The Orient

I have just come home from working in China for a few weeks, and remarked on a number of things. Forgive the rambling; I have been awake for 40 hours travelling.

Shenzhen
Shenzhen is a quickly built city that exists in the seesaw middle-ground between post apocalyptic mayhem and utopia. There may be a five star hotel here, a run down block of apartments there; a gleaming shopping centre on one side of the road, a field full of rubbish on the other; spanish villas, shanty towns. It has sprinklings of each side, but never full fruition of either.

As a general rule of thumb, even if things look alright, they're always a bit shit.

'Ol Factory Output
To be back in the clear air of Dublin is wonderful. In China, when you wake up the air is heavy in your hotel room. When you go to work, the air around the traffic is heavy. When you are at work, the air is heavy.

With the pollution from the cars and factories, the dust from the construction sites, and the heat of the day, the air feels like it weighs more in your lungs. Buildings a few hundred metres away look greyed out by the smog. All colours are faded. All smells are faded. The world is a brown-grey haze.

Walking back up Grafton Street was like turning a screen from black and white to colour. The air, so thin and clean, and a myriad of smells floating past; a bakery, a woman's perfume, cigarette smoke, a shop selling soaps, a coffee shop with it's doors open, a rainbow of smells.

And the sky! Rather than a homogenous grey haze, the sky is blue. There are even well defined clouds with white centres and golden outlines! Buildings that are hundreds of metres away appear in crisp Technicolor HD images. It's like what being on drugs is meant to be like, but undoubtedly better because it comes with the clarity of mind that only 20 hours of long haul flights seem to give.

Katy Perry
Back home, I'm just out of the shower. I had the strangest experience as I was getting in. My body seemed to develop a light, sharp ache all over the surface of my skin. It came on a little at first, but within a minute I was shaking with it, and a blue flame of familiarity lit in my head; I had rediscovered "cold".

It comes as quite a surprise to have "coldness" thrown on you when you haven't experienced it for a few weeks, and it reminded me of my feelings when I came back from Australia. I kept them in a little notebook so here they are, for your pleasure. They seem obvious and trivial to read, but they were so far from the norm that they made an impression on me.

1. Tap water is cold.
2. The ground outside stings your feet.
3. The fridge has so much stuff in it.
4. Clothes are really heavy.
5. People are pale and blotchy.
6. There's stuff to think about everywhere.
7. Metal hurts to touch (cold).

Stop Being Fat

What was the name of that fat disney princess?

Oh yeah, there was none. Put down the cupcake.

A Few of My Favourite Things

Winter mornings, a busy city, and saying silly things.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwDLpFqyxz8

Clap Twice To Turn the Lights On

This blog had gone dark for a while, as I had intended on transforming some of the content into a more coherent narrative. Time and inclination have worked against that past intention.

I take up where I left off with after a lot of happenings, but surprisingly little change.

Time will tell, but now, it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

A Life in the Day

Every morning my alarm rings too loud and I wake up like a drowning man breaking the surface of the water, heart racing and gasping for air. I slam my head back into the pillow and stare at the ceiling for a moment.

I get up, shower and dress. Suit trousers, a shirt, black shoes. Probably a jumper since I've inherited or been given a number of extremely similar looking Abercrombie pullovers. They're all beige. They all have impractically long sleeves.

In the kitchen I marvel at the amount of food in the fridge before making myself a two course breakfast while cooking a packed lunch. Being a coeliac means my food combinations are not always normal, but I've stopped having things like chicken korma for breakfast because it weirds out the family.

Breakfast is usually pancakes with nutella and a bowl of fruit. I drink a berocca and a cup of mocca-made coffee with it. Lunch is usually pasta with tuna; a throwback to my travelling days. I play with the dog before I go.

I cycle to work on my dad's bicycle. It's a European style bike with three gears, and it applies the back break if you pedal backward. I'm convinced it's going to kill me. It has giant panniers on the back and there's no way I would have cycled it when I was 17. I go over a hill on the way that lets me see Dublin bay. I dream of sailing.

At work my room is quiet. We never turn the lights on, even in when it's cloudy, so the room has constantly a faint blueish true-light haze. I program extensions for Excel all day while listening to classical music on my reassuringly expensive Bose headphones. Usually it's Tchaikovski, but sometimes I play Bach or Vivaldi for some variety, even though I'd rather be listening to Tchaikovski. I say I can program but really I just copy code from the internet. It amounts to the same thing.

I work for a sleep monitoring company who developed a product that can tell what state of sleep you're in without touching you. We have Japanese customers who are very precise and our manufacturing is all in China. It sounds professional and exotic but people still argue about soccer results and delete files by mistake.

Sometimes part of my work is lying on the floor and breathing. I lie there and someone tells me to roll over every few minutes. I drift off a bit, but it's like trying to sleep in an airport while paying attention to the announcements.

I take lunch at my desk because it makes the day feel shorter. Usually only a few minutes. I spend the rest programming because I enjoy creating things people find useful.

After work when I go outside I remark on how cold it is. Every day. Still. With the sun on my face I take a long pull on the air and blow it out slowly through pursed lips, as though I were smoking it. I cycle back up over the hill. It's steeper on the way back.

In the evenings I read, jog, or meet with friends. I try to get to bed early on weeknights because I dont function well when I'm tired. I don't drink any more. The hangovers are hell and being drunk is overrated.

The novelty of having my own bed still hasn't worn off. The sheets and duvet are a far better quality than I'm used to.

When I get into bed I flick through a few social media on my phone. I look at a few news sites to feel clever but don't retain any of what I read. Before I go to sleep I turn my phone on airplane mode so no one will wake me. I check my alarms and fall asleep quickly. I always forget to turn the volume down.


Victor's trip to Europe from The Rules of Attraction.

Home

I've touched down in Ireland and begun the reintegration, which considering nothing has changed has been pretty easy.

I'm drafting a list of things that are strange to me here. Expect it.

The Beginning of the End

The flights are booked, the plan is finally made. Eight days of road tripping from Sydney to Melbourne, and then a long journey home.

It's a strange feeling to start something, and know it's the end.