home, let me come home

I first heard of and listened to this song three summers ago when I was in America, far away from home.  And three summers after, I am in American now, and again am far away from home.  What's different this time is that I am here to stay, not for a month only like last time, but for four years.  Hong Kong will always be my home though, or rather; like the song but a tit-bit different, home is where I belong with my mama and papa and my family.  I will miss them dearly and I can't wait to see them next summer back home.  Home, let me come home.

Shell

"What if we could remember things we didn't experience."

This is probably the first Wong Fu short film I've watched, if I hadn't remembered wrongly.   And after watching so many other short films from them, this still stays my favorite.   

The quietness and calmness in this video, with the silent background and the occasional piano background when Chris speaks his fictional memory, hits right on point and make the short film so poetic and beautiful.  Just as Wes said in the video's commentary, "the visuals we imagine are often more brilliant than truths and reality we experience."  The juxtaposition of the two locations, one in the city with all the metallic themes and city lights, and the other in the fields with the mellow and embracing sunlight creates a stark contrast between fiction and reality. And Chris's voice over is so full of emotions and the last line, "and then, fiction becomes reality..." just killed it.

This film is as if poetry in video form, and I enjoyed every single bit of it.  I felt as if I understood more and felt more, and even differently, every time I watch it.  It seemed so complex, the first few times when I watched this, but slowly, it all makes sense.   I really enjoyed the quiet conversation between Chris and Mimi, and especially love how the entire video is capturing just, perhaps, a single short and clipped moment in real life, but in such detail.  To remember things that never existed, and create memories that aren't real but wished they were?  It is such a beautiful, romantic and abstract idea, and yet it can all be represented in and explained by a shell; how people hear the waves of the ocean crashing ashore but never having been near to the ocean and know what the waves sound like.

This short is pure perfection and I hope you'll love it too.   Let me know below what you think about it, I'd really like to know.

girl crush: Georgia May Jagger

Pretty girl and the daughter of Mick Jagger, Georgia May Jagger is the it girl in season. (don't kill me, but she's way better than Cara Delevingne in my opinion.)  And that tooth gap is to die for.

pics via marieclaireuk, coolspotters, tumblr

diaries abroad: I'm an introvert.

This is a new section that I'm starting, which is 'Diaries Abroad', and this is where I plan to talk about the sudden ponders and thoughts I have here in this (still) strange land that I'm in.  All the cultural shock and weird experiences, awkwardness or awesomeness, will be here in 'diaries abroad'. 

I am a proud introvert.  I wasn't before.  I mean I have always been an introvert, but I was not proud of it.

There was a time, when I desperately wanted to be extroverted. I wanted so bad to be outgoing and talkative and active and happy and bubbly and have something to say (aloud) about at everything.  But I just couldn't.  There was a time when I hated myself for that and felt so frustrated.  Yet, I have learnt to be proud of it and accept it because that's me.  And introverts are great, I mean, a lot of great people are introverted.   You can go ahead and listen to the TED talk about introverts.  It's super insightful.  I promise.

Now that I'm here in uni though, I feel like I couldn't survive on being an introvert.  People here all talk to people.  I don't mean I am a total shy and wordless/soundless and timid type of person, but it's just that I  seldom take the initiative to talk to people.  I run out of conversation topics in just a snap and it's just awkward silences after 'Hi, how are you doing? Good? Awesome. So where do you come from? Oh wow, that's great.  What's it like there?  Nice.  I didn't catch your name?  Oh, mine's Joey ---'  My mind doesn't work that fast while I'm talking because I get nervous when I'm meeting people.  Because I am an introvert and I am not that outgoing.  But these first few weeks, I know is crucial to meeting people and making new friends.  I cross my fingers that I might all of a sudden break out of my introverted cage and just for once be someone talkative.  Dear God above, please have mercy and help me.

This is the conclusion I've come to.  And introverts out there, here is what I think about us.

Yes, we can be quiet and go into deep thoughts and meditate and ponder about life and space and universe.  But we've got to stop pinning this introverted badge on our skin and hide behind it or show it to everyone.    If we don't talk, we don't survive.  True, us introverts need our own space and peace and quiet.  But to survive in this superficial society, where the loud ones get their voice heard, we have to speak up because we need a place in the society, we need to meet people and make acquaintances fast.  We've got to work our heads like turbos and generate questions to raise in conversations.  We've got to have a response to everything and be curious.  And if you are damned to be born with a poker face (like me), try to take it off your face.  I got to try it too, because this poker face is just keeping everyone away.  I don't really know how yet, I mean, sometimes even when I'm really interested or ready to talk to people, I just look uncaring and impassive.  Just got to loosen up them face muscles, I guess.

That's all the crap I have to say today.  Good night everyone.

All By Myself

I've never felt a song get me that much as this one, and it sure is a spur of a moment thing; but still, this morning, this song was like the summary of my now, my situation.  My family left this morning and 'All by Myself' kept looping in my head non-stop, even when I tried playing another song.  I suddenly felt so alone.  I am alone.  This is what I thought.  I don't wanna be all by myself.   It should be my new life here in the university and I should be all excited and happy about it.  But the thing is, I was doubting if I really wanted all of this.  There was just me and myself here, and no one gets me and there's no one to talk to.

So here is a slice of loneliness and emptiness I'd like to share.  Please do close your eyes and imagine, feel the moment, the emotion, and take a little bit of this solitude in, so as to ease this bottomless hole in my heart.

I'm just joking, I'm feeling much better now.  I will make it through, I have to.  Because this is what I've always wanted.  I won't be all by myself for long.

mama's girl

To honor the ending of my birthday week, (yes, my birthday is such a big deal that it lasts whole week) here is an extract I found on tumblr and really liked.  And it kind of echoes with, or kind of offers a different way out to my hopeless birthday post/rant on Monday, that while being older and an adult, we lose our innocence and naivety.

I guess the inner child in us never dies and shows up whenever we feel different emotions.  I particularly was touched by the line, "or maybe some days you might need to sit on your mama's lap because you're scared, and that's the part of you that's five."  True, no matter how old I get, I will always need my mama, perhaps not sitting on her lap because that would probably cripple her; but her embrace and her comforting presence, I will always need.  I will always be her little girl, and that for one I know and gives me console when in face with the cruel and the unknown adulthood.

Never Seen Such Good Things

EIGHTEEN COOL

Hell yea, Dakota Fanning, I've grown up. Today, I turned 18!  Well, turns out being 18 doesn't feel magical and empowered and different. I just feel like myself.  I still think people that are over 25 are quite old (don't hate me please).  I kind of still call myself a kid and others adults even though I'm officially an adult now.

And because this is the first day I'm officially an adult, I have more than the right to be nostalgic of my childhood.  We all had those days when we were tiny and dreaming of the day when we will be adults, wearing pretty clothes and high heels and make up. I didn't go into the particularly girly route as to dress up in my mama's clothes and put on her red lipstick, though. Instead I was a little tomboy when I was small.  But I had my fair share of hopes and dreams and imaginations of being a grown up.  I desperately wanted to grow up and constantly wondered what I'll become, how I'll be like. It was the 'que sara sara, whatever will be, will be' tune gone real life.

Thanks to my mom, who have always reminded me that I'm old(er) by saying, " you still think you're a little girl?" or "you're not little anymore, you're almost (already) 18", I think I've moved onto a more mature state of myself. I've become more rational and realistic. I've gotten a pair of more mature looking glasses, and a pair of decent ballet flats, and I put on a little make up. Yes, I may have dressed a little older because, it's always important to look age appropriate and classy. But I think I'm quite naive still, and I like to believe that I'm quite naive still, and still have the little dumb childish side of me.

We all know how the world changes as we grow up, how everything seemed to have lost their wonder. The fort we built and loved so much turned out just to be a bunch of chairs and blankets. Santa Claus turned out to be just fat old men with fake beards sitting in shopping malls. The wise and know-all adults turned out just to be as troubled and confused as we are. The world and time, as we slowly grow up, kill the children inside of us. It was as if the adults and their world were sour for the joy and the dreams us kids have, and had to ruin it all for us by contaminating our heads and loading on our ripening shoulders, tasks, responsibilities, work and burdens.

I don't want to grow up because growing up comes with responsibilities and hard work, and growing up kills the childish naivety inside of us.  Do not be mistaken though, I do want to be an adult and try all the fun things adults can do, and be independent and in charge of my own life. What I don't want is to become those troubled adults who work 9-5, or 9-9pm even, and go home and sleep, and go to work the next day. I don't want to become those adults who are filled with worry and regret, and are basically mind-dead/dream-dead/imagination-dead. I don't want to become troubled by my own life. I want to live and be happy about my life. But I have to admit, that I think I might slowly become one of those people that I dread becoming because there's just nothing much we can do in this world. It's inevitable and there's no escaping. Innocence will soon be replaced by rationality and responsibilities.  It happens to every body.

 Meanwhile, all we can do, I guess, it's just to try our best to stay young and keep the kiddo inside alive and well.  And I will be constantly reminding myself, for the years that I may have left to live, to be young at heart and keep on dreaming, imagining. Once in awhile, let go, let loose, be naive, be fearless, and have fun. Let's cross our fingers that the little kiddo in us will just stay for awhile longer, or stay for years longer, if not, just stay forever; so that everything will stay wonderful and miraculous, and we would still laugh and be free and worry-less, just like we all were used to be.

The Spectacular Now

It sure was a spur of the moment decision when my sister and I decided to watch The Spectacular Now.  I was drawn by the poster, as any romantic will do, and in we went into the movie theater.  It is a great decision.  I enjoyed the movie.  I love movies that tugs at my heart strings slightly, and it is exactly what this movie does to me.  I give it a 4 out of 5 perhaps.

It was quite a lovely coming-of-age movie, with the mixture of modern day love and family issues, and adolescent innocence, as well as complications.  The movie depicts average life, and the little bits and pieces of hardships and miraculous moments among the average.  It captured the beauty of average and of love.  Miles Teller gives a wonderful performance of Sutter, a troubled teen trying to find himself amidst the many unanswered questions and insecurities in his life.  Upon meeting Aimee (Shailene Woodly, btw she's so pretty), Sutter started to figure himself out.  I was sucked into Sutter's journey of finding his true self, and during the process have experienced reflections of my own.

I am like Amiee, I think ahead.  Unlike Sutter, who have to learn to think for the future, I have to learn to live in the present, and embrace it no matter good or bad or just meh.  The Spectacular Now.  It is such a wonderful title for the movie, for any movie.  It is such a beautiful phrase, and it speaks the truth.  The present is spectacular, and as Sutter says in the movie, 'we will never be as young as we are tonight.' (it's something similar, I forgot the exact wordings, sorry)

This is the first movie I saw in the States, and I saw it with my sister, who I haven't hung out with for more that a full year.   I am in America, waiting for my new adventure to begin.  I have my family by my side, and my whole future ahead of me.  This is my spectacular now.

take me where the ocean is...

pics via tumblr, thatschic, hannastefansson, amlul 

Imagination Scares

I am a leftie, and I guess I fit into the lefties stereotype pretty well (except for being smart and good at maths).  I get scared and freak out quite easily, and I like thinking, imagining and creating.  But to be honest, I don't know if I am what I am because I am born a leftie; or is it because adults all tell me about the lefties stereotype, and therefore, during my growth, I unconsciously morphed myself into that stereotype.  Anyway, that is not what I want to talk about today.

What I want to talk about is imagination, and imagining things.  People say having a wide imagination is a good thing.  Well, sometimes it is.  It is good for my writing, creating, and also my daily pondering of random ideas.  But sometimes, it isn't so good.  I used to be scared of my own imagination when I was a kid (even now too, sometimes.  I'm so ashamed.)  I would imagine things, and then freak myself out.

When I was small, I didn't dare to shower alone.  I was afraid of the bathroom.   I thought some worms or blood will come out of the shower head and I will be drenched in those horrible stuff.   When I flush the toilet, there would be a hand reaching out for me from the toilet bowl because, oh no, I must have flushed somebody down.  The little ditch-like thingy behind the toilet?  Some cockroaches and spiders and unknown species of ugly animals will sneak out from there and climb onto me.  And don't look at the mirror when I go to the bathroom at night, someone will be behind me.  When somewhere itches during shower, oh gosh, someone must be in the shower with me, someone I can't see, touching me.  And that would be when I scream out for my mom to rescue me.

Some psychopaths must be hiding behind that door up there in the back staircase leading to the roof at my grandparent's apartment building.  That huge (huge to me when I was small, it's tiny now) claw-like dent on the concrete in the platform of the back staircase must be a dinosaur footprint.  There must be a dinosaur roaming in the corridors and stairwells of the building, I must run as fast as I can to my grandparent's apartment and ring the bell like hell.  Oh no, I shan't.  That's not polite, but please someone come quickly to open the door and let me in.  Some animal is barking, oh no, it must be a wolf or a fierce animal of that sort.

I must be born super ugly and deformed, but yet, so loved that my used-to-be rich parents used all of their savings to pay off all the mirror manufacturers in the world to produce magical mirrors (and transform mirrors that already exist into the magical ones) that made me look normal to my eyes so that I won't feel as bad.

Instead of pretending to be doctors, teachers and air hostesses and etc.  I pretended to be a refugee of some sort, running away from soldiers that were hunting me down.  I would hide with my plushies under the blanket in my mom's room, and my helper would be the soldier who would approach nearer to the room and then went to look for me somewhere else farther.  (In actuality, she is just doing household chores around the house, not minding me at all.)

Whenever people say how good being able to imagine things is, I shake my head deep down inside and murmur to myself, "oh no, you did not just say that."  The thing is, imagination scares me sometimes.   This is a reason why I don't ever watch scary horror movies.  My friends all tell me that it is not that scary and it's just a movie.  I know it's just a movie, and I am not that scared of the movie.  I am scared of what twisted versions of the already horrific and frightening images my imagination will generate after seeing the movie.

Big Black Car - Gregory Alan Isakov

I fell in love with this song the moment I heard it.  It's just so beautiful.  Apart from lost love (that I can't really relate to because I've never been in love), I feel like it's about the loss of innocence and the realization of reality.  It's about life, how we used to see everything as wonderful and miraculous, and how slowly, things and people change and fail us; and we all end up with just this never ending hope that we could be something in life's glory. 

Lyrics:

You were a phonograph, I was a kid

I sat with an ear close, just listening

I was there when the rain tapped her way down you face

You were a miracle. …I was just holdin' your space

Well time has a way of throwing it all in your face

The past, she is haunted, the future is laced

Heartbreak, ya know, drives a big black car

Swear I was in the back seat, just minding my own

And through the glass, the corn crows come like rain

They won't stay, they won't stay

For too long now

This could be all that we know

Of love and all.

Well you were a dancer, I was a rag

The song in my head, well was all that I had

Hope was a letter I never could send

Love was a country we couldn't defend.

And through the carnival we watch them go round and round

All we knew of home was just a sunset and some clowns

Well you were a magazine, I was a plane jane

Just walking the sidewalks all covered in rain

Love to just get into one of your stories

Just me and all of my Plain Jane glory

Poetry,out loud: Sarah Kay

This TED talk is from quite some time ago.  It is she, Sarah Kay, who introduced me to the world of spoken word poetry.  I have to admit, I have not tried it before, and I don't think I dare to in the near future due to my over-self-consciousness and hate for being in the spotlight and performing.  I still love watching her, and other spoken word poets nonetheless; listening to their words, their thoughts and their worlds.  I'd love to one day be one of them, and produce beautiful poetry that moves people, inspires people and leave people in awe.  Here are a few of my favorites of Sarah Kay, apart from "B" and "Hiroshima" in the above video.

oh babe, I hate to go...

Can't believe there's only one day left till I board the plane to USA.  Super busy packing and prepping everything.  Excited and nervous and all mixed up inside.  

Goodbye HK, and hello, America.