23...blocked

i found myself thinking, 'what am i going to post about' yesterday, and the same thought is still in my mind today, but i need to write something or else i will keep putting it off again and again, which i tend to do with a lot of things in my life. 

So here's a poem to pass the time and fill the space:

Why

“The fishes head should be on the left side.”

“Why?”

“Well, that’s the way it’s always been done.”

A fellow citizen on this plate,

It should be respected and gratified.

The left is beautiful too.

22.5...mini shout out

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22...good food

i've always thought that being a food critique would be a fascinating job, not to mention a extremely satisfying one as well. So when i was eating this particularly delicious panini today (shrimp with mozzarella cheese, tomato and spinach) at Cafe 506 i was daydreaming about being one while writing an article about the panini in my head.
If you've ever played 'Order up!!' on your phone or iPod, you'll know the annoying food critique who resembles someone from a Tim Burton movie that comes along during the game to rate your restaurant sometimes - that's who i want to be. The only problem here is that i love food too much that it's going to be pretty darn hard to rate things; i would probably end up being deemed 'unreliable' since i give all the places i go 4 or 5 stars. But still, i can dream.

Darn it, i keep looking at the photo thinking 'Yum'.

21...places to go

some people might be completely happy where they are, and some may have dreams of travelling all around the world...and i'm a mixture of both. But i just wanted to list some of the places that i've recently been thinking of going to sometime during my life, so i don't forget (since i'm the most forgetful person i know *smilesweakly*)

・Tivoli, Italy

i've always wanted to travel to Italy simply because i thought it was a wonderful place to be (being too influenced by movies perhaps), when i found out about Tivoli, i knew that i needed to go there sometime, and sometime soon, to see this wonder with my own eyes. It looks like a mini + more 'earthly' Rivendell - which would be a reason to go on its own. 

 ・Uttar Pradesh, India
i think India would be a fantastic place to go, starting with curry. Now of course, i've heard a lot about travelling in India, and not only about the social side, but also about the political disputes, but meeting many Indians and Sri Lankans has made me want to go see their hometowns.  

・Gramado, Brasil

This is actually a place i am lucky to have been to before, but it's also the place that i would love to go back (and even live if that's possible). It's a small town and the cosiest place you could possibly be - it makes you want to paint the place from all angles, and make tiny figurines of each house to decorate your home. And of course, i have to mention, definitely try the fondue. 

・Mamamata, New Zealand

Once again, LOTR but aiaiai, what i would give to go see Hobbiton. It would be lovely and i would spend hours pretending to be a hobbit. (and then i'd run around through the splendid nature pretending to be a member of the fellowship - which would probably end badly with me either being caught or getting lost). 

・Yellowknife, Canada

Back in 5th or 6th grade, a friend came up to me and asked me if i knew about Yellowknife. Since i'd never been to Canada and the closest i'd gotten to it was making a Canadian friend in 2nd grade who told me that they had Star Wars 7 in Canada, i'd never even heard of the name. But after some time on google and wikipedia, i later found out that it was the place where i could go to see the aurora, which has been a huge dream of mine since i can remember. (Note to self - try the cheese (that's what my friend wanted to know about when she asked me)) 

・Ephesus, Turkey

i'm not sure why i've recently become so interested in going to Turkey, but i had been thinking about it for a while before the Olympic rush came about. Since i wrote an article about that for the school paper, i've been wanting to go there even more, to experience the clash of European and Asian cultures present there (from what i've read). Being a book nerd, i'll have to go see the library of Celsus while i'm there.

・Persepolis, Iran

i read Marjane Satrapi's 'Persepolis' comic books and thought they were so brilliant, i was all set to go ask for permission to translate them...only to find out that they were already translated into Japanese (darn it!). There's so many political and social issues crammed into those books as you follow Marjane's life from childhood to adulthood, and i eventually found myself wanting to go to Iran, and seeing the country for myself. (i think reading Azar Nafisi's 'Reading Lolita In Tehran' before that also contributed to this)

・Sukhothai, Thailand

There are so many other places i would mention here but i'll come to an end for this post with Thailand, which i consider to be one of the most beautiful places to be - but also one that needs a lot of help and care. Since my 12th grade trip to Thailand was so short, i would love to go back and revisit, and travel all over whilst doing more volunteer work with whatever i can. And just for that one day in November, i'd go see the lantern festival which is bound to make me fall in love with the country and their culture all over again. 

20...going along with it

有言実行→無言実行→不言実行

these words may make no sense to some, but there are here as a reminder.

i wonder how everyone's doing, my gull and others that my heart go out to.

19...traditions

i'm sure that each person/family has some sort of annual tradition (whether or not its recognised to be one) but at my house, it's today, the Beaujolais Nouveau day where we always go buy the one by George Duboeuf. We tend to simply just drink it while eating dinner, but this year, since half the family was away, my mother and i went out to buy different types of cheese to 'celebrate' today. And goodness it was good this year - thank you George!
Even if its just buying wine, i like the fact that we don't skip out on doing it every year - its kinda like new years or christmas, it makes me feel 'ah a year's gone by'.

18...ordinary people

Done with classes for a while - this is good, time to go back to my thoughts and also time to become a couch potato, or perhaps more like a sloth living indoors that only looks forward to feeding time. (And also do something, anything, something worthwhile once in a while). I was listening to John Legend the other day and his song 'Ordinary People' is one of my favourites but i love the ending line "this time we'll take it slow" - let's take it slow. One foot at a time, one day at no rush; doing what we can. Watching a movie on Aung San Suu Kyi's life, and listening to my friend talk about what she wanted to do in the future today made me realise how utterly limitless our capacity of doing things is in a sense, and i guess it all just depends on the same as whether you chose to see the glass half full or half empty.

17...starting over

Life gets in the way of a lot of things. Sometimes it's okay, sometimes i just want to slap my head and yell at myself for losing track of time, people and overall sense of direction but its okay, i don't mind clicking that 'reboot' button in my head; here we go again. Except this time, it'll hopefully be better (that's what i always think). I could type a bunch of excuses as to why i've been neglecting this but as it's already there in this sentence, they are excuses so let's just move on.

Today made me think of high school and of being back to a 'me' when time really didn't mean anything, and i could spend all day just like today on a hill, talking about everything and anything. It was nice - we should do that more often;)

Days like this:

or this:

or this:

These photos aren't enough without the context of what went on that day, but those can be saved for another day.

16...visual aids

a jumbled mix of the past

hello from 2010.

15...great job

great job keeping this up myself, i was just about to go to sleep and i realize i hadn't posted - i have this dilemma like the one that Charlie expresses here where it bugs me whether to pick quality over everything else, but since i'm not here trying to impress anyone other than myself by actually doing something, here are some words. and more words. and more words. and sleep.
goodness gracious me.

14...fridays

What is it about Fridays, it seems like i just lose it and forget anything that's on my agenda (though, i only have one in my mind which i must say is very, i repeat, very unreliable), and bam i forget to post. But oh well, maybe Fridays will be my days off, after all friday's i'm in love~~~♥ ...with youtube and Maya, and other lovely people out there.
i do have something interesting to share today, and it's the :59 seconds book by Professor Richard Wiseman. To sum the whole book up (from the parts that i've read), it's a self-help genre book that breaks all the stereotypical messages written in other self-help books. Now, as all books, there are parts of the book that i don't consider mind-blowingly amazing, but i think what i like about this is the fact that it sums each topic up within a chapter that can be read under 3 minutes (i would say ignore the title of the book because if you try reading them under a minute, you'll just find yourself going huh and re-reading - taking more time). That's the idea that fascinated me - i find myself thinking 'I HAVE NO TIME TO READ' even if i clearly do, and i think it's just the thought of spending minutes, hours of time into a book (if i'm not on a train or something with nothing else to do) that throws me off these days. Though it would be quite a tiring book if all chapters were written to be read in under a minute or so, it seemed like such a cool idea to me that i had to blurt it all out somewhere. Here. Yes. Done. (now how interesting is this post...yay~~~ ✌ )

No.13...numbers

Ever since i can remember, i've liked the numbers 3, 7 and 11. It wasn't that i disliked any of the others, or because i got lucky with something related to those three numbers; i'm still not sure as to why those three are more appealing to me than the others - maybe it's the same as being attracted to people, a cliché'd mystery of life.

Going along with liking them, i like doing things in those numbers - eating food, putting on chap-stick and setting the time, 3 minutes, 7 minutes, 11 minutes. It's kind of like a safety net i suppose, it's calming and i feel better doing things that way. In a way numbers are nothing, in another they are everything and that contradictory state of them is what gets me everytime when i think about them. If anyone out there has a good analysis of numbers and perhaps a good definition of them that is more than:

(from dictionary.com)

i would love to hear it. 

No.12...interesting thought on a bag

This morning i saw a man with a bag that said "Happiness is the only thing you can give without having" - which, naturally, made me think. Is happiness the only thing? What about love? What about care? Though i can assume that the creators of said bag probably meant this as a 'in contrast to all the materialistic gifts we give, happiness is free' kinda way, i thought if you read into the phrase, i would have to disagree with this man's bag. If you don't have happiness within you, how can you give it? I know i'm pushing too much into this but even if you translated this into another language, for example持っていなくてもあげれるものは幸せしかない or La felicidad es el único que puede dar sin tener (i'm dubious as to whether that's in correct Spanish grammar), on the surface level (or shall we say semantic level to make this spiffy) it makes sense, but on a deeper one, i think you find happiness in yourself first, perhaps even in the act itself, to give that to someone. I just wanted to mention here that, imagine if we all listened to Trevor McKinney and decided to 'pay it forward' - well that would make the world pretty darn nice even if it's a small temporary moment in its vast history.

No.11...sing sweet nightingale

This song has been on my mind since we saw a clip of it in class, but i realise how all these years i've thought it was 'sleep sweet nightingale' like a lullaby...and seeing this for the first time in 10 years or so, now i know. I actually like this feeling of finding out something that you thought was one way, is actually another - in a way, it makes life interesting i suppose.

No.10...bare thoughts

Singing in the bath has always been one of my favorite pastimes; I can’t recall how many times my mother had scolded Karin and I, furiously reminding us that we didn’t live in a lodge on top of a hill, surrounded by a thick sound-proof forest. Yet, old habits die hard, and I still break into a tune from time to time while going through my daily ablutions. I remember practicing Kelly Clarkson’s ‘Since You’ve Been Gone’ until I was word perfect during my years in grade 6. I can’t say how embarrassed I was when my father said “Hey, that’s your shower song!” when we heard it on the radio months later.

The thing about singing in the shower is that I probably do it simply because I don’t like being trapped alone with my thoughts in my most vulnerable state. Serious thoughts become overwhelming when in the nude, for it’s just you and your thoughts, bare skin against bare thoughts. If my thoughts were people, I’d have to lock them up before taking baths.

No.9...oh dear

I did it, i forgot. To think that i actually was able to continue for 8 days straight without forgetting to post seems incredible, but then aiaiai i went and forgot - i have to make sure that doesn't happen again...going on to a different and more interesting topic, i've been thinking for the past few days how lucky and probably unaware of everything surrounding me, whether it's people or environment or even just little events that make you feel good throughout the day. Not that i need an excuse to say this but thank you.

(at a Tim Burton exhibit last year)