MIND-FART #11

Coping. That's what I do each day that it's the only constant thing in my mind (and maybe food, too?). Even when I'm doing something which requires my physical and mental strengths, it's still there, at the back of my mind, looking out for an opening just so it can slap me in the face. I can't even remember what the past looks like, nor can I think of the future, because I can barely cope up with the "now".

I don't know if I should feel happy or sad about this.

On Past and Present Happiness

Last Friday, while we're having one of our random pig-outs after work, my training mates and I touched on the topic happiness. The main question that night over french fries and affogatos was: "Are you happy where you are right now?"

It's a simple question in the context that it can be answered with a yes or a no. But beneath it lies more complicated and mind-boggling questions most people can't readily answer, myself included. The three of us answered variations of "maybe", "somehow" and "I don't know." It concluded with wishing that may we know what we're looking for to make us say that we're happy, no ifs and buts and just let time run its course.

Today, as I was reading a few pages of Gretchen Rubin's The Happiness Project,  I am presented with this: 

"What did you like to do when you were a child? What you enjoyed as a ten-year-old is probably something you'd enjoy now."

Tracing back to my ten-year-old self. All I remember was that I liked playing a lot like most kids. I usually play teacher-teacheran, complete with kiddie blackboard and colored chalks; my cousins being the students and I, the teacher. Now, I am a language teacher. So it got me thinking- is this what really makes me happy? Will I grow old doing this? Will it give me life satisfaction? I think it's for me to know and find out. Or maybe I'll never find out. But same old, I'll live my life the best way I know how.

MIND-FART#9

I constantly feel like time is running out before my eyes. Some days I can keep up; most days, I'm sweating and panting like a dog.

I need to have a wristwatch. So that I can be a dog with, well, a wristwatch.

Heartbreak Library

I ran out of series to watch so I randomly browse the movie collection of a site and came across with Heartbreak Library. I read the plot and since I love books and libraries, I decided to give the movie a try. Funny thing is, I found a similarity in Eugene's character's thoughts with mine these past few days.

When someone leaves you, it's not just in body but in soul as well.

There's no good reason for liking and for disliking something. So it's simple, she just came to dislike you.

Thoughts, anyone?

P.S. A few days more and it's 2014! Happy New Year in advance, everyone! Cheers! :-)

MIND-FART#8

I just finished reading the first book of Colleen Hoover's Hopeless series and some lines just get through me even though my life was, is and will not be the same as that of Sky.

On endings:

It's real, Six. You can't get mad at a real ending. Some of them are ugly. It's the fake, happily ever afters that should piss you off.

On hate:

When you aren't sure what it is you hate or why you hate it, it's hard to hold on to the details... you just hold on to the feelings.

On choices:

Sometimes, you have to choose between a bunch of wrong choices and no right ones. You just have to choose which wrong choice feels the least wrong.

On defeats:

And while I could sit here and feel sorry for myself, wondering why all of this happened to me, I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to wish for a perfect life. The things that knock you down in life are tests, forcing you to make a choice between giving in and remaining in the ground or wiping the dirt off and standing up even taller. I'll probably get knocked down a few more times before this life is through with me, but I'll guarantee you, I'll never stay on the ground.

I even wrote these lines on my 2014 planner so that I can be reminded that whatever I may be thrown with at in the coming days or months, I need to get a grip of myself, always.

Now, my hands are on to the next book. Yaaaaay.❤️

MIND-FART#7

I got a lightbulb moment while in the ofuro.

Maybe, just maybe, the people who "romantically" hurt me in the past didn't really mean to hurt me. Just like me and billions of others, we search our whole lives for The One. And maybe, I'm not that The One for him and a couple of others. Just as he and a couple of others wasn't the one for me. 

I call it quits.

MIND-FART #4

I know I'm okay. I've been okay after that doomsday. But why am I having that familiar ache once again?

MIND-FART #2

I feel the salty waves come in, I feel them crash against my skin. And I smile as I respire because I know they'll never win.

These lines from Panic at the Disco!'s New Perspective never fail to lift my tired and tattered spirit up.

I won't let the waves win. 

They'll never win.

MIND-FART#1

Did I make the most of loving you? Did I or did I not?

Ginger-head Love

I have known err listened to Ed Sheeran last last year, as far as I can remember. I stumbled upon his YouTube video of Drunk and actually liked it. And it led up to me searching for one song and then another. For me, he's Taylor Swift's male version.. and come to think of it, their hair colors are of the same hue. Ha ha ha sorry for being lame pointing it out. Anyway, I would just like to scream I'm a huge fan of his through this blog entry so yeah. Here's something to enjoy. :-)

0:01:00 Give Me Love 

0:11:37 Drunk 

0:15:38 Homeless 

0:21:24 UNI 

0:26:42 Grade 8 

0:31:50 Small Bump 

0:37:40 The City 

0:47:33 This 

0:54:07 Be My Husband 

1:04:26 Kiss Me 

1:10:55 Lego House 

1:16:11 A Team 

1:22:08 Chasing Cars 

1:28:06 You Need Me, I Don't Need You

My favorites are Give Me Love (heard it first in a TVD episode), UNI and Lego House. How about yours? Hope it made your day as much as it made mine. ♥

XO,

Alyssa

Hitori de

Hitoride means alone in Nihongo. And yes, I'm alone sitting and at times rolling on this queen-sized bed in my room on a Saturday. I was supposed to meet some high school friends for a drink but I stayed in for the night, instead. So yeah, let the movie marathon begin!

One Day (2011)
"Twenty years. Two people."
The story seemed to me like A Lot Like Love wherein two people meet every year for twenty years to sort of catch up, but this one's a bit tragic. In One Day, Dexter and Em meets every July 15th. They just found themselves in love one day, however, Em dies of an accident. I wonder if I could tolerate that kind of friendship thing for twenty years. Maybe.

Pitch Perfect (2012) 
"Get pitch-slapped."
Singers and singers-at-heart might love this movie. It's about Beca, a college freshman and aspiring DJ, joining the all-female a cappella group, Barden Bellas, with some love story on the side courtesy of Jesse, from their rival all-male a cappella group, Barden Treblemakers. Favorite scenes were the riff-off and finals. Of course, I also love how the songs were mashed-up. Not to mention, Beca sang Titanium at the dormitory's communal bathroom!

I would really love to spend my days with someone who can carry a tune and has the same musical inclination as mine.

Tonight You're Mine (2012)
"A single night. A million possibilities. One connection."

Watched this cos of the setting: Coachella. I've always wanted to experience the renowned music festival in Scotland, so I think, watching this film is a good start. It's your typical strangers to lovers story of The Make's Adam and The Dirty Pinks' Morello (blame the handcuffs), with a good soundtrack. Personal favorites are You Instead, Keep Yourself Warm and Dark Energy. And oh, I find Adam charismatic, ha!

I love this scene. I think I'll be happy with someone whom I can sing with.

Ahh I love this scene, too. Adam x Morello.

Word

If only you could really use a fail-proof system to know who was worth keeping and who needed to be thrown away. It would make it so much easier to move through the world, picking and choosing what connections to make, or whether to make any at all. 

-What Happened to Goodbye, Sarah Dessen

Not that I already know those who are worthy to be kept in my life cos it's a bit difficult; you can only keep them if they also want to be kept in the first place. But I think I know who not to keep.

I was silent or at least tried to be silent but some people are just too bored, I guess, to provoke someone who's been unresponsive since day one. No, you don't need to flatter me very much. Thanks.

Odd Thought Bubble

Friday

Woke up minutes before twelve, had brunch in bed and started reading Why We Broke Up from where I left reading it. Today’s a holiday so I spent the whole afternoon reading and at times rolling over and over my bed. And I’m quite surprised rolling like an idiot helps clear my head, or maybe not whatever, I still believe it helped reorganize the eccentric jumble of words in my thought bubble, as if you could all see it, ha!

So back to the illustrated novel, I was a bit hesitant to read it cos we broke up an awful long time ago. But yeah, I still read it. You were my last boyfriend as of the moment so sorry if you’ll feel or rather assume what I’m babbling now here in my blog is all about you. It is, I think? And besides, Min Green had this box full of Ed stuff and I have one, too, sort of. The thing is that not only stuff from you was dumped there, you know.

I’m just wondering, what if I gave you a box full of the things we had through the years we were together? Maybe a balikbayan box would do, eh? Would you accept it? Would you keep it? Burn it? Or recycle some and give it to your next girlfriend? Oh I think I know the answer. But wait I wanna hear it straight from you.

Did you really love me? Pathetic as it may sound but I wanna know. Not the answer that you thought I wanted to hear. But the real answer. Man up, you beautiful bastard. And if given the chance would you let some Anette break our relationship? I just wanna know. Would you keep on saying no offense but still say offensive things? Would you give me a piece of paper with "I can't stop thinking about you." on it but also give Anette a bouquet of flowers with the same line written in the card? You really are a bastard you beautiful bastard. Would you have second thoughts about Al and say, "If he's not gay and he hung out with you the whole time, he wanted to be. It's boyfriend or want to be boyfriend or I guess gay. Those are the choices."?

I know you're busy so I'll stop right here but take time to YouTube Hawk Davies' Feelings. Bye forever, beautiful bastard. You either have the feeling or you don't.

The Vagueness I Call Life

I'm twenty turning twenty-one and still in the process of deciphering my own self. Being in this age where you meet your invincible persona face-to-face doesn't help at all; wanting many things only to find out they can't be realized as of the moment for some reason you can't or don't want to understand. Frustrations pile up, blocking your vision of the other side; that side where it is smooth-sailing and calm, where dream is synonymous to reality.

Don't get me wrong. I'm enjoying my twenty year old free self. But at times, I feel like I'm standing on a fine line between maturity and naivety, each side having me pulled on opposite ends at the same time. And if I'm not feeling that way, I  find myself losing interest in things, seeing dullness in everything, and just sitting there, watching my nonchalant life become more nonchalant than ever it was before.

My current self doesn't understand her own self. Maybe the "me" in my multiverses consolidated into the "me" dwelling in this body. 

I hope not.

Those Two Words

Mushy? Sometimes, yes.

When slum books and love letters were so in way back elementary, I used to write those two words hastily because (1) everybody writes "Take care" or "T.C". before their signatures and (2) I have lived with the notion that saying those words means you are concerned with the recipient's welfare; that you actually care, etcetera, etcetera.

However it dawned on me that a possible "etcetera" is that, saying take care may mean its actual opposite. One can say take care but mean to say "I don't care about you anymore so take care of yourself instead." or "I'm so done with you, stay away and don't ever pester me again."

Pessimistic? Maybe a bit. However, it doesn't erase the possibility that it can mean what I just said.

Fighting Back

My life is plain, most of the time. That's why I find having petty to serious quarrels a bit foreign but I quite enjoy it. Don't get me wrong. I am not, or I must say, never a war freak. I just know when to take a stand and give people a piece of my mind.

Voicing out opinions needs a bit of exercise, too, you know.

And yeah, I'm in the process of doing it now.

Fear of Flying

Though my friends envied me because I always seemed cheerful and confident, I was secretly terrified of practically everything.

Maybe Erica Jong and I are soul mates at some point in our lives, minus the age gap. I actually feel this way. That deep. I would love to meet her. And maybe have a picture with her, and hug her, and spend a day with her, just the two of us talking until we run out of words to say.

Illusory Superiority

It's the first weekend this year that I wasn't able to go home and yes, got stuck at the dorm all because of flu. Add sore muscles to that, too. On a lighter note, this is my very chance to catch Father Thor, my favorite priest, in his 5:30-7PM Sunday service at the St. Therese of the Child Jesus Chapel at the campus' confines. And so off I went to church with some friends.

We were lucky to get some front seats. And the sermon was all about the Lake Woebegon Effect. Lake Woebegon isn't a lake mentioned in the Bible, neither in the atlas. It's Garrison Keillor's fictional town, with which he mentions in his radio show, A Prairie Home Companion. It's a town which is said to be where "all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average". The Lake Woebegon Effect, the natural human tendency wherein one overestimates another's capabilities, was named after the fictional town.

So the Lake Woebegon Effect is synonymous to Illusory Superiority or other names such as Above Average Effect, and Superiority Bias. A Psychology topic in church, eh? But I'm not against that being taught in church. I'm just amazed that that thing being the topic, in my own perspective, is timely, very timely.

As a college student in a prestigious university in Asia, I always have this thought at the back of my mind that I am greater than some people who got into other universities, who got lower grades than mine, who flunked a subject that I didn't, etcetera, etcetera. There are times that I came to ridicule someone because of it. And if you give it some thought, maybe you, too, have had experienced whipping and being whipped by that Lake Woebegon Effect. And I just realized that it doesn't do any good for me and for my "victim". Though I know that I can be caught by its tentacles every day, I know that I can somehow prevent it from doing so with my own little ways and if I didn't, I can always try to clean up my mess and somehow (though I know I can't completely) alleviate the pain I made others feel. 

I don't know but I just felt the need to write this. I'll try to shoo off the Lake Woebegon inside me starting today.

Destruction leads to a very rough road but it also breeds creation.

Above was a line from Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Californication. And it’s not just a random line from a random song. More than that, it’s a reminder, a note, something which never fails to tap my back and say that though tough times and rocky roads may have knocked me down, great things are in store for me in the future; that I need experiences like that from time to time for me to learn more, and eventually, grow into someone worthy of the world’s stare.

Careless

So what if it didn't matter to him as much as it did to me? So what if it was just one of his many escapades? I refuse to give this more care than it truly deserves.