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.

58.

edgy feelings are starting to arise again.

today I looked through my phone contact list and it hit me hard that there isn't really a single person I can call in the middle of the night for an emergency. Not a person that lives within distance anyway.

I'm not sure if it's all the sex and the city episodes I've been watching but I'm feeling awfully lonely. Usually I have a boy to take my mind off that fact but I'm starting to lose it a little.

I always dislike that when your closest friends gain a boy, you somehow lose them to that boy. It's strange how life revolves around love most of the time.

Then again, I can't be the best judge because if my boy was here, I would be spending all my time with him.

are we perhaps meant to be lonely till we found our other half?

friends, job, work, hobbies are they just time-fillers?

this is a time filler.

...

why do i feel so guilty for taking time off...?

i miss you and i just want you here.

55.

love is a tough path we choose to take. i really hate my need for be loved once I choose to be in a relationship. Before that, that whole "chase stage" Its okay because I don't ever expect anything. It's only when you have expectations, you get disappointments. And sometimes you expect the impossible.

I'm normally fine with being alone. I'm a drifter. I drift through life viewing it in stages and knowing that this stage will soon pass and when it does, i will have no long term affiliations to it. I am grateful for the people that are in that stage of life that I've come across.

I don't think me as a "norm" human being brings any presence to a group of "norm" people. I guess this is the fundamental person to why I photograph outside the norm society. I feel so comfortable because I am not "norm" I take things too seriously, I am unable to feel relax because I feel there so much in this world... I rather be doing than be there.

Because I know If I was in Libya photographing the riots/chaos, and I might be starved, dirty, detained, etc. I rather be there than be with a bunch of people that talk about what they did on the weekend. [I don't mean to sound so bitchy but.... ]

I guess the reason why I don't rely on anyone or make friends easily or even if I do, it's tough for me be dependent is because they let you down eventually. and it hurts.

so I shouldn't complain that I have no one to talk to when I do need someone. It's because I don't let anyone near me.

and it's really tough when the one person that you do, you can't talk to because he is struggling himself and you're trying to be the very best you can be for him and it is oh so tough. you're struggling and he is struggling too.

I don't think I'm very strong emotionally to handle this for the both of us but I'm going to try. And I hope you pull through so you can take over when I crash.

I think this is the final test of this relationship.

I also think it kinda sucks that relationships can only end in two ways: marriage or breakup

I guess we'll see how this goes.

16 days till folio is due and I have

2 studio shoots

3 video

2 mentor assignment

1 multimedia. (folio)

can it get any worse?