Judging

You.

Don't look at me like that, don't look at me, don't say in that tone of voice: "You're, like, judging me, you know."

Don't say that. Don't you say that. Not from you. Please, no. You little hypocrite.

Who's been judging who, exactly? Who's been deciding who are idiots, and who are not? Who's been deciding who deserves listening to? Who deserves attention?

You. You have been the one judging.

You have been the one judging me. Judging all of us.

Don't roll your eyes. Don't lose your temper. Don't bang your head on the table. You're not the only one pissed.

Don't talk so loudly. You're not always right.

Don't think that just by talking loudly, slamming your hand down on the table, and tuning out others in your 'idiot - not worth listening to' list makes you right.

They act like idiots, but they're not idiots 24/7.

They have brains too. They have good ideas too. It's not a one man crusade. It's not your ideas, your faults, and my responsibility.

一人计短，二人计长。

加上你这一个，真的是三人计多。

Start listening. Don't bitch about it to us when it turns out you're the one whose not been listening. Stop making me repeat everything a second, third, fourth, fucking fifth time. My saliva runs dry and my patience runs thin.

My patience. Your lucky that my tolerance level is so high.

Get this straight - you're not the only one with a loud voice. You're not the only one who knows how to raise your voice.

You're just the only one talking loudly, and thats the only voice you ever listen to, anyway, since its the loudest.

You're lucky I don't try and argue back at you, voice for voice, loud for loud, temper for temper.

You're lucky because I care. I care. I fucking care more then you do.

It's not for my sake, its not for your sake. It's for everyone's sake that I hold myself back, because I know, I realise, I fucking understand, that its a fucking group project and its everyone who has to work, everyone who has to care.

But you don't care, obviously. You just want to bitch and make yourself heard and throw your hands up in the air when we all try and tell you politely, "We don't like your shit idea so stop trying to convince us of it otherwise."

And for fuck's sake, stop fucking judging me. You don't want to be judged, and neither do I.

Who, in the first place, told you that you could judge? Who gave you the right?

Don't use words that you don't understand. You look and sound like a fucking moron, and that vexes me up.

You little bitch.

You hypocrite.

You messed up in the head moron.

You fucking judge.

Sometimes (more recently, actually), I wonder why I care so much. It's like talking to a loose cannon. Nothing goes in, but everything comes out.

I want to jam you up in your damned barrel. I want you to stop firing for a moment and start listening. Start listening, and this time round, for once, actually look at your fucking target before fucking firing.

It's tiring. But you're not the only one tiring.

I'm not fucking invincible. I don't have infinite patience. There's a line before I snap, too.

I like you as a friend. But I don't like, don't want, you, as anything else.

We can befriend each other, but we sure as hell can't work with one another.

And for the fucking record, no one, in this world, should be able to judge anyone else. Not the best friend you giggle to during class. Not the guy in the black gown and white curly wig. Not the person who got a PhD in law.

Nobody should judge anybody, because nobody has the right to do so. I don't care how many diplomas you've got. I don't care how loud your voice is.

I don't want a complete stranger judging me. I don't want my best friend judging me. Neither of them are fit. Neither of them have the authority to judge another being.

But then again, this is our messed up world, run and controlled by us messed up human beings. No wonder Mother Nature cries.

Who wouldn't, with us stupid, judgmental, all-assuming beings ruling the world?

Porcelain People

Some people treat other people like porcelain.

Like, glass. Something fragile. Maybe tofu. The kind that smashes into smithereens if you so much as accidentally shove it against the wall.

I mean, I get that there are many kinds of different people in the world. Some were made to break things. Some were made to be broken. But I don't think I would have so much to say were it not for the fact that these people, who get treated like porcelain - let's call them 'Porcelain People' - don't deserve to be treated like porcelain.

It's not like they're emotionally unstable... on a social, everyday basis. It's not like they weep over every little thing.

In fact, they're people just like you and I, and borderline on being bitches at the same time.

Why would someone treat a bitch like they would handle porcelain? I, for one, don't think they deserve the care they receive. Even if these people were to fall down, it isn't as though they couldn't pull themselves up. There's a saying, "once bitten, twice shy". Is that it? Did something massive happen in the past that caused people to turn bitter towards each other, and now that things are patched up, to save such a catastrophe from happening again, they are treated and handled with care?

But wouldn't these people be stronger now, after the previous disastrous attempt? Wouldn't they be more careful now? Wouldn't they now how to handle their feelings? Why then, do people still treat them like porcelain, giving them guilty, regretful looks behind the back and laughing off everything lightly as though whatever the bitch did wasn't hurtful at all?

Why then, do people cling on to these porcelain people, who are tougher then tough (like raw, stubborn hide) and sharper then sharp? Aren't they themselves afraid of getting cut?

Why not just let the porcelain smash? Wouldn't gluing it together with superglue make it stronger then before, and less likely to break? Why so worried, so cautious?

Its hard to be around people and their porcelain companions. Everything becomes so light-hearted and serious.

Get away from this world

It's been so long since I last updated this blog, but I still have as many things to say.

I'm not even that old, but you know how big the world is? You know how often it gets so big that it just about stresses the hell out of your life?

That kinda sounds like the teenage-identity-crisis, 'the angst-filled years of teenhood' that adults repeatedly mention. Not sure if they're the same thing, but...

More often then not, on these days, I'm getting tired.

Like, dead tired. The world is so crowded nowadays. So stuffy. It's getting hard to breathe.

It'll be nice to get away once in a while, to go to an entirely different place and not to have to lift a finger over anything - but sadly, we're all stuck on one planet and in one world - Earth.

So instead, we have to settle for a lesser alternative - almost there, almost to this other, less suffocating world, but not quite there.

Like when you play the piano.

It was surprising to me at first, but recently, I've developed more than an interest in playing the piano. It's not like design - that one is most resolutely stuck at interest - it's something else entirely. It's passion. I actually feel passionate about playing the piano.

Not the ones that the teacher makes me play. I get my own off the internet.

And I don't have a piano. I have a keyboard. Lesser alternative.

But the keyboard is just behind me, in the small room I have as a working area, so it's desk and computer, electric fan on the left and keyboard behind.

All I have to do is switch the plugs.

But back to topic - the good thing about playing the piano, or the good things about playing the piano: the songs I pick, are, of course, fantastic. One can never go wrong with one's taste. They're all slightly depressing and very hopeful - with the almost there but not quite feel - and I love it. There are so many great composers out there. Yiruma, to name one. Really beautiful songs.

Plus people - the people in this house who have no other choice but to hear the piano - enjoy it. There's something about playing something that other people enjoy. Sort of like a crowd-pleaser. I'll play the piano as long as there's someone to hear it. An audience - why not?

And the best thing about playing the piano? This, by far, is my favorite - the volume. The sound of the keyboard can be adjusted, and I always set it above max. It's just as well, since a real piano is louder then maximum. Not just for the sound quality of an actual piano, but because its so loud, that it muffles all the other sounds. You can't hear the TV or the fan over the sound of the piano. You can't hear any worries, any deadlines, anything even mildly irritating over the sound of the piano. And that has to be the best quality of playing the piano - because it offers a respite, a small, small world away from the one we're all stuck in.

Which is such a pleasing thing, it is such a pleasure, to be away from our world, that I don't ever want to stop playing the piano, don't ever want to stop blasting it at such a loud volume; it is so emotionally pleasing, so comforting, that I don't know what I'll ever do if I don't have a piano nearby to vent all my emotions out on.

But even way above that - just to plain, get away from this world.

Heartbreaks

This matter got me thinking. You know how they show dramas, and there's this couple in it? For some sort of reason the couple breaks up. The guy walks off and leaves the girl crying.
In the really dramatic ones, the girl attempts suicide.
In most, she fails, gets pulled back to life, and wakes up in the hospital. In a few, she dies. But that's besides the point.
These kind of things happen in real life too. Whether it's because she's too upset, or it's because she's just trying to gain sympathy or attention.
Whatever. The idea is just plain stupid.
I don't mean this from a person who never went through a heartbreak before. But before you go so far as to take your life, you might want to slow down and think about it a little bit first.
Like the, 'I found my prince charming but he dumped me.'
The thing is, prince charmings don't dump their princesses. If the guy does dump the girl then its because he is not prince charming. The prince charming is suppose to love the girl, even though she might be ugly or bitchy or just annoying. Their definition is to 'love you no matter what'.
After coming to the conclusion that he is not Mr Right, you will miraculously realise that he is in fact, Mr Wrong.
And now we may proceed to the 'He dumped me so let me kill myself' part.
Kill yourself over Mr Wrong?
The fuck? How many lives do you have? If you do the math then it's just one. And you go and waste your only life on a Mr Wrong?
That is just so, so wrong.
So much so that its stupid. I mean really. What's the point of killing yourself over someone who isn't worth it? That's just plain stupid. It's like paying money for something you won't be getting. The idea just doesn't make any sense, and that's because it's stupid. Throwing your life over Mr Right sounds more sane. (The only way I can see that happening is because Mr Right died, leaving Mrs Right all alone, because Mr Rights don't make you feel like killing yourself.)
But maybe, the reason those suicide cases happen is because people who are in love are just delusional, falling in love with the wrong people in the first place, and then subsequently killing yourself.
If aliens really landed on earth, they would probably look at us and think, weird.
And they would be right.

Something is good only because someone else applauds it, no?
In that sense, isn't life all about what other people think?

In My Class

In my class, although we are pretty much immature brats, there are definately crushes between boys and girls.
One is a guy named Ju**** and my friend, Yi***.
Even though secondary school is supposed to be cliquely, this is Asia, and even though cliques do exist, the line between them and the rest of the school is not so defined. And when I say cliques, I'm not talking about the girls, I'm talking about the boys.
There are the basketballers, who are not as good in certain subjects as they are in P.E. There are the nerds, who make up their lack of physical strength with their IQ of 300. In a small school, the whole place is pretty much a happy community, everyone cracking jokes everyone can understand, everyone copying answers from everyone. In other words (for the boys), no matter which category you're in, the gap is not so large that is awkward.
And then there are the outcasts.
Ju**** and Yi*** really, really like each other but being teenagers, they deny it. In a class with only 8 girls and 9 boys, everyone is pretty much friends with one another. Ju**** takes the initiative and gets pretty chummy with Yi***. As a result, he becomes closer with the remaining 7 girls.
But his way of approaching Yi*** is frankly, different. In getting close to her, he starts to play with the girls, so much so that Yi*** and her two other girl friends are now including him within their group work, that they are visiting one another's houses, and they're even catching a movie together. So much so that to please and make Yi*** happy, he goes as far as to act niang so that the girls would crack up and Yi*** would shower him with affection.
So much so that when he has to do group work with the boys, his choices are very limited. And given a choice, he would rather stick with the girls then go with the boys.
Even though his actions are making Yi*** happy and everything, come on; really, which girl would want to go out hand-in-hand with someone so niang? He's pleasing her so much that he's distancing himself from the boys.
And another thing: Ju**** really changed a lot. Not appearance wise, but rather personality-wise. I grouped him in the outcasts because the boys never seemed to hang around him. He's tempermental. As in bad, bad temper-mental. He is proud and arrogant, and never does things he considers beneath his dignity. When he doesn't like something he doesn't hesitate to show his feelings, going so far as to shout at a teacher.
His temper gets on my nerves, but so far neither of us hasn't clashed yet. Thank goodness for that, because there would be blood. But when he started to get to know Yi*** his temper changed to that of a docile, attention-seeking puppy. He does the right things at the right times to show his love and care. If Yi*** wants something, say she was cold and she wants to turn off the air-con, no matter how much everyone else in the class shouts and screams at him he will get up and turn the air-con off. He is utterly devoted.
But its just that even though there is a significant increase in his tolerance level, some things just remain the same.
Old habits die hard. We were playing in the classroom during lunch today. Ju**** is used to the girls teasing him playfully and he accepts it with much laughter. Today we exaggerated what he did to Yi*** (by accident) so much so that 'Ju**** harrassed a young, innocent girl' was written in big letters all over the white board for everyone to point and gasp. There was a lot of harmonious laughter, and in the end, Ju**** was to get on his knees, acknowledge his sin and ask for forgiveness.
He repeated after Ja** (one of Yi***'s friend) on his knees, but he wasn't sincre enough so we demanded him to do it again. I laughed, but as time was almost up I took the whiteboard duster and started to clean off the words from the whiteboard. I had erased off 'young, innocent girl' when there was a sudden, angry shout. Ju**** was no longer on his knees. He was standing, in his full height, glowering at all the girls. Playtime was over.
He had lost his temper again. The ridiculeness of it. Emberassed and perhaps a little ashamed, Yi*** and her friends went out of the classroom for a while. Ju**** stormed back to his seat. Disgusted by his actions, I ignored him, glared instead at the whiteboard and proceeded to scrub every little dot off the board. They were sorry and he was angry.
The girls came back in again, walked up to Ju**** and gave him a 90 degrees bow. "I'm sorry." Their voices were meek and small. The frown on his face somewhat subsided.
It got me thinking then, if Yi*** weren't so lenient with him, he would have ruined his own master plan of getting close enough to Yi*** to acomplish his mission successfully. But she was a nice girl, and even though it wasn't her fault she apologised. They were laughing together again by the time school ended.
Why did you apologise to him, Yi***? You should've let him see just how much trouble his own temper could've gotten himself into. And Ju****, if you can't take the joke, then don't play with us. Besides, how could kneeling on the floor and apologising to the girl you like (we were playing, mind you) be below your diginity, if you are willing to act like a niang and lose your status among the boys just to make her happy?

Change

Change is when something is no longer what it used to be.
Change is when the caterpillar lost its mouldiness and gained its beauty as a butterfly. Change is when the ugly ducking lost its dullness and ganied its magnifence as a swan. Change happenes everywhere, in politics, in economics, in nature, and in people.
Outside in the living room, there is a picture of me, my cousin, and our dog. We were both so much younger then. I was younger, happier, and more innocent. My cousin was younger, not as pretty, and probably still had the awkward air of trying to fit in around her. And lying in front of us was out Shetland Sheepdog, Fachoi.
When my cousin was that age, my grandmother would carry on about her as though she was a saint. She compared my results with hers. While mine were appaling hers were astounding. She compared my sitting style with hers. I would bend and slouch on the chair while she kept her back straight like a ruler. This was the wonderful cousin of mine, the wonderful image she sent out to everyone: I'm a good girl, I'm smart, and everyone is proud of me.
Same cousin now, grown up, taller, prettier. She'd changed. A few alterations to her out look, longer, bright red hair, contacts, and she had a confident air around her. While I took on the glasses, had thich hair, and walked around with an arrogant air. If she was over-confident, then I was over-arrogant. I take the credit for my work, for my contributions, which always catches the eyes of the beholder. She was confident, maybe not so smart, in the world that she lived in and the world that she lived for.
I look at her around seven years ago and I look at her now. And I think, are they really the same person?
My grandmother loved my cousin. My cousin loved my grandmother. My grandmother still loves my cousin, but I don't think my cousin loves her so much now.
Gone was the gawky kid with a big brain and a big heart. Here was the confident adult with a confident smile and an air of importance. Her heart was probably still the same size, but the love is now divided into many other people. She is the girl that made my grandmother so proud, she is the woman who makes my grandmother cry.
It's like looking a caterpillar and a butterfly. The caterpillar comes to your mind as the same group as worms and centipedes and millipedes. Disgusting, moldy and insignificant. It does nothing but eat and sleep and eat and sleep. The butterfly is the direct opposite. Magnificent, beautiful, and bright. It flutters around flowers and becomes something that little children points at to their mothers. It becomes something significant, and here's where you think: How the hell did it change so fast?
It's the same with the ugly duckling and the swan. One moment, the ugly duckling was living up to its name, being an ugly grey fluffball that you laugh at, and the next thing you know the grey feathers are gone, the ugly duckling grew up; a magnificent, graceful swan with angellic wings. Or like watching the clock. You'll train your eyes on it and watch the minute hand and the hour hand, wanting to witness it moving. You'll train your eyes on it forever - and then you get distracted and look away. You look back, and all of a sudden the minute hand isn't where it was and the hour hand isn't where it was.
Does change always happen like this, when you are least suspecting it, and all at a sudden? When all of a sudden, the caterpillar stopped being a caterpillar and became a butterfly. All of a sudden, the cygnet stopped being a cygnet and became a swan.
Or maybe it didn't happen quite so suddenly. In fact it was a gradual process, happening slowly, so slowly that you didn't notice the minute details. And then something happens - you look away, and when you look back, you'll start noticing every single thing that wasn't there before. But in fact it had always been there, it just took so long, too long, for you to realise, that's all.