lollipops please!

My class today requires I publish something in regards to the history of publishing. Sigh. At least I'm here, on my blog, publishing. As my fellow classmate said, how can you even write about something so boring? I would agree, although, look! I have written two lines already! 

So far (that is, two weeks into Semester 1) this class has been a refresher on last year's publishing class. Well, refresher is a tad generous. I've looked at more useless websites today than my brain has room for. I've been following Pobjie's Oscar commentary on Twitter. I don't even like the Oscars! Our lecturer is lovely, though, and her sympathetic smile tells me she knows how dreadful this really is. I bet she'd like to know how the Oscar's are going. 

It is reminiscent of high school, and even primary school, though my vague memory struggles to recollect that distant past. Has anyone really forgotten 'Australian History Term'? Which would have been an okay class, possibly even interesting, if we hadn't repeated it every single year for 6 (or more) years. Don't get me wrong, it is important to learn our country's history, but how dumb did they think we were? The topics were never extrapolated on, it was just awful repetitive tedium.

Equally, the history of publishing is a necessary topic in a publishing degree. Last year, the subject was actually interesting because I knew nothing about it. The point of studying, right? Learn something you didn't already know? The fact that we're 'learning' it again just bores me to tears. How can we learn something we've already learnt, anyway? And trust me, I've been listening, and I have not heard anything new. 

Hopefully it will improve. Surely there will be new facts, informative and interesting lessons, and maybe even lollipops. Not likely, given the subject is called: Introduction to Publishing. The fact that the first half of the class is in a room somewhere between a psychiatric ward and a dungeon doesn't really help. I guess I should be grateful though, we get to watch things! And they're not even boring!

(thanks to i love food and drinks for the lollipops)

a sprinkle of neglect, hold the fairy dust

I may have neglected my blog over the summer. So sue me. Right now I am struggling with the idea that there are very few things I stick with in my life. A few days ago I thought all hope was lost for me, until my phone company told me I was eligible for another service because I had been such a good and long-time customer. Sweet relief! Then I remembered I have had the same bank account for 8 years. Score so far: Me - 2, Silly Brain Ideas - 100, give or take a million. I've stuck with the same boy for nearly three years. Go me.

Yet it's all so trivial. My phone, my bank account, my car. Who cares? The problem really is, it's the things I love that I seem to neglect. How does that even make sense? I have been writing a novel for 8 years. Which looks like I've 'stuck at it'. If I had written more than 12,000 words in all that time, maybe then I could say that. But no, my pathetic 12,000 words (which is most likely an over estimation anyway) does not account for much.

I'm coming up to 22, and I'm scared. What have I done with my life? Where has it all gone? When in high school, there was always a purpose - to get out into the real world. Now I'm here, and have been for, goodness me, four years. My sense of achievement is somewhat diminished in comparison to 'formative' years.

Through these years I've tried three different degrees, and I'm now onto my fourth. At least I've finally found something I love.

I fell in love with a boy. And hasn't that been fraught with wonder and pain? Where we are now feels directionless and sometimes pointless. Again, the sense of having gone nowhere in three years. I've had some fantastic life experiences, and met some truly lovely people. I've also had some awful things happen, and met a lot of annoying folks. All part of life, right?

Yet, there's always something more. Something more I want, need, desire...whatever word it is. Something that I never seem to acomplish. It's not just the novel. The novel is the by product of this 'thing'. The novel will happen or it won't. And now I can deal with it either way. There's something else at work here, in my little brain, and I just can't figure it out.

Some sense of yearning, as though I've lost something. My emotions seem to have packed up and gone on a holiday to the Maldives, until the tears return when I chance upon the Biggest Loser. (Bizarre, right?) As for the others? Who knows where they went. I don't really remember anger, or passion. Sadness, too, has slipped from grasp. Joy, contentedness. Love; but who knows what that emotion really is anyway? I'm just a giant void of nothing that only gets touched by a show about fat people trying to lose weight.

I don't really know where this is going, but I thought it was about time I started this blog again. Maybe it will help me. God knows I need it. I guess I will end my erratic, emotional onslaught here. I'm not sure what I will do now, being home alone, thought not feeling particularly lonely. I suppose even loneliness left for the sun with the others.

Maybe I will write my novel. Maybe, instead of waiting for inspiration, I will let it inspire me. Maybe it can be something I hold to, some sense of reality.

(thanks to wisdomquarterly for the beautiful picture)