Thoughts from the hippie...

Earlier at the start of the month I joined my first book club (yes, a little nerdy, I know!) and last night was the first 'meeting' about 'The Chemistry of Tears' by Peter Carey. Between the six of us it was unanimous... the book sucked. I highly recommend staying away from this book so you don't have to bore your life with it, there were unnecessary characters that for some reason had main parts (like the assistant, the fairytale collector, many others), the book was divided up by two characters, Henry and Catherine with the Henry sections being intensely boring, and the main part of the book that I had a problem with was that you knew pretty much nothing about Catherine and her affair with Matthew Tindall who dies at the beginning and one of the main themes in the book is about her grieving about him dying! It was a very annoying read, easy read at least, but annoying. I found it really interesting during the book club meeting hearing all of us get so worked up about a book we didn't like, and although we all agreed on why we didn't like the book, when it came down to the nitty-gritties of the book we all had different opinions about why these things made the book bad but we were still all agreeing with each other anyway, it was interesting to hear the different points of view of the same opinion. However, one thing about the book I will say is that there's this quote in it that I really really love:

"You are wholly unable to associate what you see with what your life has taught you."

I think there are plenty of people including myself who could really use this quote in everyday life. I love how it's saying you've been in this situation before why can't you see that, why aren't you using what you learnt that time around.



Right now I'm reading 'Papilon' by Henri Charriere, and WOW, it is amazing! I'm only 50 pages through but the writing is just incredible, I highly HIGHLY recommend anyone to start reading this book, it truly is mind-blowing!

Thoughts from the hippie...

Thoughts from the hippie...

This weekend was my first experience with volunteering. I won't mention the organisation I've started volunteering with, I'll just say that they do such amazing work with refugees. The topic of refugees is such a huge divisive topic here in Australia and also within my family; my parents and I have very different views on the topic.

Over the weekend, I visited a single mother and her 8 month old baby who are clients of the organisation that I've started volunteering with. The visit was very casual and went for about two hours; I just went to the woman's house, we hung out, chatted, played with her baby and practiced a little bit of English. From this visit it was so obvious just how grateful the woman was, just having a bit of time to relax from the baby, to study her English and simply to have someone to be with her for part of the day as this woman has had a falling out with her family who are also in Australia and does not know anyone in the area. It was an extremely rewarding feeling of helping someone out for just a couple of hours, I didn't have to stay for that long, I could have left after half an hour but I genuinely enjoyed my time with this family, listening to the woman, just helping her out and just seeing how appreciative she was.

After this experience I recommend anyone to try volunteering, whether it is once a week or even once a month or whether it's working with refugees or working with homeless, disabled, or older people, it is such a rewarding thing to do which really does not take up much time at all.

On a completely different topic, one of my favourite people to search for quotes is Anais Nin, here are a few of my favourites from her:

“I am only responsible for my own heart, you offered yours up for the smashing my darling. Only a fool would give out such a vital organ” 

“Music melts all the separate parts of our bodies together.”  


“I, with a deeper instinct, choose a man who compels my strength, who makes enormous demands on me, who does not doubt my courage or my toughness, who does not believe me naïve or innocent, who has the courage to treat me like a woman.” 

“We travel, some of us forever, to seek other states, other lives, other souls.”  


“I have no brakes on...analysis is for those who are paralyzed by life.” 

Thoughts from the hippie...

Some laughs for Friday :)