because i won't be the one to disappoint you

15/1/11

there's something about notebooks that i really love. empty, thickly covered books with off white pages. diaries, journals, sketchbooks, & maybe even Wreck This Journal, which i swear to get one day.

after cake and tea with Liyana, whom i have not met in a very long time, i spent some time in MPH while she went to go see Azureen for abit. at first, i lingered in the trashtastic media magazines section, stopping at a page of Cleo or Cosmo i'm not sure, that had Cory Monteith innit. 

i quickly proceeded to the area containing the Moleskins the minute i laid my wandering eyes on them. 

I stood there for fifteen minutes, shuffling through each journal that sat there still; wrapped, unwrapped, boxed, leather-covered, velvet covered (mmm my favourite), rich brown, faded brown, bright red, strapped, unstrapped, squared, edged, lined, unlined... i went through them all. 

there's something about new, yet to be owned journals that just attract me so. to me, they are like newborns; all waiting to be picked by their designated mummy or daddy, waiting to have stories & drawings put into them, waiting to have some sort of history engraved in them. and they get brought to the loveliest places too; cozy coffeeshops, bedroom tables, lakeside stairways... they travel on airplanes too, usually sitting on the passenger seat as well. 

isn't it wonderful to be created for such a beautiful purpose? to be a secret means of artistic expression, closed away and kept confidential, only between you and your owner. it is like being the only trusted person who reads and sees all the thoughts & desires of a person that no one else gets to see. it's an entire level of mutual understanding and companionship on its own. 

a day in the life of a journal.

simply heartening. 

Love's Not A Competition (But I'm Winning)- Kaisers Chiefs

the arrival of a cold, purple skied night was evident.
the black tar road finely sparkled in golden sifts, reflecting the orange street lights that shone firmly on its tall iron bodies, despite the downpour of demurring heavy rain.


to be honest, i wasn't ready to give my 100% at today's athletics training. i have already been aching from the first session two days ago and dance classes yesterday. not to mention the yummy and overfilling banana leaf lunch i had only a couple hours earlier that added to the i-don't-feel-like-running-shit-today mood.

quick update for the blur: i had recently (and i now believe, accidentally) been recruited into HELP's Athletics Team. it happened when i went for training on Wednesday, thinking it was just a practice for the upcoming HELP Sports Carnival. the next thing you know; i'm listed to represent HELP, competing with other runners representing other private colleges in the MAPCU Sports soiree. 

only the second day of training and i + another colleague developed blisters and another colleague vomited. i was actually lucky to get a blister because if not, i would've had to run another 2000 meters. and that is after constantly training my leg strides, sprinting to and fro, and running 1000 meters before.


when i had to stop because of that stupid minor injury,
i observed quietly the big, red tracked stadium.

never have i felt so small and intimidated in my eighteen years of life. 

i saw this young girl wearing the national orange coloured sports jacket, complete with the bolded MALAYSIA print on the back. she jogged up and down the stairways, around the track several times, looking cooler than Mike Posner. she came off so familiar to me, until my trainer/leader said she was the Under-16 National 800 Meter Gold Medalist.


there were many more wearing the national sports jackets.
those who weren't wearing, were half-nakedly sprinting at speeds faster than light and for distances longer than how much my mother and i have walked in our lives, combined. the amount of ripped muscle they had on their backs alone was more than my entire body's muscle mass.


then i overheard that they were actually our national Paralympic runners.


then there was the young Indian girl who didn't stop running around the track for a close hour. and the old chap who probably has not even stopped yet. and the few dudes who noticed almost immediately that my spikes were actually torn. yet, they were constantly providing motivation whenever i ran pass them. or in this case, in the times that they ran past me.


i felt like my entire being could've been and would've been scrutinized in the time length of which i ran the tracks. how wrong my technique is, how weak my legs are, how my blessed height and lengthly legs are not used for their advantage, how generally unathletic i am. how i could easily be the wrong choice as an addition into the college's winning team.


i walked home in the cold, windy rain, soaking and shivering as i breathed heat into my wet hands.
i felt defeated; so defeated, that not even the rain and its ice cold  demeanor could bring me down any further.


The Funeral- Band of Horses

because this is for my best friend, Mimi.

i love you more than words in the dictionary can describe it for me.
and that is all i can say.

because it's just exactly what i feel.

there has been a question lingering in my mind for quite some time, in the past months actually.
i always knew the answer to it, but at the same time, it's not an exact answer. merely an interpretation of what i truly thought.


i confided in trusted people, asking them whether my belief was right or wrong.


basically it's about how i feel as a Christian towards the subject of homosexuality.
and because it is such a sensitive topic, i never really could find the right words to express my fundamental introspection that is not common to the average and majority of Christians.


this girl right here, who runs one of the most uplifting sites on Tumblr, expressed it in such a mature, simplistic manner that matched exactly my thoughts and opinions towards the subject. i will paraphrase some of her entire answer here.

I don’t necessarily think that gay people are damned to hell. I just can’t justify that in any way. The God that i choose to believe in is a loving an forgiving God. Of course, I don’t know everything. But neither do any of us. No one will, until we die and are face to face with Him. But I feel ever so strongly, somewhere deep in my heart, God loves homosexuals. He made them as they were. 

I feel like my “justification” for this belief comes from Psalm 139. 

 ¹ You have searched me, LORD, 
   and you know me. 
² You know when I sit and when I rise; 
   you perceive my thoughts from afar. 
³ You discern my going out and my lying down; 
   you are familiar with all my ways. 
⁴ Before a word is on my tongue 
   you, LORD, know it completely. 
⁵ You hem me in behind and before, 
   and you lay your hand upon me. 
⁶ Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, 
   too lofty for me to attain.

This first part tells us that God knows us, more than we know ourselves. He knows if we’re gay or straight before we know it ourselves. And more importantly, He made us that way.

 ¹³ For you created my inmost being; 
   you knit me together in my mother’s womb. 
¹⁴ I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; 
   your works are wonderful, 
   I know that full well. 
¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from you 
   when I was made in the secret place, 
   when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. 
¹⁶ Your eyes saw my unformed body; 
   all the days ordained for me were written in your book 
   before one of them came to be. 
¹⁷ How precious to me are your thoughts,^[a] God! 
   How vast is the sum of them! 
¹⁸ Were I to count them, 
   they would outnumber the grains of sand— 
   when I awake, I am still with you.

This verse says that he knitted us together and saw our unformed bodies, knows our days before they are even lived and that our “frame was not hidden from you.” 

I’ve done a lot of thinking on the subject of homosexuality. i have best friends who are gay, and some who have even come out long before the subject of homosexuality became less of a 'trend', if i may politely say. I love my friends like I do my family; I don’t want to see them in Hell because of who they are. 

But then I was lead to this Psalm. I read it and it just spoke to my heart. If God created us, every fiber, and knew what we would grow up to be and do, he then created us to be gay or straight. Why would he create something, just to hate it? To doom that person to Hell, with no real chance of getting to Heaven because of what God made them? I don’t see that happening. God loves what he made us, though He might hate what we do and all the mistakes we make. 

But if I were to come across a gay man or woman, who loved God with all their heart. Who followed His word to the letter, prayed, gave their all and had undeniable faith, how can this person be sent to Hell? Now, I said before, I can’t know this. I like to hope that God would decide out of his heart not to punish this person…it’s like that thing with “Well where to babies go if they die? They don’t believe in Jesus, so they can’t go to Heaven, right?” Or the argument for, “What about the boy in Africa who has never even heard of Jesus or God? Never had contact with the outside world and then dies. Will he get the chance, in a sort of in-between world, to believe?” It’s these things that you can’t possibly answer until you see God face to face. in fact, none of us can. 

And that is my very long answer to your very simple question. I don’t know if homosexuality is really “right” but I believe fiercely that just the fact that someone is born gay shouldn’t make them get a one way to hell ticket, you know? I know plenty of Christians that are Gay. Is their belief useless? Their worship to God any less? I don’t think so, but that’s just me. 

Boy With A Coin- Iron & Wine

because i need to go back to december.

it's 1:15 a.m.

i am awake in this wide, solemn room of the house, sipping on water to soothe my dry throat. i don't know what is it that makes my throat feel so restrained these days, especially in the night.


only the fourth day of the year and i've had too many thoughts travelling all over my little mind, from one corner to the other. i feel much more at peace as i sit alone here than when i was surrounded by monotonously happy people the entire day  today. it's one of those days where i'm much better quiet because i'm simply too exhausted from thinking to verbally murmur anything that could be humanly heard. then again, i actually grew up as a quiet kid. guess some things just don't change, new year or not.


often, i am blessed with good things and good apparels. i am always thankful but sometimes i'm left wanting more, wanting better. and that's where i usually mess up. i forget about the good that i have, scurrying for better alternatives and options. when i'm not able to find a better replacement, i go back to what i once had. but then, someone has already took it.

i toy with the idea of having seemingly endless possibilities of good fortune,

hanging them on fine strings like a self proclaimed puppeteer, 

until it becomes too late for me to realize that the ropes have cut loose and they are no longer mine. 

Ashwin was right.
i pay the price for my own irresolute ways.
its time i started learning.

i guess you're just no longer mine

Casimir Pulaski Day- Sufjan Stevens