The things that never change

I got older, bigger, stronger. I learnt to utilise my resources. I'm no longer the girl you auditioned two three four years ago (has it really been that long?). But have I really changed that much?

As we advance in years, I don't think we change so much as we learn to hide. We filter our thoughts so that only the cleanest and purest escape our lips. We learn what's considered rude, or just simply, what is the done thing, and behave according to social conventions. Why is the cutlery in a kitchen always in the top drawer?

We learn. Learning has been both a blessing and a curse. A blessing, obviously, because it increases our ability to reason and the result is efficiency. Yet a curse, because it takes away innocence. Learning is the acceptance and the ability to adapt to that which we cannot change. When we accept that there are things outside of our control, we change the only thing we can: our behaviour. And when everything has to go through that system, we have lost the quintessential human spirit (or at least, in appearance in the public arena): our childish innocence.

People who have known us since we were born tell us that we've grown up. That we're now so tall, that we look so much like our parents. Of course we've changed physically.

But somewhere inside us are still the traits of children. Those are the things which never change. Think about how the Cold War started. Each country wanted to be the best, so in the most simplistic, childish manner, they embarked on a mission to outdo each other. Now, we look back and wonder how they could have been so primal. But if you were in their shoes, what else was there to do?

97.40

At six forty-five AM, on Monday the fourteenth of December, two thousand and nine, Cordelia Foo indifferently roused herself from sleep in the room she was sharing with Sonya Morton at Allansfield on Phillip Island, where she was taking a holiday with Team 12.

She did not care much for the two text messages on her phone waiting to be read and was happy to continue sleeping, but seeing as the rest of Team 12 had eagerly awaited the arrival of these text messages, and were hence convinced that they should all open their respective messages at the same time, she dragged herself, in her sleeping bag, to the lounge room in the little cottage at the back of the property where the boys slept.

"3....2....1...."

Cordelia looked at her phone through half opened eyelids. The first message read:
"Results 2009. VCE: S ENTER: 97.40.
EC03: A+, A+, A, Study Score: 39
EN01: A+, A+, A, SS: 39
LO10: A+, A+, A+, SS: 39
LO48: B+, B+, A, SS:30
P1/2, VCE"

She stared at it for a second, the information not having yet been transmitted to her brain. Her first thought was that she didn't get any 40s. Then she wondered which LOTE was which. Then, after seeing the scores of each, it became quite clear.

The second message read:
"Results 2009 P2/2
MA09: A+, A, A. SS:37. VCE"

While the rest of Team 12 began exclaiming excited and calling their parents outside where the was reception (and mosquitos), Cordelia dragged herself back to the big lounge room at the front of the house, dropped her phone beside her head (out of tiredness, she hadn't been holding it all too tightly all the while anyway), plonked her body in a prostrate position and fell asleep on the couch.

97.40. It didn't get her into the course she had wanted, but it didn't really matter anyway. Of course she would have to reconsider her uni preferences. But as far as Cordelia was concerned, her work was done here. For one year, she had worked the hardest she could, and she was not going to have any regrets or wishes or jealousy of others' ENTER scores.

So she slept peacefully for another hour and a half or so until her mother rudely interrupted...i mean...called and asked what she had got.

Summerrrrr

Let's start by saying, I love summer.

Yes, I know summer actually started on the 1st of December, making me circa 2 days late, but I haven't had time. I have never remembered summer to be so tight with time. Summer has always meant lazing around for hours, even to the point of being bored, but now, more and more, I realise that being bored just isn't an option. Because there are so many things left to do.

Gone with the wind. Hard Times. The Pact. My Sister's Keeper. The Duchess. Beach. Bake. Photog. Photoshop. Driving lessons. Music theory. Guitar. Singing. Piano. Clean the bathroom. Clean my room. Housework. Find a source of income. Sew. Scrapbook. Knit. Parties. Dinners. Catchup. Pack. PI. Unpack. Decide.

Clear the clutter that assumes the shape of my life.

The glass maze

There was once a huge maze, whose walls were made out of thick slabs of glass that reached the sky. In this maze lived people, billions of them, lost, wandering up and down, trying to find their way to the haven in the centre, for it was known that the centre was where the fort of glass surrounding them on all four sides (except for the doorway) would keep them safe. Little did the people realise that although it was the safest place they knew, it was still not safe. For glass was glass, and thick as it was, it was still easily shattered, just as glass is. They knew nothing, only that the more they had around them, the safer they would feel.

The transparent walls allowed no privacy. Nothing could be concealed. The human eye could easy through those walls, but the scenery blurred with distance due to the cracks and imperfections in the glass, and the culmination of layers of glass that made it difficult to see into the distance.

The people could see each other through those transparent walls, but they couldn't hear each other. They tried to signal to each other the ways they had come to warn them where not to venture, but it was pointless. They saw faces, bodies, actions, expressions, appearances, but sound, feeling, and the articulation of thoughts would not penetrate those walls. It was as if it was all just a pantomime. It was difficult to know each other, for there was no way of removing the barriers between them. They couldn't communicate properly or efficiently, creating misconceptions, misunderstandings and fractured relationships.

The glass was deceiving. It made it that much harder for the people to find their way. Often it would look like there was a way out, and they would rush to it, only to discover that there was a wall of glass they had not seen, an obstruction they had not anticipated. Though sometimes, it wasn't that they couldn't see those glass walls. It was that they did not want to believe that they would not get through. It was better to hope. It was not until they physically felt the glass walls stopping them that they would accept that they had to find another way.

And thus the people in the glass maze passed their days in this fashion.

No one wins a war

The war was over. There should have been celebration and rejoicing, the sound of trumpets and dancers in the street. There should have been the excited buzz of anticipation of the future. There was nothing more to fear, no more uncertainty of how bad things would get. They could start rebuilding their lives, the physical as well the emotional state. When the war had raged outside their homes, when the perpetual sounds of bullets and the low rumble of machinery had been the only constant in their lives, they had wished and wished and wished for the day when all this would finally cease.

It was here now, but apart from the knowledge that they had been successful, nothing much had changed.

It was then that she realised: no one wins a war. Even the winning side had lost many lives, made many sacrifices in order to be victorious. Even the side that won had to bury their dead. It was impossible to ignore how the very public war, broadcasted all over worldwide news, had affected each of their personal lives. They had suffered the loss, and now they too grieved.

She thought about the enemy. How much the children of her generation had been brought up to hate them. They had always been portrayed as the evil ones, yet now it dawned upon her that they were people just like her, with the same needs, the same emotions, the same human nature. She pictured a girl, just like her, on the other side of the border, sitting in a lounge room as she was now, grieving over the fathers they had both lost.

Her own people had inflicted the pain, but here she was wanting to apologise for it all. They had been the enemy, but they were still people, and through this the two were united. They were one body. How was it that they so easily fought themselves? Why were the rules of compassion and love void towards this one group of people? How was it expected that they would not share the burden?

How had humans become so capable of causing so much pain?

Do me a favour

Take my blog posts at face value.

See them for what they are- fragments of my imagination, attempts at expressing a notion, stories.

Don't base your view of me on them, except to judge my level of ability regarding my written expression, knowing that they are pieces of writing created by me.

Lastly, choose carefully as to what you want to believe.

I don't want to cry anymore

My tear glands hurt. Can you use your tear glands until they don't work? I really hope so. I hope that tear glands wear and tear, until you have to throw them out. And when I have to throw mine out, I'll never get new ones. They cost too much. I can't afford them.

I can't keep my eyes open. They're always tired. I want to sleep. I want it to be night. I always want it to be bedtime. Bedtime used to be a time when you whispered things in my ear. You used to want to hold me as I fell asleep.

Now I fall asleep alone. Still, not really. Not really, because you're always there. You always remind me that you're still there. I can't pretend you're not there, because you are.

What happened? I think I missed it. It all happened so quick. Please sir, can you tell me what happened?