Baru

When we were in Christchurch, we just so happened to be there at a time the city was experiencing a bunch of earthquake aftershocks. They were pretty minor, the biggest being 4.9 on the scale, but for someone not used to the idea that the ground can start shaking against your will, and that it's not something you can escape from, it's quite unnerving. We were in a shop when the 4.9 tremor happened, I was with my brother and sister in this quirky shop, and I was slipping a ring onto my finger to try it on, when suddenly the earth starts rumbling, and for a moment I didn't quite believe it, but then things started falling off shelves and crashing onto the floor, I turned around and saw a lady running out the entrance. Next I felt my sister pulling me out, and I whipped my head back to find my brother and saw that he was on my other side. And as we were running outside for some reason my head was tilted slightly upwards, and I remember thinking, feeling, "Really? This is what it feels like? Are we really about to be people whom Something Tragic happens to?". When we got outside to open space with everyone else, I noticed I was still clutching the ring.

Like I said, they were minor tremors and no big deal, we were able to laugh about it, but boy, was I glad to come back to Melbourne.

Our trip was plagued with cancellations, but asides from that, I think things went pretty smoothly. And there were some nice moments. Like waking up in the middle of the night in Mt Cook to the wind howling outside the chalet and a cupboard door banging repeatedly. I tried to close the damn thing tight but couldn't, because it was too high up, so instead I walked over to the window and peeked through the curtains. I was granted with the sight of a full moon hanging over snow-capped mountains, it's shine giving everything a surreal sheen, with the wind still howling about, and it was all slightly magnificent.

I'm not exactly one for taking pictures or videos, I probably have one of the most underused cameras ever to be bequeathed to a 22-year old. The simple reason is that I'm lazy and that I can count on my companions to take nicer pictures, the other being that for videos, whenever I'm recording, I feel like I'm wasting time trying to capture whatever it is I'm supposed to be documenting when I could actually be there,in the moment, experiencing, feeling. This doesn't apply to all situations, of course, mostly for when I attend gigs. Though now, I'm beginning to wonder whether it's silly to take this stance. By not recording, I'm depending on my memory to hold whatever I witnessed safe within its confines, I'm basking on the belief I'll never forget. But that's folly, isn't it? I'll forget, and what a shame.

Just got a thought. I've been writing all this with Florence + The Machine's Dog Days Are Over on repeat, and while it is too quiet and lazy a day to do much, I have that familiar urge to leap up and start dancing, hands clapping to the beat, spastic flailing. I've begun to sometimes worry that I'm getting too monotonous, too black and white, that my sense of fun is depleting, any originality and uniqueness of character(if any) going down the drain. The thought just popped into my head that as long I still get the urge to dance, this familiar longing to go crazy to the beat, I'll be okay. Not all is lost.

Happy New Year!

I've graduated.

I've got to get out of these pajamas.