First Post

Hi everyone and welcome to my blog.

I'd like to begin by talking a bit about what is on my profile, because that's what I've been doing for the past hour... I suppose I would talk about my interests in this space but I don't think there's any need to regurgitate them. Instead I'll talk a bit about the people who created some of the works I listed.

One of my favourite filmmakers is definitely Ingmar Bergman. I especially like the way he works with Liv Ullman but his work with all of his actors is definitely brilliant. He was one of the filmmakers who convinced me that film can be both personal and an art form. I wanted to be just like him at a point... until I realized that he's been married many, many times and fathered a couple dozen children. It's difficult balancing what I want to do as a career versus the type of personal life I want.

Right now I'm reading "Steppenwolf" by Hermann Hesse, which I am quite enjoying; I have a certain fondness for tortured artists out of place in their societies. I'm fascinated as well by Buddhism and what Hesse calls "the bliss of meditation." I find that when I do it it's the most beautiful and astonishing experience I have ever known, and yet I have no way of explaining it. I try to explain it as "finding God" but that sounds so cliche. Other writers and filmmakers like Alan Ball and Alan Hollinghurst refer to "beauty" as an indication of the things commonly referred to as God, but I find that term to be quite limiting. It's like suddenly being blasted with the awareness that every religion the world has ever known is the exact same, that true oneness really does exist.

I have lots of time to think about things like this lately, given that I have been living with my parents for the past few months while I try to find a placement teaching English in China. I'm hoping to go to Beijing or Shanghai, and I'm starting to want to go SOON. It shouldn't take too much longer I don't think, and it better not. My therapist told me that the less time I spend here, the better. I first left home seven years ago when I was fifteen to go on exchange to Australia, and I haven't really moved in full-time since. After I got back I realized that I preferred living away so I went to boarding school, then university on the other side of the country, then travelling in Europe last fall... I function better this way.

In Paris