5 days to go!

I finally have my lappy back... for a bit.
Panda's been using it for his assignment, so I haven't touched it in days.
I missed the new chapter of Viewfinder!
Not much action went on though. Until the bloody last page. I hate cliffhangers!
CY, Lyd and I have somehow decided to write our own manga. Lol.
Apparently they want a school environment, and now we have this school filled to the brim with (only) bishie guys, and ranging from subjects like Chinese literature to Firearms. I kid you not.
Lyd and I are gonna design the building, and do a 3D in Sketchup. CY's doing the characters and outfits.
Lyd and CY will be doing drawings and I'll come up with dialouges. Because.. let's face it, I can't draw humans.

Finally met up with HanN on Sunday night.
I haven't seen/talked to him for almost 6 months.
Its nice to finally be free enough not to turn down invitations for a drink.
And he also completely shot down my L.A. idea. He's probably the only one who would tell that to my face.
I know he's right, because every problem that he pointed out were the things I wanted to ignore.
Let me go on ignoring them, dammit!
I know things aren't as simple as saving up and buying tickets. But I just need to feel like I'm working towards something, rather than just sitting by. That way, I won't regret so much if I really do miss it.

Lyd and I had work yesterday. Merdeka Awards at the Philharmonic Hall.
After the event, during tear down, I got to go into one of the concert halls to clean up. Gah, so awesome. I've only ever been in there once, when my aunt had free tickets. I wished I brought my camera along. Its not everyday you get to walk into an empty hall.
Also, 4pm - 1am = RM25.50 for parking! Insane. Thanks to Nut's mom and aunt who paid for it.
And we also got our pay immediately. Its the first time, I think. Which is bad in a way, because during break, Lyd and I ran up to Kinokuniya and reserved a few Jappy mangas that we'll pick up this weekend.
Bye bye, salary T_T

I don't stand a chance, do I?

Okay, so I almost forgot, the Tim Burton Retrospective exhibition in Melbourne is already over.
Not so surprisingly, I missed it. And that, I swear, is going to be the single most regrettable thing in my entire life (!!!!).... if I can't make it for either of the final two exhibitions.
I'm telling you, the chances are slim.

The third stop is Toronto, Canada.
Seriously, dude.
Ticket prices are going to be insane.
I have checked the MAS website, there are no direct flights to Canada, I will have to stop at Hong Kong.
Even if I save up like crazy, I might still miss it, because it ends on April 17th, 2011 (still doing my internship!)
The only holiday I'm going to get is Christmas and New Year's.
So not happening.
Australia shouldn't have been the 2nd stop! T.T

The final stop for the exhibition will be at Los Angeles, USA.
I think I see a glimmer of hope here.
So I checked, there is a direct flight to LA. Exhibition starts on May 29th 2011.
Internship over? Check.
College starts in June? Check. Although I have to admit I can't be bothered right now.
Ticket price? Check. About Rm 1,300.
I beg beg beg and begged, my Dad finally agreed.
As long as I save up all most of my salary, I should be able to pay for my own ticket.
Of course, Dad wants to come along too, because he thinks LA is dangerous, yada yada yada.
I honestly don't care if I have to go on my own, go with a complete stranger, or go with the entire village.. I just want to be there at the exhibition.
Books are gonna have to take the back seat when it comes to Tim Burton.
6 months of work = no spending.
Hey, you gotta sacrifice for your dreams, right?

If anyone had asked me what I dread most everyday, I'd say its the amount of time it takes for me to fall asleep.
Its good when I'm usually so exhausted that I fall asleep before my head even touched the pillow.
But when I can't, the moments that I'm lying there still awake, staring into the dark is the scariest.
I've got all these thoughts running through my head, like flashes of images. I can't make sense of them before they're gone and another takes its place.
I think darkness has a way of playing tricks on me.
And also because I've been reading The Forbidden Game.
All this talk about light and darkness, shadows, voids, what is reality and what isn't.
Anyway, from as far as I have been able to remember, I have been terribly interested in the idea of existence.
That's why I can never stand being alone in the dark.
Its different from being alone when there's light. That way you could still see.
But being in dark, its really easy for me to pretend I don't exist.
And I'm always afraid nobody would find me.
This is weird, but I can't imagine what it would be like to be blind.
To be in a constant state of unknowing, whether you exist or if everything was a figment of your imagination.

“If one looks at a thing with the intention of trying to discover what it means, one ends up no longer seeing the thing itself, but of thinking of the question that is raised.”
-Rene Magritte, Belgian surrealist

I want to go to BookXcess.
But I'm also (still attempting) to save up (albeit in futile).
I've been making excuses to myself and putting off this trip for 3 days now, and I can feel myself weakening.
It doesn't help that I've been stalking the BX booklist online, going "Ooh, I want this title.. and this.. and that~"
Any minute now I'm going to just get up and drive out because I can no longer resist.
Gah!
Books, why u do this to me? T.T

whats that i hear?

Ohh right..
1. FREEDOM (well, kind of. Final submission of Research report on 22nd October)
2. Happiness, because I was told I got the highest marks for external review. Muahaha!

I'm sorry. I'm not bragging. I'm just really happy. Shocked. In a state of disbelief, still. Because I was almost resigned to be content with just-average marks again. I have to say, despite all the stress, anxiety and the trips to the clinic, this semester has been good. This is the first time I felt like I have achieved something, after 2 years of design. Its like thinking "Okay, maybe I can do this after all". Also, this might sound mean, because I'm also happy I won't be seeing any of my college mates for the next few months. I have declined a trip to Johnson's home in Kuching. The only reason I can think of is the word "overdose". I see them every single day, for more than 5 hours, most of the time, weekends included. And it just kills me. They remind me too much of college. I'm happy to just stay home with all my books. I really do like being on my own.

Of course, when I say freedom, I actually meant freedom-i-can-sleep-more-than-3-hours-a-day. Not omfg-freedom-i-can-do-anything-i-want-now-including-sleeping-for-13-straight-hours-and-never-changing-out-of-my-jammies-the-whole-day-just-reading. I wish. Internship's coming up soon. I have an interview on Monday, and I haven't printed out my portfolio yet :S I have no idea what to show. And MSID's Students' Saturday has been pushed back to November 13th, instead of 23rd October.. so I'm considering pulling out from the talentime performance. I'm not sure if I have the time for it. I have the report to finish in 2 weeks, then there's that Jappy speech, also in 2 weeks (yes, my sensei postponed it T_T.. she would keel over if she finds out I haven't even started writing it).. and my Jappy exam is on 12th November. My Jappy has been deteriorating for the past year. If I were to steal the name list from my sensei, next to my name, there will be O's along the line because I never once passed up my homework. I just go to class for 2 hours, struggle through trying not to sleep, come home, put the books aside until the next Jappy class. I just really want to concentrate on Jappy now, for the coming exam. Ms Diana might kill me though, if I tell her I want to pull out.

I guess I'm just thinking that I'd rather do less things, and be able to commit fully than take on a lot, and be half-assed about it. Gah. Decisions, decisions. If I could, I'd go back to being a kid. The only decision I ever had to make was which cartoon channel to watch. Ignorance is bliss, they say. I concede.

"What is the point of being alive if you don't at least try to do something remarkable?" - John Green

If you read a recent front page story of the San Francisco
Chronicle, you would have read about a female humpback whale who had
become entangled in a spider web of crab traps and lines. She was
weighted down by hundreds of pounds of traps that caused her to
struggle to stay afloat. She also had hundreds of yards of line rope
wrapped around her body, her tail, her torso, a line tugging in her
mouth. A fisherman spotted her just east of the Farallon Islands
(outside the Golden Gate) and radioed an environmental group for
help. Within a few hours, the rescue team arrived and determined
that she was so bad off, the only way to save her was to dive in and
untangle her. They worked for hours with curved knives and
eventually freed her. When she was free, the divers say she swam in
what seemed like joyous circles. She then came back to each and
every diver, one at a time, and nudged them, pushed them gently
around as she was thanking them. Some said it was the most
incredibly beautiful experience of their lives. The guy who cut the
rope out of her mouth said her eyes were following him the whole
time, and he will never be the same.
Source: pretty-bird.tumblr.com

Reading posts like this makes me question my direction in life. Most of the time. Even in older posts, I keep asking myself over and over again; What am I doing, really? Why am I following in everyone's perception of what life should be? Because I don't want to and yet once in a while, I forget... and I find myself being helplessly pulled along into this never ending race, where we believe that as long as we reach the line, we'll get whatever we have been wanting and that we'll be happy. But we will never be happy, you know. It will make us want more and more. I know this. And I'm still doing it. Which makes me mad at myself. What I just read... that is what I want to be doing, honest to God. I want so badly to be doing what I feel is right. I want to help. I need to help. The environment, the animals, needy people. I'm so mad when I think about the times I was busy complaining about having a lot of assignments and no time to read, that I don't think about the people who will never know what reading is because they're illiterate, people who will never go to college, and have a chance to complain about assignments. What are we all doing, really? Have we ever thought about that?

It sucks to be helpless, you know. Because right now, I'm not at a liberty to do anything for anyone when I can barely help myself. I can only yearn and wish I could do something, anything. So I should still try right, little help though I may be. I may not be able to help the environment or animals yet, but I can help the people around me. I will never dismiss another person's thoughts and feelings so carelessly again, I will listen more, be kinder, more attentive, understanding, helpful and forgiving, less spiteful, less.. whatever, you get my drift. I can't ever forget this, even for a moment.
I'm an idealist and this is what I want to do with my life.


Quotes inspired by a book I recently finished, Looking for Alaska by John Green;
Francois Rabelais - "I go to seek a Great Perhaps." In the book, it was referred to as searching for a meaning to our lives.

Simon Bolivar (Gabriel Garcia Marquez's The General in his Labyrinth) - "How will I ever get out of this labyrinth?", referred to as the 'labyrinth of suffering'. In my opinion, the suffering encompasses all the things we've done, things we wished we did, things we want to do but somehow, couldn't.

The book is really good.