Random observations that have stacked up:

• I am really freaking unfit – okay, I know this in the vague sense already, but it hasn’t gotten better really. I played basketball on Sunday with a friend from school (Alan), and I was totally puffed within an hour. I used to be better than this. I need to lift my game.
• There are a lot more Japanese in Sydney – I didn’t feel this 6 years ago when I lived here, but just wandering down the street in Sydney, chances are I’ll hear a word which catches my ear, and I’ll turn to see Japanese people just chatting away. It’s not just tourists, either.
• Things go far better in my head - Approaching some of the aforementioned Japanese, in my head, is easy. Actually doing it on the other hand, not so easy. First I’m nervous to the point where my heartbeat rises noticeably – and it’s totally irrational – and when I do start to speak, I falter over words and phrases that should cause me no problems, caused me no problems earlier, and I’ve just rehearsed in my head. Either I’m so far out of practise I’ve lost confidence in myself, or … well, either way, at the moment it looks like I’ve lost that confidence in my Japanese that would let me speak it without feeling embarrased at my mistakes. It’s not just speaking Japanese, but that’s just something that has highlighted it for me.
• Uni is far more of a comfort zone than you imagine – All that bitching you do about assignments not being specific enough? Yeah, welcome to the real world, where your manager kind of waves in your direction and says “Yeah you can take care of that, right?” and you realise you tuned out of the meeting roughly 5 minutes ago and have been staring out the window at the sun reflecting off the building next door. Uni rocks, dude.
• Critical skill for working in the city: Judging revolving doors – I’m getting better, but the first couple of days I opted for the disabled bog-standard-door option. Why is it that city buildings must have a revolving door out front? If anyone can answer with something that makes sense, that’s a chocolate bar for ya. Which reminds me…
• I’d near-instantly fall for a chick that isn’t so neurotic she can’t eat a chocolate bar – I thought this on the train as I saw a chick sitting opposite me – above average, but nothing exceptional – bite into a chocolate bar on the way in to whatever in the morning. I knew instantly she’d have a great personality. Not neurotic! Perfect.
• Bulleted lists make things look worthwhile – as compared to say just blathering and ranting in no particular order, this now looks like there’s something by way of structure to it. Even if there’s really not.
• Can’t think of any more observations that have a real point – but I have plenty of things to say if someone turns up for a coffee and is willing to listen. Living alone makes it hard to spill out those random things you think of, but have no one to say to.

With some people, you give and give, and it never really shows. The return on investment, as it were, just isn’t there, and you end up feeling just a little abused.

With other people, though, you give a little, and you get it back and whole lot more in return, unasked for. Those people make it worth the effort, and you hope that the concept of karma works for them, because if it doesn’t work for them, then who else will it work for?

Oh, and Memoirs of a Geisha is a decent movie all up. 3½ stars or so, as these things go.

Yes this is another one of those reflective posts. I’m going to be doing them all week, so get used to it.

… something on the net catches your eye; something someone out there has written. Someone you may know, or someone you may not. You stop, and you read it over again, just to check that your eyes didn’t just make it up. You return to it the next day to make sure it wasn’t just a day dream. You see a comment link, but even if you do put some text in that box, you don’t hit send, you don’t “post comment”. You want to savour it and cherish it and want to reach out to that person and say “I know what you are thinking; I know what you mean; it’s like you read my mind.” but you can’t put it in words sufficient to express the depth of that poignant emotion, and you sit back, and the day is changed, maybe even the week.

but you hope that somehow, somewhere out there, someone else knows how you feel, in a never ending chain of human emotion and metaphysical connections.

Step back. Don’t think so hard. Don’t try to hold on it when it’s going away. The horizon is tbe constant, but you need to keep moving towards it. Move forward, ever further, leaving your past behind like so many of yesterday’s memories and the embers of days past. let go of expectations. let go of demands. let go of frustrations. let go of pretense. be what you can be, and no more. let go of everything that is holding you back, and just jump.

let go without checking to see if anyone is going to catch you.