I want more, give me more

Time can take it's toll on the best of us
Look at you you're growing old, so young
Traffic lights blink at you in the evening
You tilt your head and turn it to the sun
Sometimes the TV is like a lover
Singing softly as you fall asleep
You wake up in the morning and it's still there
Adding up the things you'll never be

Alright, I can say what you want me to
Alright, I can do all the things you do
Alright, I'll make it all up for you
I'm still in love with you
I'm still in love with you

Hello 2016, goodbye the distasteful parts of 2015

Hello! I barely blogged for 2015 and it's a pity cos I occasionally come back to read and recall what happened in the past years I had documented. 

2016 is pretty ok so far other than the fact that I've dissertation to worry about and I'm so behind time, procrastinating daily and basically not giving it my all. Other than that, I've a long to do list to accomplish and not push it back to 'tomorrow'. 

Recently I've been thinking about some people and wondering how I have been as a person in their lives. In 2015 as I was catching up with some friends, i realized that although each year my core group of friends remain and I barely lost any important friends since.... well... R, I realize that I grew apart from some friends I've always thought to be one of the most important in my life. I look back and wondered how is it that the friendship waned and if I was the cause of it. I would believe that as we grow older our values, personality, thoughts and beliefs would slowly differ and evolve and if it clashes or doesn't gel as much, any friendship would just quietly end. I feel that with any friendship or relationship, rarely does the end comes out of the blue, you can slowly see it changing and degenerating before you and sometimes you let it be, other times, you work to see if it can be as before. 

However, I see myself as one who quickly revognizes if this situation of this particular thing is what I want or if it's worth working for. I don't tend to bullshit myself (unless it's about school work- that I can procrastinate to a whole new level). I see things as it is and I think that is one of my best qualities. I'm truthful to myself and to people I love and care about. I know what I want, I decide and rationalize things to a fault that once I made up my mind, I can walk away from something without looking back because I feel that I've weighed everything all out and decided on the best way to go about achieving what I want. And honestly, I am no saint. I don't consider anyone's feelings as much as I considered my own. If anything I would put my well being and my emotions in first priority and I don't think that is particularly selfish. That's just basically looking out for yourself. Though there are times I feel guilty and wonder if I am being too selfish not considering how others might feel but then that's the catch. You always think other people will think and feel as you would in certain situations but honestly, most of the time nobody has time to care about other things other than themselves. With that, I believe my decision has always been an optimal and practical one. 

However, that being said, I'm still one with emotions and one who at least remember some happier times. That's why despite making a choice which I feel is right, there are some times I would think and dwell in problems for a long time wondering just what the problem is. 

I've always seen myself as one who is there for my friends when they need me and hearing out their problems and giving advice with the best of my abilities and knowledge and only advice I feel is right and truthful. With my friends, I don't see a point in sugar coating their problems or possible solutions, I hope to give them a perspective that i see clearly as an outsider and advice I feel is truly what I would have done in their situation and advice that is definitely not just what they want to hear to continue deluding themselves. And I can safely say that as much as I could I have been a friend, I had been one and more in different ways over the years. As such, sometimes hearing from other people how I've been a lousy friend or a lousy advisor is incredibly hurtful not only because I've to my best abilities been a friend and giving advice as best as I could, but also because I've rarely ever told friends I've been there for just how much hearing their problems have affected me. I'm not a bubbly personality but I used to be a girl with one too many ideals and optimism about love. I used to think how I would meet 'the one' and just know it and all the fairytale stuff when I was younger. Plus, though I'm not one with a huge dating history I am probably a very cynical, love-fearing person for one who hasn't been in an official relationship. 

I believe that I had been become such a person with years of listening to stories of how my friends got their heart broken, alongside with somehow having a personality type that feels too much and probably amplifies certain situations and feelings, such that I slowly believe their problems are the problems with guys and relationships and how all relationships will end in failure. 

Now, when I look back at my old posts, I've realized how incredibly cynical and unhappy I was without even going through a major heartbreak or loss. I've had so many pre-conceived notions on relationships, love and its failures such that when I do meet people, I built a wall around myself thinking that whoever wants to break it down are probably bad people anyway. 

Of course I don't blame it all on listening to my friends issue, a huge part lies in me not being able to rationalize and see pass the fact that every relationship fails and for its own reason. And with each failure it's not necessarily a bad thing. It's just that hearing things about who I am as a friend, I feel unappreciated and am in disbelief because i don't hear these stuff from these friends directly- which I would rather hear it, if I had a choice. I somehow just feel betrayed, upset and unfair as I have tried my best to be there for them for a long period of time. 

Honestly, though there are some things in life that you can hear but is up for interpretation, I find that the truth is often not only a two-headed sword but also present in just a passing statement or sometimes a lie. 

In 2016, I hope to put this down and look beyond it. I has refIected and looked at what I have in my life and wonder just what else is probably a lie but I think that I'm going to leave it as it is. I believe I  know what is mine and i know best what is the most right and suited for me and that judgement will hopefully lead me on to better things. Although what i just said sounds so trite, I know that with anybody or any friends in life, you hang out, you talk, you hear them talk about others, about themselves, about things, you just know if they are the type of friend for you. And you stick with that judgement and as much as you can, be the type of person you can best manage to be, be the type of friend you can best be and live the type of life you know to be the best for yourself. That's a core thing of what I require myself for 2016. Well, that and getting my dissertation done in time. Hahaha! Goodnight! 

A respite

Facts about you: 

1. You always wrote with such finality, it made me swell with romance but thick in doubt of what our end would be. 

2. This is not about you, it's about me, about how when I saw you,how  everytime I see you, I feel my eyes lit up in hope. 

3. I remember your face lying on your palm, you look away, pensive, I couldn't read your thoughts, you felt so far away from me. My eyes watered unknowingly, I think it's because I tried to swim towards you but you were too far away. I blinked and the blur was washed away. I blinked and you were no longer here. 

4. You love your highlighters. You highlight all your important points in blue, the things you want to take note of in yellow, the things you find hard to remember in orange. 

Is it strange how I think the first few months we met you always wore a blue shirt, the later part of our life together you always spelled my name yellow and the last time I saw you, you cocked your head to the side, as if I was orange, as if you no longer remembered me. 

Have strength

After so many things, after so many hazy miles,
not sure which kingdom it is, not knowing the terrain,


travelling with pitiful hopes,


and lying companions, and suspicious dreams,


I love the firmness that still survives in my eyes,


I hear my heart beating as if I were riding a horse,


I bite the sleeping fire and the ruined salt,
and at night, when darkness is thick, and mourning furtive,


I imagine I am the one keeping watch on the far shore


of the encampments, the traveller armed with his sterile defenses,


caught between growing shadows


and shivering wings, and my arm made of stone protects me.

—Pablo Neruda, from “Sonata and Destructions,”Twenty Poems (The Sixties Press, 1967)

Would i have to pass you by

Haven't been blogging here since mid of last year.

School is busier this semester. Maybe it's being on my third year, or maybe the second semester is always harder than the first but the projects have been getting harder and the stress of the internship and dissertation proposal submission and which professor i would be getting. I have been feel very high strung.

Life has otherwise been stressful too. Things at home are not going good, i have been feeling too stressed to do anything sometimes and this leave work piling up as usual. Jiayi is away on exchange this semester and not being able to meet her as i did the previous stress has left a bit of a hole in my life. Her exchange at Paris has been wonderful but also trying at times. She visited Cheryl at London during March and they were able to hang out and tour around a bit. They took a group photo with my picture on Cheryl phone. The picture made me smile and tear up a bit. It has been awhile since we could really meet to catch up or even just celebrate something together. I wish this summer we could do something together.

Miss my girls 

Black flies on the windowsill
That we are
That we are
That we are to know
Winter stole summer's thrill

And the river's cracked and cold

See the sky is no man's land
A darkened plume to stay
Hope here needs a humble hand
Not a fox found in your place

No man is an island, this I know
But can't you see?
Maybe you were the ocean when I was just a stone

Black flies on the windowsill
That we are
That we are
That we are to hold
Comfort came against my will
And every story must grow old

Still I'll be a traveler
A gypsy's reins to face
But the road is wearier
With that fool found in your place

No man is an island, this I know
But can't you see?
Maybe you were the ocean when I was just a stone

No man is an island, this I know
But can't you see?
Maybe you were the ocean when I was just a stone

So here we are

And I don't wanna beg your pardon
And I don't wanna ask you why
But if I was to go my own way
Would I have to pass you by?

And I don't wanna beg your pardon
And I don't wanna ask you why
But if I was to go my own way
Would I have to pass you by?

speak until the dust
settles in the same specific place
light refused to go
drink it from a cast and iron plate
instead of cold milk
was offered unripe
instead of silence
considered craven

nothing made it seem
hidden where the aging soil was pure
pressed against the crease
mountains become fragrant at the source
how can you stand this
exotic angle
i read it somewhere 
that they would lie still

i remember how cloth hung
flexing with the forest clung
half waist and high raised arms
kicking at the slightest form
i remember my first love
i remember my first love

unrelied i was called
missing teeth out of favour
nickel beach it was all
gathering by the sundial

i woke hard
i woke heavy 
for the half way stop
five whole hours in
when i woke hard 
i woke heavy with the live or parts 

i remember how cloth hung
flexing with the forest clung
half waist and high raised arms
kicking at the slightest form
i remember my first love
i remember my first love

i remember my first love