Amazing time-lapse photograhy of scenes around London. Eventhough I haven't yet left, I feel abit of nostalgia watching this. There's a feeling that I'm going to miss it once I'm back home in Australia. My time here has been an incredible dream come true. I can honestly say that having travelled to so many cities around Europe, I still think London is the grandest of them all.
Brockley to Star in a New Clint Eastwood MovieWent out for a jog tonight with the missus and jogged past the Camberwell Crematorium, only to find a whole convoy of trailers and truck parked out in front of the main gates. When we came past on our return trip, Debbie asked one of the security guards minding the trailers, what movie they were shooting and it’s going to be Clint Eastwood’s new film called Hereafter, starring Matt Damon. When the film is done, we’re probably back in Oz and we’ll forget all about it until I read back on what I wrote here in this blog and rush out to get a copy and wait anxiously for the scene and say to our selves, “That’s where we use to live when we were in London”. back to the top
Skyride 2009 Took part in Skyride London today and loved every moment of it. Part of London streets was turned into one massive bike lane so cyclist could ride from Tower Hill all the way to Buckingham Palace, completely free from traffic. There was a turn-out of about 50,000 cyclists in all shapes and sizes. Saw a rhino-bike, a guy playing the piano while on a bike. And an English Gentleman on a unicycle. Whacky races did enter my head a couple of times. It was a lot of fun pedaling about and enjoying a rare sunny, autumn day in the nations capital. back to the top
The Best Sandwiches I've Ever EatenAfter what can only be described as one of the busiest starts to the year I’ve ever experienced, I am now able to relax, take a single breath and take a moment to myself to think. Today after leaving work a little early, I decided to take one of my slow walk through Soho towards Charring Cross. I’ve tried to take a leisurely walk in London any chance I can get, realising that I’m not going to be in this city for much longer. I’ve started to note the little things that I’ll miss about this town while I stroll about, headphones on, lip syncing to Radiohead, big smile on my face, there is so much to enjoy in life. I’m through knocking this place. It’s amazing that I’m here. Especially when I’m in my favorite spot on a red double decker (front seat, up top), crossing over Waterloo Bridge, Westminster on my right, Southbank and St Paul to my left. No matter how many times I’ve crossed that bridge, it still leaves me thinking how lucky I am. A friend of mine told me that I’m one of those few people that gets the chance to be living thier dream. There’s so much negativity around me, I really don’t feel any need to contribute to it anymore. Work could be better. Public transport could run to schedule. The weather could be abit warmer. All these things that people have in there minds that presently things could be better…it’s such a waste of time and a waste of energy. One time, when I was living in Melbourne, I had to walk 3 hours to get home because I had no money for the bus. A friendly man offered me his sandwich while I sat at a bus stop for a little rest. Amazing how even now that sandwich tasted like the best sandwich I have ever eaten. Little moments that would have been missed simply because money would have meant I could have caught a taxi to take me home as quick as possible. This strange human behaviour to want to speed things up. To rush through life. That having a quiet moment to do nothing but sit and think is wasting time. Why are people so scared of having nothing to do. I’ve been cherrishing the moments that I don’t have anything to do. What is wasting time? If something like time, which is constant and cannot be altered, diverted, stopped or in anyway changed, how does it get wasted? It always brings me back to the time that I once believed that I am able to change whatever situation I am in. To be the master of my own destiny. Not to waste my life. Make something of myself. Now, living my dream. Being counted amongst those who can say they’ve made something of their life….I’m thinking back to my late night free sandwich, sitting with a stranger that I had befriended on a lonely bus stop bench, and realising it was great to be alive then, I was happy then. Am I happy now. I think I am. Not happier, just as happy I think. back to the topCan't Avoid Talking about the WeatherIt’s raining again. Crazy to admit it, but I prefer it to the temperatures we’ve been having in the last week which dropped to minus degrees for several days. Last year people kept saying that it was the worst summer England has ever had, this year has started off with being the coldest Christmas England has ever had. back to the top
A Little Bit of Time Here and There
I’ve been telling myself all month that I need to crack on with my website and get the thing finished. I haven’t even touched a pencil or a stick of charcoal for any personal work since I’ve been working full time. It seems that when I get home from work, all that I want to do is relax and the thing furthest from my mind is art or my website. It just goes to show just how little time we have. That the majority of our lives are spent at work, with many of us not having any time to ourselves to do something that means a great deal to us. Is work really that important?
It’s been great having money again though. Just little things like being able to go out and have a drink with mates, is a real treat. This brings me back to my original thought about spending a little bit of time for things we really love doing. For me it’s drawing and working on my website. But because I’m not getting paid for it, I don’t spend anytime whatsoever on it and therefore I have neglected it. I do tell myself that I should spend more time on it, but when do I do that. Is something only worth doing as long as I get paid for it. Well working on my art is somewhat an investment. I know that if I work hard at it now it’ll pay off in the end. Even now that I’m thinking about it, I’m convincing myself I never have anytime. Well I need to make time to draw and whatever time I have in the day I should do a little here and there and make the most of it. back to the top
Grand London, Grand Dreams
With my new job offering at Baby Creative, everyday of the past week has me thinking seriously about my future. After excitedly telling everyone about my new position, I am now calmly planning out what I want to do for the next few years. I did plan to stay in London til November 2009, which is less than 2 years away, but with this new oportunity, I feel it necessary to stay longer. I have discussed this with my wife, Debbie, who also is having career successes of her own, and both of us agree that to give ourselves enough time to see where these new opportunities will take us.
With this promising future ahead of us, I want to start making a name for myself as a serious designer and London is the place to do this. I am currently on several on-going projects, including my charcoal drawings, my animation series and developing an online presence seems to be a neccessary part of becoming famous. I want to really establish myself using the available technologies, even exploring new ways in which to reach more people. Currently I feel that I’ve really only been playing around with the internet and not seriously considering just how powerful it is to use as a marketing tool. Just to record where I am at the moment, I currently have a website: www.pangemanan.com which isn’t really attracting all that much traffic (currently about 200-300 hits a month). And I have this blog. My goal is to work on increasing my monthly traffic and I to do this with regular updates on this blog, regular content uploads on my website, generate interest via online art and design communities and keeping in touch with people via social networks like facebook and MySpace. There are other technologies that I can explore, such as RSS, podcasts etc, but I think I have enough to start with to keep me busy for the next few weeks. Get ready world! I’m determined to jump on this information super high way with as many flashing lights and loud noises to draw as much attention to my self to make everyone remember the name Pangemanan. back to the top
A Totally Different Christmas and All the Best in the New YearCould it be for each passing Christmas, the anticipation and excitement drops. Or was it, that this year, Christmas was overshadowed by Deb and I moving to the UK? Or was it Sarinah’s wedding? No matter what it was, it sure felt different to me. I felt for the first time a lack of anticipation. This lack of looking forward to something seems to be a common thing for me lately. I guess after looking forward to getting married and moving to London, it’s going to have to take something extraordinary to top them. Well this year also was the first time we both had Christmas away from our family. We did spend it with Deb’s uncle Joop in the Netherlands, but it’s not the same. Here I’m begining to think that I do miss the family because while we’re here in London, we’re missing out on family stuff. We both felt it when we went to Sarinah’s wedding due to the fact that we didn’t know Matt from a bar of soap. I’m sure that once we return, that’ll all change. But it’s a huge thing my family history and I feel very much left out and not a part of it being here. Christmas this year was still fun and exciting. It was different being in an another country and experiencing Christmas Dutchy style. I experienced Ollibolens for the first time (Dutch cakes made only during Christmas time). I also went iceskating outdoors, something I’ve never done before and ride to the restaurant with Debbie on the back. That was fun. Spending time with Uncle Joop and Aunty Yoke was a blast. Both of them are just crazy. Aunty Yoke kept on wanting to dance with Joop all the time. And her obsession with Elvis is just bizarre. Eventhough it was the first time I’ve met the family there was a familiar feeling being with them. Aunty Yoke just kept on feeding me…thats something I’m familiar to. Eventhough Uncle Joop’s English wasn’t that good, we were still able to make a joke or two. It would have been even more funnier if I was able to understand Dutch, but I had fun nonetheless. back to the top
|
|
|
Blog
For all sad words of tongue and pen, The saddest are these, 'It might have been'.
John Greenleaf Whittier
Search
