how i spend my time…
I have recently finished semester one and since I have no exams have had a fair bit of time to myself and to fill in the days I’ve started on some projects that I have had lined up. The first being making a film clip for a song that my friend and I recorded when I was in Queensland last holidays. It took me about a day and a half to get it all sorted out and now I have a nice and moderatly cool video that I have produced (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJF3CnxK2w0 if you’re keen). But i was wondering if this is actually effective use of my time – is it any better than watching tv, playing a computer game or reading a book? I tried to justify it to myself that it is refreshing my memory of the tools that i used in media production and that I am improving my multimedia skills – but in all honesty i very much doubt I will ever be employed in the video clip making industry. Even if it isn’t doing much good, it is a harmless enough hobby and certainly helps to pass the time. I”ve already got another clip or two lined up to do next…
Fire proof those bridges!
One thing that I really don’t like is leaving relationships with people on unpleasent terms. Not just intimate relationships, but all of them. It leaves me with an uncomfortable feeling, even if I know I’m not going to see them again I still imagine what we would say if I did – and I would hate our first words to be unpleasent. Recently I remembered a relationship that I had left on not so unfriendly terms, but just a little awkward. In 2006 I met a girl at a country dancing night held at the Uni bar. Everyone was dancing with everyone, and I ended up dancing with one girl more than others – possibly because she had nice cool hands and it was a hot night. Later that week she contacted me on facebook, we had a morning tea/lunch date where we cooked muffins together then ate some tofu and salad wraps and she later suggested that we go and feed eels together at the bridge near the train station. I was quite keen to check the eels out, but i suggested that we only go as friends – i liked her, but just not in that way. As things go, we stopped talking to each other on facebook, and never went to feed the eels. Well, recently I was thinking about eels and I was reminded of her and our icky parting so contacted her back, almost 18 months from when we first started chatting and asked if she’d be keen to pay a visit to the eels. She turned me down as she’s already moved off campus – but i now know that if i see her again, we could have a good ol’ chat.
In a similar instance last year while studying for exams i borrowed a pencil from an American lass called Kimber, she was away when i left so i asked someone to return the pencil to her but they mustn’t have got around to it. By the time I had found this out after conversing with her through facebook I was already in England so I asked for her address, bought her a special pink pencil from York and posted it to her. When she recieved my parcel, she replied straight away and thanked me greatly, saying that i didn’t really need to do it, but that there was a hole in the parcel and no pencil! I was shattered, there seemed like no possible way that I could return a simple pencil to her, but I didn’t give up. I gave her a pencil of the literary kind by writing her a poem that encapsulated the very essence of a pencil.
The ideas that you have, i’ll cement in history
The blooming flower you see i’ll show for generations
When phoning a friend i’ll keep you company
Designs i’ll lay, out for your machinations
If a mistake is made, don’t hesitate, ’tis no more
I’ll be your trusted servent as long as i’m pointed
To write to a lover, thats what i’m here for
Try ink, blood or tar and you will be dissapointed
That dark void in your life it is my duty to fill
Your woody friend forever, the humble pencil.
Free, choice
I was perusing Reverb, free magazine in our bathroom yesterday morning and was reading all the small articles because I have already read all the good ones (it’s been there for a while). On the inside cover was a small letter from the editor about give aways, and it said basically ‘we’ve got a couple of copies of some cool DVD’s to give away, just email us and tell saying why you like free stuff and we’ll send you a copy. Easy as pie I thought, because I would probably sign up to have my leg chopped off if I knew it was free (incidentally my foot is slowly on the mend). So I sent a very brief email to the editor saying this
“I love free stuff so much that my eyes can pick out the word ‘free’ from a hundred metres away. Everytime i see a protestor with a sign that says ‘Free Tibet’ i automatically think i might be getting something for nothing, then I feel guilty because people are dying and i’m thinking about getting free things….
Justin Watts”
The editor Kev Bull (what a great name) wrote back today saying
‘As Tibet is still not free, what would you like
-American Gangster
-Lust, Caution
Rhys is right!
My friend Rhys wrote recently in his blog www.rhysrodgers.com that people do not waste their whole lives, but only lots of individual days. This bothered me a bit because I often have days where I don’t achieve much and I don’t want to feel guilty about it. I was happy knowing that every now and then you can have days where you just vege out and take it easy. But according to Rhys this leads to a wasted life!
Yesterday morning I woke up quite late and felt like it was going to be one of those days where not much is achieved, where it is over before it begun, and Rhys’ words sprung into my mind. So I challenged my day plan and threw caution to the wind, I wasn’t just going to make a start at my essay like I had planned, I was going to start and finish it all, even though I still had a couple of days that I could do it in. And I did just that so now I’m basking in the knowledge that I am finished for the semester and am free to do what ever I want. So maybe Rhys wasn’t that far from the truth with what he wrote – a bit of time here and there for R and R is alright, but sometimes you need to push yourself.
