seven

i am completely caught in between, i hope this short break would help clear my mind. i feel so turned upside down, last week was a great start to the week, this week is the complete opposite. these downs, bring me to complete exhaustion. and it is only tuesday, today.

i'm confused: i always believe that when you love, you want to protect the person you love from hurt/pain. you want to be their knight in shining armor, i don't understand why you didn't do that for me, even though you said you wanted to.

is it normal to feel so clammed up in a bad situation that you don't know what to do so you run and hide instead, i just always believed that you wouldn't do that to me.

then again, love makes you do stupid things. i don't know if we should end.

always,

el

six

i know i just blogged a while ago. but this just dawned on me:

reasons why we don't seem to work anymore:

1. our relationship depended on different things - that now has simply disappeared.

you - God/companionship

me - trust

2. we want different things

me - i want to be able to talk to you about the world, about my feelings, about my thoughts and have you respond to me in a way that i feel that its okay for me to feel this way, rather than for me to feel that i always 'overthink' things.

you - you want a simple life, you prefer easy communication - predictable if you like.

3. we are different people.

you - simple, easy, unquestioning, closed, alone,

me - open, questioning, i need people. i need to feel loved. i am complicated.

4. we respond differently to bad situations.

you - want to run away, let it simmer.

me - rather would settle it, talk it out (whether in anger or not)

5. guilt/expecations

enough said really.

6. we have different lives

we live far, we have only our communication over the internet/phone, you are not good at communicating.

thus, relationship = no communication whatsoever

---

i want to be able to stand with you and have nothing to hide, at all.

but we don't always get what we want do we.. ?

always,

el

five

mistakes i've made in the past that i wish i never did:

1. let a boy(s) into my heart

2. gave people the benefit of doubt

3. not standing up for myself

4. not believing in my own capabilities

but most importantly, i regret trusting that you would be there when i fall. i regret relying on you so much, i regret believing that you would stand up for me when there was need to. If i did not believe you would, then perhaps i wouldn't be in so much hurt and disappointment in you.

that night, completely changed everything. It confirm everything I was suspicious of. run little boy run.

always,

el

four.

drawings from a smoke filled room.

title inspired by James, one of the loveliest person I met at Carrical. I guess I should explain what Carrical is.

Carrical is a Rooming House based in Hawthorn. This is a rooming house for low income people, so that they have a place to live. It currently houses 29 residents. A lot of the residents have had hard lives, majority of them having some sort of mental illness like schizophrenia, manic depression, dealt with drugs, been in prison, all sorts of walks of life. What I've come to experience is that, they are people with incredible talent, and some of them with hopeful dreams. They are people who have a kind heart, just made a wrong decision somewhere along the line, or out of nowhere; their illness changed their life. These are the people that society has learnt to avoid them, to label them or they have been banish from society because of their past, because of their history. people that gets up and fight after being knock back over and over again.

I have formed incredible friendships over the past month, they have open their hearts and their minds to me: and i have accepted it whole heartedly without any judgment. In fact, if anything, I've come to respect them for their resilient and perseverance. They inspire me to live a better life, to look into the world and embrace everything: bad or good. Everyone struggles in their walks, just some more severe than others. But to be able to overcome that, it starts with the mind. It starts with the way you see things, the way you believe.

today, Alan allowed me to photograph him, i had to persuade him a little but he allowed me in the end. I personally would like to believe he felt special that I wanted to, it is an honour to know this man, an incredible amazing honour. He allowed me to view his room and to photograph it. It is a daunting task to allow a stranger to photograph your only, own personal space in this house. Everything else belongs to someone else, they share their bathrooms/kitchen/dining area. I am in absolute awe. A brief note: Alan suffers from schizomania. He has been institutionalized for at least 25 years, on and off. He takes 12 pills everyday, that averages out to 200 pills a week. This man views the world in a positive manner, he believes that he will recover from his illness, he embraces the mental hospitals (unlike a lot of other residents I've met), he believes in the system: that the people there are there to help him.

James is another character, he draws you see. He does these intricate drawings, they're not complex, infact if anything they are simple but you can tell he has talent. He says, one day he hopes to have a gallery of his drawings, and he'll call it 'drawings from a smoke filled room' The paper is brown, and scorched with burnt smell... almost like it adds another dimension to these drawings. It's amazing, what talent. At Carrical, because it's winter: it gets cold and I tend not to wear.. enough layers. He offers me a jacket, in fact he insisted i take it. So i did. Alan offers me jackets too, in fact, Alan and James are on and off buddies for 11 years. They met a long time ago in another rooming house. Alan offered me a ride to the station today because it was raining heavily. I'm incredibly grateful for that.

I brought in some photos i took from the past few weeks - just on cheap officework prints, but they were incredibly awe, they praise them. This brings me such joy, because they were genuinely honest. They wanted prints, i shall give them prints. James is a bit of a photographer himself, used to do it in high school. I brought in my Box Brownie to show him and he was happy about that. I really truly enjoy making the tiniest difference in someone's life. Even if it is to make them genuinely happy.

I'm so incredibly grateful to God for this opportunity. It is definitely a life-changing one. My body aches from being out for the entire day, from 9am to 11.30pm. However, I can't help but feel good despite the aches and cracks. It's currently 1am, and I'm up because I'm getting my photos ready for print to show to Neil tomorrow (I'm so excited!:)) Im heading to Carrical on thursday again. I'll have stories for you then and pictures (if you're lucky)

stay tune if you're reading.

always,

el

three.

23 Aug 2010

i am so incredibly excited about all the opportunities in the future. This is what is coming up ahead:

September: My grandmother is coming, this is so incredibly amazing because seriously, she's the most brilliant person i know even though she does not know how to read or write, she is absolutely brilliant. PLUS, she has these incredible stories about her migrating to Malaysia from China, about her times and she's bringing her past photos for me. This is incredibly, i cannot wait to be able to just sit and talk with her.

(I plan to make her a book on her images/produce some sort of mini personal work with her)

Middle of September : Also brings the Scotch boys to the end of their writings about Carrical. (i'll explain in another post about this..) This means, i have to start doing test-prints/editing/serious shooting. My photographs are going to be made into a book with the Scotch boys writing. I can only hope my pictures contribute to their incredible writing.

October-November: Final Folio times - the usual hectic, but I feel so incredibly excited about this folio, this is different. I think this is what I'm meant to be doing, this is what I am born to do. My personal folio on Carrical will come to an end here.

November: The end of 2nd year as we know it. However, The Great victorian Bike Race is on. I volunteered with a good friend of mate, G to help with the meal plans, so we get to have free accomodation (in a tent) and free food, travelling around Victoria for 9 days in exchange for a few hours of work everyday. Incredible.

December: This is a month where the book will hopefully be published, and then there's the whole launch opening - where I am invited to talk about my work at Carrical. I hope to be able to also present my own folio there, (I have to talk to Management about this)

I hope to be able to take a quick trip (alone) somewhere, and perhaps in these summer holidays to gain my license.

I have so much more to plan, as I have another folio to produce within this time. However, I have not yet research on ideas...

----

Today is a day of great productivity. It feels great to be able to finish something off, and I feel like I'm on the right track with things. My life feels at ease;

Tomorrow is a new day: a day of greater opportunities.

I have also decided that i will have an ongoing folio: a picture book if you like of strangers I've met along my way.

i want to remember this feeling. this feeling of greatness, of confidence; like the world won't ever stop me no matter what.

i'll leave you with a picture,

el

two.

a battle in my mind.

i've always found it difficult to fall asleep. it's always just before i sleep, my mind is the most active. I've tried to write it all down so it would be clear and i could drift off to a dreamless sleep, but it doesn't ever work. Oh, the irony. I'm going to be writing most of my blogs late at night because i cant sleep. haha.

everyday seems like a struggle. a struggle to stay positive, to find some sort of meaning to my everyday life, and to do something productive each day. Today, we had to stick our photos for group assessment in class. I don't know about other photographers, but as i progress as a photographer, i find it even more terrifying when my work gets shown to others. It really is another aspect of my life that i have to work on: the confidence. The point is, today some people actually liked my photograph. these are people whose in my opinion, is a tremendous photographer of their own right. it is a good feeling.

i'm writing this down because moments like these i often forget. I've always been a thinker from the get go. i believe i am my harshest critique. Because of this, i tend to forget about everything positive, and simply focus on everything that is wrong, bad. my ears(technically, my mind) are immune to anything good. i know I'm not the only one that goes through this;another example today, my lecturer was asking us to critique our own images but to always start with the positives. maybe it's just photographers, who knows.

on another note, i have been in bed since 9.30pm(lights off and just laying in bed) but 2 hours and 30 minutes has passed and look where i am.

'i am a visual communicator but i communicate best through words. for if words don't exist, where would we be? stuck in a abyss of misunderstanding.'

always,

el

one.

a friend, once said to me:

"We, are like mini-universes running around in a greater world"

i agree whole-heartedly. we, as human beings lead individual lives, and in these lives we live, we go through a constant state of change. we go through sad moments, happy moments and the inbetweens. Then, there's the world. The kind of things we read in the news. Another flood, another earthquake. Oh, another war, killing, starvation, you get the drift.

it comes down to this: are we self-absorbent or are we selfless?

here's to a new start, hopefully this blog will survive the rest.

always,

el