saw the final lord of the rings on friday. i couldn't really speak about it afterwards; one of those experiences where words felt too harsh and, oh, i dunno, somehow perpendicular to the truth. might sound like i'm a tolkein nerd, but not true. its just i was raised on those books, i think some of my earliest memories are my dad reading lord of the rings to me. i can remember intensely visualizing sam and frodo trudging towards mount doom. i read them by myself as soon as i could - i think i was eight - and they meant a lot to me. god, tolkein was a genius. he singlehandedly created the modern fantasy genre, codifying and institutionalising the races found in fantasy novels ever since. no-one has really dared to step up to his precedent in terms of formality of writing, depth of history and language, scope... i'm sincerely glad peter jackson and all involved recognised the importance of what they were doing and created something true to the epic.

anyway, enough enthusing. i feel a bit awkward writing like this. the problem is the whole writing for self versus writing for an audience. a journal (undertone: private) available on the net (undertone: access for all). but in truth, i suppose it's what i want. when i kept a journal as a teenager (i like that, that you 'keep' a journal, as you would a pet), and filled it with angst-wank misery and joy, i secretly hoped that people would read it. well, not really, but half-hoped. because what is misery or struggle if there's no-one there to see it? what is life unobserved? nothing at all.

important things which have happened to me:
- my brother died of cancer, two and a half years ago. he was 18. our family slowly heals, pieces itself together around the gap.
- we moved from perth, western australia to melbourne when i was young (6?7?). 4000 k, from the west coast to the east, away from family and friends. tough for us. tough on me; i transformed from a reasonably happy kid to an overly sensitive introvert. i only really shucked myself from that way of being when i was 16; prior to that, i read a lot of fantasy, saved the world a lot via computer games, and had only a few close friends.
- now i'm a bit of a mix, intro/extrovert. personality characterized by good nature tempered by jealousy (jealous of talents i feel i lack as a result of secluding myself from the world for ten years). good listener, slight tendency towards hedonism, haywire brain.
- glad to finish high school, had no idea what came next. fell into arts/science at melbourne university. started writing for Farrago (www.union.unimelb.edu.au/farrago), the student paper on campus. Loved it, formulated a dream of one day being the editor. Changed course to Arts (media + communications). Edited Farrago this year.
- used to spend summers down by the yarra river, taking turns to swing out on a firehose rope.

that's bout it for now. 22 years on this earth. a crisis every birthday since my 18th (haven't done enough with my time here)

personal meaning of life: life is all about people.