Today begins my walk with you
Where you go, I go
Where you stay, I stay
When you sleep, I will sleep
When you rise, I will rise
I will pass my days
Within the sound of your voice
And my nights
Within the reach of your hand
And none shall come between us
(that's all i ask)
This I Vow
~Firesong by William Nicholson
I am perfect, whole,
powerful, strong,
loving, harmonious,
and happy.
I'm going through the folders and files that I've created over the past 4 years of university and it's true - the work that I did for the first few years sucked. :)
Not that I'm going to beat myself up about it, I'm just glad I can look back and see that it's bad. At least I know I can write a little better.
But I'm looking through them to delete them. Papers and first drafts and a hodgepodge of thoughts and citations as the paper came along have been deleted. Sometimes even the last draft that I have of the paper I've deleted, because I don't have the final copy (groupwork).
The big white vaio has been sort of cleaned out. Need to defrag and update and virus scan tomorrow so that it's ready to bring to work next week.
Later I'll do the smaller black netbook.
One question that's hanging on my mind right now: what do I do with the two computers? Because I don't really need the small netbook any more, and the asus transformer I bought on a whim is sitting pretty on my windowsill. Make that three computers then.
Aw crud I just poured water on myself instead of drinking :)
Anyway, graduating suddenly from school with the end of the last exam meant that there was an overnight change that I didn't expect.
Both my parents and my partner have suddenly let go, letting me choose whatever I want to do. The main like that I either literally hear or subconsciously perceive is, "It's up to you to decide", and it freaks me out.
Because I'm so used to having someone or something imposed on me; even if I'm resisting it, at least it's something to resist. Now suddenly there are no more walls or chains or even guiding strings and I didn't see any of it coming.
Thing is, everyone is assuming that I've become quite capable of understanding intentions and what people think and of consequences, and I have no clue what I'm doing still.
I wrote in my diary about the one time I was given the task to understand what people were thinking and doing even from a distance (yes, this was a literall task - someone actually verbalised the thing to me) and I even had a deadline, on pain of losing a friend. It made sense, because if I didn't understand what was going on in the minds of people I was going to lose that friend sooner or later anyway, but it was terrifying.
While I'm glad to say the threat was never carried out (the test was me explaining what was happening in the minds of strangers who were pointed out), it's also sad that I wouldn't pass the test if you tried it on me today.
The terror from that task still haunts me - it's superficial but I lose my appetite and I don't have to eat when I think about it. I don't care even if I'm hungry or if my favourite food is in front of my face. I don't want to eat.
There was even a moment when I wondered if people had suddenly stopped caring about me, to let go and ignore me and the choices that I might make. Letting me decide seemed like no one was going to be interested or pay any attention to me. But that was a childish thought.
Funny, I get freedom and I want to run and hide under someone's skirt. My partner reminded me how I believed that I was 21 and all grown up when I was 20. He was laughing at my idioticity.
When there's nothing to rebel against... It's like your opponent giving way just when you think you're about to clash. It makes the aggressor feel week. I feel weak. I'm lost. Thank god I have RWT and there's something for me to go and do every day. Otherwise I might simply die in a pit.
Then maybe it's true that all humans need something to fight for and fight against and then they'd be alive.
I've come clean to my family about the books and magazines and working these 4 years. It's a mark of how things have changed when they respond with incredulity and curiousity and not anger that I've lied or interrogations against my actions and choices.
Funny, the entire time in my formal education I tried to stay away from Chinese, and now I spend the last 2 weeks of my formal education learning (and messing up) China's ancient philosophies and modern history.
Today I had the good luck to follow Simin and Hemma around the professors' corridor as Simin gave them their personalised thank you hand-stitched framed initials. Got to see the much-talked-about Stephanie for the first-time and Alec in the afternoon for once, and KK was slipped his right before he went to his class (and I followed soon after).
But the highlight was definitely Frantisek. He talked to us and said that Simin's stitch was close to a design his grandfather had on a stamp and then he stood up and introduced us (well, mostly me) to an aspect of his culture. He shook our hands and we touched cheeks in the European kiss-the-air-beside-your-cheek/ear-thing (reminds me now of a pikachu greeting). New tactile memory! :)
What did it feel like? Stubby. Frantisek had his beard growing out of his skin a bit. But it's nice to actually be involved in and have a memory of a new culture's greeting, especially when it seems to happen only on tv or in another place outside of Singapore. To have something like that happen to me, in real life, in Singapore, and in school, is pretty cool.
I love my linguistics professors, and i love having friends who let me tag along for the ride. :)
Apart from that, I just bought myself another cake again. :) Not to celebrate anything, even if it is the last week of school ever.
This is what happens when I deny myself of a treat like going out with Simin and Hemma to Simply Pancakes last Saturday. Good company plus yummy tasty sweet good food.
Denied one happiness, and I crave for another. I still remember Rena saying buying an entire cake is like dropping a brick wall on my craving, instead of satisfying it with a really good slice instead. Hey, have my cake and eat it too :D
There's half a Petite Tiramisu from Polar left. Seems to sad to eat it now when I'm (supposed to be) studying for Alec's quiz tomorrow morning. Perhaps I'll have it for breakfast to brighten up what will definitely be a tired morning as I will sleep late tonight.
Polar's Tiramisu is not bad. Unlike TCC's tiramisu, which I love, but that's asking too much because there is alcohol and Polar is Halal.
Last news and I will go to sle-- study for Alec's quiz.
I feel like I will get 2 As and 2 Bs this semester. Likely an A+ and an A-, and then a B. The last B feels like it will be an ion, but I can't tell of which polarity it will be. Definitely good if it's B+, of course, but I can't figure it out yet.
All just a feeling without any reason or judgement, even subjective. Will see what happens when the results are out.
Oh yeah. One more thing (sorry me because I'm not studying for Alec).
This being the last week of school, and exams over by the end of this month, I wonder how much I am still in wonderland. I'm planning run and live my life easily and still be happy go lucky, and then I recall I don't exactly have the support to do so yet. I think it's time to go back to work and get another reality check, but even so work is not a standard reflection of work realities either.
All I know is, I love my job, and I love RedWordTree. *muacks*
all we want is to feel supported and loved and for reality to reflect that.
all we want is to feel supported and loved and for reality to reflect that.
It's true.
If anybody out there is thinking of having Spiritual Response Therapy (SRT), I would definitely yell the name "Stephanie Klingler" :) http://www.wavesofexpression.com/
If there's anything I really wanted, I guess this must be a part of it.
Simin gave me a bottle filled with papers once a long time ago. It's for people who write and the slips of paper contain topics for future blog posts. I haven't really tried to write with one yet, because I pulled out paper just to think.
Anyway, I just pulled up a new slip.
"How I coped with bitchy people."
Well, I ignore them. I'm not too good with come backs and it takes a while for me to process that they're being bitchy. The only time I was ever properly threatened was when 2 girls came up to me to ask me why I had called a friend of theirs "not a good influence", and all I could think of was how much bigger I was because I stood up. :)
There was a fleeting thought that they might both gang up on me and beat me to a pulp, but I figured that with my size, I could probably get up even if both of them sat on me.
But back to the girl I insulted.
She became not to nice to me, but I never really wanted to kill her or anything like that. She was in a different class, I didn't see her everyday/all the time, so that's my coping strategy - stay in a different place.
And if she did pass a remark in front of me (never quite to my face) - act blur and let it pass. Can't insult me if I don't cooperate in processing the insult, to paraphrase what Alec said :)
New slip!
"Down by the beach..."
Reminds me of the song "Down by the boardwalk..." It's about sex on the beach, that song. Only realised it after singing it quite a few times.
Down by the beach, the chairs are set up along with the colourful striped umbrellas. The people lounging on the seats try to catch up on their reading - something that they never do when they are home, even alone.
They sit and pretend to be enjoying their holiday, being oh-so-classy reading with their big sunglasses and wishing that there was a personal butler who would serve them some iced drink, but there isn't on this large crowded beach.
The kids are out as usual, making sandcastles and throwing things into the air for each other or their dogs to catch, and they seem to have fun while a little white girl sits solemnly just inside the edge of a shadow, wanting to join in while knowing that she would be terribly burnt if she even set one foot in the sun.
But I ignore the pretending adults and the rampaging children. Today I go to the beach with a flower in my hand.
My mom's wish when she died was to be cremated and to be washed away by the ocean, and today I set aside my time to come visit her grave.
"Woah, then next time I cannot go dating with my girlfriend at the beach," I remember my brother remarking when we first heard the idea. My mother had laughed and said she would be watching if they tried anything hanky-panky.
I smiled through my tears as I placed the flower gently on the water's edge, my knees deep in the ocean. I send a kiss after it as the waves pull it away, telling my mom what I finally had her grandchild forming inside me, that I was happily married, that things were okay.
I stood out there with tears falling down my face until I sank into the ocean myself, letting the sea wrap around me, my mother's last and long embrace.
Wokay, that was a little too sad.
One last slip.
"Letters I have received."
Hmm, this one is a little tricky. I've only ever received government letters, CPF, insurance, school, and the random Christmas card from an insurance agent or an old friend.
I never return a card the next year though...
Oh.
There was a period of time when I wrote and received constant letters. My first-ever relationship was based on letters, because the boy and I never spoke in person. Him too shy, me nothing to say.
Destroyed those letters when we broke up. Tore them up with the help of friends. Would have done it all myself but there were too many. hm.
I need a happy story! One more slip of paper!
"Fine words"
Fine words... hmm. Thin words, small words, fine words like "fine: $1000", fine like wine and cake and sherry.
No idea what cake and sherry have to do with that.
I like words that convey feelings. And old words. But the best words are the ones that have just enough to make you sound "atas" and yet people get the sense/meaning.
"Superfluous." "delicacy"
HAha Ren-dez-ves for rendezvous.
Fine words gives me a feeling of a large old bookshop with a good selection and display, and you get to meet a man there because you happened to reach for the same book.
I really need to stop believing in those old movie cliches.
Fine words are given in a moment of passion, or praise. Created in criticism, sounded in plays. They have magic, bring in the Carrionites, create a different place. Fine words weave their way into cracks in between meanings, and pulls them together in a quick dance before they leave to find a different partner.
Fine words are not just posted in dictionaries, as I used to think. The best of these fine words are the ones that are used to think, are written every day, give life to more than feelings.
I am grateful today that I can say I'm tired and I can stop what I'm doing without worrying that I will not have food or shelter.
I am grateful that I can see that there's more to life that what I would have seen from my small perspective.
I am grateful that mummy is nice to me after I snapped at her.
I am grateful for the house I stay in, for the clothes I wear, for the food I get to eat.
I am grateful for electricity, and the internet, and phones and laptops and tablets.
I am grateful that I get to sleep in a safe an comfortable place where I don't have to worry about bugs if I sleep with my mouth open.
I am grateful that I live in a place that is safe and clean.
I am grateful for clean toilets, for clean water, for pipes and plumbing and showers and drains and sewage systems that keep me clean.
I am grateful for drinkable water.
I am grateful that I went to Reiki, and that I have SRT, and that I've gone to churches and temples to pray.
I am grateful to read books that remind me to be grateful, especially when I forget to do/be so.
I am grateful that I found a place I love to work in, a school to study in, and friends who are nice and helpful and kind.
I am grateful for memories, even though I don't keep many.
I am grateful that I know how to be grateful, and that whenever I realise that I'm mad or when I'm waiting for someone, I remind myself to think grateful thoughts instead of being angry.
I am grateful for having parents who work really hard to keep me safe and happy.
I am grateful for a partner who keeps me fed and happy too.
I am grateful for supporting, encouraging and interesting friends.
I am grateful for words spoken in compliment, praise, and greeting.
I am grateful that my computer still works after I got mad and shut it off forcibly.
I am grateful that I have the money and all the other resources I need because they come to me easily.
I was learnt about how in church, the pastor will link things together to make you believe that it's all true.
I am grateful I'm still learning.
I am grateful for more than second chances.
I am grateful to keep learning and caring and loving and smiling and dancing and singing and thinking and speaking and seeing and breathing and feeling and tasting and hearing and eating and sleeping and creating things that are useful and informative.
I am grateful to be alive to feel what this world has to offer and to see what I can do in it.
I am grateful for good books and good music and beautiful dances and things.
I am grateful to have so many chances and opportunities and venues to be me.
It's the beginning of the end as we go into the final semester of our 4 years in university. In a few months' time we will all be looking for jobs (or in jy's case she already has a job) and we'll all start pulling our hairs out at the mundane routine.
Val just celebrated her 23rd birthday in the Studio Box around Haji lane. It was so hard to get there and the music inside gave us a headache, but otherwise it was fun.
Classes for this semester! There's Chinese Philosophy, which is one of the most interesting classes I've taken, Cognitive Linguistics, which is on the other end of said scale, Pragmatic Theory, which is fun for the time being because I'm not doing my readings, China: Revolution and Reform, which I call China R&R or Chinese History. That one is confusing because I'm not reading the textbook and so all the wars/treaties/persons are just going by in a blur. Have skipped school quite a number of times for that class. When the prof said he wanted to be one of those profs that allow students to learn everything that they needed just in class, he was lying. Maybe I'm used to the format that the Ling profs have done for us for 4 years; I get really annoyed when the chapter summaries are done by (well, we are mainly incompetent) students in 7 short minutes and then he fills in the information by scrolling up and down his slides. I'd forgive him more if he didn't promise to be such an informative prof.
Oh and the last class is Intro to Entrepreneurship on saturdays. I love saturday classes. Wish I took it earlier because it used to be run only on recess week, but it's now still okay. I love my group, especially when I've gotten it cleared by Stephanie (my sort of spiritual advisor from US) and it's working out well.
Can't wait to graduate because I'm sick and tired of writing papers. Strange because I'll just graduate to writing books for other people and it really is the same, but it's more fun when I get to hop in an office and we seem to have a 4-day work week because Fridays are usually filled with a meeting or two with clients.
Like I told Hemma, I wanna work somewhere that gives me one day off on a weekday. I'll give them a Saturday for it. It's so much easier and relaxed to go shopping/eating/hanging out in a cafe on any weekday, because people are all in the offices.
The other option would be to work all the time. I was in a cafe with my partner and we totally came up with an idea to make us work from 9-5 in one job and from 5-9 in another job, all without moving from our office space.
Maybe that one will give us about $20,000 in income per month. Hopefully per person. *grin*
Have you ever realised how many things/programs/files you have in your computer? I'm uninstalling all sorts of stuff from my other computer and it's fascinating how I've amassed so much crap I don't need.
Oooo Faz (my colleague) has just ordered a basic Kindle from amazon. That will be awesome to see. Sad that the book business is going digital. I won't want to only have the library as the sole option when I want to read a book in the classic paperback form. Some books just have ugly font/layout and I want to be able to see all the different formats out there. Harris bookstore, you better come back. You guys were the best thing that ever happened to Jurong Point and I can't believe you had to leave for another stupid electronics shop when Challenger is just next door. Bah.
Because when you write bad stuff, you need to write happy stuff too.
Now that my brain is finally empty of all the thoughts I've been having this week, I realise that I've forgotten to write about the happy things too.
Yesterday was actually really fun. We went bowling at downtown east (I think) and then we went to eat at seoul garden. Major rip-off, the latter, but then again maybe I haven't gone there long enough. The final bill for three came up to be about $132.
Bowling was fun though. I think my best score was about 100 in a game. Had a few gutter balls and a few strikes and spares. Did what my brother used to do by going at it backwards, with my left hand, and with the ball between my legs. Bought the socks that they sold there because I forgot to bring my own, and I'm rather glad. There was definitely a shoe/foot pong at the shoe rental counter.
Threw away the socks right after the game. I know it's not the best thing to do, but it feels nice to be able to throw something away just like that and not be all "oh no I should keep this and reuse it and not throw it away."
Even though seoul garden was expensive, it was definitey fun cooking the food and not having it all burn. The tom yam chicken is really nice. The place was either too small for a whole range of food or maybe all the seoul garden outlets have gone high-tech, but the place resembled a sushi bar because we had to click on a computer to get the food we wanted. Only the drinks and desserts were on the shelf.
And guess what? The never-ending pit of hunger (aka me) actually became full, and I had to make an effort to go get dessert, much to everyone's surprise.
Today isn't as much fun now though. I guess I must be really unfit because my butt and back hurts from all the bowling. I'm walking like a cowboy gettin' ready for the one-on-one shootout. Yup, that must be really attractive. :D
So yes, even though I seemed moody yesterday (day before), I actually had lots of fun. Whee!! Thank you for happy days :D
1. Burberry body perfume. 2. To get my eyebrows neatened. 3. To let my mother know where I really have been working these past three years and for her to take it peacefully. 4. For the books to do well. 5. For the company to do well, surpassing all expectations. 6. For me and all my friends in LMS to do spectacularly well, especially with this last semester. 7. To find my right motivation in life and then succeed.
Have I been working at less than 100% this year? Yes, I've only been working at an average of 60% of what I can actually do or give.
Can I do more, can I give more? Yes, but I don't seem to want to.
But I don't want to be the girl with the potential and not the girl who is succeeding. In this case, "potential" is such an ugly word.
I understand why some of my girlfriends want to wait for marriage to have sex. It's just the logical thing to do when you're going to do it for the rest of your life/so the first time will be special/you know that your partner is committed to you for the rest of your life/if you become pregnant then it's okay let's keep the baby and raise a family together.
But what about some of my other friends who don't want to get married, and don't want to have kids? Then there is no "special time" for when you get to say, "okay, now we can have sex."
In a relationship like that, sex is the exact way to tell your partner that there is not only mutual love in the relationship, but also mutual trust and respect for one another. Having sex both shows and says that yes, I want to be with you, and while I can't promise you forever, I can and want to promise that so long as I can make it in this relationship with you, I want to make it and stick around.
If the wedding vow is simply a social construction, one to organise society and to make things explict and therefore much more easier for the group to handle, then sex is the vow that the couple make to each other.
The wedding vow means nothing really - sex makes it real. You can have an empty wedding and an empty marriage if you don't act on the vows (and have sex) , but you cannot have sex without an exchage of vows, at least in a serious relationship. Even sex with a prostitute includes a few vows - do not recognise each other in public, do not cheat each other, do not take the other's life.
Everytime I read something that details how men are from mars and women are from venus, I just take it lightly and dismiss it. But I'm starting to wonder lately if I'm actually one of the women they describe. Because I just noticed how I like to talk just to share my ideas, just to let you know what I've been thinking lately. Come on, I have a blog for god's sake, and if that's not me just talking for the sake of having someone to listen then I don't know what is.
Maybe it's all true, that I just want someone to listen to me, and not to give solutions even though I seem like I'm complaining all the time.
One thing I think I need to worry about though, is how we've been treating each other lately, because how we treated each other today simply lacked any mutual trust and respect. Perhaps the way we've been playing has gotten too far, and I need to stop wanting how we play and pull back.
Anyway, I'm putting the next video up simply because when I first found out about it, it was nowhere near christmas. So this to make up for it. : )
At first Borders closed, and I figured it was due to competition from Popular and Harris and maybe even Prologue. It's sad to see the big place go, and the ony regret (apart from buying more books) is that I wished I bought the mobile that was on sale for $20.
Then I started noticing that all the book shops were having some sort of mega clear-out sale, and I figured it was the usual end-of-year clear-the-stock season, as well as a move to compete with Popular's Suntec sale the same way Funan had their own sale when the Sitex show was going on.
I was comforted by the thought that at least Harris was close by in Jurong Point, but then Harris suddenly closed, moving out to god-knows-where.
Is something going on here? Not a good feeling when I want to write books for a living...
Anyway...
Has anyone seen the new Burberry Body commercial? It's superficial but I have a love-hate relationship with the thing.
Makes me want to buy the perfume and the trenchcoat. Damn.
