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Open Up Your Mind by Mirai

Currently in New York! Last day here after spending a week here chilling around, getting fat from awesome muffins and visiting companies. It has been a number of days so I shall just give a brief recap. Exams ended on 19th April in the morning. Rushed to do my ID and clear some administrative maters such as changing foreign currency and meeting up with old friends. Had a good time walking around with JX, which was followed by a karaoke session with some people in Flare. Mainly a mess of packing and worrying about all the little things such as my court shoes and attire. I must admit that I was superbly excited about the trip and really lookig forward to it. The days passed by in a blur, and on 21st April, I woke up wondering what I would have to pay for being able to go to New York on such a fantastic programme. And boy is the price high...

Parents took half a day off to have breakfast with me and send me to the airport, something which I really appreciate. Had a nice breakfast with loads of kaya, yes I adore kaya, and just took it slow. They drove me to the airport, and met Kaen and SD there! Thank you guys for showing up! I love you! And I miss you loads... How will I survive another two weeks without seeing you guys? Sigh, too reliant on you guys. Queued to check in, went in, took some more kaya bread, boarded the airplane and I was on my way to Taiwan's Tayuan to transit. A short 4hour flight and I managed to get about an hour of sleep. By Eva Air and it was pretty decent? The flight stewardess was really pretty, and they had this really annoying high pitched and fake-girly voice? Nice service in the very typical Taiwanese girl style though I must admit? So I arrived in Taiwan feeling really energetic and happy... And then there was the second leg of the flight to Newark.

Oh my goodness it was awful. Cold, unable to fall asleep due to this annoying Taiwanese woman who kept the light on to write random stuff and the space was too cramped for me to have sufficient leg room. Did I mention that there was an irritating Taiwanese woman on the flight who kept the light on throughout the flight? I happen to be very sensitive to light so I could not sleep at all. Wanted to slap her. With my shoe. Or something else hard and hopefully made of metal. Like a hammer. So I clocked about 2hours of sleep on a 14hour flight. Crazy torturous expereince that I never want to replicate again. Anyway we arrived in Newark at about 9pm, my prof had some drama with customs in Newark, which is a joke as he was based in USA for about 10 years? In the end we made it through, took a chartered shuttle to the hostel and unpacked, went for some supper nextdoor at the deli, and went to bed. And that is Day1.

Had a really good sleep as I was superbly tired (hello 4hours of sleep ONLY?) and woke up when the sun was nice and up at 730am. To think positively, the lack of sleep made me non jetlagged? Because I was so exhausted from the lack of sleep? Hopefully the flight to taiwan won't be as painful and I won't have too bad a case of jetlag. I really want to go around in Taiwan. Anyway I will not go into the nitty gritty details of what I did as there are really too many things to type? Just that in the first free and easy 3 days, we went to Stanten Island, took photos at the Brooklyn Bridge, explored Times Square (as my hostel is just off Times Square), went to the Metroplitian Museum, Coney Island... Its about there? If you want details, go ahead and ask me, I will tell you everything and all the drama that surfaced. A lot of things, tried a lot of food and just had a good time seeing the different things in the city. New York is a place that is rather different from Singapore? Like obviously? HAHA. Took the subway everywhere, which is a pretty fun? You get to see the 'normal' people in New York, you get to learn a different system, you get to be 'one' of the crowd. There were a lot of buskers in the Subway and I assure you its totally different from home. The buskers are super good and super talented. Not always my thing, but I can definitely appreciate talent when I see and hear it.

The first three days were a blur of acclimatising and exploring and wandering. Good, but there were things that had started to crop up, and many things would just degenerate over the next few days. Lull before the storm that isn't really a lull nor a storm, if you get what I mean?

Okies, I need to go to bed. Need to wake super early tomorrow and the freezing night weather is making me most uncomfortable. Goodnight!

"With you, things would be infinitely better."

Empty

Playlist

Love Song by Big Bang

This is my 300th post! Celebrations are in order! It took me about... 3 years? So I guess I post an average of 100posts per year, which brings us to about one post every 3 days. Quite a feeat if I say so myself? After all, there were periods where I disappeared for a while, too caught up with my suffering/fun to post. Or just too lazy to compose my thoughts and write a proper essay on how I feel. or just at a loss as to how to express what I am feeling and decided that I should not be childish and just rant. Regardless of what I have said or have not said over the years, I think being able to continue a blog is a kind of achievement on its own. Being honest to yourself and doing my utmost not to create nonsense to contribute to the growing presence of rubbish on the Interne... Hey, I think I get a paragraph of bragging rights?

The older I get and the more I reflect, the more conflicted I think I am. So many things that I say I believe in, but when push comes to shove, my behaviour is superbly erratic. I wish I could tell you that I am someone who practices what she preaches. Or even that I am a total hypocrite and that I cannot be trusted to do things right. The maddening things is that my behaviour alters according to the situation, so much so that while I am a hypocrite, I think there are quite a few who have witnessed the 'resilience' of my mind.

I'm not trying to lie to anyone intentionally, which probably only makes it worse. I'm the kind of person who had rather you cheat on me because you wanted me to pay more attention to you, rather than not cheat on me and just let the relationship die out. Ok, the previous sentence was really convoluted, but you get the idea. I think it is difficult to live for other people, so its hard for me to pretend to like other people or do things that I dislike? I can be polite about it, and I can smoke to cover my ass but... Sigh, I wonder why I am behaving like this...

Getting rather moody. I wish I could fall in love with someone other than myself. So scary how I feel so empty inside. I smile and decline people, saying the words that no apology will ever rectify. I find flaws in people because they refuse to accept the fact that I cannot love anyone. I always tell the other party: " I think it won't work out because I cannot bring myself to like anything from the bottom of my heart." And none of them have ever believed me. I had to tell them that I liked someone else. Or that I didn't like something about them. Why? The fact that you cannot believe and understand how I cannot like someone is reason enough to not continue. If you had told me and asked to continue as friends, there might have been a chance, because I fall in love with all my good friends but... SIGH. You will never read this and will never understand this.

I am getting sad just from typing this out. So many things you never manage to say in person. So many things that never come out the way you want them too. I think our lives are full of regrets and missed opportunities that make us want to knock our heads against the wall.

I shall go back to drooling at the dance moves that guys can do. Yes, I should be studying for my finals :(

"You said it wouldn't be so, but you lied..."

Musings

Playlist

Athena by TVXQ (or HoMin for those who refuse to acknowledge a 2 member band)

I think whoever said that people fight to survive only got half the equation right. Something like LHS does not agree with RHS if you remember whatever you learnt in Mathematics class from school. I think we fight to live as desperately as we fight to die. Yeah, it may sound really silly, but hear me out? I don't always post nonsense here HAHA.

I've seen how very destructive people are. So very SELF-destructive to be exact. It is as if we cannot help but want to die even as every cell within us fights to keep us respiring. We drive ourselves so hard, so cruelly, testing the very limits of our body and minds, as if a short and blazing legacy is the only thing worth living for. Of course there are those who have a long and blazing legacy, but how many of us can claim to be so gifted to be able to do something like that? Not many. Barely any in fact. Of the few billion of our kind who walk this earth with us and before us, how many people have a legacy that was remotely memorable? We can list them because the billions of us disappeared, and will disappear, the day we die, both literally and figuratively.

Must we all discover the next cure for AIDs? Must we all be the best ballet dancer in history? Must we all marry 15 other people and divorce 15 times? Must we all invent something or do something or revolutionise something? Can't I just be another face in the crowd and smile as I watch the clouds move across the sky? I cannot understand why our worth is determined by what we accomplish. What about my potential? What about my character? What about the little joys I bring to the people around me? What about my ability to keep alive in spite of the pollution and disasters? Its a fight to be born, its a fight to stay alive, and now I have to fight to make sure I die in a way that can be remembered? How sad.

I used to be very driven. Wanted to get straight As in school, wanted to be in the best jobs, wanted to prove my worth. And one day, I realised, I was doing all these so desperately because I was insecure. Scared that people would hate me if I was not exemplary. Scared that I would be hurt if I was unable to deliver. Scared that I would have no reason to exist if I could not live up to expectations. And then I realised, who do I want recognition from? My parents? My family? My friends? My school? Society in general? What was I so desperately looking for? What was missing in my life that I needed to throw caution to the wind and fight every burning breathe and throbbing step of the way. And it hit me. The only person I wanted to say they loved me was myself.

Indeed, I want my parents to say they love me. I want my friends to like me, and I want school to recognise me for my efforts. But the thing I really want is to be able to wake up and go to sleep happy. Happy that I am here, happy that its another day alive in this beautiful world. Its not about the best grades or the best relationships. All these are supplementary and work towards giving you a better sense of self-worth. You could live without all these if you had a fabulous sense of self-worth. You'd be happy regardless, others may call you an idiot, but who can hurt a happy idiot? You'd be able to find happiness wherever and however, and that, I think is a kind of accomplishment on its own.

I'm not telling you to be lazy simply because lazy people can never find happiness. You're too lazy to make the extra effort to be exceptionally happy. I'm asking you to learn to love yourself. So what if you can't get straight As? So what if your family is in a mess? The very fact that you're here on this earth is half the battle won. We'll all die in the end, why not make your stay on this planet more enjoyable? Why hurt yourself trying to be someone or something you are not? Why make yourself upset by forcing things that aren't meant to be? I'd slap you if you could do it and were to lazy to achieve it. I'd punch you if you gave up easily on something that could have been yours. I'd kill you if you said I'm encouraging people to roll around on their beds all day and proclaim they were born to lay in bed all day. This is not what I'm saying. I'm stick by my belief that you have to fight for what you want, but on top of that, love yourself. Love yourself for everything you can and cannot do. Love yourself for all the wonderful things you can do, and stop drilling yourself deeper into holes. Love who you are, because if you don't, no one else could really love you.

"Uphill battle for that downhill pleasure."

Insignificant

Playlist

Stupid Liar by Big Bang

I love the fact that Big Bang is back form their 2.3 year hiatus. Not that I have loved them from 2 years ago, but it means that I have more stuff to add to my music library. It was getting a wee bit old in there.

It is now Study Week, and I have been trying to study for the past week, but you know me. I need a decent level of stress to be able to function properly. And the fact that the real hardcore papers are the last 2 days of the entire exam period is not helping to boost my studying morale. I'm in this happy holiday state which is, honestly, worrying the rationale part of me. Not that I have not been doing ANY work, I am too rational for that, but I have not been working sufficiently hard. And I'm disappointed with myself.

I know I really should be more hardworking and I know my grades need the extra effort, but I am in no mood to slog like a cow. Or a horse. And I think my final grade is going to reflect this lack of commitment. I shall start mourning for my grades now. Wait, I should be studying rather than mourning OMG. I've got the order totally wrong.... So many things that could have been put aside, and was not. So many things that should have been done and was left alone. So many things that have been hurled into the room of regret, and I think I might need another such room again. Too many things that make me sigh when I look back.

Has been a long time since I blogged, to the extent that I wonder what I should say. Passing emotions were expressed at Tumblr. Random thoughts that float through my head were dumped on Twitter. I think the onslaught of social media has made it such that thoughts lose their value. How much value can each tweet have? Its reads like random spewings of a semi-crazed person, what with rants and random comments here and there. Conversations with others pepper your tweets, and the general feeling is a never ending MSN conversation. Tumblr is better, but it allows you to be lazy. You can post photos and videos and they even have a template for conversations. So very easy to make yourself heard. So easy to express yourself. So easy to lose yourself.

I think thoughts are important because it needs to go through the workings of your brain. You need to observe and infer and come to a conclusion before expressing your opinion. This task becomes even more difficult once you include the dimension of conveying it succintly. On Twitter, I would just mouth whatever I observe. On Tumblr, I just dump the raw data and allow you to come to your own conclusions. I can be as lazy as I want without 'damaging' the experience. But what does it do for me? Nothing. Who listens? No one. Who cares to begin with? So much raw data. Good for sharing but who do I share this with? I might as well just put the links up there for the whole world to access in their free time. Good riddance to personal opinion and takeaways from the experience.

So what happens to experience? I know experience is over-rated, but it isn't over-rated to THIS extent. There is value in falling and tripping and rolling up your sleeves to get your hands dirty. There is value in composing an entire blog post from start to end with decent reasoning and logical assumptions. It is not easy. It can be tiring. It is definitely time consuming, but when I look back at my blog posts, I can't help but smile at the memories. So many things that I was worried about, so many flavours depending on the situation and my mood. The things I love and loved, so many people I met, so many worries... It makes me feel glad that time has passed and I've grown and learnt from these things that I have chronicled. It is not the same for Tumblr. I look back at my posts and sometimes wonder what I was trying to tell people. Was I in a bad mood and being angsty? Or was I just trying to be cool and tough and dug out something 'emo'? I wonder too much for me to be happy with what I'm posting. Which is why even though I may have disappeared from here for a while, I always come back. The perfect relationship, not forced to stay, allowed to roam, and always welcome when I return. Now I just need to find a guy who is like this. I'd love him forever.

You may think I think too much. You may think I am unnecessarily conplicating things by looking at it at from the weirdest angle possible. Its ok, I somethimes think the same of myself as well. Th thing is, this place is meant for me to talk to my future self. Sure, to communicate my thoughts to my friends as well, but... The audience isn't exactly you. It is kinda myself. I want to see what happened to the adrenaline-loving, solo dance-loving, tako mouth girl. I want to remember how the years have been cruel. I want to remember all the beautiful emotions that I experienced. I want to fall in love with myself every time I read my blog. Myself for being flawed and imperfect and so very perfect. Call it self-love. Call it pride and arrogance. I believe in loving myself because no one will ever understand, and at the same time, not understand me as much as myself.

"Am I that easy to love? Am I that easy to leave?