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.