laughter is the best medicine

“A day without laughter is a day wasted.” – Charlie Chaplin

i’m here to make you laugh – and, if i fail, at least smile today! so, here is one of my favourite blonde jokes.

Blonde Hiding

there was a blonde, a redhead and a brunette. they were speeding on the highway and it wasn’t long before police sirens blared behind them and a police car tailed them. they come across this barn so they quickly stop their car and go inside to hide. in the barn there are three sacks of potatoes. the girls each hide behind a potato sack.

the police arrive at the  barn and look everywhere. one cop find the potato sacks suspicious so he kicks the first one containing the redhead and she goes “woof woof”.

so he goes, “oh, it’s just a bloody dog.”

then he kicks the second bag containing the brunette and hears “meow, meow”

and he grumbles, “damn, just a stupid cat.”

finally, he kicks the last bag containing the blonde and hears in a high pitched, deliberate scream”POOOTAAATOOOEESS!”

and i drew a pretty picture of it. 🙂 hope you like it.

till next time!

cumuloq ❤

all the movies i’ve watched so far

once more, i’ve attempted to do something very idealistic and began listing down all the movies i’ve ever watched. thanks to IMDb.com my endeavour was simplified: here it is.

these are all the movies i’ve currently collected on my list. yes, it’s crazy to tally it all, but currently i have 792 titles on that list – and i know for a fact that i have a lot missing there too. 

the experience of adding all these movies on my list and giving them a personal rating at the same time has made me realise a few interesting things.

1. we may not realise it, but we spend an awfully lot of time and money watching movies (especially if you’re the kind that will go back to watch your favourites again and again). just take this into consideration for a moment, all the time you spend getting wrapped up into a storyline, falling in love with fictional characters on the screen, gawking over the special effects and laughing over incidences written by screenwriters and translated from words to actions by directors and producers … all this time you had could add up to a year of your life. and this year of your life you have made the choice to watch a movie. i’m not too sure whether that’s terrifying for you – but while i spent several more hours making a list of the hours i’ve wasted watching all these shows (some of them, i guarantee, that were not worth my time and effort watching them), i was a bit in awe. the even more scary thing is that i know that i’m going to spend a whole lot more hours on movies in the future. it is guaranteed.
2. memories are fallible. incredibly so. while i was trying to list whether i’d watched a movie or not, i found myself doubting and questioning myself and having (hilarious) internal battles on whether to add it to my list. especially those movies earlier on. for instance, i questioned whether i’d watched britney spears’ crossroads and mariah carey’s glitter, or whether i’d just read their titles and horrible reviews in a magazine somewhere. (thankfully i realise i’d watched none of them.) it was increasingly more difficult for sequels as well. i was very unsure how far i’d gotten into one sequel of, let’s say, the naked gun. so when in doubt, i’d skip them. which means there’s a potential that i’ve watched a movie before but eliminated it from my list because i could not remember it. which means that all the movies with forgettable storylines might as well not be watched, agreed?
3. there are so many similar movie titles. please stop with the unoriginal titles. there were so many times i was dupped into thinking i’d watched a movie only to realise that it was just another movie with a similar title. if you don’t believe me, go look for all the movies with the word ‘chocolate’ in the title. movie-makers really love their chocolate. and to make it worse, remakes. i realise that so many shows i’ve watched have had remakes. and most of the time, the golden rule is that the original is always better. i didn’t realise that christina ricci’s that darn cat was a remake of an original from 1965 (an original with two stars more than the remake). maybe that’s why i prefer the original charlie and the chocolate factory in comparison to the johnny depp creepy remake.
4. you do not need to be born in that era to have watched and loved and grown-up with that movie. you know the typical assumptive/stereotyped saying “you weren’t even born yet!” well, it’s not really salient. firstly, ’cause movies are timeless, and secondly, there is usually a decade or so worth of buffer time when a parent will still show their child a movie from before they were born. i was born exactly in the 1990s. but i realise i had to push my search list all the way back to 1965 to catch some of the movies i’d watched. i used the sound of music as my gauge. ’cause i grew up to Liesl singing under the gazebo in the rain. my favourite was brigitta, ’cause i thought the actress who played her, Angela Cartwright, was so pretty – but that’s getting off-topic. the point i’m trying to make here is that that show was thirty-five years before i was born, but i still grew up with it (along with the wizard of oz which is even earlier on, 1939). so, when it comes to movies at least, you cannot judge a person’s generation by the movies present during their decade. it doesn’t exactly work that way.
5. movies are nostalgic. full stop. movies aren’t always about the films themselves, but the familiar emotions that arise from you when you recollect scenes and phrases in those movies. essentially, going back to a movie is like a time capsule of yourself back then. it reflects who you were, and partially of who you are. after all, many of us go through our every day lives reliving moments in movies and coming across familiar references to movies. sometimes they are the maps that guide us subconsciously in everyday society.

Brigitta from The Sound of Music – just ’cause i couldn’t help myself. she’s too adorable.

as a whole, i wouldn’t really advise anyone to try making a list of all the movies they watched. it really involves scrolling through pages and pages of movies, trying to figure out whether you’ve watched this movie or that. but if you do try please make yourself a member of imdb.com and just add the movies from there than create a list from scratch on, let’s say, an excel sheet or microsoft document. they’ll even display what kinds of movies you’ve watched the most. i didn’t expect it, but i’ve watched mostly comedies.

till next time!

cumuloq ❤

chrome’s bookmarks bar

i’m often times too much of a perfectionist and when i get hooked on one thing, let’s say the first time i learnt i was going to play l4d2, i will end up spending hours of my spare time trying to perfect any holes in my knowledge about said thing e.g. when i got tired of constantly asking “which gun should i choose? which gun is this?” i literally went back home and went onto The Left 4 Dead Wiki onto the weapons page and took my time to learn the difference between a shotgun and a submachine gun; well, enough to know which gun i liked and which guns to avoid.

so when i realised my ‘bookmarks bar’ on google chrome was a bit bare and my ‘other bookmarks’ was so cluttered, i decided to spend some time (at a very inconvenient hour of the day) to arrange things and to discover new strange websites. so today, i want to show you the product of me being a perfectionist:

you might want to click on it to get a better view of all the icons. but i will also be going through all of the websites i have deemed worthy to be on my bookmarks bar below. maybe, through sharing them with you you learn some cool new sites. or, you learn more about how weird i am. one of the two.

• Google – the most standard ‘home page’ search engine goes first
• Google Translate – it’s subset. you’ll be amazed how many times i’ve had to use this.
• Minecraft Wiki – the story for this is pretty much the same as the Left 4 Dead wiki page.
• MentalFloss – a website filled with random facts, you know, just so you can spread your fictitious knowledge during conversations
  
• LinkedIn – made an account when one of my profs stated in lecture that every student who wants a job should have one. such a false statement .. but still.
• Cleverbot – those lonely/boring nights
• Reddit – to get up-to-date with the latest trending stories and pics, e.g. Peter Dinklage’s (aka Tyrion Lannister’s) b’day!
  
• IMO – haven’t tried it out yet, but it allows you to chat on different instant messaging networks at the same time.
• WordPress – so i can quickly access and blog .. i really think this is self-explanatory.
• Twitter – ’cause i jumped on the bandwagon just four months ago so i can follow some of my favourite youtubers.
• Facebook – self-explanatory?
• Tumblr – self-explanatory ..
• Cathay Cineplexes – one of my local cinemas
• Shaw – another of my local cinemas
• 1channel – my friend recommended this site for movies just this year
• Fanfiction.net – where the wild things are ..
• Fictionpress.net – where the less wild things are ..
• Twitch.tv – currently streaming game play. oh, and recent news is it’s on board with xbox one. 🙂
• Web Sudoku – for more boring nights
• Online Etymology Dictionary – a dictionary of explanations of word meanings. i use it for poetry and i have used it to help me with my essay writing during college.
• Youtube – a link that has been raped too many times.
• NTU – my college. see, you did learn more about me!
• Qoo10 – when i get shopping cravings but am too lazy to step out the door.
• Rotten Tomatoes – my secondary bible when it comes to movies and whether i should watch them.
• Tracyeinny – a random blogstore i like to look at every now and then. i have bought one dress from them before.
• Rooster Teeth – one of my favourite gaming communities .. still wondering whether i’ll make an account in it.
• WeHeartIt.com – filled with pretty photos to add to tumblr if my current ones bore me.
• Hotmail – i’m honestly confused as to whether i should call it ‘hotmail’ or ‘outlook’ or ‘login live’
• Free-Tv-Video-Online – i use this site more for series, but it’s becoming less and less reliable
• Imdb.com – my mecca for films and actors. and the primary bible for whether i should watch a movie.
• Watchseries.eu – i realised when clicking on this link that it has recently changed to btvguide.com … awkward
• Jellyneo.net – my guide site for neopets
• SuggestMeMovie – when i’m trying to figure out what movie to watch next, this site is awesome for it
• deviantART – for some of the most obscure yet beautifully talented artists out there. and where a lot of photos from tumblr actually come from, and sadly ‘un-credited’ too. some of my favourite photographers.
• neopets.com/~my_first_little_pony – this site has all the neopet dailies and game guides i need
• Neopets – the actual neopets site. my account is currently seven years old. but i started back in 1999, my first account got hacked into.
• ThePirateBay – *cough cough*
• Groupon – a nifty site for discounts
• Smosh – similar to Rooster Teeth, but a more childish version – in the boobs, farts and giggles sort of way
• Steam – a platform for buying and playing games
• PopUrls – a site that contains headlines of the most frequented websites. basically a way you can see what’s trending in a glance.
• Know Your Meme – when memes become too confusing, overwhelming or obscure, this is where i go.
• Golden Village – another local cinema for me to check movies and timings.

 basically, i’ve arranged all these links according to colours rather than their function .. but you kind of see a trend colourwise, e.g. social networks tend to be blue.

well, i think i’ve given you a glimpse of my habit to perfect things ..

till next time!

cumuloq ❤

ideally, my favourite movie …

… is Pan’s Labyrinth. sure. i’ve watched it about three to four times, i love the plot and the bittersweet ending is exactly what i expect Ofelia’s fate to be. the costume and art is amazing, the film’s lullaby is beautifully haunting. i love every aspect of it. but if you ask me whether it’s the movie i’ve watched the most? no, it isn’t. or if i can live only on this movie for the rest of my life, if it would be my choice? i would definitely say no.

would my most watched movies therefore be, by definition, my favourite movies? somehow, ideally, i feel that this should be case, but it isn’t.

i can list out some of my favourite movies: Pan’s Labyrinth, Almost Famous, Big Fish, Alien Resurrection and, a new favourite, Star Trek Into Darkness, but they are definitely not the movies i’ve watched the most. and i would definitely not watch them again and again in a row. although i’ve definitely watched the first four at least three times.

on the other hand, there are movies that i definitely know i have watched more than ten times, exactly, more than ten times confirmed. but i would not classify them, by the slightest, to be my favourites, to have an amazing plot, incredibly amazing characters, or be the most impactful films in the age of cinema history. one such movie is the first harry potter movie, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, i’ve watched that about twenty times or more. i can (almost proudly) state that i had the entire script memorised for the first two years it came out. then there are an assortment of embarrassing and not-so-embarrassing choices, like A Cinderella Story, Spy Kids 2: Island of Lost Dreams, Geek Charming and Tangled that i have watched for a succession of nights, just because there was literally nothing else i felt like watching.

but while i can mindlessly watch these shows again and again, you wouldn’t catch me saying that they’re my favourite movies. definitely no. how i see it is it’s like how my film professor jokingly tells us that he watches Ironman sinfully more than he probably should, but if anyone asks him what’s his favourite movie, he would devoutly claim that it’s Jaws.

so obviously a ‘favourite movie’ has a lot more in it than a movie that you would watch again and again. and maybe that’s an aspect that is necessary (for me) for a favourite movie. it needs to be able to be digested in careful doses … like your favourite dessert. you can’t have it all the time, you need to step away from it for a few years, then come back to it. so is there a way to say that something is your favourite movie but you need to put a disclaimer that you don’t like to sit there and watch it seven times in a row?

maybe it’s just me, but i need to get a better grasp on what ‘favourite’ really means … but for now i classify the ones above as my favourite movies of all time, and the lower ones my favourite ‘junk’ movies. the former are equivalent to that gorgeous slice of red velvet cake i sometimes treat myself to at Coffee Bean, and the latter are the sour cream and onion chips and salt and vinegar chips i munch on furiously in the middle of the night. somehow, the balance of both worlds makes my movie experience far more richer.

till next time,

cumuloq ❤

things i wish i didn’t worry about before going for an interview

i’m going to admit that i am very very superficial when i get the call that i need to go for an interview. ’cause the first stupid thing i always think of is what to wear. yes, not how to prepare for it or do any sort of research into the job, but what the heck am i going to wear?! i think it’s ingrained in me, but i will never feel comfortable in office wear. nope, nope, nope.

pencil skirts terrify me. office blouses are equally nightmarish. i feel like an awkward douche in them. plus, i have yet to find one of those handbags that women carry that doesn’t make me feel stupid holding my hand out in an awkward angle.

so i often stick to dresses that can pass off as formal – which doesn’t help when i step into the holding/waiting room and every freakin’ girl there is holding a handbag, wearing an office blouse and a black pencil skirt, looking all prim and proper and i feel like the girl who went to the wrong party..

and the second thing i worry about, and always terrifies me the most? shoes.

yup, one of the worst things for me to think about when going for an interview are those black heels that pinch at the front and the back and all over. i think in the last three years, i have gone through about four or five pairs of heels and all of them, all of them i swear, i’ve only worn once and then throw away.

i don’t know how girls can do it! my feet are allergic to heels! or literally anything that requires that the shoe goes around my heel. which makes flats sometimes terrible too. i have had blisters, i have had the skin peeled off the back of my heel, i’ve had blisters on my toes, i have had one toenail fallen off, my left big toes is permanently bruised at the tip, the smaller nails look so vulnerable to be pulled off. i don’t understand how other people do it. i think the last few months i’ve gone through two entire boxes of band-aids just for my feet. i have no idea what i can do if i get a permanent job that requires i be in heels all the time. it probably means i have to invest in some really amazing miracle heels – with the no income i currently have.

and those, i sadly admit, are the most worrying aspects of an interview that i wish i didn’t have to worry so much about. it’s only until i reach the place and am forced to wait for the interviewer to come that i realise i forgot to prepare any answers to questions that they are most likely to pose. i’m thankful that i have some miracle way to get by, but i wish that those crazy, superficial worries above would just disappear and allow for me to focus on what really matters in an interview, and that is the interview itself.

thank you, readers, for putting up with my rant. i really hope someone out there shares my woes.

till next time!

cumuloq ❤

idealism: acceptance

i think one thing i wish i could change about myself, which i can’t help myself from expressing or feeling, is my inability to let go from holding a grudge. and, it’ll be all so much easier to blame biology or family traits (something along those lines), but i really try not to. ’cause i don’t want to accept the fact that it is something i can’t change in myself. isn’t that ironic?

so, i guess that makes me a perfectionist?

one thing i would love to learn, therefore, over the course of my lifetime, neither immediately nor completely, is to be more accepting of situations, circumstances, other people and their behaviours and actions altogether. it is so easy for me to point fingers, or to revolve my mind around a particular small irk that i have, and just not get anywhere or achieve anything except a whole lot of wasted time and effort that could be better spent on something else.

one habit i have is to immediately be frustrated by a person because of their inability to express themselves as effectively as i wish them to. sometimes they may phrase things that i find immediately offensive, ’cause i expect that any given person would find such a statement offensive within a monolingual, english-speaking society (the society i grew up in for a majority of my life), but that is not the case.

i can go from ground zero to the stratosphere in under five seconds if such a situation takes place – and practically self-destruct myself and my circumstances and any relation ties i have with that person. (a legitimate reason why i often have a smaller circle of friends.)

it’s been not so bad these few years. for one, i’ve learnt to hold my tongue for the rest of the day, instead of hitting self-destruct mode. i’ve learnt to step back and walk away from situations which i know will get me more in trouble than others. i’ve also learnt to just occupy my mind on other things than to be swallowed up into a ball of frustration. i think a large part of me trying to improve this aspect of myself is due to the trials i’ve gone through, and the self-development that is required when having a boyfriend, or being in a long-term relationship as whole with someone who you really want to keep in your life.

i’m used to having close relationships for a maximum of two to three years. but my relationship with my boyfriend has gone on beyond that. and it really is a struggle for me. i barely even keep salient relationships with my parents and my brother. but long-term relationships really do teach you the meaning of endurance and a large part of that is accepting a person with their flaws, instead of in spite of their flaws. the latter requires you to attempt to ignore the fact that he is not the kind who can and will write long letters of adoration for you – which trust me, does not last very long. the former, however, requires you to assess whether that is worth giving up your relationship and whether it is something you really need. it requires you to accept that long letters are probably just a total pain to read and, since his expression on paper isn’t too awesome, it wouldn’t be something you would want to read in the first place. (no offense if you’re reading this! :P)

i guess, at the end of the day, one thing i need to learn is the battles worth fighting for. and to remember that i can’t win them all, i can’t hold onto them all, and letting go of them is very necessary for me to be able to regroup and concentrate my energy on the things that matter to me in the long run. no one will remember a petty argument over who left the keys at home or which place you should have gone to over the weekend five years down the road. but you will remember if you held a grudge over a meaningful relationship for two years when you could have patched things up earlier and been better friends because of it.

after all, you need to let go off the rocks tying you down to the ground in order to fly. 🙂

till next time!

cumuloq ❤

the idealist: things i wish i did in my spare time in college

i realise now, after everything is over, that i did not really use my time to my advantage during my uni years. and that is about four years’ worth of spare time that i have wasted doing God knows what. so here is a list of things i wish i had done and which those who are still in uni can still consider doing instead of wasting their time away like poor little me.

1. internship
i had foregone the opportunity to do internships during my uni years for other things, whether it be ’cause i already had a solid permanent part-time job that had really good flexible hours and pay, or whether i wanted to spend more of my time resting, or because i just wanted to play boggle and scrabble in my free time. but now that i look back on it, just having that one permanent part-time job on my resume is not the best. ’cause while i really did do a lot of things and learnt a lot during the time i’ve had there, a six-year-long stint at a tuition centre does not apparently leave a big impact on the companies i want to hire me. so, for those who are still in college, i suggest trying out a range of jobs during the summer for internship. ’cause there are high chances that your internship will get you your future job. and choose them wisely too. while it may be a pain in the ass, going for well-known companies can up your rep.

2. written more on the side
i think the majority of my writing was spent during my second semester, where i was able to accomplish a poetry collection and a play. and those things made me feel good. but i realise, looking back, that i should have really written more poetry and, i regret it now, i should have attempted larger projects, such as maybe one or two full-scale novels. as a writer, i am really lazy. i have to admit that. i usually don’t get as far as a chapter before another idea springs to mind or i get really distracted. but the thing is is that to get yourself published, you need to have some sort of material already done. which i don’t. so i wish i had written more during college, when i had the free time for it, and at least have two completed novels that i can look for publishing sources or enter in contests now.

3. upgraded skills
while it was all fine and dandy going to classes and learning all that is to do with my major, i think one thing, as a college student, we must do is to step back and realise that a lot of things you’re learning now in your degree is not going to help you in the real world, unless you’re dead set on going for a masters. well, that’s mostly true for art degrees at least, i know communication and engineering majors probably are more related to the jobs their going to finally get, but if you’re an english major like me or maybe a sociology or history major, you’re definitely going to have to go beyond your curriculum and find ways in improving skills that will matter in the long run and which will help in your resume. so i suggest taking a language class in a language that is necessary in your society, or learn some computing skills. one way of helping you realise what skills you need to learn would be to go look at job postings and see what kind of skills companies want out of a position.

4. networking
i think this is a really important thing when it comes to finding a job or getting more opportunities out of life. get to know more people. even though you know you’re not going to like it or you think one particular circle of people are fake or you feel fake for doing it. it is always important to learn about what others do and how they are linked to other people. you never know when they need someone with your skills and come knocking at your door ’cause they know you personally. i feel like i haven’t done that enough in my college ’cause i’m such an introvert and am the type to just nuzzle myself in my blankets, with the computer in front of me in my hall room. but for those still in uni, don’t be afraid to get out there and make a name and some sort of reputation for yourself. the people you meet may someday end up ruling the world, and it will feel good to say that you knew them at one point in time – and maybe got drunk with them one night.

5. used the facilities more
it is in your college fees that you pay for the usage of your college facilities, so it is a shame if you do not use them – and especially if you do not know where some of them are still, even in your senior year. i’ve seen plenty of people who just go for classes and hightail out of the vicinity after its over. while i probably did use the facilities more than some of my other classmates, i do feel kind of sad that i didn’t use them even more while i was there. this especially includes the swimming pool and the running track. i haven’t even stepped into the sports gym during my time there. a lot of times i make it a point to state that i will go swimming once a week and running twice a week before the semester, but once semester kicks off, i find myself constantly choosing to sit in my room instead of going to the sports centre. this is especially shameful as it was just across the street from my hall. now that i’m out of hall, getting to sports facilities is even tougher, and i bet by the time i start working it will be even more terrible to get my butt out of my house and go exercise. so i suggest that while you’re still in college you make full use of the track.

but, at this point in time, i can’t sit back and regret too much of my time there. the most i can do is reflect upon it, so here is my reflection. as a whole, though, i really do feel like i got the most of the college experience (just not the time outside of that college experience). i am proud of the fact that i did put my studies first and that i was always on top of my workload. i’m also proud that i made friends and memories within my hall that will last a life time, and that my studies were not just all about academics but also about having a lot of fun. so, maybe the last thing i have to say is that while you are in college, try to balance both worlds, the academics and the hall life (or the social life, if you don’t stay in campus). some of those memories are really things that will make you the person you are once you graduate.

till next time!

cumuloq ❤

the idealist: things to make you happier

i changed the topic of tuesday into the idealist so that i could include “pick-me-up” lists and posts for my readers and my future self. i think i can speak for a lot of people when i say that if there was one thing we aimed in life it is to live it better. (better in what ways?) we seek to make ourselves feel better, we aim to make others feel better and we aim to make the most of the minimal hours we have left.

so this will be a simple list of things that generally aim to make me and hopefully you feel better after a grueling day:

1. take a shower
showers are an amazing way to not only strip away the sweat and dirt of the day, it also helps you strip away the stress that goes along with it. it was one of the sole places one can call their own while they’re in there, no distractions, just you closed off from the rest of the world, able to retrace your steps, resolve your issues and step out as though you’re starting anew. warm showers are also known to release dopamine in your body which increases creativity. so if you’re in a slump the entire day, not sure how to solve problems or just generally stuck in a bad mood, a shower is a great way to get the cogs working again and finding new solutions.

2. sleep on it/nap on it
sometimes there is nothing you can do about your problems and at the late hours in the night, or the early hours of the morning, sometimes your bad moods are a whole lot worse than you think they are. a good way to get over it is to just put it to rest and get some rest yourself. maybe the next morning you’ll realise that your bad mood was for no reason whatsoever, or that somewhere in your sleep your brain has found a way to resolve those issues you’ve been having.

3. listen to music
and by this i mean the right kind of music. ’cause while there is a lot of music out there that can make you happy again, there is also a lot of music that will make you even more depressed than you actually are. you want the kind that makes you warm and fuzzy, that makes you smile and sing your heart out and block out anything that can be causing you pain or heartache. but at the same time, something you can still relate to. everyone has their own go-to artist or song. i know the band, yellowcard, got me through a lot of difficult times. one of my favourite feel good songs at the moment is luke conrad and ingrid’s cover of imagine dragons’ ‘it’s time’. take your pick and hit replay. a trick on youtube is to put the words ‘repeat’ in the url after ‘youtube’. it’ll send you straight to a website that will play your current song on repeat and even make you feel guilty about how many times you’ve ‘raped that repeat button’.

4. write it down and tear it out
if there’s one thing my creative writing minor has taught me, it’s that free writing is not only a good way to ensure that you’re never suffering from writer’s block, but also a good way to relieve stress. the idea is to keep writing for a specified amount of time, ten to fifteen minutes is good. in this time, don’t stop writing. don’t lift your pen from your paper. you write whatever comes immediately from your mind to the paper. even if it sounds ridiculous, even if you make mistakes, do not censor yourself. you can rant here all you like. you can’t just throw away all the words that are cluttering your brain. and at the end of it, don’t read it. throw it away and never see it again. your mind will feel a lot clearer.

5. exercise
not my personal favourite, ’cause i don’t like getting off my butt, but it honestly does work. go for a jog and aim to hit a greater distance each time. jogging helps you in so many ways. it forces you to clear your mind and focus on your breathing. it forces you to push yourself. when i’m jogging, when i feel like giving up, i usually force myself to keep going to ‘prove others wrong’. i usually never have a specific opponent in mind, but it feels good to push yourself against an imaginary obstacle. it makes you feel all the more better when you succeed, that you are proving whoever, in the past, or the present, or anyone in the future, who may say or do something that makes you feel inferior to them. pushing yourself to your limit is a good feeling. it makes you feel like you’re worth something.

and if the above five choices of mine don’t make you happy, here’s a little picture to make you smile:

and here’s the cheesy part, ’cause you know it’s coming in any inspirational post: the last thing you can do to make yourself happier is to change your mindset and accept that you are allowed to feel down sometimes, you’re allowed to get yourself in a slump, but at the end of the day, it is you who determines your happiness.

keep smiling!

cumuloq ❤

my idea of my own blog

some self-evaluating time! i’m actually quite proud of myself for having kept up with the current schedule. but i feel like there are certain kinks in it that are making me unable to continue writing on certain sections i.e. certain days.

i kinda like the “all the pretty things” for monday, so i might keep it as it is. i like the theme of tuesday but i feel like i need to rephrase it. wednesday is alright, i guess. i need to rephrase it too though. and i feel like i need to replace thursdays with something else. fridays are okay, but fridays makes me lazy, and i usually just end up taking the lazy route and embedding a youtube video into the blog and then typing five words for it and then being done with it. i feel like it needs more structure. i kind of like saturdays! it was the one i was dreading the most, ’cause if i haven’t written in a while, i get into a stump and all clogged up and i just feel like i’m having writer’s constipation block. and sundays are good. haha. i like sundays – the entire round-up – makes me feel like i ended the week well. okay. i feel like i did an adaptation of the cure’s song.

another thing i want to change about my blog is the small photos for every day. i knew that i would change it eventually in the future, so i hope i can get to redesigning them properly soon. ’cause they were just meant to be kinda placeholders or ‘general ideas’ of what the placeholders would look like. i also feel like my blog layout needs a makeover, but i’ve always been lazy when it comes to html. so i’ll get to it eventually.

another thing i really want to do is to actually go around and read other people’s blogs and really make connections with other bloggers. i’ve read a few blogs here and there, but not as many as i want to after a month. and i really feel like, to have a good blog, you need to be part of the community. and i really want to attempt to get to know what the community is like and what other people have been writing.

lastly, i’m also planning a second blog. (too soon perhaps? this one isn’t even established yet..) but the other one has an entirely different outlook and approach to it.

i feel like blogging is slowly becoming an integrated part of my life, and these are the points i feel like i need to improve on most of all. but mostly, thank you for the people who read this blog and those who follow and like my posts. i know that this is first and foremost a place for me to document my own thoughts and emotions, but it always feels very encouraging when i have other people interested in my small little brain farts. (i hope i didn’t turn you off from reading anymore from that expression).

till next time!

cumuloq ❤

my idea of childhood innocence

it was about wanting to try every instrument, every sport, every hobby or pastime and then quitting it a month later ’cause you lose interest in it. i remember trying piano lessons, taekwondo, violin, ballet, speech and drama, chess club, gymnastics and tap dance. i remember wanting to try things like the flute, archery and horse riding.

it was about getting giggly over the most smallest, naughtiest little things. like a small action where you clap your hands and pull up your right hand which was meant to substitute the words ‘shut up’ but i showed it to one of my friends wrong in year two (second grade) and all my friends went ‘ooooohh, she said a bad word!’ and wanted to report me to the teacher. and replacing bad words with things like ‘sugar honey ice and tea’ and saying it to everyone and laughing about it. or hearing things wrong and laughing about it ’cause we thought it was so clever and getting scolded by our elders.

it was about being excited about christmas morning. ’cause santa brought us presents and our parents gave us presents. and getting legitimately upset at santa for getting our wishes wrong. like i wanted a cabbage patch kid but he got me a stupid make faces doll that i later drew on with highlighter for its lipstick and eyeshadow and it looked so bad. but it was about writing and mailing letters to the north pole. and having a reindeer bite into mine. and bragging to my friends that my dad knew santa.

it was about having dreams that were limitless. you’re still at ground zero. if i wanted to be a penguin zookeeper, i still could be. if i wanted to be an animator for the disney channel, i still could be. if i wanted to be a writer, i still could be. the possibilities felt endless then and they seemed so within reach and possible.

lastly, it was about simple love. about thinking that boy and girl love was icky. but still loving disney fairytale love. it was the simple fact that love was just love. that if i liked a person then that person must surely like me back and then we could have a lot of fun together playing make-believe. that everyone out there was there to be friends with me. that i could go across the street in my neighbourhood and we could share her treehouse and trampoline till the sun came down and then i’d go back home and have an awesome dinner cooked with love by my parents.

till next time,

cumuloq ❤

my idea of the perfect loving relationship

it starts off with no expectations and wanting little from life. it comes from knowing who you are and being content with who you are. you can’t start something new without being at a place that you’re comfortable with. it comes from mistakes and acceptance of those mistakes and a determination that you will do better and that you also expect better for yourself in return.

it is understanding that things are not perfect. it’s not a movie you watch on the screen nor a dream you had in your mind. but sometimes you get glimpses of it. and you mould it into something that is yours and theirs, and no one can share such an experience as yours and theirs. it’s about a lot of hard work and nights that are hard and nights that are amazing. there is an ease to it but there are also moments of self-doubt too. sometimes it makes you question who you are, but rarely who they are. it makes you want to improve for the better for them. it makes you hopeful of the future. it forces you to comprehend life in a different way. you’re negotiating a space that will not only affect you but also, eventually, them too. and sometimes its a bit of sacrifice that you must be willing to make.

and in the end it’s a about the small things. all the small little things that add up to this gesture called love.

 

happy three year anniversary, novio.

cumuloq ❤

my idea of … the perfect career

so this series of blog posts will be according to and will start with the phrase “my idea of …” and since, according to the countdown i’ve made, i have only 13 days left of university school days, i have decided to begin my first “my idea of …” with an apt subject that has been on my mind, and that is a job. but, no, i decided not to title it “my idea of a perfect job”, ’cause honestly, one can have many jobs in a lifetime, and i’m thinking of long-term prospects and that is, a career. so, let me put this down in a list.

aspects of my “perfect” career:
1. “a room of my own”, not literally, but, in the spirit of Woolf, the freedom to write. whether it be on the job or during my spare time.
2. a social and leisure-paced environment. i know that work needs to be done, and i honestly do it very very well. but i always imagine being able to be a bit crazy at the workplace and having the boss not care, or even joining in.
3. projects that inspire me. i want to be able to create things with the best of my ability. i’m not exactly sure what, but i would love to be able to have the chance to do it.
4. something social media or popular culture related.
5. the opportunity to get my masters degree in english along the way. especially in my dream universities of either uc berkeley, oxford or brown.
6. the ability to learn new things on the job.
7. something related to words. as simple as that. whether it be editing or writing or reading.
8. stability and security for at least three years in each job, and if not, being able to be recommended into another job.
9. a recognisable company. not really a must, but i actually do want to be able to say the name of my company and be proud that i work there.
10. perks on the job. like free movie tickets or paid vacations … or am i pushing this one?

to be honest, i wrote a really long post before this which i had to scratch ’cause i was going off topic, cursing the inability for me to find such a perfect job where i’m currently residing in. but if i can honestly just get three things from this list in all the jobs in my career, and one of them is at least the first one, i’ll be a very happy person. 🙂

end-goals of my career:
1. be a prominent writer with a good social network of writers
2. or a senior editor for a prestigious company
3. win the nobel prize for literature (one can dream, can’t she?)

and, another to be honest, if i am given the opportunities to achieve any of these three goals, but am required to migrate, i will be happy to (within the boundaries of what country exactly i have to migrate to).

yay! all done. till next time!

cumuloq ❤