Age is catching up.

Gone are the days where we just meet up in the mall or mamak and talk about trivial matters like our parents grounding us, exam grades or the crush on a friend's friend who is oh-so-cute. I just came back from a catch-up session with friends.. and I realized that our table talk conversations really are changing. Now it's about woes and worries of not having a boyfriend now, hence difficulties in finding a partner to get married to by the time we are 30. Then there's the topic of relationships, long distance ones especially. Whether they work, or not. Is or is not the guy/girl of marriage material? Do we want to have kids... and how many? Jobs... how sucky they are, or how much you love it. What do you do at your job? Complaints about pay and the hours. Then there's the additional talk of where you want to eventually settle down. Will home/Malaysia be good enough to settle down in? Should we be seeking out greener pastures? Then we start on the guilt of leaving our parents when they're already aging, and how much we feel it is our duty to take care of them.

What on earth has happened to our table talk? I guess it's a sign that we're getting older... and slowly but surely, we're starting to feel the world's burdens. Wow.

With the passing of time...

Five months. For five months, this blog has been abandoned.

Only less than half a year has gone by, and yet so much has changed. Some good changes, some changes I'm not yet sure which side they belong to...

Chicago for the summer was one of the best decisions I've made. Like every decision I make, I'm always sure of it when I decide, and then as the execution date closes I start doubting my decision. Those four summer months gave me an amazing internship experience that pushed me out of my comfort zone, and enlightened a career path for me. They brought me the much needed companionship of a friend, a shoulder to cry on, and someone to hold hands with when walking the streets of Chicago. That friend introduced me to new friends, ones that I will probably be stay friends with for a long time. Those months lighted in me a love for Chicago and its narrow quaint buildings and noisy trains. They also gave me many memorable nights - dancing, Mad River-ing, Monopoly Deal-ing, chatting in Chi Cafe at wee hours, fooding... More importantly, those months taught me the pain of losing love, the ups and downs of job hunting, the importance of friendship when you're so far away from home, and also how much I am capable of achieving on my own two feet with the support of those who love me.  

That chapter has closed, and I am taking a break from life, just for a few weeks. And then it's time to write a new one. New place, new job, new life, new people. Can I do it? Probably. But as always, I have doubts and fears and apprehension to start writing it. I know I'll probably be miserable penning the first few paragraphs, but it'll get better.

In the meantime, I'm just going to enjoy my break the best that I can. Rekindle my love for Malaysia and all its oddities - good and bad. Relearn the roads and gawk at the new buildings. Be a good daughter and sister. Catch up with old friends. Learn to live as an adult back home.. something I never really got the chance to do. Only a few more weeks of doing so. And I'm going to leave it all behind again till another day. One day, hopefully, I'll never have to again.

Ahh, life.

The 90s

Remember the 90s?? When all we listened to were boyband music? And then there were groups with hyperactive music and dance moves? Ah, I miss the 90s. That was our era. I can't believe I'm old enough to claim that I have an era. An era that has already passed, that the new generation did not grow up with. I am glad that rap, hip hop and club music about sex and dancing - are not what I grew up with. Instead, I grew up with mushy lovey dovey pop music. And innocent boybands whose members usually consist of a bad-boy, a babyface, a dashingly-handsome, a shy-quiet introvert and a mature. That's usually the formula of boybands in the 90s. Remember that? Ah, then there's the floppy hair or the curtain hairstyle, as some of my friends call it. Every swooping move of the curtain of hair warranted screams from fans. Ah, the innocent-ness of it all. The 90s was the era for British boybands, for sure. Usually consisting of more girls than boys. And they all dressed in clothing of the same color or style and had active aerobic-like dance moves that entertained us all!


The 90s was definitely the best era, music-wise at least! My 4-day weekend in Chicago brought about memories of the 90s, when Annie and I spent a whole day just looking up old 90s groups and singing out loud to their songs (Annie with her Viet-American accent, and me with my "excellent" singing voice), then laughing at their videos and dance moves. Then reminiscing to each other of what each song reminded us of, and why we adored certain bands.

Karaoke night for my birthday this year was all about the 90s. After this year's birthday, I seriously want to sing 90s music at the top of my lungs EVERY year for my birthday!! Seriously. It was a blast, and totally brought us down memory lane. Doesn't matter that the beer we were drinking just totally killed our voices the longer we sang. That 3 hours of singing was definitely well worth it. Our hoarse voices and lack of sleep the next morning, was still well worth it. :)

I was walking in PayLess today, grocery shopping.. accompanied by S Club 7. One day... I hope to be able to sing this song to a special someone! :) So cheeeesssyyy I love it! Enjoy!

Lately...

I've been blogging so much less. Just too much to think about, too many worries to put down in web ink, and just a lesser of an urge to blog. Everytime I decide to blog, I look at a blank page, and I can't think of anything exciting to put down, and everything I type resolves to turn into worrywart writing for the public to see. That definitely cannot be appealing in any form or color. So much has been happening all around me, and a new sub-chapter has definitely began... and it's definitely been exciting and new. But all I can put down in writing is worrisome depressing crap that just makes me an out-of-the-closet Debbie Downer if anyone reads it. Without even trying, I've already talked around my worries without completely defining them.. see what I mean.

Moving on.

My externship at the elementary school has started. The first few days, were pretty much a reconfirmation to me that I do not want to work in the schools. But this past few days and weeks has definitely moved me off the 'dislike' path of working in the schools. Maybe I'm starting to be more open to the idea of working around kids all day, and the idea of having legit vacation days. But is it enough to really sway me from wanting to learn all about dysphagia and dealing with fascinating diseases in the hospital? Still not quite sure yet.

Just returned to real life from a 4-day weekend in Chicago and definitely ended up loving Chicago waay more than I thought I would. Is it the people? Or is it just the feeling that Chicago gives me. The good eats that you can find around every corner, the quaint neighborhoods and adorable houses that make you always think "I wanna live in a house like that!", the Chinese bakeries that I can run to whenever I need a taste of home, the few people that I love who make me love Chicago more, the love I get from them whenever I'm there... Chicago, you're really making me like you more and more. How about you open up more jobs for hiring in the gazillion hospitals that call you home, and actually give me a glimmer of a chance to stay? Even if it's just for a year?

Recently, my friends and I have started to think that maybe we are each others' soulmates. And that we're meant to grow old with each other and keep each other company until the end. Seems like our friendships are the only thing (other than our parents) that has survived through thick and thin, mountains of problems and worries, distance, and life changes. My friendships have been the truly consistent things in my life these past 2 years since I began my journey to become a 'grown-up'. Late night phone calls, no matter what time just to hear each other cry, early phone calls the morning after just to hear a loving voice the next day to keep you going throughout that bound-to-be shitty day, weekend calls just to keep each other company, every-so-often emails, texts and facebook messages to make each other laugh, the occasional photo to remind the other how much they're missed, the birthday cards and mini-gifts... It's more than we even get from boys. Why is that? How is it that boys can be so disappointing and so heartbreaking sometimes? How can they be so unreliable that they can fall short of friendships between girls?

Questions to ponder...

Inspirational

Just watched Invictus for the second time, not in the theatre this time. And it is still just as inspirational as it was the first time. Makes you want to wake up from your slumber and change the world. I love love love movies like that. The poem that was given by Nelson Mandela to the president of the South African rugby team, was an old Ernest Henley poem, that still has the ability to bring out the fighter and the survivor in a person.

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
 - Ernest Henley 


 I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul. Once I start working, I am going to pay for myself to go to Africa on a volunteer trip. It is going to happen. I am going to make sure that it does. :)

Since I'm on a rant of poems.. I might as well post this one up too. That I have kept close to me my whole life. It was introduced to me by my old English teacher. And when I had to do a reading of a poem in class, this was the one I chose. And I have to say that it is very close to me and my life, and always gives me comfort.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
- Robert Frost

Lately, I've been thinking...

... about relationships. All relationships. Not just that between a guy and a girl, but also between friends.. maybe between family sometimes.

When do you draw the line in a relationship, any relationship... that a person cannot treat you that way? As girls, I think we fall in love with someone maybe so deeply, or we find a friend that we could truly click with in the beginning, and we get so comfortable with having that someone in your life that we lose sight of the person we were in the beginning before the relationship started. We lose sight of the expectations that we brought into the relationship, and we settle for what is given to us or what the other person can give us. I think it's a gradual process, and it's not something we notice ourselves doing, or the other person doing. Until one day, all of a sudden, it hits you... that things are different, and not at all what you had in mind coming into the relationship. But as girls, we keep wondering and hoping that if we stick it out just a little bit more, maybe things will change. Maybe that friend will stop being mean and will stop taking you for granted.. maybe that friend will realize that you're a good enough friend to keep around... Maybe that boy you love will start treating this relationship like something that's good enough to cherish just like you do. Maybe he'll start treating you like the princess of his life. Maybe, just maybe he'll start thinking of you as the person he can go to for anything in his life. Maybe, once he gets a job he'll stop hitting you or abusing you.

Maybe. Just Maybe.

When do we stop waiting for the Maybe.? And realizing that maybe she really doesn't think of you as an important enough friend to keep in touch with more often. Maybe, just maybe, she really has moved on to other friends. Maybe.. that really is the person he is, and that he really cannot change to someone else. Maybe, he really is that much of a jerk and that he truly doesn't deserve you?

Maybe we're scared of what we have to deal with, the whole ocean of emotions when we finally decide that the Maybe really is just that - a Maybe. If it's a Maybe in the beginning of the relationship, then I do think that the other person deserves the benefit of the doubt to change that Maybe to a Really. But as the relationship goes on, if the Maybe stays as it is, I've realized that that's a big red flag for us girls to start taking action. What action you may ask.. I don't know the answer to that. Maybe an action to try and change something in her or him. To stir up some kind of realization of what their responsibilities are in the relationship. But once you've done all that, and nothing has changed... maybe it is time for us to face the reality of the relationship - that maybe it has progressed to the level that it has meant to progress to, and can go no further. It's a difficult difficult reality to accept... and there's no easy way to accept it. No easy way at all.

If only we were all provided with a handbook about relationships - telling everyone what is an appropriate way to act to keep a relationship healthy and happy. The handbook should of course also tell us what to do when it's time for a relationship to end. And on the flip side, also, how to begin a relationship. It should inform us of red flags that we should be looking out for, and guide us in our decisions in a relationship. It should remind us to not lose sight of who we are as an individual.. and yet teach us how to develop and progress together as a pair. Unfortunately, there really is no such handbook. I guess that's to encourage us to learn our own lessons and to teach us to make our own decisions, and develop our own ways of line-drawing in a relationship.

I recently learned from a friend who's about the get married, that some churches in the US require a couple to attend pre-marital counseling sessions before they decide to say their vows to each other. I think that that is a really good idea. I think before I get married, I'm going to require my partner to attend a few pre-marital counseling sessions with me. Better we decide to draw the line before walking down the aisle, than having to draw a very difficult divorce line some time during the marriage. Plus, I think these sessions will help us find out inner thoughts and values that we never knew about the other person. If he refuses to attend those sessions, red flag for me to run for my life. Lol.

This year, my prayers are that my friends and I are strong enough to draw lines wherever needed to: in work, couple and friend relationships. That if shaky lines are drawn, we help each other fill in the dots and weak spots. And we are able to stay close enough to help each other up when one has fallen, even if we have to lift the person up from the ground.. we will. Also, that we throw each other lifelines to help each other swim through the crazy sea of emotions, so none of us will be flailing.

Can you tell, I love my girlfriends. They really are my lifelines. :)

Interesting that I found these on pinterest.com.