Summer Days

Summer days are obviously long gone, now that it's almost raining everyday hah. Anyway time to talk about the great music I discovered in this kinda gloomy month of October!

Great Music of October:

- Apocalypse by Cigarettes After Sex

- Affection by Cigarettes After Sex

- 13 Beaches by Lana Del Rey

- White Mustang by Lana Del Rey

- Summer Days by Rhye (Roosevelt Remix)

- Willowbank by Yumi Zouma (Album)

Great Song of October: Depths Pt 2 by Yumi Zouma

Okay yes I know the albums from Cigarettes After Sex (CAS) and Lana Del Rey were released way earlier in the year. Like I said last month I actually ordered them back in August! They were supposed to arrive in end of September I think but I actually just received them like in early October heh. So late. Not sure why, this is the first time it happened to an Amazon order!

Anyway I discovered CAS earlier in August I think cause they had a concert in Jakarta! I was scrolling through instagram when Ismaya took a video of their live performance in their Insta story. And I really love the songs. So I checked them out and fell in love. Although I'm still a virgin and that I don't smoke, their songs really feel like Cigarettes After Sex haha.

I actually enjoy Lana's new album, unlike her previous "Honeymoon". Which was an album that I really couldn't "connect" with? Not sure how to explain it haha. But Lust For Life is really a good album I suppose. It reminds me of her first few albums. Some of my favourite songs from the album is Love, Lust For Life (not a huge fan of the lyrics tho) and White Mustang!

Rhye released a few new songs in the last few months and Summer Days is one of them! I just discovered that Roosevelt did a remix to one of his songs, Summer Days, and it's such an awesome song and remix! Looking forward to a new album from him soon hopefully.

Last but not least I just received Yumi Zouma's new album today! Was so concerned that they won't arrive cause it actually got shipped on 25th September, and arrived in Indonesia in 12 October actually. Then the status just got stuck at "Arrived in customs" since 16th October. So yeah I was afraid that I'm gonna lose it but nope! It's here today weee.

I really really love this album from them. I think it's a great follow up from their debut, Yoncalla which was released last year. This album was kind of a surprise cause I saw them post on Facebook that they were releasing an album in October and I was like wow! Haha. 2017 just got better. Their dreamy instrumentation and Christie's voice really shape the whole album beautifully. I'd like to describe the album as "having tea on Saturday night". Yep.

Definitely one of my favourite albums of 2017! 

Alright we're left with 2 more months of the year. There isn't much music I look forward to in the end of 2017. There's Sam Smith next week, Bjork in end of November, PREP just posted a photo that they've finished mastering the new EP which will be out soon, First Aid Kit has a new album in January and yup that's about it. Looking forward to more announcements!

I Only Tell The Truth

"Nobody likes the truth, because we live in a world where we create our own versions of it"

I came up with this thought a few weeks back, after kinda realising how much the things that people "believe" are pretty much made up by their thoughts. Okay I'm not talking about religions and philosophies but more of people's daily beliefs and perceptions.

I once read a short writing about how the world we live in are nothing but the projections of our minds. I'm not exactly sure about this statement because it's a pretty "huge" statement to say. The world? That's pretty huge isn't it. Maybe more of our thoughts right?

When I was young I got a quote from a movie (I forgot the title!) but it says something like "People believe in whatever they want to believe in". This quote stays within me till now, because I encounter a lot of times where this statement is pretty true, through people's interactions.

There are a lot of times when I talk to people and share with them about my opinions and beliefs, only to be "attacked" back to say that I'm wrong. Without giving me a proper listen, or time to at least digest my thoughts. Sometimes I tell them the truth, what really happened and so on. But they just wouldn't listen, and dismiss me right away. But such is life.

One of my favourite lyrics from a song, comes from "The Mother We Share" by Chvrches. It says "Cause if I told the truth, I will always be free". And this is what I really feel. I just tell the truth to people. And whatever, and however they react to this, it's really up to them. But I feel free because I've told everyone the truth, and I have nothing else to hide.

Which makes me wonder how easy and wonderful life will be if we can all just do that. To just simply tell the truth without caring what other people think.

But then I'll come back to where this post begins - how some (or most) people would just dismiss the truth. And why would they do that? Because they hold on to their own "version" of it. How the "truth" should be like. It's kind of sharing the same frequency as you. If they do, that's good but if they don't, that's when life gets pretty pretty interesting.

If only telling the truth, is as easy as keeping a facade.

But then sometimes it's tough to keep a facade too.

Perhaps we're all fated to pretend.

Sneeze

Been down with a horrible flu for the past 2 days. Still having it slightly now, thankfully the headache is gone now, and the fever has went down as compared to yesterday. Last night was so so horrible. I spent the whole evening on my bed as I was having a huge migraine. It really felt like someone was kicking from the inside of my head. It reminds me of AMS! Heh.

Did some calculations at night with my dad for a while and then I just couldn't take it anymore. So I went back to my room to lay down and yup, the pain was getting worst. Any slight head movement causes the pain to pulsate on top of my head. Standing up made everything worst. So at 12 AM-ish I went to take a shower and just lay down again. Ate dinner, went back to my room and just went to sleep at 4:30-ish. Today I woke up feeling so much better.

It's pretty annoying whenever I have a fever from a flu/sore throat/random infection. Cause as you know, I can't take anything! No paracetamol and ibuprofen. And I don't wanna try aspirin since my doctor said I'm most probably allergic to it too haha. So all I can do is to rest, and just drink lots and lots of water. And raw garlic helps a lot. A LOT. Haha. Fight the infection!

Also the only thing I can do to bring some relief to my body is taking a hot shower. But I can't possible take a shower every hour or so isn't it heh. Well drinking lots of water helps a lot I think. Water does wonder I suppose. And garlic too haha. Well garlic is famous for their anti-bacterial and anti-viral properties so they do work when you get the flu mmhmm.

I try my best not to get sick. I hate it when I am. Especially flu, because having a blocked nose is really really annoying. You can't sleep, and sometimes you got woken up in the middle of the night just because you can't breathe easily haha. It made you grateful for breathing HAHA.

I know this may sound absurd but we actually have this belief that people start falling sick here because of changes in weather. For example when it's always raining, and suddenly the weather turns hot and sunny. Or vice versa. Come to think of it, it was really hot and sunny on Monday and Tuesday. It didn't rain on Sunday too (but it was cloudy). So perhaps it's because of this sudden change in weather? Cause I realise everyone around me is sick heh.

And yes they're having flu. Maybe it's just the virus flying around the air.

Alright I hope you're doing well in this month of October. It's 3 more days to November WTF really. 2017 you have become the fastest year that I went through. Pretty sure 2018 will take your place haha. Hope you had a great weekend. See you soon! :)

Little Talks

Alright, shall do a continuation of my previous post! Okay so previously I was talking about pointless discussions right. How I want to spend my 24 hours of my day well, and try to avoid these kind of discussions. There's also something I try to avoid: Small talks.

When I was in like secondary school/poly, I always have a negative impression of people who tell me that they don't like small talks. Like why are you so anti-social? Can't you be more interactive? Why so cold? Etc. Well I suppose back then I didn't really have a good idea what small talks are. Sure, I still talk to other people, and interact with them. But only when I want to.

I realise as I grow older, I can't stand small talks too. Like okay if you come and talk to me about things you are planning to talk about that's sure. It's those talks that really go nowhere that I don't like. Especially if you're someone I'm not close with. And I realise a few people here like to do this haha. Which is kinda annoying sometimes because time is ticking!

For example I have a few suppliers that I know of. And there are two kind of people that I come across with. There are those suppliers that just tell me "Hello, we sent these goods today, here's the receipt". And okay I will take note and pay them in the next few days. 

And then there are those suppliers that just go spend time asking me how I am, and this and that and this and that and then finally "Hi can you make payment?". Please, lets just go straight to the point haha. I mean I don't have all day to spend the time with you talking about this hahaha.

Okay don't get me wrong, I'm not a cold/anti-social person. I still chat with my friends and I'm totally find with that. It's really when you start talking to me and the conversation has nothing to do with my (or your) life. It's very pointless. And time is ticking. As always!

Also I kinda realise that I'm quite a cut-throat person. Like I will just straight away tell people what I want to tell them. Which is kinda a bad habit. My dad tells me there are better ways to communicate with people. You shouldn't be too crude about things heh. I'm not really crude as in like I will offend the person. I still know how to handle that myself hah. It's like during discussions etc, I'll just ask people what's the problem and how can we fix the solution.

And like I personally believe, telling the truth to someone without offending them is an artform.

Alright that's all for now. Just a random thought again about this! Freak October is coming to an end. Time is really flowing so quickly. It's crazy to think about it! Hope the rest of October will treat you well. 

See you soon :)

Discussion

One of the things that I dislike is... Pointless discussions. Discussions that go nowhere, and have no goals or endpoint in mind. Not only I feel that it is a waste of time and energy, it is also pointless. We might as well have no discussions! Haha. I'm definitely more of a doer kind of guy, than a discuss-er kind of guy. Although yes, discussions are important before we do things.

My years of education have led me here. We did have lots of discussions for project work and assignments and they go well most of the time because we know where we are going. There is a solution that we are looking for, and most of the time, the problem is there.

However as I'm working now, there are often times where I end up in a discussion where we don't know what the problem is, and how are we going to find the solution. We end up discussing pointless things and at the end of the discussion, I am left fazed with what the problem actually is, and clueless about the solution that we are trying to find. And I will feel pretty confused.

One bad habit that quite a lot of people have here is that we spend too much time talking. And because of this talking, we ended up arguing, and diverging to other "places" instead of focusing on the problem. Remember the post I once wrote about how this guy just came to us complaining about irresponsible people bla bla bla, when we were actually discussing about how to fix a flooding problem? 

Yup that's a very good example.

Most of the time, when I am discussing problems with my workers, I went to ask them directly. Here is a problem, why did this happen, how do we fix it. Once solutions come pouring in, I will ask them how to go about this solution and how we are able to execute it. And if there are problems regarding the solutions, we will discuss further. And like a good scientist, I will conclude all of our discussion in a beautiful conclusion that will give me that A. Uh huh.

But yeah. It's very hard sometimes to lead a discussion here. I'm a very cut-throat kind of guy. I don't want to waste time blaming people and blaming things that have already happened. I want to fix things and yup that's about it. Also there's this age-gap that I have with people around me. I'm much younger than everyone else and I always feel "small" whenever I talk to them. I often have that fear of being disrespectful and rude to them. So I always tone down.

Well like the previous post, I always remind myself of the 24 hours I have everyday. Do we want to waste time not finding the solution, or do we want to spend them well to fix it. This is a really random post. But there's a continuation to this! See you in part two.

Anger

Hello, sorry for not blogging the past week. Not gonna lie but the past two weeks felt very different. No idea why, it just felt weird. Been pondering about a lot of things, and reflecting on them as well. More particularly, it's about anger. And how I refuse to associate myself with it.

Well to me I just refuse to solve problems with anger. There are a lot of times where we feel obligated to be angry at people. Especially when there are problems. I used to think that yes, it's "natural" for us to do that. And that it's alright to feel this way because it's just how things work. There's a problem, we get angry and through this anger and "stern-ness", we can solve the problem.

Sure, that's the easy way to describe and feel things. But as I grow older, and also through meditation and lots of Buddhism books, I feel different about it. There are other ways in which we can solve problems without feeling angry. I am pretty sure that we can solve these problems without anger. Just solve the problems. That's all, no anger, no frustration, nothing.

It sounds very simple, yup I know. It is very difficult to practice this. But to me, I come to a wonderful realisation about this about 3 years ago. I realised that like whatever (negative) feelings we feel when facing a situation won't do anything to improve, let alone solve the situation. It just adds a lot of unnecessary feelings and sufferings. So yup, since that day I try to calm myself and just focus on the problem, instead of how to make it worst. And stop adding unnecessary spices.

The problem with us is that the only "person" who justifies our feelings is actually our own ego. We know that like hey, you don't have to be angry to solve this problem. But out ego will say otherwise, and thus we become angry. Once we kill our own ego, we will be able to live a blissful life I guess? Like a quote I once come across with, kill your ego and you'll live forever.

All in all, I always remind myself that I only have 24 hours in a day. And not only must we think and plan of the things we want to do in these 24 hours, we must also ask ourselves, what do we want to feel. Do we want to fill a few hours of this day with anger? Hmm doubt so right.

Mid-Autumn 2011

 Mid-autumn 2011, Duolun, Inner Mongolia.

As promised, I'm gonna blog about my wonderful mid-autumn that I celebrated in Inner Mongolia 6 years ago, with some of the most awesome people that I met in life - my Green Transformers! Yes I actually celebrated mid-autumn in Duolun 6 years ago during my OCIP trip. It was probably the only time in my life where I am celebrating mid-autumn... In Autumn.

I remember that day quite vividly still. If I'm not mistaken it was also the last day of "work" where we finished digging our 1111 holes for our fir trees. The markers (Yong An, Junhua and I) finished marking and we went to help with the digging from lunch onwards. I remembered we finished later than usual, it was around 5 PM I think. Usually we would have headed back to town by this time. But on that day we just finished work. It was also a fine evening. And a chilly one too.

As we were finishing up and packing to go back, I realised the moon was rising over the hills near our work site. I didn't have my camera with me so I actually rushed back to where we put our bags and took my camera, and took the picture above! My camera didn't do justice because the moon was really really huge. Well after all it has just risen. It was definitely the biggest I've seen.

After packing up we took a few more photos to mark the end of our digging process, and we headed back to town. On the way, Mr Kwok told us that he has a surprise for us after dinner. Not sure what the surprise was about. We were asked to go back to our room, wear our shoes and jackets etc and we then walked to the town square nearby the hotel. We're still clueless!

Turned out we were surprised with fireworks! As a way to celebrate Mid-Autumn and also the digging of 1111 holes for our fir trees haha. It was truly a memorable day for me. Definitely a mid-autumn that I will never forget in life. Celebrating it with some of the awesome people that I've crossed paths with in life.

I love my days in Inner Mongolia. And I always miss them. They are really the days where life seems to forget itself. Away from everything, and just living the ordinary, simple life. We went to our work site to work, have lunch under the blue skies, head back to our hotel, went out with our friends for snacks/laundry nearby, went back for dinner, and go to bed. Simple, blissful.

I still hope that we can all one day go back to Duolun to relieve those wonderful days we had. Hopefully the trees are growing pretty well. Hopefully we can grow strong together with them.

Happy Belated Mid-Autumn!

 Happy Mid-Autumn!

Okay I know I'm a day late but happy belated mid-autumn everyone! I hope you had a great day yesterday with your loved ones over some great mooncakes. Well I had a really different mid-autumn this year. Didn't have the chance to gather with my cousins and family last night. I wanted to but I went to help my dad with work in the end. And they left shortly after that. Well I felt kinda guilty but at the same time I don't know what to do heh.

Oh well I suppose we're all growing up. Maybe I should have just left the work and do it later. But well yesterday wasn't a good day either. Man I don't even know how to explain and what to talk. I hope I don't have to do this again in the next mid-autumn. I felt kinda crappy last night. The night that I should be spending with my family was spent with work. Urgh.

But anyway I did gather with them before that. So it's not like I didn't meet them at all. Just wished I could have spent a longer time with them. But life is life.

I think I'm gonna stop here. It's going nowhere. I've a post coming up about mid-autumn though! About me celebrating it in Inner Mongolia with the awesome GTs 6 years back.

Knock Knock

Something really creepy happened last night (while I was blogging the previous post). Someone (or something) actually knocked on my window at 4:30 AM in the morning! Okay so usually my mum would come to my room to pass me things like packages, or notes etc. So last night, I thought it was my mum. I thought she was pranking me so I peeked on the sides to see if she was hiding. But nope, my parents were watching TV in the living room :O

It literally sounds like someone knocking on your door. "knock knock". That manner. It's not a bat or a bird that flew onto my window (it happened once) cause that would make just one loud bang. I freaked out a bit last night haha but well, I let it go. Maybe someone is just passing by and played a prank on me. Weird things happened near my room. I heard old man laughing twice. The first one was so creepy cause it was a loud "Ha ha ha" LOL. Another one was just a short giggle.

I heard coughs, sneezes and weird noises when nobody is around too.

Okay I do believe in ghosts and the supernatural. I've seen it once, and I'm experienced things that I can't explain. As to what ghost is etc, I don't think we need an explanation to prove their existence? It's really just those things in life that we don't need an explanation to? That's my opinion.

Well whoever you are, I hope you don't prank me anymore. Stop giving me shocks! :P

Spider On The Toilet Bowl

This is a really really really random post. And this happened last week but well didn't have the chance to blog about it. So here goes anyway. This is really one of the nightmares that I always have, and it happened to me. In real life! I'm pretty sure it's some of your nightmares too.

So I have this habit of closing my toilet bowl cover before I flush it. This is way back in secondary school when I learned that opening the cover makes the bacteria fly everywhere in your toilet. So on Wednesday, I was egesting some undigested food. After finishing my business, I closed the cover as usual and flushed it. Then I washed my hands and before I left the toilet, I opened the cover again.

To my absolute horror, I discovered a freaking spider about 10cm in body-and-legs span chilling out on the edge of the toilet bowl. It's black in colour and just yuck. So basically, this spider has been inside the toilet bowl while I was using it the whole time! I'm both shocked and relieved with this fact, and the fact that it didn't bite me haha. And as someone who's really scared of spider, I couldn't think of any idea to get it out of the toilet safely. So I did what a vegetarian shouldn't do - spray it with baygon.

I sprayed it with baygon and it fell inside the toilet bowl. It was still alive, wriggling and stuff and I quickly flushed it down T_T. I am so sorry spider. I just really don't want you to enter my room. Especially when you're a huge spider sob sob. And now I've become so paranoid that I will always open the cover before using the toilet. And check it before I use them hahaha.

I kinda experienced the same thing once but thankfully I was just peeing. And the spider wasn't in the toilet bowl but it was just on the wall of the toilet. I asked my maid to get rid of it without killing it but err she ended up flushing it down too. I'm so guilty but arghh can't think of any other ways hah.

I've always been taught to not kill anything inside the house, as it might be "something". Also I don't want to kill things too. But in this kind of situation, I have to go against my will heh. Like there are lots of whip scorpions at my house and I always gently remove them from the house. I don't mind small spiders but if they are huge, I will really freak out. I need a bug remover really.

Okay that's all for this random post. I think I should post this kinda posts more!