P r o j a k : T h e P i l o t I s s u e

What I have done

What I will do

1 1km swimming: 100m freestyle, 900m breastroke. 2 Finished Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of Patriots. 3 Got an ultrasound pelvic examination. That sucked. 4 Joined Twitter. 5 Bought swimwear from an online store for the first time. 6 Am reading The Picture of Dorian Gray. 7 Received a Reward and Recognition Award along with a Myer gift card.

1 1.5km swimming. More freestyle, less breastroke. 2 Borrow some other games. 3 See results and see GP. 4 Spam like no tomorrow on Twitter. 5 Look for the bottom half of that swimwear. 6 Finish The Picture of Dorian Gray. 7 Spend the Myer gift card and thennnnn look for another job.

Level one is like

tofu where the male organ is large but not hard, level two is similar to a peeled banana where it’s

not hard enough for penetration, level three is like an unpeeled banana where it’s hard enough for

penetration but not completely, and level four is similar to a cucumber where it’s completely

hard and fully rigid.

And get this, there is an Erection Hardness Score (EHS) developed by the European Association of Urology.

I will be the first to admit that I do not lead what is conventionally called an interesting life. Albeit I do live in a ‘foreign’ country. I teach English, which, as a profession is not entirely without its rewards, but on the whole must be regarded as a dead end job. I have no proof to back this up, but the fact that my English appears to be getting worse the more I teach clearly indicates that something is awry.

I did not intend, however, to write about that which occupies the professional side of my life, if it can be called that. I did, in point of fact, have no intention whatsoever.

I thought first about writing about some of the fleeting moments that make life more pleasant. The fact that the cold hands of winter have finally relinquished their grasp over Shanxi. That when I walk through the university to my classes, I pass three or four song-birds, set out in their cages either singing for joy, or plaintively crying for freedom. Whether

it be anguish or joy which warbles out of their beaks makes little difference to my sense of pleasure at beholding it.

I thought about the many humourous moments which I have had over these several years. The misunderstandings which have, to my mind at least, been hysterical. I thought of my bicycle, the Flying Pigeon, itself a legacy of China’s recent past. I thought of the problems which, we are told, are more pressing, more dire, more threatening, than at any point in history. I thought about the things we take for granted, the life of abundance which I lead. I thought about the four or five

beggars, with blinded eyes curled upwards, scratching out tunes on their Erhus for small change. I thought about my future, my past. I thought about my plans and my goals.

Then I thought about the newspaper article I read the day before. The picture was one of grief and utter anguish. I worked my way with little difficulty through most of what was written. A ten year old school girl. Her mangled bicycle. A car, driven by a parent perhaps also of a ten year old school girl. I flipped through the pages of my well worn dictionary,searching for the two characters which I did not know, but which I knew would soon decide this girl’s fate. My eyes fell down the page, drawing nearer with a crushing certainty. I locked eyes with the unknown word. 1) to wither, fall, and scatter about2) decline, be on the wane 3) die, pass away.So simple. So brief. Two characters to describe a moment of infinite sadness for this

little girl’s parents, and infinite moments of sadness to come. I did not intend to shock and to sadden, or to impress with my empathy. I did not intend anything at all. For it is, in purely descriptive terms, simply another spring day. Yet I cannot help thinking of that look of incomprehension on her mother’s eyes. The sheet pulled over the body in the picture, the small legs sticking out. Small legs which once peddled small wheels on a small bicylce, the likes of which I have probably passed a thousand times on the street. Or pass a thousand more times. As, perhaps, thought the little girl, until she withered, fell, was scattered, declined.

And then died.

I lead a boring life.and I need a job.

Picture taken from the 2009 University of Melbourne International Student Perspectus.

The clock is ticking and I know it.

It is now end of March. Time is running out for me to find a job, start making a change in my life and write something that I don’t even know who is going to read.

I knew it was end of March when the bottle of mandarin orchid shower gel was finished. It was supposed to last until the end of my contract here in Lisbon. I had done the laundry 5 times. Recycled the garbage twice. Made sushi once. Had 6 pasteis de nata. Finished 9 bottles of 4L water.

When do you start making a place home? When you are comfortable enough to have a mud mask facial while watching TV? When you start cooking bakuteh that you don´t even miss that much?

Definitely not when you countdown the days with the number of bottled water you consumed.

It is not necessarily good if you cope too well. You assimilate and blend in. Then you settle. Then it becomes too precious and difficult to give up. This fear of abandoning the established has halted too much exciting “unexpectedness”. Chances are you are waiting to rot under the floorboards.

Maybe at the end, home is the only place you will feel gratified in. The home that is irreplaceable. Even though the weather is piping hot, the politicians moth-eaten, the career outlook bounded, it is the place I call home. I want to mean every word of it when I say “I am going home”. If only my bottles-of-water scale could calibrate what it means to uproot and return.

SC

AL

E

Num

ber

of T

Bs*

Chance of survival.

POKE

* TBs are those that arenʼt old enough to drink or act like they arenʼt. They are generally social retards. Symptoms may include tagging people in Pokemon images, doing quizzes to find their real age, blue streaks in their hair, V poses in photos and idolisng gender confused Asians.

If you develop any of these symptoms, stay away from social media. Youʼre killing the twitterbird.

To kill a twitterbird.

social activities (online) - New MSN version, new Facebook layout. What’s with the

complaints about the new Facebook layout anyway.

social activities (offline) - Dinner outs, movies. Watchmen was good, knew I

shouldn’t be listening to those ‘it’s soooo bad’, or ‘some people left the cinema halfway’

comments. It’s amazing how people are trained to accept only what they are trained to

accept. Redcliff part 2 is a great sequel for the 2 parts comedy saga.

working - Working.

travelling (to work) - The reason I separate this part out from ‘working’ should be

pretty obvious. Though sadly nothing much other than looking at all the emotionless

faces (when there are no hot girls to look at) on trains and buses, and the realisation of

the close-down of the ‘closing down for the past six year’s $2 shop’ on George Street.

I was actually quite depressed because of that. the $2 shop i mean.

depression - Yes. Slight increase in self-demotivation. Partially caused by the closing

down of the $2 shop.

Now, it wasn’t too bad, was it?

Struggling to not struggle in search for the highlight of my past week, or past month, I found myself stuck. Perhaps I can start by listing out all the (major) activities of my past week, let’s see.

A SUMMARY

The sunshine in California doesn’tquite nurture talent: Silicon Valley in particular, most people you can meet are geeky Asian engineers. Social life becomes a disaster here, as everyone spends long hours at work; they do not have any other personal hobby other than their job; they become a slave of house and education mortgage once married and have kids. Dating is even worse. Everybody thinks highly of themselves, looking for the other half. They usually have a checklist to go down regarding green card status, salary and education. It is sad that there is a large pool of single people who do not focus on personality or value system while looking for their lifetime companions. Everyone keeps looking and keeps getting disappointed. They end up marrying someone they do not

love, simply because of the age issue, and then start to complain about marriage life. Actually, it is not that bad. Many great companies were started in their area. People here has a passion of sharing ideas with one another and build ventures together. The real estate market is definitely one of the motivations for doing start-ups to cash out on stocks.

I guess you have to worry about things to keep your life busy everynow and then. When you are in school, you’re worried about your grades and about how to land a good job. When you start working, you’re worried about your performance and financial return. When you’re single, you’re worried about how to someone you love. When you’re married, you are worried about how to expand

your social cycle before you have kids. When you have kids, you’re worried about how to send him/her to a good school...It can keep going on and on.

Over the years, I’ve learned not to forward-think too much. As long as I’m healthy and happy, life is good enough. I do hope that I can have a diversified crowd to hang out with, though. Maybe a few good friends is already a luxury.

“In most cases, it will not be at good as you thought, yet it will not be as bad as you expected...regress to the mean.” -- Anonymous

PROJAK Contributors Design/Layout

Gina Sydney

JeannieKuala Lumpur

ParkyTai Yuan, China

SamanthaMelbourne

ChristinaLisbon

AllenMelbourne

StephenMelbourne

ShirleyCalifornia

Leng HongSydney

HarvardMelbourne

Harvard

(Except To Kill A Twitter Bird. That was Steve.)

I’d like to thank all the contributors not only for providing the copy, but also for coping with the ambiguity of this project.

The starting point for PROJAK was really to host a potluck of experience/ opinions within my scattered and diversified friends. Not to mention also the selfish reason for me to engaged in some design/ layout exercise.

It also turned out to be an interesting social experiment, as when given a blank brief to write, most of us tend to reflect on our own lives.

I hope you enjoyed the feast. Any feedback please: projectrojak@gmail.com