Chemistry is frying my brain. Thinking, learning, homework, study...my body is having to adjust from holiday mode. Things I have learnt today:

-when you buy a weekly railpass from another station because your local station does not sell them, make sure you remember to ask for it from your local station to your destination.

-make sure you read the bus timetable properly or else you will miss your bus which actually turns out to be another bus after a certain time and the next one doesn't come until an hour later.

-No matter how tired and hungry you are, it is definitely worth making yourself do your homework and study on the train so when you get home you can crash and have 'me' time.

-How very different I am from the average person. Will I actually be able to find friends as like minded as Indi, Jacspi and Eru at Uni? Friends whom I find it easy to just be me around and open up?

An excerpt from Book5 in Meditations by Marcus Aurelius:

1. At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: "I have to go to work-as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I'm going to do what I was born for- the things I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm?"

-But it's nicer here...

So you were born to fell "nice"? Instead of doing things and experiencing them? Don't you see the plants, the birds, the ants and spiders and bees going about their individual tasks, putting the world in order, as best they can? And you're not willing to do your job as a human being? Why aren't you running to do what your nature demands?

-But we have to sleep sometime...

Agreed. But nature set a limit on that-as it did on eating and drinking. And you're over the limit. You've had more than enough of that. But not of working. There you're still below your quota.
You don't love yourself enough. Or you'd love your nature too, and what it demands of you. People who love what they do wear themselves down doing it, they even forget to wash or eat. Do you have less respect for your own nature than the engraver does for engraving, the dancer for dance, the miser for money or the social climber for status? When they're really possessed by what they do, they'd rather stop eating and sleeping than give up practicing their arts.

Is helping others less valuable to you? Not worth your effort?

wow. check out these videos on consumerism and kids

http://frenchtoastfrance.blogspot.com/2009/01/consumer-kids.html

monday. the first of many growing ups and changes

Apple and Berry pulp from this morning's juice

[So glad we did not put the pulp in the cookies]

The Best Cookies in the world.

So good that we emailed Jamie Oliver to tell him so

Moss. I think of Jay's lovely moss moustache

Near the end of my walk back from bi lo. The weather was perfect for how I was feeling

I never realised our water metre was alive and needed a name

There is rain on its way. If you looked down at the pavement, the ants scurrying were another sign testifying of the oncoming weather

Where we slept and watched Amelie

After dropping a tissue rose, get out of jail free card, a carpark rock and a button into Alec we stopped by a second hand book store

I think it was a bit of retail therapy. We happened to buy chocolate and books. After Jay left. I think it worked

Lil bro no.2's school bag

I discovered that these shoes, despite appearances are quite comfortable to walk at least 2kms in. An accquisition from early Sydney markets. And despite those terrible Rivers ads, these shoes have turned out quite well.

Our beautiful tile floor

Through the wire door. Many adventures lie beyond the mesh. Somewhere, 4 hours away in Canberra there is Jay unpacking.

3 fingers. They long for someting, yet at that precise moment are simply content with just existing peacefully on the tiles

At the Warhope markets me and Jay went halves in this camera. We both saw it and could not leave it. We paid a good $6 each. On Jay's departure she left it in my care

If anyone reading this happens to have a spare spool and some Kodak 120 or 620 film, it would be greatly appreciated if you donated them to us-just comment to let me know:) We really want to get it working and take some photos the old fashioned way. Any developing chemicals would also come in handy. [Grandpa, do you still have your camera + gear like this?]

This is me exactly how I feel on a summer's evening which feels more like an april's evening, having just spent a whole wonderful day with 2 friends after saying good bye to the third. This is simply me lying on the cool tiles infront of the front door.

4am. Next time I say farewell to a friend and intend to run after the car, I will not wear thongs. Today has been...not what I thought it would be. It feels like april. An april evening. A feeling of sun that has been, a left over tinge of the morning's rain and a hint of future rain. A breeze binds it all together. Now we are three. I could think of no better way of spending an early rainy morning than driving over to Jay's house, knocking on her window, being let in and crashing on her blue IKEA couches. The four of us sharing an hour of a kinda sleep before packing the car. Through the darkness I could see their individual and distinctive sillouettes. I never thought I knew what true love was. But when I looked, truely and simply looked at 4.30am this morning at those three figures in the dark, I realised I did know. My heart strings pulled the corners of my mouth into a smile, and opened my tear ducts for just a second, long enough for a 2 lone tears to line my eyes, but not enough to run down my cheeks. These tears were not of sadness.

"if I was crying
in the van, with my friend
it was for freedom"

[Sufjan Stevens;Chicago]

They[the tears] were of happiness. Of times past, present and future.

in the leafy treetops...

Iroh is currently situated at the top of the huge gum in our neighbour's front yard. He's been there since about 9 o'clock. Dad walked out the front door and Iroh saw his chance and made a dash for the open sky. I never was attatched to the bird, but I want him to come back, not only for his saftey (let's face it, little fluro cockertiels were never bred to survive in the wild) but for my brothers'. Jai will be devestated-that bird is his one true love. Even dad looks a bit lost without his little shoulder companion. We've got the cage on the front veranda, in the hope that Iroh decides to fly back home. I don't think I'd miss the bird itself, but rather the happiness and joy and entertainment it brought to our family and especially my lil brothers' lives.

wednesday's facts:

I love my friends.

that and I really want to pick tennis up again.

Dear Jacspi,

I just rang up the RTA and guess what???!!! Red P platers ARE allowed to learn in a manual car as long as there is a full license holder instructing them and we're allowed to display our P plates-no need for L plates!!! The customer service consultant even read it out to me from his big book of rules! So it's official!!!!You can still learn in Newt!!

much love, sockpuppet:)