I open up my head inside

Don't hit me, but sometimes I start to think about the existential questions. Not the "where have we been, where do we go, what's the meaning of life?" (Poppy and Happy-Go-Lucky reference) type of questions but more like... what's the purpose of it all?

As you can see, I'm not in the brightest of my moods lately, this is why I start thinking about silly things. Now I've come to the "tragic" fact that as much as I love what I'm doing, I'm not good at it.

I love studying English in the university. I work hard, you know, the geek who I am. But then again I see people coming to the lectures pretty much straight from the pub, and still giving better answers than me! You can only imagine how frustrating it feels. I feel like dropping everything I do, and just pout under the blanket. What's the point of my hard work if it goes unnoticed. Arrggghh! This makes me feel as if I don't try hard enough, and although my health (yes, even my physical health) has been put to a test quite a few times during this semester, I'm still achieving close to nothing. What else could I do? I understand how much more there is to know and it scares me to think that what if I never get to know those things. I don't even know where to start. I've always been the ambitious type but now I see I'm barely average, and it slowly kills me inside. And I can't actually tell this to anyone. They take on look at my GPA, and tell me I'm delusional. Am I? I don't think so. Just because my brain works in a way that exam form of questions and answers suits me doesn't mean that I'm actually good at it.

I know I'm driving myself mad, but I can help it! I've decided not to apply to Canada for an exchange student because I don't feel like it. What's the point anyway, I most probably won't be picked anyway...

Breathe in, breathe out. I'm okay. Really, I am. And always will be. Don't worry.

Temporary stars.

I'd like to write but I feel that my great "tragedy" seems to be that I don't have a great passion or great sorrow to write about. My greatest feelings occupy me when I am reading other people's masterpieces, and they make me realise I'll never be as good. But it is one of my dreams to be able to write a novel. Or even a decent short story. Please understand that I said to write and not to have published.
When I first met one of my current friends, she asked me, which was a greater tragedy: whether to have a talent to write, draw etc but not have an idea, or to have an idea but not gifts to realise it. As back then, I still don't know what to answer. I know I lack of both.

I also wanted to talk about families. Yes, in plural. I think I'm lucky because I have so many different families. What makes a family different from friends? You can choose your friends, but you cannot choose you family. Easy as that. The first family is my mother, father and sister. I couldn't choose them, but they've turned out pretty good. Yeah, we fight, we cry, we laugh, we pull each other's leg... that's all part of it. My second family was the one during high school, M. and H - my "grandma" and my "sister". They were awesome, and made my high school experience even more special. Now I have once again a new family, in the dorm. I couldn't choose whom I am going live together with. But I was once again lucky - K., K. and L. (who, I know, doesn't live with us anymore, but still). Living in the dorm is an experience I'm happy to have. I have a new room mate and we get along but not that well. She hasn't blended in, yet.

Who needs please when we've got guns?

For some people there is the notion as 'right opinion'.
How can an opinion be right or wrong? Aren't we all entitled to our own opinions? Oh, dear me, I must have been dreaming that. Mine are obviously terribly wrong.

To err is human. Errare humanum est as the Romans would say.
And yet again, I've been living in illusions. Because obviously some people are not allowed to make mistakes. And when they do, you must definitely point them out and roll your eyes. Yes, it's a must.

You better hope you're not alone.

It's been a long time since I've actually written something on my own over here. You can seek reasons for that in my extremely limited free time; and secondly, nothing interesting has actually happen except for my health failing every now and then...

Some time ago, one of my favourite lecturers said something that really made me think. It was the lecture on the 1960s in the United States: hope, rebellion and disappointment; hippies and student activists etc. She said:

"The 1960s were the last time that the young believed they could actually change the world."

The scary part of it is that it's actually true. When I look around in the world that I live in today, I see so many things that have gone and are going terribly, terribly wrong: the wars are dragging on, there's poverty and hunger, our environment becomes more and more dangerous for us to live in, maniacs and crazy people killing and torturing their 'brethren'... shall I go on?

As much as I'd like to change it, I don't believe that I can change it. I try to live up to my own standards, and I hope that people around me respect them and have similar ones. This is as much as I'm able to do for the world.

"An individual action, multiplied by millions, creates global change"

It is a statement, or should I say, a slogan, from Jack Johnson's homepage. He has, of course, focused on the 'global warming'. (I put it between inverted commas because of what I believe; I do care about the environment but I don't agree with everything that is fed to us.) It is true, of course, but in this self-centered world we live in, is it possible? Or more importantly: do we believe it's possible?

People who know me are aware that I tend to get very much involved in "making the world a better place" but I must admit, I have but little belief in it. I just don't often display it because I have an image to keep.

I think we all have learnt from the history, (and after all, this is what history is for) because the youth in the 1960s did not see the world changing for a better place. Vice versa, the 1970s turned out to be rather miserable. No wonder we've lost all hope.

But as long as we don't turn our backs completely to what is going on in the world, I think we'll survive. Let's just keep our hearts warm and our minds sharp, and maybe, just maybe, we can once again believe in the mankind.

Sounds of silence.

And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never share
And no one dared
Disturb the sound of silence

"Fools", said I, "You do not know
Silence like a cancer grows
Hear my words that I might teach you
Take my arms that I might reach you
"But my words, like silent raindrops fell
And echoed
In the wells of silence

Paul Simon. Sounds of Silence. 1964

I saw Fight Club. Again.

If you could be either God's worst enemy or nothing, which would you choose? We're the middle children of history, we have no special purpose or place, and unless we get God's attention, we have no hope of damnation or redemption. Which is worse, hell or nothing? Burn the museums, wipe your ass with the Mona Lisa. This way, at least God will know your name.

Chuck Palahniuk. Fight Club. 1996.

Could this Tyler Durden's monologue be the next Hamlet's soliloquy: (I should probably be thrown to death with stones or burnt alive for this sacrilege, but it made me think...)

In the world I see - you are stalking elk through the damp canyon forests around the ruins of Rockefeller Center. You'll wear leather clothes that will last you the rest of your life. You'll climb the wrist-thick kudzu vines that wrap the Sears Tower. And when you look down, you'll see tiny figures pounding corn, laying strips of venison on the empty car pool lane of some abandoned superhighway.

Chuck Palahniuk. Fight Club. 1996

I do care...

"No man is an Iland, intire of it selfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; . . . any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde."

John Donne, 1623.