Got my driving licence last Tuesday. Feelsgoodman.jpeg

Full permit too! That means I can learn to drive a manual and maybe buy one down the line. Alfa Romeo Giuletta hmmmmm

List of places I want to go to. Writing this down makes me feel good.

- Mornington Peninsula
- Hot Springs at Rye
- Strawberry picking at Mornington peninsula.
- Phillip island
- Organ Park
- Great Ocean Road
- Portland
- Werribee zoo (AGAIN because it's awesome)
- Healesville Sanctuary
- Places I went to on my geology field trip: Colac, Port Fairy, Wilsons Prom, Ninety Mile beach, Mallacoota, Otway Coast, Cape Liptrap, Buchan, Bendigo
- Ballarat (to see Rhonda and the pugs)

And all of this to prepare me for the ultimate adventure .. the Great Australia trip, from Cairns to Perth (and back to Melbourne).

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I have a driving test on the 12th of November and I feel pretty nervous about it. First of all, let me just say that I am not a terribly good driver, or a terribly bad driver. I'm mediocre at best behind the wheels but not the extent of an ancient Asian lady behind the wheels of a Mercedes SUV.

I first learned to drive when I was 13 years old. It was a momentous year for me. I didn't bother to ask for my parents' permission if I can learn to drive because I knew they'd probably say no. So I went and ask my driver if it's cool for me to drive a bit in the backroads behind my school. My driver drove me around in a big Honda CRV. Which is technically a SUV, but it's an Asian SUV so it's not that big. It's like a midget SUV, if you can call a normal Western SUV a big Tall, American SUV. I went off on a tangent there but anyway. So that went well. I didn't crash at all, which was pretty impressive considering that the car wasn't the best sort of car for learning to drive.

Fast forward several years later, I have managed to crash that same Honda Midget SUV at least 3 times. The first one was me not paying attention to the car parked in front of me. So I was cruising home, and I was on the home stretch, and I crashed into a parked car. The thing is that car wasn't supposed to even park there. But I'm just making up excuses. I had my phone out because I was getting someone to open the garage door for me. And that was that. I asked my dad, Fuck this shit, I don't want to drive anymore (what a fucking pussy thing to say, right? Ha). And he said, Shit no. If you don't keep on driving you're not going to learn anything from it. So I kept on driving.

I got a bit better, the other two times I crashed my car was when I had to make a ridiculously tight U-Turn in the middle of an intersection clogged with trucks and buses. I scraped off the edge of my car to a truck. The truck was fine, and I had a dent with some scratch on the side. The other time was when I had to reverse my car into a parking lot. This one was stupid and it ingrained a sense of fear in my psyche. I had to watch as my confidence in driving dropped as I became much too afraid to drive because I was afraid of parking my cars. This lack of confidence translated to a sense of a lack of control in my life.

This is where it gets interesting, for me at least. I have always associated driving with a sense of freedom. I believe that if you can drive, and you have a car, you have access to more things in this world than someone who doesn't have access to this brilliant facility. Imagine, if you will, a tireless horse, that you can ride from one end of the earth to the other. Tireless, fast, reliable. There is a certain romance attached to driving, in my opinion at least.

Then why do I feel such apprehension to my driving test? Why all of this anxiety even though I know that I can drive? My instructor said that I handle the car perfectly well on straight roads, but when it comes to following the local rules, I stumble. It is foolish to drive without acknowledging the local rules but the rules they made up for the driving test here are almost textbook like. I was taught to drive using my instincts and gut feeling, and being corteous to other drivers. I guess it takes a lot of practice to chuck that mindset out of my head because driving in Australia is different. It's way different.

I guess it all comes down to practice, because once you practice enough, you can drive naturally and you can finally use more parts of your brain to focus on following the rules, e.g. headcheck and checking the mirrors as instructed.

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Turns out I am not tax-exemptable anymore, therefore I didn't get any tax refund this year.. So that kind of blows. And I had to pay for Medicare Levy as well this year, about 400 bucks.

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These days my day dreams have increased in frequency to the extent that sometimes I would sit on the train, close my eyes, and wake up somewhere else. Not Melbourne. But this place, somewhere far away. And it's all orange and red and yellow. Orangeland.

I try to go to this place as often as I can as it seems to keep me sane. I'm afraid that I would wake up there and never come back to this life but I'd sure like to know if there's someplace on Earth that feels like it.

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So.

I'm back. And along with it is a realisation that I am now 25 years old. I will be 26 next year. It makes sense that I'm not that great in staying up late anymore. But goddammit, I'll try my hardest. I used to do this all the time and I was great. The sleep deprivation. I felt so alive. I'll need more coffee but that's ok. 24 hours in a day, 8 hours of work everyday. 16 hours.

I'll just need to better manage my time.

There are several ways we can move forward from here to get back in shape. I need to get my music space set out. At the moment the damn dog (but fuck it, I love the damn dog) is making me move so much shit around the living room so that he doesn't bite so many goddamned things. But that's ok. I'll figure out a way to get my music space back in good shape.

I need to stay up late more and focus on my late night habits. I'm more productive at night. I get sleepy at around 10, 11, BUT I'VE ALWAYS BEEN LIKE THIS (more realisation), but if I wake up at around 2 am, I'd be so good to go do stuff, it's crazy. But back then I didn't have work so I could sleep in. I can't sleep in anymore though, so I'll figure out a way to make this work. I need to figure out a way to squeeze more time in a fucking day.

I suck at driving but that's ok. I haven't driven in so many years so that's perfectly normal. I'll fucking ace this test. I'm better this week compared to last week. I'll fucking ace it.

The other thing is the things I want to learn before the end of the year.

Holy fucking shit, man. Learn fucking Java. You are working on a Java based program and your fucking KPI says YOU NEED TO FUCKING LEARN JAVA. I'm going to do it. Fucking hell. What the hell have I been doing? I wasted so much time on Reddit that it's fucking ridiculous. I need to spend the time I'm slacking off at work to learning Java. I just need to start SOMEWHERE, and I believe once I start, it's gonna be shit addictive. This is good.

And the dog, man the dog is awesome. Rhino's awesome. He's gonna stay with me for a long time and I did a pretty damn good job making him pee and poo outside everytime. These little victories, they keep me alive. Rhino didn't pee and poo for the whole day? Awesome points. Scored a kickass goal in FIfa? Awesome points. I need to keep my sanity intact long enough until I can put in enough willpower to pick myself up from this hole I got myself into.

This has gone on for far too long.

One day at a time though - one day at a time.

Just a sidenote, lately I've been having so many flashbacks when I walk in the city. Everything reminds me of the times when I was in uni. Happier days. But that's not why I'm happy. I just miss the good parts. This is going to get better. I just have to move forward.

I remember that Srivijaya blog.. I'm sure Omar isn't interested in doing work on it anymore, but holy shit, I am. I might need to go to Reddit to get some interest.

Here we go. This is going to be good.

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I haven't posted here in years and there is a good reason why. I haven't written anything for the last few years and that leads back to my first point. I don't think anyone comes to this blog anymore. I feel better writing though. I haven't done so in so long, and I'm just learning to pick up what I thought has been missing all this while. The mind is a fragile thing. 3 years ago I was optimistic. I was 22, and there was nothing that could stop me from being.

There was no realisation of being, everything just sort of fell into place. I didn't even had to know that I wanted to be something, to be somebody, it just came to me naturally. The mind is a fragile thing. The mind is our nest; Our nest of dreams. I woke up one morning and knew that I wanted to be a geologist. I wanted to travel the world. Friends gave me Lonely Planet books. I wasn't by any means lonely, even though I had no special someone back then. I was constantly enchanted by my dreams, and I had these ideals of what I wanted to be when I grew up. I was in university for a very long time, it was the best time for a mind to grow. The campus is my womb and my mind gestate inside of it. I emerged a different person - more capable , and more confident. Yet I still retained my child-like dreams and hope. I was naive and bold. And I had these ideals.

Then I started working. But this was not the thing that killed my passion. I was happy. The first few months were amazing. Then it got even better. More responsibilities. I lost interest a while after, but I was still dedicated to my job - and I still am. However, I became more drained as time went by. I cannot stand to work in a place that stifled my creativity. It's not their fault though. I can't blame them for my laziness. But why did I became so lazy and content with everything? By no means was I content. Failure is not an option. I was brought up believing that if I put my mind to it I can do it. Anything I set my mind to. I had this cupholder from the Smithsonian institute, and it says "FAILURE IS NOT AN OPTION". I got through Year 12 and the first few years of Uni with that quote.

Then I got lazy.

I think the reason is because I realised that I didn't need to put much effort to actually do good at anything, and this made me content. I can't believe it. All this time, I wasted all these hours not applying myself. And this hurts. So why the sudden realisation? I am not in a good state. I'm depressed, despite what everyone says, but I am. I lost motivation. Somewhere along the line I lost my dreams. And I was sick of being tired all the time. I'm sick of not being able to write well anymore. I'm sick of being tired and crying most nights. I'm sick and tired of losing my mind after a long day of work and going home and having to do so many things and everything just piles up. 3 years ago I didn't have so many responsibilities and it is clear that I don't take responsibilities very well. If there is more hours in a day then yes, I would be able to cope but these days I would sleep at 3 in the morning and wake up at 6 to walk the damn dog. It's not that I don't love my life. It's great. But being content with everything killed me. It is NOT a one-time thing. It didn't happen overnight. It's the same as this thing I'm writing right now. Things don't change overnight.

 But I've had it.

 I am incredibly exhausted and I thought about ending it all some nights. The kitchen knife to the wrist, maybe. But that's stupid, it's not the way to do it. THIS IS NOT THE DAY I DIE.

THIS IS NOT THE DAY I DIE.

 I am exhausted, and I just realised how incompetent I am with some things that I thought I would be good at. But fucking hell, that's my entitlement speaking. All this fucking time. I'm terrible at driving, and programming. But that's OK. One at a time. ONE AT A TIME. I'm learning to breathe again, to do it all one at a time. I know that's what I've been saying. But I'm tired. I'm sick and tired of going home like this everynight. This is a start. I will write again. I will finish my goddamn book. I will learn to fucking drive. I will learn to fucking code. And I'm going to play so well in my band that we're going to get a gig by next year. Fucking A. I'm excited. I'm playing catch up with my expectations. This is going to be great. I'm fucking back. We're going to do it. Welcome back to iRectify.

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Since when did we all got jobs and life partners? Why do I have a proper job now? What. Not saying that I was a more interesting person 3 years ago, but what I see in the mirror nowadays is a dull old man waiting for his turn to rot away in a meandering stream of water leading to a boring fountain somewhere. Clearly, something has to change. Is it my fault that I have such a dull job (where nothing I do makes a difference, or to give hope or keep faith or hope or something alive in/to somebody else, is that what I've been searching for all this time? I don't fucking know. Do I even want to give other people hope in living? Maybe to give somebody else a chance in living, a second chance in something. Not that I can relate to it or whatever)? Is there a point somewhere several years back, that divergent point, that I could've gone the other way? No point in wondering. Another crossroad is surely somewhere up on the road ahead.

Maybe. I don't know.

I thought I'm not opinionated anymore. Looks like I was wrong. This world silenced me to submission with pressure and monotony of living the nine to five.

I think this has something to do with me thinking that I was gonna always make it big one day. That mindset. I remember going to university with the mindset that I'm gonna make it big one day, that my future was so bright because I was going to the best university in this part of the world. Holy fucking shit, man. If only I knew how insignificant I was at that time. That illusion of grandeur. For five years.

What do I want? I'm not sure. In the past three years. I've always wanted to be an explorer. To discover something. Which I did. I sort of did. I got a 2-miles long, 50 metre wide strip of rock in the middle of the continent named after me. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I guess I just. I guess I just. I dream way too fucking much. I dodge radio waves.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Can I discover and foster the idea of love for life in others?

This morning my girlfriend told me that this is going to be a good year. To be honest, I have no idea how this year is going to turn out. I dismantle myself. If there is a year in a man's life that he can use to dissasemble himself and construct something else, entirely, based on what he learnt, would 24 be the year? Maybe before I turn a quarter century old, this is what I'm going to do.

And here we go.

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I have grown more complacent. More fitted to sitting tirelessly in a windowless room than ever before. Did I bore the shit out of you? Even I'm bored listening to myself.

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So I was looking at this tumblr http://fuckyeahganeca.tumblr.com/ , and I found it quite... interesting. See, I've never been to uni in Indonesia. After I graduated high school I went straight to Melbourne to do whateverit was that I did for 5 years. Anyway, anyway. Fuck I forgot what I was going to say. Anyway. Look, here's the thing. There is this one meme of the fuckyea guy (from the ragetoon comics) imposed on top of the Obama election poster. You know, the corny one, with the word 'hope' on it. Anyway, the poster said "made one tweet, got famous, don't need to be in the student committee to be famous". Now that got me thinking. That got my head workin, and that just got me thinking of what it would be like if I decided to go to school in Indonesia instead of Australia. First of all there is the problem of language. That's pretty obvious. I went to this school where I spoke English to the teachers. In hindsight I went to a school in Indonesia where everyone speaks, surprise surprise, fucking Indonesian. Well, I was just thinking if I actually go to a school in Indonesia, would I be able to communicate with anyone else? I don't think so. I wouldn't have a single goddamn clue how to write a technical essay in Indonesian, let alone a proper essay. Before I know it, I'd be the guy they would call 'bule' even though I clearly look more Indo than most Indos.

So anyway, that got my mind on this massive spin, right. I went through all the possible cross-points that lead me to this point. And of course, I wonder if I turn the other way, would I even be here? There is this massive understatement that it would be difficult to transition to a life in Indonesia. I think it'd be a bloody difficult thing. The culture, the people. Truth be told, I would probably quit the job on my first day because I have no intention of calling my boss "pak".

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Somewhere down, down
Down in the ocean of sound, sound
We'll live in slow-motion
And be free
With doors unlocked and open
Doors unlocked and open
Doors unlocked and open

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2011

So.

It's been a while since I write anything.

A while is a fucking understatement...... where should I start? Many things have happened between the last time I actively post stuff on this blog, which is May 2009, and now, September 2011. If this is a tv show, this hiatus would have its own flashbacks to show the audience what happened between the two seasons. So I might do that. I might jump back and forth in the narrative. And I got stories. Some of them are pretty sweet. Some of them are, eh, enlightening.

Why should I write again though? Is it because of this craving, this urge, this need to be noticed, to be loved, to be liked, to be funny, to get that attention that everyone so urgently need like air and water and sex? No, not really. See, the thing is, I like writing. I've stopped writing for a while. I've run out of ideas. Not because I have a mindblock, a writing block, whatever, it's just because I've stopped giving a fuck about writing. I got a whole lot of stuff, no joke, going on between two certain periods in my life. And the joy I get when I realised that I am willing to start writing again after such a while... it's almost exhilarating.

Exhilarating, huh. Where should I start..

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Airport

Baggage, check.
Passport, check.
Gifts, check.
Shirts, jeans, shorts, cold weather jacket, check.
Phones, camera, charger, check.
Turn off lights and close all windows, check.
Why do i feel like ive left something behind?

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