Sundays in my childhood memory

A classic sunny Sunday morning, with family and/or friends, going to church in the morning, and after that eating out or cook together at home, with conversations that seem endless. Not a quiet one, a rather wild one, with kids running around or trying to help (but ended up ruining things instead). That is the kind of Sunday morning that I recall from my childhood. My dad will turn the music player on (and loud, since he had a big pair of standing speakers, taller than us!), with Christian songs during normal days, or Christmas carols (!) in Decembers. That is my definition of normal. That's why, with that kind of upbringing, my memories are filled with those songs, and Bible verses that I read because I did not have many books to read back then, and the only access was to the Bible - the only book that was available all the time, and had always been read every Sunday or every occasion like neighborhood worship evening. That's why, again, every time I hear the old Christian songs or hymns, my mind can't help but wandering around and remember both of them, Mom and Dad, who are peacefully rest in eternity now (Earth time - the chronos). Songs, music, they can retrieve old memory from brain cells and bring it up to present time. I think.

A sunny Sunday in the midst of winter days

Yesterday was a too beautiful day to be wasted at home. But the reality was, I scrolled down both layers of my window blind curtain down at the bottom, almost touched the floor level the night before because I thought i could retain the heat from the heater (the expensive one!) that way, and lost like a quarter of that beautiful day because I slept until 9.30 or nearly until 10 in the morning. When I woke up, it was a bit cloudy, I opened my phone and my friend texted me asking what would I do today because the day is beautiful. I was like, err, I just woke up, honestly. And it's a bit cloudy outside (a sort of justification of me not being outside at the moment. I instead, prepared my brekkie, ate and back to my electric blanket, to try get some inspirations for my draft. I have been like playing with a rubric trivia since last month, because I kept organising and re-organising the structure of my draft until I confused myself of what I have been looking for all this time.  I stucked, and then I stood and stared from my window. Hindered by the newly unfinished constructed apartment tower across my room, I still could see the sky a little beet, peeking from the northwestern side of my window. Blue. Like clear blue, crystal clear.  Then I hated myself of not doing anything. So I woke up, dyed my hair in cold water, dried with hairdryer (sorry for my housemate who pays the bills, this Oz hairdryer is a bit fantastically unbelievable in terms of electricity consumption: 2K wattage! but I had no choice when buying it, nothing at any shops that I visited, that is under 2K wattage, what can I do?). Then, I felt bit warm, indeed the sunshine felt from my room a bit. So I decided, "I am going out". Highly determined, I reached unto the top drawer of my built-in-robe where my Rio de Janeiro summer thong is stored, well, using chair to assist me reaching it, I am just 5ft tall. So that was quite an effort. I wore a short sleeves black t-shirt I purchased from Cold Play concert in Melb eight years ago, and a thin cotton short pants that I haven't been worn for ages (well, at least since last February when the weather were 'normal' in my tropical perspective of normality). And I bravely waked outside the apartment, to chase the sunshine outdoor, so brave I could almost hear the anthem We are the champion or the sort of victorious songs :-). I must have a reason though, so I thought, buying some basic groceries will be great. I thought of milk and bread, but then I recalled that I have bread remain on the fridge, so only milk, and since I have no more fruits, maybe an apple or two. Two granny smith apples and a carton of calci-plus soy milk from a brand I like. After paying, I saw that there are two or three benches outside the supermarket that I could use to sit. So there I am, sitting down alone with a pair of thong, short sleeves t-shirt and a thin jacket, with short pants, eating a green apple as my lunch. I looked at the public housing across my bench. Some people came in and out with cars or walking. Next to my bench, a guy with glaring orange vest was sitting down too. I wasn't sure whether he was eating or just being sleepy and looking for sunshine just like me. Then I looked again and I read his back vest, is written: Big Issue. Oh. So he was finishing his job, delivering and selling Big Issue, must be in the city center somehow. At 3 pm or 4 pm, he finished. After that, I looked him walking across the street, and getting into the public housing. So he lives there. And in the street and in the parking lot, many good, luxurious cars are parked and run. Also, many people lives in my apartment complex, who afford to pay nearly 2K per month for rent. I wonder how much they pay for public housing, perhaps half or less than that, subsidising by the government. But I still feel like the inequality is bit worse, because poverty at destitution level, as literature says, had long been erased in the developed world like this, unlike in the developing countries where it is rampant and pervasive. You can see and feel it everywhere, often, you're part of it always, so you think it is normal. And I, suddenly, feel so sad. Because I live in a nice apartment and he lives there in that dodgy-look public housing, even though we may have same level of income, just perhaps. This feeling, this same guilty feeling I felt when I was small, and looked at my friends who lived in the orphanage nearby my kindergarten, and looked at myself with pretty warm and nice house. Or when I looked at my neighbor who didn't have enough food to eat they had to share bits of fruits and nice food to eight or ten people, while we sometime had to throw bananas because we fed up with bananas everyday (I seldom saw bananas at their dining table, so I one day smuggled a box of banana - to avoid being rejected as I knew they had that pride - to their back kitchen door, and they suspected those stuff too mysterious to take or eat -they thought it's black magic voodoo or poisonous so they threw it). That same guilty feeling because I am richer than they are. I don't know why I was born this way, maybe I am somehow born to be leftist who are guilty of material possessions (later in life I have savings though), but perhaps it is simply the Bible verses that I read earlier in my childhood and that I memorising it in my brain, they are stick there. The verses about Lasarus the beggar and the rich person. And the verses about those who help the poor in the world that God admitted to heaven after they died. Maybe.      
       

  

The movie-wwomen

It is a good movie, I must admit. The idea that there is (are) God(s) behind the evil and good things that human beings contemplate and do is great, to begin with. Zeus, Arius, Diana, and all the Greek mythology gods. So it was about Zeus created the world and saw that all good, humans are good too. But one of his son, Ares, planted envy in human hearts, so they start to envy each other, hate and kill each other. Therefore they become more and more evil.

It is interesting that she doesn't surrender into 'politics', 'diplomacy' and all sort of'big adult talks' that make you less care about humans' lives, real people, real faces, not statistics on papers, or the 'greater good' reasons: help one wouldn't matter, sacrifice one for one million -thingy - that I always find it hard to take into my mind, but apparently there is the psychology behind it. "We can't save all lives", or "We can't stop this war unless we use strategy" and let some people die instead..because some lives are more valuable than others, and worth more to save than others, are indeed pragmatist in tones. But then I think, it is wonderful indeed to be a wonder women: having power to slew the logic and exercise MY OWN power instead, to stop the talk, the diplomatic talk, the nonsense talk, the talks that the longer they take, the more human lives are at stake.

Then suddenly I remember Jesus, the Son of God, the King of kings, who lived on Earth about two millenia ago, who also easily carried away easily by compassion toward the most despicable one: Matthew the tax collector, or the vilest ones: the lephers, or the weakest ones: the women who bleed and the children. He lookeds into their eyes and have compassion, the love that doesn't endure by time, by others, by circumstances, by pressures, love that is constantly giving, constantly flowing out, like a living fountain. The Man who once said "Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth", and not 'blessed are the contender because they get all the power on earth'. 

And then I remember the talks in the midst of power encounter between Diana and Ares, between lightning and thunder and blasts and darkness, Ares that advocate to kill all the men and start a new beginning, a new world without hatred and without wars, "a new world peace", and Diana is tempted to follow his advice..then in the last minutes she realised that to do so, means to swipe all humanity from the Earth, kill them off all. Suddenly the prospect doesn't seem to be that enticing anymore to her. And she said: no. Why that I feel the resemblance with the event when Jesus was tempted in the mountain by the devil? "If you worship me, I will give this earth, this beautful earth, for you". And He wasn't tempted, just like her. The Bible did not mention the detail, about what was in his mind at the time He contemplated the temptation, but perhaps, the imagination went like 'Maybe, just maybe, I can skip the cross, this way...'. But he didn't, because He remembers (remember the future, yes, because He doesn't quite work in time as we know), what happens when human lives are not redeemed by His death. It is His real battleground, the Calvary, not that, in the mount Olive (sic).   

The forgotten dance of the fingers

Now I know why I wrote so bad last month, I mean, since early May to early June, my writing did not develop, almost thouroughly, thouroughly under developed. It was because I did not write passionate enough. And I did not write much enough. Now I tell you what I have done too much: reading, searching, browsing, diving into literature, attempting too much to absorb them in my poor braincells and slowly....it went nowhere. My skill has not developed at all. I felt estranged from writing activity. I have been so numbed, my fingers do not understand how to dance anymore with words. How to craft words into piece of writing. How to feel the flow of my writing, from my brain, through my hands, through my fingers, to the screen and papers. It's just too long. Until last Wednesday when I was reminded by my supervisor to keep writing, to jot down ideas, to jot down thoughts, even any small thoughts of anything into writing, so that I would not forget them, can keep track them later, and learn from them.

When the lecture in Advanced QM class showed his field notes, in which he jotted down everything, from the situation at the room where he interviewed his informant, to comments from people in the room, to any single details he saw, stroke a chord to me. I should have done those. I haven't really done that before because I believe in my memory. That my brain can hold some facts and keep them for me when I want to retrieve them. Everytime. But it doesn't work that way. Brain can take so much information within few days, or even hours. I read that somewhere.

Now I realise that I talked more than I wrote last month. I talked and met people and talked. But talked my thoughts out didn't do much for my writing. It doesn't improve my skills. What I should do is write write write. 

Here are some tips from my supervisor that I should do next:

- Nice phrases and idioms (collect from articles etc!)

- Find help from others (he talked about his brother, his hiring trainer etc.)

- Using all aids when needs be: cards, books, notes 

-----> I hated it when he said not to use Balkanisation and cash-cows :-p

But the word that really really stroke a chord to me is when the lecture said: "dance", D A N C E when your fingers dance to write. That moment, was the moment of truth for me. The moment that kept me up and awake and stayed late until 1 a.m to dance, dance with my ideas, and let my fingers dance with keyboards, let my ideas flowing and dancing on the screen, to cut, paste, edit, cut here and there, decorate a bit, trashed some to bins... a work, really a nice work. Dance. Passionately. I reinvent my passion. I return my old flame. I should dance. I should let my fingers dance. I should dance passionately. Then I realised, the whole last month, I acted like a zombie, or some forced marriage bride. I didn't engulf myself with the passion. Or I danced but was at pressure. They didn't flow together. I doesn't work that way Ria, it doesn't work that way.