With a few friends, I tried again to get drunk on the weekend. I promised myself that this time I would let myself go, drift away from my world of worries and be completely lost. I needed to - it was my right.
But no, my conscious spirit clings too tightly to my mind, and the attempt to forcibly separate the two renders me nauseous.
And so, instead of slipping into the void, I slipped quietly into the toilet and delivered five slices of supreme pizza (consumed and enjoyed only hours earlier) through my gaping mouth.

Work. What am I doing there?!!
Take photos of meeting rooms, play around with this program, proofread, email, sit.
In the morning I look forward to lunch. After lunch I long to go home. Home is where my bed is. Bed is where my head belongs.
I want to say I've become a cog in the wheel in the machine that is the corporate world. But no, I don't think I'm even that. I could vanish for hours and no one would know.
'Where did that guy go?'
'What guy?'

I'm using 1% of my brainpower here. Then again, 1% is all I've got, so tired am I from waking up early to join the morning rat-race *.
Looking busy is infinitely harder than being busy. I actually wrote a draft of this post first at work in my notepad. Something to keep me from falling asleep.
Dying a slow death from lack of sleep. My sleep-debt is accumulating, and one of these days I will suddenly drop dead. Will I really be doing this for the rest of my life?
I know I know, I shouldn't be complaining. I'm getting paid for doing nothing. But there's just no challenge, no sense of achievement, no future.

* Wake up. Catch the bus. Catch the train. Stand, not awake, not asleep. Jostle with a thousand robots in sharply-ironed suits, hurrying to sit at their desks, to stare at their screens.
What's your model number?
I am a defect model.
A man plays U2 in the station tunnel, his guitar a brief reprieve in the midst of madness.
Outside, the sun explodes, but we continue on our pre-programmed routes.
When did we become like this?

When you're a little kid and you see grown-ups around you, you think, 'I'll never be that old' or, 'it'll be forever until I become an adult'.
Time is cunning. Like in a game of hide-and-seek, it gives you a few years of respite before hunting you down.
I thought it necessary of me to blog today. Compulsory is probably the better word.

On Tuesday night I watched as the second hand traced its path up the clockface, and then the minute hand lazily inched forward and pointed to the 12. Inside my head, celebratory fireworks went off and a million people clapped and cheered and got pissed together.

So, another year alive on this earth. I want to thank all my friends for making me feel extra special (not retarded special), even if it was for a day.
Fortunately, I don't feel old or anything (somehow I don't think my mental self will ever grow older). In fact I feel better now than I ever did since I started uni - there's a quiet optimism somewhere, inside.
But, although I might be the same, there is an undeniable air of change that engulfs us all.
We sense it when we ask one another, not where we're studying, but where we're working. We sense it when friends tell you they're not saving up for a car, but a house. We sense it when the ones you love, drift further and further away.....
Welcome to the real world.

You free the clay from the airtight plastic wrap, an indescernible cold mass of nothing. You knead it in your hands, plying and shaping it tenderly. When the desired shape is formed, you leave it to set. It turns hard and brittle, never to change again.
I think that's how it is with people. The older one gets, the less likely you will change, and the more your character will be set in stone (or clay, if you like).

A case in point.....
On Friday night, I went clubbing with Samwise, Nat and Lauren at Verandah Bar near Martin's Place. The place was crammed with young asians - a throbbing, pulsating, sweating mass of bodies moving as one. Guys with spiked hair, guys in muscle tops, cute girls in short skirts, cold girls with shadowed eyes.
Before I started dancing, I took a tequilla shot to dull my self-consciousness. It didn't help at all of course - I never can seem to get tipsy.
So I ended up bobbing up and down, swaying from side to side and thrashing my arms around like I was drowning in quicksand.
I used to go clubbing a bit (in my younger years), but I stopped when I figured I never really could fit into the whole clubbing scene. To be honest, I did have fun on Friday night, but it did nothing to change the fact that I just can't do it.
I don't know. I find it hard to open up in front of strangers. Always scared of exposing a flaw, a fault, a vulnerability. Will you peck me to pieces?
I'll only really go clubbing again when I feel like making a fool of myself.


On Saturday night, I went out to dinner with a friend and a few of her friends. At first it was really awkward. I hardly knew anyone, and as we were waiting for a table, I spent most of the time staring into space or staring at the cracks in the pavement. I did try talking to one or two of the guys, but they didn't seem overly friendly and gave mostly one-word replies.
The food was great. There was pizza, pasta, salads and seafood. Soon everyone on the table was eating and laughing and joking around.
And then, when we had all finished, a cake was brought out. 'Who's the birthday boy?' asked the waitress holding the cake.
'Him!' said my friend, pointing to me.
Laden with lit candles, the cake was placed before me. I sat there, stunned. The whole table started singing Happy Birthday, and soon the whole restaurant was singing too. I was overjoyed, embarrassed, and speechless, all at the same time.
I love surprises.
After dinner, we went and walked along the beach, where a few unsuccessful attempts were made at throwing me into the water.
Although overall I was pretty quiet (again) on the night and didn't really get to know anyone (again x 2), it's the most fun I've had in a while.


I went for a job interview on Monday. I wanted this job badly.
I went in there and gave it my all. I came out grinning like an idiot. Granted, the job is only a one month temporary role, but if I do well, there's a chance for them to extend or put me on permanent. I will do my best, I swear I will.


If you want something, and want it bad enough, you'll....... get it?

I step out of the elevator to a chorus of Alleluias. A-lle-luia!!!
Hmm...actually, not really.
There are ten or so people sitting in the lobby, waiting. Their eyes follow me like hawks. 'Are you guys waiting for the job test?' I ask the guy closest to me.
He grunts a yes and nods.
'Thanks,' I respond, and sit myself on a chair in the corner. I gaze casually out the window, a carefully practiced look to mask the anxiety underneath. Bored is cool.

A few moments later, the supervisor announces that the room is ready. We shuffle in and choose a table, being sure not to sit too close to each other. Like pre-programmed robots, we open up our bags in unison and extract our pencils and pens and shiny kitchen utensils. I feel like I'm in uni all over again.

After a brief introduction, the test begins.
I flick to the first page, then the second, then the third and the fourth. Oh shit. What the fuck is this stuff?!
Shhh...Be calm. Show no emotion. Be cool. Bored is cool.
I look around the room. Everyone has their faces buried in the table, pens digging furiously into the pages like beggars digging into their first bowls of rice in a month. I try to do the same, but I'm really not that hungry. Some random words here, some random words there. Oohh...that looks interesting, I think I'll circle it.
I want to leave, but I can't. It'd be too embarrassing to leave so early, and be the first to do so.
The minutes tick by.......
I hold my head up with one arm. Spin my pen around my fingers. Wooo! Look at it go!! One spin! Two spins! Three....oops. I snatch it up from the floor and pretend nothing happened.

Yawn. So...sleepy. I look up and see how everyone else is doing. Hmm...he's stopped writing...she seems deep in thought....that guy....
Suddenly I lock gazes with the supervisor. The way his eyebrows are furrowed downwards, his disapproving eyes....he knows I know nothing. Immediately I put my head down. Damnit I hate it when that happens. It happens often.

And then someone gets up to leave. My saviour! Now I can go too! But wait, it might seem a bit suss if I leave straight after him.
So I wait. One minute. Too fast. Two....three....four.... (should I wait till five? Nah stuff it).... I hand in my very empty paper and am out of the building in seconds.
And thus ends Job Interview #2.


Jimmy once had a pet parrot. He had no friends, so the parrot was his best friend. He had raised the parrot since the parrot was young, fed him, looked after him. Jimmy would talk to the parrot, tell him his problems, confide in him.
One day, Jimmy decided to hold a party at his house for some new friends he had made. During the party, the parrot told everyone about Jimmy's problems, and they all laughed at him.
Jimmy was angry, but the parrot had already flown out through the window...


Funny - the people who say everything will be okay, are those for whom everything is okay, anyway.