How have I been?

I have not written anything for what seemed like forever. But forever ceases to exist! And that's the bitter truth which I have been trying to swallow for the past months. My grandma passed away two months ago; and I kept crying until my tears ran dry. I must say I have never felt such excruciating pain in my life before. And that if anything ever came my way, I would simply look back, think about my grandma and say, "It doesn't hurt." But it could have hurt had I not been aching from my grandma's passing. Everything is relative so it seems. I love my grandma. If there is one person in the planet whom I truly love, it's definitely her. When she left me forever, my heart started to collapse. And in the middle is a very big hole! So big, I can almost fit the universe! I'm healing somehow but I may need time. Hopefully soon enough my heart will be whole again. But for now, I am contented living with a huge hole in my heart.

I'm filling up the void by busying myself with my thesis. After a year, I am finally getting into it. And it's about time! What took me so long, I really don't know. I've also just recently emailed a nursing home so I could do some volunteer works. I really love seeing old people smile for some reasons. Maybe if I manage to make them smile every weekend, the big hole in my heart will heal up faster.

I've also had quite a number of travels planned. I'm pretty excited! I'm away from my flat most of the time. It's hard to stay inside curled up in my bed. I can't even remember the last time I had siesta! I just love being out, enjoying the sun and the soft breeze. 

Tomorrow I will be gone again! I'm heading to Melbourne with my colleagues to discuss our project. I'm so excited to learn new things from all the smart people whom I will be meeting. But the biggest challenge now is how to catch my flight. The plane leaves early; and on normal days, I wake up late. 

The morning person conversion

I have been robbed off sleep the past two days probably because I have been trying so hard to become a morning person. I'm really having troubles getting up early in the morning that sometimes I'm tempted to literally throw myself out of bed so that my whole body gets slammed on the wooden floor so I can immediately wake up. But because I love myself so much I would not want to get bruised for such a lame reason, I always end up rolling back and forth in bed, enjoying the warm embrace of my feather-soft quilt. Then I watch the clock's hand move from one number to another until the long hand finally makes a full turn! I struggle. I move a bit. The long hand slams itself to the next number again and again and again. Then I imagine drinking my coffee and doing yoga. Finally, I sit at the corner of my bed. But many times I find myself hitting the sack again and fall back to my dreamland. 

 

It has been like this since I decided to try to become a morning person. I will try again for the last time tomorrow! But this time I ate a hearty dinner. Hopefully the insulin in my bloodstream would spike up and rob my brain off the oxygen so I'd feel a bit sluggish and this nocturnal body of mine will fall into a deep sleep. 

Holidays

I got back to my flat yesterday and since then I have been tidying up my nook, cooking, daydreaming and planning for the weeks ahead.  I really love holidays! But I can honestly only enjoy 4-5 weeks of holidays. The first and second weeks are vibrant and colorful. The lack-of-purpose-in-life feeling begins to kick in come the end of the third week. On the fourth week, boredom crawls through every inch of my skin. On the fifth week, I start thinking about ways to kill boredom. On the sixth week until who knows when, I start running aimlessly on a limbo and start imagining what life would be like if I lived in hell instead. Taking long holidays isn't as gratifying as short ones because money does not grow on trees. But maybe if I could grow a money tree in my backyard, it would have been a different story. I would definitely wander around the world through land, sea and sky! 

Dreams + pineapple cravings

My sinuses are getting better. Tomorrow I should be well enough to have my medical check up for my visa application. I had more than ample rest yesterday and today. In fact, I think I slept for almost 11 hours this morning. I woke up recalling a bizarre dream about superhumans flying and throwing ice spikes to each other. One detail I vividly remember is the one  about a  male villain (let's call him superhuman villan A) who was commissioned to kill the female protagonist but he couldn't bring himself to do so for some unfathomable reason. It turned out that they loved each other in the past. The past, however, is unknown to them because all their memories were erased. Superhuman villain A killed countless innocent superhumans; and he had so many opportunities to kill the female protagonist. He attempted many times, but always, when he was about to put an end to her life, he would unwittingly step back. He couldn't understand why. There was always this urge to kill her; but his instincts forbid him to do so. The female protagonist, being invulnerable to the most powerful superhuman, becomes the most powerful of all! She uses this advantage to save the lives of many innocent but less talented superhumans from the hands of the most formidable foe!

Strange dream about superhumans, right? I'm hoping I'll have more dreams like that. I'm also hoping I'll dream about eating my favorite fruit tonight: PINEAPPLE! I ate nearly a platter today. Lucky the acidic juice spared my lips! Sometimes I just keep eating til the pain becomes intolerable. Call me a masochist. I'll do anything for tasty pineapples.

Happy New Year!

This greeting is a day late, but allow me to say it anyway, "Happy New Year." 

Since Dec 31, I haven't been feeling the best. It was a pity I greeted 2015 with a congested nose. I'm feeling a lot better than yesterday though. I was supposed to meet one of my best friends whom I haven't seen for more than 2 years. Unfortunately, she was also not feeling well. But I guess her condition was worse than mine such that she asked to cancel our meeting today. We were both excited to see each other. But these unfortunate conditions forbade us to do so. She will also be heading back to the US tomorrow. I'll be heading to Australia 2 months from now and only time can tell in which part of the globe will we see each other again. It's amazing how our bond of friendship hasn't waned despite the distance and time. 

The day I watched the same movie twice

Just recently, one of my bestfriends and I met up for a little chitchat. For the past years, we have developed the habit of watching whatever movie is shown at the cinema while devouring a regular sized frozen yogurt or gelato and a handful of cheese flavored popcorn. Meeting up with her again just recently reminded me of an amusing story two years ago when we were going to meet up to perform our "hanging out rituals." At that time, my boyfriend was with me and he somewhat complicated the scenario. Instead of hanging out with my besty alone, the three of us got to hangout together.

Before my besty came, my boyfriend and I were already hanging out. At that time, we were so desperately bored that we decided to watch "whatever movie" was on. We were watching while waiting for my besty to arrive. More than halfway through the movie (which by the way, I already forgot the title as it was a particularly boring one), my besty texted saying she already arrived. My boyfriend and I didn't want to keep her waiting so we were left with no choice but to exit the cinema to meet her. 

And so we met her. We went about our usual ritual and ate our favorite frozen yogurt! After an hour or so of chatting until our yogurt cups dried up, we realized we still had the entire evening to kill. We looked at each other and in unison, raised the same question, "what are we going to do now?" We couldn't possibly do window shopping as my boyfriend was extremely allergic to shopping. He is so allergic that the moment he steps inside the department store, his feet were already itching to leave! Whether we were stupid or desperate, the three of us decided to watch the same movie my boyfriend and I were watching while we were waiting for my besty. And so we paid for the movie again. Our sole consolation was the fact that we never got to see the ending and paying to watch the movie the second time around just to see the ending was after all, not a crazy idea.

We hopped into our seats and placidly watched the "forgettable" movie. It was weird that I actually found myself laughing (for the second time around) at the same segment which I thought was funny the first time I watched the movie. The movie was (somewhat) funny, that is all that I can remember. 

An hour or so passed, and we were nearing the ending. I was so excited! At last I was finally going to know how the movie concluded! As though the universe decided against my luck, our seats violently shook! At that time it felt like I was watching a 4D movie at a 2D cinema house. "Did you feel the seats move?"I asked. Before they could blurt out an answer, the seats shook again! "Earthquake!" I panicked and stood up to vacate the cinema house. My boyfriend reluctantly stood up and asked, "wait, are we not going to watch the ending?" Everyone else was hurrying towards the exit. I was asking myself if it was worth it to die buried under the cinema house's debris just to watch the story end while waiting for mine to end.

Of course, it wasn't worth it. And so, I reluctantly walked out of the cinema house while resigning myself with the fact that I will never be able to watch the ending. There was no way I was going to watch the movie the third time around!