Bad English

I'm incredibly disappointed in myself.

I love the English language, I truly do, but reading back on some of my more 'rushed' blog posts make me cringe with the awfulness of my writing. Sure, I get my point across, but seriously, I need to spend more time looking over what I've written, because some of it just doesn't make sense.

And this leads into the English of this day and age. It honestly really truly sickens me when people say "u" instead of "you", "btw" instead of "by the way", "y" instead of "why", etc. What's a few extra letters so that reading a text or an email isn't such a horrendous experience?

And to top it off, the "LOL's" and the "OMG's" have become viral. Is someone really "laughing out loud" when they send "LOL", or "ROFL", or any of the other indications that state something is funny. Um, probably not.

I mean, I guess I'm not completely innocent. I don't use "LOL", thank goodness for that, but I do use the awful phrase "haha" when I text. No, I am not actually saying "haha"; maybe thinking it, I don't know. I don't keep track of these things.

Okay, I do have a point to this. Communication. I'm not the best communicator in the world because I don't like it when people know how I feel (gives them a reason to judge, you know). BUT. I think emotion is completely lost in a text, and sometimes the "LOL's" and the "haha's" and the "OMG's" are a bit of an exaggeration of how we feel. And that's a problem in a world like this, because I also feel like this exaggeration follows us when we leave technology and talk face to face...

And this scares me because then I never really know if the appearances people give are true or not.

12/12/12/12.....

I should be doing homework.

Actually, I should be sleeping.

But today is too good of a day to leave without acknowledgment. Why? Because it's my sister's birthday, and she is 12 years old.

Okay, everybody was hyped about it being 12/12/12 and my journalism class all screamed and shouted at 12:12 today (and how I wish it was 12:12 right now. Would be perfect), BUT, to top it off, my sister just turned 12 years old. On the 12th day. Of the 12th month. Of 2012.

I think that is so much cooler than just a regular 12/12/12. Nope. My sister has 12/12/12/12. ONE MORE. And this is a stupid blog. I don't have a point to writing this, except to wish my little sister a happy birthday, because half the family wasn't home on her birthday, and she honestly deserves all the love she can get on this special day.

New Words

Sometimes, even a writer needs some help putting words to feelings. I discovered that today.

When two people are in a relationship, it's all about connecting, and keeping that connection. When two people are apart for a little while, sometimes, the little phone call, email, text, skype call, can all make both people feel like they are each other's.

Being apart can make each person feel full of angst, like something is missing from their lives, and to let something like this keep going--to not contact each other just to let the other know you're still there--can end up making the relationship bitter.

Everybody wants to feel that connection. Oh, it can get lost along the way, I'm sure, but a little bit of effort from both sides can always pull two people back together, if they want it enough.

I guess that's the feeling I feel whenever I'm away from people I love, whether it's a family member or a friend. It doesn't only go for relationships. It's a loss that's hard to explain, and it can be bitter, or it can be dealt with by simply seeing how the other person is doing.

It's never good to make up stories in your head. Another thing I learned.

Putting words to feelings, especially for someone like me, always makes muddled things seem so much clearer.

Silence

Yesterday I experienced something kind of amazing.

I'm not entirely sure how to describe it. It was very... quiet. I was just sitting there, listening to someone speak. I tend to have multiple conflicts with myself throughout the day about life, about people, about how messed up the world can be.

And then suddenly, out of no where, I felt like I understood it all. Not in a way that I can put it into words. It was just a feeling, an underlying knowledge that everything will be okay, and that we're all going to die one day and we have to live life to the fullest and stop moping that life isn't perfect.

It was so peaceful.

Throughout it all, this epiphany, I was just hoping it wouldn't go away, because I knew once it did, all the conflicts would come back, all those arguments with myself, and I'd have to go back to trying to figure out life.

I still have that memory though, locked in my mind, and thinking back on it reminds me that I can never let the world influence me to a point that I forget who I am.

It was just... a moment of absolute silence.

In the Dead of the Night

Two posts in one day. I'm not trying to make up for all the slow blogging, but actually, it's Halloween, and I wanted to blog about it.

I've always wondered what it is that people really fear about Halloween when a lot of it--zombies, ghosts, etc--are just make believe characters created for the simple sake of scaring people. But if people got it into their heads that these characters don't exist... where's the fear in that?

Maybe I'm being a bit far fetched here (or maybe I'm just exhausted; there's a high possibility of that), but I'm wondering what the scariest monster would look like. They wouldn't have to appear in the dead of the night. No. And I'm just going off the top of my head here.

I'm pretty sure they would have to be real, or at least realistic. The idea of a realistic monster strays far away from zombies, actually. And thinking about it right now makes me sad because, well, the realistic monsters would have to be serial killers, or any killers for that matter, or people who rape others or use others in ways I don't even want to describe.

But that's not what Halloween is about.

I think, and this is just a theory I'm coming up with on the spot, that people need those make believe monsters in order to remind themselves that sometimes, they can laugh at being scared. I feel like it brings people a kind of relief.

Because honestly, even for someone who hasn't been through as much as probably a lot of others have, zombies can't be as scary as some of the stuff we have to face in this life.

Vices

Everybody has them, so I thought I’d spend a few moments talking about them. Besides, I’m trying to understand why people continue with these vices even when they learn it’s bad. The book I’m going to write requires it.

            A vice is an immoral or wicked behavior. Honestly, I wish they didn’t exist, but banishing the word won’t do anything to stop them from appearing in every human being, so I guess that’s wishful thinking.

            But truthfully, even I, striving to be ‘perfect’, have vices. Maybe it’s the thrill of being bad or going against the rules, or maybe it’s the simple fact that I suck at ignoring temptation, but I tend to make up excuses when I’m about to do something… against my morals.

            I’ve never stolen and I’ve never killed. I’m not a bad person. Nobody really is in the end, but sometimes people get so caught up in their heads that they forget how their actions might affect the world around them.

            Again, I know I’m being vague. That could be a vice of mine. My excuse is that I don’t want people to know all the insecurities and flaws that come with my personality, and I’ll do anything to keep that side of me hidden. I am utterly convinced that the reason nobody knows me is because I'm scared they won't like me. But I want to be a good person, and I believe many, even those with the worse vices, probably want to be it too.

            Some people just need a helping hand sometimes.

Deep, Intense, Romantic: The Perfect Fit

I don’t know why it’s taken me so long to write about this, but I thought it about time, especially since I’m seventeen, in my last year in high school, and I want to be able to look back and see how my thoughts have changed with time.

            A question I have always asked myself: what is love?

            The title of this post maybe gives some of that away, but there’s more to it. True Love, like what they show in fairytale movies, doesn’t exist in this world. Now, I’m not being negative, not at all. I mean, I wish it did. But it doesn’t. But that’s okay.

            Finding love is like finding the perfect shoe, only it’s not so easy as going to a store and telling the worker your size. In the real world, you don’t know your size, you don’t know what you’re looking for, but you know what you want as a person, and that’s really the only thing you need to find the perfect fit.

            This changes as you change, but everyone reaches a certain point in their life where they know exactly who they are, who they want to be, and they’ll find a person who lets them be that. It still takes work; it still takes effort. Nobody can be perfect at first, but as years go on, and each person learns about the other, that shoe can be worn in until it is perfect.

            That deep, intense, romantic feeling will come with every love, but only the perfect fit can make it last forever.

On the Way

When I meet new people and learn about their past, I judge like my life depends on it. I judge like their life depends on it. And no matter how many times I tell myself to stop, how many times I tell myself that these people are speaking of their past--no matter, I'm still going to judge them for it.

I'm a horrible, judgmental, emotional human being.

When people call me the 'nicest person ever', I feel a kind of pride, but then again, it's a lie. I mean, not in the way telling my teacher that I did my homework when I didn't is a lie, but in the way of putting on a smile where a grimace might be more appropriate.

And then sometimes I just can't think with an open mind because I have this everlasting thought that people, deep down, will never change, and letting someone in will just be a cause for more disappointment, so when I hear about someone's past and I don't like it, I can't help feeling...cheated.

But then I think back to the New Year's Resolution I made way at the beginning of my golden year (this year: 2012), and I remember my desire to become a better person. Is it a bad person who just wants to spare herself of pain? Maybe I'm selfish. No, not maybe.

Definitely I'm selfish.

Yet I give chances to people. I don't think I'll ever believe in the kind of change movies sometimes show through a long and grueling process, not in such a short time span anyway. I do believe that sometimes people will start out behaving a certain way because of learned behaviors from others, but nature always has a way of putting a person back where they're supposed to be.

So when I judge people according to their past, I'm scared that trusting them--if the past upsets me--might be naive of me, and I'll just end up getting hurt. But I have to give people chances, especially when the person is willing to make an effort to, at the very least, be a kind person.

Whether the person is lying or not... that is probably something I won't be able to figure out.

But I don't ever want to judge who someone is today according to what they've done in the past, because everything and everyone shapes a person everyday, and who that person really and truly is might be searching for a way to come out.

I know I need to get on that road on the way to becoming a better person, and what better day to start than today?

Looking at Stars

Sometimes, there exists people who seem to have it all. They have the perfect life, the perfect outer appearance, and they act the way they do not according to how they think the universe wants them to act but according to who they are.

These people are kind of amazing. To someone like me, those people are the source of my jealousy.

I like to think of myself as someone who knows herself inside and out. I guess to a certain extent, that’s absolutely true. But then put me in the middle of a group of people, and suddenly I’m like a deer caught in headlights, because I think too much, and all I want to do is do what everyone else expects me to do.

Not exactly a great way to make a first impression.

And to forgive my over-analyzing brain, I make excuses. I don’t often believe them. No, I don’t think I ever do. But they provide a source for temporary comfort in my stupidity; needless to say, I regret my actions in public, mostly because I simply do nothing.

I’m a person and like any other regular person, I want to make an impact on someone’s life, or at the very least make a friend. But see, the truth is, while I think I know myself inside and out, I’m still not comfortable with who I am, at least, not enough that I’ll happily share that person with the world.

I hate looking at life and living with the thought to impact people; I want to live just to live because this is the only life I’ll ever live, and what’s its worth if I’m not living out my potential? Who I am?

Sometimes I’ll look at the stars and be happy that I’ll never get a word of judgment from them. I trust them, and I don’t care if they see me do whatever it is I do. I just have to learn to look at people that way too.

What I'd Love to Learn

I have a problem. This isn't a false cry for help. No, I just feel the need to get this out there.

Even with my closest friends, I have a huge problem letting them in. I'm not very welcoming to people in general, and when I try to be...well, I'm basically setting myself up for disappointment. People are bound to disappoint eventually.

I want to trust, though, because I'm missing out by hiding, by putting on a mask of I-don't-know-what so that people don't really get to see me. I'm not sure if that makes sense. I'm never sure if I make sense.

I probably have really low self esteem; I'm just too stubborn to admit it. But I think it's true. I'm scared to be wrong. I'm scared to take a step further with someone else because I'm scared of getting hurt, or hurting the other person. I'm scared to tell the world my thoughts because I'm scared of being left behind.

As nice as I may seem, I'm an attention seeker. I like it when I'm noticed. Is that a bad thing? Sometimes, I don't know who I am because I don't know how to act around others. Or maybe it's the other way around.

But this is a habit I would love very much to break out of.

Grave Unjustness

Sometimes, I can't decide if people are stupid or overly considerate.

I really don't want to name names. I'm not the kind of person who's going to complain right out that something unjust has been done to me, because, hey, life is unfair. I'll get over it. I do, however, feel a need to rant, right here.

I'm singing a duet in my musical, and it's obvious to everyone that I need some kind of mike. Now, I left to KL for three days, missing three days of rehearsal, days that just happened to be the day everyone was given a mike. I wouldn't have been mad if the mikes really had all run out, and that everyone with some kind of solo or big role had taken that up.

But one girl doesn't have a single solo. Sure, she sings a special harmony with a few others in one song, but the others aren't miked, so... why should she be?

And the day I got back, I went straight to the teacher, told him the problem, and went on to tell our techies about it, since they run the entire system. What did they say? That the girl I'm singing my duet with has more lines--that's why she has a mike and I don't.

But it makes no sense when she only has one more line than me, and we're in the same scenes, and she can't very well sing a duet without a duet partner.

Who knew techies were so stupid? Or maybe it was just the two I talked to.

No matter. What matters is that I don't have a mike, not a face mike anyway. The musical gets to look unprofessional because the teachers stuck me with a hand mike. And hello! That girl who doesn't even have a solo still has a mike. It's not like her having a mike makes much of a difference. They can take it away from her. But they either don't see the problem, or they just want to make my life miserable. And I'm a senior. She's a freshman.

Does that seem fair to you?

Swords and Knights in Shining Armor

I am going to admit it. While trying to define “heroism”, I turned to the dictionary and came back with “great bravery”.  Putting the words “great” and “bravery” together only makes me think about knights in shining armor riding off on tall stallions with a mighty sword to save a captured princess.

            Nowadays, seeing this picture is unlikely.

            But that’s not to say that “heroism”, or “great bravery”, doesn’t exist. In this world, I look at bravery differently. I see it as someone standing up for what he or she believes in, someone who isn’t afraid of what the rest of society thinks, or even someone who has the courage to rise above suffering for the good of someone else.

            When I try to think of a modern hero, I think of people like Helen Keller or Eleanor Roosevelt. But my personal hero is a lot closer to me; she comes from home.

            It was my mother who told me “charity starts with the family”. The first time she said those words to me, I must have been seven or eight years old, but I never thought much about it.

            Now, I’m ten years older, and I know that behind those words, she meant to say, “If you can’t be charitable with your family, you certainly can’t be charitable with anyone else.”

            There are plenty of people I can name as heroes, but my mother fits my definition perfectly. She can be terse and overly honest, but she’s one of the kindest people I know. She tells it like she sees it, and she opens her home to anyone who calls for help, starting, of course, with the family.

            I like to say she’s my best friend as well as my mother, because I can tell her anything. She knows me inside and out, and she teaches me lessons I could never forget. Maybe I’m being vague, but what she really does is put everyone else above her. She makes people talk to her so that she can help with their problems, and even if they neglect her afterwards, she takes it all. She takes the hurt and calls it a sacrifice. And when they come back to her, she happily helps once more.

            Would it be cliché to say that I’d simply like to follow in her footsteps?

            Because in my eyes, she’s holding the mightiest sword of all.

How I Wish...

...I was a better blogger.

Now, I'm just writing this from scratch, so ignore the weird paragraphing and such. It's not important. I just feel like I have to get a few things straight.

Sometimes, my thoughts are in a turmoil, and my brain just doesn't function properly, as much as I try. Which results in a lack of effort to really produce something amazing to put on this blog. I don't know if I've mentioned this yet (and I'm really not going to go back and check), but all I want to do is make people think.

And how do I do that?

Well, by exploring topics that make me think, of course. Makes sense, doesn't it? (Just in case you wanted to know a little something about me).

So I'm writing this as more of a motivational tactic for myself. I will observe the world around me and write down whatever interests me, and I will turn those into posts I can then put on my blog. Because a blog isn't a blog without updates, and my life isn't that boring to be lacking stories I know would be fun to read. And write.

Wish me luck.

Visions and Appearances

When I’m lying in my bed, trying to sleep, I tend to have little visions—let me explain: I simply play a scene in my head, and I always have to come to some sort of conclusion with it. My latest ‘vision’ was intriguing.

            Prom. Senior year. Music. Break gigs. And appearances.

            Appearances is the key.

            I’m not a very confident person. In fact, if I have to be honest, I’d describe myself as meek.

            But that’s not who I want to be; at least, it’s not truly the person I am inside.

            If someone asked me how they looked in their prom dress (and you can see what prom had to do with this inner discussion), my answer would probably be “amazing”. If they doubted them, I’d tell them “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”

            Because, however cloche, it’s also very, very true.

            So I envision myself going to prom in a beautiful silver dress, wearing tall, eye catching shoes, my nails painted red, my makeup done perfectly.

            But I don’t want to portray myself as “beautiful”.

            Like many say, it’s what’s on the inside. I believe that has to be a bit rephrased to really be true, though. It is what’s on the inside, but if it’s hidden behind layers, no one can see it. Only actions can bring to life who a person is inside.

            So even if I didn’t walk into prom in that beautiful silver dress, to myself I’d still portray confidence. Because if I believe I’m just as important as anyone else (not to be arrogant), instead of sulking in the shadows, who would dare to disagree?

            It’s all about what you want to show the world. That is what makes the difference.

I'm A Procrastinator

I’m a perfectionist, and I like it when things are done on the spot, but when it comes down to the cold, hard truth, I’m simply a meek, resigned procrastinator. Why? Well I’m glad you asked.

            I don’t procrastinate because I like to leave things to last minute. In fact, if you look at it from my point of view, I don’t really leave things to last minute. I simply… have my priorities switched around.

           

A typical day in my life:

Wake up

Work out

Shower

Eat

Go to class

Finish “last minute” homework

Go to class

Eat while starting today’s homework

Go to class

Go to class

Write

Read

Do homework

Write

Sleep

            Hmm… That’s about it. It can change from day to day, but you get the gist. I’m not ‘wasting’ time; I’m just not spending it all on school. It’s not like I don’t use my time to the best of my ability. Reading and writing—those are my abilities, aren’t they?

            And they’re priorities I actually want keep up with.

Subtleties

Why can’t people simply speak what’s on their mind? Why is it that, when it comes down to telling the truth and keeping quiet, people have to choke?

            I’m not criticizing—okay, maybe I am (a bit)—because I do it too. I mean, the fact of the matter is, people are scared creatures who live with certain habits they sometimes can’t shake. It’s not a crime; it’s just life.

            But it doesn’t mean we should try to be subtle about things.

            One of my greatest ambitions—and I mean this, with all my heart—is to be able to live my life as if I’ll die tomorrow. Death is swift. It comes at unexpected times. It swoops in and swoops out, taking people as it travels the world, exploring the living—it’s only victims.

            I wish I could drop my things and burst into a song in the middle of the hallway—not because I want attention, but just because I want to know how it feels. I don’t want to be ashamed of who I am.

            Not that I am… Well, it’s hard to say (I haven’t quite figured out what my problem is).

            But that’s not the point. The point is, humans in general go through life trying to cover something up, trying to hide consequences until they get smothered in them. In the end, it’s not very subtle at all.

            If I’m feeling sad, is it a crime to break into tears? Or is that not subtle enough?

            If I’m feeling angry, is it bad to want to shout until I’ve ruined my voice? Or is that not subtle enough?

            We humans, we live under a set of rules and precedence and whatnot.

            And I wish… Well, I guess I just wish that people wouldn’t be so subtle about it all the time, that maybe, for once, we could all just say what we want when we want and not worry about what others think.

            Because what’s life if we’re living the way we think others want us to live?

Best Friends (and how happy they sometimes make me feel)

Today, I realized something. I realize something most days, but today was a special realization, one that made me, at first, a little bit confused, but then as I pondered the thought in my mind, it made me appreciative, a little bit more, well, ambitious (I hope that’s the right word).

            During dinner, I slipped my phone into my mother’s purse so that I wouldn’t have to be the one responsible for it. Now, maybe my reliance on my mother is a bit too strong for a seventeen-year-old, but I didn’t want it to get lost.

            When I got home, my phone forgotten, I remembered what my best friend had just texted me—that her mom had taken away her phone and grounded her, before proceeding to place the phone in her purse. Of course, my best friend took the phone back immediately without a problem.

            I could be looking too much into it, but as much as my best friend and I are alike, we are also very, without a doubt, different.

            Where I lack in… affection, she makes up for in tenfold. And where she lacks in, well, maturity, I make up for in tenfold. It wasn’t like it was always like this too. We started out as the perfect friends, both quiet, both (kind of) smart, both studious, both bookworms. We had so much in common.

            We still have so much in common.

            But somewhere along the way—and I’m not sure when, exactly—we split off into our own natural personalities. She’s overly dramatic. I think too much for my own good. (And she does too, but I wouldn’t categorize it the same way).

            I guess this realization that I’m trying to come to is that I sometimes don’t appreciate the difference of character my best friend—or any friend, for that matter—has.

            That affection that I lack—I think I’m supposed to, somehow, learn how to gain it, to learn how to show that I do, in fact, care, and to simply step out of the box I’ve built around myself so that I’m no longer hiding.

            Of course, it comes in time. Change always comes in time. It’s not always one person who changes you—no, of course not.

            But I’ve come to realize that it has to start somewhere.

            And maybe it’s here.

Try

            I’m going to rant, so leave if you don’t wanna see this.

            I feel like I’ve been forced to come to the conclusion that people are cowards. They hide what they have to say, what they believe in, because they’re insecure, or they’re worried about the outcome, or they’re scared someone will get hurt.

            Well, I’ve got something to say that I’ve been hiding for a while.

            Like everybody else, I don’t try. I don’t try for that solo in choir because I’m scared I won’t be chosen. I don’t try to make new friends because it means opening up more room for more hurt. I don’t try because sometimes, I feel like I’m the only one trying and it doesn’t seem worth it anymore.

            So I’ve been trying to learn to change that, in subtle ways, because I’m not so scared anymore.

            But how can anybody know what they want without trying? How can anybody get what they want without trying?

It’s better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all. By the same token, isn’t it better to try and get shot down than to never have tried at all?

The Screams

Never in my life had I heard a scream like the one I heard and wrote about on a whim a few months ago. I'd like to take a few moments to revisit these screams, because I believe in expression, whether someone swears, cries or screams.



   She screams. She screams and does not stop. I'm a believer in honor: honor thy father and mother, the bible says. I'm a believer of it and I hear the screams that are aimed at her mother and father.
   But she screams. She screams and does not stop, in a state of hysteria, a panicked craze enveloping her mind, I'm thinking, and I wish she will stop before someone gets hurt.
   Yet she screams. She screams and does not stop. Her voice echoes up the house to where I'm sitting, carries this far in a house large as this. I'm listening but I do not hear, and I pretend it does not exist.
   Still she screams. She screams and does not stop. And I realize I don't know why, why this shriek has to come about, why I am here to hear it so blatantly obviously from someone I was just speaking to.
   And she screams. She screams and does not stop.



I remember the screams, to a certain degree, but after rewriting all of this, so many months ahead... It makes me wonder about the experience itself, how my perception of the screams today is so different from what I wrote the day I actually heard them. Memories, the past, writing everything down... It makes me wonder what's real.

And what's not.

An Obsession

You know when you know something about yourself that you want nothing but to change, but it has to take an incident to instigate that change? Do you know what I mean when I say that?

            Let’s say you do. Now, I have an obsession—an obsession of the truth.

            To most people, this would seem like a good obsession; no, a great obsession.

            But to me, this obsession has gone beyond control, and it’s time I pull back a little bit.

            I’m judgmental, I’ll admit it, whether I actually tell people my judgments… Well, that’s a different story. The point is, I live life thinking everybody has a certain opinion about me, and I hate it because I feel like I have to live up to the person I’ve always been.

            I never let myself be who I want to be, and people seem to come to the conclusion that I’m this person and nothing will ever change. That in itself is a judgment of me, and I hate that it makes it harder for me to, well, be who I want to be.

            But at the same time, I’ve come to realize, I’m making a certain judgment myself. I’m judging that what everyone wants to see is what they’ve always seen, and I’m not taking into account what they actually want.

            I don’t know if you see how this connects to an obsession of truth. Let me break it down a little more. Often, I make rash judgments of people based on what I know (the same way I think everyone judges me), and sometimes, the facts don’t add up. Sometimes, it’s simply that the facts don’t add up the way I want them to because people tend to say one thing but mean another.

            And the little lies, the little omissions of truth, the little two-faced characters… These plague our world today, and I always want to know what’s really wrong with someone, the real reason they’ve been acting the way they have, what leads to a certain incident.

            Without people telling the truth, I’m forced to guess because of this crazy obsession to know. And I want to stop these judgments, because it makes me act cold, or snobby, to certain people. It conveys me as an ice princess.

            But it’s a wicked cycle of my over-thinking leading to my thinking that everyone judges me, leading to me judging everyone else, leading to a vague sort of truth I can come up with using what I know, making me obsessed. I don’t know if that makes sense.

            However, I do know I want to stop obsessing over knowing everything. No matter how agitated I get by not knowing what a certain person is doing, I need to let life go on and let time take me where I’m supposed to go.

            The world is a slow, slow place, and sometimes I want to skip to the end of the book without messing with all the complexities of life.

            I need to learn to stop shutting people out.

            I want to stop obsessing and… be a better person.

Vagueness and its Ambiguities

            I recently read a friend’s post about vagueness and the benefits of being direct. What I sincerely love is that I was just discussing this very issue with my mother. Now, my mother is a constant source of inspiration for me. Oh, she’s a nag—aren’t all mothers—but she manages to get people to talk.

            By being direct.

            Communication is one of the most important factors of life. Granted, some people have a problem with this—whether they think too much, or they simply want to hide everything they feel so that they don’t have to face the facts.

            Life is full of vagueness and it’s full of ambiguities. Some people don’t have a problem facing the straight out facts. I’d say I’m one of these people, probably because I’ve had a bumblebee mother always there for me. Like I said, she’s a source of inspiration. She’s taught me the importance of facing the facts.

            Whether it’s psychological issues, insecurities, family problems and whatnot, people shove things under the rug. The facts are ugly, life is ugly, and nobody likes to be reminded of that.

            But without facing the facts… How is life life? How is anyone living? It’s all fake if life is lived without facing what’s real. The hurt, the pain, the jealousies… They don’t go away when they’re hidden, and if they’re hidden, they are built until the rug can’t hide them anymore.

            Which is when the person collapses under the heavy weight of the ugly facts. And the ugly facts, believe me, are ugly. Nevertheless, they have to be confronted at one point or another.

            It’s the only way we can grow.

Regret

Regret is a subject one always ponders upon, a subject one always has to hold on to. The thought that the regret could have been nonexistent had matters gone a different way lingers on the mind like a butterfly does on a leaf.

            Regret is the fear that one has done harm to another, and that harm would never have been done had matters gone a different way. And one can only wish that everything will turn out for the better in a spray of forgiveness.

            Regret is a never-ending burden, preying on the soul in a dire desire to conquer. If one starts to fall under its heavy weight, one can only stand up again to attempt to discover what went wrong and why.

            Regret is a gift disguised. The fact that the regret has bubbled up in a massive jacuzzi of feelings tells one that matters have gone wrong, and perhaps a slight change in an overbearing character can fix it.

            And perhaps not.

            For regret is not always fair. But in the end, something good will come out of it. Only faith, time and patience can overcome regret.

            At least, I hope so.

It's a bit late, but...

My New Year’s resolutions have been dying to come out. Oh, I haven’t formulated it or anything. To be honest, this is the first day I’m even laying out what I want to accomplish this year. 2012, you’re finally here. My Golden Year.

            I’ve told this to people before. Last year, I went on a school trip to Dharamsala, India, and it was there that one of the most amazing things happened.

            I visited a Palm Reader.

            And I had my future read to me.

            Not that I believe what he told me, because who but God knows what the future will bring? However, that’s not the point. The point is, he told me something that has been forever imprinted in my head: “the year two thousand and twelve will be your golden year.”

            My Golden Year? Yes. My Golden Year.

            And maybe only I can make that prediction come true. Therefore, I am going to make a list and put it on the web, because on the web, I’ll be more prone to following it.

            Hopefully.

My List:

1. Be myself.
2. Be more creative
3. Completely edit my baby (my book), and pitch it to an agent.
4. Post more on my blog.
5. Learn how to make friends and stay friends.
6. Do something just because I want to.
7. Be a better person.

And that’s it.

To Let Go

They’re working too hard to enjoy the sunny sun in the Balinese sky. Oh, what a shame; oh, what a stereotypical example of the average working family; oh, what a great insight into the seemingly perfect lives of the rich among the poor.

            I compare my parents—Mom’s on the laptop, Dad’s on the phone—to the workers in our villa—a middle-aged woman is being harassed by my little sister for a glass of sprite, a glass of water and a plate, and they’re running around to gather our needs and to rid us of sights of cockroaches and other mounds of bugs.

            Although I guess I exaggerate. Mounds of bugs? No, no, no. Just a few here and there. The workers seem to enjoy helping us, the most genuine of smiles on their faces. I ask for a plate; my mother chastises me because I can get it myself. But the worker? He tells me with a smile that he will get it. No problem at all.

            Alright, they get money for their work. But hey, it’s not as much as the people they host. I sometimes wonder if they ever wish to be us, to be the ones being served, but when I hear them as they’re in the kitchen cooking our food, or as they’re giving a massage, I can’t sense any jealousy. Everybody here is content; wouldn’t it be amazing to achieve that?

            To be able to know your lifestyle and accept it for what it is. There are the bad sides, the sides that make you want to change everything, but laying back is better. The change—what you want—will often happen on its own.

            Once I let go, forget my desires, set them aside and live my life, all of that, they change manifests itself. And in the end, it’s not much of a change. You become who you’re supposed to be.

            By simply letting go.