No snow tonight

Maybe it's the homesick feeling in the pit of my stomach or just the lack of snow (although it can't possibly snow here) I am hating everything.

The bitterness escalated quickly. I saw a post by a friend claiming that he was bored with the lack of assignments. I was enraged. The person I thought who was too busy and bogged down by work had neglected to be at my aide when I needed a listening ear ever so badly.

Corny, soppy, yes, throw a bucket of jelly on me. But it makes me think. Do friends even exist?

Friends who genuinely care? Hardly. If you find one, treasure them. Keep them under your pillow. Kiss them before you sleep.

In the meantime, I am reverting to my initial and long forgotten ideal. Men do not make good friends. Period. Just wait till they get a girlfriend. Poof* Like coco crunch. They'll be gone before you know it.

But they'll call you incessantly to borrow your car or have you give them a ride to the mall and make you late for your own activity - knowingly. Because you were once the girl who was the friend, now you're just driver or car loaner.

All those phone calls, support, advice,conversations, listening about his 50 000 past girls, sitting on the curb with him while he cried his eyeballs out about a break up, making sure he wasn't alone, baking cookies for him, making pasta, book excursions, teaching him how to mail a friggin' letter,listening to him cry on the phone for half an hour, allowing him to cross the road in a jam when you knew you could have bloody hell drove over him - they all fall to ashes.

Just a friend. No, driver and car loaner.

Sharks

I think they'd be friendly if we shake hands with them. And not let them sniff our blood.

In the Corner of Your Spacious Mind...

... you were wondering why you said 'Yes'.

Well, you were hungry. But why didn't you ask the person who you were talking to? What? Won't see them in the near future? Fair enough a deal. Have you not learnt in previous sessions? Oh, brush them aside because that's how fat your heart  is. Oh well, there's hope you would have fun. But, was it? To a certain extent. You want to be heard, and there's no fault in it. You want to spend time, quality time. By what definition makes quality that very quality you claim it should be?

They spoke, you listened. You looked enthusiastic. They did, didn't, did.

You don't know what to make of this you do not understand.

Just sleep and learn not to repeat, not to repel but to retreat. To smile. To accept, because that's what you're great at.

Hey, maybe one day someone might look you in the eye and ask you, "What about you?"

Paint

Have you ever mixed paint together? What a stupid question. Of course you have!

It's fun! In fact I'd love to spend hours just mixing colours and finding new colours. Imagine a huge sheet of paper and a couple of pot of paints by your side. You dab a little red, then a little yellow and voila! Orange!

A little more yellow and you'd get a brighter orange. A little more red and you get a deeper orange.

Conversations are like colours. With the right topics and friends, we mix our conversations to be of beautiful colours. 

When we hardly mix with people, we'd be plain colours. Our knowledge would be limited or we have limited friends.

But when we overdo it, things turn ugly. When too much of paint is added into each other it all turns into a nasty puddle of muddy mush! 

Bridges

"We'll cross the bridge when we come to it." Those are her favourite words. For most of my life  I thought it was simply an excuse to avoid any topic which required fortune telling skills that an average person would not possess. 

But now, I see the wisdom in it.

You see, I am sitting on my bed, listening to melancholy music while sewing an excuse of a kaftan and getting emotional. It all sounds pathetic, even cliche, but it makes me think. Think abundantly and generously. Can't help it. I am an emotional shipwreck comparable to the Titanic on the inside. Yet, outside I am hard as my scones. My scones can kill cats. It's an opinion but I'd like to try it out.So, as I was saying, bridges. Everytime I speak of something, some event that may or may not take place in the future, she quotes me those very words.

But, I really can't help it. My heart has this magical capability. In a moment of opportunity to dream, to wish, to wonder, it wanders. It unfurls this magnificent set of wings, unhitches itself from the clutches of my rib cage and flies away. It travels beyond time, faster than the hands of a clock.

I watch a movie about art, suddenly, I am Picaso clad in Prada walking the length of my newly furbished art gallery. I go on a field trip to a court and in seconds I am a high flying litigator, with a killer tongue and a killer pair of stilettos to match. Always and always in a pencil skirt which I can never pull off due to my fat thighs, a tucked in shirt to emphasize my fantasy of a flat stomach and a pair of killer heels. My visions enable me the capability to think for a second or two that I am a highly desirable woman with looks that would turn any man stupid. But then again, with a chopstick and a spool of thread, one could easily accomplish that.

Lara Croft and Charlie's Angels convinced my hypothetical self that I was not only desirable but dangerous. I am lethal with knife, with gun, even with only a feather for a weapon. Frost/Nixon made me want to be intelligent so much so only a man with a beard a foot long could be compatible to my intellectual capabilities. Freedom Writers, Dead Poet's Society and Mona Lisa Smile won my heart over. It sent me down a lane of apple trees in a summer dress with a basket full of papers to mark. Papers with names of people I want to potentially influence. The list goes on, but I hope you get my point.

And then, I met him. There were hard lines and curiously emptiness in his eyes that trapped me and my magical flying heart. I wanted to explore, to discover this treasure chest. Somehow things didn't turn out to be as my incredibly stupid flying heart whispered so. His first words exposed him a boy. He is a boy. A boy as any boy would be. But I am relentless. I am as stubborn as a donkey as any donkey would be. I combed through every conversation, gesture and mannerism. I fed my head's content with possibilities. I swaddled myself in grief whenever I felt ostracized in a company of more than him. I am stupid and it didn't take him a chopstick and a spool of thread to do the trick. 

We'll cross the bridge when we come to it.

Obviously, this sense of curiosity is unrequited. There is no enthusiasm. At least on his part. And as for me, I wasn't at any bridge. This is not the bridge, the bridge I am waiting to cross so that my stupid heart can remain in my rib cage and I walk that bridge with it safely locked up. 

But, will I stop dreaming? I can't promise you that and for the world, the stars and every lollipop in the Milky Way, I beg your pardon, but I will not stop. My heart was meant to unfurl and fly. Though it returns home hurt and bruised, it dreamed a dream that will come to pass when I come to that bridge.

Fire

"Ouch!" she said to herself, carrying the fire precariously with her two small hands. Her uncle had told her to gather some old sticks together, tie a rubber band around and get some fire from the next door neighbour. Now, as she carried the sticks between her hands, the melted rubber dripped and stung her feet. Again she yelped, "Ouch!" By this time, there were tears streaming down her face. The pain was unbearable. Just at that moment the local dresser came by and heard her sobs. He took her to the infirmary and got her wounds cleaned and treated. Then, he took her home.

Three clicks is all it takes to turn the gas on. Just a twist of the knob to the left, click click click, and we're set to go. Pop the pan on the burner, pour the oil, cook the meal. There is no need for fire starters, tinder boxes or sticks held together with a rubber band. And should anything happen to me, my mother would come running... to wipe my tears away.

She entered the house. The dresser left her at the front door. The room was still except for the scampering of Uncle's feet across the floor, coming toward her. So still, so quiet, so alone. "What happened?" he asked. "The melted rubber burnt my feet so the dresser took me to the infirmary." He looked at her, lifted her chin and said, "I know it has been difficult, but you have to be responsible for the fire, since your mother is no more." Silently, she nodded and walked to the kitchen, holding the bundle of sticks with melted rubber.


Happy 79th Birthday.

The Faking Soul

Our lives are filled with wants, these wants vary from the material, the emotional, the intellectual to the physical. Questions is are these wants wrong? If they are, why? If they aren't, are there levels of intensity for wants? How much can one want? Can want be eternally good or can want wander off to regions of forbidden intensities?

Binary oppositions teach us that to understand want you must know its opposite. Introducing another term : need. What is want opposed to need? How can one differentiate a need from a want?

Who determines what is a want and need? Can a want become a need?

By this time you might think me an irrational idiot who has nothing better to do than to ask these stupid and simple questions and boggle her brain.

True, I'd agree with you. Actually, I need to start on my assignment. But, if you're already bored, go find another blog to read (assuming someone is reading this - because I am 'syok sendiri' like that), I like to rant.

Well, these questions have been plaguing my mind.

I would  consider myself practical enough (don't laugh) to differentiate need from want.

E.g. : I need God, daddy, mummy, siblings, food, water, air, clothes, money, shelter, love and chocolate to survive this life. I want more chocolate, friends, a car that moves from point A to B, cheese and Robert Downey Jr to enjoy life.

But, the question of want....

How much can on want? Because I want and I want so much.
I really want. I am so desperate in my wanting sometimes I think I am nuts. Can one want so much?

God help me, I am seriously stuck in a whirlpool of want, and I can't swim.

Alcoholic Moments

I am like beer
I am acquired taste
I am glad I am like beer
I'd like to think of myself as Hoegaarden
Gentle and fragrant
But still amazingly
Like beer

The Edge

Take me to the edge, dear

Take me please.

Take me as close as possible before I fall over

Then when I least expect it tip me over.

Let me fall.

Fall down all the way.

All the way,

I need the thrill.

The excitement will choke my heart

Grip my throat

I will not scream

I will not fear

But take it all in

Every inch of adrenalin

All the way down.

If you have it in your heart,

Come after me.

With every word that came, enveloped in enthusiasm, confusion and excitement, I cringe, inside with a wide smile to patch the bitterness.

"For everyone who has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him."

Oh I see it, feel it even clearer than I have ever been before.

But why should I complain? If it landed on my lap, would it be any different? Perhaps not. It's just the swelling off my heart I want to tend to, something I have not felt for a long time. The want to be treated like a woman, not just another friend.

Just that and simply that, besides the fact that there's a shadow over me, constant and more appealing than the very self of me. That's why I hate that piece of paper, the only box which I shine in. Just a box.

I comfort myself with the thought that in this vast and everlasting sea there is one fish who will come to me. Only one and only for me. Comfort is rare and slow, but comfort nevertheless.

Reflection - 'cos I hear it so often.

Reflection on your essays, reflection on your week, reflection this, reflection that.

This is my reflection over the past sem.

1. Friends

I got to know the ones I knew better and not necessarily liking all outcomes. I got to know new ones who will now have a permanent place in my heart. I think we bruised each other, and got ourselves chipped all over. This is a good thing, everyone needs to shake down. Some are bad processes, some are not that bad, but in the end all is good-for now. My roomie is awesome. She reminds me of my grandmother, not in the physical sense, but some of the things she says, her life lessons and her day to day goal. I live with a motivational speaker. I can't thank God more.

2. Studies

I am finally doing something I love. Bullshit of the century. Even in Uni, you have to do courses you don't want to like BM and Entrepreneurship and stuff like that. My year is also the guinea pig year for a new course, I would say that it is a helpful course. To be honest, I can't wait for the next semester. I really want to take a chunk off my major, see what the tough meat is all about. Excited much.

3. Location

There is a tendency to forget that I live on an island because I hardly see the sea. Despite the amount of outings and such, I still forget. Occasionally, the breeze comes to remind me that there is this vast amount of salt water surrounding me, the clouds at night do the same.

4. Weather

Needs getting used to. Nuff' said.

5. Church and CF

Is pretty cool, I think I need time to get attached to it. I think everyone does, naturally.

6. Myself

I think I have gotten a bit more headstrong, a lot more self conscious, somewhat lazy and maybe a bit more adventurous. I have now the opportunity to do everything I want, it's called freedom. However, I don't feel like I accomplished anything. I am yet to stretch myself and do things differently. In a way, I feel like my whole personality and character has not been structured yet and set into stone, not that I want to make myself incapable of being malleable by humility and what not, but I can't help but desire to be stronger in quiet sense and somehow more in control of myself. This is probably my future goal.

Next sem, here I come. :)

The Phone: How to be an Effective Caller and Answerer

This post is for all the idiots out there who do not know how to make or answer a call. Today I will shed some light for you and educate you on how to be a courteous and not so imbecilic person-on the phone, of course.

Lesson 1: Introduction

Upon answering the ringing phone, answer with a salutation, appropriate to the timing of the day. For example: Good morning, good evening, hello.... etc etc...

Situation 1:
kring kring...

Answerer: Hello?

Situation 2:

kring kring...

Answerer: Good evening?

Get the picture?

*Note: Never answer the call with 'good night'.

_____________#______________

Lesson 2: Whoissit?

It is natural for the Answerer to know who the Caller is, so....

YOU CALLERS JUST STATE YOUR FRIGGIN' NAME. DON'T YOU EVER EVER EVER EVER DARE ASK THE ANSWERER WHO HE/SHE IS. OKAY?

phew*

Now that that is settled, let me give you some situations...

Situation 1

Answerer: Hello?

Caller: Hello. Who is this?

The above conversation is NOT COOL! NOT COOL, GOT IT?

How the conversation should be:-

Situation 1 (The Proper Version)

Anwerer: Hello?
Caller: Hello.
Answerer: Who is this please?
Caller: My name is Educated Caller.
Anwerer: Blimey, my name is Educated Answerer.

Caller: Jolly good, ol' fella!

The above conversation is more or less the way it should be in reality. You may, of course have a different name.

There is however one situation where you should be able to avoid the name giving game. That is if the purpose of the call is to find out about a person who called you but you have no idea who is the person.

Situation C0mplicated:

Answerer: Hello?
Caller: Hello.
Answerer: Who is this, please?

Caller: I received a call from this number a couple of hours ago and I would like to know who called me. Who owns this number please?

That is the only situation where you shouldn't reveal your identity first, if you are the caller. There are probably a host of other situations like a complicated, dramatic, life or death situation but my temporary lack of creativity prohibits me from being specific.

_____________#______________

Lesson 3: The Main Content

This portion of your conversation entails the purpose of your call. It may be:

- an informative call

- a nagging call

-an angry call

-a flirty call

-a social call

The point is, whatever it is, it is up to you.

_____________#______________

Lesson 4: The Conclusion

Many people like to finish the call with a grunt or absolutely no indication that the call has ended. This is very unprofessional, rude even. The next situations will give you an example of what it

sounds like:

Rude Situation 1:

Caller: Alright dude, bye.

Answerer: *grunt*

click.

Rude Situation 2:

Caller: Alright dude, bye.

click.

That's not very nice, is it? Be courteous, try some of the following examples:

Better Situation 1:

Caller: Alright dude, bye.
Answerer: Bye dude.

click.

Better Situation 2:

Caller: Alright dude, bye.
Answerer: Goodbye, Mr Watson.

click.

Better Situation 3:

Caller: Alright dude, bye.
Answerer: No, don't leave me, please don't, I can't be alone, I can't. I'll die... please... please... he's coming, the boogeyman, he's coming!

click.

Answerer: Dude? Dude? DUDEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Okay, perhaps not the last, but the two previous ones were just fine.

_____________#______________

Now that you're educated, I hope you make this a practice in life, so that you will not be a pain in the buttocks for people like me.

Thank you.