spent the whole of sunday at ecp, finally learnt how to cycle (thanks sam and rayner!!). also renewed my membership at klutz central, now sporting several bruises tt are blooming nicely and another souvenir at the knee, no thx to a poorly- secured knee guard.. still, had a brilliant time blading/ cycling/ kayaking/ doing way too many things in one day =P can't wait to go again =)
wrt the previous entry, i'm over that.. guess it's just a phase. which brings me to the next ponder topic of the week: how do you find out if something was just a phase, like a temporary insanity that you've gotten over by now, or whether it's something for life but it's just going through a quiet, lull period? hm. don't regret publishing tt post (yet) though, if anything maybe one day i'll be able to track how naive i was and be thankful that i grew up. sth like "flowers for algernon", but without the IQ
and speaking of books, hv discovered this amazing czechoslovakian author, Bohumil Hrabal. "too loud a solitude" is about how the written word can never really be destroyed. ironic that i picked up that book w/o looking at its writeup 'cos figured every book deserves a reader, for all the work the author went through.. "dancing lessons for the advanced in age" is an amazing 103- pg sentence devoid of full- stops, as narrated by a cobbler whose focus shifts so rapidly and irreverently it's hard to keep track. and yep that's my 2 cents' worth of book reviewing, simply wanted to share this author.
wanted to send in this little topic to a mag, but then decided against it for fear of backlash. so i'll just put it here because this is my blog and i can write any darn thing i want here, darn it.
showing your age
i have a confession to make- i feel threatened. amidst the numerous distracting advertisements persuading women to attain a perfect body simply by buying a product or service in the papers, i came across a little report tucked innocuously in a corner, a landmine waiting to do its damage. it featured pictures of a lovely carina lau, marred only by the written word. watch it, screamed the subtitle, bemoaning the visible appearance of several wrinkles on the 39 year-old actress' face. all i could think of was that if we don't do something soon we are going to be, pardon my french, terribly screwed. what else are we headed for, in a society where middle-aged people in showbiz are not allowed to be seen with wrinkles, 40-something women look like twenty-somethings, 30-somethings look like teenagers, and teenagers seem like just precocious pre-teens? what's an average-looking 20-year old female to do? i should be enjoying this period of my life, smug that i have both youth and some money on my side. instead, i am thrust into a world where ford model and american idol finalists are several years my junior, 30 year-old jamie yeo still looks and sounds like a fresh-faced teenager and a 51 year-old celebrity looks good in a skimpy scarlet bikini. and to make matters worse, we have the emergence of the metrosexual, the gorgeous man who knows it. so now not only am i attacked on both sides of my age group, but also by the other sex. people tell me that i'm mature for my age. i believe that this is enhanced by the fact that people of the age i appear to be are acting my actual age. figure that one out.
pondering a little more on the topic, i realise that all this is due to self-esteem, or more accurately a lack of copious amounts of it. theoretically we should all be content with what we have been bestowed with, and yes i do agree that every day is a gift, compared with the pain and suffering we can only glimpse in the papers. but ever so often one feels the need to bitch unreasonably about petty things, and if i can't write on my own blog where on earth am i supposed to turn to? i admit that i am flawed, insecure and i'm not going to pretend that i'm not. i may never say it, but i certainly can write. i know one day when i'm 40 i'll be thankful for all the yoga classes and whatnot that will keep me as lithe as a 20 year-old, but i'll try to remember the time when i'm 20 and look and feel like a 20 year-old.
to any detractors out there, i know that i'm supposed to not linger on such idle stuff, that if i'm dissatisfied i should use the energy to work myself out of it, etc etc. yes i know all that. just let me publish this article in peace. i am whiny customer, aunt agony, psychologist and reporter rolled into one organism, each analysing the other. watch for the next instalment.
exams are finally over! *phew* can't believe a whole sem has just whizzed past.. sorry to hv mia-ed for a month (it's been a month?) need to find a job soon, before i (a) die of boredom (was bored by the 2nd day of hols! what's wrong with me?!), or (b) am perm. recruited as my sis's tutor.. the english, math and science i can handle, but the chinese.. man.. it's like, she reads, pauses, looks at me hopefully and i shrug my shoulders. it's that bad, and yes i apologize to the chinese community in gen for letting them down as far as roots are concerned, etc etc.. a potato by any other name..
you've probably noticed by now that good ol' sam is making full use of the tagboard.. but seriously, his site is hilarious, no harm checking it out yep
and now for the token pondering paragraph:
always want what you cannot have. it's not a motto i meant to live by but well, stuff happens. i call it the romeo and juliet syndrome, think i'll be able to patent it someday? it's one of the 3 theories i've been seen proven countless times; the other 2 are that ugly babies turn out gorgeous and vice versa, and that really pretty girls hv that slight moustache.. but back to the 1st theory. why is it that we're always yearning for something that's out of reach? is it some inbuilt mechanism that's supposed to spur us to greater heights etc etc? but what happens when a mutation occurs somewhere along the line, that makes you desolate and lose hope instead? it just seems so far, and you simply can't summon up the energy to continue running, much less attempt to sprint. sigh. it's a vicious cycle, it is.. you feel down about your life, then you read the papers, and then you feel disgusted of yourself for being down about your petty problems when we're stuck in this place that's too large to comprehend.. and it just goes round and round..
alrighty maybe other people hv pms while i suffer from pm-philosophy. at least i won't snap at you irritably =)