flipping the page

2014 started on a balcony overlooking the night sky of KL, with champagne and watching the entire city light up in fireworks from afar. 

No I didn't get a degree, or earn my first pot of gold. I didn't cure cancer neither. 

I (very stressfully) finished my college education, sat for A2, and got relatively satisfactory results. I stepped out from the continent of Asia, and visited Australia. I started university, and managed to survive thus far, three quarters of the first semester.

I grew up, maybe a little, maybe a lot. And I learnt how to be the best I can be for somebody else, and accept the flaws in relationships. I learnt to see through (most of) what society thinks is 'good' or 'bad' and judge for myself. Blocking out shallow, judgemental comments made life far easier, and more enjoyable. People who really care won't give a damn on what you wear, or how many parties you go to, or how well you talk. They love you for who you are, be it a silent, dull introvert or an ever-talking social butterfly, a spider-legged model who's 5'8 and a size 2 or an ordinary with a slight tummy and self managed bangs. If a person's attention and affection came with a contract, demanding certain conditions, or things expected in return, it's not real, heartfelt love that you signed up for.

I'm still working on this, trying to believe that I'm worth more than I think I do, that I deserve to be the happiest I can get and to be wanted for the way I am, imperfect but true. I try to let go and detach from those that/who bring more stress and hatred than joy, and be grateful and embrace those that/who make me look forward to tomorrows. I have come to realised that my family may love me in very different ways, sometimes it doesn't even look a tiny bit like love, but they'll always love me anyways. 

17 hours to a brand new year. I hope that you're ready to take a step forward, and I hope that this step brings you to somewhere greater.

make my wish come true

all I want for Christmas is you


(and maybe a whole list of things I have no money to buy)

thanks Santa

we had it all

but words, they don't really promise anything

His daughter

I was seven

We moved into the coziest single-storey terrace house

You had a clinic of your own now

An attached washroom and a black plaque by the entrance 

Your name imprinted in gold

I didn't understand the switch to somewhere further from home

The nights spent alone in a room that smelled like mom's lab

Because it was 'too far' to come home

The only cool part was the washroom 

It was the school holidays

Mom brought me to work

I thought that her job was pretty boring 

All she did was to stare into the eyepieces of a microscope

The fingers on her right hand skilfully pressing the buttons on the counter

I spun myself on the black high-stool Occasionally setting the counter back to zero

Fascinated by the sharp ring that sounded like a typewriter 

I tried looking into the microscope

Pink and purple beats or even blue

The colours were pretty

But all the slides looked the same to me

(They still do)

I was getting impatient

Because all I wanted was pastry from Deli France downstairs

I was twelve 

We moved again

Your new room has no washroom

And the tiles weren't shiny like before

But the room was still cool because it was the first one upon entering the hospital

You had your own waiting area

And the lounge in this new hospital had doughnuts and machine-made Milo

I was thirteen

School started at one

I followed mom to work in the morning

No more microscope now

But she was still dealing with the pretty pink beats

Except that they were pictures in her computer being arranged into PowerPoints 

She shared her room with a Burmese lady who did the same thing too

And sometimes she sent us the most wonderful Burmese laksa 

I wonder where she is now

After PMR

I followed you to work

I wasn't allowed in the room

Just behind the counter

Typing names and pasting stickers

And sometimes fetching files and papers from the lab

People asked me if you were my dad

I nodded

Almost too proudly

At nineteen

It is lunch time

Mom is waiting in the car outside

I peep into your clinic to see if there are still cases left unseen

A patient greets me with the same question

I nod

Still proud 

She asks me if I am going to be a doctor too

I nod again

Even prouder

The drought was the very worst

Last weekend was possibly one of the best weekends, for this year at least. It wasn't much, it wasn't fancy. Just 5 girls, making a mess in the kitchen, had way too much desserts, and camping in the living room, talking till 4 something in the morning. I will always be more comfortable with old friends.

Talking to them put a lot of things into perspective. It made me realise that despite it all, I am still allowed to share whatever that's been circulating in my head. Listening to them taught me that I'll never be alone.




Sometimes, when I'm left alone with my thoughts, I feel suffocated. My airway blocked by an invisible source of forces. I scan around, trying not to panic, as I struggle to make out the cause of my choking. I keep searching, but no voice escaped my throat as I try to scream. Upon giving up, I realise that all along, I've been standing in a room surrounded by mirrors, my own hand clutching my neck.

"It's not as bad as it seems," they say. So am I suppose to divide everything by half?

Update

It's the fifth day into December, probably my favourite month of the year. Having holidays and celebrations to look forward to, and a brand new year coming along. I love new things, or just the idea of a chance to start again. I blame it on my terrifyingly short attention span, and getting bored of things way too soon.

I know I haven't been blogging as frequently as before, reason being I've decided to write in my journal instead, because some struggles are just too personal to be shared. I'm not a person who find 'talking things out' useful. Especially when it only involves me and my internal struggles. It's not that I don't rant, but I never seem to be comfortable to blurt out all my feelings and problems like the way I complain about a rude person I met as I queued up to get lunch. But that's a problem too because I can be really troubled or moody all of a sudden and nobody knows why, which I know is kind of annoying.

I can't believe that I'm already more than half way through my first semester! 2 more months to finals, and it's another whole new semester. And I thought that 5 semester is going to take forever. But again, I thought that college was going to take a lifetime too. Can't say that my life sucks, but I do have a horrible schedule, mainly because they're making us do all kinds of useless crap. And I think that there is too much time wasted in between, partly also due to my lack-of-initiative to grasp every spare minute I have to perform my duty as a student (ie. Study), but the campus is so congested you can't really expect people like me to be able to concentrate on lecture notes when you have so many people doing so many things all around me.

Okay this entry is going nowhere so I'm just gonna go to bed and wake up to a great weekend.

pre-destruction

one of the best banana leaf rice chapati I ever had

asked for chapati instead of rice because I wanted to save my stomach for 3 rounds of the vege and mango (top left corner, best thing ever)