VIRB

Mankind has come to some of it's greatest conclusions on the toilet, something I realised while ironically just sitting on the bog at midnight for about half an hour, staring off into space. Life is so complicated, as you are already no doubt aware, it's just it's a bit of a shock when you first realise it.

Dropping off the radar
It's been over 6 months from my last post, so I should probably offer some explanation. Have you ever felt that absolute apathy towards anything meaningful, especially toward the thing you love? For the last 8 months I really couldn't be bothered with anything creative, unless it came with a school deadline. Photoshop, writing, even reading have all sort of fallen to the wayside. I don't know why, but I've been lacking commitment to anything I've started. I've done plenty of things for school, all I felt very good about, but when it came to things that I want to do for myself they really don't get any furthur than the ideas stage. Perhaps it's because I have to many (to my mind) good ideas, too many to realise, or perhaps in the morning after I realise how impractical they were.

Too many projects of mine this year have died in the arse as well. I was going to learn Premiere and re-cut some of my Media class movies into my original ideas, I was going to run Lowtea.org with some of my friends (a student/youth news discussion site) but it never really got past the blog stage, and at the moment only has two posts. I was going to help instigate a student union, but that seems to have dropped off too. The list goes on. I could offer you a thousand excuses as to why these things fell to the wayside: stress, workload, school shedual, collective group laziness and other perfectly genuine reasons, but they'd really only be co-incidental. I could have certainly taken charge of any of these things, gotten the whip out, and got them going. But for some reason, I just didn't. I suppose you can do everything expecting to be told what to do, but initiative and self motivation are the hardest and most valuble qualities you can have. So, I suppose there's my new years resolution. Finish the things I start, and be a better leader.

I suppose it's far too easy to blame myslef though, after all, it has been a difficult year. Years 8 and 9 were a piece of piss, leading to that cocky cruising attitude that I suffered for this year. I pretty much sailed through semester one, but terms 3 & 4 saw things get sticky. It's all too easy to fall in the trap with schoolwork, you think its just more of the same, you can do this easy. Then you don't think about it till it's due and end up doing a half-hearted job. I'm not talking about procrastination (I don't see anything wrong with being motivated by fear, if it works, it works) but more not stretching myself. You can get the mark you got last time without trying, but to get something better you've got to put the hard work in, something I seemed to have learnt in this final term (I'm a fan of "the hard way" as you can probably tell).

And I am only 15, most people are just worried about getting throught the week and relaxing on the weekend. I seem to have ended up with that just fine, but then thought it a good idea to add to all the other shit on my plate. Maybe the reason the student union, lowtea and all that got forgotten is because not only do me and my friends have to worry about our school workload like everyone else, we're making our own one bigger volantarily. It just seems to slip on the priority list. I guess I'll just have to find a balance between living the normal lazy life and the stressful, but eventually fulfilling one.

On the upside..
Contrary to what my sleep deprived ramblings might indicate, it hasn't all been doom and gloom, in fact this year at school pretty much topped itself. I find I fit much better into the classes, most of which I actually look forward to going to, I had probably the best English/Society & Environment teacher duo ever and I even got myself a new, far less shitty friend group. Probably most of last years unhappiness was the combo of bad classes + boring friends who don't like me (save a few, in fact, it wasn't a friend group so much as an aqquaintance group to me) which this year has all but washed away. People think i'm gay (eh, who knows) for hanging out with a bunch of girls (save for Karl) but secretly i'm thinking "Yeah, well jokes on you. I have a group of people who accept me, share my interests and actually want to do stuff whereas you have a bunch of people who think a good day is picking a fight with the school retard, and then having a smoke and maybe passing out in a park, off your face on goon" A little vindicitive yes, but true. But yes, having friends you like is so good, because you know it's bad when recess is more boring than class.

Unfinished projects aside, it's also an acheivement that I even started them this year, as before I probably wouldn't have bothered. I also got a job, which has sated my materialistic/consumeristic whingings for now, probably an unhealthy habit but hey, everyones got to have a little medicine now and then.

Hmm. Well, Christmas (or your choice of holiday) is coming up, and I'm on holiday for another 6 weeks (untill year 11, which the now-year 12's take particular delight in building up into some sort of year from hell), and all the projects which have overflowed from the school year I hope to finish and get primed, ready for school in 2008. Everyone enjoy themselves this holidays, and enjoy the much deserved break before the chaos we call life resumes.

-chalkley3

ps: on reflection, I do wonder what possesses you to spend an hour and a half at the middle of the night typing a 1000 something word post full of stuff I wouldn't even talk about with my friends, to put on the internet for complete strangers (and I mean that in a good way) to read, but whatever it is, it seems to have elevated me out of my apathetic stupor. Like having a diary, only instead of having a lock you pretty much have a big neon sign inviting every random on the internet to read it. And i'm pretty sure diarys don't come included with pedophiles, but whatever. Enjoy yourselves (eeew..) and take care!