The Botanical Gardens and a Creative Diagnosis

Apologies for the lack of updates guys – in between the thing called “life” and “school”, blogging has taken a bit of a back step for me. Also considering how crappy my internet is, every time I want to upload anything I need to take a 30 minute walk into campus, sneak into the international office and pretend I need help, only to upload ungodly amounts onto the internet before running away. I’m sure real/professional bloggers don’t need to worry about any of this tomfoolery when writing or taking photos, but since I’m just a dumb, broke college student, you do what you can. I figure after this school thing is when I’ll really go to town and do all my travelling. Plus a little thing called the LSAT is nagging away at my brain. Oh well.

I suppose this particular post will be more introspective and reflective than merely descriptive. While trying to weave a somewhat interesting narrative, I think most of my friends back home can attest to my nerfball life. Consequently, I’ll try and tone down waxing poetic about my craptastic creative process and reveal that I suffer from a rare and unfortunate disease known as “Writer’s Laze”. A derivative of a similar pathology known as “Writer’s Block”, it commonly affects writers from ages 15 – 50, where patients exhibits extreme lethargy, bouts of narcolepsy, increased appetite (perhaps a cause of the strange sleeping patterns? I smell a research grant!), short attention span, fatigue in the fingers and general apathy towards all notions of work. The first documented case emerged out of the 1920’s, simultaneously with the development of the television. In the 1990’s cases skyrocketed with the spread and accessibility of the internet (except in Australia, where both internet and creativity remained at a constant low throughout its entire history*). Not to be confused with “Creative Dead-End”, a disease which affects most famous “artists”, notably directors such as Tim Burton or Michael Bay, where the artist re-hashes the same formula again and again while nobody notices**. But I digress. My life has actually been pretty boring lately and hence don’t have any real excuses to why I haven’t blogged in awhile. I decided to be a party-pooper and spend the Easter Holiday week in Sydney. Personally, its actually what I wanted because the reality is, while a lot of things in Australia, especially outside Sydney, are pretty cool… the thought of dropped $1000 on a week somewhere far away didn’t actually appeal to a dude who’s trying to ration his money on a daily basis. And honestly, who really wants to see a stupid rock in the middle of the f***ing desert***? I certainly won’t lose sleep, comfortably in my own bed while enjoying the smog-rich environment of big city life. You heathens can have your nature, I’ll stick to cheap goods, modern ideals and the internet (oh wait…) At least they have Krispy Kreme here.

Koki, Christian, and Jake decided to hit up New Zealand this week, which is actually super awesome and I’m genuinely jealous of the antics they’ve been getting up to. Last time I checked, they went from climbing a glacier to bungee jumping… basterds! While they were busy risking life and limb exploring Middle-Earth; Luigi, Andy and I have been dividing our time between locking ourselves in the library doing work (so we can do some travelling the Australian dollar isn’t trying to steal our kidneys) and exploring the city. One of the reasons why I came back to Sydney after a five-year-hiatus (See: Life) was because after seeing it through the eyes of a tourist, I really wanted to get a sense of living in a big, cosmopolitan city. While beautiful and awesome, the ambience of Sydney suggests a place where people are just passing through. I actually wanted to see what Sydneysiders (Source: Google) did and how they lived, what they ate, what they liked, everything. While I complain and crap on nature a lot, I actually do think that cultural experiences are far more gratifying and far more unique. Everyone can say they saw the Opera House, but how many people can say they lived near Newtown, had drinks in Kelly’s on a Thursday night before stumbling home and the next day sitting on the beach watching people surf on enormous waves? Oh and in the company of people from all over the world? Anyways, I’ll try and avoid the deep, emotional, sentimental crap and get stuck in to what I did the past couple days.

About two weeks ago, after sitting around the apartment with nothing to do, my roommates and I decided to hop on a bus, and go somewhere. Where? We had no idea. We just road the bus to Circular Quay, and then went exploring. I finally saw the Opera House after a rather lengthy delay and we decided to check out the Botanical Gardens. While nature has predominately played the role of the largely Bourgeoisie to my Proletariat (Antagonistic relationships where I eventually rise up and destroy it!), I thought that within the confines of the city… I could deal. We took a pretty lengthy walk and saw some awesome trees and plants. I could go off on an adjective laden, descriptive treatise on how amazing the trees were… but I’ll let my subpar photo taking skills explain.

Notice the power-ranger-colour-co-ordination of the polos

On our way back, I noticed what looked suspiciously like the harbour front for Woolloomooloo, which could only mean one, glorious, artery busting thing. I quickly convinced my roommates that more nature loomed behind those large buildings in the distance, and that we could find our way back afterwards. This rouse worked, and after about 20 minutes hiking past nature and into the city, we stumbled upon the 2nd reason for my return to Sydney…

Vincent Chase Approves

...Harry’s Café dé Wheels. Before I came here, I asked the exchange student from University of Sydney to McMaster University about this place. He told me that Harry’s was for tourists and that you could get the same thing for like $1 everywhere. Well, he was a liar and I shall never listen to anyone who tries to smear the name of such a noble establishment. And really… while nature is cool and all, and David Attenborough is the man… could Mother Nature produce something so evil and beautiful?

My first Golden Gay Time

Tomorrow, and by that I mean the next time I can combat the effects of Writer’s Laze, I’ll try and do a summary of everything Luigi, Andy, and I did while in the apartment during Easter, which would actually be a week late but nonetheless, still relevant! I’ve been watching the Pacific lately, and I guess I’ll reserve my judgements until a bit later. I also looked through some of my old photos and looked at some shots of my little adventure at Amuse Bouche in Hong Kong, and the tasting menu I went through there. I forgot to do my restaurant review, but I think I’ll finish that up sometime within the next week or so. Oh, and I also have assignments I should be writing and researching.




Same crap, different day.

Otherwise, stay thirsty my friends.
Rick

*Oh… sick burn!
**Oh! DOUBLE SICK BURN… on people who make more money than I ever will!
*** Sorry Andy Calfa, I tried my best (in a not really, sort of way)!