little miss angsty strikes again

I know that by now, I should no better than to expect anything. And I know that all one can do is just deal with whatever comes (or doesn't come) our way. But that doesn't mean it's any less frustrating! And since no engineer has yet created the on/off switch for stupid emotions, people around me too, will just have to deal with my mood swings.

lol, I've been ranting a lot in the office these past couple of weeks. My fellow SAs have had to bear witness to the manifestation of little miss googly-eyed for one day and exchange worried looks with each other over why yati is smiling and giggling to herself again; little miss angry bitch who ranted and raved about some random insensitive bitch who made the mistake of incurring her latent and repressed wrath thereby unleashing the monster within... and i suppose today, they will have to deal with little miss depressed-though-she-should-know-better. I'm a whole Little Miss Series by myself. I should get t-shirts. Unfortunately, the ones I've seen cost waaay too much for any sane person to spend money on. As much as I support displaying one's identity on one's chest, I just refuse on the basis of principle to pay S$47 for it. Even if it was embroidered with mithril or gold or bird's nest. I say, for that price, you might as well read the expression on my face. hahaha... then again, maybe it's for people like that stupid dragon-wrath-incurrer (otherwise known as the subject of last week's Rant) who are unable to read people's expressions and react accordingly.

I wonder what life, what society would be like if one day t-shirts were invented that displayed the wearer's thoughts. Man, what a mess that would be.

I've been thinking a lot lately, about how one's self worth is contingent on technology these days. I once had a theory that people entered relationships (as in romantic relationships) for self validation and when they broke up, the pain and the mess were all in response to the shattering of one's validation and self esteem. If we finally reach the stage of confidence when we are so self-assured and confident that we don't need anyone else validating our existence... then I'd say men would probably be obsolete. Or more accurately, love would be obsolete. Relationships would be redundant. Or maybe they'll just evolve into something else. Let's face it... deep down inside, everyone is a little insecure. Everyone just wants to be loved. Sometimes it's amazing how much a little hug can mean to someone's day.

And yes, I just realised that I never followed up on my thought about the contingency of self worth on technology. oh well, luckily this is a blog post and not an essay.

I think I may have made a terrible mistake in my rush to come back to campus. I'm going crazy.

Intro to self
- 4th and final year FASS student
- Sociology major, writing thesis on interactions between exchange students and NUS students
Where I went
- Queen's University in Kingston
- between Toronto and Montreal
- 2nd sem of 2nd year (2005)
Why?
- experience Canadian winter
- something completely different
- challenge myself
- isolate myself from everything familiar and see how i thrive
- travel, seize opportunity to see the other side of the world
- escape Singapore, venture beyond my comfort zone
Friends/Student Unions/School Spirit Festivals/Culture

- Harkness Hall: living with people from Canada, Hong Kong, France, UK
- speed dating, movie nights, school productions
- attending conferences: AIESEC, ASUS
- going on trips: Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, Niagara, Quebec
- applying concepts learnt: in terms of tourism, geography
- meeting locals: Nick, Emily, Scott
- birthdays: minnie’s surprise party, sacha’s birthday

Studying
- profs and students
- learning new things: IDIS 306 Culture, Identity and Self with Paul Fairfield; French; Women and reproductive technology; Religion and Film
- most learning happened outside the classroom from talking to people, observing surroundings, building relationships
- studying by the lake, studying on the grass

Shopping & Eating
- foodwise, I acquired a fondness for salads and pasta; fortune cookies; Asian food, cheap pizza, living like a starving student
- shopping… was not everything


New things
- Skiing, skating, curling, ice hockey
- learning French, picking up Spanish
- traveling solo
- pub culture: socializing
- making the best out of everything: even though I don’t drink, I learnt about the social habits of Canadians
- representing Singapore: goring pisang tak jadi, fettucine and oyster sauce

Day to day life
- supermarkets: walmart, food basics, A&P

Places of interest
- Staying at Nick’s for a weekend
- Fort Henry
- Toronto’s vintage culture; very cool
- Ottawa’s museums and galleries
- New York City’s EVERYTHING

along the way

It's been a long time since I've last penned my thoughts on anything permanent that I can hold against myself. Too many thoughts, too many emotions, too many wrong turns. I've always thought that you blog when you're upset. It's as CS Lewis says "We don't write to be understood, we write to understand." I haven't written anything. I just did it.

Here's the rub: At the end of the day, you just have to deal with it. Whatever it is. There's really no use dwelling about things. I was thinking in the office today that we're always victims of our own narratives. We make excuses, we victimise ourselves. If we were to step back and look at ourselves, what would we see? Who did we hurt along the way? Whose heart did we stamp on? I like to think the best of people, regardless of how naive it may seem to be. I really doubt that people make decisions to be bitchy or full of malice or to break someone's heart, spirit or soul. I think sometimes we all just try to save our own asses first. And we're blind to everything else.

I'm done.
I'm moving on.
I may have lost 6 or 7 years but damn it, at least it wasn't 10 or 20.
At the end of the day, I'm gonna have to contend with the voices in my head and if they're okay with me then so am I.

Contrary to what it may sound like, I am not complaining.
But I have had very little sleep this week. Sporadic.
I'm weak, what can I say?
Without sleep, i get cranky.
*yawn*
Paper due in 2.5 hours. - 5 minutes. GAH.
I'm hungry.
& I'm nowhere near done!!

i have chicken pox.

- do you have a fever?
- umm, i'm not sure.
- you need to check?
- uhh yeah, i think i probably should check.

*couple of minutes later*

38.4 degrees.
- yeah, i think i have a fever. is that a fever?
- yes, it's a high fever.
- oh. okay.

good times need to be blogged.

I should be more stressed out than I am right now. But in this moment, academics aside, I am happy and I am content with the people in my life. I think it's very heartwarming to know that no matter what happens in your life, there will always be people who care about you and love you despite yourself. heh. <3 And for some reason, I was happy last night too.

That picture above... it was taken when we were in sec 4. The year 2000. I was happy. This is such an inarticulate post, but whatever. haha. I need to go do research on the social welfare state. *blows kisses*

rock the boat, don't tip the boat over...

I swiped the picture off Kim's facebook profile... heehee. It's the first picture that's got all of us in it. Gosh, I remember that boat was ROCKY. haha... It was on our way back from Sibu. :o) Happy days those were...

story of my life lah.

"I know I love in vain, strive against hope.
Yet in this captious and intenable sieve
I still pour in the waters of my love,
And lack not to lose still"

- Shakespeare

a spirit hampered

Veronika said you should never get used to anything; and she's right.

Here's one reason why you shouldn't procrastinate: it usually happens that when you're halfway through a project or preparing for a presentation for tomorrow (or later today) you realise that the past 14 slides you've been working on are irrelevant and that the main bulk of important ideas are in the 20 pages you didn't finish reading.

I haven't been procrastinating, I've been spending the past couple of days pulling my hair out over too many things. Watch out for those bald patches.

Yesterday I described my relationship with Sociology as to this History major as "I ran off with my adulterous lover", referring to Lit as my true love. Sometimes I wonder if it's analogous to my life. See, the first 3 years of Soci were honestly awesome. No regrets about my decision. Here in my final and fourth year, the going is tough and my support network is weak and dispersed within the academic realm. (I feel like I need to quantify that lest I come across as being an ingrate) ARGH.

No, I'm not having the most fantastic time. Social welfare policies don't fascinate me the least bit and I crave some Blake or Romantic prose.

good meat and belly dancers

Sometimes, someone says the right things or you take a step in the right direction and life doesn't seem as dismal as it did mere moments ago.

As refreshing as a breath of crisp, brisk air, the past few days have been cheerful or upbeat, at least. This is not to say that they were without their stresses or disappointments, but they were not altogether depressing so I say it's a cause for celebration.

Last night was the Appreciation Dinner for IED. Honestly, the office keeps feeding the students. haha, first it was the $5 lunch allowance at IED itself (which I didn't get cos I was getting paid), then it's this dinner... Not to mention the Americas tea session next week. haha. Of course, there were the FOUR receptions I had to plan for the Aggies when they were here.

ANYWAY, we went to Ambrosia on either Arab Street or Baghdad Street and to be honest, I was really tired by the time I actually got on the bus but my spirits were lifted once I got some food in me. It's a nice cosy place. An intimate setting which would have been perfect for a group of 6 or 10 at most but for 80 pax let's just say some reshuffling was needed.

The FOOD was an interesting gastronomical experience. For one, it was a buffet in the dark so I was literally not knowing what I was eating and depending entirely on my sense of taste. Most of it was delish, good creamy and rich Middle Eastern cuisine and here is where I wish I were well versed in the art of talking about food so I could say more than the meat sent me through the roof. What I thought was hummus, however, was something much smoother in consistency and sweeter in taste. So it didn't exactly appeal to me. lol. So last night was an experience of how something familiar (pita & hummus looking things and meat) manifested into a different kind of eating experience.

It didn't appeal to Lakon at all, though. lol. What was interesting for me, sociologically, was the fact that it was a First for that whole room of people. And it's interesting to think about why Yuni picked a Middle Eastern place to host dinner for over 60 exchange kids instead of something more obviously Singaporean. :) And the social interactions that emerged from that setting - the distribution of people according to their nationalities/sections/roles of office... How they interacted over the food... The gender roles were interesting though, because it was one of the dudes from the office who was helping to dispense the drinks... haha. "I'm waiting to see how you respond to the food before I try it."

I'm not saying I was exactly sitting there doing non-participant observation as rationalization for sitting there in anti-social silence. Well, although I was (relatively) quiet while eating my yummy food... haha. Truth be told there really is no such thing as a quiet moment around Christine, Limin and Lakon. haha. And Christine's stuffed PIG! hahahaaa

There was a belly dancer and my overzealous booty shaking at IED almost got me implicated but... hehe... lucky I remained safe as a spectator. heheee.

I was reminising about Queens' (again!) with Jun - here's an observation about what happens when NUS returnees meet exchange students from their host uni - they reminisce! haha. :) Anyway, we went for sheeshah, where Jeremy reminded me of the caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland (the Disney version).

Still, my frame of mine yesterday has to be credited to someone or something else - an unlikely source. You know, sometimes you forget things you set out to do, things you say, things you intend to do... You get swept off your path. All you need is someone to remind you of what's important in life, and what makes you happy. It's strange but the load on my back got considerably lighter after that. I think life is more pleasant when you know there are people out there who care about you - without obligations. So thanks. :)

i'll swear it all over again.

lyk, OmYgAwDnEsS we went to see Westlife yesterday. They were sOoOoO sooperduper lyk, cute!!! *squeeeee*

HAHAHAHAHAA.
Yes, a trip through my past through the journey of Westlife last night. I got a message offering me tickets to Westlife so after the initial decline, I thought about the lousy week I've been having and how it might be nice to just surround myself in collective effervescence and scream my head off like an insipid hormonal teenage fangirl.

I got zai, nadz and nad's sis to go with me and I do believe the only true fan amongst us was Nad's sister. Still, I had fun and it was lovely to hang out with the Merepek meropoks. :) Great stress relief. Plus, they never fail to make me smile. :) *hugz, dudes*

Today was great too. I'm glad I decided to go to Nisa's graduation get together after all - got to see all my friends again - i really really miss all these people. Got to hang out with my sexmates again and somehow or rather also saw a couple of ex-PRSS people I never really knew... haha.

sweetness!

rescue me, somebody.

"There's an empty place inside of me that only he can fill."
metaphorically speaking, of course. :P

*sigh* The song makes me sad. My unresolved issues make me sad. Over dinner with mash and shang I realised (or rather, they pointed out) that I still haven't accomplished the things I wanted to do 6 years ago. Or should I say, since six years ago. As I unveiled my new plan, they pointed out that it was the plan of 6 years ago, repackaged. The plan was to clean my room, declutter my life of undesirable elements. lol. Detox my life. I resolve to do it by the end of this month so I can have the next 6 years to obsess over something other than the clutter in my life. Clutter - useless things you accumulate that take up the space of things that could be meaningful. I think it's sad that I see so little of the people who make me happy, the little beacons who light up my life. It's just disappointing, some of the choices I've made these past years. I've had some regrets and maybe things would have turned out better had I done something differently but I have no power over that now so better I concentrate on things I do eh?

Right now I'm very overwhelmed. I didn't do my homework. I haven't not done homework since primary school, when, as the annals of history would show, I was a monster child - every teacher's nightmare. But I'm in freaking university now! I'm struggling with a one page memo due three days ago. What the hell is wrong with me.

IED has completely thrown me off and I'm gonna need to work triply hard to catch up now. My Justice presentation is NEXT freaking week and I've got no freaking idea what the freaking hell is going on... My Qualitative memo lies in shards and fragments of ideas before me... I have to skip my Computing lecture yet again to deal with it (although I have been going for the tutorials)... I am a little bit lost in Social Policy. ARGH. I need to get my life in order.

I'm sad that the people who were there for me last semester/last year have walked out of my life, even if they're still around. It just... it just saddens me is all. I guess Honours year really is an individual endeavour.

IED was good, by the way. And it was partly schoolwork - networking for contacts for my thesis interviews. :) Plus, I'm getting paid for it so w00t!

Speaking of w00ts, *KICKS*.

Angsty Angst

In The Little Prince, the fox tells the prince that "words are a source of misunderstanding." I never thought I would admit this out loud, but I wholeheartedly agree. There's too much incriminating evidence to its testament. *lol* Letters and me inevitably lead to some kind of disaster, albeit of varying degrees. So, yes. Words are indeed a source of misunderstanding if only because of all the things that remain unsaid. And in the silence, in the absence, in the void of these unspoken words that should seek to explain, the process of interpretation takes place. Even in the presence of words, interpretation takes place. And this only beging to explain the chaos of my life.

Then again, take away the words and even more confusing it becomes! You start interpreting actions instead and you believe things you want to believe that just... sustains you for a year or two until reality crashes that illusion.

There are things that need to be said. Things that need explaining. Yet I know I'll never say them and I know there are some things I'll never know, I'll never understand. There was a time I thought expression was the epitome of a healthy mind. That was little miss idealist, drunk on Blake ideology. She got slapped in the face by Old Man Experience. and people who don't believe in Blake ideology.

As much as it was a torment to my soul and a series of implosions of angst and anguish, I miss it. I miss the familiarity, the implied trust, the glimmer of hope which always seemed to hover around us, darting in the shadows... I miss the comfort, the excitement, the little silly thrills. I miss the poetry. The eyes.

The special feeling.

I wish I could banish the doubts and erase the empty bitter years. I want to throw caution to the wind and fuck propriety and just... release the truth into the wind. But I can't and I won't because I've been socialised too well. And you demonstrated before that you didn't want to know. My silence is appreciated, it allows your soul a peaceful conscience. I missed the boat. The Train Don't Stop Here Anymore.

So the next time I see you I'll just pray to God my eyes don't betray my silence.

Emily Dickinson knows my heart.

XI. COMPENSATION.
For each ecstatic instant
We must an anguish pay
In keen and quivering ratio
To the ecstasy.
For each beloved hour
Sharp pittances of years,
Bitter contested farthings
And coffers heaped with tears.

"You need more color in your wardrobe"

I've been meaning to tell everybody about my summer with the Aggies, but alas, once more this must wait. Today I want to blog about yesterday. Yesterday was an Aggie day, whatever it means to have an Aggie day without a single one of them. Well, let me tell you all about it.

Yesterday I wore one of the 2 tops that Kim got me.hehe. And of course, that day ran through my head. And what a freaking sad day it was. Bob, Fernando, Mike, Kim and I had headed out to Bugis Village on what was their last full day in Singapore. Kim was p.o-ed with Jonathan for not getting up to go to Batam as they'd planned and Fernie had gotten her one of those cute sunflower chocolates to cheer her up. (By the way, you've gotta forgive my confusion of tenses here. I think I was daydreaming the day the teacher was going through Past participle and Past tense in primary school.) ANYWAY. We were in Giordano cos Fernie wanted to buy a shitload of cheap polo shirts. Mike and Bobby were of course, bored as hell, haha, but Kim motioned me over and made me try on this pink tank top and a green halter, admonishing me when I picked up something black - "You need more color in your wardrobe!" Of course, that statement was ringing through my head all day yesterday when I was wearing it. *lol* Thanks Kim. :) The others went back to pack and Bob and I went to Orchard for Food Odyssey Part Dos. It was sad, he kept pointing out "LAST DAY" signs because incidentally, it was also the last day of the Great Singapore Sale.

/flashback

haha. The first day school started actually, I already thought of Kim, but it ran through my mind again yesterday. The bazaar at the Forum, and the little stalls along the AS 1 walkway reminded me of her. My first thought was "Kim would love this!" lol... I'm sure she would have found some flipflops or t-shirts or earrings to buy. And I'm sure Jonathan would have too. *lol*

So yesterday...
I was sitting on the Forum steps, opposite from the exact spot I'd been sitting with Bobby the day we'd had lunch at the Deck. And some random dude came out of the lift, took out his skateboard and skated out of the Forum. Weird and random and reminded me of Bob. Prior to that, I'd met both the GEK teachers on two separate occasions, I might add. lol... Then at City Hall.... Well, City Hall holds a dozen magic moments within it for us all...

Oh, I'm also a dingbat. I forgot my wallet yesterday. haha! And I've managed to owe more than $60 already. Thanks shidah for helping me pay for the deposits for the SC4213 texts ($40), thanks Iris for paying for the choir ticket ($15) and dinner ($6.25) first, thanks for the uber-yummilicious cheesecake maya and thanks to adyll for lunch. :)

*hugs out to all*

Clearing out the system

Here's just some random musings - things to exhume from my mind to make room for all the Sociology coming up in the week. ;)

Sunday night was a much belated rendezvous with Lokie. Was fabulous to just sit and talk about NIE, Malay, travelling... and my thesis. My thesis seems to be a pet conversation topic of mine - get used to it, people. I suspect you will hear little of anything else in the coming year. >,< Lokie helped me out, and we talked about some of the challenges I might face with my topic. Eymani was supposed to come too, but she had to work late. I'm looking forward to a nice cosy reunion of the sexmates. lol.

Tonight I met up with Suan Lee. Chairil was supposed to come too, but he had to work late. I miss my boys! It's a little reassuring to know that some things stay the same, and SL and Chairil remind me off innocent days of secondary school which were the best days of my life.

My mother thinks Bobo is pregnant.

I still need a supervisor.

Remind me to tell you about my Life Makeover. It began with an epiphany in a Borders aisle, incidentally, during a Depressed Day. I was perusing something called The Big Book of Me, something which would inevitably catch the interest of a sociopath like yours truly. A random page opened and it spoke of two kinds of friends - Friends who Energise and Friends who Drain you. I have both. I am not proud of the fact, and up to that moment I was laced with guilt at the very idea of thinking of my friends as "draining". I thought I had insecurity issues (I probably atill do - but the point is that now I can acknowledge it without guilt because, hey, it's not me!) but then there you go. Now that I can acknowledge it, what am I going to do about it? I have the power. I can reconfigure my reality. So I either have to find a new paradigm so hanging out with some people isn't so full of agony and I don't sit, festering, thinking I'd rather be poking my arm with a series of sharp pokers and feeling slighted OR I can simply NOT HANG OUT WITH THEM. Shang and Mash and everyone I whine to keep telling me that but out of obligation, I've just kept doing it. I talked to Mike, and he stated the obvious: If you don't tell them what they're doing wrong, how are they going to change?

Valid points, all of them. "I was angry with my friend/I told my friend/My wrath did end/I was angry with my foe/I told him not/My wrath did grow". *HUGS BLAKE* Personally, honestly, I don't see the point in a confrontation. I may be wrong, but ANYWAY. My point: my life is in my control. I'm responsible for my own decisions.

My thesis statement, so to say, is this: Henceforth, I am going to try as far as I may, to make intelligent and informed rational decisions about my life. Especially those which have a direct influence on my happiness. I am eager to be content with my life, screw whoever who stands in my way. Now I'm not being idealistic here. I know it won't be easy. But I intend to face every obstacle in my way and try my best to overcome them. I guess my Life Makeover is just my goal to be happy. Do something productive about my misgivings. Etc.

I'm clearing out my room. Those of you who know me and actually seen my room will know the magnitude of this endeavour. I'm a sentimental fool. I keep junk. Well I figure, I need to clear out old clutter to make way for the new. Both metaphorically and literally. Applies to both people and things.

ZAIFAAAA!!! I'm waiting for my list.... heheheheeeee.... Can't wait! :)

you & me, against the world

hahaaa... I'm in a really great mood now. :)
Thanks to Balwinder, Joanne, Lokie and of course, dear Christophe.
It's uncanny.

Nobody knew about the weight on my heart. How it had momentarily frozen. How the progress I thought I'd made over the past couple of weeks vanished in an invisible puff of something possibly illegal or fictional. Nobody knew about the latent anger within me, how I wanted to ... well, hurl something flammable at somebody. How I felt like there was a glass wall between me and what I needed - so close, yet so far.

ANYWAY. Then people started talking to me. And I talked about my thesis topic and crap and then Christophe came on and he's just lovely! I miss Christophe!! And he was wonderful and all French and reminded me of happy Canada days and je veux un homme and tu est beau gargon and Eymeric... hahaaa

so you can take your stupid geeky thing and shove it where the sun don't shine, moron.

the only thing worse than your absence is your silence

oh god, karma is indeed cruel.

"If I never see you again, then think of me now and then
Though it hurts so deeply
They say all good things come to an end"

The SONG is PLAYING on my freaking radio, and all I want to do is fling something flammable at it.

Emotional Management, Easy Answers and Idealism

I wish there was a pill or a candy bar I could eat to just make all these unwanted feelings and sensations go away. (There is - it's called Prozac. haha) I know what I'm doing when I'm wishing for all these pills or stupid switches to make unwanted emotions dissipate - I'm looking for an easy solution. And I, of all people know that technological determinism is probably not the way to go. These things tend to dehumanise you. Or me, whatever.

It took a while to occur to me, though, that every individual (at least in contemporary society, Marianne Dashwood excluded) is actually equipped with their own internal on/off emotion switch. It's called Emotional Management and everyone uses it everyday. In Sociology of Emotions, we talked about how prostitutes sacrifice their emotional satisfaction for economic enfranchisement. We made the same analogy to service workers. If that analogy holds, then are we not all some kind of whore? We all inevitably sacrifice our idealism to the market (and yes, I have theories about that too) and we all try to manipulate our emotions in some way or another. To convince ourselves that something is for the best, to guard ourselves against inevitable heartbreak, to deal with the inevitable heartbreak when it finally descends...

Emotional Management is necessary in society, we are all expected to make emotional whores of ourselves. Look at Marianne Dashwood as an example of what happens to you when you indulge in excessive sensibility: you end up sick and on the brink of death, inconvening everyone around you and you end up settling for Colonel Brandon instead of the Willoughby who you love, but is a whorrific prick himself. Plus, you end up being a social outcast, having broken the laws of propriety of the Victorian age you live in. heh. See, that's what happens when you put faith in abstract concepts and vagueness and things that were "always implied but never declared" (Austen). Even if they did, for a brief period of time, made you feel that perhaps existence isn't overrated after all and that life had meaning. -shrug- They don't call me Queen of Denial for nothing, you know.

Unfortunately, Blogspot ate up the better half of this post concerning idealism, youth, Blake's Songs and Easy Answers. I think I can recall some of the Easy Answer bit, but there was a wonderfully effusive and emotional motivational spiel which preceded it which I really wish hadn't gotten deleted because it balanced out the whole "Hayati is a Useless Whiner" theme of the post. It was great. ANYWAY.

Easy Answers are a tad like Cheap Chocolate and Fast Food (alliterations are mere coincidences!) - addictive, unsatisfying and will probably contribute to your premature aging/death. I think we've all watched enough movies to know that they don't really answer anything and to quote a line fromo Joan of Arcadia yesterday, "It's not about the answers. It's about asking the right questions." In Scitech lecture last semester, the prof was talking about how good questions are those which churn other questions - to which a (probably lost) Engineering dude asked "Why do Sociologists ask so many questions? Where are the answers?" I guess life is about exploring all possible truths, experiencing all the joy and pain that life has to answer. Perhaps the answer is that there is no answer; you have to live and experience the questions.

Adam Sandler's new movie - Click - intrigued me in a sense. Now, while I don't want to forward my life past the pain, I think it would be nifty to go watch old memories. Then again, it would be just as easy to get lost in the past instead of living in the present, which is what I must learn to do. Still, a Pensieve would be pretty nifty too. :)

See, this embrace of pain is a very idealistic notion. How as youth, we are so willing to sacrifice ourselves to the Gods of Idealism. Blake's Innocent Songs. Imagination. Egalitarianism. Expression. When ideals are mere ideas. Beautiful ornamental ideas. And as we grow up and reality clashes. When little rocks hurl themselves against our idealistic notions and values as the world of real Experience takes over our lives. "He who desires but acts not breeds pestilence." Repression. Rationalism. Reason as teh Evil. When Marianne Dashwood indulges her ideals against the social mores of her time, she almost dies. And then she sells out. "Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds" (Shakespeare, Sonnet 18?) It's a sweet concept, but when faced with a cheating adulterous spouse, are you going to keep loving him the same way? I suppose there has to be a compromise. Perhaps now it's a little bit clearer why Old John and the Nurse from the Innocence songs - perhaps now I know why they're so revered. It's a matter of keeping that childlike vision, the ability to see "heaven in hell's despite", holding on to what you believe in despite everything else you've seen and gone through. To be able to wield your pain and use it to productive means.

I've always said that if you can't change your situation, you have to change your mindset. At the end of the day, it's all about control. It's true that sometimes, your thoughts can be harder to wield than your actions but if you know how to manipulate them... you could be the most optimistic and happiest person in the world. I just need to learn that skill.

I'm very frustrated that blogspot ate my post. I was proud of it. But see, I never learn from my past experiences. I always get so drawn into the moment of what I'm doing that it slips my mind to protect myself... and my post. I suppose one forgets. And there's always something to be learnt out of everything that happens (or doesn't happen). I know for a fact that I don't want to be like William Blake's The Angel, "shielding her fears with ten thousand spears".

William Blake's The Angel
I dreamt a dream! What can it mean?
And that I was a maiden Queen
Guarded by an Angel mild:
Witless woe was ne'er beguiled!
And I wept both night and day,
And he wiped my tears away;
And I wept both day and night,
And hid from him my heart's delight.
So he took his wings, and fled;
Then the morn blushed rosy red.
I dried my tears, and armed my fears
With ten thousand shields and spears.
Soon my Angel came again;
I was armed, he came in vain;
For the time of youth was fled,
And grey hairs were on my head.