“One Art”
Elizabeth Bishop

The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

—-Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

i know if i was somebody else looking at me 

i would punch me in the face so hard 

spit on me and say things like 'grow the fuck up' 

or 'stop being such a fucking pussy' 

things like that 

but unfortunately i cannot punch myself in the face 

is there someone else willing to do it 

today i went out and done did this to my hair

it's what the devil would look like if he rebonded his horns
the hairdresser called it 'havoc but subtle'
i liked her a lot she had red contact lenses and i felt like satan lived in her eyes
but it was ok like she controlled him and stuff

i don't feel at home anywhere, with anyone
with you, i come closest, but still it's like a house where the walls have been splashed with paint
and there's a constant odour of something rotten like a decaying organ
but at least it's a shelter, a roof

anywhere else i'm just standing in the raging pathway of the elements

no home, no belonging, no comfort
i'm doing all the right things
and seeing no results

i have to do the inevitable and straggle homeless through the streets
but how i would love to have that shelter
even if it was a piece of shit

read posts on my blog from before all this happened and cried 

can't we go back there 

why can't sincere apologies annihilate the pain? 

why won't you stop hurting me 

please stop

slowly getting my shit together i suppose 

eventful & not altogether pleasant first few days back in singapore 

but i'm happy to be with my family, 

and honestly, thank you to everyone who has shown me concern 

i feel like God has sent you to me to help me cope and 

for that i am ever grateful 

but otherwise, i'm trying to pick myself up 

i am also aware that i'm building my walls 

and i really do mean strong brick walls 

and i want to reinforce them with cement and beams 

because i will never let myself go through that again 

i will never make that same mistake again 

and it's good to make super strong walls 

because then i'll know 

the next person who can break them down 

who can be bothered to break them down 

will be worth it 

i hope 

i had a pretty good first day of school 

my first level 4 seminar 

everyone was really smart & i was really intimidated but 

i like our prof, he's a very old british man who wears velcro sandals 

it was 3 hours but i didn't fall asleep, always good 

saw old acquaintances & made new ones 

feel like God is looking out for me 

giving Him a bro fist pump for being the best bro ever 

je veux être heureuse

ça c'est tous

est-ce qu'il est si difficile?

avec toi, je souhaite que la réponse était 'non'

mais, je pense, franchement, la réponse correcte est 'oui'

.
.

"   And then one student said that happiness is what happens when you go to bed on the hottest night of the summer, a night so hot you can’t even wear a tee-shirt and you sleep on top of the sheets instead of under them, although try to sleep is probably more accurate. And then at some point late, late, late at night, say just a bit before dawn, the heat finally breaks and the night turns into cool and when you briefly wake up, you notice that you’re almost chilly, and in your groggy, half-consciousness, you reach over and pull the sheet around you and just that flimsy sheet makes it warm enough and you drift back off into a deep sleep. And it’s that reaching, that gesture, that reflex we have to pull what’s warm - whether it’s something or someone - toward us, that feeling we get when we do that, that feeling of being sad in the world and ready for sleep, that’s happiness.   "

Paul Schmidtberger, Design Flaws of the Human Condition

so i don't know but i probably just drank four shots worth of something called 'get31' and 'caraçao' don't fucking ask me i don't fucking know what the french drink, they're 20~% instead so together they're like 40%??? i don't know can you stack alcohol percentages??? i just want a fucking chartreuse to knock me out for good, because i don't know what the fuck this drink is and it tastes like listerine but i do know what THIS is which is fucking torture and its pain and its brand new, everyday, new stabs, new wounds and i spend all day, the entire day trying to stop the bleeding and close up the gashes but every fucking day i wake up and nothing's changed a single bit. sometimes i put a bandage over it and i ignore it and it sort of works. i touch other people's skin instead, it's all soft and smooth and undamaged, and  then i remove the bandages and there's all this blood screaming 'fuck you you understand'              and i feel like i deserve it i feel like i just haven' tbeen a good person in a long, long time           i haven't been a good friend or a good daughter or a good student or a good anything and so i fucking deserve this         but on the other hand i don't understand i know lots of people like me who don't have to go through any fucking thing so why me?

i thought after four days stumbling home from the bar in paris i'd given up on alcohol because i'd end up shitfaced but still sad, i thought i realised, no, alcohol is not the answer but the point is sometimes i just cannot sit here and think about things and allow myself to feel all these things that don't need to be felt             i've felt enough pain and cried enough tears thank you very much                   have you?

and so sometimes i just can't anymore. i can feel the fatigue just in my entire body like my heart just sent a million signals to all my nerves and all my muscles and said, look guys, she's fucked up, get your shit together and act like it, and one morning every fucking thing just died on me just like that i felt it in every part of my body, everything i was avoiding, all this pain that was threatening to torment me just came at once and seized me and there was no way out               and for so long, half a month exactly, i managed to keep that pain away. i managed to deceive it, drink alcohol and talk to people, pretend like i'm interested in their lives, listen to what they say because it's better than what i have to say, talk to people in french about total bullshit because thinking in french is infinitely better than thinking about this, and the buzz you get from alcohol makes you walk crooked but doesn't make you think which is worth all the dehydration you feel in the morning.           why do you think people drown their sorrows at bars?                  speaking of which i love bars. they're like the arms that will hold me when no one else will. only bars have that special thing i need to keep me from wanting to jump off a bridge: alcohol. which is my point. i thought i realised alcohol wasn't the answer but that's only because i replaced alcohol with people, for a bit, or with the routine of forcing myself to meet new people and distract myself by having to maintain some semblance of a decent EQ level in the presence of others, and it worked, for half a month, i did not cry. and then it was gone and i replaced it with snowboarding, and i boarded until my entire body yelled for me to stop. until i fell so many times my knees are all purple and blue. until i had to sit halfway down slope and will myself to go on before somebody whacked me from behind with their skis. and then it was over.

and now i'm here. six days to go. there are people i know who can help me. family. friends. but they're all so far away. they're six days away, maybe eight. how will i live with myself for this week? the answer is alcohol because honest to god that is all i know              that is the only way i can survive this week                   is that fucked up? i don't really care. and you know what i have fucking EXAMS in two days. how ridiculous is my situation? has anyone ever been in this situation? IT'S SO FUCKING CRAZY AND UNIQUE AND SPECIAL AND FUCKED UP it's only reserved for super fucked up people, so if you haven't been in my shoes

congratulations
you're probably a good person not worth nature fucking around with

i know God is out there and i know He loves me
but i also know sometimes He has to teach us lessons and i guess
i have to learn something but
it's so hard to learn it without alcohol
it's so hard to act like simple prayer will get me through this
it's so hard to believe that God is going to help me because i feel so, so helpless

do you? do you? do you?

or are you happy

i don't care. i have to study now

    

    

can't figure out the frickin alignments

random pictures from:

last party i had in grenoble before i went to paris
presents/flowers from my parents for my birthday (that is a limited edition mont blanc x john lennon pen, i don't know if you can see the famous sketch of john lennon's head at the end of the cap)
berlin's christmas markets, east side gallery, holocaust memorial
depressing ass but meaningful day at auschwitz/birkenau camps
inappropriately inserted picture of fun times at the club with awesome brazilian girls
us with the super nice & helpful receptionist at our hostel in krakow & another nice italian man
the ugliest picture of berlin from the air ever taken
another holocaust picture just to maintain some semblance of maturity

can i also just say berlin & krakow were both awesome, but krakow really blew my mind. we went with all these preconceived notions, like "wtf eastern europe omg someone's gonna steal our kidneys" but when we arrived it was so beautiful, and so safe, and the poles are so friendly & helpful. it wasn't very super modern or anything like that but it's definitely not what anyone who hasn't been to eastern europe before thinks. in fact our receptionist got really frustrated and said "we're central europe. eastern europe are those still dealing with all that soviet commie shit" her words, not mine. but my point is i was so taken aback and surprised at how krakow totally exceeded my expectations. so much culture, so much history but so much present-ness, if you know what i mean. of course being the city known most for the most famous concentration camp of the worst act of genocide in history doesn't tend to bode well for 'positive connotations' of your city. but i felt like krakow really didn't let its identity be just that, but had a lot else to offer. VODKA ugh drank so much vodka in krakow, they gave us free shots at dinner & when you go out you just have to drink vodka. the poles down it like it's fuckin water. only regret: didn't get to try the famous hazelnut vodka :( from berlin to krakow we partied for 4 days straight that by the 5th day my entire body was aching and i was feeling so shitty i almost didn't make it to auschwitz but thank goodness i felt better awhile later & made it there because it's just one of those things you have to see if you're in krakow

places i managed to visit while on exchange: 
london x 2
paris x 3... going to be 4
brighton
interlaken
geneva
bruges
edinburgh
rome
berlin
krakow

places i still want to visit: 
wherever's good in croatia
cinque terre
vienna
budapest
prague
bratislava
stockholm
seoul
phnom penh (i know.. disgrace)

also i have never ever visited china i don't know how but i just haven't i would like to go soon

bonne année tout le monde

happy new year
2012 beat the shit out of me with hammers and baseball bats
but i'm getting up again
starting to walk, recover, heal
i think i will be ok. i think i can do this
i have more confidence in myself as the days go by which is a good sign

i will be ok i think
the only way out is through
the jellyfish are stinging me but i will dive deeper into their mass of tentacles
until i am broken and almost dead
but i will be free

2012 sucked a lot but still i have to thank God for many good things that happened like
exchange. i will miss europe so much when i'm home. especially the people
family
friends
a life

it still mostly sucked though

i can hear the fireworks outside but i don't want to see them
it's just not that kind of new year this time