...pour me a heavy dose of atmosphere...

Currently listening to: Vanilla Twilight - Owl City

.wheredoallthelonelypeoplego?.

Main Street, Sovereign Hill, Ballarat, Dec 2009

It has been slightly more than three days now since my arrival back in town.

The food is good, the sun's still scorching hot, and the town has received a fair share of rainy days during these past couple of days. I love it when it rains in the morning; there is nothing more serene than having the calming, fragrant scent of rain-washed grass caressing my nostrils ever so gently when I wake up.

The traffic is crazy in this town; motorcycles always get in your way when you drive, that's just how it is up here. I can't go anywhere without some form of personal transportation, and I always have to go through a long-ass argument with Dad whenever I need to use the car. The city council builds new highways and roads every other day, creating even worse traffic disruptions all around town. Everything is dead cheap but my allowance is limited, since both my credit and debit cards are no longer active, and my personal bank account was closed a long time ago. Freedom is a luxury; everything around me is too organized, too bland, too predictable.

Apparently here I'm always either too fat or too skinny.

My skin is always too light, or too dark.

My face is always too round, my cheeks too chubby, my complexion too pimply.

My hair is always too brown, or too short, or just plain ugly.

My clothes never look presentable. My shoes are not sleek and hip. I don't have my perfume collection with me and I feel like I constantly smell like hell since my body always chooses to perspire liberally whenever I'm here. People stare at me when I go out with a tote bag dangling on my right shoulder and my favorite rainbow-colored wristbands strapped around my right hand. I can never wear slip-on shoes along with a pair of check-patterned shorts without Mom telling me how ridiculous I look.

Everything has to be "normal", everything has to look "common", and "safe", and "regular", nothing out of the ordinary.

Everything has to look just like how everything else looks.

Apparently, the society thinks I'm never gonna be able to keep up with the ups and downs of its fast-paced lifestyle. That I will never be good enough to jump in, never worthy enough to be allowed a space inside its superficial, beauty-worshiping bandwagon.

So I don't look like one of those good-looking, big-eyed, olive-skinned, speech-impaired halfies whose only specialty is parading around looking impossibly pristine, one after another, overcrowding my TV screen all day long. I don't go around town attending every single high society gathering there is, aiming to "accidentally" spill my champagne into the shirt and/or dress of any given celebrity in the hopes of guaranteeing a spot in one of those countless morning gossip shows. I'm not the offspring of some rich businessman who spends his day dumbing out, living a glamorous lifestyle straight out of a Gossip Girl episode. I don't have a sports car, I don't live in a three-storey, multi-hectare house. I'm as ordinary as you can possibly get, probably with the addition of a top-quality koi fish or two in tow.

And that is exactly why I don't fit in.

Just because I don't give a rat's ass about my weight, or my disastrous fashion sense, or the well-being of my ever-darkening skin. Just because I don't speak your language nearly as much as you would ideally like me to. Just because I don't make such a big fuss about relationships and marriage. Just because I'm not obsessively fixated on finding a soulmate to the point of being desperate and pathetic like everybody else. Just because I don't care about what's been happening around here when I was gone; all the drama, the backstabbing, the endless bouts of paranoia. Just because I choose to not judge people by how they look, what kind of shoes they wear, what bags they carry, or how many lush cars they own. Just because I don't even make an effort to try to conform to the standards you have set and tick your boxes. Do all these things give you the right to judge me back?

By "you", I don't mean you. Or you. Or you. I just mean people in general. Or not.

Your call.

I guess I'm just gonna have to shut up and deal with it.

I want this holiday to be a happy, enjoyable one. I don't need all this.

How I wish all the good food I've been scoffing down my throat could somehow make up for all the negative energy I've been taking in. But there will eventually be a time when ignorance alone won't be enough. And I'm not sure if I'm ready.

*sighs*

Let's see.

...and why do we miss what we never had?...

Currently listening to: Lost Then Found - Leona Lewis ft. OneRepublic

.majesty.

Panorama St, Clayton, February 2010

Around this time next week, I will be home.

For thirty days, I'm gonna have to trade the comfort of living in a quiet southeastern suburb for a temporary perch in a not-as-quiet inner suburban town at the outskirts of Jakarta; the dry and scorching hot for the humid and rainy; the traffic poles and flickering headlights of Princes Highway for busy, crooked inner-city streets full of beggars and buskers; the steady Broadband connection I have here for a less-than-awesome cable Internet subscription... The list goes on and on.

In less than one week, I will be inhaling the putrid, pollution-ridden Jakarta air. Soon I'll find myself getting caught up in the middle of the city's chaotic, seemingly endless rush-hour traffic jams. I'll stuff myself with so much good food that by the end of the trip, my long-time hatred towards those vile, judgmental weight scales can be further justified. I'll get myself reacquainted with Starbucks Puri's omnipresent comfy couches, rightfully so. I'll be able to get ridiculously-cheap movie tickets on weekdays. I'll gratefully take my time in catching up with old friends. I'll finally be able to shop without having to feel excessively guilty.

Heck, even my dormant seventeen-year-old rebel may or may not choose to resurrect himself and thus drive my twenty-one-year-old psyche back into the foul-smelling realm of thinking that authority figures are lame and life without cars is as troublesome and painfully uninteresting as watching Heidi Montag disfigure herself on camera.

Don't judge me. I was a bitter kid.

*smiles at the thought*

It always feels sad, and somehow sentimental, you know, talking about home.

The thought of going home feels eerily distant, unknowable, foreign. For the whole notion of having a 'home' still escapes my senses after all this time.

What does 'home' actually mean to this tired, wretched soul?

Yes, I have a roof above me, sheltering me from the sun and the rain. I have a bed, a half-decent wall art I continually show off to a nonexistent set of admirers, some shelves stacked with books, a pet fish housed in a far-too-small tank, and probably way too many clothes. This dwelling space has its own address, and my partial "ownership" of this property is temporarily bound by a lawful contract. This is where I sleep, and rest, and eat, and do silly stuff when noone is around.

Is this my home?

Well, yes, and no.

I have been away from my forbearing nest for so long, I'm now starting to view my life as always being in transit, not knowing where I could reside or when I should step up everytime this intriguing journey spins, or takes a turn. The many fragments of my life are sprawled, stretched thin across the globe. It takes far too much effort just to keep them all together, strewn across but not assembled, complete yet never whole. Within all the chaos I have somehow found myself a comfortable shed of hope, yet everything else seems cold and blurred.

It's like stepping into uncharted waters; you never know just when the waves will come and take you in. There must be a place to which you can always run and hide, if only to shield yourself from the engulfing chill the splashes bring with them. A place full of warmth, and love, and a plate of chocolate chip cookies whenever the need for comfort food comes around.

As sad as it is, I don't think I have such a place.

My comfortable bubble of a universe is scarily turning into one giant forest of uncertainty, crippled with fear and senseless paranoia. Gone are my innocent days of youth, when the world was an endless playground of sorts, the sun was but a big round ball of cheerful positivity and every rainbow arch housed a gleaming pot of gold at the edge of the horizon.

Reality is a bitch; it sucks the happiness out of you mercilessly, leaving nothing behind. It wakes you up and shoves its overwhelming presence down your throat, suffocating you.

When life calls, all I wanna do is escape. Hide. Run away from the absurdity of it all and just get back home, where the entire repertoire of my disentangled symphony lies.

Yet it becomes too hard when I can't even figure out which direction I should be heading to.

*sighs*

For now, let me pack up my bags and leave for that giant metropolis I once called my home. Both in a literal and figurative sense. This trip is like a final ode to my blissful days of youth, and the sorrowful prologue to the start of my mundane, adult existence. The final curtain call, one last chance to feel sparkly-eyed like a child, oblivious to the fact that once the game is over, my dreams will get pushed aside and reality will kick in.

After all, to quote a famous saying, I believe that home is truly where the heart is.

And since this solitary longing, this burning fervor in my heart is not yet willing to surrender and rest, I guess I'm just gonna move on, and keep looking.

For now.

"Why do we say things we can’t take back?

Why do we miss what we never had?
Both of us fell to the ground,

The love was so lost, it couldn’t be found..."

...'cause when he's looking she falls apart...

Currently listening to: Dance in the Dark - Lady Gaga

.citysidewalks.

LaTrobe St, Melbourne, May 2008

Photo courtesy of David Chandra

Best friends don't judge.

No. They never do.

They are honest. Blatantly so. And blunt. Even harsh, at times, too.

When others leave, they stay. When others close their ears, they listen. When others defend and reject, they spread their hands and welcome you back.

Best friends support you like strong legs to a table. Best friends hold you firm like a tree to its branches. They catch you when you fall, they don't throw you down. They share your joy, not take it away. They help you release your pain, they won't let it stay.

They may be partial, they may be clueless, they may not even understand what the bloody hell you are going through. Not that you, or anybody else for that matter, should expect them to. That would be asking too much.

But despite all your shortcomings, and bitterness, and countless bouts of absolute negativity, they're still there for you. They linger, against all odds. They still care. And they keep nothing to themselves. Not even the most painful, the most heartless of truths.

They may be wrong. They may be right.

But they should never judge you for who you are, or what you are not, and what you have and have not done in your life.

Best friends don't judge.

Heck. I know I don't.

So, tell me now.

What exactly are you...?

:)

This post is dedicated to my dearest, most amazing friends.

These young, vibrant souls who, over the years, have somehow managed to get through all the emotional chaos, the countless nagging, the constant exaggeration, and the immature, borderline-psychotic taunts and demands of this good-for-nothing, self-centered son of a bitch. Somehow.

Words can't explain just how immensely grateful I am to have been considered a part of your lives all these years.

You guys have truly made my 21st Birthday even more special. More than you'll ever know.

Here's to you. And to our lasting friendships.

And of course, following the age-old tradition, to a great and rewarding year ahead!

Hopefully.

"Our birthdays are feathers in the broad wing of time."

- Jean Paul Richter

"From our birthday, until we die

Is but the winking of an eye."

- William Butler Yeats

The old believe in anything; the middle-aged suspect everything; the young question everything."

- Oscar Wilde

<3

...Thank you! :)

...how did i get here? what did i do?...

Currently listening to: Pretend - Secondhand Serenade

.underneaththegraysky.

Captain Cook Cruise, Sydney Harbour, Dec 2009

I sometimes wonder how things would've turned out to be like if the Universe had decided to screw with the sunny tropics and conveniently assigned yours truly to be born somewhere along the chilly coasts of England.

I for one would've loved the sexy British accent in my speech. And the perpetual cold. And of course, the highly-viable chance of getting ash blonde hair instead of black. Even if I had turned out to be Asian in this hypothetical state of existence - maybe good ol' Mother Nature had thought I would've still been better off with slanty eyes and slightly darker skin - I would've still gotten two out of three! And that's fine by me. *snickers*

Being British would've been AWESOME, with caps. I would've been more poised and mannered in my gestures. I could've made a habit out of jogging around Hyde Park every morning. I could've developed more fondness towards scones. I could've grown addicted to tea, not coffee. I could've auditioned for the role of one of Draco Malfoy's good-for-nothing cronies in the Harry Potter movies just for the thrill of doing so. I could've even spent all my spare time stalking the Royals!

And don't even get me started on the weather. Or the bloody strong British Pound. Or on how irresistible and excessively good looking Europeans are in general, blue eyes and all. *sighs*

Life would've been all rainbows and butterflies then, albeit slightly psychotic. I could've been a terrific British bloke, hey! :)

Damn, does that sound good or what? I would be willing to kill - oh yes I would, just you watch - to be able to enjoy every second of this parallel existence.

Well, except that it doesn't actually exist so I can't exactly do anything about it now, can I?

...Yeah. I know.

This is what blogging in the heat looks like, folks.

Maybe this isnt' such a good idea after all.

*fans self furiously*

Speaking of heat, it's freaking FORTY THREE DEGREES right now, and if the constant sweating and the occasional throb at the back of the head are any indication, I think it's safe to say that my system is NOT handling this blistering hot weather very well. No, not too well indeed.

Fortunately, this dazzling epitome of total awesomeness right here *wink wink* remembered to make a quick run to the grocery store yesterday in search of the world's best thirst-quencher, namely Lipton's Lemon Ice Tea, amongst other things. You know, just in case the heat gets too unbearable and I'm forced to get holed up inside the cool confines of my air-conditioned crib so as to avoid getting fried. *grins*

One big fat bottle now sits quietly inside my fridge, waiting to be ruthlessly ravished. Wrong choice. Should've gotten more. Battling the heat is proving to be quite a feat and I need to be better-armed.

I know that probably more than half of Melbourne's population has already flocked to the nearest beach in response to the heat and is now merrily working on destroying their measly skin cells with the help of the sun and a splatter or two of their trusted SPF-laden tanning lotion of choice. I for one is still yet to discover the fun in rolling around in the sand getting baked while wearing nothing except a pair of extra-strength sunnies and the occasional barely-there thong. So, no, I'll stay well out of the sun's glare for now, thank you very much.

Yeah. As if the awkward tan lines I have on my arms aren't hideous enough already. Besides, if my skin gets any darker then it already is now, chances are even my own family members will start having doubts about the authenticity of my Chinese heritage next time they cross paths with me.

*turns up aircon even higher*

Summer, I hereby welcome you.

Please be nice and don't burn any more trees this year. We've had enough of those catastrophic bushfires last time you came around. :(

Ah well. I better get back to sucking on ice cubes and whatnot. There's only so much heat one can handle at a time.

'Till next time, peeps.

P.S: If what I've been reading is correct, I think Britain's got a bit of a weather issue right now as well. While people in Australia are getting too much sun and therefore slowly heading to skin cancer paradise, all the lucky Brits up there are buried waist-deep in snow as we speak. Talk about irony. We could use some snow down here too, Mother Nature! *sighs*

...although it's been said, many times, many ways...

.feliznavidad.

Collins Street City Square, Melbourne, December 17, 2009

...Merry Christmas, to you. :)