apple?

here's a lonely post years later.

i made a vow last time to be working on acting, and put my heart and all into it, as much as I could.

got some paid work, also getting to be on tv for a small gig. and what does this feel like?

i felt empty. it's not that i am not thankful and that the work has not reaped rewards and happiness for me, it's just that this chase that has happened for the past couple of years has been - well, just a chase. you get something, an experience, and then what?

i still love acting. but maybe 'acting' has changed from when i last looked at it from a wide eyed 19 year old wanting to do something different. most of what it has taught me is plain and simple human life, in macro. everything is heightened. how everyone is really the same and how no one is completely separate from the rest of everything.

how powerful communication is and how much work i need to put in. after so many years of being drilled "be open and curious", i can safely say that what has taught me to do this was actually not acting/drama, not theatre but buddhism. the tutors over the years have done their bit, and god help them for not giving up on me. i have learnt alot. being yelled at whenever i think too much does help break some bad habits.

but the thinker in me doesn't change despite years of subconsciously trying to be not a thinker. i don't really want to stop "thinking". but not until last retreat did i realise how i am so plagued by thinking. thinking is good, but not when they roll themselves with things not needing to be there and appear in my mind as a problem of epic proportions.

then as soon as i notice this happening, everything dissolves as if it wasn't there in the first place.

yesterday joyce asked me a question:

"if in your mind you create an apple, what is it suspended by?"

i hereby make the commitment to myself that no matter how difficult the road ahead becomes and no matter how hard it is, i will become a well honed, strong, crafted actor. it does not matter how far i get, i promise to never lose sight of this commitment.

i was walking through an empty airport, and it is dark outside. the place is deserted and i have arrived at a checkpoint though it was completely empty. there is an eerie feeling about this. it appears i recently died and i'm basically checking in and out of quarantine areas, and waiting to move on from this waiting area.

i move through, half not having realised what i should do or where the checkpoints are. there are signs like any airport, but when i approach, the either vanish or blur out and i can't tell where i am going.

i stall at the airport.

wandering around, a swimming pool appears amidst this empty airport and someone is swimming on their own in it.

i get into swimming gear and dive in and swim. the swimmer exits the pool and starts to yell and scream insults at me, as though i had offended her or wronged her in some way. i have never met her before.

i get out of the pool after my lap and walk up to her and go beserk. we get into a screaming match. i tell her to stop yelling so i could catch up on swimming my laps. i dont know why i was swimming though.

behind her is a conveyor belt for luggage, but it is switched off.

today was one of those pretty cool days...not weather-wise, since it was SCORCHING and possibly cooler being a cake baked in a fan force oven. it was HOT. no rain, even though it look like it really wanted to, but we biked it for 1 1/2 hours (scooter) to My Son, where the World Cultural Heritage site was. it's always much cooler when they don't "reconstruct" everything to death. the amazing thing about this site was that they heaped on brick after brick, without cement/mortar, you name it, to hold it all together. and yet it stayed together. the place felt - creepy. we were able to walk into the smaller buildings and have a look inside, but hearing the wind through the brickwork, knowing that half of the dug up site was "unstable" made the experience all the more...creepy. there were other people digging up another area which was off limits to the public.

as we braved heat sickness, riding back, i am now a proud owner of the lobster skin syndrome, and damn it hurts. also, so far on this trip, i had finished "diary of a manhattan call girl", as well as stephen king's "the cell" but had not written in my diary at all.

shameful!

suits and tailor made stuff turned out ok. it was a fun experience, but i'd leave the high quality work to those with VERY good fabric selections, and more modern cutting techniques.

tomorrow is second last day, and we will be going to ho chi minh city by plane tonight... better not get delayed....!

not so sure i went in knowing what to expect. so far it has been a trip of haggling, heat exhaustion and alot of afternoon and daytime drenches that no umbrella/raincoat could possibly work. cat ba island was nice, picturesque, as we kayaked for 2 days (ends up to be a few hours in total though!) but went to a beautiful lagoon that was only accessible through low tide. there were red coral around there and we tried REALLY REALLY hard not to whack it with our paddle. the same could not be said about the red jellyfish and the humungous jellyfish 40cm in diameter. i think ken and i pissed it off pretty badly coz it dived after we gave it a pat on the head with the good ol' paddle.

our flight to hoi an got delayed by 2 hours and it was not pleasant.

we haggled some taxi drivers for $10usd to get us shuttled from airport to hotel. alternatively, if all else fails, we could get a definite taxi for 20000 vd. one taxi driver said "ok" and we lugged everything into the boot. he drove literally 2 blocks outside the airport to some dark alleyway where there was another taxi waiting. he told us to get off and go to the other taxi...and proceeded to throw our luggage into the other taxi.

i feel like i was some illegal immigrant or illegal produce being trafficked. but it all worked out. about 40 or so minutes later we arrived at our hotel. hoi an trails resort is a lovely place, despite the lack of water pressure or the short tempered hot water system. but hey, with weather like this, who needs hot water?

tailoring clothes and shoes turned out to be a very tiresome duty every tourist seems to have to go through, and chances are you won't turn out with the best stuff on earth. i'm ok with mine, but must admit, i could get similar for the price i was paying, but just cut less to my figure. it's not the best, and i think i'll leave real tailor jobs to people who are much much much more up to date with their styles and cutting methods. i was shocked to see some of the things they did. and we complain for workers union and all against sweatshops in oz...but we saw one over here - same conditions as a sweatshop. but they seemed quite ok with it. the levels here are very different, and we must try to assume less and compare a developing nation with our standards. thinking now i reckon it's not so bad that people work at sweatshops, as long as their wage is good enough for them to support themselves in the country they live in.

prices of things here is a bit of a disappointment however. it seems that their tourism has ballooned out from jetstar flights or the general opening of tourism in a big way, that the prices have been driven up, yet the quality hasn't caught up, and more frequently than not, you're better off buying the same stuff in thailand, at better quality and bargaining that didn't have to feel ugly and tasteless. but hey, that's totally my loss for not being able to haggle and tell them i think their stuff doesn't look as good as some guy in the next town.

we did trek to marble mountain. not trek, but more like...motorbike it and then walked up those mighty steep steps. the whole mountain was marble. i loved the way the statues were carved out of the caves there, still stuck on the mountain. however, some insistent and non-english speaking guide tainted my experience just a little. and the ladies trying to sell me incense, telling me it's all for luck. i wasn't too pleased to hear that that, but we just kept walking along. then it started pouring down. we think our rains are bad? think buckets full of rain pouring down the mountain, creating an instant river down the rough stairs. think instant water supply to all the farms and relieving the drought situation in NSW...(ok, maybe not that much, but it was only for 2 hours and literally, i am soaked through with a raincoat and umbrella on me)

anyway,
i'm feeding too many mozzies.

write soon
abb

missing those days where soup was something that we all had time to make together. pho came like clockwork every weekend, and spring rolls were delicious, filled with prawn, glass vermicili, pork, black fungus. and a weekend ritual was instant noodles with own choice of meat and veg.

then there were home made curry puffs, pork patties that dad used to make (that i used to be ashamed of at school when kids laughed at me), the viet style grilled chicken that only i have the secret recipe to, crackling pork which took hours, and a few tries, but when we got it it was sheer bliss. all the food that i grew up with. and no, i wasn't a vegetarian back then.

it was bucket science/art, whatever you want to call it, it was fun, this experimenting. and i wonder how i forgot it all...

then there were desserts. i used to borrow recipe books at the library and as long as dad was there there would be one true fan of my cooking - no matter how good or bad it really was.

also borrowed sewing books and pondered,drew and sewed. got a machine sewing needle stuck through my finger once. carted to the hospital where i fainted just at the right time to jump all queues.

i miss being able to cook for the sheer pleasure. and serve food that everyone could eat, and love to eat. being able to just spend all those hours buying and cooking and eating food with people. i miss doing these things with people, relating like this with people.

it was secretly fun, repairing our fence and using a circular saw.

we owned an intensive care unit for plants - namely a north facing stretch of the verandah, barred off, housing seedlings, rare plants, cuttings, anything my dog mauled up, where my first capsicum plant came up from the soil and waved hi with its two leaves, and tirelessly bearing us many fresh capsicums for some years, even after my eventual neglect.

a guava plant, which never fruit, and one week many years ago a continual storm broke through, bringing rain by the bucketful. we thought the plant would die. yet the next week we saw its first and only fruit...then a bird saw it and that was that.

those things were important.
when did i push all this aside?
have i lost something?...

walked into work on monday afternoon (on my normal day off), to find my boss, one of the equity partners of the firm, is leaving at end of the week.

he didn't tell me. i walked in to confront him. he didn't seem to care. he said he's onto different things and hopefully another company. he seemed ok. doesn't make sense an equity partner would withdraw equity to fund another business after only one year since the merge unless something quite fishy has gone down.

one ponders if it was office politics, or partner's door-shut politics.

the plot, like slow cooking polenta.

the managing partner calls me to arrange a closed door briefing on friday, to brief him on all my "outstanding" projects. my boss has made no arrangements for my review, and has very quickly glossed over my future. though who am i kidding. my future is limited since i am not learning.

my boss who is leaving assures me that the new decision maker will have need for my existence (which wasn't my question. my question was can i get an informal feedback session since he was my manager for the past year).

here is a list of marketing related decisions the man i'm about to brief has made over the past year:

• against any advertising for external seminars
• against outsourcing production of marketing collateral to enable proper rollouts of campaigns
• imposes in-house catering for some functions that he is not personally hosting (though i would have none of it and expense it anyway)
  
• "reducing costs" of newsletters by lowering numbers of pages of publications
  
• decide against integration of 2 separate databases; one relational, one not; with different contact lists, opting for the manual data entry approach done by WPs who happen to have spare time
  
• will not refresh the website because "it still works"
• won't bother enabling marketing to track and report on activities

i wonder if i'll be retrenched this friday...i'm sure as hell looking now!

HSBC, the world's local bank - cry oh cry!

my week without access to my own account:

day 1: my atm card stops working on all atms including hsbc's. i call up the phone banking to arrange another one. i had to ask a friend to pay for my lunch - someone i dont see very often. i am very embarassed. i asked kenny to take out some extra cash for me and i could wire the money back as soon as i get paid.

day 3: pay day. i tried to log on to internet banking to find they had disabled my internet banking and asked me to call their number. i call up and apparently i was having a new security tag sent to me. i did not ask for this. i ask why and how this was arranged. the indian operator does not know.

day 4: my unexplained security tag arrives. i receive this late at night.

day 5: saturday morning i call telephone banking to assign my new pin and tag id, (you know, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week service...) i waited on the phone for 15 fucking futile minutes.

day 6: evening, i call the number again. after the same: 15 fucking futile minutes, the phone system disconnects. i try to log on to HSBC to find that they have disconnected my access to internet banking. no reason given. nothing new.

day 7: i am currently on the phone to that new number they asked me to call, and attempt to email a complaint. their complaint website tells me they are having tech difficulties and cannot process any complaints until 2 days after 22 April.

BREAKTHROUGH! i just got through - indian call centre. she cannot help me and asked me to call back tomorrow during office hours. i asked her how many people were working with her shift now.

"We currently have 2 people at the call centre. I'm very sorry about this"

it's not her fault. someone in resource management for HSBC internet banking ought to be FIRED for this. we blame indian call centres etc. and they suck because they're offshore and they have no say in how things are handled. and they employed all but a measly 2 people to handle complaints of the fact that their internet banking system has a scheduled downtime because of migration to a new system. someone is VERY irresponsible and VERY cheap and should get a huge rod stuck up where the sun don't shine.

got over that strange bump.

and onto another very similar looking one.

one that keeps me checked, straps me down.

everyday i toy with the idea of quitting my job and just going to melbourne without notice.

i would...struggle, or land on a feathery pillow, all fluffed up for me.

stagnation is the biggest killer. the longer you stand, the less strength you have left to move away, and yet, i have justified to myself that it is okay to stay put at this job because of something else. something else that i PAY to do right now.

do i love it? yes. i couldn't do without it. but then what is the reason behind not being able to just pack and leave?

i want to bake cakes. i have a craving for cooking today. which will generally go ignored.

what is the point of being so talented and intelligent if you can't use what you got and keep throwing yourself in plain brainless work?

i want.

so there i was dying my hair which is something that i do at home, periodically.

i've basically been doing this since i was like..15, so generally i don't really mess up the place.

but today, i forget, there are 2 x 1/2 mm specs of dye on the bathroom tile and i just, well, didn't actually see the damn specs.

i was then marched into the bathroom, and demanded to clean it up.

i usually don't mind but honestly, the cleaner is due in in 9 hours, literally, to do a once-over. could it not wait?

she glared at me, and gasped for emphasis, and stated in a melodramatic tone what a BAD MEAN person i am to leave things for the cleaner to clean. who the hell am i to be allowed to do such preposterous, lowly things?

it was a puzzling moment where i felt guilt(!!) even though i don't believe i was wrong. then i became deeply confused.

am i lowly and mean? am i guilty for letting the cleaner do their magic? i can agree it's not so nice if i left it for a few days just so someone else could clean it, but is 9 hours unbelievable and disgusting?

now if i soiled my apartment with mud and random gardening materials, stained the tiles on purpose or something, or even just plainly had a big crazy drunken party, then left it, waiting for the unsuspecting cleaner to find the impending doom, THAT would be lowly.

but are a couple specs of easily washable dye (that was hardly visible to begin with) off a tile wall a big tragedy for the cleaners to deal with?

oh well, some people are anal.