Perspective

Today's newspaper highlighted that the Hubble Space Telescope had managed to see further into the past than ever before. It peered into deepspace and told us of a past that is close to unfathomable to me. Which then got me thinking about why we're even on earth. This shift of perspective outward, far beyond my own being, into the How's and Why's. We seem to have answers for the How's, but as for Why we're here...well, that's an answer that has driven countless conflicts in this world. Just pause for a second, forget that stupid analysis you were meant to be doing and just think. Ever fibre of who you are today was a genetic lottery, a mashup of stars and a big bang. So they say. Will we ever know?

Makes you go, why? Why does this work I do even matter? In the perspective of the eternal universe, does it really matter?!

The fascinating thing is the amount of conflict life has given us. The religious fanatics refuse to believe anything hard science has proven while hard science stubbornly clings on to its facts and figures, neglecting the fundamental core, of answering the why. Why us? Why this conscience? What's the point?

It is a weird sensation. All these greater questions about life and all I can think about on a daily basis is what is for lunch...wasted intelligence man.

Anyway, a few days ago I was thinking about things as usual and I started thinking about this. I started thinking about who I was as a person. I've always felt that, when we're younger we feel the pressures of conforming (or not) to a certain type, taking on your favourite singer or idol of any kind and acting out who they are as a character for yourself. Like listening to Avril Lavigne was cool, liking Complicated as a song was cool because it spoke oh so much to your life at that time. Teenage years are funny because that amount of pressure you get to try and differentiate yourself using someone famous as your avator is unseen after the period. We might look back at nostalgia at the juniors we once were and snort at what we used to think was cool, or yell spice up your life in the next decades of karaoke sessions. Every. Single. Time.

But maybe it's this. The older we get, the more we settle. Settle into a routine, settle into an identity, because we've spent all our teenage years trying to be someone else. When you hit University, you tend to mature, to figure out more where you are and where you want to be, in general. Because you've lived all these personas over the past years, and because you've tried all these different 'skins', you can almost refer to yourself back in that era as someone else.

You come to terms with who you are as person, what you believe in, what you want to be and who you want to project yourself to be. Settled. You're less compelled to feel that there's a difference between who you are and who the person you really want to be is. The older you are, the more assured you are as a person, because you've seen more and been through more to make you more certain, since you've already made the decisions to get to your current state. It's this realisation that hey, shit happens, life is chaos, work will always be stressful, so just set it all aside and enjoy the moments that make you smile, laugh and feel alive.

On other notes, I started writing my daily 'Thankful for...' notes again. There are currently mini bumps on my forearms which means bootcamp is back in fullswing, and I am super sleep deprived which means my roster of activities is on a roll. Also my feet hurt as always which means Tango is back on with a  vengeance. And in 6 days I will be frolicking among whales in the deep blue sea and being lulled to sleep by crashing waves. Yes Please!!!

A Letter to 2012

Hi 2012,

Dragon year, 24. The year the world would end supposedly. You started out so nice, a pool-side read with the Hobbit and book-ended with the Hobbit Part 1 movie at the end of the year. You were a year I wanted to seize, to capture and to note down every key event possible. A year for me to never say no, but rather be spontaneous and do things. Things that would look good on film, that would be dug out over and over again as memories of a 'time that used to be'. Whether it be sneaking on creaking balconies ninja-style at 2 am in the morning, weekend sojourns to luxury Bali estates, eating the best Gelato in the world under the shadows of monomental millenia old buildings, diving at temple of the seas'. I went around the world and back and had a great time all around.

I was sad you were leaving me really, at the cusp of the end I didn't know how to set goals anymore, I didn't know 'what next'. I wanted something different for this year, but I realized, hey, why don't I just continue what I've been doing. There really are moments that don't need anything changing, moments that are so spontaneous that all you can do is make sure you create the right circumstances for them to happen again. Like saying yes to almost everything.

Growth. That word would sum you up. Growth and challenges.

Goodbye. I will miss you, however I also know that you were a prototype of sorts. What next, what next indeed.

x

Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, wine in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and screaming 'WOO HOO what a ride!'"
-Hunter S. Thompson 

Now 2012, what shall I do with you?

1) Get promoted
2) Run a half marathon
3) Travel to someplace new
4) Kick bootcamp ass!
5) Keep saving money!  
DONE!

This dreamer need to reboot her dreams

Surprising right, life's sort of settled into this monotony of work, sports, travel, weekends that seem to just loop round and round. It's a wonder that I'm not bored out of my mind just yet, but I guess this is where the circles of social life step in to try and break up routine just a little bit.

2 years. Almost. What next? What now?

For now everything sort of fits like a second skin. But today I'm feeling just a little restless. It's one of those days where you've caught the wrong hour to wake up and basically woke up on the totally wrong side of the bed. TOTALLY. Where you sit at work and wonder WHAT you're actually doing. I'm sure it's the curse of the white collar worker, but what next eh?

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.

Dreams are funny little things, they're meant to be moments where impossible things become possible and where all reality is suspended.

Why then the continuous barriers imposed even in my dreams? I couldn't even go near you.

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.

Breathe

Time. Time. To do lists getting stacked up. Perseverance. Learning. Judged. Reality augments and questions of self worth. Car scrapes and early morning starts. To sleep in but packed weekend schedules so every drop of 48 hours...not wasted. Not at all. A voice that has disappeared. Who do you want...to be with...to see...to really really communicate. Who knows anymore,conversations started with one and ended with another. Acquaintances, friends, lovers,strangers. Who can replace, who indeed.

BFM OWC WTF

I was stuck in a jam somewhere between KL and Seri Kembangan when this gem of an interview came up on BFM at 630 between the Obedient Wives Club, Sisters in Islam (Marina Mahathir) and the Islamic Renaissance Front.

I almost died listening to this. The OWC could at least be eloquent and logical in its reasoning (arguing that women are inferior with absolutely no supporting viewpoints is NOT logical, or reasonable. Period.) But o.m.g. at one point Mahathir was listening to incredulously that you could sense the sarcasm dripping in the one word statements such as this:

"Marina : Okay, under what circumstances don’t you have to be obedient?
Azlina : Say for an example okay, come to sexual intercourse – you can’t sodomise your wife and you can’t have it during your period – that’s it.
Marina : What if you don’t feel like it?
Azlina : What if you dont feel like it? You still perform!
Marina : Really?
Azlina : Yes.
Marina : And you do that?
Azlina : Yes!
Marina : Wow."

Good god! I think I was cursing bloody murder in the car at this point.

Sigh, what mockery. Malaysia, you disgrace me.

The statement that a woman should be subservient and that she is the reason for her husbands cheating because she cannot 'satisfy' him is literally dragging us by the hair neanderthal like, back into the dark ages. What happened to equality! To fairness, to compromise, to understanding!

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

Monochrome

It's been sometime since I've done any photo posts.

I like my funky effects on my camera. Well yet again what can I say, mugging in the library til 1am day in and day out. Half the time not really being productive and not getting into the mood until about 11:00pm or so. God I fail at studying. Sometimes I think all it is, is a signalling effect, that i.e. because you were in the library therefore you got things done and you did your best already.

All my past posts have been about endings and coming to terms with it. But really, all these points we set for ourselves are sooo arbitrary in nature aren't they? (This is me trying to convince myself yet again that my mind should be living in the present and not shooting off to June).

For now, I have license to go mad for the next 3 days.

I'm scared. I'm scared because I've always been in control, but somehow lately the rug has been pulled from under me. At no point in time have I been so happy, yet so lost. Maybe that's just it, I'll never be satisfied. Relationships leave you so vulnerable because you give someone a piece of yourself and expect them to take care of it. Compromise, a balance of wills and wants compounded by irrational emotion. Isn't it easier knowing someone less so that they remain nothing more than potentials for your imagination rather than reality? Its a see-saw that strives to equalize.

Bugger

Exam season once again upon us. I'm breaking out into cold sweat.
IMPENDING DOOM
IMPENDING DOOM
IMPENDING DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMM

fark it all.

My hormones have drive my diet wild. I just ate barley, baklava, chocolate, strawberries, watermelon, tomatoes and garlic bread.

fark.

When you fall for someone you give them the tools to hurt you. That's the chance you have to take right? Because you never know how good something is until you give it a try.

Tangled

Tangle me up so that the clock might stop ticking.
Tangle me up so I never have to extricate myself.
Tangle me up like the brambles do with roses knotted.
Tangle me up like the matter of the brain.
Tangle me up like thoughts intertwined.
Tangle me up like silences unspoken.
Tangle me up like memories bleeding into one another.
Tangle me up like strained shoulders after a solid workout.
Tangle me up, tongue tied and twisted.
Tangle me up so I can feel again.

谁知女人心.

I hate how I'm already so tangled.

SB spillover

Oh I do wish I were in London right now instead of sitting in AA attempting to study for my GMAT.

4 hours that determines in part where you end up for an MBA. What shit.
Another semi-productive day spent sitting in Sweetwaters with my girlies studying. I love coffeeshop hangout days. Much less distracting than sitting at home where the bed and TV are. After this week its intensive GMAT-ing until it's all over. I'm attempting to motivate myself by reminding myself that its $250 that I'm wasting on this exam so it better be one heck of an attempt at it.

Had MCN yesterday, after chaotic rehearsals on friday and saturday, the actual performances wasn't w/o its glitches as well, but all in all, we had <3. Plenty of it. Went for Milonga after which was fun stuff! Best yet.

Highlights of the week:

-Loads and loads of coffee
-Loads and loads of dancing, Tango+Ribbon
-Getting semi-picked up by Saferide driver. LOL.
-Got an amazing milonga
-Hang out times
-Marvelous weather.

Back to reality.

Deadlines approaching, and I want them here, yet I don't because that just means I'm all the more closer to graduation. I'm scared. Been reminiscing over freshman yr memories and it just reminds me how in 3 short years we've all really matured. From laundry noobs to semi-professional cooks (kinda), we've learnt how to brave the wilderness of semi-adulthood/independence. Or at least we've just been doing a lot more illegal stuff. =P.

It's like a perfect dream I have to wake up from.

Life doesn't need a road all the time, I'll pave it as I go.