Friday, October 14, 2005

life; Sydney; this moment of October 

I should be a translator, seriously. It's like the one task I'd actually have fun doing as a job. And I'm pretty damn good at it. I just did an article from Spanish with the help of Babelfish and Wordreference.com. Plus the exchange supervisor was excessively impressed with my rushed translation of Sciences-Po course guides - which wasn't all that hard (such low expectations of USyd education!). Just found a translation I did from Year 12 as well, not bad at all.

Pros: it's fun, I mean I'm doing this in my spare time. There's just something about it

Cons: niche field, suck at English-to-foreign translation (since my French has gone down the drain), and am probably not language-nerdy enough, only know really popular languages where there are bound to be a million people better than I am.

I just thought of a way to clear up career possibilities. See, my theory is that you have to be good at it, like it, and it has to be practical (eg. make enough money for you to live off).

Lessee, from uni, I've liked Pop Culture, Psychology, World Politics and Spanish (cos it was easy). Microeconomics actually was good too, since I could see it in action. I also really loved the Camus unit

From school, Latin translation, some of that Year 10 biology stuff, creative writing (except it's a bit tortuous). Funnily enough, Chemistry was cool in the "wow, that makes sense" sense. French actually wasn't that fun, there was none of that sense of wonder, though I guess I liked the little "I can't believe I can actually understand this" kick. Generic fun stuff: speechwriting, playing in band, thinking up ads, observing people/interviewing, editing. Things that get me fired up: racism, other forms of discrimination, gambling.

Good at uni: Spanish, French, World Politics. My government record is a bit patchy, with the 60 I got in International Business, and probably won't do well this semester. Good at school: French, Latin, English. Generic skills: rhetoric, conciliation and diplomacy (written only), cramming and regurgitating information, advertising strategy.

Needs: a house with a view of something beautiful - not a View view, just a bit of bush or garden or river. Our house is nice like that, from the clothesline you can see the river, which is why it's one of my favourite chores. Our azaleas are in bloom (I'm starting to learn the vocabulary of plants since I've decided it's something that enriches your life. Otherwise everything's just the same, isn't it). So, a house. A car. Nothing fancy. Enough money to travel once in a while. Enough money to educate my kids well and let them do extra stuff. I don't have expensive taste, I think, just want to buy books and CDs and go to the odd show. Even books and CD's aren't essential, as long as I'm near a good library.

Life goals: happiness, a sense of contribution, richness and broadness of experience. Love.

I need a plan. Who I want to be, not just job-wise, but how to become the sort of person I admire. Currently, this undisciplined, equivocating, aimless, defensive, awkward, immature, insecure, often selfish self is not it. I want to be a warm person, wise, loving, knowledgable in many areas, self-aware but forgiving of others' faults, humourous, sure in my opinions and tastes but open to change, committed, a good friend, open-hearted, curious, graceful, passionate, creative, generous, humble, responsible but capable of taking risks. The only thing I'm really happy with now is that, at least, I'm self-aware. So many people, grown men and women, are just kidding themselves. They don't notice their own hypocrisies and ridiculousness. I'm a bit worried that it's getting a bit late in the day for me to be reconstructing myself. I'm 19, ferchrissakes, 20 soon, the age when my mother got married. Hence the need for a plan- I have a talent for inertia and could easily cruise along in this funk forever.

Will mull about this later. Meanwhile...I was thinking today, isn't it great to be young and alive? Just the fact of being. I just finished reading "The Hours" (still haven't finished "Mrs Dalloway", but plan to get back to it). "What a lark! What a plunge! life; London; this moment of June." The flowers are in bloom. Beyond the slight nuisance of exams, the promise of summer. I remind myself of this every time I get caught up on the details or succumb to self-loathing. I just need to figure out how to grab life by the balls.

Life is so full of possibilities, you know? Not just good possibilities, there's also this huge black hole of being stuck in a rut, unloved, unfulfilled. A sort of life without living. The ridiculous lives, dedicated to stamp-collecting or account-balancing. And then there are even darker paths. As a kid, I read a lot about the second world war...and though I learned to abhor the sort of arbitrary madness of racism, I always felt that it wouldn't take much to become a Nazi. There but for the grace of god. Given a different upbringing, I could be a druggy, a mass-murderer, a torturer- I see the latent evil within myself. What's the phrase, the banality of evil? Evil isn't something aberrant. I'm more amazed by goodness, suspicious of it. Then again, I've also felt that I'm capable of sacrificing my life for some cause, on the spur of the moment. It's the fine lines separating the different possibilites that's terrifying. So much depends on circumstances. My cousin Jack, high-school dropout, is currently a waiter. In another life, he could've been a war hero. He has that sort of reckless courage, that spark of selflessness. Yet there he is, cleaning crumbs.

Last night I dreamed that Julie was dying. I also dreamed that I was a policeman and/or secret agent, so it's not prophetic or anything, surely. Just makes you think is all. My great-aunt has just had a kidney failure, might need transplants. Her youngest kid is only 14.

Logorrhea, much?

# posted at 11:20 am

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