The Leopard-Print Shawl

2011-01-12T05:17:00.001-08:00

I'm moving.

2010-12-06T04:06:00.000-08:00

Finally, bretheren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

Paul, Philippians 4:8

Angus & Julia Stone - Yellow Brick Road [Live in Paris]

2010-11-22T20:23:00.000-08:00

period.

2010-09-26T01:03:00.000-07:00

I stopped writing about the time I stopped thinking.

A room for a sunday night

2010-09-19T07:50:00.000-07:00

Since I'm still living off my parents and broke, unsurprisingly beyond comprehension, it is the perfect time to start planning for the kind of bedroom I'd like to have for next year. After all, living in hot and humid Mackay with all of 6 hours daily to spend in bed with my eyes holding on precariously to sleep is quite the sensible indication.

I've been looking through room designs and there are quite a few pretty modern concepts out there that I probably wouldn't object to at all if the cast of Queer Eye for the Straight Me showed up on my doorstep. Having said that, I find I'm not so much the fan of this minimalist movement that interior bedroom designs seem to have found itself subject to.

I find myself imagining a room which is ridiculously hard to clean surrounded by a gazillion books and bad lighting. Perhaps it's because I expect a big white mansion with a gazillion rooms in the forseeable future which would have a study for that purpose.

This one here caught my eye, which you can find at http://www.home-designing.com/2010/05/10-drop-dead-gorgeous-bedrooms

A bit cluttered, but you see where I'm going with this? Of course if I did also find myself with a big ol house to decorate, I've already got porch and deck ideas lined up too, and the perfect kitchen will come to me soon too.

Until sometime over the next few hours though, I probably won't get much further than wading through these radiology questions. But then again, it is radiology.

The Importance Of Being Idle

2010-09-15T20:51:00.000-07:00

Wouldn't life be better a little dirty?

2010-09-09T07:56:00.000-07:00

The Paleo is the largest Switzerland open-air music festival.Students and festival volunteers paid tribute to the 40th anniversary of Woodstock in 2009.

http://www.thisblogrules.com/2009/07/dirty-fun-at-mud-festival.html

Now that we won't be ending Sports Day rolling around in dirt and scrubs at the Oval anymore, what do I do for a mud fix?

"Kafka on the Shore" surprises after all

2010-08-30T02:46:00.000-07:00

"That's why I like to listen to Schubert while I'm driving. As i said, it's because all the performances are imperfect. A dense, artistic imperfection stimulates your consciousness, keeps you alert. If I listen to some utterly perfect piece while I'm driving, I might want to close my eyes and die right then and there. But listening to D major, I can feel the limits of what humans are capable of - that a certain type of perfection can only be realised through a limitless accumulation of the imperfect. And personally, I find that encouraging..."

Haruki Marukami

Sleepwalker, don't be shy

2010-08-23T05:44:00.000-07:00

"There's nothing wrong with not understanding yourself..."

Jonathan Safran Foer

I'd like to think you get better at it though, as you grow older. The problem therein is that you tend to change with age too. So you're rushing after yourself, trying to keep up, to keep tabs on what and who you are. Most of us need to justify ourselves. Perhaps we need the reassurance, perhaps it's about motivation. Or maybe, I"m not the only one who struggles with the idea of being any one person at all; of being a part of this person who looks, speaks, and thinks like me; of sleepwalking through every hurdle trying to decide which moments are the ones I'm awake for.

Because honestly, I don't know.

And I would like to think that no one else really does either.

I get goosebumps each time

2010-08-17T03:47:00.000-07:00

Some people

2010-08-11T02:35:00.000-07:00

Are born to be bitches.

Now about that pool

2010-08-09T22:35:00.000-07:00

Mackay, Queensland

(Refer to post "23")

2010-08-01T20:02:00.000-07:00

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us most. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and famous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in all of us. And when we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

Maryanne Williamson

Used by Nelson Mandela in his 1994 inauguration speech

It was a sweet little song

2010-08-01T19:47:00.000-07:00

... out of the bearded barley.
Nightly, beside the green green grass
Swing swing, swing the spinning step
You wear those shoes and I will wear that dress.

Oh, beneath the milky twilight
Lead me, out on the moonlit floor, lift your open hand
Strike up the band and make the fireflies dance
Silver moon's sparkling

So kiss me.

23

2010-07-25T04:18:00.000-07:00

Not yet, but soon. I've stopped counting really, except when I feel the need to give myself some sort of reality check on how I'm doing. It doesn't look like much, when I consider the small accomplishments like making it halfway through med school and then some, but in juxtaposition of the free spiritedness of 3 years ago, say. It feels like there is so much give and take to add to the equation. In my case, there's much to be learned about giving it seems. But maybe that's what growing up is about? The math can't quite be a linear equation can it? How would we take ourselves seriously if that were all to the 70-odd year lifespan of the average person.

I know I ruminate far too much. I could get used to being alone, and indeed I have. Another accomplishment, but not a recent one. In fact, in my personal humble opinion, I think there is only so much one can continue to learn from themselves alone, and at 23 I think i've exhausted the old options. I need more new beginings, more new conflict, more people, more life. There are the things you can quite easily figure out for yourself, but you need to live through some of them before it counts -because that's where you know if you're going to lose the plot or not. I think I'm ready to take myself seriously again, and maybe start writing a little again too. The slow walk up to the diving platform was good while it lasted way back then.

I'll find out on the 9th which pool I'm jumping headfirst into.

You should know...

2010-07-19T07:56:00.001-07:00

Hey, whatever

2010-07-13T03:49:00.000-07:00

2010-06-29T23:13:00.000-07:00

Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary.

--Cecil Beaton

This time for Africa

2010-06-24T08:42:00.000-07:00

South Africa 2010 has been more unpredictable than anyone saw coming as far as they go. Yet again, the world goes crazy about a ball and a net, pinning heart and soul to countries they may have never seen, people they will never know. The host nation may not be going any further, but they had the rest of the world on their side, and still do even on the bleachers. Something about this tournament just seems to bring people together. I love it.

Go team.

Fallen Art

2010-06-01T07:10:00.000-07:00

2010-05-30T08:35:00.000-07:00

The newcomer

2010-04-20T23:45:00.000-07:00

In the time I was waiting for my page to load to compose this post, I stopped by Eva's blog and muse now that either (i) she has very rudely stolen my subject matter knowing fully well it is my predicament alone or (ii) that it's completely normal to have had three meals and two deserts by mid afternoon with every intention of dealing with the blues and subsequent guilt by sleeping till dinner(no#1)time.

My ass is so fucking big that my hemline is 2 inches shorter than it was last week. Today, people were trying not to gape open mouthed at the mobile mass threatening to block out the precious little artificial light one learns to appreciate being in a hospital all day. Also my word finding difficulties are starting to get on my nerves and I have no choice but to infer that my ever advancing derriere is swallowing my brain up to fuel its accelerated growth phase. Bitch.

2010-04-13T04:46:00.000-07:00

"Have you got any soul?" a woman asks the next afternoon. That depends, I feel like saying; some days yes, some days no. A few days ago I was right out; now I've got loads, too much, more than I can handle. I wish I could spread it a bit more evenly, I want to tell her, get a better balance, but I can't seem to get it sorted. I can see she wouldn't be interested in my internal stock control problems though, so I simply point to where I keep the soul I have, right by the exit, just next to the blues

--Nick Hornby
High Fidelity

2010-04-01T18:33:00.000-07:00

Went for a housemate dinner met up with IMU people for drinks it was fun yapped about nothing in particular had lots of cheap wine my housemates wanted to go clubbing I had thongs on Joyce gave me her Aldo shoes for the night we walked stopped by Hungry Jacks made a mental note on something I cannot remember now ran into people we knew learned that Brisbane a city chock full of atheists is required by law to not work on easter Friday went on walking found a lady with cerebral palsy crying on the streets because she missed her bus tried to get her some food failed people really don't care put her in a cab walked back got a cab wise somali cab driver we are what we are. he says.

Maybe you found this blog from my facebook page,

2010-03-28T20:39:00.000-07:00

And its content surprises you for whatever the reason?
Well then, this really is what goes on in my head and it has ceased to bother me that anyone should find out and think any more or less of me than they do already.

On fear

2010-03-27T18:30:00.000-07:00

I'd never been one of those people dying to leave home, to take flight at first opening in search of greener pastures beyond our beyond our murky, littered shores. I could always picture myself living easily, quite happily on my little isle of Penang till the end of my youth, and probably even after.

When presented with the opportunity to leave though, finally, how could I not? For one, knowing fully well that Malaysia is heading almost inevitably towards self-destruction with a society that has all but been coerced and subdued into forgetting the meaning of human rights, real education and justice. And secondly, because of a possibly misplaced personal intuitive hunger to see all of the world and to be more than just the product of fixed circumstances and surroundings.

We're never quite as open minded as we like to think we are though are we? It is a fact I was rudely shocked into learning. I had been spoiled by my background and my growing years, of which I am still convinced afforded me the best of many worlds. Malaysian culture is very largely traditional, conservative and Asian. My family, or specifically, my mother on the other hand, while in reality surprisingly conservative and linear enough under scrutiny, is little like most other asian women who spent her life growing up in Malaysia. Free-willed, individualistic and somewhat feminist in nature, her children ended up extending further out of the mold. My brother and myself liked to think we could see and handle the world for all it was without bias or prejudice, each in our own way.

We can only speak for ourselves though, however. I'd moved away from home at 17, and found some amazing friends who made the transition seem almost seamless. It didn't take long after arriving in Australia to figure out that being replanted in a different country where an entirely different reality exists, and has always existed for the people around you would be an irreplaceable experience of discovery- in my case, if I didn't die in the process at least. There are arguments against how much one can really accomplish and grow when they leave the security and familiarity of home turf.

We all feel threatened by certain notions and concepts although we might not be aware of them. Confidence is easy enough when you've forgotten how it feels to have your boundaries tested, and your comfort zone intruded upon. The funny thing about that, is that you only know its happening when you're in the midst of feeling the lines fall away. As much as I would like to think I knew it all before, I know that I have an inconsolable anger deep down within that I'm surrounded by people who are happy and content with their stations and who probably don't feel the need to see things from the uncertain and seemingly infinite viewpoint of an outsider. After all, I was there only one year ago and until then, had no reason to entertain the possibility of a bigger world so seriously.

It is an ill-assigned blame. This is after all, my own personal map- and I've finally figured out that any attempt to rebel against certain limits of my own personal moral compass will only lead to an unwarranted bleakness, an impossible dead end. Undoubtedly, everyone has one of their own. And so I will need to learn to let go of this anger if I am at all to be the person I would like to think of myself as being, and find a way not to be disappointed when other people aren't who I would like them to be- and perhaps eventually accept it when they cannot do the same for me.

Fearlessness is only impressive when all the consequences and implications of your situation have been thoroughly considered. I want to be able to step into the abyss thinking not only of myself. I want to stay behind the wheel even when it becomes clear just how impossible plotting the route will turn out to be. I want to be fearless.

Just because it reminds me of you in the car :)

2010-03-23T06:22:00.000-07:00

Zero Circle

2010-03-15T07:45:00.000-07:00

Be helpless, dumbfounded,
Unable to say yes or no.
Then a stretcher will come from grace
to gather us up.

We are too dull-eyed to see that beauty.
If we say we can, we’re lying.
If we say No, we don’t see it,
That No will behead us
And shut tight our window onto spirit.

So let us rather not be sure of anything,
Beside ourselves, and only that, so
Miraculous beings come running to help.
Crazed, lying in a zero circle, mute,
We shall be saying finally,
With tremendous eloquence, Lead us.
When we have totally surrendered to that beauty,
We shall be a mighty kindness.

Rumi

Rumi was a 13th century Sufi poet, theologian and Islamic jurist. I first came across this poem in the book 10 poems to Change Your Life by Robert Housden years ago, on Fishes' bookshelf. Despite expecting some new-age pseudo intellectualism, it would probably be only fair of me to say this book has helped to shape and/or strengthen my beliefs about myself and the world ever since. I've been trying to get my hands on a copy of my own for ages.

Rumi, like other Sufi poets of Persian literature wrote passionately about the concept of twahid, the union of his soul with his beloved or inner primal core. Music and the sacred dance (most people are able to identify Sufism with), he believed, brought one closer to finding god through the destruction and resurrection of the soul. In this poem, he speaks of surrendering ourselves to the beauty and fullness of life, saying that it is only possible when we forgo our notions and thoughts on what it should be.

Similar to some schools of thought in Hinduism, Rumi alludes to the realization of a common thread of spirit that runs through all of us. Like the Hindu belief in Moksha, whereby liberation or freedom is attained by the individual who is fully aware of his/her innermost core or atman, which is therefore identical to that of Brahman or the supreme soul- Rumi speaks of this higher grace which beckons to each, and collectively all of us.

In knowing that our thoughts are simply perceptions of reality and filters through which we see the world, we no longer have the right to be sure of anything but ourselves. It is only from this position of uncertainty that we may hope to find this ominous mighty kindness that he refers to, and to strive for it and embrace it as part of ourselves.

Frangipani

2010-03-07T07:59:00.000-08:00

It's been a long road.
And I can't be sure.
But I think.
I do believe-
Something's changed.

Or maybe it's just me.

2010-03-06T20:44:00.001-08:00

Skins

2010-02-27T23:29:00.000-08:00

I remember the person I used to be, and the one I wanted to get to from there. At some point growing up, you learn to see the different shades of grey that the world is coloured in.

Hopefully, you then figure out how not to blend noiselessly into the framework; how not to have your skin take on the same absorbent diaphanous grey tone as the world you seek so naively to forgive and understand; but how to find that person you once knew.

It's never too late. And I will do this.

And 1, 2, 3*

2010-02-26T17:23:00.000-08:00

Kazaam!

2010-01-26T23:34:00.000-08:00

In the words of Christina Aguilera: I am awesome, no matter what they say!

(...or something like that anyway)

And I LOVE watching babies being born, gunk and all. There isn't a more beautiful sight. More on that later.

White light

2010-01-22T20:29:00.000-08:00

I find myself musing over a line from On Beauty by Zadie Smith, "Sometimes, you get a rare glimpse of what you look like to other people."

And then there are those of us, who perhaps because of a short-circuit, forget that- and see a running horror film of awkward moments, self-conscious lighting and the definitive feeling of being just slightly ridiculous. I've found that it helps to remember however, that what anybody else thinks of me is none of my business.

All that said and done, I've just lost a friends cell phone after a drunken keg night sitting outside the steps of a club. I wish that were my business, and not his :(

2010-01-09T23:21:00.000-08:00

The man who does not make mistakes, does not usually make anything.

--William Connor Magee

Having said that, it probably doesn't apply to running. Or maybe mistakes shouldn't be repeated? There's a thought. I got 2 km down the road on an aching ankle when it went and gave way- again. And worse this time. Still, I feel my left brain growing bigger (just like the ankle) as the days go by. Let's hope I don't lose the half I know better in the process.

Springboard

2010-01-02T22:06:00.000-08:00

It's been strange to have money to spend, and not being perpetually broke. I've been on such a stringent budget this past year, because in order to afford the very few cocktail parties and flight tickets I've squeezed in, I've lived on the Aussie equivalent of nearly nothing. (I can't convert that into MYR because one literally could live on nothing in Malaysia with enough self- discpline.) I wonder that my friends didn't give up on me in frustration sooner, she who quite possibly epitomizes the phrase "penny wise, pound foolish". But heck, as painful as culinary homogeniety was, I reckon I did good.

To go back to it all now though fills me with some level of dread. I'm one year away from not living off dad, but it really is a thoroughly frightening prospect on its own. Money doesn't grow on trees though does it? I suppose the sooner I learn that being a doctor pays as well as it does because it comes with as much responsibility as it does, the clearer things should stand. It's beginning to dawn on me that I despite my parents insistence that my financial dependence is alright, the feeling that I would probably drown in a mercenary world given my current capacity to generate cash is disempowering, and frankly, a little gross.

It's 2010 and I need to undo all the befuddled I got from 2009. I need to take charge of my life again and quite whining. The tide has taken 2009 away, and by golly, the neuroses it brought along with it too.

Here's to 2010 being a good year. Happy New Year everyone.

2009-11-28T20:56:00.000-08:00

It is in the heaviness of the air. A force at once both oppressive and grounding. The dead weight of reality and the humbling fervour of the people who have no time for you, or thoughts of the intagibility of it all. They, tied to necessity and survival, you- to your privilege and the burden of an endless horizon. The heat makes you sticky, the smog and haze settle petulantly over drowsy afternoons. It's the same as it always is, but you're seeing it through shades of denial, and a mind tired of not living up to its own potential. How glad you are to be home.

South Burnett

2009-11-20T21:28:00.001-08:00

The very little taste I had of South Burnett (minus some :)

Bell Jar

2009-11-20T20:47:00.000-08:00

I've been opening up and not holding back quite so much. It feels good. I've always felt guilty letting myself depend on anyone for anything, for asking for help at all. Needless to say, I've done it anyway, regardless of the guilt.

I think that I'm learning a lesson though. That talking about myself, really letting people in about the things that are really bothering me - isn't such a bad thing after all. As it turns out, my friends don't listen to me because they're doing me a favour, but because they're my friends and do actually want to know how I"m doing.

About doing deeds for others and not expecting anything in return though- that's a personal belief that unfortunately for me, not everyone shares. I think the only solution is therefore to do as much good as I can when I think it's appropriate. And hope that the world is a fairer place because of it.

...Thank you ac, mm, pr and ey.

Where YOU need to be this 7th Dec:

2009-11-09T00:53:00.000-08:00

Contact me by responding to this post if you're interested and I'll hook you up with tickets (priced ad RM 30, RM50 & RM100) to the event of the month in Penang!
Alternatively, call the National Cancer Society of Malaysia (Penang branch) for direction. It's for a good cause, and what better way to liven up your December than by living it up with music and dance?

A REAL cup of Mountain Blend Vittoria

2009-11-08T18:35:00.000-08:00

And today WAS a whole new day :)

Night shot panorama

2009-11-08T06:25:00.000-08:00

This is getting silly. I'm getting silly. I can't take myself seriously anymore, and when I do, it's ALL I do. I should be enjoying these 24 days to home and not nervously counting down the end to what should have been a life-changing year. Instead, I've regressed- I've nothing to show for 2009 apart from scraping through a difficult year of medicine with the apathy and brains I had to begin with. Tomorrow is a new day, and I'm going to be awake for it.