The Challenges Keep Us Alive

Holy shit.

We're only at Wednesday and holy shit is the only expression I can afford.

Monday was as usual, a pretty good start. A little eventless with the exception of a giant nap during our long break in class :) I also handed in my essay corrections, and most recent essays to my teacher. You know, homework :) I felt pretty accomplished. Not gonna lie.

Then Tuesday, the rain was INSANE. It rained from Monday night all through Tuesday night. I guess I was also pretty... stressed? I'm not entirely sure but when my teacher came back with feedback of my work. And man. Not sure what came over me... maybe it was my fatigue and the combination of all the stuff that happened ----> me kinda tearing up while I listened to the teacher's explanation. It's to a point where she was like "no crying" followed by a "why you always cry around me?!" LOL. That was kinda funny. She's right. I have broken down with her around.. which sometimes is coincidence but the rest of the time, is... uh... not sure. Maybe cuz I'm comfortable around her? HAHA but the rain was really pouring that day! which was kinda nice cuz I like rain, but not so much because I stayed up to do work instead of sleep through that delightfully pleasant weather. HA. Least I was productive!

Then yesterday, after a crazy day of presenting, listening to class and watching the time fly by, leaving me to feel... well, lost. HAHA. We had the bazaar to raise money for education in collaboration with UNICEF. It was really fun. I bought an album during the auction, and got something that would be super useful in my kitchen (; HEHE. Then I joined my colleagues for some 막걸리 (Makgeoli aka rice wine) and food. The first bottle was Chestnut and it was so good! The dinner was also really nice because I got to know them a lot better, and in an environment where it's not all just work. We were also taken to this really cool, hidden bar in Itaewon and that place is gorgeous. I friggin love glass windows and this one had so many around us, with a glass roof where we were sitting. It was fantastic! At the end of the night, I was kinda expecting myself to be drunk, or throwing up, or both. That, or a boiled lobster red face. But none of that happen, and I was actually on a good buzz. Which RARELY happens. One of my colleagues actually told me that she's gonna visit my dad's hometown (where my extended family is) and I was so excited and suggested she go hang out with my family. My paternal family is actually one of the warmest people I know around and so I know they would without a doubt be happy to take her in for a day. I was really happy that people would visit that side of Malaysia! After all that talk, we also got into a lot of our other insecurities and life challenges. It felt like I was back at Soka with all my buddies! :)
By the time I went home feeling a little relieved to know that I'm not alone in my personal struggles of understanding life. It was definitely an extremely rare occasion where I learnt all these things about myself and the people around me. I was actually starting to feel like I was going insane because I didn't really understand a lot of things. (I'm at a weird point of re-evaluating and re-learning everything you see) But it was also a really painful night because a friend of mine had been desperately trying to contact me to no avail. She was trying to ask me for my vet's number because her dogs had been poisoned and was looking for help. But being caught up in my conversations, I didn't see her message. By the time I responded, she told me that both her dogs had died. Thus, it was without a doubt that the first thing I did upon returning was to call her to learn about what happened. It broke my heart to learn about it as I cannot imagine if it was my dog. I know for a fact that I definitely would not take it very well. The night kind of ended on a mixed mode but I was also in dire need of some rest so I went to bed with no troubles.


And today, well.. it started off alright. I quickly got up, made breakfast. Brunch by the time I ate, and headed out with the intention of working on my video for the video contest hosted by the school. But I actually didn't have a lot of the footage I needed, and ended up going through what I had to see what I could do with what I had... Then rushed off to teach my kid... we kind of reviewed some of her old stuff and she was having a really tough time. And the hour felt a little like an eternity. Slight exaggeration there. But it was as I was leaving that I was hit with some pretty painful news about my family. Keeping my promise to my colleague, I asked my aunt if they could host her and for the first time in a while I got an apology. I asked what happened and she broke to me some news that I'm still processing:
My dad's family is pretty big. He has quite a lot of siblings & they all actually sell produce for a living. One of my aunts who runs a vegetable stall in the morning market, recently got robbed. Two people hijacked her stall and broke her arm and leg. She actually had to get 3-4 surgeries and now cannot work. But instead helps with the other meat stall that the family runs. With one business down, they're relying on their other resource which is this, but are also faced with more challenges of having workers who have left one by one. So now, not only are my family members swamped, but they're also so strained that they actually don't even eat properly anymore.
When I heard all of this, I didn't know how to react. Despite all this, when my aunt told me what happened, she still was optimistic. She told me that "it's the challenges that keep us alive, right Kim?" and in that instant, I felt really small.

Thoughts, Thoughts, Feels

As years pass, I find myself more and more perplexed by my feelings which seem contrast pretty strongly from one another.

On the one hand, I've been feeling emotionally overwhelmed. I could shed a tear watching a good movie. Take for example,

this movie

or this movie

or when a person who I hold dear has to leave to go back to work, makes me friggin' bawl like a baby needing it's momma. It's as if my tear ducts have a mind of it's own!! Crazy. 

And well of course, all the not so pleasant stuff going on with my personal life nowadays.. I guess it's pretty much natural for me to also, just cry. And in these trying moments, I feel pretty much alone, with no one I can really turn to, nor anyone I could just call and spill my feelings out to. And since I have all this energy for seeking out friends to talk to, I've started chanting more and had the courage to speak back to myself and to critically start reflecting on my past (romantic) relationships. I'm happy to report that I believe I'm onto something here (though damn it's pretty damn hard to swallow all this about myself). 

I'd like to share it all, but to prematurely put my thoughts out would be my assumptive self trying to protect something. So instead, I'll just start with..

Recurring patterns in which my (last 2) relationships tend to play out:

1. No titles. I've wanted the relationship, but without the titles. For reasons that differ with each relationship. 

2. Our time together tended to include staying together a bunch (under the same roof)

3. I would try to convince myself that there is something worth pursuing, even though I would have other reasons as to why I should just let go before they do.

4. I didn't want to be the bad guy so I'd just convince myself to look on the bright side of the person/relationship. 

5. After convincing myself that leaving them is a bad idea, I would seek out the one thing I didn't want in the first place.

6. I'm left to pick up the pieces myself because they've gone to someone else. 

I think there's more. I need more time to get this list straight. 

Saturday Softies

My freshman year in college (this was 6 years ago), I was at a classmate's room with my current roommate.
Let's just call them A (classmate) & B (roomie).

We were all little, and this had been a year or so after I had been introduced to Bigbang's Haru Haru song. Here's the little video (I'd recommend watching it, if you know how the members look like now, this will be a mini shocker):

And for some reason we had brought up the topic of Bigbang so B decides to show us both the video. So since I've seen it pretty recently, the story line was not much of a surprise for me. But of course, watching the sad bits of the music video was a little heart breaking. But I definitely was not expecting any sort of tears.

I, of course shed no tears. Neither did B. But when we turned to look at A who, throughout the whole video had been making vocal reactions to the video with the "aww"s, and "oh no he didn't"s, she was tearing up as though whatever that occurred in the video was real.

This was my first time seeing someone so emotional and so that took me aback. But nonetheless was pretty humorous at the time as we had to calm her down.

Fast forward a couple years, A and I felt that we needed a break from all the stress and so decided to go catch a matinee as they're light on our wallets and does the same job. So we watched Death At A Funeral. Which was just a mess in my opinion. Here's a sample of it:

If you've seen it, you might know that there was a huge commotion but at the end of the movie, the son of the deceased (played by Chris Rock) stands up after having enough of the commotion and does an eulogy. Then there was so much silence.. so I look over and A is bawling. Tears RUNNING down her cheeks and again I thought it was hilarious yet so sweet!





* to be continued

Brokedown Friday

A sense of humor is much needed these last few days as things have started becoming challenging on it's own. And I guess I wasn't quite aware of the stress I had building inside until yesterday..

during my speaking exam.

Uh, yeah. I went to school feeling pretty good. I knew my grammar, I could usually just come up with something on the spot, and just re-use the stuff I said during class during the exam. Shouldn't be a big deal. So after the listening test, we waited outside the classroom while the other students did their tests. Then it was my turn.

Went into the room and sat before the teacher. In the past, all the other teachers have made some kind of small talk but not this one. I was told to read out loud for the 1st part, then it was straight onto the next part of doing a conversation. I struggled a little, nothing unusual really.

Then came the next part where I had to recount an experience I had at a concert. I thought about what I roughly wanted to say and said it... But, with a lot of effort. At one point, I got stuck and had a long pause. Then I told the teacher that I wasn't too confident. And then I broke down haha. She seemed pretty surprised that that happened and spent the next god knows how long to convince me that I was doing alright. And despite all that, I was still teary eyed and then we went on with the exam. I finished it all, and came out dying on the inside.

Needless to say, I didn't feel too great after that... And to add to it all, I learnt from my student's mother that we shan't be having class anymore due to her daughter's busy schedule. Man, that blows. I wasn't too taken aback as I was already expecting it. I mean, I went all the way there last week to find out that they had cancelled class, but because I had no phone, could not check the message they sent me.

But yeah. So yesterday I just spent the rest of the day at home, calmly looking through the past writings we made in prep for tomorrow's writing exam. And once all that's done, I'm going to go out and get some fresh air cuz I've only been studying this whole semester. Minus the dinner times, where I would basically eat nearby to save on travel time.

And well, today is a new day and there's no point dwelling in what happened yesterday. It was a painful experience but it's okay. Things happen, and that's all just a part of me now. Next part is what I can do to make even more memories. Whether or not they'll be good or a painful one like this one, it all adds to the charm of life.

Happy Friday to you (:

Boo Monday

I've been pretty out of it lately that I thought I've uploaded the updates when I in fact have done otherwise.

Dang. 

But yes, Inside Out!

Cheeeeck it out:

(The trailer haha)