joel tells me i’m a vengeful person. “you aquariuses never forgive”. a statement that i am loathe to admit, though admittance to this slight really does me no harm whatsoever hmm, but concede that it is true. Whatever traits other aquarians may possess, I personally harbor.. tics, should i say? The little tiffs, menial acts, the big insults – only those that I disagree on of course.

which explains why joel is on the receiving end of Mean Xiao ahaha. we are physical embodiments of disagreement period

I can’t change how I’m wired. unfortunately, i’m wired to keep my own secrets in little boxes within myself. i store because that’s what i’ve always done and it’s very comfortable to keep doing. at least so far, right?

It’s funny when you think about it, ’cause who’s there to judge? But I imagine people pointing fingers and laughing at me. Scoffs, derision, mocking if I were to think, to participate… again – who is there to judge?

I know it shouldn’t matter. But I still wince, or feel shifty as I click the ’send’ buttons to free-prize-giving contests. I don’t tell about the pictures I had to take for a contest, but left it in my Downloads folder as it’s easy enough to stumble across. I roll my eyes at modeling contests.

There’s no one there to judge. i think. and it shouldn’t matter regardless

Creativity is so suffocating. I kept clipping mismatching colours and patterns together trying and trying and mismatching. Sometimes when I’m at this verge of giving up I tell myself I have no patience for these things. These little hit-or-miss bits of paper that I produce. 1 out of 5 turns out good enough for my satisfaction, so is that one worth the other four frustrations?

I feel unrest seeing half-baked creations but at times like these it sits there and it’ll never fully materialise into something wonderful because i’m at wit’s end. wit’s end! I sit there as I packed up my (severely meager) tools and cursed a little. Why am I doing this anyway? I don’t even know those people. And since it came out less than satisfactory (to me), I gain absolutely no joy from making it at all. the entire process became a favour.

the wit’s end, the creative block has been something I’ve ran away from all the time. but even if i kept hurling myself headlong towards it what would I have gotten?

There is many a hideous time I thought ‘how will they feel if i disappeared’, or ‘if i died…’ and etc line of thought and then imagine up a bunch of stories to assuage my jealousies. All of them, after I escaped my little self-world, I feel terrible about after. One, because how sad it is to think you’ll only really be missed or appreciated if you’re gone? (though that’s what taking for granted is, right?) and most importantly, two, my imagined delusions won’t happen. The birds will still chirp and the people will move on. 

If you’re making what you think is too small an impact on the people you care about, are you the one not doing enough? Or are they the one taking you for granted? These poisonous thoughts reverberate in my mind when I’m caught off-guard. when i’m reminded. Does everyone question themselves like that? Tell me if you do, I’d like to know.

Credits to Kacie Kinzer at www.tweenbots.com 

Again and again I wish I am beautiful. And just for a shallow moment I can be so pretty and so wanted that no one would need me to be otherwise. Everyone falls for beauty – king kong, men, women, children – everyone covets that which is beautiful to them. They’ll come for me, want me, love me, want to keep me, won’t risk losing me. For a moment I want to have that beauty, just so that I am yearned, and not have to run after whomever i want to please, want to keep. I want to be pleased. 

Then this moment disappears in my little world.

I can envision half the things I’m jealous about, that When I really thought about it, know I don’t need. If I’ve never seen it I probably wouldn’t even want it. I know it’s a pure, selfish, you-don’t-care about other people emotion, but it happens, right?

Sometimes I know I don’t need it. But I want it very much. Sometimes that’s why I’m jealous. If I felt nothing I think it would be worse.

Project 365 can be a huge source of procrastination for me. But…

Project 365: Day 17 (Mar 26) – Abercrombie & Fitch, Faneuil Hall

This is probably where I spend most of my money (after snacks) at. I mean, even at clearance price they’re not very cheap. It’s like my poison, my American Miss Selfridge. It doesn’t help that for once I find so many clothes that fit my bony bod so well, all in the same shop. But congratulate me, for I spent nothing there today! I even got $30 back for returning one of my ill-fitting cardigans. *bows*

I’m very curious about how I look when I’m not looking at myself. And this will be a never-ending wondering because how would I know how I look when I’m not looking at myself? It’s almost inevitable that anytime there’s a reflective surface I might just automatically control my features to some point that I can never look at myself and look at how I look like when I’m not looking at myself. Candid pics of me suck, and I’m always taken when I’m laughing, or somehow in poses and actions that are impossible to look good in. I guess I’m supposed to admit that I don’t look all that good au naturale. But well

Girl in the Mirror #2

Tree-huggers might despair, but I’m back into my post-it note phase where I write my homework on a post-it and stick it on the front cover my notebook (btw I only have one!! shock and awe) then throw it away like 2 times a week because it becomes obsolete that quickly. This allowed me to have an almost squeaky clean whiteboard in front of me, the first time in this entire semester. 

Of course I had to defile it

My current little reminder to myself.

I think beauty is something we should both appreciate and forget. If something is so preciously fleeting, when it’s around we must cherish it to the utmost that we can; but when it’s gone, don’t sit around and yearn for it to return. I wonder if the search for happiness is like the beautiful. Flits, appears before you, then gone again.

Life is so meaningless unless you find something that makes you happy to do. Otherwise everything feels just the same. Mundane. Insignificant. Shrunken to daily litanies just not worth mentioning. And it goes on and on until you merge and become exactly that which you detest.

Where do I go now? I’ll dance, I’ll make myself write (discipline), I’ll dress up everyday! Something needs to change badly before I just continue to drown and drown

Tan is not a good colour on me. I was showering today afternoon and I looked down to see a shade of brown that is too dark for my tastes of my skin! But I’ll let it slide, i’m going to go back to boston soon anyway, will go vampire again in no time

So tampons are amazingly easy to slide in (i’m guessing the blood has something to do with it. *cues horrified gags*) but not as comfortable as they say. I guess they got used to the feeling of something stuck in there? I feel like if I were to pee that thing will shoot out o.O Maybe I didn’t stick it in deep enough? And since this is my first time, it gives me absolutely no comfort because I keep worrying that some blood will spill out anyway.

You know, I’m being absolutely gross. I’ll stop.

I’ve been thinking about the subject of Malaysian culture, or at least the subculture regarding fashion. There are people who look at people who dress up in a ‘lala’ way and give a little look of disgust at the ‘inappropriateness’ of the way they dress. Yet, I’m quite sure that they’ll be highly accepting of the above means of dress if they visited Japan and seen the people there. We always thought of the ‘lala’ style as a style imported from Japan, but couldn’t it be possible that the people who first decided to dress up like that perhaps have never seen or heard of how people wear clothes in the land of the rising sun? Couldn’t that have been the start of a Malaysian subculture on our own terms? instead of being pointed at and sneered upon as impostors and copycats.

It’s the same as every other thing we seem to do. Everything seems to be accused as copied here and taken from there that we are robbed of anything (other than mamaks? haha) that we can call truly ours. But think about it? Isn’t this true for any country in the world that ever been through colonisation? Is there really an untainted culture? Isn’t the world truly a huge melting pot in the end? The Philippinos have a dish that’s apparently identical to one in Argentina. Did one copy another? Well, no. The spanish went to both places, that’s why.

Perhaps that’s why Americans decided to drive on the right, pull doors instead of push, say color instead of colour. In an attempt to have their own identity, they switched everything away from the convention of the British system.

And what about us Malaysians? I, for one, am going to stop saying who copied what, and stop staring at the people who wear leggings or full-length dresses in the mall. After all, if everyone critiques anything seemingly ‘outrageous’ that people wear, aren’t we going to be stuck in the same plain tees and blouses and jeans forever? Or perhaps we would be walking around in sarongs and cheongsams still! (though I would actually love to walk around in my cheongsam, but that has been relegated to the ‘formal’ department) I applaud those who dare copy the fashionable trend – however ridiculous it is in our absurdly hot weather – and stand out like black sheep to be laughed at by the people who wouldn’t dare to do the same in their lives.

1. happiness is hard to explain

I had dinner with my aunt and her friends tonight, which was great because all i ever see my aunt do is work and rush around tending to my cousins. It’s lovely to see her unwind with her friends, and unwind she did oO The night progressed from polite greetings to louder and louder high fives and happy gossiping. Sadly (for me), as I sat there and looked at them, all I could think of was how it’s so much harder to write happiness down. The weight of depression and gloom seems prioritized in the land of words as compared to the description of joy. 

For all Man’s search for happiness, it’s ironic how without conflict or tension there’s nothing to be told of his life. A happy man is such a boring one that no one would want to know about him.

Or is it that I find sadness something better to portray, something far more important everyone should know of? All these instances in life where you find people being down? I don’t know. But today as I sat with 3 other women chattering together, all I can remember is ‘i can’t write this sccne. it’s too chick lit. i have nothing to write about it’.

2. don’t want company/shallow/looking for friends

Which led me to some of my own thoughts when we were driving back home. As most of you would know I’m horrible at light conversation. I’m not the prompter, and though i know it’s important to learn how to be one, sometimes i just wish everyone would not talk and leave some silence to be had. Silence is good. It allows you concentration to think. Anyway, i’ve noticed that increasingly, I’ve been retreating to my own corner more and more often. I’m desperate for company, don’t get me wrong, but i haven’t found any that I would love to be with more than I already am. Listening to more and more gossip and talk that I wouldn’t remember 10 minutes later just goads me into staying away from people. I suddenly find it so meaningless to be around them. 

Yet, as I was thinking the above thought, it crossed my mind again – what is meaningful company? Philosophical talks? Bitching about the government and the current issues of the world? I don’t know. Does it matter if it means anything or not? And again, I have no answer. But I just reached the conclusion that if the former company bothers me so much, I guess i’m not really having much fun with them, right? I guess I love introspective talks, I love some serious issues, I love people who think and relate and not only talk about themselves so much. I love people who tolerate.

I’m looking for friends over here  

3. crossing over to the land of tampons

So the period issue and the restriction from dolphin swimming goaded me over to the land of tampons. I got a box here that I will read the instructions of after I shower (out of force of habit I always misuse the word ‘bathe’. it creates so much confusion with the americans). And I’ll give it a try tomorrow. Will blog about it, of course.

Am I not bad this week?!!! I’ve been consistently blogging everyday! I’m amazing

today the clock is rewinded one hour earlier so I get my first taste of Daylight Savings. I always knew they had it, and though I didn’t know the official reason why, i figured that it’s always nicer to have an “extra” hour of sunlight.

Well, today I took the trouble (google daylight savings. haha trouble wtf) to find out and i found a cute little website that summed it up quite neatly. check it out if you wanna gain some knowledge: http://www.webexhibits.org/daylightsaving/b.html

Which brings me to my daily musing. How funny that we control time (by winding the clock however we choose) as if it’s something that humans can control. I have heard the saying “now we have an hour extra”, which was the exact thing I said when I got to boston “we gained a day flying backwards haha”

So, it brings me to what i’ve always thought about. Time, as it is known to us (weeks, hours, minutes, seconds etc) does not really exist, does it? They are mere terms for us humans to compartmentalize, organize our daily lives into agreeable, standardized times. So that when I said i start work at 5pm, we all know what i’m talking about. Somehow I think that’s the only reason we have what we call Time. Time does not exist but for these numbers that ultimately doesn’t mean anything except for us to understand how to arrange our lives.

As for the bigger, philosophical implications, I will not touch