Finding my Place in this World

Queasiness

noreply@blogger.com (Terri) — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 23:04:00 +0000

I've been feeling nauseous on and off for the past few days. Today it's really bad. It's so bad I actually have to lean back in my chair and take deep breaths at like 30 minute intervals.

It's really unusual for me to feel queasy for no reason. I mean I've gotten seasick and motionsick before but that has specific causes. Now I just feel like throwing up at random times throughout the day. Not just when I move too suddenly or when I smell something gross. But even when I'm sitting still and reading, I can get hit by this wave of nausea.

Oh God, I feel it right now *straightens, inhales deeply*

Yesterday it was my horribly runny nose. It was so bad I couldn't breathe, couldn't focus on anything. So I didn't get much studying done. Today it's my nausea. Maybe I should go get a medical certificate from a doctor and try to get out of taking this stupid exam lol. But nah that's not an option.

I'm reminded of a time when I actually induced myself to get sick during my BM and Sejarah papers in high school. I think it was my Form 4 trial exams, or my SPM trials. I didn't just vomit, I also had a fever and sore throat and really bad shakes. My mum had to come collect me from school halfway through the BM paper 1. As soon as I got into the car I started feeling better. By the time we reached home, I was perfectly fine. My Mum got so mad, she thought I'd been faking!

I don't think I did it on purpose. But I was just so unprepared and I was desperate to avoid taking the exam. I think my body fulfilled my wish in the only way it knew how. Or maybe it was induced by my nerves, and the stress?

But I doubt this is the same sort of case. I'm not nervous about the Philosophy exam, I mean I'm not exactly prepared but I don't really care about the course so whatever.

Still. I feel absolutely horrible. I just want to sleep and lie in bed and watch crap cartoons. That's what I do when I'm sick at home!! Sleep a lot. Lie on the sofa watching TV. Eat a little hot porridge and drink lots of water. Fall asleep while watching. Eat a bit more. Sleep.

Sleeping when you're sick is the best thing to do. Escape your discomfort, rest and wake up feeling better. But how can I sleep when I'm supposed to study?? :(

Ahhh now I feel a headache coming on. And I'm still queasy!! Noooo I hate throwing up. So gross! (Thank God, actually, or I might actually become bulimic. It just makes so much sense to me. Eat whatever you want then get rid of it later so you don't get fat. Then can eat some more! Lol. But just the taste. And the retching. I hate the retching; how it is involuntary. I don't like not having control of my body. So yuck. No bulimia for me. That's why I'm fat!)

No la I'm not that stupid or insecure. I don't think I would be bulimic. But I'm just saying, I might be! Because the main reason I don't do it is the fact that I hate throwing up!

Ish I'm on like 5 different drugs at the moment. Don't take me seriously. Okay going to go study some more now. I'm thirsty, I want to get a drink but am afraid the water would just make me feel more queasy. Ugh, the thought of water sloshing about...

*leans back and breathes*

love [past present future]

noreply@blogger.com (Terri) — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 05:07:00 +0000

Everyday, I feel like I have never known what it is to love until this day. Everyday, I feel like I cannot have loved you yesterday, because today I love you with a new depth and height and passion and perspective than I did yesterday. Everyday, I think to myself that it is only now that I truly love you.

Only to be proven wrong the next day.

Talking about how things were in the first few months of our new relationship, I am reluctant to pronounce the phrase "... when I loved you"; instead I say "when I liked you". Because how I felt back then would be a disgrace to the name of love.

When I loved you

When I loved you

When I loved you

But haven't I always loved you

Haven't I always felt this way

How could I have not

How could this not have been a part of who I am, always

"Do you think your relationship will run its course in a few years," she asked me. "You know how some people stay together for like 4 to 5 years and it's great and all but then they break up coz the relationship has just run its course...?" I walked alongside her, leaning into the strong wind, sidestepping the many tourists and Christmas shoppers.

What could I have said? How can I know what is to come? Que sera sera, whatever will be, will be.

Though the tree seems strong and solid

"I love you so much, more than you can know or imagine," he tells me
"Oh? So how much do you love me? Like, would you sacrifice your hearing for me; would you be deaf to be with me?" half-playful, cruel in my doubt, a test, I wait for the answer I think I know

And hear one I didn't expect

"Yes, I would"

My sound engineer, my musician, who lives and breathes his work, who has music in his blood and melodies in his brain and rhythm in his heartbeat, who has told me so many times his career is more important to him than anything else or anyone else in the world

"I would give up my hearing to be with you"

My heart broke with the sweet womanly satisfaction and love [humbled and awed at an undeserved gift]

Yet the trunk may be hollow

"It's been two years and I'm not bored yet. I think that should answer her question."
"Two years?? What about in another two years?"
"What about in another twenty seven, or fifty? They're just numbers. I think I already know~"

What is it you know, my love? My darling, who keeps his emotions locked away and his thoughts hidden, ever reluctant to express how he truly feels. Except to me. I am confidante, lover, fellow gossip, best friend. This I proudly and arrogantly say, because it is true. Still, even to me he is not always forthright. My dearest, with his love for the implied rather than the spoken - what did he claim to know?

That I will always love you
That I want to be with you
That I will not tire of you
That our relationship will not run its course, not until death do us part

I want to say these things too. I feel like I know them too. Que sera sera - but then again, what does one ever really know for certain? So many things we presume to know, we accept as facts. Why should we not claim to know what we feel in our hearts?

I do not yet love you, my darling. I will not love you until tomorrow, and the tomorrow after that, and the one after that, ad infinitum.

But please accept this humble offering; it is all I know of love today.

all about you

noreply@blogger.com (Terri) — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 22:59:00 +0000

as i lie here on my small, soft bed
dressed in my wet hair, still smelling freshly of shampoo
there is a space next to me
waiting for you

the days grow shorter
and you begin to forget the things i used to say
once upon a time, when i was
together with you

the nights grow longer
cold and empty, like always, this is familiar
easier to just lose consciousness, while
waiting for you

gingerbread, eggnog, mistletoe
trees and holly and roast turkey with pudding after -
but all i want for christmas
is you.

ice-skating!

noreply@blogger.com (Terri) — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 00:43:00 +0000

It was fun but I really wasn't very good. I'm not a natural :( I couldn't keep my balance, I couldn't even move without holding on the railing and using it to propel myself forward!!! Bryce and Grete were very nice, they held my hand and tried to guide me and teach me but I am a slow learner :( There was this little kid there who was also skating for the first time, and he learnt way quicker than me!!! Mehness. I shall attribute this to his lower center of gravity :(

I've been sleeping so much lately. Woke up at 5pm to go ice-skating and I'd fallen asleep at like 7am maybe? Was talking to Brendan, listening to him play guitar and like just being there while he phoned up companies asking if they were looking to hire a part-time/freelance audio engineer or take him on as an intern. Not that he needed or wanted me there to hold his hand in spirit or anything, but it was something that just happened so I waited for him to be done calling up the three production houses he had on his list before going to bed.

I miss Brendan. Can't wait to see him in a couple of weeks.

Despite waking up only a while ago, I feel sleepy. Maybe it was the ice-skating, though I didn't even skate that much. Coz I didn't want to pay £9.50 for 2 hours worth of skating, so I didn't buy a ticket or rent a pair of skates. But Ting and Chi-chan were like, Come skate come skate!! Just try it!!! So Ting traded me her rented skates for my sneakers and I just went on the ice for a few minutes. So cheap and duplicitous of us I know, but hey, we're Chinese :P

I should probably post up some pictures of Ting and the rest. Not that it matters or anything but it helps to know what people look like so you know who the names refer to right? Maybe when the ice-skating pictures get posted on Facebook I'll add them up.

Chi-chan has decided to call me Ta-chan lol. She's such a strange girl :P Grete wanted to try calling us by these nicknames as well but it was really weird hearing her say them xD I think you need a Japanese accent to pull it off. Not that I have a Japanese accent but at least I don't have a European one :P

Oana is making herself toast and jam now. She's pottering about our kitchen mumbling to herself. "I can't remember where I put the jam jar lid." "Hmmm where did I - oh." *crunch crunch crunch* *drops crumbs on cowl of her shirt* *looks down, stares at crumbs, then ignores them* *crunch crunch*

Lol I wish I had a camera. I want to take pictures of so many people and things. I was talking to Brendan about the Christmas market and he totally failed to get the concept of it. I just think everything would come across so much better in a photo. A picture being worth a thousand words and all that.

I'm sleepy. I have Philosophy at 9am tomorrow. Do you think I should go back to bed?

She

noreply@blogger.com (Terri) — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 01:58:00 +0000

'When I am gone from thee, my chosen,' she said, 'when at night thou stretchest out thine hand and canst not find me, then shouldst thou think at times of me, for of a truth I love thee well, though I be not fit to wash thy feet. And now let us love and take that which is given us, and be happy; for in the grave there is no love and no warmth, nor any touching of the lips. Nothing perchance, or perchance but bitter memories of what might have been. To-night the hours are our own, how know we to whom they shall belong to-morrow?'

Beve Yeang is super annoying!!

noreply@blogger.com (Terri) — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 23:45:00 +0000

She also smells really bad!! :D

business/life

noreply@blogger.com (Terri) — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 21:23:00 +0000

From the management consulting literature:

Unless you build relationships of trust with your customers, listen, learn, and respond to their changing needs, and empower your people to correct mistakes when they occur (not days or weeks after they have been measured), you will not establish an environment for long-lasting customer relationships (Pollard, 1996, pp. 74-75).

Sounds kinda like personal relationships, doesn't it? :P

flied lice

noreply@blogger.com (Terri) — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 19:55:00 +0000

Today I made fried rice for dinner :D Quite proud of myself. It was good :D Like really good!!! Maybe I'm biased a bit but Oana really liked it! Would I buy it from a shop? DEFINITELY NOT because I didn't put in ikan bilis, prawn, chilli, or anything!! But for a homecooked meal it's good okay! I put in bacon, sweetcorn, long beans, onions, eggs and of course the rice. Nice and simple xD

Here are some disgustingly yellow pics of my masterpiece. I really need to get a new phone.

I tried fixing the second picture; not easy when you don't have Photoshop :(

Aiyah buy new phone enough la. I've had this one for 2 years already.

the exception

noreply@blogger.com (Terri) — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 06:31:00 +0000

Guys' Rules #15: If we ask you what's wrong and you say "nothing", we will act like nothing is wrong.
We know you are lying, but it's just not worth the hassle.

To my darling, who always thinks I'm worth the hassle ♥

I love you even at 6.30 in the morning!! x3

Don't surprise me, don't make me happy

noreply@blogger.com (Terri) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 22:50:00 +0000

When I get excited I get seriously weird. My tone of voice changes; I come to closely resemble either those annoying high-pitched lala girls who try to act kawaii, or a crazed prepubescent bat. My arms flail around, I squeal, I bounce all over a room. I perform surrealistic interpretive dance in an attempt to communicate with mute invisible aliens. I give bone-crushing hugs to people in the vicinity. I repeat phrases such as "Oh mai Gawd!!!!!11" and "Ahhhhh!" over and over.

I get clumsy. I drop things, knock things over, spill things, trip over my own two feet, knock people's spectacles off while attempting to hug them. I elbow people in the ribs, I tackle them and knock the breath out of them.

So don't surprise me with gifts, don't present me with cool things. Don't be nice, don't be sweet.

I may just end up sending you to the minor injuries clinic.

When I was a child;

noreply@blogger.com (Terri) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 03:14:00 +0000

All I wanted to do when I grew up was to spend my life reading and writing books. Strange how our childhood dreams sometimes become actuality.

Well, I don't know that for certain yet. I have no idea what path my career is going to take, to be honest. But I certainly am doing a lot of reading and writing in university xD

I'm currently stuck in an essay about the imagination in Romantic literature. Focussing on Byron and Austen. It's actually amazing; I am procrastinating a lot and not making very swift progress but I am enjoying myself. Enjoying the creative process of writing. Haven't felt like this about my essays in a long time ^_^

Maybe I'm not quite as lost and directionless as I thought :D

maybe if you were here I'd have to find a new reason to be unhappy

noreply@blogger.com (Terri) — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 00:14:00 +0000

Because human beings can never be happy, can they? They can never be satisfied.

The way things are now, I long for you and only you. I pine gently for you, and speak tenderly to you everyday. I look forward to seeing you with eager puppy joy, and pout to say goodbye. I fly into your arms at airports and train stations. There is familiarity but not enough of it to breed contempt.

If I was by your side always, would we be as happy as we are now? Would we fight, would we squabble? Would we take each other for granted? Would I throw tantrums when you spend all day in the studio working? Would each other's company grow old and stale? After all, we have never spent any length of time together while doing separate things. Before, we were both doing A-Levels together, and naturally saw each other everyday as a matter of course. Now, when I come home, I am on holiday and free as a bird, and you generally are as well. When I go with you to Singapore, it is during a weekend, or for a mere couple of days during the week. I have honestly no idea whether we'd be able to make it work. How would we arrange dates and things?

But then that's silly of me isn't it. If we can arrange to be together and stay in love in separate countries, there is no reason we wouldn't be able to whilst together :)

A random stream of thought. I need to shower! Thank goodness I have an afternoon start tomorrow.

Good morning Malaysians xx

sunshine

noreply@blogger.com (Terri) — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 14:10:00 +0000

I'm sunning myself at the window of Grant's room. The bright sunlight is making it a little hard to see the screen but I don't care. The warmth feels good - we don't get many sunny days anymore as the year turns to winter, and I cherish this one. Basking in the liquid warmth, listening to the soft sounds of David's record player from the adjacent room, I am content.

I can hear the sound of Oana's key in the lock as she struggles to get the door open, and Grant's laughter as he comes to her rescue. We have just changed our lock and Oana isn't used to it yet... Now he's trying to teach her how to turn the key, and I smile at their conversation.

I have just gotten off the phone with my parents - I'd called home to wish my mum a happy birthday. It was good hearing their voices again; I miss Mummy and Daddy being around to nag me gently, tease me, and be there anytime I need a hug. There is a lot of laughter in our family and I miss it. But that phone call filled me enough to keep me going until I see them again in a month :)

I am experiencing a rare moment of perfect happiness and contentment. The sun is warm on my face, and I have poached eggs and toast digesting in my belly. The glass is cool against my right temple, it is a Friday, lectures are over for the week and everything is right in my world. Why should I not be happy?

My longing for Brendan is like a small cat that follows me everywhere, and at the moment it lies curled up on my lap. It is my constant companion in the absence of my boyfriend, and I have grown somewhat fond of it. Sometimes I walk too fast and move too busily for it, but it always manages to catch up with me several times through the day. It goes wherever I go, and lies close to me when I am at rest. As I said, I have grown fond of it and will even stroke it sometimes. It is a small, gentle creature that does not claw nor bite, but nestles close to me, a slightly heavy weight against my heart always.

So yes, despite my longing I can be happy. I am happy here.

board

noreply@blogger.com (Terri) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 17:18:00 +0000

I feel bored. Not bored like "I have nothing to do right now" but like chronic boredom. Like bored of life.

I don't want to go for lectures. I don't want to go for tutorials. I don't want to go to university at all. I don't want to go out food shopping. I don't want to go anywhere or do anything. I just want to curl up somewhere warm and comfy and just stay there forever.

I know I sound like a petulant kid. Don't really care. Leave me alone!

Everything feels pointless and... well, boring.

Ugh.

I don't even really care about going home for Christmas; not right now anyway. I tried to cheer myself up and give myself something to look forward to by saying, "Just hang in there till you can go home for Christmas!!" But I just can't get worked up or excited about it. A part of me is saying, "So what?"

This will pass, I know that. I will be my usual happy cheerful self again soon enough. And of course I will be very happy and excited about going home and seeing Brendan and family.

But right now I don't really care

Wake Up

noreply@blogger.com (Terri) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 02:54:00 +0000

Wake up, my love
Get up and adjust the pegs holding your curtains
Drink your water and reach for your glasses
Rub your eyes and clear your throat

Wake up, my love
Turn on your laptop
Click on the Skype icon
Smile at me with eyes barely open

Because you don't have to see me
To love me
And I don't have to be with you
To want you

But wake up anyway, my love
Because I can't see you
Or be with you
And therefore I miss you.

Terri's feeling so poem-ey today xD I won't flatter myself by saying I feel poetic T^T

I should be doing my essay instead bloody hell T^T

noreply@blogger.com (Terri) — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 18:57:00 +0000

Hey there
I'm giving you a ticket for speeding

Come away from your cushioned boxes
Put away your wires and
Pick up that guitar in the dusty case

Come sit with me on the grass
Just for a while
Fingers brushing singing
And we can watch the clouds go by

The wind is blowing through the trees
Children are running forward
As are we all -
But the sun is shining
And the world keeps spinning

So come with me
And stay with me
Don't leave though you sit so near
I want to hear you laugh
Don't run like water through my fingers
Hey there

Come kiss me.

Half composed in my head while I was walking home through the meadows.

ooh, Youtube is good.

noreply@blogger.com (Terri) — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 23:33:00 +0000

You know that "Recommended for You" section on the Youtube homepage? It basically randomly selects videos for you based on the videos you've viewed in the past. Anyway, it threw this up for me:

Damn, they're good. I'm such a sucker for gooey love songs AND Disney. But a two-in-one combination??? I'm sold!!! Almost cried listening to this T^T I'm such a baby I know T^T

The perils of having flatmates

noreply@blogger.com (Terri) — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 18:26:00 +0000

We've all seen the horrifyingly embarrassing but very amusing results of FacebookRape. Laptops should all come with intruder-protection as well as virus-protection xD

Just now, I left my word processor open and wandered over to the other end of the kitchen to steal some of Grant's vegetarian mock-mince-beef and onion gravy pie.... When I came back my English Lit essay had been sabotaged.

Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift has been described as Menippean satire; essentially, satire that combines many different targets of ridicule into a complex and fragmented narrative (Northrop Frye). For Swift uses the literary devices of satire, parody and irony

I am terri i am a terrible secretary and i cannot write essays or read anything also i have no attention span which is silly because it is which doesn’t make sense but oh well thats what i do

I am oana and i cannot cook but am a better flatmate than terri anyway

Wtf =.=

for his many fans:

noreply@blogger.com (Terri) — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 02:54:00 +0000

A recent picture of David, standing in the doorway of my bedroom with his Cool Dude mug xD

The picture is really grainy coz the light in the hallway was off. Oh well xD

love is a behaviour

noreply@blogger.com (Terri) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 23:42:00 +0000

Thank you for showing me how much you love me, everyday!! ♥♥

I don't know what I'd do without you. I don't know where I'd be now if it wasn't for you. You've given me so so much and still patiently endure all my whining and complaining and emotional unstability when I PMS. I know I have no real right to complain, and you know it too; so it makes me love you even more when you take my problems seriously and help me get over myself. Thank you, love.

Because you see; one can't just say "I love you," to a person and then proceed to ignore them or abuse them or take them for granted, then still expect them to believe it. You have to show your love, because love is a behaviour! But at the same time, you have to know when someone is saying that they love you without words :)

Bah I'm so soppy! Even I can't tahan my own mushiness!! Lol.

Of course, I'm a philosophy student so I can't agree that behaviour constitues a mental state (i.e. love). So I'm not saying that "love=behaviour and nothing else"!! that is not what I meant, at all
But I suppose I am somewhat a Behaviourist at heart. Or at least an Instrumentalist. Still, the sentimental part of me wants to be irrational and say that there's more to love and other emotions than the behaviour attributed to them. But this wasn't supposed to be a philosophical rant....

*shuts up*

Back to original topic! Thank you for treating me good, baby :D You're the best <3

this too shall pass

noreply@blogger.com (Terri) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 00:47:00 +0000

Endure. Be but patient, for this too shall pass

I decided the post I'd written was a little bit too personal to publish so it shall remain in my drafts. Right now it's 9.16am where my love sleeps, and I don't expect him to wake up anytime soon considering what time he went to bed last night. Ah well~

Good morning Brendan :)

Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat

noreply@blogger.com (Terri) — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 00:44:00 +0000

Drowned in a Tub of Goldfishes

Thomas Gray

'Twas on a lofty vase's side,
Where China's gayest art had dyed
The azure flowers that blow;
Demurest of the tabby kind,
The pensive Selima reclined,
Gazed on the lake below.

Her conscious tail her joy declared;
The fair round face, the snowy beard,
The velvet of her paws,
Her coat, that with which the tortoise vies,
Her ears of jet, and emerald eyes,
She saw; and purred applause.

Still had she gazed; but 'midst the tide
Two angel forms were seen to glide,
The genii of the stream:
Their scaly armor's Tyrian hue
Through richest purple to the view
Betrayed a golden gleam.

The hapless nymph with wonder saw;
A whisker first and then a claw,
With many an ardent wish,
She stretched in vain to reach the prize.
What female heart can gold despise?
What cat's averse to fish?

Presumptuous maid! with looks intent
Again she stretched, again she bent,
Nor knew the gulf between.
(Malignant Fate sat by and smiled)
The slippery verge her feet beguiled,
She tumbled headlong in.

Eight times emerging from the flood
She mewed to every watery god,
Some speedy aid to send.
No dolphin came, no nereid stirred:
Nor cruel Tom, nor Susan heard.
A favourite has no friend!

From hence, ye beauties, undeceived,
Know, one false step is ne'er retrieved,
And be with caution bold.
Not all that tempts your wandering eyes
And heedless hearts is lawful prize;
Nor all that glisters gold.

Selima, one of Horace Walpole's cats, had recently drowned in a china cistern. Gray wrote this memorial at Walpole's request.

terri says:

noreply@blogger.com (Terri) — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 23:41:00 +0000

Hap choi!!!! :D

I know it doesn't mean anything, but it randomly came into my head and I felt like saying it!! I think it should become a new martial arts saying :D As you karate chop your opponent, you yell "HAP CHOIIII!!!!" xP

random procrastinating post (here we go again)

noreply@blogger.com (Terri) — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 21:09:00 +0000

On Monday the Create Society is having a Worldbuilding workshop!!! :D I'm ditching both Sign Soc and Debating Union to go for it xD I would love to be able to create my own fictional world. Made an attempt at it once, but it died pretty quickly because my made-up world just wasn't logically consistent.

I'm sitting in my living room reading LOTR for the third time instead of doing work. Sigh. But I haven't read it in so longgg! :( Okay I'll read till they get to Buckland and then I'll go back to studying!!!! xP

I am eating so much junk and not exercising at all. I wanted to have salad today but Grant wanted pancakes so I am now stuffed full of nutella-banana-pancakes. Delicious, but soooo bad for you T^T And I was planning on stir-frying tau geh for myself tomorrow but Oana just walked in and announced that we're having ham-and-cheese-baked pasta for dinner tomorrow T^T I'm happy that we're eating so well but it isn't at all good for my figure T^T

Tried to go running earlier, with Oana. It was bad. I didn't even manage to work up a sweat before huffing and puffing. My heart felt all weak and my chest hurt and I almost died on the pavement, I swear. Or had a heart attack. Hopefully it's not me being pathetically out of shape, but rather me being not used to breathing the cold air so heavily. Oana said it's not good for you!!! So yeah. I can hope can't I :P Sigh. Will have to keep trying and hopefully get back in shape >.<

*yawns* I got bored of this post. Going to go back to LOTR now :3 Bai everyone~

if only

noreply@blogger.com (Terri) — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 00:36:00 +0000

"I know it's really cliché, but... I miss you."
"Awww. It's okay to say you miss me, you know."

If only I had a pound for every moment I've keenly felt the loss of your presence. I'd be rich enough by now to pay for my tuition fees till I graduate.

I miss you.