The Aurora Borealis and the Chronicles of Dreams

All those who know me personally are well aware that I'm not exactly a "sports" person. In fact, my idea of enjoying sports is that of letting other people do it, while I react accordingly with enthusiasm or otherwise. Even though in the past few weeks I did embrace a more active lifestyle, and I'm already feeling so much better for it, my reaction to invitations for "fun runs" is still that of incredulity ("how can a run be fun??!!") and the idea of running a marathon, i.e. running for hours for no particular reason, is still unfathomable. Needless to say, my involvement in last Sunday's marathon was that of wishing my friends well, and checking out their pictures on Facebook on Sunday late morning while still in my pigiamas and sipping green tea. It was at that moment however, that a picture out of the many did catch my eye, and since then, I just cannot get it out of my mind.

This picture showed a person I know and really admire crossing the finish line, and the look of pure, unalderated joy on her face was truly amazing. It was an expression that I have never seen before, certainly not in the mirror, and it made me realise that THAT is the look of someone who has just achieved her dream through hard work, constant effort and a mulish stubbornness to keep going. I suspect that my driving instructor did have an expression slightly similar to that (albeit mixed with incredulity) when I passed my driving test, but I was too surprised myself to actually check it out, so I cannot really be sure. Also, as an aside, the person who teaches you how to drive is the Instructor and not "The Learner", and if I hear a sentence sounding remotely like this "Hadt l-ingejc u poggejt brajs it-tifla tal-lerner", I will not be held responsible for my actions.

Anyway, the point I am trying to make is that this picture brought to my mind my many childhood and adolescent dreams and caused me to carry out a little soul searching exercise into my past, which led me to come up with the following Checklist of Past and Current Dreams:

1. Marry Prince William and become Duchess of Cambridge. Well, in all fairness, at the time when I actually wanted this, the idea was to become a "Princess" since I had no idea of the intricacies of the British Allocation of Titles Structure. It can now be safely assumed that this dream has become moot following William's marriage to Kate last year but I'm not worried. There is still Harry after all, and after reading and *cough*streaming*cough* The Pillars of the Earth, I've discovered the surprisingly endearing charm of redheads. In fact, Ken Follett, with his Jack Builder, achieved what J.K. Rowling did not with Ron Weasley - he created a red-headed hero that kicked ass.

2. Learn how to play the Cello. Not achieved. Not even in the slightest. I can play chopsticks on the piano though, and the office playlist I have put together is what is keeping the country going. Joking of course! Kind of.

3. Become a lawyer. I did manage that, even though I still don't know how. Passed through all my exams, wrote a thesis (can't really remember what it was about and the conclusions I reached) and somehow got my warrant. The problem is that halfway through all this effort, I realised that I didn't want to be a lawyer after all, and would have been so much happier studying English, reading books and writing about them. That is what you get when you base your career prospects on a "Few Good Men".

4. See the Aurora Borealis. Not achieved. Not even close. However, this.has.to.happen.someday. Soon. Who is coming with me?? I'm actually a great travel companion, as long as you don't propose to go shopping - if you do I'd kick you back to Sliema or Valletta where you can do all your shopping and not waste more of my precious "abroad" time. You have been warned.

5. Embrace Buddhism in a temple in Bali and achieve inner peace. What I achieved so far is the talent to sit at my desk and listen to nonsense with a half smile while imagining myself bashing the brains of the speaker with a baseball bat. The only telltale signs of the mental demise of the other party in the conversation is usually the fact that I start typing at the speed of light, and increase the rapidity of my blinking. The latter action should not, of course, be confused with the fluttering of my eyelashes, since that is reserved only to a situation where you're a good looking, intelligent and funny bloke and I actually like the look of you. It is thus very difficult to be "fluttered" at by me, so never assume that it is happening. Many times I'm just mentally beating the crap out of you.

6. Watch Inter play against Milan at Sansiro. I am determined to make this happen soon, but at the moment all I have achieved is seeing Sliema play against Valletta at Ta Qali. It was actually great fun, especially when hearing my friend screaming "you need to pass to the Blue Kit and not to the White one!", since due to the fact that we were a grand total of 20 people on the Sliema side, I'm pretty sure the Sliema players were hearing these very helpful hints. To be honest, however, I was more intrigued by a man with a suitcase moving randomly round the ground, but what the hell, Up the Blues!!

7. Write a novel. So far I achieved aka-gracie.blogspot.com, which I'm pretty psyched about actually. (thanks for reading! 2000 hits soon!!) All I need now is a plot, time for research, money and a publisher and Chronicles of Nothing will then become part of your bookshelves or kindles :).

The above list shows some of the many dreams that make up my life. Some of them will never be achieved, others will. I'm not sure whether any of these dreams can ever create on my face the expression I saw on the photo last Sunday, but I guess it's worth a try. Alternatively, I might just have to start training for the marathon myself, and get back to you all with an update this time next year!

Wishing you all a week of achieved ambitions,

Gracie xx