just a tiny little crush

a few interesting things happened to me since i last wrote. to sum it up:

1. i found out a friend has a crush on me.
2. i went to singapore. (and met up with lovelyloey, one of my first blog buddies, who graciously brought me around her city)

3. i’m going to cherating.

when i put it like that, they definitely don’t seem like much but i’ve been quite distracted this month, so much so that i’ve neglected my one true friend – my books. well, these three things and watching reruns of friends have pretty much occupied most of my life right now, besides work.

oh, and 4. i started going to the gym.

it’s too early to tell if i will be a gym regular, but i do have a gym buddy so i hope that will motivate me. i’m also marking the days i go to the gym to make me want to go more.

i’m looking forward to the overnight trip at cherating but it also feels like this will be my last trip with this travel buddy. we seem to be growing apart as friends. i’m saddened by this but i know by now that sometimes friendships don’t last and i just have to let go and move on.

singapore was wonderful. it was the first vacation on my own, though technically it wasn’t a solo trip because lovelyloey was with me most of the time. but staying in a hotel room on my own does have its perks, like having the bathroom to myself and not feeling guilty if i sneeze too loudly because the air conditioner makes my nose run. and i like that i can wake up when i want, come back when i want, go where i want – basically be as self-indulgent as i can be. and of course, the shopping was amazing. i’m definitely coming back some day.

as for my friend… i could like him but i won’t for various complicated reasons. however, it hasn’t stopped me from exchanging flirtatious text messages. i feel like i’m playing with fire but as long as i don’t go beyond that, i think i won’t fall.

i have to say, it really feels nice to know someone thinks of me that way and is thinking of me. if only i’m not a coward and will actually take a stand – either be involved romantically or just stay strictly friends.

but it’s just a crush. he’ll get over it.

Caught with my pants down

Early this evening i was stuck in the bathroom at home. I could turn the doorknob but the lock wouldn’t, well, unlock.

Oh, just great, i thought. An irritating and unfortunate thing but i thought someone could open the door from outside.

I started banging on the door, hoping someone would hear and come upstairs. They heard all right but figured i was hammering something on the wall in my room and went on watching tv.

It probably took me about 20 minutes before i got someone’s attention. And in that time, i felt so frustrated and helpless.

The house isn’t very big, just a typical double-storey terrace, but the bathroom was at the furthest point from the living room. That’s why i didn’t bother shouting cos the tv was so loud it wouldn’t matter how loud i shouted.

So i kept banging my hand, my fist on the door. Got a bruised knuckle to show for it.

I felt very frustrated because i was stuck in a place i didn’t want to be. I wanted to get out but i need to be helped. And to be helped i needed to get people’s attention. And to get them to stop their everyday routine and figure out hey, something’s wrong up there, i had to bang on the door repeatedly for 20-odd minutes. And when you’re stuck in a room and you don’t have a clock, 20 minutes feels like a very long time.

Now imagine the situation is not me being stuck in a bathroom. Imagine it’s me wanting to say, hey i have personal, emotional, psychological, communication issues and i need help.

That door is still stuck, that much i can say.

Anyway, after i finally got someone’s attention, we found that the door couldn’t be opened on the other side and had to call a locksmith.

Yeap. So after being stuck in the bathroom for over an hour, i ended the home drama on a rather humiliating note of having to pass a total stranger in just my towel to get to my room.

But relieved the episode is over.

Now why can’t the scriptwriter of my show have me stuck in the elevator at work with some cute guy? Then at least i have eye candy and i get to skip work.

alive and kicking… feebly

hmm, i’ve skipped one month’s update. sorry about that.

right now i’m at a low point of my job because i got in trouble for a bad day’s work, which triggered a ridiculously overblown domino effect in my department. my mistake was mine, i claim responsibility for it, but the way the management has chosen to handle the situation was pretty appalling, to say the least. at one point, i was harassed. while some of the measures taken by the management did not directly affect some of the colleagues, nonetheless they were upset enough by the turn of events that they made rather drastic proclaimations and decisions.

if they go through with what rumours said they said, there could be an exodus. as it is, i’ve approached the idea of a transfer with the management. at this point, i don’t intend to leave the department for good, but i do want a change of scene. not so much because of the ugly stuff that’s going on at the office but because it’s the only time i’ll ever get myself to make a change. i’m a big follower of the ‘if it ain’t broke, why fix it’ mentality. and as it stands right now, the department feels quite broken and demoralised.

that’s the ongoing drama i hope will have a happy ending for me soon. in between the ensuing drama, i went on a vacation to one of malaysia’s best islands with some colleagues. i really enjoyed myself, though the 5-hour car trip each way was quite terrible. still, it was worth sitting on my butt for that long to feel sand in between my toes at the many beaches we visited around the island. it was also worth it when i walked up several hundred steps for a dip in a river. okay, maybe not that worth it when my legs ached for the next three days and the fact that the place did not have any decent changing rooms – i guess that’s all part of the experience of holidaying.

i want to write more but i’m getting sleepy. it’s almost 3am and i’m still at the office. i really should get my own laptop. today’s update is just about me trying to get past the bad episodes at the office. lots of people screwed up, including me, and i wish we could all start on a clean slate right now. but first, i have to complete the sentence given by the management. a pointless and unfair one, if you ask me, but nope, my opinion really doesn’t matter in the department. i’m just a desktop labourer, churning out the work given, so i don’t have much of a say in anything. so gotta complete the undesirable task before i can move on.

i’m tired but alive and kicking, if rather feebly. (but then again, the days of lively activity on this blog have long been gone so really it’s been quite feeble here for a while, hasn’t it?)

Try harder

I just finished this book called 13 reasons why by jay asher. In a nutshell, it’s about a girl who killed herself. Before that, she recorded herself on cassette tapes, giving 13 reasons why she killed herself and posted the tapes to certain people who drove her to suicide.

I didn’t really like the book. I didn’t think the 13 reasons were good enough for suicide. But what moved me was the way the suicide girl described how she wanted to be helped so much yet she pushed away the smallest show of it.

I do that. Push away help when it is offered, because i don’t trust that it’s sincere, or that it’s just temporary, or that it would actually help me. If you are my friend, and if i ever push you away, that’s the reason why.

I don’t think i’ll ever have the balls to take my own life. And probably whatever crisis of the moment i’ll go through in future will put me in a state of despair that feels very real.

that doesn’t mean i don’t want you to try. Try harder. Don’t give up on me. The harder you try to pull down the barrier, the harder i’ll try, too, to break down the wall from my side.

I hope when i should do this with a friend who’s worth my trying harder, i won’t let my friend down.

growing apart

i’m slowly losing the friends i took time to grow close to. some by my doing and some not. some are leaving the country for good. some are still around but i don’t feel the closeness to them anymore. some i’ve totally cut off all ties with.

i have this awful way of cutting loose when i think i’m about to lose someone because i think it would hurt me less. i know in past experiences that this theory doesn’t always hold true, but i still do it. maybe because i also learnt in the past that trying to hold one to someone who’s already ‘gone’ in that sense hurts a lot. maybe because of pride (there’s no maybe about this one, actually). maybe because i don’t know how to appreciate friendship. maybe because i hold my standards way too high.

i like the casual friendships i have at the office. when i worked at the bookshop, i made some good friends there but there was always a gap, be it age or academic/cultural background. at the office, i have friends my age, friends who love to read, friends who love to eat, and friends who are just plain friendly. i feel like i belong here and i couldn’t be happier about the relationships i have at work.

but of course i do want to feel close to someone, in both the romantic and platonic sense. i find myself gravitating to books, tvs, movies and dvds because i lack these relationships that i crave. and i live my fantasy through my favourite stories via these mediums.

i suppose i could do less of that and go out more, meet new people, form new friendships, lower my standards, swallow my pride.

but knowing me, i’ll find a way to screw up anything that shows a tiniest potential to be a beautiful friendship or a long-lasting romance.

i guess what i’m trying to tell myself is that i do not make a good friend. at all.

a year of ups and downs

i started the year off with a trip up north to penang. had a wonderful time eating the tastiest food, seeing sights and enjoying a new experience – parasailing!

for the rest of the months up till now, it’s been quiet travel-wise. but next month, i shall be heading down south to malacca for a day trip with the travel buddy. again, i expect to devour more good food and enjoy some shopping, as i always do when i go down there. jonker street, chicken rice balls, fried ice cream, here i come!

then, in september i’ll be heading up north again to visit langkawi. it’s the most famous island of all the islands in malaysia, and this will be my first visit there. yes, i’m over 20 years old and have yet to visit langkawi. but that won’t be the case soon – i’ll be going there with some colleagues after we scored a good deal for a four-star hotel there. another beach holiday after penang this year and bali last year, but i’m still very much looking forward to it!

finally, in november, i’ll be going down south… all the way to singapore! it’s gonna be just me, myself and i for this solo trip. well, not quite. lovelyloey, one of my first blogging buddies, has so kindly agreed to travel around the island with me. what better way to explore singapore than with a singaporean? i’m gonna be so broke with all the shopping and sight-seeing i plan to do. but hey, i want to have a good time, so if that’s what it takes, i’ll just have to work harder to earn money, right?

and so, that’s how my year in travel will be – full of ups and downs. hopefully, next year it will be equally as exciting, if not more!

something to write home about

i’m feeling quite chuffed at the moment.

i just found out that i won an award that’s given out monthly at work. it’s a real boost to my confidence and i’m really pleased to have this piece of good luck. (i say luck because there are better headlines which went unrecognised in the past sadly because they were not nominated. silly, right?)

the real icing on the cake has to be the news that some of the staff will be getting a salary adjustment – for the better, of course, and i happen to be part of the lucky people. i’ll be getting an increment, an allowance and they will both be paid in arrears from the day i started this job. yes, how awesome is that?

i’m planning to pay off my student loan with this little bonus. if it’s not enough, i will wait for the year-end bonus then. i can’t wait to put up a status on facebook and twitter saying something like, "I’VE PAID MY STUDENT LOAN DEBTS! ONE BURDEN LIFTED OFF MY SHOULDERS!" yes, i really don’t like the idea of being in debt. so much so that i’m hoping that the day i move out of my parents’ home, it will be to a house i bought (with loans but at least the name on the deed will be mine) and not a rented place. but that dream remains very far away.

right now, i just want to bask in a little self pride, happiness and that feeling you get when you feel you’re getting too much money and you’re not really sure why. :)