66. pondering

tomorrow (well later today) I meet with an ex heroin user (on and off) and ex prison inmate.

It's funny how I feel a little apprehensive about it but mainly okay. I'm more worried about how the conversation flows and taking photographs and how it proceeds than my danger of being in the situation.

I only really ever contemplate danger when others point it out to me. Hm. I'm not sure if that is a a good thing or not..

I try to believe that people are ultimately good. and if I'm good to them, they will be good back.

That's how I feel anyway. I'm hoping it will go well and it be a folio shoot....

I'm just fretting. I have less than 2 weeks and barely anything to show for the entire semester.

and I know i am to blame for it. Fuck depression.

also, i wonder how much danger i would push myself to get pictures...

if anything happens though, I just want to be grateful today that I do have people that care about me and love me enough to worry about me meeting with potential danger. (even if I don't care about it)

:) post later x

struggle street

i'm struggling a little bit here. I haven't been getting more than 5-6 hours of interrupted sleep a night. Folio is due in 4 weeks and i haven't got a single clue of what to shoot or where or what not. I have to figure out something that's easily accessible and not lame...

I'm bit worried you know? Things have been falling apart and my mind is not resting. I've been dreaming each night (and it takes a lot out of me when I dream) My mind gets up immediately like someone turn on a switch button.

I'm worrying about things out of my control - I need to breathe and let it see through its course. But fuck, subconsciously I just wake up. it gets in my dreams, and it's going to be like this for the next 4 weeks....

its 5am and I've been awake since 4am and I only fell asleep at 1am.

I want to do good, i'm 20 but i feel like this is my time. I want to jump head in and just somehow earn money through photography........

ah fuck.

64. ponder

I'm feeling very caught in between. Being a photographer more specifically a photojournalist is one of my greatest aims - I want to make a difference in this world, and not just in a normal way. I have a drive, it's an instinct that I have to do something greater. I met these 3 photojournalists and it is SO good to meet people who have the same drive and the same instinct and yet be so completely normal and easy going. (And they are pretty big photographers too on their way into something great - working for the AP Press, the Times.. etc)

There's something quite content that if they can make it - so can I. I just have to work harder and I'm only twenty. I am young but I feel I can be good at this. I just know that I have to work so much harder than anyone else.

I write this blog mainly so I can look back shift through my thoughts and it is all jsut a learning process. Growing each day, Learning each day it is a good feeling.

What prompt me to write this is that lately I've encounter a lot of the people I've known for many years of my life either get married, settle down and have babies. I'm not dismissing it but parts of me desires to do this. To have a simple life

I know deep down that if this happens, i won't ever jsut be satisfied with my job title of a "mother" I have to be something more. A documentarian, photojournalist.etc.

I'm afraid that I'll lose hope, and somewhere along the line just settle...

I want to do good. I hope to do good. I just am afraid I might fail or that if I do try, i'll fail anyway...

I guess I should listen to one of the patients.. She said "If you don't have a go, you won't know. If you don't know, you won't ever go"

She also reminded me to slow down and don't forget the little moments.

It's something I have to learn..

BIG dreams.

---

random thoughts regarding hospice

I went to the hospice and talk to the patients for the first time today. There is such hope and yet such isolation. I want to do something big, good for them and for me but I feel so completely overwhelmed. This project is going to be my toughest yet and I'm going to cry, laugh and be exhausted and burnt out but It is going to be good.

I came home after a 5 hour visit and I'm feeling quite sad. I'm not sure why but there is a bit of guilt. I feel melancholy but pintpoint the exact reason..

The patients I met today were a few of the lucky ones. I say lucky because they have family that care and is close by. They are lucky in that sense. Love surrounds them.

And I think at the end of the day, that is what keeps them going. And I hope that when I do die, it be the same. And if it isn't, I hope that the work I am doing now and will be doing in the future leaves some sort of mark and makes someone feel. Because it is so important to feel - it is what makes us human.

I'm struggling between whether I'm feeling so much and if it will interfere with my work. one of the photojournalist said to me to use it as inspiration because it will show through the photos if I do feel for my subjects..

And it is so hard being a photographer sometimes.

There is so much to feel and it is overwhelming. I needed to breathe, take a moment and reorganize my thoughts.

There is such a battle in me between my personal beliefs and what is installed in me through my culture and through society. I'm trying to fight because I know in the end, this is good. this is life, I should embrace it. good, bad and the difficult moments.

and that is how I try to see through every situation. Whether or not I agree with it, it is still life - in the weirdest forms, or strangest places. There is still a sense of normality for them.

---

i realise what a private person I am. maybe that's why I look for private places to photograph - I wish I was better with words. I wish I could write up a beautiful statement but for now my mind is muddled up and this is just for me anyway...

i've been having dreams with the hospice 4 days in a row now..

first one: my mother died in one and i remember waking up crying. it was so real...

a few others were just kinda my stress and nervousness coming out - paranoia... of not being able to get access, of missing my shot, of being told off, etc etc. Just constant battle within me.

I'm trying not to think TOO much when I'm breathing and awake but when I sleep, it gets caught up and I feel so exhausted already.

i feel this puts a major line between the people I know who are my age and the people I know in the industry...

i'm only 20. *breathe*

63.

it's time to throw myself into work... again. I found that work is a distraction. I'm hoping that least if i don't have any relationships, the success in my work will be enough.

Probably won't though.

but least it's some sort of motivation to be better than this.

62. :)

absolute bliss is...

coming home to your lover after a shit day at work.

especially when your lover made you yummy food and picked you up from the train station in the cold :)

it is this.

happiness.

61

plans.

a thought popped into my head a couple of weeks ago. A thought I never thought I wanted to do but now it keeps recurring and the more I think about it, the more I feel this is right.

I'm interested in stories. but it's always OTHER people's stories. strangers, acquaintances, people I am not related to.

I'm interested in death. In why people chose to die and what thoughts, regrets, moments that people cherish before they die or when they know they're approaching death. Would they change? Would people prefer to know when their time is up or would they prefer to wait it out knowing it's coming?

I think this hits me more than ever because my own father I know is approaching death. And the more I feel about photographing a hospice, or pallative care. The more I know, it is actually more of a preparation for when it is time for my dad to pass.

And.... i didnt realise how sick that thought is "to prepare myself emotionally for my own father's death" wow. what a great daughter I am.

I guess, it would only be fitting if I moved back to Malaysia and spend a little time with my dad, alone. Photographing what little moments He has and as well as little moments I never got to see. And the more I think about this, the more I feel is right.

even though I tend to avoid photographing my own stories, or my own family.... i feel this is something I should really do before I missed out....

maybe it would help me to face my own demons..

hm.

interesting thought isnt it?

going back to what is supposedly my birth country and supposedly meant to be where I hail from......

even though I never call it that and I don't have any association with it besides my passport.

hah.

3.28

it's hit me.

relationships has it selfish moments.

It's that decision between your career or your relationship

Time for your friends/family or time for him/her

and it's because we can't have everything, there is always a need to balance.

so where do we place ourselves within this line ? Where does our priorities lie?

Recently, I received an email from my dad. And it's one of his usual emails, his disappointment in himself his regrets in not spending time with us when we were younger. Not having a family etc.

After a while, it gets rather tiresome. For my dad, his priority has always fallen within work/himself. But Nearly 50 years down the line, he realised that was wrong. It should have been within the family.

Maybe I'm headed the same path: putting my career before me/my relationships. But in my defense though, my career isn't just for me. It's goals aren't making money: it's about helping people who can't help themselves. It's about bringing some sort of greater awareness to the world: a minor change for the better.

There's always a separation between being a photographer and your personal life.

For me, being a photographer is my life. And I often don't understand how there is a separation. I suppose that kinda falls into between categories: documentation/everything else.

I'm trying to create a bridge between "my life/my projects": for me, photographing people that are close to me are the hardest. Documenting what I go through is difficult I suppose that is mainly why I document people's stories: not my own.

This I know is a fear I must face.

--

On another random note, I have come to realize that my relationship is falling apart. Perhaps there's too much junk in the middle that's building up this wall of complete and utter rubbish. But it's still a wall. A wall that we are building between us. A wall of shit and selfish actions (from both parties)

I feel like I'm just crawling through this. I also realize through this, how alone I really am.

And I need to somehow be okay with that. ( i thought I was, evidently not)

Like always though, I'll find a way. (i just thought for once, I had someone to rely on)

Disappointment is a bitch.