Australian summer...

Howzat, members area, Ley ley, Australian open, Rod Laver arena, Nadal,came home drunk, blah blah blah...

I remember what it was like now... and I feel bored already.

Australia Day

9:30 Standing at De Clerqstraat tram stop

9:40 Amsterdam Centraal Station, boarding Regional train to Brussels Airport

12:33 Receive sms invitation to go out to Cocos Outback bar tonight. (Amsterdam's only Australian bar.)

13:15 Car ride to Northern European office

13:56 Eating Starbucks chicken salad waiting for 2pm meeting to commence

15:08 Heated discussion with Northern European Marketing Director

15:40 Running to catch train back to Amsterdam

15:56 Dissecting heated discussion with Northern European Marketing Director with fellow colleague over Belgian Waffles with Nutella at Brussels Central Station

17:12 Discover Triple J hottest 100 winner is Gotye's "Somebody that I used to know".
("You're just somebody that I used to know.") Realise Gotye is originally Belgian and I am spending Australia day in Belgium.

18:30 Decline invitation to Cocos. After being accused of being "Unaustralian", send a prompt response by retorting " But I can listen to "You're the voice" at full volume and eat lamb sausages at my house without the sweaty backpackers and horny dutch girls trampling on me..." (Based on 2011 experience of Australia Day at Cocos)

19:10 Tram 13 home, debating if I should be going out.

19:55 Hot shower, ugg boots, laptop.

Goodnight Australia.

Ick. IKEA.

Inside a large maze of fake rooms
Kids are lost, wailing "Mummy?"
Everything needs instructions
A lively buzz fueled by meatballs

- written by me as a poetical wrap of my first single IKEA experience.

I went to IKEA today to buy a new bed since I am moving house at the end of the week and the bed frame I have now belongs to the house.

I felt so strange buying a bed. I am so furniture adverse for the consequences of moving and owning such hefty items.

I walked into IKEA and broke out in a cold sweat seeing young families, young couples, heavily pregnant women contemplating cots, and young men thinking about home office systems.

People that have settled down.

Then I chose a bed with storage options underneath it and I was frazzled for about an hour. Then we went and had Swedish meatballs and fries in the cafeteria and I calmed down a little bit.

Everything here is so uncertain. I have concerns about my visa being out of date when I turn 30 in 5 months time because of the salary conditions that come with it.

All I want is just one more year.

Danger zone

A colleague just said the exact same thing I was thinking, about a highly personal matter.

It freaked me out a little bit.

"Get out of my head...," I told her "It's not a safe place to be."

The Fear

I am kind of afraid of my future.

I remember Australia and then I get nolstalgic and homesick.

And then I remember other things about Australia and I am glad I am not there.

But then I walk outside of my apartment and I feel like I don't belong here at all.

So I wonder what it's going to be like to be 32 year old me. Which is only 2.5 years away.

Because the 27.5 version of me was afraid of the future for different reasons. And she had every reason to be.

WANTED

Wanted: A benefactor to support all my crazy projects.

They just need to fund my modest lifestyle of soy lattes and internet connection and mobile phone bill while I concoct ideas and put them into action.

Sometimes I have so many awesome ideas I have no idea how I'm going to do them all this lifetime.

Going to work really gets in the way of my creative mojo.

The quiet life

I have been staying in quite a bit lately and it's been really good for my soul.

Taking the time while my friends have been away to just be in, not worry about where my bike is, or rush around.

I have the first mass gathering tonight since the middle of December, a warm up "Homecoming dinner." party. (since not everyone is back yet.)

My tasks for today?

Clean my room and buy a chicken that will feed 8.

I ... I .... that's right... I love it.

29 going on 19

image from my favourite site about sarcasm and home truths, some ecards



I am too old to be data entering things into power point presentations like a fucking admin bitch.


And not only am I too old, I am too experienced.


I am at the point where I should be using my brain to create, strategise and brainstorm radical ideas and concepts and solutions, not to copy, paste, edit graphs and tables like someone who's interning.


Today, at the freelance office, I directed a video edit about an academy award winning director, with an intern at my disposal.


Tonight, I sit at my dining room table, plugging numbers into Powerpoint presentations to make it look like I have been doing something productive during the week at the day job because what I really do when I am at work is USE MY BRAIN for side projects so my brain won't rot.


Talk about contrast.

Amen

image courtesy of PostSecret

Can someone please put this on a freaking billboard?!

Or multiple billboards around the world?

Or on a compulsory higher education curriculum?

Theatrics

"In the concert of life, nobody receives a program"

- Old Dutch Proverb

The shift

Art by my favourite street artist, C215

“And when the event, the big change in your life, is simply an insight--isn't that a strange thing? That absolutely nothing changes except that you see things differently and you're less fearful and less anxious and generally stronger as a result: isn't it amazing that a completely invisible thing in your head can feel realer than anything you've experienced before? You see things more clearly and you KNOW that you're seeing them more clearly. And it comes to you that this is what it means to love life, this is all anybody who talks seriously about God is ever talking about. Moments like this."

― Jonathan Franzen, The Corrections

Blink

Street art around the corner from my house, on De Clerqstraat.
Drawings by Antiorde and Prose by Laser 3.14

“We need to look at the subtle, the hidden, and the unspoken.”
― Malcolm Gladwell

We are all capable of making GOOD decisions in a split second. First impressions count.

I had forgotten about this little lesson. It was so important to me when I first moved here, and somewhere along the line I shelved it somewhere.

The skill of assessing in the moment comes from the beautiful and enigmatic computer which is the mind, flipping through a database of a gabillion experiences and memories that the body has stored as a reference point.

Sometimes the signs aren't even that cryptic, they are visibly out there (or out there in touch, smell, sound or taste.) Society has assigned certain values to semiotic symbols, (hence the creation of stereotypes) which speak volumes at a glance.

In the end, how you feel about a situation, scenario or person and the energy or vibe you are getting from it comes from a process that has already happened internally before you've even had a chance to understand the logic.

And if you're feeling anything less than comfortable with the situation, it's time to turn around and walk away, cut it loose or call it a night.

The swagger that speaks louder than the smile. The club that is lit up with beats blasting but there is something not quite right about crowd. The email that sounds innocent but hides a trap.

Alternatively, you should persist if there's something telling you that everything's going to be ok.

New Years Eve Road trip

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Germany!

Cologne never disappoints!

Fire crackers and fireworks on the street, Kölsch, super cute German boys, the Ronettes, Knudels and Beef!