Do you believe in yourself?

Omaigawwwd I can't believe how much self-reflection I've been forced into over the past few days. Decisions. decisions that will affect my time in uni, why am I doing or not doing, why am I afraid.

And the MSoc elections too, the whole excitement about it, all my friends running for positions, made the clutter in my head clearer. What you do, how you do it, how people perceive you when they see you do it, boils down to pretty much how much you believe in yourself. 

Yeah you might not be the best and I'm not promising that believing in yourself would make you the best overnight but do you trust in yourself enough to commit to improving yourself? Or is such efforts something that 'other more ambitious people' put their minds to? is it "just not me"? 

Really? 

I won't go on preaching, I myself am a victim of pulling oneself down. I'm usually my worst critic. 

So I'll end with not my own words but those of Stephen and Sean Covey. It's more of a paraphrase than a direct quote but a powerful message they say is that the private victory comes before the public victory.

manifestos of me friends running for MSoc! 

A belated Remembrance Day post

 Marine Sergeant Frank Praytor feeds a 2-week-old kitten named Miss Hap after her mother had been killed during a mortar attack in Korea, 1953.

I know what it's like saving a 2-week old kitten. There were so many worries about how it would grow up, learn to eat, defecate, socialize. Then there's the nagging thought of why I was so stupid to do it in the first place. Considering that my parents would have to help me care for it, I wasn't in the position to simply bring home a kitten out of the blue.

Sgt Praytor was, more than I was, not in a position to do what he did. I never knew my love for cats would have had the effect of creating this humane link between myself and a soldier on the battleground years ago in the thick of the Cold War.

It made me realize how real these people are. That they're not just cold statistics we read of soldiers deployed, soldiers fallen, soldiers traumatized. They're real, full, vulnerable. Each a individual, some of which would have joined in to care for my kitten. 

How they survive from a war, maintain that sense of humanity, I can't imagine. May God bless the souls of the fallen and grant grace and peace to those still fighting.

How I Work

I fill up my time with things that make me happy. be it hours on end of singing with my banksiders in the music room. or painting my nails. or immersing in songs i love.

when my happiness meter is full, then do i work. it's my natural caffeine, happiness makes me go on for hours :)

Finally!!

You know that feeling that weighs you down if you keep putting something off?

I finally got to doing it. Checked spring insight opportunities. Booked flights to Spain.

At the expense of my time for math homework. but anyway...

I'm feeling the VICTORY!!!

Half way through writing my essay...

happily moving along with the words flowing out of my brain (finally!) and suddenly thinks...

am I actually answering the question?

On a more cheerful note

I found a place to be my silent stars in London! It's actually quite an open space but in a bustling city, people just don't quite care what you're doing so that creates the paradox of its hustle and bustle actually affording you some mental space.

The stars are probably not all real. some or most are probably satellites, considering the light pollution so common to big cities. some may actually be the aeroplanes from the airports around the area. but the lights are quiet at least. and they silently accompany me in arranging my thoughts amidst the clutter that accumulates in this heavy thing my neck carries around.

so... yeay!

f* this shit

I dont think I'm made to write essays. it takes ages for me to think of how to put my thoughts down into words.

"I am about it, but indeed my invention

Comes from my pate as birdlime does from frieze,

It plucks out brains and all. "

Iago, Othello

But unlike him, my Muse does not labor. gahh

how else would you explain the deepness of thought that man is capable of? especially if you consider philosophy.

yes, still recovering from the trauma

why I shy from philosophy

I'm scared. philosophy scares me. the capacity of our minds to come up with such theories of what morality is, what the reason to live is and then create all sorts of structures of society to enable such an idea to make sense. the controls or lack of it on society should these ideas be proven true. it's crazy. unrealistic, more often than not. why have it then?

they say that philosophers take the daring journey out of our comfort zones within the fur of the bunny and dangle dangerously on the edge of the bunny's hairs, staring right into the eyes of the creator. they say that philosophers climb out of the cave of shadows and enjoy the perfection in the real forms they see.

i don't agree. I think for every edge of hair that a philosopher climbs on to, they stare into the eyes of a different creator. i think that in climbing out of the cave, they inevitably end up in different worlds.

so what's the point?

every philosopher may differ greatly but they all share the same passion for truth. I find peace in the knowledge that I have access to the Truth. someone once said that religion is philosophical suicide. was it Camus? Marx? I don't want my belief to be a simple escape on what should be the most important question in my life. but the reluctance to embark on the journey is there. why did some of the saints explore philosophy when their answer was already given to them by their faith? how in the world did they survive that journey?

I'm on my first philosophy book and I'm already afraid. Afraid of what this will bring.

and this is not even a pure philosophy course

this new lenovo...

there's something the ergonomics of my lenovo, its keyboard's kinda further from my usual reach, that its edge is cutting through my wrists. gahhh

it hasnt even been a month and i already have complaints. oh noooo, am i becoming like everyone else, people who are never satisfied with their gadgets, carrying around their samsung S4s, xperias, and whatevers yet still complaining about the speeds, capacity etc. holding that huge touchscreen smartphone - something that still marvels me and surely marvels millions more who can't begin to believe how this glass thing responds to touch - yet yakking on and on about it being slow. i can't help but to hear boastfulness in that complaint

i know where i come from and i feel ashamed of myself once i start acting like this. us humans can never get enough can we? when i bought that lenovo, when i got myself a new smartphone too, yeah I was happy, I was finally on track with technology's latest, sort of. but i felt that i was also on track with potential constant dissatisfaction, the need for something faster, stronger, clearer with pixels so great that you can't make out the difference between real life and the screen (has anyone watched that video where the people got tricked into thinking that armageddon came? here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynvKWYvyCqw ).

why are we like that? you're not? but you've got to have something in your life that you want to better right? be it your skills, your looks, your house etc. we're never satisfied. it sucks. it's taking us on a path to destruction, if you link it to... sorry, that's going a bit too far, but true no?

the good book says that only one thing can satisfy, only one fountain gives water so that you'll thirst no more. ooohh, steph's getting religious here. but heck, you don't know how far I am from being good and that's the beauty of it. no one has to be good to come to that fountain, it fact, it is expected that no one is good and that is why they need that fountain of grace.

i've just been skirting around the fountain tho, it's a bit scary to jump right in to it, to be immersed in it. it's tough for one, kinda calls for me to act against many habits I've picked up from the world. also, it's probably the deepest sea one can delve in to, one that is absolutely satisfies, for eternity. and the magnitude of the implication of that, scares me. to dive or not to dive in to it?

f***ing back off

seriously. NOW

poison

all windows and doors closed from you

little of your light shines through

only the cracks.

poison seeps in

into every conversation

every look

every thought

I need that light

but i'm afraid

'cos your sea is the deepest

stretches the farthest

more than I can imagine.

the smartphone trap.

I'm a new blackberry user. Didn't intend to be one, I was more or less thrown into this world of smartphones when my old trusty Nokia fell into the sea and my sister happened to have a BB that she doesn't use anymore.

So forgive me if I act critically towards your dependence on smartphones as a replacement for real conversations with people who are actually physically present with you. Yes, silent pauses get awkward but resorting to your phones, whatsapping another person makes things worse. 

Forgive me if I can't tolerate your preference to send typed out farewell messages that don't seem as heartfelt as handwritten messages, which speak more than just your words but also your unique self in every flourish of your pen or in the awkward crook of your written alphabets. 

But I'm betraying a part of me that doesn't want to be excused for my intolerance. A part of me gets mad when people bury their noses in their phones. 

SO DON'T LET YOURSELF FALL INTO THAT TRAP. 

meh

grounded feet

I'm slightly pigeon toed (guess who else is? Harry Styles! ahahaha. not really a fan but it makes me feel better about myself, haha) and that makes me worried about how it might affect my back. Sometimes it just hurts, especially when I'm consciously forcing my feet straight.

But I realized something recently, the magic of feeling your weight throughout your feet. Instead of just putting the burden on my heels, I tried distributing my weight to the rest of my feet, all the way to my toes. It makes my back ohhh soo relaxed, and it makes me feel taller as well.

Awesomeee....

I almost can't believe how I bored you out with this post. who talks of their feet and back in their casual posts? I hope that picture of Harry Styles makes up for this boring post

ps-but still, another thing i almost can't believe is how i have his picture in my blog. lol-ness...

It's not about gender. It's about how serious you are about what you do

I had a conversation yesterday with someone I respect a lot for the role he plays in our ministry. The topic went to the girls we know going further in their studies than the guys who don't seem as serious about their lives. I just smiled in return but secretly disagreed. Because after my two years in IB, Penang and all around, I can't help but to think things to be the other way round.

I've seen more boys than girls being truly serious in what they do. 

*by the way, prepare yourself for undecidedness in this post, it's gonna be a direct cut-and-paste of my train of thoughts rather than a properly structured, well thought-out post*

So back to what I was saying, I've seen more boys than girls doing better in what they do. When I try to think back to instances when I've observed this, they're mainly at competitions and interviews where the boys' intelligence and sharpness blow me away and I'm like "where the heck did that idea come from?". But come to think about it, I'm always nervous and easily intimidated when it comes to competitions and I may have exaggerated my view of these boys. Because really there were also girls towards whom I thought the same thing - "where the heck did that idea come from?". 

What struck me as a similarity between these boys and girls is the focus and energy that they put into what they're doing. Yes, they're still humans and still play around when they want to, but when it comes down to work, they put their whole heart into it. Personally, I think that guys have more of what my friend calls crude bravery. They're not afraid to give their all despite the possibility of failure. Girls... dare I say this? I'll just put it in first person then. I generally don't take as many risks which also means when it comes down to business, I hold back in putting every possible effort in achieving what I want. Is it fear? It's not that obvious but when I reflect on it, yes, I think it is.

However, (see, I told you, lots of changing opinions here) there's so many outliers to this generalization. So many that I can't even call these outliers, outliers. It defies the definition of the word. I've seen girls so brave that they shame them boys, that people actually say that these girls got 'balls'. I've seen guys whose meticulous focus on their task at hand puts us girls to shame since we're often the ones expected to be experts at this skill.

So I've come down to this, that it isn't  about gender, or whether or not you have enough crude bravery or the ability to work hard. It comes down to how serious you are about what you're doing. What motivates you? How much blood and sweat are you willing to put in to what you do? Then, no matter what gender you are, you'll frikin move mountains and have people thinking "s**t, where the heck did that come from?"

On a final note, let's stop stereotyping between sexes. It releases both the person you're judging and yourself from the limited structure we've built and restricted ourselves with for generations.

Waiting for life to happen...

I'm in an office room in a high-rise, watching the traffic, listening to the faint music my friend's playing at the other end of the table. I'm waiting for my one-on-one mentoring sessions with  A familiar feeling begins rising, restlessness.

Waiting makes me so restless. I have bursts of wild restlessness at times, and I'm still trying to get it. Sometimes, it hits me while I'm just about to sleep; on the bed and suddenly the urge to run the block hits me.

I'm frikin' 20 and I feel like I haven't made much of a change. That must be where all this energy is coming from, I'm desperate to channel it to something that moves me. But the irony is that with the restlessness, comes the urge to jut do something, anything and in the flurry of what happens next, whatever it is I do to try shake off my restlessness, I lose sight of what my inner self was trying to alert me of - 'what do you want to do with your life? this time, this energy, this enthusiasm that as yet, is not tied down to anything?'

i owe the world something, myself. but what is 'myself'?

that biggest gamble

london in a couple of months.

i'm not really sure if this is what is meant for my life. i just hope it doesn't build too much of an obstacle to my passion when i finally discover it.

3 years in university, then a bond. the next years of my life, at least the next 5 years, are all determined. not sure if that's what's meant for me. haaaiiiihhhhhhhh, what a gamble

I'VE GOT AN IDE... I... IDEEEE... nope.

recently, I went through the results of my myers-briggs personality test and learned that one of the things about me is that I don't consider other alternatives. I'm telling myself not to take all the results of that test as gospel and I think not considering other alternatives basically translates to a lack of creativity. many people lack creativity.

but anywayyyy...

my focus is on myself. yes, I lack creativity. I tend to only see the one path I'm using towards my goal and despite walls in my path, I stay on it, hoping that as I continuously walk into the wall, the wall will fall. a pretty silly image, isn't it? especially if there's another road down towards that goal. Yes, it's good overcoming obstacles. but the kind of scenario I'm talking about here is the generation of ideas. on other kinds of paths, it's no doubt that we often have no other choice but to ram and smash our walls. but when it comes to having to come up with ideas, be it for an essay or a presentation, suggestions from teachers tend to hold my ideas down instead of ultimately inspiring the rest of my ideas.

I've always been a bit selfish about getting my own way, sometimes, or maybe most of the times, at my own expense. but at least I feel like I own the ideas I write and present about. and having something to call my own, being myself, has been really important to me recently.

blood runs thicker than water

My uncle, my mum's younger brother (quick Bidayuh lesson : the younger uncles are called 'buncu', malay pronunciation). He comes to our house occasionally, a quiet, small man. It wasn't until recently that I had a real conversation with buncu. I haven't talked much with him before, he usually seemed silent, reflecting on something while smoking at a corner. He has a slight hunch that most of the time, no matter what height I was in relation to my buncu, it is usually his greying head that I see. Of his face, his button nose stands out the most, a touch of gentleness (lacking a better word) on that weathered face.

All his children, my cousins and grandchild share the same button nose. Us cousins, we don't hang out much with each other, simply because we haven't been living in the same district when we grew up. We've met a few times when we were younger, and in pictures, just them cute button noses were enough to make our childhood pictures cute. But besides that, I can't claim like some of my other friends that we're close, that we've gambled and had fun together during Gawai etc.

but blood runs thicker than water.

events of the day were already weighing me down when my cousin posted about an accident. my heart fell further. replies to her post assured me that things weren't that bad. but i was damn worried anyway. the car got hit, back and front. but they only suffered slight injuries. thank you Lord...

..........

While i was talking to my eldest sister today, I noticed something about her nose.

She mentions that I have a distinctive nose.

Well, obviously we picked up different features from out parents.

She has my mum's nose.

that button nose.

..........

blood runs thicker than water

mask. so. friggin. thick.

shit steph, you can't even be honest in your blog.

no, you should never feel obliged to be. 

but you've got to be honest at some point.

why does being honest feel so foreign to you?

why does even typing about being honest to yourself and others, 

and not even being so, scare you? I didn't know you were so afraid of  being vulnerable. 

really.

..........

i just wanna curl up, have my Lord hug me and explain to me all that's whirling around in my head.

..........

and i need a good book.

philip yancey's a surprisingly good Christian writer.

..........

but I wanna curl up first. oh, answer me Lord

Trying to fit in... as a tourist XD

I got to try out the Sarawak River Cruise!! For the first time!!

Don't we get this all the time? We don't try out the different tourist sports in our own hometown. It's kinda ironic because about a week before this, I said to someone "Why spend so much to go on that cruise? What's so interesting to see along the river?". Then God so smartly conspired to send me on that same 'interesting' cruise. My dad and some of his friends from out of town arranged to go on it, they had extra tickets so I thought, "Why not?". I would never have gone on it anyway if I had to pay for it.

Here's some pictures from the ride. It was awesome seeing some really familiar buildings but from another angle :)

 Brooke Dockyard!! I've always heard of this building from my parents but it's soo different actually seeing that name on the building. It's so old, there's a beauty to it.

 The Kuching District Mosque. The tombstones kinda add to its beauty. I'm sure some people think the same cos I saw a couple of people just relaxing beneath the coconut tree (and it's not usual among Malaysians to hang about graveyards) :)

 There's nothing new to me about this particular view. You can just see it right from the Waterfront without needing to go on the cruise. But I added it here because I learnt something new about the history of the place. The small tower from which the flag is flown used to be covered in ivy and it was believed that it was forbidden to cut the ivy off. However, this superstition was ignored and someone ordered the ivy cleared from the tower. Three days later, that person died in an accident :O

 It's almost impossible for a tourist visiting Sarawak to not witness at least one traditional dance performance.

I caught this using my parent's Sony DSC-WX100. It lacks that sunset mode on Canon digital cameras which add more warmth and oomph to sunsets, making the simplest sunsets look magnificent. So with the Sony, I had to wait for the sky to actually really look like this. At least it doesn't lie, haha.

The whole cruise wasn't so bad. It was nice seeing things from another angle but there's no way that I would have spent RM60 (Not too sure if that's the price) just for that. My favourite part was the sunset and heck, you can get that anywhere. But it was good, wouldn't say that it was a waste of time :D

Dream catcher : When you visit the same place again but only in a dream

My blog's my dream catcher. I don't have dreams to run from but I have dreams to catch; to catch down in words so I won't forget them.

There's this place in Kuching called Waterfront. I dreamed of it last night but it wasn't exactly Waterfront, it seemed to be facing a sea with solid, dark waters. Waterfront is a place of my childhood, it used to have the best playground ever in Kuching, at least to me. This dream version of Waterfront was a grown-up version, with less of the bustle of the usual crowd, lots of empty tables and more shadows all around. The whole view was pretty dreary.

The real Waterfront. Picture from www.etawau.com

It didn't look much like Waterfront except for its signature cobblestones and the fact that it was literally a water front. But it gave me the feeling that it was Waterfront. There was a broken jetty there which was partially submerged, and a couple of girls were swimming and lounging by it in their bikinis (in my head I thought, "Crazy people, so desperate for a swim". The waters didn't really look friendly. In fact, the whole place didn't look friendly either).

Strangely, I felt sad to see the broken jetty because I somehow knew what was there before - a small building, from another dream. This is where it gets a bit weird, when dreams start linking to each other. That small building's a neatly built, nicely lit place, where I joined some people to dock on a boat. We were headed to a party on another shore, so we were all pretty dressed up. So it was kinda weird when the boat stopped right before we reached the other jetty, and it seemed understoo that we had to swim ourselves to the jetty. Imagine guys in their neat shirts and vests, girls in their cocktail dresses casually jumping into the waters, swimming all the way then pulling themselves up onto the jetty platform, all wet but accessories still intact. Now, come to think about it... it's weeeiirdd...

This reminds me of the boat we used. Pic from www.charterworld.com

Then, as if that wasn't enough, we started running our way to the party crib. No one seemed tired, we just seemed really excited, keeping our eyes on where we were headed. It reminded me of that last part in C.S. Lewis' Narnia, The Last Battle "Come further up, come further in!". We passed through a large garden on the way, all finely trimmed and low bushes. These reminded me of those creepily neat gardens in Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland.



I don't remember anything about the party though. I guess I woke up right before we reached the place, haha. But the dream was weird enough that I remembered it in relation to another dream. This happens occasionally and I wake up feeling a bit creeped out.

Do you get that too?

Invictus - A small tribute to Mandela

Nelson Mandela's health condition doesn't seem to be improving and the world's once again paying more attention to this great man who "retired from retiring" and committed so much to achieving what he believed in despite his age.

I'm calling this a small tribute because there's not much that I know about Mandela. I have his Long Walk To Freedom but I haven't started reading it yet. Soon, I hope ( get behind me procrastinating-version-of-Steph!!). 

However, there was once that something close to Mandela's heart became something close to my heart too. A poem by William Ernest Henley, called Invictus. It inspired Mandela in his years in prison and it also became the title of a movie related to Mandela. I used it once for an elocution audition and it was then that I got an inkling of how this short yet powerful poem gave Mandela strength in those tough years. Beautiful. Appreciate it yourself -

Invictus

By : William Ernest Henley

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced not cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate:

I am the captain of my soul.

*drumroll* *rickroll* *springroll* My first post!!

OMG, I am sooo excited 'cos I've been wanting a blog ever since I realized that an FB wall post is never enough to say what I want to say, and that has been ever since IB started.. well, sort of. So it's been almost 2 years. Haha, good job, steph. Your first word on your blog is OMG. I'm still a teenager on the inside, I guess.

A few things prompted this long-due-and-delayed-a-couple-no-a-hundred-times blog. A conversation with an avid blogger who's a few years younger than me (gah, i'm just twenty but I feel like I've done so little with my life). An overflow of literary goodness into my head throughout IB but no outflow, no attempts to write despite all the inspiration. And lastly, I have plenty of time now!! Done with IB with a few more months till uni starts, my head is clear of facts that I may no longer use and it's filling up instead with thoughts that I can't seem to express well enough on fb. So the blog came about.

Now about the name of the blog. It's linked to what finally made this come to being. Everyone has days when their minds overload with questions, thoughts and emotions about themselves, others, life, the future.

why.why.why.what.how.who? repeats over and over.

I had that one day, and for a moment, I understood why people love driving and speeding to release stress 'cos for a moment, as my head went into overload, my speed went way up and for a few seconds, I felt better. Just for those few seconds though.
As I finally reached home, I was just about to close the gates when I looked at the night sky. Kuching was silent, sleeping. The horizons glowed warmly from the city lights but up above, it was dark enough for me to see a few stars. It wasn't the most beautiful night sky, but it was perfect. On nights with the sky saturated with stars, its magnitude overwhelms, the stars shout glory and I stare in awe.
But that night, only a few stars shone through, they were silent, giving me the space to think. It was as though the same rays they shone down were the rays with which they pulled my thoughts up to them, drawing me into a conversation with them stars about the thoughts that ravaged my mind that night. No new questions were answered, just thoughts revisited and my own life principles reconsidered. All I really needed was order amidst the chaos in my head and that also explains the blog's url, createdfromtheclutter.

So that's it for my first post, I basically just intended to explain this blog's origins :)

Now... should I sign off? meh, haven't thought of that. Guess I'll just use this sign off for now

Shine on, x.