All about boobs

Amongst all of the issues that women have with their bodies, one of the ones on the top of the list has got to be the size of their breasts (the other being their weight - too skinny, to fat, bla bla bla). I belong to the small-size clan. I like this most of the time. Mostly because I can get away with wearing low cut tops without my boobs spilling out of my top. Or that I can wear backless dresses and tops and not worry about supporting my boobs. 

I admire big boobs. I can understand why men go crazy over them, because I do. I find female wearing low cut tops, revealing their cleavages, attractive - because they quite literally attract me to stare at that point. So I am sorry if I have to remind myself to look into your eyes when I am talking to you. I am sorry if I forget to remind myself to do so, I am attracted to something else. 

Sometimes I think life is unfair, you know. If a man rocks up to the office with his shirt unbuttoned, then it is like impolite. The same does not apply to women - fine, so maybe it is not their shirts that were unbuttoned, it is just that their clothes are designed that way. The end result is the same: it is the revelation of skin (and other things previously mentioned). If we want the whole world to take feminism seriously, maybe we need to address this clothing issue first. Maybe this has been addressed, I don't know. But from what I see by just hanging out in the Sydney business district, the chance spotting of a young female urban professional is pretty high. 

Just some food for thought. 

Apology

Hi!

I was drunk.

Did I say anything inappropriate to you?

I am sorry.

Won't happen again.

Cross my heart.

This is why I would not want to do what I did last night ever again.

I spend more time recovering from it rather than enjoying it. I do not enjoy getting drunk.

Love peace and chicken grease. x

Vulnerability

I am feeling rather melancholic tonight. I want to blame it on the weather (come on, raining for like 5 days straight?), yet I know that it is not just about the weather. I am tired, physically. I feel like I am getting older, physically. Like my body is giving up on me, slowly, but surely. I guess everybody must experience this one way or the other. It is the moment that you realise that you are no longer 18 years old. You no longer can stay up all night cramming for exams, or watch movie marathons till the wee hours in the morning. Or in my case, chatting with random strangers on the internet. At the same time, I feel so juvenile. Trust me, it is not because I have zits on my face. It is because ... I don't know. I don't think this is another bout of mid-life crisis - seriously, how many of those can you have in a life time? And if this is my version of mid-life crisis, then that technically means I would die just short of turning 60. Now, that's a scary thought.

What is it in life that is worth living for? What is it that we are searching for, day in and day out. Why do we insist on being happy all the time? It is not like we are going to die if we are not happy temporarily. Yet even when we are feeling down, we convince ourselves to feel better, instead of just completely feeling the emotion, and then letting it go. Why are we so afraid of being unhappy? Why are we so against feeling down?

And once we are happy - so what?

I cannot believe I am sitting here, asking this question.

One of my professors told me, at the conclusion of my degree, that a lot of people in this life are searching for the wrong things. This is why they keep searching for the next "big" thing that they thought they wanted, that they convinced themselves they wanted. If we spend more time convincing ourselves that we are happy instead of just enjoying the feeling, then are we really happy? Or are we just pretending we are happy. And if it is true, is it so wrong to pretend to be happy?

For as long as I can remember, my (bio) mother was always unhappy. Dare I say that she is unhappy even until today. The sad thing is that she is one of those women who are stunningly beautiful. I have a lot of people telling me that she is beautiful, not because she is my mother, but because she just is. Even until today, she remains beautiful. Yet she is so sad, and I see that, and I feel that it is so wrong, because someone like her should not be sad. She has so much to live for, such that it is painful to see her being trapped in her sadness. I wonder if she wants to get out.

Because right now, for some reason I don't quite comprehend (or more like refuse to confront), I don't feel as happy as I'd like to be, and I want to get out of this feeling. Typical in the Elle-kind-of-way, I ventured off in this analysis of my motivations, my goals and all the things that I have been searching for, some that I have found, some that I am still searching for. I admit that sometimes I am so busy searching for these things that I lose myself in the process, that I forget who I am, and who I'd like to be.

Surely, life cannot be just about searching and searching and searching. Surely life is more than that. Is it not?

I am not so sure any more.

A short note

My memories of you are those moments spent in private. Conversations spoken in private, in words and phrases that only we can understand. 

I am very fortunate to have you in my life. You have loved me into a better person, a much better person than I could ever imagine. 

Thank you for always being there when it matters most. x

It's just not my thing

There are certain things that I swear I cannot write about. BUT there are always exceptions to these things, and they are usually out of ... er... my inability to stop thinking about something.

So the story goes like this: I came across a photo of a friend and her fiance. She and I have come quite a long way. We were close for a while, and then she moved to a different country, then another country and then another one. We managed to keep in touch over the years. And deep down, we sort of think of each other as "best friends" however those two words are supposed to mean. To me, it meant something along the lines of you know, the one person who love you for who you are and you don't have to pretend in front of them, and having known most, if not all, of your quirks, they still love you no matter what happen. When you are down, they are the first to text or email something along the lines of "ruokx".

I am a very high maintenance individual. Fuck, even sometimes I have difficulties maintaining myself. Seriously. It must take a lot from my friends to actually be my friends. And to these people, I am eternally grateful. And in the extremely rare chance that you are reading this, thank you so so much. I am grateful for your friendship and you have made me a better person.

Anyway, I digress.

So the story continues. She was getting married. She wanted me to be one of her bridesmaids. I said yes, without hesitation. Two weeks before the wedding, her then-fiance got cold feet and the wedding didn't happen.

Fast forward 2 years later - she told me that she is getting married ... to the same man.

She asked me to be one of her bridesmaids.

I sort of said no.

In case it is not clear from reading this blog, I am very much a blunt person in real life. I am slowly learning the art of being diplomatic. You know, things like saying no without actually saying no. I am not exactly good at the art of pretension, just yesterday, someone told me that I cannot tell a lie. These two things are relevant because (1) I want to be honest, and I know that I should not say what I really want to say because they are so not diplomatic and (2) because I can't do (1), I have to do something that is not (1), that is, I sort of have to make sure that I say the right things, in the right way, despite not being able to lie.

Gah.

I gave the standard lame excuse of I wasn't sure whether I would be able to do so (or not) as I was not sure what I would be doing during that time. Truth is simple - it is not in my budget, because I am budgeting for something else. I don't think I need to justify that to anyone because at the end of the day, I have my own life to think about.

Sometimes I wish we can just be more upfront about monetary issues with our friends. I have said this before, I would spend money on my friends insofar as (1) I can afford it and (2) I am comfortable with the kind of spending. The issue at hand is not so much of (1), because really, I can always find the funds if I want to go (sorry, forgot to mention that the wedding is overseas). I am actually not comfortable with the kind of spending. Not so much that I don't want to attend her wedding, I don't want to be there, zip my mouth, smile for the camera and all the while watching her making the biggest mistake of her life (in my opinion).

I just don't think I can pretend to that extent.

To be fair, I can give them the benefit of the doubt. I don't know for sure if she is happy or not. I don't know a lot of the details of their relationship and I am pretty sure I don't want to know. All that I am doing is judging them based on the choices that they have made in the past. I get that past performance is not always an indicator of future performance, but it is a pretty good indicator most of the time, and in fact, you can use it as a predictor of future performance if you know how to harness its predictive powers.

This is one of those things in life in which I don't mind being wrong about.

Gritting my teeth is easier done when I am far away across the ocean and not witnessing things unravelling before my eyes.

In that picture I saw in Facebook, she looks old. Yeah, I get that we all age, but she and I are not that old yet. To me, that's somewhat an indication that she is not happy. A picture says a thousand words. Maybe I am over-analysing it, like always. Or maybe, it is true. I don't know. I don't want to find out.

At the end of the day, we are all responsible for our own happiness. We don't have anyone else to blame for the things that go wrong in our lives, except for ourselves and the decisions that we make. We have to be able to do the things that we want to do because we know it is truly right for us, not because someone else thinks it is right for us.

After 20 something years of living, I still struggle with this, and I am starting to realise that this may qualify as one of the permanent struggles of life. I am willing to struggle to stay true to myself.

I like to think that I am being a good friend by not saying anything about this whole thing. Can silence be considered support? I realise that I am not exactly actively supporting her decision. Does that mean not actively hindering equals support?

I don't know. Maybe I will never know. I am ok with that.

The eaton mess of my life

Heya!

Still alive. Frozen cold though. Flat out busy. Fucking tired.

Hi! I miss you! 
Just like any other Indonesian in this planet, or I should say, the urban professionals who are Indonesians, I am attached to this little nifty device called the Crackberry. I never intended it to be an extension of my hand, but there it is. I recently bought my Dad one in an attempt to get him to ditch his old mobile phone and you know, get with the times. As a result, he now uses a device that is at least one generation ahead than my current device, and his knowledge of the various shortcuts and functionality is quite admirable.

But these days I am so freakin' occupied that every time he texts, I don't give him the attention that he wants. It is not that I am neglecting him, I don't, it just so happens that we have timing issues. I am usually at work when he texts and he is usually at dinner when I am free to text. Don't ask why. Anyway, Dad, in the extremely off chance that you are reading this: Hi! I miss you!

Facebook
These days, for some reason I do not comprehend, I have all these flashbacks about my childhood. Generally my memory is pretty awesome, especially when I make an effort to remember, but for the love of rum and raisin, I have difficulties remembering my childhood. I am talking about the specifics ok. I remember the general stuff like where I lived, where I went to school, etc. But I don't remember if I like any particular food, the things I used to enjoy doing, the friends I have etc etc etc. Ok, I lied, I remember bits and pieces about the friends I had, but I don't remember most of them. I don't remember the conversations we had, or whatever else.

So, given that I have all these flashbacks, and that names come up during these mini events, I decide to look these up on Facebook. I guess I have annoyingly become one of those Gen-Ys who is of the school of opinion of who-does-not-have-Facebook-these-days? And apparently, the answer is ... these people I remember meeting back in my childhood. I swear this is probably because I don't remember the correct names, or the correct spelling, or whatever else, I don't know.

Why am I telling you this? I don't know. I don't know a lot of people in my generation who does not have a Facebook profile. I do find some people of the older generation who is active on Facebook a bit creepy - seriously, aren't you supposed to be busy with your kids or something? I guess this is my personal bias, so don't take it personally.

English is my second language card
Yes, English is my second language. It is in fact the third language that I learnt. The second language was Mandarin, and I was terrible at it. Fortunately, my parents had the decency to send me to a language school, or in particular, an English language school, and I happened to like it because I could then watch all those Hollywood movies without reading the subtitles. I was pretty good at it too - maybe because I was determined to watch the movies without reading the subtitles.

That said, I have those annoying moments when I can't find words that I want to use or when I just make grammatical mistakes unintentionally. This is when I pull the English-is-my-second-language-card, and I have every intention to use this card for as long as I can.

Not that I should be using the card because I am hopeless at Indonesian. I can read and talk and write - although I am not too sure that I can do it well. Over the weekend, a friend and her family came over to visit and I had to converse with her mum in Indonesian. I understood perfectly what she was saying and she was kind enough to put up with my declining language skills. Actually, it was not the language that bothered me so much. It was the culture gap that I found somewhat disturbing. For example, one of her questions was "why are you not married yet?". I am 1000% sure that this was asked in good faith, but I was not too sure how I should answer. I was scared of offending her and I was scared of being too upfront and too honest for fear that I might have accidentally offended her. She was a very nice person, and she did not know my parents (as in, they had met once, and that's it, they do not talk regularly to one another, and she definitely did not ask that question because my parents wanted her to ask it).

Ok, that's it. Going off to dreamland now. Until then, stay warm.

x