Dissapointment

If I ever to name one of the worst ever emotion to feel, it would be disappointment. I think almost everyone dread having to feel disappointed - whether with ourselves or others. It happens when our actions or those of others were unexpected. It comes as a sort of heavy, dreaded feeling of hoping what just happened is not actually real, but you know that it is pointless to hope.

I have felt disappointed at myself for countless times. Especially after exams. There would be this annoying heavy feeling that would pull me down by reminding me of how I should have worked harder. Usually, it'll bother me for a while before I finally learn to accept and get over it.

Many people actually think that self-disappointment is a much harder blow to endure than feeling disappointed with others. But I beg to differ. This is because I think that even when you feel disappointed with yourself, there is a chance for you to encourage yourself to not do it again. Whereas with others, you can't actually decide their further behaviour. It's like something beyond your control. And sometimes you can't get over it. Because with yourself, you tend to love yourself more and that makes it easier to let the disappointment go, unlike with others.

Sigh well it's not a very rewarding feeling. To feel let down or disappointed by someone - your friend, loved one or  even a stranger. You really just wish that things didn't happen that way. But then again, should you really care? Does it really concern you? Perhaps...and perhaps not. Sometimes I think it's better to just ignore and live your own life.

That's it, mind my own business. 

It's All About Sharing

Like many of my other posts here, this is something which suddenly occured to me some weeks ago and then I forgot about it for a while before it came back to me again. I think I should make it a habit to carry around a notepad and pen with me so that when I get a sudden epiphany or realisation I can jot it down. Trust me, there are countless times when I get sudden flashes of thoughts and had to let it go because I didn't have anywhere to write them. And these kinda thoughts usually come and go just as quickly.

Anyway, for this time it's gonna be about why do we study things which would not be necessary for our usage in the future. I know, being a student myself, many other students do not see the reason why we have to learn anything beyond basic maths and calculations or the process of rainfall. We think that if it does not contribute to anything we do in the future, why bother?

But then I realised that it's not really so much about whether we will or not use it. Rather it's very much in relation with how we human beings like to show and tell others about something we have discovered. Just think about it, let's say you made an incredible discovery about something which has yet to be learnt by others. Wouldn't you want others to acknowledge your findings and have them see things the way you did? Wouldn't you want to pass on the knowledge you have gained? Yes! Of course you would.

So that pretty much explains why we need to learn about the Pythagoras Theory or Newton's Laws of Motion. These people have made great discoveries and believe that others should know about it too. At this point, some might think, "Like I care what he discovered! It has nothing to do with me!" Just stop for a moment and remind yourself that it is in our nature to want to tell the whole world about our accomplisments. Hence, quit resenting our school teachers for teaching us something that might have zero practicality in the future. I know it's hard learning something which does not involve your interests but have an open mind. It does not hurt to know a little more knowledge.

Sense of Appreciation

Ah, Valentine's Day. The occasion many have said has become way too commercialised to take it too seriously. But I beg to differ. I think the existence of Valentine's Day is good in a way that it actually reminds us that sometimes being in love may cause you to do all sorts of things (including spending a hefty sum of money buying dozens roses and extravagant dinners =P). 

It actually gives people a reason to make extra effort to create a little excitement or difference in their relationship. But of course, it is not necessarily wise to spend too much money just for one particular day and forgot about the reason the next day. It should be spent just like any other day just with a little added time and maybe some money.

For this year's Valentine's, I've spent it with the same person I celebrated with last year. We both agreed that it shouldn't only be the guy doing everything and paying for the meals. Hence, both of us had prepared presents for each other and paid our equal share of the meal.

I made for my Teddy Bear a handmade card which took hours to complete and also I got him a customised bath towel with a picture and his name embroided on it.

On the other hand, he got me flowers even though I told him before this that I do not want flowers as they are so overpriced and wilt the next day. But still it was nice to receive flowers, I mean I'm a girl aren't I? =P And knowing how much I love stuff like pastries and cheese, he ordered a boxful of customised cheese tarts for me. Yeah, I know even though he said the baker failed at making it looking presentable, it still tasted good. So I'm happy he brought me food. =D

Anyway, after that we drove up to Genting to have a lovely lunch buffet and spend some time up there, just the two of us. I had a great time, it felt different being up there with him. Like it was only the two of us, away from familiar surroundings and people. It was pure quality time spent together.

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All of this just reminds me how happy and grateful I am to have you. I truly appreciate your being in my life and how certain parts of you have grown on me. So many things, little or big, that I do now are influenced by you. If I were to list down a few, it would be like:

1. How I tend to be attracted to panda bears now. =P

2. How I never used to like iced lemon tea until I met you.

3. Eclipse (the mint).

4. Watching movies in the cinema.

5. The little swerves you do while driving (when it's safe of course).

And many more....

Basically, the way I think, do things, talk or the words I use have something in it which reminds me of you. It's almost 2 years since we started and until now I can say that everyday feels different with you.

Contentment

Many times in my life, this very particular question would run through my mind:

"Are you happy?"

And every single time somewhere deep inside me, I would reply yes.

That question does not represent the emotions you feel at any specific moment in life but rather a single emotion that summarises how you think of your entire life. For me, I've never had any major complains about my life. I rarely allow myself to scrutinise things in life in order to find faults and then get upset over it. In my observation, I notice that many people tend to do so even unintentionally. They like to pick the lowest points in their lives and focus on it thus emerging with the statement, "I hate my life" , "My life sucks."

True, sometimes people use those statements just as a figure of speech or just to intentionally amplify and exaggerate the situation they're facing. But then again, sometimes what you say may have an indirect influence on how you actually feel or think. Unconsciously, you may tend to focus more on the negative aspects of life. Hence, it may cause you to feel dissatisfaction about life when in fact you shouldn't feel that way.

Perhaps one of the reason why I never feel negative about life is due to how I was brought up. It may sound unrelating, but when I was young my mom told me not to use the word "hate" because it has very extreme negative associations. And being a little girl whose mind (is not was =P) like a sponge, I took that to heart. Maybe if you do know me in real life, you might notice that I very rarely, possibly never, use the word "hate." 

So I guess that helped made me cautious about doing things. I don't let myself be bothered by little flawed details that actually doesn't really matter. Thus, that always makes me look on the brighter side of things. =) 

(Sorry Angie, I stole that pic from your blog. Don't know where the copy I had went =P.)

First post of 2009

Hurrah! Finally I am updating my blog after what? Three months? Lol. Ah well, what does it matter.

Anyway, it's a brand new year for me. I practically watched 2008 fly by me and I can already feel 2009 gearing up for yet another full-fledged flight. In other words, I think 2009 will pass by really fast.

Why do I say so? Well I suppose it's because I'm starting my 3-year degree course end of February and I have been hearing from my seniors that it's tough and really time-consuming. But the holidays are pretty long though, about 2 months though I think most probably during then I'd be interning at various advertising, PR and media companies. Fun, eh? (yeah, right.)

So back to what I wanted to say is that...I miss having time. But ironic thing is, when I have time I don't know what to do with it. It's something like I see free time as something so precious and irreplaceable that I don't want to waste time doing something I would regret. But the time I used to decide what is best to do, takes up most of my free time. Get what I mean? I think you would.

You know the other day I was out with some college friends and it suddenly occured to me that I never notice crows as much as I did before? Silly as it may sound, it is not. It just made me realise that as we grow older our ability or should I say willingness to notice things around us, declines. I think the reason to this is because we have so many other things to focus on like college or work. 

I actually feel sad about this. I miss all the times when I was younger and would feel so excited when Christmas or Chinese New Year is coming. When we're older, we don't feel as excited as we did anymore. It's just sad, isn't it?

However, I don't think this is something we can change. It's a part of growing up. But I do think we can try to take notice of more things around us. What's the point of doing that, you ask? Hmm...I guess it will remind you that there are so many other things going on other than your busy schedule. Just take some time off and go get fascinated by things which once fascinated you when you were younger. It'll be worth the time. 

I Know...It Has Been A While

This is where I would have included the part about me apologising for not updating for a long time. I would explain and elaborate about why I was not able to update and promise that in the future I would find more time to update.

Yep. Typically before this I would feel guilty for not having updated my blog for such a loooong time. But then I would always think why the heck am I feeling guilty for? Am I offending anyone by not updating for a while? I suppose not. 

So I think many people feel like they are compelled to update their blogs as often as possible because of their readers. They want to keep their readers entertained and satisfied as regularly as they can. 

But that is no easy task. I, for one, am going through that now. I am not exactly sure why but as of now I seem to have left behind the burning fiery desire to want to express myself and speak my mind. If you were to go back to the first few posts of this blog (which would be very quick, as I do not have that many posts =P), you would notice that I give out the impression of a really eager, enthusiastic person and in some ways, curious about how the minds of others work.

It is like I was so fascinated by how much knowledge I can very suddenly attain because of some surge of mental growth hormones (if they exist) that made me think in a very different perspective. In simpler form, I grew up too fast. I had a lot of thoughts, ideas, opinions spinning in my head and could hardly wait to let them out. Hence, I created this blog. To let out all those thoughts I had that suddenly surged in on me. Trust me, it feels great to have found an outlet for you to express yourself in. It will become kinda like your sanctuary or comfort place which you seek when you are given time for yourself.

I believe it is very important for someone to have something like that as it strengthens the relationship between you and (yes yourself)your subconscious. Because most of the times when given an opportunity to express yourself, you would take pride in whatever that is the result. You would feel happy and content with yourself for being able to come out with something like that. That is where you learn to appreciate your own capabilities and not hate yourself for being the way you are.

However, despite everything I have said above, I have not been updating my blog very often. I wish I knew why. But it can either mean that I am losing interest in writing, or that I lost the ability to pick up inspirations to write from the occurences that happens everyday, or that I am so caught up with my life now that I cannot be bothered by things happening around me, or I have found another way to assert and express myself. 

But then again, when I think more about it, why am I even bothered by this? Why do I even care if people say my blog is boring because I rarely update it? Is there a definite and fixed contextual meaning that states that a blog has to be full of interesting things to read and laugh about? Does it has to contains lots of pictures? No, I suppose not. 

It is like this social journal thing I recently started playing around with, Plurk.com, it is something like a timeline in which you post the things you are doing, or feeling or want to do at a certain time. If you post regularly and people reply you, your Karma goes up. But if you have been inactive for a while, it drops. And also as your Karma increases, you get to use a wider range of emoticons. So I guess there's where it is fun and rewarding to see your Karma rise.

But what I wanna highlight here is that I see a number of people who would say that somehow "work so hard" so increase their Karma but it did not increase by alot or has dropped by abit. They would say that the "hard work" is gone down the drain and then whine about it.

This is the part where I roll my eyes and say "puhhh-leasee." I mean come on people, it is just some online social timeline in which does not really help you improve yourself. And it is just writing a short note of whatever you are feeling, doing etc and posting it up every few hours. Where does the "hard work" part comes in? So yeah, like I said, some people feel like it is some sort of pointless achievement when they reach the maximum Karma or managed to update their blog 5655309432223943259 times in a day.

Frankly, I believe it is just all about satisfying and being content with yourself. Like in Plurk, I just post whenever I feel like it and occasionally reply to other Plurks when relevant. I don't post just for the sake of increasing my Karma. Also, I only choose to blog whenever I feel like it. I don't have to satisfy anyone else but myself. So as long as I am in my comfort place and have something to blog, then sure I will update. But hey, if otherwise too bad for my blog then. =D

(Wow, almost 1000 words. I guess that should compensate for all the other times which I failed to interact with my blog. =D)

Why Are We Still Here?

Less than a week ago we celebrated our 51st Independence Day on 31st August. Like every year, throngs of people gather at designated places that have been set up to celebrate our independence. We see people pack themselves in a car and deliberately put themselves in such inconvenience when going through the horrible traffic jam that KL is known for. We see them push their way through the tight crowd of sweaty people and stand there for hours waiting to see the fireworks. Such a distressing and uncomfortable situation to be in. But people still do it. Why?

There is a term for this where the people of a country put themselves all together just for one cause. It's called nationalism. However, if you were to use that for the opening vignette above, you are very mistaken.

Recently I did a video documentary for one of my assignments in which I asked people if they would die for their country. The answer is a no-brainer, very obviously a "No." And then one of my college clubs did another event in conjunction with our Independence Day where we ask people to write something about Malaysia and stick on a board. In the beginning, we were all pretty excited and gung-ho about it. But very soon we lost that. Due to how everyone we asked had absolutely nothing good to say about Malaysia. Hey, it's not that I love Malaysia so much, I wouldn't die for Malaysia but still I don't hate Malaysia that much. These people talk of Malaysia like it is the worst sh*t hole to be in. I mean come on, it isn't that bad right.

But anyway, people don't have such negative feelings for nothing. I feel that Malaysia is (or going to) experiencing a political upheavel. Everything is in such a mess. Not to mention how much money is channeled towards corruption. It has been more than half a century since we have gained independence and I would say we have not grown very much. Many of the people feel unwanted to be in the country and have such a strong sense of disbelonging.

It is just so sad. That even foreigners actually feel sorry for us.

Yep. We're living in a country that doesn't want us here. How depressing can we be. =/

Not Gonna Look Back

Before I enrolled into college, many of my older friends who are or have been to college tell me that when in college I would definitely miss high school. They would tell me how stressful and tiring it is to be in college. At that time, I had almost no idea what college life would be like so I thought that maybe college is scary.

On 24th March 2008, I started my very first day at college. I remember the few days before I was pretty anxious and nervous. Some people seemed to have given me the impression that girls studying mass communication are known to be er...vicious. But hey, even before the first week ended, I landed myself in a circle of friends whom we have come to be quite close till now. So then I thought, maybe college isn't that bad.

However, there was another thing. During my primary and high school life, most of the years I would say I was close to being "shunted aside." It was quite rare that people would cast a third glance at me, (there would be a second glance because I was quite chubby back then.) It wasn't until the last few years at high school when I lost some weight and my confidence level shot up quite a bit. Still, it is hard to suddenly change overnight when the last decade or so you've been strongly associated with the adjectives "quiet", "shy" and "timid."

Due to that, I was really looking forward to college as a chance for me to start over afresh. I was much more confident in myself with the extra weight gone and pretty good SPM results in my name. Also, I was gonna meet a whole bunch of people who have no idea of who I am in the past. The very thought of that gave me a feeling that consists of a mixture of confidence, excitement and readiness to prove myself to everyone. Hence, that gave me all the assurance I needed to apply for a full scholarship offered by Taylor's. That bit of confidence and assurance gave me the will to really put effort into the essay and presentation and interview. And hey, I did get the full scholarship. Previously though, if we were to go back many years in time, I wouldn't have possessed the courage to do so. Not to even try. Yeah, I was that pathetic.

Besides that, in college I have the opportunity to spread out and be active. In fact, right now I'm in 6 clubs and associations at college. Although only 2 of the clubs have been busy lately, the rest are pretty much quiet. But even then, I have had my hands full for the past few weeks with club activities and workshops. I love being involved in things. Some people feel that it is such a bother and hassle to join clubs. To me, it is the opposite. I never had the chance during high school, so I am taking the chance now at college.

Some of my now college friends tell me that they miss high school. Maybe it was because they had something to look back at during high school. But not for me.

Being Critical Of Others

For all the recent years of my life, I developed a character which I believe would put a fairly large dent onto my "sweet and nice" personality. A few years ago I realised how critical of a person I can be. I would always have something negative to say about someone's idea, suggestion, opinion or just something they said. Then one of my friend subtly let out that it can be pretty unpleasant, so I decided I would really have to suppress all these urges to criticize everything.

But lately, I think I'm being like that again. I say almost everything on my mind without thinking twice that it might perhaps annoy the other person. Sometimes I just can't control it and it just slips out of my mouth. Only after I said it, I regret.

I suppose there are many things which triggers me into my critical mode. One of them is hypocrisy. I cannot tolerate hypocrites. I really, really do not like it when people say one thing, but does another. I mean, say what you mean, and do what you mean. Oh and also fickle and indecisive people. Like when arguing, at the beginning they will be arguing one point but somewhere in the middle they changed course and end up backing up something else. I don't know but it just ticks me off that people cannot stand by their original arguing point.

You know some part of the saying "like father, like son" is true. My parents are pretty competitive and critical people. I get annoyed when they behave like that to me. But when I am with others, I behave that way as well. At first I did not realise it until it came to a certain point when other people started saying something. It's a scary thought, that someday perhaps I won't have any friends because of my critical attitude. =/

Sigh. I suppose I should take a day or two to sink into deep thought about this and then stop criticizing other people's ideas, suggestions or thoughts. It pretty much puts people off. Yep, with parents I should know. The weird thing is I don't get like that with them, probably because they're like that too. The only person I don't get critical with is my Teddy, not that I'm bias or anything but he makes me feel so relax and I can talk just about anything to him. Yep, he's that great. =D

Ah well, that doesn't mean I should not change. Nothing wrong in trying to improve yourself. =)

"Kids" and "Ken Park"

During the past few days, I took the time to watch these 2 films which was said to be very controversial and banned in several countries. Both are by same the same director Larry Clark. I doubt many have seen or even heard of his movies. Well to begin, Larry Clark's movies all share some common aspects:

1. Teenage sex
2. Teenage drug abuse
3. Teenage violence
....
....

Practically everything about teenage issues. Most of the characters in his movies are underaged. And his movies are very, very, VERY explicit. Especially one of the two I watched, Ken Park. Almost throughout the entire movie there's bound to be some sort of naked/sexual scene. Some of them are really unnecessary. What's the point of putting in so much? I mean who wants to see a guy pee?

Larry probably did it to garner attention. When his movies get banned, people would be curious and intrigued to download it (like me for instance). The two movies I watched were Kids and Ken Park.



Kids wasn't really very explicit though it was very close to the border of being called child porn. Most the movie is about young teens getting involved with illegal drug usage, smoking marijuana, stealing, physical violence, date-rape, unprotected sex and etc. After watched Kids I had a kind of disturbing and sad feeling over me. I would say the movie is very "in your face", it's very real. It's pretty much exactly the same as what's been going on so far. It's just sad.



And then today I watched Ken Park, it's pretty much the same as Kids except for the very graphic sex scenes. It's about stories from 4 different teenagers who lived in the same town. I think Ken Park is somewhat...milder than Kids. I didn't find it as disturbing and scary as Kids. The movie ends with a scene which I think would leave the audience with a weird feeling. It came to me as a slight surprise and just weird.

I think people who aren't narrow minded should watch these 2 movies. Not to pick up the bad influences but just to receive a wake up call to the world. These movies will not go very well with people who are easily influenced by the media. They'll most probably start thinking like the characters in the movies, that no one understands them or can accept them. Watch the movies with an open and rational mind.

However, judging from the movies Larry Clark made, I would say he is a pervert. Lol yeah. He always has to put some sex scenes into his movies. But don't let the explicit scenes bother you, look beyond it, there's something in the movies that's gonna talk right back to you.

P.S. You can let me know if you're interested to watch these movies, I can let you know where to find them. ;)