So what is love?

Do you ever wonder? Is love the greatest thing that could had happen to someone? The grown ups will shake their head and told you not to believe in enduring pain and misery for the name of love. Love love love. It seem such an easy word to act upon.

Do you believe love is unconditional? Without expectations? I could not find any love that comes without a bit of expectations on how your another half should be like. Or even from your parents. Don’t they expect you to be good and achieve success in your life? There’s expectations, even though we may not end up being how someone (parents or a lover) intended us to be.

Tell me sweet lies when love can be blind and without conditions. I’ve seen guys and girls alike searching for that pretty/handsome face that they can adore for the rest of their lives. A face changes over time but no one bothers about that. It is easier to love the perfect look than having to settle for some ordinary faces. What do they know about loving someone from the heart? And tell me truthfully, can you love someone that has nothing? The idea has been implanted in our minds passed down through the generations, to choose a partner with stable career and a good family background(preferably middle class to wealthy status) to avoid unnecessary hassle much later in life.

It’s a terrible thread of life structure, where more and more people choose to be single rather than loving someone ordinary. I’m not pointing fingers to all singles out there with the same assumption but rather speak in general manner. We tend to be more choosy, which of course, our every right to do so. Just look at the divorce rate. The married couple made their promise at the altar to keep the wedding vows sacred. How long and simple it is to break the vows? Less than a minute of putting down a signature on the divorce paper. No wonder people opt to live together instead. The reason is to try out if they can tolerate and live harmoniously under the same roof. But really, is this a solution?

The question is what’s the difference of marriage and living together? Will couple work harder because they can break any time and there is a sense of keep trying if they are living together rather than being married and face the ugly consequences of the same old routine?

In the end of the day, it boils down to couple’s effort to stay together and communicate their differences and compromise. Only then, through sincere love, the couple can grow maturely and comfortably together.

*originally drafted on 27 February 2012

A friend almost true

I met her in 2006 a couple of years after we both left high school. She was my schoolmate that I hardly talked to but we knew each other through daily occurrence in school. We had a brief catch up, and keep each other contacts. Then I invited her to join me in weekly badminton sessions which slowly deepens our friendship. Our friendship to me was special, I never could be myself or express my true feelings without being judged by others except whenever we spent time together. We bonded so well that sometimes people thought we probably could be lesbians but we are not. We shared deepest thoughts and secrets together, that we could literally know what is each other mind without even saying it out.

In the middle of 2011, I left my hometown to have a year’s break from the working routine. During that time, we still keep in touch through Skype, updating each other on what’s new in our lives. She just started seeing someone new and I was happy for her that she finally get to move on from her previous relationship. In this new relationship, everything seemed so perfect, the guy always brings her out and say all those sweet words that she wanted to hear. They seemed to be the perfect match, from the things she told me. Gradually after about half a year or so, the guy seemed to lose interest in her or perhaps just wasn’t that enthusiastic as how they first started. Messages were replied late, invitation to go out for dinner is getting less and he seemed to prefer to hang out more with his buddies. My friend tried to fix or communicate things with him, stating things that he didn’t do, demanded the same kind of attention when they first started. I gave advices to help them to patch up things, and try to let her see that the two of them has different personalities and priorities. It really seemed that my friend has fallen too deep with him that she fail to see that, in order to grow together in this relationship, both side has to learn to accommodate each other and the love has to be the main reason to stay.

I came back in 2012 and things are rather different now with my close friend. We no longer spend much time as we used to be when she is single, we don’t do crazy stuff like driving around town just because we enjoyed each other’s company, getting slurpy drink from 7 Eleven and so on. I noticed the changes and I embraced it eventually. I have my boyfriend then and yet I always put her as priority. Perhaps that is why this friendship failed. Her inability to know who to put first in situations just make me realized that she never had my best interest in her mind. It does hurt me that she never see the effort I put for her despite arguments I had with my boyfriend just to be by her side when she needed a companion.

The biggest blow came when I have chosen her as my head of bridesmaids and she wasn’t around with my other friends to be with me on the eve of my wedding and came late for my reception. She didn’t state her reason clearly at first but eventually it was because she choose to have Valentine’s dinner with her boyfriend than to be with me on one of my most important life events. Perhaps I am too sensitive and expected too much from a friend that I shared so much with as compared to others.

It has been a year since this happened. We no longer hang out together after I have told her why I was upset and how things never going to be the same. She didn’t think this as big of a deal, which felt like rubbing salt to my wound.

…I would treasure the memories we had for these good and bad 10 years, my almost true friend. This friendship has kept its distance because you don’t know you have truly hurt me, a friend that would die for you…

Goodbye my friend.

 

Back from a long hibernation

It does felt like years since I last wrote an entry. There is so much that had happened during this long hiatus which I could not express in one post.  Excuses like too busy, lack of ideas and too much frustration that if I tried to put in one entry, it would be too long for anyone to even read it.  This time around, I hope I don’t go lengthy on my post and be direct to the point.

I did once told myself I will never discuss my work online because it is just unethical to do so. It gives my work place a bad reputation and impression that it is not a conducive environment where one could grow in terms of knowledge and experience. Any workplace, no matter how bad, to my opinion, can teach us a thing or two on how to deal with people of colorful characters. Of course there are times we will let our steam off on unreasonable people or situations we considered ridiculous to even be in with and the feeling of leaving gets even stronger. I suppose one could leave, granted that she or he must at least know in hand that in the future, something similar might still happen in a new working environment with perhaps less intensity.

I am indeed in situation like this. Sometimes I do want to give up and at times it is crucially too comfortably in this familiar pain you just don’t know if you up and go, what is the next unexplored territory would be. To be frank, I believe what I am feeling is cowardice. Afraid of the unknown when we should always take some risk to move on. Move from the current painful and stagnant stability to something new and possibly risky. I think I have been thinking and talking this way for years but what’s the point of keep saying so when I do not act upon it?  I know why in fact. The many commitments that prison me in.

Being Educated

It has always been acknowledged when you got yourself a degree or some certificate from the university you will be labelled as ‘being educated’. Now the definition of being educated can vary for some. In this case, being educated means having proper manners and some common sense (this suppose to be part of the university learning as presumed many) but when one lacks of it, that would mean they were uncivilized.

Take this for real example, when you work in a closed up building with no open windows, you suppose to be educated enough to know smoking inside the building is a dumb thing to do. It’s not only affecting other people who does not smoke but the after smoke smell lingers in the office ventilation causing everyone feeling stuffy and uncomfortable. Someone threw this remark at me, “Why do they smoke inside the office? Aren’t they educated? I know this person meant very well literally their education level as compared to others. I used to make that remark naturally sometimes in the similar situation but hearing this out from another person’s mouth makes me wonder. Have our perception of things went wrong? That the highly educated people should have some common courtesy as compared to those low level labors that work to make ends meet?
In fact, we could be surprised how well mannered those who didn’t have enough education, in the eyes of the world. They said thank you,sorry and please and respect other people’s situation. They do not talk obnoxiously loud in public places and being inconsiderate of their surroundings. I find that the more educated one is, the higher is the pride of that someone. They figured they are entitled for everything they demand simply because they go to school and others are not privileged to

It should not have been that way.  Characters and personality should not be viewed on someone’s education level but more to teachings and environment we feeding on since young. It is also a choice to be considerate or to be all selfish. I believed everyone is selfish at one level on their own different needs but it doesn’t have to be the ‘uneducated ones’.  Everyone is with conscience but are they using it or they defending it with other darker thoughts? That said, in general, everyone putting their own interest first unless they deemed favorable for them to do otherwise. How about you? Are your conscience working on you now?

The Yearly Resolutions

There is always so much to achieve when it comes to a brand new year. But in fact resolutions doesn’t always have to be created only as we hit January 1. We should shift our mentality from only setting it once a year to making it as when we fall short of our own expectations in daily situations. 

For instance, I have shifted my 2008 resolution to this year and I find that for the past three years, making resolutions doesn’t make myself feeling any better but worse. When the resolution failed, I always psych myself up that next year would be the time when I get it done. It never did.

I guess it boils down to making resolution without given it much thoughts will really derailed the whole thing itself before I realized it. There are some pointers that says if you listed it down on paper and put it somewhere, chances for you to make it through is higher. Wrong. It might get the balls rolling for a while but it might dies off if you are not strong enough to persevere. Telling yourself there is another day to do it just giving yourself time to procrastinate and before soon you will see yourself not doing it anymore. What I do believe is after the first few steps towards your resolution, it will gets easier once it turned to habits.

But you have to ask yourself this one question, what drives you to do this resolution? Was it to gain acceptance from others or was it something you need to prove? Was it something pushed to you because everyone does it too? Whatever the reasons are, the only way to keep it going is to determine it for yourself that it is worth doing and that with great pressure  and pain, success will come through.

I do need that pressure and determination to make this resolution never to repeat itself in 2014. I know I am lacking of motivation but it does not mean it can’t be done. I do believe if you train your mind to remember this one major resolution among other resolutions, it will work. I will give myself time until June and not until December. Giving myself too much time also encourages ‘there is still tomorrow and there is still 11 months to achieve it’. Actions are what needed than telling it out loud. We’ll see.

The long silence

In 12 days time, it will be half an year since I left Sydney. In between I have tried getting back on track with my old job, old life and the friends I used to hang out before. I thought I will feel some sense of great loss or missing because of a year away from my friends and family but instead it felt like I just left home for a month. Everything becomes familiar so easily and before long I am falling back to the usual smell of my pillows, the way how things were arranged in my room and how I could predict when will my loved one cracks a joke.

But the truth is, after a few weeks had passed when I left my (57) family, I did feel lost, being stuck chatting with them and being away from the things that happened to them. I wished I could be there, having that moments with them instead of just imagining how things happened from the stories they told me. This emotional attachment lasted until about a month ago when realization kicks in that I am losing the connection and touch with them. Even if we are sharing stories, it seems like we doing it because it is a habit and it’s no longer because we shared much things in common that we could talk about. The common things hardly exist anymore because they are there and I am here. The only thing we could talk about is the past of the past, and not the present. We did talk about the present, the casual ‘hey, what’s up?’ but somehow the present doesn’t involve us together doing things together anymore. That is when distance happened.

And how distance too change things back home. A few of my friends left home for greener grass on the other side and one close friend recently get hitched. I’m happy that she finally found someone to fill that void in her life but things ain’t the same with me when we used to just hang out, drink ice lemon tea and laugh till tears rolled down from our faces. In fact, I felt the void not having her around just having idle chatting. That was me 3 months ago. Now I have learned to accept a different familiarity in this season of my life.

I need to get up from this long silence.

How far can your kindness go?

Sometimes I wondered to what extend human could offer their kindness. For most people I know, they are pretty much aware of their own limits. For the minority who probably doesn’t know how to say no, their extreme kindness most of the times only brings them down at the end of the day. At least that’s how I feel. Not knowing my boundaries when extending help to others could sometimes bites me back in the end. Of course it is not always the case. I just do think in general we would like somehow to be appreciated for the kindness we made, even just with merely words.

So to what extend will you offer your help to your friends? Or even just a stranger you just knew? What if your kindness got rejected? Will you able to offer again the same type of kindness? Sometimes I wonder about that. It’s not as easy to get up and tell yourself that the minority just thinking of themselves sometimes and did not consider about how sincere could your kindness be. But sometimes this kind of thought makes me reflect too that if your kindness is sincere, why you take heart how the kindness will be treated? We did our best as human, passing the ball over and it’s up to them how they going to take and give it back to us. That’s how I think about this anyway. Just to see the glowing eyes, the big wide smile and the happy face are the only things good enough to return the kindness. At least to me that is. 

 

The impact

Didn’t realize it has been nearly 10 months I am here in Sydney. It does feel like I’ve been here far much longer than that. But when I think everything will fall back to the way it was when I’m back home was a foolish thought, really. Simply because I learned a shocking news today that another friend of mine leaving the city to a bigger city. Before I leave last year, a friend of mine is already in the process of leaving. Guess the group is slowly becoming smaller and everyone is pretty much have things of their own to deal with. Sometimes I wonder if the impact of this is because I am out here. I don’t want to think myself as the catalyst who makes people to have some thoughts about their mundane life. I did and I wanted to have some changes and I am here. And now they did too, and changes happen now.

The changes I am going to experience soon is leaving a place I temporarily called home. I know for sure I will miss the crazy joy of sharing a flat with nine other people, all with their different characters and things that they say and do. I realize if the previous flatmates didn’t leave, I won’t be able to get to know new people and the perspectives from them. I hope the one replacing me will be able to blend with them and have the same fun I had with them. I never thought I will bond well with these people and there is some kind of attachment that sort. This feeling probably soon be over once I’m back home but the moments being with them, I hope I could retain as much as I can in this little mind of mine. I know I should have blog more about my life here in Sydney, as this is the only way I could probably recall. Lazy was the best word to describe why the lack of posts.

I will try to post more, the last bit of my two months stay here. Can’t wait to go for Easter show though with these guys. ^_^

1st March

Today I’ve made a decision earlier than I’m expected to. This is just to avoid paying too much for something that I could plan much earlier than procrastinate and risking unnecessary stress. Surprisingly, I’m pleased with myself in this. By nature I’m a person who procrastinate until I’m cornered with less and less options. And I don’t like that feeling. I told myself even if the decision is wrong at the very least it’s my decision to make. Because as much as we wanted to be perfect we could not be. Only God all perfect and faultless.
Funny feeling but I can’t wait to feel that bearly hug. 110 days to go 😉

Pain is still pain..

Regardless how small or big is a cut, it still hurts. Don’t say I’m petty for this, for I’ve experienced quite a number of cuts but this one injury was a hell of pain and what is more upsetting is that I have been more careful than ever not in getting myself any cut in the kitchen. But this happen in another area… All is good though, at least I didn’t lost a finger..