Meddling with fuzzy science is nearly synonymous with witchcrafting. Geology, you do my head in at times. Subduction, you can say.

The 3AM mind is good for tangential thoughts.

Parabolic

Hello, I am sitting on the vertex of a parabolic curve and wherever I go next is going to be fucking better than here.

49.5%

Winning half the war is sometimes as good as having lost completely. Like a 49.5%.. like a 49.5%. You can't always round things up to your pleasure even when you thought you almost could.

Bracing for the unpleasant

Colliding at 300km/hr, however prepared you are for it, will not be awfully pleasant.

Maybe I've just grown tired of Perth.

Dear distant lover

Why do I waste my nights dreaming of you? Like the dimmest star in the darkest velvet, my rays are masked by the rays of the billions of billion others brighter than I. I am only a mere speck of dust that is eluded by your sight. Yet it is all just a matter of distance and not who shines brightest. Separated by millions of light years, constrained by our short lifetime, I will never get to you.

Oui Melbourne

My heart is caught in the middle of an intricate labyrinth. I need to find a way to you.

A never-ending bus ride

The amount of time I spend on public transit has increased by ten fold since I started working in the city. While I do long to have the convenience of a car, I don't regret choosing the bus over it. It has allowed me to meet new people, befriend bus drivers and view the world in a slightly different perspective in more ways than I can imagine. Here's a short collection of stories I have gathered from the last month.

---

A Korean lady is sitting just across me on the bus. Very lovely lady in red lipstick dressed in matching red. Seated beside her is an African man. 'Quite an interesting pair,' I thought for a brief moment before deciding to eavesdrop on their conversation. As I tune my ears to listen through bustles, I found myself completely mesmerised.

"I am almost thirty and I have been a school teacher in my home country," she explained. "One day, I decided to go sky-diving. I told myself, 'if I can do this, I can do anything I want in the world.' I was scared but I did it. It was only after that, I decided to travel the world because I am no longer afraid of anything. "

---

Toni. A 72-year old man from Malta with the most captivating grey blue eyes. The 15-minute wait together for our bus was most delightful. Toni has been in Australia for a few decades now with a nice family and has lived a seemingly good life. Three children and four grandchildren. They all adore him. How can anyone not? He asked if I was 15 and jumped to the thought when I told him I am actually 21. He couldn't believe me but I took delight to that. We had a good chat. He kindly gave me a few worthy advice. One of it is to make sure I live my life well. He claims to have been really good-looking when he was still in his prime and has had a somewhat playful past which he doesn't regret an inch of. The other advice, is to keep this photo of him with good care. I will oblige to both.

---

There is Muhammad, the tall, attractive and very stoned Somalian who speaks with an American twang. He claims to work as a translator from home and has spent most of his time growing up in Malaysia and Australia. I failed to grasp half of his gibberish. I did however, exploded in laughter when he openly expressed his fetish for Malaysian girls explaining his first love and first kiss was with a Malaysian girl. At the age of seven.

I left him high and dry with a quick goodbye when my bus pulled over in front of me. I hope he finds himself a nice Malaysian girl.

---

The 53-year old Mandurah bus driver from Montana. I blindly hopped onto to what I thought was the last bus to the train station. It was 9PM, my legs were still sore from seven hours of continuous walking from the day before and I wasn't too keen on walking 3km to the train station in an unfamiliar, bogan town unless I really had to. Mandurah sits 72km out of Perth city and I have only been there twice. Both rather briefly. To my demise, the bus terminated in the middle of fucking no where. I pleaded with the bus driver for several good minutes. He did a damn good job at playing along before blurting, 'Gees! Of course I can't leave you here!'

I started chatting with him by first commenting on his American accent. It does beg a really good question. What the hell is a middle-aged American doing driving a bus down in Mandurah? He had a long story to tell. Lucky enough, it was a long way to the train station. He started off by saying he's lived and backpacked all over the world before winding up in Perth for the last year or so. His journey began when he was still a teenager with only $200 and just enough money for a one-way ticket to Sydney. Since then, he went all over the world, juggling odd jobs, sleeping on the streets and backpacking his way through with the realisation of how easy it is to explore the world.

I hopped off the bus in deep awe but was secretly disappointed with our overly brief meeting.

---

The hunched man with the walking stick. Frail and weathered with courage to admire. He politely approached me to ask if I was catching the 99 bus. He quickly explained his eyesight is too poor to read the bus number from the distance. I regrettably told him I wasn't but I managed to get a lovely Asian girl who I have seen a few times and knew was catching the same bus as he to assist him.

I sympathise greatly for him while admiring his courage. I wonder if I could do what he does at his age and state. I spent the next few days questioning about old age. How old would I ideally like to live up to? How much loss in physical ability could I bear before deciding I'd rather die than struggle for every breath of air?

---

He came running after the bus and merely caught it. I was sitting in the far end, watching and observing people as I normally would. He's young, tall and aboriginal looking and was frantically digging his wallet and pockets for change to pay for the ride. The bus driver shook his head and I gathered the guy didn't have enough money. He seemed rather annoyed before deciding to get off the bus.

The bus watched in silence and I regret not speaking up to offer to help. I have been approached by numerous people on the streets for bus/train money. I have always been generous until I realised half of them are pretty damn insincere about it. Yet at this moment where I could've saved someone some grief, I didn't do anything about it. Fuck me.

---

The man in black with a shroud of mystery. The one I am drawn to yet know nothing of. We shared a brief, silent connection. The Red CAT was taking an awfully long time to arrive because the cricket test game and Christmas shopping rush was holding the traffic up. My mental calculations told me it would be faster to just walk. The young and slender man in black must have shared my thought. For the next several minutes, I was tailing him. Completely unintentionally yet almost intentional. It came across as rather bizarre as the path is a tad-off beat and I have never ghosted someone through such a distance.

From Stop #26, through the courtyard of beautiful old buildings, through a lush green field, through the Parliament building, and then downhill, over a traffic light, through a bridge until another traffic light where our paths finally diverged. It was just the two of us the whole time. I wish I knew at least his name or who he was. I guess mystery shall prevail. I suppose if I'm lucky enough, I might see him again but I probably would't have a clue.

Pause

Even the elephant gets tired.