AverageChef

So it’s safe to say once again we are all well in a deep comatose of MasterChef fever this year. So it’s about time we ponder on its brilliance or should I say frustrating incompetence. I have to assume I am not the only one who finds themselves utterly frustrated every day of the week as this clearly terrible piece of production has some sort of strangle hold on their everyday lives. Someone tell me please there has to be an answer; I can poke a million holes in it but just not find a positive... Don’t believe me? Let’s take a closer look...

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A show based on cooking viewed at dinner time. I am sorry mother but it just makes me disappointed when I look down at my plate. I mean how can she compete with Kobe beef served with a side of fresh oysters collected by a goddess’s hand all of which are conveniently available at your local Coles?... apparently.  It just like back in school when the teacher said if you wanted to eat a lolly in class you had to have enough to share with everyone. MasterChef where is my feast dammit?! Even making this point has left my mouth watering and once again I am unsatisfied.

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Now to my next point; the show is so obviously guided by public opinion. It insults me they design a competition apparently based on talent when it is so clearly public opinion on contents that is the swinging vote. I know this cry has been made time and time again with the triumph of Julie last year but I really do feel it’s getting worse and at the rate its going next year all the judges will be receiving regular doses of food poisoning.

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The crying and the terribly typical family sop stories that really aren’t that moving. We live in the 21^st century we have a country full of people from all around the world with amazing stories. How can a TV show created for the sole purpose of entertainment choose the 25 most boring contestants? Where is the loveable Scandinavian giant with stories of his war torn homeland and how his gift for cooking came about while being forced to work in the kitchens of his corrupt government as they shot his friends around him for using too much salt? The single mum forced to work as an escort catering exclusively to visiting international chefs? Come on channel Ten get creative if I see another basket case I might not watch for a day... well at least think about not doing it.

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MasterChef is one of the highest rating shows on Australian TV each week. It is up there with the likes of the Sunday news and the big AFL and sporting events of the week. I ask you to spot the difference between the two. Did you notice the missing 50-50 ratio of advertising to content because I sure as hell didn’t? MasterChef is a gold mine for the advertising world and there really doesn’t seem to be a quality control on products either. I would assume that with a show demonstrating the fancier side of cuisine one would choose advertising to suit not every kind of possible frozen food product under the sun. Frozen food is lazy it doesn’t need to be compared to fancy food people aren’t completely retarded well at least 20%[1] are not. Lazy food sells itself humans are naturally lazy it is a proven scientific fact. Please just let me suffer through Masterchef in peace.

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And here we come to my greatest hatred of all... Mr Matt Preston. Seriously guys the Graham Kennedy Award for Outstanding New Tallent? I mean I admit I have been out of school for six months now and do not do anything language related anymore but did the meaning of the word outstanding change recently and I just didn’t get told? Every word out of his mouth is just terrible. I couldn’t even think of cheesier monologues to be used on National TV. What are his credentials because they seemed to be a little fuzzy? He can’t actually cook but has the ability to judge cooking because he eats food. Wait a second I eat food and I can act terribly pretentious could I be the next judge on MasterChef? On top of his other lovely attributes why do the producers insist on including footage of his grotesque eating habits? It just doesn’t make my average home style catering go down any easier. There is one thing that makes him just that little worse... that handy ultra ad... it speaks for itself... who’s with me and getting Viva instead.

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So basically I am still in the same pickle as I was before, why do enjoy MasterChef so much? There has to be something and don’t bring up the family bonding because my family has a brilliant ability to destroy any bonding moment by turning it into a violent argument which is what this viewing becomes.  There has to be something making us have this uncontrollable need tune in each day. It sure as hell beats me but I can’t wait for tomorrow night’s episode....          

Stupid little things

Two in a night... I really don't want to do this assignment. But I think I know what I wanted to say before.

Just thought then about all the stuff I've never said. All the stuff I probably won't ever say. If I don't wake up tomorrow, of if I call it a day in decades from now. There'll always be something I missed, someone I lost, or words I forgot. I dunno, it was just interesting, to think of how much everybody throws aside into this giant hoard of regrets, stuff we're procrastinating from.

The real stuff, not the assignments, not the paperwork. The dreams we leave until morning, the people we're gonna reach out to after they say goodbye, the path we're going to walk the day our legs can't carry us anymore. Just why? Why the hell is it like this? Why was I brought into a world where this had to happen? It's just been bugging me so much lately.

I have this silly little thing I do when I just hit up youtube or something, type in piano or cello or something, and see what I can find. I trudge through until I get to the original compositions. Then I just hit play and listen. Listen and let it make me think about everything. Stop caring about what it means, what it's called, even whether I like it or not.

It just gives clarity. Clarity in moments. For a moment you're in a room by yourself, noone can enter, you can drown out everything outside. When you're king in a nutshell you just don't care anymore. I'm not sure whether to condemn it as escapism, but it's bliss. Just the sense of knowing what you're actually thinking is perfect, it can be peerless joy, shattering misery, but it's real regardless. If there was one thing I could have that lasted forever, it'd have to be that sense of perfect isolation.

I know I'm always talking about craving company. I have to admit, I think cybernetics is the answer most people have been looking for. Just engage, talk, learn and everything will return in a constant loop. Hell, Douglas Adams and David Gilmour raved about it, it must be right.

But that place is tempting. It's weird, I just imagine it sometimes. Sitting alone, in the world I always wanted, where I could just sit and spend forever trying to work me out. Not having to worry about the growing list of things that just don't matter to me anymore...

It's monstrously selfish to just want to abandon the world like that, but it's sort of one of the things I want. I think I know I want, and I'm tired of fighting what I want.

Life just seems to flash by, damnit, I'm eighteen and I already want to go back and fix things, and this is hardly new to me. There really is no way to though. Just one path, whether it's chosen or fated doesn't change the fact that whatever happens, happens. But the brevity is frightening, I only remember fragments, I can't pick up one memory without dropping another, then finding it among the rest is almost impossible. In a way, I'd almost say I won't even live for a second. I'll just be living whatever's running through my head at any time.

So just make it worthwhile, go off and get whatever it is, do whatever you have to... it's your life, so you don't have to iron out the stupid little things.

Not everything needs naming

I've been staring at the new post page for about ten minutes. Yeah, I've got absolutely nothing I can think to say, unfortunately I've got everything I want to say as well... stupid annoying dilemmas...

Basically I think I need some time off, holidays can't come any sooner though. Well I've bored you with enough so here're just some random thoughts and writings I've compiled lately. No structure, no real meaning, but real... unlike so much else...


Good people don't show up in mirrors


Just another day, waking up another insomniac in it's grave


If we swapped lives we'd just burn in respective hells


Thanks for the stagnant world,
Now I can work on the elegy
for the tragedy of liberty


Undertaker trains carry corpses,
Reaper's lost his deal,
Who needs a pin up for eternity?
Because now it's getting real


The serpent deals his fruit,
he's got tiny mouths to feed,
He can't make a buck or mind
from something kids don't eat


Watching the world wave goodbye
It ambles by like puppetry
Wind at my whim like an undersea king
Back and forth,
To and fro,
Just different directions for worldly flow
Nowhere to go
Makes bestial brevity tempting
coupled with the freedom.


It's a second bringing not a coming,
So why the fuck will none of you bastards stand up?


Noone can save a world, where different people's different perils lurk behind their hidden doors.


Cards, numbers, names.
I don't want to be me anymore.


I only ask the world the single thing it took from me.
Everything and nothing.


No good, no evil, no me, no you,
No anything, welcome to the world...
Is what I'd like to say but reality was on the other side all along


Everything I wanted to be, was something I never let you see,
Pull from me your obsession, don't look, don't speak, just go.


Every moment you feel alive
There's a week ironically begging for death
Clocking on and clocking off
To do the time in your mind
A cash bouquet and sepulchral eyes.
Respectable neglect makes the wise disguise
Dress it sharp for cubicle or grave.
A temporary end epidemic like a wave


Keep clinging little man,
To whatever you can.
In this big man's hands you dance
right off this stage.
His voice out your mouth
and everyone knows.
Got your name from a tag,
saving for when you'll sag.
Everyone sees the strings but you.


Well, if you get here, it's been awfully nice of you to keep dealing with my mood murder, awfully nice of you to deal with everything else as well. So... uh... what was I doing?

Fuck Forever.

Hey little bloggers,
'Sup?
It's been a bit gloomy here at D.I.D a Mess recently, so I have gathered some pictures for a cheer up, because they are pretty and full of thoughtful phrases I couldn't possibly come up with.
How has your week been?
I have spent this week trying to relax my spasming neck and jaw muscles, drinking too much coffee, thinking perfectly logical things and doing the complete opposite of them (I think this is just for kicks, but it's hard to say. I'll let you know when I know), and not getting enough sleep. I have a flute performance exam in two weeks that I am shitting myself for a bit, and tomorrow comes with four hours practise, two aural assessments to learn, an essay to write and a string quartet to compose.
Welcome to hell.

Have a good rest of your weekend.
xx

Welcome to my Breakdown... I hope I didn't scare you

I had a bad anxiety attack today.

I wasn't going to blog about this because it was pretty messed up. But I'm a hypocritical attention seeking bastard or something, but that's to be expected when for the last three to four months you've had weeks where you don't have any reason to speak.

OK, most of you are familiar with my nervous breakdown. For those who don't know, a nervous breakdown isn't just a once off where you put shoes on your hands and scream about how none of it makes any sense.

Oh no, it's more like being in the middle of your body panicking itself into cardiac arrest spontaneously and your mind beginning to scream about how very little of the world's crap is justified, including you... that and it tends to drag on for a month and a bit... and counting.

Yeah, another self indulgent post, but this is all I can think of right now to stop me doing things I'm pretty sure I'll regret.

So here's the lowdown... Hmmm, this all started after a pretty rough week. Rough because it started with a Sunday. One of THOSE Sundays, you know them. Well, I let this Sunday run all week, I don't know anyone at uni... still... kind of sad, but meh, been there before, I live, it's cool (Duh, because I'm so stoic and fantastic and stuff and things). My parents were just being their usual awkward, 'Oh-you're-so-problematic-and-likely-the-devil's-child' selves... so the less said about trippin' balls in lectures the better. But oh, the days of horizontal wall people become sorely missed.

Well, I was basically doing my thing, giving up on assignments, avoiding eye contact, writing in my therapeutic nightmare notebook and genuinely being a borderline autistic jerk to anyone who so much as looked at me. The normal deal for those who are used to tolerating my 'eccentricities'.

Alright, my life ain't sunshine, lollipops and rainbows everywhere. And it's not going to be. I accepted a long time ago that wearing a facade for four hundred 'close' friends wasn't my way of doing things. Compromise has managed to worm it's way out of my vocabulary as well. Basically, I give a person a minute. If you can't somewhat entertain me or I can't come up with anything to say to you that doesn't leave me scowling and clutching for something sharp to sink into the side of my finger or genitals, then so long, it wouldn't work out.

Goddamnit, being too irritatingly stereotypical, point is, I was asking for this to happen... And well, I think I like it. Occasionally.

OK, now this is getting awkward, the room doesn't seem real and I think I'm gonna throw up. No, I am gonna throw up.

Basically this is the perfect example of your body's contribution to the nervous breakdown. It says, you need to get out of here or I'll really make you look like a moron in front of people. I seem to be spending too much time in toilet cubicles at uni playing guessing games with my body and trying to predict whether it wants to just puke itself inside out, or just cramp up my stomach, or maybe just a nice little, searing bitch of a headache.

Well today I was in a tute... trying to hyperventilate because it looks better than randomly slamming your lower body because you're getting this huge numb sensation all over it. I sit at the back naturally. Well, it got to much... I got out of the room and bolted for the toilets. I didn't throw up, like usual, but the sensation is so undescribably real. It sounds stupid but your body just says, get out of here, I don't care if I have to piss you silly or make your fingers so numb you can't hold a pen. Naturally you panic, leave, and nothing. It's just a sensation. I'm not throwing up and collapsing in a heap, it just feels like I am. You know, that sounds great, your body's just playing tricks on you, but it's unbearable, infuriating, even maddening.

Today I started to get the, 'You're insane, you know?' with that growing edge of actual fear. Everyone hits that stage, when they realise, hang on, you're not completely right. Yeah probably not, but I get diagnosed or anything, and my world falls apart quicker than I can mutter about how none of you understand you're wasting your lives with bureaucracy, money, looking the same and identifying yourself in nomenclature's damning cage.

Thing is, it's really quite terrifying. I've taken on the appearance of a harried junkie now. In all honesty, I've been tempted. To just find something to sedate everything and stop the world moving so fast. But I don't think substances will help. That's kind of why I've been so annoyingly strict with my sobriety lately and not touching anything. Because then it'll all go to hell something fast. It's a coping mechanism though. It's horrible but comforting at the same time. It seems to just rationalise everything. More and more becomes acceptable. Self criticism takes the back seat and lets you just leave when you think it's getting too hot in the kitchen. Also becomes fine to just talk about impenetrable nonsense for no reason...

Well, I dunno why I'm writing this, maybe another classic method of holding people at arms length through terror, maybe to avoid sleep so I don't have to wake up to a job I'm not being paid for and was relegated to in a barely concealed attempt of my father's to mould me into everything I've learned to loathe. Maybe it was because, in reality, this is the only goddamn thing I have left. I suppose majority of people who wrote to eat were just doing the only job a nutjob can take.

Oh and before I forget, given recent posts, I didn't want to look like I was saying 'Hey look at me! I've got issues too!'... maybe I was just inspired to explain away erratic behaviour or something... which given the quality, it does appear so... Hell, tonight was just a 'write because I can' deal, because I can't see much else with a modicum of rationality any more.

Well, goodbye for now... might as well wave off some of those chunks of sanity I seem to be hurling up, as well. I think? Because I'm tired of knowing things... I'd rather hate to think right now

Apatheia, Athambia, Aphasia.

It's been a while, for a few reasons. Blogging takes willpower, which I have a deficit of. I also thought that I needed to try to express more personally and keep some record of my monotonous days, so I kept a journal on my laptop in March and the beginning of April. Another thing is that I like my own posts to be rambling, opinionated, and strewn with attempted humour, and often I don't feeling writing that sort of thing.

I think I should preface this post by saying that you don't have to read it, you probably won't get much out of reading it, and we might be both more comfortable if you didn't. It's glum, uninteresting and entirely self-indulgent. I also need to stress that though I may waste your time with dollar shop angsting and emo whining, I know that my so-called problems are extraordinarily insignificant in comparison to what most people on this planet, in this country and even in my suburb would go through every day. I have absolutely no entitlement to feel sorry for myself, and though my attitude and directionless is concerning me a little at the moment, my life still is pretty good as much as it is mediocre, and a lot more than at it is bad.

Today, for example, had several fantastic things. I had tea and brownies with the wonderful Anna Hyde and I saw 'Waiting for Godot' with Mr Tongs, which was easily the best thing I've ever seen. The title of this post are three words I liked from the play and looked up when I got home. Apatheia is the absence of caring, Aphasia is an inability to communicate and I have absolutely no idea what Athambia means but would love to find out. Try them some time (I'm also getting into "visceral" in essays, it's a guaranteed breadwinner).  

Well here goes. Bits from my diary thing and between me writing now.

12 April

The train rattles to the city and I sit amongst the passengers. One guy has a hash brown in held in his mouth, and quickly raises his hands when I look at him. Some read books I'll never read. Most of the others are staring out the window, or into their own reflections. I'm feeling very unenthusiastic about university today. I don't like the anxiousness it gives me about assignments. I don't like them because I'm afraid of their difficulty and because I seem to inevitably delay them till pretty much after their due. This procrastination, in want of a better term, is one of my biggest problems in everything. I'm incapable of keeping promises to myself.

Tomorrow, I will be completing and submitting two assignments. One is worth 30% of a subject and was due yesterday, the other is 10% and was due Monday.  

18 April

Should I leave university? I appear to hate it. I have a horrible cycle of declining weeks and no achievements, at the moment the stress and self fucking frustration that comes with things like this totally outweighs any indifferent cheeriness I feel on a good day and a passing interest in a lecture. But what would I do if I deferred?  

A few weeks ago at work, the guy I was working with told me of how he was studying international relations, was planning to work for Oxfam and then eventually the United Nations. He asked me what I wanted to do. Desperately attempting to look interesting, I said maybe a novelist, but I knew that it was practically impossible to get into. He frowned slightly. 

"I know this sounds really wanky man, but if you put your mind to it you actually can achieve pretty much anything you want to." It didn't. I agree with him completely. It's the want that's the problem. 

28 April

I realised that all of the vague aspirations I have are pretty much a childish desire to be famous. Artist, author, comedian, journalist, tv person, actor, politician, activisty thing, musician. They're all purely craving affirmation. I feel a little knot in my chest typing this, because it's probably one of the things I want most. 

On the same day, on the way home on the tram, I noticed an old man taking to a woman in her 20s. Their conversation seemed interesting so I turned off my ipod and listened in. They'd never met before. He was 70, born in China, and had an infectious smile and charming stories about the friends he'd made on trams.  He sung in a choir, played in an opera, wrote poetry and had two grown up sons. He told the girl and her sister that the one thing worth having in life was happiness. Within a fifteen minutes he had a quarter of the tram happily chatting, quickly graduating from total strangers to old friends. One middle aged woman with short Burgundy hair joined in, talking about her own children. A lawyer of maybe thirty in a woolen grey suit and hat moved down the train to join the conversation, telling the old man:

"I couldn't help but hear your philosophy on happiness being the only thing in life that matters. I had cancer when I was 14 and have epilepsy now, but in some respects it's been a blessing."
I eventually took out my headphones and introduced myself, glowing inside. Minutes passed. I said nothing else, and no-one had anything to say to me. The old man hopped off at his stop, waving to all. The middle aged woman and the girls kept talking. I joined in briefly, asking the same question twice in a row then said nothing, head downcast. Eventually I put my headphones back in. This time I played music. The girls left three stops before mine and said "Goodbye Ben!". I dropped my book as I attempted to wave, and mumbled "Goodbye...". I'd forgotten their names.

25 April

I've always been too curdled with self-revulsion to even get close to making a move on a girl. I can read that fleeting distaste at my more awful jokes, that barely conscious disgust at my ridiculous over-articulated self-indulgent attention seeking bullshit. The fact that I go up three steps at a time with my head bowed like quasimodo. The fact that I'm forever pawing my greasy hair. That my arms are like bones thinly mummified with yellowed serviettes. 

The patronizing, the regular hookups, the glurgey cliché romances I'm supposed to appreciate, the break ups I'm supposed to feel for and the "it's SOOOOOO much worse when you've had sex and then you don't get it for months!". It hurts, people have no idea how much it hurts, how wormlike and pathetic it all makes you feel. I have reached a point that is crushingly close to acceptance.  

It's almost five a clock, my eyes are drooping, I'm still wearing a three piece suit and have donned a bowler hat.

26 April

Waste deep in the tepid sludge of miserly thoughts and awful words.

I'm lying in bed. I think my parents unplugged the internet to try to make me go to bed, thinking that the sole reason for my solemn glumness was sleep deprivation. I heard it again today.

"He doesn't care about anyone except himself."

They're doing their best to make it a self-fulfilling prophecy. My main issue is with the second part.

I feel like there's nothing at all to do. I'm aware of cheapness of my ricepaper writing, the shoddiness of my bloated adjectives. It's like I'm stifled by a self-cringingness. 

I have no tragedy, however tiny and dint-like, to store these thoughts and so I float in them. No storm-water hole, no outlet or joy or oppression into which the grey washing water can recede.

I hate people who can write, I have nothing to say.

I need to sleep. I need to go. I feel alone and awful.  

Thanks for reading that. I'm really not like this all the time, or even often, but I wanted to get some this off my chest. Appreciated.

"If only I had an enemy bigger than my apathy I could have won." — Mumford and Sons

I heard that it's bad for you

“I heard that they are genetically modified to be that size.”

“I heard that it’s actually brown before they add fake colour.”

“I heard that all their meat comes from diseased chickens.”

“I heard that it is only about 30% meat, the rest is left overs.”

“I heard that it’s mixed with saw dust to make it look bigger.”

“I heard that they don’t clean the faeces out of there before throwing the whole thing into a food processor.”

“I heard that it can damage your eyes.”

“I heard that it can burn a hole in your stomach lining.”

“I heard that they give you cancer.”

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I for one like to enjoy life to the fullest. If I have to do something that doesn’t appeal to me, I will try to find the least difficult way to do it, and if I have to eat something I don’t like, then I will most likely cover it in Nutella or something similar, but how can I enjoy anything when the constant fear of resulting illness is being thrust upon me from all angles. So many things are apparently detrimental to my health, and I am sick of hearing outrageous weekly reports about the new discovery of a cancer causing agent in our everyday groceries.

There is a freakishly long list of foods and products that are responsible, or contribute, to the development of cancer in different parts of your body, but how are we supposed to know which ones are just bullshit, and which ones should strike fear into our little hearts.

So first, there are the obvious ones of smoking and UV rays. It is a generally agreed upon thing that both of these things cause cancer, but if you really look at it, you can spend your entire life in the sun with no sunscreen, and never get cancer, and you can spend your entire life smoking, and never get cancer. So how was the conclusion that these are bad for you reached? We trust the years of reserch that has been put into it that states that were are MORE LIKELY to develop cancer if we spend 23 and a half hours a day in the sun, half of those with a cigarette in our hand, and the last half hour sleeping. Now if even this widely agreed upon medical risk is not true for every individual and it has had years of research dedicated to it, how are we supposed to believe the many other horror stories that we hear of things that have been far less looked into? Here are some of my favourites:

SOFT DRINKS: It is an undenyable scientific fact that soft drink increases flatulence; due to increased gas intake; but apart from dying from embarrassment, is there any other danger in this sugary delight? My auntie; who is very paranoid about me dying for some reason; printed me a 7 page report on how soft drinks cause cancer. The research sited was quite recent but not extensive, and if it was completely conclusive, we would have an 18+ servise rule one soft drinks as well as alcohol and cigarettes. Nice try Mary, but I will continue to consume large amounts of sugar with dinner when we eat at nonna's house.

COKE ZERO: Forget about the other soft drinks! Coke Zero has an artificial sweetener in it that causes cancer. No sugar and apparently good for you, except for the crazy cancer food that it places secretly into your stomach. If the sweetener caused cancer, they wouldn't be allowed to use it.

LYSTERINE: We all enjoy having fresh breath, and we all enjoy it when others have fresh breath, but does it come at a cost? Apparently the alcohol in the formula ruins the lining in your throat. To be honest I would rather risk it and not smell like an onion for the entire day, thanks.

LIP GLOSS: I personally do not wear pretty lip gloss due to the fact the my lips are so dry that they feel like sand paper unless I lather them in Chapstick, which looks funny when combined with real lip gloss, so I settle for just the delicious strawberryness of the Chappy. There is, however, an issue for my many lip gloss loving friends whose mouths are apparently all going to fall off. The freaky evil chemicals from the lip gloss seep into your skin and give your lips some terrible disease that makes your entire face peel off, or something of the sort. Again, would these products be on the market if they are likely to kill you? They are designed to make you look nicer, but instead they make your face fall off; this could be an issue.

UNDERWIRE BRA: Breat cancer is a huge issue in Australia and I wouldn't joke about it, but am I honestly expcted to believe that wearing an underwire bra would cause it? 90% of women (ignore my made up guess work of a statistic) wear a bra with underiwire in it, although I guess that could explain why breast cancer is so common in this country, but I still doubt the validity of the statement that the two are somehow connected. Seriously, I do not particularly want to die, but the underwire makes my boobs look nice, perky, and slightly bigger; they aren't very big, let me have something here!

MOBILE PHONES: Just the other day I read that a study of mobile phones had finally been completed and that it was concluded that they do, in fact, give you cancer. This one actually sounds plausible to me though. I sleep with my phone next to me on the bedside table, and I am one of those people that, in the absence of a pocket, will put their phone in their bra or tucked into their pants rather than in their bag, so I guess I am at a high risk of getting cancer. The study, however, only states that TALKING on the mobile phone is bad for you; phew *wipes sweat of forehead* I guess I am safe from cancer, although my hands will probavly stop working by the time I am 45.

HOT TEA: This one is my favourite. It turns out that for someone like me who likes tea to be nice and hot, our throat lining is in terrible danger. AAAAHHHHH *runs away screaming*. Apparently, if I drink my tea too hot, there is a similar effect as when I use Lysterine; now I can't have tea OR fresh breath? I hate life! Surely if your tea is so hot that it hurts to drink, then you would stop drinking and wait the 2 minutes for it to cool down, but I guess not. Here, would you like some replacement throat lining with that? Please don't report on stupid things that make my mum worry about how long I give the tea to cool down.

So there you have it; my favourite things that apparently are going to eventually kill me. I hope that you will all now stop drinking soft drink, having fresh breath, communicating with others via phone, drinking hot tea, looking pretty, and wearing a bra, or death will come with the power of 1000 knives (well probably not knives, that would be unrelated). And now I am off to a lecture at good old Monash Uni. Thanks for reading.

-Renji

This is nothing like it was in my room.

Hello strangers.
How are you?
I hope you are excellent.
I kind of want to get all serious on you today, and I am sorry about this seriousness, but there's this misconception I really want to address right now.
And the issue is this: That mental illness is not a joke, and it's not an attention seeking measure, and it's not something to fuck around about, and it's not something you make assumptions about without having any knowledge of it.
I had a conversation with someone the other week, who told me that people who have panic attacks are "attention seekers", and that depression is basically easy to snap out of. This was following my having a panic attack.
I found this very problematic. Panic attacks occur as a product of the fight or flight response, which is when your body reacts by producing a ridiculous amount of adrenalin to save you from something - essentially, it goes back to being a cave man and trying to run away from dinosaurs. That kind of thing. So your body reacts to situations of high levels of stress and danger, and for an anxiety sufferer these are pretty broad... enclosed spaces, people, public transport, etc. etc. etc. So your body decides it needs to protect you. It takes the blood from your extremities, and moves it to your torso because that is where most of the vital organs lie. And when this happens you get finger tingling and numbness. This also makes your heart beat faster, which is why some people get palpitations. People often sweat - a mechanism to help you slip out of the grasp of potential dangers. Sometimes you get blurry vision, hot flushes, cold flushes, paranoia, inability to think straight...
And you know what? This is usually, not something that you can avoid.
Because there's a chemical imbalance in your brain.
So anxiety and depression sufferers can get so many different symptoms as a cause of this, just like drug users get different symptoms from drug use. So you can be paranoid, and you can be fearful of everyday things, you can be overly self-critical, self-centred, have mood fluctuations, feel like being sick, feel worthless, useless, guilty, feel like you can't leave the house...

And it can start from anything. You can have a genetic predisposition, you can have a traumatic experience, I mean, fuck, it can start because you don't get enough sunlight.

So the point is, you cannot make a judgement on someone who has this if you have no idea what it's like.
Depression and anxiety can seem like stupid, selfish illnesses. And they are, and that is what is so frustrating about them. Having the constant need to explain yourself, means you have the constant need to talk about yourself, because there is no way to explain.

I speak from experience, and this is not a cry for help or pity. I just want to explain. Because it can be really difficult to explain why you burst into tears at random intervals. Or why you can have perfectly logical thought patterns (a recent example: don't hook in with that awful sleazy male), and do the complete opposite of them. or why you deliberately do things that you know will be upsetting to you, or why you feel constantly guilty.

So anyway. This is me being serious. But I just thought that maybe it needed clarifying, because sometimes there's that idea that it's all just made up nothing, and actually, it's definitely something.
And I don't think it should be taken lightly.

RANT FINISHED.

Love you like fireworks.

Oh I'm sorry, I'll leave you to it

Why am I here?...

You all just edged away didn't you? Yeah, I can definitely forgive you for expecting a typical Tongan trite existential rant, culminating in me clutching my head in the corner while you roll your eyes and find something to entertain yourselves with in DARPA's ninth circle...


Google HQ, come on, this has to be our Great Deceiver...


Not tonight, I'm not in the mood... (pauses for outcry and chatter). I just have absolutely no idea why I'm typing, here in this box right now. Maybe I've got stuff I want to say, maybe I've got stuff I NEED to say? Or maybe I'm just losing my mind like I've been suspecting of late and this was the logical destination of this evening's horrifying lack of... well, anything.

Yes, this is directionless. In that I'm admitting it's directionless. If you want to look at this artistically then take it as allegory for life, who the hell can admit they really know where they're going?

While I remember, Thankyou. Okay? Seriously THANK YOU, you've got no idea, but you deserve it.

Being able to hear the wind is one of those awesomely disconcerting things. It doesn't have a tune, but you hear it. You don't get to see it but you feel it. I have no idea. This is what I'm thinking right now, so I'm typing it up. Because I think like the wind, I can't see it, I just have this vague sense that everything I do is backed by rationality. I'm moved along like clouds by something I can't control. Then it becomes tragic. The world shatters like glass, and now it's cold and lonely.

Where did the wind come from?

Where does it go?

Does the wind die?

Did it have a place somewhere once, but passed over it in search of it's destination? Is it just being guided along like everything at it's mercy? Is it just running from everywhere it's been and all the little disappointments it's name carries?

Is this insanity? Just thinking these things? The origin of wind? Compassion for it... Just remembered something. When I was a child I saw a glove in the mud. It was raining. It just seemed sad. Something that was a part of someone left without them, likely never to get back to it's proper place. I won't lie, my early childhood just seems like a mess of adjustment issues to be honest. It's kind of funny, but it seemed like one of the greatest tragedies I'd ever witness. Now for the confession. I never really fully got over that. To this day stuff like that just strikes m...

ANNAHYDE!! YOU JUST INTERRUPTED MY COLD MECHANICAL THOUGHT PROCESS WITH YOUR NOTE TAGGING.

And you've never seen me cry, figures, afterall, We Write a Blog 'Together'... (Yes I am about to steal inspiration, close those mouths, Mary Poppins would be rolling in her grave)

I can't remember when I cried last. Life's too fun to cry. I remember feeling really guilty for not crying, I remember TRYING to cry. But I can't so I must be awesome or a robot. I know as a kid I was always crying or not talking or just casualy talking about geography and word meanings based entirely on my nonsensical dreams (TRUE STORY) making people think 'That boy'll snap and kill us all one day' (Bowdlerised extensively). I have to stop talking about my childhood, I start to remember stupid little things... like crying at the thought of having my photo taking, crying because noone would believe me, crying becau... OK ENOUGH.

The everyday emotional plight of the wind, sympathy for lost things and the early warnings of some debilitating personality disorders... By now you must be wanting to leave, I understand, this is therapeutic for me and downright nightmarish and awkward for you, so some spontaneous poetry to lift the mood...

All the equipment to fly
And the mindset to try.
There's an alien cage
of matching age
More time goes by
It's song from it's cry.
A shadow.
Not what it was.
It shuffles on it's perch,
gives voice to dawn.
And when it's sun sets
on the forgotten regrets
illegitimate tragedy
born from a transformation.
There's noone to sing anymore,
No one to sleep, no one to sit,
noone to sleep or live in their shit
But what was that thing?
Why'd it have wings?
Because it kept creeping back behind the bars
and giving up on the stars.

Ack, spontaneous poetry is far too insightful into current train of thought, which is what I was initially aiming for... Humanity is Hypocrisy, which is why I try to stay away from preaching my (wrong) ideals on blog format... says the guy who 'broadcasts his words like artillery fire'. That's an original by the way, don't google it if you don't get it *puffs out chest*.

Okay so wisdom, everyone should have it. Or I am insane and am the only person who does. It's pretty subjective like that...

So... dearest reader(s)* what is the world's absolute truth?

*uennecessary plural most likely

And why won't you say it? there's a space for comments, and I'll plug this on facebook, why don't you use it? Voice an opinion! Talk to the crazy man, he can't hurt you through the computer... *hisses* ALTHOUGH HE'D GODDAMN LIKE TO!! RAARR!! RARRR!!! RAARRRR!! GRRR!! teehee, silliness humour, if you say it using extra adjectives and sound verbose it becomes high brow, very interesting methinks.

Waiting for four words, and I'm not leaving until I hear them.

Just posted something on FACESBOOK. It's a word disassociation. My hypothesis (I just mangled the vowel emphasis in 'hypothesis' for no reason then, it's kind of fun, highly advised, 4 stars) is that NOONE will bother to post a single word. Yes this is another of my cruel social experiments... like dressing as a hipster in ferntree gully and gauging people's responses, or the time I looked at people and licked my lips on the bus... you get the idea, I do the messed up pursuits in the interests of science!! Well it's been there for seven minutes, either people don't get it, or we've all been shoved unceremoniously into an alternate reality where nothing comes to mind at the mention of 'bugbear'. That's right, DEAR (MOST LIKELY) READER!! You are know the 'what's wrong with society'. I THINK I have anybody who reads this on facebook, so you have no excuse.

That's right Angsty Verbose Didactic Preacher CRUCIBLE TONGS, just told you that you are the problem. REACH OUT, quit complaining, sing on a tram, say hi to a complete stranger, paint a self portrait, invite yourself into some random's conversation. The world is boring, make it better. But surely you ask, Mr Tongs, YOU do none of this!! Which is a statement, but this is stream of consciousness so it's cool. You're absolutely right, but this is about the self making a difference, If I started the revolution, you'd have learned nothing. And besides...

FINISHED THAT.

The other day I was at uni, schizzin' about like mad catz when I turned on my radio and was greeted with The Pixies 'Where is My Mind'. And a band adored by Kurt Cobain and Thom Yorke, CAN. NOT. BE. WRONG.

IDOLATRY!! THE ANSWER SINCE THE GREAT MIGRATION

This was a sublime moment in slooshying. I'd come out of a tutorial off my brain on life... and sleep deprivation, stress, caffeine and what's probably insanity hatching in my headspace.

Way out in the water, see it swimming.

THIS IS THE RIGHT ONE!! My mind is way out in the water and I just watch it swimming. You keep on swimming you little trooper. Cos I'll just sit on the beach and watch you go. THE MIND IS ALIEN. Let it go, let it be free to swim. It's cool, it can tread water. So I stopped freaking out at all the crazy junk I was thinking of all day, and cheered him on.


This is 'A Banana Realising He's Realised Something, and He's Just as Terrified as You'd Be'

He won the race? Did I mention it was a race? It was a race, all good now? Coolness!

Actually, I'm kind of glad I came in tonight. I sort of did come up through the window, noone was home. I helped myself to the fridge... and wardrobe. I had a great time writing this. It got a bit crazy for a while, but I'll remember it. Yeah, I'm signing off... BUT WAIT!!!

WHAT ARE YOU THINKING?!?! RIGHT. NOW.

PUT IT IN COMMENTS. MAKE IT WORDS. DON'T END UP AN INSOMNIAC ON YOUR DEATHBED. GO AHEAD. JUST LET THE DAM BREAK OPEN, IT'S NEVER TOO SOON. ME AND NIEL HAVE LAMPS WE'LL MEET YOU THERE!!... probably be watching Wizard of Oz though, so don't bother knocking... Yeah, guess what just came on thanks to the Tiny Shuffle Mormons... ACK! No! Goodbye is like bandaids, GOODBYE!