2012

2012 will be a big year. One day sometime this year I will become a quarter century old. I know, I know, age is just a number. But it seems like ever since I reached my twenties, every birthday and its added year since has given me a certain shade of heaviness and pressure. Do not get me wrong. I am grateful for life and its happy bag of opportunities. It's the growing up that gets me. It’s crazy being in a state of 'getting the hang of being an adult.' I’m not yet old and wise (definitely not yet wise), but I’m on the road to it and the way is tricky and difficult.

I could go on and on about my quarter-life angst but let me digress from it by saying that I have prepared a list of goals for 2012 that will hopefully allow progress in self-improvement and becoming an adult this year. Resolutions have such a bad reputation for always coming undone and never getting accomplished; but let my following through these resolutions and goals be the first big change this year

1.       Learn to drive

It’s not as weird as you think being 24 and unable to drive. It’s not as much of a necessity here as in most other places. But driving is independence and a really, really useful important skill so yes, I’ll learn to drive this year. And in the future, I want a VW Kombi to drive.

2.       Go somewhere I’ve never been before

This is getting ticked off pretty early as I’m going to Bangkok this January and I’ve never been there before. I really want to be able to travel more this year. I hope this will be a successful goal. I don’t want to have to resort to chucking myself into the men’s bathroom – a foreign place.

3.       Beach

The opportunity to go to the beach is never far away, especially being in a country surrounded by water. Having a friend who surfs means I do not fear having no one to go with. I want to go to the beach, I have people to come with me, and so why am I never at the beach?

4.       Get active

Work is super stressful. My work hours are 8am to 6:30pm but with the preparing and travel and all I have to give work my time from 6am to 8pm. Fourteen hours and that’s generous. There’s been a period of time when I worked until 10:30pm daily. Basically, my work takes up so much of my life and also I gained serious weight from it. Weight gain is horrible superficially because I can’t fit into 75% of my clothes now. Weight gain is horrible real life-wise because I feel lethargic, lazy and stressed more often. I've started doing mini exercises in the morning and they’ve really paid off – I feel more chipper during the day. So I think I’ll do more of those things. I have to kick this sedentary lifestyle to the curb.

5.       Read more again.

I’ve never stopped loving literature, never stopped buying books. It’s the reading that has gone out the window. I have books that I bought waaay back in 2010 and they have remained unread, and so many that I started and didn't finish. It’s that bad. I like to blame work again. I’ve never had to place reading into my goals and resolutions list ever before but I need this. Also I’ve found that I now read at a much slower pace – an indication of something scary.

6.       Edit closet.

Simply I have many clothes, too many maybe. I keep them in three different rooms – on shelves, on racks, in closets, dumped on bed and some in bags that I promise myself I will unpack soon. I have gone on with my life for years without even trying on some of the clothes – I do believe someone else will benefit from them. Also, tastes and style evolve. Some of the things I own I most probably will not wear anymore and really it’s time to stop holding on to the past. It’s time to move forward.

7.       Lumix

I want a new camera. Well my dad gave me a new one and it’s great (firework pictures) but I want something with stronger focus-y power. DSLRs are amazing but I don’t want the weight and the clunk of one. I want to be able to take pretty pictures of anything anytime and anywhere I want.

8.       Side retail business

I want to have a side business, a raket, for a multitude of reasons. The plan mainly involves me selling clothes. There’s so many ways to go about it, but again it’s all about finding the time to do it. I think my resolutions really ought to have an item about being able to pursue work and have a life at the same time.

9.       Be healthier

Health is wealth. Having a healthy and strong mind and body is equivalent to happiness and energy to pursue my interests. Better choices when it comes to what I eat and what I drink. I have already identified my problems: I love salty food and coffee (coffee’s not bad and I have been able to limit myselt to maximum 3 cups a day but I am grumpy little snowflake until I’ve had my morning coffee and I don’t like that), and I have horrid eating habits (i.e. eating a full on dinner then sleeping, or not eating during the day then eating a lot for dinner). It’s now all about doing something about it and maintaining that.

10.   Get my film camera fixed

Film photography is something I have loved and been interested in since college. My dad enjoyed photography too and he gave me one of his old film cameras. It just needs a bit of fixing. I’ll have it sexy and running again soon and I’ll be off taking pictures here and there and everywhere.

11.   Grad school

Hmmm 

 Say no to stress, Stay happy this new year. Will be keeping tabs on myself :)

A Fine Friday

“Don’t feelsorry for yourself. Only assholes do that.”

Today is April 22, Good Friday. I am listening to The Strokes and reading Murakami and using the internet. I am not sure if this is proper or appropriate Good Friday behavior or activity but well, there is nothing else to do. Also, my parents are having an electronic Good Friday as well. My mom is watching television and my dad has been hammering and tinkling with his laptop all day long. He’s been trying to annihilate all the green goddamned pigs on Angry Birds. My sister, who works in the evening, slept the whole day.

Times are changing. I have bits of ideas in which ways but I’m too young to be sure. I mean I can’t remember much of “the old days” to compare. I don’t really even remember what we did last year’s Good Friday but I don’t think it involved Julian Casablancas and crew.

I am also sorta watching Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland on tv. I am not sure how I feel about it. But I am more on the side of I don’t really like it. It’s now come to the part where the White Queen and the Red Queen are about to start a war. Red Queen’s just called the Jabberwocky. Wouldn’t it be great if it came as words or printed in words of the poem. Oh. It’s just a dragon or winged lizard looking thing. Damn. Alice has cut off the Jabberwocky’s tongue as her opening move. In the WWF, or WWE now is it, that’s a bad thing. First move always loses. It’s now a mishmash of reds versus whites and Hatter versus Red’s sidekick. Not sure who he is but looks like it’s Mr Glover or the hair-sniffing dude from Charlie’s Angels. Bird thing got kicked in the ass by a mouse. Oh I see now. The Jabberwocky reminds me of the Evil Queen in Sleeping Beauty. Hatter’s shown me how convenient keeping a pin on your ring is. I don’t wear rings however so that’s not really useful to me afterall. Aaa-and Alice has just mutilated the Jabberwocky. Futterwacken. Hatter and more importantly Johnny Depp is dong a crazy dance. So she drinks the Jabberwocky’s purple psychedelic blood. She comes back to wedding and she’s all know-it-all and bitchily pointing out the flaws in others. Just because she’s slain a 3d dragon. Everyone in the wedding party seems to be stiff pricks, but still.  

I don’t like this movie. I love Alice in Wonderland, Tim Burton, Johnny Depp, Anne Hathaway, Mr Glover and of course the wonderful Helena Bonham Carter. But this movie surprisingly sucks. I did not check but it sounds like it’s still a Danny Elfman movie. Should I give this a second chance?

And on to my point before I got sidetracked by that film. Good Friday and I’m on the internet and no one is telling to get off the internet. No one is telling me to shut or keep the music down (I’ve now moved to Arcade Fire from The Strokes). No one cares, or this is the new normal? Feels like we’re moving farther and farther away from the tight-lipped, stick-in-the-ass strict religiousness of religion. Is this good or bad? Depends on who you would ask I guess. I am Roman Catholic and I pray every night before I sleep. I don’t believe in the all the rituals and converging to worship however. Call me a convenient Catholic but I don’t want to spend any amount of time in a place full of Catholic posers – praying and singing along to the songs at a tight-packed church only to smack their children at home, curse to the highest heavens and cheat on their spouses, families, work and government the moment they leave.

The quote is from Murakami. Go on, google it.

And this is what it’s like inside my head. Welcome. Man, this is not stuff you share but I had to get it out there. Untouched for over a year, I don't think anyone reads this anyway. Best of both worlds - anonymous and expressed.

*I owe credit to the owner of the photo above.

Estlin

It's from E. E. Cummings' "Somewhere I have never traveled, gladly beyond."
Haha, the tattoo is not for real. I just got a bit edit-happy.
It's a heart with a "mother" banner. Reminds me of what Bart got in the first season of The Simpsons.

Breakneck Speed

"I remember when our voices used to sound the same
Now we just translate"

I listen to this song too much. I'm not complaining, it's not a problem. I really, really like it.

I'm excited for Tokyo Police Club's CHAMP. I don't know how I'll get it since their stuff are never available here (hint, hint TPC). Probably through some highly-complicated multi-country shipping and hopping process.

I'm hoping "Once I Was The Keeper" is also on Champ.



I love TPC. I wish they'd come here and play.

Summer

For the first time in my entire life, I am and I will be working during summer vacation.

Summer Vacation 2010.
(P.S. That's Capones beach/ island up there.)

So, this will be my first non-relaxing vacation, escape-from-everything summer. A non-vacation summer... what irony, what a conundrum, what cruelty! :-D But really, working when it's the summer holiday sounds like such a crazy, impossible idea. But I guess this is exactly what growing up does to you. You begin doing crazy, impossible things.

Like going to work and being cooped indoors and laboring and doing major mental tasks when it's SUMMER! I am wearing slacks and pumps and drinking coffee inside the corporate office instead of being in board shorts and being barefoot and drinking chocnut and coconut shakes out in the sun. Aloha summer.

(Okay, I'm being dramatic. My boss is actually pretty laidback [and therefore awesome] when it comes to what I wear. I can wear open-toed sandals/ wedges and floral flats to work. But it's not the same as the wonderful feeling of soft sand in between and against your toesies. Flipflops optional.)

And actually, I'm really, really happy with work. It's the most corporate-y among my dream jobs but it's still a dream job, cannot take that away from it and me. I work in HR/ Recruitment. I am absolutely grateful to be in a dynamic, un-boring, challenging and fun job that also allows me to help other people every single day. In particular, I help them land jobs and careers. It's very fulfilling.

If I can't be where the sun, sand, sea, surf and board shorts meet and kiss, then at least I am doing something I enjoy. Living a dream job, pursuing my passion, helping other people, meeting tons of awesome people.

Hmm... but I'm still hoping for a beach weekend though.