The God-honest truth..

It is probably quite ill-timed that I am starting this when I'm feeling extremely irked. But if you want to look at it in a different way, circumstances must have happened such that it has culminated in this and I'm extremely fed-up with the lack of mediums of which to express myself in and I need to start afresh, so start somewhere where I can decide exactly which direction I want it to go. Whom I want to be. In my realm of confusing complexities.

I'm in a funny mood today. Not sure if it's because I ate something funny. I swear the reduced-price chicken I bought at Sainsburys today was contaminated in some way, have been feeling quesy the whole night and that chicken was like a piece of rock. To think I smiled so sweetly to the guy behind the counter to get him to reduce the price for me... I can't believe they intended on selling that foul piece of food at full price!
Maybe it's because I got the last piece and the last piece is always the worst.

Anyway, back to my funny mood... it possibly is also due to the fact that I've been in my room the whole night, on my own. And despite my rantings about not having enough time to myself to do the things I like, the truth is I really don't like being alone.

I watched the Paris footage yesterday and planned this great short film in my head - but I can so tell that iMovie isn't gonna be that great or easy to use - I wish I could use the editing suites on campus for this, but firstly other people need to use it for more important things and secondly, I don't really want my private footage to be stored there.

And then the other night I took Gem out of her case and strummed her strings for sometime while probably embarrassing myself crooning to Des'ree's You Gotta Be in my room. It was liberating singing all that. I even broke down in tears after playing for sometime when my fingers gradually started playing out the chords to some worship songs I used to sing in school in the earlier days.

I really don't know how to articulate the faith I have. The belief I have that out there, God exists. I admit to myself he may not be in the mould of what the Catholic churches, or perhaps all institutionalized religious groups perceive or make him out to be. But I know he's out there. And I've felt him - physically and spiritually.

And I am so upset, because I can't share this profound feeling with probably the most imprortant person in my life. feel so positive sometimes, and about everything and about conquering all odds. And then at times, I feel so frustrated and helpless and I feel horrible that I might never get it into his head, how I feel about certain things and the hope I have, primarily in this world. I call myself a cynic, but on many levels, I'm still an eternal optimist.
Like I always used to say to a particular someone else, I'd rather be optimistically wrong than pessimistically right.
He always used to think the opposite, but even then, I didn't feel it was such a fight as I do now. Probably because he understood my faith.
I know I shouldn't give up, and I won't. The thing is, I've got to change my pattern of life and get more involved in spiritual things and then only when I'm strong enough, will I be able to take whatever the other tries to hurl my way to shake me up. I so much want him to see it, to experience it - only because I do love him so and I can't imagine not sharing an experience so deep within myself with him.

But he doesn't see that. And it is such a struggle. [insert exasperated noise here]

As always, there are good days and there are bad days.

I think I'm better with people - either that, or I've got to have a more conducive space to myself. My room aint exactly the answer. I've got too much shit surrounding me and I've still got to do my laundry.

There is mould or some sort of weird thing happening on my ceiling on the right side and that is pissing me off.

Right, so I need to re-vamp my life a little - I know tomorrow's going to be out of the question - a whole day of hectic-ness, trying to get the paper sorted, and then there's just another weekend.
I hate it that it seems like my weekends are slipping by when they are so precious.
I need to embrace life, damnit!

So I need a new mode of expression, I need to brush up my web design skills just so I can have a nicer look cyber-ly. I need to do more creative writing, sing more songs, write more songs, play the piano, play more guitar, learn my jazz chords, buy some paint, do a painting, edit my film, take more footage, buy more tapes, take more photographs, do more photoshop, write more, love more... the list is endless.

Maybe he is right in saying it bothers me that we have this amazing connection despite believing in such different things. I'm not sure if it's amazing or annoying. Probably both at different levels to different extents.

There's something I need to learn here... Oh God, help me.

I hate cold winter days

I'm a sunshine person. I need the sun.

Am getting increasingly depressed about the fact that it goes dark by 4pm now and it's a bloody freezing zero degrees now as well - you can't walk anywhere without feeling like your face is going to freeze in that position of which you had when you stepped out into the cold.

Am also suffering from a flu, besieged by a chronic cough and generally feeling like hopping on a plane back to sunny home - which of course, only seems better, because I'm away from it.

I don't know... I think I'm losing interest in blogging and the whole internet-as-non-exhaustive-medium-of-expression thing. Maybe it's the lack of time or simply the fact that whenever I want to write something, I have to censor it on various levels before I can write it and then the thought of it just bores me. I might change address or change the look or whatever... by the time I get the time for it, it'll probably be next year. (or next next year, since next year is about in a month and a half's time...)

Issue two was finally completed last week. I'm both happy and unhappy with the result. Looks good, could have been better. I wish we had more time - but I guess that's the whole point of it. We never get any time because the whole industry is based on last-minute-ness anyway. It was hell subbing those ten pages and even then there were errors - can you imagine subbing a 100 pg newspaper? I'm suddenly appreciating the whole production on a different level.

I wish I had more time to edit my editorial, or make changes to the height of the caption and byline boxes on quark, or look for better pictures... the whole experience was intensely exhilarating, exhausting but damn frustrating.

I've got the pdf if anyone wants to take a look (Lynne, I know you've already seen it) for any reason. Issue three is in the works and I feel tired already, thinking about the week.

Okay, I'm gonna shuttup on the whinging - I should get a sun-lamp! Richard has one next door and he religiously gets his dose of sunshine (they are chemically simulated to be exactly like the sun's rays, wth UV rays and Vitamin D and all) and boy, is he in good shape for the winter! Jumping around and being all cow-boy happy. They cost about 140 quid I heard - which is so pricey. But if that's going to be the only damn bit of sun I can get, I might have to cave, however painful it might be.

Rght, to bed!

Stress

I've been made editor this week.

And whatever illusions/delusions I've had about the job, I think it's all gone.

It's been the second week of production for us and putting a newspaper together from scratch is such hard work...
I'm beginning to feel waves of nausea everytime I step into our journo room - whether it's the stale air with harmful, recycled bacteria festering in our lungs, or the psychological monotone of being in that one same room - I can't quite tell. But soon I'll be dreaming of the precise pitch at which the air-conditioning machine hums on the inside of the room, the exact rhythm (my guess is 112 quavers to a minute) of that noisy weird thing that vibrates ever so often on the side of our wall.

And now I've got to write this editorial which I'm agonising about, which I of course should be writing instead of writing this.
I can't possibly write my editorial like it was a blog, but how I wish, (oh how I do!) that it was just like this! random thoughts, inconsistent punctuation, stream of consciousness-like sentences... it's probably the only time one can jump from virginia woolf-style writing to franklin-style or anywhere in between and it just didn't matter.

Right, I need to invest my energies into meeting this deadline.

I'd be a happy person again at 8pm Thursday.

Excuse me, you too?

I had a meeting today. In fact, a few meetings.

After starting to get discouraged about several non-calls and non-leads, I had a buzzing afternoon getting emails and replies and interviews and events.

Winter has properly started - everytime the clocks go back, it's like the anti-clockwise mechanics of father time unscrews the mighty tap and rain, oh bleak london rain, pelts down mercilessly, relentlessly on its pitiful subjects scrawling beneath in a scurry for shelter.

I wonder how much you'll suffer for your job, your passion, your dreams.

Walking into the depths of south-east london in search of an obscure primary school in poorly-lit deserted pavements. You don't encounter a soul. Until..oh. there's someone in the distance. But he's deeply diguised and you can't see his face and for a split second, you're torn between being happy at spotting a kindred soul and deeply scared that you might lose your life. or your face. or your money. or your sanity.

The meeting is alright. Got the story.

Now, the walk back to the dingy railway station.

Again, london rain, dirty london rain, envelopes surroundings like a dark blanket.

Did I mention the wind? Or the cold?

We reach a 'consolation area'. Train back home. The mucky floors of mud.

As I hurry back, a man approches. I subtly, quietly step to the side, having learnt the skill of the artful dodger in a city where no one ever touches. He walks directly in my path as if approaching me. He looks rude... and I think for a minute, I might get stabbed anytime now.

But I don't.

What a difference a second makes. Not merely a day.

I am baffled by the place. in which we carry out our work.

Sometimes it makes all the difference, sometimes it doesn't.

But at least you learn something, and you remember it.

Oh, I am tired.