After a 1.5 month hiatus, I was greeted by:

Some random STALKER of YONG LONG who ended up on myblog -

 

Top Searches

hakuna matata with people singing, to see the world in a grain of sand, lim yong long, genesis ii choir, yong long comments on stephanine blog

 

SERIOUSLY?!

 

I have no information about Lim Yong Long – he’s too famous already. He has his own website and photography stuff – oh yah, he won this Shine Award too. You can stalk his pictures of that!

 

Good Luck! Just ask him laaaa.

Filed under: Days

Live Everything

 

I want to beg you, as much as I can, to be patient toward all that is unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue.

 

Do not seek the answers, which cannot be given to you because you would not be able to live them.

And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.

 

- Rainer Maria Rilke

From: http://icecreamisbetterwithafork.tumblr.com/post/9389243809/live-everything

So true.

 

My first week of school/induction has been crazy. And I’ve been so caught up with the unpredictablity and uncertainty – that I forget that its all part of the living!

 

I quote the very beautiful words of Sarah:

Don’t worry about it. It’s the new-ness that makes the experience all the sweeter when you sit down one day and realise that hey, you’ve adjusted, and you’ve found your place, your little routines and familiar favourite spots, and that you belong exactly where you are right now. So revel in the new-ness! Clutch it tight with both hands and savour it while it lasts, while the tangy zest sends electric currents up your spine when you are placed in a new situation before the dread monotony of classes and schoolwork claims your time, your thoughts, your energy and limits the boundaries of life to the classroom, the grocery store, the library and the bed.

 

The Principal in my college spoke about being thankful as well – such a great attitude to have!

So today, I’m thankful:

I’m listening to Tristan Prettyman, and feeling very happy and contented that my lemon drizzle cake is out. This is all after, a night of cooking, youtubing awesome acoustic tunes, and playing on the guitar.

I might have just re-calibrated. =)

I’m feeling so relieved!

Filed under: Beautiful seed, Days, Thoughts on life

Major announcement – in the car today.

So here’s my eventful day.

Wanted to go to mass, but got (literally,) locked out of the Dakota station! Shocked. SO I walked back, and decided to open peanut shells with love (just like peeling potatoes with great love =)) whilst reading the newspaper so Mum can make her peanut something.. I love waking up early. It makes the world seem so much more peaceful (that it already is =)). Slow, and aww. just so nice.

Then sent Pa to airport (actually, he sent himself and dropped off the car to me) – before heading to Funan to rush to grab charger etc.. busy busy. Then detoured to Jurong and etc and finally ended up in Godma’s place and then home with er jie.

———– unnecessary context, but… ——————

It led to this momentous announcement to my sister in the car:

“I think that the key to happiness in life is contentment.”

And then my sister nodded, like she does to most epiphanies I dish on her.

And then I rambled and rambled on why I thought so (yes, its been an ongoing, most times just day dreaming, thought).

Just now, whilst I was brushing my teeth, I revised the idea in my head. Nah, its not just contentment, its also gratitude.. 3 brushes later, nah.. there’s also an element of hope.

grr. So my initial succinct, powerful one liner answer – became three: contentment, gratitude and hope.

And so I felt quite happy, =) until it struck me just as I am typing this – nah, its just one word. =)

Hah.

Took me quite a detour at that – hoho, just like the 5 detours I took today, not counting the others all through this summer.

Filed under: Beautiful seed

Best morning wake up call ever

Baby Isaac screaming out everything he saw (car! train! horse! “gong gong” (which he often mis pronouces as “du gong”)! “por por”!), my mom echoing everything he says, my father laughing really loudly in response, and a super loud episode of Mr Wiggles (with all the songs I know in sequence seeing how I’ve watched it 5 times since being back).

(oh yes, did I mention, all through my door?!?!? – how did those decibels penetrate? Yup, that’s my family. Now I know why my indoor voice, is very much an outdoor one. Oh yes, and why my voice is still very class 95 since Madrid =()

I pulled my very very reluctant self to greet the little monster:

Pa: “Isaac, who’s that?”
Isaac: “yee yeeee”

In the sweetest way ever.

=)

Filed under: Days

Photographs.

I’m in this perpetual state of clearing my room. There is, I admit, too many things. In my distress, I wanted to throw away EVERYTHING. All my hoards. Then I saw, my box of photographs (since primary school!).

It amazed me.

I stopped developing photos when the digital camera came along (or wait, 2 years later). With the digital camera, I continued to print every photo (this tendency remained; since the way it worked with the film camera was to submit to the mechanics of it and print every photo – and that led to me having photos of my school buildings.. and other random things!). Sadly, it was only for 2 more albums: chinese new year and a stay over with some friends. In current times, the post-click process involves uploading it on facebook OR just leave it in the hard disk and pray that the day your computer dies will never come (before you backed it up) – even that, I’m struggling with! Too many too many.

You know what they say, with every passing generation, whenever you gain something, you lose something. I think its true here. Isn’t it scary how we refer to a photograph as the digital copy of it? For me, I hardly print any! Only as presents and a lovely accompaniment to cards and letters. I think I lost the appreciation of printed pixels, I’ve lost an almost essential step of the photograph/y-experience: the printing/developing – the actual “physical” experience of holding the photograph. Something, I realised I probably want to do (need is not the right word), after seeing all those photographs from years ago (including my childhood ones that my parents printed).

I’m so thankful for every printed photograph.

Filed under: Beautiful seed, Thoughts on life

Lazy afternoons at home

I feel super blessed.

I m now lying on the sofa at home, feet up and listening to Jack Johnson and Putumayo mix (thanks to yesterday s Spanish outing with the WYD people!), and upstairs my parents are baby siting Isaac, pretending to sleep so that he ll fall asleep. I peep to see and saw baby Isaac sleeping soundly in my father’s arm – could not resist capturing these precious rays, only to scolded by my mom ha ha.

This break has been so much more than I could plan for.

And later, my god daughters!

=)

Filed under: Days

On hoarding – Do we hoard in our relationships?

So…. I’ve removed most of my stuff from a manic 2-3ams massive clean out of my rooms. Boy, am I a hoarder! Why do I keep all this stuff?!?!?

Reasons include: aww it ll bring back do many memories when I look at it again, it s important to me, i can show this to my friend again next time and remind ourselves of what a great/funny/beautiful time we had.

Then it struck me: are we like this with our relationships? Fossify them into nostalgic “this was before”s? Yes, it does bring back memories – but is it important now? Did thins change?

Yes they have. And I m dealing with all this change – learning to be present to all my friends and family members: yes, things have changed, but if our relationships are based on genuine concern and love, then those “hoards”, however lovely, should never be the basis of our relationship. These can be quite dangerous :/

Here s me sweeping the cob webs of every corner in a life. Yikes.

Filed under: Thoughts on life , Hoarding, life, relationship

On freedom in relationships

As I grow older, I’m beginning to realize how absolutely important the freedom to say no is – it allows freedom for one to truly BE: no obligations, no fear of rejection, no fear of withdrawal.

That – is so rare.

And I think I need to remember to offer people such freedom. As for what to do with relationships where that freedom is compromised, sigh, it’s pretty hard to change status quo.

Filed under: Beautiful seed, Thoughts on life

Mantra: I need to get good.

I ve never felt travelling to be this rancid on my palette.

I can’t eat anything that does not spell healthy. And I go to sleep with my stomach wishing I had not eaten!

My body is going through some form of crisis from my nomadic existence. Help!

So, I need to get good, healthy food.

On top of that, reading through the awesome digital camera mag, I need to get good at taking my pics! Ugh- so sua ku. I keep making the same mistakes and getting washed out skies.

So, I m giving myself a deadline once I finish this crazy summer:
1. Routine routine routine.
2. Embrace necessary vegetarianism (of sorts.)
3. Better my photographs.
4. Master photoshop (after my 2 year denial of it).
5. Get on top of my knowledge of the world and more.
6. Be house-ridden and do all my chores.

Omm.

I m counting down!

Filed under: Thoughts on life

Birmingham

Waking up to: 4 layers of fuzzy blanket and spending the rest of the day with Bert and Eugenia – very

Best part: woke up to Er Jie skyping me – and Isaac kissing the phone (thinking it’s me!!) and mummy’s packing!

Does it ever get better than that!

Grateful!

Filed under: Days