Currently Reading

One Time magazine after another. Catching up on lost time, if that is ever possible.
A magazine that is obviously pro-democrats and its news content insanely skewed to be American. Even the Asian issue that writes about South Korea is catered for the American perspective. Can we have a more international news magazine please?



Two times reading Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close later, I am still in love. The book is currently in Cheryl Saw's possession. I hope she doesn't spoil it -.-

Charlotte Gainsbourg

Girls can wear jeans and cut their hair short, wear shirts and boots, because it's OK to be a boy.
But for a boy to look like a girl is degrading, because you think that being a girl is degrading.

Friends

Oh god, I miss this.

Heavy boots

How do you ever tell someone you love that you love them?

Relationships are so fragile.
Feelings are so fragile.
People are so fragile.

How do you say goodbye?
We never know when the last time is the last time. At least never at times when we need to. We don't realise that we should never let her leave, knowing the last words she heard from your lips were filled with anger. We don't realise the last time we say goodbye, would be the last goodbye. To never meet again. In the hearts of our hearts, a foolish voice tells us we are the keeper of time, and we will have other nights.
Foolish.

Why do we hurt each other?
How could you. When others are searching high and low for love, some living their very last breath without having known it. How could you forsake that beauty for such evil that does not matter. We have no need for regrets, we have no need for sad tears. What we have today, will not always be today. Every second, something is changing. This universe is ever expanding. Every second, something is dying. A laughter, a baby, a memory, a moment. If we took all the hurt in this world, it would drown the Pacific Ocean.
Why do we hurt each other?


To not cherish every moment we're living. To not live each breath with the knowledge that it could be our last.
To not apologise soon enough. Forgive even faster. To not love hard enough, to ever hate another.
For letting anger have a part in our relationships. For not telling her how beautiful she looks every morning.

How have I been able to live 22 years without realising this?

There is never a blank book long enough, or time for forever. Later will always be later. Just now just passed. There is only now. And now. And now.

It's always necessary.

Excerpt #1

I thought about my small victories and everything I'd seen destroyed.

I'd lost the only person I could have spent my life with.

I've experienced joy, but not nearly enough, could there be enough? The end of suffering does not justify the suffering, and so there is no end to suffering. What a mess I am, I thought. What a fool. How foolish and narrow, how pinched and pathetic, how helpless.

Currently Reading

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Johnathan Safran Foer.
Two thirds of the book later, I can only scream that this book is amazing. A.MA.ZING. Definitely going to reread the book the moment I finish it.


Paused reading: The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins and The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking.
Note #1 - Maybe people with last names "-awkin" end up being great science philosopher kinds.
Note #2 - I'll definitely get back to both of these books, just got a little side tracked when a package from Amazon arrived.


Thank you so much Phui Leng. I'm in love with this book.

Currently Reading

The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins.
Am I going to regret taking on such a tough read when I'm probably gonna be pressed for time in the next few days? Definitely.
Is that going to stop me? Not at all.
Wonder how many years it'd take for me to finish it anyway... Here goes nothing eh.


Finished reading: The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger.
I don't understand why this book is so famous. Maybe if I read it when I was a teenager myself, I'd feel differently. Or maybe if I read it when I'm much older with a different kind of maturity. Right now, the protagonist of this book just appears to be a whiny loser with psychiatric disorders.
Youth in revolt? I guess so.

Currently Reading

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger



Finished reading: Under the Dome by Stephen King
Amazing book from start to finish. Pedal to the metal all the way through. And sum'in sum'in to think about, eh?

Ode to Mae

You Think Trying To Be The Perfect Lover Is Hard? Try Being The Perfect Ex-Lover.

I mean, c’mon, you’d have to maintain that delicate dynamic of being nice, stay a friend, see/treat this person like everybody else. But hell, this person is not everybody else and will never be. Imagine, you’d have to play nice while you knew this person inside out, at the streets, in the sheets, the beauty, the ugly, the love, the kisses, the hugs, the touch and the honeysuckle sweet whisperings, that came so close to your ears, you almost came.

So yes, if you think trying to be the perfect lover is hard, try being an ex-lover.

Hell yeah.

Currently Reading

Under the Dome by Stephen King.

Stopped reading: We Need To Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver.

Currently Reading

A Little Book of Language by David Crystal

Live

So much night time traffic. A car comes and drops off one. Leaves, into the night. Another passes, back from the dark. There's a glitter in its windshield, the glare from another's headlights. Off,the third, under the moonlight. Here comes the fourth. My ride :) and I'm off to the cinemas.

Living the university life, most of us having originated not from JB, we find ourselves on our own two feet. Life of hostelites without the restrictions of hostel-life. We come and go as we please. We sleep and wake in whose ever room we choose. We literally eat, pray and love together in this town so far away from our families.

Who would have known that this life, would give me so much stress? Some times, it feels as if I'm floating around. A driftwood in a torrential river, being beaten and pulled along by the currents. Having to juggle school, others and self just overwhelms my being. In dealing with all of them, I am unable to handle a single one of it.

And then there are times when I just feel so grounded. When I look around me and realise if this is where I am right now, then damn I've done good. And it makes me smile from my liver and spleen.
Most often, it is never the achievements or the plans I've made. The books I've read nor the signatures I've accumulated. Most often, it is the faces around me that anchors me to live. I've been over this so many times, over and over again like nagging mother. But honestly, when can you ever stop being grateful for the friends you've had, especially with friends like mine. And if you're able to answer that with a definitive date, then my friend, you ungrateful bastard.

It's 3am and I just got back from the movies. I've been so screwed in my head these past few days. So many hours of back and forth, not knowing which way is coming or going. Those times when you think surely, this must be the end. That somehow some lightning will strike me down and end my misery soon. It's hard to describe how I felt, except with the words miserable.
Then I went to the movies with Pat, and I'm back to reality. I haven't been able to smile this genuinely, with an empty mind, for quite some time now.

We, at least I do... I like to think we are self sufficient. I know I cannot be an island. But sometimes I think hey, maybe I'm at least a peninsula. Then moments like these arrive where I'm able to just sit back, relax and be myself in the company of another. To let go of doubts and fears and accept who I am... Empty your mind in the garden, right? It feels great to be in the midst of like-minded company.
I don't want to be an island anymore. I want to be an archipelago.

:D note to self: immerse yourself.

Memory

It's funny how I totally forgot I had this blog. It took me so long to remember the title of it.
In a way, I was reintroduced to my own blog when I decided to comment on my friend's? Haha. Life and its mysterious ways.

Reading about what I wrote in previous posts, I figured it's not that bad an idea to keep a blog after all. With such a horrible thing called "memory", I guess black and white are the way to go.


If anybody happens to be reading this. Just know that I'm just writing as a reminder to myself of what's going on here and now. Guess some feelings are too precious to let slip away. So if it makes you think why the hell am I even writing something as insignificant as this, then well... It was significant for me :)

Anyways, it's been a year since I've been in JB. My ego-pride tells me I shall hate this city with the very last osteocyte in my bones but honestly, it ain't that horrible after all. Our perception of our environment is heavily influenced by our emotions. And, at least for me, my emotions have been heavily influenced by friends this year. Yes, it's a strange word, isn't it. Friend. I guess one day, I'm gonna have to dictionary up what it actually means. But this year, I seem to have found it in quite a few faces. And I'm the better off for it.

I never really realised how stuck I was prior to this. In my own world. In my own thoughts. My judgmental ways. My life was like a production line, I sit and keep moving forward while 'parts' are added to me. But I'm never really shown what other things I could have been. At least until this year. Exposure is always good. It builds immunity. Reading my previous posts, and also a few other from other blogs, I couldn't help but think I've come a long way.

And in more sense than one. I do feel that I have somehow lost my spark. A glitter, perhaps. My sense of humour worn thin. The mindset I used to hold from way back when seems to have been more lively, gung-ho. Yes it was naive to think I'm invincible, but I do feel that's a better way to live than bearing the thoughts "what might have been". A lack of spontaneity allows fungus to grow on my unchallenged mind. Having observed this, I am currently attempting to salvage what's left. Some times, all the thinking and planning we make for our futures, filled with white pickets fences and insurance plans. What do all that come down to? Life hands you a lemon when you planned for a melon and that's it. There goes everything down the drain. So while it is advisable, and admirable, to have plans, I've come to understand that the inability to let go of it when our path changes just shows a lack of adaptability. Set a goal, start moving towards it and take everything on the way with a sense of poise. And always have a knife ready to cut up some lemons on a hot sunny day.

When I say let go, I don't just mean letting go of the plan. I just mean... Let go. Really. Move on. It's not that scary after all. Especially when you have friends like mine. :)

And this post is dedicated to the people who have played a major hand in my development this year, namely Patrik Ho. Who would have known a kid with half a pea brain could have brought about so much change eh? And of course there are the girls that I've been able to get to know better too, Aliya, Cath, Yvonne, Becca. Then there're the gym buddies, Dan and Johann.

I know you'll never get to read this, but it doesn't matter. I just want to remind the future me that at this moment, I'm filled with gratitude to walk in your company.

Lub-dub

Sometimes, I wonder if my heart is too big for my body to contain.
When I'm lying in the still of the night.
When darkness and silence is all that I am.

I can feel my chest moving.
With every contraction of my heart, it moves.
And my whole body moves along to it.

I hear it in my ears.
I feel it in my finger tips.

My arms and neck pulsates to it.
My abdomen dances with it.
And my whole body moves, a slave under it.

The sound of my own heartbeat overcomes this silence.
And I am reminded that in this darkness,
I am alone.
But within myself, this heart beats.
And it gives me the strength to stand.