Augustine.

You know what? I think people tend to settle for mediocrity because it's easy. It's not bad nor is it any good so we just choose the easiest way out and just accept for what it is. 

I've always been a person who believed in passion, follow your heart and do not give in to what others say you cannot do, because this is your life and if you don't believe, who else is gonna help you? No one. But lately, mediocrity has got to me in the sense that I am starting to budge into whatever is easiest and that I've been losing that inspiration I had with life before. I don't know, does it mean I am growing up? Growing up to realising that life really doesn't behave the way you want it to sometimes and therefore, you just learn to accept whatever you have and move on with life. 

Sometimes, I don't feel as much anymore. I really don't hope to sound like the biggest drama queen...but in all honesty, as of late, I've been disappointed repeatedly, it just never seems to stop ending. The amount of disappointments and bad things just outweigh the good immensely and then I start to resolve that it must be me that is the problem. Well, what other problem could it be? Because it is my life that I am living and all the choices that I make are inevitably going to influence it in one way or another. There are also times when I just wish I was another person for once, maybe like a normal Asian girl or something. That sounds selfish because everyone has their own problems and there goes the saying where if we all chucked our problems into one pile, we'd take them all back. True. But it'd be nice to take a break from these problems we all had and see things from another perspective. That's the poison of the mind, we're all individuals and hence, we can never see the other way out as easily as others can. 

I am still resenting technology. I have been quite extreme with it all to be quite frank. I wish I never yearned for an iPhone because I just hate technology with so much of a passion, it's destroying all meaningful relationships and everything good about life. It disgusts me how hopelessly I am addicted to technology, to my iPhone even because I am just so yearning to be connected to everyone. And yet ironically, I feel disconnected because of this connection. Annoying. 

Attitude

Florence + the Machine at the Sydney Entertainment Centre.

Ethereal and flawless are the words to describe Florence's performances.

Irony

How ironic is it that with technology we are so connected yet even more isolated at the very moment?There are sometimes these impulses that I have with looking at my phone. And when I see no notifications, I feel a little sunken, perhaps a little annoyed even. With the onslaught of technological applications, it's inevitable that we yearn to be connected to the people around us. But what if we're just too connected that it somehow becomes overwhelming even? Yeah, I think that actually happens. Sometimes I just wish I could turn off my phone or maybe purposely leave it at home one day...but then the consequences of it are not ideal. My mother would freak out, not knowing where I was and if I simply just turn off my phone...I can't simply do my assignment because my uni mates cannot find me. I tried deleting facebook for a few days but that didn't work out in the long run because the primary means of contacting my uni friends was via facebook for our assignment. It just seems that the dependence on technology has resulted it being so hard to actually stop using it. We're simply addicted to these services, that it has become ingrained to our subconscious...we're just slaves to networking.

Sometimes I wish I could just flee away from networking, drop all connections that I have with everyone whom I currently talk to on all these platforms and ignore. It's just that despite the connection, there are those highly useful tools of allowing you to detect that you are indeed being isolated despite having the conversation flow with them. Like Whatsapp, you can see when the contact was last online and thenceforth, you can assume when they've read your stuff. In most cases, it's really nothing but there's this element of paranoia where you think you are being ignored. It could be true anyway. And then comes facebook...it's terribly hard to evade checking facebook... I think the more you go on, the more you feel isolated because you just observe pictures of others going about with their lives and you wonder what you are doing on a Friday, clicking through all their pictures. Doesn't seem very inviting innit?

Technology is a great and a bad thing. It's hard to know what stance I take. I love it because it has helped us learn more about the world and have luxuries our ancestors could only ever dream of. And yet, it has helped tarnish the sentimentality of written correspondence, be it letters or just simple notes. Letter writing has dropped off the radar...only the romantics think of it nowadays. I still have high regard for writing and I honestly wish I could...but I just don't know who to. I still have that pack of brown envelopes sitting in my drawer. It's unused and I desperately wish there was someone to mail. I remember watching Midnight in Paris and that the main message in that film is that we will always fantasise a different era as the very best. We need to live in the present though, because that's what we're presented with. But it's hard to think about those days when lovers used to send each other letters...waiting by the letterbox and ripping open the letter one had been yearning for days. What a feeling it must've been.

If I ever get a chance, I'll write...hopefully to someone who is worthy of it. Yah, that's me edging intense cheesiness and romantic-ness. Bugger, my English is declining exponentially. Nevertheless, I wonder who it will be. And I can only hope that they'd do the same. I think the world is lacking romance nowadays. Cliche complaints, but look at pop culture. Is there anything blowing us away with the incredible romance there is? Not really. I mean...srsly, look at our music. *shrugs* That's why as of late, I have had such urges to read Jane Austen and rewatch Pride + Prejudice... What sentimentality.

This post is written terribly...sorry. xx

Clinical Placement

I just finished my week long clinical placement at a hospital. It was honestly what I needed, something inspiring to get me into physiotherapy and after this, I don't think I am going to regret my course...in fact, it has sparked new life into what I thought was dull and irrelevant.

This past week has been the best week in my university study life thus far. Every element of it was just so exciting and I got so many opportunities to learn new things and experience real patients. I will never forget this first week at the hospital ever because it also made me realise how much I just loved the hospital setting. The structure of everything and how all the disciplines work together to formulate rehabilitation plans was just amazing. I remember volunteering at the hospital in year 12, thinking that I really wanted to be in the hospital. I then thought that perhaps my intense want to work there must have just been a passing thing because it looked cool. But not only that, this placement reinforced just how much I love it out of my heart and I just don't see myself working anywhere else. The hospital is the place...so exciting. Ah, everything. .. I'm just so excited that I am in the health field, it is seriously one of the best fields to get into because you get so much job satisfaction from it. I could never do anything focused on financial gain because that is not what I want.

What was the best on this placement was simply how much joy can be found in seeing patients actually improved. I was sent to an inpatient rehab facility through which most of the patients had orthopaedic procedures performed. Most of these patients were in their late 80s and early 90s so naturally, their range of motions were reduced and muscles have weakened. By seeing their day to day improvement, you realise how imperative your role is in their rehabilitation... So, health it is.

Life is unreal.

I went to Hurstville today, after not going there for ages. It's not the school holidays anymore, all the kids are back at school. It's so strange watching them, thinking they are all so old and stuff - that they are simply really mature. Looking back to when I was in year 12, I was honestly still rather timid. Those who didn't know me from school probably thought I was weird, something which I do acknowledge. To be honest, being weird and random is somewhat a defence mechanism for me, just something to hide behind because I am terribly shy. Do you know I'm shy? Well, there you have it, I am actually really shy to the point that I become someone I am not just to but on a facade that makes me seem stronger than usual. But dear blog reader, I'm feeling so honest tonight because I feel like I have nothing left, nothing to lose and so that's why I am writing this shit that no-one will really care about.

If I could choose again, I would choose everything differently and follow my heart. My outlook on life was always just to live it as full as possible because I had nothing holding me back. But then came senior years where the aspirations of others got to me and I was lured into the health field, having utmost desires to become a doctor. Till this very day, I still want it a lot but then I wonder if I had never thought of it this way, will I be doing physiotherapy now? Because in all honesty, I had never thought of medicine and the health field until I became inspired by someone I knew and therefore, started respecting them and what they did for which I thought they were truly inspirational. So if I could choose, I would tell younger me to stop being so persuaded by other's dreams and desires but to only follow what I truly believe in. 

High school days pass by so quickly. It's sometimes hard to realise that because you can only think of when it is all going to end. And it does. Nowadays I look back to high school with a certain sense of resistance and yet an overwhelming sense of bittersweet-ness. Is that even a word? I'm not sure. It's just that I realise how much St George had shaped me to be the person I am today...and I'm not sure whether that is a good thing or a bad thing. I sometimes wonder if I chose another path...what if? What? What? Maybe I'd be different, a little happier really and perhaps well, maybe different. But choices define you. I wonder how big of a difference a choice I made in year 10 or 12 has impacted on me till this very day. It scares me to think how different my life could have been if I had done something a different way, perhaps even been less shy around people, especially boys. I don't know. 

Sometimes you just want to desperately be someone else because you are so sick of your own shoes. But then you must realise everyone has their own problems weighing them down. But I truly wonder why I am not like other girls, partying, loving life, being in their happy relationships, feeling pretty, looking girly, loving clubbing, buying short dresses, being skinny.... Honestly, sometimes I wish I was like that because at least it'd make me like other people and perhaps have different consequences happen because of that. 

I feel foolish to have crushed so hard on someone as of late. Clearly I still have so much to learn, that despite at one stage of my life when I felt invincible, as if I was incredibly mature....that in the end, I still have so many life lessons to learn. Life is only beginning, I wonder how many bad choices I have yet to make and how many times I will break my heart because I've crushed so hard - again and again. The first intense crush happened this year, it was crazy and made me go on highs and lows. But to be honest, I think this is all my fault...for I have been a believer that something good may happen and trusted that maybe this will be the first time that something real will happen. So it all lived in my head that instead of keeping my feet on the ground, my head was in the clouds. 

Oh Katie. Hopeless.