I want to be good.

spider solitaire.

Sometimes after work -- even if it's late in the evening and the building is empty -- I like to stay behind for an extra thirty to forty minutes and just...play spider solitaire. No freecell, no poker, nothing too advanced. After 14+ hours of work, it feels wonderful to sit back and do something methodical that requires minimal brain activity and can let me recharge.

Perhaps its the solitude, perhaps its the solitaire. Regardless, something about it is so...soothing.

And yes. It's Saturday, 11:48 PM. And I'm playing spider solitaire at the office.

Win.

for the record!
today, I am going to try and have
all my conversations in exclamation points!
it feels very exciting!

I'm feeling very enthusiastic about this.

*edit: this goal lasted for less than ten minutes.
I overestimated my perkiness. #RIPthe!

Happy Year of the Rabbit --

Now that the fireworks have stopped, I finally have some solace and a moment to think. After quite an eventful 2010, I am more than ready 2011. With the Lunar New Year celebrations and spectacular array of fireworks, it finally feels like a new year, a new beginning. Looking back at my posts over the past few days, I've realized they've crossed to borderline...dark. Hah.

But I've realized. The only way to solve these problems is a change in attitude. Thus, it is a good time to make a few resolutions! I didn't make proper resolutions for the traditional New Year, but with the Lunar New Year, I feel like it's about time to make a bunch of resolutions, and never follow them. (Hopefully the latter part doesn't hold true.)

Here goes. 

In 2011, I plan to...
1    |  Finish at least one book a month
2    |  Watch at least two new films a month
3    |  Learn at least one new English vocabulary word/week and integrate
4    |  Take more photos and up my photography skills
5    |  Exercise more, and actually sign up for a gym and GO.
6    |  Take less cabs, and take advantage of the city's fairly convenient subway system
7    |  Earn a promotion or at least a pay raise
8    |  Spend more time reading current events and educate myself more on past ones
9    |  Volunteer more on weekends/weekdays/whenever I'm free
10  |  Vary posts with caution, and finally change the goddamn layout (pardon my language)
11  |  Relearn html/css 5/xhtml/php (few years out of the loop and my knowledge of coding is now obsolete)
12  |  Attend a university course/lecture on anything that holds your fancy
13  |  Edit my 5 year plan
14  |  Wait no, what I wrote just now was a lie. Actually write my 5 year plan.
15  |  Save more money, or be creative with my actual spending money
16  |  Attend more eclectic events and stir up weekend entertainment
17  |  Write more, or at the very least, finish the script for flight
18  |  Join the dance studio, like you said you would
19  |  Learn how to make at least 5 different dishes (it's high time you knew how to make more than ramen -_-)
20  |  Stop being lazy, less talk more action.

There. Done. Honest to Zeus, I'm really hoping to achieve most -- if not all -- of these resolutions. I'd originally had waaaaaaay more, but after a late night conversation yesterday, I've realized the importance in not setting the bar too high and thus, as a result, never attempt it all.

glass ceilings.

I find myself incredibly frustrated these days. I dream of big things. I want to do more, be more. But at the same time, I feel myself confined more and more by lack of opportunity, technical skills, resources, family constraints, and personal definition of success. I also feel infinitesimally small. Tiny. Insignificant. Mundane. In this generation, it becomes harder and harder to stand out when competition rises above you from all sides. I feel like an ant looking up in a field of wheat; the stalks are so tall they form the illusion that they bend over and close up the sky. 

I feel trapped by my own glass ceiling of ambition.

It's always been a struggle, dealing with personal emotion. I prefer to keep it contained inside, whether it be released through the cigarette smoke on my balcony or quietly written away in moleskins with forcefully dotted i's and jagged t's. It seems the only times I can write with passion or substance is when there is strong emotion inside, a visceral turbulence that refuses to be silenced and thus has no where to go but expel through my keyboard into a vengeful, unrelenting stream of self pity.

Sigh.

jetlag

hello visitor, 

It's been awhile. I apologize for the lack of substantial posts as of late. Mainly due to work-related travels, I've been reduced to publishing scheduled posts that I'd set several weeks in advance -- so beg pardon to the /quote/ "emptiness of novel and freshness content." \endquote\ (inside joke.) 

So, here you are. This is perhaps the first post in a long while that I've made in real time, and for good reason. However! My business trips (for the present time being) are over, and the lunar new year is approaching which means! a long long long. awaited break from 12 hour+ work days, incessant phone calls, emails, projects, reports, translations, and just your general all around stress. I plan to sleep until noon, stay in bed reading until past 3, indulge in romantic comedies, and schedule as many massages as I physically can.

At this point in time, I am extremely jetlagged at 4:18 in the morning. My body is exhausted, but my mind is still whirring. Therefore, I am babbling to try and overexert my brain so I can pass into sleep because i have quite the busy day tomorrow -- not to mention the fact that I will thrown back into my work schedule come Monday and there is no way my jetlag will permit me to function that long otherwise. 

At this point in time, I am contemplating just staying up all night and not sleeping as a friendly 'screw you ,I won't let you best me, jetlag,' but I have a photoshoot tomorrow, and I must appear fresh faced and chipper so, woe is me, I've got to figure out a way to make myself sleep within the next hour so I can guarantee at least 6 hours of sleep before I will be jarred awake by my obnoxious alarm clock. (It's obnoxious for a reason)

At this point in time, I believe I've maxed out my ability to say anything of value considering the fact that i've attempted to type out this paragraph and subsequently deleted it multiple times. So I guess the best thing I can do is pause, say a fond farewell, and good night.

post birthday contemplations.

"My frustrations are a spider web --
the edges trace to the center
only to find more extensions.

I want to find the center from where this unhappiness spreads --
where the spider lurks --
adding more silk to its web.

I want to kill that spider."
- http://in-the-streets.blogspot.com/

This was something I found in an old archive from almost two years ago.



what a flashback.

Two years.
A lot can change in two years.

I look back at where I was at the end of 2008: who I was, the things I did, the people I met, and look at where I am today.

Its strange, isn't it? How experience and age can change you. How, at times, it can leave you more jaded, more cynical, but at the same time -- more optimistic and more appreciative. How you wish you'd known then what you know now. I look back at myself in awe; I am a stranger to my past self. Unrecognizable. What seemed so important to me then now seems so trivial.

I used to believe everything in life amounted to timing -- to fate and chance. Now, I realize it is about yourself. Your will, your determination. Your motivation. Nothing is gained without working hard, without sacrifice. The spider is back, true. It is larger than ever, ominous and threatening. It has returned with a vengeance. However, I see this as a test -- a test of wills, a test of values, a test that everything I've worked for in the past will not lead me to regress into a person I will regret in the future.

And so I leave this as a sobering reminder to myself, and to you, that

They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself. When people are ready to, they change. They never do it before then, and sometimes they die before they get around to it. You can’t make them change if they don’t want to, just like when they do want to, you can’t stop them. 

– Andy Warhol

what a wonderful birthday,
thank you

It's six in the morning and I cannot sleep. While at times I hate this insomnia, I also value it; sometimes it's nice to hear utter silence. The nights bring stillness, a sense of peace. As technology has progressed, it seems this silence is heard less and less. We are distracted by the sounds of a world that no longer seems to sleep. But at times, at night, this darkness is complete: there is no loud music, flashing lights, unnecessary chatter, deafening thoughts. There's a stillness inside me that I only seem to find in these late hours.

Lately it seems I cannot escape this feeling of inertia. The world is moving forward without me, and here I am -- stuck in the present and still lingering on to the past. I've been feeling lost, lost, lost -- waiting for a change that I fear will not come. But I suppose that's also the essence of the issue.

Waiting. 
I'm getting tired of waiting.

*edit: Heading to Tibet in t-minus 3 hours. Hoping this repose from the daily madness of the city will bring me the tranquility I need. Please, God. I need a sign -- anything. I hope I'm not asking too much.