Some People I Know

• I know someone who I can ring up at 10pm when I’m still at work and have a rant and talk about the meaning of life and trade funny stories and helps me forget where I am and what I’m doing and laughs at the dumb things I say even when they involve Dodge Stratuses, and I’m really quite pleased I know him and actually feel very privileged that I do.
• I know someone I talk to on the phone and email and text and MSN, who reads my mind and freaks me out and knows me better than I know myself and is an awesome roadtripper, and who I have some of the best chats with ever when she’s not busy studying and who I could go on about forever but then my readers would fall asleep but suffice to say that she is one of my closest friends and she’s just a sister to me which she will say isn’t fair but then that’s because we both think Team America is such a funny movie and full of such quotable quotes.
• I know someone who bakes cakes and lives over the road and is sometimes my mum and says I should have visited in the weekend and is so so funny.
• I know someone who gets up at 5am every morning because it wakes me up when the shower gets turned on, and refuses to get the internet connected and has a cool accent and got a hen’s party into our flat.
• I know someone with frizzy hair who has a cowbell, and thinks that it is cool when in fact everyone else knows that it is totally village, especially when he takes it to sporting events.
• I know someone who smiles all the time and laughs so much she cries and knows random trivia and can also bake cakes and is just a lovely person to know.
• I know someone who giggles at everything and goes to bed at 9pm and has a computer than operates in Chinese characters and has a cool jacket and takes forever to unpack and gets lost easily and doesn’t bring toasters and floods floors.
• I know someone who just knows everything except when the Bay of Pigs invasion was.
• I know someone in Germany who reads my blog and worries about my posts and who I should talk to more and has a lovely smile and who will be burned into my memory as she left the McGill metro on the other side of the railings after an unforgettable dinner on Ste Catherine’s.
• I know someone who tells me one thing then does another, or the other way around, and who understands, maybe, but not always, or pretends to, but doesn’t, or is just so confusing sometimes that I just don’t get it and I tell her things I think that I know and she knows is just for her and sometimes other people get wind of it and I know it’s not me who said anything but when I hang out with her she’s generally ok except that she has an issue with quetzals and she confuses the hell out of me and thinking about all of that really makes my head hurt.
• I know someone who is really outgoing and then goes into hibernation and also has a cool accent and lives in a cool apartment and doesn’t know her country all that well when it matters and likes sushi and drives a red car, probably because it makes it go faster.
• I know someone who’s life revolves around rugby, when they work and when they sleep and when they breathe and when they have spare time, and who is great for a weekend brunch and can get fired up and is really a decent bloke, the really really decent type and who is great to watch the rugby with because everyone thinks he is actually one of the players.
• I know someone who just got married and is one of my very closest friends and who I can not see for months on end but when I see her things will be just the way they were when we left off last and I can call her at the drop of a hat on the worst day of my life and tell her everything that has happened to me because I know she will be there if I need her and she is the only person I have ever told and ever will tell these bad things that all happened at once, and she proves yet again she is a true friend.
• I know someone who is really smart and will one day have made it but right now he just wants a girlfriend but he has no luck even when I present him with a pretty good opportunity but he is a good guy to hang out with and I know I could count on him if I had to, even if he studied marketing.
• I know someone who laughs at everything I say and tells me it, which always amuses me, so I tell her that she ignores me and makes me cry inside and that makes her laugh even more and she really must be one of the most innocent people I know, I think, or else she’s very good at acting.
• I know someone who’s probably hurting all by himself all alone in a sea of people, who I want to reach out to but he doesn’t let me and I think others do to but maybe it’s something he needs to ride out himself and maybe one day I will see the man I once knew for the briefest of flashes but got to know.
• I know someone from another life who does so much good in the world and volunteers and has so much courage to be who he is and carry on doing it and who I miss talking to and has a softer side to his funny side and has my coat and one day will return it to me from half way across the world.
• I know someone who I know so well and knows me so well despite crossing paths for barely a few months, and who I talk to in two line emails and MSN conversations and who can never get Skype going but loves pink and is the most random person I know.
• I know someone who doesn’t let anyone in, really, even people she knows well, but is another lovely person and has loads of friends and who I wanted to get to know but she wouldn’t let me and I wasted more units on her than she will ever know and I did everything by the rules, for once, and for what it was worth nothing came of it and so she makes me sad when I see her and it makes me sad that you can try so much and be so nice and that people forget there is no such thing as a free lunch and sometimes you just want to be nice and sometimes you just want to talk to someone who you are starting to get to know and want to get to know them better because you can see that part of them is like part of you and so they will know, really understand, really truly understand, some things in your life and who you are and who you just want to sit down with and talk to and nothing happens and sometimes makes you feel empty and wonder what everything is all about and why you makes so much effort and whether you should just let go of everything, everything, everything since there is nothing left at all, despite what others might think and others might see and others might hear.
• I know someone who says he works for a Government department but I swear that it must be the CIA and he has to be one of the most easygoing people I know and he loves to drink and take photos and share and he is such a great guy, just one of the lads, and he has the talent to also make you forget where you are and take things easy and remind you that there is more to life than what you think.
• I know someone who has to share a room with a wonderful view and blogs about life and shares some amazing photos and laughs about emails about Auckland and visits Europe and pretends she doesn’t smoke substances in particular places in Europe when I’m sure she must have, or maybe not and wears clothes with her name on it which I think is funny.
• I know someone who is one of the sweetest guys I know because he plans secret birthdays for his girl and is a genuinely nice guy and who all the girls flock to when we’re out in town and who definitely doesn’t wear the pants because he always has to check with his girl if he can do something with the boys, but that’s ok because his girl is one of the loveliest girls you’ll ever meet and they make such a wonderful couple and one day they will probably get married.
• I know someone who I have known forever, well really more like since the start of high school so I know him well and we grew up together and recently lived up the street from each other until I had to move flats and generally hang out and ride bikes and trade techy stuff and catch movies and email and phone and check out the latest gadgets and trends and he can probably make a Playstation 2 and an Xbox, combined, out of a bit of wire, and antennae, a matchbox and a pocketknife.
• I know someone who write great and very personal blogs postings and I think her colours (or "colors", because she can't spell properly, are blue and gold and trades emails with me because she is never on MSN or rather she is but is always Away and the time zones and work always conflict that we hardly ever see each other and we talk of matters of her heart and how work sucks and the word "townie" even comes up in conversations.
  
• I know someone who listens to Daniel Powter's song Bad Day, because every day he "stands in a line just to hit a new low/[and is] faking a smile with the coffee to go", and I don't know how to help him or what to say to him.
  

It's hard when you're in at the office for another weekend.
It's hard when you can't remember the last time you could soothe a troubled mind.
It's hard when you can't have coffee with friends, when you want.
It's hard when you're sick and almost wind up in hospital, and almost nobody knows
It's hard when sometimes you just don't know who you can count on.
It's hard when sometimes you just feel like talking, but you can't talk to anyone.
It's hard when you just want to get to know people and the games people play and the things people do.
It's hard when you just want to be nice and noone cares.
It's hard when you manage to send emails once in a blue moon that never come back.
It's hard when you try so damn hard, again and again, and nothing happens.
It's hard when you can't be you.
It's hard when you self-censor your blog.
It's hard when you're taken for granted.
It's hard when you have no time for yourself.

Noone said it would be easy.

Sometimes hope is all we have. (And credit to true friends).

Epic

I crave your indulgence, gentle reader, to mark my following words with not a pinch nor an ounce of salt, but perhaps an armada of caravels bearing such. For I write as though in a trance, an ethereal dream, as despite my weary battle I have succumbed to this sickness which ails me. My mind is lost in a sea of fog and haze brought on by the heady cocktail of painkillers and sleepless, restless nights. Forgive me, then, for the words I shall utter may be bereft of logic as they escape from my pen. No harm nor offence is intended; indeed, I suspect its residue may gracelessly fall upon me, for my soul to ponder and blush upon its return to normalcy.

It is but my suspicion that these ramblings may carry on for some time; I beseech you dear reader to read most carefully, for the thoughts have been whirling and dancing through my head before the Golden sun rose and the cold northern winter snows set in. These may take you back yonder, to times before the law crossed the Rocks. Perhaps I talk in riddles, and for those of you know whom I know to be impatient, perhaps I bid you farewell. But for those who continue, perhaps you will avail yourself to a greater insight into another fellow human.

We begin with a knave, a lonely and wretched knave, for whom the dusk calls and beckons on. Young at face from afar, but creased by cynicism as disaffection takes root and spreads. He longs for that which calls him each dawn and each dusk, and all moments ‘tween the two, ‘til the end of time. But ‘tis not coming, and the knave cries out in frustration.

This shall continue.

Why.

In-between my painkiller-induced haze tonight, I happened to settle on Grey's Anatomy. The episode where the docs can only save one patient; the other will die as they have both been impaled on a pole after a train accident.

Automatically I place myself in the doctors' positions: an ethical, a medical, a moral issue. My brain can't do it. I know that if I was that attending doctor, I would do all I could do to save them both. And if one of them died that day I would force myself, however hard it may be, to switch to the other patient.

And then afterwards, I would lock myself in a storage closet and cry and cry and cry and cry and cry, and another little piece inside me would die too.

I Want One Too...

I see a lot of people have been getting their friends to complete their Johari Window, so I thought I would get one too :) If you've got 5 spare minutes, it would be nice if you could fill it out.

Doctor, Doctor

I read a news article a couple of days ago, and was able to self-diagnose myself with something: neurotic imposture. This is a snippet of the article:

"Kets de Vries says a variant is also found among first-born children who develop into type-A personalities. Seemingly normal, their pathology often becomes apparent when they are on track for senior management positions.

"Neurotic imposture," he says, "begins when a child comes home with his report card with an A- and his parents say, 'Who got an A?' or, 'Why didn't you get an A?'. It is a family in which only results count and if you don't have results you aren't going to be loved."

As adults, these people become addicted to the appearance of success but have never resolved the feeling they aren't good enough. Externally they might be perfectionists or workaholics and at first they are rewarded by an organisation that is unaware of the psychological burden they are carrying."

Help.

Maybe more on this later.

Chris, Based On Your Responses...

Last night I was perusing Tee's blog, and saw she had done one of those Tickle website tests. I remember I used to love doing those, so I thought I'd have a go. The results were ironic for a number of reasons (including the whole Asian/doctor thing):

Chris, based on your responses, your top career area is Medicine and Health

Careers in this field usually demand a genuine interest in helping people, and require excellent communication skills, especially when discussing sensitive subjects related to personal health. Most likely, you have an interest in improving other people's lives, and being in a career that you know will truly make a difference.

Funnily enough, I think Tee thought hers was a bit out of left field. Alan also did it and apparently he is best suited to Fine Arts - hahaha :) By the way, get a blog already, dude!

Digging for kryptonite on this one way street.

The South Park Episode

Over the last two weeks, a media storm has erupted in New Zealand over a contentious South Park episode involving the Virgin Mary bleeding out of her bottom. Once the story hit the news, a number of religious groups publicly voiced their concerns, a number of protests were made, and advertising was pulled. The tv channel responsible (which happens to be Canadian owned) decided to run the episode last night, instead of at the designated time at some stage over the next few months.

Up until seeing it, I had no particular opinion on the matter – I had not seen the episode and it appeared to be yet another storm in a media teacup, so to speak. That was, of course, until I ended up viewing the episode with Alan, Sharon, Alice and Simon.

I don't have any particular view on religion, although I accept that it is a part of life for many of my friends (in fact, two of my best friends are regular church-goers and religion plays a major part of their life). Nonetheless, I watched the showed and was really quite repulsed by it all. Let me further qualify my opinion by saying that I would consider myself as having a reasonably high threshold in general - it will take something out of the ordinary to offend me. As it happens, this episode did. I can't even bring myself to describe what the exact scenes entail, but to say they involve the projection of blood from a part of the Virgin Mary's anatomy.

If I'm this offended, I can only imagine what others with a more vested interest would think. Personally I thought that it was quite revolting that artifacts (for want of a better word) were desecrated in an attempt at such a crude and base attempt at humour. While I know that this is what South Park generally does, I think that this reflects the depths to which society has plummeted. South Park is no witty satire, and should never be taken as such.

This, of course, leads to discussion freedom of speech. While a strong advocate of it, surely the public good must be weighed against freedom of speech. If South Park were to show an equally offensive episode deriding another sector of society which brought about some sort of violent retribution, then surely a line must be drawn in the sand. South Park is in no position to take a moral high ground by maintaining that it is merely a "satirical", politically incorrect cartoon, and that the actions of its viewers are of their own doing.

If there is one good thing that has come out of this sordid topic, it is that Catholic and Muslim groups banded together to lobby the television channel in an effort to prevent the broadcasting.

If only the rest of the world was more willing to stand side by side, we would all be so much better off and lead much more enriched lives.