Category: Musings

[Project 366] Riding the Dragon

Image of an altar hanging outside a second floor window somewhere in KL

There is something to be said for the spiritual. I’ve always been fascinated by it. I cannot see, nor touch, the spiritual world, but they exist. I find it appealing to think that there is a world beyond me that lives side by side what I do. It is that belief that there are some things that cannot be explained and understood.

Something magical, I suppose.

Magic has always fascinated me. It is, I suppose, the main reason why I find myself enamoured of watching magic shows and listening to stories of magic. However, I draw the line at actually demystifying it. There’s a certain part that’s lost when the magic is explained, the curtain is pulled back, and you see how it happens.

I suppose it is one of the reasons why I make such a good companion for my mother when it comes to Feng Shui stuff. There is the magical, of learning about energy and controlling the flow of it. There is the mundane, of learning how to harness it for your own purposes, and there is the fascination with what Fate has spoken about you when you decipher the meaning of the time you were born.

The last though, is the most wonderful of all. I am of the view that Fate, or whoever arranged the time and date of our birth possibly did it to give the individual the best possible start to their life, but you can never know what a person is thinking about. Yet reading a person’s birth chart gives you only the barest information about them; enough, perhaps, to encourage the reader to learn more about the person. So you’d have to actually talk to the person in question to learn more about them.

That’s perhaps the most important magic of all.

PS: Yes, I spent this Sunday at a Feng Shui talk. This time it was Joey Yap’s.

Random musings

Anything that cannot be experienced through your five senses is open to permanent manipulation.
Unknown Speaker
The Alin’sa Commentaries

Choices choices choices

One of the things I learnt about the recent Neurosemantics NLP course is to be aware of my choices. From the choice of to stay in bed or to get up, or the choice to drive, or the choice of how you eat, these are all choices. Our bad habits are also choices. The good news is that because they are choices, they can be changed. The bad news is that because they are choices, they can be changed. :P

One of the most important things I’ve learnt is how to stand back and evaluate my choices. When a choice is made, there are three experiences you could choose from:

1. To create a new experience
2. To end an experience
3. To maintain the current experience

Choices are powerful. At the end of the day, you are only responsible for how YOU feel and act. No one else. How you choose to react, is your own choice. There is no such thing as “That person makes me angry.” It’s more of “I choose to get angry with that person.”

Which would probably explained how I survived those years in customer service. :P I rarely chose to get angry. I did, however, choose to smile and plod on.

Ok time to roll to work.

PS: I am now a certified NLP practitioner. :P

Thanks for the reminder

Dearest muses,

Thank you for the reminder. Thanks for reminding me that I am never alone and that I am loved. Thank you for loving me no matter what. :) I love you too.

Oh, pause!

Menstruation.

Menopause.

I wonder why is it that both these processes, which involve bleeding, have the word men in them.

Menopause for me, is especially interesting. This particular time period for women is often associated with wild mood swings, insecurity, and changes in both a woman’s body and her attitude. It also means the end of a woman’s fertile period, because it is at this time that she stops menstruating.

Therefore, I wonder why they call it menopause. Is it a kind of hopeful longing that these women would one day be fertile again? That their reproductive systems would one day refunction as and when the men need kids? After all, that’s what the word implies to me.

Men-o-pause. Pausing for men. Or something like that.

Or it could be the realisation that “Men, oh!” with a pause of realisation.

Or even better yet, women in this stage make men pause. Hopefully this implies that they then think before they speak. Men I mean, not women.

The funny things you think when your hormones screw you once a month.

Blogging Generation

The difference between the old ones and the new ones is in the advertising and the design. The old ones tend to keep advertising to a minimum and focus on clear design where the content take centre stage. Otherwise, even if they are heavy on the ads, they also focus on ensuring that their page loads up fast.

The new bloggers? Obviously do not. I’m not going to talk about their design or even their content. Just the loading of their pages. And MUSIC. THAT AUTOPLAYS. WTF. I thought we left those behind in 2007!

If I have to wait 3 minutes on UNIFI for YOUR blog to show up because there’s too many widgets, then I’m not going to wait. Bounce time? You bet!

/rant

Can you hear the music?

When in doubt, seek out that which gives you strength. Let your instincts be your guide.

I kind of miss doing menial work. The kind where you’re required to focus your whole physical attention on what you’re doing. When at that point in time, nothing else matters but the task at hand. It’s partially about getting task done perfectly, but it’s also about rhythm. It’s like when you do something often enough, the task becomes routine. Your body knows what to do without you telling it.

And as it moves, and as it travels, you fall into this simple, joyous existence. A certain calmness comes over you.

Then I sit at the keyboards and let the music in my ears take over my fingers. And all is right in the world.

Listening to Music from Angela Aki’s Home album is wonderfully inspiring. :)

[Geekery] Why a QWERTY phone

In the past few weeks, I’ve had a number of people ask me why I want a phone with a physical keypad instead of just a regular touchscreen phone. Upon learning the reason why, one of them remarked, “do you write essays on your phone?”

“Something like that” was my answer. I’ve come to realise that I’m happiest writing. Take that away and I shrivel. I become less than who I can be. And I do a disservice to everyone around me. It’s time to go back to my roots. To being who I’m meant to be.

Is this limiting my potential as a human being? Perhaps. But does it make me happy? Deliriously so. 

[Meme] Oh gods this took longer than expected

Can’t believe it’s been more than 6 months since I started this meme. Whoops. Well, I might as well finish it, since it has been bugging my mind.

Have you ever written a character with physical or mental disabilities? Describe them, and if there’s nothing major to speak of, tell us a few smaller ones.
I once considered writing a character who had a learning disability, ala Fei Mau if anyone remembers the TVB drama about the big fat guy who was mentally disabled. Although the idea has been simmering in my mind, I eventually gave up because there was no way I could write/explore him without being condescending, rude and shallow.

How often do you think about writing? Ever come across something IRL that reminds you of your story/characters?
Strangely enough, now that I’m away, yes, I think about it all the time. Very often, it’s not really the act of writing, of exploring the world I’ve created that I miss the most. It’s just the feel of the keys and typing in general. I spend most of my days in front of a computer nowdays, perhaps more than I’ve ever done in years, but I don’t do a lot of typing. Instead, I click on the mouse. And when I do turn to write, it’s only for brief seconds. Sigh.

To answer the second question, yes, sometimes, but what those are, I’m not telling. :P

Final question! Tag someone! And tell us what you like about that person as a writer and/or about one of his/her characters!
Jhameia and Ai, if they’re reading their F-list. Tell me about the character you hate the most in your novel, and why. :P

(more…)