Update

Chris' life quick capsule review: uni is kicking my arse.

I know I've a couple of long-promised posts that haven't appeared yet. I promise to get these up as soon as possible, but I really want them to be of high quality so will dedicate some concentrated hours to them when I have some hours to myself.

Uni. That's really it. If I see you around, before you ask, it's uni,

Climate Change Panel

Tonight I attended a student organised panel discussion at Vic on Climate Change Economics. On the panel was Russel Norman, Ganesh Nana, and Vic ENVI lecturers Sean Weaver and Ralph Chapman.

The turn out was really good, all seats being occupied. But I took little away from the discussion that I didn't already know, and I had a similar feeling for those around me. Really, for the knowledge to be gained from that discussion which ranged from (start to finish) NZs 2020 Emissions Reduction Target to investment in a green economy, the wrong crowd turned up. That is it did not attract the audience that needs to hear about climate change economics, but instead one that is already passionate about fighting global warming... which I suppose is to be expected.

We have students working hard to organise these events and get the voices heard which the media is so skilled at muting. If you see Just Action or 10-20% Pure New Zealand posters or events around Wellington, please go to them. The $0 entry fee is really worth the knowledge gained.

Am I Alone?

I'm in the library finishing my last essay for this half of the trimester... well, meant to be finishing it. And I'm posting this simply because I'm terrified to look at the dribble I've written thus far, and less than willing to write another 500 words of it.

Does anyone else ever get that? Where you simply can't stand to look at the work you're doing?

I think it's a lot like going to work. Before hand, when you're in bed all snuggly with teddies and pillows you die inside when you think of getting up to go to work. But when you get there, it's never that bad. Writing essays are a lot like that. I even find them kind of fun when I'm not stressed out because my organisational skills are failing again.

The most horrible part of all is that I have nothing left to say in this post. Shit. I've run out of procrastination room.

...


...


... Nope, nothing.

Dammit, back to the essay.

I don't like Tuesdays TELL ME WHY!

I would just like to take this moment to say, goddamn my Tuesdays are full-on

Tomorrow includes:
lectures from 10-12
Interview with MP at 12:30-1:00

Lectures from 2-4
VBC Show from 4-7 including two more interviews

and then finally r&r with my brother at a movie that night.

And then home to study.

Phew.

Also, looking forward to my presentation and three essays due next week. Fun times. Will blog interesting stuff about goings on hopefully in all this mix.

Much love!

Situation Update

Another trimester begins tomorrow.

I'm quite excited. I usually am at the beginning of a trimester, when the courses and are shiny and disillusionment hasn't set in from the stress of assignments and the inevitable guilt and pressure that comes with falling behind in your readings. I remember in my first year I used to be really scared of tutorials after I missed one, because I simply struggled so much to catch up. Thankfully things are different three years on.

So everything is in place: I have my texts and done a great deal of pre-reading already. I've chosen what parliamentary sittings and select committees I want to attend. I've googled and wiki'd the contexts and backgrounds of many of the subjects I'm going to be studying. Burn out won't set in for at least another eight weeks.

Also, you'll be happy to read I've corrected my sleeping patterns for the most part, despite going to bed at 7am this morning.

I'm listening to the Horrors constantly. I just can't stop listening to them (which my last.fm betrays), with the occasional mix of the Cure's 'Just Like Heaven' for good measure. But Primary Colours is such a wonderful album. Unlike the Horrors earlier stuff, it's listenable.

I've bought a black hoody on ebay and discovered online stores of amazing clothing I simply cannot afford so..

... I've applied for more jobs.

I'm twenty-two in two weeks. I'm happy about this. I watched my brothers fly through their 20's and felt this sense of impending doom at the start of the year at the thought that these days of being young are certainly numbered. Twenty-one taught me that fear. Twenty-one was a fucking shit year. But twenty-two will not be. It will be better, as a certainty.

I drank with my friend Chris the other night. We invaded the school around the corner and abused some nearby trees. We insulted boys named Ben. I think we might have waked some babies. He's one of the most amazing people I know.

I left a note for my friend Stephen at Kohanga, complete with balloon man. One day, everyone will know balloon man as my calling card... in a good way. Not a Manson way.

I've embraced Karori as my home now. It's given me some wonderful night times. It's an oasis from the city. Although I'm still to see the mysterious pet sheep. I might set up some cameras.

I've attempted to curb the smoking, but with little success.

I bought a Louis Armstrong vinyl from Real Groovy for $3, and looked at gothic posters of girls in corsets holding swords and dead kittens and the kind. Combined with my recent obsession with the Cure and the Horrors, I'm wondering what this says about me.

I've felt my strong aversion to free market politics and consumerism return. It's very welcome. Personal debt levels combined with flat screen TV and iphone ownership in New Zealand suggest that the individual simply doesn't know how to spend their money, despite what the Libertarianz would have you believe.

And finally, I returned home to the Hutt last weekend. I spent time with my mum and my brother which was wonderful. I rented xbox games. I walked my doggy Flynn (who misses me apparently). I slept lots, and even studied a bit. I explored my old High School, and walked the same way home I used to every day for five years.

And then I returned to Karori... and listened to the Horrors.

It seems I enjoy the daytime as well.

Twilight

This week has been dominated by many noble, but ultimately failed attempts to correct my sleeping patterns. It seems nocturnalism is more dictating that I originally assumed.

Going to bed at 10pm has only resulted in waking at 1am to return to my pols book, 2:30am webcomics, and a 4am shower. I have great sympathy for my flatmates. The waterpipes in this house have the all the subtlety of the Huka Falls and the hallways creak like an old lady. 8am brings an enslaught of fatigue and I retire to the sheets until the late afternoon. But I don't sleep.

This is not good for the productivity, and I'm going to have to get this shit sorted before the trimester starts in three weeks. I can't keep doing this while living an hour an away from Kelburn (by foot) and following a timetable of 10am lectures.

Having said that I'm making a decent amount of daylight time for my friends. The other day Ryan came and hung out for several hours, and on Tuesday I saw Steph, and Stephen and Chris in succsession for smoothies, coffee, cigarettes and beer. Friends are healthy and this is somewhat compensation for a largley unhealthy lifestyle. Because I don't think weeks of only existing in the dark hours are too good for ones state of mind. Especially since this endless cold patch is preventing me from enjoying my night time wanders. The night is less fun behind a computer screen than in a tree at the botanic gardens.

Yet, further sanity is coming from rediscovering a lot of music I used to listen to in those most important years, 16-19. I thank Donovan, The Hives, Massive Attack, and Television for sticking with me through their years of neglect.

I'm also rediscovering many of the places around Wellington that I used to go and think, and be happy. One of my favourite spots is - as lame as this is - the Art of the Nation exhibition at Te Papa: it's almost always near-empty, and I enjoy spending an hour or so loitering around the 20sq metres of colonial art thinking about shit. I like the ideas that leak through the canvas. I like the history that I never experienced, and yet get to enjoy. And I very much like the stories, well, the suggestions of stories that art tells me. It makes me feel better.

When I got back from Canada in February I sort of felt like Wellington wasn't my city anymore. So I suppose, in weird ways, this twisted twilight lifestyle is reintroducing us.

Insomnia isn't all bad.

My Nocturnal Direction

I find myself completely lost. These days I pace in circles, making special care to step on my toes and criticise every syllable I utter.

Self-reflection can be a bitch it seems. When your life transforms around you in a manner you dare not endeavor to understand I have always been taught that answers lie within soul-searching. But they do not. At only 21 I'm beginning to comprehend the universal answer to almost everything is that sometimes there just aren't any answers. And to fill the void, we have time. Time is what I have.

Tonight I used my time to go door knocking at flats where nobody heard me. After a brief stint of projectile self-destruction earlier in the day - caused by the insane intensity only a few days alone in Karori can deliver - I decided I had spent enough time sitting on my arse, smoking, drinking, reading and chatting. And yet, when I returned to my house I had found no more answers than what I'd left with.

I am a victim of too much time. Musing over the mistakes I'd made in my recent history. Pondering on whether I will ever learn from my bad habits. Inevitably becoming so wound by the lack of results that I lose my head and fall into the cycle all over again.

Once, when I was still living in Lower Hutt, I came across a man lying across the railway lines while walking to work. Never one to abandon a soul in need - at the time - I entered a discourse with the man about not so much his disillusionment with life, but his desire to enter the realm of the lifeless. He told me about a child that never wanted to see him, a wife that was cheating on him... openly, mounting debt and little prospects for the future. I balk at my advice to him now I look back on it, but at the time I remember saying that every moment of life was worth living, and we must train ourselves to see meaning in the moments that are seemingly worth dying over. In other words, enjoy the pain with the happiness.

He was then arrested by some passing police.

Life events and sporadic weeks of nocturnal-ism have resulted in a dark and time-filled winter for me. But in a sick way, it is enjoyable. I can see things happen around me: the Bain trial, the Mt. Albert by-election and poor Melissa Lee's troublesome campaign, flag burning on campus, gigs that whiz by like indy cars, a new breed of musicians taking presence on the indie stage... and despite my interest, opinions, and - at times - intelligence on such matters, I am eternally disconnected from them. Venture too close and it seems I get burned. Estranged from the world of the outspoken I find company and solace in the distance.

Since Easter I have very much enjoyed the company of one or two close friends who I share the nighttime with. Wellington at 2am on a Monday is a different universe. The arching trees of Kelburn stealth Park are both welcoming and menacing, as a derelict Oriental Parade is a chilled acquaintance who grumbles to us the annoyances it endures during the daylight hours. The imagination of the dark is strong enough to make me feel four years old again.


And then... the walk home. Eighty minutes to Karori with Thom Yorke, my thoughts, and my time. Yet, still there is no direction.

I'm a compass with no magnetic pull on a watch with sixteen hours.

Isolated Company

I wonder at the ability of our race to be entirely self-absorbed.

This is not a criticism on individuals as selfish. It is more so a reflection on how we can become so swept up in the illusions we compose for our realities, and how this can allow us to easily lose focus on what is important to us and those who care for us.

I know a person who is invisible. They should be here, but they are not. They are in a place supposedly of their own choosing but, as I believe, in mental shackles. Committed by the tide to a long swim, when all they wanted was to splash in the waves for a while.

I know a person who is elastic. Stretched between the land of their fate and the state of their will. The strain is overpowering and the outcome, in all likelihood, not pretty.

I know a person who is an island. Marooned by the people who supposedly love them and cast from the loved ones they depend on. The loneliness is unbearable and livable in it's own comfort, but yet... what else is there?

And I know a person who is a traveler, wandering between all three lands.

I do not know what is real in all of this. All I know is that this is the reality for these souls, at least for now. Swept, stretched, stranded, and searching. All I can do is watch.

- C. Gilbert