On Tuesday I was elected the president of the UNSW BITSA society, thanks to those that voted for me.  What does this mean?  It means that this semester is going to be potentially the most hectic period of my life with so many things to juggle.  Having said this I intend to see the year through with flying colours and so I apologize in advance to my friends if I seem like I don’t have time to go out (because I probably don’t haha)  Second Semester should start to see things improve since I won’t have ‘full-time’ work and I won’t have graduate applications (hopefully)

So this morning on the train the song “Hotel California” popped up on my iphone and while I was listening to it I came to think “wow this is a really old song”  then it got me thinking about how its a song my dad’s generation would’ve listened to and how its one of those songs that old people would say “back in the day we used to listen to…”.  So that got me thinking about the times we’ve lived through and how we let things simply fly past,  I speak for myself mainly but generally when something big happens I think to myself “Oh wow, thats pretty serious” but then a few days (or weeks depending on severity) you just kind of forget it and not give it a second thought.  911 is a prime example of this, I mean for most of us Australians it really was just something that happened in a distant land, too far for us to really care about it.  I mean we were shocked and surprised like the rest of the world but now, years down the track who gives a second thought to 911?  We know about it, but we just don’t care.

Thinking back, we’ve lived through some pretty fast-paced times.  I mean when I was a kid I was using black and white macs (yes the screens were black and white, no colour), we’ve lived through dial-up, cable, ADSL and now ADLS2, music has changed quite a bit too, we’ve seen the rise and fall of superstars, the death of Michael Jackson.  A lot of things happen and we kind of just go with the flow which is not necessarily a bad thing.

But thinking about it, at age 21, I can easily say “I’ve lived through such and such times” to someone even just a few years younger, and I get people only a few years older than I am telling me stuff that I have never experienced (and never will)  Am I old? Perhaps. But thats not the point.  When we let things fly by us so quickly and rapidly we don’t really appreciate the significance of the times we live through, but a few years down the track when/if we start to reflect we start to realise how profound the changes we’ve lived through are.

Perhaps its a good idea to keep note of the events we might deem ’significant’ and see how we think of them in a few years, a time line might provide a visual representation of how turbulent our lives are.  This also makes me think that if I was to make a personal timeline of my own personal significant events (the good and the bad) it might interesting to see what it holds…  More on that later perhaps.

So thanks to a very heated and argument on chat about openess in sexuality vs maturity  I came to think about something very important:  The Inner Child

Lets face it, everyone has an inner child, that little kid inside all of us that says “I wanna have fun!”  I think that everyone’s desire to enjoy themselves comes from the inner child and that it is an integral part of our personalities.  In some people the inner child manifests itself more then others, in others it is suppressed more than others and needless to say alcohol seems to bring out this inner child more by removing the inhibitions we put on ourselves.

Quite often people talk about maturity vs immaturity and how some people need to be more ‘mature’.  I think thats a load of crap, most of the time people are ‘immature’ because they’re trying to have fun, and if they want to have fun then let them.  What I think happens a lot though is that people who try to have fun do so at the expense of others and this annoys people resulting in the label “immature”.  In these cases I think the word “inconsiderate” is more accurate.  For example, you can be extremely drunk, obnoxious and loud and have the time of your life but just make sure you’re not being loud towards other people who aren’t in such a celebratory mood or disturbing anyone otherwise you’re being inconsiderate.  Also people who think loud and obnoxious people on the street are annoying, you ARE in a public area, not everything can go your way so just deal with it, you can’t force your views on other people.

You can do whatever you want, so long as it is not at the expense of others.

So all in all I think the inner child is something we should all strive to seek out, it makes us happy and allows us to enjoy life.  It’s ok to be silly and laugh at silly things, its not ‘weird’ as some people may think.

We all have an inner child, we should all let it out when we can.

Well, well I’ve stumbled upon some old sites and blogs that I thought were very nostaligc.  Reminded me of some very fun times =) :

http://www.bluezone.net.au/~cyan/ – the CYAN website, thanks to the bluezone admins for keeping this up! after all these years (our YAA site).

http://zephorz.blogspot.com/ – my old blog full of memories I’ll never forget (both in a good and bad way) some interesting times there.

ans also from my blog there were links to various other people’s blogs.  Made for some interesting reads, check them out if you’re even remotely interested =)

Well, with the new 2.9.1 I’ve managed to implement a new simple (yet complex) theme.  This theme uses javascript and the js libraries of jQuery and Raphael for added coolness.  Unfortunately the quotes plugin I was using before is incompatible with this version of wordpress so I’ll need to find a new one.  Also I just realised I neglected the comments part of the design, I’ll do that at a later stage

Now that I’ve (semi)completed the new design I’ll start diverting my attention to other things.  For example recruitment! and getting back into my Bitsa duties.  I’m about to enter what will possibly be the busiest semester of my life.  Let the games begin!.

Wordpress 2.9.1 installed!  new theme coming up…

And so we begin a new year,  and being me I absolutely must reflect on 2009 as a year… here goes! *deep breath*

2009 was shall we say an eventful year, a year I started off by freezing my ass off in New York’s Time Square.

To begin at the every beginning this is the year I traversed the great pacific ocean to attend my student exchange at Penn State University.  My time abroad seems so surreal now, like a different life time.  I can say that over there I had not a care in the world, money, career, social circles, all the worries of my life in Sydney vanished the minute I jumped on that plane.  I recall that my most frustrating though while over there was when where and how I’d be travelling to next, a carefree attitude I hope to carry forward at least to some degree.  That coupled with all the people I met, people I now consider my friends purely through the awesome times we shared makes those 6 months some of the best of my life, not a period I’ll forget soon if ever.

After my return to Sydney I came back to a life of concerns and insecurities, events that occured I won’t re-iterate as it would make for too long winded a post.

The second half of 2009 yielded the following lessons, thoughts and reflections:

• I have come to realise who some of my closer friends are
• The word friend is ever-changing in definition
• Humans beings, myself included can be incredibly selfish at times
• Though I try to rise above things, there are times when this simply can’t happen
• People change, social groups change, what matters is you still have your friends.
• It is important to forgive people for their short comings.
• Noone is inherently bad.
• I would like to become a consultant after graduation
• I believe I am capable of doing honours, despite my marks this semester

And something I believe in that I have formulated in words:

You can do whatever you like, have the time of your life, go crazy… so long as it is not at the expense of others.

Finally, the end of 2009 yielded a very pleasant surprise:

I was able to find a certain special someone whom I can share my life with, someone I care for deeply…

Thank you 2009, for showing me the time of my life, for re-kindling my belief in love and for all the lessons learnt.  Thank you and goodbye.

To all my friends, those whom I hold dear.

In our first year of uni after high school I made a promise to myself, that I would not let us drift apart, that I would maintain the friendships we had forged.

In second year immediately before my first Industrial Trainig period I made another promise; that no matter what happened, wherever my placement took me, I would never place my career and my job over my friends, including those I have met along the way and am now fortunate to include in this circle.

This past year I have very much been absent from your lives, by jetting off to the states on my exchange and now working a job that at times requires ridiculous hours I have not been upholding these promises.  For this I’m sorry.  If there was anything I took from my exchange, its how important my friends are to me.  I found myself on many occassions longing to come home and partake in the lives of everyone here.

Though I claim to be selfless I’ve come to realise that in the bigger picture I have been quite the opposite, putting myself and my career ahead of everyone else, being altogether absent and yet asking for a trust that needs to be earnt.

As it stands, this cannot be changed.  I can’t go back in time and stop myself from doing the things I’ve done, all I can do now is double my efforts and hope that in time this trust will come back…

I’m Sorry.

A red sun rises, blood has been spilt tonight…

A crazy dust storm this morning, I woke up and the sky was red.  A bad omen perhaps? who knows…

I turn my head to the East I don’t see nobody by my side,

I turn my head to the West, still nobody in sight.

So I turn my head to the North, swallow that Pill that they call pride

That old me is dead and gone but the new me will be alright