...And today's post is fuelled directly by something odd that happened in Psychology this morning. My Psychology teacher is, well, a little insane...but this morning I noticed that he was watching me work. There was nothing interesting about the way I was working, but he was watching me nonetheless. It creeped me out a little, but then I forgot about it when we all found out he'd stolen Hannah's (well, I think she's called Hannah, it's bad that I don't know that...) shoe and hidden it (as you do).
Then, I found myself watching my friend Eleanor as she arranged her college bag at lunchtime. Not exactly breaking news, but it got me wondering what's so fascinating about the simple things that we do?
Because it is fascinating really, isn't it? We watch soaps because there's something very basically realistic about them and what the people in them do. My grandma always sits on a bench in town while my mum runs errands and she always watches people. She says she likes to imagine what their lives are like and where they're headed next. I think I've inherited that from her.
I think there's something intriguing in strangers - the fact that they're right there in front of you but you know nothing about them. Note: I'm aware that this is similar to my post about talking to a German guy in Croatia. But then sometimes, there are strangers who you know everything about. For instance, 17 year old Ben Manning went missing in my hometown on the 22nd. Today, his friend had posters put up all around college and one of the personal tutors forwarded an email from her. Local and national news are barely covering the case.
I was reading the Facebook page set up by his family/friends and something struck me as important - the people arranging to pick up tons of posters and distribute them...they're all strangers. It's heartening to read comments left such as those on the page and realise that even in the face of something as horrible as that, there are complete strangers offering their time to help fix things.
In slightly cheerier news, I think I've found the Norwegian Josh Groban (who also likes wearing yellow skinny jeans...) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezz4Rcq2QLE
Besos ♥
Rachel
"And in the spring, the bluebells sing, and love and life are dancing." - Didrik Solli-Tangen, Next To You
Monday 31 January 2011
Friday 21 January 2011
Captured
For me, life is very much about capturing all the little details (usually in photographs) to remember them forever. I've just been looking through my 866 (including about 300 pics taken by others in the group) Croatia pictures. What I realised is that even though I so vividly remember eagerly taking a picture of a target on a rock because I knew I'd want to remember it, I now look back on my pictures and still wish I'd taken even more.
Because, I mean, how can I ever make someone else understand how much the moment I shared with a German student (I believe he was German or Austrian, leaning towards German) when waiting for most of the group to return from a cave trip. I didn't go because I wasn't the best at walking up hills...and it was a steep climb. Myself, Shannon, Natalie and "Parko" stayed in a shady area. We had about two hours just sitting and contemplating, and sleeping in Parko's case... He was coming back down the previously mentioned hill, and stopped next to where we had based ourselves (and most of the group's luggage while they went cave-seeing). For some reason, I'd shifted places for a while...I was perhaps a little cold and went to sit in the sun next to Natalie for a while. He asked where we were from and why we were on the mountain. I explained that we were in a group and from the UK. We established that we were staying at the same place (camp site in Starigrad). When he saw his group approaching, he told us all to enjoy our trip and said he hoped he'd see us all at the camp site. Whether he did, we'll never know.
And how can I accurately explain how it felt to step off the plane, having only just flown over Italy as it seemed to us all, and it feeling like a different universe. The airport was scary, the signs were in Croatia (obviously) and the security guards looked like army officials. I remember being in the female toilets with Jemma, Catherine and a few others when Catherine realised she'd left her passport on the plane. I'm not saying I think I should have taken a picture of the toilets, but maybe the airport arrivals scene that greeted us... And then the area we took over in the lobby while waiting to find out where the heck Louis' bag had gone and why me and Natalie were missing our camping mats.
Plodine, Starigrad camp shops, Restoran Degenija, departures at Split Airport, the mountain shop and the mountain café, I could go on for hours. The point is that there are some things that you can't capture in pictures. It might be bad timing or something else, but sometimes it's just not possible. I realised this earlier this evening when I'd taken this picture...
I took it on my phone, so I knew the quality wouldn't do what I was seeing justice. This is the view I had all the way home on the college bus. There were at least ten, maybe even twenty, aeroplane 'lines'/'tracks' in the sky. They all stood out against the blue (yes, it was blue...told you the quality was bad). I wanted to take it because I felt inspired somehow by it. I later went past the same place this picture was taken again, and the sky had changed. It was close to the end of a sunset, and the sky was multicoloured. I'm not exaggerating when I say that there was pink near the trees, then a mix of oranges, yellows, greens, blues and purples right up to where the sky darkens in the picture, which is where the sky was a midnight blue. The aeroplane 'lines'/'tracks' were all a deep heather colour. I was so annoyed that I didn't even have my phone with me to take a picture of it, but at least I have this one.
There's always something nice about seeing aeroplane tracks (I'll go with that word shall I?) in the sky. I like pondering where the plane was headed, whether it was jetting off to foreign lands or whether it was homebound. I like to wonder about the adventures the passengers had ahead of them. Very much like my German friend from the mountain, I'll never know, and I'm not sure I'll ever want to.
Besos ♥
Rachel
PS: Sorry for the long absence! I've had severe writers' block :(
Because, I mean, how can I ever make someone else understand how much the moment I shared with a German student (I believe he was German or Austrian, leaning towards German) when waiting for most of the group to return from a cave trip. I didn't go because I wasn't the best at walking up hills...and it was a steep climb. Myself, Shannon, Natalie and "Parko" stayed in a shady area. We had about two hours just sitting and contemplating, and sleeping in Parko's case... He was coming back down the previously mentioned hill, and stopped next to where we had based ourselves (and most of the group's luggage while they went cave-seeing). For some reason, I'd shifted places for a while...I was perhaps a little cold and went to sit in the sun next to Natalie for a while. He asked where we were from and why we were on the mountain. I explained that we were in a group and from the UK. We established that we were staying at the same place (camp site in Starigrad). When he saw his group approaching, he told us all to enjoy our trip and said he hoped he'd see us all at the camp site. Whether he did, we'll never know.
And how can I accurately explain how it felt to step off the plane, having only just flown over Italy as it seemed to us all, and it feeling like a different universe. The airport was scary, the signs were in Croatia (obviously) and the security guards looked like army officials. I remember being in the female toilets with Jemma, Catherine and a few others when Catherine realised she'd left her passport on the plane. I'm not saying I think I should have taken a picture of the toilets, but maybe the airport arrivals scene that greeted us... And then the area we took over in the lobby while waiting to find out where the heck Louis' bag had gone and why me and Natalie were missing our camping mats.
Plodine, Starigrad camp shops, Restoran Degenija, departures at Split Airport, the mountain shop and the mountain café, I could go on for hours. The point is that there are some things that you can't capture in pictures. It might be bad timing or something else, but sometimes it's just not possible. I realised this earlier this evening when I'd taken this picture...
I took it on my phone, so I knew the quality wouldn't do what I was seeing justice. This is the view I had all the way home on the college bus. There were at least ten, maybe even twenty, aeroplane 'lines'/'tracks' in the sky. They all stood out against the blue (yes, it was blue...told you the quality was bad). I wanted to take it because I felt inspired somehow by it. I later went past the same place this picture was taken again, and the sky had changed. It was close to the end of a sunset, and the sky was multicoloured. I'm not exaggerating when I say that there was pink near the trees, then a mix of oranges, yellows, greens, blues and purples right up to where the sky darkens in the picture, which is where the sky was a midnight blue. The aeroplane 'lines'/'tracks' were all a deep heather colour. I was so annoyed that I didn't even have my phone with me to take a picture of it, but at least I have this one.There's always something nice about seeing aeroplane tracks (I'll go with that word shall I?) in the sky. I like pondering where the plane was headed, whether it was jetting off to foreign lands or whether it was homebound. I like to wonder about the adventures the passengers had ahead of them. Very much like my German friend from the mountain, I'll never know, and I'm not sure I'll ever want to.
Besos ♥
Rachel
PS: Sorry for the long absence! I've had severe writers' block :(
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