Towers

Of late, the one thing I’ve learnt is that a successive stream of accomplishments can make a person over-confident. And most certainly arrogant.

Just so proud of all the fantastic feats that lay behind one’s path; a towering symbol of one’s sheer and utter greatness.


Success. We all yearn for success. We strive for it. Kill for it. Die for it. Yet success isn’t necessarily life-long, nor is it necessarily the be-all and end-all to all that we hold dear in our long odyssey through mortal existence. For the masses out there who trudge along their daily lives, inconsequential to the eyes of the great and mighty, just the simplest of pleasures might just as well suffice. And so what if a ten-cent cuppa coffee can bring to someone as much as what it would take a million-dollar Rolls to do for another?

I am reminded to what an elder once shared with me, this one little nougat: just as quickly as life could turn for the better, fortunes could just as suddenly turn for the worst; life is long, its course circumstantial, and its bearing unpredictable.

But perhaps even not. Maybe one could be rock solid after all, having had it all nipped in the bud. Gotten everything nailed to the last detail. Maybe one is invincible, and truly untouchable.

All the same, there is ultimately a price to be paid. Most would lose their humility. Likely first to go would be one’s humanity —which is perhaps the one quality we should hold on to most dearly, for what are we without warmth and compassion?

Animals...


What must it feel like to be worth well over half a billion? What would it be like to be worth that amount, and see your life-long friends, comrades and the ones you treasure most struggle even to meet ends meet? Just what must it feel like to be filthy rich and not lift a finger for anyone?

What must it be like to be great and successful if you haven’t a trace of your soul left at the end of that line?


Regardless of where you go or where you're from, joy and fulfilment are universal and fundamentally the same for the haves and the have-nots. Those of us wealthy of accomplishment or cash may certainly be arrogant and overbearing, but remember that life is long and winding, and one might never know if someday you find yourself out in the city streets, without a home, without a living, without a life, and without even a sliver of your humanity left.

Liquidity

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.

Branches

 
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?

 

Eating the Cake

 
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!

 

 

Unbottling

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).

Epiphanies

 
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.


  

Nights by the Yellow Lamp

 
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.

Drifter

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.

Another Late Night

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

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

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.

2009

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

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

Bridges Burnt

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" 

Hours After Midnight

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.

Differentiation

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

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?

All in a Song

The Curve

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

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?