Stop Fooling Around

The snaking queue only tells you one thing – YOU SHOULD GET YOUR ASS IN THAT LINE TOO. Which I did almost a year ago and due to inexplicable reasons now, I’ve been having an intense week-long craving for this shop’s pastries. I’ve resisted, and still no amount of Milo, or other bakeries’ sweets could hit that spot just right. So I was sure I was female when I gave in, caved in even, and got out in the winter freezing cold to travel 1 hr just for the unhealthy trans fat and sugar laden sins. Ugh. It was all worthed it though. The moment I sank my teeth in the cream puff, my eyes rolled back into my brains, and suddenly there were trumpets playing and rainbow confetti in the air. My senses were celebrating and it was paradise. And then I can’t stop removing and putting on my gloves cos I was popping them in my mouth all the way home. I know.

I’ve finally gotten down to be slightly more serious in getting into my tourist persona in Beijing. I’ve already ran out of excuses and time for awkward moments when I have to admit that I’ve yet been to (insert places you should already visited in Beijing). The shame of it! It kills me so. SO… I’ve teamed up with a newbie in town (bless him) to visit all the must-sees in town. First up this Saturday, TEMPLE OF HEAVEN! aka. 天坛. I can’t believe in the past 14 months, I couldn’t make myself visit Temple of Heaven when it’s only a 15mins cycling away. I am incorrigible.

And later in the evening, we’ll go for ‘geeks nights’ which yours truly had started and then caught on with many others. Oh yea! We’ll go cafe hopping, it will be Bookworm this time for it would be great for the newbie and that he could play the resident piano. Nice!

And then Sunday, I’d try to earn money, and then it would be electronic music 101 for me. Not partying, but can you guess? Awesome things are happening and I am thankful! xx

Inertia

Hey I’m so sorry, I don’t think I can make it to the charity dinner again because…

1. I don’t eat meat.

2. I don’t want to sit in a meat aroma-room with visual feeds of weirdly dissected dead animals.

3. I don’t want to pay for “my share of dinner” which includes YOUR EXPENSIVE MEAT DISHES and my plain stir-fried bokchoy in animal fats anymore!

4. I can’t afford a humanitarian lifestyle in the long run.

5. I don’t have the time to keep being  in the cycle of becoming sad, sympathetic, inspired, fatigue, deinspired, de-sad, numb, when I already have textbooks and assignments to attend to, and icing on the cake – I also work in the demanding hospital!

6. I don’t want to become numb, dehumanitised because of these.

7. I don’t have the time and energy to keep talking to new faces every week and repeating why, when, how, what I’m doing in Beijing.

8. I don’t want to neglect my other interests.

Yet I do not want to be selfish. The more I write, the more they sound like excuses. If the organisers can do it relentlessly every week, why should I even complain?

Grr, somedays, I really hope I am not nice, and could save myself from these guilt-trips.

下雪了！ :)

And lastly, I simply adore this picture of me and JJ caught in the act!

I am so going to miss Beijing, snow-fights and my lovely housies… It was a day to remember for the rest of my life. Till then, dear future, will you please wait?

A Dream Within A Dream by Edgar Allan Poe

Take this kiss upon the brow!

And, in parting from you now,

Thus much let me avow–

You are not wrong, who deem

That my days have been a dream;

Yet if hope has flown away

In a night, or in a day,

In a vision, or in none,

Is it therefore the less gone?

All that we see or seem

Is but a dream within a dream.

 

I stand amid the roar

Of a surf-tormented shore,

And I hold within my hand

Grains of the golden sand–

How few! yet how they creep

Through my fingers to the deep,

While I weep–while I weep!

O God! can I not grasp

Them with a tighter clasp?

O God! can I not save

One from the pitiless wave?

Is all that we see or seem

But a dream within a dream?

Sometimes, you just know.

Was it age that wore my body out, or was it the odd chords that I chose to play in my life?

Damnit, is this the way the world responds to my wants for more time (see last post)?! This is one of the rare nights that I’ve got insomnia, I don’t even have to try to know that I definitely won’t be able to sleep tonight. It could be the damn cold winter, the way my buckwheat shell pillow tortures my neck, the way I didn’t tire my body enough today… Or the way I stuffed my brain too much and now it can’t relax, or it could simply be the way my heart is so heavy. I’m weary of being enrolled into this cycle of responsibilities and commitments, and even though here am I whining about things I have to do and yearning for things that I’m not “supposed” to do, I don’t even know where exactly my interest lies. Crap.

Anyway.

We had a Jiaozi (饺子) party the other day and it was fun to reconnect with friends that I haven’t met in a long time and also to gather with good friends over yum food and red wine and Jeff was so hilarious trying Anne’s retro dress when we were brainstorming for Halloween ideas. I tried French Pastis too! Not a big fan, and so all the French started to boo me… “Oh come on! You sure?! No way!!”. Whatever.

Needless to say, I was in charge of the kitchen and ingredients buying etc etc. After sorrily dragging kilos of groceries around town and worrying about eggs cracking and jiaozi wrappers getting wet, all the while having chic people whizzed past me in the freaking cold night… For the first time ever in my life, I actually got sick of cooking. I am practically tired of preparing food and seeing my friends enjoying my food just doesn’t seem that gratifying anymore. I am so over cooking and baking, it really don’t seem interesting anymore but more of like an obligation. For sure I know I can cook better than most people but I’ve finally realised and decided that I truly have had enough. There are surely better things to do in life.

Wants

Time. I need time.

More than a Sister

Have you ever felt like sometimes, words rushed out of your mouth too fast and you wished that you could only eat them in one whole swoop so that no one will ever get the chance to digest them because you don’t really mean what the words are meant to say….?

I was reading the Couchsurfing reference I penned for my sister half a year ago, and find myself wishing that she (or anyone) will have all the time in the world to chew, regurgitate and re-chew those words.

Because I do mean each and every one of them with all the fibre in my being. I am too proud of her (YOU IF YOU SMELLY WANTING IS READING THIS) and I realised I missed her… very very much.

Letting Go

Taken in Ningxia-Inner Mongolian desert intersection

Somehow the impression of myself as someone who doesn’t hanker for materialistic wants and unnecessary “worldly” possessions had been hatched and broiled onto my grey matter aka. the brain. However, Mr. RC (Reality Check) visited me this afternoon to spill the beans that all these were just beautiful beautiful lies, because, it actually pained me when I discovered I’ve lost one of my “worldly” stuff. Well, I know it won’t matter at the end of the day. But then, it must have had mattered enough for me to keep trying to convince myself that it didn’t matter for the WHOLE DAY. It should have been really easy to let go because it’s obviously the better thing to do and ONLY way to deal with it without having rippling negativity in the house. If only submerging yourself in contradictions is the pre-step to the fictious world of letting go… How stupidly complicated this is!

URGHHH. Sigh. Let go let go!  I have a feeling I’m going to lose sleep over this tonight, and maybe tomorrow. Or maybe I just need to cry over it so I can find another feminine reason to stop this nonsensical emotional internal war since perhaps it all started because I am actually, really, just simply… a needy and insecure female?

 

 

Perhaps maybe this worldly thing wasn’t just something usual and replaceable….. No it wasn’t.

Me sporting Anne’s top which is too big for her and too small for me.

 

An accidental vegan meal of sushi and salad at Anne’s place with Anne (of course) and Jonas. Loved the organic corn sprinkles and homemade salad dressing. And it was so hilarious when Jonas picked out a strand of MY hair out from the sushi, living proof that I’ve indeed participated in the cooking. We lounged with some French red wine after, and indulging ourselves with pseudo-planning cum dreaming about our upcoming trip to Ningxia, where some of the largest deserts in China could be found…… Good times good times.

 

Groupmates Adventures

David checking out his own heart

Chin Ee, David and me usually find ourselves “floating” around in the minimalistic outpatient clinics. Hours of hunger, thirst, standing and concentrating can make one go slightly goony.

So I was staring out of the window this morning out of boredom and Chin Ee turned to me with a curious gaze. Sensing her looking, I wanted to poke fun at current situation and scribbled something on my notepad. I then showed it to her classroom-days-style. “Looking out of the window… Thinking about life.”

And dear Chin Ee scribbled back on her notepad, “WTF”.

!!!

I gave her a pissed off stare and then scribbled back, “See how David reacts”.

Poking David’s arm, I got his attention and traced the philosophical one liner on my notepad. Chin Ee and me then waited with utmost anticipation…

Sweet old David sighed, nodded and then proceded to stare out of the same window.

Oh man, you should have seen how Chin Ee and I cracked up. It was sooOOoo difficult to hold it all in!