'Chin-up'

I was worried that I might have to come in today and work a bit harder, do something more demanding than sit and upload content, as Keith the editor and then Alex asked me to come in especially to help with some event. Events, functions, schmoozy do's and if you won't you will after a few glasses sort of thing and I imagined they were about to put me in charge of organising the whole bloody thing. Well, thank god they did not, but on the other hand, I put on a skirt for the first time today believing to be put in charge of something a little more important than cleaning out vases!! So there I have been sat by the coffee machine with my windolene cleaning vases to go on the tables tomorrow, 85 of the blooming things., and where's my invite!-What treachery! I sat their fuming next to a stack of paper towel fumes, trying to look on the bright side of it. Atleast I have nothing better to do for once than think about stuff, like where the hell am i going to live in a week in a half, how Brent should have definitely had more entertaining skits on interns in the office and how the lessons we learn in life are not ones that are necessary to our moral growth in virtues but merely lessons about how the world and everyone in it is capable of being a little shisters sometimes, and we all deal with it not because we know better but because we have to, as where else is there to go.

I also thought about why, when a close friend told me lastnight, while I was complaining about this and that, "Well Sophs you are very emotional..." That it really bugged me. Everyone is emotional, its just some people talk about it and some people don't right? I fear some people care more and some people don't. Again this comes back to nature nurture... is it a fixed capacity born within us depending on genes or do we have share a common potential which is either realised or supressed through nurture..

Last night I went to a Poety Slam with Lotte...thats all I can say about that right now other than - people who can write poetry that good, so young, have been through some heavy shit. It's all about a fitful passionate response to an experience, which has to be extreme to invoke the passions of the audience ... until you are 50 plus and you have had time to let life marinade and have all the self-righteous wisdom to write your own personal response to the shocking experience of the single act of life. Then there's the technique and the allusions, the intricate weaving of words that provides more insight than relatable understanding..all these things demand part gift, part practise but none can lead anywhere with out the intense passion... passion leads to practise (a gift is like a head start, a lucky break) but like anything determination, diligence and DEVOTION is the key.

I picked up a copy of George Orwell's first book he ever wrote called 'Down and Out in Paris and London', fancying myself as a modern day version of him setting out down the more dimly lit city side streets, exploring the rough underbelly of a huge grating urban society, experiencing first hand poverty as an aspiring artist. But I am not even close, as the words of his first couple of chapters reverberated in my head making stark judgements only I could make and take from my own pot of doubts and weeds. He lived in a shitty rundown hostel in the suburbs of Paris with all the freaks he writes about and I live with good friends in a nice apartment on the right side of the building, so that the sun shines in through out the whole day. I eat all organic foods, even organic icecream, where as from what I gather he lived off a diet of fags, wine and bread. Staple foods for the local parisian at the turn of the 20th century. I ponder on the role of the victim and its benefits, as Orwell writes about the new plain of perspective he reaches in the much longed for pits of poverty. It is reassuring to read that he had often longed to experience genuine poverty, to be the victim and understand the world from the other way up. I often feel like this, almost desperate to know what it is like not to have anything to fall back on, to know absolute self-reliance. He claims the major novely of his being down and out is that he has less worries as he simply has less in his pocket to worry about losing. I understand this as far as the more time I have on my hands the more worry I have about being on schedule, when it rarely occurs. I have realised I am more likely to be late when I get up earlier than when I get up and instantly rush frantic and panicked, only then am I out the door. Maybe I should take Will Smiths advice and "Always be ready, so you don't have to get ready." Should I go to bed fully dressed!