OK this is a long one. Read at your own peril and probably especially if you don’t do law where you should be reading those encyclopaedias you guys carry around. Anyways, well, uni didn’t last very long. 1.536 weeks approx. I have no idea whether I am doing the right thing, but I spose we’ll find out soon enough. But in those 1.536 weeks we had plenty funs and I even met a couple of cool people that I’ll probably never see ever again anymore, but I mean it was fun meeting them. I had a rubbish timetable cos I did it really late, and so this one time for the first two hours of my four hour break, I was alone in a big uni. So I took out my trusty book, which was looking worryingly empty except for a few awesome doodles I’d done in COMP 1911, and got started on “How to Live Life 101”. I spose the title is a little bit misleading, because it’s not really a ‘how to live book’ because I am not nearly arrogant enough to think I can tell people how to live, but rather just a lot of things I notice about everybody and life in general. I’ll chuck up parts as I write them.
Yesterday, I was practising my mean mug (angry face) for reasons I cannot disclose in this blog. But what I can tell you is it is very difficult. I can’t remember the last time I was angry. I remember being furious when my dad told me how this guy kicked my dog, but that was a few years ago. I get upset sometimes, but I can’t remember being angry for a long time. My mean mug isn’t very good cos my eyebrows keep twitching when I try to look angry, but I still managed to scare Lean. And plus she knew I was only faking also. I’m just a mean kinda guy I spose.
Many people tell me how awesome it is that I get to take time off, and how boring uni is and whatever, but all in all, if I’m being honest I would rather be staying at uni. Of course, the lectures are boring, there are a billion assignments per subject and the travel is tedious. Having said that, uni except for the actual uni, is wicked. I love it to death. Whether it is telling errbody something mad that happened, sitting at a cafe for 5.5 hours straight or just chilling next to the cricket ground, it is awesome. I could do that all day, every day. For those of you staying in uni, enjoy the company of others, it is easily the greatest thing in the world.
My grandma wrote me a letter recently in reply to mine. I had written about many things, many of which involved the meaning of life and such, and she replied, quoting poetry she had learnt as a school girl, and books she had read over her life. The poems that she quoted, she memorised over sixty years ago. Her English is amazing, even more so for the fact that she grew up in Sri Lanka. I reckon she has better English and understanding of literature than anyone in our grade and probably better than many teachers. People amaze me sometimes.
Actually on that point, people always amaze me. Everyone in their own way. Everyone is different, and there is something that is just ridiculously beautiful about each and every person. It’s like those people who smile both with their mouths and their eyes. Like Rafael Nadal. It has been scientifically proven in a study that it is impossible to remain unhappy when around those kinda people. I used to say that I would one day marry a girl who smiles with her eyes. But I used to say a lot of things. I have even occasionally been heard saying I would play cricket for Australia. Sometimes my mouth speaks straight from my heart, and not my brain. I used to think and talk with my heart, but I realise that will get you in trouble. You gotta use your brain. That’s why we have them. I just find it hard a lot of the time.
I spose life is hard sometimes, and like you don’t know what to do, who to please. It’s tough because everywhere you go some crazy thing pops out and shouts “surprise!”. I normally get a little shocked and take a while to compose myself, by which time the creature in question has already disappeared. Stay ready, don’t need to get ready.
Actually on the subject of planning life, when I was littler, I had my whole life all set out. I would grow up, play cricket for Australia from a very young age (maybe 16 like Tendulkar), be the next big thing, and even develop into a suitable candidate for the greatest bowler of all time. As you can see, I have wanted to play for Australia for a very, very long time. I imagined I would meet a girl who smiled with her eyes, and marry her early, maybe around when I was 23/25 and have kids soon after. I would have four kids, going girl, boy, boy, girl. I decided this a lot more recently, cos I want to have a little baby girl and call her Hazel. And then my second son could then come to me one day and complain and go “oh man, how is my older sister gonna make me tougher?” He could then play cricket with his younger brother or whatever they wanted to play together. And then my littlest daughter could be just awesome in general.
I used to imagine these things, and believed that they would all work out as long as I tried really hard, and just tried to be nice and everything. But life isn’t like that. I used to see my life in three parts: the part I was living and had lived, this black space of where I would just train hard and stuff, and then the time period where everything I dreamed of would happen. I used to assume that as I approached the time period that these events were planned to occur, everything would unfold by itself. But life isn’t like that.
The only thing would be that I would travel around heaps for my cricket, and I wouldn’t be able to play much with my kids or be with my wife much. I always wondered who would want to marry a cricketer. I know how love knows no boundaries blah blah but sometimes we miss people and it hurts. It’s like Rob Thomas said to me, “Maybe the worst is the best I can do, with you.”
On that matter, about Michael Clarke and Lara Bingle, I know there is a lot of opinion on this matter, especially on how many people dislike Lara Bingle. I know it seems really bad, all these affairs and stuff, when she gave the finger to the media, their engagement might be breaking, and talk of Michael Clarke getting sacked and whatever. But at the end of the day, if they do call it off, one boy just lost the girl he loves and a girl lost the boy she loves. It’s kinda sad to me.
Anyways, I spose I’ll be seeing you guys less and less from now on, and that little amount will depend probably on what happens from here on.
I’ll just end it with a little bit of a poem that my grandma said in her letter, straight of the top of her head that she thought applied to me. I hope it does.
Sit thou a patient looker on
Judge not the play before it’s done
Each day speaks a new scene
And the last act crowns the play.
I think it might even in fact apply to us all. Take everyday as it comes, take a chance. Go in with no fear, and don’t be disappointed. Jump into the pool. Why dip your toes? Is it going to stop the water from being cold? Never did for me. That’s the thing in life. We sometimes wish we knew the future and stuff, but knowing the answers in life wouldn’t help us anyways. Just don’t pu tall your eggs into one basket before finding out if it has a handle.
Anyways, everyone, if anything seems tough or life seems hard, feel free to have a chat with me. You know I’m always up for a chat if I’m free and I’ll be free a lot these days. Keep your heads up, because I like seeing people’s faces more than the tops of their heads. See you all around sometime, hopefully at the cricket if this weather holds up.
