Welcome!: Nerdenstein

Friday 17 July 2009

Nerdenstein

At the risk of sounding like a total nerd (which I totally am anyway), I'm hereby declaring my undying love for studying!

No, seriously. I know I've been very ungrateful, always complaining and whining during exam periods or assignments' deadlines, but in fact I've been taking those for granted. Afterall, after 16 years of studying, it's bound to happen sometimes.

Since then, I was focused on finding a job. It certainly didn't occur to me that it would be this hard, or this ridiculously frustrating. Even after getting jobs, there were still other things needed to be settled. And let's just say that these other things haven't worked out very well either.

In short, I decided to take up studying again, in the form of enrolling myself in a language school. My parents have encouraged me to learn chinese for as long as I could remember, but since I've been in school and I've been taking up internships and in the midst of still trying to be young and have fun, I just haven't gotten around to actually doing it.

Afterall, it wasn't really an urgent necessity, at least that's what I thought. I have a couple western friends who speak perfect chinese, that ought to put me to shame, but I'm not called shameless for nothing. I could always give blank look to people who talked to me in chinese, and in a sweet tone said, "oh sorry, I'm not from around here." Usually accompanied with some winking action. That ought to do the trick. They either would find me adorable and try their best to speak broken english, or they would...well, leave me alone. Which is fine by me.

Sometimes pretending to be Japanese works too. Except for that one time when someone approached and asked me whether I'm from Japan, and I shamelessly said yes, and then he started speaking fluent japanese and I was stoned. Epic fail!

Well, anyway, now seemed like a good time to finally learn the language so I did. It's just been a week, but I'm loving it so far. I missed being in a class, with the textbook, notepad and pen in hand, just learning something new. Speaking out, making mistakes, making notes, and all that jazz. Of course, the most awesome thing is finally finding out things I didn't know before.

I still think it doesn't sound quite right when I do speak chinese, I always feel that people might laugh or find me incredibly awkward and unnatural, but I suppose everyone feels the same way the first time around. Right?

Or maybe not. I was having dinner with a chinese friend a few days ago and I was practising some words, and he just laughed at me the whole time. "You sound like a caucasian speaking chinese!" he said. Very unhelpful. Well, it's not my fault my tongue isn't exactly designed to speak my supposedly-mother-tongue.

Still, I enjoy the process very, very much.

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Quotes

There's a hundred million different ways of writing, and it takes you a long time to sort through that stuff. And I think it takes anyone a long time to find a voice.

You must learn to take the good with the bad, the happy with the sad, love what you’ve got and remember what you had. Learn to forgive, but never forget, learn from your mistakes but never regret. People change and things go wrong, but you just have to remember that life goes on.

The day before I’m supposed to be meeting Caroline for a drink, I develop all the textbook symptoms of a crush: nervous stomach, long periods spent daydreaming, an inability to remember what she looks like. I can bring back the dress and the boots, and I can see her bangs, but her face is a blank.

I don't know, I think that if I could just accept the fact that my life is supposed to be difficult. You know, that's what to be expected, then I might not get so pissed-off about it and I'll just be glad when something nice happens.

I can see now I never really committed to Laura. I always had one foot out the door, and that prevented me from doing a lot of things, like thinking about my future and... I guess it made more sense to commit to nothing, keep my options open. And that's suicide. By tiny, tiny increments.

There's a big fucking world out there. It's messy, and it's chaotic, and it's never, never ever the thing you'd expect. It is ok to be scared, but you cannot allow your fears to turn you into an asshole, not when it comes to the people that love you, the people that need you.

Maybe what I'm saying is, is the world might be evolving the way a person evolves. Right? Like, I mean, me for example. Am I getting worse? Am I improving? I don't know. When I was younger, I was healthier, but I was, uh, whacked with insecurity, you know? Now I'm older and my problems are deeper, but I'm more equipped to handle them.

I am nothing special; just a common man with common thoughts, and I've led a common life. There are no monuments dedicated to me and my name will soon be forgotten. But in one respect I have succeeded as gloriously as anyone who's ever lived: I've loved another with all my heart and soul; and to me, this has always been enough.

Later that day I got to thinking about relationships. There are those that open you up to something new and exotic, those that are old and familiar, those that bring up lots of questions, those that bring you somewhere unexpected, those that bring you far from where you started, and those that bring you back. But the most exciting, challenging and significant relationship of all is the one you have with yourself. And if you can find someone to love the you you love, well, that's just fabulous.

A woman needs to be held, even, and science has shown this, if its with someone she doesn't care about. Protective hormones are released, and the amount of hormones released depends on the degree to which she is held. The first and best is the complete surround. He wraps you in both arms, whispers how beautiful you are. Second best is the 'arm around.' He is next to you but with one arm around you. Third is he's just next to you on his elbow, but he rests his hand on your stomach and looks at you. Fourth is you snuggling up to him with your head on his chest, while he looks away into space. But when the first best happens, you feel completely, wonderfully like a woman.

So, so what, so fuck off, go home, leave you alone? I'll tell you something Paul, there isn't anything that I've wanted for eighteen years, cause I was a kid eighteen years ago. And if I did still want the same things I'd think I'd gone wrong somewhere, because actually I don't want to marry David Cassidy, I don't want bigger tits, I don't want to do better on my marks. I've stopped worrying about that kind of thing and maybe you should try.

Well maybe there's a big bit of you that's gone missing somewhere, maybe everyone should want something they've always wanted.

Why is it that adults aren't supposed to go mad about anything? You gotta keep a lid on it. And if you don't then people are apparently entitled to say what they like. "You haven't grown up. You're a moron. Your conversation is trivial and boorish. You can't express your emotional needs. You can't relate to your children." And you die, lonely and miserable. But you know, what the hell, every cloud has a silver lining.

I just woke up one morning and didn't feel the same way. Where did it go? It was like there had been a lot of food on a plate in front of us, and we ate it all really quickly, and then there was nothing left. Maybe that's how couples stay together: they're not greedy. They know that what they have in front of them has to last a long time, so they kind of pick at it. I hope it's not like that, though. I hope that when people are happy together, it feels as though someone keeps piling seconds and thirds on their plates.

That is what I have learned: Sex is destructive. Love is nothing to be fooled with. I learned that I was dangerous, not to be trusted. I wondered if my parents were right, with all of their stiff lovelessness. Maybe they knew better. My parents don't dole out love for the deserving or the undeserving. I was learning that love could cost me.

You could say all you liked about reason and logic and common sense and imagination, but when the chips were down, the one skill you needed was the ability to think about absolutely nothing whatsoever.

There is a comfort in never making an effort, but it's a lonely comfort. What keeps you going is the knowledge that you're only playing with only four cards showing. But when you see other people succeeding with their mediocre hands, you have to make a decision. If you turn over that final card you're certain of victory, but it also means you have nothing in reserve.

I’d gone through life believing in the strength and competence of others; never in my own. Now, dazzled, I discovered that my capacities were real. It was like finding a fortune in the lining of an old coat.

Maybe we all live life at too high a pitch, those of us who absorb emotional things all day, and as mere consequence we can never feel merely content: we have to be unhappy, or ecstatically, head-over-heels happy, and those states are difficult to achieve within a stable, solid relationship.