an uphill battle

someone once told me that the harder the road that you walk, the greater the rewards. But how do we know which road to take? How do we know for sure that we are doing what is right, what we are destined to do?



"flickr.com"


"what had that flower to do with being white,
The wayside blue and innocent heal-all?
What brought the kindred spider to that height,
Then steered the white moth thither in the night?
What but design of darkness to appall?-
If design govern a thing so small."
-Robert Frost

Are we travelling on a road that we didn't choose but one that was chosen for us? I wonder if we have a map laid out for us and we are just living it. The world doesn't seem quite so fair if that's the case. Why can't we choose to be a doctor or a lawyer or a check-out chick. Did we choose to be cast to the side of the road without a home, without family, friends.... without a life? I wonder if some where in the beginings of our existence we signed a contract as to our life's pathway. A contrary argument is that some people strive harder, work harder, struggle up hill to get what they want. The harder the battle, the greater the rewards.

But not everyone can be a doctor. For starters, not eveyone has the ability mentally to study, understand concepts and things. Not everyone had a photographic memory, or ability with numbers, just to get through the course, let alone get grades good enough to land a fantastic internship, for example. The same goes for a lawyer. Not everyone is talented with words or have the confidence to argue something infront of men draped in black gowns perched like crows on wooden balconeys.

True, some things you can learn, some things can be taught and tutors exist. But we are given varying abilities and interests, and some jobs just aren't suited to some people.

I wonder what decides that in life. I wonder what decides who gets the brains, who gets the happy family life, and who gets the random opportunities that turn out to be a great success. Like poker, we are handed a set of cards, seemingly randomly. But i ask, is it all that random?

I belive that everyone has to trudge an uphill battle. But all battles aren't the same. Some may be born into poverty, but they find riches in things that those born into more monetary wealth don't. its a different battle. Some struggle to pass school and have a fine life elsewhere, while others gifted at the acadeamic struggle with finding decent people who care about them. Some have both, but I am sure that they struggle elsewhere.

I ask myself if that saying, the harder the battle, the greater the reward, is true. Are we actually meant to battle life to get great rewards? Or is the difficulty of the path a clear indication that we are not meant to be travelling along it? This brings me back to my first pattern of thought. How do we know that we are doing what we are meant to, what we are destined to. IS there a destiny that we are set out to follow? Do we have a choice and can we make the wrong choice?


one of my images

with a clear mind

www.bbc.co.uk

The let-down reflex after my exam today calls. That familiar feeling of relief. It calls.

"Those woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep."
-Robert Frost

Only halfway through my exams I crave the holidays. I have come from not caring to stressing and realising that I do still care despite what I believed, to now lookign forward and wishing it all to come fast, so that it can be behind me as soon as possible. Then I can relax in this beautiful wood that offers peace and calmness.

But I'm only half way through. I have a while to go yet. The tough yards are comming up. And then, only then, can I let myself travel a while in the dark empty woods, let my mind relax and uncoil.

a little confession: I'm silently freaking out

Here's a little confession to show that I am, i exist, i breathe and live and feel.

Somewhere along the line of things I got distracted. Was it emotions? dramas? general procrastination? Reguardless, here I sit on the cusp of something, about to topple. I'm silently freaking out. My lax approach to this year study wise has meant that barely hours before my exam, I am suffering from an exhiliration. An anxiousness. I am nervous now when five minutes ago i ceased to care.

I think I'm back. And I'm going to kick arse.

Only if I get my stuff done in time... and remember it.

him, heart, home?

He went out last night, the boyfriend I mean. Good on him, I say, let the stress build up through exams out with a night of drinking and clubbing. I intend on doing this after my last exam. He promised through my open window when I dropped him off in the centre of the clubs precinct that I could expect to have him stay at mine. Among the jokes of him waking me and the feeble protestations of exams being more important, we both unanimously agreed that this would be the best plan - as always. He's a regular at my house, 4 am deposits him on my bed on many ocassions. Drunk, tired and most of the time horny. I wake each time, but only enough to kiss him good night and ensure he has enough bed. Morning tells a different story.

Its good to wake to the attempted silence of him clumsily undressing and hesitating as he drunkenly plans his entrance to my bed. I feign sleep most of the time, keeps me in the limbo between worlds.

But there was no wake up stumble

No call of inability to open my door

No hesitant hug as I didn't wake to his belt hitting the floor

No sound

I wake in the comfortable morning to voices in the lounge. My housemate and her visiting dad. You would not believe the thoughts that went through my head. They (the trio of the boy and his mates from uni) were rather drunk when i dropped them off. They have mouths when drunk. I have hidden fears of bashings from bikeys or other drunk head-strong men. A fight over some chick. Arrested. Injury. While being a fear, you wouldn't think that something like that would happen to you, right? Its on the news, distant friends of distant people.

I roll over to admire my neatly empty bed. Perhaps those hidden fears should have been voiced earlier. Perhpas I should have gone to stop it. Perhaps there was something I could do. I instantly check my phone. Surely the afro or the tall would have voiced some concern. And they had

Afro tells me of boyfriend's injury on his attempt to get home.
The other two messages are from boyfriend. Didn't want to wake me. Three hour walk home. Finally collapsing on his welcoming bed.

I later find after calling him to check that he was still alive, that he didn't even bother to come by my house at all. He'd walked from his friend's place. I thought he'd promised to come visit me in the night, like always. I'd half expected it. I resist the urge to yell at him for causing this fear of abandonment. After all, he didn't want to wake me.

a night of laughs and stars

It is notable in my first few posts that i consider people and friends part of the reason I enjoy life. As I have been feeling a little less motivated today, it is good to note that a few hours spent with my person and my housemate-turned-great friend, in the spa under the stars has considerably picked up my spirits.

with home-made cola and a bottle of southern we talked for hours without realising. Its great to just chill out with great friends and forget the issues of the day, or talk and resolve them. whatever comes out. As my person said we don't plan our DnM sessions, and its true. Just let the night take you without obligation and I find that we have a much better time then.

After being ejected from out cosy spot by the security guard begining the process of locking up, we wished each other a good night and luck for our poor study attempts for our exam tomorrow. Good friends can give light to any dark day. They help without even realising it.

a clarification: brains and my awesomes

On my most recent post I said that I always pass my exams, easily. I owe a clarification:

I am very driven. I usually strive to achieve the best marks possible. In saying that, I am also competitive, and want to gain better marks than my fellow students. It drives me to try harder, push myself and be the top of whatever I do.

Its productive for me, and I guess I wouldn't have gotten here if I don't have that competitive streak. I guess that's why I find it so surprising that ocassionally, I just don't care. I have no energy, no drive.... but I've already said that. And I probably will again at a later date, recalling my progress through school.

I'm also smart. I'd have to be, or I wouldn't be where I am, regardless of how hard I try and how hard I push. I can grasp concepts easily, and I'd say in my sleep, but I'd hesitate to give you false information. I also have a photographic memory. "oooo, lucky me". I wish.

While I find it rather "easy" to learn things, remember things (not names so much though, but more on that later) I also find my natural ability in the class room to be a detriment to my social life. In early school it wasn't so bad. Marks weren't such an issue I guess. But as time wore on and we hit the hard years, competition comes out and people don't socialise as much. I've always been told by family and the like that it was because I am intimidating.... I think I'm easy to get along with. And those good-advice-givers in the same breath as telling me that I'm intimidating, also tell me I'm friendly and approachable. Odd combination.

But here in Uni, among the best of the best, I find other competitive people such as myself. But they seem to hate me for breezing through like I seem to do.

Truth is, I'm lazy. I don't want to work if I don't have to. And I don't have to work to pass. But I have to work extraordinarily hard to beat those super-study-students who spend as much of their spare time studying. I'd prefer to do other things, I value friends and the like. People are important to me.

And that brings me nice and semi-neatly to my point. It frustrates me that people decide to regard me as an enemy or something just because I am naturally gifted in the brains department. I'd love a challenge by some friends to push me harder. To make me work.

The bitchiness and politics of the people in my course make it hard to find good people, good friends, close people I'd want as my awesomes because I know they'd fly anywhere in the world for me.

I dislike the petty behaviours that you find most people exhibit. I thought it was just high school, but I have found that it continues in Univeristy, even in the more elite courses. Such is the difficulty of making true friends, and therein lies one of the values of the few select true friends I have happened to stumble across in life: they are my awesomes and I can't see me ever loosing them.

one single boat fighting the current

Its busy, its hard, I get tired. Its not the first time, but it surprises me every time. Exam week is hard. The tireless effort that you have to put in eventually wears you down. You give up, cease to care, begin to let it slide. One day it hit me. Well, today it hit me. I woke up and realised that I don't care. I can't remember when I began to not care. I'll pass, I always do, easily. That's not the point. I have begun to loose the desire to be the best, to do the best, to be the best that I can be. Its almost like I no longer care where I belong in my cohort (marks wise?) and potentially where I belong in the world.

I am begining to think that its not just about Uni. It could also be about life. For so long during high school I just studied. I had friends, but only true ones towards the later part of year 12. I didn't put in the effort to socialise and I didn't care, my climbing marks gave me the pleasure that i now seek out with my awesomes, my really good friends. But I haven't had much social contact since begining study week. I even now sort of hide from my housemates. I want to be alone. I seek the silence and avoid that social etiquette of having to be pleasant and sociable with the people around you. Its not that I don't want to talk, I don't want to have to talk to them. not right now, anyway.

In saying that, I'm not being all morbid and "emo". I actually really enjoy the way my really close friends recognise that I "woke up on the wrong side of the bed" and am just not myself today. the beautiful thing about the people that love you is that they are there for you even when you have nothing to give them. My boyfriend lay on my bed holding me even though I couldn't say what was wrong, even though I couldn't give him the happy conversation i usually do. My person keeps her eye out. I know I can call her any time of day or night, drop by just because I need company. Its people like that I enjoy having in my life. But they are hard to find and so precious to me. I believe that it is the people in your life that make it all worthwhile.