The Seagull

I have decided to read Anton Chekhov’s play The Seagull. Only because I managed to find a book of his four ‘great plays’ for $4 at secondhand bookstore. That’s $1 per literary masterpiece! Of course, one requires a bit of imagination as to the tone, blocking, set and so on and so forth to fully realise the potential power of any play.

I think that’s why I really enjoy reading scripts for plays. Instructions for sets, movements and descriptions of characters should be minimal. The dialogue informs what characters will look or speak like. The difference between a tall character, or a character dressed in red as opposed to white. It may tell us where they are standing, what way they are moving or what chair they are sitting in, if they are sitting. A written novel sets itself to attempt to inform the backdrop we are immersing ourselves in. The mis en scene is described only with brief descriptions and subtle dialogue and directions. It is this evocative for a reason (every production, quality and meanings evoked are different for the same written words) and I love the artistic license bequeathed to the reader, or the director or whoever. It is, on the playwright’s part, a generous, if not reluctant, gift.

Tags: Literature

Vocation

Today, I met a family friend who I haven’t seen in ages. This was early in the morning whilst I was brushing my teeth in my pyjamas*. He has been studying for the past two years to become a Capuchin friar, and was wearing the brown tunic and beads and everything. We had a good chat, asking him the usual fare of questions of a curious, ignorant bystander; “What’s it like in the friary? Is it really boring? How often do you have to pray? Who came first: the Capuchin order or the monkey?”

I am glad he is still very down-to-earth and has a sense of humour. His time was precious because he only gets to spend one week a year off to visit his family and friends. I was quite surprised (and a bit envious) of the opportunities he has had to travel (Rome, Pittsburgh, Asia), meet new people and explore the world – being in a friary is definitely not as cloistered as it sounds (as opposed to a monastery, he explains). But still a lot of order and protocol. He has had so many experiences and things to talk about, and I so little in comparison! Granted though, he is eight years older than I am.

After he left, my mother made jokes about me joining an order. It is a common joke because she is a devout Catholic, and I am not (a point of friction sometimes) and, in her ideal scenario, her son is a doctor and a priest. Of course, she knows I like being secular and I’ve told her medicine is definitely my vocation. But I think – how do you know what your vocation is? I have been asked many times why I chose medicine. At the start of university, I was able to articulate it beautifully. Beautifully enough for the interviewers.

But know, when you are actually living and breathing it, it becomes more difficult explain because of the complexity of experience, emotion and fulfilment that comes from perspective. I also asked my friend why he chose the priesthood – and he really couldn’t give any sort of profound rhetoric as well. Why I want to do medicine for the rest of my life? These days, I find the word ‘potential’ to really summarise my feelings about my career, about other people, about tragedy, and about living.

I love walking down the street and passing by strangers asking myself, “What motivates these people to get up in the morning?” And then, what about the people who can’t?

Then, you make up a crazy story about them based on superficial things like their gait, clothes, facial expression etc. It’s a game I love to play with friends.

*Our family has a bad habit of brushing our teeth in the living room (to watch the TV, listen to the radio, to chat) and then rushing back to spit in the bathroom, because spitting in the kitchen sink is poor form.

Idiot gets chilli on face; world laughs

Today I decided to do some cooking. Now, I have a copy of the Silver Spoon that I absolutely love and decided to prepare some garlic and chilli pasta. Because it’s easy and has a minimum of ingredients. You see, my parents always seem to keep the most useless of ingredients that I can’t ever seem to find a use for; powdered mash potato, canned kidney beans, dried prunes etc. But they do have garlic, chilli and spaghetti (no parsley though).

What I have learned today? Wash you hands carefully after preparing chilli – water is not enough! Well, you can imagine the relentless burning around my face and eyes. Capsaicin be damned! Stop binding onto my vanilloid receptors, I don’t like it. Nobody wants a urinary tract infection on their face. Also, you cannot treat a urinary tract infection with olive oil, lemon juice, soap and water … only dulled the pain with some sorbolene mixed with bicarb soda, and only then did the burning sensation go away eventually with time. Fanning it helps, as does rubbing it (don’t know about UTIs), but I still do not have the perfect remedy for chilli burns.

On the plus side, my skin is exfoliated and smooth now. And the pasta was very tasty. Chilli goes in your mouth, not on your face.

Jumping Castle Cell

I love art. And I love jumping castles. So who can resist art that is also a jumping castle?

The Cell is an installation by the artist Brook Andrew, and is currently showing at the Sherman Galleries in Paddington. It is an enclosed jumping castle, covered in geometric patterns of the Wiradjuri tribe (Andrew’s heritage). Today, I donned the full body jump suit (shoes off here too) and crawled through a tunnel to one of the most amazing rooms ever. Cue optical disorientation and motion sickness.

For the first five minutes it is liberating – one throws, flips, rolls and attempts to defy gravity. Shielded from the outside by vinyl, one becomes a kid again. Jumping is simply demanded! I encountered a family who dropped in out of curiosity after a bit of shopping. The young children were gushing with praise. But who enjoyed it the most? Mum, of course! I suppose she could have chucked her toddler into the wall and gotten away with it. Who is there to judge?

Then you get tired. Your stamina leaves you and you slump onto the soft, pillowy floor. You could fall asleep, but you become more acutely aware of how hot it is. The room adopts a red tinge from the colouring of the exterior. The thought occurs that there’s nothing else you can do (although racing and wrestling with friends is acceptable, but I think I pulled my back). I become ever thankful for the tunnel to my freedom. The air is definitely fresher outside. My friends, slightly out of breath, read the artist statement with a collective ‘ooh’ and ‘ah’.

I can understand the ‘conundrum’ of freedom and confinement. The shiny novelty of doing whatever the hell you want wears off to some sort of mixed ambivalence. You enjoy for as long as you can physically and mentally persist. Is that some abstruse allusion to the human condition?

I don’t like it when people freeze mince without dividing it into smaller proportions. My mum solves the problems by dropping all her frozen meats on the floor. That’s wisdom of one thousand years in one second.

First post

Welcome to my blog thought collection. I shall be introducing myself later on, but right now I have to get this blog pretty and presentable for visitors. But let’s ask a few questions.

This is the first time I have blogged. I have never done anything like this before. Will I have anything to write about? We shall see in the future, but I do like to write about even the most irrelevant of issues and observations. And I like to think I have a gift for writing (or being ‘loquacious of the hands’ … whatever the term for that is). If I don’t have a gift, then I’m practicing.

What is the point of this blog? I have said to myself to start a blog, not to show off my wit or observation. Instead, I’ll be using this to keep track of things I might not otherwise be able to. I am actually a medical student, but I have a lot of other interests and passions I don’t want to lose. There is a fear of being disconnected and isolated into a world of medical studies. I don’t want that. So I’ll be using this as a repository of information for future reference, some of it medical, some of it not medical.

It gets me thinking again. Well, that’s the plan anyway. We shall see.