Moon Represents My Heart

I am a WANDERER.

I forgot to post this up on this blog. My friend Sonya, via her platonic boyfriend, sent me a link & what I found therein was just uncanny. Here's an excerpt:

I am writing to you because I'm about to make a pretty drastic decision in my life. To me, it's not that big of a deal. Maybe because I'm dead set on doing it, I've got blinders on so I can't see the bad in my decision. Maybe it's because I love the thought of the unknown. But others seem to think I'm crazy.

I'm quitting my job and moving abroad to hopefully find a job teaching English in Europe.

Read: I AM A WANDERER, since you asked.

(would you look at that. two posts in two days!)

You know I Must Be Happy

...because I'm neglecting this blog.

It's true though. If you look at my archives, the months I have the most posts are because I'm miserable. So I just come here and rant shamelessly. But when I get happy, I ignore my blog.

I'm sorry, blog, you deserve better.

There's nothing especially happy to report, its just an overall feeling of happiness now that I'm at home. Little things I used to take for granted about living in San Diego, and in California in general, I'm trying to make up for--especially since we've been enjoying an extended summer. I think I hit more beaches in San Diego in the 3 weeks I've been back, in November mind you, than I have in the last 10 years of living here.

On a day spent in Coronado with the baby:

Panacotta Gelato. The only place in SD that I've ever seen it.

My days consist of sleeping in, cooking, maybe cleaning, sometimes learning Korean, hanging out with friends, occasionally tutoring, and oh right, a whole lot of shopping. So much shopping I'm sort of shocked and appalled with myself. But I had like no winter/cold weather items, so I NEEDED to shop. But here's a hint of a few of the things I picked up.







my biggest and happiest finds, I'll show in another post soon. maybe. If I'm not too busy like being happy or something. ^_^

OH, a small EPIK/Korea update. They have most of my documents in Korea as I type, and I just got my FBI Background check & copy of my Master's Degree in the mail yesterday--so that means I'm off to LA tomorrow to get things apostilled. Then hopefully it'll be smooth sailing.

Probably admitting more than I should

Have you read more than 6 of these books? The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books listed here.

Instructions: Copy this into your NOTES. Bold those books you've read in their entirety, italicize the ones you started but didn't finish or read an excerpt. Tag other book nerds. Tag me as well so I can see your responses!

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien <---shouldnt this count as 3 books??
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible - Too Many Cooks
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert X
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Inferno – Dante
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
_

This was originally posted on facebook. But I'm too self-conscious of how much I haven't read to post this up on FB (the fact that I've read Bridget Jones' Diary but not Anna Karenina...). So feel free to judge me here. 19/100 is like, an F. lol

DONT WORK. BE HATED. LOVE SOMEONE.

Sorry for the neglect. Things have been surprisingly busy. I'll blog more about that later, but I did want to drop a little bit of something that I've been thinking about all day.

While talking with my friend Jazmine, she mentioned that last night, a group of friends were talking about if they could do school over again, what would they change. It's an interesting question, because if forces you to think back at all of those moments--those times in your past where you stood at a crossroads and were forced to make a decision, at the loss of others, with no one to hold your hand, and with nothing as a guide except your own heart and mind--and to see if you had made the "right" choice.

You think about what drove your decision--was it to be proper, was it financial, was it to please your parents, teachers? was it the decision that made the most sense at the time? or, oddly, was there never a decision, but just something that happened?--how did you end up today, however it is that you ended up?

The thing that I didn't say at the time, when my friend was saying how everyone from the previous night's group was saying how they would do this, would change that, is that I wouldn't have changed anything.

I'm not saying that to save face.

Because as crappy as it is to have a humanities degree, and a masters in the humanities, I would not have cared nearly as much about anything if I didn't go through what I did years ago. I would not have have been satisfied any other way. Even going to philly, I wouldn't change my decision to go if I had the choice.

As unsure, as scared, as clueless as I was 5 years ago when I stood at my own crossroads, not knowing anything about where my life would go and hardly trusting myself, I took a gamble with what seemed to be the most risky choice at that time.

Because getting a humanities degree, as opposed to something useful like a chemistry degree, is hardly safe.

I'm not going to go into further commentary, because we all have to make decisions based on a lot of factors. I'm not saying that I'm better off not having anything to regret, that I was somehow more true to myself, or that my life is somehow more complete. That's not it at all, because the simple fact of the matter was that I got lucky--I was lucky that I had the opportunity to take such a risk. I was lucky that I had the luxury to have the freedom to make decisions based on nothing but my own desire at that time.

But given that, I'm glad I was able to see the situation for what it was, and was able to trust in myself to know that if I had gone another path, I would have regrets. That I didn't cower from what was the hardest road to walk, the road that was most unfamiliar, the most taxing. And I was glad that once I made that decision, I stuck to it and didn't waver--especially now, when it seems all humanities is undergoing persecution.

I will end with something fun. It's a commencement speech. I love reading commencement speeches because they talk about life in the grandest terms. They are nostalgic, at times terribly romantic, hopeful, sometimes pensive. And, if done correctly, always give you pause.

Here's one by Adrian Tan, for the 2008 NTU convocation ceremony:

I must say thank you to the faculty and staff of the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information for inviting me to give your convocation address. It’s a wonderful honour and a privilege for me to speak here for ten minutes without fear of contradiction, defamation or retaliation. I say this as a Singaporean and more so as a husband.

My wife is a wonderful person and perfect in every way except one. She is the editor of a magazine. She corrects people for a living. She has honed her expert skills over a quarter of a century, mostly by practising at home during conversations between her and me.

On the other hand, I am a litigator. Essentially, I spend my day telling people how wrong they are. I make my living being disagreeable.

Nevertheless, there is perfect harmony in our matrimonial home. That is because when an editor and a litigator have an argument, the one who triumphs is always the wife.

And so I want to start by giving one piece of advice to the men: when you’ve already won her heart, you don’t need to win every argument.

Marriage is considered one milestone of life. Some of you may already be married. Some of you may never be married. Some of you will be married. Some of you will enjoy the experience so much, you will be married many, many times. Good for you.

The next big milestone in your life is today: your graduation. The end of education. You’re done learning.

You’ve probably been told the big lie that “Learning is a lifelong process” and that therefore you will continue studying and taking masters’ degrees and doctorates and professorships and so on. You know the sort of people who tell you that? Teachers. Don’t you think there is some measure of conflict of interest? They are in the business of learning, after all. Where would they be without you? They need you to be repeat customers.

The good news is that they’re wrong.

The bad news is that you don’t need further education because your entire life is over. It is gone. That may come as a shock to some of you. You’re in your teens or early twenties. People may tell you that you will live to be 70, 80, 90 years old. That is your life expectancy.

I love that term: life expectancy. We all understand the term to mean the average life span of a group of people. But I’m here to talk about a bigger idea, which is what you expect from your life.

You may be very happy to know that Singapore is currently ranked as the country with the third highest life expectancy. We are behind Andorra and Japan, and tied with San Marino. It seems quite clear why people in those countries, and ours, live so long. We share one thing in common: our football teams are all hopeless. There’s very little danger of any of our citizens having their pulses raised by watching us play in the World Cup. Spectators are more likely to be lulled into a gentle and restful nap.

Singaporeans have a life expectancy of 81.8 years. Singapore men live to an average of 79.21 years, while Singapore women live more than five years longer, probably to take into account the additional time they need to spend in the bathroom.

So here you are, in your twenties, thinking that you’ll have another 40 years to go. Four decades in which to live long and prosper.

Bad news. Read the papers. There are people dropping dead when they’re 50, 40, 30 years old. Or quite possibly just after finishing their convocation. They would be very disappointed that they didn’t meet their life expectancy.

I’m here to tell you this. Forget about your life expectancy.

After all, it’s calculated based on an average. And you never, ever want to expect being average.

Revisit those expectations. You might be looking forward to working, falling in love, marrying, raising a family. You are told that, as graduates, you should expect to find a job paying so much, where your hours are so much, where your responsibilities are so much.

That is what is expected of you. And if you live up to it, it will be an awful waste.

If you expect that, you will be limiting yourself. You will be living your life according to boundaries set by average people. I have nothing against average people. But no one should aspire to be them. And you don’t need years of education by the best minds in Singapore to prepare you to be average.

What you should prepare for is mess. Life’s a mess. You are not entitled to expect anything from it. Life is not fair. Everything does not balance out in the end. Life happens, and you have no control over it. Good and bad things happen to you day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment. Your degree is a poor armour against fate.

Don’t expect anything. Erase all life expectancies. Just live. Your life is over as of today. At this point in time, you have grown as tall as you will ever be, you are physically the fittest you will ever be in your entire life and you are probably looking the best that you will ever look. This is as good as it gets. It is all downhill from here. Or up. No one knows.

What does this mean for you? It is good that your life is over.

Since your life is over, you are free. Let me tell you the many wonderful things that you can do when you are free.

The most important is this: do not work.

Work is anything that you are compelled to do. By its very nature, it is undesirable.

Work kills. The Japanese have a term “Karoshi”, which means death from overwork. That’s the most dramatic form of how work can kill. But it can also kill you in more subtle ways. If you work, then day by day, bit by bit, your soul is chipped away, disintegrating until there’s nothing left. A rock has been ground into sand and dust.

There’s a common misconception that work is necessary. You will meet people working at miserable jobs. They tell you they are “making a living”. No, they’re not. They’re dying, frittering away their fast-extinguishing lives doing things which are, at best, meaningless and, at worst, harmful.

People will tell you that work ennobles you, that work lends you a certain dignity. Work makes you free. The slogan “Arbeit macht frei” was placed at the entrances to a number of Nazi concentration camps. Utter nonsense.

Do not waste the vast majority of your life doing something you hate so that you can spend the small remainder sliver of your life in modest comfort. You may never reach that end anyway.

Resist the temptation to get a job. Instead, play. Find something you enjoy doing. Do it. Over and over again. You will become good at it for two reasons: you like it, and you do it often. Soon, that will have value in itself.

I like arguing, and I love language. So, I became a litigator. I enjoy it and I would do it for free. If I didn’t do that, I would’ve been in some other type of work that still involved writing fiction – probably a sports journalist.

So what should you do? You will find your own niche. I don’t imagine you will need to look very hard. By this time in your life, you will have a very good idea of what you will want to do. In fact, I’ll go further and say the ideal situation would be that you will not be able to stop yourself pursuing your passions. By this time you should know what your obsessions are. If you enjoy showing off your knowledge and feeling superior, you might become a teacher.

Find that pursuit that will energise you, consume you, become an obsession. Each day, you must rise with a restless enthusiasm. If you don’t, you are working.

Most of you will end up in activities which involve communication. To those of you I have a second message: be wary of the truth. I’m not asking you to speak it, or write it, for there are times when it is dangerous or impossible to do those things. The truth has a great capacity to offend and injure, and you will find that the closer you are to someone, the more care you must take to disguise or even conceal the truth. Often, there is great virtue in being evasive, or equivocating. There is also great skill. Any child can blurt out the truth, without thought to the consequences. It takes great maturity to appreciate the value of silence.

In order to be wary of the truth, you must first know it. That requires great frankness to yourself. Never fool the person in the mirror.

I have told you that your life is over, that you should not work, and that you should avoid telling the truth. I now say this to you: be hated.

It’s not as easy as it sounds. Do you know anyone who hates you? Yet every great figure who has contributed to the human race has been hated, not just by one person, but often by a great many. That hatred is so strong it has caused those great figures to be shunned, abused, murdered and in one famous instance, nailed to a cross.

One does not have to be evil to be hated. In fact, it’s often the case that one is hated precisely because one is trying to do right by one’s own convictions. It is far too easy to be liked, one merely has to be accommodating and hold no strong convictions. Then one will gravitate towards the centre and settle into the average. That cannot be your role. There are a great many bad people in the world, and if you are not offending them, you must be bad yourself. Popularity is a sure sign that you are doing something wrong.

The other side of the coin is this: fall in love.

I didn’t say “be loved”. That requires too much compromise. If one changes one’s looks, personality and values, one can be loved by anyone.

Rather, I exhort you to love another human being. It may seem odd for me to tell you this. You may expect it to happen naturally, without deliberation. That is false. Modern society is anti-love. We’ve taken a microscope to everyone to bring out their flaws and shortcomings. It far easier to find a reason not to love someone, than otherwise. Rejection requires only one reason. Love requires complete acceptance. It is hard work – the only kind of work that I find palatable.

Loving someone has great benefits. There is admiration, learning, attraction and something which, for the want of a better word, we call happiness. In loving someone, we become inspired to better ourselves in every way. We learn the truth worthlessness of material things. We celebrate being human. Loving is good for the soul.

Loving someone is therefore very important, and it is also important to choose the right person. Despite popular culture, love doesn’t happen by chance, at first sight, across a crowded dance floor. It grows slowly, sinking roots first before branching and blossoming. It is not a silly weed, but a mighty tree that weathers every storm.
You will find, that when you have someone to love, that the face is less important than the brain, and the body is less important than the heart.

You will also find that it is no great tragedy if your love is not reciprocated. You are not doing it to be loved back. Its value is to inspire you.

Finally, you will find that there is no half-measure when it comes to loving someone. You either don’t, or you do with every cell in your body, completely and utterly, without reservation or apology. It consumes you, and you are reborn, all the better for it.

Don’t work. Avoid telling the truth. Be hated. Love someone.

credit: knocksteady.com

It Hurts

Even if I didn't listen to Kpop, even if I didn't like 2ne1, even if I didn't love this song, I would LOVE this music video:



There are so many things to love. I'm a big fan of Tim Burton's "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and "Corpse Bride" and this is right up that alley. Plus, Dara was perfect in the lead role. Everything, from the imagery, the acting, the styling, was excellent and just made me love the song that much more.

2ne1 "it hurts" :

You wear the shoes I gave you and walk along the streets with her
As if it were nothing, you kiss her
You spray the cologne I gave you and embrace her
You'll probably repeat those promises you made to me with her

It seems that we're already too late
Has our love already ended
Please at least say anything to me
We truly loved each other, can't turn back?

I'm the only one hurting tonight

Have you changed?
Am I no longer in your heart now?
When I, I think about you
It hurts, hurts, hurts so much

You look at my tears as if it were nothing
You continue to talk calmly again
You told me cruelly that you couldn't deny
That you had absolutely no attachments or regrets

Are we already too late? Is our love over?
Even if it's a lie, please tell me it isn't so
I can do better now, though we can't meet again

I'm the only one in pain tonight

Have you changed?
Am I no longer in your heart now?
When I, I think about you
It hurts, hurts, hurts so much

You're no longer your old self
Because the you I loved
And the you now are so different
Are you that shocked?
I just stood and cried
Watching you become further away
No way, I can't recognize
You're not mine anymore

Did you have to change?
Can't you come back?
Did you really have to change?
Can't you come back?

Did you have to change?
Can't you come back?
Why did you have to change?
Can't you keep loving me?

Oh, is this the end?
Am I no longer in your heart now?
When I, I think about you
It hurts, hurts, hurts so much

It hurts, it hurts
It hurts, it hurts

Prodigal Daughter

I meant to write this post earlier, and had actually drafted a version while I was still living in Philadelphia, and then another while I was sitting in the airport in Austin, Texas, but I never quite had the chance or the inclination to come up with something to actually blog. I suppose though, that its better I do it now that I'm back in San Diego and I can confirm or deny the thoughts I had prior to moving back and in the midst of moving back.

okay enough rambling. Because I'm lazy, this is what I had written in Texas, mid-move:

At the moment I’m sitting in an airport in flat lands of Texas, after the most vomit inducing landing ever. The whole 30 minute descent was like being on a ship at sea tossed about in a storm. I suppose it didn’t help much that I was being a freak and staring and focusing weirdly that the sights out of my little window. FYI, I like window seats because I fall asleep on every flight, and I like to be able to lean against something. Living in San Diego, I’m used the rolling hills, the coastline, the suburbs and the city. Sometimes I forget that there’s something between idyllic seascape and busy urban city skyline. Like, for instance, here in, Texas, where the topography is flat for miles around. Suburban streets and surrounded by plots of land, fields, and then more suburban blocks of residential housing. I can’t get over how flat it is out here. No mountains, no huge skyscrapers to cut into the sky, no hills, nothing. Everything is on the same visual plane. I know I shouldn’t be as amazed by that as I am, but there it is nonetheless.

Oh, but I suppose this post was supposed to be about Philadelphia.

I’m not gonna lie, I did feel a bit sad about leaving the city where I experienced such grief—for the very reason that it was the city where I first experienced the trials of being an adult. Being out on my own, in the biggest sea I’ve ever known, far away from everything comforting and comfortable in my life, forced me to struggle and fight for things that I hadn’t ever before. And there were definitely times where it felt overwhelming.

And as much as I disliked certain elements of living in Philadelphia, the thing that I appreciated the most were the friends that I had made there. To be honest, when I first got there and in the program, I had serious reservations about the kind of people who would be there. Maybe my cynical outlook is the reason why I was so pleasantly surprised to find a few people who I don't mind calling friends.

They are what I will miss the most about Philadelphia.

Looking back, I don't regret anything. As I watched these friends continue to fight through their classes, through the struggles that make up what it's like to be an academic, but also to reap the rewards and benefits that inevitably come from such a fight, I won't lie and say that I didn't feel pangs to sadness. Because they will get to experience and accomplish things that I have only ever dreamt about.

But even still, I don't regret anything: not my decision to come out to philadelphia nor my decision to leave it. I had to go out there in order to figure out what I wanted. Because if I hadn't, it would have always been a "what if" in my mind--it would have been something I would have regretted for the rest of my life.

As it is now, I don't have any regrets. Or at least, not on that account haha.

And now that I'm back in SD, a few reflections.

I absolutely love flying into San Diego. The plane sweeps across the city, so on one side of the plane the view is balboa park and on the other side, downtown and the pacific ocean. My favorite time to land is dusk. Because the low setting sun paints everything in that golden glow you come to expect from San Diego, or California in general.

Even though it was hot that day, it wasn't the stifling humidity of the East coast. And it was such a perfect day to come home. Tiffany picked me up and we did the thing that is a MUST when coming back to SD: we got mexican food haha. Picked up burritos and headed to the most perfect strip of beach in SD: torrey pines <3

I'm still trying to adjust, I suppose. It's a feeling akin to the one you get when you return to your childhood home or elementary school--things are the same, but not quite. Oh, you know who could put this feeling into terms far better than I could ever do? Holden.

(here he's talking about revisiting a museum he frequented as a child):

The best thing, though, in that museum was that everything always stayed right where it was. Nobody'd move. You could go there a hundred thousand times, and that Eskimo would still be just finished catching those two fish, the birds would still be on their way south, the deers would still be drinking out of that water hole, with their pretty antlers and their pretty, skinny legs, and that squaw with the naked bosom would still be waving that same blanket. Nobody'd be different. The only thing that would be different would by you. Not that you'd be so much older or anything. It wouldn't be that, exactly. You'd just be different, that's all. You'd have an overcoat on this time. Or the kid that was your partner in line the last time had got scarlet fever and you'd have a new partner. Or you'd have a substitute taking the class, instead of Miss Aigletinger. Or you'd heard your mother and father having a terrific fight in the bathroom. Or you'd just passed by one of those puddles in the street with gasoline rainbows in them. I mean you'd be different in some way--I can't explain what I mean. And even if I could, I'm not sure I'd feel like it.

(wow. I actually pulled my copy off the shelf to search for that quote, and just thumbing through the pages and skimming through passages reminded me just how excellent that book is and why it remains one of my favorites. Catcher and Holden, along with P&P and Darcy, was one of the first books I felt like I had a relationship with. They came to me at the moment in my life where I was yearning to read something that could affect me. I remember being just hungry for something to read.

That image of the puddles with gasoline rainbows I remember vividly & still remains with me to this day).

The one fabulous thing about coming home is that the relationships I have with people didn't seem to suffer at all. Its just like picking up right after where we left off and for that I remain extremely grateful.

And now I think I need to spend time with Holden, he's a dear friend I haven't visited with in quite some time:)