honest reflection hor.

Where has the drive gone? It almost seemed sucked out of me, leaving a gaping vacuum within, while I rush to fill up the nothingness.

It seemed that I have lost a lot since the start of the sem, yet gained quite a bit too in terms of experience and self awareness. Now, that is fantastic. Yet, I haven't been truly happy. Behind the facade of things that seem to make up a 'fufilling' life, there is just an empty shell.

I don't think I ever progressed as a person. Maybe I'm still the stubborn, sensitive, selfish individual who refuses to learn from mistakes and let the world around control my feelings and actions. So many times I've told myself to just be myself and move on, yet the past still has a certain hold on me.

It's also particularly disturbing how I seek solace in material. You don't spend to feel happy..it's just..wrong. Yet, I never had 2nd thoughts about spending, at least most of the time and it just almost seems that I'm living only on temporary indulgence. Like some sort of drug.

Maybe I'm really a brat afterall. Spending on good meals, the car, clothes, stocks without even needing to go to work like my friends. And deep down inside, beneath everything else, there's really nothing at all. Just a lonely soul with not much substance.

ok so am really happy like a pig in shit

The hair salon is a scary place. Ever since many years ago I had stepped into some random salon and turned my hair into a disaster, I had developed a phobia of visiting salons. From then on, my hair was only managed by a trusty old barber located in my humble neighbourhood hawker centre.

He was safe and he made my hair decent, short and neat. Nothing spectacular, just safe. I dreaded anything new from then on, and always opted for the safe option.

That was why today I felt so nervous when I stepped into a hair salon again. It took a great deal for me to make this decision. Not with much persuasion from Howard who ensured me that everything was going to be fine. I had wanted to try something new because my hair was really growing to a crappy mess and very uncomfortable. I needed some sort of distraction...from the stress I was facing..and even if the experience turned out bad, it would be something 'refreshing'.

I also figured it had grown sufficiently long to allow an extent of creativity and a risk had to be taken if I didn't want to look like an uncle anymore.

Let's just say it turned out better than expected.

Duff Vader

So Duffy's concert was a blast, and a fantastic addition to my otherwise mundane weekend.

It wasn't even something I had planned beforehand. It was only yesterday I had the chance to lay my hands on a couple of tickets sold by my friend, who had to sell it off cheap because she couldn't attend. So I had spent the hours leading up to Sunday searching for someone to go with me. It was not until at noon that I got Cindy, who was quite enthusiastic about it, and I knew it was on. I really needed something to get my mind off the intimidating workload and crappy midterms, and this was it.

Well, there is only pretty much one word to describe the experience: Wonderful.

The arrangement was simple. Mostly live band songs, a couple of acoustic, all done in signature Duffy. She's barely 3 years older than me, but sounds way beyond her years, in a good way though. At times I felt I was 30 years back in time, but it was a fuzzy feeling, especially during the band numbers.

Listening to the album through earphones and hearing it live is totally different. Duffy sounded even better live, because you could pick up every single note and the rich, crazy vocal gymnastics were crisp through the sound system. Her voice is velvet, and it enveloped you like a warm blanket. It just made me love some of her songs even more.

The transitions in between the songs however, were somewhat non-existent, almost seemed like she was rushing through the album, to an extent that it made the concert seem pretty quick. I hope she had interacted more though. I could feel her through her songs, but more sharing could be done.

For those of you who haven't started listening, do so. You won't want to miss out on her.

am going to the loo after this

I'm having verbal diarrhoea, pardon me.

They say productivity falls the later in the night it is, and based on this, I've successfully persuaded myself to stop with the Econs, and blog some more even though it might potentiallly all be crap at this point of the night.

I've realised I have developed this habit of plugging in my earphones and not listening to anything in particular. And I'm surprisingly comfortable with them despite them not displaying any true purpose. Maybe they keep my ears warm hence I feel a sense of security. It's like I'm tuning in to those alerts on MSN, everytime someone sends you a new message or logs in.

The feeling of connectivity in online communities. Ahh.

Present status: Ticklish throat with cough recovering slowly but surely. Maybe not though since I'm popping Hershey's Kisses for not much reason at all. I don't need the endorphin release since I just got the kick from the X-japan's lives on Youtube. I think I'm just eating because my jaws were numb.

Obviously, paying $5 for a packet of Hershey's in the name of charity is not doing much for me. I don't feel loved even if it's like 10 kisses an hour. I think I bought it because the cute girl wanted to go overseas for a project which I strongly believed in. I don't know, it's probably something good.

Ok I really need to pee. bye.

hi. this day in history.

I think I'm almost done with my Grammaticalization paper, so I've called it a day and have come here to blog.

I realise how I face my life at present really depended a lot on my past. A past not so glam, not something that I dig up frequently to relish. I attribute it mainly to upbringing, and being a sheltered little kid I wasn't exactly the one that would fit in too nicely. Being slightly pudgy (ok i'm being nice to myself here), I was rather quiet and lacked that confidence. I guess somehow that was the reason why I was always 'last man standing' when all the cliques sprouted. The feeling sucked...and even up till JC, it was still this way. It was awkward.

Yeah, 'You loser.' you would mutter. Yeah I was. Maybe I still am now. But at least I don't think so. I'm just determined not to fall back to the past, and just move forward with some hope. It's all in the mind, I realise. You just need to focus on being an individual and let nature take care of the rest.

There's no point trying to hard, I've learnt. That way you'll be happier too. It's very easy to say how you want to forget everything that has happened before and just embrace the future. Not possible. So I'll just carry that bit of memory around to constantly remind myself how not to falter and just live.

Oh ok. This is not emo. Smile.

my printer is alive

I didn't remember having my power supply to the printer switched on that night. Somehow in the middle of the night I was awoken by the printer. It was doing the familiar 'clean up' which you would get everytime you flicked the switch at the power supply. Feeling sleepy and puzzled I got up and shut the damn thing down and then went back to sleep.

Crap. It's really scary. It's as if someone flicked the power on when I was in bed. Even if the switch had been on before, why would it just start 'cleaning' itself if it had been lying on standby.

i should be studying.

The only way to truly experience love is to give a 100%. Right? I probably thought so before. After what I've been through, I'm not sure if that should be the case at all. Is it always necessary to put yourself in the balance and be slightly vulnerable in order to fully experience it? Or do brains play a bigger role than one thinks?

I've probably lived by 'Love or not at all' for quite a while, and while I thought it was best to throw doubts out of the picture, what it led me to was massive, permanent hurt. It was not nice at all.

Yet, it almost seems unreal if one uses too much of judgement in life. I feel we were born to follow our hearts and the best way to live life is to do so and learn from any obstacles we might encounter from our decisions. That is life. We cannot expect everything to be done right the first time round. It is not Black/White simple.

By insisting to live by these principles I'll probably be in the crosshair of heartbreak. But is this the price needed to live life to your fullest? Over judgement does hold us back. Will we be really happy with our carefully weighted decisions in time to come? Or smile behind the heartbreak because you've done what you had truly wanted?

I'm not asking you to be brash. Certain decisions however, it's better off listening to the little voice inside your chest.