Throwback

Here's to these two charismatic people who happen to have the same first syllable in their names - Carine and Carlos, who've helped shape my childhood in the most significant manner possible and who still remain my most devoted friends in spite of the fact that primary school was what, 6 years ago?

I find it supremely funny about how we went from this..

.. to THIS.

I had the most splendid time with these two at Starbucks two Fridays ago. Frappucinos were 50% off from 5 to 7pm on Tuesdays and Fridays this month, so out of conviction that this had to be divine intervention, the three of us seized the opportunity for a brief bonding session. It was initially a company of four, but unfortunately, Meera couldn't make it. I guess I'll have to wait until another opportunity like this surfaces before the four of us can gather once more, in the name of discounted beverages.

And because memes are the thing of this century, here's another one for the road.

A close-up. You betcha!

And I'm out.

P.S.: You're welcome to leave a comment at the new Cbox I've added to the blog. A simple hello will do, but if you're keen on criticizing my literary prowess and exuding your superiority complex upon a feeble being like yours truly, feel free to do so ;)

Soldier on

Fun fact : Did you know that the term 'survival of the fittest' was actually coined by sociologist, Herbert Spencer and not Charles Darwin, contrary to popular belief?

And that folks, is what sociology does to you.

I find it highly amusing and seemingly uncanny that the first day of the summer semester has already proven to be such a taxing undertaking. Lessons have not officially begun as of now, but I can't say in all certainty that the brief discussions that occurred today were simply in an introductory fashion. There were a lot of critical questions advocated, and many answers, substantial ones to say the least provided in consequence to them. It is a prospect I would appreciate, if it wasn't for the fact that I was partially in slumber mode.

The fun fact above was paraphrased from the Sociology notes I photocopied earlier from the textbook. I thought it was pretty interesting since most people often associate the survival of the fittest to Darwin's theory of evolution, as it bears a familiar context. As a matter of fact, this concept although rightfully attributed to Spencer, is so tied to Darwin that the technicalities of this sociological imagination is known as social Darwinism. Okay, perhaps that wasn't the most interesting of subject matters I could blog about, but I earnestly found it very fascinating. I'm only hoping that my enthusiasm in delving into social sciences does not fade as the huge amount of coursework and academic expectations come into play. Also, I am still unable to tell if my decision to drop Microeconomics and take on Sociology has been a wise one but I believe time will tell. In such cases, I think I'd be better off embracing the perks of irrationalism than be seen howling in regret.

On a different note, the semester break has done little good to me. I might have been able to briefly recuperate and dissociate from the academic realm, but I can honestly say that I'm better off being productive or honing a skill or something of the sort. As for all the scholar's work I told myself I'd diligently partake in, I had to forgo them in the end due to transportation issues. It was that or the 7AM bus and I can tell you with utter confidence, that I chose the former upon impeccably logical reasoning - I cherished sleep. Anyway, fear not, I've already signed up to work for the upcoming university open day and the inaugural arts festival, to be held about two weeks from now. Only God knows how I'll be able to manage, but in a like manner, it is God that I will draw my strength from.

However, the two week holiday wasn't too shabby, I felt. Having amazing company served as a saving grace, and I had the most splendid time bonding with the Nonsensical De-stress buddies over melted ice-cream dampened cones of well, ice-cream. Do not be fooled by it's humble appearance, dear readers for McDonald's vanilla sundae is exemplary as sorrow-drowning paraphernalia, and it costs lesser than beer anyway. Unfortunately, saving grace is not a term I would apply in summary of the supposed 'vacation' I had in Singapore. Personally I would prefer not to disclose on the details of the trip, for it would take too long and would render myself as well as you faithful readers in utter agony, but if you must know, it was an excursion that would have been better off if it hadn't actually occurred. Simply put, it was poorly organized and I think I might have preferred it if we'd saved all that money for my university education fund in the U.S. Oh well, shit happens.

Furthermore, I received my first semester results last week. I wasn't really sure what to think, but from what I've heard, any GPA that's 3.7 and above displays academic excellence. I've discovered today that there are other who have received 4.0s, but honestly I won't attempt to compare or contrast myself with others, for the fear that this will evoke once more, a sense of insecurity and dissatisfaction. But overall, I did pretty well, so I guess I'm pleased with what I've achieved so far.

I'd really love to write more on the occurrences in the past week, but time has been rather strict on me lately. Every time I seem to be ensconced in writing, the littlest and most personal of pleasures, I'm constantly reminded of how little more of it I have left before I must attend to life and therefore, I shall stop here.

But fret not, I will resume this. Perhaps time will be more lenient with me later on.

Thai fare

Thai glass noodle salad.

Spring rolls.

Fried crab cakes.

Virgin mojito.

Yam salad.

Nuggets : The Big Picture

Because I've let go, and I'm letting God.

After almost an entire week of innately dying in utter agony, God finally intervened. It was such a wake up call. Things had to change, for it to be better. I needed to be healed. I needed to pull through this, without constantly having to do it alone. I needed God.

And today, I've concluded that I've found Him. He's always been there. But my focus has returned. Just clarity. No paradoxes whatsoever. Just pure CLARITY, in every sense of the word.

I honestly don't know what I'd do without my mother and my siblings in Christ. They have been there this entire time, ready to remind me of what was important lest I forgot. And they were there this evening, when I needed them the most. I needed them to help me set my eyes back on God, and they did just that. This post's title was derived by my mother. This evening, she taught me to see the big picture, and I saw it as she'd described it to be. Unseen, yet prevalent. God's master plan, a work in progress.

So I've erased every memory. I've extracted and removed every form of attachment. I've nullified every form of resemblance to the faculties of this world.

But ultimately, I've come running home to the Father.

I can rest well tonight, knowing that I've let go. It's been a pleasure meeting you, I have to say. I was enchanted by your intellectual demeanor, your hippie insights and your foreign perspectives.

May God bless this broken road, that'll lead me straight to the REAL him, eventually.

As of now, the Lord is my shepherd, I have everything I need. That is all.

Fish nuggets and other things in between

Coffee and Eggs Benedict @ The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf.

My mum's take on their breakfast, with a twist - mushroom soup and fish nuggets, instead of eggs and Hollandaise sauce. 

Oh and some peculiar salad dressing, presumably a hybrid of honey mustard and balsamic vinaigrette. I have to say though, it's an acquired taste. But I strongly rule against mixing any form of salad dressing with one another.

And moving on to last night..

Meet Mr. Tao. Tao Fu Fah. And Chia, Isaac Chia.

I was pretty bored while waiting for our burgers to be done at myBurgerlab. So yeah, my inner camwhore took over. Oh, his real name's Chris by the way.

Only we, the Nonsensical De-stress panel have every right to call him Fu Fah. For obvious reasons.

Awesome Fries (literally)..

..and Beautiful Mess 5.0.

I'm aware this doesn't exactly scream appetizing, considering it's uh, reckless appearance but I swear this is the shiznit and it was worth every ringgit I paid. I probably should have brought my DSLR instead of my tablet so this mother of burgers could be properly justified both aesthetically and tastefully.

But dinner was amazing. Nuff' said.

On a slightly more relevant note, I finally got around to run some errands today; one of which was to wash the car. Since I got my P license yesterday, I've been waiting for that grand opportunity to take this handsome out for a ride. However, when I went out to the porch this morning, hoping to execute the mentally planned rendezvous, the sight of my droplet scarred car made me think twice about doing so. So instead, I got out my pail and other paraphernalia and went ahead give my baby Bob a nice, cold morning shower.

Yes, his name is Bob. And yes, I do not give two hoots about the insults you are about to hurl at me for naming such a beauty with an incompetent and unappealing masculine name.

And no, I am not available for carpooling services, as of now.

Other than that, I was able to go out to the mall today. While the hunt for the third installment of the Across The Universe trilogy was rather unsuccessful, I managed to exchange a bag of old clothing for a H&M shopping voucher, catch up with Amanda over lunch at Fish & Co. as well as tea at Serai (Berry Pavlova for the win!), and watch Identity Thief. Also, the internet connection was salvaged today after my mum paid the bill and I officially have a video assignment on hand - the outcome of the Girls' Conference committee meeting earlier tonight, due tomorrow. It still hasn't quite hit me yet that it's due TOMORROW, but I'm sure I'll get it done in no time. I HOPE.

Anyhow, I'd better get some sleep. I still have that video assignment to work on after all tomorrow, and the fact that I have to hit campus tomorrow for a short briefing on my scholar's work which commences next Monday further reinstates just how important sleep is at this juncture of my life. Well, at least my reward is certain - one of those decent frappucinos from Starbucks, at half price with my primary school mates. Shweet!

Goodnight, fellas.

Nuggets : Cafe latte and a cream cheese bagel

I'm sorry I had to resort to this just to fill in the gaps. Lately I've been taken hostage by my emotions to the extent whereby I can no longer find emotional release in writing. Having established myself as a writer both by birth and by creed, this really sucks because I've lost the will to utilize words and sentences as a medium of catharsis. And presumably, as we all damn well know, what is a writer, if not an applicant and translator of thoughts into words, and words into text?

But I'm not about to give in. I won't allow myself to be taken aback by this frenzy of temporary emotions that threaten to pull me away from achieving my goals. All things occur for a reason, and I'm not about to let something like this dictate my self-worth. I will search within myself and I WILL FIND IT, by hook or by crook.

Until then, you're just going to have to bear with me. I suggest you start sipping on that cup of coffee and get a cream cheese bagel to complement your choice of beverage.

~

My name is Vivian Teoh.

I am a writer.

I am a strong, independent woman.

I do not rely on one's opinion of me to dictate my worth.

I will not allow my emotions to overwhelm me and reduce me into an impetuous and atrocious freak.

I will carry myself with utter dignity, in spite of my inner anguish,

And I will succeed.

Finally

"These forms of accountability and seeking God certainly have their place. But make sure you are doing it for the right reason. Are you placing expectations on your relationship that God Himself does not have? Are you pursuing holiness in order to earn the reward of marriage? Are you trying to perfect your love life apart from the grace and mercy of God? By trying to avoid idolatry of a person, are you idolizing the perfect relationship instead? 

Where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more: What would it look like to date in the freedom of that reality? What would it look like if the goal of dating was not the perfect marriage, but a better love of God and neighbor? Would that spell the end of random devastation like the one experienced by my friend? Not entirely, but perhaps Christian dating relationships would be a little less riddled with angst. And freed from the pressure to “get it all right,” we will find Christ’s yoke is so much lighter than the burden of perfection."

The excerpt above was taken from this article HERE, which my friend sent to me, with thoughts that I would find this an "interesting" read. Well, indeed it is.

The past month has been seeing me confused and disillusioned from the spark of various thoughts and queries. I still don't find it safe to say that I've been completely set free of anxiety and pain. While I'm mentally accepting the fact that the past has to stay in the past and I have to move on, matters I cannot understand unconsciously spills out of my hippocampus, forming strange dreams that make no sense at all, or dreams of what used to be, a prospect now null and void. It's moments like these that often make me question myself and wonder why I did whatever I did and I begin feeling anxious all over again. Regret pays me a visit, and I'm forced to come to terms with myself and ask myself over and over again, why, why, why?

And I'm forced to say, I don't know, because I truly didn't. I was just lost in the frenzy of mental activity that I'd truly forgotten why I made all those decisions a month ago.

But now I see what the matter really is with me. I see what it is I'm doing. I'm centralizing my entire life towards this one matter, constantly working to further myself and find inert peace, only to fail and search somewhere else for an alternative source, and fail again. That is precisely what I'm doing.

I'm investing all my time and energy into fixing this perceived "problem" with hopes that once it becomes fixed, I can safely move on, but we all know that isn't true. The more I choose to deal with it, the more it deals with me. And trust me, it sucks. If you were in my shoes, undertaking those sleepless nights, you'd probably feel like verbalizing your inner anguish by screaming, "JUST SHUT UP ALREADY!", like I actually do.

Thing is, I thought whatever I did was going to please God, because I thought it would. I earnestly, honestly, sincerely thought it would. But I didn't know better. I'm learning now, but I still don't, really.

I won't say I'm drawing up conclusions based on this one "interesting" web article that conveniently happened to pop right in the midst of all the pandemonium in my life. I won't base my verdict according to what I feel I am convicted to do. The last time I tried correlating God's will in my life to the events that occurred, I made what could possibly be the most rash decision in my life, EVER. See, that was what it was - I oversimplified the entire thing based on coincidence and took it all too seriously after. And then I suffered from my mistakes and laid in utter agony for 2 weeks. And then I "moved on".

However, what I'm advocating is this - letting go of the past and letting God. The more I try to solve this equation, the more complicated it gets. Only my best friend is the most fit at solving equations, anyway. But that's besides the point. The point is, I have to stop trying to move on. I have to stop trying to become a better person. I have to stop trying to overcome my fears and find the right people to befriend. I need to stop trying to hard to do all these things on my own, when God is already offered me a hand and is saying, "Do you need help? COME TO PAPA!"

For in Matthew 11:28 it says, "Then Jesus said, "Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest."

So I'm taking His offer and I'm on my way to find peace, and rest.

The only thing I can do at this point, really, is to learn. I need to learn to learn from my mistakes and not mope about in misery. And no, that wasn't a typo. I need to learn, TO LEARN. I need to stop thinking that screwing this up ultimately means that I'm screwed for life. Instead, what it only means is that I will learn from it. I may have gotten it wrong that time, but that only means if I'm faced with this again the next time, I'll definitely get it right. I gain something new from every experience and as long as I do, I have nothing to lose. Unless you're talking about one's virginity. Then, NO. JUST NO.

At the risk of sounding cliche, I can't change what has happened. But I can change the consequence to my actions. I can learn from this. It's funny, isn't it, how it took this long for me to understand why I felt what I felt and why I did what I did?

But God's here, and He's going to fix things. That's all that matters.

Blackout

Honestly, I can't say I wasn't expecting it. As much as I'd like to think that change can occur overnight, it simply can't.

However, I'm not here to talk about what happened last night because I'm sure most of you have already had your fair share of politics. Instead, I'm here to remind myself (yes, me and not you) as to why I shouldn't be disheartened by last night's outcome and work towards a goal worth achieving individually and for the sake of the nation.

Yes, it was disappointing to see the majority of Sarawak fall into the clutches of the current government. I'd always thought they'd never fall back to the government, given that they're after all, still a Christian nation and there were several prophecies that some of the Christian politicians in East Malaysia would adhere to their rightful place as a Malaysian leader, on behalf of the opposition. I'd took the entire ordeal wholeheartedly, believing that this year would be different in the sense that there would be a complete change of government, for the betterment of the people. So I guess you could imagine my disappointment when I witnessed the government overtaking the opposition in terms of parliamentary seats. Well, even if you couldn't imagine it, you could totally see it through my Facebook status updates and shares, as well as my umpteen political retweets.

But no, I refuse to see this defeat as defeat any longer. If anything, the opposition made immense progress, bagging even more parliamentary seats than they did in the previous GE and they did it with integrity and utter honesty. Sure, there's bound to be a few cases of dissatisfaction and provocation pioneered by those supporting the opposition, but overall they won their seats fair and square. They did not engage themselves in unclean tactics such as vote recounts or respond with racist comments - everything they did was out of passion and genuine love for the rakyat and for Malaysia.

As for my distaste of the majority of Sarawak's political decision, I've come to realize that not everyone there is well aware of the political situation in Malaysia. After I'd had enough of the entire political ordeal last night, I went to bed and vented out in tears to God, questioning why things occurred as they did. And that was when it struck me that the majority seats won by government belonged to rural areas. While we've certainly come a long way economically in Malaysia, it isn't to say that we've completely wiped out poverty and social ignorance in the nation. The fact remains that our eastern counterpart aren't granted the privileges we possess in urban areas. Therefore, if anything, the fault is on our behalf, for we have failed to see the political situation in Sarawak and provide enlightenment to an ignorant community who has yet to understand the ulterior motives of our current government. This is truly a call for us, be it a spiritual or mental conviction to reach out to these Malaysians and uphold them rightfully as owners of this land.

That isn't to say that the government played a fair game though. I still cannot comprehend how any political organization can retain a clear conscience after advocating corruption and cronyism for more than half a century. And while that's prevalent, their overtly redundant forms of campaigning is a major insult to theories of reverse psychology and their out-in-the-open blackout tactics appalls me to the very fiber of my being.

But vengeance is not my call. For it is written in Romans 12:19, "Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," says the Lord." The evil will get their dues in time as God sees fit. Also, everything happens for a reason. While all this pandemonium might appear to work in the favor of the principalities of darkness, good will inevitably prevail in the end for God is in control of everything and has an ultimate and perfect plan and purpose for this nation.

Four or five years from now, I will have the ability to determine the course of Malaysia with my one vote and I solemnly vow to use it wisely. As much as the prospect of migrating to a first world nation entices me, my heart still calls me to remain in Malaysia. And as peculiar as it sounds to me, I want my children, grand children and great grand children to live in Malaysia, a democratic and first world nation with a quality education, a fair and just governance as well as economic sustainability. I don't want them to live through the social and economic hardships my generation and the generations before had to endure; I want them to experience true freedom and live a fruitful, godly life. And this is precisely what I will fight for - the betterment of the future generation.

Mungkin kali ini kami tidak berjaya dalam pilihan raya umum yang ke-13. Namun, hasrat kami semua sebagai rakyat Malaysia untuk mencetus perubahan dari segi politik, sosial serta ekonomi dalam negara ini akan terus diuaruarkan sehingga aspirasi rakyat direalisasikan. Sehingga hari itu tiba, maklumlah, kami akan terus berjuang demi memartabatkan negara dan membela keadilan serta kesejahteraan rakyat bersama! Ingatlah seruan kami, kami tidak akan berhenti atau memungkiri janji kami kepada tanah air yang tercinta ini. Bangkitlah semua! UBAH, walau bagi kali yang seterusnya!

My level of eloquence in BM has deteriorated since I left high school, but that won't stop me from expressing how I feel in the nation's first language (although sarcasm is my first language and English my second, really).

So there, my first ever patriotic post. Not sure how this will fare with my potential employers in my writing career, but screw it.

I'm Malaysian and I'm proud to be (in spite of all the havoc our prime minister has clearly perpetrated). Cheers!

Everybody leaves in the end

I guess listening to The Temper Trap while attempting Calculus wasn't a very good idea to begin with, especially since my final quiz is in about an hour.

All my life, I've never really understood what it meant to say goodbye. Does goodbye mean bidding someone farewell for eternity, proclaiming that they're officially out of reach? Or does goodbye suggest the prospect of a temporary hiatus, whereby one is only as distant as the period of their absence? Or is goodbye just something you are obligated to say whenever there is a need to escape, to be ensconced in an alternate reality whose beauty far supersedes that of reality?

While I would be grateful if any of my rhetorical questions actually do possess answers, all these questions do not change the fact that departure is inevitable. People will come, and soon they will go. If there is anything socially substantial that ADP has taught me in the past 5 months, it is that resistance against the system is futile, for those who are destined to depart from your life will eventually do so and those who are called to remain will stay. As of now, it seems that the total number of individuals departing from my life exceeds those who remain and those who have just become my acquaintances show no sign of increase into the level of friend. I guess I am still tied to my inhibitions, and have not completely come out of my shell just yet. Sigh.

But life goes on. I have to keep trusting God and believe that He knows what He's doing, and therefore, I must continue to pursue life as it comes. There really is no other way around it.

So here's to the end of this semester, and the beginning of a new endeavor in life.