What I find important in a relationship: Friendship, because it's wonderful to imagine how you love somebody so much you can actually stand being his friend. Not that friends are more, or less, but a lover who is also a friend means I can come clean. It's not about the romantic intrigue we try to keep burning. I don't think I'm a person of value or virtues- they're useless because love is lawless and lovers are blameless people. You don't get more love because you're a better person. Who is better than who? Who decides anyway? You don't always love the one good for you. No matter what you do, he might still never love you back. So accept it. There's no use breaking your heart against a word like trust, unless trust means the same thing to both people.

There's no such thing as forgive and forget. Unless he's someone you can forget, you never (really) forgive. And it's not hate or anger. It's just hurt, and what do you do about that? I don't need you to stand by me when I'm right. Come bury the body with me when I do wrong. No questions asked. Surely there are more important things than being right.

I want someone who gets me. You know where I'm coming from. When we speak one language of love, hearts sing... and we can sing of anything. And that's about the only real thing we have together.

/To Know Where I'm Coming From, Johann S. Lee

-

Oh wow, Friday has ended and my essay draft has only one word - 'Panopticism'. Way to go, Wei Lin.

Twenty-nine different attributes
Only seven that you like
Twenty ways to see the world
Twenty ways to start a fight

-



:O It's 1740 now and the sun is still here !
Spring, I welcome you with open arms !

OH, and yknow what.
I was on the bus ystd and I saw a kid using an iPhone. A KID. Probably five years old ?! Whatever happened to those childhood days of playgrounds, Barney and Enid Blyton !

And today I was listening to my all-time favourite song by The Strokes (listen to it, it's an awesome song!). And for a moment, I was almost repelled by it. It's my ringtone, you see. But ppl call me mostly to wake me up so I kind of associated it to my alarm. Sure took me awhile to get used to it, and listen to it as purely a song. Hurhurr.

When I pronounce the word Future,
the first syllable already belongs to the past.

When I pronounce the word Silence,
I destroy it.

When I pronounce the word Nothing,
I make something no nonbeing can hold.

/Poems New and Collected, Wislawa Szymborska

A story can start from the oddest things:
a magic lamp, a conversation overheard, a shadow moving on a wall.

/The Map of Love, Ahdaf Soueif

-

If you've been observant enough (or mayb, too much time on your hands), you'll realise that my movie list's been increasing since I first posted it. Oh yea, I'm totally watching movies 24/7 once the holidays start. Srsly. I'm having quite a bit of trouble starting my working engine. I seem to be more interested in doing sth else.. Read on to see if we have similar sidetracks (for all you know, we might actually be bEstfwenz4lyfe) !

I'm quite a boring person. I do mundane things like, adding more images to my tumblr (oh you'll be amazed how many pictures I have in my queue scheduled to post every 30/60/120/180mins depending on my mood), adding more draft posts on my blogger dashboard (yes, the entry you're reading now is probably already a few days old and only just went public - haha kidding ! Actually no, serious.), refreshing the BBC London weather forecast page (to make sure I get the most accurate and up-to-date information duh-uh), clearing my emails (my friend Spammer gets carried away emailing me sometimes you see..), thinking what colour to paint my nails (dont raise your eyebrows, it's similar to the dilemma you sometimes have before you go out okay), or staring at my messy room (I'm still trying to do a Mathilda- hoping that somehow everything will just magically pack and arrange itself).

Oh you dont actually believe all that, do you ?!

THE CRANBERRIES- ZOMBIE

Once when I was about eight, I asked my mother whether she'd ever cheated on my father."... My mother was taken aback by my question.

"Ben, do you know what cheating means?" she asked.

"Cheating means looking at your classmate's paper during an exam," I replied.

"I have never cheated on your father," my mum said.

My mother's choice of words didn't exclude the possibility that the thought had crossed her mind, and unspoken in her reply was everything around the complexity and difficulty of sustaining a marriage decades. But maybe I was reading too much into what she did or didn't say.

/To Know Where I'm Coming From, Johann S. Lee

AMBITIOUS, AINT I

“The more you love someone, he came to think, the harder it is to tell them. It surprised him that strangers didn’t stop each other on the street to say I love you.”

/ Everything is Illuminated, Jonathan Safran Foer

-

I'm looking forward to Sunday already, haaa.
So not looking forward to Monday.

Some of the many films I wna watch/re-watch (and of course, those I've posted here):
We need to talk about Kevin
Bound
Dead Poets Society
Midnight in Paris
One day
Melancholia
Blue Valentine
Like Crazy
Monster
Closer
Grease
Wayne's World
My Girl
Cider House Rules
Chocolat
The Other Boleyn Girl
Smart People
Across the Universe
Kite Runner
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
Click
Chungking Express
The French Lieutenant's Woman
La Belle Vita
Cashback
The Shawshank Redemption
Alot Like Love
Ils se marièrent et eurent beaucoup d'enfants
White Oleander
Thirteen
Lost in Translation
Match Point
Labyrinth
Sixteen Candles
A Room with a View
Pretty in Pink
Mirrormask
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
Trainspotting
Blow
Elegy
Vanilla Sky
Peter Pan (1953)
The Illusionist
Vantage Point
City of God
Slumdog Millionaire
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
Underworld: Rise of the Lycans
My Fair Lady
Pierrot le fou
La Vie En Rose
Une Femme Est Une Femme
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
The Painted Veil (2006)
Role Models
Priceless (Hors de prix)
Little Rascals
Silk
The Teenage Textbook
Léon
Pleasantville
The Phantom Tollbooth
Wristcutters: A Love Story
Never Been Kissed
Practical Magic
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Pulp Fiction
Goodfellas
Let the Right One in
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Vanity Fair
Ghosts of Girlfriends Past
The Crush
Little Women (1994)
Hamlet (1996)
The Last King of Scotland
Bright Star
Girl, Interrupted
Feast of Love
Almost Famous
Charlie Bartlett
Where the Wild Things Are
Lolita (1997)
Lolita (1962)
Phoebe in Wonderland
The Lion King
Dreamer
The Cat in the Hat
Hansel and Gretel
Dirty Dancing
Shakespeare in Love
Mathilda
Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging
The Craft
Prozac Nation
The Little Prince
Drop Dead Gorgeous
Vicky, Cristine, Barcelona
Marley and Me
Secret
Valkyrie
Annie Hall
A Little Princess
Napoleon Dynamite
The Queen
Amadeus
Schindler's List
Ghost World
About A Boy
An Education
Beetlejuice
James and the Giant Peach
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Lust, Caution
Superbad
The Bucket List
Into the Wild
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
The Boat That Rocked
Corpse Bride
Big Fish
The Simpsons Movie
Precious
The Prince of Egypt
Finding Neverland
Adam
Sid and Nancy
Knocked Up
Michael Clayton
There Will Be Blood
Away From Her
Pan's Labyrinth
Story of Ruth
Esther
Stardust
While You Were Sleeping
Ferris Bueller's Day Off
Penelope
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
Jurassic Park
Jennifer's Body
The Brothers Bloom
Julie & Julia
Doubt
The Hours
The Nightmare Before Christmas
Love Me If You Dare (Jeux d'enfants)
Half Nelson
Edward Scissorhands
Pride and Prejudice
Persuasion
Sense and Sensibility
Northanger Abbey
Emma
Becoming Jane
Paris Je T'aime
Amelie
Mean Girls
The Virgin Suicides
Young Victoria
Harold and Maude
Bruno
The Hangover
Little Children
Rachel Getting Married
Hard Candy
American Psycho
Factory Girl
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
The Breakfast Club
Breakfast at Tiffany's
A Clockwork Orange
The Reader
Marie Antoinette
Definitely, Maybe
Clueless
My Neighbour, Totoro
Howl's Moving Castle
I Love You Man
Persepolis
No Country For Old Men
I'm Not There
A Mighty Heart
Nine
Everything is Illuminated

"What about little microphones? What if everyone swallowed them, and they played the sounds of our hearts through little speakers, which could be in the pouches of our overalls? When you skateboarded down the street at night you could hear everyone's heartbeat, and they could hear yours, sort of like sonar. One weird thing is, I wonder if everyone's hearts would start to beat at the same time, like how women who live together have their menstrual periods at the same time, which I know about, but don't really want to know about. That would be so weird, except that the place in the hospital where babies are born would sound like a crystal chandelier in a houseboat, because the babies wouldn't have had time to match up their heartbeats yet. And at the finish line at the end of the New York City Marathon it would sound like war."

/Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Jonathan Safran Foer

HELLO HOW ARE YOU

-

I think my mind is too active for my own good. And I think I have such vivid imagination sometimes it's like I've to put my mind on a leash. There are many places my mind likes to run to; A Good Tomorrow, A Bad Tomorrow, A Recap Of The Day, A Recap Of The Day Before, Things The Way They Are, Things The Way I Hope They Are, Things To Do After I Wake Up, Things I Should Do Before I Sleep.. It's crazy. Then I imagine a mini me trying to force and drive all these thoughts out from my brain. And thats just me imagining me trying to destroy my thoughts and imaginations.

So no, I'm still awake.

You cannot protect yourself from sadness
without protecting yourself from happiness.

/Jonathan Safran Foer

PAY IT FORWARD

Look at the sky: that is for you. Look at each person's face as you pass on the street: those faces are for you. And the street itself, and the ground under the street, and the ball of fire underneath the ground: all these things are for you. There are as much for you as they are for other people. Remember this when you wake up in the morning and think you have nothing.

/No One Belongs Here More Than You: Stories, Miranda July

-

In the last Quarante-huit heures (Forty-eight hours), I went from being a painter, to a fresher, a partier, a knitter, and now, a blogger (zomg I'm so farneh hahaha okay, mayb not).

Anyhows, after chatting with a stranger from New Zealand this morning, I realised that all the strangers* I've spoken to in London, were not from London. It's interesting. Because we were joking how London is cold. Her weather's cold, and her people's cold haha. Oh and this guys's damn cool. He was doing snowboarding for lik, four years. And he was on his way to France to snowboard, but he passed by London, and decided to stay in London and set up a cafe. I know, so 心血來潮 right !

Btw, I'm finishing my CNY goodies at an alarming rate. I'm left with a meagre two pieces of pineapple tarts, and no more sugar biscuits :( A great (and practical) way to show me you love me, is to send over some cny goodies, thanks.


*Strangers= people on the bus/ at bus stops/ in tubes

GROOL

Boo, I feel like watching Mean Girls now.

People are like stained glass windows:
they sparkle and shine when the sun is out,
but when the darkness sets in their true beauty is revealed
only if there is a light within.

/Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

-

Something random.
I like my knees, HAHA.

I dont get to see them often cos they are almost always covered up due to the cold weather. But just now, I took a good look at them (cos I fell off my chair and my right knee hurt) and hey, I like them. Even with the scars and bruises. I think they look nicer close-up than from afar though.

I dint used to like them very much mmkay.

And I fell off my chair cos my chair's missing one wheel alright.


PS Yiling, stop rolling your eyes.

PPS You too, Justine.

PPPS Shiming was the one who showed me the quote

Do not think that love in order to be genuine has to be extraordinary. What we need is to love without getting tired. Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies.

/Mother Teresa

-

I was talking to Ivan Ann last week, and he was saying how it's been awhile since he emailed Wayne..

WL: "Oh, same. But I just emailed him four words the other day, 'I miss you Wayne !'"
IA: "Wah"
WL: "Haaa you can email him that too !"
IA: "Thats so gay."

Dont you think we girls have it so much easier ? It's a normal thing for girls to say to each other they miss each other. Or at least, we say it to each other more often than guys do. Between guys, -correct me if I'm wrong- it's a different story. Or mayb it's just Singapore. But I'm just wondering, how do guys know that they're being missed, haha. (Painting makes you think alot.) Cos even for girls to say that to guy friends (not just any guy friends, but our good guy friends of course).. sometimes, we just dont say it yknow. We just dont. It's not the norm. & Even if we do, we say it in a 'eh very long nv see you already, you've been missed!' kind of way.

And I'm not saying you shld go round telling your guy friends you miss them, but I'm referring to other things lik, yknow how it's like in Gossip Girl. Although Blair and Serena always fight (which usually starts cos of misunderstandings, insecurities, one not being there for the other, or one not telling the other her problems..), they'll end up patching things up after talking. And when they talk, it always starts with abit of catfight, before they start to really express how they feel, and how much the friendship really means to each of them. And I'm not sure we do the same heart-to-heart talk thing with guys. What about guys btw guys ?! Haha.

I think that sometimes we forget that even though they're guys and all macho-macho, they still need alil love. We tend to think that just because they're guys and from Mars, they dont need such assurance. But it's not good to just feel it, and not express it. Esp when they most need it. If I'm sick and absent from school for a week, just a msg (however trivial it may seem) saying that I'm missed or a really tight hug or sth would make me very happy. On the other hand, if my friends missed me but dint express it, I might actually start to think that my absence wasnt felt at all and that I've been so insignificant that I've been forgotten. And I'm sure this doesnt just apply to me. Or just to the female gender. Sometimes, we need to express how we feel not to show that we miss them, but to show that they're being missed. Not that we appreciate their friendship, but their friendship's appreciated. We need alil assurance now and then, so why not them ?

Okay, back to painting.

Disclaimer: I dont always use my own advice, so forgive me if I myself am awkward when it comes to expressing my feelings (to both guy and girl friends). You guys shld know I miss and love you without me saying it right ;-D

Now that that's done..
Time to get those paint and brushes out, and start working !

How far can logic bring you? Logic brings you to the edge of a cliff and logic sees only as far as your eyes can go. How far can faith bring you? Faith sees God at the end of the jump. So I have the courage to jump, knowing that He will surely make my landing safe. When you have nothing else to hold on to, hold on to Him.

/ wednesdayelegy.blogspot

-

I've edited and put in my thoughts on a quote I posted three days ago, in case anyone thinks I'm some sort of puritan or sth, haa

About a month before holidays are here :D And boy oh boy, am I already in my holiday mood. My mind is moving srsly wayyy ahead of time. I'm not even talking about the Easter holiday mood. I'm talking about the Summer holiday mood HAHA. Okay, I need to slap myself out of this reverie.

By the way, my fav book in the bible now is Ecclesiastes !

COL 1:15-20

People travel to wonder at the height of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars; and they pass by themselves without wondering.

/St Augustine

-

Service on Sunday and Lifegroup today had me watching the whole Louis Giglio's How Great is Our God sermon agn. Incidentally, the project I'm working on now is about space, galaxies and stars. I've posted it before; you can watch it here. & No matter how many times I've watched and listened to it, I still get blown away. It's just amazing.

Apparently, here's how the center of a blackhole looks like (taken by the Hubble telescope):



And it's not just the part about the whole universe which blows me away. But also the very fact that in each of us, there's a protein molecule called the Laminin. Which, according to Wiki, "are major proteins in the basal lamina (formerly improperly called "basement membrane"), a protein network foundation for most cells and organs. The laminins are an important and biologically active part of the basal lamina, influencing cell differentiation, migration, adhesion as well as phenotype and survival." To put it simply, it's the glue of the human body.

And here's how a Laminin looks like:




Coincidence, much ?
Mayb I'm biased, but I think not.

I'm looking forward to today, but I'm feeling sian ttm right now. I just checked the weather forecast. And it's gng to rain later :(

And, I'm feeling very tired but I just cant get to sleeeeeep.

THE HIGHEST HEIGHTS

The time is now, so stop the tease
And may I have your attention, please
The time has come, the curtains call

Alicia: How big is the universe?
Nash: Infinite.
Alicia: How do you know?
Nash: I know because all the data indicates it’s infinite.
Alicia: But it hasn’t been proven yet.
Nash: No.
Alicia: You haven’t seen it.
Nash: No.
Alicia: How do you know for sure?
Nash: I don’t, I just believe it.
Alicia: It’s the same with love I guess.

/Beautiful Mind

CNY/VALENTINE's

“We have no right to ask when sorrow comes, “Why did this happen to me?” unless we ask the same question for every moment of happiness that comes our way.”

EDIT (170210 | 0221): It's funny how we dont usually ask the 'why' question when happiness happens to us. Though I'd say the word 'right' used here is too strong/extreme for my liking; as personally, I dont think it's wrong/inappropriate to question things that happen in our lives. Esp when it comes to sorrow; because more often than not, things just happen and we dont have control over them. But the quote does put things into perspectives. While we dont have control over our situations, we do have control over how we respond to them, no ?

Just like how we thank and praise God for something good that happens, we can still thank and praise God even in our bad situations, because we know that He knows what's best for us and better things will come ! Even when things seem bleak and impossible, if God can create something (ie. the universe) out of absolutely nothing, every Impossible is definitely a Possible for God !

-

There have been many things on my mind recently. But I'm too lazy to pen them down in words (or rather, type them out). Till then, I shall either spam you with quotes (sorry Yiling), or bore you with details of my days :>

CNY and Valentine's celebration today ! & More importantly..

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LILIAN ♥
(she probably wont see this, but still)

Had good food and good company for the past few days ! The picture below basically sums up my CNY/Valentine's celebration :D You can see the rest of the pictures here !

NOTE-WORTHY

1. RIP Alexander McQueen
I'm still in shock. I dint knw I'll actually be that affected by his death. I guess I feel the same way as Kellie.. thats probably why I was pretty affected by Daul Kim's suicide too :(

2. I've yet to receive my new card = My kind friends are still acting as my ATM, & = I cant top up my pfingo = Cant call back home

3. Have a good weekend !

"I guess I've been waiting so long I'm looking for perfection."

"Waiting for the perfect love?"

"No, even I know better than that. I'm looking for selfishness. Perfect selfishness. Like, say I tell you I want to eat strawberry shortcake. And you stop everything you're doing and run out and buy it for me. And you come back out of breath and get down on your knees and hold this strawberry shortcake out to me. And I say I don't want it anymore and throw it out of the window. That's what I'm looking for."

"I'm not sure that has anything to do with love," I said with some amazement.

"It does," she said. "You just don't know it. There are times in a girl's life when things like that are incredibly important."

"Things like throwing a strawberry shortcake out the window?"

"Exactly. And when I do it, I want the man to apologize to me. 'Now I see, Midori. What a fool I've been! I should have known that you would lose your desire for strawberry shortcake. I have all the intelligence and sensitivity of a piece of donkey shit. To make it up to you, I'll go out and buy you something else. What would you like? Chocolate mousse? Cheesecake?'"

"So then what?"

"So then I'd give him all the love he deserves for what he's done."

"Sounds crazy to me."

"Well, to me, that's what love is. Not that anyone can understand me, though." Midori gave her head a little shake against my shoulder. "For a certain kind of person, love begins from something tiny or silly. From something like that or it doesn't begin at all."

/Norwegian Wood, Haruki Murakami

-

Did I mention I lost my debit card :-( And life without it is really full of inconveniences. Because, I dont really carry cash with me in the first place. So now, every time I need to draw out money, I've to transfer first to my friends, and get cash from them. Machiam they are my ATM.

And I think French people must be really good at math. It's like, if you wna say Seventy-one, it's Sixty and Eleven. Eighty, it's Four Twentys. And Ninety, it's Four Twentys Eleven. Ohmytian. My math is good (I learnt abacus okay), but I'm seriously having trouble counting from 1-100 in French.

AND SO ARE YOU

I dont think I've seen guys with pompoms look this good before :3 HAHA (1.33-3.30)



Hana Kimi <3
I watched the Taiwanese version, but I dint really like it. Halfway through it, I stopped. But the Jap version !! You have to watch it. It's so ridiculous I'm laughing like a hyena in the wee hours. Gosh, drama-watching is consuming my life. Hello, holidays already is it ?!!

WAKE UP

Ignorance is bliss; denial isn't.