Balik Rumah

I'm back after 7 months away from home (the first since Uni days) and it was a good 'break' away. Granted, some late nights, a bit of stress and crazy people but hey, survived, learned, met new people, formed a new group of work colleagues. Realised that Singaporeans aren't that different from us Malaysian's and government in developed countries are sometimes equally as hopeless, in different ways. One actively and knowingly and the other just stupidly bodoh.

Heading back this weekend to experience Sg as a tourist again. Dropping by the milongas that have become my second home, buzzing around public transport which has become such a norm for me. But surprisingly, none of the nostalgia that came with leaving University.

Right now, semi enjoying the time off and looking forward to Dive trips, Tango Blitzing, Tango down South and Tango in Istanbul. Again, stabilising to a new norm with Tango at the center of it all.

Good times!

Karma

We flew through a storm getting into KLIA on Friday, a real proper show of flashing lightning, swirling clouds and 15 backed up planes causing a 2 hour delay to a 1 hour flight.

Descent through the clouds reminded me of the cloudy murkiness that engulfed us diving in the waters of Sipadan in January, where the only distance you could see was up to the hand extended in front of you, a wall of coral on the left and on the right and below, nothingness stretching into blackness.

Dancing raindrops skittered across the plane of the double-paned window for what felt like eternity, all I could see was the dense white fog and the flashing illumination of our plane wing light reflecting off the mass of clouds. Sparkling sparkling raindrops reminding me of the million stars at the top of Rinjani at 530am. Before a break and there, Home lay below. The snaking lights of highways or the patches of neighbourhood lights, circles breaking the darkness, illuminating just only what was below them. A gate, a petrol station, nothing high rise, just monopoly-like houses.

Karma. This whole week feels like Karma. One week of dancing til 4am's and another of working til 2am's.

I am really. really. tired.

Of stepping outside Boxes

How many times do we really take a step back to see where life is now and where we want to go? Fortune favours the bold, if you don't know where you want to end up, any road will take you there, be free, chase your dreams!

Being spontaneous is a feature that society seems to put on a pedestal, but what about planning? What about goals? What about hard work? We seem so enchanted by the end story that we often dismiss the things that people have had to do to get there. Do ends really justify the means? I hope so.

3 months wrapping up the tail end of a project that I could call my own. Throwing myself into situations that would have made me seize up and freeze just a short number of years ago. Progress? I think so.

Michigan reunions seem to be in full swing this summer. Nicnocs in Sg with Dian, some ice cream, booze and boy gossip. Lulu in KL at an Entrepreneurship Forum, very yummy vegetarian food all around and Football mornings.

What next? Yes, what next indeed. Rinjani in less than a month and I cannot be more unprepared than this. Time to visit Uniqlo soon!

Also in the middle of a 2 day detox now, this is where the ends really better justify the means because it also  means I will not chew anything for 2 days straight. 

Halfway There

2014 half gone, been through a lot for this first half of the year, teaching tango, performing tango, going diving, learning new things on this job, keeping in contact with everyone, signing up for crazy things like G4G4 and Rinjani.

It's been pretty good so far, nothing new to report though besides the fact that I've been considering more and more about what next when it comes to going back to school. 4 years almost.

And as people move in and out of your life you learn to forge friendships ever the more quickly, take people at instant judgement, realise that certain situations will never be the same again but are ok with it. You learn that time takes friendships that lasted for the whole of schooling life and turn you into two strangers who really don't particular care about each other anymore whereas friendships forged in the current and now suddenly become your new clique. You learn to be ok with all this and realise eventually that everyone at the core of it, has to be comfortable alone before they can really connect with someone else.

Such is life.

G4G4 was good and as usual I'm fighting itchy bug bites and blistered feet as CC in the wild only ever does best. Think DOE bloody blisters and Perhentian Bug Bites. 13 km of running and 2 km of kayaking as well as an hour crawling up an 80 degree incline hill. Horribly disgusting but the sense of achievement is so palpable. 4th place of 15 teams overall so was a good run on our part. You can do anything as long as your mind is in it, this is why I do these things really. Much like DOE, or Rinjani coming up next it's about pushing my body to the limit as I sit here in the office in silence among people who pretend we don't see each other, each too engrossed in the supposed importance of their work. Words on a ppt. That's what I get paid for.

The Secret-Keeper

"We all have the unique ability to narrate our experiences-to ourselves. We are constantly processing and shaping the information that comes to our brains from our bodies and our senses. We organise all that input into narratives, which form the backbone of our identity. Some of them are about the past, others about the present, and we use that same technique to imagine the future.

In this way we can massage the chaos of our lives and transform it into our stories. This continuous conversation, much of which is unconscious, allows us to elimiate dangerous options. It helps us imagine survival strategies and even make good risk-taking decision. These narratives are not immutable-they change as our experiences change-but they are fundamental. You have to reassemble your identity in a way that accounts for the new information."

~http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/201312/the-secret-became-my-life

This was so powerful and reminds me that I've been like a rubix cube for most of my life, still trying to find the right combinations. I have a bad feeling this is going to continue for quite a while more though...

Under a starry sky

Sipadan Jan 2014

I am facing a dotted night sky, as clear as only island skies can be. Free from smog and light pollution that blanket a city skyline, the stars come out to play, sparkling lights on a black canvas, irreplaceable by the flashing bulbs of the tallest tower.

Waves lap back and forth, surging, rippling sounds as they crash into the stilts below me and the band plays on with a screech, Coldplay's Yellow suits the mood to a tee. One of their many hodgepodge covers ranging from Richie Ren's "Dui Mian de Nu Hai" to Italian songs such as "La Bamba". Around me the village folks have come to their Saturday night Zouk aka Uncle Chang's, half drunk off cheap alcohol and dancing to Gangnam Style. You know you've made it when a village in the middle of the ocean knows how to dance your dance.

Shoulders acheing from hauling friggin heavy equipment, BCD's and the whole gamut of equipment, oh and my own fats and weightbelt obviously. Putting on flippers with equipment hanging half off the side of the boat and your butt balancing precariously on the edge while wielding your spit filled goggles and shoving your regulator in your mouth before entering the water upsidedown counts as an intense workout in its own right. So does exiting to get onto the boat and trying to put your tank into the right hole.

Other than that, pretty decent dives, but still didn't live up to expectations. I was expecting barracuda's by the thousands and big whales or something, but obviously life doesn't work like that. Got acquainted with tons of turtles and white tip reef sharks though, and a lot of beautiful wall coral. Stunning stuff, like hovering above a garden. 7 dives in, and back into the groove! Also staring into the vast unknown below and around you is totally scary. Utterly out of elements. Human's are so useless in water.

Good company, decent room, toilet and food and this was a fun trip. Relaxing tanning times and no sun burns, woohoo. Deep conversations under night skies and acquaintances become the people who know more about you than some of your lifelong buddies do. Life is often such a mixture of circumstances. Interactions as we trundle along on the tracks that overlap briefly back and forth, forward and back. 

Chase

I. Am. Quite. Exhausted.

Just a little. This year has been a disjoint and draining on a level that I've never quite experienced before. Bipolar too. Next time I'll just count my blessings and be done with it. If there's anything that this year has taught me, is that it has pushed to the forefront the realities that life is never going to be always the same and status quos always change.

So, hold on, because life is and has always been a bumpy ride, but really, make your choices and do your best with whatever you choose.

This weekend came off a high of wrapping up a busy piece at work and started out on a Friday with KFC, two cakes, satay and plenty of booze, finishing off with champagne in the pool, boisterous chicken fights-where I almost drowned- and a rambunctious game of Marco Polo which basically wiped all us 20 something's out. Man, what happened to playing in the pool for hours at a time?

This was followed up with a bridal party on saturday with spa dates and hi-tea at Carcosa, then a 12 hours tango marathon where we smashed the last record of 7am, finishing at 8am with pancakes and bacon (which I did not get any of). Passed out for 6 hours before heading to La Boca and DJ-ing at Radius where by that time I was totally uninspired to dance. It's true! Too much of a good thing isn't really good either...

Anyway, December. Jeezus, this year has just gone and disappeared down some black hole again.

New beginnings

This was my entry of my very first job 3 years ago

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.

 

3 years on and I find myself at yet another client site adjusting. Work is the same, what's different is the system behind it and the people.

 

Who knew that 3 years on my ex-colleagues would become the family that I would call on when I need support, entertainment, motivation. Now let's mark this as the new entry.

 

We'll see where this takes me then =).

Abject panic

You know that little voice? That one that kinda is the true you, the one that really says exactly what you're thinking and feeling about something. The one you choose to ignore a lot of times because reality is that life sometimes does suck and all you have to do is accept that and move the **** on.

That voice popped out suddenly in the middle of an interview, after being asked to do a task. 20 longest minutes of my life where for once I had no answer to the question being posed. Nada, nothing. It happened again at yet another interview recently. I haven't faced this version of fear of failure in quite some time, perhaps attributable to the fact I have not faced challenges in quite some time due to the complacency of work.

2.5 years+ later and I seem to be back to square one and even more depleted of motivation than before. At least last time I had the fact that I knew nothing to lean on, now that I know SOMEthings, I rather not know them again =S.

Anyway, time to shut up and just pick something.

Dive in!

That's what it takes. No more assessments and weightings of pros and cons, cost benefit analysis (CBA wtf), but just pure, unadulterated JUMPING IN.

At the age of 25, where the heck am I. Working. Sorta. Functioning, adult with own spending money and often just trying to act like a grown up. Meeting KLASS friends is such a throwback and one that is so different in the way that, we are interacting as we've always done and yet having forgotten a lot of the forging of ties that occurred way back when. Shared jokes, bonds, actions and how we've affected each other, quarrelled with each other, been mad with each other. Yet at the end of it, creating and inhabiting the present in what we once termed the future, with such a...clean slate.

Food for thought alright.

Purgatory

I'm fighting a lot of inner demons recently but I'm sure I'll come out the stronger of it eventually.

Just to keep stock of what's going on:

1) Tango weekend next weekend with Wesak day+Tangoblitz starting on Thursday + Chinese Tea Ceremony on Saturday!
2) Skytrex + Wedding
3) Singapore with Lulu!
4) 2 week Europe Vacay
5) Stanchart Marathon
6) Melaka Wedding
7) Shanghai

This will last me the next 2 months. Chaos & Fun, here I come!

Elections

It's funny how things can change in my short lifetime. From having an opposition that was derided, viewed at with suspicion and generally outcast, there seems to be a renewal and rebirth of sorts, and the internet has no small part to play in this.

Plenty of rumours flying about yesterday, rumours of tear-gas, of rioting, of conflict, anger, pain. Even a death, but this one probably more related to overeating cholestral laden Malaysian food than martyrdom. We all turned into Lord Varys, passing statements from whatsapp to facebook to twitter. It's easy though to hide behind the anonymity of the web, it takes another level to face FRU, teargas and the possibility of being injured.

So what next? Let's not forget what this one day meant to us, like Malaysia every so often making it onto a world stage, let's not allow these sentiments to fade into our tidak apa-lackadaisical (love that word) attitude that we carry until someone nudges us to wake up and, blurry-eyed and sleep deprived on a weekend, do we wander over and complete whatever task it is that we do in the name of citizenship.

Let's hold them accountable. Really. Because in a time where governments of other countries seem to have come to dead ends, we seem to be just beginning our journey. Make it worthwhile.

Create...and delete

There are times where you find yourself lost in your own thoughts and memories and it's hard to get unstuck from one particular thing that has been playing on your mind for too long. Too long.

Lacuna? Where are you?

I've dropped some threads recently, sometimes it's hard to keep in touch when the people you keep constantly want to be in touch with just don't bother. But I do it with the thought that I've known them long enough that when we DO get back in touch it'll be like slipping into a comfortable second skin-no questions, just answers.

In other (happier) notions, full stack of Game of Thrones to read. Omg. Addicted.

I want...

...a guy who will make me feel like a girl. :)

I dug, I dug so deep to find that nonchalence. All I got was a mouthful of dirt, sweat and tears. It's when I realize that I should climb out of that pit that I found I had wings to fly with. Screw being kept down, it's time to have fun!

There's been so much emotional drainage going on recently with the reappearance of a dearest friend who has for 3 years been out of my life (to the degree that we didn't know whether she was dead or alive). It's at moments like this where you realize how time flies, new realities are put in place, and it all just seems like a dream. Nothing but a dream really. Maybe this is how life will be like, as we transition, run and cycle through the weeks, laugh in the office, do work, go home. Try to connect with everyone around us as best as we can but fail day in and day out as we're left in our own minds. Life I reckon is like individual boats in a omnipresent ocean. Unyielding and crashing and pushing us together and drawing us apart. Sometimes we have a handle on it, sometime we don't. But all we can do is pray for calm waters more often than not and good friends by our side. That's all there is.

Throbbing music, drunken haze. That high before the crash and burn. And repeat. Fun, definitely.

Black Holes

There have been a proliferation of chaotic issues with guys recently within the friendship groups which has gotten me wondering, where have all the good men gone? Is it really that hard to have a functioning decent relationship with someone that won't a)break your heart b) break your heart c) break your heart.

I'm sure guys are of the exact opinion too.

I used to believe in soulmates. Now I'd be happy with just the mates part.

My roster of skype people are not replying me and again, I figure that I've come to the point where I don't have anyone I can really talk TALK to anymore. And that's kind of depressing. I am at the end of the day a total cynic and a pessimist and maybe I'm slowly getting dragged back into that hole again.

It's one of those days

A million thoughts often pass my head from the moment I wake up to the moment my head hits the pillow. Meetings, people to meet, people I should meet, people I should be keeping up with and recently it feels as though I'm not doing that. That every single day there's someone out there that I should be catching up with about life and all I'm doing is chasing appointments, making appointments and forgetting them just as easily. There's not enough time in the day to truly catch up with everyone who means something to me. Sporadic emails, calls, txts, messages, across phones, skypes, gchats, face to face meetings. Schedule has been on a hectic roll very recently as slowly but surely everyone finds their niches and re-establishes themselves after university.

It's a fun time, but also so far removed from a time where I had classes, lectures, YHO events, meetings. I remind myself of Sheldon in some ways, in that there's always a schedule-except mine is just to NOT stop moving-. But I think the thing I fear most is to jump off that bandwagon into a non-schedule-less world. That would scare me. Because it would make me realize that despite all my movement, it really accounts to nothing in the end, the world is not going to stop spinning.

Jetset Lifestyles

New lifegoal=learn how to fly

I have found my latest motivation to earn money, jetset weekends to wherever I want to with no thought of money. (good god, I'm so far removed from YHO days that it's kind of embarassing =.=')

Weekend Bali trip on the tab of colleague with cancelled family vacations = the sort of lifestyle that I can only dream of living.

Friday excitement building and leaving for airport at 5pm. Buzz was inimitable and we were practically bouncing out of our seats around 4pm.

Got into Bali at 11:30 pm that night and was poolside by 12:30 am, mojitos in the pool and rose petal sprinkled bathtubs at 3 am.

The Istana

Woke up the next morning to a sunny beautiful day cliffside in Bali. Routine went something like this- breakfast, swim, BBQ lunch, massage, TV, capturing sunsets. Absolutely fantastic holiday if I must say so myself.

Cliffside views

Hot stone massages are also very different, not sure hot rocks suddenly landing on my legs constitutes relaxation, but it was good!

Amazing sunsets, missed the actual sun-setting by minutes but got fantastic watercolour clouds instead.

Sunsets

Ku De Ta for dinner and clubbing after, bloody expensive Risotto, delicious Peach Bellini, guess it's all in the vein of expensive holidays! Clubbing at h'uu after, however music wasn't really up to the tastebuds (trashy Ke$ha anytime) so decided to head back earlier.



Next day we did a little bit of shopping and walking around in Seminyak, new bikini purchased! Then off to the airport and an end to a fantastic, refreshing weekend. <3

Love this action shot!

Panorama

Burqa vs Bikini

 In reference to a cartoon that someone had posted on facebook, I thought I'd put in my 2 cents worth seeing how 2 weeks later the judgement call was made against my own dressing. =.=

From my viewpoint, it seems as though both points end up running into the same conclusions, that on both ends, societies role dictates the choices that they make.Maybe because history is so skewed to a pro-western stance across all facets of life that defines our general experiences, so that we inherently side the bikini wearing woman because that is the norm we are moving to in general. But I think the argument that society is responsible for the burqa wearing, and not the bikini wearing is wrong. Both are choices that one makes, but dictated within the larger cultural boundaries that occur.

To us religion has started to become a lesser shaper of general life. If you are non-religious, it doesn't matter, no one will really care (although saying that Malaysia is probably one of the worst ones, where race=religion!). In that way, since burqa-wearing is to some degree a function that occurs because of religion, so do we dismiss it as being a worser outcome. We equate burqa with oppressive religion, while we equate bikinis with free society, yet religion is a function of society anyway, therefore burqa=society norms=bikini

Who is to say what is right? Maybe we should just accept things as they are. But when it happens to you, there really is nothing that can erase that indignant feeling of 'it's my body, I'll do what I want with it'. To be told that I should not be showing my legs shows absolutely no respect for me as a person, but who am I to say anything in a country so dominated by 'muslim-isms'. Maybe I'm the disrespectful one? But it was more the fact that she made a judgement call on 'short'. Aye, there's the bloody rub innit.

This also links back nicely to the concept of rape and how some girls are 'asking' for it. There is absolutely no such thing as that. It is also with irony that a religion that expounds control and restraint also requires their women to cover up so as to not 'tempt' the senses. Where is your religion when rape is happening? Where is that restraint you've been honing every day, 5 times a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year?

I often try and keep an open mind but with issues like this I cannot help but rant.

Of odd jobs and travels

We often think of temporary jobs and internships as stepping stones to something greater, a means to an end, but what if life is just that, that the longer we search for an end, the more we realize that life is HERE, NOW. YOOHOO, TAKE ME.

So utterly terrified of being stuck in middle management (if I even get there) that it's not funny. What to do with life indeed, so many of us still figuring it out, and maybe life is here for us to seize now. What these times teach us is that everything is fleeting, firms my dad mentions at the start of college visit implode by the middle of freshmen year. How bad is it? Who knows, who knows indeed.

Good Taiwan trip wandering around foreign lands chases away the humdrum of work and looking forward to next travels (tomorrow really). Bali! Here we come =)

Early morning in Taiwan business class lounges that look all too familiar as I tread the paths that once led to 4 month stretches away from home and another cultural universe,  (also, holy crap flat beds are the best invention ever, why didn't they come up with it sooner when I had to take 24 hours flights!). Thumbing through WSJ, Time, Bloomberg, snippets of a world I've never physically seen, people I've never bumped into float in front of me, always the same never-ending themes-Europe in debt crisis, America's lost souls, Afghanistan internal bombings during Muslim holy days, Asia's new powers, Aung San Su Kyi's release, an imminent collapse of everything and anything we ever know, a growth and spurt and new beginnings, and this world continues to spin like it has, forever.

Typing at computers where I'd check hotmail's and college apps and everything in between. Such chaos of overlapping time frames.

Friendships

Countless times on flights through the years and buzzing of people connecting, leaving, arriving. Forever? New lands, a gateway to experiences that profoundly change your outlook on life, escape.

Airports, bar the horrendous invasion of privacy at every level and the terrifying obsession to check for passport and boarding pass every 5 minutes -'just in case'- leaves time for me to think. To observe the microcosm of the world swirling around me, wondering to what purpose people are traveling, what are their stories?

And being dropped off at airport gates with the knowledge that only fate and time will co-ordinate your next meeting. There's a certain sadness to it, a come what may feeling that lingers for sometime. So what if there's great technology? That does not help me get the hug I want when I want it, the dance I would like to have. Right now.