Sup3rnality

And I have found that we choose to immerse ourselves in closets of thoughts and let time bind us tight. We find ourselves reaching for the doorknobs, only to retract our hands with worried fear. 'What lies beyond?', the question plays a heavy tune. A thrumming in the back of your mind. Coupled with the wonderings of what happens behind those other doors.

We seem to not want to go on. Even when these heavy feet rellentlessly trudge through sand and stone, we often ponder on the footsteps we leave behind; wondering whether there is a wisdom in going back. The treadmarks were lies, for there were none to speak of. We would discover them deceiving the orbs of sight, forking into different paths we do are not meant to take.

Where have we gone? We ask ourselves, as we turn the pages in our minds. We have gone ways with pathways only wide enough for one, admitting no other. Trying to steal glances at the distant shadows of yesterday makes us empty; for shadows change with each change in the rays of light. So all we're left with are the dark mass trailing at out feet, lonely in its wake.

Words now have lost their flavour; a blandness that leaves a bitterness in my throat, satisfying no hunger in my mind. And all I'm left with are what I own in all of me, and whispers of a distant past. And I smile and I think that branches may continue breaking off when they descend, but they came from the same tree... I am comforted.

Love, Lin~

Mag ik nog even
Hier bij jou
Mag ik nog 1 keer
Voor het leven
Mag ik in stilte
Hier bij jou
Mag ik nog 1 keer
Om je geven
‘k Heb niet altijd juist geleefd
Maar toch iets moois geleerd

En ik leef
En ik leef
Alles gaat fout, maar ’t is goed
Zolang ik het beleef
Want ik leef

‘k Was je verloren
En mij ook
Alles proberen
Voor ik oud word
En ik sta nog steeds rechtop
Dit keer gewapend
Voor het koud wordt
‘k Heb je altijd graag gezien
Ken jij mijn geheim misschien

Want ik leef
En ik leef
Alles gaat fout maar tis goed,
Zolang ik het beleef
Want ik leef

Dat ik nu zonder spijt
Nog verder mag,
Nog kansen maak dat jij
Dat je weer lacht naar mij
Je lacht naar mij
Je lacht naar mij

En ik leef
En ik leef
Alles gaat fout, maar ’t is goed
Zolang ik het beleef

Ja ik leef
En ik leef
Alles gaat fout, maar ’t is goed
Zolang ik het beleef
Want ik leef

- "Leef" by Sarah Bettens aka lead singer of K's Choice

I'd promised in my last entry that there'll be more of this...that is, more entries to follow, and not lone ones that make up for months of silence. Well, let's hope this one would be the beginning of well, new beginnings. Although, I have to say, there isn't much to talk about of late.

Hmmm...

Well, there is one thing that I have been wanting to put a word out about. Well, actually more than just a word but you know what I mean. My birthday, that is what I wanted to talk about. It's been more than a month since...and I thought I'd give it that much time before I brought it up. I thought that in a month I would gain a better perspective about how I feel about it... Heh, although to tell you the truth, it was more out of utter lack of motivation to write rather than to "gain perspective".

Anyway, turning 21 is fantastically overrrated. Oh wait, I didn't mean to sound so cynical but I really didn't feel anything. Not that I expected to see big flashing lights go off in the night's sky or have a male stripper (did I just say stripper?) knocking on my door but well, I did think that I would feel more...I don't know, maybe the word I'm looking for is 'different', but it doesn't roll off the tongue as it is supposed to. Perhaps it's something else, and I have no word for it.

Eversince I was a kid, I've always wanted to grow up real fast. I read alot and had alot of things that I wanted to say and do. But when you're about 3 feet tall no one takes you seriously and that frustrated me. I didn't like being thought of as someone who was not capable of thinking for herself. Age never mattered to me, I always thought it was the mind that really determined your age, but hey, not everyone thinks that way. So I pretty much had always looked forward to the time I would be old enough to be taken seriously. Don't get me wrong, I didn't have a bad childhood. I had wonderful friends and an ever supportive family. But many a time, especially when I was in school, I felt like someone older stuck in a child's body.

And now, I'm 21 years old and I'm an adult, and I sit here and I've quite lost the enthusiasm of my looking forward to this time. Again I'm not being a cynical, bitter person; but I'm just seeing it with different eyes now.

I don't regret anything. Wait, there are a coupple of things on my mind that I would very much like to change but then they are also the things that have made me the person I am today. So...not going through those experiences would have made me into a different person, and truthfully, I am comfortable with the way I am. So, whatever those things are, I have to bear the weight of my mistakes and remember to not repeat them again.

I still feel older than I should be. But that doesn't make me a bitter biddy who sits on park benches lecturing the young 'uns about the good old days. I feel older in the sense that I have managed to find a firmer foothold, and I've gone up a tad higher than most. And I'm not sitting up there higher than others laughing at them. Instead I have the time to not only stop and smell the roses, but bask in them and soak up the sun. It's a good feeling.

Of course, things are not perpetually rosy. But I like that I get nicks and scrapes every now and then. It's no fun going through wars and never getting any souvenirs along the way..

I've battled more demons than I'd care or am able to say. Sometimes they stay dead, sometimes their ghosts linger and haunt me when I let myself sink. I live with them, but like I said, I try to live with no regrets; so I put them aside and try to make up for my past wrongs. I am able to reflect and make a choice.

So this is me. I'm not perfect and I know it and I love myself nonetheless. I am comfortable with what and who I am.

But....I'm still searching for it. Will I find it?

Love, Lin~

~I am feeling complacent~

I can't find it. I can't find it. I can't find it. I can't find it. I can't find it. I can't find it. I can't find it. I can't find it. I can't find it. I can't find it. I can't find it. I can't find it. I can't find it. I can't find it.

"The more you live in this world,the more you see how apart from it you really are."
- Whistler, Becoming 1 Season 2

I think I now see the disease that has slowly been making me feel more and more hollow as each day passes. Not emptying the words into this chosen vessel of mine makes it worse I suppose; filling emptiness with emotions that are not made flesh... That's a recipe for disaster if you are me.

Yes, the disease... It's possible that I don't need to mention the incident that caused so much despair in me. It's been a constant theme throughout the past few months, I need not cause myself so much heartache. I've exhausted enough tears and energy into expressing them both in words and in actions to want to mention it again. It starts there, with my loss.

I made myself detached after that, not wanting to live in the now and having to connect with everything and everyone around me. I wanted to be left alone. Well, not really. I wanted to be held so badly but I'd rather be alone than be surrounded by half-hearted attempts at comfort or words that hold no understanding. I wanted so much to just drift away into my own mind.
Since then, I've been finding a way to feel again. And I managed that after a long talk with a dear friend over Italian food and drinks. He made me find that spark again and I see it, and now I need to catch up with it.

Now this is where the problem lies. After so long of lying so dormant without my usual zest, I've found myself a bit worse for wear from he lack of use. The second hand emotions that have been feeding me with me on my back has made me sluggish with rust.

I was awake yet catatonic, now I have to remember how to function normally again.

I realize that I was absent from the world this whole length of time. I think I stopped believing for a while; not in terms of faith but the belief in ever finding comfort or my belief that I can keep on being all that I believe I am (does that make sense?). I think I lost me, and I've found me now...It's just that I have to put the pieces back together.

I guess I believed that my strength will never wane. I know deep down that that's not realistic, one can't possibly expect something to last. But I did not expect things to go that way. But then again, possibly it's a test of sorts for me.

It's like how Angel felt in TCToNC Ep6S5. He felt so disconnected and disheartened that he forgot himself. He stopped believing in the Shanshu Prophecy. He felt like it was all useless and that it was just some fairytale story to make things seem that it will all be shiny at the end of all things.

And that was how I felt. I got so disconnected that I felt so weary and jaded and stopped believing in a part of myself that keeps me going.

So now, it's about me taking hold of the wheel again. It's time to come back to the world and do myself justice again. And most importantly, I must begin writing again. For ultimately, it was my lack of expression that led me down deeper into my gloom. And this is how it begins again....I hope.

Love, Lin~

"Love keeps her in the air when she ought to fall down...tells you she's hurting before she keels."
- Capt. Mal Reynolds, "Serenity"

When my world falls down, and I cannot be the strong person people always want me to be, all I really want is for someone to be strong for me. Because when I cannot bear the weight, I buckle and stoop; and I need a helping hand to take the weight off of my shoulders.

I love every one of my friends. And with every strength that I have in me I would do what I can to make them happy and make it easy for them to live day to day in a world so full of adversities. And when they cannot stand on their two feet, heck, I'd give them mine.

Rarely have I been in need to be on the receiving end of such strength; a kind of stability, a rock that grounds me when I'm about to drift away. I like solving my own problems, facing my own demons; moreover, I don't like bothering people with the things that are troubling me.

But there are times when even the strongest fall. And I, I'm only human, I fall sometimes. And there are times I fall so hard I can't find the strength in me to get back up.

I cannot be expected to walk upright all the time. We all have crosses to bear. And I sometimes need time and understanding and comfort and love to gather myself again to get on and live. I cannot be strong all the time. Sometimes *I* need strength.

So Alfred, this one's for you: Thank you for understanding me when no one else would or could. Thank you for giving me strength and reminding me that I have strength. Thank you for reminding me about who I am when I thought I've lost myself. Thank you for the lunch+dinner and the four hour++ conversation. Love you loads.

Love, Lin~

I'm having another go. I went back to the room last night feeling frustrated at not being able to pen down at least a decent enough entry. My headache didn't help me any.

I think my migraine's are returning and there's no one to blame but myself. I mean, my laziness in getting up to keep myself hydrated is almost non-existent. I only go in search for water whenever I feel thirsty and no other reason. Never mind the fact that a human body needs at least 8 glasses of water a day. More than that even in this hot weather. Perhaps I'm not all human...I mean, that's what people keep saying.

I've definitely been al sorts of crazy over the past few. Have been so tired and it's only the 3rd day of the semester. Maybe it's because of the holidays only being 2 weeks long, my mind is so much still in need of rest and the new semester already starting is making it shortcircuit some.... Hmm, in case I haven't mentioned, yeah, a new semester have started. So begins another semester in good ol' IIUM. And this semester, Aaina and I have decided to take things easy a little bit. We are taking only 4 subjects compared to last semester's 7 subjects (including Family Management). After the perpetual unrest in the last semester, I need to gain back a little perspective and focus and rest. Not that none of the hard work I did last semester did not pay off, but slaving away and not allowing myself that much rest isn't good for my mind. I think I've clogged it up without realizing it.

So this semester I would be taking Sociolinguistics, Research Methodology, Intro to Usul al-Fiqh and also Methods of Da'wah. Yup, only those four. Giving myself my well-deserved rest. After this I'll be taking on more and probably I wouldn't be able to stop til it's all over... But I don't think I'd mind any of that. I'm content. Hmmm...I might check out the SLEU thing again. I wouldn't mind picking up a little tutoring. Literature is something that comes naturally to me without that much effort so I think I should give a little something back as thanks. It'll only be fair.

I forgot to mention anything about my holidays I see. Ah well, not much went on, but I was happy. Now I know many say that I don't have a life but this is *my* life, and this how I see fit to live it out and this is how I think living should be like. I'm sane, I'm doing fine and importantly I'm happy and content, so I don't think that I am lack of anything as many would think...Anyway, back to the holiday bit; yeah, I did nothing much. But still it was a lot. Some of the things I sis was go to the Taiping Zoo. Before anyone could say "NO LIFE!", let me tell you it was worth it. You see my sister has been wanting to go to that zoo. She went there sometime ago with my family but I wasn't around at that time. So she really wanted me to go so one weekend me and my family decided to go there after a kenduri in Ipoh. I tell you the place is worth going. The animals were out and about and were actually alive! I mean, look at Zoo Negara, the "animals" we hardly see and even if we do they're practically dead. So it was nice just to have a looksee at the animals. But basically, it was about being with my family which I've hardly been able to see or spend time with for months. I've been missing them lots. And my sister is so enthusiastic about going and wanting to show me all the animals...who am I to deny her?

On the way after the Zoo visit we stopped by Bukit Merah Lake Town. What was just a stop turned out to be a visit. We went on a boat cruise and went for this Night Safari thing. That was really interesting. We got to see all the nocturnal animals when they're active; something we wouldn't be able to see in the day. We even got to feed some of the animals and also got to see these 3 huge crocs get fed live chickens. Very interesting.

Other than that, we did alot of shopping in Ferringhi that is in Penang and I bought about 70 bucks worth of DVDs and music CDs. I have to say I totally support piracy. I'm sorry, but I really can't afford CDs. I can only afford one CD a year and even that I feel so reluctant to pay for. Except for artistes that I really love and support, I spend a little just to show I care. But otherwise, I just can't. It's too much to pay for just one CD. So yeah, I went on a shopping spree in Penang. At only 4 bucks per CD, I could buy 10 CDs with 40 bucks that would otherwise allow me to buy only one.

Hmmmm...so that's all about my holiday and this new semester beginning.... I can't say anymore for now. My laptop is running out of batteries and this CC is not laptop users friendly. They don't have any spare powerpoints. So I gotta go now. I'll post up pics from my holidays soon I hope. See you guys then. I suppose I finally am able to write something more substantial this time around. It's a good feeling. Bye now.

Love, Lin~

I have been sitting in front of this computer for God knows how long just trying to get some words down, trying to find my voice again by searching through this jungle of words again and again. I've been in the woods for months, I have yet to find the compass that will lead me to where I am heading; to where my words live.

God, I have one helluva writer's block. And damn, this has never happened before. Never have I experienced such frustration in the inability to write that my head is bursting with a migraine. All I want is just a litte something to show myself that I haven't lost it, because, damn, it sure feels like I have.

John Rzeznik (he turned 41 on the 5th by the way) said that a writer's block is not that we are unable to write, it's just that we do write but nothing comes out the way we want it to be. And that is exactly what I am going through now. Should I be writing all of this down into pieces of paper, there'd be alot of rolled up paper strewn about the place, a result of my chucking everything that doesn't suit me. If you have a look into me laptop right now, you'd see that it is littered with half-baked ideas and hanging stories. I just can't continue any of it. God, what is wrong with me?

Nothing seems to have flavour in it. Whatever I dish out seems to be so bland that I haven't the heart to actually serve it out to people. I'd rather let them starve than let them have something so insubstancial that a bite would only cause them to get even more hungry. I just can't.

I need the edge, the flair, the flow...the ability to just write without havingto pause to come up with a word or a phrase. I don't want to have to think of analogies or comparisons or flowing lines....I want to be able to just write. It may seem as though I am writing ths freeflow, but heck, I actually am stopping every now and then just to think of a bloody word. How sad is that?

I am reduced to this...This is nothing major I know; but it would frustrate you too if the only way you culd be free, the only way you could express yourself however you want be is taken away from you...It definitely would kill you.

And so I sit here, desperate for a spark that would start this sodding engine and get it going. I need an inspiration. Need a kickstart. I need a reason again...

Love, Lin~