Tuesday, May 24, 2011

thunder.

  I woke up to howling wind outside today. I pulled open the curtains, a little curious as to what I would see outside, and whether would it be one of those huge storms we would sometimes get back in my hometown, but I was greeted to a sight of the wind churning up the whole world outside. It continued howling, and I kept my window closed.

  We staggered along the pavements, my friend Sachi and I, braving through the ferocious wind that did not believe that our hairs were actually real and not wigs, and tried to see if it could blow them off and prove the world wrong.
  The coffee in Sachi's hand -which she had gotten from the free vending machine in the bank- had been blasted out of its cup; my Earl Grey remained within the paper walls, but was also on the verge of danger. Both of us paused, laughing at the absurdity of the situation. There was a bus stop ahead, and we sought shelter.

  I remember being inside the classroom this very morning. Our teacher, Michele, sat in front of the class speaking of the wind and the atrocious weather; while outside, the wind demonstrated its terror, the trees suffering the most. Sometimes I stared out, half-marvelled, imagining all the descriptions that I could use to create a magnificent piece.

  By some odd reason, or perhaps, not thinking of the reason not to, Sachi and I headed off in the opposite direction of where we lived. It was after class and she needed to go to the bank and I to the post office.
  The walk there was okay. It was only while we were there that the wind started again. I looked down on the blue carpet of the bank where all the fallen leaves had been forced in to live when the automatic doors welcomed customers. They -the leaves, didn't even look like they belonged and I wondered for a moment who I pitied more -them or the person who would've to sweep them away. But maybe then they'll be able to return home to nature.

  It started to rain along our way back, the drops heavier than the usual. I pulled up the hood that I had attached to my jacket and Sachi got out her umbrella -which looked like it had impersonated a ladybird. It had, however, slipped her mind that this was no gentle wind that cooled you on a hot day. It blew her umbrella inside out, just a second right after I warned her. She heeded my advice and stowed it back, and the sun came out. If there was one thing that didn't make sense here, it would be the weather.

  Now I'm in my room working on a presentation. I paused to think, and stared out of the window, a small opening in this box of bricks which is my room. Ominous clouds, dark grey against the midnight blue sky, travelled across the sky at a speed unimaginable. I formed a mental image of me being up there, before I realised how cold it would actually be.
  The second time I looked, I was reminded of the end of the world. For a second there, there was a slight feeling in me which could only be fear, and I wondered. I did not really believe that the world would end like that -it seemed almost too simple, for it to just entirely wipe out.

  I think what people are really afraid of is back to the same thing -death. The thing everyone will go through, and the thing many of power have tried to conquer.
  I think people fear death because they see it as becoming un-being. To not exist, like how terrifying it is.
  But we could not not be, because we never really were nothing before. If you can understand, we are part of the universe, always have been and always will be.
  What is actually important is actually having lived a full life, striving for our highest potential (and beyond, if possible), living our dreams. Having mattered. The real things that words don't mean a thing until you do and feel it.

  I hope that you'll all make the best of it and so that if you find that you were to die the nest minute, although you should feel like you still have more plans for the days after, you would not also be too worried that you didn't live. I hope that you'll have memories worth flipping through right there at that moment. I hope that you'd been nice to people, the ones around you and the ones who love and care for you.

  Like I always believe, I really don't mind dying young as long as I've lived. Lived, not survived. That'd be better than living without purpose forever.
  If you ask me, this is much more terrifying:
"When people don't express themselves, they die one piece at a time. You'd be shocked at how many adults are really dead on the inside, walking through their days with no idea who they are, just waiting for a heart attack or cancer or something else to finish the job."
-Author unknown

  To finish this off in a lighter note, here are a few things I found on the day that was supposed to be the apocalypse. Laugh with me, wouldn't you? ;)



ps. There was actually no thunder, but the day was loud and inspiring for a nice short piece like this -which is also the reason why I'm always sleeping late these days. :/

Monday, May 23, 2011

Japan Relief Fundraiser




Some street dance performance there, which isn't really my type of thing. I was however, requested to photograph it.



Folded paper cranes.



My friend at the entrance. She was so glad that I'd went.

A beautiful Japanese girl, who's one of the sweetest people I've met. 

The dancers.




Another friend of mine trying her hand at calligraphy.



Some random guy with pink hair.

:)

things worth living for

In case of emergency, spread your wings and fly.



These are some photos from a trip for a barbecue in the middle of the English countryside. These hills speckled with lamb always give me some of the most pleasurable deja vu as they remind me of all the holidays I'd once been on with my family. It made me miss them so much, and I wished that they could all be here to share it with me. 

It would then be my dad who was driving, my mum in the passenger seat being herself -which I can feel, even right now- and the three of us kids in the back. We would maybe sometimes quarrel and argue, and my dad wouldn't be too pleased -or maybe he would join in, sometimes- but then we would see the world that is passing us by outside and all eyes would turn towards the glass squares. We would praise the greenery, and try to describe the sheep and occasionally, grazing cows or horses. 





White sheep with black faces. Weird.

And this was the place we were at.

I apologise for the lack of photos. Firstly, because I was really hungry even before we got there, so Ever was just slung across my neck while I feasted on the food that they had there. Secondly, the photos I take from a moving vehicle, especially at dusk never fails to pale in comparison to the actual sights that are sometimes indescribable glorious, that I just get sick of lifting the camera to my eyes and missing them from my own real eyes. At times, I'd felt like I was being selfish, that I was not sharing what wonder I had. But it wasn't even as good, what I could capture, and I figured that me truly enjoying it albeit on my own was better. They would in turn give me inspiration which I could turn into something like this.

That day, I imagined that my eyes were a marvellous film camera, the best in the world, and that I was 'filming' all that I saw. They would then immediately transfer to the minds of my family, and in that way, I was sharing it.
I'm not sure if that happened, that they received it. But it did make me feel good.

By the way, these photographs above aren't even edited. They're in the rawest form that Ever had given to me. Let us just see it through her eye sometimes. 


ps. On that day, I got to play on the piano as well. The first time in months since I came here. It was a classic grand piano, against a royal purple wall. Due to laziness and thus a lack of practice back when I was much younger, I'm not actually really good at playing the piano. But right then, I did truly miss it so much that I just played without thinking. Without being self-conscious of the fact that there were about fifty people in the same house, and that there were people around me -some filming on their mobile phones out of curiosity. I played like no one was listening; I played for me, and I am proud of that.

It was a wonderful day. One of my best even, perhaps. I met a lovely French girl there who invited me out for ice-cream a few days later. I hope that we'll be friends. 
And to think that I almost didn't go because I had an assignment due the next day. I paid for that by working till early in the morning though, till I could almost drop dead that I went to sleep and finished the work the next day before class. But I still think that it was worth it. It is these that we live for. :)


Saturday, May 21, 2011

thoughts.


“Life isn’t about keeping score. It’s not about how many people call you, and it’s not about who you’ve dated, are dating, or haven’t dated at all. It isn’t about who you kissed, what sport you play, or which guy or girl likes you. It’s not about your shoes or your hair or the color of your skin or where you live or go to school. In fact, it’s not about grades, money, clothes, or colleges that accept you or not. Life isn’t about if you have lots of friends, or if you are alone, and it’s not about how accepted or unaccepted you are. Life just isn’t about that. But life is about who you love, and who you hurt. It’s about how you feel about yourself. It’s about trust, happiness, and compassion.
-(via eletheowl)


  I think I've read somewhere before that it is easier for us to hurt those who really care for us, not really because of anything, but because we know that they wouldn't leave us. This just came to me today, and I thought about how true it is, like I had then too, because I had never really thought of it that way before.

  It's like I'm usually pretty smiley around most people, especially friends. But at times, I can be pretty careless around my family, and my siblings probably suffer the most from that. I did realise it back then, but sometimes, it was easier to get carried away than actually try to control yourself. (And with friends, you know that you actually have to work at being liked, whereas with your family, they are sort of the only people who are obliged to love you no matter what. And when things got tough and I started missing my family more, I realised that it was because of this. That they are the only ones who would really love you unconditionally without you really giving anything. I've learned to realise that that's such a beautiful thing.)

  I usually dislike people giving excuses for themselves, especially their younger selves. Like just waving some past mistake off, saying 'Well, I was young then.' To me, I've always felt that just because you were young, it does not give you the excuse to behave badly. But in a way, we actually do learn -if you do- as we go through time. And I would like to say that now I know better to appreciate my family more than I did last time. We should never take anything for-granted, because nothing lasts forever. They'll all be gone sooner before you know it, and all you'll be left with is the cold blast of wind that will be the only indication that something had past by you and had ever existed. Appreciate the moments while they last. And I think that my family is indeed pretty amazing -how can it not be, especially when you have an alien as a little brother. ;)

  (It's also the same with friends. There's a reason why there's a saying which says something like we love those who do not care for us, and hurt those that actually do. I am trying not to make that mistake, although sometimes, it happens unintentionally and all I can do is try to fix it. But even, sometimes, you apologise so many times till 'sorrys' don't mean a thing anymore. And when that happens, what you have to do is to work at putting the meaning back into it. And because those people care, they will forgive you. But you also need to learn to appreciate that and never take it for-granted again.)


  Maybe for the first time in my life, I've got so many real stories that I could tell. And a lot of times, I wish that I could tell them. But sometimes, some things just aren't my secrets to tell. So the most that I can probably do is try to make time to write them all down in my journal. With all the things going on around me, I feel like I can hardly breathe at times, especially if time were air. Maybe one day I'll tell them to the world, to you. Maybe under different names. Maybe to different people. Maybe.

  But anyway, don't worry. I'm still a writer. I'll always be living, seeking for new stories that I could share with the world. And I'll never regret anything. Everything happens for a reason and everything works out in the end too. 

  
*photo belongs to her. :)

Monday, May 16, 2011

steps and painting

Hi there,

  I haven't been blogging for a while, and I'm sorry. There has just been so many things going on, then I had to go through a phase of re-finding myself, which was a little hard for me and if I were to write then, it would have been only an intangible mess of all the thoughts that were spiralling out of control in my head which only I could understand. Or perhaps, I couldn't either, because I was just not really myself then.

  But anyway, life's a process, and things like this will usually make you learn. And I've walked out of that in-exhaustisble circle of thoughts, which was worry that never brings any good. (I did wonder why I kept doing that and I'd given myself the reason that it was because I cared -because I think I was mostly thinking about others' problems. But then the problems never even last, and you'd look back puzzledly thinking what in the world had you wasted your time on.)

Have your adventures, make you mistakes, and choose your friends poorly - all these make for great stories.
-Chuck Palahniuk

  Sometimes, because of the books and stuff I've read, I have probably sort of deluded myself into thinking that those were my actual experiences. It was only listening to my friends relating their own stories to us, that it made me realise how much of my 'experience' was actually read up. It's not saying that I do not have my own experiences, it's just that maybe I usually play the role of the 'good girl', doing the 'right thing' most of the time, that has made things seem this way?

  But also, this doesn't mean that I can't learn. Maybe also it was because from reading that I learned, and thus, avoided making those mistakes?
Learn from the mistakes of others. You can't live long enough to make them all yourself.
-Eleanor Roosevelt 


  I digress. Let me tell you a small story.

  I was sitting at this very same table, having my breakfast this morning, when an unusually loud thud at my room door startled me. For a moment, I wondered if it could possible have been the wind, but I got up and went to to the door anyway.

  I opened the door to the back of a vaguely familiar man. He turned around at the sound, and I saw that it was the guy who had come to change my bathroom door the last time -well, he didn't change it then. He took some measurements and left, promising to return but without leaving a date.

  It wasn't perfect timing, I had to leave early today and right then, I had not changed. But I needed a new door, as the old one wouldn't shut properly, which thus always left a huge gap by which I had tried to ignore whenever I used the toilet. It was crazy. The plughole in the shower had once been clogged up, which caused the entire bathroom to flood whenever I took a bath. This unwanted collection of water expanded the wood fibres beneath the door, therefore, the reason for the door getting stuck most of the time.

  I asked if he could return in fifteen minutes, and within that quarter bit of the clock, I hurried through my morning routine -which usually takes much longer than that.

  I would be boring you with all these unnecessary little details, so to cut the story short, I can now say that I've got a new swinging door. It is still in its bare wooden form though, instead of the dull grey colour the previous one had been. That guy told me that someone else would come and paint it another day. Good lord, thinking about that, I hope that whoever that person is, they'd better not drip paint on my carpet. I had just vacuumed my room last night -unaware of the 'event' that was going to take place today morning- and the door had to come and drop off little chippings on my (presumably) dust-free carpet. I also realised that the guy had left some really huge screws on my window sill -which I have no comment for. They might come useful for something, or maybe I could even sell them on ebay and earn some pocket money. Kidding!

  I was sitting on my bed this afternoon just before I took a nap, staring at the new naked door. I wondered if I could've, should've, asked the guy if I could paint it myself.

  There was something beautiful about a wooden door. And if I were to paint it, I would trace all the swirls and paint the grains all a different colour.