i want life in every word

2012

Moods like this one rarely get to me, especially when they should. Though when-they-should is not particularly now. At this time of the year I am known to feel impossibly festive and happy but instead I have been feeling excessively reflective. As I sift the year’s events through my mind I realize there are many happy ones that I let fall smoothly through because I know I have fully appreciated them there and then, and thinking about them makes me content. But there are the others that are coarser and make me feel like I cannot really let them go, so I try to keep tossing them about to make sense of them. 

When you put carelessness and optimism together you get a bad mix. Perhaps I never really allowed myself to grieve/complain when I should have, as a healthy measure. When I try to grind these burdensome rocky thoughts through this sieve I feel like I shouldn’t have let them get there in the first place… Then again I am not exactly a big fan of complaining, for too much of it is always bad for the soul. 

Taking into consideration broader resolutions: This year I will not be careless. I have lost track of far too many things thus far (from my discipline to other my possessions, both big and small). One thing I will try not to let ebb away is my writing. (thank you raymow and melsa, beautiful diaries make lovely presents that also make a great incentive to write)

“May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you’re wonderful, and don’t forget to make some art- write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope-somewhere in the next year- you surprise yourself.” 

~Neil Gaiman, also a quote sent to me from Judith, who seemed to know exactly what I want for this new year. 

resolutions

I simply have one: to be awake. For when I am awake I will be active. (enough to pursue….) 

- A successful jailbreak- I don’t know where we are going, but I only know it will be good. 

-Yoga- to keep me trim and give some semblance of direction to my flowy thoughts.

-Progression to showjumping! -fingers crossed here

-Brush up on my Mandarin Chinese- because my current standard is shameful 

-Learn French at the language centre- because I’m one of those who needs homework, or discipline is pretty much out the window

-Read the bible- entirely

-Basically survive Lent and Easter term- with as few essay crises as possible 

I am pretty pleased because these seem pretty reasonable aspirations. Not to mention the list of things and places to look forward to. There’s Prague in Spring-Break with the PPS-ers and then Evan’s and my epic month-long Euro-trip which includes the likes of London, Paris, Provence, Anney/Nice, Pisa, Rome, Naples, Amalfi, Venice, Verona, Slovenia annnnnnndddd Amsterdam! Spent four hours this afternoon in a crowded Starbucks mapping everything out and felt all giddy at the end of it. 

Am shitting my pants for 2012. 

I feel much better after that day when I shut myself in my room, curled up in bed among a fortress pillows and read two half-books in one sitting. I think I have found a perfect way to escape the stifling, soft pressure of being stuck between two realities; escaping to a third (or fourth). Pach likes to tell me that he is always amazed at how much of an extrovert I am, because I seem to draw my energy from being around people. And he also likes drawing a comparison to himself; he energizes from being alone and often he misses solitude. But perhaps it doesn’t mean I cannot be a bit of both sometimes.

Yesterday was Mondy and my third year anniversary! I love that boy and all his alternative perspectives, even though they sometimes lead us to disagree. Life isn’t exciting and one cannot learn without disagreement. He fuels my flowy thoughts :)

it is time to get things back into perspective

Just washed and set a bowl of cherries, strawberries and peaches for my mom’s Christmas party. They were sitting out in the living room chatting and laughing to the quite-strong Boxing day breeze blowing through the windows, while I was admiring the dark red colour of the fruits. Evan says I have floaty thoughts. I think everyone has a mental condition in some way or another. Mine is having trouble putting things into perspective; it’s like twiddling with the knob that sits in the middle of a pair of binoculars and somehow not being able to see things in a set paradigm. 

Everything has been going right since the decision to avoid work for awhile. Sometimes I believe I am thoroughly in love with my course and that nothing could interest me more. But other times I feel weighed down by the problems thrust into my lap with each essay and the depressing information that I seem to have to force feed myself with, making me worry for the world just a little bit more.Sometimes it is too much to bear and throws me off balance. I obviously have yet to develop this “passionate detachment” that they speak of. But I know I need it if I want to make everything better. 

On a lighter note, Friday night did a wonderful job in heralding the Christmas spirit. All that was needed: a parent-free home, Jesus juice, an obese cat and an amusing combination of good company. Am now lying in bed digesting the last of my lavish Christmas meal collection: chilli & salted-egg crab. I’ve had 3 lavish meals in 3 different cuisines, all in a row. X’mas eve night, Mondy and I sat by the piano playing Christmas carols and the day itself was lovely, concluding with a skype with my favourite loudmouth Czech person (who is conscientiously trying to plough through the Nuer on Christmas day, I salute her).

Part of me doesn’t ever want to go back, but that’s just the childish part. Teehee~ 

Regressional

It seems i have terrible discipline when it comes to living between two different places at any one time because I tend to tell myself I need time for adjustment to different faces and times, which often results in me creating many silly and unnecessary exceptions for myself. As of late i have decided that I have been working too hard. I have just about finished some heavy reading on the new politics of the welfare state which was peppered with almost too much Econ jargon for my head to handle that i had to pop two panadols to sleep a throbbing migraine off. My mood thus far had been anything but christmassy and I have been so caught up in trying to reason with myself that I’ve been doing a horrible, almost close to zero job about Christmas.

So after much reasoning with myself I have decided that I have had quite enough. Now, with my knapsack full of unwrapped gifts and the essential mood, we are heading for a really good night ~

when it happens

You hand my straying mind a key to this secret room that materializes out of thin air. This is because when things are okay, it leaves no thought or trace. It is foreboding but I am driven to curiosity by my own sadness, for there is nothing else worth exploring when it happens this way. It is plastered with warning post-its in gaudy neon colours (that clash), and which, to a strange mix of horror and sadness, I realize are my own thoughts. I have been grasped by the ankles with which I am held very roughly to view the world all topsy-turvy for a split second. Only my head dips into a body of icy cold water and I am exposed and feel exposed. But still I know my heart is safe above the surface, and that it beats warm and hopeful in my chest. Still. 

One of those nights you crawl into bed at an ungodly hour and you think “sleep at last”. But one of those mornings that you know you wake, but feel like you haven’t slept at all because you haven’t had a dream. And when you cannot dream, you imagine.