Peanuts

I can justify it as much I want, work out a plan of repayment,be aware of how lucky I am that my parents are financially stable and that they are selflessly willing to support me, but the truth is this: I am growing increasingly uncomfortable with how much financial support I need from my mom and dad. My dad, mostly.

When I was a kid, it was taken for granted that my parents would pay for everything I needed. When I was an adolescent, I realized what economic background I came from, and at the same time realized that it was my parents who had money, and I myself was a pauper lucky enough to have a decent lifestyle funded by them. When I was 18, I was grateful my dad had the means to get me into college when I didn't get a scholarship. When I was in uni, I started realizing the need to have enough money in the bank for bills and groceries, and I found out what it's like to be strapped for cash. Call me a slow-learner, but I think I only realized the proper value of money when I came here. Well. Better late then never.

When I finally understood the value of each and every bloody dollar I spent, that's when I actually got into my head the extent of the financial support my dad was providing me. It is slightly overwhelming at times to think of the lump sum he has forked out throughout my time here.

I'm not studying anymore, and now we come to the tricky bit. Now that I'm not studying, every time I get an allowance or money from my dad, my heart feels very heavy.

Wah. Heart feeling heavy. Melodramatic, much?

But I don't know how else to describe it. I suppose there's a good portion of guilt, guilt that I'm an adult who still depends on someone, who, whilst is my own flesh and blood, is essentially a retiree who doesn't need me flushing down his cash.

But there's something else too, and that is, when you have to financially depend one someone, you are indebted towards them. And here, it's not just in terms of cash either, this debt goes beyond that, it involves the selflessness of my dad doing this for me, what it means in terms of our relationship, it goes on top of everything else I already owe to him for being my father. Do you understand?

I suppose that psychologically, this could extend infinitely, but at the moment what I know is I wish wasn't so heavily financially dependent on him anymore. I don't want to burden him anymore, and I want it to be my own money on the line when I mess up, which I seem to have a knack of doing so.

Right now I'm trying to justify and economize whatever major spending I'm doing. But things are popping up, expensive, unavoidable things that there's no way I can pay for myself at the moment. I have to ask for money from my dad, and it just. It just. It makes me unhappy.

It's a temporary thing, I know. This is a necessary route I have to take before I get on my own two feet and start earning an income.

I know.

Ish

Geez louise, man.

I'm annoyed at myself at the moment, I have made some mistakes that are costing me in terms of money and also in terms of feeling foolish. Part of me is trying to reason with myself, saying I wouldn't have known back then either way, while another is brandishing a rotan like the meanest teacher ever, bellowing "KENAPA LALAI SANGAT ORANG LAIN TAK LALAI PUN?!"

In addition, there is a culmination of irritation that I have bubbling under my skin for some other things at the moment, so when you add the annoyance directed internally as well externally, you end up with a very frazzled looking girl, who harrumphs a lot and lets out occasional "SO STUPID!" exclamations to items that happen to be nearby - chairs, the dryer, my foot.

It's okay. I will harness this anger and put it to good use.

Thankfully enough, the dominant reaction that has been triggered by this spout of anger has been one of grim determination (though I admit, there was that one moment when a bit of hell broke loose and I hysterically stuffed myself with cookies). I intend to bury this mishap with so much bloody productivity that any foolishness felt will die the sudden death of an aneurysm.

I'm on a rampage.

Chris, the operator, apologized profusely

In a twisted turn of fate, an ATM swallowed my debit card this afternoon.

I called up the bank, and the operator reported my card as lost and issued me a new one. The trouble is, through some misunderstanding (I'd like to think it's his fault as much as mine), he did it for my other, everyday-use ATM card, and not my debit card. After some questioning and a bit more clarification, we realized what had happened and he rectified things by issuing a new debit card as well. As such, I am now effectively ATM as well as debit card-less at the moment.

As I was put on hold while the operator sorted things out, two thoughts emerged:

1. I'm quite complacent (or chicken) about asking questions when I deal with such situations, I usually acquiesce to whatever explanation offered so I can end the conversation quickly. I should ask more questions when I'm not satisfied.

2. There are the good things, the bad things, and then there are things like these. Here, I have lost my cards in this somewhat clumsy fashion and therefore can't use an ATM, pay with EFTPOS, or make payments requiring a credit card for about a week or so before the new cards arrive. Is it a bad thing? No. Is it troublesome? Yes. And herein lies my ponder: I tend to connect things that happen to me directly to God. If it's a good thing, I am thankful; if it's a bad thing, I think it's punishment, or I think it's a way of telling me something. And so when this other category of things happen, minor but troublesome things, I still find myself mildly surprised. I can't conjure a purpose for this event that, asides from inconveniencing me for bit, in effect doesn't alter anything about my life. Why would God bother with small, completely insignificant events?

Of course, that's just my limited imagination talking. I'm sure any transaction, however small, could cause limitless ripples in its impact, though it may not be obvious to me.

Ceh. Tiba-tiba banyak pulak nak cakap kat sini.

Kpop and Beast

We kick-start 2011's year of kpop with MBLAQ's comeback, a slow/mid-tempo R&B offering called Cry, which I am beginning to just about love. I think it definitely beats anything they've come up with so far, and I thought this one was just ok at first, but until now I find myself replaying it over and over, it seems I can't stop. I think I would have preferred the video and the boys to have been less stylized, for some reason I could totally picture them in my head rocking this song(and garnering dozens of rabid noona fans like me in the process) with a more normal, clean, crisp look and setting. Irregardless, yay! For someone whose kpop spirit is at an all-time high, this is a good start.

I like kpop. I really do. What started off as tentative amusement over youtube videos of korean boybands singing and dancing simultaneously has morphed into bona fide fascination, I now have preferences and opinions regarding specific groups and singers, I regularly watch the weekend slew of music shows, and keep-up with allkpop.com quite religiously.

If this all sounds like a confession, it probably is, because I still tend to want to deny it from time to time. Sometimes I try to delude myself into thinking I take a more mature approach towards my kpop fancy, that I am actually interested in the intricate workings behind the manufacture of a kpop artist and that I pay attention to the details in songs, choreography, the concept adopted, etc. But then I catch myself grinning stupidly in the middle of the night watching fancams of boy groups doing something goofy, and realize I'm just another fangirl.Fan-noona. Oh well.

Current favored kpop tunes:

1.Cry by MBLAQ, obviously.
2. Lights Go On Again by Beast.
3. Niga Jiel Joha by Beast (I swear, 2010 was a really good year for Beast, they could do no wrong).
4. My Mistake by SNSD (I like it as much as I dislike Hoot, and that's a lot).
5. Lightless by Beast. There's a lot of Beast in here, but for good reason, I think. I could write a whole paragraph about them.

In fact, I think I will. Beast has a major portion of my devotion at the moment. They sort of exploded this past year, and the level of popularity they've achieved, considering it's only been slightly more than a year since they debuted, is pretty much something. What's more, I am of the opinion that they deserve it. With the exception of Junhyung who raps, each of them has legit singing chops, each one! Plus, they have dancing confidence. It's one thing to be able pick-up choreography and another to perform it with swag, and while HyunSeung or KiKwang tend to pop out to me more when dancing, it's safe to say they are a pretty evenly-skilled group. And when you pair these abilities with how Cube Entertainment's been handling them, it was pretty much inevitable they'd be big. The recent songs they've been given have been consistently good (I liked every song on the Lights Go On Again mini-album), and they're usually provided with very good choreography. Another plus has been the fact that for their latest release, a digital EP called My Story, they divided up into pairs from which each composed a song that went on the EP. Being directly involved in music production is still somewhat a rarity for kpop artists, more so for the 'idol' groups, so it's a pretty big deal. And yet another plus is the fact that JunHyung, the rapper, has a fundamental place in the group, I don't get the feeling that he's just someone Cube thought could fill in the role of 'rapper' and given only minimal parts in a song to cukup syarat (I'm thinking of Shinee's Minho here, is it obvious?). On top of that, he's been involved as a co-lyricist for the group's songs since the second EP.

Geez. I sure can gush about them, can't I? That was a long paragraph.

I get sick of kpop sometimes. When it seems like every new single sounds like the same manipulated, forgettable electro-pop crap, or when I dislike the image promoted,for example, it's too sickly-sweet, too sexy in unoriginal fashion, or too amusingly out of place(2pm's shuffling dance, anyone?). But despite the lapses, I find myself gravitating back towards it, and when something from the kpop scene appeals to me, I am happy, and all previous misgivings are forgotten.

I guess this infatuation's here to stay.

Baru

When we were in Christchurch, we just so happened to be there at a time the city was experiencing a bunch of earthquake aftershocks. They were pretty minor, the biggest being 4.9 on the scale, but for someone not used to the idea that the ground can start shaking against your will, and that it's not something you can escape from, it's quite unnerving. We were in a shop when the 4.9 tremor happened, I was with my brother and sister in this quirky shop, and I was slipping a ring onto my finger to try it on, when suddenly the earth starts rumbling, and for a moment I didn't quite believe it, but then things started falling off shelves and crashing onto the floor, I turned around and saw a lady running out the entrance. Next I felt my sister pulling me out, and I whipped my head back to find my brother and saw that he was on my other side. And as we were running outside for some reason my head was tilted slightly upwards, and I remember thinking, feeling, "Really? This is what it feels like? Are we really about to be people whom Something Tragic happens to?". When we got outside to open space with everyone else, I noticed I was still clutching the ring.

Like I said, they were minor tremors and no big deal, we were able to laugh about it, but boy, was I glad to come back to Melbourne.

Our trip was plagued with cancellations, but asides from that, I think things went pretty smoothly. And there were some nice moments. Like waking up in the middle of the night in Mt Cook to the wind howling outside the chalet and a cupboard door banging repeatedly. I tried to close the damn thing tight but couldn't, because it was too high up, so instead I walked over to the window and peeked through the curtains. I was granted with the sight of a full moon hanging over snow-capped mountains, it's shine giving everything a surreal sheen, with the wind still howling about, and it was all slightly magnificent.

I'm not exactly one for taking pictures or videos, I probably have one of the most underused cameras ever to be bequeathed to a 22-year old. The simple reason is that I'm lazy and that I can count on my companions to take nicer pictures, the other being that for videos, whenever I'm recording, I feel like I'm wasting time trying to capture whatever it is I'm supposed to be documenting when I could actually be there,in the moment, experiencing, feeling. This doesn't apply to all situations, of course, mostly for when I attend gigs. Though now, I'm beginning to wonder whether it's silly to take this stance. By not recording, I'm depending on my memory to hold whatever I witnessed safe within its confines, I'm basking on the belief I'll never forget. But that's folly, isn't it? I'll forget, and what a shame.

Just got a thought. I've been writing all this with Florence + The Machine's Dog Days Are Over on repeat, and while it is too quiet and lazy a day to do much, I have that familiar urge to leap up and start dancing, hands clapping to the beat, spastic flailing. I've begun to sometimes worry that I'm getting too monotonous, too black and white, that my sense of fun is depleting, any originality and uniqueness of character(if any) going down the drain. The thought just popped into my head that as long I still get the urge to dance, this familiar longing to go crazy to the beat, I'll be okay. Not all is lost.

Happy New Year!

I've graduated.

I've got to get out of these pajamas.