small stones with big ripples

it funny how the smallest occurances can leave the biggest ripples in ur life. be it for hours, days, weeks, months, yrs, wotever. i think being in china its the small things that get to me the very most.

on friday i was in a mini bus with mrs jin on the way out to her place to teach her two girls, as i do every friday. usually her kids are on the bus too, along with another family but school finished early so they were all home already, which meant it was just me and her. her english is ok. its very basic, but good enuff to hold a basic conversation. it had gone kinda quiet n we were both in our own little worlds really. then she turned around and asked "wot is ur dreaming?" i was a little confused. she said again "dream...what is your dreaming? ur dream?" i thought maybe she meant like, wot was i day dreaming about? cos i really was day dreaming i had drifted right off. she saw my confussion n started searching for another english word. then she said "hope! ...h ... o ... p ...e. what is your hope? your dream?" then i clicked! i realised she was referring to the future...

"WHAT IS YOUR HOPE? YOUR DREAM" (FOR THE FUTURE)

that is a pretty basic question really. a question you hear alot when your young and you have the world at your feet. but the way she said it really affected me. the word dream and the word hope. wow. i realised that maybe my "hopes and dreams" and what i actually have planned could really be very different. i mean as humans we dream alot. and we hope for alot. but does any of that really surface into our own personal goals? i dont really think so.

so i told her my 'hope, my dream' ...

that i hoped one day to return to china. i also want to go to vietnam, kazakstan and korea. i want to complete uni and become a primary school teacher. i hope to get married and have children.

after i told her she seemed so moved. almost to tears. she looked me straight in the eye and said "that is beautiful" meanwhile i was sitting there thinking, how plain and boring. i summed up my whole life in a sentence or two. funny how ppl can view our own hopes and dreams so differently to us!

i think i need to learn to dream more exotic dreams and try and include them into my future goals. i need to not worry about wot other ppl think and just throw a little caution to the wind.

* * *

also. the other day i was downloadin some old matchbox 20 songs. i dont like their new stuff, its too unreal. i prefer music with raw emotion, its easier to relate to and u find your self REALLY singing alongto it. but yeh i was listening to 'push' which i love. and one of the lines says ..
"n i dont know if ive ever been really loved, by a hand thats touched me..."
and as i sung along my heart kinda sunk a little. cos i felt that really is MY line. obviously there r friends n family that have touched me, that love me. and i know that. but i mean like, bf's kind of thing. none of them have really loved me. yet ive given so much away to them. it made me sad.
but its also encouraged me to make sure that from now on the hands that touch me...WILL b hands that love me. cos i just dont see why i should lower myself to anything less.

if u can not love...respect?

theres no fragile way of saying this. but i dont know if i love my Dad. ppl mite say, well hey, maybe he gets to u, but you truly love him-deep down. but im still not sure. its weird how things change.

when i was young i loved him and he loved me. im sure he still does. but like, when your young your daddy knows everything. he is the almighty! you'd never question anything your daddy ever did or said.

then you hit those yr's previous to your teens and your daddy, becomes DAD....who is just plain embarassing!!

Then you hit your teens and your dad is the painful thing stopping you from getting this peirced and dating that boy. but deep down u know he's just being dad.

then as u continue to get 'older' you develop your own ideas. you start to experience life and see how things really are in the real world.

when i was in china wen i was 16 i started to feel iritated by EVERYTHING that my father said or did. we fought often. it wud end in him yelling, me screaming and storming off in the opposite direction. mum always took my side...sometimes id have to apolagise, but mostly he was just being a b*****d. and everyone could see that.

i just dont get my dad. he lacks logic. he lacks manners. he doesnt think of others. he doesnt think b4 he speaks. he goes out of his way to piss you off. he goes out of his way to make life difficult for you. and he thinks he's funny. he finds most of the above funny. ITS NOT!

he is a total embarassment. i cant stand going places with him. he has NO people skills and holds no regard for other ppl's feelings. we are in a foreign country, yet he insists on speaking english to everyone. and acts like its their fault they cant speak english. like, omg, we r in THEIR country! u cant speak english to them n get frustrated wen they dont understand. i find myself constantly translating to the chinese on his behalf. and not just thru language but also in manners. its like he doesnt understand y raising ur voice is innapropriate in a shopping centre to an attendant that is only doing her job. and tiny things like...if a taxi drives past n honks his horn (in china thats sort of like 'hey do u need a taxi?' kind of thing) he will raise and wave his hands n say 'NO!' and of course the taxi driver doesnt speak english, so he works with my dads body language. the taxi driver will pull over, thinking that since dad is waving his arms everywhere that he wants a cab...so dad gets mad at him! "bu hao! i dont want you! i said no!"..and he YELLS this out too! cudnt he just say it? or better yet, cud he be NORMAL and just ignore the taxi n keep walking, like everyone else on the face of this earth. we've all tried to delicately explain to him y he needs to stop it, but he doesnt. is he stupid or something? i know thats a pathetic example but geez. it really gets to me.

oh! and omg. he gives his mobile number out to his students. which i wud NEVER DO. and he gets fone calls, all the time 'teacher i am depressed' 'teacher i want to ask how u r?' and then he gets mad at them and yells at them for calling and bugging him! omg...u gave them ur friggin number dad. wot do u expect?

he supposedly quit smoking and drinks yrs n yrs ago wen mum n dad become "more serious christians". but i believe he's a liar. i remember wen we lived back in australia down in yarloop...bout 2 hrs south of perth he used to go down to the bowling club alot. he used to play darts n bowls n stuff. it was like his social thing. but i mean really it was like he went there to get away from us.

i remember i was trying to plan something for my 14th bday. mum said i cud invite one friend and we'd all go down to bunbury n watch a movie, go to the beach and then have pizza hut. i was real excited! i called my friend freyla to invited he n dad over heard the convo. he got real pissed cos no one had told him about it and that was the day that he played bowls (despite it being my bday) he started yelling at me and my mum (i was still on the fone by the way so my friend heard all of this) he was telling us we cant go planning things without telling him. mum told him, fine, not to come anyway we didnt want him there if he was gonna b like that. he lost it. he screamed at me to get off the fone. then told all of us to get out of the house. he followed us out and was swearing and yelling so loud. i was screaming at the top of my lunge telling him to shutup over and over til it hurt. but it was like a whispher compared to his booming voice. mum was having a go at him too. he picked up my mum and threw her. i ran. i ran down the road as fast as i cud. f***i was so scared and so mad. it was summer. the road was real hot. i got blisters all over my feet cos they burnt from the hot bitumen. eventually i saw mum driving up after me in the car. she picked me up n we went looking for jon n shani. we found them n went into town to get away for a while. dad ended up coming to my bday into bunbury. but he whinged the whole time and read some stupid book.

one time i was at the bus stop on my way to school n a friend of mine asked if christians were allowed to drink or smoke? i said that ppl had differing views. n she said "like, isnt ur a dad a minister or something?" and i said that yes he was. and she asked whyy he's always smoking then? i was really disturbed. i told her that my dad had quit smoking. but she went on to tell me that she sees him smoking all the time. i spoke to my little brother about it and he said that yes, dad smokes and, wait for it....drinks too. i asked how he knew n he said that wen dad took him into basketball he wud smoke. i was so angry.
and earlier this yr, jon n dad visited me in perth. but they also visited some of my brothers that live up in the daintree rainforest. the lifestyle up there revolves around the pub. i asked jon if dad was smoking. he said yes, and that he was drinking alot to. i tell ya. that pissed me right off.

wot a hypocrite. and he's lying to my mum! the whole family. my mum thinks he doesnt drink or smoke anymore. how is he gonna explain the cancer he gets in 15 yrs from smoking to my mum? that oughta be interesting huh? she already lost her dad to lung cancer from smoking. THATS IT DAD. AS IF ITS NOT ENUFF TO LOSE HER DAD TO CANCER, Y DONT U CONTINUE TO TORTURE HER WITH UR LIES? wot kind of a 'minister' does that? smokes, drinks and then LIES to his family about it? wot a psycho. omg. i hate him so much. i just want to punch him.

wen mum was away recently i came home from work earlier than dad was expecting. out at the balcony was a packet of smokes n a lighter. my blood started boiling. i walked out to the kitchen where my dad was, holding the smokes in my shaking hands, i asked him if they were his. he quite quickly denied it..said they were a friends, he must of left them there. it was such a bullcrap story. i just said 'ok, well i guess we dont need them then' and i threw them out the window to the rubbish collection area. shortly after he went for 'a walk'. i bet my life he went to look for those smokes...or buy some new ones.
he just makes me sick.

i mean this morning he got ready to go out somewhere. jon asked 'hey where u off to dad?' and he looked at jon and said 'out'. like geez. wot the hell is he hiding? i reckon he goes to bars and drinks. it must be something bad. or else he'd just flipping tell us! far out. he is so dodgy. no wonder he's always wearing so much cologne. we nearly choke from it. he's prolly tying to cover up the smell of beer and smokes.

when i was younger my parents separated for a while. i always wondered if it was another woman. i remember coming across a wedding photo of my mum's, just a few yrs ago, that had been torn up into tiny peices...then sticky taped back together again. seeing that, sent chills down my spine. and it kind of rekindled my worry, that my dad had indeed cheated on my mum. i still dont know if he did or not. wen i first got here in china mum and i went and had coffee and had a good heart to heart. it came up about dad and i said that he really annoys me but ill try n tollerate him. mum said that at the end of the day he is my father and that i have to respect him, even tho it may not seem like he deserves it. the way she said that was really weird. like her tone of voice. and i asked, y they split up. she just went quiet. and i just said 'its ok, i dont think i want to know'. and she said 'its best u dont'
*sigh*
i mean there r times where my dad is a good man. i know that he loves me dearly. i am his first daughter and he esteems me very highly. i do need to respect him. but ggrrr i just....cant stand him. one thing i heard in a sermon the other day was that, if you cant love your father u must at least respect him. so i guess. that is my mission. to respect my dad, if nothing else.

religious boundaries

hmmm

ive had lots of thoughts running around in my head these last few days.
i had a dream the other night. it was so odd. i met this guy and we 'fell in love' and not long after, like a week or something crazy like that, we got married!!
it seemed as though we'd met at a holiday destination that my family and i wud go to every summer. only my dad was the only family there. he liked my new found love and his parents really loved me. us getting married just felt so right.

the next day reality hit me. not only did my mum not know that i was married, but i was married to someone who wasnt christian. in fact it seemed in the dream that he was athiest or something. i started to freak out. i sat him down and told him that even though i loved him soooo very much and i couldnt live without him that we had to get a divorce because he wasnt christian. it was like i was so afraid of what other people would think (especially my mum) when they found out that i (a suposedly god fearing, god loving christian girl) had married someone who wasnt christian. he was heart broken. he started to cry and begged me to reconsider. my heart was totally shattered. i totally loved this guy. so i decided, stuff it. i loved him and that was all that mattered.

so we continued on with our married life together and it was total bliss. then all of a sudden my mum turned up. she was so mad. i thought she was going to hurt me. but at the same time i felt terrible cos i cud see that i had broken her heart. the guy's parents had given us a car as a wedding present. petrified, we jumped in the car and drove away from my mum...

and yeh. thats it. i mean realistically, u dont love someone after a week. and u sure as hell dont get married. but dreams r like that, the timing never makes sense.
i just wish i knew wot the significance of this dream is. or if it has any at all?
i emailed tyrone about it. he thinks its so bad that christians r only sposed to marry christians. that you should do what you want to do and what feels right. ppl's opinions shouldnt effect what you do and who you love. and part of me really thinks he's right. but then, he cud really b biased. he dated a girl once who dumped him cos (and i quote) he was "going to hell" ...something along those lines anyway. which is totally tragic and not fair. so i wonder if maybe thats why he's so against the christians and christians thing?

but then i think about all my ex bf's. the guy that i lost every thing too. my 'first love'...he was christian. and he tore my heart out, ripped it in two then threw it back in my face. but even b4 we broke up, i think back on the way he used to treat me...and it wasnt nice. he had no respect for me. i was NOT a priority of his. hell he even freaking cheated on me. and he was christian! all the bad stuff that my ex bf's did put together doesnt amount to the crap he put me through. all the ex bf's that i consider sweet, or memorable were not christians at all. they respected wot i believed....but is that enough? i just dont know.

but then. its not even abotu bf's either. lets just consider the male species in general. as friends. or you know, as people you meet. when i think of guys that ive met the ones that are 'like minded' are just down right rude, snobby and up them selves. heaven forbid any of them should show any form of kindness. yet the guys i meet that are 'of the world' treat me like a perfect princess. i mean, not all of them thats for sure...but more than the christian guys. i mean, wot the hell is with that? i dont even have a good reason to date christian guy, ive never even meta nice one! ive some that i THOUGHT were nice,,,and then i get to know them and realise just how wrong i am.

i am often say to myself "if tyrone was christian, he would be the perfect man for me" well geez. i mean ok, i dont want tyrone as a bf. that is just an example. like, wot if i meet a perfect guy who isnt yet a believer. and that then makes him no longer perfect? i mean, ok NO ONE is perfect....but still... i mean. it just seems like a crime.
theres a guy that im friends with. he just talk online. and he is really cool too. and he has good values. he's aware of christianity, or so it seems. but i mean, he seems like one of those few guys that are nice, that respects girls. u know, a diamond in the rough kind of thing? the kind u rarely meet. is it fair to say that he's not 'worthy' cos he's not christian? *sigh*
ah whatever. i dont know. its just a thought, a question rather that is haunting me and i cant get it out of my head. like christianity is sposed to be this place of freedom. but it sure comes with a lot of friggin boundaries. boundaries that suck.

confused

Words cant explain how exhausted I feel at the moment. I’m not sure if it’s mentally or physically though. I guess both. For some reason today has just worn me out. Nothing too amazing happened. I think maybe I’m stressed. Mum gets back from her trip tomorrow and I really wanted for the house to be spotless, but it’s a lost cause. I feel like I’ve spent the last week and a half picking up after everyone. I’ve had an absolute gutful. I don’t know how my mum puts up with it to be honest. Being in this position puts me off EVA getting married and having kids.

Dad hardly does anything around the house, and when he does, he doesn’t do it properly, so even though I appreciate the effort I’d kind of rather he didn’t, ‘cos it still means more cleaning for me anyway.

No one in family has any concept of general hygiene or the fact that we have this over whelming epidemic of cockroaches. And it’s friggin’ no wonder why, they leave food lying around everywhere. I woke up the other morning, only to find the previous night’s dinner still sitting on the table. I couldn’t believe it. I took one night off from the kitchen and it was rodent heaven in there! Yesterday I vacuumed the lounge room, thinking that would be one less job for me to do today, but its just as messy again! Apparently it was too hard to walk a few meter’s and grab a plate to eat over!!!!!!! Ggrrr!!!!

I feel like if mum comes home to a dirty apartment she’ll look down on me. I mean, maybe she won’t. Its not like she said “Carrie, your in charge of keeping the house clean”, it was more of a silent understanding between everyone…”If Carrie can take care of herself, she can take care of us too!”

But on a positive note it opened my eyes for what to expect in the future I guess. I see now that perhaps a majority of men have NO idea about keeping things clean, so ill be sure to have my man trained before we get married! Also its so weird planning meals for an actual family. Shopping for a family and not just for your self sure is different too! I went grocery shopping real early the other morning, down by the sea, bout 6 am, they have real cheap vegie markets there. But yeh anyway, I cud hardly walk home with the huge load I bought. And that wasn’t even all the vegie’s I needed! I had to kind of laugh though. I thought to myself, “Gee Carrie, this sure is different, u cant just come home with pasta meals and 2 min noodles when you’ve got a family to feed!” There sure is a lot more responsibility in having/taking care of kids then u first realise.

But yeh, apart from that huge amount of complaining everything in china is just going so great. To be honest I really don’t want to leave. I guess I have to though. Just a week ago I was saying how, if I cud just have my friends here it would be perfect. But I don’t know, I feel distanced from my friends at the moment, emotionally not physically, as the physical distance is unavoidable. Its not that I feel forgotten, I don’t know, I cant explain the way I feel as far as my friends are concerned. And it’s not all of them, just a select few. Its like they have changed. I talk to them, and I think “That’s not the girl/guy I knew a month ago”. But I guess that’s a real stupid thing to say. If anyone’s changed, it would have to be me. I’m the one in a different country! LOL. But if I have changed I can’t think how, I wonder if my friends think that I’ve changed? And if so, do they like the change? Or do they totally hate it?

I look back at my life in Australia and it all just seems so worthless. Like its all for nothing. Like it’s a life filled with superficial charms…clothes, shoes, alcohol, clubs, men (not much of that though!) and all things stupid and unimportant. I hate feeling like this. I hate it so much. Deep down I knew this would happen. The last time I spent a long time with my family I returned to Perth analyzing my life and coming to the conclusion that it was shallow and stupid. I feel like I’m looking back at my life in Australia, and I’m just this girl wondering around, looking for something more, like I’m a lost child. Looking for SOMETHING, just to get me through that life of superficial charms and decorations. ‘Cos decorations is all they are. They fade away and grow old. Then what? I suppose more charms develop, but only to cover up the bareness of what real life really is.

I feel stuck though, ‘cos I…I want to stay here, but I have this thing in me saying, “No u don’t.” and I’m just so lost. I don’t know what to do. Part of me is like “hello, you are so young, live for your self, travel, experience a new culture, experience life!” and the other side is like “Carrie you need to study, you need to save, get your license, get a car, make a life for your self.” I don’t know. I need someone to make the decision so that when it all goes wrong I don’t have to blame myself and hate myself for stuffing up, AGAIN. *sigh*

I feel like life here could be so lonely though. There are not many foreigners here so it’s hard to kind of ‘be normal’. But my life back in oz was pretty lonely too….staying up most nights watching tv by myself. Is that what I’m gonna go back to? Or pulling all nighter’s, if I get into uni and battling with all my bosses at jeans west about hours and trying to get money.

I feel that, with all the stuff God has spoken into my life in the last month, that going back to Australia is actually what I’m meant to do. He told me that next yr will indeed be tough, but that I just need to seek him and seek him and seek him and trust him in everything. I felt as though he was referring to my basic survival emotionally, educationally and also financially (if I get into uni) So I wish this hindering desire to stay here would just leave me. But imagine if I didn’t get into uni? Wot would I do? Would I book the next flight back to China? To be honest, I think that I would. I feel like I’m running though, but running from what? I just don’t get it. That suck’s, I don’t even understand my own feelings and desires. How can I trust myself, when I don’t even understand myself!!!! Gggrrrrr!!!!!!!!!!

I give up. I guess I just need to take it all as it comes. I haven’t told any of my family how I feel though. I don’t want for them to get their hopes up for nothing.

Off for now…
carrie

a place of perfection

i was walking down the street tonight, to the shops to grab some onions and tomotos for dinner and i just felt so, at peace and happy with where i was. everything is so accessable. in australia u cant just walk dow the street to grab what you need at the last min while cooking dinner at 7-8 at night. the shops here r open til like 9-10 everynight locally. everyone around seemed so content with life. there was the hair dressers eating their dinner (with no clients in site as usual!) the kids playing on the path, the toshiba workers playing haki-sak. i cant explain it, i just felt happy. but sad, that i will have to leave this place. altho china is a place of many foes and worries and discouragements there are elements here that i wish i didnt have to leave behind. i will find it so hard to leave, i will cry for sure. and australia just wont feel the same as it used to. at least not to start with. i will miss china. but eventually no doubt ill slip into my selfish existance and forget the way things were here. maybe for my own good? maybe not? i dont know.
walking back home from the shops i wished that i cud have everything here that i loved from australia. my awesome friends, great job, maybe even 'the dean' lol. then i would have a perfect existance. but i mean really nothing is perfect is it? at least not for more than a week. then u realise uve been blinded and the real truth hits u like a tonne of bricks. and then ur back to searching for perfection again and again and again.

mid autumn festival

well its holiday time here in china. they r celebrating 'harvest time', its known as 'mid autumn festival'. they go crazy over the moon and eat moon cakes and have lots of fire works and crackers and other noisy things. they all have a gay old time! to us, it means nothing. accept time off! or more realistically, no money for 2 weeks!!! but it is a real big deal over here.

yest went bowling with jon and shani and the whites. was fun. but now my right arm has no working muscles, i think i pulled them all as all those balls were so rediculously heavy! even one of my finger muscles feel sore! is that even physically possible?!!hmmm, well aparently it is.

the other day i went into my mum's work to see how things operate as i will be doing some relief work for her for two days. she is going to beijing and wont be back quite in time for when school starts back. it sure is a nice school. its for korean children only and theres not a huge ammount of students there. everything is run with excellency there. real good to see. some of the chinese schools r a little grose and the children are so over worked. but there is such an amazing atmosphere in there. i am really looking fwd to relieving there. to be honest, i want a job there. i was sposed to have one but not enuff students enrolled for the new school near-shame.

on the way home we walked past a middle school that was having an athletics carnival. it was nothing like wot we have in australia. it wasnt just a carnival, it was an event!! everyone was so pumped and the competitive atmosphere was very clear. they had a band in one of the corners of the field, consisting mostly of drums, but also some loud symbols. they played and clashed as ppl were running. as the races drew to an end they got louder and louder and louder! it really added to the atmosphere! it was so exciting! we were watching a relay. it was a real long one, seemed to go on forever. i was going for blue and they won! with all the drums and cymbols i got so excited that i wanted to jump up on the fence and start screaming GO GO GO GO GO GO!! haaha. it made me think about how beijing is hosting the olympics in 2008. from seeing wot i did at the field i just know that the 2008 olympics is going to be totally awesome. the chinese are such performers. they r also a very proud nation and i know that they will want the whole world to be in awe of the amazingness of the games. i wud love to go to the opening ceremony. it be amazing!

hhmm
anyway, til next time..