sketches of the mind

Why do I punish myself so? I’ve averaged five hours of sleep all week and last night was no different. Today I have yet to eat a real meal and I’ve been awake since 8 am. Instead I’ve been stuffing myself with white chocolate macadamia cookies that my last surfers gave to me as a gift last weekend (so sweet of them!). I’ve been procrastinating on working my goal sheet and leaving things until the last minute (like my third photography assignment which I finished 30 mins before it was due last night).

What in heavens is going on?

Perhaps this has something to do with the news from my father three days ago that my mum has been diagnosed with some form of ovarian cancer, something which has attacked her liver and caused her stomach to bloat (which she had to go to hospital for last week and have the fluid drained). She’s also lost twenty kilos since I last saw her in October last year. My cousin sent me a photo of her and she looks frail and starved. She hasn’t been eating. My my mum told me that herself when I was on the phone with her last week. It hurts for her to try. She hasn’t been sleeping either. I could hear her cry practically the whole time that she was on the line with me. I didn’t know what to say, other than “you need to take care of yourself” and that I’d be in Sydney to vist in May.

The day that I had heard the news I had no idea how to deal with it. I was numb really.

I have since accepted this event for what it is, an event. How I choose to perceive the event - positive or negative or neutral - is completely up to me. Same as how you choose to perceive it is up to you. There is no inherent good or bad in somebody getting cancer, it’s just natural and it happens.

I choose to not go down a negative emotional path. Moderm medicine will do its thing and she’ll need to determine whether she has more to experience of life. I can only hope that she feels that she does and recovers from this stronger than she was before.

Now if only I could get my act together and just do the needful.

I was meant to attend a CS boardgames night tonight but that’s not happening. Instead I will resign myself to a pizza from Mammas (it’s been a while), catching up with editing and sharing some photos that I took ages ago but never got around to completing, doing some work towards my goals, and perhaps catching up on Survivor, Lost and reading a bit of Chicken Soup For The Soul (great great book!) before turning in for a reasonably early night.

Early start tomorrow and a full day of events ahead.

I’m a big fan of creative, contemporary architectural design. I’m often attracted to unusual and striking buildings and public spaces.

That brings me to Ned Kanh’s portfolio. Simply amazing.

So I guess I’m a day late posting this but then again it probably makes sense. My opinion on Valentine’s Day hasn’t changed much since last year. First let’s start with some e-cards that really sum up Valentine’s Day nicely.

Do people even know why they celebrate Valentine’s or how it came to be? I suspect a lot of people don’t. They just simply buy into the commercialism and the lazy way of being romantic. I’ll go into this further later.

As per Wikipedia:

Valentine’s Day or Saint Valentine’s Day is a holiday celebrated on February 14. In North America and Europe, it is the traditional day on which lovers express their love for each other by sending Valentine’s cards, presenting flowers, or offering confectionery. The holiday is named after two early Christian martyrs named Valentine. The day became associated with romantic love in the circle of Geoffrey Chaucer in the High Middle Ages, when the tradition of courtly love flourished. Some of the valentine symbols include red roses, love knots, and love birds.

So here are my thoughts on this wonderfully unoriginal and far too commercial celebration:

For those in relationships currently, every day should be valentine’s day. You don’t need one specific day of the year to spend time with your significant other, and you sure as hell don’t need to buy into the commercialism.

How about some originality? You can pick any day(s) of the year to be your V-day. Who says it has to be feb 14th every year? (of course if you hooked up on February 14th that’s different)

So one day/night you say to your partner, “hey Mar 27th is our V-day this year. Let’s book a hotel, dinner, show, etc and do something special. How’s that sound?”

How about special little anniversary days, like the day you first met, the first date, etc. How about re-living it right down to the same place you ate, what you wore (if you still have it and it fits), play the same music you listened that time in the car, where you went, etc?

Now those days have significance to you, which makes it unique and special. Even more special if he/she remembers right (and you happened to forget)?

Now wouldn’t that be more special?

Whilst we’re on the topic, here are some of my fave romantic movies:

A Walk To Remember
Before Sunrise (and too a lesser extent the sequel Before Sunset)
Lost In Translation (in it’s own kind of weird romantic way)
Serendipity
The Wedding Singer
Hitch
Never Been Kissed
The Lake House (Hollywood version not the original Korean because the endings are quite different).
Oh and how could I forget… “You had me at hello”… Jerry Macguire.

So anyways, I didn’t spend V-day alone this year. Well technically it wasn’t a romantic affair either. I just had a nice dinner at Hard Rock Cafe with a friend.

Alright people, don’t forget a more significant day is coming up on March 14th. That’s right, it’s Steak and Blowjob day!

By the way, here’s another classic ecard from someecards.com:

So I received an email from a fellow Australian (Melbourne guy) today through CouchSurfing (fantastic site, I’ll create a separate post about it soon).

The gentleman is contemplating moving overseas to escape the routine and familiarity of Melbourne and asked how I would rate Toronto as a place to move to.

Below is my response (slightly edited for a general audience).

I’ve been here since October 26th last year, making it 2 months, 21 days since arrival in fact, and I’m loving it. The cold temperature and the snow falling excites me. It’s not something that I’m accustomed to, having lived in Sydney all my life. It’s funny because the locals complain a heck of a lot about how cold it is, how the snow sucks, etc. and I’m just all cheery and glad to be experiencing it.

Public transport is generally great in downtown TO anyway. Getting outside of the core is a challenge, though there are buses and trains that service the GTA (greater toronto area).

There are small differences here and there but it’s all part of living in a different place, and that’s what I asked for when I decided to leave the comforts of my home and life in Sydney.

People here are generally social. I’ve been told Torontonians aren’t as friendly as folks in Vancouver and Montreal and that may be true for some, but I think it’s really up to the individual. If you want to make friends you’ll go out and make friends. There’s a stack of social and common interest groups/sites (I use meetup.com and couchsurfing.com) to get involved in so it’s not hard to keep yourself busy.

Nightlife is pretty good, especially on Thurs, Fri, Sat nights. Alcohol is not served after 2am from what I hear. Some clubs will run to early morning if that’s what you’re interested in. Otherwise, there are museums, art shows, theatres, many food spots, shops, and festivals running throughout the year.

Any Aussies reading this would probably find it quite similar to Sydney/Melbourne in many ways (there’s “little Italy”, Chinatown, and TO even has a “little Greece” here), the fashion district, the entertainment district, and little pockets of interesting sights. In other ways you’ll find it different.

Job market-wise I chose Toronto over Montreal and Vancouver because there’s more of a market here. It’s the city where people go to work.

Anyways, there are many sites with tips, experiences, etc. You could probably start with the City of Toronto website.

Whatever the case I moved overseas because I felt that I wanted a change of scenery, and I’ve not regretted it for even a second.

My tip is if you’re thinking about it or if it’s something that you feel like doing inside your heart, then do it. It doesn’t matter where you decide to go, just go. You can only learn and grow by travelling and getting out of your comfort zone.

What if it were true that life is a movie and you are the writer, director, actor and main character of your movie?

… asks Luis, an empowering and inspirational speaker.

Furthermore, what if it were true that Whether or not your movie is a horror or a love story is totally up to you? So if you could have it any way you wanted, what kind of movie would you choose to make?

Let me tell you about a movie that I created just a week ago…

It was 4:45am on Monday the 12th of November. Out the front of the Radisson Northbrook (40 mins from downtown Chicago) Tracey stacks up Kym’s bag on top of mine in the back seat of her car (interesting how Kym’s bag wasn’t on top… as we soon discover).

Soon we were in Tracey’s car speeding down the motorway. Not wanting to risk going the wrong way Tracey stopped at a petrol station and confirmed that we were indeed heading the wrong way. So we turned around and changed directions.

Weaving through all the traffic, it wasn’t too heavy fortunately, we stop at the American Air Terminal to drop Kym off.

Next stop was the Delta Terminal. It was less than 30 mins before the flight was due to depart.

I grab my bags and half run for check-in (it’s a bit hard lugging around such a huge suitcase!), but not before hugging Tracey goodbye.

The bag handler (who is outside the terminal building) takes the bag and asks for my name, which I promptly provide.

The handler than says “it may be too late, I’ll see what I can do” and after tapping on his PC keyboard excitedly says “you’re in!”, handing me a boarding pass.

He then states that there is no way that I could make it to the front of the queue going through security (it’s banked up all the way to the door, there must have been thirty or so people there at that time) and to the plane in time. Sensing my desperation, the handler offered his assistance. “I’ll take you to the front of the queue so you can make it”.

Which is exactly what he does. Reaching the front of the queue I slip the handler a twenty and thank him for the help.

Passing through the security check I rush to the gate, and am the last passenger to enter through before the gate is closed.

I’d made it.

The flight departs as scheduled and an hour and a half later arrives in Atlanta.

Amazing isn’t it? That’s really how it all went down.

The past two weeks have given me incredible insight into the regularity and power of coincidences. Deepak Chopra believes that coincidences (”SynchroDestiny” he calls it) are like lights on a runway at night guiding a plane to the right path for landing.

SynchroDestiny is coincidence but it contains a purpose. It contains a meaning. It has a direction. It has intention. And where do those qualities come from? They come from you. (Deepak Chopra)

So what does it mean?

I’m not too sure, but I’ve been paying close attention to these coincidences for I know that such events are not random and if I pay enough attention to them I’ll be headed in the right direction.