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    August 31

    East Coast




    (left to right: Michelle the Young, Eva the Diva, Princess Mimi, Princess Doris)

    I hate sitting still not doing anything. I'll go crazy and nuts looking for things to do, even they might seem stupid.
    But the following ain't.

    To do list:

    1. Take the stupid IELTS exam on Sept 12th.

    2. Book tickets to and from Sydney to see Mimi, Nicole, and anybody else who is gonna be there during my visit.

    3. Sell my bed, book shelves and find a friend's place to store my clothes and books (they are my life).

    4. Travel along the east coast with Doris.

    5. Find a job with Doris, preferably in Sydney.

    6. Plan my trip to NZ to see Eva the Diva.

    So far, this is what I've come up with.

    This might be the craziest thing I've ever done in my life. But, to think deeper, it's not crazy at all. I'm still young. I need to travel as much as I can before it's too late. Right?

    I just love traveling.

    It's just my flesh and blood.



    (Obviously I jumped too high)

    August 29

    Alice Springs




    Mt. Corner
    At the very beginning I thought that was Uluru...... :-/



    We came across this Variety Bash on our way to some rocks, which I don't remember.
    Doris is the girl standing next to me. She's awesome. :-)



    Mimi the sweetheart and Sam the Cool Guide (just because he says 'Cool' all the time)



    My beautiful Sophie and I

    She is just beautiful!



    Allergy/Sun-burnt
    whichever it was, it was on both of my arms, my calves, and my neck. It felt horrible! Cuz I couldn't stop scratching my skin while asleep.
    It was so not HOT.
    July 31

    It's not to late






    to start liking Damien Rice with Lisa Hannigan.

    I
    这两个人怎么可能只有professional relationship?

    II
    I wanna have a complete collection of Damien Rice's albums

    And a kick-ass sound system in my room

    And a rock-n-roll version on the go

    These, are my wishlist for Christmas In July.

    Sad

    July 30

    Little Children





    You can't change the past, but the future could be a different story.
    And it had to start somewhere.

    July 24

    You raise me up



     




    I guess, you were there in my life, to make me a better person.

    I guess I need to thank you all, for my life.


    谷底的日子

    You think too much of the love of human beings; you are too impulsive, too vehement:
    The sovereign hand that created your frame, and put life into it, has provided you with other resources than your feeble self, or than creatures feeble as you.
    Besides this earth, and besides the race of men, there is an invisible world and a kingdom of spirits:
    that world is round us, for it is everywhere; and those spirits watch us, for they are commissioned to guard us; and if we were dying in pain and shame, if scorn smote us on all sides, and hatred crushed us, angels see our tortures, recognise our innocence, and God waits only the separation of spirit from flesh to crown us with a full reward.
    Why, then, should we ever sink overwhelmed with distress, when life is so soon over, and death is so certain an entrance to happiness - to glory?
    July 19

    About the screw-ups


    Everybody screws up.
    That's what happens.
    It's what you do with the screw-ups.
    It's how you handle the experience.
    That's what you should judge yourself by.

    One might have taken a detour, but one might end up some place good.

    Fingers crossed.


    July 13

    The more the merrier.






    BBC has made a production (a series of 4 episodes) on Jane Eyre.
    I saw it accidentally on the DVD shelves at Monash Library and grabbed it along with the others.
    I always enjoy watching modern productions (I've been thinking about the word 'recollection' but am not sure if it is the correct one I'd be after...) of great classic literature.

    Somehow, I bought Jane Eyre (Vintage Classic) at Angus and Robertson roughly a month ago. It's been lying on the carpet below my bed for so long.
    My aroused interest has grown intense after finishing the series.
    Jane is incredibly strong-willed, and very much determined about what she wants.
    Yes Jane and Rochester have gone through stumbles and obstacles that the outsiders would find them very hard to overcome.
    At the end, its 'happily ever after'.

    I still need to pinch my arm and tell myself that after all, it is all fictional.


    June 07

    Imogen



    Friday morning was the day when my Fujitsu reached 'the end'.
    Shit happened.
    I was forced to abandon it.
    Saturday morning, with Pet's accompany, I went to Officework and walked out with a Dell.

    Fujitsu was full of memories broken into pieces scattered around each corner in it that by no means I could come across accidentally and be hit like the earth by showering meteor.

    I thought that it might be of God's wishes, to leave it behind, and walk steady ahead.
    Though I shall never know.


    Imogen





    photo by Jan Postma


    I ponder, and wonder, on what phase I am standing right now,
    How far have I gone,
    And, how further I shall continue,
    to reach the eternal sunshine on the spotless mind.




    May 31

    Beef T Bone Steak

    最近,以两天一瓶红酒的速度过日子。
     
    以前喜欢喝啤酒多于红酒
    在广州的时候,每天下午3小时内两支Heineken或者青岛
    回到墨尔本之后,每天晚上半瓶红酒。
    刚开始喝Shiraz,到后来看到merlot就上。
    买的都是超市里面最便宜的。
     
    昨天晚上和Karen还有Pet一起在Cookies吃晚餐。AJ,我的housemate说,Cookies是"Fantastic! The best Thai food EVER"
    冲他这一句,我就找有curry的点,Fried pork belly with red curry, something lime and some herb.
    我觉得那个lime的事lemongrass
    Karen点的是mushroom和芋头和某herb做成的肉丸状物质in green curry
    很好吃
    Pet点的是deep fried half chicken in sweet chilli sauce
    三个人点了一瓶Merlot
    大部分是我在喝
     
    今天下午在超市买了折价的T-bone,swiss brown mushroom,和broccoli加小白菜
    当然还有Merlot
    心里很平静
    想给自己做一顿比较好吃的
     
    看到镜子里面的自己,肋骨有点明显
    低头看看,觉得还正常
     
    我的T-bone要好了。
    April 16

    张爱玲

     

    她愛他們。

    他們不干涉她,只靜靜的躺在她血液裡,在她死的時候再死一次。

     

     

    April 12

    村上春树——Always on the side of the egg

    村上接受耶路撒冷文学奖所作演讲。
    A bit long, but worth a think.

    I have come to Jerusalem today as a novelist, which is to say as a professional spinner of lies.

    Of course, novelists are not the only ones who tell lies. Politicians do it, too, as we all know. Diplomats and military men tell their own kinds of lies on occasion, as do used car salesmen, butchers and builders. The lies of novelists differ from others, however, in that no one criticizes the novelist as immoral for telling them. Indeed, the bigger and better his lies and the more ingeniously he creates them, the more he is likely to be praised by the public and the critics. Why should that be?

    My answer would be this: Namely, that by telling skillful lies - which is to say, by making up fictions that appear to be true - the novelist can bring a truth out to a new location and shine a new light on it. In most cases, it is virtually impossible to grasp a truth in its original form and depict it accurately. This is why we try to grab its tail by luring the truth from its hiding place, transferring it to a fictional location, and replacing it with a fictional form. In order to accomplish this, however, we first have to clarify where the truth lies within us. This is an important qualification for making up good lies.


    Today, however, I have no intention of lying. I will try to be as honest as I can. There are a few days in the year when I do not engage in telling lies, and today happens to be one of them.

    So let me tell you the truth. A fair number of people advised me not to come here to accept the Jerusalem Prize. Some even warned me they would instigate a boycott of my books if I came.

    The reason for this, of course, was the fierce battle that was raging in Gaza. The UN reported that more than a thousand people had lost their lives in the blockaded Gaza City, many of them unarmed citizens - children and old people.

    Any number of times after receiving notice of the award, I asked myself whether traveling to Israel at a time like this and accepting a literary prize was the proper thing to do, whether this would create the impression that I supported one side in the conflict, that I endorsed the policies of a nation that chose to unleash its overwhelming military power. This is an impression, of course, that I would not wish to give. I do not approve of any war, and I do not support any nation. Neither, of course, do I wish to see my books subjected to a boycott.

    Finally, however, after careful consideration, I made up my mind to come here. One reason for my decision was that all too many people advised me not to do it. Perhaps, like many other novelists, I tend to do the exact opposite of what I am told. If people are telling me - and especially if they are warning me - "don't go there," "don't do that," I tend to want to "go there" and "do that." It's in my nature, you might say, as a novelist. Novelists are a special breed. They cannot genuinely trust anything they have not seen with their own eyes or touched with their own hands.

    And that is why I am here. I chose to come here rather than stay away. I chose to see for myself rather than not to see. I chose to speak to you rather than to say nothing.

    This is not to say that I am here to deliver a political message. To make judgments about right and wrong is one of the novelist's most important duties, of course.

    It is left to each writer, however, to decide upon the form in which he or she will convey those judgments to others. I myself prefer to transform them into stories - stories that tend toward the surreal. Which is why I do not intend to stand before you today delivering a direct political message.

    Please do, however, allow me to deliver one very personal message. It is something that I always keep in mind while I am writing fiction. I have never gone so far as to write it on a piece of paper and paste it to the wall: Rather, it is carved into the wall of my mind, and it goes something like this:

    "Between a high, solid wall and an egg that breaks against it, I will always stand on the side of the egg."

    Yes, no matter how right the wall may be and how wrong the egg, I will stand with the egg. Someone else will have to decide what is right and what is wrong; perhaps time or history will decide. If there were a novelist who, for whatever reason, wrote works standing with the wall, of what value would such works be?

    What is the meaning of this metaphor? In some cases, it is all too simple and clear. Bombers and tanks and rockets and white phosphorus shells are that high, solid wall. The eggs are the unarmed civilians who are crushed and burned and shot by them. This is one meaning of the metaphor.

    This is not all, though. It carries a deeper meaning. Think of it this way. Each of us is, more or less, an egg. Each of us is a unique, irreplaceable soul enclosed in a fragile shell. This is true of me, and it is true of each of you. And each of us, to a greater or lesser degree, is confronting a high, solid wall. The wall has a name: It is The System. The System is supposed to protect us, but sometimes it takes on a life of its own, and then it begins to kill us and cause us to kill others - coldly, efficiently, systematically.

    I have only one reason to write novels, and that is to bring the dignity of the individual soul to the surface and shine a light upon it. The purpose of a story is to sound an alarm, to keep a light trained on The System in order to prevent it from tangling our souls in its web and demeaning them. I fully believe it is the novelist's job to keep trying to clarify the uniqueness of each individual soul by writing stories - stories of life and death, stories of love, stories that make people cry and quake with fear and shake with laughter. This is why we go on, day after day, concocting fictions with utter seriousness.

    My father died last year at the age of 90. He was a retired teacher and a part-time Buddhist priest. When he was in graduate school, he was drafted into the army and sent to fight in China. As a child born after the war, I used to see him every morning before breakfast offering up long, deeply-felt prayers at the Buddhist altar in our house. One time I asked him why he did this, and he told me he was praying for the people who had died in the war.

    He was praying for all the people who died, he said, both ally and enemy alike. Staring at his back as he knelt at the altar, I seemed to feel the shadow of death hovering around him.

    My father died, and with him he took his memories, memories that I can never know. But the presence of death that lurked about him remains in my own memory. It is one of the few things I carry on from him, and one of the most important.

    I have only one thing I hope to convey to you today. We are all human beings, individuals transcending nationality and race and religion, fragile eggs faced with a solid wall called The System. To all appearances, we have no hope of winning. The wall is too high, too strong - and too cold. If we have any hope of victory at all, it will have to come from our believing in the utter uniqueness and irreplaceability of our own and others' souls and from the warmth we gain by joining souls together.

    Take a moment to think about this. Each of us possesses a tangible, living soul. The System has no such thing. We must not allow The System to exploit us. We must not allow The System to take on a life of its own. The System did not make us: We made The System.

    That is all I have to say to you.

    I am grateful to have been awarded the Jerusalem Prize. I am grateful that my books are being read by people in many parts of the world. And I am glad to have had the opportunity to speak to you here today.

    多纳

    很好
    吃完了4件小doughnut,
    甜甜的腻腻的
    很满足!


    April 10

    琐事



    1
    NARS眼线笔非常好用。

    2
    发现一些两年前常去的blog消失了,她们都是满有意思的人。

    3
    最近常上youtube听Death Cab for Cutie的歌。
    MV风格老美国的。

    4
    我的converse烂了。
    决定回中国再买。

    5
    寄过去的礼物,被海关扣住了。
    说是觉得物品真实价值与所标价值不符。
    所有的东西都被噼里啪啦零碎地扔在那里逐件审问。
    一次美好的生日惊喜,被那些人蹂躏到五马分尸。
    心里还要默默接受。

    6
    承认gay是一件事。
    接受gay是另一件事。
    不可同日而语。



    April 09

    Girl with a pearl earring




    "It was strange to meet so many new people and see so many new things in one morning,and to do so apart from all the familiar things that made up my life...The new was woven in with the old,like the darning in a sock."



    March 07

    我觉得

    吃饭和洗头是生活中最麻烦的事情之二。

    每天问自己今天想吃什么呢问了半天没答案。
    次次洗头头发都掉一大捆湿嗒嗒半天都不干。

    真的好麻烦。
    February 25

    mercy

    Yeah, somehow Duffy is singing Mercy in my head.
    Damn.

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    all shot by jan postma

    early hours

    睡觉于我,俨然成为一件比较严肃的事情。







    shot by jan postma
    February 20

    圣诞。新年。一些人。一些事。

    Christmas







    红衣人皱纹深刻





    Oh..the booz..




    绿衣人假笑严重


























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    New Year























    大雪漫漫




    阳光灿烂










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    Frankfurt

















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    Australia


    Shot by Mich