This is my hug to you.

Fuck me in the face. I gotta stop updating my blog every ten days, I know I know. I'm actually doing this for someone on Twitter, who said I needed to update my blog, because it's like a hug to him in his difficult times. I felt his pain, because probably just last week I felt so incredibly down, like I needed a hug too, but I was not given one. Which is just sad. That there's no one here I'd want to ask a hug from, or who would probably give me one when I said I needed it. I thought about it for a while, and it just made me even sadder. Back home I definitely did have plenty of people to smother. So if you have people you can hug, right now, be happy. You're in good hands.

Life sucks. Yeah, sorry Twitter person, this is probably not much of a hug, is it? It's like a hug with thorns. Because right now I feel like my life has way sadder moments than it does with happy. I've given up trying to find the reason why. Maybe it just is. Maybe some things just are. Maybe this sentence doesn't need to be.

I'm always caught in that place where I want something I know I really don't. Every. Time. But I get upset anyway, just because I can't get it, and then when I extrapolate this desire, only to find that at the other end of the line is non-desire ... I sink into a life crisis.

Godfuckingdamn this. Maybe if my vibrator came faster I wouldn't be in this crisis. Stupid online store based in PA whatever that is.

The problem with being happy.

It's a very problematic situation. It's so slippery and fleeting that you sometimes wonder if you should even bother at all. But we all bother. We all want to be happy. And ultimately it feels like everyday, every moment of our lives, we're on some search for happiness. Somehow.

And that must really suck. To be constantly chasing something that can never be truly obtained.

You'd think that once I left my home, away from the bounds of family or rules of any kind, I'd feel liberated and happy. Truth is, I felt a lot more liberated back home, when I didn't have complete freedom of what I can do and where I can go. Yeah, how the heck did that happen.

It's not that I'm never unhappy back home. I was. But it was a different kind of unhappiness. It goes back to my point of liberation. Back home I never attached happiness to any specific thing in my life. Happiness was just there. Existing. Isolated from me. And so it was always beyond my own control. I recognized that happiness was fleeting, just as much as one-night-stands are exhilarating in the moment. And then in the morning there's the whole walk of shame and all that and you know you're supposed to dissolve the exhilaration you felt from last night. It was great, alright, run along now.

The problem with happiness is that it's so, extremely, fleeting. And so when you attach it to something in your life, especially if it's starts with a "m" and ends with "an", it's not going to work. Because then it starts to take a form, it becomes more concrete, and it just seems like something you can grasp, and that you must grasp, and that if you don't it'll be the end of life as you know it.

You're just trying to stretch out something that didn't have the elasticity to start with. Happiness should be formless, shapeless and nameless. It shouldn't take the form of anything, or be mediated to anything, or be expected to do anything, even.

I started out my day pretty shitty. I hadn't slept the whole night, I was working on the newspaper, and I had woken up from a brief nap at 8.30am to the fact I had class in an hour. Class came, still felt pretty shitty. 

Okay a little context. I was stressed out precisely because of this issue of happiness. Before I thought I was happy, doing all these things I'm doing now, which I feel passionate about. At the same time, things were spiraling out of control. I had no time for myself, I barely got sleep, so while I was doing all these fucking great things, I also saw my life unraveling before me. I saw myself falling behind, unable to keep up with myself, just being cranky and tired and stressed out everyday, and I asked myself if NOW I was truly happy doing the things I do.

And I couldn't answer myself.

So it was at 8.30 in the morning, at such a low point, that I thought I had lost all motivation to live (figuratively).

I asked for sex, and was turned down. That little bitch...

But as the day went on, things started going uphill. Things just started feeling better. Class was still horrendous to get through, because I was clearly tired, but I didn't feel as demoralized as before. The drive to do things came back to me.

And it felt great because it wasn't anything or anyone that restored my happiness back to me. It just came back. Being able to recognize that is a great feeling. 

I'm trying to make happiness as light as possible, but attaching all these expectations to it (likewise the other way round) just weighs it down so much. And it in turn will weigh you down too.

It might also be a case of overachieving here. No, it is definitely a case of overachieving. And that's saying a lot, because as it is my standards for overachieving are pretty high.

But to spend every night of the week just stressing out about a different test, three different papers, and meticulously examining every detail of the layout of my newspaper pages, that's just downright workers abuse. 

Before I only had two goals in life: to write, and to fuck. Those were great goals.

I'm not saying I don't like my life now, or what I'm doing now. You know as well as I do that I love what I'm doing now, and I wouldn't give it up for the world. But I need to somehow find a way to weave "liberation" in there. I need to feel free, while not feeling free.

Because the danger otherwise is I'll start attaching happiness onto something, just so I can grasp it, even for one second, fooling myself into thinking that one second is enough. Just so I can feel something. Oh, what a silly human need.

And then once it starts to take shape, it can become anything. Larger than life and unassailable, ugly and deformed, all-pervasive and permeating everything, turning on you and working against you ... just as much as the times it makes you giddy and high. 

Of course, no one can completely do that. We can't all detach happiness from the things in our lives, and just let it exist outside us. No one can be truly liberated.

No one's perfect, but I was pretty damn near.

Report.

Wow when you're a creative writer and you name your blog post "Report" you know something's wrong.

On the contrary though, life is good. Or at least, stable. Maybe that's the word to use. Stable. Especially for me anyway.

I just felt like updating this to let you know how I'm doing so far in this shitty journey we call life. Which is stable, as I've tersely pointed out.

I'm having work left, right, center. Saying this reminds me of this Soviet song I was listening to today (in class, not just at random) (though I would do that...) which went left flank! Right flank! Center! I think it was a battle for the happiness of workers or something like that. But yeah this week's especially hectic. I have a test/paper due on alternating days, until Monday. And I'm upping the ante on debate work. Pretty sure I'm using "up the ante" wrongly, but it'll turn out right anyway.

I feed on stress and caffeine anyway. But then there are times when I just wish I could have been there for something ...

Men-wise I'm fine too. Or at least at peace. Which is cool. His hands feel nice.

I've started on a mission to underthink. Pretty much everytime a red flag is raised in my head, and my woman brain starts to completely blow things out of proportion ... I undercut it. Just like that. I stop. Reel myself back into the right now, and stop obsessing about the what ifs. It's both the simplest and hardest thing in the world. And I've been pretty successful thus far. And I hope if I do it often enough I'd stop overthinking altogether. Sometimes I sink into depressed moments, but I think it's more stress and lethargy than SEPs. But then sometimes I can't tell.

Random thought of the day is how I wanna speak better Mandarin, or just proper Mandarin. And how I miss Manglish/Singlish. And how my Spanish is kiddish, and my Russian is laughable, and my Malay needs to be revived.

But yeah. That's my shitty journey. Right now it's a straight road, no bumps ahead, pretty smooth drive.

Please let this not be the calm before the storm. Please.

What am I doing?!

No, like, really. Sometimes if you just stop to wonder what the fuck you're doing with your life you can feel pretty shitty. Even when things are good.

I just ... I don't know what I'm doing. I don't. I'm on this upward path, getting better at the things I do, and really enjoying the things I'm doing, except at the same time I can just feel this large gaping hole staring at me. Everyday. Every moment. And I don't have time to stop and stare back at the gaping hole and try to figure out what it all means, because I literally don't have the time to. I don't have the time to write this blog post right now. I should be going to bed, so I can get a lot of hours of sleep, because tomorrow I won't, because I just have these things to do. Always. Constantly.

Yet at the same time, I'm missing out on so much. And I don't think I'm okay with that. I don't think I'm okay with missing out on going to events on campus, spending time with my friends, whom I barely see as time just flies past us, and just plain going to the mall, or Walmart, just to get things I need. Things. I. Need. I don't even have time to buy the things I need.

I don't have time to get coffee, because in my free time slot today I had to conduct interviews for my articles. Interviews after interviews. Questions after questions. Worries after worries. I don't even have time to get coffee, my lifeblood, the thing that keeps me going. I felt like I was going to die in class, but I just had to keep going.

And now, the clock is still ticking, and it's ticking against me. I don't have time to be sitting here, I have to go get some sleep. And not because I like sleep, or that humans need sleep in general, or that sleep is a pleasant past time to me. I'm getting sleep because tomorrow I won't, because I'll be working on four newspaper pages, all the way till 9 in the morning, because I wanted to. I felt compelled to. I needed to.

My interests and passions and enthusiasm - they're getting ahead of me. They're all out of control, and I can't hold them back. I want to do everything, I like everything, I think I can do everything.

I want to freaking triple major. I want to study abroad. I want to contribute to the things around me, and at the same time, I want to feed my own mind. I want both, but I don't know if I can have both.

Time is ticking.

I'm worn out. But I don't even feel it. I don't know what I'm doing anymore. I came here, having a hundred things I wanted to do. Now I'm doing a thousand, and not even half of the things I planned are in there. I wanted to teach, I wanted to start something new, I wanted to know and understand what was going on around me.

Now I learn what is going on around me from stupid. fucking. philosophers. I'm so sick of it. I want to bring things down to my level, to me, just for a while, so I can go out there and fight the big fight again, but I can't. I can't leave. You don't understand. I just can't.

I'm not exactly faring the best in the emotions department as well. I don't know if I'm happy, or just not unhappy. Every step I take, I feel scared. It's not even a step forward. I'm just marching on the spot. But it scares me. I can only shrug the fear off everytime it comes on to me. I don't think, I don't want to overthink, I want to take the situation just as it is. I don't want to know motives, intentions, sincerity ... because they scare me. Because I would want to know more. Because I would think about it.

I can't write this any longer. I need to go to bed. So the day can start, and I can keep going.

So, let's just fall in love again.

So today for a brief moment of time, I wasn't actually filled with intense, throat-lunging hatred for Taylor Swift. I might even have gotten an insight into how she works, and the whole point of her existence in this world. And surprisingly it is not to provide good music to the world.

I've always despised Taylor Swift, because I think her songs plant all these false hopes into stupid girls everywhere, completely overdosing on puppy love, making them think when they're 15, there'll be a day when there's a fairytale, where someone will choose them over the girl in short skirts and high heels, and other ridiculous things like that.

But it was for the same reason that T. Swift redeemed herself in my eyes. Precisely because she plants false hopes into people's lives, because sometimes we need these false hopes, if only to give us ... hope.

I found myself singing her song "Superman" today, and if you don't know, the song goes something like this:

"I always forget to tell you I love you ... I loved you from the very first day ...


I watched, Superman fly away,
You got a busy day today,
Go save the world, I'll be around


I watched, Superman fly away,
Come back, I'll be with you someday,
I'll be right here, on the ground
When you come back down."

... so yeah. Completely stupid and inane, with a fictional character to boot, and a chorus that's sooo generic that it's begging people to relate to it.

Well, guess what? It works.

I sing the song - I like the song - because once it comes on, it puts a smile on my face. And for 4 mins and 31 seconds, I see myself in this perfectly happy utopian world, usually in this field of daisies (what spells happiness more than seeds cross-pollinating?), throwing my head back in laughter at this permanently funny joke my perfect boyfriend is telling me.

Completely stupid and inane, I know. Against the backdrop of daisies, too.

More so because I've never wanted that happy utopian world, I don't want be surrounded by cross-pollinating seeds, I don't want a stupid boyfriend, I don't perceive any men in my life right now as "Superman flying away" and if I had 4 mins and 31 seconds with a hot guy trust me I'd be doing a lot more than this.

But it doesn't change that having this picturesque moment still makes me all happy inside, gives me hope that there are so many more amazing guys out there to fuck, maybe someday in a field of daisies too. Or you know the savannah. I don't care. I'm not picky.

So when the song starts up, and then at one part goes, "Tall dark and beautiful, he's complicated, he's irrational... something in his deep brown eyes ..." this is where my mind camera does a slow-mo shot of the scene between us, the moment he makes me laugh, just because he's so perfect.

Isn't this moment just so unrealistically perfect?!?! I love it!

And so I love songs that conjure up this 4-minute happy, perfect, utopian moment. Sometimes it doesn't even have to have a guy in it. Even if there's a guy, he's usually nameless, faceless, soulless in these moments. Or it can just be you, in this 4-minute world, being happy. Like Uncle Kracker's "Smile". It makes you wanna skip and dance and hop through a sunlit streets, smile like the sun, sing like a bird, dizzy in your bed, spin like a record ... for no reason whatsoever.

Despite the fact that I used to attach a guy with a name, a face and a soul (hah, close) to that song, when he left my life, his traces in this song left with him. And so the song is sacred again.

Another such song? Let's Just Fall In Love Again by Jason Castro.

I picture this sort of smooth-running musical to it, of two people trying to perform a whole day in their lives in that 4 minutes.

Let's pretend baby, that you've just met me, and I've never seen you before. I'll tell all my friends, that I think you're staring, and you say the same to yours.

And oh! We'll dance around it all night, and then I'll follow you outside, and try to open my mouth and nothing comes out right.

How the fuck is any of the above supposed to happen right?! Exactly why it can only happen in melody and words. The scenes and images conjured up are so improbable, just like "Superman flying away" that your brain can't help but isolate these elements from them, and fill in the blanks yourself.

I'm having goosebumps from how eerily happy these songs make me. Happiness flows through my veins! It's like drugs, but in the form of pop music.

This free fall (fall!), got me so (so!), kiss me all night don't ever let me go!

So yeah. T. Swift. Not so bad after all. Overdoing it a lot, but sometimes that's what people with no other talent have to do, I guess.

Maybe some day I'll create some bizarre scenario for her other songs, and I'll be able to resist lunging for her metaphorical throat everytime she comes on my roommate's iPod. Maybe.