The afterlife

I'm reading an interesting book called 'the five people you meet in heaven'. It got me thinking about all that stuff today, whilst I was between chapters. We're forced to believe in a religious afterlife when we're at school, but who can tell what really happens when the curtain falls?

The book, so far, suggests that there are five people you meet in heaven who let you know what your life was about. Call me dramatic, but I often think about the same things myself. There are social norms - that are changing, of course - which program you into thinking that you should be at a certain stage in life at a certain stage of your life. For example, at 21, you graduate from university and are meant to get a job. But lots of us now go travelling after uni, find temp work or still have no clue what we want to be. We flit from job to job, trying to figure out some sort I life plan while our parents despair of us whilst we fritter our money away on having a good one rather than saving for a house.

With the economy the way it is, I think things could go either way: we'll start being more sensible with our savings, or... We'll be just as, if not more, frivolous, because saving is a bit Of a waste of time. No one can afford a house anymore, so why save for that non-existent mortgage?

We don't have loved ones to share them with anyway, we won't settle down until we're in our thirties apparently (which also hinders sharing those mortgage payments with someone)
We plod along, having fun with our mates, feeling lonely as we head home alone and embarrassed if we're still living at home.

When we get to 'heaven' who will be there to tell us how we changed their life in some way? What will we have achieved that we can look back on with pride? How will Generation Y affect this big world of ours?

Perhaps they're all question for Bernie Madoff.

Silly things

I've just been looking through some friends' photos on Facebook. I have a lot of 'friends' on Facebook, I'm not going to lie. Nor will I lie about the fact that all of them are my friends.

But on this occasion, I was looking through a good friend's photographs of the last year or so. I have many different groups of friends mainly due to the fact that I've moved around a lot and done so many different things with my time.

It made me smile looking through each picture, realizing that my friends and their friends do stupid things for fun too.

Take for example this one. My sister and I always try to send each other the worst postcard we can find each other when one of us is on holiday. We also buy each other the tackiest present one can find. My friend and I also try and buy the worst T-shirts we can find as souvenirs of our trips.
A recent trip to Canada almost had us walking away with the most awful wolves and moon T-Shirt...had it not been for the $25 price tag we may have been tempted.

So it was a relief to see in these photos that my friends do this kind of stuff too. The picture that made me laugh the most was that of my friend and her friend on the beach in France. She had a pink bikini top and matching green bottoms. Her friend had the matching green top, and pink bottoms. I can only imagine that this was deemed a good idea when they saw it in the local tat shop. And indeed it was.

Isn't this what holidays with your loved ones are for? Relaxing, drinking, forgetting about work, your troubles - and seemingly dress sense - left at home?

Another friend of mine had a birthday party a while back; the theme was Tube stations. His costume was a packet of ham. Depending on whether he held the ham in his right or left hand determined whether he was East or West Ham.

On a recent night out, we walked past a book seller on the street. A book named 'God's Gift to Women' caught my friend's eye. He bought it for the bargainous price of $3 and proceeded to read excerpts of it not just to us, but to random people on the street. Much fun was had with that book, until we all woke up the next morning and realized we'd left it somewhere.

The jokes still live on though, as do the friendships. It's good to know that when you're running with a joke and you stop to think about whether it's actually funny, you realize that other people do this too.

New York in the Rain

I just got caught in the biggest downpour. I'm sure everyone thought I was completely crazy as they ran for cover, but I walked calmly down the street whilst big fat raindrops bounced off me.

There's nothing better than warm rain. I love monsoon season. Standing on my mother's balcony in Indonesia watching the rain fall in sheets, knocking petals off the blossoming trees...the heat so thick you could cut it. Brilliant. I was smiling as I walked along the street today, those memories coming back to me.

There's something sexy about thunderstorms. I've always wanted to kiss someone in warm rain. I think it's all those movies I watch. I've only ever kissed someone in the rain once, but it wasn't particularly warm...
I'd missed the last train home and we got caught in a downpour. We ran back towards the flat, dipping under cover wherever we could. Stealing kisses like we were teenagers. Like we might get caught at any minute.

Maybe it's the electricity in the air that does it. Charging you up subconsciously. The humidity making your heart beat that little bit faster...