Okey,

maybe it doesn't look as good as it actually tasted;

but I could guarantee its edible,

and I had a lot of fun.

True, it's just simple cooking,

and for god's sake there wasn't even any fire involved,

but I'll be honest,

(and this honesty comes at the price of making me look extremely stupid and over-protected all my life, which might be true to an extent)

prior to this, I've never bought and prepared mushrooms in my life.

I didn't even recall the fact that the stem of the mushroom is removed before it's sliced.

But I do now, after dealing with it for the second time (the latter half of the pack).

Naively, the amount of satisfaction that could be derived from stirring up an 'edible' dish (something that doesn't torture the senses) is surprisingly high;

Food produced through the act of cooking isn't only for the stomache,

it is also food for the soul,

through which a person learns to think logically,

searching for the best possible methods to perform tasks in an orderly, efficient manner,

yet incorporating a sense we all have, located on the tip of our tongues,

to manage the quality of this output.

Now, if only I had a stove and am not limited to the rice cooker...

Not that I'm unappreciative of it (thanks mom&dad!)

:]

-B.

After working like a dog for the past few days,

whipping up assignments and going on till late at night,

I decided to let myself chill a bit and get by the evening watching TED talks.

Came across this one by Gordon Brown on how technology could be used to bring around important messages so to prevent a lot of unnecessary unfortunate events from happening;

where he is quite a powerful speaker (as with most leaders, duh)

I felt that it lacked concrete substance -

the idea was merely such as one of those comparative analysis essays you write in year 10 for cultural studies or whatever it is;

it's inconclusive.

That's when its come to my realisation that

everyone does something to get noticed;

whether they are shining the spotlight on themselves,

or are 'hiding' from the public,

whatever it is that they do, in the end,

there is really just one ultimate goal that they want to achieve

- there is a desired effect, certain response they want from the targeted individuals.

Sadly, no one gets everything they ever want all the time,

so sometimes it depends on fate,

or purely, in the case that the signal has been received,

whether the recipient wants to give into his/her needs or not.

I read somewhere that eversince we were babies,

we've developed the concept of deceiving people, deceiving our parents,

so we get what we want.

It comes with growing up and being alive,

being assertive/aggressive with our wants is as primal an instinct as running away from potential harm, distracting predators, searching for food,

which is why a story like this really impresses me.

Christopher McCandless was able to throw away all he had,

literally, run Into the Wild,

begin living a fresh life,

starting from zero.

Even then,

there is still a part of me that is convinced that deep down,

he wanted his parents to be reacting to his leave in a certain way,

so he becomes the catalyst of their desire to fix things within the household,

and not let the so-called 'family' crumble as it did when he left.

-B.

Completely stressed out,

because I'm feeling bothered and it's becoming impossible to concentrate.

Supposedly, I'm to have written quite a bit of the 4000 words due in for Monday but

Bah-humbug.

I can't.

*sketch by Danny Roberts from the Sundance Channel

Instead it's resulted in hours and hours of youtub-ing/wikipedia-ing/blog-browsing.

I came across the sundance channel and instantly fell in love with it.

--

On the other hand,

I'm feeling quite guilty.

Guilty for the fact that I've turned into such a materialistic person,

such a city girl (life without cards, phones, is almost limited to no life at all),

constantly thirsting for replicates of objects that are similar to others that I already own, except perhaps more in-trend and updated.

Why do we crave these things?

Yet, if human beings didn't look forward,

aren't constantly on the move to strive for better,

we would've never gotten this far.

Dilemma.

x

-B.

This is a thought that's just occurred to me,

on the theme of Valentine's day.

Love,

and being in love with a woman -

how does a relationship extend itself beyond the point of sexual attraction?

the philosophy behind it is as obvious as it could get.

Those who would truly care about the meaning of the bouquet

would be terrified of the fact that the flowers won't last;

in attempt to prolong the life of this beautiful gift,

the flowers are lovingly transferred into a flower pot with lush soil,

and she would tend to it, day by day,

with the hope that the effort was worthwhile.

The flowers would probably remain in a relatively healthy state.

Similarly,

those who put time and effort into unearthing the souls his partner holds within,

should under most circumstances,

be granted the chance of watching their relationship flourish.

As for those who like the idea of receiving bouquets

so they could use it as a trophy in exchange of envy,

they'll be too busy waving it at people than to tend to it,

and would really rather to have it thrown out when it no longer blooms.

And the relationship is treated with the same respect.

Lets see how long that'll last.

x

B.

The world,

life, as we know it,

is full of unexpectancies.

We try to defy the way of parallel time,

making an uncountable number of attempts

throughout human history to try and uncover

the supposed enigmatic knowledge presented to us in the future,

as a remedy towards the fear of the unknown.

We head towards our beliefs;

be it the depths of our minds when we sleep,

somewhere locked up and hidden in a chapel,

the sky and phenomenons,

or the single bamboo stick that falls out from the bundle

- simply in attempt to pursue and get hold of the forthcoming.

In reality,

what is wrong with the existence of uncertainty?

It means nothing is stable,

nothing is forever,

nothing is a 'must.'

--

My wallet was stolen today,

I try to anticipate what would happen to the people who've taken it from me,

often cursing at them for mistreating me like so,

hoping something bad would incur on their lives in return -

how immature.

Yet,

I guess I should once again appreciate the fact that it is not the worse that could happen,

not got enough cash carried around in that thing to be upset,

my cards have been cancelled almost immediately,

people have been generously providing me the service of

post-traumatic therapy (group-cursing those crooks!),

helping me sort out the cards and documents,

lending me cash when needed...

I'm grateful I have these people within my arms' reach,

really.

Oh well.

I bet you the crooks didn't.

I really just want my wallet back though, even if it had to be empty.

Oh and maybe the photographs.

Fuckyou.

-B.

Anyone of those days when the phrase

'Fuck. My. Life.'

is the only suitable thing to express...

life?

Maybe, it definitely is,

fate that's reunited us;

out of all the possibilities of another 130 people in my group,

it had to be you,

you who's almost sabotaged my last group project,

you who've actually managed to get on my nerves like no other in the past,

but also you, who I've eventually found a way of treating,

compressing so your impact's minimised.

Clearly last time was not a lesson thoroughly learnt,

since the someone above has presented me yet another chance in my life to engage in dealing with yet more people problems.

This time, it needs to last 7 weeks.

I promise I'll make the use of it and grasp the concept asap,

so these people will never again be a bother to me