Life is a game

I guess the people here ARE out of my league. Only it's like I'm playing in the English Premierships whereas they're in the Spanish La Liga, instead of me being in League One and they in the Premierships, if you know enough football (soccer!) to understand what I'm talking about.

Not better, just different. Or maybe I'm just deluding myself. Hmm.

Here's to non-delusional self-worth.

"And you shall know the truth, and the truth will piss you off."
-Anonymous

"If you talk to God, you're religious. If God talks to you, you're insane."
- House, M.D.

College life begins

Nothing much else that I can add to the title, I guess. Its everything you'd imagine it to be. Mostly.

"It starts." - Timon, The Lion King

"He's doing that Superman thing again."- Link, The Matrix Reloaded

Travelling

Travelling is really quite an experience. Really unique. There are some things that you see when you travel that you really can't see anywhere else. For instance, the look on the face on a guy who has been waiting in line for 45 minutes to get his passport stamped, just to find out that he forgot to fill a form out and has to go all the way to the back of the line again. Or two people trying to give and take directions in sign language. Or the peculiar type of "we're in the same boat" smile that only fellow travellers can give each other. Really interesting.

Besides seeing, though, there are also some emotions that are unique to travelling. The restless awkwardness of being cooped up in a tiny seat for twelve hours with an emotional teenager who burst into tears the moment she got strapped into her seat beside you. Or the restlessness of being forced to listen to the same twenty songs (or five movies) over and over again for twelve hours. Or the calculating and "tahan, tahan" feelings associated with attempting to go to the toilet while trying to keep an eye on your luggage at the same time. Or even the fustration involved when you can't find half your luggage amongst hundreds and hundreds of constantly changing/evolving bags.

I guess two words sum up travelling for me: interesting and gruelling, both physically and emotionally. One advice for future long-haul travellers out there: never lose your calm. Everything's better when you're cool.

Calm I was, and smiling I am.

Take care, y'all.

How to apply the laws of physics to relationships

Sometimes you've just got to admire geek humour. =P

Click the comics to view them enlarged if you find them to small to read here.

*Taken from Basic Instructions

The Rabbit Revenge

I think we need to rethink our approach on animals...

"Just smile and wave, boys, smile and wave"

There's a certain finality to it when you put everything you own into two small little bags. Okay, maybe they aren't that small, but still...

I think I'm going to miss Kuching. Especially the warm, comfortable familiarity one gets after having stayed in an area for ten years. Most of all, though, I'm going to miss the people that made living in Kuching worthwhile. Goodbye, y'all. I'll be back.

On a lighter note, I attempted to cook dinner for my family today. My first real UNSUPERVISED attempt. Note the words ATTEMPTED and ATTEMPT, cause they obviously show that things didn't go as ideally as they should have. Suffice to say, I burnt today's dinner. Badly. Oh, well, I guess just need more practice. (A note to all who've never used a wok before: it is NOT a beginner's tool; it's an intermediate-advanced cook's tool. Remember that.)






Also, to all out there who're fans of the fantasy genre, may I recommend the Septimus Heap series by Angie Sage. A great, fun read, with an element of humour that you don't usually find in similar fantasy books. I'd give it an eight out of ten.

Lastly, I would like to bring to your attention something my infinitely more famous ancestor, Peter Pan, once said. Doubtless y'all remember the famous quote, spoken when the great Pan was lying dying on a rock with no hope of rescue: "To die would be a great adventure". Ah, how macabre, yet how true. Death is one of the few uncertainties that still plague the human race, safe for those who have found freedom in their beliefs.

But death is not my topic at the moment. The lesser known quote that I want to bring to your attention is spoken at the end of the story. Just before the end of the last scene, Peter says, "Now to live, to live would be the greatest adventure". A surprising insight coming from the boy who never wanted to grow up, that is, who never wanted to truly LIVE. Yet how infintely more uplifting and hope-filled. To live is the greatest adventure indeed.

Let the adventure begin.

In over my head

Man, I just love the Zits comic strip. At the moment the writers are compiling a list of "100 Things To Do Before You Turn 16", and somewhere around number 40 is "Approach someone way out of your league". It goes something like this:

Hector: You actually did it??
Jeremy: Yeah, well, I said, like "Are you done with the ketchup?" and she went, like, "Yeah."
Pierce: She even spoke to you?? Dude, that's wicked cool!!


The dialog doesn't do the actual comic strip justice. But suffice to say it was a suitably sarcastic reenaction of something most of us would identify with: knowing and interacting with people whom you believe are way better than you. By "better" I mean the subconscious acknowledgement that that person is cooler, smarter, or just prettier than you are. And you can't help but admire them and want to know them better, but you feel you're not good enough for them, and you think its an impossibility that those people would even want to know you. In other words, you feel that they're "way out of your league".

So, have you ever met someone "way out of your league"? I've met plenty. And I'm always puzzled at my reaction: a sudden attack of shyness, a tendency to ignore those people, a little bit (okay, more than a little) of envy, and more than a twinge of low self-esteem. I'm puzzled because I've always believed that everyone is equal, yet apparently my subconsiousness doesn't agree, and I'm presented yet again with another insight on how I value myself and others (By the way kudos to Jacintha for her extremely thought-provoking talk on self-worth).

So how do you deal with people way out of your league? Tell me, cause I've the feeling I'm going to meet A LOT more of them very very soon.