I will be
in Cambodia from 1 to 3 August, back to Singapore for a day, and then off to Bangladesh from 4 to 9 August, before resuming work on 10 August.
Now THAT’S the way to start August.
July 2010
32 posts
“Remember: happiness is a way of travel, not a destination.”
—Roy Goodman / via oceanofmind (via bnf) (via quote-book)
“Just when you think it can’t get any worse, it can. And just when you think it can’t get any better, it can.”
—Nicholas Sparks | Submitted by: bornonthe17th (via quote-book)
“Expecting the world to treat you fairly because you are a good person is a little like expecting the bull not to attack you because you are a vegetarian.”
— Dennis Wholey (via quote-book)
stuck in limbo
it was a great week, barring all the ugly sights magnifying the intricacies of people too often sown by distrust, watered by miscommunication and fertilised by insensitivity. all these things are complex, but only because we made it so. i was advised to leave it. as always. no, don’t suggest. don’t bring up new ideas. we don’t want them. it’s better to leave things just the way they are because they’ve always worked for us. don’t do what you believe is right. just follow the instructions. the goddamned instructions. don’t think about what you need not think about. wait. don’t even think. just follow. and do.
it scares me to see how these people want to be simply cocooned up in where they believe is safe, and reject even the slightest suggestion i put forth.
but i’m not angry. not the least bit. i’m just…sad, really. because what i’m facing now is a small issue at a small place in a small country. it’s practically infinitesimal. so imagine all the other shit that’s going on in the rest of the world. everywhere. how massive that shit is. and the sad part is, it is revocable.
and yet.
anyhow, leaving all those negativity behind, it was a good week indeed. i’d quite an insightful sharing session on thursday, a very satisfying dinner at cedele (topped off with ice-cream from tom’s palette, no less! plus we had a good chat with the shop owner too) on friday, a great lunch and catching-up at aston’s and mcdonald’s on saturday, before i finally caught inception, had my long-awaited retail therapy (burnt a significant part of my paycheck) and satisfied my craving for bah kut teh on sunday.
so, inception. i’ve been looking forward to inception for months, but, sadly, it wasn’t spectacular for me, sorry. it’s a show that makes you ruminate over the theory behind the movie, definitely, but i thought it fell short for the detailing of relationships/character development that i was looking for. the 2.5 hours was ‘whambamslam actionoverkill isthisexcitingenoughforyou? no? okthenletsupthelevelnow WHAMBAMSLAMMM nowgofigureoutwhatthehellwenton’.
okay i exaggerate, but i really wanted to like this movie. i still can, i guess. but that’d be lying to myself. even though i’m good at that, i could really use with some hurtful truth now more than anything else.
at least pain would seem more real.
Inception
Inception is one of those movies people theorize about, so here’s my take. I have not read about it or looked it up except to check the characters’ names, so this is based solely on what I got from watching it. Needless to say, tremendous spoilers follow for those who have not seen it.
This theory is what I believe in too.
not the best time to fall sick
my throat is starting to hurt.
bad timing.
bad, bad timing.
from now onwards, i’m going to drink so much water, i’ll have to visit the washroom every hour or so.
“Love is a temporary madness, it erupts like volcanoes and then subsides. And when it subsides, you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion, it is not the desire to mate every second minute of the day, it is not lying awake at night imagining that he is kissing every cranny of your body. No, don’t blush, I am telling you some truths. That is just being “in love”, which any fool can do. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident.”
—Louis de Bernières (via quote-book)
“Someday, we’ll run into each other again, I know it. Maybe I’ll be older and smarter and just plain better. If that happens, that’s when I’ll deserve you. But now, at this moment, you can’t hook your boat to mine, ‘cause I’m liable to sink us both.”
—Gabrielle Zevin - Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac (Submitted by todayithought) (via quote-book)
“Oh sure, some people give a little bit each day. But there are one or two special souls who, when you least expect it, give an entire life’s worth all at once.”
—via: I wrote this for you (via kari-shma) (via quote-book)
summer in summary
this was how i spent my time, how i am spending my time, and how i will spend my time this summer break. pretty amazing, given that i’d not had a single plan laid out prior to the break!
4 May: last paper
5 May - 21 May: my ‘permanent’ temporary job
22 May - 31 May: BREAK (the one and only)
1 Jun - 30 Jul: internship
31 Jul: prepare and pack for trips
1 Aug - 3 Aug: Cambodia
4 Aug - 9 Aug: Bangladesh
10 Aug - 27 Aug: internship (cont.)
28 Aug - 29 Aug: BREATHE
30 Aug: start of the new semester
one forty plus: Simple. →
jhnmyr.tumblr.com
I wish that when I was younger I could have met my current self. We would have sat down at a coffee shop so that I could explain life to young me in terms that only we would understand. It would have saved me a lot of hardship.
You can listen to all the sage wisdom you want, but things only make sense when you can explain them to yourself in your own words. For instance, I’ve been told for three years that Breaking Bad is the best show on television, but only after I watched it was I able to tell myself exactly why everyone was right. Other truths I know now that I can explain them: that I’m not missing any crucial information and that poker really isn’t all that fun; that heartbreaks do fade but they take about a year longer than you expect and by the time they do you really don’t care about it enough to notice; and above all else, life is simpler than you think.
I used to think that life was an intricate series of levers and pulleys, buttons and switches, Mexican standoffs and hostage negotiations. As I get older I realize that life is more Netherlands minimalist than Jackson Pollock. The problems don’t get fewer, and in fact they grow in number, but the way I index them in the database is different. More problems get filed under fewer category headers.
Things are getting simpler, and it’s making life better. Here’s the cheat sheet:
People want to be liked. We all crave attention and affection and we all reject shame. When we get embarrassed we send a thug version of ourselves to the forefront to do our fighting for us. We’re at the top of the food chain just under fear. We don’t want to be in a relationship to hear the words “I love you,” we want to be in a relationship to say the words “I love you.” We want to feel needed, and exceptional and we hate feeling insignificant. We want to ace a hearing test. We are binary creatures; if we’re the plaintiff, we want to win every dollar. If we’re the defendant, we want guard every penny. We want to make more money than last year. We don’t want to get cancer or die in our cars and we want the same for our loved ones. We go out on weekends to try and have sex while trying not to get punched in the face. We drink so we can be ourselves and not mind it so much. We’re desperate to be understood. We want to know someone else has felt it, too. We hate being judged unfairly. We want to make the person we heard wasn’t all that into us change their minds and admit they had us wrong. We want sunny skies with a chance of killer tornadoes, just to keep music sounding good. We take hours upon hours to admit to self consciousness. We don’t know exactly how to pleasure each other. We just want love. In any and every form.
See? It’s simple. :)
Precisely.
It is simple. But we’re always the ones who complicate it. I’ve witnessed this again and again but I am still guilty of it sometimes. Somehow, we make it habitual, if not instinctive, to add multiple layers to what’s really just a piece of blank paper. And what we have at the end of it is nothing but a ball of irky mess.
