This beautiful city of ours

**note to OJ1 tutors, while I wrote this months ago I'm tagging it #qutoj1 not for it to be marked but to give a background on why I decided to do this blog topic**

Grew up in a small town
And when the rain would fall down
I'd just stare out my window
Dreaming of what could be
And if I'd end up happy
I would pray

It's amazing how much feeling and emotion something so small can instill in you. Last night, as I walked home through the spitting rain from the ferry that had brought be home from the casino the song that occupied much of my childhood rushed into the forefront of my mind. As every small child does, I really felt like this song was about me. I did in fact grow up in a small town leaving us with not much to do but exercise our imaginations. My head in the clouds demeanor may be, in part, attributed to this upbringing.



As a child I always knew that I wanted bigger things. Each year as our family of five, packed into the back of a Ford Falcon, drove over the Gateway bridge in an epic conclusion of the mammoth 12 hour drive I would look at the city lights and know that I was better suited to a city of thousands.

To be fair, I loved growing up in a small town. Our house was surrounded by grass fields and towering sugar cane paddocks. I was all but unable to comprehend the notion of worrying about privacy. Our primary school, only a short walk away had guinea pigs and goats, and there was a caravan park beside the school that sold lassos for 5c a piece. It was the perfect, quaint, upbringing.

Still, this didn't stop me dreaming. Each time we visited our family in the city was like a new adventure to me. I think that growing up in a small town and seeing the same people in the same places doing the same things every day made me more excited for the potential to meet people and experience new things than someone who had seen this their whole life. Sometimes I get together with the friends that I grew up with who have also made the move and the wealth of culture and entertainment possibilities that surround us never seems to elude any of us.

This beautiful city that we are so privileged to call home has an infinite number of possibilities to entertain us each day and I think we take that for granted all too often. What I'm trying to say is that only boring people get bored. I don't know that I have been able to describe myself as "bored" once since moving down here (well, sitting in lectures excluded) because there is always so much to do and as country kids all of it is still new and exciting to us. If you ever feel bored in your city open your eyes and view is as a tourist, what would you do if you only had 24 hours in your city?

  

Self Evaluation

As I transition into adulthood I have been looking for a sustainable income to get me through the coming years. Luckily I've already scored a few job interviews which have made me realise that nothing makes you question yourself like a job interview.
Where do you see yourself in five years?
What are your biggest weaknesses?
How would the people in your life describe you?

These are some of the hardest question that you can be forced to answer about yourself. How would the people in my life describe me? Is the way they see me very different to the way I see myself? Do I think more or less of myself than they do? Does the positivity that I try to carry with me shine through or do my weaker moments in which I complain about trivialities let me down? Do I always succeed in treating others the way I would like to be treated? Maybe it's healthy to be forced to self evaluate every once in a while but that doesn't make it any easier.

In addition to being asked a myriad of difficult questions, in a job interview, particularly for the events and retail jobs that I've been interviewing for, you're trying to show the full extent of your bubbly and engaging personality in as little as 5 or 10 minutes all the while trying not to reveal your sweaty palms and hiding the stutter that is prone to resurfacing in stressful situations.

In the end I suppose that these stressful situations are character building, if nothing else. So go, apply for jobs you're not qualified for. The worst that could happen is a chance to practice your interviewing skills and what should we be aiming for if not to learn and make ourselves better?


Nb. This post is shorter than usual because just before I sat down to write it my roommate and I decided to make fairy floss which ended in a splatter of molten sugar and a now very painful, very blistered and unusable dominate hand.

To see the world through the eyes of a kitten

I am a girl obsessed. Yesterday my roommate and I made the commitment of bringing home two gorgeous kittens, Olive and Pandora (Panda).  Already we have spend hours dangling strings for them, watching them tumble over one another and boldly exploring the house. They are the sweetest creatures and I fail to believe that I could ever lose my adoration for them.

One thing about them that I have found myself enjoying is the way our kittens approach the world. Everything is new and exciting to Olive and Panda. The world is their oyster and each doorway reveals a whole new world to be discovered. Furthermore for these two kittens the land beyond the front door isn’t to be feared but it holds so much promise for excitement and new experiences. Even though both Panda and Olive have had rough times in their short lives, both fighting equally difficult paths to find themselves at the RSPCA for adoption, they are both full of curiosity, love and adventure. Despite the wrong that has been done to them by other people and animals they have taken us into their hearts and are already showing a full capacity for love and forgiveness. 

Some will say “small things amuse small minds” but I admire Panda’s ability to spend hours playing with a piece of al-foil that I rolled into a loose ball for her. That kitten doesn’t have much but she loves and appreciates the little that she has been given.

I am sure that by now my analogy is running thin, but this something that has stirred an interest in me. Why do we claim that being amused by small things is a sign of a simple mind? Why do we often write off curiosity and optimism as naivety? And why do cats, an animal generally seen as inferior to ourselves, have a greater capacity to forgive and give each person a fresh opportunity to make an impression than we do?

I have heard friends and acquaintances use specific examples of unfortunate events and wrong doing to justify racism that I have called them out on, but if an animal beaten by it’s owner is able to open it’s heart to other people, and we claim to be of a higher level of sentience, then why would we ever accept this justification for prejudice? This is a level of ignorance that I am not willing to tolerate.

What is it that drives us to criticism others finding enjoyment in things? Is it formed by some form of bitterness and jealousy of those unable to enjoy as much of what is around them? I have decided that I don’t mind if you make this snarky comment at me. I will simply tell you to stop and smell the roses and then I will leave with the satisfaction of knowing that I am enjoying things in life that others are incapable of.

I wouldn’t mind if I could learn to see the world the way my kitten does, she seems blissfully happy.