Talent

It's so amazing when you discover talent like this. There's nothing more to be said really..

an imaginary red flag

I feel so angry. Angry, hurt and disappointed. I can feel the adrenalin bubbling within me, I feel like I want to hit something. Someone.

London is a hard place to live in. The noise, the congestion, all the ingredients that turn the most placid of people into tight balls of stress. I have just come back from a relaxing 4 days in Edinburgh. Getting onto the Tube at Kings Cross was a painful reminder of the things that I left behind last week.

The day before I left for Edinburgh, I got some very bad news from my mum. My brother, who had behaved for 3 months had spent the night before in the casino and lost several hundred pounds. This was a tragic blow. After all we had all done to try to help him - he already has a five digit debt to his name. Some of which I now hold to try and ease his repayments. I felt betrayed and bitterly disappointed in him. In a matter of hours he had undone so much. We put our trust into him to stop and he failed to deliver. What more can we do?

Being hundreds of miles away helped. Watching stand-up comedy helped. But now I am back and I have yet to see him. What will I say? What should I say? Is there any point?

Reaching for the kleenex

It ocurred to me that it's been a little while since I made a list. So here it is.

Movies that have made me blub:

1. My Girl
2. Lilja-4-ever
3. My Sassy Girl
4. The Joy Luck Club
5. The Grave of the Fireflies
6. Nausicaa of the Valley of the Winds
7. Runaway Bride
8. Castaway
9. Most Disney movies probably (Bambi, Dumbo, Lion King, Finding Nemo)
10. Titanic

The list is sort of in order of blubbiness with My Girl almost guaranteed to have me break out in loud sobs, and Titanic drawing a tear to the corner of my eye. My Sassy Girl and Runaway Bride are the only ones where I've cried in happiness. The Joy Luck Club is the only one to have heavily impacted my life.

What a crybaby I am :)

Memo

The look of love
Is in your eyes
The look your smile cant disguise
The look of love
Is saying so much more
Than just words could ever say
And what my heart has heard
Well it takes my breath away

I can hardly wait to hold you
Feel my arms around you
How long I have waited
Waited just to love you
Now that I have found you

Youve got the look of love
Its on your face
A look that time cant erase
Be mine tonight
Let this be just the start
Of so many nights like this
Lets take a lovers vow
And then seal it with a kiss

I can hardly wait to hold you
Feel my arms around you
How long I have waited
Waited just to love you
Now that I have found you
Dont ever go
Dont ever go
I love you so

My new friend

Please meet Rufus!




















Rufus is my nabaztag. He is an incredible wifi rabbit who tells me the time, plays me music and, when I have finished programming him, will probably read my favourite blogs to me :) Send me a message! Visit this link and send a message to orpheus. Rufus will read it to me :)))

Turning 27

Sometimes it's easy to forget how lucky we are.

Here I am, just turned 27. I came home late from work to find my parents had cooked a fantastic dinner, and that my brother had gone to the trouble of baking a cake for me.
I've felt somewhat blue of late, disillusioned. My house sale has fallen through, things are a little shaky at work, and when things don't seem to go right it's easy to feel disheartened.

Yet I am surrounded by people who care so much about me. People who do give a damn whether I am happy or not. People who do notice me. I've always felt microscopic but it's not true. Here on my desk I have so many pieces of evidence against that. Every other item is a gift from someone - tokens of affection, of friendship and family. I should be more grateful for that.

As I walked home in the dark, I felt sad. For those ten minutes I mourned the loss of someone who I only barely knew, yet someone who had briefly touched upon my life. A relative of my ex, who had been terminally ill for 3 years and had known it but kept it a secret from everyone she knew. It was her body who finally gave it away when she collapsed after Christmas. I cannot even imagine the torment that must be, to know that you will die soon but not to tell anyone. To pretend that everything is normal. Is that selfish or not? It matters not. I met her a few times and she was always kind to me. I remember her still.

It might seem a bit morbid to think about death on your birthday - but I think it is perhaps more appropriate on this day than any other. After all, for every beginning there must also be an end. My wish for today is that when my end comes, I will have had a life that is meaningful. I already feel lucky, that I have good friends, a caring family and a loving boyfriend. What more could I want on my birthday?

Fadeout

How easy and quick it is to destroy something, something that can take so long to build.

As I stood in the doorway today and waved goodbye to my ex and his parents in the house that we bought together, I tried hard to capture and remember that moment. It fills me with grief to say goodbye to this house that I worked so hard for. Yet it was so easy to sell it.

It's been a painful couple of days for me. Saying goodbye. Taking things from what seems like their rightful place. Things that I chose. Everything has memories attached to them. How can these inanimate objects mean so much? How can this pile of bricks be so important?

I stood in the doorway, the breeze blew gently through my hair as I watched the van pull out. The air is fresh and pure. It reminded me of summer days in the garden, barbecues and wasps. Of ice cold rose wine and coleslaw. In the doorway of this house that was once mine, with my personality and love stamped all over it I felt sadness hitting me like a ton of rocks. For a moment I wished that I could turn back time.

It is Chinese New Year today. Time to make a fresh start and think about tomorrow.
Last night I slept alone and cried, scared of being alone. Tonight I will sleep alone again but I will not cry.

addicted to love

When I'm alone, I like to watch romantic movies. Perhaps I do it because it takes away the loneliness. Or perhaps it's because that's when they work best.

When I was younger and used to spend a lot of time with my aunt (some 10 years ago before she got married), I used to wonder why she was 30 and still single. There were some quite obvious reasons, she has a sharp tongue and she's a fussy woman, but I decided it was because she'd indoctrined herself to have stupidly high standards and also to look for something that didn't happen.

She used to read a lot of Mills and Boon books. She had boxes of them, a standing order in fact. She'd lend them to me, and I wondered if she wasn't waiting for this dream guy to come and sweep her off her feet in real life. I understood perfectly well why she liked them. Despite their formulaic nature, they are almost like a sugar rush - the agonising wait for the protagonists to finally come to their senses and admit their undying love for each other. And then it does, and it's happily ever after and you can convince your aching heart that love really must exist in the world and that one day, it will happen to you.

These days I am a lot more cynical. I look at my uncle, the last person in my family to get married. Having had been (sort-of) heartbroken by a girl my age a couple of years ago, he gave in to the pressure of my grandparents and his own laziness to meeting women the conventional way, and married a girl 14 years his junior. They were introduced to each by family, matchmaking meddlers who had his best intentions at heart I guess. Yeah sure, he is now 34 and married, with a gorgeous little baby girl conceived a month into their marriage. Do I think they love each other? Hell no.
Do I believe that they will? Yeah probably. It's possible for love to develop over time, and in his case, even if it goes a bit wrong - she is unlikely to leave. My uncle is financially sound and will ensure her a very comfortable life. So what if she's barely 20?

I feel sorry for her though - to be married so soon without even having lived and loved properly. To have experienced the joy and pain of wanting to be with someone so badly and deeply. To think about them almost every waking moment of the day, and to drift off to sleep with them in your thoughts. To spend time with someone and relive those moments over and over when you are apart. To be constantly checking your phone or email for some sort of word from them and the feeling of elation when there is.

In the last few days I have wondered if that'll be the reason why I'll never be happy in my life. This need to feel touched, moved by love. That aching feeling inside my chest that makes breathing almost difficult. Is it possible to sustain this in a relationship?

I just finished watching a movie that made me both laugh and cry. It was a romance, and a comedy, and a bit of a drama. It's called My Sassy Girl Strangely, it was a guy who recommended it to me - a korean guy - presumably because he totally fancied the girl who plays the main character in it. It did fantastically well in both Korea and Hong Kong in 2001. And in fact, Dreamworks is in the process of remaking it.
It's a wonderful film that I was very touched by. So much so that I spent the latter half in tears - and some of that was from happiness. It's not often a movie can do that. I'm sitting here now listening to a beautiful variation of the Pachelbel's Canon in D by George Winston that was featured in the film. I'd love to be able to get the sheet music and learn to play it. This piece will probably always remind me of the film now.

I feel very lucky. I have the choice and the free will to be able to live my life the way that I think it should be lived. This year I chose to break up a four year relationship against the advice of some. My mum told me that women have to make sacrifices. That if you can find someone who loves you, it should be enough. My ex told me that if we broke up the life that I knew would fall apart. That I was giving everything up on a whim. A sensible compassionate voice in my head told me that I shouldn't watch so many romantic movies. But I couldn't ignore the ache in my heart. I believe in love. I can't help myself. If you can't be with someone who fills that gap - then why bother?

Merry Xmas

It's 2am. I've just left the kitchen.

Tomorrow, there will be 32 of us sitting down to dinner. We will be having shabu shabu, turkey, and god knows what else. Since 6pm this evening, I have been in the kitchen preparing food, salad, kneading dough and cooking. I'm exhausted and I haven't even finished. Tomorrow morning, we will have to get up early in order to be able to get the 2 turkeys into the oven by 9am. God help me. Next year I'm making sure that I am out of the country for Christmas. This isn't worth it.

chopstix

I never realised how hard it is to play the piano when you're slightly drunk.

Totally failed to go shopping after work today when I got summoned by a colleague who had started his Xmas holidays early. Having gone for Christmas lunch at 12pm, by 6pm he was still in the same pub only moved downstairs and all his drinking buddies had deserted him. Good judgement having deserted me momentarily, I went to join him and nearly 3 hours later I emerge to run home late for dinner with my parents. My parents luckily didn't even notice my slight drunkenness.

Usually I don't venture near my piano unless I'm feeling a bit depressed. But after stuffing my face at the dinner table I had this whimsical notion to play a few tunes on my poor piano :) I didn't embarrass myself too much :)))

I'm sitting now at my pc in my room. Still feeling drunk. There is a conversation going on on my doorstep about planning permission. Outside my room there is a game of boules going on. I'm ignoring everything except Royksopp filtering out of my stereo. And for once, I feel happy :)

I was here....

Faithless @Brixton Academy 6th December 2005

all other things bright and beautiful

I'm going to Sweden in January. I'm really looking forward to it. I'm going to be staying at the Ice Hotel which is built out of ice. It's going to be so beautiful.

Sometimes I think that my preoccupation with beauty comes from my firm belief that I have none. I worry that inside I am this black piece of coal. Inanimate and cold. The edges are white from where I have tried to stoke it. What use is a lump of dead coal?
I find it ironic that I have devoted half my life to trying to make people around me happy, but in actual fact what I seem to end up doing is making them unhappy.
On the outside I feel like a sponge. I soak up all the criticism and assumptions that people make about me. I don't try to wring it out and in the end it overflows.

Sometimes I try and think about what I consider to be my good points. I think that I'm a compassionate and caring person. I think that I am generous and considerate. So why is it that people accuse me of being selfish and cold?

Once, a friend of mine shouted at me in the street. He told me I was selfish, in front of everyone else I knew. I wanted to go in a different direction to him.
I didn't talk to him for six months. Is it because I hold grudges? No.
I don't think he ever did, nor will he ever understand why I ignored him. I will never mention it again. People who know me, know how easygoing I am. I am open-minded and reasonable. I try never to make blind judgements and I am pretty difficult to offend. But it's not impossible. It offends me when people make assumptions about me and why I do and say things. He had no idea what I was really like. The kind of person I really am. The self-sacrificing girl inside of me. The girl who is desperate for acceptance and recognition. So to me, for a person to call me selfish is someone who doesn't know me. And has just assumed that quality about me. It hurt me, to have that thrown in my face in public.

I know someone who would probably argue, saying that it's normal for people to form judgements and that I was probably giving the impression that I was being spoilt. Therefore it's perfectly acceptable for someone to assume that I was, if I didn't prove otherwise. I guess I don't work that way. I know that I should have my own reasons for the things that I do, and I believe that people should respect that - just like I respect that other people have their own personal reasons for their actions. It's not always obvious or black and white.

On days like this I feel alone. Surrounded by people I care about yet I feel like I might as well be on a different planet. That I'm a mere shadow - forgotten as easily as yesterdays sunset. Just like my tears. Tomorrow I will look back and think how silly I was to sit for so long in my depression. I'm trapped in a cage of my own making. My mind is a blur of thoughts - so scattered that I can barely formulate them into coherent sentences. And then it is empty - devoid of all emotion.

Some things are simple. Easy to understand and appreciate. That's what I know I will love about the Ice Hotel and my adventure there. Some things are just beautiful. It won't last forever but it doesn't matter because people will remember it forever.

Tick tock

I'm sitting at my desk after a night out. It's not late - far too sensible for that these days. Good thing too, as I have a 10am meeting tomorrow morning.

I'm listening to a preview of Madonna's new album. It's great - I must remember to buy it. She is such an inspiration to me. She seems like a totally focussed lady, and I could do to learn from that. I've been sitting idly thinking about my own life, and how I seem to cruise along. I'm not convinced that's the best thing to do. I mean, I have great faith in my instincts, and it's worked for me so far. But I think that time is running out a little and I need to work out what I want from life. Whether it's about careers or relationships, I really think that I've had long enough of just 'trying' things out.

Sometimes I stop and think, shit, at my age (26) my parents had already had me. I was nearly 5 when my mum was 26. I am nowhere near marriage or children. I'm not even convinced that I've found my career in life. It's all very well being a developer and seeming to do very well at it but I'm sure that I wasn't meant for this job. I hate it for a start :)

I keep having these dreams about elephants. In the 3 weeks I've been back from Thailand I've had four dreams about elephants. And every time they are baby ones. My friends have just told me that it means that my biological clock is ticking and that the dreams are overt reminders. This worries me even more :) Whatever can it mean??? Everywhere around me I am getting weird pregnancy omens. Documentaries I watch, movies I see, friends and colleagues. Even tonight, one of my friends announced she was 3 months pregnant. Eek!

Farewell Thailand

This is it. The end of my two week adventure to tropical Thailand. Today has just been about whiling away the hours until my flight back to London. It's Saturday and this means the big weekend market in Bangkok. And big is truly an understatement - it is easily the biggest market I have ever seen in my life. You can buy everything here, from religious knicknacks to fighting cockerels. All manner of junk. Used clothes, new clothes, plastic fruit, works of art, stuffed insects, herbs and spices, everything has it's own section and it's a nightmare to try and work out where you are and where you need to go. Amidst the crowd and the heat, I did the cowardly thing and opted to escape to the air-conditioned haven of the shopping malls instead.

I have to be honest and say that there isn't much about Bangkok that I really nice. It's loud and busy and noisy. The traffic is horrendous and if you want to explore the west side of the river - good luck to you. On the east there is some semblance of decent transportation but the traffic is just as bad. I'm actually glad to be leaving.

So it's goodbye to the warm weather and cheap food. But on a plus note it's also goodbye to mosquitoes, overly hot weather (3 showers a day), overcrowding and being constantly mistaken for being a native. Oh yes, and not forgetting the most important thing - real milk. The first thing I want to do when I get home is to put the kettle on and make a decent cup of tea. Thailand has awful milk. I have no idea what it is, but it smells like that awful carton UHT stuff and it makes a bloody disgusting cup of tea. Bring out those Tetley teabags...

beach bunny

It's been a long old week so far. Since Monday I have trekked for some 4 hours up a mountain, scaled rocks and waded through streams, crawled around in caves and spent the night in a north tribe village somewhere up a mountain. It was the most intense and gruelling experience I have ever had - and it was amazing. Exhausting but amazing.

Today I am in beautiful Koh Samui. I flew in last night to the only airport I have ever seen that is, simply a glorified hut. It's a constant 30 degrees here, and very relaxing. All I have to worry about is topping up the suntan lotion, and where to eat. The water is clear and blue and the sand is soft as it should be. Today we hired a moped and explored some of the island - not the most successful trip ever - I nearly hurt myself trying to get to a waterfall (accessing the tourist attractions here is almost an extreme sport in itself) and fed a couple of mosquitoes for my trouble. Oh well.

Tomorrow I return to Bangkok. Hopefully I will see more of it this time. My adventure is almost over :( It's a shame but I'm happy to leave Thailand on a high. It's been the most amazing experience for me in all sorts of ways. But more on that when I get home :) Off to sample a little nightlife now - koh samui style...

ken hom eat your heart out!

I can't believe that it's Friday already! For me, it's just under an hour until Saturday now. I have had 2 thai cooking classes and now an expert at making:

- phad thai
- thai green chicken curry
- roast duck red curry
- chicken in pandan leaves

The cooking classes have been really good fun. Yesterday was a little bit intimidating, mainly because I didn't really know what to expect. I got picked up, taken to the city office for registration and then we were all driven to Sompon's school which is 25 minutes drive outside the city. We all strapped on our beautiful aprons and got started on some vegetable carving. It's much harder than it looks :)
The general format of the day is as follows:

- sit in classroom
- watch chef explain ingredients and cook dish
- go to workstation and cook dish
- eat own dish

For some reason, the last couple of days I have suffered from severely poor short term memory and as soon as I got back to my workstation couldn't quite remember the order of action. Which veg to chop first, which ones to finely chop and then what order they went into the pan. Luckily, Sompon's lovely ladies and slightly camp guy were on hand to shout out instructions and give us all a helping hand. No one set themselves on fire and no one really messed up :) Well, no one would know anyway as everyone ate their own food...

Today, Sompon himself taught us how to make pad thai and thai green curry. He was a very good teacher and of course, there was much cameraderie in the classroom. The only problem that I have with these classes is that there is far too much eating involved. Every day there is one soup to start, some sort of appetizer, 2 main courses and a dessert. This morning I made sure not to eat any breakfast just so that I wouldn't feel quite as stuffed as I felt yesterday. It didn't really help...

After the cooking class, I arranged to meet up later with 2 of my classmates for a beer and then to check out the deep fried insects. I wasn't entirely convinced that I wanted to try any, but I wanted to be there when they did :)

I will have to post some pictures when I get back to London, it was really quite revolting watching them eat. I could see them concentrating hard not to think about what they were eating. In the end, I tried one thing - some sort of worm that looked like an oversize maggot. It didn't taste of much really, it was just really crispy. After that, I refused to try the others. This little vendor had crickets and this really really disgusting water beetle that was huge. One of the guys had this and said that apparently it was ok. Yuck yuck yuck yuck yuck. He can take all the street cred for trying it. We all went on to this amazing teak house restaurant afterwards to eat some real food which was pretty fantastic. With beer and cocktails, we ended up spending 300 baht each, a small fortune by Thai standards I guess but in GBP it works out to be less than a fiver. Not exactly breaking the bank.

Tomorrow is my final cooking class. Not sure what I'll be cooking up - but I'm sure it will be good and it will be easy. Thai cooking is fantastic - all the work is in the preparation. After that, it's all just chucking all the ingredients into the pan and cooking for 5 minutes. I love it!

Sunday I will probably be going to Doi Suthep (mountain with temple on) and then it's off for a two day trek in the wilds of northern thailand.

Bring on the curried fishballs

It's my second day in Thailand. I'm currently sitting in a little internet cafe outside the night market in Chiang Mai. It's nearly 10pm and pretty busy already.
It's a totally different world in Thailand, although I don't feel so much of a culture shock. Presumably this is due to the fact that in many ways, Thailand reminds me of Hong Kong.

The one thing I can't get used to is the totally incomprehensible language. It's a given that I won't understand what people are saying, but the indecipherable squiggles of the written language has me totally perplexed. I guess that's what it must be like for westerners and the chinese language. There is absolutely no guessing what anything says.

I am all templed out today. It doesn't take that much (reminds me of Kyoto). Chiang Mai supposedly has some 300 temples. I went to 3 today and that's enough for me already. They are all very similar - each with their own buddhas made from a different material or in a different pose. Besides, I don't really have time until Sunday as I now have 3 days worth of cooking class :) Ken Hom watch out!!

Need to move on and eat now. I am desperate to try some curried fishballs...

From London with Love

Today is the day! It's just before 7.30 and I am pretty much ready to set off on my first journey across half the world by myself. It's a pretty scary thought though I am definitely looking forward to it.

It's been a pretty busy time for me as usual. A private chat with a colleague at work snowballed to what may be an important turning point in my career. Or perhaps not, but it signifies a big change in the days ahead.

My last thoughts before I go? I hope that in Thailand, I find something new. Something beautiful and everlasting memories. And if not, I hope that I at least find adventure :)

So, next stop, Bangkok. Till then, ja mata.

postscript

When I was in Budapest earlier this year, we visited (it's almost compulsory) the thermal baths. At this particular one we went to, there were some outdoor pools and one of them had a sort of river rapid merry-go-round. Once you joined it, you were swept around with the force of the water and it was hard to leave. When you finally come off, laughing from the exhilaration of it all, you stop and watch the people who are still caught in the current.

Days like this remind me of that. My life is a blur of activity, of allowing myself to be caught in the rush of living. Then finally I step back for a while, and contemplate the place where I have ended up.

Where am I now? My days seem to be an endless array of work, drinks, impromptu culture injections and holidays booked on a whim. I can barely take stock of what I'm really doing, what I really want and where I'm going with it all. I console myself that with all the stuff going on in my personal life, it's ok to take things easy for a while. To enjoy myself. A little voice tells me that it's just an excuse to not have to make any real decisions. I believe that voice.

the sweet sound of silence

Sometimes I wonder if I try too hard to be something that I'm not. All my life I've thought that I had the potential to do something special, to achieve something that I can look back one day and feel proud.

I have high expectations of myself. It's why I find it impossible to take criticism. It's not that I think I'm always right, but the exact opposite. The fear and sadness that it's all true. That I'm destined to be inconsequential because I was never meant to be more. That no matter hard I try, it'll never be good enough.

I have a bit of an inferiority complex. I guess it probably goes back to my childhood. I studied hard and did everything that I thought an obedient chinese girl should do. I stayed home and babysat my brother, got good grades, helped out with the family business when I was old enough. I didn't complain and didn't expect any more than that.

I remember one night, I was working at my parents restaurant. I was helping with the washing up in the kitchen. My mum wanted me to wash up in the bar as we were busy but I was reluctant because I was embarrassed to be in view of the customers. My mum was strssed out because it was busy and her staff were being exceptionally inefficient. I was the unlucky scapegoat who got told off. She shouted at me for not helping out in the bar and told me that I shouldn't worry about the customers looking at me as I was too unattractive for them to bother about. She'll probably never remember this but I've never forgotten. Whatever anyone else might think, I don't hold it against her. That's not the reason why I've never forgotten. I just have a habit of taking things to heart and not saying anything. I guess I'm just a true follower of suffering in silence. The tragic thing is that I believed her, and I probably still do, deep down inside. My insecurity gnaws at me and I find myself giving up on myself even when no one else has.

When I was little and in junior school, I was known as the mute girl because I didn't speak. It wasn't as if I couldn't or didn't understand the language. Quite the contrary. I probably had a better grasp of the language than most of the other kids. I just didn't want to talk. My mind remained active yet my lips remained shut. At home I was fine. This didn't change until I hit 11. I realised that I was about to start secondary school and that if I didn't do something drastic, I would remain the mute girl for the whole of my life. So I did. I started talking.

Some 15 years on, I still face the same determination that I did then. That I have to change the way that I am, the way that I feel comfortable to be able to integrate with the world around me. I'm a little tired from the effort. I wish I could be me.