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So, the first week of school was somethin’. 7-hour breaks and night class on Mondays, No school on Tuesdays, Major Lessons on Wednesdays, Theory lectures on Thursdays, and lovely easy Fridays. I have a feeling Year 2 Term 1 is gonna be an eventful one.
It feels good to be in sculpture. I know it’s what I’ve always wanted, and I may not be the best, but I sure have the most fun making things =] Bringing ideas to life always appealed more to me than the scamming the eye with the 3D-2D experience that comes with painting. Why restrict something to a wall when people can embrace something from all sides? It gives people something to talk about, when there’s more than one way to look at things.
Think differently? Do comment =] (but keep it nice)
Ache. Throbbing from deep inside you, it rises and consumes you, as an envelope of misery. It makes you cry, it makes you call out. But not everybody understands it, and not everybody feels it. Amongst those who feel it, there are few who can withstand it, and few who can ignore it. But for the rest of us, weaklings, the ache has become a customary occurrence, and though efforts may be made to ease the pain, there is no real cure. There is no cure for this pain, that eats your guts, and weakens your limbs, weakens your entire being. Reduced to propping my aching feet up, with everything else at arms’ length. For some of us, it is unbearable, as daily activities turn to punishing tasks, and normal routines are epic journeys across your bedroom floor all the way to your kitchen for a mere glass of hot tea.
But for all of us, it must be endured, experienced (and for some, expressed) once every month. Fuck.
“The man sitting on his wall, outside number eleven, he is drawing a picture of the street. He has pens and pencils and rulers and erasers and a compass and a protractor, and he is drawing a very detailed picture of the row of houses opposite, trying to get the correct perspectives and elevations, trying to capture all of the architectural details.
That is what he wants to get onto the page, all the architectural details. For now there are just a few lines, faintly etched and erased and re-etched, between a scattering of dots and noted numbers and angles. He wants to do a good job of this today. He’s been told that his drawing is weak and he must improve it, and he doesn’t want to lose his place on the course so he is trying very hard. He begins to measure the widths of the houses, squinting along the length of his arm, looking for the correct proportions. These houses are very different from the houses in his street, of course. The colour, the shape, the way they are all joined into one another… …
…
But still he thinks, even if they are not what they were they are still good houses, in a good street with wide pavements and plenty of trees for shade and life. He measures the distance between the ridges and the eaves, calculating the angles, and as he looks towards the far end of the street he notices that the hop-skipping girl is standing right behind him and is looking at his skeletal drawing.
He looks at her. She looks at the paper, at him, and back at the paper.
It is the street, he says. and he waves a hand at the row of houses opposite, I am drawing your marvellous street, and she giggles because his accent makes marvellous rhythm with jealous. Where are the windows she says, in a very still and quiet voice, and she rubs her finger on the page.
Not yet he says, smiling at her, first I draw the walls and roofs and then I will draw the windows and doors and all the things. She looks at him, and at the page, and across the street. Where is the dog she says in the same voice, and she moves her finger across the page to where the dog should be.
Okay he says, I will put the dog in for you. But only after the windows he says, and he smiles at her. She looks at him, she turns around and skips across the road.
He watches her for a moment, the takes a pencil and sketches in the lines of the rooftop, the ground, the eaves, carefully, hesitantly, joining the marks of the measurements he has made. He looks from the page to the building, he sighs and he pulls at the loose skin around the corners of his forehead, it is very difficult he is thinking. “
-If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things, Jon McGregor.
So my tarot card’s going well for me (in general), thanks to my new style =]
I don’t think 100 plus and chocolate milk mix well in my stomach. I feel like I swallowed a spider and it just burped inside me. Like, fifty times.
Also, you know what they say about games, and how they supposedly give us what we can’t have in real life. Like some sort of fantasy story with babes and hunks and cars and monsters and awesomeness.
Well, I guess that’s why I’m sadly hooked to restaurant city. It feels nice drawing a 4-digit income every 3 hours and setting up a business with cute food, and being in control. Just being in control, even.
And other than the recent bouts of sketching spells I’ve had, I haven’t been drawing much during the holidays. It’s a pity, because I think I’ve lost my steady hand. I can’t rmb how to paint, and my eyes have forgotten how to dart back and forth from subject to page. It’s gonna be difficult to get back into rhythm when school starts =/
Spider just burped again. What’s wrong with me?
colour. That’s the answer. The answer to everything is colour.
hues of red, gold, brown, all kinds of brown the warm intense browns, earthy tones.
contrast with bold blues. deep blues, bright blues, and greens. blue-greens.
the dash of pink, for the skin. there’s green in our skin too, did you know?
and the deep dark blacks of the shadows, tones of blue, red and green. they eventually make brown btw.
and texture, texture. Have you learnt nothing from school?
feed the eye. texture is like dessert. add it, but not too much coz there’s only so much a man can take.
I think i’ve found new artistic direction.
I now understand the importance of Religion, and God in my life.
It’s not about being pious and devout, or fasting and abstinence, or attending daily/weekly mass (or not attending at all).
It’s not even about earning God’s favour, by praying, chanting, saying the rosary and everything else that falls into ‘religious routine’. It matters, but its not all there is to religion.
It’s not about counting on Holy Water Blessings to get you through exams, or “waiting for God’s signs” or “spiritual journeying with peers”.
After I’ve cut down on church activities and Youth Ministry Activities, I’ve come to realize the most important thing about it all:
It’s no use trying to find Jesus in books, talks, seminars, in prayers and in mass alone.
It’s no use being nice to Catholics and consciously detach yourself from other human beings.
I buried myself in all that I loved, and hated, and tried, did and failed. In all I believed in, in all I denounced. In all my fears, likes, dislikes, family, friends and enemies. In all I am, in all I am not, and in all I will never be.
And I lost myself, to the fear, and the temptation, and the rest of the untold universe.
And by losing myself to all that I could find, I found what I had lost: Faith.
How beautiful is it to realize that “it is what I do that defines me”. Rather than immerse myself in the Idea that God dwells in Church Life and Catholics, I have thrown myself into the bigger world, so as to find my purpose.
And every day, I am slowly being reminded of that beautiful, beautiful purpose.
It is slowly being revealed to me, as I continue down my path.
Nay, not the straight and narrow, nor the wide and winding,
But rather, the untrodden grass that sits on the side of the pathways, whispering to my soul to test it.
Thank You Jesus, for the safety, for the comfort, for the Promise.
