5-step reflection

1.

2009: Petroleum Drilling Engineer/ Night Well-Site Manager. Started with lunchtime. A plate of food in front of me and, if I remember correctly, a young middle-aged French-born American with a fondness for cheese sitting across the white-plastic veneered chipboard galley table.

I imagine, being 00:00hrs on the 1st January, that I would have treated myself to a shot of percolated coffee drizzled over a couple of scoops of vanilla ice-cream. Topped-up with milk, in a tall waxed-paper take-away cup. One with the blue and red triangle motif on the side. Actually I wouldn't call it a motif; it's more of a 'splash' of triangles, like they were just thrown on. But they weren't, cos they were printed on.

2.

6 months later, June 2009: Unemployed, embarking on a career change, after a quick motorbike trip around Western Australia and Northern Territory. I was sitting on my swag in the sandy bed of one of the world's oldest rivers. Watching flames of the fire lick the chill out of the air. The white veil of moonlight descended quickly down the western face of the gorge. The somewhat eerie howls of a pack of dingoes washed over our ears. Louis and I decided to call it a night and jump into the swags before we got mauled and eaten. We had a few hundred kilometers tough riding the next day and, with all the slow-going deep sand, we weren't sure we had enough fuel to get us to Kings Canyon.

3.

A year later, May 30th 2010: Finishing 1st year Bachelor Industrial Design in Melbourne. I've had a grand total of 8 hours sleep in the last five days and my body is trying to shut down. I've been encountering microsleep on an increasingly regular basis. I decide to take a 20 minute powernap every 4 hours. Robbing me of sleep is the need to assemble a portfolio of the semester's work to meet the encroaching deadline, including research and development work, a couple of A0 technical drawings, presentation boards, a 5 minute speech and a 1:10 scale white-model. It took me 12 hours alone to sew four lycra awning sections onto the wire/copper frame. You could say I bit off more than I could chew. But I chewed it.

4.

8 months later, February 8th 2011 (2 years after lunch with the French-born American): Our herd got off the plane and busily marched through, down, in and around the cavernous maze of escalators, travelators, underground monorail and terminal halls that give space to Incheon Airport, Korea. The polished stone veneer brings the place to light, but not to life. Apart from our herd there was no one else around. It reminded me of a scene from Brazil.

(https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWexi7snkejAsJg3_BMUkg6hEliELsgwkcV-QECTqb0NhQPhLvp32VgvqNGPTKjTEa69afBd9OOH1VryjiR4LP8huqekUMjrOW49b_ia4b3cgtuW3H-HOVSNFJlY8wUPO8F9poyxbs5wcO/s1600/brazil01.jpg)

5.

12 hours later, February 9th 2011: It's 0630hrs and I've got a thirst that could drain the Pacific. The only thing in the mini-bar other than Korean beer was Korean Pocari Sweat. I’m not sure if a Pocari is an animal or a humanoid. Anyway not sure why you'd need that here though - it's minus 2 degrees outside. Not only can you see your breath, it'll slap you in the face and tell you to go back inside.

Maybe this guy is a Pocari. I seem to remember him being much cooler than this.

(http://f00.inventorspot.com/images/August%205th%20-%20Olympic%20Mascots6.jpg)

I had spent the previous day stretching my legs and enjoying the primo service on Korean Air. Nice to sit next to a lovely young Korean bloke, who was studying in Melbourne. He also busks at Caulfield station.

Disappointed, but not bothered, that instead of stopping-over in Seoul (which is about an hour from Incheon airport) we were transferred to Hyatt Incheon for the night. The hotel itself is great, very new, but it is a droplet of glistening water, resting on a dead leaf.

The view from my Hyatt Incheon room.

‘Cromagnon Man’ by Nam June, Paik 1994 (depicting the cultural progress of man, although I didn’t see a depiction of a Star Destroyer anywhere) 241x198x51cm. Hyatt Incheon Foyer.