'The Cold Within'

Just want to share this lovely poem...sad but so true..

'The Cold Within'

Six humans trapped by happenstance, in bleak and bitter cold
Each one possessed a stick of wood, or so the story's told

Their dying fire in need of logs, the first man held his back
For of the faces 'round the fire, he noticed one was black

The next man looking 'cross the way saw one not of his church
and couldn't bring himself to give the fire, his stick of birch

The third one sat in tattered clothes, he his coat a hitch
Why should his log be put to use to warm the idle rich?

The rich man just sat back and thought, of the wealth he had in store
And how to keep what he had earned from the lazy shiftless poor

The black man's face bespoke revenge as the fire passed from sight
For all he saw in his stick of wood, was a chance to spite the white

The last man of this forlorn group did naught except for gainGiving only to those who gave, was how he played the game

Their logs held tight in death's still hand, was proof of human sin
They didn't die from the cold without

They died from the cold within.

"Stars hide your fires..
let not light see my deep and dark desires"

'It's not the mountain that we have to conquer, but ourselves'
- The 1st man to ever climb the everest.

Before the rain

Caution : This one's gonna be depressed and depressing..DO NOT CONTINUE if you're not feeling ecstatic at this point...on 2nd thoughts,maybe not even then.
Ok u have been warned.
I hope this is just a passing cloud..a grey one at that...been so busy trying to block things out of my mind..and not let stuff get to me too much.....everything's moving so fast..days and weeks merging into one another..i hate it when boundaries start blurring..time and time again we forget the things that matter...sometimes its being there for others..sometimes it's being there for ourselves...sometimes its just the confidence that others are there for us..then why does it feel like nothing is ever enough...shld it all really matter this much? I;m busy..tired and stressed and anxious and worried..but i can get used to these...(infact come to think of it, they're a blessing at this point..keeps the emotions away...its comforting being on mechanized mode..coz u feel kinda numb...and u can get used to it)
the emptiness is taking a while tho..maybe i'll never get used to it..hopefully i will.
weird how u can feel soo weighed down and burdened and empty at the same time huh...one of life's many contradictions...
maybe we are better off as islands..isolated...and self sufficient so we dont get too emotionally reliant on anyone..and there are no expectations...and that way, we wld just be there for ourselves and that would be enough..
idealism again....oh well old habits die hard they say..
guess that's why its so difficult...but i do beleive in paradigm shifts...it'll come, its just a matter of time.
Oh gosh this is so not the way i wnat to start this week..there's jst so much to be done i can't afford to be in this mode/mood or whatever this is..i hope i'll wake up tomorrow and feel light (ok fine this is asking for too much)...anything but the way i feel now.
It's funny how sometimes...what u feel u need most rite now...is exactly what you don't have.
Or is that
what you don't have, is exactly what u feel u need most rite now.
Don;t know if there's a difference...probably not.
And did i say it was funny....
hah.
Oh well tomorrow's a brand new day...

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things i cannot change
The courage to change the things i can
and the wisdom
to know the differnce.

- serenity prayer, one of my all time favourites.

Gone Lippi

(By the way...There's a lipstick/lipgloss called born lippy right???sounds familiar...)

And so the presentation is finally over...note : i still have one more next friday..and that too is in an all too familiar unsettling state of uncertainty and confusion...but we'll stumble and stutter our way thru...like we usually do..like we did today certainly.
The class is just so damn intimidating...i know ive never been big on presentations or anything...but i think after all the practice ive had thanks to my 4 years in this wonderful supposedly reputable world class educational institution. I wonder how many maxims i just flouted/violated (i don;t even know the damn difference and im presenting on this stuff next week..and the best part is, This topic is like THE ONLY topic i've actually managed to sorta comprehend in the entire semester of..ok ive lost count but at least 9 lectures i guess...happening....or as ribenaberry would say in her characteristic inimitable way, i'm simply the champion.
Today's Lippi-(better not use any adjective,can't trust myself at this point)-green's presentation wch me and crabby did was so...bleaagghhh, to quote crabby (she says it best, with the classic and most apt expression!!!)...actually it was a bleaggh reading right from the start...i didnt mind reading it coz it was actually interesting (ok fine i find anything ideological interestig, im obsessed with ideology) but that aside...coming to grips with it was another matter all together..was so hard to deal with the reading (altho it's pretty comprehensive)...structuring our ideas and analysis was quite a challenge and though i thought it was going well and we did discuss some really good points...it seemed like the end product was a let down and didnt reflect the effort,time,energy,stress,lost-sleep and cab fares that went into this presentation. I tihnk the class threw us off...it[s pretty disarming...yea yea i know it sounds like an excuse..like its always THEM not ME but some of us will know what im talking about. The (ahem) audience, with a few chweet exceptions, looked at us like we were were rattling off in hebrew...i mean i can understand fr myself..coz later my prof told me i covered 5 slides in like 2 mins or something (someone pls inform guiness)...so that's worse than hebrew...but crabby was clear...more nervous than usual tho(and this is a girl who asks qstns and intimidates Dr.' blink blink bow tie' to no small extent!)...but she was clear and i know we had gd points...had more points that we didnt say but stuff we said was pretty ok....right??? Oh well..on the whole i guess all is not lost...in terms of relative performance i don't think it was waaay below standard..er...ok i might be presumptious about this but i don[t intend to let tihs rainy dreary wednesday depress me any further. Basically, i shall celebrate the end of my 2nd last presentation this entire semester - purely metaphorically speaking coz i have another presentation next week and there's no time to do that, let alone celebrate.And after that there will be lets see..3 term papers in a row of a mere few thousand words each..and then voila! Exams! haaaaleyloooyah! (fr the record, i do know how to spell it, i'm just trying to write it the way it sounds)...come to think of it, if only language was like that, we linguistics majors wldnt hav such a miserable life..well we may not have anything much to study but there IS more to life...one has to rememember that though it takes considerable effort.
Speaking of which....
where did the semester go???I still remember 1st day of classes...but then again, i still remember 1st day of Uni when me and crabby got lost perpetually (tihngs havent changed mch) and when we still called each other to plan what we wld wear to sch on cultural fridays.
I hate feeling nostalgic...it dsnt help!!
Its 8.10pm im still in the damn computer cluster..too saturated to go to the study area and do any work...too exhausted to do any kinda browsing/borrowing...too depressed and stressed to go home...also it feels funny that i CAN actually leave at 8..after 1.5 weeks of leaving sch no earlier than 11pm.
Feels weird not doing certain things that ive always managed to incorporate into my schedule no matter how hectic its been..or despite circumstances, there's always been time fr certain things/ppl..somethings have always been a given....and it might just be me getting into my hyper-analytic paranoid state...but something deep inside dsnt quite feel at ease..i know things are changing...i knew they would and they have to...but i'm still so much the kid i was...change is still very unwelcome...somethings take a while to get used to..a looong while...
i'm not gonna dismiss the idea that change is perceived...lots of things are..but i aint going to dwell on this anymore than i have to coz a large part of my presentation today was on perceptions....so...go figure.
Oh well...ther'es just no pleasing some ppl...when i don't feel upset about a certain change, i worry about it...and then when i DO, i worry about THAT TOO. i tihnk the 2nd half of my name shldnt be 'ari'....it shld be 'worry'.
Feel so out of control...and its supposed to be MY LIFE!!!I'm a control freak i know...Actually if my name had 'control' before it, tht wld be perfect...it wld be alliteration too...and nothing wld describe me better. Control-kumworry. WOW.
iF any of u are actually still reading this,
1) i reallyyyyy am sorry coz i tihnk ur life must be more sad and pathetic and messed up than mine
2) u probably dont hve a life - ur not alone.I havent had a life my entire life. Try analysing that!
3) u think i'm either losing it,lost it, or getting suicidal. ok here's the consolation, i;m not suicidal so don't worry more than u need to...otherwise, i'll get start developing an identity crisis as well..hmm...can one develop an identitiy Crisis?? ok ok i'll shut up.
(see..here i am, i dont know if im talking to myself or to others..though i spewed a whole lot of bigtalk and nonsense about how the point shld be the former and bla bla...right now i don't care anymore lah.I'm talking ("talking") and i'm also "listening"to myself...whether or not there's readership is immaterial...i must admit i am happy to know when ppl do read though..and comment... :)

I wonder if we really should have analyzed blogs fr ID project...the whole written vs spoken registers thingi...might have been quite fun actually...(except perhaps explaining the concept of blogs to my group mate who's of a different generation might just be a little too trying fr me.)

I need to end this, before i start getting hatemail from my faithful reader fans (ha HA)...or i might get banned frm blogging, or sued for 'threat to other's positive mental states.'...for my dear friends who are reading this....i'm sure u know im fine and just being me.I'll be fine tomorrow morning. Hope u guys are hanging in there ( i hate this term but i've got to use it, for the want of a better cliche, and really, my head is heavy but i feel all floaty..i tihnk its the lightness that's come upon me ever since my mind went missing.)

Ok com cluster gonna shut down...so i really REALLY should shut up now.
Ciao folks till another "lambchops sing along coz they dont have deadlines" sessions.
Oh and of coz, a quote...never appreciated it before but now its become my mantra.

"The world sux....but then again, if it didn't, we'll all fall off"

And miles to go before i sleep

The woods are lovely, dark and deep
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
– Robert Frost

Don't feel like saying much..i'm exhausted...and feel like i just can;t enuff sleep..feel numb and out of control and .........
The human mind is a fascinating thing..the depths of it...the dimensions to it..complex beyond imagination.. unfathomable...do we ever really know anyone, including our ownselves?
And life..really..where are we going..how much to let go how much to hold back..how to know...oh so many questions..
Too tired to think...is there any point??

"I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next. Delicious Ambiguity."

i've come to realise (at this point at least..i'm sure tomorrow there will be a whole new conception)...I;m not going to conclude anything.. For now.. Life, i think, just is.

Oh well, we all have our own questions..and who really knows the answers rite..we're in it together adn we'll help each other along the way, even if its the case of blind leading the blind..we may not have all the answers, but we have each other.

To end of on a positive note...

"Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At present you need to live the question. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day. "
- Letters to A young Poet

Isn't this reassuring?I do actually feel better, if nothing else.

Analyze this

Sometimes when something happens...we don't give it much thought..we jst let it go..and then other things happen, and u sense some remote relation between the events...and somethings click and i think that's when and how the most duh things hit you..

Was talking to 2 good friends today(ribena berry & pooh)...and incidentally, they were saying differnet things to me..and both kinda inspired this contemplative ..er..mood, for the want of a better word.We were talking, seperately about the concept of time and also friendship..for a bit of background... both these wonderful,wonderful people have been a part of my life for quite a number of years now.. but for different reasons which i never really thought much about, we didn't develop our relationship...they were both my friends, perhaps a little more than acquaintances..when we met up/talked we had a good time and that's about it. i liked them both alot but had my own insecurities and was extremely absorbed wthin in my own little circle of friends..my comfort zone and safety space, which is the case till today and that's somethnig i'll not want to change for the world...i'm more convinced everyday that even if that circle expands, or evolves into some other shape, it will remain as special and indispensable to my life.Recently ive been thinking there is so much more out there...so many others, whom we can share with, learn from, and once we get past the little bubble we set around ourselves in, we discover so much more, both within and without...and often its not coz we dont want to take the 1st step..its just that we dont see the need to..we're contented in our own worlds...in blissful oblivion..until sometimes, things change so much..and somethnig drastic happens, which forces u out of ur own shell..and then u realise how much you have shut out and you wonder why u didnt see certain things before..but like i say, it's never too late to make a start in the right direction...adn step out into the sunshine! (ribena u've heard this one - and i'm sure u know what i mean - since u'r the fresh air fish - i mean person and all)

Been reflecting alot on another friend recently..(can't think of a name fr her now but someday i will..and it'll be synonymous with strength.)..and some changes & challenges she's been going through..realised how much time we've let slip by and how much has transpired in that time...i wish i had been there fr her...though i hope..and beleieve she probably had her own guardian angels, those who were meant to be there with her at that time, to help her through... i'm sure everyone goes through a bad patch at some point or other..and during our darkest moments we cling on to the little hope we have and even when we know there are ppl who care and are always there for us, we feel so terribly alone and so afraid..i dont want to be mighty mouse (those who know me would know how ridiculous and ironic this imagery is btw) or try be the knight in shining armour there for every damsel/dope in distress (excuse the sexist cliches!!)...but i dont want to look back and ask myself "where was i , when my friend needed all the support she could..when she needed it most??"I'm working on improving my relationships with ppl in my life now..smethnig i wish i had done much earlier..and not after/because i came this close to losing someone..but that;s how it is in life isnt it..we dont really value many things untill we lose them..or come close to it. I just hope and pray that somewhere somehow alarm bells will go off in my head before it really is too late...

Was telling this friend of mine, (pooh) about waiting for godot, this awesome book i did for A level Lit..one of those phenonmenal inspiring things which make all the sense in the world despite and through the abstraction and overwhelming sense of emptiness and nihilism...very meaningful.Those who've read this will know what i'm talking about.So i was trying to tell Pooh about this play, but of coz u can never really communicate all that it embodies.....well she wsa saying somethnig about how she was just waiting..and waiting and waiting...and that's waht sparked it off...and i told her about this play where these 2 guys do just that..they wait, day after day, for godot..they dont know who/what godot is, how he looks, when/how he will come or if he will ever come in the 1st place!So they just wait..and each day resembles the day before with minor changes here and there...blurring boundaries..but after a while, as the reader you know the pattern...but they just live it.

Such is life my friends..we're all waiting for our own godots, sometimes we dont know what we're waiting for and it actually passes us by..but life goes on..and all we can do is live.I dont mean to end off sounding morbid or tragic..infact a sublime sense of peace and order has taken over...and this doesnt happen too often so i shall bask in it for a while...

Oh..until i i need to go get started working on my presentation which is coming closer..too close for comfort..
looks at the clock... :s
Did i say sometimes we get a slap of reality when we least expect it, but most need it???
*Bubble bursts*
Carpe Diem

Back with a vengeance

i realise its been a while....
But i'm back (ok yogajunkie stopped beaming....heh)
After what happened the last time i tried to write something, i thought that was the end of my blogging phase..but guess i'm back here again so maybe i'll give it another go.we all deserve a 2nd chance, even computers,technology...adn...er..blogs.yea..
thing is, there was one night a long time ago (think its been 3 weeks) when i came home from a particularly inspiring dinner session with some family friends...it was very enlightening and really helped me to reflect on things i've been wondering about alot, and yet not quite going anywhere with it..getting lost in my thoughts, that kinda thing. We talked about God and religion and reincarnation,the soul etc..felt good at the end of it and even tho i still had questions.. i was inspired to think more about it..it was one of those lonely nights online...fri/sat night i think so hardly anyone else except urs truly was online...so i sat and typed in here..a long,long LONG blog on everything...that conversation,my thoughts,fears..just everything and it was such a nice blog coz it realy flowed. Until i decided to save it, coz something gave me a feeling i was gonna lose it all if i didn't...u know how sometimes u get this ultimate feeling of BLISS and everything's just perfect, so perfect u just knw something's probably gonna go wrong somewhere sooon..yea..so i hit the f12 key and that did it.
Lost the ENTIRE thing. the feeling of emptiness and disbelief that ensued is indescribable..was surprisingly calm...just sat there taking in the the hollow feeling...call me dramatic but i told myself this is how women feel when they hav a miscarriage. oF coz i cldnt bring myself to rewrite that blog..or write anymore fr quite a while after that night...
In retrospect...i was thinking about it.... the whole point of me doing this, is a form of release, catharsis (one of my favouritests words!) for my own sake...and i achieved it by simply letting it all out when i typed it..i was disappointed of coz when i lost it coz i cldnt post it and share it and read back and feel a sense of pride and think, "i wrote this!"...but hey, not all's lost..the point was to reflect , and i did..objective achieved. I'm glad i've been able to log in and face this page again after that night.
Not that this kinda thing is new to me or anything...it's been worse - in my 1st sem of my 1st yr in uni... i had just written an entire essay (lit term paper) of 2500 words..and was at word count ..when i did something, and lost the whole thing. Cldnt retreieve it..and it was 5am...essay was due later that day.Then, i panicked..i sat there and almost went ballistic..cried my eyes out...desperately tried everthing,until i realized there was nothing else i cld do and i might as well rewrite it while thoughts were fresh.And so i did..and i did terribly fr that paper too btw.
Lesson 1 : always save continually while typing long essays/blogs/emails etc
Lesson 2 : f12 is not the universal save key. For blogs, it deletes,so don't be lazy..do the usual copy/paste thing

So anyway...I might have actually updated this sooner but been swamped with work..huge buffet of deadlines term papers and presentations and tests coming up...*senses nods of agreement and empathy*...but hey..just DIG IN FOLKS!! We'll live, and get thru...as we did last semester and the ones before...

ps : If u never hear from me ever ever ever again..pls ignore the above paragraph and know that i died in the process of writing some term paper which i never completed..and never saw that disgusting grade..or that i died of stress and stage fright in the middle of my 1 hr presentation....and if u have to remember all that crap i said here - let it serve u as a warning not to be disillusioned and fatally optimistic.

" optimism killed her" they'll say.


Parting shot : " Everything's ok in the end....if it's not ok...it's not the end"

Don't u just love contradictions??
:P