, much less arm-over-the-shoulder stuff. (which, when you think about it, has really great implications for an understanding of deni's motives for asking us to dinner. maybe he just enjoys our company?? go us!) we spoke at length about thorny issues of the heart. well, to be fair, we spoke about deni and eric and claire's prospective lovers, and my lack thereof. but same diff right? oh well. deni and eric are both debilitated by intense pining for apparently goddess-like women. love is a many splendored thing. i got to put my dr phil hat on and pretend to give advice borne of personal experience (yeah right).

definitely one of the best things about last night was deni's promise to introduce me to one barry southgate. as in the ridiculously good-looking idol semi-finalist from this season.

break it down.

and apparently he's a christian, which is even more attractive a characteristic than his perfectly sculptured face, chocolatey skin and teased afro. (i am such a damn fool.)
all i've got to do is show up to their next gig, coz deni's organising barry's band for him. so maybe i do have a prospective lover? hehe. i have a bad feeling that he's not exactly an intellectual giant, but hell, i'll be at uni and surrounded by cute smart preppy tall christian boys, so maybe i'll have no need for him. hehe! i better be surrounded by cute smart preppy christian boys, or i'll be cut. something severe.



sounds gracing my eardrums: the beautiful girls, so it seems
(yes, my favourite beautiful girls song, which they didn't, i repeat didn't play at their concert on saturday. even though they did half an hour of encore, and every song they started i was waiting for it. since it's the first song on their album. grr. but the concert was great anyway, i guess. hehe.)

this corner of the earth

tonight i'm going to dinner with my best friend claire (who is the greatest, by the way) and two much older musos.

the funny thing is, it seems like everytime claire and i go out anywhere, we get guys trying to pick us up. and by we i mean she--i get to be hot by association. hehe. anyway. claire's extreme hotness and confidence aside, we met deni and eric on the schoolies cruise, on which they were employed as part of the live band. deni is totally interested in claire. it's actually mildly hilarious. he's been messaging me like 'oh alix, how are you? i've missed you' and 'we've got to catch up' (except his messages are almost unreadable coz he's big on crazy sms abbreviation and rarely uses consonants). but the translation of those messages goes something like this:
'hey alix, how is your friend claire? i've missed her. i really want to see her again so i can see if i have a chance with her or not. even though i'm like fifteen years older than her. damn that girl is hot. and we are mutually interested in martial arts, so we're totally soul mates.'

seriously.

but anyway, eric and i got along really well on the cruise--no, not really really well, but he's a great guy who can actually hold a conversation for more than five minutes, which separated him from most of the other males on the cruise. he's got it bad for some chick who's afraid of commitment; plus he's like thirty-three. besides, i'm not interested. suffice to say that it will be good to have a chat to him, whilst giggling internally every time deni puts his arm around claire or touches her arm or looks deep into her eyes. and then cough really unsubtley (no, that's not a word) to cover up the fact that my internal giggle has escaped.

quite apart from that, claire's been really sick and i haven't seen her for about four hundred years, so i'm looking forward to talking about our 'issues'. hehe.

this week is shaping up to be an odd one, characterised by two rather unusual practices (for me, anyway)
1. getting fit: i fully went to the gym last night and did a rbm bike class thing with my ultra-buff friend eirian. the instructor dude didn't say anything to me apart from pointing out that my knees are screwed. thanks, but nothing new there. and then this morning i got up at the uncivilised hour of 4.30 to go to swimming training, at which i sucked, but nevertheless. go me.
2. going on dates: yeah this is so unlike me it's not funny, but there is a relative abundance of boys wanting to take me places this week. i'm not complaining. but it's freaking me out a bit. i met this guy from katoomba, pat, at a party the other week, for example, and he's coming down (up? meh) from the blue mountains to see me. maybe he just likes long train trips. either way, go me.


sounds gracing my eardrums: the dandy warhols, nietzsche

number one

i am a blog virgin no longer. what a brilliant medium for pretending i think deeply about...stuff. what a fantastic way to avoid getting learned when those studious days come around again. at the moment, i am absolutely loving my holidays. like seth cohen deciding he wants to "marry the hotel" in las vegas, i wouldn't mind tying the knot with hot summer days filled with unstress, unresponsibility, and unhealthy eating. mm chocolate. speaking of yumminess and also of that fab guilty pleasure known commonly as the oc, the extreme hotness of one adam brody deserves a mention in this here my first bloggage. that kid is fine! i gotta find me a seth cohen. mental note to self: be on lookout for preppy beanpole nerds with curly hair. who am i kidding, i'm always on the lookout for them. add 'christian' and i'll be sweet, thank you very much.

so very many people warned me that by january i'd be sick of holidays. so not. so incredibly not. certainly i am looking forward to uni (mainly because i'm excited about checking out bands at manning bar and joining the fab christian org on-campus)--but not that much. not so much that i'm bored of doing nothing. oh sweet nothing. it's such a novelty to go out all day, or meet up for coffee or lunch or dinner (or all of the above), or stay awake all night, or ring people at obscene hours. or just to sit at home blissfully aware that no essay awaits composition and no reading awaits my tired eyes. and it's really great to listen to music twenty-four hours a day. lately i've been buying a cd a day, on average--my music junkiness has become a full-blown addiction. i can no longer venture into a cd store without mentally wrestling with a couple of price-tags and my (slowly nonexistent) bank account.

my dwindling funds are forcing me to become better at making my own (free) fun. a subconscious--but deliberate, i like to think--decision to leave my keycard at home on a day-long city shopping spree meant that i didn't have to file for bankruptcy with my parents. and last saturday a couple of cool kids and i played trivial pursuit very badly until the wee hours of sunday morning. having said that, before we played trivial pursuit that night i did buy a tshirt at the beautiful girls concert that i really never intended nor budgeted to buy. so saturday night is maybe not the best example. but this not-spending-money thing is a work in progress. after all, i am such a good shopper that i manage to buy clothes, shoes and cds without actually having any money to spend. go figure. i'm working on it. really i am. though i doubt i'll ever be able to fully deny the lure of new things--actually, i reckon retail therapy keeps me out of real therapy--i'm trying to rethink the way i spend my money. apart from slowly paying back the grand i owe my folks, the only things i've bought these last few days are presents for the thousands of eighteenth birthdays that have booked up my saturday nights these holidays. i even got into the gym for free last night because an old friend was working. yiew!

somedays i realise how ridiculous the amount of stuff i own is and feel hella guilty about it. actually, more and more as i get older, the mound of clothes on my chair in my room seems pretty wasteful (that's right, check out my heightened social conscience). i've wanted to sponsor a child for a while now, like through world vision or some christian organisation. so i might actually budget that in each week. and i'll put a bit more than my usual in the plate at church this week.

(not that that's gonna change the fact that i'm basically a commercial enthusiast, basking in the glory of plastic consumerism.)

damn i am good at talking about myself.