Hello (and Goodbye)

Whew.

Where had I been? It feels strange coming here back again after leaving for quite a long time. My last post was in March, and it wasn't a happy one apparently. 

Somewhere along the line I had probably convinced myself that blogging is such a childish thing to do because I shouldn't give people the privilege of reading about my semi-personal life. And probably I told myself to adult up because truly these days who the heck reads blogs anymore? 

But I'm coming back, because as how it has always been in the last several years, I've seem to keep a ritual of writing a reflective post to close the year and welcome the new year.

I can't really define 2017 in one word. Just how it is about life, there were moments of agony, there were pure moments of excitement and euphoria, then it all went down again, then up, then down, then well, it isn't supposed to be shocking. That's just the way things go.

And just like any other years, January, February, March, April, all those months up until summer seem so blurry, as if those days were in a whole different year altogether. 

But there's something about this year which made it so special—how obvious it was to me that I was indeed going through some remarkable changes, how things that scared me no longer scares me. And what made it better was that I had the conscious effort to overcome this right from the beginning of the year, so it felt as if a new year resolution was accomplished.

That thing was simply the desire to be courageous and confident to speak to people.

Back in a few years ago I would gladly avoid eye contact but these days it seems damn easy to smile at people. I'm not saying that it's completely not scary to do anymore, but I do realise that I fight my fears more than I've ever done. The old me used to almost always run away from responsibilities and make excuses, but this year I've noticed how being forced to take up a responsibility (or being forced to face my fears) had all changed me into this person that I kind of like. 

And bus rides, oh bus rides. Since summer 2016 I've developed this strange liking towards bus rides, which wasn't something I had expected since I never really liked the routine when it all first started. But as the year ended and 2017 began, I made this conscious effort to view bus rides as something that could give me something, just something, like a lesson, like a paid course in university. 

And so I chose to let my guard down a bit, fought away my paranoia and ignored warnings from friends and family to be careful around strangers. I talked to strangers whenever I had the chance. I smiled at passengers who I felt like smiling at. I began to show a little bit of courage to interact with the bus drivers who had been nice to me. 

The results were remarkable. 

In fact, if there's something I want to give credit to, which contributed the most towards my growth this year, I'd name bus rides as the main cause to all these great stuff. Second would be English Club, which definitely wasn't easy to handle and wasn't always fun, but played a huge role at shaping me this year. But I'm not here to talk much about English Club.

So back to bus rides, I'm not even kidding when I said that it became the main thing that changed me. I could never imagine myself initiating a conversation with grown up men (the drivers), or asking them whether they had taken their lunch, or giving them free canned coffee, but I did all that. I had never imagined talking to other passengers, developing a certain bond with them that some of them, whenever they see me, greet me like a friend. Me, this timid kid who used to be scared of ordering KFC at the age of 18. Me, this person who used to be too self-conscious and afraid of making mistakes because my family always told me I was doing it wrong when interacting with people. Bus rides, they liberated me. They allowed me to become my own self, to let me just do it and laugh at my own mistakes or learn from it, without anyone else being tied to my identity and scrutinising each step that I take, ready to comment on my mistakes. And that's why bus rides had sort of become my escape place.

And the best thing about that? 

I am about to become a published author!

This is probably the first time I've ever felt genuinely proud of my effort in many years. It feels weird to allow myself to feel this excitement, but for may years it had been quite a struggle to convince myself that I'm going in the right direction.

Writing has always been part of me. This blog alone was something I started in 2008, and I had been keeping a journal since 2007. Come to think of it, my manuscript wasn't just something that I produced in six months, it was in fact an accumulation of little things I've collected along my journey since high school. 

But I do realise that if things didn't happen the way it is, I wouldn't have been riding buses regularly. And that means I wouldn't have come up with this story and sent it to the publisher for the contest. 

It feels surreal. I never imagined my 2017 would be this way when the year first started. The days hadn't always been pleasant to begin with. Of course life is still full of shit. And that's why when things like this happen, I feel like weeping. I feel like weeping because it's been a very tiring journey and for once when something good like this happens you feel like you've been given a license to stop for a while and give yourself a pat on the back. 

Even right now as I'm writing this, I still have the struggles with me, as always. They never really leave you of course. The good feeling is there, but the bad one resides the same spot too, so it's hard to describe. And as always, entering into a new year is indeed something scary. It's the path of uncertainty which never makes me feel pleasant. Besides, 2018 will bring quite a few changes in my life which had, in the past few years, been rather like a routine. It had always been the same thing happening over and over again, added with just a little variety, because the time period was all in one same chapter. Leaving this year would mean closing an old chapter. I'm about to graduate, my novel will be published, I may not have the chance anymore to board buses regularly, farewells will happen, farewells involving good friends who had been there in the picture since mid 2014. And of course since the bus people had carried a lot of meaning in my journey as a passenger, I'll miss them terribly as well, as much as I'm surely going to miss my friends. I'll miss some of the drivers who had taught me a lot about life like real teachers in school. I'll miss some familiar passengers who had been kind in their words and gestures, reminding me that when shit happens, at least I have complete strangers to remind me that life is worth living after all.

I'll miss a lot of things in this familiar routine I've been living through in 2017, I really will. But all things must come to an end, I understand. And who knows what 2018 will bring? I wasn't quite sure about stepping into 2017 as well. I had never imagined some of the good things that happened this year. And by that I believe 2018 will surprise me in good ways as well. Sure, there are definitely going to be bad days, as you can never escape from that reality of life. But I'm pretty sure I'll continue to grow and learn as much as I've learnt this year.

And well, there's no use being too sappy because tomorrow's just going to be another day of living. I mean well yes tonight a line is drawn to mark a certain milestone or an ending/starting, but come to think of it, that's basically the same thing about birthdays or the beginnings of each season. It will be a nice thing though to read this in a year and laugh at myself, so I'm just going to post this.

Will I be back here? I don't know. It's fun to write and reflect, but these days I have other mediums, so this blog will probably be abandoned again. I'm still writing, I'll never stop. And my wish for 2018 is that I'll never run out of things to write about. I'll stop wishing to start jogging because that will never happen. And I will stop making unrealistic goals of reading 70 books. 

And well, that's basically it. I'm listening to fireworks right now as I'm sitting in my room. I'm smiling alone, I feel a bit hollow, I feel a bit like laughing. It's that strange mixture of emotions that makes new year's eve a rather interesting night. Hopefully next year as I sit and reflect on this table once again, I'll get this same feeling of gratefulness on how much I've learnt and grown. Till then, happy new year 2018. May everyone feel happiness in the little things each day of the year.

Missing

I'm making myself sad again at 2am and I don't know why I'm allowing this to happen.

I'm suddenly missing my childhood, and missing a life that I'll never have, and that's just kind of stupid, really.

I accidentally clicked on an old folder in my laptop, a folder containing scanned photos of my childhood and I'm suddenly feeling sad of all the missed chances in life.

Hours earlier, my sister shared a picture posted by John Mayer about how sure he wanted to become a musician as early as the age of 13.

I'm not saying that I want to become a musician, but sometimes I wonder about the missed chances in life. What if I attended guitar classes the moment I first picked up guitar when I was 12? There's a kid in church who recently picked up a traditional musical instrument and his parents have been really supportive. He's progressing fast, with all the circles of professionals he's surrounded with. It makes me wonder again about privileges in life and how privileges correlate with chances.

Then as I look at my old photos of childhood I just can't stop thinking why the hell I didn't think of following dad's footsteps and enter the Navy when I finished secondary school. I could've applied to UPNM. But why didn't I do so? These days I keep on thinking it's such a waste that I didn't grab the chance when it was right in front of me. It's too late now. In the past few months I've been thinking a lot of joining the Navy. I don't know why. Maybe it's because of seeing dad getting older. It's very stressful to be the youngest in the family. I live with a constant urgency to become someone, something, a person my parents can be proud of, because I fear I don't have much time. 

At this point I don't even know what I want to do for the rest of my life. I'm currently listening to Ed Sheeran's sad new songs from his new album and it makes me feel worse. I know I shouldn't be worrying, but my heart is aching, aching because I've screwed some pretty good opportunities in life and here I am, barking about privileges and how some people seem to have everything prepared for them. 

I'm not saying I regret anything though. It's just that this year I think my fear has grown bigger. Real fears, not petty fears like the fear of failure and all that. Fears related to your loved ones, your parents, specifically. Is this just one of the thoughts that attack you as you get older? Is this normal? Am I overthinking again? 

Feb

I've just realised that tomorrow is the last day of February, and I actually haven't blogged about anything here for this month.

A lot of things had happened, obviously. But I guess none of those things gave me the urge to blog here.

The other blog is still pretty much alive. So far I'm enjoying what I'm doing there. It's like a place where I can practise writing about the thing I'm currently so in love in. And that subsequently gives me the opportunity to practise writing in general.

Since the last blog post many changes had occured. I was recently elected as the president of English Club in my college, a position I didn't wish for, to be honest. I wanted to be vice president because I know I'm a lazyass and I hate being responsible and most of the time I am hesitant in making decisions. But then it's rather rude to decline, and at the same time I do want to lead a club of a subject that I am very passionate at, so yeah I guess it's time to learn about being a responsible leader once again.

Apart from that things aren't as grand as I'd expect them to be. Subjects this semester seem fun but I'm still not gaining any momentum in feeling excited about classes. I'm crawling through my reading challenge, for reasons I don't know why.

And my favourite bus, the Spaceship has been gone for more than 50 days, which is something that saddens me so much. At night I lie awake and wonder about its sudden disappearance, and life has never been the same again.

As we enter the new month of March I don't know what to expect. I'm feeling very lazy about assignments and life in general. There's nothing much to look forward to, and library adventures are getting pretty old. Things appear to not change as days go by, but I do know how things are actually changing so minutely that sometimes you do not realise about this. And then suddenly they're gone, just like Spaceship, just like my motivation in reading, just like how my hair grows and will be trimmed again in a few months' time, just like how my cat is ageing and there's an infection in her eyes and I worry about her, just like how my laptop is so laggy and might be dead anytime this year, just like all things, people, and places in my life right now. It's a sad, sad life. But oh well, just look at how two months flew by just like that and how we step into the unknown anyway because that's just the way it goes.

Cold

A lot of things had happened since the last post obviously, but I was too busy being lazy so I didn't care to write on my journal and make a proper blog post. And to be honest I do feel rather stupid for writing my thoughts in a public space like a blog for everyone to read, because it's creepy when you have an average of ten readers per blog post (thanks, statistics) and you don't have any idea on who they are but look at that, they're reading all the shit you've written about your miserable life.

But at the same time ironically I started a new blog on wordpress for more strangers to read. It's basically the project I mentioned in the previous post. I just couldn't wait until 31st December to reveal it all because who knows I might be dead before that and no one would ever know I started something. It's basically a blog I created to write about each bus ride I'm going to hop on throughout the year. I mean, yeah, who wants to read about a sad old miserable bus ride with nothing big happening, but I don't really care because writing about stuffs is so damn fun. I'm not going to force people to read them like how I forced people to watch my fingerstyle videos, so it's a rather relaxing project mainly done purely out of my love for writing and bus rides and all things weird such as the way some drivers spit too frequently out of the window and the way some aunties gossip about their colleagues and the way that kid stared at me as I ate my biscuit. Yep, that kind of thing. My kind of thing, the plain, the boring, the mundane. 

If you click on the pic it's going to
take you to the blog and don't worry hun,
it's going to open in a new window.

I don't think I have to justify all of my actions to a bunch of strangers reading this right now, but it's been a bad habit of mine so I guess I'm just going to say I created that blog to feed my love for writing and telling stuffs about the things I've seen. I'm so easily amused these days and it's just no other way I can express my thoughts so I chose to write about them and since I want a nice compilation of these thoughts by the end of this year then I told myself then I might as well just do it online and make it public so that people can have a virtual ride with me on these old creaky buses if they want to. 

Apart from that life's been mundane. I finished reading Angela's Ashes one or two nights ago and to be honest I don't think I'm going to accomplish my reading goal for this year because I'm really getting a bit slower than usual. It's because this semester break I find a lot of other things are distracting me such as:

-Jumanji and Pitch Perfect on TV yesterday and my nephew isn't here at the moment so the TV is all mine muahaha and that means I watched 2 movies in one day and when I'm not watching movies I watch cooking shows and shows about people eating stuff for cheap. 

-Today after church I chose to bake muffins and it took up my whole afternoon so I didn't get to nap. 

-Instagram and its damn funny memes are taking over my life send help pls. 

-I'm watching videos on YouTube about people talking about books more than I'm actually reading books ohmai why am I such a fool.

I also tried sketching portraits like how I used to do but damn it after losing the momentum and not practising it seriously, I've sort of lost the patience to sketch and shade so yep hermanos I've lost the ability to produce something like that Sergio Llull portrait that I sketched and I feel a bit sad cos I remember how therapeutic it was and how satisfying it was to be able to produce something like that.

You don't have to mention about fingerstyle guitar anymore cos I have zero feelings of returning to that thing. I won't be the next Sungha Jung so I might as well dream of doing something a bit less stressful than sitting for one week practising and recording up to 40 takes just for one video that lasts for 4 minutes and still show the world how crappy your playing is. Don't get me wrong, that feeling of accomplishment was grand alright but I tried too hard to the point of putting my self worth on it. 

I replaced my violin string which I broke many many months ago (I suspect it's been a year?) so yep, I haven't touched my violin that long. I tried to play some pieces today and damnit I sounded horrible. There's this hymn called Abide With Me which basically some people sing for funerals and to be honest I made it sound a lot more depressing. It's my favourite hymn by the way so please tell me mum and dad to play this if anything happens to me thank you. I love the pureness of the lyrics, so filled with pain but so simple yet so sad it's like someone telling me go ahead be sad it's alright.

Oh and relating to the title of this blog post lel it's reallllly cold in Kuching right now. I had to wear my hoodie last night and my fan had a great rest. It was raining the whole night yesterday and it doesn't look like it's going to be sunny this week but oh well you can never trust how the weather works.

I got back to driving last week but it was only a practice session with my dad along a rather deserted road and it was very scary because I haven't been driving for a year (yes please don't give me that look). Dad said I'm a rather fast learner but I know myself well. I'm a very clumsy person and I still don't trust myself to operate such a big machine in a place filled with living things. Dad also said a few helpful things such as:

Me: Ooooo look at that dad, there's a line here spray-painted "tamat" omg people use this road to race!
Dad: Yep and I heard many rempit kids died here on there motorbikes. 

I haven't been practising since. Mainly cos I'm lazy. Partially cos dad hasn't got the time to bring me to that road again. And really, I don't enjoy driving to be honest. I could get rich for every ringgit I get when people ask me why don't I drive. I hate my people, my fellow statesmen (and women) who say things such as:

"OHHH how did you come to college today?" or "OHHH how are you going back from college later?"

Then I tell them oh you know, I hopped on a bus this morning. Or, oh, you know, I gotta catch the 3.30pm bus later man.

And they go,

"OHHHH WHY DON'T YOU DRIVEEEE? OHHH YOU'RE SO BRAVE! OHHH I DON'T EVEN KNOW HOW TO USE THE BUSES HERE!"

Like yeah they make it sound like a big deal like ooooo buses are so scary mannn so I might as well bark around social media about how fun it is becoming a bus wanker cos I'm sick of people saying STC buses are damn old and ugly and shouldn't be around anymore, I'm sick of people saying I should drive, I'm sick of people saying public transport is dangerous, I'm sick of people complaining that public transport in Kuching is crap, cos ohhh let's face it, they don't really want to ride on buses anyway. I bet my Bahts they just love complaining. 

I really did get those kind of things being said to me, if you're wondering. I wouldn't be this mad if I didn't.

Fine people, calm down and listen to me if you really want to know why. Driving is stressful and if there's a second option that is less stressful then why make life difficult. And I don't trust myself to drive and endanger the life of others, so I'd rather risk my own life crossing roads and walking to the bus station cos it's never OK to harm others but it's always OK to harm yourself. And yes, bitchachoes, I'm lazy. I want people to drive for me. And I have them drivers and I can sleep and daydream and half-exist and you can never do that if you're the one driving. 

That's pretty much it.

I really don't have any main thing to talk about here. You can probably tell the state that I'm in right now. Bored to death. A bit mad over nothing in particular. Kinda calm at the same time. Not sad at all. Missing someone I don't want the world to know. Bored. Feeling a bit feelingless in general.

Results were out yesterday and I really did scrape some A- so I won't be complaining. I mean, well obviously an A- is still better than a B+ and if you get a B+ it's still better than a B and if you get a B it's still better than a B-. If you're going to only be happy when you get an A+ then obviously there's something wrong about the way you see yourself and your self worth and you putting yoself in danger hun cos you not spossed to place yo value on something so temporary (Yeah I'm obviously tryna act like that never happened to me uh uh.)

See y'all in the next blog post, mysterious readers. 

Happy New Year

Well. Hello.

I'm afraid I've forgotten how to blog here. I've been reading my old posts since October 2016 and it annoys me that everything seems jumbled up on this blog. Narrative, descriptive, reflective, it's like mixed vegetables stirred in a pan.

Things are slowing down at the moment.

Since this is my first post of 2017 then I guess I'm going to make it a bit reflective. But again, I can't seem to stick to one format.

Finals are officially over (I had my last paper on Sunday..) and right now I'm having a semester break which is, well, as usual, not as long as any other uni's semester break, and to be honest I'm really glad it's that way.

Because dios mio, it's only been Day 2 of my semester break but I'm kind of messed up. Yesterday and earlier today I woke up at 6am without my alarm clock, and I'm really impressed with myself. I didn't nap, kept on cooking stuffs and eating, and today I did a massive room-cleaning session which is, as usual, my post-exam ritual every semester.

That's not the end of the story.

I thought I'd be having a break from libraries and buses and coffee to test how far I can go without these three, and to be honest I was doing really well yesterday, but right now I swear the urge is so huge that it's beginning to scare me. But I don't want to give in, and I honestly want to try not going for a week, but man, I really don't know why am I doing this to myself.

I mean I'm alright when I'm all happy and I get to eat with my parents and do all those normal happy family shit that other people do. The urge arises when I feel sad over things, and that's just sad. I mean, shit, am I using buses and libraries and coffee to run away from problems? Maybe they were right. Maybe the sense of attachment has been established. But then isn't it stupid to not choose to do something completely harmless that makes you happy when you know that can make you happy? This is a rhetorical question. Please do not attempt to answer.

Other that that life's been as usual. I'm in some sort of dilemma of letting my hair grow or cutting it short again because I'm starting to have a mullet right now. So far the vote's been rather equal. My mum really wants me to grow my hair like last time, and she kept on saying it makes me look prettier, and to be honest that saddens me because does that mean that she doesn't think I'm pretty with this hair? And will she love me less if I continue to cut my hair? Is she beginning to think that I love short hair because I don't like men? I do like men and want to marry a man one day. But I don't want to be girly because it's damn uncomfortable. Life is so difficult.

Dad, on the other hand, said it's up to me, and it's my hair, and I can do whatever makes me comfortable. Which is, well, rather shocking, because he wasn't very keen of seeing my new haircut last year when I first tried a pixie cut. I think he sort of understands that this haircut had given me more confidence and sense of identity, or maybe he's just being a normal dad who simply loves saying "it's up to you."

Most of my friends have been saying that they prefer seeing me in short hair, and I don't normally listen to my friends more than my mum, but damn it, this time I think I want to listen to them. Sorry mum.

But I'm not cutting my hair just yet, because just like my bus rides and library and coffee test, I want to test myself on how far I can go without cutting my hair yet. Right now there's no sense of urgency to see the hairdresser, but I fear that it's going to grow out quite ugly at the start of the next semester, and what if I cut it after the semester starts and then it turns out uglier, and damn it, why is life so hard.

Apart from lamenting about my hair, there's nothing really much happening. I'm currently reading The Count of Monte Cristo, which is my first book of 2017, but damn it, after 5 chapters in I only realised that it's an abridged version which didn't clearly note that it's abridged, so I was pissed off, in a way. But the storyline is flipping good and I'm just going to keep on reading this until I can afford the Penguin version which is flipping expensive but people say is the best edition out there. Makes me mad because why are good things always flipping expensive.

And oh Ed Sheeran's new single is really nice to listen to because the lyrics are damn nostalgic and it makes me want to cry when he sang the part about his friends doing different stuffs and turning into different kind of adults but the bottom line is that they all raised him and he can't wait to come home like damn, right in the feels.

Exam was kinda shitty btw so I'l be impressed if I can sort of scrape an A- for certain papers but then again it's over and we'll just have to wait and see. Besides, I don't want to get a perfect CGPA but have no time to do the things that I enjoy, like writing, reading, wasting time on bus rides, talk crap with my friends, escaping boring classes, playing guitar, daydreaming and doodling in class, well you get the gist. No one should ever place their happiness below their grades. 

Since when am I a happiness guru? Who am I kidding? Haha.

The bottom line is that well while I'm in the mood let me just write some reflections about the things I've told my parents and third sister (who is someone who shares quite a lot of opposite views with me but strangely I can talk to her without arguing about anything, which is probably one quality I'd want in my future spouse, if I ever get to marry.)

I told them that happiness is rather subjective and I don't want to be too ambitious in life. I told them that if one day I land myself into a job that doesn't pay me much, but allows me to do something I enjoy in my spare time, then I'd be contented enough in life. I don't know exactly when did I start feeling this way, but I think it started around the end of last year especially after I wrote Canned Coffee.

Just like how Dickens said that his favourite among all his works is David Copperfield, I have to say that if I die anytime soon, I want people to quote me saying that my other songs were kind of shit and cringeworthy, but Canned Coffee is undoubtedly my favourite of them all. 

And again, we have reached the point where I have nothing left to say for now. I started a blog on Wordpress about a specific theme but I don't think I want to show it to the world just yet, but again all of my projects seem to die barely halfway through, so I hope this one will stay at least until 31st December this year.

I'm also on my way to read 70 books this year, but damn it I kind of realised that it's kind of a bit too ambitious. Other things to achieve this year include saying thank you after every bus ride, taking more pictures with my parents, collecting enough money to buy a travel guitar, start jogging for real, and oh well, you get the gist. Also, I need to get back to driving and stop being a lazyass. Or chicken. Or both. I don't know why I seem to run away from driving. Oh I know. 

Till we meet again in a better, coherent blog post.

Basically revision and finals were
all about doodling bearded men.