Tsk tsk

Looking back on 2010, & 2009 and wondering why the hell do girls my age get so insecure and feel so shitty about ourselves. We curse at ourselves, tell ourselves to get a grip, hate on ourselves, get so heartbroken by random people, so obsessed with people unworthy of being obsessed about, and somehow felt it so important to let it all out for the whole world to know.

Us. Girls. So Funny. Vying for attention that nobody would be bothered giving because it's just so so so typical. We all grow up soon enough though.

Otherwise, grammar-wise, impressive I should say. Perhaps it's really time to work on this blog again. Here are some resolutions: stop slouching, stop cracking knuckles, drink more water, read more books, read a lot of books, maybe run a little. And work on the blog.

Idol rAchel has aged so much and gone on to become someone at Harvard. She is, also, no longer fun-seeming. Still inspiring, nonetheless.

Oh, life. You peculiar thing. So minute and trivial yet too slow and magnified for our human brain comprehension. Hence, we look to idols and random people unworthy of being obsessed about.

Only human.

Hello Mr Nazari

I write upon your request. You got a point there - I have not been updating. Well mainly because I've been so aloof from everything personal. To put it simply, I haven't had much time of my own after August.

Life has seen a tenfold increase in social activity (and workload but we shall talk about that later), and I think I got it somewhere in a corner of my mind to be a weekend warrior. Has it been good? Yes. And bad at the same time. This blog, for instance, has not seen an update and it does seem as though I've met with a grave, sudden...uh, something bad.

Well, I was just distracted.

And I'm fatter now, said my brother just now - my brother whom I've only last met last month. Yes I'm currently back in Penang for the Lunar New Year holidays. This could possibly mean that I will be getting even fatter for it is quite impossible to NOT feed Jake, here in Penang. I missed Penang. I missed you, in Penang. I missed you.

I was just thinking how retreating from the city to things of a smaller scale once in a while helps so much in terms of reflection and keeping a sane mind. It's been almost 2 years of service to the company that you hated so much once upon a time. And those "almost 2 years" took me up, down, far from, and very deep into myself. I realized that it's probably time to throw in the letter and go. Where to? I don't know. This year could very well be an insightful one, compared to 2011 - the year I failed to update my blogspot.

Apart from work and being fat, I've also found myself a group of friends who are simply awesome, and delved a little bit into music-making too. Check this out:

+ by +2dB

All in 2011 :)

Nothing too impressive. But it's been fun. We're just fooling around, really. As for pictures, come on, my facebook is not short of them. Sri Lanka happened, Bali happened (twice), plus a whole lotta concerts and nights out and letting loose and getting lost.

Here's a short paragraph on something you'd be absolutely clueless about. Skip it if you want to. But you won't. I know.
KL has been struck by a sudden wave of young adults wanting to be "hipsters". I, personally despise that term and anyone who proudly calls themselves that. What in the world is a "hipster" and if it means "not mainstream" then can someone explain why it is so "cool" and popular? What's worse - they've adopted it on to the radio and made a show, specifically calling out "hipsters"...and then playing dubstep. Oh, so hipsters listen to dubstep?

So much pretense, it saturates everything and everyone. You never really know who anybody really is in this crazy city.

Thanks for the email,
and good luck, Yeti Tracker!

♥

August Blabbers

Holy dolphin was August eventful or what? If there was one word I could describe the past month with, it would be "Hurtling", (grammar, structure, and whatnots aside) cause it really did feel like I was hurtling/hurtled past the days, through the weeks, into the mornings, and out of bed. Rinse, repeat, thank you very much.

Frankly I can't even recall half of what happened in the 3 weeks that were; it was a vague mosaic picture of (in no particular order) cuddles, good food, mosquitos, chatime, literal fast breaking, weekend debaucheries, hours away from home and self, weekday stowaways, electro-esque/dubstepness earish fantasies, and finally possibly finding someone whom I think could very much help me from my self and state.

It's really back to that phase of busyness that has yet to be defined; the one where you don't exactly know what you're doing and why you're doing so, nor where you're going with what you're doing. All you know is that you're indulging and having genuine fun, and that's all you think about, sort of all that really matters.

I'm strictly refusing to think of it all as a bad thing though. Instead it shall be acknowledged as a process; a transition point, if you may. The positive wagon hasn't come back since the last time I fell off, so I'm guessing this is what I do as I grapple and while the time away till it comes round the mountain again. Perhaps what I'm really doing is building my own wagon...can't fully rely on the volatility that is the Schedule and Times of the Positive Wagon now can we?

Enough time passes

You'd lose the whole of July. Which is funny cause moments ago I was standing in the shower looking back at the events in July and thinking "damn can't July go any faster?" And here's this blog, still at its last post sometime in June when spirits were still high.

Spirits were high, post said post. A good part of it had good things coming aplenty. The crash and burn part only happened last week. Oddly enough, I got to watch Incubus live last week, along with Brandon Boyd uttering a meager "Hi" to me. Come weekend, I spiraled out of control - into answering them little voices in my head, heeding their beckoning of doing whatever the fuck I want. Guess the voices didn't ask me to be prepared for the amount of shame and guilt that come lumbering along after. Oh wait, that's another voice - conscience - perhaps absent from it all as it couldn't go along well with them other voices.

The time has come for me to sink into the murky waters of deep depressing rumination...maybe more so now after the weekend led me on to fall quite ill. Took a day off today and stayed in bed for the most part, mainly due to the numbing effect from the medications. Gave me time to think hard, think deep. Lo and behold, I still have not found my purpose in life. Passion for my job? Zero. Passion for my friends? I struggle. Passion for anything at all? Dare I say I couldn't be arsed?

It's odd how people tell me that I come off as a person quite intelligent, yet I don't know what existentialism means. It's odd how I landed my job, doing it day in day out, yet it still feels unwelcoming. It's odd, it really is. How am I not supposed to doubt things and myself when things are this odd?

Is everyone like this? If it's just me, then why is my mind so messed up? I need stability, or so they tell me. But do I really want stability? When chaos strikes, regardless of the booming voice of conscience that entails, that's when I truly have fun, when I truly feel. Only during chaos. Some call it living in the moment. I like the idea of chaos. If my life could be chaos, spinning into nothingness, no conscience nor normality after, then perhaps I could then freely be me.

Serengeti

They do say that it's all about the momentum. Well, they don't. But whatever. Most often times than not, the trick is to get started and once you do slide off that cliff, all that's left is a momentum, that of a grassy downhill tumble.

Which is where I am at this point, tumbling...you could say that I'm on a roll. Not in acing, but rather in living. Getting busy living, because the meaning to life is to give life a meaning. Doesn't really matter if the goals haven't been achieved, I know they will come. No asking, begging or borrowing, the first step is to BE.

BEING caught up with living - getting up, getting dressed, getting to work, eating, drinking, greeting "good morning, good evening, good night", writing, reading, smiling, laughing - may seem trivial but it is all that matters. I've always been intrigued by idle thoughts, but I've also learned that idle thoughts from an already idle life is septic.

Idle thoughts of idle living vs idle thoughts of busy living. There's the difference right there. Put it simply, it is alright to stop and think, but never alright to dwell. Looking back I wonder how I did it, but with a smirk I tell myself that I'm STILL at it. And I do not plan to stop. With ample snooze time, and a healthy mind to take me anywhere, why not?

In Practice

I am 23, but they say age is just a number.

And at 23, I'm ashamed to admit that writing has become insanely alien to me. Try as I might, summoning up a coherent sentence is no longer as easy.

Also at 23, it has dawned upon me that I am H-O-L-L-O-W. I thought I had rediscovered myself back in Bali in the Friday that was, but being back here to the same old routine has once again driven me into ... senseless ennui.

Oh snap out of it Jo Ann you know you're better than this if you could just STOP trying so hard. Always remember that it's all a matter of perspective so strive to look at it from another angle. Yes I am talking to myself but this is completely fine, seeing that self-reflection is as healthy as it gets...unless of course, if it leaves your life stagnant and unchanged. *shudders*

Before I sign myself off from a totally pointless blog post (they all are all the time, I know) I have a confession: I love, hence am addicted to travelling. There's that dream, still waiting to be realised. Which leads to a pressing - possibly pivotal - notion: Could I possibly work something out where I can maintain a certain balance between doing what I love and not dying from it out of sheer inability to sustain doing what I love?

Meh. I'm 23. About time, baby.

It's MAY

I'm turning 23

Damn straight it's scary

How'd you get to be

Fascinated.

Sucks to feel left out although you're right in.

Headfirst

Stop being so hard on yourself and trying with all might to rectify things within.

Whatever you think the world is withholding from you, you are withholding from the world.

No more picking. The world is your oyster.

However far away...

Reading, reading, back to doing a lot of reading nowadays; alternating between Pamuk & Rhinehart, taking as much time as I wish. Too much time I'm afraid. Sometimes I wished I should have sped up the reading process but during those times, something's always telling me to take my time with a book - take in every word, phrase, and paragraph like wine.

I remember the days when I use to gobble up pages with furor and spit the book up back into the bookshelf, insatiable. There's the read section, and the yet-to-be's, including a silent mental section for the favourites and never-again's. Mom used to get so angry every time I come home with a new book, incensed by my money management. I wonder why myself at times; why books, why not dresses?

Well, I suspect those days of eager avid gobble-reading have long been muzzled. With barely any time and the fact that I rarely ever buy anymore, I guess this is why I chose to go at my books like a tortoise on a snail now. Not that it's a bad thing. My average daily word consumption remains at a favourable level I shall say...

I just need to write more. And play the piano more.

And perhaps one day muster enough courage to unhinge the case and take a peek at my cello...ol buddy ol pal. Bet the strings have all rusted, and I wonder what I'd do if I find it housing a family of termites.

Shucks.