It is 31 degrees outside, sunny, hot and humid; in my own little world, it is cloudy, and I feel cold and depressed.
Some people say uncertainty in the future is fun. The process of working hard and watching how your future unfolds is a pleasure and privilege. You are an artist. Your future is like a plain banner. How and what you color on the banner determines how your future will turn out to be like.
The thing is, there are too many options—too many colors to choose from and too many ways to paint the banner.
I have stumbled and got stuck in the dilemma.
I try to visualize and imagine my future: if I paint it with green, how it is going to look like? What about if I paint it with blue mixed with red?
After all, I am afraid that regrets will arise in my heart eventually from the color I have chosen to use. However, no matter how hard I try to foresee the end product, it is all obscure.
I am panicked.
Being stressed enough issues about school and returning home, I now am trying to calm the big waves in my heart caused by an unexpected presence of a stranger. In order to prevent Jun from finding out what has happened and getting his heart broken, I lied. In order to prevent “E” from knowing deeply about my past, I lied. In order to prevent myself from hurting and getting hurt by anybody and falling into the melancholy trap again, I even lied to myself. It is not fair for all of us in this incident. I know I am wrong, but I just can’t help it.
I am so frustrated. I hate lying, but at the same time, I find myself making up lots of prevarications and living in my own fabricated world.
Who can assure me that I could return to my home if I choose to stay with Jun? Who can assure me that Jun is still going to remain devoted to me 2 years after? Who can assure me that “E” is the right mate of my life? Who can assure me that the color that I choose to paint with will definitely turn out the picture to be the one I have been longing for?
Sometimes I really wish I am a fish that lives in the ocean. I get to go anywhere I like in the world, and swim freely without worries. I am simple but happy—not like human’s brains, which are full of complications.
Uncertainty in the future is, in fact, depressing.
I’m lighting a cigarette, and falling into deep meditation again.
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Friday, March 28, 2008
Event + Respond = Outcome
What would you do when you encounter a problem? Would you take courage and face it? Would you ignore it? Or would you detain and worry about it later?
It is so stunned to come to understand that these stages of our lives are at right now is the decisions we made in the past.
You receive a bill with balance of -$2,000 from your credit card company. You simply ignore it and think, “I can pay it next month.” You use the same excuse every month and 6 months later, you receive a collection letter.
You work hard everyday and when you get home, you are so tired; you just want to relax. Your kids ask you to accompany them. You say, “I’m tired!” Your wife wants to have a talk with you, and you say, “Let’s talk about it later!” This goes on for years and one day, you come home to an empty house and a “bye-bye” note.
A year ago, your boyfriend hit you suddenly in the middle of arguing. Instead of avoiding the truth, you alerted that your boyfriend’s tendency of violence is a problem. In stead of keeping it quiet, you stood up for yourself. After times of failing of demanding him to join you in counselling, you decided to break this relationship. One day, you relieve that you have left him before you both got into serious matters; your friend just told you that he is charged of physically abuse his wife yesterday.
How you respond to an event today affects your future. What a simple principle, yet so many people take a life time or even have to put their lives at risk to finally learn and realize it.
So please think carefully before every movement. If you are not happy about your current situation, face it and change your response.
It is so stunned to come to understand that these stages of our lives are at right now is the decisions we made in the past.
You receive a bill with balance of -$2,000 from your credit card company. You simply ignore it and think, “I can pay it next month.” You use the same excuse every month and 6 months later, you receive a collection letter.
You work hard everyday and when you get home, you are so tired; you just want to relax. Your kids ask you to accompany them. You say, “I’m tired!” Your wife wants to have a talk with you, and you say, “Let’s talk about it later!” This goes on for years and one day, you come home to an empty house and a “bye-bye” note.
A year ago, your boyfriend hit you suddenly in the middle of arguing. Instead of avoiding the truth, you alerted that your boyfriend’s tendency of violence is a problem. In stead of keeping it quiet, you stood up for yourself. After times of failing of demanding him to join you in counselling, you decided to break this relationship. One day, you relieve that you have left him before you both got into serious matters; your friend just told you that he is charged of physically abuse his wife yesterday.
How you respond to an event today affects your future. What a simple principle, yet so many people take a life time or even have to put their lives at risk to finally learn and realize it.
So please think carefully before every movement. If you are not happy about your current situation, face it and change your response.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
PCD Present: Girlicious
I fell in love with the newest TV reality show—PCD Present: Girlicious. This show is actually the second season of the previous smash-hit show PCD Present: The Search for The Next Doll.
Like The Search for the Next Doll, but this time, Girlicious is about looking for three girls to create a girl group called, as mentioned, Girlicious. I suppose Robin Antin, the creator of The PussyCat Dolls, after the successful of the first season, felt that there are so many gorgeous and talented girls in across America. It would be a good idea to create a new hot “sexy, sassy but classy” PCD-alike girl group.
I am totally hooked by the show. I just love every bit of it. The girls try their best to win the challenges and practice their butt off in order to be saved from elimination at the end of the performance every week. The girls who especially win my support are the most hated—Natalie and Chrystina.
Like The Search for the Next Doll, but this time, Girlicious is about looking for three girls to create a girl group called, as mentioned, Girlicious. I suppose Robin Antin, the creator of The PussyCat Dolls, after the successful of the first season, felt that there are so many gorgeous and talented girls in across America. It would be a good idea to create a new hot “sexy, sassy but classy” PCD-alike girl group.
I am totally hooked by the show. I just love every bit of it. The girls try their best to win the challenges and practice their butt off in order to be saved from elimination at the end of the performance every week. The girls who especially win my support are the most hated—Natalie and Chrystina.
Contestant: Natalie. Picture taken from Myspace.
Contestant: Chrystina
I know. But I just admire them. Most of the people disgust them two because of their attitudes—that I admire the most. They are not only gorgeous, talented and full of confidence in themselves, but they also dare to speak up. They express their feelings and what’s on their minds directly without trying to withhold it, although sometimes it sounds arrogant and mean (and I sometimes disagree against them too).
You know, I wish I could do that. And although I try, I always tend to end up the opposite way—being a sucker.
I’ve learned a lot from these two smash-hit shows. When you want something, you have to act like you want it, so bad. When you want something, you have to strive to attain it, and never give up. I now know why there are so many successful people in the States. Either they are trained or educated or helped by the environment or the society, they do whatever they can to achieve it once they set the goals. They are fighters. They just don’t give up their dreams (that probably also explains why there are over 2 millions millionaires in the States). I’ve also learned how to improve my look and my wardrobe. And most important—their attitudes—that helps them to achieve big.
Hopefully one day, I can be like them—gorgeous, confident, and successful.
Can’t wait to see the finale!
Monday, March 10, 2008
The True Story of a Cambodian Childhood
I’ve just finished reading a great biographic book—The Road of Lost Innocence by Somaly Mam.
And it put me into real depressed.
She doesn’t have a marvellous writing skill; nevertheless, it is simple and straightforward (And for a woman who never has a proper education like her, it is really praiseworthy.) Every word is conveyed from her feelings. And it touches my heart tremendously.
In Cambodia, girls as young as five years old are sold into prostitution every day. Somaly Mam fell into a similar fate. As an abandoned baby, she was looked after by her grandmother until she disappeared. She was then taken into the care of a man she called “grandfather”, but was treated no better than an unpaid servant. Raped at twelve and forced to marry at fifteen, Somaly was then sold to a brothel. After years of abuse she managed to escape.
In 1997, Somaly Mam co-founded AFESIP to combat trafficking in women and children for sexual slavery.
In 1998, she was awarded the Prince of Asturias Prize.
In 2006, she was the winner of Woman of the Year from Glamour magazine.
“I share everything they’ve been through. It’s as if we are the same person. I wear their scars on my body and in my soul. We don’t need to say much to understand one another.”
“If I had been there, if I had had a gun on me, I don’t know what I might have done. I felt real violence. There is no law, no police, no justice to protect little worms like us. We have laws in Cambodia, but everyone ignores them. Instead, what prevails is the law of money. With money you can buy a judge, a policeman—whatever you want. There are moments when I want to throw in the towel in and stop doing this. I feel it is too big for me to fight all this—the pimps, the corruption, the judges.”
“When I sleep my dreams are filled with violence and rape. When you see the marks on your skin, the scars of torture and cigarette burns, the shape of the chains on your ankles, you feel the past is ineradicable. You carry the marks of the suffering. People ask me how I can bear to keep doing what I do. I’ll tell you. It’s the evil that was done to me that propels me on. Is there any other way to exorcise it?”
“Coming back to life, to some kind of innocence, felt impossible. I didn’t know where my youth was, where to look, if not for happiness at least for a kind of peace. When I cuddle with the girls, giving them the love I never received, then I do feel happy.”
I was devastated. I felt sorry for her; I felt angry at myself. I always thought the 2006 incident is the most shameful and the gloomiest stage of my life—nobody has been through a similar situation as mine. I have been through the toughest times compared to most of the people. She has been through the worst situation a girl could probably get. When she was my age, she already accomplished such big achievement in her life. She has such a huge impact to the country, to this world. I am in my mid-twenties, and I have done nothing in my life to the contrary—only know to complain about my luck, meditate upon my misfortunes and do nothing about it. Today, she made my thoughts and belief tremble.
Now I feel like slapping my face.
And it put me into real depressed.
She doesn’t have a marvellous writing skill; nevertheless, it is simple and straightforward (And for a woman who never has a proper education like her, it is really praiseworthy.) Every word is conveyed from her feelings. And it touches my heart tremendously.
In Cambodia, girls as young as five years old are sold into prostitution every day. Somaly Mam fell into a similar fate. As an abandoned baby, she was looked after by her grandmother until she disappeared. She was then taken into the care of a man she called “grandfather”, but was treated no better than an unpaid servant. Raped at twelve and forced to marry at fifteen, Somaly was then sold to a brothel. After years of abuse she managed to escape.
In 1997, Somaly Mam co-founded AFESIP to combat trafficking in women and children for sexual slavery.
In 1998, she was awarded the Prince of Asturias Prize.
In 2006, she was the winner of Woman of the Year from Glamour magazine.
“I share everything they’ve been through. It’s as if we are the same person. I wear their scars on my body and in my soul. We don’t need to say much to understand one another.”
“If I had been there, if I had had a gun on me, I don’t know what I might have done. I felt real violence. There is no law, no police, no justice to protect little worms like us. We have laws in Cambodia, but everyone ignores them. Instead, what prevails is the law of money. With money you can buy a judge, a policeman—whatever you want. There are moments when I want to throw in the towel in and stop doing this. I feel it is too big for me to fight all this—the pimps, the corruption, the judges.”
“When I sleep my dreams are filled with violence and rape. When you see the marks on your skin, the scars of torture and cigarette burns, the shape of the chains on your ankles, you feel the past is ineradicable. You carry the marks of the suffering. People ask me how I can bear to keep doing what I do. I’ll tell you. It’s the evil that was done to me that propels me on. Is there any other way to exorcise it?”
“Coming back to life, to some kind of innocence, felt impossible. I didn’t know where my youth was, where to look, if not for happiness at least for a kind of peace. When I cuddle with the girls, giving them the love I never received, then I do feel happy.”
I was devastated. I felt sorry for her; I felt angry at myself. I always thought the 2006 incident is the most shameful and the gloomiest stage of my life—nobody has been through a similar situation as mine. I have been through the toughest times compared to most of the people. She has been through the worst situation a girl could probably get. When she was my age, she already accomplished such big achievement in her life. She has such a huge impact to the country, to this world. I am in my mid-twenties, and I have done nothing in my life to the contrary—only know to complain about my luck, meditate upon my misfortunes and do nothing about it. Today, she made my thoughts and belief tremble.
Now I feel like slapping my face.
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