She's going to create something bigger than herself....

I'm going to create something bigger than myself...

Christmas is :

family,

cupcakes for christmas morning,

friends,



and the wish to keep creating
love, peace, hope, everything we live for.

Merry Christmas :)

from the girl who likes the smell of vanilla beans

2010

Loneliness is like a drug.

It makes you crazy with the desire to not be alone. You start your daily hallucinations with hope. Every small smile, every glance from a passer-by feels like a sparkling dinner invitation and you accept with a nod of your head and feel that the bounce in your step becomes lighter.

You’re in a crowd but yet you feel at the edges of the universe, detached and distant from the laughter and warmth that is happening only inches from your face.
People is not the answer. Because she feels that everyone belongs in some kind of world that makes sense to them.

Hers consists of fragile butterflies and doves, flying to the sounds of broken French and violin music.

The collision of two worlds happen rarely. But when it does, it commences with friction and conflict. Then slowly, their outsides peel away to reveal a core that has never been exposed before or have felt the caresses of the wind. On that full moon, She’ll let someone in.

But until then.

She's going back to the stratosphere.

This year she turned 20, completing the first two decades of her life. She's not suppose to be that awkward, uncertain teenager anymore. She should be making her way into the world, confident of her opinions and mature with a steady mind.

Why is it then, she still feels child-like and unaffected by the workings of society.

At night she dreams of fantastical worlds, of talking trees and purple sunsets. Of beautiful birds of prey with wingspans bigger than the stain-glassed windows of any cathedral. Of beautiful kingdoms and flying machines that run on sunlight.

She wants to push them away.

But everytime she listens to music as she walks around he city, they come back to haunt her, twice as apparent. The butterflies dodge themselves between people's heads. Vines shoot from the ground and curl themselves around bus stop signs or creep along the front of office buildings.

Gravity disappears.

She stands on the white zebra crossing in the middle of the city and views the scene above her.

Businessmen float past her trying to keep their ties from flying above their ears. Office cases burst open and documents of every kind fold themselves into paper aeroplanes before launching themselves into the sky. Starbucks coffee cups loose their lids and all kinds of coffee float around like a mass of uncoordinated bubbles. Children laugh because finally things are going their way for once. Politicians, lawyers, accountants, bankers all shout words of panic, carrying faces of disbelief as they float around like helium balloons. But they are drowned out by the millions of voices rising in a crescando around the world.

Tell me....where is she going to fit?

I just realised that my last blog entry is a bit too emotional and long-winded for daily consumption. I apologise for this -_-

I'll be back to normal blogging starting from......whenever these exams decides to leave my life once and for all.

Actually, I don't even know what normal blogging is anyway. All my posts seem to have turned into these ridiculous lengthy discussions of soul searching.

Guess it depends on what you think a purpose of a blog is for.

It's suppose to be for rant (well in my eyes anyway), whether its stupid, lengthy, crazy, insane ranting about topics well beyond daily activities that only reflects what an emotional sod I am, it should be still considered as perfectly fine ranting.

So whoever reads this (I don't even know if anyone does anymore)

Here's to all the emotional sods in the world. Because we're far more epic than the ones that don't feel anything.

(Cheers?) *clinks with my invisble mug of beer* (because I can't drink in real life anyway, a sober emotional sod.....is that even possible?)

Okay back to studying now

She's not someone hard to read. Essentially, if she was a book, you can read her entirely in half an hour.

She takes pleasure in simplicity. She likes to keep arguments and confrontations at bay. She despises hatred and humiliation. She advocates for respect and sincerity. More often than not, she only tends to see the good in people. And often...much too often, she views those she's close to in an idealised.....even perfect state.

She believed that there were genuinely good people in the world. Genuinely good.

However, this unrealistic notion began to unravel itself. The horror of the world slowly seeped in. She's been too protected, too niave, too innocent to realise the multidimensional layers of the human condition. Still, she felt like she has been acquainted with this reality, sometime long ago. The thought that humans tend to wearing different personas in certain circumstances, in ways that only benefited themselves, was definitely not a new notion.

Her family members tried to send fire drills long ago. Sounding the alarm sporadically so she could design her own evacuation route, so she could familiarise herself with working the fire extinguisher. Their voices overlapp each other like a continous chant in her head. Nevertheless, she managed to push it all somewhere to the back of her mind, inbetween the nightmares and the secrets.

She did not want to believe it. This could not be right. It could not be possible that everyone had a second motive to the way they do things, until a close friend woke her up.

"It's part of being human".

This revelation hit her harder than anything before.

She became overwhemlingly nervous and buried herself in long periods of doubt and mistrust of those around her. She only saw negativity, the cruelness of the world, the anger and frustration that life bought on people and the injustice that descended upon humanity like a plague.

Most days, she was paralysed with fear. Fear of the future and uncertainty about people in general. She doubted if loving someone for a lifetime was possible, if all the novels and movies were all lies, carefully disguised with elaborate romantic thematics to lure the ignorant.

All these things were uncharacteristic of her.

She tried to go about life as she always did. The usual routine of warlking the dog, working at the corner shop, swimming against the backdrop of an Australian summer sunset.

And then, she snapped.

The break off was slow at first but it was a clean cut, crisp, like separating a square piece of chocolate from the block.

The aftermath was messy, it involved numerous sessions of quiet reflection and free falling tears. Often, she found herself sketching by the water and paying weekly visits to the gardens.

She felt that time would finally lay her insecurities to rest.

Now she feels an odd notion of worn-out peace, like a old man with both frown and laugh lines around his wrinkled face.

But her spirit has been internally dampened. Marked by the rainstorm that had passed. She's determined to revive it though. Somehow.

She does not know whether to be glad or sombre.

The process of being human is quite fair in a way. The salt in tears will always be balanced by the sweetness you drink in from laughter.

Anger is an emotion she rarely associates herself with.

She feels irritation, frustration and annoyance. But rarely pure anger. Maybe she wants to distant herself from her own mother's short fuse or her parent's constant arguments during her life. But she hates seeing flashes of blood red when anger surfaces on a person's countenance.

It's amazing how ugly someone looks when they're angry.

Their veins throb more conspicuously, more lines appear on their face and they look as if they're being starved of love.

Anger can easily turn into hatred.

Hatred can turn into revenge.

And love becomes a distant memory. You become indifferent to happiness and joy. It's like an addiction. Like cigarettes and chocolate cake.

She doesn't want that.

Anyways, it's so much easier to smile.

Today, at work, I was serving someone who I presumed was a mother with 7 children. The children were pretty rowdy, running around, laughing, teasing each other, asking their mother for toy cameras etc. Kids being kids.

I felt quite sympathetic for the mother who amongst the chaos was attempting to push a trolley laden with toys (she obviously had already succumbed to their pleas and took a turn into Toys R Us) while trying to keep all seven children at bay.

She came to pay for a USB stick. My conversation with her went like this.

Me: The little ones must keep you busy
Lady: Tell me about it, but they're actually not all mine
Me: Oh really?
Lady: Yes, the three little ones over there are my friend's. She's ill with cancer
Me: Oh my.....that's incredibly nice of you to look after them for her! (I pass over the bag with the usb stick) I really hope she gets well soon.

The Lady looks at me with a downward glance "It doesn't look like she will. It's terminal. I've adopted her kids".

I take life too seriously sometimes. Things will come eventually if I try hard enough. I need to stay optimistic. Life can only be lived in light.

*a glimspe into my childhood*

Teacher Yang: What does everyone want to be when they grow up?
Tim: I want to be a lawyer, just like my dad!
Susan: I want to be a teacher, just like teacher Yang!
Alvin: I want to be a doctor, so I can help people!
Teacher Yang: What about you Fiona?
Fiona:...I want to be a butterfly.

My brother can be rather nice at times.

He bought home green-tea mochi for everyone last night. And then this morning he made steamed wontons and told me to eat them before they got cold.

Bribing Fiona with food will always work under all circumstances. And I repeat. Under all circumstances.

When you grow up, your heart dies.

To be honest, the first 50 minutes of the “Breakfast Club” was quite mundane. It was my friends’ blatant surprise at me not knowing the existence of the 80’s film that they demanded we watch it this afternoon. Sure, some of the dialogue was quite entertaining, especially the witty repartee that was conducted between “the school rebel” (forgot his name) and the principal.

However, when the aforementioned line was muttered, the truth in them knocked all sense of logic within me. It was true of course; the older the get, the darker the world becomes. You become a regular visitor of the underbelly of life. The cruelties, the hardships, the wars, the unbelievable disparity between the rich and poor ultimately makes your heart cold. It’s like a defence mechanism. In order to protect your heart, you freeze it, hoping and wishing for the day it’ll all be over so it can be warm and beat with love again. Urgh, I’m being hyperbolical again. My stepdad says I exaggerate things a lot, especially when I’m writing. “It’s too dramatic, Fiona, you need to be careful with your adjectives,”. He likened the process of writing to baking a cake. He said I added too much sugar.

I don’t know why I like to dramatise things. Maybe it’s the lack of drama in my life that has influenced me. My mind constantly flies with a gazillion different scenarios I want to find myself in. I guess I should be lucky I never ever find myself caught up in a huge mess. Or maybe life is much simpler than the way they show it in movies. All convoluted with a multiple different subplots happening all at once.

I don’t want to forget.

I used to keep an art diary when I was around 17. I wrote and drew down everything that fascinated me with everyday life. It was the only thing to do, to keep myself entertained. I was convinced that everything in the world had a unique story about it and it was my duty to interpret and keep a record.

It was like a game.

What kind of crazy story will Fiona come up with next?

I need to keep my imagination alive. I somehow have to feed it, nurse the fire to make sure it keeps burning. It’ll be such a shame to throw it all away.

I have in total, 6 weeks to kill on my university break. Alot of time for soul searching :)

She took the wrong bus home the other day.

It wasn't completely an innocent mistake. She found it refreshing to see life from a different point of view. So, she decided to take a different route home.

When she was waiting at the bus stop, she stood next to a man possibly in his late 20s. He was supporting a backpack, a hoodie and wearing checked pants, you know, the type that chefs wear. But her first conception of him was that of a dishwasher. Again, this shows the plain prejudices she has engrained in her mind just by judging him from his attire.

But he could've been a top culinary chef!

Carefully, he lightly dusted icing sugar over his masterpiece. Presentation was everything to him. This could potentially be the most life-changing event for him if he did well. Everything........had to be perfect. He took a clean towel and wiped the rims of the plate, turning it slowly and wiping away any remains of dripping chocolate. He glanced at the clock, he had around 10 minutes before his creation will be deconstructed and scrutinised, down to the smallest detail. He had already readied himself for the constant roll of criticisms that is sure to come his way, "the chocolate isn't smooth enough!", "you call this a profiterole tower? It can barely stand upright!", "the custard tastes atrocious! and look! its curdled!".
He heard footsteps outside the hallway. The short staccato steps could only be made by high heels. This is it, his toughest food critic. If he could impress her, he would be able to do anything. One word from her and he'll be ready to take his gastronomic vision to the world.

“Well?” he asked, his voice slicked with nervousness and anticipation as she tried a piece of his croquembouche. Her expression was difficult to read. There was slight concentration within her eyes as she probed the morsel in her mouth with her tongue. She swallowed before taking a sip of red wine.

She smiled “it’s perfect”.

“Really?” he asked in disbelief, wringing his hands and looking uncertain.

“Oh come on Rob, of course it is!”. She kissed him and walked towards the door.

“Everything you do is…..,” she smiled and put on her coat. “I’ll wait for you outside, and wear something warm! It’s freezing”.

He stood in the living room with a warm glow. Its like the feeling you get when you’ve eaten something really sweet.

A shot of love.

Of course she highly doubted that a top chef would be taking public transport home. But still. He actually had a very lonely look about him. She could picture him tucked in bed, staring at the ceiling and night and sweetly dreaming of another existence. Maybe that is why she wrote him a soul mate. Someone he cared for so much that her opinion was all that ever mattered to him.

Chef-man got off the bus near Maroubra beach.

The bus climbed higher and for a spilt second, she felt my heart in my throat. There’s no denying it. The city definitely looks better at night, from every angle possible.

She got off the bus in a daze.

Then, it took a good 5 minutes for reality to set in.

She didn’t like the sea-salt air and it was making her cough, she was freezing her bum off because naturally its colder near the sea side, she had no idea how to get home and it was past 6, there was no one around and the panic started to set in.

Don’t worry, she got home in the end :)

It's going to be a long post

She's in a state of transition.

Shes unable to pick between what she knows best and what she ought to do for survival. She's betraying a part of herself. Everything around her is screaming, warning her not to let it all go.

When she walks down the street, the trees whisper amongst themselves, they send leaves spinning at her. "Each hit for every second she's throwing it all away". Passer-bys brush past her, she catches their disapproving looks, their smug faces "ha, we got another one!". The little boy on his red shining biycle stops to pity her "What would mummy say?".

The truth is. Ever since she was really young, she has taken with anything that was fragile and beautiful. And for her, the first thing she fell in love with was music. She displayed the most enthusiasm in music class during kindergarden. She would come home, full to the brim with happiness, dump her bag on the floor before prancing around the room singing about blackbird being baked in pies. Sounds made her whole.

Her mother could see very early on, that she would be musicial, or creative or artsy, or all three. Music was her lifeline. She hated getting sore throats, because that meant she could not sing. The first time she had my flute serviced, she was upset and irritated all week. Shr couldn't handle being deprived of the ability to make music. It made her sane.

When she turned 13, she went through the usual teenage phrase of doubt and insecurity. That year was documented quite accurately in a notebook she kept which was littered with amateurish poetry. Later on, she started putting her poems to music. She wrote her first song at 14. It wasn't profound or anything. Just some little ditty about being disappointed with life and the cruelties it brings.

The senior years of highschool saw her work broaden from songs about "finding herself" to songs about actual events. She remembered comforting a classmate one day who, hithero she had not been able to acquaint herself with as fully as she would have liked. But she viewed her friend as someone with a lovely heart and nice disposition. She tried to cheer her friend up by saying what a lovely person she is. She would never forget the anger on her companion's face when she shook her head and muttered "I'm not a good person, you don't know the things I have done". She went home that afternoon, disturbed by her friend's words but still upholding the belief that good can be found in everyone. Almost instantly a song came out. She realised that composing from experiences, writing and examing feelings and the human condition seemed the best way to song write.

During her parents' divorce where she could have very easily succumbed to self-destruction. She turned to music. She spent every chance she had in the practice music rooms, playing to her heart's content. With every note she hit, she forced out every ounce of pain, confusion, fear and doubt inside of her. When life was chaotic, when she felt out of control, when she felt life was testing her, music guided her through all the obstacles, through every barrier and every challenge.

When she plays music, she feels complete and this surge of energy feels the air, like electricity.

Everything disappears. The faces of her audience dissolve into darkness. She becomes the anti-thesis of gravity. The music fills every part of her body, like honey. It
runs parallel with the blood in her veins, it overtakes every logical inkling in her mind, untill everything she feels, everything she breathes, everything she sees, is music.

Just her and music.

So raw and pure. It was easy to express her emotions this way. There was no need of words or talking or bitching, it felt so easy, so uncomplicated, she wondered why not everyone in the world communicated this way. It felt almost natural. That this was the way to do things.

She thought initially, she would only experience this with music but last year when started dancing, she felt the same serene feeling, of floating on air. Her body moved easily to music, she immediately felt at home. This was territory that she's been in before.

The thought of dedicating her whole life to music has been through her mind so many times, she can hardly count. The desire to have people listen to her music, to appreciate the whole creative process, of producing melodies and lyrics, was beyond her wildest dreams.

In the past few years, she's drawn out elaborate plans of how she would conquer the world with her music, but most, of them would be left unfinished and untouched, laid
to rest in the crevices of her mind.

She wished she was braver, that she would be more determined to do something that she felt like she was destined to do.

But what's destiny anyway? Is it really in the stars? Is someone holding a book of her life, safe inside their personal library, somewhere far away? Has everything been pre-planned and thought out?

Even if the answers to these questions are "yes", she would never know.

This is why she'll have to make do herself.

But even if she doesn't do anything fancy with her music in the future. One thing is for sure.

Music will always stay with her. Because she knows, that silenced, will be the death of her.

Change

She's in one of those moments, where she has a gazillion things spinning around in her head, like a solar system, but no way to isolate any one of them.

She's been trying to reassess her life and in general her character. And its unfortunate to say, she has not been quite impressed with the way she has conducted myself during these past months.

She wished she had a moral guide, lecturing her on the matters of the heart. Because clearly, she does not understand any of it herself and she fears, she won't be able to until she experiences more.

The truth is, she feels that she's constantly on some kind of boat, battling the high seas of self-insecurity and confidence.

This struggle, is constant.

It remains on her mind everyday, like a broken record playing the same haunting melody.

Unable to forget, she prays.

Funny, she doesn't believe in god.

Her: what was the question sorry?
Tutor: What do you want to get out of this degree and what you see for yourself in the future.
Her:..Oh...well. To be honest, this is my third degree change so I guess I'm an indecisive person. But I think it also means I'm someone interested in a plethora of things. I guess it's bad not to have a goal, but I don't like to think of the future that much. I'd like to see how my life pans out, what experiences I will learn along the way. I don't like to see life as something pre-destined and planned you know? Isn't it more exciting to take one day at a time and see it as a huge adventure?

They looked at her as if she was different

Packing

She won't lie.

She's going to miss living here. People might call her silly and childish to place such heavy sentiment towards a home. But there is nothing she can fault with this apartment. Neighbours are friendly and there are hardly ever any outrageous parties which would mean sleepless nights. The balcony overlooks Sydney and every morning its like she's been priviledged to be given a ticket to view the delightful exhibition of the world waking up. Sunsets are equally magnificent and you can never really feel sad in a place like this.

When she first saw her room in her new apartment, she rushed up to the blinds and threw them open only to be disappointed with the concrete walls of the adjacent apartment block next door. But she's always felt this inward connection with the sky since she was young and seeing the sky, whether its the clouds, the stars or a full moon, never fails to lift her mood. Even her name is a salute to the rising of the sun. The clouds of light pastel pink that one can see in the morning during a sunrise (Hiu Tung) struck her mother as a magnificent occurrence. And she wonders, maybe destiny can be found in a name.

What she loved the most, was being able to play guitar during humid summer nights on the balcony. At night, all you can see are hundreds of flourescent lights against the backdrop of summer sky. Every so often, an aeroplane would take flight and as she let her eyes follow its tail lights towards the blue, she would be totally mesmerised by how brightly the stars would shine. To her, with hersilly nightdress on and her arm clutching her overly big guitar, it felt like standing on the edge of the world, with the whole universe as her audience.

And in this state of complete awe and wonderment, she would play and sing.

The breaking of a family is not really an happy circumstance, its not exactly an occasion to raise your pompoms and prance about in excitement. She's had heartbreak and sadness and pain. But she believes that you grow through adversity, it makes you a stronger person.

This was, essentially, one of the best things that has happened to her. It has made her more mature, stronger and more independent that she has ever been in her whole life. At first she felt like someone had violently knocked me from her perch. She had no sense of balance, no stars to guide her, only an inkling of a thought that someone somwhere in the world is going through harder times.

Famine. Death. Loss of Dignity. Fear. Torture.

She can recite a longer list of cruelties that life can churn out. It is not hard to pick at loose strings. She could continue throwing wild accusations at my parents for their foolishness, their inability to perceive how much this would affect, not only her,her brother and her extended family but how society viewed them as a whole.

To everyone (especially her traditional grandparents) they have failed of course. Nature has taught us, since the beginning of time, that the foundation of life begins with the family as a unit. Without a family, is there a life? Is there a purpose?

It took her a long time to reconcile the fact, that her family was never......meant to be. She felt so blind, so stupid that she never realised her family could not possibly be a whole. They were like ill fitted pieces of a puzzle, like a hoard of hounds on leashes, each pulling at its own direction, wanting an escape, wanting out.

Now that finally the chains are let loose. They can all breathe again.

At night before she goes to sleep and hovering somewhere between dreams and memories, she likes to replay in her mind when her family did seem happy. Patches of instances and moments which convinced her that the last 17 years were not lived in vain........her father telling her and her brother made up bed time stories.........her mother patting a loose hair on her father's head lovingly during his 40 birthday dinner..............playing cards on Friday nights where both of her parents would make sure her brother and her would win....

The next time someone expresses regret that her family is " a lost case". She will smile inwardly.

Because her family is a beautiful ruin that no one will ever understand.

Just a memory blowing in the wind, incomplete but still very much alive.

She thinks She has given a bit of herself away.

She has not written in so long. Buckets of unsaid lines, unfinished poems, flyaway thoughts gather like a forest with overgrown vines in the back of her mind. She thinks a bit of cleansing is always good for the soul.

She doesn't want to go back the way she was before. That shy, pathetic girl, who gets tongue-tied even when talking to the guy at the newsagency to ask for change. She likes her new persona. She's still bubbly and optimistic on the inside but She has stopped pitying herself. Feeling sorry for oneself is a form of self indulgence. An indulgence she can do without. Her insecurities of not being good enough and being afraid to truly show people the underside of her soul has slowly faded away.

In many ways ways she's glad that she's changed, the fear she had only proved to be an obstacle which did not allow her to do normal things. She tries to look at the good of every second, of every minute because she knows how fragile life really is. Even if it is smiling at an irritated customer or spending 10 minutes watching the city skyline at night from her balcony window before she goes to sleep. She's trying to appreciate every little thing that makes up her life.

And the conclusion is? Instead of pondering when people will see the beauty in her, she needs to share beauty with the world. She's going to make something of herself. She knows she hasn't experienced alot, being a girl of 19 (and soon to be 20), she knows nothing about the workings of the world.

But she has experienced happiness, even if it comes in the most obscure shapes and forms. And for her, that's enough.

I'm as tall as the sky.

My head is among the clouds. My eyelashes align with Mars. I cry tears that fall as rain and have thoughts that make galaxies spin and supernovas explode. I laugh "love exists" in a tune of my own. My fears flutter like butterflies and float into the dreams of unsuspecting heads below, who bore their eyes into ceiling walls.

They awake and wonder.

Is she real?