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.