Finale

Browsing the papers today brought a tinge of nostalgia. 2000-2010 was effectively the years that I was aware of things happening in the world and a growing understanding of how I fit into it and how I want to chart the next couple of decades of life. Effectively, the start of this century were the years of growth, mentally and physically, the teenage years. It's fitting that I finish all my studies at the wrap up of this decade and embark upon a career that who knows where will end.

Looking at the events of the past years, it's funny how the only way I remember certain events happening are by placing myself in the context of where I was when that event seemed all consuming. Drama class yr 8 for 9/11, Yr 11 end for London 7/7 bombings, Harry Potter Book 7 07/07/07 final yr of high school, Sichuan Earthquake during a fundraiser at Ann Arbor, Avatar screening for the Haiti Earthquake, sitting in Penang learning bout Yasmin Ahmad's death, YHO meeting for learning that Heath Ledger had died and so on and so forth. Events that seem so long ago yet were just mere years ago.

Resolution time!

1) Develop in the job
2) Keep up fitness levels and run a marathon
3) Continue Tango
4) Save Money
5) Keep up friendships

Simple. I'm quite content really.

My year in pictorial form

Wrapping it up with a big fat red bow: 2010

So 2010 came and almost went. 3 weeks to the start of a new year and where am I?

January: Year got off to a great start with 10 mins to go and stuck in an NYC club coat check-in line with drunken asians. Oh boy, marvelous. Couple that with some drunk guy attempting to take off my glasses (should I have been insulted) and a marvelous bruise after slipping in the bath rendering me unable to open my jaw without the right side of my head hurting + a 12 hour overnight bus ride from NYC-Michigan with Fujianese people and changing vehicles at dodgy petrol stations in Ohio. Right. Couple that with a Toshiba laptop that refused to charge.

Got back, decided to screw it all after one 1.5 hr session of classical chinese and went ahead to register myself under reduced course load. Best decision, EVER.

February: Mostly passed in a blur of classes and typical everyday living, jacked up for SB in Cancun. Oh and more Tango.

March: Post SB blues, realizing graduation was looming and a month with no midterms. Choreographed ribbon dance for final Malaysia night performance. A $100 parking ticket, St Patrick's Day and the Arb at 3am. Memories.

April: Attempt to fight time passing, decide it is fruitless. Amazing times with randomers from Tango, Unicycling/studying and the last classes of my educational career.

May: Graduation and saying goodbyes! Travels and more chaos.

June: 2 day flight and back to Malaysia. Absolute chaos.

July: Sleep. Eat. Prep. Sleep. Eat. Prep. Sleep. Eat. Prep. Sleep. Eat. Prep.

August: Interview. Interview. Rejection. Argh.

September: Interview. Interview. Hired! Travel.

October: Work. Work. Work. ARGH. Work. Beginners luck + roulette

November: Work. Work. Work. Wind down. Phew.

December: Entertaining times with friends back and a toast to the end of the year.


Now 2011, what are you going to shove in my face next?

Boundaries & Awareness

If there's anything that I've ever chided myself for it's the sometimes narrow-mindedness view of life that seems to be the status quo for my thoughts. Things that we learn in Econs about being risk adverse seem to describe me to the T in a sense that I can barely plan about life for the future because the uncertainty and the possibility I might jinx it all drives me a little nuts.

In order to reorient my thought process to something that is a little more open to surprises I start to think about how things have developed in the past couple of years. Thing is, history is every changing and often we don't know about occurrences in the presence til they become documented in the past. Therefore, if we are already so lost about the present, how then can we ever assume to predict the future?

It is kinda interested though to realize how things really do change, normalities change, habits change, paradigms change. Not even talking about scientific theories here, just general LIFE. The way we get from place to place, the way we communicate. I often think, what does this century mean in the long span of human development, a lot? Awareness would be the key catalyst of it all. An awareness of self, of the world, of history and a documentation of it all in forms. Of course the paradox remains that the more we know, the more we realize we don't know.

For example, before flying became an option, sailing was the only way to get across the oceans. Land locked and having modes of transportation that could only go so far in the constraint of time, we were limited to a sphere of influence that extended only so far. Nowadays we don't need to move from our seats to have our minds blown away by things that exist and are only brought to our attention about its existence all this time, in the span of a few minutes and with the magical properties of google.

It's interesting.

Life...as we know it

Oh god, absolutely love this particular one.

Monday cannot pass any slower, pays in, woot, but have nothing exciting planned for this week unfortunately. Life...as we know it. Can't believe it's almost December already, where the eff did 2010 go to? Started out the year narrowly missing celebrating it in a coatcheck line. NYC and winter, a cold and whacking the side of my head + an impossible classical chinese class that finally convinced me to screw it all and take a reduced coarseload resulting in additional $$$ which soon went somewhere =S.

Meeting the craziest bunch of people, all characters, culminating in a very frenzied post graduation schedule and a lot of stressed out emotion in an attempt to slow down time or at least to cram everything I could in the shortest space possible. Spent 1/4 of the year worrying bout jobs and the remaining 1/4 in a job. So. Life...as we know it.

1

"Tom: People don't realize this, but loneliness is underrated."

Maybe so. After a bit too much chatting with girlfriends about life, love and not too many laughs this time round why is there this perpetual nagging feeling that we need to be coupled up or that we're running at some ever closing door hoping to slip through before *shock horror* we're over the goddamn metaphorical hill?

Effing relationships and confusion just leads to both parties in a worse mental health of state than before. Granted, there is nothing like the first blush of meeting which generally either descends into quite a bit of disappointment, or in other cases compromise. I cannot believe I have reverted back to cynical self *smack*.

No, relationships definitely need work but maybe first you need to find the person to work with! Am I breathing after all this? Yup. Am I living? Yup. Do I have fun? Sometimes if it isn't a late night at work. Generally I'm functioning, but often I catch a hint of 'in an alternate universe, YOU would be here with me still'. And that's where it gets a little haywire.

Because sometimes I wish you would miss me the way I miss you. Conversations getting stunted and I don't know what to do about it.

I want to be woo-ed goddamnit. I like equality but sometimes a girl has to feel pampered.

Grenade

Easy come, easy go
That's just how you live, oh
Take, take, take it all,
But you never give
Should of known you was trouble from the first kiss, Had your eyes wide open -
Why were they open?
Gave you all I had
And you tossed it in the trash
You tossed it in the trash, you did
To give me all your love is all I ever asked, Cause what you don't understand is
I’d catch a grenade for ya Throw my hand on a blade for ya 
I’d jump in front of a train for ya You know I'd do anything for ya Oh, oh
I would go through all this pain, Take a bullet straight through my brain,
Yes, I would die for ya baby ; But you won't do the same

No, no, no, no
Black, black, black and blue beat me till I'm numb Tell the devil I said “hey” when you get back to where you're from
Mad woman, bad woman,
That's just what you are, yeah,
You’ll smile in my face then rip the breaks out my car
Gave you all I had
 
If my body was on fire, ooh You’ d watch me burn down in flames You said you loved me you're a liar Cause you never, ever, ever did baby...
But darling I’ll still catch a grenade for ya
Throw my hand on a blade for ya  I’d jump in front of a train for ya You know I'd do anything for ya  Oh, oh
I would go through all this pain, Take a bullet straight through my brain,
Yes, I would die for ya baby ; But you won't do the same.
No, you won’t do the same,
You wouldn’t do the same,
Ooh, you’ll never do the same,
No, no, no, no

And she walked into the rest of her life.

Sometimes I don't know whether it is YOU I miss or US.

Change

What strikes me as interesting in life is the fact that when we are overseas the idea of 'contributing' seems to have so much of a pull factor. Is it just because there is already a system in place to which we can contribute to that makes us so gung-ho about signing up? Or maybe the idea that CV padding has to occur in US universities otherwise the big banks and companies would never ever consider your resume? Regardless not every volunteering really has to be self sacrificing to the extent of gandhi-ism I guess.

But what really is the point? Volunteering is definitely soul sucking because you wonder what on earth you are doing and whether all your grand delusions of 'helping' are really helping anyone at all. I remember trying to teach the group of 10 year olds and attempting to engage them enough for them to read a paragraph in a book. It was scary when I realized that at age 10 I was reading novels and these kids could barely get a sentence together properly let alone with intonation and pronunciation intact, and this was in America, supposedly the most developed country in the world.

Right there is where you suddenly realize how much education exists as the one tool to really make a difference. Everything I know right now I have every single teacher in my life to thank. Who knows at what point I suddenly saw words and realized their meanings, where 26 alphabets combined plays host to a world of meaning.

In the past 2 hrs of sitting in the office kinda feeling guilty that I'm getting paid for not really contributing anything productive to society (which I might regret soon when I'm plonked with work), I've somehow decided that I've had enough with being complacent. Of course illusions of grandeur seem to always come with daydreaming but I guess I'm all up for volunteering time for things. Now to erase the guilt of self-congratulatory notions.

Dear Freshmen Self...

...Ann Arbor really will be as cold as they say it is. No one will warn you about how hard it is to get into classes you want, even in the last semester of senior year. You will meet the craziest bunch of people whom you will love and get to know by 6 degrees of separation and hours spent in the library puzzling over problems like the true nerds you are.

Find Tango sooner, it's a dance for life and you need to start asap. Markley isn't a nice dorm to be in when you're

1)Foreign
2)Asian
3)Can't stand obnoxious sorority girls singing opera in the neighbouring room

College will not tell you where you will end up in 3 years. It will not give you the answers to life, and it will not hand you a job. That's up to you. Interviews really do suck as much as you think they do right now and company presentations are definitely there to lure you into the secure mode of 'they really want to hire me' before stomping over any career plans you might possibly have and taking any self esteem you had to boot.

Go out there and explore the town beyond the foursquare of South Quad, Sadako, Markley and Bdubbs. I honestly wish you were 21 already so you could go chill at the nicer microbreweries and drink recommended beer which tastes the same anyway.

Eat out more instead of worrying bout wasting meal credits, there's so much to see and explore. Build a snowman and make snow angels. Go to Ice Hockey and Bball at Crisler. Make sure you walk through the fountains outside the MLB.

Visit Detroit wholly and discover its hidden gems. Explore all corner of the States when possible and don't run home every Summer too early.

You will kiss some wrong guys, make some wrong decisions, get some bad grades, fall in Love and get your heart broken. That's life.
Make sure you do the typical Spring Break, no matter how idiotic it seems to you at that point in time. Try and make all your lectures, for god sakes you're paying 40,000USD a year for this experience, at least try to learn something.

Take chances, embarass yourself, do things that you've never done before, meet different people and never give up.

Lose

Do we lose a part of ourselves over time? Just as we pick up new skills in the workplace, new real life job skills do we lose the idealistic part of us. Or maybe we just hit a brick wall called reality where all we end up being are jaded individuals.

If I could relive this life what would I do with the knowledge I ended up gaining over the relatively short period of existence? I would probably end up focusing on something developmental. No joke. Nothing is more impressive/interesting than fieldwork especially in the areas of improving people's lives. I would probably stay in academia, then again like anything else in this world there is no acknowledgment of the blood, sweat and tears that comes with struggling for recognition in an already saturated academic world.

I started thinking about jobs and being in Malaysia and how everyone that you encounter often wonders 'why did you come back?' I often want to scream out loud that people should obviously have more respect for their own country and be proud enough to say they WANT to come back. Why have we lost that much faith in our country? Negativity is great to spur people to want to do something different but sometimes I feel this country is really at its teetering point. If they build that stupid warisan merdeka I will scream. Then again it's been done through the ages so many times before and we're still functioning (barely).

Sometimes I think people just stay in places where they did their tertiary education because it holds so many memories and represents such a time where we attempted to transition to adulthood (albeit in a safe mode with tons of friends still around). I'm regressing at home.

Comme Il Faut

So much for waiting for Argentina, I HAVE MY SHOES!

Checked out Tango at Abrazos, must say the Singaporean standards are something else. They are pretty good too, but not far above KL. I'm pretty impressed at our own tangueros =).

28, Black, 10 bucks. Beginners luck and a chunk of cash, woohoo. Good weekend!

Of golf courses and financial models

I spent today traipsing around a golf course. In heels. Michelle Wie was somewhere in the vicinity. I now know that water retention is very important in a golf course and that people often don't really know what they are doing. Good god now THAT is scary.

Still adjusting, can't believe it's only second week. Uncovering more insights, nice bunch of people. See where this takes me.

Beginnings

First day on the job tomorrow. Eeps. See how it goes then shall we?

MSU vs Umich absolute failure! argh. Kinda miss the hype of standing in the student section with the absolute crazy pandemonium of sheer chaotic last minute wins. do NOT miss drunk idiots and near fights. It really is about the people that made AA what it was, wasn't it?

Ashes and Memories

Sometimes it's easier being honest with people you barely know than it is with people whom you've known for years. The human mind likes to attach certain unyielding and unchanging traits to the people we meet in our lives. The longer we know someone the more there is to forget about them and the more we know them, the more we tend to believe that we truly "know" them. As in, we know all about them and that's all there is. But maybe that's where we're proven wrong, just a little. Maybe it is at that point where we assume we know all there is to know about someone that they change, mutate, grow. We are after all the sum of our experiences and no one and nothing is ever unchanging.

Truth is though, whatever we present to others as the "I" is what we really want to be. It just takes time for the other less savory aspects of our character to present itself, and you know you're true friends when that ship survives it all. But time really tries its best to knock dents in it. Sometimes bad memories are all you have, where against your better judgment you clung on because once upon a time you needed it, but not anymore. It's sad but maybe somewhere in the past there was once happy times that once included that person you called friend.

The most beautiful reality is your own. After all, we are all actors in this play called life only once, so make it a performance to remember.

Jewel-Stand

Walk in a corner shop
See a shoplifting cop
See the old lady with a gun
See the hero try to run
Nothing's what it seems, I mean
It's not all dirty, but it's not all clean
There's children paying bills
There's monks buying thrills
There's pride for sale in magazines
There's pills for rent to make you clean
Marvin Gaye, there's no brother, brother
Woody Guthrie's land can't feed Mother

Mothers weep, children sleep
So much violence ends in silence
It's a shame there's no one to blame
For all the pain that life brings
If you will just take me It might just complete me
And together we can make a stand

A waitress brings me lunch
We meet but do not touch
On TV, D.C. is selling lies
While in the corner, King's dream dies
Go to the counter, pay for me and my friend
A homeless man pulls out a roll, says it's on him
The mayor has no cash
He said he spent it on hookers and hash


you will love me, I will love you

Who are you

UVA's application asked for one word that was your favourite. I chose I. In hindsight reading that 10 lines of writing it seems kinda pretentious. Heck, who really knows what one word is a favourite. Maybe if it were symbolic writing like chinese which takes on more of an art form than anything, then perhaps we can talk about favourites.

4 years since applications for universities, funny how years of education lead up to that one last hurdle and in a blink of an eye it vanishes, poof. I scoffed at people who wanted to stay in school, who got PHD's, who never left and stayed on as professors, teachers. I now know why it's so appealing. Maybe I'll change my mind once I start work, who knows.

Who am I? Someone that realized that she can achieve anything if she puts her mind to it. Someone who seized the things she was good at, applied herself to it and realized that everything works out in the end anyway. And a B+ is not fail. Someone who has no regrets these past few years, none at all. I did what I did when I wanted to do it, and that is that.

I've always failed at one time goals that I place before myself, failed at achieving what others labelled "best". But maybe it's an acceptance that grades reflect nothing but your ability to run on the hamster wheel of education. It's everything you learn outside of it that truly counts, how to earn the respect of your peers, your mentors, your seniors, your bosses, and Michigan unlocked that for me. It's exactly like Pachella said, if you choose what you want and stick with it, it all works out in the end.

I had this conversation with a lovely friend from Tango yesterday about how I had NO idea how to execute a move that I was being led into, and stubborn me who thinks that she can master Tango if she just TRIES hard enough will never settle for realizing that she has limitations and not taking lessons isn't helping anything. Anyway, Tango is so Zen like in the realization that only when you master all the moves then do you return to the very basic, walking, feeling, musicality. But above all, it takes the struggle of learning all the other things in order to execute the simple things well ala Carlos Gavito. The hardest things in life (sitting still and emptying your brain) come across as the simplest don't they?

Anyway, the mark of a truly good leader is one who will make you feel comfortable, at whatever level you are at. However, I argue that you always need a little push, someone who takes you out of your comfort zone just a notch to show you what you can do next. Otherwise it's easy to settle into routine. But above all, embrace and musicality are paramount.

Routine really does change doesn't it. Surround yourself with the positive, create something within yourself that is solid and unchanging so you can cling on the rough sea of life, that's probably the best advice.

Chances throw up Choices

I think it's irony when the moment you sit down and try and focus on something akin to meditation, your mind decides to explode into riots of colours, thoughts and worries. Currently in Taipei enjoying the hotsprings at Beitou. Quite an interesting place, and geothermal springs really do smell like rotten eggs.

Slightly worried at how tired I can be i.e. tired after 4 hours of going out and being able to conk out in bed after breakfast.

Finishing reading Eat, Pray, Love and I absolutely loved it. God, I'm turning into one of those middle age women searching for life's answers at 22. Why can't I be normal and worry bout nothing but money, clubbing and getting drunk. Hah. Mainly because that was never me and never will be me. Her thoughts on meditation were pretty enlightening though, but anytime I read that and think about whether I can attempt it myself, the more I realize that I probably never will be able to, just too fidgety and there's way too much out there to discover.

One foot here, one foot there. Waiting for dates in the future, then what? True, time heals all wounds, but I'll repeat again, you're always left with scars, in your memories, in your thoughts, in your dreams. A bubble of perfection that remains no where but in your conscience. A map that lies tucked into a bedside drawer, holding a certain white card that wasn't taken back, a reminder of something that was so dream like. Did 3 years really pass that fast? Was it only 2 months? Scrolling through forms and money thought and random snippets of conversation that pale to replace the very real hug. I can't say I miss you. I've somehow executed perfect snip out memory and created barriers that Freud put words to a century ago. Scientifically unproven but who ever proved the human mind. In the words of Eminem "We made you".

I gave up the fight already. Even before it started.

Sometimes I want to take this mind of mine and give it a good shake. Maybe then it'll listen.

Labels labels labels. The mind needs labels to believe it can fulfill those labels and when we don't measure up to someone else (or several others) in that label then we drop that bloody label. Or it comes when we cannot stomach being labeled that anymore. What's your label?

I don't know what it is that I miss anymore.

Shine the Light

I love Tumblr images. Something so soothing about the way there is a hodge podge of everything beautiful in this world that is filtered through someone elses lenses, someone elses vision, someone elses thoughts.

Peace. At last? No way. In limbo, still searching, this journey just started, time to act as though I'm 21 and not 50. Goals, milestones yet to be set. Truth is...we never revel in the present, roll through it like high tumbleweed, shut our eyes and let our senses take over, to really feel, everything and anything.

We always need to express ourselves, but sometimes we need to shut up and let our inner thoughts take over. There's enough noise in the world, we don't need to add more to it.

Hold Time

Lazy Sundays. Funny how a couple of days can change your whole perspective on where life is going. Got a starting job, hope it's good. Time to grow up.

Travelling times coming up though, always fun, also stressful, also alot of $$$ flying out of pockets. But wtv, last time I'm gna do this before being restricted by annual leave. At least Malaysia has a TON of public holidays, woohoo.

First of the Gang to Die-Zee Avi

You have never been in love
Till you see the stars
Reflected in the resevoirs

And you have never been in love
Till you see the dawn rise
Behind the home for the blind

We are the pretty, petty things
And your standing on our street

Where Hector was the first of the gang with the gun in his hand
And the first to do time
The first of the gang to die
Oh my

Where Hector was the first of the gang with the gun in his hand
And the first to do time
The first of the gang to die
Oh my

You have never been in love
Till you see the sun light drawn
Over smashed human bone

We are the pretty, petty things
And your standing on our street

Where Hector was the first of the gang with the gun in his hand
And the first to do time
The first of the gang to die
Such a silly boy

Where Hector was the first of the gang with the gun in his hand
And a bullet in his gut
The first lost life to go under the stars

And he stole from the rich and the poor
And the not very rich and the very poor
And he stole our hearts away
He stole our hearts away
He stole our hearts away 

Need a memory wipe. Right about...now.

Where is Reality?

I spent most of June in my head. I don't think I've ever done that in my life before, but sometimes you have to face things that you've put off since the year previous. I went into Senior year not expecting too much, and it's exactly at the point where you stop expecting and just decide to DO, where you finally find some peace and quiet in life, and where you see certain buried hopes and wishes bubble up to the surface, then dissipate.

So where am I now? Out of a routine, floating in limbo. It's scary because expectations that have been heaped on you by others and yourself have somehow come to a halt. For now it's up to you to create the next steps no longer defined by grades. I still think its such fallacy that we have to act as though we know exactly what the job at hand will present to us before we've even entered it, and I don't think anyone ever does realize what lies ahead even when you're faced with an interviewer, trying to practice doublethink.

Which path to take? Where does your reality lie?

Reading status updates of people returning to college, returning to soph/junior/senior year makes me kinda wistful. You really don't want something until you can't have it. True that.

Out of Control

There are so many things out of my control right now that I cannot do anything but sit back and watch. Where to go, what route to take, what happens next. Sometimes I feel like cutting myself off from the world for a bit. Find me in 2 months kthxbye.

Choices. Plenty, absolutely plenty. But that's what happens when you don't want to make a choice, where you hear whispers left right up down. Advice barging into your subconscious, what are you passions, goals, aim. I don't know, I don't fucking know.

There's this metaphorical self I'm fighting against. Something I COULD be. But if it's not natural how can I force fit it?

PS: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/22/magazine/22Adulthood-t.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=general&src=me

“It’s somewhat terrifying,” writes a 25-year-old named Jennifer, “to think about all the things I’m supposed to be doing in order to ‘get somewhere’ successful: ‘Follow your passions, live your dreams, take risks, network with the right people, find mentors, be financially responsible, volunteer, work, think about or go to grad school, fall in love and maintain personal well-being, mental health and nutrition.’ When is there time to just be and enjoy?” Adds a 24-year-old from Virginia: “There is pressure to make decisions that will form the foundation for the rest of your life in your 20s. It’s almost as if having a range of limited options would be easier.” 

Thankful

There's alot to be thankful for.

-Fun summers in caged futsal arenas with friends from age 15. We're still the same. Totally and utterly.
-Having a support network when you're REALLY hitting rock bottom.
-The ability to run around a tennis court and hit the ball better than I've ever been able to.
-Deep conversations at mamaks.
-The challenge of job hunts.
-Celebrating 21st's with a lifelong friend.
-Seeing people flit in and out in the last summer rays.
-Meeting new people.
-A healthy life.
-Opportunities.
-Being on good terms with an ex.

As much as I lament about job search, sometimes I have to pause and stop the self pity. Who the hell is judging me, but myself?

Off the track

It's weird when about 18 years of solid "school" routine comes to a screeching halt in the form of a piece of paper, a really ugly gown, something that looks like curtain rope around your neck and a cardboard cap with some ridiculous tassle that NO ONE, can get to stay put on their heads. In CK's words, wtf, my mortar board is now senget!

Armed with that fabulous piece of paper, some numbers and your resume, i.e. passport to jobs, you're expected to go find yourself a job. Yes, something that requires you to shackle yourself to a hierarchy system, doing something that school absolutely didn't technically prepare you for, revamping your wardrobe to a uniform of a different sort and braving rush hour traffic.

I think a lot of us still in limbo are still battling with this foreign idea. Huh? no more 1pm classes?! No more autonomy over your own time? What, no way!
In a sense, education made us complacent. At least it did for me. College threw me off some course to better myself, that in my mind, once I got past those metaphorical gates of "University" and had the right to wear all these ridiculous things, miraculously my life and it's goals would unfold before my very eyes.

But this was something I knew was going to come from the age of 12 anyway. That putting things off, putting off that realization that there is no answer to life was going to catch up eventually and here I am, age 21 and about 10 months and on some fork in the road that I've cast my lot to and now just need to let it go and see what comes back.

I let myself float in the pool the other day. Something about swimming is so relaxing. Knowing that if you stayed down long enough you would actually die, fighting against a substance that fluctuates, moving your own mass through it. Rebirth.

Maybe, Perhaps

Little bout of stircraziness entered again. Live this goddamn life FORWARD, GODDAMNIT!

L-O-V-E

What is it? Debates raged on just 6 years ago (only 6?!). Between teenage years to adulthood everything changes, friends move on, schedules, routines, life.

IMHO, love is where without saying anything, the other person soothes all your darkest fears, makes all your dreams come true and generally, lets you be you.

Simple as that. When it's right it kinda just...feels right. Saying you love someone isn't do all end all, I'm past the idea of soul-mates. Love needs work and marriage doesn't guarantee anything.

Round round baby right round

Thoughts chase each other until my fingers can no longer follow my stream of consciousness normally at two points in the cycle of the day and following certain reasons:

1) Exercised til I'm at the happy point of tiredness where I know deep sleep is the next thing going for me
2) In the darkness of the night

The masseuse told me when I complained about my 2nd toe hurting that it was my eyes being tired. I couldn't agree more. Maybe there is some truth to this malarky of feet reflexology, but he didn't need to tell me bout my shoulders being knotted, I knew that from the beginning. Too much hunching over, boy, I'm gna get back problems when I'm old....

Ruminating. Tango tomorrow, will see what happens. Went for 2 hr futsal with the Tams and the usual bunch. Always entertaining and I love how at the age of 11, they are still naive enough to be truthful about EVERYTHING they are saying/thinking. Soon to change as teenage years hit tho, and when their peers start to act cool. Ah...naivety of pre-teen years. I miss them.

What can I say about BCG. Blackhole for now. Limbo.

Life goes on eh? It does, memories get knocked out of your head, heartaches dissipate but sometimes they stab again, and sometimes its almost as though you have to pause, breathe, rewind and stop thoughts from running. Always running.

Damnit forgot what this was initially inspired from again...Oh yes, I cleaned my room. After 10 years. Finally decided I had it with things everywhere and just MESS. Cleared it out. Time to grow up. Time to effing grow up. Junk collects over time, funny thing bout cleaning the Ann Arbor apartment was just that, when we realize how much JUNK we own. Funny memory was the roomie trying to haul our combined notes and papers (mine starting from freshmen yr) down the stairs and the bag bursting. Oh the chaos.

It's when you have to move or decide what to bring with you on a 3 yr sojourn to the States and back, where you REALLY figure out what the most important things to you are. For me I could never leave behind my photos. Link to the past, reminder to yourself to never ever lose who you are to the core, defining moments in life, events passed, people who matter to you. When you desperately click click click. The fountain by the MLB, walking along a road, exploring North Campus. But what you miss at the end of the day is the mundane everyday tasks that you never take photos of. The food you cook for lunch and dinner, the moment where you're running out the door doing a mental checklist of bag, notes, homework, coat, gloves, double layered pants, scarf, thick socks, boots, ipod, handphone, keys, lipbalm, crap forgot the keys. The laughter and fun of random get-togethers over shisha, nail polish, mags, girly gossip, alcohol and cupcakes. The chaos of moving apartments, paying bills, standing in the middle of a Michigan winter waiting for the AATA bus to take you to do your social security number crap.

What those photos don't capture is the moment you realize you've grown up. They capture moments you believe to be important, moments that are unique. But they don't capture the beauty or simplicity of everyday tasks until one day it is over.

Self Worth

What happens when your intrinsic self worth is tied to grades, to monetary terms, to job acquirement, to anything but your own internal processes. Who in their right mind decided all this? If there's anything growing up has taught me, it is to care less, to not feel as though my life is dictated by cycles, to just let go. Self preservation.

That is when everything goes slightly off kilter, mental and all. When you've tried your best but your best is not enough. Who knows.

Mental Health

I have decided to do away with things that are bad for my mental health. People, opinions, take the high road right? Stop analyzing everything to the degree that you do.

Keep sane. Take chances. Live. Don't take things to heart, hard when you care so much sometimes, and at worst it might make you seem totally inaccessible. But oh well. Life goes on.

Random people showing up at 12:30 in front of your house for mamak. Life's precious moments. We've certainly progressed from 3 am chats. =).

Contradictions

Life is full of contradictions. Do this, do that, aspire for the greatest things in life, don't fear, just jump. But with hardly a safety net when the world comes crashing down around you. Which part of you in every choice you make, do you carve out that tiny bit of worry and doubt and lock it within yourself so that when you're disappointed eventually, you can always unlock that doubt and go, "I knew it, I knew I wasn't good enough."

How much can you balance between caring too much and caring too little. Love, Career, Family, Histories, Unresolved presents, Futures yet to be. You carve our your own road, it's like walking into the darkness with nary a torch in your hand. But trust. That guides us. Logic. Faith. Emotions. When it feels right, it is so right. Never doubt decisions, never regret decisions or choices.

Life.

Utterly S*** Scared

I've never ever ever ever been one to back down from competition. Never. If I think I'm good enough I am and even if I lose, it's because of some other factor that comes into play. That was my mentality when I was younger. Somehow age has tempered that irrationality a bit too much for my liking until now all I do is proceed with caution. A lot of caution. Too much caution!

I need that confidence, where the eff has it gone. I need that assurance that was once there, even without the results to prove it. Sometimes I think life teaches you to be bipolar, to split parts of you into sections and segments, to hide one part from the other, to blank out certain parts, to put on the blinkers as such. Sometimes for your own good, other times detrimental to who you are.

-Person you are at the core
-Person you'd like to be
-Person you are to others

When do they ever gel? Rarely.

Sometimes

There are people in your life that you can't live without. People who you really would rather never see again. People who weave in and out like Malaysian motorcycles. People who've been part of your summers for a decade now. People who you met 3 yrs ago and now consider lifelong friends. People you've known for ages but now would rather not know. The rare person whom the more you know of, the more you really cannot stand. People you wish you could spend longer times with, but no matter how desperately you want it, life gets in the way.

Time to start afresh. Really.

踩不完惱人舞步　喝不盡醉人醇酒
良夜有誰為我留　耳邊語輕柔

走不完紅男綠女　看不盡人海沉浮
往事有誰為我訴　空對華燈愁

我也曾陶醉在兩情相悅　　像飛舞中的彩蝶
我也曾心碎於黯然離別　　哭倒在露濕台階

紅燈將滅酒也醒　　此刻該向它告別
曲終人散回頭一瞥　　嗯......最後一夜 

Why

As much as we like to swear at whoever is the architect of our lives there's absolutely nothing we can do about things out of our control except to accept it.

I find myself fighting against myself to contact you all the time. I don't even know the reason why I want to contact you anymore, you're so far out of my routine, so far out of my life in KL that it's as though you never existed with me. Safe the random emails that get sent every so often. It's been 2 weeks since I heard your voice, the longest so far, it's been 2 weeks since I've even had a real time communication with you and it blows. It hurt. It sucks. I can swear at god all I want but that's not going to bring back a time when I was happy. It's just not.

I still wonder whether I've ever crossed your mind.

There have been changes in me, I no longer really hope for anything the way I used to. Because well, the only disappointment comes when you really want something and don't get it. So...don't long. Don't hope. Don't wish. Cast your net and what comes will come. I haven't cried over you in some time but I find a lot of emotions flooding back again. The one thing I want to do right now is talk to you but I know for my own sanity's sake I shouldn't because what can I update you about right now? Nothing.

Learning

The only thing getting between me and learning is my education.

Snort. I love that quote, so feeling it now. Get rid of assumptions coz all it does it make an ass out of you and me. Take chances, run around like a maniac, connect with the psycho little kid inside of you who used to act out fantasies. Maybe that's why we all want to regress sometimes, into that happiness of youth. Then again, in hindsight teenage years really did suck.

Should be happier but a lot of people around me are feeling the heat right about now. I think that's what happens when you have expectations and run into reality instead.

Time to grow up. Consulting should have those books that you used to have when you were young. Those that teach you how to draw your ABC's nicely. Life is compounded knowledge, but is there a point where you hit a limit and everything is forced? Who knows.

Memory

Dates contract, hours pass, days, weeks. You never take note of time until you don't want it to end, then it seems as though it speeds up just to taunt you. When you want an event to come it seems like it never will.

True. The more the heart wants, the more it doesn't get. Let go.

Touch me
It's so easy to leave me
All alone with the memory
Of my days in the sun
If you touch me
You'll understand what happiness is

Look
A new day has begun

 
 

Lost

Even with directions, I always enter trips with the foreboding thought of "I'm going to get lost". 9/10 times that's more or less the case. But as I said, I don't need roads, I'll pave them as I go.

I refuse to lose the optimism of youth. I really do. Let me experience life for myself ok? Don't tell me to anticipate heartaches, lost chances, painful choices or any of that shit. Just let me live my own life for myself.

In other thoughts, just stop the self effing pity. I think it's pathetic the more I look internally and am totally horrified at the dependency that comes in a relationship. 

Randy Pausch and Morrie Schwartz

Two people that no longer exist in the mortal realm but will forever live on in their inspiration. Funny isn't it? Takes death to confront life, takes death to face up to reality.

Sitting in 402 Economics with Ruediger Bachmann ruminating about how money only exists because we don't know when the world will end. Lol. I still like how that tangent-ed me off into thinking about what would I really do if I knew the world was going to end tomorrow...probably for now buy that pair of CIF's and Tango the night away. Oh, and still, tell people what I really thought about them, and do the crazy things I've always wanted to do. Jump out of a plane. GO TO GODDAMN MACHU PICCHU.

But yes, Randy and Morrie rocked. They did/do. That'll probably be another bucketlist thing I wana do, send his wife a letter/email.

You wonder how in life you can impact other people, probably not on the scale these two did, but you can start somewhere, with the people around you. In this age it's easy not to care, "MYOB!", all the asian-ness of that, but come on. In the debate on fundamental goodness or badness, I still think I'm the eyore, but with the tigger bounce...sometimes.

The best conversations are the really deep ones. Honest.

Singapore visiting

Had a wonderful dinner with close(r) friends and acquaintances talking about life and other people we kinda know. Funny how with this bunch of people who haven't known me before university years, the talk flows pretty well. Maybe the longer you know someone and their past history the more entangled you get in opinions, views, past arguments and the lot. But also, the ones that are still your friends from the start really are lifelong ones.

Shopping tomorrow. Woohoo.

Maybe we all want a relationship because when we can't find reasons to love ourselves, we know that they are there for us exclusively. Maybe that's why I was scared all along, but oh well, back on my own center of gravity. There's life to worry about now.

I no longer collect my thoughts and experiences post apocalypse to want to share with you. As I said, it takes two to Tango, so it's your move. I still feel niggling worry for you every so often but whatever, life comes and goes in its stream, I'll see you someday, and someday you'll mean less to me.

Aware of being aware

If you're aware of being aware, does that make it ever the more confusing.

Truth is

...I didn't really know you. I caught you at a time where, we were nothing but mere passing ships. As much as I try to shut off the chapter it gets harder, but thank god for memory loss.

Sometimes I think I pity myself too much, when I start reminiscing about the fun and all and then I realize that I can't have it again, no matter how much I want to. That's when it really hits hard and hurts. To realize again that I sometimes have to physically and actively stop myself from contacting him. I guess it's a training thing.

Lifelessons

Rule 1: Life is not fair - get used to it!

Rule 2: The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

Rule 3: You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.

Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.

Rule 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: they called it opportunity.

Rule 6: If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.

Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent's generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.

Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer.. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.

Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters.. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time.

Rule 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.

F.R.I.E.N.D.S

There's something to be said about friendships that have lasted the majority of your life.
<3

Laugh

You always need people who know you. Some aspect of you. People that make you laugh, people whoes lifegoals are so different from yours that it forces you to look at life from different perspectives and forces you to re-evaluate your own cognition.

Dreamed so deeply last night but woke up crying, not too sure what the dream was about though. Urgh. Stupid subconscious.

Live. Love. Laugh.

Erase

Maybe it's just as well my hard-drive decided to die on me and forced me to erase what was on my old drive. Memories, all memories. At least the songs and photos are saved. Sigh.

If only life was that easily restarted.

Oh well, Tango was good, reconnected with a lot of the basics. Car decided to conk out in the parking lot. Got BCG email for first round. Shit. This is life in my hands right now.

I'm absolutely terrified.

But there's a full moon risin'
Let's go dancin' in the light
We know where the music's playin'
Let's go out and feel the night.

Because I'm still in love with you
I want to see you dance again
Because I'm still in love with you
On this harvest moon.

When we were strangers
I watched you from afar
When we were lovers
I loved you with all my heart.

 

Sigh. Life. Thanks for showing you care though. Ladybugs. I pick up the crumbs of your care, just have to remind myself not to expect anything more.

Peace of mind

We pray.

We pray because we'd like to believe that anything good or bad in life came to us because someone up there has seen the masterplan for our lives. If something bad happens we put it down to...some fault on our part. If something good happens we revel in it, but maybe, we can't ever be totally at one end or the other, because things are always changing.  ALWAYS. The start of the year for me couldn't have been worse, the end of the year couldn't have been better. But of course, we only live one reality and wonder about the alternative worlds.

Erhem (Chrestomanci Jing, if you're still reading this I would still like to dispute the number of lives he had left...10 yrs on...lol)

I have objects with me, from years ago, from people ago. It's funny that the things still lie in front of me, but I haven't seen them in years, or they just don't mean the same to me anymore.

I have a bit more peace of mind now.

問彩雲何處飛
願乘風永追隨
有奇緣能相聚死亦無悔
我柔情深似海
你痴心可問天
誓相守長繾綣歲歲年年

我怎能離開你
我怎能將你棄
你常在我心底信我莫疑
願兩情常相守
在一處永綢繆
除了你還有誰和我為偶

藍色花一叢叢
名叫做勿忘儂
願你手摘一枝永佩心中
花雖好有時枯
只有愛不能移
我和你共始終信我莫疑

 There comes a point in time where you've probably relived an event a million times backward and forward, left and right, up and down and around and around. But the truth is, it happened the way it happened so what's the point of worrying about it anymore? It seems so odd, but hello I want to talk to old me, sometime back 3 months ago. I really do.

It's not you in the now I want to know about, it's us in the past. 

Whatever happened to seize the day, look to the future and all that shit?!

Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

 

Thank you Michigan

ONE  bloody piece of paper. ONE.

3 years of sweat, blood, tears, memories, stress, wrinkles, pimples, cold, laughter, friends, love, fun, tango, YHO, arguments, disagreements, running, tennis, basketball, cultural nights, apprehension, coffee, sleepiness, work, dorm living, apartment hunting, confusion, loneliness, trepidation, anxiety, food, money spending, seasons changing, beer investigating, fountain walking, arb living, star gazing, milonga madness, winter cold, library boredom, drives under a full moon, cuddles, kisses, frostbite, coffee, sweetwaters, fear.

Oh boy.

Thank you for the irreplaceable memories Michigan.

It scares me sometimes when I look forward and all I see is this black hole. sigh. When I want to scream for you, but you're not there.

Why hello, you look just a little bit too happy. Time for that rug to be pulled again.

Engrave

Sometimes we just need to seize all our thoughts and pen it down. To trigger reminders of memories and feelings, right now, right here. I'm scared I'm losing the memory of you but I also have to, for my own good.

My eyes popped open the 2nd morning before I was going to leave. And that panic struck again, that panic that "oh god I don't want this moment to end but I can't do anything to stop it." I woke you up accidentally and you rolled over and grasped me tighter. I never wanted the moment to end, I love mornings where we just laze in bed til we get a wee bit too hungry to function and have to get up. Because time has passed us once again. Damn you time.

Roll over and it's past June 1st. Past doomsday. I look at a map hanging on the kitchen wall and all I see is Michigan-Malaysia. Worlds apart. Cultures apart. Times apart. Lands apart. A------>B right?

I feel that sometimes I romanticize everything about that 76 days. As thought it were some epic love story that needs to be dug out and replayed in my mind every hour or so. Pathetic. Simply pathetic. But I can't stop my mind can I?

Do I cross your mind fleetingly like you have consumed me these past weeks? I'd hope so, or maybe. You're just a guy. A guy who can move on at a drop of a hat. I hate it. I really do. I hate feeling so much when you're probably onto the next girl already. It wasn't meant to be like this, I wasn't meant to care so much. But I did. I still do.

Dreamlist

Sunshine in a bottle (Try...Sunshine forever)
Slouchy (warm) boots
Oversize comfy hoodie
Trench-coat
Jimmy Choo/Loubatin heels
Skydiving lesson
Diamond Studs
Recreating Delicious' Duck Confit Pasta
More travelling(Cancun counts!)
Seeing Machu Picchu (EPIC FAIL)
Funky Earrings
Any SLR
Polaroid Cam(Replace with fisheye!)
Unlimited $$$ for books
GG wardrobe + Season 3
Happy Jon&Kate+8 to watch during dinners (never ever happening again)
YHO Symposium=Success
A Magna Cum Laude ( I think?)
Watching District 9/UP

Char Kway Teow

Who knows what happens between two people? The little gestures, the time spent together. You can spend your whole life trying to describe a feeling, but it'll remain indescribable. It's a combination of everything, experiences, expectations, dreams, thoughts, feelings all explosively combined into something better than char kway teow.

Sometimes when you click, you really click. Its a see saw though isn't it? Someone has to feel a little more than the other and pretty soon you wonder when you knew life without the other person. Love does strange things to you, it can make someone move across continents, finding a different life-story to act out. Of course marriage doesn't seal any kind of deal, so much for death do us part right? Just as graduation seems to be some key into adulthood the blow of reality hits when you realize, no, not really, graduation is just...a rite of passage. It doesn't give you the key to anything, you have to earn it in the real world.

The more I ask for advice the more I realize no one really knows. Trust your instinct, be happy, follow your passions. Sometimes I think the only thing I'm good at is getting a good grade =S.

Ah Ann Arbor, who knew that 3 short years ago-sitting under a tree with Malaysians after just having learned how to sign up for classes for the very first time- would pass by in a blink of an eye? 2 summers, 3 winters, 1 spring.

I walked through the Diag oh about a month ago now, marvelling at how the leaves had sprouted again. I've never been in Ann Arbor long enough to see the greenery sprout, somehow every year I had this compelling need to rush home at the drop of a hat, why on earth?! I don't know now in hindsight. Then I got to thinking about how in September it was the last Festifall, bustling freshmen running around trying to figure out how to make their mark on campus. The Seniors manning the booths, slightly jaded by 3 years of college and experiences, memories, hopes, dreams. Recruitment season and the pain of rejection. Fark. If there's anything you fear it is that when you leave, you'll go unnoticed.

3 years ago I knew no one, there was one moment in time just walking to class where in the space of 20 meters I ran into three people I knew. Campus might have 40,000 people but sometimes all you need is one to make a difference.

You definitely made a mark on me more than anything else probably could. Maybe because for once I was happy. I have the theory there's always a person you want to be, the person you are and the person you perceive you are, and for once, they all tallied. Well that point didn't last too long did it? There's such a disjoint, always. Sometimes I wonder whether it's an injustice to my memories that I can attempt to move on this fast. Sometimes I just break down and have to start all over again. Whatever it is, I'm reconnecting with who I used to be, slowly but surely.

El Secreto de sus Ojos

I've been meaning to write a review about this movie for eons but in the midst of the angst of heartbreak and life confusion I couldn't because a lot of the themes paralleled what I was feeling at that point in time and everything else that I anticipated feeling. I guess the storm has passed so for now I can relive the emotions a bit more objectively.

So it opens innocently enough, a train, foggy memories. A thriller. Now I'm not one for thrillers as a genre but hell this was a good one. A murder case, unresolved. Love, unrequited. Not the annoying bullshit Hollywood take on love, but real..passion. God the Argentinians are good at that.

Sometimes things happen that freeze time, that lock a person 25 years in their past in one moment where a connection gets cut off. Viciously. That's how I describe it if anyone asks me about this movie. It's about living a life stuck at one point in time, a case so unresolved that it becomes a black hole which consumes everyone and everything in its vicinity. Reliving a nightmare everyday of your life until it becomes a life not worth living anymore.

I'll remember grasping your hand, ducking my head in horror. I'll remember the animated discussion after, about life, love, memories. And I'll remember how reinforcing certain life lessons were. I haven't felt so strongly about a movie probably since 500 days of Summer, or Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, or Lord of the Rings. The few rare ones that strike at the core of life and its lessons.

Luhrmann

Ladies and Gentlemen of the class of ’99. If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be
it. The long term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience…I will dispense this advice now. Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth; oh nevermind; you will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they have faded. But trust me, in 20 years you’ll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked….You’re not as fat as you imagine. Don’t worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubblegum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you at 4pm on some idle Tuesday. Do one thing everyday that scares you Sing Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts, don’t put up with people who are reckless with yours. Floss. Don’t waste your time on jealousy; sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind…the race is long, and in the end, it’s only with yourself. Remember the compliments you receive, forget the insults; if you succeed in doing this, tell me how. Keep your old love letters, throw away your old bank statements. Stretch. Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your life…the most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives, some of the most interesting 40 year olds I know still don’t. Get plenty of calcium. Be kind to your knees, you’ll miss them when they’re gone. Maybe you’ll marry, maybe you won’t, maybe you’ll have children,maybe you won’t, maybe you’ll divorce at 40, maybe you’ll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary…what ever you do, don’t congratulate yourself too much or berate yourself either – your choices are half chance, so are everybody else’s. Enjoy your body, use it every way you can…don’t be afraid of it, or what other people think of it, it’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever own.

Dance…even if you have nowhere to do it but in your own living room. Read the directions, even if you don’t follow them. Do NOT read beauty magazines, they will only make you feel ugly. Get to know your parents, you never know when they’ll be gone for good. Be nice to your siblings; they are the best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future. Understand that friends come and go,but for the precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle because the older you get, the more you need the people you knew when you were young. Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard; live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft. Travel. Accept certain inalienable truths, prices will rise, politicians will philander, you too will get old, and when you do you’ll fantasize that when you were young prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders. Respect your elders.

Don’t expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund, maybe you have a wealthy spouse; but you never know when either one might run out. Don’t mess too much with your hair, or by the time you're 40, it will look 85. Be careful whose advice you buy, but, be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it’s worth. But trust me on the sunscreen…

Quietly

Quietly, quietly, I shut the door on my thoughts
After the loud banging it shut and throwing the key away
Declarations of, this is the last I'm ever gna think of you!

Into the ocean of memory
I dived down, panicked to retrieve it
I can't let you go just yet, but I'll leave this door shut for now
Maybe unlocked

Maybes, what if's and why's still linger
A distant passage and words lining the way
Minutes tick, a little bracket by an email note
There's still a jump everytime I see your name

So for now let the embrace go
Find your own weight and then maybe
One day we'll meet again

Life goals

The worst feeling in all this world is losing your own drive and passion.

It really is. At least the days are looking up, new goals are kinda forced into place, but they have to be otherwise my sanity will seriously go. It's just looking at life one day at a time rather than as a lifetime. Live in the moment truly, and never ever lose yourself. It's painful.

Sometimes something happens in the present that you know you'll immortalize in your memory forever. Maybe that moment will stay with you until the day you die, not tampered with the haziness of forgetting, but crystal emotions. The human mind plays so many tricks on you. Perhaps for once who I wanted to be was who I am at that point in time and I was unwilling to let go, but we're always searching for ourselves aren't we?

Perhaps I'm still in your heart, but what if the day comes that you're gone and I'm still here?

Scared

I always pre-empt emotions. Is that bad? Is it bad to expect the worse of everything? The more I think of getting a job the more I feel like nothing is ever going to be right again. And I go through this, oh just about every 2 hrs or so. Then I start to think what if I never find that moment of happiness again, and I won't lie, this is due to one person in part, but more importantly I seem to have lost my own intrinsic motivation.

Always chasing things, always chasing grades, jobs, money. The greatest wish is to just be happy. To be happy. How on earth do I learn how to treat you as a friend?

I'm scared.

I'm terrified of that feeling that I'm stuck in a dead-end job. I'm terrified of making wrong life decisions, people say jump, but all I see is this neverending abyss. Fuck it. I haven't had restful sleep in the longest time and that's probably numbing alot of emotions right now.

The Maccabees

First love, Last love
Only love, it's only love

First love, Last love
Only love, it's only love

Do you miss home?
Do you miss home?
And are you cool?
Symmetrical?

Oh Oh Oh
Let's get married
And tick the boxes
Oh lets get married
And tick the boxes

Do you wanna be alone?
Do you wanna be alone?
And are you cool?
Symmetrical,
Analytical
Hypocritical
So critical
Nothing's perfect; I'm hoping I'll do

Oh nothing's perfect; I'm hoping I'll do

My mistake
And no mistake
And I would take it back if I could
So stay with me tonight

I'll make my bed, I'll lie in it
Enticing with its leopard print
I'll make my bed, I'll lie in it
Enticing with its leopard print
And matching velvet duvet

First love, Last love
Only love, it's only love

First love, Last love
Only love, it's only love
It's only love

Stircrazy

Oish. Life.

I've driven myself nuts over the past few days figuring out where life is going. Nights have been bad, don't leave me with my thoughts, it really blows, I randomly wake up in the middle of the night just thinking.

I'm a stubborn ass. I've lost my way and drive and motivation and as idiotic as anyone tells me that sounds that is the truth. It's hard to think of life with a schedule, but I guess that's what I have to adjust my thoughts to isn't it?

*edit: Oh duck. Barnyard certainly lives on.

Things are looking up. Maybe its the adrenaline/sleep deprivation going on but hey, getting an income+doing stuff I love. Why not? Have to stop thinking of it as time passing and rather more like new opportunities and people are always back for holz/summer and dude I'm used to transient crossings by now. 5 years ago I thought I'd never see Gil again, 5 years on I've seen her in Jakarta, KL, Cambridge and Miami, and now maybe Shanghai. Global much?

It hurts most when the thoughts catch up. All the symptoms of it just kinda collide into a mess that I wake up with a jumble of emotions from high to low and loop over and over again. Time, just wash it through already will you, let the neurons degenerate until it's synthesized into a pure vial of happy memories, but through a foggy screen.

Maybe I'll keep looking for you in others, I don't know. I feel like I'm driving myself nuts, but I feel what I feel, when I feel. How can I control it? You can't can you.

How do you confront the realities of growing up? Of work, of returning to a life that seems, well a lifetime ago. Remind yourself that it wasn't too long that you were equally as confused, moving from a levels to starting a new life in college. We all adjust, we really do, and whether we like it or not, kicking or screaming, we make it through.

Rocks, water, sky, trees and me

Oh look there I am, from the eyes of a lomo.

Funny how things always seem so different through the visuals that we choose to depict ourselves through. Flipping through my Tumblr is like taking a visual mindmap through this past 2 months. I just hope when I embark on work or wtv comes next that I keep it up. It really is an amazing way of documenting feelings at points in time.

I sit here, just waiting. My mind likes to run away, far far away.

Maybe I need to check out Tango here. Reconnect with the thread.

Funny how looking back at things just erases so much of the negatives. Wishing to go back to a certain point in time is something I need to adjust to again, and it's not as if I haven't been through it before, far from it, I've been through it too many times, but all I'm doing is waiting for time to wash over the wounds. Scrap that, they aren't wounds, they're bleeding sores right now.

I never liked sappy breakup songs coz they just seemed SO, pathetic, but it's kinda true right? When things don't quite taste the same, when all you want to do is see that person's face, hear their voice. But it's not as if that was paradise either, but somehow the mind makes it so.

I miss you.

Fuck it, I'm in this limbo stage between wanting to move on and being happy about things happening in my life...and just sitting here listless, unable to drag myself away from this moment.

Work...or something like it.

I have this totally irrational fear of starting work. For some reason I keep feeling that the first one HAS to be perfect, HAS to be in an industry I love and will stay in forever. Otherwise I'll just feel totally uninspired.

You were a lifetime ago. That's what it seems.

"Could you pretend that airplanes in the night skies are like shooting stars?"

Leaving

It's amazing
How you make your face just like a wall
How you take your heart and turn it off
How I turn my head and lose it all

Last tennis match with Gabe the past Friday which was an epic 3 setter @ 4-6, 6-4, 6-4. Score, free lunch at Real Seafood Company. Took 3 hrs to complete with a side trip to Amers for food coz I would have fainted otherwise. Said bye to soccer mum and had a last ride in his noisy, gasoline smelling car.

Birthday dinner that night with a bit of Tango thrown in and stout at the Grizzly Peak with Dian. Was good stuff.

Saw Joon for a last tennis rally and said bye to him after not seeing him for months. Funny how things change. Spent 3 hrs after running around like a headless chicken and packing up the house and my own crap. Oh the chaos. Dinner at Shalimar where Ed's voucher was put to good use and for the first and last time, a milonga @ the Phoenix center which had amazing floors and was a great place for dance in general. Perfect Tango end.

Sunday lazing with episodes of 30 rock and leftover risotto. Yum. After much lazing away the afternoon on the couch, decided to head to Michigan Theater and watched "The Secret in their Eyes" which without a doubt is one of the best movies I have seen in some time. Boy has good taste. Mongolian BBQ for the first and last time, meh was decent. Went home and watched more tv with Paris Je T'aime which was adorable, funny, heartwrenching, sad and amazing all rolled into one.

Woke up to a stormy Monday, grabbed lunch at Fleetwood, Hippie Hash definitely lived up to its hype. Got the luggage out and then headed back. BBQ that night and a whole bottle of wine which resulted in quite an inebriated me laughing over episodes of 30 rock.

Then the goodbye the next day. It's a wonder I was coherent enough to get on the plane.

Learn

Goodbyes are never easy. The ease of internet and to a lesser extent travel hasn't lessened the blow of physical parting. Until the day they create teleportation, goodbyes will always be hard.

24 hours on the move and counting. A whole day non-stop. The last time I'll do this on a decently regular basis. For awhile. Everyone around me are embarking on new journeys, tides turn, things change, realities form and reform. There's never a time that life decides to stand still, just for a moment. Bits and pieces get torn away from you as you leave yourself behind til all that's left is tiredness and 20 years added to your face. Or maybe I'm just a huge pessimist.

Nah, life really is more than that, you learn more as you grow and there's always regrowth. But maybe sometimes the purity of innocence is what gets lost along the way.

Are we the same people at 21? Perhaps a little older, a little wiser, a little more clear as our experiences back up our statements on life, "oh boy you ain't seen nothing yet."

I'm used to farewells, I'm used to having friends scattered across four continents and I know that if it were genuine we'd see each other again, because fate has her way of working. Sometimes the one furthest away from you is the most updated with you, the innermost thoughts and experiences conveyed in messages through chats so that when you finally do meet its as though you never left.

How long do you wait until you move on? How long does it take?

I sat locked in the four walls of Changi Transit Hotel and I broke down.

"It isn't another life, it's this life." Carpe diem, seize the day indeed. You remind me of myself in all the ways that I am proud of myself but you also magnified a lot of my weaknesses so that I could confront it. We were kinda chaos to the end.

For now I'll learn. Thank you for the memories, now its time to remind myself how to balance my own weight and let the embrace go for awhile.

Fly me to the moon

Fly me to the Moon
let me play among the stars

Swings and things, mozzie bites and kisses under a moonlight sky. If there's anything I enjoy it's a soundtrack set to life and boy you are good at that.

Saw Ed and Steve for the last time, highly entertaining night involving excellent Thai food and George Bush's severed finger + Subtitles for foreign students. Ah, I shall miss them.

Scent of a Woman was a pretty engaging film, I now know why Por Una Cabeza is such a famous Tango song, but Al Pacino's performance was definitely riveting. The days are inching slowly to a close.

Wednesday

I post best when I'm feeling emotions. But sometimes they really are overwhelming to the point I turn incoherent.

Spent Wednesday with Judy in Kerrytown, back to the fishnchip place, god their salmon burger is awesome. It was a fun time wandering among stores, trying cupcakes, acting stupid with cookie-cutter cutouts and awesome awesome paper prints. More trinket stores and a spice shop which just made me want to have a kitchen like Nigella's and cook exotic spiced food everyday, then I get brought back down to earth by remembering how lazy I would be to do that every single day and more likely than not the spice would sit there until it turned mouldy or something.

Zingerman's for dessert, awesome cake as always. Took the bus up north, wandered around the dude and the reflection pool then headed up to find the wave field by the FXB where more random photo-taking ensured. Headed home and finished cooking the risotto before Tango.

Irrationality creeps in at the worst times. Always. Sometimes I wish I didn't feel so much, but perhaps feeling is better than being an ice cold block. At least that's what they say.

Tuesday

I'm not a daily blogger, mainly because reading back on day blogs from KLASS days was just mundane detailing of the days events. Yet I have decided to attempt to be one for this final week of A2 days just because. Maybe I'll read back on it and the little details will slip my mind, but most likely these posts will just act as a trigger until some far time into the future where the current dates and days become days in the past, no longer holding sentimental meanings as I say goodbye to those in the future present.

So yesterday after a bout of tennis thrashing by Allison, I headed to Cafe Japon with Dian and Fareza to try out their tea special. Cakes were awesome, tea was good, company was great. Though the reminiscing on life and future was quite depressing. Cameras out in full force. Headed to some antique shop where I picked up a great pair of earrings for 6 bucks and then off to the public library where I found another faerie door! Then wading through the pond outside the League in a bid to finish off the tradition that was started at orientation.

Tried the Jolly Pumpkin with Ami and Paul, good cocktails, amazing fries and again, excellent company. It was an entertaining night that began with the question, "if a girl kisses another girl on a drunken night and that pisses off her bf, does that count as cheating?". This night was finished off with Paul administering the census in my living room =.=. lol.

Today, north campus exploring with Judy and Kerrytown Farmers market/lunch. Ah bliss. Last Tango lesson tonight.

It's funny that once I stop thinking of this as "lasts" I start to enjoy it so much more. Am I ready to leave, mentally prepared, physically, totally not! 2nd step: Folding and taping the boxes ready for the stuff. Everytime Fareza talks to me she asks how packing is progressing and all I can say is...it's not going anywhere quite yet. It's only Wednesday, I'll have time.

I fell into sleep grasping your palms in mine and soon I could no longer feel them in that state between waking and slumber but I knew you were there and perhaps I found peace. Just act as though we have all the time in the world, and I'll be fine, because when I stop moving my thoughts catch up with me. So can I keep running? It's learning to let go when the time comes that's the hardest thing to accept.

Hmm

The Bell Jar is a pretty good read, definitely recognizable as Sylvia Plath's writing through and through. Definitely not a read for when you're down though otherwise it might be a bit too overwhelming.

Monday. One week from today and it'll be my last day in Ann Arbor. For now, I'm just going to enjoy my time, attempt to finish the bucket list, sort out my life. For today, dinner with the girls and movie after, then shisha =).

Today, I took down the Christmas lights. My first step to pack up my life here. Everything kinda brings back memories, Christmas lights at 1009 church on a snowy day, under blankets, watching gossip girl. I physically sit here, but my mind is mentally mapping out everything I need to do over the next few days. Balance of severing all physical ties with this place and going all out with experiencing the things that are only ever done when you're on that last leg of time. Funny isn't it? 3 years of being here and there are still places I'm discovering that I need to go, things to do. Mainly food related of course. You never really appreciate things til you can't have or do them anymore.

Maybe that's why I hate leaving, the forced thoughts of "this is it, this is the last time I'm going to walk down this path, eat here, drink here." It wasn't really woven into the fabric of everyday life, but of course we all want to try new things before the chance is taken away from us.

Even after all the connections are gone. I'll have the memories.

Monday-Watched Babies with the girls and shisha sesh after.

新不了情

曾经拥有,
天荒地老,
已不见你,
暮暮与朝朝。

这一份情,
永远难了,
愿 来生还能,
再度拥抱。

爱一个人,
如何斯守到老,
怎样面对一切,
我不知道。

Ah, I've always loved 不了情 but this one can definitely give it a run for its money. Sometimes lyrics seem to capture everything you feel or need to say.

Confusion. I don't know what to think or feel anymore, and yes, I will read this in the future and laugh at the stupidity that is me right now. But sometimes you can't be rational or embarrassed at what you feel anymore. I care too much and sometimes I just have to learn to grow up and be more independent. Urgh.

Restless

Sometimes I wish classes were still on, because then I feel that you really appreciate the freedom of time just that much more.

I should be packing up the kitchen, taking care of the million and one things that need to be taken care of. But I can't bring myself to even start. Of course, knowing the panicky me that I often turn into, there's not much point packing up the kitchen just yet because I'm still using a lot of the things, and I guess packing can be done in a day.

I just can't bring myself to tear down the pictures from the walls yet. Because then I'll really be leaving. Maybe my mind's already back home, and all I'm doing here is walking through the motions. Seem to have lost a lot of motivation as this year's gone on. Plenty of people have told me I should be taking that well deserved rest, but problem is I really don't think I've deserved it. There's so much more to life that has to be lived and I've barely done anything worth mentioning.

Lists to do.

I think its creeping into my tango. For the life of me, couldn't get some connections going, and at one point just zoned out when the teaching was going on. When you're present, but not really, present.

Isn't it funny when you appear on one front to be so happy, when really underneath there's just a seething mass of confused thought. Sometimes you grab at emotions, elated one moment, apprehensive the next. I need to lose myself in a moment again, to really savour it.

Mind wander

Maybe half the problem is that we often live in memories. Replaying events, words said. If there's anything that will drive you nuts, it's probably holding onto something for a bit too long that it starts to burn. I'd rather live in the present.

I need to be challenged again. Find something that gets the blood racing, reconnect with things I love, like a sweaty saturday tennis match, or shooting hoops.

Partings when you force them seem to fake. It doesn't really hit you that you've said bye to someone until you're chatting to them online and realizing that, well parting doesn't mean goodbye forever. You'd still talk to the person, it's just that your lives aren't running alongside each other anymore, you aren't immersed in each others lives anymore like interwoven threads of fabric. You can't just call them up and tell them to meet you in 5 minutes.

But yes, you will still keep in contact, and slowly but surely as life goes on, you become less relevant to each other, and updates come in email lines, first regularly, then slowly sporadically.

I guess I've had enough experience with that, said goodbye to enough friends, but I understand how connections work. If its strong enough, it remains. It really does, which is why I'm less worried now about leaving this phase in life, because its not a do all, end all. Paths cross.

把悲傷留給自己

It's time to move on. Do what you preach.

Courses were set a long time ago. Appreciate the fact they were allowed to cross so briefly, but don't long for more. That's all there is to it. You threw it off course for a little while, so I have to keep reminding myself, don't go hunting for ladybugs. Just don't have expectations, that's when you'll be pleasantly surprised. Of course the danger is that one too many surprises and the expectations start forming.

Maybe I wasn't as strong as I thought I could be. But no biggie, you reminded me that I have to be. There really isn't an alternative.It's hard thinking that crossing some arbitrary threshold I can no longer call you mine. But what can you do with courses set long before anything happened. It's been a short time but it feels so much longer than that. You keep saying there's so much more to find out about, maybe all I want is to feel this. now.

For now I'll just fall.

Against all Odds

Certain songs bring back memories of points in times. Of meanings hidden. This is why I say that love stories are lies. They are never unique to you.

Maybe I've finally adjusted to the body pillow instead of the bolster, the right side instead of the left, your arms around me through the night. At this point I wish I had more time, but I guess there's no point in the what ifs or maybes, perhaps or could haves. Time exists now to curl our hands around, to entangle in our grasp before it too slips away like a momentary feeling. A fleeting kiss, an embrace all too soon forgotten. Things in memories remain pure, untainted by uncertainly, a distillation of emotions.

Sometimes I wonder how I'll adjust to not having you around, sometimes I believe I'll be ok. Sometimes, I wish I could live inside my head and its replaying memories.

When people are around we say, "I'll see them another time, we have all the time in the world." But one day when they're gone, we lament the missed opportunities, the excuses we made up because we just cannot be bothered.

Some Enchanted Evening

Some enchanted evening
You may see a stranger,
you may see a stranger
Across a crowded room
And somehow you know,
You know even then
That somewhere you'll see her
Again and again.

Who can explain it?
Who can tell you why?
Fools give you reasons,
Wise men never try.

Some enchanted evening
When you find your true love,
When you feel her call you
Across a crowded room,
Then fly to her side,
And make her your own
Or all through your life you
May dream all alone.

I refuse. to listen. to love songs. But it really does strike chords.

Some days I feel like I don't mind never seeing you again. Some days I feel like I need to see you.

You're already turning into a memory, although you're right in front of me.

The End...of the Beginning

What can I say, the routine has well and truly been thrown off course. No more set schedules, worrying about exams/papers/studies. Summer has always been a time for a rest, for a recharge to the humming machine of school and life. It's scary that this machine for now has been put to rest. After...10 years.

I reached for Lulu's colourful notes in a cup a minute ago. Then returned the rolled up paper. I'll save it when I'm really lost.

I'm grasping at memories, days seem to pass so fast and memories are created minute by minute, hour by hour. I sit here in suspension for now, wishing for a certain day to get here, and at the same time knowing that once it does, that the moment I'll dread is around the corner too. So do I wish for it to come any faster? I don't know.

The past few days have been surreal. Did my 461 final. Went home, saw the boy, rushed to the airport to pick the 'rents. Dropped them off, decided on a whim to go clubbing for Xian's bday so made it to Necto by 12:40 where a very inebriated Lulu and Dian were having fun. Ah entertainment.

Friday was chaos with everyone running around doing stuff. Last minute decision to go to the Econ commencement with the parents then dinner after with the boy. Oh how I torture myself. Everyone was in the house by around 1am, with a grumpy Dian in tow. Was surreal that everyone was back again, together for once. Didn't sleep til 3.

6am came with chaos as lightning and thunder were booming outside and Kong called with the statement, it's raining. Malaysian style. The house woke up with loads of groans and moans. Me and Jin walked down with plastic bags over our heads. =.=" Not what I want to look like on one of the biggest days of my life. Ai. Milling around, we finally got on the field, decent seats...I guess. Everyone was taller in front, so it didn't particularly help.

Loads more running around taking pics with people, trying to find people, people trying to find me. By the end of it I was totally exhausted and conked out for 2 hours.

Graduation is a funny thing, the time where everyone isn't busy with work, but the worse time to try and round up everyone as the last minute rush of goodbyes are tampered with trying to fit as many people into as little a time as possible. It hasn't hit me yet but it will eventually that this really is the last time I'll see some people. One day.

How can you live in a moment when you realize it's going to be nothing more than a memory? How do you stay on a string of time that has a foreseeable end? How do you enjoy the now, right here? Can't you stop time for a bit? Seems like we're always on a rush. Always on a deadline. Always being chased by that alarm going off.

We've only just begun, can't you leave me in this little nook for now, time? Can't you forget about me for awhile.


How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd;