Blog Blog Blogging away

‘I believe I can fly
I believe I can touch the sky
I think about it every night and day
Spread my wings and fly away
I believe I can soar
I see me running through that open door
I believe I can fly
I believe I can fly
oh I believe I can fly

See I was on the verge of breaking down
Sometimes the silence can seem so loud
There are miracles in life I must achieve
But first I know it starts inside of me’

~ I Believe I Can Fly, R. Kelley

I used to love this song because
it gave me a sense of hope and freedom. I also happen to know that some army
guys used to ’sing’ this during their ORD.

Now, when I hear it, I think of
death and loneliness.

Loneliness is the new sadness in
life. We may surround ourselves with friends, partners and family, but how many
of these people really care about us? How many of them really understand and
know us? How many of these people can feel the pain and sadness we feel? How
many of them actually know when we are breaking up inside? How many would
recognise the tears left in our hearts?

When I get like this, I imagine
being a floating angel, with no real purpose in life except to spread my wings
and fly. I want to be a part of the sky, be near the clouds and the stars.

Every time I take a plane, I hope
to get a seat near the window because I want to see the clouds. Despite having
some knowledge about cloud formation, I am still amazed at its beauty. Have you
ever seen sun rays breaking through clouds at more than a few hundred thousand
feet up in the air?  It is an amazing
thing. It’ll take your breath away and make you wonder why you’re alive.

I imagine running my hands through
the clouds when I look out the plane window. I imagine feeling the soft, cold
caress of whitish body….leaving trails of whispy clouds behind when my hands
runs through it.

I imagine finding my hands covered
in icy dews that is so minute and fresh that it makes my skin tingle and glow.

When I die, I wish to have my body
cremated and ashes spread amongst the clouds. Then when it rains, I want to hit
mother earth in the purest form possible.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

All living things will return to
mother earth at some point but, I want to decide how.

Today, I’m down.

I cannot explain it.

My head keeps spinning.

I try to put on a better mask
but, the raw edges are appearing.

Maybe this happens only once a
month, every month?

Perhaps my friends who are female
can identify with me?

The sky is pouring heavily, it
almost looks as if it is already 8pm when it is only 6pm. I should be happy, I
love rainy days. But I hardly feel happy, I just feel down.

This has never happened before.
Why now? Maybe it’s the music, the events of the past few days and the chemical
imbalances that tip me over?

Maybe its everything, or nothing
at all. Maybe it’s just me.

I need to find my beacon.

I need to find my light, my angel, my knight,
my hope.

I need to find a reason.

How I’ve descended from hope to
despair and now, fatigue.

"I
wouldn’t even trust you
I’ve not got much to give
We’re dealing in the limits
And we don’t know who with
You may think that I’m out of hand
That I’m naive, I’ll understand
On this occasion, it’s not true
Look at me, I’m not you

I would like a place I could call my own
Have a conversation on the telephone
Wake up every day that would be a start
I would not complain of my wounded heart"

Regrets, New Order

Sometimes, you’d think wrapping a false cloak around your
heart would help hide away the real feelings, protect the vulnerable you.
That’s what you’d think and do, only to discover that somehow along the way the
false cloak fell, exposing the heart.

" I
tried to be perfect
But nothing was worth it
I don’t believe it makes me real
I thought it’d be easy
But no one believes me
I meant all the things I said

If you believe it’s in my soul
I’d say all the words that I know
Just to see if it would show
That I’m trying to let you know
That I’m better off on my own

This place is so empty
My thoughts are so tempting
I don’t know how it got so bad
Sometimes it’s so crazy
That nothing can save me
But it’s the only thing that I have"

Pieces,
Sum41

If a girl has to chose between what is sensible and what is
not, you’ d think she would chose ’sensible’. Only if choices were so easy.

"It
doesn’t mean much
it doesn’t mean anything at all
the life I’ve left behind me
is a cold room
I’ve crossed the last line
from where I can’t return
where every step I took in faith
betrayed me
and led me from my home

and sweet
sweet surrender
is all that I have to give

you take me in
no questions asked
you strip away the ugliness
that surrounds me
are you an angel
am I already that gone
I only hope
that I won’t disappoint you

when I’m
down here
on my knees

and sweet, sweet
sweet surrender
is all that I have to give

sweet, sweet,sweet surrender
is all that I have to give

and I don’t understand
by the touch of your hand
I would be the one to fall

I miss the little things
oh I miss everything

it doesn’t mean much
it doesn’t mean anything at all
the life I left behind me
is a cold room"

Sweet
Surrender, Sarah Mclachland

From hope, to despair and finally, to fatigue.
It
doesn’t mean much, but a knight or an angle is nice to have. Like a beacon shining through a dark and stormy night, all of us want to be in that beacon.

Today I took a walk up the street
And picked a flower and climbed the hill
Above the lake

And secret thoughts were said aloud
We watched the faces in the clouds
Until the clouds had blown away

And were we ever somewhere else
You know, it’s hard to say

And I never saw blue like that before
Across the sky
Around the world
You’ve given me all you have and more
And no one else has ever shown me how
To see the world the way I see it now
Oh, I, I never saw blue like that

I can’t believe a month ago
I was alone, I didn’t know you
I hadn’t seen or heard you’re name
And even now, I’m so amazed
It’s like a dream, It’s like a rainbow, it’s like the rain

~ Shawn Colvin, Never Saw Blue
Like That

Sometimes its really funny how you
learn about yourself from the way others see you. However, can we take what
they see of us as, our self-concept as suggested by Sullivan? This was a
thought that occurred to me during our Mental Health lecture. It got me to
thinking of some of the feedbacks and criticisms I’ve heard about myself.

Feedbacks were good because it
helped me to reflect on my actions but, criticisms were not. This is not to say
that I cannot take criticisms, usually I can if it is from people who practiced
what they preached. To me, criticisms are attacks on a person’s character or
behaviour and if the person who gives it, does not follow-up with a suggestion
for improvement, it is not effective.

Today’s lecture has also led me to
realize that it is very easy to say negative things about another person but,
what are the odds of the same negative things actually being practiced by our
very own selves? Chances are, it’s a probability of 3:2, with 3 being
ourselves.

It is also funny how I’ve never
realised myself as ‘being taken advantaged of’ as a classmate pointed out in
our tutorial. Am I really being taken advantaged of? I never saw it as that
before. I’ve always thought that if I wanted to help or offered to do
something, I would do it and follow through, with as much sincerity as
possible.

Is that why? And then again, I can
be quite a perfectionist. So, am I really being ‘taken advantage of’?

Jonathan-Harrington’s window
consisted of a few windows… blind and secret are two of them. Blind window is
how others saw me that I never realised while, Secret window is what I know
about myself that others didn’t. Thus, this 2 windows could actually be in
conflict in my case.

Woke up early, dyed my hair using the DIY kit (my hairdresser will be devastated to know this) and found myself in an intoxicated state for the rest of the day.

My rate of functionality dropped to less than 75%…. bordering on 50%. BAD!

I was in a semi-conscious state…. all I could think about was the smell! It seemed to pervade all around me. No matter how long I stood infront of the fan to let the wind blow directly on it…the smell stayed!

Lunch was good, never felt more satisfying than a simple meal consisting of hot and freshly cooked rice and cold toufu with blacksauce, followed by cherry tomatoes and strawberries as desert. Slurppp!

Dinner was an overloaded moment! Had dinner at East Coast, sat at a really smoky area…but my blardy hair still smelled the same…. I expected my head to light up at any time…thankfully it did not. Before dinner, I was a slim, and petite girl, after dinner though-I was like an overweight, short and stumpy girl. Sigh, will be making up for it by jogging today…later in the evening.

It is really nice to end a Saturday enjoying some time with people you care about. It just makes the whole week seem so much better and lighter somehow. I have learnt a few things over the week, especially during our Mental Health tutorial, again. Sometimes I really wonder if Mr Syed enjoyed such lessons where he sits back and watch us students grill each other during ‘therapy’ sessions.

I aslo learnt that to know someone, you need time. You cannot expect to know a person in the space of a few hours. You need a full day to actually understand a person, and a lifetime to love that person. And in that lifetime, you’ll never stop loving that person as you learn more about that person’s ability, strengths and weaknesses.

That’s what makes us humans unique because we evolve with time. And now, there might be a drug to reverse the effects of ALzheimers’, extending those memories just alittle longer.

I have a test tomorrow.

No one at home seems to understand that I need the time to actually do some studying.

Someone had to make an appointment for the PC guy to come today, this night. AND apparently, everyone else in the family had other prior last minute appointments. leaving me home alone again to look out for the PC guy. It is not even for my PC! Then tonight also had to be the night where someone in the family is expecting a phonecall, an urgent one and, again, I have to be the one to pass and take down the information.

Food had to be heated up, rice cooked. Dishes washed, laundry taken down. Usual affair with housework, but why can’t I take this night to actually finally do my own studying?

I have a practical test tomorrow and I actually intend to sleep early, but I am not sure how.

I want to run.  But my nose is  phelgmy.

Sometimes, I wonder where time
went.

I try and try and try, to find
time for myself but, somehow it just eludes me.

Even yesterday, my zone-out was a
brief period lasting all of 5 mins…. while I blog, check my emails and indulge
in my new love, my baileys.

All too soon, I had too many
stuff to do. Thankfully, multitasking is an ability I picked up along the years
though, I do feel that I’d rather have picked up ‘multimemory brain saving and
retrieval capabilities’ instead. I want to be JOhnny Mnemonic.

Today, I told myself that I would
not sleep late… I can already feel my body protesting, my head slowly shutting
down.

However, what did I end up doing?

As usual, 3 – 4 things at a time!
I had so many stuff to do….all backlog from personal requests and family
commitments! ‘Do this for me… by so and so, do that for me now…. Blah blah
blah. I need your help….blah blah blah. ‘ How I envy people who do not have
much family commitments, stress, pressures and worries.

Ah to be carefree and free of
worries, to have secretaries who helped you keep track.

Unfortunately the real world is
calling and I am not the only one with problems, who is?

My friend once remarked how she
envied my discipline to keep jogging and though I gave her an answer of some
sort, the real reason is simpler.

Jogging is like running. To run
away from my worries, stress, commitments and pressures. Being able to keep at
it is indicative of how much running I need to cope with every week. Keeping healthy
is just an excuse for the real reason.

For a few minutes on alternate
days in a week, I value those moments when I am free.  Just me, myself and nature. Hearing nothing
but cat’s meow, dogs barking and the soft ‘thud thud’ from the soles of my
shoes on the tar road, feeling the cool night breeze running her fingers
through my skin and caressing my hair as I stared at the road in front of me,
focused simply on the path before me.

However, my days of running are
drawing towards an end soon….unless the old pain in the ankle goes away soon
enough.

Before, I had sprained my ankle and had to find alternate ways of escape,
I found that floating in the YMCA upper deck pool face up at night was perfect.
The water blocked out the sounds of the world and my weightlessness and the
stars at night made it seem like I was floating away. It was a surreal feeling until I feel my body sinking and the fear of drowning overrides everythingelse.

Now, I just need a swimsuit and a pool in the night.

It was there that I saw you.

I have always known you existed
but, I never realised that you were quite that much closer…. that you were
right under my nose all these while.

Why have I never noticed you, till
today?

‘This time, can be like the first time
Close your eyes and soon you’ll be there
No man could ever guess what you’re feeling
Turn a spark to a flame,
Make a wish, close your eyes, won’t you start all over again.

Just like the first time you touched my skin,
All over again
I tasted heaven take me there again,
All over again’

~ Ronan Keating

Thank you for granting me
‘zone-out’ moment.

I never knew I love you till
today.

Thank you,  Haagen Dazs Baileys^® Irish cream.

Ask me that again. I can tell you
now, what CAN make me angry.

I guess it is a feeling I never
truly identified as being possibly cognitive (ie no need for physical
expressions to indicate anger, it all happens in the mind). It leads from one
feeling to another and ends up as anger. For me, it was worry, stress, confused, worry and then now, anger.

A friend I truly admire, respect
and look up to has showed me and made me realize that maybe I might not be in
the right profession afterall. We are taught to recognise the ’self’ in us so
that we may be able to understand our patient’s feelings and develop the proper
patient-practitioner relationship. However, I realize that maybe I do not have
the right ’self’ in me if I could get angry so easily. Being in the Mental
Hospital might get pretty interesting for me.

The ’self’ in me brought forth my
anger when I find that my friend, just doesn’t seem to want to get out of his
misery. Maybe he thinks he has no choice but to dwell in it, to keep misery
company. Well, it’s not fair-happiness is lonely too.

Maybe there isn’t a solution to
his problems but, has he looked harder? Has he even tried to find a solution
beyond what is visible?

What makes me angrier is the fact
that he is someone whom I look towards for moral support and to bounce ideas
off, he is also someone whom I respect for his intelligence and interesting
opinions and it just makes me boil to know that he is easily led down the
winding path to self misery and pessimism. Why would someone of his
intelligence and experience in life let himself see the darkness in all that is
around him? Why does he not see that under every cloud, there is ALWAYS a
silver lining?

Everything we do, are based on
choices. We can either choose to stay this way all the time and let this misery
lead our life, cloud our visions, cloud our friends or, we can choose to look
at life in the present and open it with anticipation, finding a new day, new
joys and new hope.

Though I am angry and have doubts
now, I chose not to let it lead my life. I have chosen this path, I am sincere
in helping others then I will not let my anger overtake me, just as I will not
let it stop me from respecting and admiring my friend and valuing his opinions.

I just hope that he can see the
rainbow in life.

You can make your own rainbow.

Rainbows are formed or can be
seen when a mass of water reflects the sun’s rays, and you can find the end of
the rainbow and the pot of gold.

I came to this realization one
day when I was walking into school and passed by the fountain early one
morning. Every one was so busy rushing to class that they did not notice the
rainbow that had formed right there, above the fountain.

I did, I stood there and realised that I was actually at the end of the
rainbow. The knowledge and acceptance of life’s beauty is part of the pot of
gold, which is us.

I am going to start out first and
foremost, by thanking the staff of BTC Macdonald’s for ensuring my order
arrived within 45mins and, the fact that they used a cab instead of the regular
bike delivery, made it even more impressive. This, is what I call service.
Sincerity in ensuring the order gets delivered means a lot. They could have
simply ‘pretended’ not to deliver when the delivery guy got lost, as some other
home deliveries used to cite as the reason for a failed delivery. But they
didn’t. Thank You. I enjoyed my Big Mac that much more.

This morning, Sunday, I was
reading the papers and was wondering about my project on cleft lip when , lo
and behold, a full page spread was dedicated to Cleft Lip and Palate surgery in
the LifeStyle section! Sometimes life is amazing eh? Then I started to wonder
when my dad’s car is ever going to get delivered and I thought to myself, do I
even want to drive his car? Or would I rather get my own? Flipping to the next
page, lo and behold, Proton has a new car coming out called the ‘Satria NEO’
yes, I’m a sucker for stuff like these. What’s even better is that, the car is
only available in the 3-door version. I’m a 3-door kind of person, not a whole
4-5 or 6 doors kind. Too many openings. So, I guess I have a new goal in mind,
get a car of my own.

Then I went on to the other news
in the paper, finally the mystery of the last decade-JonBenet’s murder gets
solved, or so they claim. I still remember the paper I did on the murder
mystery for my communication class, it was so darn difficult to write about
because of all the inconsistent reports but one thing remained consistent, they
had no suspect.

Then another flip, Siti Nurhaliza
getting married? To a guy older than her, about 20 years older. What is wrong
with that? After attending Mrs Wong’s
Behavioural Modification lecture on Thursday, there is absolutely nothing wrong
with that. Who are we to say what is acceptable or not acceptable in this
world? As far as I can see, we do not run their lives, as it is, our own lives
are already more than we can handle, why do we even want to bother ourselves
with an obviously happy couple? To the people who are against their marriage,
previously, I would have said that they were simply jealous or disheartened
that their idol did not marry someone of THEIR own liking. However, today, I
would say,

" You are not Siti. You are
not living her life. Live your own life, be yourself. In time to come, you’ll
have to make a choice similar, like Siti did."

It is very true to ask, "who
are we to judge, the living and the dead?"

Everyone of us have an ideal of
what is right, what is wrong, what is acceptable, what is not acceptable, what
is happiness, what is sadness, what is life, what is death. This is part of
being uniquely human.

The same goes for understanding
the psychology of the human mind. We are learning other people’s theories,
applying our lives to fit in with their theories. Have we questioned the
possibility of an alternate?

To me, in understanding the human
mind is to always question it, challenge it and, this is just my own opinion.

I have learnt to accept it
whenever an advise that was sought from me ends up being thrown out or not
considered. Afterall, it is another person’s right to question.

However, does this make me less
assertive and more passive because I don’t fight for what I believe is to be
true? No.

Learning to live with yourself,
being comfortable, being able to accept criticisms and work to improve on it,
being sincere in all that I do, I believe I fit the mould of assertiveness more
than the next person who fulfills all the ‘textbook’ requirement. However, I prefer assertiveness with consideration for respect.

Again, ‘assertiveness’ is a label
that society defined, or some doctor or professor who decided it to be so. I don’t really care who or, which.

‘Simple Dans Ma Vertu, Forte Dans
mon Devoir’ ~ Simple in Virtue, Steadfast in Duty (IJ Motto)

It is a very good motto to live by and always remember.