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Yes, The Proclaimers'500 Miles is probably the most inspiring running song ever. Or the most torturing.
Lately Kel and I have been pushed by Adele's Rumour Has It. Or the sight of Sabrina's back getting smaller and smaller, as she speeds way on ahead of us. Marathon updates: as of yesterday, we can now run 3km without stopping. By the end of the month, we hope to hit 10km. Actually my goal is to just not pass out and/or fall down in front of the dental building as the lecturers are leaving.
We have a looong way to go. But i guess the challenge is more mental than physical. I've been trying to keep my mind off endless distractions like how hot the weather is, or how breathless i'm feeling, or what that couple is doing in that parked car at the abandoned hostel?
In lieu, i try to push myself with
"Okay, you can rest once you get to that snail carcass over there,"
"CHASE THE SABRINA!"
"Step.all.the.dandelions."
"Run to the beat of this obscenely fast song, maggot!"
"Haiya, just pretend this is Temple Run!"
But honestly each day gets easier as you overcome each mental barrier that was pulling you back before.
As we swim around in our first world problems, yesterday my friends and i had a little bit of free time, and we saw The Lady.
I love Michelle Yeoh. As with Memoirs of a Geisha, it's always refreshing to see her in non-action movies. Her performance was stunning, as was David Thewlis'. It's disarming to see how witnessing other people's strength can bring out your own weakenesses. How watching the adversity of others can make you shifty in your own comforts.
The cinematography was a faint nostalgia of a movie i talked about not too long ago, Leon: The Professional. The scenes slowing down for emphasis. The aerial shots. The mute moments. The violence interlaced with scenes of tenderness. I was quite surprised to find out that it was directed by the same director, Luc Besson.
This movie, though, primarily focused on the love story between Aung San Suu Kyi and her husband Dr Michael Aris. I am not a big fan of epic romances, so i am ambiguous about the romantic approach to telling Aung San Suu Kyi's story. There is SO MUCH more to this woman than her vulnerabilities (or strengths?) as a wife and mother, but this movie just kept playing out her struggles as a woman. Perhaps that is the whole point of the movie. And just something i cannot fully grasp.
I was really looking forward to understanding Aung San Suu Kyi as a leader, how she swayed millions and millions into mobilization, not just those directly influenced by Burmese tyranny. But she also inspired leaders and followers worldwide. This was never really played out in The Lady.
From the movie, it was as if the only reason why Aung San Suu Kyi was influential was because her father, General Aung San was assassinated for fighting for democracy. But in reality, we all knew she was a lot more than that. In the movie, whenever people came to support her, they always held up portraits of her father. Scholars when they meet her, they say things like "You look so much like him,"
*
We could all learn a little from a simple movie. We young people are easily swayed. All it takes are 30-minute videos, short news excerpts, something their friends shared on facebook. All of a sudden we want to TAKE ACTION, we want to BE INVOLVED, we want to CHANGE THE WORLD.
These are big words, monumental even. A lot people dive into things without really truly comprehending the meaning of these words. Just because you are loudest doesn't make you the wisest. Just because you have strength in volume doesn't mean you have strength in integrity.
We know very little, perhaps nothing at all, about the true meaning of sacrifice, freedom, faith, and truth.
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Earlier in the academic year, i told my friend Mac that this year i was going to take part in ADSAlympics' swimming event. We had a good laugh about it because I'm not particularly a very strong swimmer. But nevertheless, i decided to take it semiseriously and frequented the pool for the whole of 4th year.
While although, most of the time i was splashing around, and not exactly training. For example, Clem and I would ask Steven to teach us how to swim like a mermaid, and Stevie would say "Oh, just pretend you're humping the floor,"
A couple of months ago, I joined the women's swimming relay. And we got 2nd T_T_T_T_T
To anybody else it might be mehh, it is undoubtedly one of the biggest sporting achievements of my life.
Last night, Kel implanted the thought of joining the Penang Bridge Marathon in my head. And i thought, why not? I have never in my life ran a marathon before. Even in uni when i'm asked to run 200m or more, i'd be like,
Because my attention span doesn't extend beyond 20 seconds.
So herein begins my most ambitious goal so far. Joining a marathon. Wish me luck, children!
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This is one of my favourite spots in Sungai Petani. It's a seafood restaurant right below the Semeling bridge, by the bay of Merbok river. If you come here at the perfect time of day, the sky would be that iridescent shade of pink. Awkward young lovers would be standing at a distance from each other, frowning at a sunset they're probably not old enough to appreciate. The air a mixture of strangers' cigarettes, your succulent dinner barbequeing and salty seawater.
Recently I've tried to comfort myself by telling myself that the reason I haven't been able to write was because i was too busy living. Like my online social life would be inversely proportional to my actual social life, something of the sort.
But honestly all i've been doing is spending about a third of each day figuring out what to eat...
...which almost always settles with something grilled, covered in carbs and lard.
Or circling the hostel's parking lot for a space to park where i wouldn't get a RM 50 fine.
Pretty sure i've gotta work on that some more.
Once, i even tried to occupy my lazy Saturday morning by emulating one of those Taiwanese television shows. Where you apply one side of your face with make-up to announce to the world what a fraud you actually are.
I really am a fraud T_T
Unfortunately i do not roll out of bed looking like a Korean baby doll, but it's comforting for a woman to think that no matter what, M.A.C, stage, Clinique, YSL and Estee Lauder will always have your back.
But i'd like to think that people like me because i am hilarious and because i have frankly quite useless talents, i.e. clapping with one hand, and a scarily superficial vein on my left wrist that i can stop circulation on command.
If you asked Jon, he'd tell you that he was misled into liking me because i have this terrible habit of playing with my hair.
Too late, pal.
I'm hoping nobody'd notice that im carrying a horrendous plastic bag with my shoes in it. But i'm pointing it out anyway to eliminate the nagging compulsion that somebody'd notice.
As always, that's a recently picture of me. This will probably be the last time i will look marginally decent until after finals. Because
a) I am too poor for a haircut and right now i look sorta like a hobo.
b) 4th year final exams coming up T_T_T_T As of this time next year, i will be packing my bags and permanently leaving this place which i've snuggled warmly into and called my home.
Today i watched Into the Wild (sounds like a 30 Seconds to Mars song, doesn't it?) which is a movie based on a true story about a young man who just drops everything he has cut out for him, to live in the wilderness. Empowering as the underlying message may be, by the end of the movie i was deeply sickened by his hedonistic selfishness, that in that shivering scene where he curled up to die, i just went all "Oh, get over with it!".
As youths, we're so obsessed with the idea of pursuing happiness. As if happiness was a goal that could be unlocked by a certain amount of sub-goals. We look for deeper meanings for every single thing that we do. We seek reasons to be...mobilized. We like to think that at some point, we can change the world.
We're in the never-ending chase to comprehend beauty, freedom and most of all, truth. But honestly. Truth is, there is no truth. What we choose to believe is not truth, it's logic. And when logic is subjected to manipulation and perspective, then really, how far along is the truth true?
And to think, i used to blog like that all the time. I've stopped because i realized there were always subtext in my entries. In a way, i misused words to protect myself from situations, views, people i knew, people i didn't know and most of all - myself.
You could say that in the past year or so, i've learnt to be a happier person. Not just in the dark, awry way. But in the genuine, laugh out loud at things even though they aren't that funny in the first place, way.
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| This is my third attempt in writing this entry.
I kept forgetting to save. Apparently I don't know how to use my blog anymore.
And also, apparently I can't change the font or anything fancy like that anymore.
Oh but it's about time i grew out of that. Along with a bunch of other things.
This is probably the most recent picture of me along with my girlfriend Amanda, i mean Yi Pin :)
A recent picture. I guess I owe you all that much, because the last time i updated was in FEBRUARY.
Since then, we've had a new king, got our hearts broken. And yesterday, the earth literally moved.
But on a much smaller scale. Here's a tiny update. (I hardly remember what happened 2 minutes ago, much less 2 months ago. But i've collectively copied some pictures off my facebook so illustrate the flow of events.)
Sometime ago, i got myself hurt in a gang fight. By gang fight i mean scuffle. By scuffle i mean futsal. But futsal i mean clumsiness on my part, really.
I now have a scar the size of Canada on my leg. There goes my once promising career as a Victoria's Secret sock model.
Also, not too long ago. Peta, KK and I invented dirty word Scrabble. Which is basically all dirty words and no Scrabble.
In March, my class went for our respective oral health postings. All these years I was nervous and hesitant about whether or not i'd survive out there. Having to be a university student for FIVE years, you sorta dig yourself a cozy little comfort zone. Snuggling up with your predictable schedule, sterile instruments at the expense of your free will, a monthly allowance.
In that week we learnt things that never could've been taught to us no matter how infrequent we skip classes. And really, i can't wait to love my job.
After watching this lovely movie Julie and Julia, I finally realize why i can't find the need to blog anymore.
I've simply ran out of "missions". Too often than i'd like to admit, you see me weary-eyed, and trying get by each day without hurting anyone (whether on the dental chair or otherwise). Lately, my favourite, most-uninhibited moment of the day is the 5 minutes i spend reading Adrian Mole's Diaries in the bathroom.
My biggest short-term challenge right now is fitting into my dental dinner dress. WHICH I AM WORKING VERY HARD ON. While all i can think about is how much i want to have KFC T_T
And my biggest long-term challenge. We'll see about that shortly i expect.
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| When I Grow Up
Once, Clem was making rounds in the clinic, asking everyone what they wanted to be when they were kids. All the guys wanted to be policemen and all the girls wanted to be teachers.
When i was a kid, i wanted to be a ton of things. I wanted to host Disney Buzz. I wanted to be a mermaid. I wanted to be a pop star (No, actually i just thought smoke machines were really cool.). I wanted to be a ballerina.
It took me my entire childhood to realize that i was not actually good at any of those things.
One of the best things about being a kid is being able to have all these lofty dreams. No one's allowed to tell a kid she's never going to be pretty enough to be a beauty queen. Who's going to tell a little boy that being a policeman is not about carrying a gun and chasing bad guys.
As an almost 23 year old, i wake up (with much difficulty) at 6.45 every morning and almost ALWAYS, the first thought that hits me would be. I've never been so old in my life.
Well technically that would be true for everyone. Every minute that goes by is another that we'll never get back. And that freaks the hell out of me.
Society holds you in a head lock, saying, you are x number of years old, therefore you must've unlocked at least y number of achievements. And in the midst of feeling guilty about spending too much time on 9gag, you start feeling shitty about yourself.
You beat yourself up over and over in your head. What have you achieved in your life?
Truth is, not everything is as palpable as we'd like to think it is. We can't go through life ticking things off our imaginary list.
Of late, i've been too busy to do 9 out of 10 things that i used to love. I haven't updated this for longer than i'd like to admit. My Lord of the Rings trilogy now deserves a eulogy. I haven't made pointless conversation with other people's patients in such a long time.
Amongst quotas and events and races, it's easy to lose yourself while attempting to do the exact opposite.
Sometimes i find that i have to learn through to get through the day with stolen moments. Like today, my stolen moment was opening my room window to the most pleasant smell and tepidity of post-rain.
At times, my stolen moment would be dropping off something at the post office for my brother. Not missing a phone call from my mother or my boyfriend. Days when they'd serve steamed egg with pork at my regular lunch place.
Stolen moments.
I'd call those achievements. Wouldn't you?
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"With a gun barrel between your teeth, you speak only in vowels." - Chuck Palahniuk
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