do you remember that scene in garden state, where they stood atop the crane and screamed out of their garbage bag shells into the infinite abyss? during nights like these when the hostility in my lungs feels almost unbearable, the most i can do is put myself in that moment. honestly i cant remember the last time i felt happy, or hopeful, like that.

p>this is the person i’m going out with:

me: if this works out in the long run, can i be the vatican to your italy?

kafka : “no no no no. if we got married you will not be an autonomous enclave. you will basically be like the Muslims under Christian Spain– you are entitled to all the rights you deserve despite not being a citizen, but ultimately you’re subject to my rules. so i’m King Philip II.”

-_-

WTF seriously

i’m growing up!

i have nothing wise to say today, except that for the first time ever, my growth over the past year feels tangible to me. i feel different, and it feels good.

thank you for all the birthday wishes! i’ve been so sleep deprived lately that it was quite a struggle to stay up till midnight but i’m glad i did. always ready for some free love and surprise birthday cupcakes ^____^

and guess who were recently in town, but not for my birthday or anything:

i shoulda asked her for tips on how to throw a birthday party. no one does it like our first lady does!

(wow am i really twenty two? has this blog really been around for nine years?)

it’s been a busy time back at school, but i just received a snapshot of the DiGi Hari Malaysia ad and thought it was too cute to not put up here for those of you who missed it, or are far away from home like me!

cuteness and fuzzy feelings aside, the 1Malaysia meme is truly unavoidable now, and not just on airwaves or down the North South Highway. it strikes me as slightly humourous that a mere (but expensive) slogan or campaign title has re-branded the concept of unity and harmony in Malaysia, even if just superficially. it’s a nice catchphrase, but that’s it. during my internship over the summer, my colleagues and bosses often expressed pride over the 1Malaysia concept. but what actually is the concept? i would ask. sorry ah, i dont really know, havent been back in malaysia for a long time. racial harmony lah! semua bangsa pun satu malaysia! smile smile beam beam. i dont know if it’s inspiring or tragic that such a small slogan can satisfy any individual or collective need for real unity, that once such a slogan is perpetuated, there are some who don’t think twice about its lack of substance. a PR campaign doesn’t quite do the job, guys. or does it?

just a brief rant that i will probably regret regurgitating come the following morning. i am in a place where i no longer recognize 1) the people around me, and 2) who i really want to be.

the past week has been a very loud culmination of various leadership and friendship issues, mostly separate but with enough intersections. i’ve always loved working with friends, but what happens when you engage in a project with friends only to realize that all of you have very different goals, and in order to win, none are too shy to whip out arsenals that have been stealthily built over the years? how do you deal with friends who don’t pull their own weight but help out the team just by being there as a good friend with moral support? and then what happens when factions form and every well-meaning thing you say and do is used by the factions against each other, and ultimately against you too?

i am learning more and more that to be a good leader, one needs to be firmly grounded in his or her values and goals with unwavering and adamantine integrity. without integrity, a leader is nothing but a crafty but misguided and self-centered dictator who doesn’t understand that his job travels far beyond himself into a realm that involves bigger ideas and other people. but i am also learning more and more that in order to be popular and to be friends with everyone, it seems that integrity is the last thing you need. all you need to do is just be damned two-face and make sure you don’t get caught. which is sad. it’s fucking sad. you might ask, who needs to be friends with everyone? just a handful of good, true friends will do. but that is not the point. the point is that two-faced people are still getting away with what they are doing because they know what other people want, and know how to use charisma to dangle these promises in front of others. you know what really bothers me– it bothers me when i recognize who two-faced people are and what they do to other people, but won’t say anything about it because my stupid integrity nags at me and reminds me that i shouldn’t say bad things about people. very often i slip, and i start ranting angrily, and then i hate myself after my tirade for being so weak of will — especially if there is a paper trail, which ‘friends’ are fond of using against others. but the rest of the time, when i do successfully bite my tongue, i still get increasingly angry about the injustice i see unfolding before me that i can’t or won’t do anything about. it’s a very confusing state to be in. i understand that there is no black or white in this world, and that i don’t always have to have a fixed policy, but it’s still bloody confusing. at the end of it all i have no idea who i am, what i want to be, or what kind of ethics i stand for.

i used to have this silly concept of friends that i jokingly called a circle of immunity. they aren’t necessarily my closest friends, but they are the friends whom i would still love despite us having directly conflicting principles or even if they did things to me or to others that would ordinarily really upset me. they’re just that special. but i recently folded that circle because i realized that everyone in there couldn’t be trusted. it’s a very stunning thing to realize about the people you’ve allowed to be very close to you. it’s funny but more often than not, it’s not that they had cruel intentions or premeditated motives — but rather, the uniform pattern is that everyone just likes themselves a whole lot more than anything else in their world. it could be any number of things: people like to sound smart, people like to seem plugged in, people like to feel as if they’re everyone’s confidante, people like to appear to others as if they have these piercing insights into human nature, and sadly, things that you once entrusted them with become collateral damage in the process.

it’s so awful. basically i have no idea who to talk to anymore. i sometimes wonder if this is the reason why i always fall into such deeply close relationships with my boyfriends– i need someone to love me so that i can hate the rest of the world; at least at the end of the day no matter what happens i still have that one someone.

or maybe i’m just really paranoid.