~ Night Moths ~

10 years away

Fri, 02 Nov 2018 14:42:00 GMT

So today is the 10-year anniversary of me leaving home. November 2, 2008 was a point of no return. The disruption, engagement, push and pull of leaving home changed me forever. For the better or worse, it's one of the most important days of my life, despite it starting out so wearily. Note to self: maybe refrain from talking about discrete dates as "most important" - no one date marks a beginning. Why would the beginning be pertinent upon the shift of geographical location, and not, say, the first day of class in Singapore?

Ah, to hell with Nietschze. I'm not here to change the world.

So 10 years have passed, and I don't think I will go back within the next 10 years either. But in another 5 years, another milestone will be reached: I'll be officially away from home the same amount of time as I was home. Not that it matters too much. I doubt the first 5 years of my life is as densely populated with life experiences as a year in the past 10 years. Ah time again - it stretches and shrinks as it wants, what is the point of measuring it in years, months, hours, seconds?

I'm ranting again. The point is, so much has happened. I just got out of a 10-day hospital stay. Liver abscess. Killer of my Canadian dream. I'm sitting here, alone in my bedroom, heart pounding wildly and vulnerably. I feel lonely.

So 10 years since I sacrificed my privacy ("boarding" school, hah!) for friends and knowledge, since I ran away from my miserable middle school life, I'm here all alone. It's not true, the past few days I've been so indebted to the care of women of color, of women from all over the world in this little pocket of Brooklyn. I've been surrounded by languages, stories of cares in third world countries, people who saved me, people who almost killed me. I've been indebted to the love of Vietnamese girls, my sisters whose blood I don't share.

And then, through it all, I'm still a mess. I've been a mess for the past 10 years. Sometimes the mess get to wear a "put-together" sleeve, like the first few weeks of this semester when I operate on a routine. And then something happens and I realize that I'm bursting out of the seams, all these nervous bundled energy, the anxiety, the desperate feeling that I'm alone in this world. That I'm scared to wake up and face another day, that when I swallow I feel bitter.

I feel not ready. I don't think I'll ever feel ready.

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On self-documentation and procrastination

Wed, 17 Aug 2016 18:25:23 GMT

I have always been inconsistent in terms of recording my life. The period when I was the most productive was also when I was at the height of loneliness, and looking through old records and documents shed a certain light on how I think at the time, including all the embarrassing tidbits that I do not want to remember. Memories are always edited to make you feel better about yourself, and so documentation of self is important to foster self-awareness.

I've been rereading whatever I posted on this blog since the beginning of 2009, and I did not realize how angry I was at everything. Most things posted are full of frustration, angst, and biting sarcasm at petty happenings. In my mind, however, I was always sensible, calm, mature for my age. I am sure that this version of myself would never make it onto the page, because I would only write when I have no other outlet to express my pent-up frustration.

This explains the overwhelming lack of content over the last four years. I wish I kept a better record of my college life, but it was the direct consequence of not being alone. Does solitude necessitates records? Do all writers have to maintain a degree of isolation to create?

I can perhaps describe it as a volcano, or a water valve. To be able to write, I need to achieve a degree of pent-up neediness - neediness to express myself, neediness to get heard. Having someone around means a valve leaking; pressure could never build up enough to overcome the inertia that comes with entertaining diversion. Maybe that's why philosophers don't want to be happy, but that would be a side-story.

Who knows. Maybe this would be how I resume writing again?

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5 Unconfirmed Facts About D.C.: A Convo Edition

Sat, 19 Jul 2014 00:04:30 GMT

My DC backpacking trip a month ago had me engage in crazy cool meetings with friends, both old and new, in a way that a tour could hardly supply. Featured in this post are snippets of conversations (the dramatized version) between me and local DC citizens.

( #1: Humbling the Romans )( #2: Drawing Circles )
( #3: Photographic Memories )( #4: Navigation )
( #5: Speeding and Google )

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Requiem of a kitten

Mon, 09 Jun 2014 10:00:55 GMT

She died at 4 p.m., June 9, 2014, in her favorite bamboo basket. Her blue eyes remained wide open. I touched her face, slipping my hand down to her stomach.

Her tail ceased to move. Throughout the endeavor of surgery, or recovery and failed recovery, her tail sometimes was the only sign of life left. And when life left her, so was her tail.

She had lived with us for 10 years without illness. In the end, ovarian cancer took her away from us.

In the last few days, her walk was slow and sluggish. I thought of calling a pet when she was vomiting, but I stopped. Maybe I should have. Maybe it wouldn't have solved anything.

What if, after all, is not the best mode of thinking right now. No bargaining. No bargaining. If I can jump straight to acceptance.

Gosh. It's not about you.

I am sorry. I am sorry. Depression.

Acceptance.

Goodbye.

Mi, the greatest cat in the world.

*Kitten: a term to call all cats in the United States, regardless of their age.

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Career crisis

Tue, 04 Mar 2014 08:07:55 GMT

Gosh, career crisis is nasty.

Sometimes I wish I could just redo everything. Stop before it was too late. Before I fell in love with stories, and no longer was able to go on without them. Stop when numbers were still fascinating, and coding a viable mystery. Stop as mom and dad woke me up from this lavish dream, telling me that there was no going back.

When I look back on my life, it seems like a walking pile of wasted potentials. I did not take chances when I could; I did not take risks when I should.

But maybe everyone has those moments.

Middle school screwed me up so badly and its effect still lingered around at times. But it helped me filter people, and helped me learn to be fake; except that it was absolutely exhausting to act fake all the time.

Back to my career crisis. Everything I read recently only seemed to discourage me more from venturing into real movie-making, and it was exhausting. Meanwhile, I keep getting distracted by irrelevant things.

Or maybe I just have a big ego. Maybe both.

Jeez, never mind.

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There will be snow

Mon, 09 Dec 2013 03:24:49 GMT

I am writing more. This is either a good sign, or just characteristics of exam periods and the anything-is-better-than-studying mentality. Whatever the case, at least I am restarting, and not drawing a huge blank of my life.

My FYS professor told me once that researching and reconstructing is difficult, because most people don't keep a record of their life. Except for those people who expect to be famous (followed by hilarious comments on letters by famous figures who are fascinating to read just because they expect to be studied later on). For me it's something different. I am not wishing to be famous, but rather to be able to remember what has happened to me. (Need to remind myself to keep searching for that lost notebook where I wrote down most of my teenage angst).

Anyway, going into the post proper, it's the first snow of the season today. As in real snow - the snow that leaves traces on the ground a day afterwards. It is so beautiful that it left me in awe. It made me want to write a poem about it - not that I know anything about poetry. I am however not an English major, and my language is no longer beautiful as it used to be, so I would leave that for another day. Just a stream of consciousness regarding snow as I was walking across the snowfield.

Snow is so much like sand, the way they shimmer under the moonlight and scatter around. The way that footsteps can be traced back to their origins, yet can be erased as easily as they are created. If footsteps on the beach are erased by the wind, snow steps melted into wet pathways, just as if it has been raining.

I was walking in my rainboots, and I realize that they are not fully water proof. Either that or I confuse wetness with coldness - both sensations feel the same at very low temperature. Yet the feeling when my boots left behind those footsteps is indescribable. The feeling that someone may know that I have walked this path just by looking at the footsteps - a natural record of my walk around the Quad - gives me a sense of existence. I exist, I am visible, I am recognized just by leaving behind those footsteps on the snow. Even if they will melt away into puddles of water just like a huge downpour, they remain for more than a second on the ground. Maybe it's enough, maybe I just need to know that there's someone out there who acknowledge me for a short-lived moment.

It's pure bliss. And purity. The blissful moments that I walk across the quad are just priceless.

Another thing, snow makes me think of Christmas, and all sort of happy, fuzzy, warm feelings. Wonder how something so cold can bring about an emotion so wonderful. On another note, it's probably just dominant culture manifests itself though - take note about how I socialize all of that. Oh sociology, look what you have done to my romantic side.

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Happy New Year 2013... Oh, wait a minute!

Wed, 11 Sep 2013 20:18:54 GMT

Ironically this demands to be posted on September 11. More on that later.

I just realized I never did a proper New Year post for this year - understandably as I was going through the Uni App Phase at that time, after which it just slipped my mind. I am currently taking a class on Stories from the Archive, and I just realize how important it is to recount everything that happens in my life (so that my children and grandchildren can read this. Jk, like I will let them judge me this way). So here we go, 9 months into 2013 and let's see what happened in the past one and a half year.

To do a resolution check:

( 2012 Resolution Check )

( Being a foreign worker in Singapore )

Enough of job ranting, although I would love to do a proper post on my job experience later on. Here is the resolution for the rest of this semester:
( 2013 Fall Resolution )

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A much self-appreciated effort of returning to fandom. Or not.

Sat, 03 Aug 2013 06:07:15 GMT

Okay, enough with all the emo/sentimental/cheesy/sappy stuff I have been indulging myself in for the past year. Finally, I am returning to fandom, much to my stupid crazy RL mess.

Firstly, yeah, I finally got my own dreamwidth account: invitan . Finally, I know. Welcome to civilization at last.

Secondly, I finally manage to go to college. FINALLY. It's been decades since my peers enter this rite of passage. Or maybe 2 years. Lafayette College in the fall, here I come. Though truth be told, I am not that eager. Yet.

Thirdly, I finally had a job. A proper job that paid the rent. Yes, rent. In Singapore. It now sounds awfully like some sort of export labor. Nonetheless, working as a full-time waitress for 4 months did open my eyes a lot.

Fourthly, I need to stop this abuse of full stop if I do want to return to writing proper essays. I know right. Sigh.

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