Thought Puzzle
Here's a little thought puzzle. You have a house, and inside the house, you have...oh, some costume jewelry. It's not particularly pretty, or marketable, but you love it, it's yours. You keep it locked in a special box; it has a secret compartment in it, and that's where you keep your emotionally precious costume jewelry. Now, pretend you have to go out of town and you hire a house sitter. The sitter seems trustworthy enough. You leave the sitter with your house, fully believing all will be well. Fast forward to your homecoming. You thank the sitter, and pay them and send them on their merry way. You go about your business. There's going to be a party, so you go to your special box to get your costume jewelry. Imagine how hurt and angry you are that it's all gone! You call the sitter and ask if anyone else has been in the house; no one has, so who's to blame? "It's your fault," the sitter tells you. "You just left it there. I found it. I took it. It couldn't be helped. It wasn't that great anyway." You remember clearly that the jewelry was locked away in the box. "The key was just sitting there. You were careless. I opened the box and took your jewelry. Get over it. The stuff is ugly." What do you say? This person has stolen something that you hold dear, is criticizing it and is blaming you for being careless. Something to think about...
Final thought: No, I don't think there's an answer.
Weapon of Mass Destruction
My best friend called from China last night. She says it's in the negatives over there, weatherwise, that she's doing well, learning the language, the culture. I miss her lots. I miss telling her stuff, stuff I wouldn't trust anyone else not to a) think was stupid or b) think was beside the point. Glad she's having a pretty decent time though. Me, well, lazing off, again. I just find it so incredibly hard to concentrate. I barely even feel guilty anymore, which is probably a bad sign. I wish I had Alan's carefree life, nothing to do but surf the net, eat, sleep...and what else does he do? He's never told me but I have a feeling it involves gold, shady deals...and chocolate. 
Sometimes, I find myself thinking of him as "Goldfinger"; what a thought. Anyhow, my exams are through for now, before my big comprehensive exam in mid-March, but I have two projects due, which I must buckle down and just do. I wish they sold injectable adrenalin. I could use a shot just about now. Re-read my blog from last night and God, do I sound like an idiot. Love is a Four-Letter Word - that was the title of one of my articles for the MUIC Tabloid, and boy, is it. Love screws you good; it's more destructive than anthrax or H-bombs. Love - that's a weapon they should harness; devastate the enemy with Cupid's wrath. Hahaha. Watch the world's most evil waste away with unrequited affections, unable to eat, sleep, wreak terror. It's a thought.
Final thought: The four-letter words in my life now - work and home.
Brokeback Fallout
It's crazy, but bits of Brokeback Mountain keep flashing into my consciousness. It's like, I finished my exam today and was walking to the library to return some books and I just had this sudden vision of the two characters, hugging, in my mind's eye. Maybe because it was such a romantic movie, yet so sad, so terribly sad. Does love have to hurt? I didn't use to think so, but now I'm not so sure. The greatest love of my life took my breath away - and not in a romantic, lovey-dovey, Jessica Simpson Take My Breath Away cover, no, not like that. If I had to describe it, I'd say it was like being punched, hard, right in the stomach; that feeling you get right before you pass out, this feeling like "Oh my God, I'm going to die." That was when I knew. That was it; that was the love people had wrote about, sang about, fought for, pined for. I remember just looking at him and thinking, "I love you so much." Ick. Just remembering makes me sick, sick at how incredibly stupid I was, but yes, that was how I felt, how I still feel sometime, and maybe that's why Brokeback resonated so deeply with me and why it took like three days for it to sink in. "I wish I knew how to quit you," Jack Twist laments. He misses Ennis so much sometime, it's like a physical pain. Funny, because that's how love felt to me, a physical pain, a deep wound that drew no blood. Strange how love and heartbreak feel so similar. Only, when you're in love, the pain is a good thing, the pain is something you crave. When your heart is broken, you pray, hope, wish for the pain to go away. Sometimes, you just wish you could cut your heart out, just to give yourself one brief moment free of pain. Only you know, no matter what, you'll never recover. There's nothing on this Earth that can ever make you whole again and you just have to learn to cope, to move on, even with the knowledge that you're a complete idiot, a fool who's wasted all their energy on something stupid and silly.
Final thought: "I wish I knew how to quit you." God, if only....
Star sighting
Totally forgot to mention that I ran into Willem Dafoe (Spiderman's Green Goblin) yesterday at Yuppie Hell (aka Siam Paragon). I was like - "Oh my God, Willem Dafoe!" I didn't do anything crazy though, I just thought that to myself and kinda did a double take. I confess I had a starstruck moment; I don't usually. Being in Thailand, and going to RIS and MUIC means I've crossed paths with a number of Thailand's stars. The other day, feeling bored because it was Wednesdy (and the day the Thai soap I watch - ugh, yes, I watch Thai soaps sometimes - loosely translated as In Love and Debt - was not on), I was channel-surfing and came across a soap whose male lead just happened to be a guy I knew back in school. This was particularly hilarious to me because if you had known this guy back then, you would never have pegged him for a Thai soap star. The Naked Chef maybe, the chunky version - but a smokin' hot Thai superstar? No way. Just goes to show people can change. I guess. But look at me - exam on Monday and still lazing off!
Final thought: Willem Dafoe...whoa...
But I don't want strawberry popcorn...
Was at yuppie hell again today (more commonly known as Siam Paragon, an oversized exercise in elitist consumerism). Sittha wanted to watch Good Night ,and Good Luck; it was part of the Bangkok Film Festival. It was good, a lot better than I thought. It was also extremely timely, dealing as it does with the whole McCarthy witch hunt - can't help but see the similarities with current events both in America and Thailand. There were some minor quibbles, I thought, mostly with composition (oh, my, that's the Film Studies class in me talking); like, for some shots, Clooney should have gone wide, but he focused in and vice versa. Silence could have been utilized better. The black and white was a good choice. Overall, though, it was a good movie, despite the obvious Oscar moments. For anyone who knows me and has ever asked me how I feel about a) Six Feet Under or b) {insert name of pretentious Oscar-winning movie}, they know I have this thing against "Emmy/Oscar moments". I use this term to refer to any scene in a television show or movie that you just know is contrived to reap in the rewards. Apologies to Sittha, but Six Feet Under is overwhelmingly guilty of this. Every freaking minute of that show is designed to make critics go "brilliant!", "powerful!", "I felt emotions I'd never felt before!", etc. etc. etc., shoot me. The whole show is constructed to subliminally yell, "Yes, you're right, this is some good stuff. Give us an Emmy. NOW!" Some movies are like that too, though I can't think of any off the top of my head...oh, wait, Cold Mountain comes to mind. "They complain about the weather, but they make the rain and stand in it...and oh, yoo-hoo, Oscar people, are you seeing how I inject feeling into these pathetic melodramatic, semi-nonsensical lines?" No, that's not how Renee Zellweger's speech went, but it did go that direction in my head. Playing for accolades. God, I just hate that. I have nothing against arty movies. I also have nothing against commercial movies. I have very ecletic tastes. I will watch just about anything if it takes my fancy, just let it be a good story well told. I love X-Men and Adam Sandler and teen romantic comedies, but I also want to watch Brown Bunny (still haven't) and I loved Secretary and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. The same for my music tastes - on my playlist right now? Destiny's Child, Hoobastank, John Mayer, Nelly and Josh Groban. Will these people ever be stuck in an elevator together? I think not; but they're stuck in my speakers. Ha. Let's see...I wasn't going to mention Sittha again (he was like, "You don't have to blog about me all the time") but I kinda have to to finish this story. Sorry, man, really (just a little tangent here - the guy took like an hour to finish a burger and fries, but I turned around like two seconds and his ice cream was all gone! What, did he drink it down? 
) So, anyway, last night, he, Alan and I went to Brokeback Mountain, right? And Jake Gyllenhaal was smokin' hot in it, I mean on fire. Especially with his shirt off. And I guess I was thinking about it a little too much because he got inside my head and made me a...uh, shall we say, naughty, girl. 
Hahahaha. Well, I'm having this great dream and it doesn't seem to matter that a) Jake was in a gay cowboy movie and b) Sittha (whoops, sorry, mentioned him again) - Sittha - uh, I was told (by who? Oh, someone...) that he might actually be gay in real life, he is...um, well, he's carving the turkey quite well, if you catch my drift...Uh, you know...and guess what happens? Sittha - ugh, I mean...well, yeah, Sittha shows up and says, "But I don't want strawberry popcorn." And Miko's there too, doing what I don't remember. Mood killer! Crazy! This stems from two separate evnts yesterday - Sittha emphatically refusing to eat strawberry-flavored popcorn at the movies and me asking him about Miko, because she is MIA. So, there, he ruined the good bit! Hopefully, tonight, there might be a sequel. (And no, I won't be mentioning Sittha again for quite awhile, seeing as how we both have loads of work to do and no time to dedicate to arty movies. My apologies for taking his name in vain!) 
Final thought: Good night...and get lucky. 
Passion
Just got back from watching Brokeback Mountain with Sittha and Alan. (No spoilers, so read on...) I have to be careful what I say because Sittha doesn't want me to reveal any secrets. Hahahahaha. I won't. But, my, it was intense; at some points, I felt way too young to be watching it! Anyhow, it was a lovely movie, and worked on two levels, which I think are so difficult to operate on simultaneously - romantic and erotic. Romantic - well, you have to watch the movie. Erotic - well, you have to watch the movie, but you can also watch the trailer to get a feel for it. I swear, the first time they...uh, conjoined...was very, very hot. It was rough and frantic and I was, well, I hate to admit it...a bit turned on. Hahahaha. No, I did not tell Alan or Sittha, I think they would've been shocked, but yes, it gave me goosebumps. What is it about two men that can turn a girl on? (I guess it's the same for men getting turned on by two women.) Maybe it was just passion - that's what transcends all boundaries. People are knocked over by passion. There's so little place for passion in a well-ordered life. I wish there was...there are so many things that turn me on...Hmmm, have I said too much? Man, I miss my best friend! Darn China!
Final thought: Erm, Jake Gyllenhaal...yummy...
The Bad, the Good and the Ugly
The Bad
My best friend is in China!
I didn't get to go to watch Brokeback Mountain with Sittha today because my teacher moved up one of my due dates and I need the time to work!
It rained yesterday and it's furnace-hot today!
I'm melting!
I am nowhere near done with my work!
The Good
I finished one exam!
I finished one project!
Brokeback Mountain - on Thursday!
Got paid last week for tutoring!
Darn, I am still cute! (Okay, that's a lie, but give me something!)
The Ugly
The
freaking
hot
Thai
weather!
Final thought: Go ahead. Make my day.
Things My Parents Told Me
Top Ten Things My Parents Have Told Me (that made no sense!)
1. I should thank people for ugly, unsolicited presents.
2. Grin and bear it (why, for cripes' sake?)
3. Even if they're massively wrong, don't correct your elders. (It's a Thai thing.)
4. Don't complain (but I'm so good at it!)
5. Even if they're massively annoying, don't ignore your elders.
6. True jerks still deserve a modicum of respect.
7. No one's that bad.
8. Even if they're massively horrible, don't disrespect your elders.
9. It doesn't matter if someone cheated or stole from you, be nice.
10. Don't whine (whhhhhhhhhhhhhy noooooooooot?)
But it hasn't been all bad...
Top Ten Things My Parents Have Told Me (that made perfect sense!)
1. Always take care of the people you love.
2. Watch your back.
3. It doesn't matter what anyone else thinks, it matters what you feel.
4. Never fall in love with a guy who can't be bothered to stand up for you.
5. There are no shortcuts to success.
6. When at first you don't succeed, try, try again.
7. Never be ashamed to start from the bottom.
8. Do unto others...
9. There is no substitute for integrity.
10. Don't forget to brush your teeth. (Perennial good advice!)
Final thought: For better or for worse, each of them is one-half of me.
Do you want anything killed?
I hate my life and everything in it and if I could, I would hurt something right now. With my bare hands. I'd squeeze and strangle until I drew blood, I wouldn't stop until I heard screaming or ripping or cracking...All right, now that that's out of my system, I feel slightly better. God. I didn't use to be so fussy. Okay, that's a bit of a lie, I've always been fussy to an extent, but never to this extent. The other day, this guy in front of me was walking too slow and I swear to God, I thought I was going to choke him to death. I never used to meet the tiny inconveniences of Bangkok life with such vehement violence, but there you go, me, on the dusty streets of the Venice of the East, ready to choke the very life out of a pathetic little man for walking a tad slow. What is wrong with me? Okay, rhetorical question, but this is my reasoning. It's like all my life, I was walking around with 'x' amount of weight - this is the "weight" of my family, my friends, my life in general. I was fine with this weight; more than fine, I was ecstatic. My life was great! Then, along comes a spider and they add their weight to my burden - at first, it's heavy, and it's hard and I think to myself, "I can't take this." But I persevere and then, amazingly, it gets easy, it gets to the point where you can't remember your life without that extra weight. So what happens when the weight falls off? In my case, I lost my balance and I never gained it back. I can't seem to orient myself. I'm eternally spinning out of control and well...Blame that for my suddenly shorter fuse. Or the work. Probably the work. Definitely the work. And my spinning head.
Final thought: Pain hardens, and great pain hardens greatly, whatever the comforters say, and suffering does not ennoble, though it may occasionally lend a certain rigid dignity of manner to the suffering frame. Antonia S. Byatt
My Life, Defined
I'm working on my storyboard for my computer-assisted language learning project and of course, I'm looking for a reason to slack off. Why don't people ever call me in the afternoon when I need a distraction? It's like, the moment you sit down to watch Buffy, The Vampire Slayer - ring, ring, ring (or in my case, the X-Files theme), someone's calling to ask about consequential validity or some such thing. I have a personal telephone code - unless it's a die-hard, life-or-death, oh my God, call 911 (or in Thailand, 191) emergency, do not, repeat, do not call someone after 9:30 p.m. Just something I try to stick to. Seems like I'm the only one though. Hahahaha.
Anyhow, I don't really have anything to write, so I've decided to indulge in a little writing exercise. I love lists, but it's gets tiresome to make them, so this is a sort of modified list-making activity. I'm going to randomly select five words from the dictionary and write my thoughts on them - sort of a word association thing. Okay, here I go.
1. Interlude. Whoa. What a doozy. Well, I guess you could say my life at the moment is an interlude. From the beginning of grad school, I gave up on happiness and went for contentness, and this really changed my life; for the better, I think. No more drama. No more conflict. No more getting hurt or hurting others. Everything's light, everything's unforced. The only troubles in my life are academic and I can handle those. Things that are under my control, those are things I can deal with. Other people's, especially crazy people's, drama? No, thanks. So, yes, the interlude may just be filler between the action of two other parts, but I'm content to be right here, interluding it up.
2. Sixteen. Sixteen was a big deal for me, before I turned that age. That was the year of my worst birthday ever. That was the year I realized that "sweet sixteen" was just the result of convenient alliteration. There was nothing sweet about being halfway between girl and woman (oh God, cue Britney Spears cheesiness). I hated high school, and no, not in an American teen movie kind of way, in my very own "I'm the rebel nerd" way. Almost everyone rubbed me the wrong way. I just wanted to be left alone, but of course, I had to enter the International Baccaulaureate program, that locks you in with the same group of about sixteen other sixteen-year-olds for every single class. I had so many classes with these people, they actually thought we were sorta friends. Right. It's lucky I made it out alive. Sixteen - they should call it "sucky sixteen".
3. Auditory. Ugh. It's the grad school talking; this word makes me think of learning styles, the preferred mode of instructional input for a particular learner. I am not auditory. I need to see stuff in order to work. I have an awful memory for anything sound-related. Takes me forever to remember a song's lyrics (despite repeated listenings), can't judge pitch to save my life and don't bother reading something to me, I'll forget it in the next ninety seconds. Although, I do enjoy trying to place people's accents. I'm not half-bad at it either. I can guess pretty general stuff, like broad regional influences. I can even guess the relative time they've learned English, like late in life or quite early. But overall, I'm not auditory. Show me stuff. Show me the money!
4. Mixer. I don't drink. I'm twenty-two years old and I've consumed about four units of alcohol total in my entire life. I think people are surprised that I'm this old, and I look this old, yet I a) don't drink alcohol, b) don't drink coffee, c) don't wear make-up, d) don't wear high heels and e) have never been kissed. Blame my folks. They instilled me with overriding passion to march to the beat of my own drum and my own drum does not like alcohol, coffee, make-up or high heels; the kissing was beyond my control though. So, when I go out, I'm the only one who's 100% absolutely sober. Mixers? Pass the virgin Tequila Sunrise.
5. Long. I long for peace of mind. I long for things that have passed. I long for things that can never be. Yes, I long for many things, but as I've said, I've pushed them all to the side. My life is finally on the straight and narrow after two years of being a complete spaz and that's just fine with me. My goal is to be a Vulcan, you know, like Mr. Spock on the original Star Trek. All the emotion, all the passion, buried deep beneath the surface, so it doesn't interfere with what's really important - like evading Klingons, or in my case, graduating. Long...I've also been an idiot for too long. That's the danger of giving in too much to someone else, you know, especially when that person has no scruples whatsoever. For too long, I had the wool over my eyes, and when it was finally pulled off, my eyes smarted from the light, because I was in the dark for so long. Am I still an idiot? Well, yes, but at least now I'm aware of the fact. That's an improvement, right?
That was a pretty cathartic activity. And now, back to my work. Yes, this girl's got a goal and she's en-route to accomplishing it. Wish me luck.
Final thought: From Lindsay Lohan, Drama Queen (That Girl)
Armed with an attitude that she knows how to use.
She's gonna get there any way she can.
Now she knows what she wants
No one is gonna stop her
Nothing's ever gonna hold her down.
Dancing Queen
I'm big, why can't I show some skin?
There are dark rings under my eyes reminiscent of craters. This is what I get after going to bed at four in the morning (yes, you read that right) for two nights in a row. For some people, that may be nothing, but for me, Miss "ten p.m. is a bit late to be up", it's super, extremely late. And I'm doing it again. You may ask me why...well, because I'm so unmotivated all day, I feel like if I just work later, though sporadically, I might make up for the lack of actual work I do. You know - less but for a longer time. I'm thinking it might balance itself out. Anyhow, I just multitasking between my language assessment assignment (write a test, what irony. I hate tests, despise them. I have extreme test anxiety and now I'm suppose to author one!) and surfing the net. Something I read got me thinking about the subject of skin. Yes, skin. I've heard guys love skin - the more, the merrier. Personally, I've never been a big fan of showing skin. I'm fine with women who do it, I've just never been one of them. The one time I wore spaghetti straps in public was back in my undergrad days, when I was just lying down for a nap when lo and behold, it turned out we had drama practice. No time to change, I begged my roommate for a ride to the university and walk in only to be greeted by shock. My drama teacher actually said to me of my performance that day (I was playing a prissy, repressed schoolmarm type. Hmmm...) that it would have been easier "if I had more clothes on". Even though well, I've seen other people wearing the same thing and I thought it was pretty decent, but then again, plus-sized women have to be very careful what they put on. And I can say that because I am a large girl. I think people, especially Thai people of the male persuasion, have a problem with larger women who are comfortable with showing off their own bodies. Fat girls just aren't sexy (and you can fight me on that, but keep on reading), not to the majority of Thai guys anyway. I made my peace with that long ago, but some girls simply haven't and I feel bad for them, because I'm sorry to say this, but you're more likely to have it snow in Thailand than turn on a guy being a fat girl in a skimpy outfit. We're not like our slender sisters. I can probably go on and on and on about this, having been a proud member of the Big Girls club for as long as I remember, but I'm getting tired. There are some good points about being a larger woman in Thailand. Except for the inappropriacy issues, I really can wear just about anything I want. Suffice to say, I have never had to worry about arousing the...um, wrong kind of attention. Even when I've let a blouse slip, exposing a shoulder, or worn shorts that were slightly too short or even when my bra strap was visible...let's just say, it never crossed my mind that anyone was looking at me in any way other than how you look at the lunchlady or your older sister. I've always felt completely safe walking around on my own, my only fear being for my wallet. I can also do just about anything in public, even things other girls would never do (a large number of them anyway), like eat chips or lick ice cream off a spoon. I know I'm not being "checked out" so I have that freedom. It's the best part of being...well, fat. Whoa, what a tangent. Probably will be returning to this issue sometime in the future, since I guess I'm something of an expert.
Final thought: Big girls don't cry...except when the fridge is empty.
It reads me like a book...
I love Launchcast (and I have no affiliation with them, so this is not a plug) except for the fact that it's so temperamental. Should I worry that I feel all warm and fuzzy because a bunch of algorithms can guess my music preferences? Confession: I'm a sucker for people who can read me like a book. You know what's funny? When you live your life like an open book, people constantly try to read between the lines! So I find it refreshing when someone just knows me, like they say something so right on, I get goosebumps. Too bad it's only ever happened once or twice in my life, and I won't even count some of the times, because that speaker's comments were just throwaway, no thought behind them. Anyhow, back to Launchcast - it just knows me so well! It played Evanescence's My Immortal today, a song I've ignored countless times on MTV, but apparently, fits my tastes. I decided to give it a whirl - and I loved it! Every word, every lyric, just resonated with me. I know exactly how it is, when you're haunted by a pain you can't quite put your finger on, when you're so angry and crushed, you have no words, only sorrow...Aaah, Launchcast, you know me so well...
Final thought: From My Immortal, Evanescence
When you cried I'd wipe away all of your tears
When you'd scream I'd fight away all of your fears
And I've held your hand through all of these years
But you still have all of me
You used to captivate me
By your resonating light
But now I'm bound by the life you left behind
Your face it haunts my once pleasant dreams
Your voice it chased away all the sanity in me
These wounds won't seem to heal
This pain is just too real
There's just too much that time cannot erase
Am I alive or is it just a dream?
I flipped through an astrology book the other day at the bookstand, and it said that it was a bad year for people born in the Year of the Boar. It said, specifically, that it would be a bad year for motivation. God, were they right! I have more work than anyone like me could possibly handle, and what am I doing? Blogging! That’s right – wasting my time, listening to Launchcast, blogging and basically just doing nothing productive. Ugh! Have you ever been hurt so bad that after that one event, nothing seemed to matter anymore? Even though you went on living your life like it was normal, deep, deep, deep down, you knew nothing was ever going to be right again? That’s how it is. Sometimes, I’ll be walking down the street, and I’ll just stop for no reason and I’ll feel like the world is caving in. And no, it’s not an anxiety attack, it’s not quite that intense. It’s more like when you’ve been in a dark place and suddenly, you walk into a really bright room and your eyes smart from the light and you’re disoriented and you’re not quite sure if you’re awake or not. It makes me think of that thought puzzle, of the philosopher who fell asleep and dreamt he was a butterfly, and when he woke up, he wondered if he was a man who dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly who was dreaming he was a man. Is this my reality? Sometimes I wonder if I’m a completely different person, a person who was never hurt and doesn’t find it hard to motivate herself, who’s thinking of what her life would have been like if she hadn’t been so lucky... I’m always wondering if there’s a parallel version of myself out there; is she doing better than me? Or worse?
Final thought: Maybe I ought to reserve my mental facilities for my work…