Friday 28 December 2012

Ah holidays

Sometimes I question the point of holidays, especially on the days whereby I have lost absolutely all sense of rhythm that I worked so hard to establish previously. It is like I almost always promptly got sick every time the holidays are here because my body goes all weird and says: "Oh hi! So you are taking a break, great, me too! I am going to get sick!" with no regard whatsoever to the fact that I do not want to get sick during my holidays. This pattern happens, and then I wonder how anyone in this planet not become a workaholic, especially if they claim to be so fucking passionate of the work that they do (the kind that makes them extremely annoyed if they have to go to bed). The same kind of people who do not want to have a holiday because that means taking them away from their passion, so they just conveniently take their passion with them on their so-called holidays. I wonder if that still qualifies as a holiday if one is still working?

Is it just me so is it actually harder to do certain things during the holidays? Like it is harder, for example, to wake up early and it is harder to go to the gym, and to stay on one's training program (not that I have one). Plus the endless temptation to eat all of these things because now you have all the time in the world to find wherever these things are located. And yeah, dim sum tastes a million times better when you are eating it in a massive table with your friends. The days do go faster when your best friend spends the whole day with you and tells you that you are a great cook. And yeah, it's kinda hard to fit everyone in because there is like so many things you gotta do with so many people you haven't seen for ages and it's like okay, I really don't know how to do this, and given that my time is limited, I said that one syllable word that starts with n and ends with an o and hope that no one gets accidentally offended by that.

Chance is that, if they really are my friend, then they will understand - as is always the case of things like this in life. And because of that, you are more likely to make time for these understanding people and dare I not say that this is how we become friends in the first place. As for others, oh well, life goes on and the world still spins, the sun still rises in the east and when we get the chance, we may see each other again.


Tuesday 25 December 2012

Child in Red

by Rainer Maria Rilke

Sometimes she walks through the village in her
little red dress
all absorbed in restraining herself,
and yet, despite herself, she seems to move
according to the rhythm of her life to come.

She runs a bit, hesitates, stops,
half-turns around...
and, all while dreaming, shakes her head
for or against.

Then she dances a few steps
that she invents and forgets,
no doubt finding out that life
moves on too fast.

It's not so much that she steps out
of the small body enclosing her,
but that all she carries in herself
frolics and ferments.

It's this dress that she'll remember
later in a sweet surrender;
when her whole life is full of risks,
the little red dress will always seem right.

***
Have a lovely Christmas. xx

Sunday 23 December 2012

Make (me) Up

I can't help wondering whether men feels somewhat rather cheated when they see their women without make up for the first time. Would you consider wearing make up as false advertising?

Just like any form of advertising, women spend a lot of money on make up, like $7billion dollars a year. And like often in the case of advertising, the product is made to look better than it actually is: more glamorous, more appealing, more attractive. Advertisers must be one of the most optimistically delusional people in this planet. When there is that much money involved, I guess this sort of trait is commonly learnt. 

A lot of men that I have come across in life have expressed in one way or another that they prefer to natural look. Most of them have an aversion to women with too much make up. However they are somewhat indifferent to women with natural make up. So we women spend so much money and time to look natural. Why don't we just bypass the make up altogether? 

I don't know the answer to that. But there are some answers here.



Friday 21 December 2012

Everything is as it should be

One of the movies that stick with me is Sliding Doors. I don't think I have ever watched it from beginning to end, but my sister told me about the story line in great detail and that story stuck with me ever since. (If you have not watched the movie and/or don't know the storyline, you gotta read the link first.)

Fate. 

These days, I am somewhat intimate with the idea of "everything is as it should be". I realise that this can be so offensive to a lot of people who outright do not believe in fate or destiny or whatever else you may call it. Yet the idea that no matter the steps that you take, sometimes they lead you back to one person, one destination, one path. It is like you get to take a detour for a while before you go back to where you are meant to be. A lot of roads lead to Rome. You get to choose the route, but there are mini-destinations along the way that you are bound to encounter no matter which road it is you choose. 

The more I think about this, the more I realise that it is so crazy. In this life, unlike the movie, we do not have the benefit of parallel universe. We do not know what our lives would be had we miss the train, for example, or not pick up that call, or, something that is very relevant to me, had I not eat that something that makes me sick. As such, we have nothing concrete to compare against. We can only speculate that our lives today are better than the alternatives. I mean, I think my life is better today, and this is purely my perception. I can't quite provide concrete proof via comparison because, oh well, there is no comparison.

I mean it is like discovering that you are not fit for each other in a relationship - it is better to find out before you got married because divorce is messy. Of course it is even better if you manage to choose the path that bypasses the relationship altogether (since you end up not together anyway) because that means you bypass the heartache, and get to think of that person as the one who got away (rather than the one who broke your heart). This is of course somewhat radical, because we all like to think that we can overcome all obstacles that come our way so that our dream to be with this one person we love so dearly can come true. But what if some dreams are not a meant to be? What if you are not meant to be together, despite your desires to be together? What if destiny has a different course for you? How do we know that it is time to dream about other dreams? How do we know it is a time to let go? How do we let go of something that we can't? How do we know where to go and what to do, or if we are in the right path?

Maybe, just maybe, having all of these uncertainties is a part of the deal - that we are meant to struggle with this. Everything is as it should be. 

I had a rather interesting conversation over lunch about relationships - and the view that was presented to me was that if we know that we want to be together and have children, then why do we have to spend time doing it after particular time frames.We may as well fast forward it since we know that that is the destination that we are going to. I am very familiar with this view because this is my Dad's view on life. He has always been someone who is so assertive and so sure of his life that it is almost inconceivable to me that he once had doubts (logic tells me that every human being in this planet experiences doubt once in a while, and that includes my Dad, but I have never seen it nor heard about it ever). Some people are just so confident in the path that they are in that they surge forward knowing for sure that this is it. This is where I am meant to be. This is where I am supposed to be and I am going to be there no matter what. And they get there. The existence of people like this who have not heard of The Secret is the affirmation that The Secret does work.

Compared to people like the above, I am so indecisive, so absent-minded, so unassertive. I am lacking destination, I am lacking drive and I am consumed with inability to decide where I want to go and where I'd like to be. As much as I am a planner and planned my day somewhat rather meticulously, I realise that I am no where a planner as much as these people are. These are the ones who put the meaning to the word planning and they don't use their calendars very often, except to say that by this time next year, I would be in this position. And to these people, the phrase everything is as it should be sounds like some lame excuse that people like me say in order to make me feel better about my life (what they really want to say, I bet, is something along the lines of my perceived lack of achievements in life, but of course they are too nice to say that out loud so it sort of becomes this common, ordinary line from polite people who are too concerned about being polite with each other).

Nonetheless, I am still of view that everything is as it should be, and yes, we can be the masters of our own destinies, and there are lessons that we have to learn in this life. We can fast forward it if we work hard in it, and there is nothing wrong with slowing down and enjoying the ride, while learning the same lessons eventually. Life is as good as you make it and everything is as it should be. 

Wednesday 19 December 2012

On loneliness

When I am deep absorbed in my thoughts I often come to a realisation that life, my life, is indeed very lonely. This is not a bad thing per se, at least for me, because I think loneliness, to a certain extent, is a part of life. Of course in this life we preferable share our lives with each other, because, you know, the presence of other people in our lives sort of make this life more real, in the sense that if you see a comet in the sky, you can turn to each other and say: did that just happen? Did you see that? And then you get a nod, or a yes, or their variants, and that kind of affirmation makes things in this life, seemingly real, even when they are not.

Yet I think given the complexities inherent in human emotions, it is somewhat natural to feel lonely because there are so many things that we just cannot share with other people, no matter what we try. This is particularly true in so many situations. One that most people often don't realise is how lonely we actually are in our loves for our significant others. It is almost guaranteed that there is no one in this planet who love them the way we do. What other people get to see is the end result, the happiness, the contentment with life. They often do not get to see the hard work involved in loving this one person and the hard work of that person in loving you. Heck, even often you don't get to see that, although you get to feel the love. It does not make it less real, but it is a lonely journey because you are alone in loving him/her. It is not a bad thing, in fact, it is a good thing, because it would be just weird if there is another being in this planet who love them exactly like you love them.

Another lonely experience I had was during doctorate years. Boy oh boy, now that was one lonely journey. If you are not someone who is comfortable being entertained by your thoughts at the start of the journey, by the end of it, you would be. I personally feel that part of the reason as to why a doctorate is done as an individual research project is so that you can be comfortable with being lonely, you can be comfortable defending your ideas, especially when everyone else seems to be unconvinced by what you propose, and that you can be comfortable being original, especially when no one else seems to share your views. I mean, really, this is one experience that forced me not to blend in (not that I was someone who blended in to begin with; why be a part of the masses when you can stand out?).

I am not alone in this line of thinking - the line that says that loneliness is a part of life - albeit we come to this conclusion for different reasons. But the one thing that makes me unable to stop thinking about this is this: how did loneliness become the "bad guy", the one that is described as unpleasant, empty and isolated. The one that is described as lacking in quality interactions that are hard to pin down.

Back in high school, we had this "group" of people that we sit with every lunch time. I am not sure how this comes about, but it just so happened that we gravitated towards the same people over and over again every lunch time, and eventually, we made plans to hang out over the weekend, and we stressed together in the library during our free period. I mean, it makes sense, right, totally, because at that age, who wants to be alone? Being alone was like being lonely. And it was somewhat, unheard of, it is like, why does she not want to sit with anyone. It was almost like a crime. And the teachers would automatically assume that there was something wrong with you just because you want to be alone.

It is not just in school, it is also the same deal when I was living at home - it is like, I don't know, I live with people who loved to have a confrontation at the moment that it was convenient with them without having regard to my preference (curse of being the youngest kid), the kind of confrontation that required them to bang against your door and forced their way into your room kind of thing, to which I shouted "GET OUT" and of course, they didn't and so I ended up being the one who not only had to get out of my own room, but also the house altogether just so that I could be alone for a moment in time. This is one of the better outcomes for me, and my preferred outcome too, given the situation, but you get the idea. I have never felt better about life ever since I started living alone. There is something so peaceful about coming home from a long day at work to an empty apartment and spending the evening alone.

I get that a lot of people are not comfortable with being alone, because they equate that to being lonely. Heck, I even personally know people who would not be seen eating alone at restaurants. Really, what's the big deal? I have eaten alone at restaurants many times, bring a book or a magazine or catch up with your inbox when you are waiting for your food.

Elizabeth Gilbert wrote in Eat Pray Love the following sentence that I find incredibly powerful and incredibly true for every human being, whether they are undergoing drastic changes in their lives, like the divorce she was going through, or just living life in general. She said, “When I get lonely these days, I think: So BE lonely, Liz. Learn your way around loneliness. Make a map of it. Sit with it, for once in your life. Welcome to the human experience. But never again use another person's body or emotions as a scratching post for your own unfulfilled yearnings.”

Tuesday 18 December 2012

The blog

Okay, so the story goes like this. I have friends who are for lack of a better description are not happy for being mentioned on the blog. So the post had to go down. Sorry guys, I honestly thought not mentioning your names would suffice (in hiding your identities). And sorry guys, I know that I always said that I would not let anyone censor me, but as it turned out, the moment that I try not talking only about myself, this happened.

Which is why the blog will stay as me-centric.

Monday 3 December 2012

I am dreaming of...


A big fat juicy hamburger. 
But I am gluten intolerant. 
So I usually eat it without the buns. 
Which kind of defeats the whole purpose of a hamburger. 

x

Saturday 1 December 2012

The challenge is in trying

I finally re-write that post. A better and improved version, if I can say so myself.

***

"Well, mom.  It IS hard to be good at track but you know, it's harder to START a race than to finish it."


Running.

I have been doing quite a lot of it lately, but I don’t really write about it, except to say I’ve been doing it.

A little bit of history. My aversion to exercise is rooted on the fact that I suck at it. This is a fact. As far as I can remember, I have always been ... awkward when it comes to sports. I was always the last person on the race. I was the person who could not play in any team sport because well, having me on the team would guarantee that the team would lose. In fact, I said that my contribution to the “team” is that I stay away from the team and therefore increasing the team’s chances of winning.

And yes, because I suck at it, I avoid it like a plaque. There was no way I could get better at it because I keep on avoiding it. Got it.

So why the fuck am I doing it?

I don't know. One day, I just sort of did it, you know, one day, I started. It helps when you have supportive people who encourage you to do it, who constantly put it in your mind, even when it takes like... err... THIRTY-SIX months for anything to happen.

The day finally came that, if I were to be honest with myself, I actually want to change my own perception about myself in this department. Generally, I think I am awesome, and my unfitness has been, well, something that I accept as a weakness. Come on, no one is perfect, so this was my Achilles heel. Normale, no? I honestly could not even imagine myself to be the person that I am now, the one who ran for a whole hour covering 7km and not die in the process. I wanted to be more than what my imagination would allow me to be; I wanted to be more awesome than I was. I took up what is difficult because I believed (and still do) that what was difficult, combined with persistence, would propel me forward. Pain and discomfort would take me to places that I had never dreamed of. I could be a better version of myself, a version that I like more than what I was before.

So I ran and ran and ran, alternating the days between running and resting. I ran three times a week for approximately 30 minutes each time, building up to a run of 7km two days before the JP Morgan run. That was meant to be a light exercise, by the way, but I was feeling so good that I kept on running for the whole hour. This was at the treadmill. It is harder to stop or slow down at your own will when you are at the treadmill, so you are more likely to stick with the pace. The next day, I walked VERY SLOWLY. The day after, which was the race day, I walked normally.

For the most part, it hurt. Quite a number of times I stopped running because I was out of breath , my chest felt like it was about to explode. The manifestation of my unfitness. Other times, my feet felt like they were going to fall off. Another manifestation of my unfitness. For the remainder of the time that I was not running, I craved carbohydrates really badly. Just to clarify here, I did and do eat carbs, in the form of fruits and vegetables, especially root vegetables. What I craved (and still do) is things that are refined and high in sugar, like pancakes with ice cream, cheesecakes, cannoli, etc etc etc – you get the idea. Out of these three forms of pain, the one that hurt the most is the last one, because it is (a) never ending and (b) has the ability to wake me up from my sleep, while the other two seemed to be more temporary in comparison. I resisted the carb-cravings for two reasons (not necessarily in any order of importance). First, I want to be healthy – excessive sugar consumption is bad for you. Second, I want to maintain my figure, that is, I do not want to become fat. So I am watching my diet that much closely. I want to look good, okay. I am shallow and vain like that.

It was a painful physical and mental experience. Every running session entailed me dragging myself to the gym and hopping on the treadmill. Starting was hard. Running was hard. I resigned myself to the pain that was about to come. I wrestled with my preconceptions about myself – that I had been unfit in the past, and now that I am doing this, am I going to fall off the treadmill and get injured and blab la blabla. It was a very draining battle that was incredibly difficult to win. By the end of each running session, to say that I was physically and mentally exhausted is an understatement. Furthermore, I reaffirmed the fact that resigning to the pain did not make the process any easier; even when I know what to expect, it did not make it easier at all.

Add to all of that the fact that I had to battle a cold, and later on, some serious shoulder pains (the kind that required taping your shoulder), which halted my training. Consequently, there were many, many times during which I thought I was not going to make it. I was openly apprehensive about this and I was lucky to be surrounded by supportive people who were able to see something in me that I was not able to see myself. I am deeply thankful for their kind words and for believing in me.

Persistence, thankfully, is my middle name. That, plus some form of insanity which I think is necessary for survival, or in this case, thriving. Giving up is always the easier option. I don’t want easy, well at least not in this case anyway. Believing the seemingly-impossible-at-that-time? That’s easy too, relatively anyway. Doing something that is seemingly-impossible-at-the-time? Now, that’s hard and because it is hard, it must be worth my efforts.

This whole process has allowed me to discover so much about myself; it allowed me to grow to be a much better version than my old self. As my friends called it, this is Isabelle 2.0. With every progress that I make, usually in the form of being able to run longer distances and not die, I give thanks to the fact that I have not gained weight. Without realizing it at the time, what it really was is this: I needed to do this, for myself. I needed to grow in ways that I thought was not possible. I needed to expose myself to new challenges so that I could go to places that I could not have traversed. It was not just a want. It was a need.

My self-inflicted pain got me to the destination.  I am excited to discover what sort of places it is going to take me to.

For now, I am going to indulge in some fried chicken.

Post script: I promptly caught a cold post JP run and am still battling the said cold two weeks on.  I want to blame it on the weather, but really, it is my fault for not resting properly. What can I say, life got in the way of living. My reward for running the JP includes new running gear!! I can’t find a better way of supporting the global economy.