Happiness

Sarah – Nice to know. And thanks, sweetie. =)

Allan Chalmers: ‘The grand essentials of happiness are – something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.’

Then I realized that the more screwed up you are, the more you think of some past tragedy as not that bad after all. 

Brilliant, isn’t it? You get this sudden insight of how much worse things can get and suddenly, whatever you’ve faced in the past seems like weeding in the garden when you’re wrestling a beast now. Your perspective tips over like a glass that is finally knocked over the edge because, oh-dear-I’m-fighting-with-my-life, and nothing else quite matters except this time zone through which you’re gritting your teeth and praying to God that this would be worth it. 

My point is, happiness is a perspective. You can be in a right shithole, but that doesn’t mean that all the other crap you’ve been through wasn’t just as bad. To a fifty-year-old Madonna, growing old isn’t something you just ‘get over with’ or to simply perm your hair and wear knitted overalls. 

We all think that the keys to happiness involve learning, reading, watching TV, paying your bills, exercising, watching your portions, calling up a friend, ranting in a journal, blah blah – but these are all things that our current society urges us to do. When our ancestors bound their feet and corseted their waists, warred for riches and served animals for worship, you can bet it wasn’t because they were in search for some epic sadness. 

Here’s some food for thought:

Dude #1: What if I don’t want to be happy? What if I want to be miserable?

Dude #2: Be miserable, if that makes you happy!

 

‘I’ for Internet

The Internet is a world of its own. You Twitter each other, checking out FaceBook profiles and updating your status on Myspace. You blog your life like you would in a private journal, you change your MSN name to clue in on your life, you Instant-Message on practically every social network there exists. 

Aren’t we all just oh-so-chummy?

What the Internet does, though, is distort the real person that you might be (that is, considering you have a life out there, which might just be me imagining things or you wouldn’t be reading this right now). Or rather, it tests the limits of your privacy. Like, if I whipped out pictures of a new DSLR and posted it all over FaceBook, you can bet that when we next meet, our conversation will be nothing like this:

Me: Guess-what-guess-what-guess-what?

You: What?

Me: I got a new DSLR!

You: Oh my goodness! (combined excited screech)

Instead, it’d be more like this:

Me: I got a new DSLR!

You: Oh yeah. I saw.

Me: You did?

You: Facebook.

Me: Ah. Okay. Right. (scrambles in head for next topic)

See? No feverish scream, no overwhelming excitement, no flurry of great ado, and whatever suspense you could have had was resolved the moment you breathed through the window of the Internet world. 

Then again, we’re stuck in this superficial net of websites and webpages so there may not be any point in trying to resist it. Unless, of course, I do it and you do it and a whole great army of people do it and suddenly we’re this amazing fleet of new people renewing an old idea of socializing.

Who knows. We could be the next wave of non-computer people.

 

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Internet at Coffee Bean

I thought the Coffee Bean guy was really nice, helping me with a username and all. And I see Sarah here! Nice, though odd, coz we’re supposed to meet up later, not now, and me lah… clever clever, pergi Coffee Bean. 

Now that I’m back in Malaysia for a whole week, it does feel quite nice to be home. Work is good too, because the people there are very happy to show me the ropes, and I get to meet people who are not just my age. So… back in Malaysia – hello high ceilings and tall green trees (but terrible haze). Goodbye cottage-like houses and cute rose shrubs (but dirty room). Guess there’s good and bad everywhere. =P

You know what? I had a whole list of things I wanted to post about, but now that I’m actually online, there’s nothing much that I remember. Brilliant, isn’t it? 

Ah well.

Tabby – I take it you like Aus better. =P

TJ – Yes, it is. But it’s not polished or edited yet, so… LoL.

Denise – I actually missed your nonsense. Hope you’re having fun being Deputy Head. =)

 

Back Home

Tabby – Til next time. Maybe we’ll be able to meet up somehow, LoL.

Gitz – Yes, sweetie. Sort me out. Haha. I need sorting out.

Well, after slightly more than 24 hours of pure travelling (including waiting for boarding, transit, on the bus, on the plane), I’m finally home. I’m at work now, and it’s the only time I can get online (lunchbreak now) because the internet at home isn’t working. I know what you’re thinking – What? No internet?

NO LIFE LAH!

You ain’t far off.

I think I need just a couple more days to get used to this. It feels kind of odd/strange/unreal. I feel as if I’m still in air, having not really touched ground, suspended between two lives.

I will miss Brighton – I’m already beginning to. I will miss the incredible freedom and utter independence. It’s like, when you’re on your own, you account for no one else. You live life based only on the network that you create for yourself – friends, teachers, people you meet. It’s cool if you walk  over to Waterstone’s and read books until your eyes pop, or if you shop until you literally drop, or if you sit in Sput-In alternating between stuffing your face in a jacket potato and peoplewatching – you don’t have to go into lengthy explanations about why you’d rather not go back home yet, or why you’d like two more minutes to walk around (except, perhaps, ‘Eh, file a missing person’s report ah if I’m not back tomorrow’). There are drawbacks, of course. There are times when you’d feel anti-social, times when you feel lonely, times when all you want to do is curl into yourself.

All my life, I’ve lived a sheltered life. Too much of one, to be honest, but for which I’m eternally grateful to my family. And so when I leaped and tore myself away from my roots, I learnt to just bloody stand on my own two feet. I learnt to wash my eyes and see life from a different angle, yet I’ve also learnt to appreciate what I’ve known before and to know that there are certain habits or little ways of mine that I will have to live with, because I cannot escape.

Every time I start something new, I convince myself that there is another perspective to life that I’m about to discover, another secret for me to catch, another mystery to unlock so that I don’t live life by a humdrum pulse. But there aren’t all that many perspectives to take anyway. I feel as if I’ve tried nearly all, and I still can’t nail it.

If you’ve got the Big Secret, let me know. Or give me some sort of clue so that I wind my way through and find it – but still, give me a clue. A hint. Anything, really. When you reach a point, you stop being fussy.

Random note to self: Part I, fin. Part II, fin. Part III, fin. Hence, Part IV and Part V, left. And definitely the longest two. Especially if I want to add in one part with MC’s POV.

 

Things I need to do in M’sia

Things to do:

1. Work – well, duh… LoL

2. Scan all my family’s old pictures so that I have a digital copy of them.

3. Get a driving license.

4. Go shopping with Jo (I’ll drag her along anyway).

5. Spend time with – of course – my lovely friends! And family, too. 

6. Plan a farewell for Cousins Pei Hwa and Pei Wen? 

7. Take Jo to her piano exam thing.

8. Shop for cheap clothes, ’cause everything here is pricey.

9. Draft out the coursework for Literature (which includes A LOT of reading).

10. Write! Finish Part III at least.

11. Play the guitar + piano.

12. Buy ‘The Pact’ paperback version.

Note to self:

Stop living in the past; stop planning the future – please just capture the bloody present.

 

Mac: Tip & Tricks

Thought it’d be cool if I listed out the tricks on mac. Add your own to top it up! =P

1. There’s a switcher on mac. Just press ‘command’ and ‘apple’ key simultaneously.

2. To allow for easier application access, drag the application folder into the Dock. 

3. If you come across any word online that you want to refer, just highlight it and right click, then press ‘Look up Dictionary’.

4. To remove applications from the Dock, just press ‘Control’ while clicking, then select ‘Remove from Dock’.

5. To search for anything: Select the little blue search button on the top right of the desktop and type in file/program name.

6. If you select ‘Alt’ key while typing, you’ll get an odd collection of letters. If you select ‘Alt’+’Shift’, you get even rare letters (i.e. ‘Alt+Shift+K’ gives you an apple shape).

7. If you hold down the ‘Shift’ key and minimize a window, the window will minimize in slow motion. It works for both minimizing and maximizing. 

8. To remember a piece of text, you can insert a ‘Sticky’ by selecting ‘Apple+Shift+Y’. Useful if you need snippets from the internet. 

9. To view your screen in negative, select ‘Control+Alt+Apple+8’. 

To Tabby: I don’t think you know what I’m talking about. It’s nothing to do with, ahem, you know what. =P

To TJ: Yes, indeed. Sleep I need.

 

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A Day of Homework

Okay, I’ve got 4 worksheets left to complete for psychology. 3 of them is just having to finish off some last bits and pieces, but there’s one which is fully due next Tuesday. Literature mock exams are continuous for three days (Wed, Thurs, Fri), Maths mocks next Friday, Psychology mocks tomorrow, History mocks on Monday. Hm. 

Not half bad, I guess. At least it’s not all in one day. 

But that just means I’ll have to study more. 

Oh, did I mention? I went to watch ‘Seventeen Again’ with Shu Yee yesterday, starring Zac Efron. I didn’t expect much from the movie, so I came out of the cinema feeling satisfied. LoL. We had a Ben & Jerry’s Cheesecake Chocolate Chip ice cream for the movie, and some gummi bears from WHSmith. And then… *drumroll*… We went to feast on Malaysian food! At this restaurant called ‘Me Old China’. Shu Yee had laksa, and I had Char Ho Fun. 

I really really really miss Penang Laksa. And Char Ho Fun. And Popiah. 

*drools*

 

Guitar Tragedy

My guitar broke! I had a break from classes and went back to my room at 12pm, and I saw my guitar on the floor but thought, ‘oh I’ll pick it up later’… After coming back from another batch of classes, I decided to finally pick up my guitar, only to find that it’s broken! 

I don’t know what to do! Do I confront the cleaners about this? Coz they cleaned my room today. But I have no proof, and I also don’t want to drag people into this, especially if they didn’t do anything. And if it’s all an accident, then I can’t go round blaming people, and I really do feel responsible for it myself. But if I don’t, I’m seriously screwed, because I’ll have to either tell the school and pay them back, or buy another in its place. The poor guitar! Gosh… 

I’m screwed! Do you know how much guitars cost? NO NO NO!

It actually hurts the soul… GAH