chinese new year

chinese people (actually, indians too) make such a big fuss over new year. it's not just for one day, it's for the whole week. it's a holiday of excessive spending, people are shopping crazily, the price goes all the way up, but they are only afraid of not buying enough.

everything has to be brand new, from your bedings to your clothings. it's a red world, with lots and lots of flowers and decorations. gifts, stacks and stacks of chocolates and butter cookies. it's all too striking.

every year it's the day people get most careful with. if it doesn't go well it means the start of a bad year. if it goes extremely well you are immediately convinced that it will be a year of good fortune, and nothing will be able to trouble you for real for the rest of the year.

i am trying to live life day to day, rather than living a day as a day of a year, or a year as a year of a decade, or a decade as a decade of a century. sometimes we tend to drag things because we think there is a future and life is supposed to be long. and we eventually grow old with unfulfilled hearts. thus, dreams will always be dreams as we count too much on the future.

the truth is the future never comes, it's ever only the present that counts.

that's why i insist giving my mother a goodbye kiss everyday i go out, that's why i sent one poem to 700 journals, that's why i have to go to europe, that's why i am devoting much time into writing about nothing and everything, and that's why i would like to help my aunt and her kids.

because even if time waits, even if it goes on forever, life doesn't.

i can feel my heels starting their engine! :) and i am excited.

the mattress merchants

sometimes life makes you wonder why some of the good people have to end up badly. do you remember the mattress merchants? the good-hearted ones. the couple who delivered mattresses to my aunt and her 5 grandchildren on the 1st night they moved into the brick house. that night they had no money, only a rough floor and a blanket. and the mattress merchant couple wanted them to have some nice sleep, offering to deliver first, and collect the payment later.

today i heard from my aunt that they were killed by a bomb hidden in a ping-pong. both of them shattered into pieces. funeral held.

this afternoon i watched a drama performance, a terrific one, titled "alive in the mortuary".

this world has terrified me. why are there wars, conflicts and killings while life itself already comes with the package of aging, sickness and death?



it's too much. it really is too much.

about another stupid thing i did (but i feel totally happy with it)

i think i have received quite a lot of replies from the 400 e-mails of poetry submission i sent out yesterday. i am still overwhelmed. among the 400 (or more) editors, one of them found my poem awful, while some others think it's lovely.

that's a very realistic outcome.

and one of them actually came here and read my blog and found out that i submitted the poem to 400 journals (which makes me feel ridiculously excited.)

400 is just a tiny start, honey. it's only the beginning of the sugar coma project.

______________________________________

i have worked for like 14 hours today. and got my knees injured on my way to work this morning. but exhaustion is nothing when it's merely physical.

today

i submitted my poetry to about 400 journals, online ones, printed ones... etc. i feel a bit overwhelmed right now. why did i wait so long? maybe it was because i always thought that i was not good enough. but i realise that i have no time for waiting anymore.

i will learn along the way. i will make each step happen.

_____________________________

and finally i got to spend some time with my evil twin tonight! it's too amazing how we can always finish each other's sentences. and how we are always just too happy together! :)

and the day is bright again.

with some help my widowed aunt and her 5 grandchildren (yes i made a mistake, not 4, but 5) moved into the small brick house. for the 1st night they didn't have a bed to sleep on. and its floor is rough like the roads in new territories. the house is located at a remote area, and there are not much surroundings except trees and more trees. magically a bedings seller passed by their house the other night, and so they have now got a mattress to sleep on.

everything simply starts from the very zero. but they are all happy now, and so am i.

i can never imagine how it's like for a grandmother to be left with 5 kids not older than 12, and neither can i imagine how it's like for 5 kids not older than 12 to have only one adult to count on. i know situations like this can be found all over the world

but it is still tragically heartbreaking.

i am still writing poems if anyone is interested.

when i am done with reality i can't deal

i go to sleep.







and i am sleeping too much lately.

moments of my other lives.

it is a poetess' sickness. sometimes when i am reading what i have written i almost feel embarassed for myself, stupid girl how can you just bare your heart in ways so naked, or be so indulged in your own sentiments? but it takes certain self-indulgence to be a writer. we are our own favourite readers.

but these are moments of my other lives. i would have lived 17 different lives in a lifetime, just to make sure that i haven't missed anything dear. just to make sure that i have lived the right lives. i secretly think it doesn't matter how reality is, as long as i am content with my being, and my romance is still alive, at the very least on my mind. afterall i am not a scientist.

i honestly belong only to a world constructed with words, living with logics that are often viewed as chaos. but chaos make all possibilities work. i will never be tidy.

but these are merely moments of my other lives.

let's not think of him

as there are too many shes, brokenhearted
all alone, left in helplessness. he would say it would
not be fair to say
those many hes caused all those sufferings.

but who else could have?

marriage is the worst solution to all things.
it's a resolution. an end to every peace of mind
freedom-wise. the beginning of
many doomed mornings

of babies crying.

but then we, women, stupid beings
chase after years after years of loneliness
in deseperate need
to define, confine, until we deny
her bone of his bone for his back in her back -

their way to tease fate.

life is so heavy.

i am so worried, anxious, depressed. i can't see my own light. i wish i could read minds, at least i would be able to read my own mind. i have no idea how to take myself away from this deep dark hollow that is sucking my energy up.

i feel so alone.

best sunday dress

i slept my saturday away, woke up early this morning
went out with mom, went back home, spent some time on
teaching myself how to play the piano, it didn't really work
with my fingers being too cold, i
thought to myself that i had to work harder
and went back to bed. here i am sitting on it again after
having lain myself down with my eyes open wide for
some time, i could not really fall alseep, but gosh i am so tired.

i wish i could get all dolled up on a sunday, and go out
and have fun, i want talks over coffee in a brainstorming kind of
way, having my mind filled with grand ideas and good stories -
once upon a time i thought of me as interesting.
i want to be rushing home to write about my dates, even just about the way
he looked my way, i wish to be inspired. i want to call my butterflies up
and have them flipping over my stomach, giving me a feverish kind
of mind, which shall make me go rolling head over heels, along with songs that spill my heart.

when nothing happens i can blame the weather. or maybe the possibility that i am no longer attractive enough for any of these to take place. i am so young but feel so old.

but life is always larger than dating.

my last entry got my aunt and her 4 grandchildren 2 generous donors, a million thanks to these two artistic angels with the loveliest hearts. may god bless you always.

a tough age

i have got a widowed aunt in thailand who is now in her 60s or 70s, whom i have never met. having lost her husband and her son she is now left with no one but 4 kids - her grandchildren. about a month ago her village got flooded and after that she lost all property and became homeless. with a nice neighbor's help she and her kids had been "residing" in a school's classroom, every morning they had to leave when school starts, and could only go back when school is out. (i just realised that) they are now kicked out from the school and will have to be "residing" in a temple tonight.

i am ready to help, even if this helping has to last for years. but being a working girl and the only support of my own family, my resource is limited. i would like to give them a home. the cheapest place they can find to rent is a brick house with a small toilet, costing about HKD300 each month, but the shortcoming of it is that 3 people have once committed suicide in it. however, it is no time to be picky. having a roof is better than being left out on the street.

it breaks my heart simply to imagine how helpless they must be. so here is my petition: let's get them a home.

it is all based on trust, this fundraising, i welcome those who trust me and those who would like to help. it doesn't matter how much you would like to contribute, $1 in hk equals to $4 in thailand. for those who would like to help please contact me through email.

i am only good at writing, so every donor (of any sum of money, even just $1) gets a poem in return, you may tell me what you would like me to write about. or if you have something to be translated from english to chinese or otherwise, i can definitely help.

_____________________________________________

now here is my usual meaningless monologue.

being a 20 something is not easy, because it is the crucial period in which all wrongs have to be righted and every decision you make follows and influences you forever.

i think i have made some bad decisions, and i am now suffering from what i have dived into. i wish i can still go along with the go with the flow attitude. reality will never make me carefree, because it is not what reality is like. reality is heavily burdened with every sort of misfortune and helplessness.

yesterday we had a course on contemporary music appreciation. at one point the speaker talked about the romantics, and concluded that the romantics are those who chase after the unattainable. (and be happy about it even though it makes them miserable.)

so true. romance is to go against reality and dive into impossibilities knowing though that it will result in nothing real. but the journey matters. and only the journey matters.

i am a romantic if you go all the way down to my guts. but we have come to a point where how i am and who i am do not matter.

i am merely 23.

it makes the half dead me come alive – the idea that i’m going somewhere. i hate the idea of not making progress, it breaks my heart to see time being wasted away, standing still – i hate the idea that i cannot see the world. i just want to see it. not the malls, not the shops. i just want some quiet afternoons and the fairytale-like beautiful sceneries, some wonderful moments that would last forever. i would gaze like a greedy kid. i have waited for nearly 2 years. it is a dream that has grown on me. the reasons why it started out as a dream no longer matter. i am not sure about my reasons. i only feel it in my veins. there is this thing that i need to do. i can’t wait till i am older. i have waited long enough.

i am merely 23.

once upon a time i would say to myself that the world was in my hands, and everything was possible. that was the summer before love disappeared. (and came back in a realistic kind of way.) that summer was extremely hot. now it’s going to be for me the coldest winter ever. of course i am afraid. i am afraid of everything. i am worried about a lot of things, families, career, love and life itself in either a smaller picture or a bigger one. i wish i could get everything right. i wish i had done well.

i wish to not keep judging myself so constantly. i am exhausted by my own thoughts. why do i need a reason for everything? why am i so afraid of not being able to be perfect?

because i am afraid that if i am not perfect, i am not deserving.

a poetic and artistic project

pops onto my mind.

i am bringing my sugar coma to everywhere.

my mind is often full of ideas of different sorts, but most of the time if i don't act immediately, i mean, right on spot, these ideas will eventually slip away before they are actually actualised.

my problem is that i can't wait. i can't wait for things to happen. i can't wait to make things happen. it's ever now or never.

i think i've got a flu today. but my attitude has changed. the moody monster left after a certain period, and i am now back to normal, and hopefully, the loveable cherry.

the words "now" and "not" is just one letter away from each other. i guess the "w" in now means waiting, making now "no waiting"?

it's already 2011.

have you ever had the feeling that the world is moving in a pace too fast? i am feeling like i have to catch my breath every second because i am hardly keeping up with the steps of time.

it's a another new year already. but i'm not ready. i was too tired sleeping when the clock struck 12 last night. i didn't have the energy to get up and go jumping up and down screaming happy new year. i am not ready.

soon i will be 24. and i'm not ready. school will start again soon. and i'm not ready. sunday is coming. and i'm not ready.

i have been trying hard to not fit in.

sometimes it feels as if we are all living under a Ponzi Scheme, it looks like some of us are really investing our earnings on something, and that our investment seems to be really generating something rewarding, but the truth is we are only taking something from others' investment thinking that those are the profits we have made.

most of us do not know what we are investing on, and what we want, we are only trying hard to fit in, and live our lives like everybody else does.

i have been trying hard to not fit in. i only want what i want, this new year, i want to live a good life, and live it good.