blog.silon

Tokens

2011-09-28T05:27:00.009+10:00

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The silky smooth surface of tranquillity cloaks a torrent of discontent, pandemonium the stirring undercurrent that lies hidden beneath.

A breakdown marks the previous day, the very first of its kind in fifteen weeks.

So tired.

Just so, so damned tired. All the critique, the judgement, the criticism, the ensuing shits.

Tired sick of being alienated, have me and the things I love be put-down time and time again, as if to estrange as much as attempts to marginalise.

I have not come thus long, thus far, to be back at where I was one whole decade ago.

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Keys in hand, fuel in tank, the open roads beckon for solace. Peace. My goodness, when, why, have I grown so worldly?

Greed, corruption; these subtle and insidious monsters! Blast them. Damn their eyes.

Too comfortable a lifestyle. Too many luxuries a life.

Filth too dense to clean.

A living footprint too heavy to sustain.

Behind clouds the timid sun hides, painting this land a monochromatic hallucination. The sky darkens. The gauges light, crisp white on black. Rev counter, fuel counter, all systems are still go.

As they were two and a half years ago.

Those were simpler times. Simpler ways. Simpler wants. Simpler needs.

Times happier perhaps not, certainly more beautiful they must have been.

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Beautiful this world around me is still.

Great ideas, great pieces of work, great talent, great skill . . . trivialised and suppressed to the realm of gods and religions past, faded into insignificance by the very forcings of ignorant proles all wealthy of spirit, wealthy of cash, bereft of sense.

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Take this omen, for tomorrow would not be the same as yesterday, nor as it is today.

Ceilings and zeniths, they were certainly never to be surpassed.

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Liberty

2011-08-04T22:19:00.003+10:00

Fresh from having just finished the fifth instalment of Herbert’s Dune novel, I am in a state of awe… what a magnificent body of work this is. How brilliant and truly vast this creation of his!

Sadness and that distinct feeling of queasy unease drowns me.

My life as it is now is almost a replica mirroring that of the book; just as the lives and the lines of lineage of the main antagonists have come to conclusion, so too the end chapter of chapters in reality.

Four and a half years of serial, unending academic semesters, stretched over what must be a gruelling five long years at the very least: that chapter of my life has now come to rest. Thousands of kilometres, back and forth. Back and forth.

For so many times now, I have begged for this moment. This the beginning of my life. Free to do what I want, free to go where I please, free from academic shackles and the curse of exams... the prospect of failure and repercussions, dangling dangerously close to the edge of sanity, is at last, no more.

Free at last!

Free! Free …to dive straight into the ever greater pressures and responsibilities that await in life.

The scary question now thus beckons: what now? What now, oh goodness what now?

Safely nestled in the warm protective folds of home, the lovely sense of comfort and security is truly intoxicating.

Ah such contentment you have bred for me to grow into!

So it is over.

So it is ended.

A frenzy of alcohol, a flurry of fine food, a small entourage of coursemates —comrades in battle, wonderful friends truly, a mutual struggle once shared—, and then a life packed into two large suitcases, a twin-engined triple seven and… Home, straight into the warm protective arms of home and the ones loved.

So it has.

So it must be.

Closing Time

2011-06-12T15:54:00.014+10:00

June is upon us, and my hands really feel as though they have been tied to… well, something. Something heavy, something cumbersome.

Time is unforgiving and indiscriminate in its advance.

Slashing and ripping through all that is, like a cruel menace time comes for me.

 More so than ever before, I am closer to one end of my journey than the other. You know, beginnings are so much less fraught with baggage the way endings are.

The heavy burden of memory and experience is not something universally cherished or embraced.

But without endings, I tell myself, how then can new beginnings sprout?

It was about this time two years ago that I had looked to Australia for hope, escape and new leaves. Today though, escape seems only feasible within the confines of my grey, gooey gunk —which is arguably the very item I need escaping from in first place.

I have started to wonder if my life is one too sane. Is it one too calculated or one too proper? The temptation to flick the switch, run amok, pursue senseless and irrational excursions... and satisfy whims and desires of any and every sort... oh how tempting the proposition!

But then again, when all is ~~said and~~ done, who else would be there to clean up the mess if it was not for me, my own little self?

"A child no longer" voices in my head.

Responsibilities, the piggy account and relationships beckon...

 And so, whatever little is left of my youth is being further robbed away from under my feet; time the termite sure loves its wood.

I feel opportunities dissolving into thin air. It is said that youth is wasted on the young, but somehow I have always sensed that I had never wasted my youth. The past decade was spent trying to be as grown-up and as sensible as I could…

But oh the irony!

I laugh now, thinking how these very actions were tantamount to my youth being laid to waste: I have little memory of joy and experience from my younger days. What of the crazy things you did as a child? What of the ridiculous things you said? What of the absurd suggestions you had made, or the outrages desires that you had expressed liking to, and even more shockingly, were granted with? Oh how exciting it must have been.

But if only that …I was there too.

So, with what little is left of my salad days, my time here in this city and the luxury of being “young~~ish~~", must I really walk away like this? Walk away on this path of continued arrogant, self-serving righteousness and the delusions of an unsullied life?

Must I really walk away from this one chance, guided by ever more sane and reasoned laser systems? Is the grass really always greener on the other side? Is Lord Dreamer sleeping again, or is it Lady Rationale moving on to greener pastures?

Time and the bubble of a world around me is just screaming at me to act …but if only the solutions were not lost in the very jungle of noise that they created.

But then again, none of this ever seemed to matter to me before. I wonder, must it really now?

Legacies

2011-05-15T00:54:00.002+10:00

You know there’s this one thing I have long known, but never previously shared with anyone, neither in public nor in private...

Not that this is a particularly secretive nougat that should only be kept within the confines of my skull; I just suppose the opportunity never presented itself…

Twenty four months: that really, is the longest period of time I could spend at any given place or institution.

This is the duration long enough to be marked by epochs and cataclysms; for history to be written, new standards to be set, achievements to be celebrated and looked back upon in times to come, meaningful relationships to be made —and detrimental ones to be killed.

And perhaps most importantly: critical life lessons to be experienced, absorbed, and learnt.

Dragged on for longer, and the burden of memory and familiarity becomes unbearable; the weighty baggage of experience and contempt start to swell up into a pool of trauma.

Twenty four months is the longest amount of time before I pass from being too comfortable to being too sick, and before I get stunt from growing and get encapsulated by the very spheres I set over myself.

As the sliver of realisation falls, comes a reality that liberty and release looms ever closer beyond the horizon.

I now liken myself to a four-engine winged-tubed craft at one end of a runway, waiting for four green lights to signal at the other, before putting thrusters to full for the imminent pressure-differentials to do their aerodynamic witchcraft.

And then, freedom.

Like When We Were Children.

2011-04-09T00:12:00.006+10:00

I wished many things.

I wished for —believe it or not— a better life.

One much less swarmed by academic hardship and pressure and the simmering prospect of failure and retribution.

And more cash. I wished for more cash to spend daily, to live more comfortably, to splurge a little, to enjoy life with, to be more carefree.

I need more time; time for my own personal self-development… the D80 and the weights beckon, the creative little child in me needs escape, and the world isn’t waiting for me.

I truly wished for more space, more time, and more cash to stretch my legs and spread my wings.

Flight.

Freedom.

Fantasy.

They've been too far and too few of late.

Distant Ties

2011-04-07T20:05:00.002+10:00

There were quite a number of you.

Back then you were, all of you, my saviours from ...so many ugly things.

Sometimes it pains me to see how far we have all drifted apart from one another, the currents of our lives taking us toward our individual destinies, as we set off to make our mark in the great big world.

We have grown distant; friendships stretched just a little too far, and just that wee bit too thin. It’s as though we never met, as though we never knew each other, as though the other person never existed.

Then again, I suppose there isn’t much to be said between us in the here and now anyway. Simple hellos, simple take cares, and simple goodbyes.

But memories of the warmth, the good times and the good deeds linger in my head and in my heart still.

I cannot for the life of me find words to express gratitude for everything that you have filled my life with —if only in times past.

Wherever in the world you are tonight, you are not forgotten.

There’s a little piece of me, wishing you all the best, in whatever you are going through.

Golden

2011-03-13T01:02:00.006+11:00

Carnage

The world is filled with it.

Amidst all the beauty, all the joy and all the wonder that is life, there is so much that is not so.

You left so many reminders of youth lingering in my head. What is it like to be 18? What was it like to be young, to be new, to be fresh, to be innocent and untainted by the struggles and the realities of life?

I see it in your face. I see it in your eyes.

We… we’ve lost it all.

We’ve all lost it.

What was it that took the fiery sparkle from your dark hazel eyes? What was it that put those wrinkles on your face? What was it that aged you down?

Was it one turmoil all too many? Was it one event too nasty?

And as for me?

From life’s bloodbaths I’ve lost enough of myself to cynicism and bitterness, a permanent shade of jade hovering over my corneas… a young child inside shies away from the senses of the world, scarred by the burns of life, and the need to grow up.

 There is so much in my life that is going so great right now, and so much can so easily be lost.

But losing won’t kill me.

Not anymore.

Not after everything that I’ve gone through.

Not since I was the boy I used to be.

12

2010-12-19T23:59:00.009+11:00

No news is, as they say, good news.

And this is especially true of me, and this half-arsed blog of mine.

The days and the weeks preceding my return from Sydney has been marked by a distinct lack of posts, with as many as one in thirteen weeks.

This is not because I have found another source for an outlet, not because I started a ‘secret’ blog with a corny, melancholic URL, and not because I found someone to talk to —if you seriously thought of me as that sad a sod, well then, it’s you who needs someone to talk to =)

The simple truth be told, life really has been good to me lately.

I’d like to go on about the warmth of home, of family and friends, the company, the coffee, the car, the speakers and the DAC, me having gained 8kg from the weights and the whey, and hundreds and hundreds of other such details, but I shall digress and leave it as such.

I have had no realisation so deep nor revelation so profound that I needed to ponder or write out in words. I have lost the necessity to use the word processor and subsequently visit this place post-completion.

So with things the way they are, this trend will set to continue into the foreseeable future; and seeing how I will not be around (that is, won’t be around and can’t be bothered enough) to write something that sums up the past twelve months in reflective reminisce, but as is tradition to do so, this will serve as the rojak post that will accomplish that sub-task as well.

I am reminded to the lyrics of a song that goes:

But before I learned to listen
And if indeed someone said it
Then I guess I must have lost it on the wind

Still, all in my own time is all in good time I suppose.

As per the short, succinct (or possibly shadowy) theme of this post, it is to end here without much ado, or glossy detail. Perhaps indifference would best characterise my current attitude, and if so, would anyone blame me? =)

Liquidity

2010-11-05T23:45:00.005+11:00

The third 17C night in the middle of spring. In my room at this end of the world, its quiet, solemn and cold.

Cold.

Old wounds and past mistakes have a habit of catching up to you from time to time.

Today, yesterday, are one of those times.

Regrets, mistakes, what ifs, the many maybes and could have beens start to swirl into a tornado of distress. I think, I wonder, I wish… but what good does that do?

The shot glass, the beautiful golden hue, the woody aroma… this isn’t the first time the thought has crossed my mind today.

And it wouldn't be the last.

I can survive without it, I tell myself. Repeatedly.

Equilibrium

2010-09-28T21:53:00.006+10:00

Spring.

Spring has come, and brought along with it baggages from the past. The hot, suffocating dry air is a constant reminder of how things used to be twelve months ago.

So what better way to revisit past moments than with songs from the period?

I thought to myself what it was like. I thought to myself all that had happened. I thought to myself, and nodded.

I have come a long way. I have grown, and let many, many baddies go. I am also stronger, and much more seasoned than I was before —the crises of life have made me more hardy for sure. So many things in the world can hurt me no longer. I am not a mess with my emotions. I don’t easily fall into fits of depression. Or bouts of hate.

Life at the moment isn’t half as good as it can be, but neither is it half as bad as it would seem. With only a tiny bank account and a somewhat busy academic semester, life has been lived pretty much without the frills or the excesses of greed and desire.

It’s just me, my family, a few lifelong friends, the books, the weights and the whey. And of course, the sporadic excursions with my ageing d-eighty, which is still rolling out them day-lit scenes wonderfully well.

Really, I wouldn't want anything other than this simple, lean and drama-free existence.

Now, if only I can find an answer to the age-old “meaning of life” question.

Pages

2010-09-24T15:12:00.008+10:00

For so many nights I have laid there under those sheets.

The cold, blissful silence of the wee morning hours have always been conducive for aimless contemplations of the mind.

You know, life’s pretty surreal sometimes.

What’s all this for?

No, really, tell me what is all this for?

A fat pile of cash? A comfy, luxurious life to grow fat and complacent over? A lifetime of achievements that mean nothing to no one but yourself on the day you are forced to shut your eyelids for good?

I used to bubble with altruism. I used to think of “to make the world a better place” as the most noble, most utilitarian cause an individual could ever aim to live for.

Perhaps a truly significant contribution that will fundamentally change the way we live our lives for generations to come. Perhaps a one-inch equation of five variables that will permeate through humanity for millennia. Or perhaps ambitions less lofty; perhaps to just go, leaving behind a variety of chemicals that register as positive memories in the grey matter of family and friends.

Laughable, isn’t it?

You grow up only to realise that so many things and so many people are already well beyond reprieve. So much is already cast in stone, so much is not worth trying for to begin with.

And what does it matter, when life as a whole means so little? Beneath delusions of an afterlife, beyond the corruptive lure of wealth, ego and power, after the passing of lust, sex and love, what else is there to life?

You think I’m the lone idiot who is paying the price for being a faithless, non-believing atheist, but I’ll tell you this: if all the things I said above weren’t true, none of us —not even the most religious fanatics— would fear death's call.

Cavities

2010-09-05T15:13:00.013+10:00

I wake up to a sunny Sunday morning, somewhat warm, somewhat humid, but under a perfect blue sky.

It seemed just like one of those Sundays I used to have back home, back when I was still a teenager all those years ago.

The lunches with my parents, the air-conditioner, the blistering speed of my top-of-the-range computer, and Far Cry. And not to mention, the angst.

I suppose it happens to everyone. I suppose that as we grow, we learn that people will inevitably disappoint you, somehow.

Along the way, we learn that beyond people, many of the things you dreamed of too, once within your reach/possession, you will realise that they weren’t all that they were cracked up to be, and that they probably weren’t worth one bit of the time and effort you had put in.

Or perhaps not. Perhaps its just me. Perhaps people truly are happy with their dreams.

I suppose its obvious that its just me who finds just about everything a huge, giant, pathetic sham.

Surely, there has to be more to life than just prejudice and hype? More to our existence than just hearsay and uninformed gossip? More to us than just make-believes that don’t make sense? More to our skulls than just a runny gunk of grey matter?

Last Legs

2010-08-15T22:49:00.008+10:00

My recent disgust and distaste at almost everyone around me has been the cause of a huge self-driven mental and emotional wall.

This walled-garden of mine is serene, quiet, and predictable.

But this forced, self-imposed isolation is a lonely and testing existence.

You tend see all those around you in a considerably less-than-favourable light, and the cycle continues, deepening into ever more catastrophic feedback loops.

Can’t exactly say that I’m delighted or pleased at the current situation, but I’d rather it be so than to stoop down and accept alien values, ideals or realities for which I do not share, or beliefs that make every sinew of my soul cringe at the sheer monstrosity of their absurdity.

I was once passionately empowered against religion, against the belief of imaginary omnipotent men/women/being[s] floating in the blue skies above us, and I thoroughly railed against the people who lived their lives under these ridiculous little umbrellas of illogic.

That was one lesson in life I never forgot; I still haven’t the slightest respect or regard for religionists or believers. The greater their beliefs, the farther I wanted to be from them.

Today, I am empowered once more.

Today, I say enough to stupidity.

I will not be cowed into accepting nonsense, misinformation, prejudices or idiocy, just because that’s how the way the world is, or just because that’s the norm.

There is a better way than this.

Spheres

2010-08-11T19:27:00.007+10:00

I find myself drowning in a sea of mediocrity.

An endless continuum of boring people.

Pathetic ones who cannot for the life of them stand up to their own judgements. Pathetic ones who cannot for a moment see beyond the facts and figures that lie before them. Pathetic ones who cannot overcome their ridiculous little prejudices that reside deep within themselves, even though it is ironic that, for the most part, these are the very same people who’s very existence has been the subject of such prejudice and discrimination.

In this huge chasm of differing values and idealism that separates me from everyone else, I feel the four walls closing in.

I feel alienated; trapped in a reality I cannot un-clutch myself from.

Suffocating in these vile waters, I so hope and wish I could be home where love and warmth and material wealth and time run abundant.

Tonight I again write by the yellow lamp, not unlike how I did all those posts from this time last year.

Tonight I wished I had huge concentrations of alcohol gushing down my bloodstream.

Tonight, those two bottles of Budweiser left in the fridge from my past habits cannot seem more appealing.

But such is not to be.

My Fascist regiment of four-hourly meals of carefully choreographed pro:carb:fat amounts in perfect ratios and the weights and the jogs would all make alcohol the most blasphemous of things I could ingest.

Such then, is life.

No Place Like...

2010-08-04T19:17:00.008+10:00

I close my eyes.

The images start to flash.

Bright, dull lights hanging high atop the brown pyramidal shell that is the roof. The cold, harsh architecture, the concrete, the grey plastic, the pale marble flooring, the electric mini-train.

Images of my parents, my hands on the thick steering wheel, the odometer, the xenon-lit highway, the hint of palm trees, the valley at night, my cats.

And as if the relentless attacks on my consciousness was not enough, the dreams I dream each night too, are beyond escape.

One wonders if I’d go insane before I manage to even step onto that scheduled -400 jet.

A New Start

2010-08-03T21:50:00.005+10:00

This is my ninth draft, and is one that I intend to publish, instead of putting to the bin like all the others before.

I have so much to write about; me being sick of almost any and every one around me, and almost any and every thing.

But nothing I write would be fit for reading.

In between the weights and the jogs, the whey and the Quarter Pounders, the studies and sleep, I have neither the time nor energy for anything else.

I couldn’t for the life of me muster even a coherent post, despite the repeated attempts.

I miss home so much.

I miss my family. I miss the valley. I miss alcohol. I miss drinking with my dad. I miss driving that wonderful car. I miss my closest and best friends.

A few more months to go, and another four subjects to pass.

Life, for now, seems unbearably arduous, and impossibly long.

I Made It.

2010-07-20T19:16:00.009+10:00

Honestly, I feel like deleting every single post I wrote for the past five months.

Success is sweet, though watching your closest, truest friends and comrades fall most definitely isn’t.

Theirs is a solemn reminder of the grave consequences of not having made it through.

Theirs is a bitter reminder of the human costs behind the thick cold faces of ruthless academicians who trump the “standards” flag.

Where most expected —especially coming from me, of all people— is the relentless gloating and praise of all the wonders and joys of life, there shall be none.

This seriously isn’t at all funny, or worth celebrating for.

I am lucky to have just scraped through, to have saved a brand new Gen.2 and twelve additional months to repeat two subjects.

These were perhaps the two most expensive marks in my life.

Beginnings

2010-07-18T00:20:00.012+10:00

Children. They are everywhere around me, lurking beneath ever so thinly veiled membranes, but just peer through the words, the conduct, and right in the depths of those shallow souls is that malicious, malevolent child reigning supreme in them full-grown adults.

They say pain is what we need to grow —that without trauma, or other extraordinary life-changing crises, we’d never learn, or progress above and beyond that which we are.

In recent months, the overarching thought has perhaps been that of immaturity, the (fortunate, unfortunate) need to grow up, not losing one's humanity, and compassion.

Lessons in life... that life is not a fairytale, a romantic illusion, or a fanciful novel, that life is not a house full of comfy beds and giant sofas with an eternal cash tree in the backyard that bears fruit rain or shine, that the world is not a fabulous land of joy and wonder where good and just is always triumphant, or that things will always work out for you.

Life indeed is short —definitely short enough not to be spent over the little things or the little people that bring you displeasure and discontent. And also too short in fact, to be wasted away over the inconsequential, the irrelevant, and the obsolete.

Times have changed.

It's time to grow up.

I’m moving on, and I’m definitely not sorry that a few of you won’t be coming along.

Branches

2010-07-04T22:04:00.004+10:00

Facebook. Wedding. Pictures. And metallic-silver 5 Series’.

I start to picture myself at 35, a rather ~~successful~~ well-to-do engineer, a bachelor pad perched high atop the skyline with spectacular views of the city, and a 5 Series of my own —this the mid-sized executive saloon that has been the unrivalled gold-standard of it’s class for almost three decades, this the model that has made the Bavarian company famous, this the car that has fascinated me since childhood.

A pair of monumental KLIMAX floor-standers with an equally impressive front-end to match, huge portions of glass offering panoramic views in a small, cosy apartment, and an even smaller bedroom.

Dreams, I snap out of my mind-wandering to tell myself.

Dreams that may full well not come true.

Which is also equally fine, I think to myself. Having nothing to do with the flamboyance, the glamour, and all the gay, living a “small” life of bare minimums rid of all excess.

I figure I’d appreciate life —and everything else— more this way; living lean, living clean, and living simple.

But moving a decade backwards to the here and now is July the 14th with which I wait with indifference. As the days draw closer and closer, hope still seems to spring eternal.

Hope that I will pass the two particularly troublesome subjects, hope that a normalised curve will be employed and that it will favour me, hope that things will turn out alright.

But then again, a fool’s hope it may very well be too.

If indeed I fail any of the two papers, my graduation day will be pushed further into the future, the completion of my degree prove to be lengthier and far more costly a battle than what I had hoped or wished for.

But if there is any consolation, it is that the reduced workload of three subjects per semester would make life easier, and give me more time to do the things I want, as well as the life I would rather live.

And if I do manage scrape through without any failures —and heavens do I not hope and wish that I do— then that too, would be a wonderful outcome.

There’s the dream thesis topic I get to do, there’s the huge sum of cash not needing to be used, there’s the whole year I’d not need to spend in university, and let’s face it: who likes the idea (and the consequences) of failing?

Automobiles, Thoughts on

2010-06-27T03:06:00.020+10:00

Cars are many things to many people. For some, it is merely a mode of transportation that ferries them from A to B. Some think of it as an extension to their wardrobe, an empty shell that represents their ‘fashion sense’. Many use cars as instruments to express the depth of their pockets, or their towering heights in the social ladder. Then there are the rare few who buy cars because of the product’s actual performance.

And by “performance” I did not mean 0-60 in four point three seconds. Or four point three one seconds. Not that it matters anyway, since it is unlikely that the vast majority of people who actually care about these things are able to shift gears that quickly to begin with.

Nor are the lap times of a confounded TV-show's test track that does not and will never properly evaluate the “performance” of a car (e.g. the real boys test in Nürburgring and Fiorano). And even at that, it’s not as if 99.9% of car buyers out there are going to race their precious cars in race-tracks every day.

Most would use their cars on the roads to get to work, to pick their kids from school, to live life. And it is in these circumstances that things like NVH and fuel economy, after-sales support and practicality becomes paramount, not what Mr Fuckson said of how fast the car could get round his little circuit.

And thanks to the said arse-head, a horde of other stupid people who think ‘sports‘ is Good, and everything else is Bad, we have manufacturers tune suspension systems so hard and rides so harsh that make these cars (and the people who drive them) a complete joke —outside of Mr Fuckson’s circuit, of course.

Where things count most is where people miss out most: ride, handling, NVH. Nothing is more important than how a car gets you to your destination. People often think that driving/travelling makes them tired, but never have they once stopped and put their “wonderful” car with all the characteristics of a horse cart as the source of their fatigue.

But when they finally do, it wouldn't matter anyhow, since particular ~~non-essential~~ reasons (the vehicle’s excellent fuel economy, *perceived* low maintenance, safety and aesthetic features) outweighs this extremely ~~critical~~ unimportant negative non-issue point.

It’s not as if the 25% savings in fuel costs could pay for the higher priced vehicle to begin with, nor —ironically— cover the cost of the more expensive replacement parts —parts that will have to be replaced someday, either way. Friction, wear and tear, are universal effects that applies to any and every thing.

Safety is indeed important, and does indeed seem particularly so when airbags ~~explode~~ deploy with metal shrapnels that finishes the driver off when the accident itself did not, while at the same time, so too is low maintenance, especially when the accelerator pedal sinks in on itself, and when the brakes refuse to engage. Pretty hypocritical, don’t you think?

But then again, none of these really have anything to do with the manufacturers in question, since they did have those components sourced from other manufacturers, which brings me to another point: cars these days are just a bundle of parts where no one really makes anything. Everyone makes something. German, Japanese, American, gearboxes, spark plugs, control systems or electronics —you name it.

Oh sorry, did you actually think car makers made these stuff, and that some make’s “stuff-that-goes-into-the-bonnet-of-said-make’s-car-is-magically-better-than-others”? That somehow, just because it goes into a car from country Y the part lasts longer than the part that went into country X's car?

Time for a reality check then.

To exchange large sums of cash for a product with it’s make being one of the primary reasons ranks as one of the *MOST* stupid things one could ever do in life. Putting one’s John Thomas in the hands of an insane butcher comes to mind. But then again, I suppose the majority decision is always the right decision, which is why the best argument for democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter. Majority's choice could never be wrong, now can it?^*

I beg to differ.

Yellow

2010-06-25T03:19:00.010+10:00

Issues.

I have lots, and lots of issues.

Childhood was a pretty rough time for me: the targeted isolation I suffered from cousins, the name-calling at school (my middle name makes for easy verbal abuse even for the most uninspired of people) and then, finally, as a teenager completely alienated and disassociation with society as a whole.

It’s three in the morning, and I have a paper to sit for at 8.45, and I haven’t a clue why I need this to be written.

The exams —ah those blasted three subjects— were essentially over and done with on Tuesday, the last of them engineering subjects that one needed to worry over. The two papers remaining I’ve already passed with coursework marks alone: 29/30, 39/40, 10/10, so the marks go.

Almost exactly the way it was last semester, I remind myself.

I have since (the ‘conclusion’ of the exams) been letting almost each and every relationship vegetate away, for in the solace of these four walls and the umbilical cord of glass fibres and pulsating flashes, I have found space.

And serenity.

Hypocrisy becomes of me tonight, as my innate sense of selfishness takes over, yet again. I think to myself the certainty of me dying a pathetic old man, lonely from lack of/non-existent social interaction perhaps not, miserable from the sad state that would become of me in my old age most definitely yes.

Questions, questions, questions, but always without the answers.

Jumbled bits and pieces of incoherence, fragments of discontinuous thoughts, a whirlwind of chaos: one would be right to think that I’m going insane.

But then again, what is insanity when properly kept within the confines of one’s mind? After all, madness and insanity are only relative terms, subjective in themselves.

I reckon the very posting of this entry alone would make it clear that I best be left alone to ponder in my lucid quasi-dreams. Peanut, anyone?

Days and Nights

2010-06-11T15:27:00.008+10:00

Despite what the unending stream of dark and solemn posts would suggest, life has been… fairly good to be honest.

Haven’t had the want/urge/need to drink for what must be close to one and a half months now —so much so that I have decided to use my allocated allowance for alcohol for a tub of protein instead!

I have been eating well, sleeping well, working out, drinking litres and litres of water a day ~~though definitely not studying as well~~. Strange as it may seem, for the entire past three years, this has got to be THE least stressful and/or pressured pre-exam period I have ever experienced, despite the coming three papers being perhaps the most instrumental in my life.

I feel little, if anything.

Perhaps one day —and one real soon at that if I may add— I will look back at this, and deeply regret my being more concerned with my health/physique than the impending exams, but oh well.

Now I wonder what new is there to watch on Youtube today…

Crystals

2010-05-31T13:33:00.007+10:00

Memories.

People and places, faces and feelings —things of any and every sort spin through my head like the eternal spin of time’s preverbal wheel.

Back and forth, back and forth, again and again. Clockwork perfection. White, black, past, present… so many things are made so clear where I stand.

Epiphanies. More than anything else, this eight-month period is one that has never ceased in it’s indiscriminate and relentless pursuit in shedding light on as many avenues as there are minutes in a day.

Those who have always been there for me, in times of joy, in times of darkness. Those who were never there, but always were in times of dire need. Those who cared, those who went all out, those who were never calculative. Those who never flinched, those who’s only sole and overwhelming reason was that of love and friendship.

Then those who were the empty shells, the masks behind faces, the hollow vessels. Those who never once lifted a finger, those who never gave a passing thought, a second glance, nor a second chance. Those who couldn’t have cared less, the icy depths of their indifference… not unlike a cold, harsh death by drowning.

Uncertainty is all around me, yet strange as it is that so much can be this clear.

A string of words for this entangled state of flux reads: people, relationships, disappointment, frustration, hurt, appreciation, content, self-greed, choices, consequences, uncertainty, worry, despair, optimism, hope, hatred, anger, defeat, calm, denial, disconnect.

Take no relationship for granted, especially ones most important, most cherished, and most prized. But make no mistake and hesitate not at getting rid of the people who have been nothing more than their eloquent smiles.

A restructuring is called for, and by the time it is finished, a handful of relationships will have come to an end.

Thinking of the simpler times, the innocence, the careless freedom —all if only in song.

Warmth

2010-05-25T19:09:00.009+10:00

The arrival of winter brings along with it the gloomy, cloudy, grey over-cast skies, the plummeting temperatures, and an unending barrage of drizzle and rain.

It is little wonder that coffee sells so well, and has seeped so deeply in —and has become such an integral part of— the colder worlds' culture[s].

It is close to impossible to get out of bed in the frigid cold mornings.

It is close to impossible to sleep comfortably in the night.

Can’t help but keep thinking about this particular place back home; can’t help but feel distinctly warm and fuzzy picturing this place in my mind; can’t stop thinking, missing and craving the hot and the humid afternoons, with my car’s air-conditioner supplying a perfect stream of breezy cool of air.

Eating the Cake

2010-05-23T00:29:00.007+10:00

Sometimes, I stop and I look, and I then think to myself just how much better your lives have now become, and I smile --I am happy for all of you.

Your lives are now rid of such monstrous academic torment, free of all the unduly pressure and ridiculous stress, emptied of all the painful, obscure, mind-boggling theory, calculation and hundreds of years of humanity’s accumulated knowledge.

I see it in your eyes. I see it in your faces. I hear it in the ways you talk. All of you look so much better, so much more at ease, so much more relieved, so much more cheerful, and so filled with life.

All you who have jumped out of this wretched hell-bound train live better lives now. But on this flaming carriage, there is little life.

In fact, beyond that of academia, there is no life at all.

Many times, I do wonder if I too, should jump. Sometimes, I wished that I too, had called it quits.

But I have already threaded so far down this path —one that so many have said that I neither should or could all those years back. But then again, I am neither closer to the end nor farther from the beginning.

Guess this must be how it feels like to be stuck between a rock and a hard place!

Cycles

2010-05-16T14:37:00.010+10:00

Last night was the second I spent drenched in a blaze of alcohol, a state initiated by conscious choice of course.

Sometimes, doing what feels right needs no explanation. And for the past two nights, swirling in pool of quarter-consciousness under the sheets of a 16°C night was something that felt good, and justly right.

Sometimes, one must accept that there are just too many things in life that one can never control, and can never foresee. We are forced to do things we never wanted to do. We are forced down paths we never chose to take.

We are just little pawns in a continuum of chaotic variables.

I have lost sense of everything.

For once in my life, I know not what it is that I actually want.

For the second time in my life, I am consuming my self like a cannibal.

What if being, studying, and failing in (and perhaps one day graduating from) this tough, glitzy and expensive place isn’t what I want?

What if taking the easy way out, what if a simpler, easier, less pressured and less grand or impressive piece of paper at the end of a three year programme, all the while being closer to home, to the people I loved, and to all joys of a more sane and more ordinary life is what I wanted instead?

Perhaps acknowledging that mystery is an unavoidable part of life is the most sensible thing to do right now. It is, perhaps, the only thing that can be done. Which essentially means doing nothing but to sit here and wait for the hands of time to do their thing.

And hope. Hope that perhaps in time, things will solve themselves out (or not).

And no, I am not as "emo" as I sound =)

Honesty

2010-05-14T19:41:00.003+10:00

Another bottle of beer by the yellow lamp.

Another passing day.

Alcohol solves nothing they say, but fuck them: it sure as hell makes a difference. I know not the reason why I have managed to --over the past few days-- find so much peace, and so much serenity amidst so much uncertainty, the burgeoning amount of academic work notwithstanding.

I have also realised that so much of these “issues” have been my own doing: had it not been for my selfishness, my wanting the cake and eating it, all this would not be so.

Beneath this shell that perhaps pursues objectivity and rationale at a (somewhat) obsessive level lies an emotional core that isn’t always altruistic, nor cares or loves that much.

I guess inside, I’m just a menacing little kid after all.

But I’ll give you this: I’ve got the guts to admit it.

Unbottling

2010-05-13T15:46:00.010+10:00

By now I'm sure all of you have seen the next generation iPhone.

I know ~~almost~~ everyone dislikes it, just as I did the first time I laid eyes on it.

But now, I absolutely love it.

It is a sheer testament to minimalism, and coherence of industrial design across the entire Apple product lineup. I've always hated the 1st, the 2nd, and the 3rd iPhones. I've always hated the potatoes. I've always hated the "classy" silver/chrome livery.

I recall a documentary that featured Mr Ive talking about design. I remember him stressing how the things that are not needed, are just simply not there. You see the design philosophy in every inch of a Macbook, every Mac Pro, and every iMac that ships: they're simply devoid of the millions of pulsating LEDs and protruding buttons that adorn the body of every other product on the market you see today.

I simply love the design of the new iPhone. Those of you who don't? Well, it simply boils down to this: sour grapes (yes all you last-gen users, your potato is now obsolete, hail the new brick).

Lines

2010-05-05T20:12:00.025+10:00

With the renewed sense of urgency, and the crystal clear consequences of me not passing being so real, I put all cerebral engines on full, and pushed on without a care in the world.

But sheer-headed optimism means only so much against the harsh reality that we live in.

Sometimes it gets so surreal: a little unforeseen question that you cannot twist your head to solve, or worse still a little error in mis-substitution, the difference of a single minute negative sign in the equation, that collectively, could mean the end of your hopes, dreams and plans of graduating at what particular time-frame, and consequently, from which particular institution.

Having always stood by the sworn principle of being open to second chances, I find it particularly ironic that it is me who will --with almost all certainty-- not be given such an opportunity myself.

I have worried. I have despaired. I have been distressed. I have tried. I have done much, much more than I will or shall reveal on this open site.

I have not faltered even as I stand against all odds.

But I know: the war has already been lost.

The consequences trouble me to the extent that I no longer want to even think about them. What will be, will be I tell myself. But we all know that that is utter crap, because I will not stand for taking a defeatist attitude when the official white flag has still yet to be raised.

But tonight though, the surrealism took on a whole new depth as I cycled home thinking that in two months time, everything that I now see, touch, smell and feel might very well all be over and done with by then.

You then realise a whole new layer of detail, like the dry, chilly crispness of the air, the absolute clearness of the night sky, the seemingly larger-than-normal moon, the odd sounds of the passing diesel-powered 5 Series, A4s, Tiguans and Golfs...

But perhaps weirdest of all is the soothing calm that takes you over.

Energized

2010-05-03T12:17:00.016+10:00

With eyes glued to this LCD and fingers epoxied to this keyboard, I watched as the hours flew by last night.

It was round about midnight when I ended the hour-long call back home.

Then it was one in the morning.

Then two.

Then three.

Then four.

Then, with extreme reluctance, I forced myself to shut the unibody's aluminum lid.

So there I then laid: beneath the moderately thick sheets, in the blanket of silence that was my room, my eyes opened as wide as they could possibly be opened.

I heard my digital watch blurt out one more hourly beep and recoiled in horror when I thought of what time it probably was.

It was as if only a mere few seconds later that I heard my phone's alarm, and the sun had risen from the night sky, and it was time for class.

A gruesome six hours of Monday classes, with four still to come, but there is neither time to spare -nor time to waste.

Balancing shaft imbalances in the library, with the phrase "I won't go down without a fight" ringing as loudly as it possibly could.

Epiphanies

2010-04-29T22:53:00.012+10:00

Expectations.

That has been the one single belief that I have held on to for all this time, and has perhaps, been my biggest downfall.

Expectations of academic leniency. Expectations of easy ways out in school, and in life as a whole. Expectations of a rosy future. Expectations of being a rich and fabulous engineer, without hindsight of any/all the pitfalls. Expectations of people.

Reality however, eventually sinks in, and the last of the Titanics that went down the frigid icy cold depths of my local Atlantic waters has all but made this clear: my expectations of life, of people, and of any and every thing around me has grown utterly beyond the depths of realism.

Did I thought that I would graduate from among the world’s best institutions without needing to put in arduous hard work? Did I thought that I would sail through the the entire four treacherous terms here without having to put my life, my pride, and my self-confidence on the line?

Well, it’s time to wake up and realise that the life I have chosen for myself, this path I am heading down and these waters I am steaming through are not and have never been for the light-hearted.

It’s time to wake up and brush all those distractions and illusions and delusions aside, and prioritise on getting through these tough academic yardsticks that by the time I am done with, I would hold in my hands a piece of paper stating: I made it to the finish line.

All other concerns in life can wait till then, all other issues can be decided upon then, all other personal problems can be dealt with then --and only then.

But, if I don’t make it, and if I decide that this is not the path that I truly want, there should not be any expectations that I will pig-head my way down this road either.

Threads

2010-04-22T18:05:00.007+10:00

I walked out of the library, exhausted from my revision to the thought of going home and taking a nap to end this half of what has been an extremely shitty few days that has led to my being constantly pissy and agitated.

As I approached my bike, I noticed it no longer had a front wheel.

When we all this end?

As if I was not sick enough of everything already, this had to happen at such a time.

All the people and all the things around me feel like they are hanging on a very thin thread right now: if I had said one upsetting word too many (or if I had not said or done anything when and where I should have), if I had decided not to care, if I had gotten fed up, if I had gotten tired of everything and everyone, if I really really preferred things to be otherwise, then so what?

Paths That Don’t Converge

2010-04-19T23:42:00.016+10:00

These three months have seen me being uncharacteristically calm amidst the mountain of pressure, and (relatively) unfazed, as I stand before the greatest academic struggle of my life.

Even from the very onset of the semester, it was clear that this was to be a war that would prove to be extremely swift, tremendously difficult, and unbearably gruesome.

But it was all just that: always just a lingering thought, one of ~~certain~~ possible failure, of defeat, and of the great financial consequences that would ensue --but nothing, and never more than just a lingering thought.

Earlier today, in a span of a mere four hours and over six pieces of paper, I experienced what it was like to be the instrument of my study account’s considerable implosion.

In the post-exam aftermath, I have felt relieved and glad (that it’s all over), frightened and fearful (of the consequences that now lie ahead), and pissed and upset.

That none of my course-mates --many of them worthy benchmarks-- fared any better than I did is a comforting thought, but it does not change the bitter fact that I will, for the first time in half a decade, founder in school.

Something has changed.

Indeed, the papers have gotten tougher, and even if I were to have put in every single last drop of my soul into it, I would still not have made it. But still, something has changed.

Over the past few months, I have grown increasingly more laid-back, more mellow and more contented. It is not that I have grown lazy or complacent --I can hardly imagine who could in such a semester-- but that I have lost my drive.

I no longer have the energy to fight, nor the energy to pounce. I have been drained of almost every enjoyment. I have been clipped and battered down to an inconsequential rubble.

My heart just isn’t in it anymore.

Since stepping onto that four-engined jet three months back, not a day has passed without me being clouded by the illusions of a career, and of a life that lay in waiting for me back in the tropics.

I have lost track of the world around me, and my goals and my priorities in life. And if the previous post is any indication, it is that perhaps my subconscious mind is trying to speak.

Nights by the Yellow Lamp

2010-04-15T19:06:00.007+10:00

Never before has this hit my head so hard.

But these past few months have really drove it deep into the contents of my skull, and I think I have finally come to see, grasp and understand it in a profound and fundamental way.

It matters not what your current/future situation in life is, how deep or numerous your relationships are, where or who you are… all these don’t at all make a difference because when the push really comes to shove, we are --each and every single one of us-- truly alone in life.

Alone.

Alone because at the end of the day, it’s your life, your one and only life, and there will be situations that no one else --not even your closest/most loved ones-- but you yourself, who will have to go through.

I feel as if I have woken up from a skewed, rosy imaginary realm into the solemn, sombre awareness of life’s bitter and (often) harsh realities.

Maybe its the duty and responsibility, and having my actions and decisions being so much in direct control of so many aspects and consequences of my life that has given me this new sense of…

A new sense of ...life being not being a bed of roses.

It’s scary, sometimes. The shadowing knowledge of life being so individual, that at the end of the day, it’s just going to be you --you, and no one else.

Life is not a joke.

Acceptance

2010-04-11T12:49:00.011+10:00

I regained consciousness in a time period small enough for me to realise that a mere split-second ago, it was the slamming of the door that woke me up from my sweet slumber.

It's a sunny Sunday morning, and none of my 10:00AM alarms have yet rang, so I snuggle under the sheets some more.

I got out of bed and into the toilet, and later, as I showered, I thought to myself why I felt so profoundly different today.

Why did I not feel drained, and emptied of all my humanity?

Why did I not feel despair, and desperation?

Why, I kept wondering.

Then it struck me minutes later, when I recalled what it was that I dreamt of last night: I had just gotten home. I was driving again. I had my hair cut. I had my white coffee. I had my car washed. I was with all the things and all the people I loved. I got to see my parents again.

I was home.

Today, somehow, the thought of not being able to pass two academic subjects seem rather, small. And minuscule. Today, somehow, I am not that bothered anymore.

Perhaps I have finally come to terms with it, and am done with the shock and horror. Weighted academic standings and the huge financial costs notwithstanding, failing two ~~critical~~ pathetic little subjects is not the end of the world.

There are still many decades of life left to live.

And so life goes on.

Times Gone By

2010-04-07T22:30:00.006+10:00

It was another one of those nights where I had reached mental saturation. Lost and confused in the jungle of trigonometric mayhem, I was tired and my mind was twisted beyond any semblance of academic sanity.

I --as what I have always done in times like these-- closed the books, the notes, switched off the calculator, and packed everything up.

I had the table lamp drench this room in it's mellow, soothing 3000K rays, and opened myself a nice bottle of chilled Budweiser.

Going through my -by now rather significantly sized- library of photos, I started off this time from the very beginning.

Pictures of me being seventeen. Pictures of places that are no longer the same. Pictures of people that are no longer with us. Pictures of family and friends and pets that remind you of a life you have all those thousands of kilometers away. Pictures that remind you of the places you went and all the things that happened back then. Pictures of gadgets and possessions deemed so valuable back then. Pictures of irrelevant things.

Pictures.

So much can be captured in pictures: the sights, the sounds, the people, the situation, the words spoken, the feelings felt, the thoughts you had, the dreams you were dreaming.

They reminded me so much of myself in the past, as well as all those around me. It's a stark contrast to the people we are today: so much more mature, so much more grown-up, so much more seasoned, so much more complex, so much... less innocent.

The days and the nights when things were so much simpler, so much more unhindered by so many responsibilities, so much more honest, so much more exciting, and so much more real, well, it's sad, isn't it... that they're all gone?

Food

2010-03-31T01:39:00.004+11:00

It's two in the morning.

Having had the disastrous Mechanics II quiz we sat for today ~~that I do not feel bad about since none of my peers did it any better than I did~~, all that is left is tomorrow's Solids II quiz in the evening.

But I'm tired like fuck, and nothing more is going in. I'm not a bloody sponge with infinite-absorption abilities, and my point of mental saturation was already surpassed last week.

Tired though I may be, sleepy I definitely am not.

I am simply dying for something good to sink myself into. A good blog maybe, by a deep, witty and intelligent blogger. A good book that reflects upon humanity and our horrid lives in insightful ways that I never before realised.

I need a good read -one that will spare the mathematical regions of my brain, yet feed the rest of it with the profound knowledge that I would otherwise not have.

I've visited a trillion blogs, I have gone through pages listing hundreds of "good books", I have searched high and low in any and every search-able domain ...to no avail.

And no, I'm not in the mental frame of mind to open the book by my bed that goes on and on about evolution. Thank you Richard, but no thanks. Not this week, and definitely not tonight.

Sighs. What is a hungry boy to do?

Drifter

2010-03-28T21:21:00.011+11:00

It's nine pm on a Sunday night.

I have done litte/no studying today. Or yesterday.

Or even, the day before.

The mere mentioning of the phrase "under mountains of tremendous pressure to perform and to pass in 3300" -as well as the other subjects- is akin to flogging to death the already dead horse one more time.

I have become used to living under the mountain's shadow. So used to it in fact, that I do not even fear living in the darkness anymore.

I have so much energy bubbling inside me. There is just so much I want to do. I want to read up on a good book. And then another one. Maybe even a third after that. I want to travel to the other ends of Sydney for example, and get lost. Taking thousands of pictures along the way, and thousands on the way back.

I want to draw. I am so inspired to take up drawing again, my previous 'personal frontier' -photography- having been conquered (veni, vidi, vici so the saying goes) and a certain Andrew having uploaded his drawings very recently.

I want to write. Write and write and write and write. I want to write on a myriad of issues: politics, technology, the stupidity of Malaysians, and -oh hell yeah- you religionists-die-hards and your ever so contradictory and hypocritical ways.

I want to go home. I want to see the people I love. I miss them so much. I want to see real people, not the fake hollow shells that I am surrounded by. People who actually have soul, people who are warm and genuine.

I want my freedom.

But alas, that all has to wait.

And apparently so too will my revision, as I continue being inexplicably glued to this LCD.

Bygones

2010-03-21T18:28:00.009+11:00

“It’s amazing how people don’t change.”

That has been the single one thought that has been banging in my head since I woke up this morning.

A particular conversation last night brought to me a chance rendezvous with my past, and boy was it an insightful one.

Why am I not surprised? Why -more importantly- does the ringing reverberate and resonate so intently within the confines of my skull? Why -above all else- am I even remotely bothered by this?

I know not the answers to these questions, but if there’s one thing I know, it is that I am thoroughly glad that that element of my past is behind me.

Way, way behind me.

Thousands and thousands of miles so, in the dark recesses of the horrendous pit I got myself out of all those months ago.

Each and every day is an opportunity for me to move further and further away from that hell hole, and it is one that I have duly made use of.

Each and every day I grow more and more pleased with the current reality that is my life -a life made delightfully pristine without the presence of those nasty element(s) that I no longer associate myself with.

Each and every day I become more and more glad that there are people like you, you, and you: all the you(s) who have found me, stepped into my life, bringing along with you, and showing me so much love, so much warmth, so much decency, so much innocence, and so much life.

This is a post as much it is about the past as it is the future: yesterday, and today has been a reminder of the past -my past; one filled with a garbage truckload of negativity, and at the same time, it has been a reminder of how much much much better off I now am.

And how bloody lucky I am.

On this track, there is only one way to go -and it is forward.

Strength

2010-03-16T23:44:00.004+11:00

Insomnia strikes again.

In the middle of the night, being too mentally drained to study, and too filled with caffeine to sleep, the alcohol is making little (no) difference to me.

In the 3300 tutorial-cum-quiz today, I for the first time in many, many years, felt what it actually was to be so vastly inferior and sub-standard to a certain 'reference point', so to say in 3300-speak.

It was disheartening, and in that blaze of envy, I felt an overwhelming gush of (negative) emotions.

Yes, I'm certainly not the most gifted tool in the UNSW shed. And I certainly haven't all the intelligence in the world -nor even amongst my peers, for that matter.

Personality wise, well, that's even more of a no-brainer: from the bottom up would perhaps be an accurate description. Oh, and let's not forget the constant emotional outbursts that plague this blog.

But now that the evening/night has settled down, and played itself out, and that the chinks in my ego and the insecurities of my life have all been papered-over and pacified, I can't help but feel how tremendously nice it is to be me.

I have two of the most exceptional people in the world as my parents. I have a warm and wonderful group of close, life-long friends --people that I cannot be more happy or proud to know, or have known.

I am courageous with the things I know and for the things I believe in. I am a formidable combination of good looks, quick wits, and an ocean of depth and a wealth of intellectualism.

Luck, for the most part, has been on my side for the past half decade. And as horrendously wrong as this would sound, I have faith in the future always being a better place than the past.

Truth be told, it's good to be me.

Fridays

2010-03-12T14:22:00.004+11:00

...mark the start of all the (wonderful) things that the weekend entails.

Not needing to wake up early, or at all. No classes/tutes/work. No pressure. No schedules.

Fun.

It's just the second Friday since the semester started. I'm sitting in the library at three in the afternoon, trying to revise for the doom-and-gloom that will befall upon me next week.

It's just the third Friday I've spent in Sydney since I flew back here, and I've already cancelled out all the other Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays until the semester is effectively over and done with.

I simply won't have the time to a 'weekend'.

Currently, I have lost all my senses of perspective of life -lost them senses all in the sines and cosines and angles of trying to integrate this arbitrary height of a sphere to find it's volume, so that I can find the weight of the working fluid, and thus the pressure it applies to the liquid below.

Why am I doing this?

Why am I cracking my head in this horrendous pile of scribbles and mistakes and errors? Why is it that when I'm done with this, I shall have to worry about LaPlace-transforming equations into forms that I know I will never do for the rest of my life? And then after that, face Mechanics II and be expected to be an expert in the field of motion by an expert who has spent his entire life in the same university?

Why.

Hell Below Blue Skies

2010-03-04T16:41:00.006+11:00

So there I suddenly was again, onboard another Boeing craft jetting south through the massive Australian heartland.

It seemed just like yesterday that I was heading the opposite way -that 400 going ever faster with each kilometer it passed.

It seemed just like yesterday I landed at the airport in the night where my parents were waiting for me.

It seemed just like yesterday that I was suddenly home again, and where everything I could ever want or need was within arm's reach.

It seemed just like four months ago when I reached the flat and entered my room: a place filled with academic struggles and that very familiar feeling of frustration at everything I did.

It seemed just like four months ago when I finished unpacking to realise that beyond the double-digit circle of souls, there is no one, and nothing else for you here.

Engineering Mechanics II though, is unlike anything else I've gone through before. I am truly frightened to bits at incurring another term here that cannot be afforded.

I wonder why such dickheads are lecturing 3300. I wonder ~~wish~~ if there is even the slimmest chance of me passing. I wonder ~~wish~~ if anyone has tried ~~murder~~ doing something.

I wonder at times, why a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to do so much good to me, my career, and my life, has turned into a hellish nightmare that I cannot bear to live with.

Yoyos in the Sky

2010-02-22T06:44:00.005+11:00

That this was perhaps the most unenjoyable Chinese New Year to me is definitely an understatement.

It’s just the most polite way I can think of putting it.

And so I thought my escapade to the Big City would be a welcome (and much needed) relief.

Disheartened, disappointed, frustrated and sad, I packed my things into the car and hurried off in the middle of the night without a care in the world.

Never would I have thought that so many things were being put to the test in so short a time, and in so many possible ways.

And if I thought driving two hundred kilometres down south to the thriving metropolis to see friends close and dear would solve everything --at least for now--, then I was to be proven utterly wrong.

But its all over now. What’s past is past. And it was all to be another lesson to be learnt. Even with all this being so, I definitely had a pleasant time during my stay there.

Thanks so much for the omelette sandwiches. For staying late despite the long drive back to Cyberjaya. For the lovely DAC. For the pint of Guinness. And for that afternoon drenched in green tea.

We are told from young to not keep unhealthy things --emotional baggages, and grudges especially-- against others for too long a time, but I cannot help but walk away from the past week doing precisely so.

Maybe just a little bit here and there.

Oh well. With all the hustle and bustle settled down and done with, I certainly look forward to the (very few) days ahead, spending time with family, the cats, the car and the coffee in this beautiful valley that is home.

It won’t be long before all this would again be a luxury, and nothing more than a mere memory of people and a place that once was.

It won’t be long before I’ll start missing all this, and wishing the academic hellhole in the island continent would be over.

It won’t be long before it’ll be time to go, again.

Another Late Night

2010-02-11T07:18:00.006+11:00

It's almost 5 in the morning and I am still awake, gripped by a dark sense of dismay.

Petroleum is running out. The climate is at a critical point. A little over a billion people will —in the very near future— join the developing/developed world in its voracious consumption of energy.

Fusion technology is still half a century away at the very least. Carbon capture sounds like a childish fantasy. Wind mill farms don't really cut it. Nuclear stations cost too much time and money.

The country has lost it's lead in every single field to the once inferior competitors from South Korean and Taiwan. But instead of teaming up to get our acts together and to stand up to the challenges of the world, we're a nation gripped by ridiculous religious drama and a sodomy trial. Add that to a population intent on seeing even patriotic and unifying attempts fail, you know that we're in deep shit.

Lowering the scale to a more personal level -and perhaps upping the significance- is 3300 that awaits me, and the towering exchange rate and the heavy financial burden it will incur.

I get the sense somehow that the coming decades will see humanity go through an extremely difficult and trying period, with deep and overwhelming changes to our way of life, and the way we see ourselves.

I feel like a fool and an idiot to worry over the problems of the human race, not least when a course in dynamics is impossible enough in itself. But is it absolute wrong to fret and to worry over things one has no control over, especially if there are smarter, wealthier and more-abled people in the world to lead us out of this pit?

All I want to do is to wake up in the afternoon tomorrow, step into my chilly air-conditioned car, burn a few hundred mils of black gold —putting my share of humanity's CO2 burden into the atmosphere— to get to town and have a lovely glass of white coffee.

And when the festivities of the Chinese New Year is over, all I yearn for is to go out and get my freezing cold beer and drink well into the mornings with the people most dear to me, then speed through the city streets to get home.

Insomnia

2010-01-27T07:59:00.002+11:00

Its 5 a.m. in the morning.

I have, for the past five hours, failed in my many attempts to fall asleep.

In these crazy few hours, I have watched a movie, managed to catch up with ALL the news and blog posts of the past week, and found time for myself to just... just wander, idly and slowly round my thoughts and day dreams.

Inevitably, I always look back towards the past.

I feel apologetic to many people for many things. I hope you could find what you're all looking for in this crazy mayhem-filled, malice-infested world of ours. I hope that a couple of you will know that I'm no longer angry or disappointed, and my re-initiating contact with you is a sign of that.

I wish everyone well, and that each of you will find your peace -as I, for the most part, have found mine. =)

In two and a half hours time I am to go to work, and gawd knows how I am to last another eleven hours at work.

Wish me luck.

Encounters of the Silly Kind

2010-01-25T12:30:00.013+11:00

As I walked towards the kitchen, I saw a man standing in front of my gate.

Almost wanted to say an [name of race] man but I just realised that, and I am beginning to refuse to identify people by race.

Anyways.

He carried with him a sling-type notebook bag, and was dressed in a collared long-sleeve white tee, holding a green-coloured leaflet with one of his hands.

The conversation goes roughly as follows:

Man at gate:
“Hello, can I have a few minutes of your time, sir?”

Me:
“Sure. What is it about?”

Man at gate:
“Can you please answer this questionnaire? It’s ‘Do you think the world will end…’”

Somewhat bewildered, and cautious, I immediately asked:

“Who is doing this questionnaire?”

Was it the BBC? Was it the WHO? Maybe some university-led study. Or maybe a polling agency wanting to know what the general opinion was; what with the amount of nonsense that is being spewed by the 2012 absurdity -the title of the movie notwithstanding. As these exciting thoughts raced through the neurons of the grey mass in my head, he answered:

“It is meant to be something for you to read”

Me:
“Who is it from?”

Man at gate:
“It is from a group sir.”

Me:
“What group?”

Man at gate:
“It is a Bible studies group tha…”

I cut his sentence short when halfway through, I shook my head and hands in a blatantly violent way, and started walking towards the kitchen again.

I’m pretty sure he clearly heard me yelling “We’re atheists” as I made my way to the kitchen.

I’m not too sure though, why I said “we”; it is only a matter of time before my dad joins the church, what with sickos like these.

And that he already believes an omnipresent, omnipotent being is sitting up there (where is up now that the world isn’t flat and that the atmosphere is of a finite height?) wielding all the powers in the universe[s] but still insists on punishing people for the little and large actions that he/she/it deems as a ‘sin’.

This is not entirely unlike an expert programmer having finished his magnum opus AI-enabled ‘child’, and punishing him/her/it to burn in hell for eternity, simply for making mistakes; mistakes that it was bound to make since it was entirely a programming fault by the said programmer.

It is almost impossible to appreciate the sheer elegant genius inherent in Darwin’s theory; a theory that explains not how things go down the ladder (as in the god-humanity a.k.a. master-slave relationship) but up.

You see, religionists and intelligent-creationists talk about how we/all other beings/animals are created by a higher-up intelligence ‘up there’. What they fail to realise is how this is just an intermediate postponement of the inevitable question: who created the creator?

An unending paradox that will never be solved, it is a question for which religionist have no need to care for. No, for theirs is a solution and an answer not for the minds who think along rational lines, and certainly not for minds for which reason still bears meaning.

I cite ‘all encompassing god was always/is/will always [be] there’ as example and digress.

But for the rest of us ~~not so little~~ folk who question, Darwin answers that question in ways no one else ever can.

Through the hundreds and thousands and millions of years, life goes up the ladder slowly, but surely. It takes time to grasp fully the idea, and to realise and understand how fundamentally important it is, and how mistakenly simple (and thus elegant) the solution sounds.

I wonder why that man at my gate had to be so reluctant at revealing his religious agenda. What a sneaky little bastard.

But then again, how else will religionists recruit people if it wasn’t by the projection of fear? Fear as you lie on your death bed in hospital. Fear as your entire career collapses before you. Fear as your loved one leaves you. Fear as you lose your way to the crises of your lives. Fear when you are thrown off balance by the mayhem of the world.

Fear, as you lose the last remnants of your sanity.

Fear as to how the world will end in twenty four months’ time, and that you’re going to hell for ‘eternity’ to burn till every last drop of matter in your body is no more, but still it will burn some more.

Divergence

2010-01-07T23:36:00.007+11:00

So you’ve had a long and tiring day. You’re all but drawn out by the endless (and tiresome) horde of faces. Faces worn like masks. Masks worn like faces. Faces like porcelain shells covering the hollow voids within.

You grab something to eat, you shower, you turn down the white lights into a cozy, mellow haven of incandescent bulbs.

You settle down into a comfy spot, and think to yourself how sickening it all is.

Faces.

It frightens me to realise that I sometimes think of some friends that way. It frightens me to the very core when I think of some friends as a complete and utter nuisance.

It really scares me when I realise how much I’d rather distance myself from those I truly ~~consider~~ed friends.

But above all else, it saddens me to think that we’ve grown so much that we no longer sync any more, that our wavelengths don’t match and that we’ve become so irrelevant to one another.

Some of them really go way back. Many don’t. But for those who do, I keep trying to be patient, knowing that this is just a moment and that it will pass.

But what if it doesn’t?

Are we destined then, to never cross paths again?

And worse still: what more of those that don’t go way back?

Thank You

2010-01-06T02:11:00.007+11:00

The new year has cometh!

I certainly hope it will be a good one for all of us, especially me ;)

And to further the blatant displays of selfishness, I shall now continue to write about me. This, after all, is my blog and if anything, it is supposed to be about me =P

But I have nothing to write about.

That’s right: nothing, zero, nil.

As the saying goes, “no news is good news” --and this is especially true for me and this blog of mine. These are among the most peaceful and serene days I’ve had in ages. Minor annoyances and frustrations notwithstanding, I have grown deeply accustomed to this environment of zero hostility, zero drama, zero hurt and zero nonsense.

I love my life.

I can’t help but be thankful to all those around me, and to all those who are still with me after everything.

I can’t help but to think back, and question why so many wrongs had to be, and why so many things that were so unnecessary had to happen.

I can’t help but be happy with where I am in life right now; asking, wanting and needing nothing more (except a healthy dose of cash) than all the things I already have.

You are all so awesome, so wonderful, and so, so great. And as another year begins, I cannot help but to wish that every single one of you will still be around for many, many years to come.

This song is for all of you...

...but above all else, especially you ♥

2009

2009-12-24T17:04:00.004+11:00

This has been quite a year, and one that I feel, has passed rather too quickly. Or maybe its just me having lost track of time. Maybe I was just too occupied.

Oh I don’t know. Time is never linear anyway.

With the dates and the days approaching the inevitable, sappy and emotional posts are beginning to light up the horizon of Facebook feeds like lighthouses on the shores of a treacherous sea.

I, on the other hand, will have none of that. Just this post. Just this one post on this one blog, for just this one time.

This has indeed been a tough a year for me.

Completely unlike the violent fluctuations between extremes of the previous twelve months, this feels more like a repugnant war that has been bitterly and arduously fought; a series of long drawn battles on many personal fronts.

There were those few times that were oh-so-difficult, that seemed so unbearably tortuous, that saw no air and no light in tunnels that had no end.

But that’s alright I guess. It’s all in the past now.

Through all that I have seen so much more. My ears are less wet now, my soul more seasoned, and my mind much less green.

They say all good things must eventually come to an end. But it’s not just the good things that must end, but the bad, the horrid and the nasty as well. And this is a year that has seen so many things finally come to an end, and so much unfinished business finally finished.

What’s left is a world freed of so many unnecessary complexities, devoid of so much drama, emptied of so much anguish. What’s left is a world and a life I would never trade for anything else, ever.

What’s left are people that are true; friends that I cannot be more glad to have known, friends I cannot be more glad to know, and friends I cannot be more glad to have.

What more than to be able to start a new year on that note?

= )

Report

2009-12-12T02:35:00.006+11:00

Ah my blog; this almost-forgotten page in the myriad of other pages on the great, big net has been left neglected for... well, for just a short period of time.

But it certainly feels like an eternity to me. I've been busy starting my industrial training, waking up early, scuffling here and there, trying to adjust to the new sleep-wake cycles, learning to do new things at work, and all that other other other other stuff[s].

Still, couldn't be happier with how and where everything is at.

And still wouldn't trade any of this for anything else in the world, especially since of late, it has become increasingly clear to me how wonderful and fortunate a life I have.

I believe we must always move on and move forward in life, and one should never go back to things of the past. And in line with that, I cannot say how glad and pleased I am with the things (and the people especially) that are around me today. Whoever and whatever that are not, well, it's for the better!

So I am to wake at around seven a.m. tomorrow [yes, even on Saturdays =( ] to go through another tiring [half] day at work. Until next time, I'll see you guys soon =D

Life

2009-12-02T18:27:00.008+11:00

...is good.

Peace. Serenity. The knowledge of there being nothing that would be troubling me for many, many days to come.

That I survived my first semester in UNSW, that I didn't fail Advanced Thermofluids, that I'm rid of all unnecessary social bonds --especially ones that are detrimental to my well-being, that the world is ripe with opportunity, that anything and everything is possible, that my life is fresh, clean and most of all, that my life is straightforward and simple again.

Forget silver linings, there isn't a dark cloud in sight! =D

Breather

2009-11-25T23:12:00.011+11:00

My two week long holiday in Sydney comes to an end.

Tomorrow I board another 747-400, though this time round, the plane heads north, back to the tropics of South East Asia.

These past ten days have been thoroughly therapeutic; in my solitude I have found peace, and plenty of time to rest, and tons of it for me to reflect on.

I have also finally managed to find time to straighten out a multitude of nagging issues, ones that I think I have finally managed to un-clutch myself from.

I feel this post is uncharacteristically short, given the volume of things that have happened, but if anything, John Mayer sums everything up wonderfully in this new song of his.

So until next time, wish me a safe and trouble-free trip home. =D

Bridges Burnt

2009-11-18T18:50:00.004+11:00

Enough.

I'm sick of these dark recesses.

Come to think of it, isolation and avoiding issues have never helped me in the long run: they serve only to numb the initial shock.

Facing facts, knowing precisely where I stand are the things that give me my grounding.

But I think best of all is dealing with issues.

I felt a huge sense of liberation when before the finals finished I told the person what I had wanted to tell for a very, very long time straight to the face.

I no longer care about the outcome, or how it will affect said person.

I stand by my decision, but I will not stand for what I consider an utterly unacceptable act.

Today I managed to tell another person what I had wanted to say for quite some time.

And it feels relieving.

It's pretty odd how not caring makes me feel better.

I vow to myself to write less emotionally-drenched posts after this one.

Wish me luck.

And friends, thanks for all your comments. Thanks for sticking around. Thanks for everything. You guys are great.

"...you'd be a clown by now"

Stench of Resentment

2009-11-14T20:58:00.003+11:00

It was unfair.

Setting four semester's worth of "stuff" into three questions that covered 25% of the syllabus and having it worth 60% of the subject... is...

I would have accepted defeat and failure had I not put in the effort. I did. And this just doesn't feel right.

I was so stunned that when I left the hall half an hour before the allocated two, I was literally laughing.

But it's not funny. And I feel really, really down.

This isn't the way things should unfold.

The Spiral

2009-11-07T21:27:00.018+11:00

Chaos and insanity reigns. The world swirls around you. Dates and people and books and notes and formulas and theory and the pressure of succeeding -not just in these four subjects, but for the many more to come- converge into a continuum devoid of meaning or perspective.

You lose all your faith, hope and respect you had for those around you. They squander into insignificance; your relationship with them carrying little meaning, as they slowly decay into obscurity.

When those closest to you are farthest from you, when those you could always fall back on cannot support the weight of your most difficult burdens, when you realise no one will be there for you and no one can or will do a thing if and should you fail… not just this academic semester, but on all the greater vestiges of the would-bes of your grandiose life...

You will realise then, that you are truly all alone in all this, and no comforting words, or thoughts will bring you out of your own pathetic, miserable little grave.

You then wished you, along with all the other fucking little things around you, could just fall apart, crumble and silently vanish into the abyss, as the spiraling vortex sucks it all away.

State of Affairs

2009-10-28T00:23:00.007+11:00

I kid you not when I say that I didn’t study today. Or during the weekend. Or that yesterday, when I did actually managed to study, it was only a pathetic flip of two pages in the textbook.

Mind you, two pages of intense, heavily compressed, deeply-encompassing theory and required-understanding is no small matter. But fuck that, it’s still shitty progress nevertheless.

And adding to it was the entire last week that I just lazed and drifted through. I depended on my course-mates to finish up the lab report, and complete the assignment.

Since the submission of the fifty-page, six thousand-word assignment that was worth 30% two Fridays ago, I have reached a point of complete and utter mental saturation.

I can stare at a page the whole day and nothing would go in. I could force myself to read through the texts and that would be it: empty reading. I could resubstitute things into a formula and redo an example again and again, and not know how to do it minutes after.

I don’t even fear the finals, which is strangely odd.

As the days and the dates change, all I see are just figures passing me by -the same way I see passing figures as I do passing equations and formulae.

Worthless, meaningless figures and symbols.

I have become bored and sick and tired to death with entropy, enthalpy, nozzles, stagnation points, critical points, internal energy, the units kJ/kg, kmols, m/s and all the ensuing mass of garbled, jumbled mess.

It is my own downfall, all this. It is me who chose such a course because of my own initial self ‘interest’ in this field, and having lost it, I haven’t the ability to go on further.

I’d imagine the pressure has just not built to such a point where the sheer prospect of obliteration and the consequences of failure would force me to get all this stuff into my head anyhow, by hook or by crook, regardless of ‘interest‘ or ‘mood‘ or other ‘nonsense’.

And honestly, I hope that day better come real soon.

I...

2009-10-24T17:54:00.012+11:00

I remember waking up early on Saturday mornings, speeding my way down the Sg. Besi highway. Keane, and Dashboard Confessional were played loud on the stereo. The sun having just risen, the highway empty of cars, the hot, humid Malaysian weather barely that, and the ever so troubling speed limit of 90 km/h I never obeyed. Ms Lee and JLJC were often the subjects of these trips I made to the big city.

I remember my first time drinking before the sun had set.

It was with Ms Lee, where in my order of Pepsi, she ordered a margarita. Then me, with a RM15 bottle of Heineken -what ensued wouldn’t surprise anyone.

That was also the first time I hung out with cousins I had never previously knew; the age gaps between us had ensured two decades of zero communication.

I remember finishing the 6 p.m. Machine Control classes on Thursdays, immediately jumping into the car with the clothes for the overnight stay already packed into the boot beforehand, and (again) driving speedily to catch dinner and a movie with LSH. And the early, sleep-deprived Friday mornings back to Nilai to catch another class. The Script were frequent favourites on the stereo. Many a times I left for Ipoh later the same day, or for KL early the next.

I remember that afternoon with ABS. It was one of the best conversations I’ve had in months, and certainly the most Heinekens I’ve ever had at one goal. I got so drunk I had a hangover the next day, but still drove back to Nilai to pack everything into the car before making my way back to Ipoh for the final time.

But what I remember most of all are the drives back to Ipoh on those Friday evenings.

With the sun about to set, a wonderful golden-hue was cast across the land. It’s boiling hot out there, but inside, the brand new air-conditioner of the brand new car is blowing an unending gust of freezing cold air. Andrea Bocelli is playing at at least a hundred decibels, as I (again) exceed the speed limit. With each additional rpm, the engine gets ever more powerful, rocking harder and harder with every speed increase -to a point where even the steep climb of the highway nearing Ipoh is no obstacle: the car just pushes through without a sweat. And it is roughly by then that the sun was almost completely set, where the xenon headlamps would have lit a million miles in front of me.

And then I remember reaching home. The drinks and the suppers with my dad, the chats with my parents, the white coffee in the evenings, my two cats, and the lovely meals.

Those simply were, the best times of my life.

I miss home.

Hours After Midnight

2009-10-13T01:19:00.006+11:00

Another gruesome 14 hours in university. Another day passes. Another cycle beckons to repeat itself.

Before I plonk my head down onto the pillow and call it a night -something which I seriously need to do- I have this incessant urge to write.

Something deep. Something profound. Something meaningful.

Alas, there exists nothing within this skull but a tired and weary mind.

So I turn it off, and leave as little conscious intervention between my fingers and the keyboard as possible.

I have so many things to say.

I am happy.

I have been so for many, many days now. Despite the frequent, violent mood swings that would suggest otherwise, the unbearable stress and pressure to perform, despite the bastards and the bitches that plague my every living day, despite my moodiness --despite all this, there exists a deep, underlying current of happiness.

Of content, and of hope.

And belief.

Alas, after thirty extraordinary months, I have finally put things back in order.

I'm back.

Consequences Unknown

2009-10-10T00:59:00.003+11:00

1 a.m.

Friday night.

In Sydney.

And this is me, having just gotten out of the shower from a gruesome sixteen-hour long stretch in uni.

I have decided that tonight, I will pour myself a strong one, and take time out for myself.

Just me, this yellow lamp, this huge bottle of whisky, my lovely set of earphones and a big fat internet connection.

Slaughter House

2009-10-05T11:46:00.004+11:00

Last time I checked, we're three weeks to a month away from the exams.

Last time I checked, we're filled with so many assignments, so many reports, there isn't any time to study or revise.

Last time I checked, we're to pass all these stuff up on week twelve, the exams are on week fourteen.

How will four months worth of lectures, theories, and knowledge be crammed into the head, to be fully understood and applied to five final papers defies me.

That each semester costs forty grand is troubling enough, that the chances of not passing being so high is another pill too bitter to swallow.

"Save me" is so understated.

A friend tells me "it's not the end of the world".

I swing back and forth from fear, worry and nervousness to blissful ignorance.

Feels as if whatever I do won't make a difference.

Feels as if the war is already lost.

Differentiation

2009-09-30T00:58:00.000+10:00

I’m feeling better by the day.

I’m not just feeling better, I’m actually happy.

I’m happy for no good reason at all; when I get out of the bed I just feel happy. In the shower, I feel happy.

I’m puzzled; when shit happens, when the bitches and the bastards fuck me up, I revert back to a happy state within minutes.

I’m under tremendous pressure.

I’m under five million Pascals of stress.

I’m aware of the arduous academic work the lies ahead of me.

But I’m happy.

Maybe its because I get to, and am finally living in my own skin. Maybe its because I’ve settled down in this ecosystem.

Though by no means am I at the top of the food chain -yet? Maybe. Who knows.

Simplification of my life I think, has worked exceptionally well for me.

Oust the bitches. Oust the bastards.

Kill the arbitrary constant: there will be no more mathematical integration here.

Down this alley we differentiate until only the necessary things are left. =)

Jumbled Emotions and Incoherent Thoughts by the Yellow Lamp

2009-09-27T03:09:00.007+10:00

If I called it quits, threw in the towel, and let things die...

If I couldn't see past the past,

If I couldn't let bygones be bygones,

Will you blame me for it?

Will you blame me for the things I've said and done?

Will you blame me for the way I behave?

What if there really was nothing more to life than this?

What if none of this was worth the trouble?

What if the your life really was insignificant in the grand scheme of things?

Maybe this is how it all is.

Maybe this is how things end.

Maybe this is the way the universe works.

Surely you can't see everything the way I do,

Surely you think in a different light,

Surely you think I'm crazy.

Would you cut me some slack without me asking for it?

Would forgiveness lie waiting at the end of this road?

Would there be mercy when this is all over?

No Air

2009-09-20T00:56:00.006+10:00

It’s a lovely Saturday night: cool, breezy, but not exceedingly cold. The air smells of joy and jubilation. Living it out good, celebrating life, and taking it easy after a long, tiring week’s worth of hard work.

This was made all the more so as two lovely hits from The Eagles played whist I cycled home.

They reminded me of my dad -we spent many Saturday nights together, drinking, having delicious suppers, and driving home speedily through the streets after that.

But for now, that will all have to remain what it is: a lovely thought, and a memory.

Because for now and until this damn semester is through, there will be no breaks, no time to rest, no free slots to live it out good -there will be no joy.

The sad truth is, I HAD to have the phone play something as I made my way through the modestly lit open areas of upper campus --simply because it felt eery to be walking alone in the silent, empty spaces devoid of people.

The sad truth is, I HAD to stay back and do assignments on a Saturday night.

The sad truth is, these days Friday, Saturday and Sunday means not that the weekend has arriveth, but that there are no lectures or tutorials, and that these are the times that I should use to study or finish up the unending continuum of academic work.

'Give me a fucking break!' has never rang so true.

11th Hour

2009-09-15T01:51:00.009+10:00

I love this song.

I think it's more of the context (from my POV) of the song that I like than anything else: the world around you is fast falling apart, through all the bitterness and all that was lost, the one you loved some point back in time is standing there with you. In one sweeping moment, bygones are truly bygones. Nothing of the past matters -there isn't a future left to live.

But its only in dreams, and in reality, the heartache lingers on.

Genius!

Gone are the Days

2009-09-12T01:36:00.003+10:00

What a hazy day it is today.

Reminds me so much of Chinese New Year 2009. Ahh CNY09: I had such a wonderful time back then, having spent it with family, the best of friends, having tons of cash and a brand new car to drive around in.

Nothing could have been better than that.

Sadly, no, I do not have pictures to show for a Sydney drenched in haze amidst the mid afternoon, but I do have pictures from all those months back.

Home, the people who matter in life, material wealth and days devoid of academic pressure …how I wish it was all like that today.

Reboot

2009-09-10T01:32:00.000+10:00

Filled to the brim with academic work, the assignments and their impending datelines line themselves up against me, inching and marching ever closer at an incessant, unceasing pace.

Amidst the pointless, mindless slaving, there is boredom.

And there is a yearning for something more: this can’t be all there is to life. There has just got to be something more.

More to life than these shallow, empty souls that populate the space around me. More to life than these figures, theories, equations, and charts and tables. More to life than humanity’s petty, calculative and selfish attitudes.

I know, I just do: there is something deeper and more meaningful to all this. Something better, something simpler, more honest, more decent and more real --even though at this point in time realism would seem to be the last thing that is on my side.

I don’t need people to breathe optimism or life into me.

I don’t need naysayers, trouble causers or shit stirrers.

I don’t need bitch queens.

I think I know what I need, and I think I know the things that need to be done.

Life shouldn't be this messy or convoluted.

All that happened in the weeks prior sickens me to death still. I don’t ever want a repeat, and never do I want to see myself through that nonsense again.

I’ve found myself a map and a half functioning compass.

Wish me luck.

All in a Song

2009-09-08T19:47:00.003+10:00

Pleading

2009-09-07T18:47:00.002+10:00

What a spectacular collapse it was. What a giant hellhole I fell into. What a mess I became. What a wreck I’ve become.

What a sham it all was. A sham, yes, that’s what it all feels like. It’s probably not quite the right word, but its the only one I keep arriving back to.

Everything feels like a huge, giant sham.

Over the course of the last two years, I’ve done so many things, gone to so many places, seen so much and met so many people ...all the things which I would never have thought possible as the reclusive teenager that I was.

And from those towering heights -the pinnacles of life- I’ve grown so much, I’m so much less green, I’m so much more seasoned, I’m so much less foolish. I’ve matured, and gained so much… oh so, so very much.

But the simple fact is this: I’ve lost too much.

Too much for my own sake, too much for all this to be worth the trouble. I’ve grown cheap, fake and hollow like a beautiful, empty porcelain shell.

Through the smiles, the lies, the jokes, the superficial conversations and the favours that go both ways, there exists only one goal in the end: to get what it is we actually want.

This is all so very wrong, and it really can not go on like this.

My altruism in life, my good faith in people, my desire to do only what is right no matter what --these have already been lost.

I want not to lose any more.

Night out at Coogee

2009-08-14T13:55:00.020+10:00

Having handed in ~~all~~ most of the assignments that were due, and as we promised each other, when yesterday night came it was time to go out and "WEEETTT" :D

We headed to Coogee to look for a place to drink and chill after dinner. I must say; I had a HELLUVA good time!

Oh yes, this for the tourists for sure! =D

Thats the pathetic McD that closed by the time we finished our drinks, which was before midnight *rolleyes*

Flags... big flags that hang proudly <3 you hardly get to see this back home =/ That Johhnie Walker --as lovely as it was-- was a drink too expensive to buy a second!

Where it started off pretty ~~overly~~ controlled and quiet... but when these rounds started to kick in...

...everyone was getting happier! =D

And having had so many rounds, our friend started to say "who cares!"

Alcohol does many things to many people, but this was the first time I've seen it make someone powerful! =D

Of course pictures do lie, and what was actually going on was far from a bossy scene XD

And then of course there's this:

Writing in the Sky

2009-08-14T13:46:00.002+10:00

Stolen Days

2009-08-14T12:38:00.009+10:00

Coming back to this blog page and reading the previous post makes it sound as if it was just last weekend that I was at the park, but that was actually two weeks ago.

I didn't have a 'weekend' last Friday/Saturday/Sunday. I was slaving day and night, from morning till at least 9pm everyday that week to finish off assignments.

I worked like a dog.

I start to think how much easier things were back in Inti, and I actually kinda miss it. This was to be expected I suppose: you don't pay large sums of cash to a top notch uni and expect things to be easy, and still expect to graduate from with highly reputable degree -you work your arse for it! =/

Oh well.

Here are the pictures from the park:

I never knew lying under the sun was such a pleasant thing to do until I came here!

This may be nothing to most people --a task so easy and trivial that no one would even bother mentioning-- but this is me, and this is MY blog, and this to me is a huge achievement: I for the first time in my life used a pan and cooked meat! I actually cooked raw minced beef! =D

So yes, I took a bloody picture of this too! =D

Bondi Beach

2009-08-02T17:15:00.019+10:00

So it was Saturday, and having had lunch, the three of us had nothing more to do. So we headed down to the beach (since I've never been there!) and my, was it spectacular!

Sunshine. Blue skies. Blue seas. Breeze. And the sheer power of those Pacific waves!

Yeah, I really wished a handful of you were really here!!! =(

And this is what we had for dinner: Hurricane's pork ribs. No one should die before eating this, and I'm not joking. It's really that good!!!!

Yes, if it wasn't for the flash blowing out the text on my phone's LCD, it would have read: 'Wish you were here' too =/

Oh well. Today's a lazy day though. Did my laundry, said 'no' to Chinatown, cooked spaghetti for lunch, and then cycled to Centennial Park and lazed under the sun for an hour, then came to the library to 'online'! =D

The Curve

2009-07-31T12:04:00.002+10:00

It's 8 p.m. Friday night.

I just had the urge to be alone tonight, to take time out for… myself. Just myself, this yellow lamp and my dozens of chilled Budweisers in the fridge.

There's no internet connection still, so I open up iPhoto and began playing slideshows of pictures from all those years and months back.

They remind me of many things. The times, the places, the feelings… they do not fade one bit. I can remember them as if it was all just yesterday. I cannot help but smile: the good times were plentiful.

But most obvious of all is the people. Ah the people: some are still around, some having grown closer, some further, some having left embittered, and many, mostly indifferent.

The pictures also remind me of many events and periods of my life, some of which unbearably gruesome, others stirring up feelings of nostalgia, whilst countless others evoke a multitude of mixed emotions.

In many ways, I thought of coming here as an opportunity to (in a way) start life anew. I thought of it as a chance to begin from a clean slate where many of the baggages and unnecessary complexities from my past no longer existed.

I'd be honest: it doesn't feel that way.

All I feel is this shadowing sense of insignificance; life if you think about it is pretty weird. It's as if all of the sudden, many of the things and the people whom you knew all the five thousand kilometers away no longer seemed to matter as much (if at all) as/like they once did before.

But then there are those of which whom you communicate with on a daily basis, all those five thousand kilometers back when you hardly talk to the people who live a mere five seconds from you.

We were distributed tons of reading material upon arrival in uni. Leaflets and guides were poured on us as if their cost were immaterial. There was this section where the adaptation process of an international student to the local environment was described as a U-curve: happy and excited at first, one then experiences disillusionment and alienation, then collapsing into misery and depression, which at this period is represented by the lowest point in the U-curve.

Once the person has settled down properly and has gotten used to the place, and new and meaningful and lasting relationships developed, the person begins to thrive and starts to recover, eventually reaching the top of the other end of the U.

I recall telling my dad that I went through the whole curve on the first/second day itself. I recall breaking down like a little girl then --and only then-- and have never seen those symptoms described in the text ever again.

But I can't help but think of what I'm currently going through as some sort of alienation and disillusionment. But I currently have all that I need to survive, and more than enough to keep me happy as a human being.

So why then am I in this solemn and introspective state of mind?

Sure as hell don't want to go into an emotional hole, I've been in enough of them! =O

(oh and by the way, also written in the guides were advice on finance, transport, use of words/slang/language, culture, safer sex, typical societal stereotypes, mention of tolerance towards homosexuality, where to go to for financial/emotion support as well as support for just about anything and everything! Cool huh? =D)

The Purge

2009-07-30T10:28:00.002+10:00

I think this must be it. ‘This’ the slow, the gradual, and the progressive death to a train of thought that has plagued my mind since…

Since it all fell apart.

Relentless and unceasing, each and every day it comes for me: hiding behind my active thoughts, surfacing from and menacing the times when my brain is idle.

But with each passing day, and with each passing dream, it grows ever weaker, as the threads of relevance slowly unbind and untangle themselves from the nasty convoluted mess that has been the giant thrombus in my head.

The lines between right and wrong converge and intersect, winding in and blurring out into a million eddies of contradictions. The more I see, the more I think, the less I know, and the less things seem to make sense.

You then start to think about how people do it, and why.

And then you start to wonder: were you ever meant for such a thing?

Status Report

2009-07-28T11:58:00.002+10:00

It’s been three weeks since I landed in Australia, and life here I must say is pretty good!

Well, there are always two sides of a coin of course.

I’ve almost completely forgotten how it feels like to be in a 25C+ environment. Last week I went by three days without rice. I’ve forgotten how it feels like to drive. I’m starting to like, and be okay with having bread taking up an ever increasing portion of my food-pie. Every time I eat a good, proper Chinese meal, it feels like it was forever since I last had one. And if paying eight to ten dollars -the standard price- for every meal once (or twice) a day was of no concern, then there is absolutely no problem with the food here. From Asian to Western, fast food to restaurant to home-cooked-style food, everything is here.

I think that my chances of finding and developing relationships (of any and every sort) here are more limited then they were back home. I think I will be reluctant all the way up till the very end of my course to tip the scale in favour (or against staying and working) here for a couple more years.

I still keep multiplying prices by three and converting them back to RM, though with food this habit has stopped completely. I’m more or less getting used to walking half an hour to get to my classroom in uni, though at the same time the feeling of annoyance and sometimes that of frustration has not subsided.

And speaking of uni, academic life here is starting to get tough-ish. The amount of material I need to read up on and revise for is already piling up and all this are pretty heavy stuff to absorb.

And last but definitely not least, we still have yet to get the internet connection set up in our apartment. Which sucks, but oh well.

The skies are wonderfully blue almost all the time, and the sun and the sky at dusk is simply spectacular.

I should have much more positive things to write about, and that is absolutely true: but knowing me, and me being me, that just doesn’t really happen much! XD

So that’s it for now folks.

I’ll catch you all soon enough. =)

Questions With No Answers

2009-07-28T11:57:00.003+10:00

I can’t help but feel small.

No, I’m not talking about being below average stature wise, but being small as a living being. Humanity is small: we’re nothing but a tiny speck in a vast and giant universe, or a multitude of them if you are so inclined.

Our existence is only for a brief instant in what must be an infinitely long timeline that stretches (almost) for ever.

Life really is short.

We live, we struggle, we thrive, we fight, we enjoy, but ultimately, we all die.

The religionists will talk of and tell you delusions of an afterlife of eternal bliss -or suffering, depending on whether you bow to their all-so-loving creator, but that’s another story altogether- but the truth is, no one is spared from the fear of death.

I doubt many of us truly believe in that fairy tale.

So why can’t we ever take a step back from it all? Why can’t we ever take it all in and see that our existence, and our lives are pretty much insignificant? Why can’t we stop lying to ourselves?

Are we all really that cowardice to face reality?

Life isn’t perfect. Shit happens. Mistakes are made. Relationships turn sour. Grudges are held. Bridges are burnt. People are shitty. All of us are selfish.

Why can’t we accept all that? Why do we put expectations and apply standards that we ourselves cannot live by?

Why can’t we just live an honest life devoid of pointless pretence, and spare ourselves the hypocrisy?

The Sydney Series Part II

2009-07-19T11:16:00.004+10:00

It was Saturday night and no one wanted to be at home (well, maybe it was just me and my housemate, as we still do not have an internet connection).

So out to the city the five of us went (after a long and tiring trip earlier in the day to the other side of Sydney to IKEA). Me and my friend brought our cameras along and had some night shots of the opera house and Harbour Bridge taken.

Have a look:

Kinda impressive, isn't it? But nah. It was really more like this:

If it was in Malaysia, I bet it would be lit ~~properly~~ as brightly as the twin towers.

And the famous bridge looked like this in the night:

...which is a flattering picture of it I must say. Perhaps they're just trying to save on electricity bills?

Oh well. It was a fun night nevertheless. Oh, and the buses here are in service all the way till the wee hours of the morning, unlike the midnight Cinderella public transport back in Malaysia. Nice huh?

I kinda miss home, family, and friends. I'm missing you all!

The Sydney Series Part I

2009-07-19T10:54:00.005+10:00

So I'm going to show you 'round Randwick, the suburb we're staying in. It really isn't much, but I guess its a quiet and comfy neighbourhood not too far nor too near (unfortunately) from uni. Yes, I love using the word 'uni' -now that I finally can! Hahahahaha!

Anyway, here are some so-so shots I took the other day on the way to uni. Opps I used the word again =D

Beginning with our apartment's backyard passage:

Through this:

And these:

And because our apartment is on the third floor, we get to see this on the horizon too:

Though no sunsets unfortunately. =(

And finally:

Half Way Round the World

2009-07-16T10:43:00.008+10:00

Yes, yes everyone, I'm in Australia!

It's been a busy week, what with trying to get the apartment we're renting furnished and setting up all the basic stuff (e.g. bank account, telephone line, internet).

It's cold and windy here -kinda nice if you asked me- and in the mornings, the skies are impossibly clear, with a wonderful blue hue that kinda belies belief!

My feelings on the other hand are ...confusing, to the point that even I find them difficult to comprehend.

What I do know for sure is that I miss home, I miss mum and dad, I miss my friends, I miss being able to talk to all these people on a daily basis. I also miss many other things, and other people.

And, I'm troubled by the university's academic requirements/expectations that will soon be laid upon me. I don't like being in the calm before a storm.

I dislike how I now am feel so ~~petite~~ short walking down the street, vanishing into the crowd where before I would have been slightly above average in stature.

I wished it didn't have to be so far from or difficult or expensive to get back home. I wished I could see more of you guys, and be in contact with all of you more often.

But oh well.

Grass on the Other Side

2009-07-07T23:05:00.009+10:00

The next time I post, I will be doing so from another continent; all the way from Down Under.

Beneath the surface of appearances, underneath the glitz and the glossy shell, lies a stressful (and costly) academic life that awaits me.

Many of life's luxuries and indulgences that I have become so accustomed to I would have to give up.

But I think --I hope/wish-- it'll be an enjoyable experience nevertheless, once all is said and done.

So wish me luck. Wish me health and wish me wealth. Wish me all the best.

And thank you guys so much for everything.

I will miss you all.

Snippets

2009-07-07T00:56:00.005+10:00

It is four in the morning, and six days is all that stands between me and that Sydney-bound 747-400. Silence fills this house --this house that has been my home for the past ten years.

A vague, but deep undercurrent of emotion has been flowing beneath me for days now: bubbling over at times, though never for too long at that.

It isn't really sadness. It isn't really reluctance either. A combination perhaps ...maybe even none of the aforementioned at all.

There are bits and pieces that could have been arranged in better ways I think. Loose ends that should not have been left as such.

On the fringes of my mind, the thought of failure --and the reality of having failed-- to make certain things better is an eyesore to my otherwise brilliant skyline.

But alas, there is only so much one person can do. And sometimes when one thinks about it, one wonders if it is even remotely worth the trouble.

More often than not, the answer is a resounding no.

Feelings of excitement and that of elation remain as elusive as can be, having been worn down and drown out by the many months of diminutive progress towards the one ultimate goal of getting me onboard a jet plane.

And thus the solemn, the introspective, and the multitude of other feelings swirl together in an endless spiral: thinning out, closing in, and diffusing into one another to form an impossibly complicated flux of emotions.

Letting Go

2009-06-29T23:00:00.003+10:00

It gets more and more difficult with each passing day.

I'll soon be forced to give up so many things: chiefly the people around me, the un-pressured lifestyle, my home, and the car.

OMFG the car. The car is almost like sex! Spectacular ride and handling, drive-by-wire, VVT, VIM... blablablablabla ...and now, a full tank of pricey V-power. The acceleration is ...unbelievably smooth, and the engine revs like a happy pup.

And then, there's the 10kg subwoofer that won't be coming to Sydney with me.

And the friends that obviously can't come along.

In a few more weeks, a top-notch university's hefty academic schedules and syllabus will be laid on me to bear.

I wish I could freeze time and make this moment last forever.

I look fantastic in the mirror. I'm in rude health. My wallet is bulging with notes purple in colour. I have everything I could ever want.

I'm having the time of my life.

Someone, please, make it end slower?

Red, White and (Black)

2009-06-29T22:31:00.005+10:00

Look what Santa brought back from his trip down south! =D

Isn't He Handsome?

2009-06-28T02:09:00.002+10:00

...and She a Deep Sleeper?

2009-06-28T02:01:00.002+10:00

Closing Gates

2009-06-24T05:13:00.016+10:00

I feel it in the air. I sense it around me.

As my eyes scan the room with meticulous scrutiny, my mind wanders off to distant places, far beyond these four walls of brick and concrete. Free from the constrains of time and space, people, places and memories from all over replay themselves in my head with excruciating detail.

From bitter events, nasty words, acts of immense selfishness, to the fond memories, the happy moments and the wonderful joys of life: these things that used to affect me so much, no longer seem to do today.

They are getting increasingly smaller and smaller, and less significant with each passing day. It frightens me somewhat to say that certain things -like certain people- do not even matter to me anymore.

Yes, it's almost time to go.

I am delighted to have had the opportunity to meet up with (or will soon meet) friends new and old. Seeing long time friends, and relatives, and digging up tales and events from yesteryears has reminded me how gruesome and horrible my childhood and (especially) teenage years were.

I started to think about many things. What would have happened, how would life have turned out, and how different would I have been today had many of those difficult and traumatic events not have taken place.

But you know what? I'm glad they did. I'm glad they all did, for I cannot imagine leaving or being 21 without having gone through all that. I cannot imagine myself being so hopelessly fragile again. Nor do I want to be that foolish and naive once more.

I no longer want my life to be reset.

In terms of where I'm at in life, i am finally -after so long a time- pleased with everything. Which for me, is not an easy thing to say.

So this long, dark and rather emotional post ends on a high note: it's author bustling with positive vibes and a bucket load of hope. now ain't that wonderful?

The State of My Room

2009-06-14T22:25:00.005+10:00

Since the one I've been using all along is slowly tearing apart, and since I am already going off soon, I bought myself an all-new camera bag:

My very important little Red Book (no, not chairman Mao's little red book =P):

Self explanatory:

And finally:

a big AWWW...

2009-06-14T22:17:00.004+10:00

As the days inch, slowly, relentlessly towards 11 July, another part of life nears it's end for me.

As nostalgia sets in, all the inevitable heavy-hearted feelings are beginning to rear their ugly heads. Soon, this would all be nothing more than a memory.

The month of June is when all the closest and most important people in my life grow a year older in number. One by one, their birthdays highlight the fact that I will not be seeing them again for at least half a year.

It has a particular impact on me because in this world of fake, superficial and pretentious individuals, these are the only people I know who are really true.

In addition to them, waking up at 2~3pm everyday, sleeping at 6am, the lovely white coffee, the car, the care-free lifestyle, I will also miss all the friends I'll be leaving behind.

Through thick and thin, sorrow and joy, all of them have been wonderful company (especially over the course of the past few months).

They say people come and go, and it is so true. While many around me are busy drawing their lines, I too, have been busy drawing lines of my own. But to real friends, and family, lines are hardly ever drawn!

There is at least three weeks before I leave, but I cannot help thanking you all; it's been wonderful to have known you guys. =D

Standing Up

2009-06-10T07:14:00.000+10:00

Warning: this is a post drenched in anger -a sheer, random outburst of emotion inspired by loud, bassy, metal music (Linkin Park) that I have become so obsessed with these past few days.

Life. It is many things to many people; the meaning of life is as varied as it is vast. Some spend a lifetime searching for the purpose in theirs, others live through them without even a passing thought. Whatever it may be for you, I know what it is not for me.

Life is not about the ruthless and absolute pursuit of goals, dreams, wealth or utility. There is leeway to everything, room for adjustment in every case, space to manoeuvre in every situation, and above all else, compassion.

Life, and “people” -the humane ones- are not cold or calculative. They are not machines, they are individuals who have humanity in them. They are warm, they have heart and they have values and principles.

There isn't always right or wrong in life; things are never that simple. Where fact, reason and objectivity may dictate, the feelings and emotions that makes us human say otherwise.

Life is not perfect, and neither is anyone.

My life, you can mess with. You can destroy the things I treasure, you can steal from me, my hopes and my dreams you can take away, you can fuck me up… yes, all of you. I may not stand up or fight back. I may have just walked away before, but it means not that I surrender. It means not that I quit.

Because I never will.

I won’t vanish from my earthly-existence without a struggle, I won’t fade into the darkness without first exploding into a blinding burst of flames.

It is not so much about perseverance as it is of defiance: I defy all the shit that is being thrown at me -stubborn little rebellious soul that I am, I refuse to budge.

I wish for anarchy and a coup on the repressive social ‘norms’ and double standards that are being inflicted and implemented on us misfits.

I will not succumb, because I know to life there is diversity, and that is the only thing absolute about it.

α Bash

2009-06-05T22:37:00.012+10:00

So I was randomly surfing around, and realized that Sony launched three brand (actually, not so) new DSLRS: the α230, α330, and α380.

Sony markets their DSLR line-up under the name "Alpha", and the Greek alphabet "α" is heavily used (along with that lovely orange colour) throughout the packagaing and the actual products themselves.

Each model, differentiated by a triple digit, was suffixed with a capital "a". I have always wondered why. Why not α300 or α100? Why A200?

pfft.

The three new cameras are descendants of the α200, α300 and α350 respectively. So, what are the most notable changes?

New, ugly casings. The α380 gets a new higher resolution sensor.

What hasn't changed? The tiny little flash. 40 segment honeycomb shaped exposure metering (btw all entry-level Nikon DSLRs have 420-segment RGB sensors for metering, the results of which are combined with the distance-to-subject information and compared against a database of 30,000 pictures).

When Sony launched the α350, they equipped it with a live view implementation like.no.other. It wasn't as clumsy as the other DLSRs were when it came to focusing in live view mode. But what Sony never bothered to mention was the optical viewfinder which was also like.no.other before it: its one of the smallest on the market today, solely to make the α350's live view the best.

Question: how many DLSR users you know use live view ONLY? I know of two α350 users, both of them use their tiny optical viewfinders almost exclusively. I'll chuckle in an evil manner now, if you don't mind me.

Also making headlines in the feature list is the new built-in help guide, which can be accessed through the LCD when the camera is on.

Can you see the help button on the camera body and on the display?

And when the button is held down:

Newsflash: this is a camera that was launched in late 2006.

I have an unsettling fear that the Alpha series would dominate the market in a few years time. DSLRs are being made fashion accessories, and are no longer proper tools for photographers. As the mass market of consumers who know nothing of photography (nor have a care for it) 'upgrade' themselves to 'nice looking cameras' with TONS of 'features', you can bet one company will be there for them.

They Number by the Millions

2009-05-29T04:39:00.007+10:00

This picture reminds me of my grandmother's house: the impossibly numerous tiny little tiles that cover the otherwise barren, ugly concrete floor was particularly popular in the 50s I think. Or was it the 60s? I can't be too sure, I wasn't born yet XD

Certainly brings back memories of a time and place that used to be. =)

My Current Addicton

2009-05-27T23:46:00.004+10:00

Angst and rebellious tendencies. Undirected, non-specific, and with cause unknown.

The Night Series

2009-05-25T00:50:00.008+10:00

It was one normal evening and we were heading out for dinner, except that it was raining. So I took my camera along and handed daddy the keys so that he'd drive, and I'd be taking pictures. Yes I'm an evil little bastard. =)

The sun was about to set, and the sky was cast a wonderful golden hue. Too wonderful in fact, for me to post those pictures here.

SO, I decided to post the pictures from AFTER dinner instead; they're a crazy collection exposed at 1/30s shutters at a sinful ISO1600 (and above).

Enjoy =)

The Drug

2009-05-16T05:30:00.011+10:00

It always starts that way for me: an irritating discomfort in the throat, developing the next day into a full blown sore, fever, coughing, and vomiting --the works.

This latest bout is among the worse I’ve had this year; a nasty, searing fever that lasted for days, and the scorching pain that followed every gulp of matter as it passed through my throat.

The usual mix of antibiotics and paracetamol put me to sleep for the better half of those 48 hours, but during the times I was conscious, the one thought that wouldn't let me be was that of humanity’s obsessive addiction to the drug.

Sweet, beautiful, timeless, and irrefutable: what and where would mankind be without you?

For you, and only you, we put ourselves through things of the most absurd kind. We force ourselves through all sorts of nonsense. We allow ourselves to be patronised, to be mocked in front of our very eyes. We shed, not just tears, but blood, skin, and our dignity.

To ensure a steady and undisrupted supply of you, we lie. We deceive and we manipulate. We sacrifice, we tolerate and we submit. We let your blade cut deep into our hearts and souls, spewing insanities of every sort imaginable -ones every addict will know, and none will forget. The scars never fade; we carry them with us for the remainder of our lives.

As our addiction grows ever stronger with the passage of time, more and more of the drug we demand. But it matters not, for the drug is all that we want. It is, all that we need. And thus the suffering continues, with what joy the drug brings into our lives, and whatever amount of happiness it provides us with.

To ‘quit’ is easier said than done, for many have tried, but only a handful have and will ever succeed. The ending can play out in so many negative ways: a violent backlash, depression spanning the length months --sometimes years--, the shattering of self worth, of hopes and dreams, and in the most severe of cases, death.

But then again, there are always those who would move on as swiftly to the next syringe as they did the ones before, and to the ones after. The method of acquiring the drug, and precisely what drug is being acquired matters not to them, for the effect is the only thing of consequence.

Ultimately though, try as we may, no one can fully run away from the addiction. It is what is required of us. It is what we require.

So go on, choose your syringe.

A Stroll Round the Neighbourhood

2009-05-11T01:16:00.013+10:00

a
...on a perfect, blue-sky Saturday evening.

I took the effort to upload these pictures to Flickr, which unlike Blogger and the majority of the other hosting sites, support colour profiles. Best to be viewed with Safari, which also supports colour profiles. Do that, and watch the colours on these pictures POP. =D

oh, and no, none of them have been fotochopped =)

Kings

2009-05-08T09:03:00.008+10:00

There can be no victory without loss, no joy without pain, no action without consequence.

But there are those of us who just want to have it all. Oh yes, everything there is in the world, and the universe beyond. Perhaps the root cause of this is isn't greed, but that they do not know what it is that they truly want; thus, everything becomes that that they want.

But somewhere along the lines, there has got to be sense amidst the insanity. When the crunch comes, when it is truly time to make the call, a decision has to be made, and stood by thereafter.

Yes, decisions are never an easy thing. Choices, ah the agony of choice, they tempt us in their infinite variety of ways. They toy with our emotions, they cloud our judgement, they distort our reality, and they blur our focus. But, no matter what the decision is, one can never escape the impending aftermath that follows it.

Sacrifice.

It is what it all ultimately boils down to. It is something no decision nor choice can be made without. It stalks the undecided, and it haunts them. Always it is there, incessant and relentless it clings to them -even those of us who seemingly have it all.

=)

Electronic Throttle Control

2009-05-07T19:24:00.002+10:00

And I get to do this everyday. Again and again and again. And again, for at least another month. Wooohoo.

You are The One.

2009-05-07T04:10:00.001+10:00

Adjustments

2009-05-06T06:07:00.003+10:00

Due to my recent postings that have become inconsistent with the original intentions I had started this blog with, I am in the process of removing some of the posts that I deem are overly 'emo'.

This should be a place to write about happy stuff, and not negatively-charged material.

Cheers.

Liberty

2009-04-26T03:51:00.005+10:00

And so it is ended. My time in INTI is finally over. I’m kissing that little damned town in the forest goodbye, and I could not be happier.

As some sort of a farewell-cum-graduation “celebration”, last weekend I went out and had the most wonderful time in the world with the people I most treasure. There was drinks of course, jokes and insults thrown all over (most of which were directed at me!), there was plenty of laughter, plenty of jokes and chatter, a lil’ serious talk here and there, and lots and lots of FUN.

It was lovely.

I got to be exactly who I was, and who I wanted to be: brash, buoyant, sappy and emotional, happy, relaxed, talkative, insulting, sarcastic, nostalgic, and at times, even insensitive. It felt wonderful, all the more so when no one was annoyed or irritated with the things I said or at the way I behaved. Everyone was fine with my many eccentricities.

People accepted me for who I was. It is a wonderful sense of freedom unlike any other. Free, to do or be as you are. Free, to be blunt, to be honest, and to be frank. Free, to speak one’s mind, to blurt it all out knowing that you will not be persecuted for it. Free to do so without fear of repercussions. Free to do all this, knowing that they are with you not because of what you can offer/provide them, how you look, or what they can get out of you, but because you are who you are.

The chains of academia, of ‘social duties’, of fitting into a community by self coercion -these chains I am no longer bounded by. I can now be free to be who and what I am -and that is exactly what I will do. Sod conformity, I want no part of it. I will be as quirky, as stubborn, as arrogant and as brash as I so choose. I will be me. And if that is stupid, if it is detrimental to my social life, or even to my life as a whole, then so be it.

No, I shall be pretentious no more.

Give me freedom, give me liberty, or give me death!