Grace E. Easley  

In the quest to finish my second to last assignment for ever quite awhile, I just finished Drusilla Modjeska's Poppy. Now, I write this with an essay waiting to be written in reference to the book.. but I needed 20 minutes, a chance to debrief and return to the intellectual before I did so.
I'm not sure of the last book that effected me in such away. Maybe one, which I have yet been unable to pick up and complete because of how it was confronting me. Part of me thinks that maybe its so intense because I didn't have time to put the book down, let it settle, before finishing. I just kept on reading, and now I'm lost in this state of being too full, of feeling, and thought, and realisation. Things I need to reconsider in the light of new understanding. 
I love the way the post structural biography does not focus on making a coherent representation of self as is so common in any narrative in our culture, but instead really connects with methodological issues I'm currently having with the construction of knowledges and how we interact with these processes. I am reeling in the sense that at the moment, the book, and what I took from it, was what I really needed as at the back of my mind I prepare to sit down and do some serious thinking.
I strongly believe, like Socrates said, that the unexamined life is not worth living, but know that in that belief I am also prone to introspection so it is a careful balance between the two. This concept has of course been coming up pretty consistently since I promised myself the time I need to make some decisions after these assignments are finished, which has allowed me to simply ignore anything that needs serious consideration until then. But I'm really looking forward to it. I am so content, and full to the brim with possibilities.

Every single day, we have the choice to choose between problems and no problems. It’s the meaning we give to something that defines how we feel about that thing.

Every moment of every day, we have choices. We always have choices.

We can choose to see the good in people and circumstances.
We can choose to give love and compassion.
We can choose to smile.
We can choose to take responsibility.
We can choose to surrender to the moment.
We can choose to change ourselves.
We can choose to focus on things we enjoy.
We can choose to take action.
We can choose happiness.

Life is precious. Choose how you want to experience it, intentionally and consciously.

 

I haven't written in awhile, and Dan said I should write about anything.. and I'm meant to be sleeping, so this is something nice and shiny to distract me from sleeping (or showering, or flossing, or brushing, or actually getting into bed). So 10 random things.

 
 

1. My procrastination scarf, which has been renamed simply the rainbow scarf because I worked on it when I wasn't procrastinating anymore, has reached 6 feet. I think it needs another 2 feet before it'll be finished. I want it all wrapping around the neck rainbowly.
2. The song "I Hope You Dance" (im listening to it performed by Ronan Keating) reminds me of the John Marsden poem "Prayer for the 21st Century".
3. I'm currently part way through multiple books. This used to be extremely normal of me, but not so much lately.
4. How come Stargate SG1 is still $45 a season, when newer shows are already lower? My guess is its never going to drop.
5. My brother got me started watching Gossip Girl with him. We're going to back watch season 1, even though we're watching the newest eps of season 2 on Tuesdays. I want Chuck and Blair to live happily ever after.
6. Steggie is looking at me accusingly, since its so long past my bed time. Steggie is the stuffed stegosaurus I got for my birthday from Jazz, Chris and Bitty, though I don't need 3 guesses to know who did that shopping! (Bitty is such a shopoholic!).
7. Last night I finished feeding Bitty some REAL food since Nanna was on the phone and Mummy was busy (mwahaha). He was pretty into the sweet corn. Until the chocolate custard that is. Oh man, that boy's gonna be a chocolate addict like Mummy and Aunty Kirby. Even we don't attempt to wear it all over our faces in order to eat some.
8. Despite the fact that I extremely rarely post to a community, lj gave me a choice of 23 communities to post this too, instead of my own personal journal.
9. I have to admit I had not, until recently, realised that Spike from The Land Before Time was a stegosaurus.
10. Its shower time, which will hopefully prompt bed time. I'm not going to think of how long it'll take me to fix tonights disruption in my sleep pattern.
     

   all languages

   of humans

   and of angels?

   If I did not love others,

   I would be nothing more

   than a noisy gong

   or a clanging cymbal.

   What if I could prophesy

   and understand all secrets

   and all knowledge?

   And what if I had faith

   that moved mountains?

   I would be nothing,

   unless I loved others.

   What if I gave away all

   that I owned

   and let myself

   be burned alive? 

   I would gain nothing,

   unless I loved others.
 

I was reading something about responsibility being the dark side of freedom. That when a person realizes that they are responsible for their own actions, beliefs and decisions, then it's much easier for them to deny their freedom and responsiblity than it is to live up to it. Maybe its this exact denial of responsibility that stops people from making the realization of themselves in the first place. Its something we all tend to do. We say we're only doing something because "we have to", something doesn't get done because "we don't have time because of x, y, z"  or someone "makes me" feel a certain way. As long as its not in OUR  control, its not OUR failure.

It's important to remember of course that no one MAKES you feel something. That feeling is wholely your own, and belongs only to you. But classical conditioning states that we learn to respond to stimuli in certain ways. So how and  where you learn certain patterns of response are huge factors in WHY you react in a certain emotive way to certain actions or inactions undertaken by a third party. The third parties responsibility lies in the intent behind their actions, or at least in their decision to act in a certain way KNOWING it's inapproriateness or DESPITE the effect they know that the act may have on someone else.

Needing to exist in a state of balance does means you simply can't take responsibility for everything, because you are NOT responsible for everything. You only have control over your own decisions, AND your own reactions. But of course that control is tempered by your learned responses. What you do HAVE to do, is learn how to control those responses, based on the stimuli, the situation, and the intent of anyone else involved, for your own general wellbeing.

This concept of responsibility and denial means that whilst blaming a current state of turmoil on "not having any time to tidy" does force the blame for any mess elsewhere, it would probably be more apt to state that "tidying that mess, at this moment, isn't the top of my priorities list". Whilst that acknowledges my part in the existance of the problem, it also takes into account the part of my life that is currently happily working 2 jobs, managing a sleep disorder AND still managing to make time for both my family and friends. Time IS essential to doing anything. Even breathing. Of course 'the problem' (in this case a mess), is only MY perception that a problem does exist, based on previous learned experience and social knowledge. How i define the world and my interface with it does alter both my perception and my experience.

Some of the biggest lessons I've ever learnt in life are balance, the fact that sometimes you will not, and can not, understand another person's motivation, and that sometimes you simply have to give yourself a break. So yeah, for me, the balance one is a never ending lesson really. I think because the nature of our society isn't one where balance is seen as the highest priority, its so easy to lose equilibrium in a 1000 different situations or states of being. That is the nature of being, that it is complex and negotiable, this human existence. So I guess I just reiterated to myself the lesson that balance, even in the seek for balance, is vital. Paradoxical much?
 

On October 25th 2008, Alana Price married Daniel Patterson... and thus she joined our family officially!
The ceremony was held in the gardens of Bunbury Senior High School, and the reception was held at Ex-tensions on the Beach. I did much of the set up, thus am quite proud of how wonderful the reception looked. Just to make it simpler to understand... siblings are myself, Daniel (groom), Jackson (groomsman) and Kylie (bridesmaid).
Photo heavy post