We're the people that we wanted to know and we're the places that we wanted to go.

"It seems to me that you need a lot of courage, or a lot of something, to enter into others, into other people. We all think that everyone else lives in fortresses, in fastnesses: behind moats, behind sheer walls studded with spikes and broken glass. But in fact we inhabit much punier structures. We are, it turns out, all jerry-built. Or not even. You can just stick your head under the flap of the tent and crawl right in. If you get the okay."

Martin Amis

Yesterday, I donated pieces of my childhood to raise funds for the youth fund in my parish. Looking back now, I should have priced them higher. Or I shouldn't have sold some at all.

I know people wont understand the passion, no, thats not quite right..the hunger, the addiction, the obsessiveness I have when it comes to reading. I thirst. I savor. Be it prose, poetry, novels, short stories, mere sentences and quick quotes, I have always been lured by the power of the written word.

And selling them was quite unnerving but it had to be done. I couldn't still hang on to the books I purchased when I was 11 now...could I?

(OKAY, I originally had 3 boxes full of books. But it whittled down to one. I just couldn't bear it!)

Its not really a big deal, in the greater scale of things. But you know, I was quite an introvert as an young adolescent, and wow was I much happier reading than I was interacting with people and you could literally single me out as being quite the social retard (which must seem weird now given how much of an extrovert Ive become). My social interactions were painful then and I always knew I could come home to the stillness and quietness of my books.

And I sold my version of another person's security blanket at $1 a pop. Just because I don't need them so much anymore.

I think I owe it to my childhood to be just a tad guilty right about now.

~*~

Guess who's going to be a sponsor again this Easter? =D

~*~

I should go to her farewell.

But its quite fake when I know Im quite happy to see her leave.

~*~

I only rewatch the Passion of the Christ once a year. The first time I watched it, I remember clearly, was in my friend's dorm room, and we gathered, Muslims, buddhists, Catholics alike, to watch it.

I knew every word.

Obviously.

And I know it made everyone tear up.

Its quite an emotional experience, this movie.

So Im preparing myself for it this year! I *will not* cry.

Or I probably will.

~*~

The weather is horrible. Scorching heat and sudden showers do not mix.

Its not any wonder Im reaching for my meds now. *sigh*

I hope I, along with everyone else, has a quite blessed Holy week.

we all lie to ourselves to be happy.

"....getting drunk, and flashing your breasts isn't an act of personal empowerment. It's you, so fashioned and programmed by the construct of patriarchal society that you no longer know what's best for yourself.

A damsel too dumb to even know she's in distress."


-Chuck Palahniuk(sp?), Snuff

The quote struck me. Because I see so many young women going crazy much too fast and much too soon. And they believe its empowering.

This will never get as much airplay as Katy but:




Also. If you seek Amy is not as innocent as it first sounded.

Earth Hour came and went. I didn't feel a pinch.

I am not as certain of the world as I was yesterday because of happenings today.

I love my family and I'm terrified beyond terrified of the ramifications of some certain decisions.

I am always waiting, waiting, waiting.

I hope this time I waited for something worthwhile.

Its such a long night and yet I don't want tomorrow to come. Ever feel that way? When the night has been all you could ask for. Tomorrow just doesn't seem fair..

Nothing of me is original. I am the combined effort of everyone I've ever known.

Everyone sang 'Amazing Grace' in various strains of dodgy disharmony. And I didn't feel like a wretch, and I didn't feel saved but maybe no one else did either, maybe they were just singing. Maybe it was the being together that counted.

-Simmone Howell

***

It is very refreshing to meet seemingly unspoiled 15 year olds these days, because so many of them are more like her.

She runs to her friends and talks about her latest boyfriend, her latest new handbag, her latest thrill. She is 15 and she talks and blogs about herself and her life as if she's gotten the whole world figured out. I wish I could reach out and tell her that being 15 is so beautiful and she should not, simply should not waste it by trying to dress and act 18.

Its not wrong...but this world and its media has corrupted you and made you think what you're doing is okay. That name calling and tagging others is okay. That keeping up with the joneses wont make you lose yourself (it will) and that money and beauty have become the new gods (they havent).

So you indulge.

Too much, too fast, too soon.

Growing up so fast is not healthy.

Ask us grown ups.

We're the ones watching you and wishing you wouldnt waste your teen years away. Plenty more years down the line for your to act older, and thats when the time will actually call for it.

Not now, child. Not yet.

But I will never reach out and tell her this. Even if I ache to.

Like me at 15, I would not have listened to me.

I hope that she at 23 won't regret what she missed out on by simply being 15.

I turn to watch her.

And its like she's already gone.


***

I've been cutting back on things this lenten season, and its been very hard. I went for confession and I poured out my hurts and my sins and my tears and I get told to pray 3 Hail Marys, a penance which does not befit my load. But who am i to judge? Who am I to reckon? Maybe the penance is not meant to equal the weight of your sins because I really think had they been equal, Id still be on my 30th decade of the rosary by now.

***

Money.

Career.

Its all so insignificant in the grand scale of thing. So many have been in my place, in your position and so many have lived our lives and gone on their ways.

I am just another and only one.

Life is so short.

If you're only living for you...technically you're really already gone.


***

we barely have time to react in this world/ let alone rehearse

Breathe in for luck,
breathe in so deep,
this air is blessed,
you share with me.
This night is wild,
so calm and dull,
these hearts they race,
from self control.

- Dashboard Confessional





Twenty Five Things (That You Should Be Doing Too):

1. I think Im glad I met Jack Daniels.

2. I grew up with the mantra sleep was for the weak and have pulled one too many allnighters or no sleepers. I have only recently discovered that sleeping early and waking up early actually is good for you. Who would have thought?

3. I am addicted to rebonding/flatironing my hair because I grew up with horribly frizzy wavy hair and to this day I have to pat my hair down to make sure its really not curly every few minutes.

4. I beat Mrs Clements, my English form 1 (or 2?) teacher in scrabble when I was 11 or 12.

5. I love doing my laundry because the smell of fresh laundry makes me smile.

6. I can burn eggs. Its quite sad.

7. Im photogenic and my pictures fool people because Im not as great looking in real life.

8. When I first heard about the Twilight buzz, I clicked on online excerpts. I thought what I read was fanfiction and was so upset at how badly written the fanfiction was until friends reassured me I was reading the real deal. I was not impressed, even if I squealed like a bloody 15 year old in the cinemas.

9. I say the rosary as I walk to work in the mornings. It calms me down and prepares me for the day ahead.

10. I created my msn address when I was 13. Ive had it for 10 years now and I am still half uncertain about changing it because of the sentimental value, even if it is a horribly silly address.

11. I have been blogging since I was 15, on various sites. Ive sampled wordpress, vox, livejournal, diaryland, multiply, friendster, you name it, Ive tried it. Im settling on blogspot for now but only because Im too busy to switch.

12. I am a sucker for anything acoustic and guys/girls who can play the guitar and play it well fascinate me.

13. I always suspect I have a mild case of trichotillomania.

14. I am very flexible and I like scaring people by showing them how freaky my fingers are and suddenly doing a split.

15. The sense that I least use is my sense of smell. I know people who can smell something from a mile away but I cant, and perfumes have never been anything particularly interesting for me. I spritz colognes but I normally dont use anything, which is something Im not sure I should have admitted.

16. When I was in uni, I had mad drinking skillz. Or maybe I was just mad. Whatever the case, I look back now and really wonder what I was thinking then but I dont doubt that some of those days will probably rank right up there as some of the best days of my life.

17. I enjoy the hustle and bustle of public transport in the form or trains, monorails, trikes, taxis, buses what have you, and I thrived using public transport in Australia, Singapore, Malaysia etc. Its only in Brunei I suffer where public transport ends by 6 pm. Seriously.

18. I was born after one miscarriage and one 'blue' baby (she had a hole in her heart) so when I survived, I think it was a foreshadowing of how stubborn Id be and am.

19. When I was 17, I found out I could tie a cherry stalk into a knot with my tongue and this has started a compulsion for me to tie shorter and shorter cherry stalks into knots with my tongue and when i fail, I literally feel like Ive failed at something life altering.

20. People dont think about you as much as you think they do.

21. I cried tears of joy when I saw Pope Benedict XVI.

22. I really like painful massages because I like the aftermath burning sensation in my back. One masseuse exclaimed that she felt I needed to go to the doctor and check if my nerves were alright because 'normal' people would have cried bloody murder with the pressure she was applying on me.

23. I am almost 90% deaf in my right ear and I often cant tell how loud I am.

24. I type with my middle finger of my right hand and index finger on my left. Im sorry, computer studies teachers, you failed at having that lesson of typing properly stick.

25. I think every once in a while, you should just let go and dance.