Tuesday 23 July 2013

it's really odd

and really A W E S O M E.

I was feeling like rubbish all today. I have just been very overwhelmed by many plans for everything. I have been so so stressed and I am really very awful at dealing with stressful things, it just makes me want to sleep all the time (more than usual- and not because of the joy of sleep but because of the stressfulness of life)

I feel awful to watch my grandma suffer. I don't like the way people talk to her, I don't like how time is going backwards and she is being treated like a child again. When I talk to her about her past, her eyes light up and her mind is so much more active and I feel happy and connected to her again. But when she is stressed, she repeats words and is very forgetful.
Today she tried walking more. I did some exercises with her - just stretching and breathing. I gave her a legs and swollen feet a massage, just feeling like this is one of the only ways I can bring her a bit of comfort. I guess I feel helpless in a way. I am accepting of her ageing, but it still is upsetting.

After moving out of my apartment, I still have to deal with things that I shouldn't have to deal with like payment on time and also things that are understandable like telling my new roomie how all the things in my room work. It'll be interesting to live away from Jing for just a short while. I know the time will FLY but I've lived with jing for almost 3 years now (which is so so crazy) Now that I look back at it all, I've had it pretty good with her (even with the shower noises and fish on the floor)

I have had a lovely lovely friend from Canberra come up to Melbourne spontaneously and insisted to hang out with me. I have very very very little time to see any of my friends recently because family is my priority right now. I feel like I have a habit of putting other people before me. Even though I want to see everyone, I have seriously grown some white hairs trying to please people over the years. I realise now that I have been putting way too much pressure on myself to hang out with every single person that wants to see me/who I also want to see. I have really appreciated those who have made the effort to come and see me in the 1 or 2 hours I have had free during the week. I managed to see Viv for lunch and it was really good but way too short. I do miss this girl lots she is great and her face is so huggable. I am thankful sim just decided to live at my house and help me pack and make stop motions even though she did eat through all my pears and my yogurt and made me OD on mini twix bars.

I'm still planning small things about the exchange and it hasn't hit my body that I'm actually going overseas yet (not sure if that is good or bad) I already feel like I have done too much research on Estonia and I still want to have no expectations of it and just let it all be NEW like New York was (ahh I miss you New York - and you too Jennyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyymywifffeeeeeee ... is sarah our daughter? i am so proud she is so smart and cool and arty and charitable)

Anyway, I am slowly losing my mind but I feel like hopefully this is the "down" coming to a slightly up part of the curvy life wave.

Going back to the start of this blog blob blog entry - I am so surprised at how happy I get when I have positive comments on my stop motion work. I feel so good in my soul and it makes me want to do more. The past few days I have been feeling ill from not feeling motivated to draw or paint, but once I started editing my stop motions I felt so much better. Is this a secret cure for me? MAYBE. I hope this enthusiasm I have found for stop motion sicks like the clay sticks to my hands (for a long time and only scalding hot soapy water can get it off) because I am loving it so far.

Tuesday 16 July 2013

i prayed to the moon and sun whales

Life has been really weird lately. Life has been busy (like everyone else's - all the time)

I'm doing all these small and short stop motions with clay and, maybe it is just all the chocolate i just ate but, I feel so happy about it all... and I actually feel excited to make more. I want to get so much better at it.

My hilarious and beautiful grandma had a small stroke a few weeks ago. She's been in hospital and rehabilitation centres since then. It is pretty upsetting to see my family sad, stressed and worried. It really breaks my heart to see how people speak to her now - as if she is a child. I hate how impatient people can be with others. My grandma is sometimes slower to respond to things and nurses just continuously repeat words until she does it. I just want them to stop and tell them, "She heard you. She's processing it."
Whenever I speak to her, I do it slowly, clearly and respectfully. I love my grandma a lot. She is funny and she is strong and that is what I would like to be when I change from my young grandma self to an old grandma.
I know it is normal for my aunties and my mum to want to do everything for her but I feel that if she wants to become stronger she has to be given the chance to do small things by herself. I see that my aunties "take control"of a lot of things. Things that I know my grandma is capable of doing herself and despite how helpful it is, it is actually preventing her from little exercises that will help her get a little bit stronger. I understand that they just want to be there for her in every moment. I would want to do the same if it were my mum. I want them to just trust in her and be close to catch her if she ever slips.
I really do hope that she will be able to go home soon. It is so sad to see grandpa alone now.
My sister came from Canberra to visit grandma. I'm always happy when my sister is around. I like the relationship I have with her. In a way, I feel more complete when she is around.

I went to Sydney the other week to meet the consulate general of Estonia to apply for my short stay visa. I texted J when I got there because I was so surprised that they had double decker TRAINSSSS and I got really excited at sat at the top. He immediately texted me back asking me where I was and how long I was in town. A half hour later we were sitting and having tea. We went walking around the harbour and ate some ice cream in the rain. What I love about J is that he will always make such an effort to see me. I had a really good time being around him - even though it was only an afternoon.

The consulate general was so nice. She gave me many pamphlets and we talked a bit about her life and also things about Estonia. It made me a lot more calm and afterwards the whole thing (me going overseas) felt so much more real. I texted Dylan and we both were excited but ahhh ahh-ing as well.

I spent the evening with Saro. It was so hilarious. She is such a funny human and I do adore her personality. It's just so good to spend time with her cus we know each other's expressions so well. We spent the evening dodging her university friends (because we kept running into them over and over in the shops and it was starting to get awkward)

I stayed with my cousin that night. She introduced me to her secret boyfriend over dinner and we all had a really good time talking and eating too much. I never really spend much time with Steph. As children we used to be so so competitive and end up really disliking each other. After this experience, I really feel like we've grown up a bit haha.

Days in Melbourne have been spent going through many many many applications for my room. I didn't expect to get so many. After a couple days of meeting people we found someone to take over my room for the time that I am away. Hopefully it all goes well!

Sim has stayed over a few times to draw and to help me pack. Each morning I would wake up to her saying, "I'm hunnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnngggry." and I would have to sleepily go to the kitchen and make warm things and bring it to her bed. She's eaten all my yogurt.

We were talking the other day about the weirdest things that we did as children. I had forgotten that I used to kiss stickers on my door before I went to sleep and that my best friend and I used to sing songs to the blue and red whale toys that I had - we called then the sun and moon whales.

Over the last few months I have had a number of unusual encounters. A lady who caught the skybus with me back into the city asked me for directions to the outlet stores and I told her they were just about the bus terminal and that I would just take her there as it wasn't far at all. When I showed her there, she looked at me with tears in her eyes and said, "Thank you! Thank you so much!" she proceeded to hug me and I just stood there wondering what in the world happened. She held her hands together near her chest and looked and smiled at me as a I walked away. I had to check to see if she had stolen things off me - because it the experience was just so much more peculiar that I am used to. She didn't. She was just very grateful.
I also met a boy while looking for thermals. He followed me out of the store and we made good conversation. I asked him a few times, "You're not a murderer are you?" and he awkwardly laughed and said he was about to go to dinner with friends but was early. I told him that we could keep talking but that I needed to go to the supermarket to buy rice. He seemed totally ok with this and just came along for the walk. It is just one those random and hilarious kind of meetings. Just buying rice with a stranger and talking about life things. He was an asian mix, who studied some medicine at Melbourne University. He was probably too kind to me. We had some hot chocolate and he said, "Are you hungry? I just thought... I'm going to dinner, but what about you! I should buy you some food!" and I said, "You just met me. It's ok. I have food at home!"
I am definitely not ok with letting someone buy me that much stuff the first time I meet them! It was really funny but quite nice to talk to someone new and so randomly too.

Too tired. Sorry for lack of updates if anyone still read this :S

Thursday 20 June 2013

stories

It has been a while now since I have written. So I think I should attempt to bring my blog up to date!

A while ago was my birthday. I woke up to a surprising amount of messages from friends and family and that made me very happy. I celebrated with Vic during the day at intern and she took me to a nice japanese cafe and we ate the most delicious cold soba noodles. In the evening mum and I went to Spice Temple - a restaurant that I had been wanting to go to for years and years (the main reason because it had the word "spice" in it, haha) We ordered too much but the food was delicious. My favourite was the tofu.

lightly fried tofu that is so soft in the center, with spicy and refreshing capsicum 

spicy duck

The semester has finally come to an end. I haven't enjoyed this studio much at all. I quite like the people - they are all very humorous, but I have not felt very engaged throughout. I didn't feel as though my presentation went well at all as the discussion part extended for 20 minutes more than it should have but I ended up doing much better than I thought.

I am happy that I can finally spend some proper time planning things for exchange. (I got into exchange) It was very awkward to receive an acceptance letter as I really thought that I didn't get in because of the first letter. I had already gone through the process of accepting that I wasn't going anywhere and I had started planning other things that I could do while I was in Melbourne.

I feel quite stressed about it all, but I will attempt not to loose my mind over the small things. My family continuously changes their plans - first I was going by myself, then I was going with my mum to taipei first, then we were going to singapore instead of taipei, then both my parents wanted a holiday in europe and now my dad says he doesn't think he wants to go and will go another time when he can spend more time eating food... so I think now mum and I will take a little trip around Europe. I have no idea if that is going to happen or maybe in the end it will go back to the first plan of me going alone.

PHEW. Whatever happens happens.

I woke up a couple of days ago to the message that I had earned money from an image that I contributed to a short film. The film ended up being shown at Sundance and I got some profits from it! I was/am still surprised that this happened! I am super happy about that.

I am currently sorting through all the things I need to do within the next two months. I can't wait to sleep in tomorrow.... I can't wait to start new projects and make new things that are totally not uni related hohohohohoh yes.

Winter is here now and the mornings are so crisp. It is almost as nice as Canberra winter, but I don't see much frost. I love the cold air in my lungs.

I spent some of last night with sim and jimmy's house. We played music and made songs and I thought just how happy I am to have gotten to know these two much more this year. We started making this one song that we all liked and Jimmy got really intense and specific about the lyrics that he wanted to use - I don't think I've ever seen him so serious haha.

I broke one of my strings on my guitar and I felt so stupid because I knew it was going to break and yet I kept tightening it. I think it was the stress at the time.

I can now practice my estonian everyyyydayyyy whoooohooo fun (it is actually quite fun) "goodnight" sounds like "hey dude!" hahahaha


Tuesday 4 June 2013

i like fat birds


I spent the later half of the day with the Pandas. It had been a while since I had seen them, so I was happy to be in their company once again and to listen to their stories.

We walked through the park together and spotted lots of little birds flying about, probably catching dinner bugs. There was a pregnant or maybe just obese fairy wren that came really close to us a few times. I couldn't help but adore it because it was so cute. (I can imagine myself with a lot of them sitting on me and being the happiest person alive)

It had rained heavily the days before so we often dodged puddles and pointed out areas where the water had risen. Even the bridge was almost submerged by water.

I hadn't walked through the park before. It was really lovely and made me wonder why we hadn't wandered there before. It was good to see something new, especially while it is Autumn and there are many colours about.

Sunday 2 June 2013

you and me



"Everyone says that I am a lone wolf. But the truth is ... I have you."