Resolutions

This year sees a change in many things for me. I'm in my final year of high school. This is a dreaded year for all senior students. It's the one year we get to prove to the world that we are smart enough to do the course we desire, it's the one year that our thirteen years of schooling count, it's the one year that can rip apart our lives and glue them back together the wrong way. To say I'm not worried about this year is a lie. Although I had a taste of what life would be like once the term starts, last year, I feel burnt out. School is no longer my priority. It's on the back burner, something that I have to do, but not something I want to do. I've worked hard at my studies ever since I was young, aspiring to be the smartest in my year level, like my mother, and aspiring not to drop out, like my father. However, I have new interests in my life that seem, and I know, are far more important than my education.




I have a boy in my life, who I love with all of my heart. He is starting university this year. He will have more free time, more of a life now that he has finished school and will be discovering new things and making new friends. I feel somewhat left behind at the fact that I'm still restricted by little rules and regulations and a strict routine I know like a blueprint on the back of my hand. I want to spend more time doing the things I want, rather than the things that I see as pointless in my life. I want to learn how to cook better, learn how to read more and learn how to live in the moment instead of striving for the future, every second of my life. I want days to go slow so I can appreciate them and live in them instead of rushing about, my thoughts going at a million miles an hour.

I have a burning passion inside of me that needs to leap and bound out into the ocean. I want to be a photographer. My family doesn't like it. They're conservative in their views, thinking that photography isn't a real job, being an artist isn't a real job. "What are you going to do for money?" they ask me constantly, even though I've been earning more money through my photography work than through my actual part time job for months now. Although I never realised it, I've been photographing from such a young age, but never though of it as anything more than documenting the beauty I feel and see around me each day. Back when I was fourteen, however, at the beginning of this blogging adventure, I took photos to please others. Now, I take photos to remember events, for myself, something for me to look at and be proud of. Too many times in my life have I done something and never truly believed I was great at it. Too many. I want to dedicate my whole self to my dream. My whole being. I want to be lifted up, high above the clouds when I dream and never fall back down. I'm motivated, passionate and ready to go, I just need the opportunity to dream, the opportunity to prove myself, the opportunity in general.

I don't understand the education system in Australia. Why they continue to educate us about how to pass exams rather than teach us anything of value, anything we can bring into the outside world when we leave. I want to be like Stephen Fry, able to drop interesting quotes and pieces of information at the drop of a hat, rather than reciting the structure of how to write an english analysis. I don't want to study, I want to learn. I want to learn everything there is to know. I want to learn about archaeology, about ancient civilisations, I want to learn sociology and psychology, I want to learn about latin and ancient greek, languages, books, culture. I don't want to learn about what to expect on a three hour exam at the end of the year. How is that learning? I want to learn life skills, how to garden, how to cook healthy meals, how to, shamefully, work a washing machine. I know nothing and it hurts me to say it. I want a real education, a life education.

I feel like starting it all over again, my life. I want to live it from the beginning with the knowledge I have now, the knowledge that will allow me to make my own decision and live the life I want to rather than feeling trapped in this whirlpool of lies, while life teases me with my passion and love.