Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Que Sera Sera. What will be will be.




Mr. Clown made us each a flower bracelet.



It has been almost 8 months since we last met and 16 years since we first met.

Although we are now on different tracks, each nursing a different dream within, leading us into different worlds that hardly overlap, we are always bound by our secondary school years during which our lives were deeply woven with each other's. Those distant yet innocent memories still warm our hearts like yesterday.

Tonight (6/4), as the five of us were sharing a cozy evening at a dimly lit restaurant, Jessica announced that she is going to be a bride at the end of the year and, later when she suddenly remembered, would like to invite us to be her bridesmaids. Half expecting the news, all of us were really happy for her and accepted her offer with honour.

Playing the guitar, a Filipino singer started crooning nearby.

When I was just a little girl, I asked my mother: what will I be?
Will I be pretty, will I be rich?
Here's what she said to me.

Our conversation was then steered to wedding planning and marriage life. All of a sudden, we became the teenagers back in those school days thick with public exams, crushes, boyfriends and break-ups.

Que Sera, Sera,
Whatever will be, will be.
The future's not ours to see,
Que Sera, Sera,
What will be, will be

Although the gap between our lives is too large to bridge at times,

When I grew up and fell in love,
I asked my lover: what lies ahead?

and our lives too alienated for each other to understand,

Will we have rainbows day after day,
Here's what my lover said:

we still share the momentous events in life,

Que Sera Sera.
Whatever will be, will be.
The future's not ours to see.
Que Sera Sera. What will be, will be.


like we did in the past, whatever will be, will be.

Friday, April 06, 2007

I know that's my weakness

Please.

Please don't ask me if I'm available certain time in the coming future before you tell me what you'd like to spare my time for.

If you'd like to ask me out or for my favour, just say so so that I can always come up with some canned excuses like I'm busy with this and that if I don't want to go though I'm not very skillful at delivering them convincingly.

I'm handicapped in responding the question "Are you free this and that?" properly (especially it's from my colleagues). I will automatically blurt out the truth while I should have tactically hold myself back and asked why instead of giving an answer right away.

ok, I could have said I don't wanna substitute you for your own work and I prefer enjoying my own time even though I have no concrete plans for it. That it's my own time after all and being available for myself doesn't mean being available for you. Or I could have simply said I dun wanna do it or I'm not interested.

BUT. I don't want to be mean to the others, that's why I'm mean to myself -- both of which I don't like. Typical of me--try to be good but sometimes hate to be so.

Siiiiiiigh. I fell in the same trap again and again and I hate myself being so easy to be trapped that if I were not myself I would trap myself in the same way.

Why can't I learn to say no in a socially stylish way instead of grumbling every time I'm asked (in my translation: forced) to do something I don't want?

Thursday, April 05, 2007

Friends in a package

Some friends come in a package. They work in an all(or most)-or-nothing mode--either all (or 90% in the most-or-nothing mode) of the members in the package show up or they won't see each other at all.

There are three main advantages of package friends:

1. Time efficient
Common sense quiz: is it cheaper to buy 6 cans of coke in a package or one at a time? It goes without saying that time means money. The same analogy for friends: which makes the best value of time, seeing 6 friends (let's say there are 7 including you in this package) altogether in an hour or seeing just 3 at one time and the other 3 some time later?

2. Sum of parts does not equal the whole
ok, we're not that money-minded, right? So let's look at the quality. Simply put: seeing 3 at one time and the other 3 at the other is just different from seeing all of them in one shot. By the way, can we still define three out of the original six members the same package? You've got your own answer.

3. That's how our brain works
How does our brain encode a person in our mind? A person does not really stand alone as a person in our brain. It is tagged with different labels like college friends, hallmates, childhood friends, things like that. So a name like Ada alone won't ring any bell unless it is tagged with some affiliations like the Ada from your PGDE year or the Ada from your high school. That's why friends come in a package because that's how they make sense to us. Basically, we don't personally know each individual in a package but we know them as a group. Singling out a few from a group makes a different representation and thus they are more like strangers than friends as represented in our brain. In a word, that's nature.

Because of the all/most-or-nothing nature, meeting a package of friends takes a long time to make arrangements in advance and is getting more and more difficult as time goes by while work, boyfriends/girlfriends and new packages keep cramming into our lives and pushing the old packages down the priority-until they disappear.

Yes, that's the nature. The nature of life. We just can't keep everybody. We are bound to lose someone along the way--losing them in a package.

Sunday, April 01, 2007

Fruit Day

Life in a metropolis is so hectic that sometimes we forget that we have (or had) a mum, a dad or a lover. That's why we have Mum's Day, Dad's Day and Valentine's Day to remind us that we actually have a soul and the capability to love, and that it's important to show our love.

Not only does the hustle and bustle numb our emotions, it also trivializes our physical needs. So the 21st of March marks the World Sleep Day (which is my personal favourite) so as to remind people that you are only flesh and blood and obviously, you need sleep.

Now there is a freshly named Fruit Day coming in April (just caught a glimpse of the ad at the bus stop and didn't pay attention to the exact day) in the hope of encouraging students to eat more fruit. You may think it's just school stuff and students do need reminders. But actually some companies are more proactive that they have already made their own Fruit Day part of the corporate culture.

So what's next? Water Drinking Day or Pee Day?

Living in a city for too long, we have long forgotten what it means to live.