Monday

I'll admit, I get easily moved and influenced by media, particularly movies. So when I saw three excellently-executed films at the Sydney Film Festival, my mind had no choice. It was fate. This time, I was thinking specifically about the photographer in Zvyagintsev's Minotaur, and this thought of photography followed me into my next week into my LiA at Sydney. I began thinking about the difficulties of becoming a documentarian: the paradox of being conscious of the world that surrounds you, while also noting down the small details, the inconsistencies of daily life. I hypothesized that even the act of documenting would now become integrated into the world of small details to be documented. I was afraid of constantly losing the moment I was entrenching myself in. So, armed with the small black notebook my aunt gave me as a gift, I set off continuously recording. Alongside the notes I took on my way to my organization (such as the transfers I took from the 2-bound City Circle train to the 4-bound Bondi Junction train, or the mannerisms I noticed from the people who rode the train with me), I also tried to keep a detailed catalogue of my workday. Below is what I've briefly transcribed, condensed, and reworded from my notebook:

7:45 AM: Wake up, hurry to eat breakfast, get ready, and take the 1-hour train ride to my office

10:15 AM: Reach my office; though I do not have a strict time on when I should get to the office, I usually am there by 9:30 AM to finish all my work before the day ends, so this is a bit late for me. I begin answering emails, filing "Return-to-Sender" packages for fundraising campaigns, and send more emails to potential volunteers for 7 Bridges

11:15 AM: During my first few weeks of volunteering at Cancer Council, I used to spend much more of my time working on tasks that would help other staff members. However, since I've done the heavy lifting during my first few weeks, I usually finish up all tasks for other staff members in an hour, which leaves the rest of the day for me to work on my own independent projects. At this time, I started working on my trivia night briefing document since the event is a week away.

12:45 PM: Finish creating a couple of Rounds for Trivia Night (Not-so-General Questions and Face Fanatics) and go for my lunch break

1:15 PM: Continue working on Trivia Night, print off a few advertisement posters that Linda made

After 1:15 PM, I stopped writing, perhaps because the task of hanging advertisement posters on each floor was one that was not quite compatible with the very physical act of note-taking. Though I did note down that I finished my work and returned home at 4:45 PM, I definitely recognized the near-impossibility of this habit. I've been told that much of our psyche does not exist in the present, but I never truly understood this phrase until I had spent this week trying desperately to preserve the present in the present. I ran into the same problem when I tried this exercise on my trip to Italy the summer before I came to Columbia. I had an octopus-patterned notebook where I tried immensely to preserve my surroundings; however, what I found after I opened the notebook back up in December of that same year was more reflective writings after certain events in Italy had already happened. Trying to "live in the present," to force my mind into the same space my body also cohabited had actually entrapped my psyche in the past. Regardless, I continued with my exercise and on my way back home, I compiled a rough draft of a very bad poem based on my observations (which I also never revised).

Tuesday

Fully ready to continue documenting, I entered office with a newfound sense of determination to resist the narrative. Of course, that was until I found that I had not brought my notebook with me. There's only so much one can accomplish when they do not have the tools to pursue their endeavors; I had my Notes app, but opening my Notes app is like opening Pandora's box to unleash all the brash, unsavoriness of my life...so I opened Google Docs instead. Throughout the day, I continued helping Genevieve with Return-to-Sender packages, while also being tasked to count the number of socks we had in stock for a new campaign (we had 807). I spent the rest of my day starting to call and recruit 7 Bridges volunteers from 2024.

Wednesday

This day, I tried to experiment with a different medium of documentation: photography. And rather than keep this record private, I created a private Day-in-the-Life Instagram story compilation for my close friends. These are some of the stories I curated:

Thursday

Since Thursdays and Fridays are remote days, there was not much I could document. However, I did relocate confirmed 2024 volunteers to specific roles and times for the 2026 7 Bridges Walk, as well as sending emails to volunteers with missing phone numbers. Additionally, I fixed my trivia briefing document based on the meeting I had the previous day with Linda.

Friday

On Friday, I felt a bit unwell, so my day was much slower than usual. However, I did finish contacting all volunteers from 2024 7 Bridges Walk, while also following up with a few other volunteers over the phone.

Saturday

I felt nothing as I walked around the Queen Victoria Building, one of the oldest buildings in Sydney. Time, like a boulder, had continued to accelerate down the sloping hill, and my week of experimenting had served nothing but a speed bump for the boulder. It feels a little egotistical to feel frustration that documentation had not served me any favors, but I felt as though the frustration was also attributed to the meaninglessness of it all. Earlier, I had the debate with one of my friends from back home on if history ever truly matters. I had heard all my life that the study of history is to prevent its repetition, but as I walked through the Queen Victoria Building, I noticed that the world does not operate in a set of realized truths; immorally horrendous historical atrocities are recurring, and rather than history being utilized to condemn these acts, it’s being manipulated. Or like the Queen Victoria Building: created for the purpose of job propagation after the late 1800s recession, and now being utilized as a hyper-capitalist dystopia. Strolling around Darling Harbour made me feel a little better. I could take a break from all the noise and just hear mindless camera shuttering after camera shuttering. I ate noodles at a Chinese restaurant as I watched Turkey play against Paraguay. I found myself at my last destination on my itinerary: the Chinese Garden of Friendship. It was at the garden that the numbness subsided and the fated LiA loneliness finally hit me. I had heard about this canon-event grim tale-like sequence of emotions from upperclass Laidlaw scholars; however, no amount of mental foreknowledge could have prepared me for the hour I spent reconciling on the bench. I was not quite sure what had caused this break: perhaps it was the introspection I was forced to do while recording my day-to-day, which had made me inadvertently realize my solitude. Or perhaps it was the word "friendship" in the title of the Chinese Garden of Friendship that had made me miss everyone back home so deeply. Either way, it had lead to my hour of silence between me and the monuments that had decided to step in to the role of my temporary friends as they comforted me by the water. And perhaps this moment of documentation will never truly matter to the speed of my life or to history itself, and perhaps it matters just to me in this moment.