Saturday, May 22, 2010

If-again

I never tire of this, it remains as true today as it ever was-
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings—nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And—which is more—you'll be a Man my son!
—Rudyard Kipling

Monday, May 17, 2010

jet lag

Jet lag-
I never really understood the full effects of jet-lag until yesterday. I arrived back in Hong Kong at 6.30am from Tuscon, Arizona via Los Angeles and Vancouver. I did some boring shit in the morning, and then lay down on my bed at around 11.30am.At 11.45 i was in the middle of a dream that involved me waiting in line at security at a nameless airport, and then i was awoken by my phone. It took me a good 2 minutes to clear my head and get to grips that i was no longer travelling and realise where i was. I had a great afternoon at the beach with friends, but I did feel a little tired. Most of my mates passed through and then went into the town, and I promised that i would follow them later. Mid evening I walked into town by myself to catch up with everyone and made a fatal mistake and sat on a bench at the harbour, to have a smoke and enjoy the view. Here's where the jet-lag really kicked in! I came to, and panicked and thought, fuck what time is it? Have i missed that flight? Where am i? Where's my bag? Not being able to answer any of these questions I did what I always do in such situations and 'took a moment' during my moment I thought Where am I going? Where have I been? My bag is probably with someone! It was then that I heard a lot of Cantonese voices to the left of me, and my first thought was-i must be waiting for a flight back to Hong Kong. I honestly at this point had no idea where i was, or what i was doing. A minute went by , I was quite happy knowing that i must be waiting for the same flight as the Chinese people next to me. Then it occurred to me that i could only hear Cantonese voices .At every point in this story , my eyes had been open, i was sat on a bench with the South China Sea less than 5 metres away with all the noise that entails. At the exact moment that i realised it was really strange to only hear Chinese people in an airport, the curtains opened before my eyes , and my brain accepted the reality of what my eyes had been seeing for the last 5 minutes. I had had moments of hallucination during extreme times of tiredness recently, but for my brain to completely disregard what my eyes were seeing is another matter entirely! That is jet-lag.

Thursday, May 13, 2010