Thief of Joy

I stayed overnight at Carol's apartment after we had sushi for dinner. It's been quite a long time since we last met on her graduation day. The sleepover just reminded us of the good old days in matriculation. We talked about so many things, topics to topics till midnight, including our current love lives and future like we had a clue. You know, girl talks.

dinner at Sushi King

en route

And we talked of love languages. So how do you show your love? Me and Carol would definitely say we show ours in actions better than words. We'd love picking up little gifts for our partners, or planning out dates and vacations, writing short love notes and leaving them on desk. It’s all about actions for us.

Well, for a guy like Ifo, it’s different. He’s a dude. He likes body workout, music, and talks about sports/politics. He's rarely planning out dates, it's always me who doing it. He thinks gift-giving is overwhelming. I wasn't saying that he's not romantic, but he lacks of surprises and this whole stuff used to bug me once. I looked at my friends' boyfriends who got them bouquet of flowers for no reason or planned a candle night dinner, then it made me feel like Ifo didn’t love me the same way. Yes, we fought a bit about it and yes, it's silly. And if you fight about flowers, it takes the sparkle out of the moment when you actually do get them. 

And I realize that comparison is the thief of joy. 

So I started to think about it differently, how Ifo shows his love. He's the best listener in the world. He turns me into a positive person. He's affectionate and loving. He takes me to places I wanna go. He takes care of me. He stays by my side every time I'm feeling down and stressful. He makes me laugh. He helps me out in everything. There's a lot of ways that I just didn't see clearly. And I admit that it’s lame to think love means flowers. Now I only notice and appreciate the things he actually does, without feeling resentful for the things he's not.

Comparison is the thief of joy. There's a myriad definitions of love, but I'm sure that love is meant to be felt and doesn't necessarily have to be seen. :)

You know when I said I knew little about love? That wasn't true. I know a lot about love. I've seen it, centuries and centuries of it, and it was the only thing that made watching your world bearable. All those wars. Pain, lies, hate. It made me want to turn away and never look down again. But when I see the way that mankind loves, you could search to the furthest reaches of the universe and never find anything more beautiful. So yes, I know that love is unconditional. But I also know that it can be unpredictable, unexpected, uncontrollable, unbearable and strangely easy to mistake for loathing, and what I'm trying to say is...I think I love you. Is this love? I never imagined I'd know it for myself. My heart, it feels like my chest can barely contain it. Like it's trying to escape because it doesn't belong to me any more. It belongs to you. And if you wanted it, I'd wish for nothing in exchange. No fits. No goods. No demonstrations of devotion. Nothing but knowing you loved me too. Just your heart, in exchange for mine.
- Stardust

Everybody Else

By: Alex Noriega 

Eternal Nirvana

Art welcomes us to a new realm full of new ideas, new concepts, new ideologies, new possibilities. While enjoying an artwork, we're lost in a tiny world, where there are just us and the work before us. An art lets us forget our emotional baggage, weariness from life’s journeys and lets us pry ourselves away from the commonalities of everyday life. When we gaze at a wondrous painting or listen to a beautiful composition or lose ourselves in the rhythm of a dazzling dance, we feel truly lost, yet fully aware.

Art attains its eternal nirvana only when a spectator enjoys it as much as the artist did. And art's captivating because of its mysterious allure. Art gives us the roads, not the map. We admire art, yet we may never know why. I myself really admire paintings and sketches, but I don't have the talents to make one. I wasn't meant to be an artist - be it singing, dancing, acting, painting, etc. - yet, I still love and appreciate arts. Well, that's the least I can do.

I requested a painting of my name from deary Ashley Alexandra, a photo-blogger who has the creativity that I admire. So this is what she made for me:

I didn't specify how I want it to be, but she has made something that I've always loved as I reeeeally love tribal patterns or Aztec prints. And here's some screenshots of her masterpieces that I picked from Instagram:

Aren't they wonderful?

Can't get enough? There are more in her Instagram, so follow her! ^^

It Feels Like a Memory

*spoiler alert*

I heard some negative reviews about Oblivion previously, but that didn't stop me from watching it. It's Tom Cruise (he's old, but still a hot stuff) for heaven's sake and hey, it's such a great film. Despite its puzzling story, the problems it runs into along the way are overpowered by beauty and emotional aspirations. 

It's 2077 and earth is a garbage dump, thanks to alien invasion 60 years ago. While the majority of human race had to abandon the earth and take refuge on a moon of Saturn, the only creatures remaining are hiding bands of Scavengers. Monitoring the land are white, round drones, floating cue balls from afar, but menacing killers up close. Occasionally, they need services from Jack Harper, which reminds me of Wall-E. He'll be flying out to repair the drones while Vika guides his movements from the sky. 

"Another day in paradise," - oblivious Vika

Jack and Vika are living together in the floating airborne and their memories have been erased, including the bad memories from the invasion. They're responsible to clean up the remaining forces from the invasion as well as protecting the earth by taking care of drones. They take orders from Sally who promises to let them join the rest of humanity on Titan. Towards the end of the mission, a spaceship carrying sleeping capsules containing human beings crashes on earth. Jack gets to save Julia, a women he often sees in his dreams. 

Many secrets are revealed when Jack and Julia caught by Scavengers, that happen to be human beings. They told Jack all truths and it turns out that Julia is his wife. Apparently, 60 years ago, Jack navigated his NASA ship to investigate Tet (space station where Sally's based), together with Vika as the co-pilot and Julia hibernated in capsule. While being attacked by an alien ship, Jack released the shuttle carrying sleeping capsules to save Julia and others before his spacecraft was caught. The shuttle remained in orbit around the earth for 60 years until drawn in by homing beacon. Jack and Vika were kidnapped, cloned, sent to earth by the Tet and obliviously worked for Sally. Whereas the drones are actually programmed to kill humans, not aliens, because there are no aliens on the earth. 

What happens next? Go and watch it! I really love this movie. Every single shot is meticulously crafted and composed, especially the desolate ruins on earth. The futuristic stuffs featured in Oblivion are also amazing, such Jack's house, bubbleship, motorbike, computerized table, and everything. Not to forget the unique story line. There's a bit of elements from Wall-E, Inception and Vanilla Sky, and maybe others too. Go watch! ^^

a house in the clouds

"I know you, but we've never met. I'm with you and I don't know your name. I know I'm dreaming, but it feels like more than that. It feels like a memory. How can that be?"
- Jack Harper

In Your Heart or On Its Way

A week ago, my childhood friend got married. It was a beautiful, dreamy wedding in ballroom hall. 

I love weddings. Absolutely, positively love them. Whether it's a dear friend's wedding or someone I've never even met, my heart swells watching 2 people celebrate their never-ending love for one another. And when my friends marry the love of their lives, holy moly, my heart nearly jumps right out of my chest with happiness. And I can't help but wonder, how on earth will I keep my heart from exploding with love the day I marry the love of my life? Do they have vitamins to prevent that? :p LOL.

Well, other than the wedding, I was really happy to finally meet my old friends after 14 years. 

Many many years ago, we lived in Tawau and there's a nice family living next door. Their kids became my playmates and the bestest friends during my childhood. But in 1999, my parents decided to move permanently to Papar as they got new workplaces in KK. We're so young..no numbers or emails to be exchanged, no facebook yet..and we probably won't see each other again. That's 14 years ago. 

We did see each other again. However, things were different. Of course. We're the same persons, but we're not the same kids anymore. Never thought that separation turns best friends into strangers. Yet, I'm very happy that one of them have married now. And I'm glad that they've became a part of my sweet memories that I'll never forget.

And life gets more exciting with each passing day
And love is either in your heart or on its way.