the little things..

having very unexpected "tang yuan"..
having a day full of chatter and laughter..
having a great meal.. (and great snacks in between and after..)

i may be away from home this holiday season and i may miss a whole bunch of people who are not going to be around me anytime soon.. but i find comfort and joy in the fact that i'm surrounded by people who make me feel like i'm home even if i'm so far away from it..

tonight i'll go to bed with a big wide smile plastered on my face :3

-llen-

Confuscius say....

I ended my semester with a philosophy exam... i just wanna pass..................... ok.. maybe a mark above 50 but ... *sigh* ..

with the exams over and done with that little feeling of emptiness is creeping in.. my flat's pretty empty now.. the fridge is pretty empty.. i don't have to study anymore, for now..

4 days to Christmas...
3 days to London..
Few hours to Glasgow...

10 days to the end of 2011..
i ain't ready for 2012 ._.

-llen-

coz that's life..

my cousin once told me, nothing in life is more certain than death (i'm not sure if those were the exact words but that's how i remember it..hehe)




It all started with me watching that video.. and it left me in tears.. i don't know why it did considering i don't know the people in the video..
then it got me thinking about a few people.. i didn't know them personally but i knew about them.. i knew about their struggles.. and i thought i could make a difference somehow..
i don't have the money to donate to various causes.. certainly not enough money to make any difference.. and all i could do all this while was offer up a prayer..
i wish i knew sooner that those prayers had already been answered long ago, the people that i've been praying for aren't around anymore..

i sometimes wonder why things have to be the way they are.. i haven't found all the answers i'm looking for (which is why i'm still looking for them..and i trust that i'll find it someday) but it's things like this that make me ask God why.. why take these people away.. these people who have family and friends who love them, who supported them in their battle.. and they have fought so hard, why take them away?

i'm sorry this all seems a bit depressing..but i just need a place to pour it all out..

and at the end of the day, life for the rest of us goes on doesn't it?

so cherish your loved ones, people :')

-llen-

being thankful..

it's something i try to remind myself to do everyday..
i'm thankful for the people around me, the people who care for me.. i'm thankful there's food on the table.. i'm thankful for the things i have, both the small and the big .. i'm thankful all my body parts are intact and functioning..

sometimes it's easy to lose sight of everything that we already have.. i'm not saying i don't think about material things from time to time (been thinking of a new camera for a while now..hehe..and little decorative items that i don't need..or soft toys.. :3 gosh i do think about a lot of stuff don't i :/ .. unnecessary ones anyway) and it's certainly not wrong to get something you deserve and you really like.. but sometimes the thought that someone out there doesn't have food or clothes or shelter or anybody to love or who loves them, it gets me down a little.. even makes me guilty for having things i don't need... at the end of all this rambling i guess what i'm trying to say is, no matter how crappy you think life is, there's definitely something you can be thankful for (for example, if you're reading this, having vision is one :) )

of course there is a flipside to all this... and i ain't gonna go into that coz it's just gonna be me debating against myself in a blogpost which i clearly didn't think through properly.. coz i usually don't anyway..hehe.. maybe some other time..hmm..


-llen-

feeling somewhat...invaded...

There i was.. sitting down with my notes... with nice christmassy music playing..... (and me quietly singing to it..hehe)

then my door opened....
all i could see were hands and legs.. the hands had a cup and a newspaper in them..
legs clad in jeans and feet wrapped in black shoes..

the person at the door paused...

i was stunned....still couldn't see a face
the thoughts that were running through my head were that it'd be one of my flatmates..but even then it'd be odd coz for one, they've never entered my room.. and i'm pretty sure they'd knock first...hmm..

then the door closed and i heard footsteps going out of my flat...........

._. ..

i'm mildly weirded out by the experience.. coz.. i think it was a dude at the door.....though it could be a really tall girl...

but i'm also imagining what the person was thinking.. opening the door to a foreign (not to mention quite messy) room... hehe...

nonetheless..

i'm glad it's a habit that i lock the door when i go to sleep..........

-llen-

more than ever..

sometimes the obvious things aren't that obvious...

i realise i've been slacking A LOT when it comes to studies, perhaps even more than i used to which is really really bad considering the stakes are higher this time around... not getting a good grade will be just disappointing..and a waste of resources..

but above that, (i know this may sound like some "Mulan" or overdramatic statement but i'm only saying it coz i do feel it).. above the self disappointment and waste of resources, i feel like i'd be bringing shame to my family... not only my parents, brother, but cousins, aunts..uncle.. everyone who's back home, rooting for me (at least i think they are)

and just looking at how my nieces are growing up (in case it isn't clear, they mean quite a lot to me) i suddenly realise that i have a responsibility to do well.. to be, if not a good role model, at least someone who was ok, someone who could in future share with them stuff like how my cousin once shared with me.. well, they might not need me considering their parents are pretty hip and modern :p but hey, if they ever ask me stuff in future, i wanna be able to tell them stuff!

i dunno if this all seems irrational or crazy but i guess at the end of the day, even if it's not for anyone else, i guess i should've realised long ago that i at least owe it to myself, my future self.. to achieve something..

i think my motivation's here :)

-llen-

pause?

time has passed so quickly.. somehow it feels like time used to move slower.. and it seems like so much time has passed though it's only been almost 2 decades i've been alive...

and as time flows on, life goes on, no pause button. and we go through our various stages of life and struggle to make it out in one piece.. experiences- bitter, sweet.. we fall down, pick ourselves up and move on... coz there's nothing else we can do anyway..

we see the people around us going through THEIR stages in life .. occasionally wondering when it'd be our turn.. granted, not everybody's life takes the same sequence.. but the basic idea is there...




it's december...could someone hit pause?

-llen-