4.14.

"You're not that person anymore."

It's true. I've grown. We've grown. We fight less but mean more and that's good, of course. But we're not even there half the time, we've substituted each other for redundant things. The void is filled but emptied a tenfold soon after.

No, we don't fight. But we slowly break more than should be considered healthy. And that's terrifying because the only thing that crosses my mind isn't "We have to make it out of this." but rather "Yeah, closer to the edge. Quickly, now."

I'm always afraid I will change to an unrecognizable point and you will look at me, only to shake your head and say "You're not the person I fell in love with."

And you know, it's not the benefit of the doubt that I'm giving you. I just honestly think that if someone screw this up, it will be me with all my unrealistic expectations and unwarranted resentment. There's only so much one can handle, after all. I want to change for the better because you're the only one who makes me want to be a better version of myself each second. Because that's what I think you deserve. The best version of me. However impossible, however hard.

But I'm also afraid that I'll give up sooner.

I hope you do not give up on me.

Possession.

About a week ago, my new psychiatrist diagnosed me with Borderline Personality Disorder because duh, clinical depression and general anxiety disorder needed another friend to kick my ass.

Technically, it wasn't so much as a diagnosis as much as it was a reconfirmation of what my previous doctor had suspected. Perhaps Dr Salhana wanted everything to be thorough because that would seriously explain her 7 pages worth of notes in one session.

I guess I took it in a better way than I expected because I'd always thought I would probably just scream and say "No, FUCK YOU." to a critical diagnosis like that. But I didn't do that. I think half of me was just really happy because I could say "HA HA." to anyone who told me to "snap out of depression". You know, since you can't really snap out of a personality disorder.

But I think it's a lot easier to just not talk to these type of people as opposed to spending every conversation justifying that depression is a legitimate, awful illness.

Dr. S explained BPD more and since she wasn't trained in Dialectical Behavioural Therapy, the best she could do was refer me to another psychologist. Lord knows how that's gonna work out, but fingers crossed!

I guess BPD would somehow explain why I tend to sway back and forth between completely doting on someone and alienating them. I remembered how awful I was in high school. I would be doing alright and suddenly, over a really stupidly minute reason, I would feel ostracized and 'attacked' by my closest friends. I resorted to not speaking to them, turning up the bitch mode to the highest level for days. Eventually, about one or two days later, I would realize how stupid I was being, so I would just revert back to 'being normal'.

I'd always thought that I was like that because I legitimately am a pretty sick excuse for a human being, I'd never thought I could attribute that to having a personality disorder.

But I suppose making these discoveries aren't so bad. It only lets me get deeper into finding a solution.

Huh.

When I'm angry, I don't really care about the people around me. I will show my face, I will give you a glare so threatening it will kill and I will do it with the reservation of a starving hyena.
I have no sense of shame when I'm angry.

Because when you're angry, it's easy to justify how you feel. "OH, how the world has royally fucked me over today!" running through your head, being used to lay claim on the fact that your anger is completely legit. The stupid thing about anger (other than the fact that it's just destructive to people around you) is that it makes you so self-absorbed. You turn into some sort of black hole feeding on your negativity! And the more angry you get, the more destructive you become. But because you're just in too deep, it's hard to look at anything above. Instead of saying "Damn, my mood is way off today", you go "ALL OF YOU SUCK"


Man.

How I'm Learning To Look Up

Here's the thing, the most basic thing that someone should say to you when you're feeling down and out. When life spares no effort from you but eventually throws you into a spinning wormhole of 'suck'.

When you're down there, there's nowhere else to go but up.

It's understandably human to dwell on how bleak the present is or how worse the future could be, I totally get that. We may place the blame somewhere else before gradually accepting that not much could be done to rectify the present.

But that's just it. It's only the present that can't be rectified. If it's one thing that's constant in life, it's change. Life doesn't always just hit a permanent stop at "Suck". To get out of that, it takes an incredible amount of effort to change your gears.

Reverse,
1,
2,
3,
4,
5.

 And I'm looking up as much as I can now.

GUYS. GUYS. GUYS

This is going to be a spazzy, barely-coherent post because I'm just that damn excited and dying to tell the whole world—which primarily consists of my blog's readers (Hey you!) and Twitter followers right now.

MY ARTICLE FLIPPING REACHED 14.5k SHARES ON THE INTERWEBZ OMG CAN I FUCKING SPAZZ AND DIE RIGHT NOW COS I REFUSE TO THINK I WOULD EVER BE THIS HAPPY AFTER THIS UGH IT'S BEAUTIFUL AND I'M HAPPY LIFE IS AWESOME. MY EDITOR IS HAPPY AND MY MANAGERS ARE HAPPY. I'M HAPPY. I.AM.FINALLY.FUCKING.GENUINELY.HAPPY.

It's also cool that my other articles are being shared more too. Yay!

end incoherency;

I Turned 21 and Didn't Shave My Legs.

As far as 21st birthday celebrations go, I had a pretty unconventional one. 

No, I didn't have an irresponsibly awesome underwater sea exploration party, but I was equally happy anyway. 

But first, the background story!

About a month back, I was hanging out with Jill and in the midst of our discussion on *life*—which honestly just consists of bitching about recent events—I brought up my birthday and explicitly complained about how no one would throw me a party. Admittedly, it reeked of passive aggression although that wasn't my intent but honest-to-God, I didn't think anyone would throw me a party. 

While I could be celebrating my birthday, the people closest to me would probably be working or studying or doing something else a lot more fun than Partytime With Ezzie.

But that's okay.

For weeks on end, I wanted to plan a birthday party but lordy, even the guest list drove me crazy. Not to brag, but I actually do have *gasps* quite a number of friends but it's both a blessing and a curse not exactly a good thing. The thing is, if I were to invite every Tom, Dick and Henrietta, my party would probably just be a microcosm of how friendships can go awry and exes being awkward. 

To make it worse, I can't guarantee the presence of beer.

So I let the whole thing slide. Plus, I had finals and naturally, I fucked up (but that's another story). Planning a birthday would've been the last thing I wanted.

A few days approaching my birthday, Mum asked if I had plans. When I answered no, she gave me the most judgmental look. Ever. Like "How dare you not want to be happy???". Either way, she guessed I would've had no plans (because I'm unproductive, depressed and can barely even plan a meal letalone a party) and so she told me hers instead.

Celebrate in..wait for it...

AN OLD FOLKS HOME. 

My dad currently owns a nursing home and so Mummy figured we could have a simple gathering there with close relatives etc. I didn't have a problem with it and honestly, it felt good to give instead of receive. Why?

Because the looks on the inmates' faces when we fed them cake, gave them an awesome lunch and took pictures with them only showed one thing: They were indescribably happy. That made me happy. (:

Sure, some of them weren't very responsive, one wanted to kick me because she has dementia. Still, I'm glad I made some people smile on my birthday and in the process made myself smile as well. One of the grandpas there told me how they haven't had a party in the house for a while and that was he was thankful.

A picture is worth a thousand words..or at least enough to keep me from having to write an infuriatingly long post.

I have to give a convincing impression of how much I love cake (which I do, but I had food poisoning that day). Nailed it. Amazing cross between The Shining and Nightmare on Elm Street.

Mum holding my nephew. He literally jumped around singing "EPIBIRDAYTOYOO" before he was picked up.

Shari who looks more like my sister than my own sister. The buff muffin in red is Jonathan. Yes, he's single. His dad used to be a model, so you know what to expect.

My sister looks so curious here.

Cake time.

More cake time.

The cake is finishing, goddamn.

With my parents, sister and her family, both grandmas, godparents, Shari and my uncle's family and my aunt.

My darling :)

I find this picture so endearing!

Aunty Mary, Mum, Godma and Aunty Cynthia.

I'm probably gonna grow up to look like my grandma on the left.

Obligatory picture depicting the delusion of having grown up. 21! Adult! Can I responsible now? Bills!

There's a new maid in the house.

Dhanya, my niece who resembles Aang from Avatar: The Last Airbender

The cake I baked myself! 

My nephew left his mark.

Look at how amazingly moist it is!

I called this Bulbasaur.

Look at me trying to be fancy with my camera and mediocre editing skills.

I don't usually take pictures with kids, but this is my protégé we're talking about!

All in all, I had a pretty awesome birthday. The next few days were spent with Aaron in Ipoh. We had the /greatest/ curry mee ever and MOTHERFLIPPING FLUFFY KAYA PUFFS.

Sin Eng Heong, ftw.

My Job

I'm unsure if I've written about this before..Oh well.

In July, I got a spankin' cool writing job at Coffeeticks, freelance and hassle-free. I needed some sort of outlet to write (I'm just going to ignore the preexistence of my blog since '08) and so I applied. I sent in my resume, (kind of) bugged the guys because I didn't get a response, got hired sans interview and went for the briefing at their office in Publika. They have a pretty awesome office, I have to say.
I didn't have a specific niche to write on, the way some people are just predisposed to writing on relationships, travel, food and whatnot. If anything, I was just an obnoxious chick who had a lot of opinions.

Lucky for me, they needed someone like that at that time.

My first article was something on Malaysian students who study abroad. It was "funny" and thankfully, popular!

One of the challenges I go through being a 'writer' is finding topics for articles. You could write about life, but my life is hardly worth writing about.

Until this one. It's written under my editor's name because Coffeeticks revamped their entire website and are still in the process of shifting the older articles.

This is one of my most personal articles because it contains a lot of anecdotes on what I went through being in a relationship with Aaron. Don't get me wrong, I still am, and I love that guy like cray.

I hated how I was called "Curry." I didn't like not being to partake in conversations. I didn't understand the addiction to DoTA (I still don't)

The article itself isn't very popular but it affected me a lot because with each share, all I could think of was "Hey, someone related to this. Someone probably went through the same thing."

And that made me feel awesome.

It's also my birthday today.

 I'm 21 and celebrated the first hour with a delightful glass of Glenmorangie. Neat because I can handle it.

Heaven.

Yes, some people do "work their way out of it" and make great symptom-free lives for themselves, but

a) this is definitely not the case for most people, and

b) it is ridiculously, ridiculously hard to do so. 

Mental illness in its uglier forms can and does rob people of the capacity to lead healthy lives. A visit to any psychiatric hospital will confirm the existence of the absolutely insane amounts of sadness the human mind has the capacity to suffer under.

Depression is real and not something that can be willed away by better diet and sunlight. Yes, these things may help, but realize that

1.) these things will not instantly cure what is a goddamn difficult to treat and very serious illness, and

2.) even the thought of taking these steps can be too much to ask for someone in the throes of depression. 

Living life as someone experiencing depression is like scuba diving with a bunch of friends, only to find out mid-dive that your equipment doesn't work-- sure, your friends are having the time of their lives exploring the reef and marveling at the pretty fishes, but in the meantime you're there, choking to death, frantically clawing at your oxygen tank and mask praying to any dear sweet deity that you don't pass out and die right there at the bottom of the ocean.

Unadulterated.

Runnin' through the moment as the sun goes down

 Starlight, starlight 

And all I ever wanted was to hear that sound 

All night, all night

This is gonna be an unadulterated, extremely long post.

Today, I remembered a vague moment of "normal"
It was 6 years ago. Vague, I couldn't make everything out, but I remembered how I felt.
I felt alive.

Momentary throwback to a past reality.
In a moment, I was thrown back into the present.

If I had to choose, I would say it was only less than a year ago I realized that somewhere along the line, I had changed.

I withdrew not because I wanted to, but because I was ashamed.
Scared of what would happen if I stuck around and along with self-destruction, I would have burnt all bridges in a sad attempt to justify myself.

No, YOU are wrong. There's nothing wrong with me. YOU are the problem. I'm right. I'm okay. You're crazy.

No one's ever been this lost.

When I used to read accounts of people who seemed to have lost themselves in depression, I could sympathize but never ever understood the gravity of being in that situation.
It was only when I realized how likely it was that I'm suffering from the same thing did I finally, finally find those words an echo of my thoughts.

I do.
I do feel hollowed out
I do look in the mirror and see only a remnant of what this person used to be.
My idea of happiness is normalcy. Sad, happy, angry, REACTIVE.
Not counterfeit emotions, changing by default. It's like I'm running on automatic.
If (sad),
cry.
Elseif (happy)
smile
Elseif (satisfied)
laugh.
I know why I used to cut. It was because I could never find it in myself to genuinely feel anything and I had to validate feel 'real' by experiencing physical pain.
Pain as a terrifying, torturous feeling.
But it was real.
Is that why I felt alive when I was scared? I genuinely was when I was alone.

I know what it feels like to be able to feel happy or sad, excited or angry but at the same, to be everything but that.
If hollow was an emotion, that would be how I would describe depression.

But I don't know how to explain both to people around me and myself that I'm not lazy.
Not in this sense.

My mind is fighting between thoughts. The bad ones always win.

I'm just not myself, I'll cry and cry.
A hushed lull, "I'm not okay. Please don't judge me. I'm not okay."

The wanting to not exist. To not be a burden. To not hurt. To be real. To be an actual product of my own emotions, my own thoughts unadulterated by depression and anxiety. To be pure.

How, I wonder.
What went wrong?

I understand why the call it a disorder. Nothing is ever in its right place, all is jumbled up, some pieces lost, some lead astray, some lost all their colour. My thoughts are malleable and brittle. A bad conductor of my being.

In a few years, will I still be writing something like this? Will I have progressed?

Will I finally kick this disorder in the ass and say "This time, it's you who have lost."

54689544

Dear love. Let's make it. I love you. 
Also I think you're freeky and I like you a lot.
((He hates that song as much as I hate round brackets.))

Meh.

My range of emotions right now:

I'm jelly.

I gave up on meditating because I have the discipline of a kid in a free candy store. I can't really 'stop' my mind from thinking. It's not for me, and that's okay. I'm one a quest to find the right niche :D

That quest took me back to working out more and I couldn't be more satisfied! I'm currently following Denise Austin's videos and yes, each one reminds me that she's over 55 and looks fucking awesome. I can only wish I look half as good as she does in that age.

Yes, I very jelly.

So every Monday,Wednesday, Friday and whenever the stress of life overwhelms me, I put on my running shoes and hop around like an idiot in my room trying to ~exercise~

In my efforts to combat depression, I gain a hot body. YEAH BABY. I should probably focus on uhh, expanding my pectoralis major.

Lumping together Day 2 and Day 3

DAY 2.

So I wanted to blog yesterday about Day 2 but was too caught up in studying Operations Research till I ended up falling head-flat-eye-grazing-paper style on my notes. I'd like to point out that despite how that shows I'm totes srs about my studies, I was just really, really tired. Also, I had a mini-go-crazy moment two days ago and ended up taking 3 pills which led to a crapload of cluster headaches and nausea.

Depressed?

After snapping out of my ~special phase~, the first thing I wanted to do was say a little prayer and start my meditation. God knows if it had worked but I was desperate enough to try anything. For day 2's meditation, I tried this new technique I devised by counting backwards from 100 in intervals of 10 after which, I would spent about a minute or so counting my blessings for the day.

Being Christian, I thanked God but in all honesty, it's not like meditation has to be specific to religion and I urge anyone trying this out to just thank yourself if you have to. Heck, thank the universe if you want to. The most important part is to recognize the good that happened and the bad, working from there to improve.

I'll say other than focusing on your breathing, the whole Count Your Blessings method seems to help pass the time. Then again, that shouldn't be the case but I'm only a anxious beginner after all :D Again, I can't say that I felt anything remotely new afterwards other than a sense of overwhelming surrealism and some peace.

DAY 3

I went back to Ipoh today right after class and as a result, I couldn't do my meditation (Or my work out session!) in the evening. Still, I felt a little off and restless having been accustomed to doing it for two days (I get hooked fast lol) so just past the Kampar station, I said "Fuck it" and just meditated in the train. The train had come to a temporary halt and I thought it'd be an excellent way to pass time since my laptop was already out of juice.

I couldn't watch Downton Abbey :(
AND UGH SYBIL WHY WHY WHY.

This time though, I honestly felt like a happy little vacuum afterwards. I can't exactly describe the feeling but if I were to try my best, I'd say it was some sort of satisfactory hollowness. Pardon my Francaise. It felt GOOOOOOOOOD.

I'm really happy with the progress, however little :)

Day 1!

I've been reading up on some accounts on how people handle depression and borderline personality disorder [Double trouble SCORE!] other than resorting to meds because honestly, I don't see myself wanting to get hooked on anti-depressants for the next ten years. Dr Esther says I'll have to go on for another 9 months and at that point, we'll gauge too see if I should continue or taper off. So far, so good but the medical bills and drug costs are bitches to be dealt with. Eck.

So after enough midnight Googling to damage my eyes and trawling obscure subreddits, I found some useful links on meditation. Also, Dr Chen (My super helpful Calculus lecturer who's both a friend and mentor!) recommended a book to cope with my condition. It's about an ancient Hawaiian practice called Hoʻoponopono and I have to say for someone who doubts the impact of self-help books and whatnot, I'm really happy with the outcome. Granted, it's too soon to actually draw a solid conclusion but so far so good. Onwards and upwards (:

Post title is self-explanatory; it was my first day trying out some exercises on mindfulness. It's basically sitting there for a period of time in a state that's not exactly trance but actively engaging in the present. Basically, you sit there and meditate on the "NOW", on a moment-to-moment basis. Interested? Go search it yourself :P

I thought it'll be pretty helpful if I were to document my daily sessions so if I ever become skeptical about its uses, I'll just pop on by and read. I could probably use a diary, but I actually want people to read my accounts and maybe, just maybe it'll serve as some help.

I was a little hesitant on trying but what the hell, I had nothing to lose anyway. It's a real challenge for your mind to focus, I know mine tried to drift about somewhere else and I had to mentally yank it back to position. I tried counting, but I realized too soon that my brain tends to go on autopilot. A better idea would be to count backwards since it requires a little more brainpower IMO. I kept on thinking "WHENNNNNNNN WILL THIS 10 MINUTES END UGH?!" but I had to yank and keep forward.

After the 10 minutes, I didn't feel that different. I wonder if I did anything wrong but I doubted it. The surrounding did feel a little surreal, but I wasn't immediately cleansed of all my negative energy and whatnot. Still, it's too soon to decide. I'm gonna continue tomorrow :D

The big feminist identity crisis.

Now playing - Lovin' U by Stwo

fem·i·nism 

noun \ˈfe-mə-ˌni-zəm\ 

: the belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities 

: organized activity in support of women's rights and interests

Scrolling past my news feed a few days ago, I realized someone being mentioned every few posts: BEYONCE.

More commonly, Beyonce being heralded as THE ideal feminist and her songs being substantially powerful anthems for female empowerment. I have a friend who quite possibly worships Beyonce and when her wall isn't being inundated with Beyonce's new videos, it's usually with status updates on how she was inspired to break out of that shell she'd so bashfully hid in. Huffington Post was/is being generous in its Beyonce-worship and hell, she even made it onto the cover of Time for being one of its 100 Most Influential People of 2014.

Now, I love me some Bey - as fans call her - from time to time and hell, Say My Name will forever be my jam. But moving from that, I was thrilled that they put a woman of colour on the cover and try as I may not to see the world through that lens, I couldn't help but to feel that it was a remarkable step forward for women of colour everywhere.

But something didn't quite sit well with me. Was I jealous? No, I'm comfortable with my aesthetic anti-appeal and gross lack of talent :D

Was I upset that Malala Yousafzai didn't make the cover? Maybe. But why? Why did I put Malala above Beyonce? Wasn't Beyonce in a lot of ways, empowering women through her songs by telling them to be confident in their own skin, be the boss of their own life, not be pressured by societal standards of beauty etc?

And then it hit me.

It wasn't the issue Beyonce wasn't empowering women as much as Malala [I'd argue they're equally empowering through different angles. Malala with education, Beyonce with self-actualization].

It was that Beyonce was on the cover of Time, not wearing pants. It was the issue that for the 90% of times I've seen pictures of her, she'd been wearing a leotard, or underwear-cum-shorts [What the hell are this called? I wanna call them Butt-Itchers] or basically performing clad in what my momma taught me belongs in the bedroom.

"Oh my God, how DARE they label her a feminist dressed like THAT?"

So all hell broke lose in my head, I was essentially debating with myself going from

"But but but SHE'S REDUCING HERSELF TO HER LACK OF CLOTHES. DID YOU EVEN WATCH THE VIDEO FOR DRUNK IN LOVE? LOOK AT JAY Z BEING ALL FULLY CLOTHED WHILE SHE'S LIKE FROLICKING AND GYRATING IN HER SHEER NEGLIGEE"

to

"Well what's it to you what she wears?"

Cue epiphany numero dos for the night.

By questioning her wardrobe choices and for passing off judgment on how much of a feminist she is based on what she's wearing, I might as damnwell be on the opposite side of this issue. The hard-hitting, disgusting truth is that I was working off the image she presented alone and not what she was standing for. I'd refused to believe that she was as influential as she was empowering to females solely based on the clothes she was wearing (Or lack-there-of) I'd been so invested in thinking that you need to look a certain part to be a feminist and in that, I'd went against the most basic thing I believed in:

That women should have a choice.

My behaviour appalled me :(

Yes, her image is whipped with sex appeal, yes her lyrics are suggestive and raunchy at times but I have a bigger question to ask.

SO WHAT?

Widening the scope, so what if women aren't dressed in what I deem to be "modest"? What gave me [or anyone for that matter] the right to be a judgmental asshole who only preached empowerment but spent most of her time [Okay, not really] doing the complete opposite, i.e., tearing them down? It was hypocritical and counter-productive. It was a lot like calling myself an all-accepting, all-loving Christian and then saying "You're going straight to hell" to my LGBT friends.

To sum it up, HERE'S a fantastic post by a Tumblr user, Rosalarian.

This particular paragraph resonated well with me:

"Some women would feel naked without a veil. Some women would find it restrictive. Some women would feel restricted by a bra. Some women would feel naked without one. Some women would feel restricted by a tight corset. Others love them. Some wear lots of clothes with a corset. Some only wear the corset and nothing else. What makes any article of clothing oppressive is someone forcing you to wear it. And it’s just as oppressive to force someone not to wear something that they want to wear."

1017

29th March 2014. Saturday.

I'm not saying the after-effects are devastating to my life because well, plenty of people get diagnosed with clinical depression all the time. But you know, that's THEM. I'm barely 20 (Okay fine, 21. Whatever), I'm supposed to have all this energy and time devoted to making my life matter but no, there I was pouring out all my abandonment issues and being told my scars will probably remain for the rest of my life. There I was being prescribed anti-depressants to help me function normally on a daily basis.

Ugh.

I can't tell you how many times this week I'd been doing something only to have my thoughts invaded by "Dude, you have a mental disorder." and I know, I know it's not supposed to be a big deal and that I'm not damaged or beyond fixing. I'm alive and that counts for so much more.

But I can't help but to ask "WHY ME. WHY NOW?" 

 Depression is such a bitch with bad timing, I can tell you that. Instead of rolling its arse around when I'm say, 70 and almost dead, it comes around when I'm in my tertiary level of education. DEAR GOD.

Also, to anyone asking "Why I'm depressed": I don't fucking know. I don't particularly have a reason to be and yet I am. Maybe it's a biological thing.

Reading this post back, I can't help but to notice the disparity between how I seem writing this post and how I actually feel.

Also, anti-depressants are ridiculously expensive, guys.

I had to Google the average size of a lake to make a point.

You know, I think a lot of people have a hard time distinguishing feeling depressed and actually suffering from depression. Granted, it actually took some experience with depression and with fellow depressives to make me realize it and hence, analogize it to something as simple as "lakes and oceans."

Feeling depressed is like a lake. It's deep but could be shallow, terrifying and everywhere you turn there's water washing over you BUT, there's somehow comfort in seeing even the semblance of a coastline you can swim to. A line of hope where inching closer** shortens the distance between you and that overwhelming feeling of negativity that's been plaguing you so far. It gets better.

** Or in my case, flail around around until you move about because I'm 21 and don't know how to swim. Damn.

On the other hand, depression itself is a lot like being on an unsinkable(!) unbreakable(!!!) raft floating on an ocean. Water hits you, the current's too strong, abominably huge terrifying waves and despite all of that, you're still stuck on goddamn raft that refuses to sink or move. You take whatever the waters give you. You're being threatened by the thought of too much water in your lungs and rip currents killing you but:
You.
Don't.
Sink.

You're still alive but being beaten up by a force you can't control.

It's probably a shitty analogy to make a point anyway and for that, I apologize.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying feeling depressed is actually better than depression, I'm just outlining the difference as clearly as I can for people who don't seem to understand that saying variations of:

Don't let it get you down!

Don't be so negative.

Get over it.

You've nothing to be sad about. There are people in worse conditions.

to people who are genuinely suffering from depression is about as helpful to them as a bicycle is to a fish.

The thing is people suffering from depression can't just "snap out of it". There's no kill switch for when things get too hard to handle, you can't just turn a mental button off and go from "I'm sinking." to "Oh I'm on a sunny island yay coconut juice!".

They don't choose to throw out the slightest hope they feel. They don't choose that terrible, overwhelming feeling of hopelessness that makes even the simplest thing as getting up from bed such a laborious chore. It's not a choice to grapple with the idea of dying and living on a daily basis. It's not a choice to want to not-exist anymore because dying would be heartbreaking for the people who love you. There's no clickable option in losing grip of your entire life ending up with you looking in the mirror and seeing a haunting remnant of what you used to be. It's not a choice that their version of happiness is normalcy and familiarity, not happiness itself.

I never had a choice in this. Hell, I didn't have a say in my own life. It attacked me and now, I'm losing a battle I know I probably can't win anyway.

Stay positive, eh?

Credits to: Allie Brosh, Hyperbole and a Half.

Meh.

"I Dare You To Be Alive"

SO I WENT FOR FUTURE MUSIC FESTIVAL ASIA AND HEY OH, it was all sorts of crazy awesome although the third day was canceled [More on that later].

I'm...not a raver. I don't club. Fuck it, I don't even know if there's an actual difference between the two. I can probably count the number of times I've been to a club one one hand and it'll simultaneously be equal to the number of times I would've rather sat through a 3 hour History lecture. instead.

Well, I do like history anyway.

Point is, I just don't see the appeal in overplayed generic craptacular house, people dancing drunk off their arses, sticky, smoke-y people, the groping and substituting small talk for

 "I CAN'T HEAR YOU OVER THE SOUND OF BZZT WHOMP WHOMP OH I'M SORRY DID I JUST ACCIDENTALLY GRAB YOUR ASS?"

I can't fathom why I just spent 50 words justifying why I don't club but I'm sure there's a point to be made. I think?

RIGHT. So FMFA was actually my first concert and having waited since the line up was announced last year, I was pretty damn excited to be FINALLY watching my favourite dance music artists perform. Deadmau5 and R3hab on the first day, A STATE OF (fucking) TRANCE #650 on the second followed by Paul Van Dyk. The third day lineup was even more imba. Aaron and I were actually arguing about who to watch since Porter Robinson and Knife Party were scheduled to perform at the same time. 

Whoulda thunk?

Aaron actually bought my tickets as a Valentine's Day gift. I probably have to marry him now. I don't know. *apathetic shrugs*

BUT NOT REALLY. I still thank him to this day and I thank God everyday I have that amazing boy in my life. Yes, we're so screwed up sometimes and granted, it gets hard to deal with me and my depression but I would go through all my worst days with him than the best days with someone else. It's just love, you know?

So we got there late the first day because we got lost on the way to Bukit Jalil and the traffic would've probably looked like the Great Wall of China from Google Earth D: There was this hugeass balloon horse I figured was for a Corntoz event and I remembered thinking "Wow, you guys go all out for the crazies." because well, it's a gigantic pink floating horse. You might as well have been dressing up in bellbottoms and recording Lucy with The Beatles.

An observation : It seems like the dress code for music festivals like this = Crop top and shorts barely covering your ass. Brownie points for wearing a really simple shirt and then tearing it out to reveal a neon bikini top. Basically, it seemed like the more skin you show, the more your boobs spill out and the more horribly colour coordinated your outfit was, the better.

For a girl wearing funky shorts and a red top, I'd never felt out of place in my life. 

Of course, I'm not gonna shame the girls for wearing that, it's their choice anyway.
I'd just argue I'm a little conservative but who reads this dump anyway?

We watched R3hab perform first and OH LORD, he is a hottie. Know how there aren't many people who can get away with that scruffy look and instead of looking like Michael Fassbender, they end up looking like the hobo in Wangsa Maju instead? R3HAB  [That "3" is annoying] IS NOT ONE OF THEM. I'd argue he looks better than without a beard.

But the point of this post is the music, of course. Mmmm yeah. He mostly played a lot songs I don't even know since I've been so out of loop with house music but my god, that energy was enough to power half of Africa if converted. It was unfathomably awesome to see people just having a good time, get loose and shiz. He seemed like such a sweet guy who just enjoyed what he did for a living and that itself was amazing to see. Here's his setlist! :)

So next up was Deadmau5. Signature mouse head, snarky comments and everything.

5 minutes into his set and he was already saying "IF YOU HAVE DOGS THEN FUCK YOU" to which everyone was just either having too much fun to respond or just plain high. Cat people LOL.

He played a lot of his popular songs, Ghosts N' Stuff, Moar Ghosts N' Stuff, kept The Veldt towards the end and Strobe for encore. IMO, the highlight was his remix of Tunak Tunak Tun. Bhangra and house? CAN THIS BE MORE AWESOME? It's like I finally have something to bond over with my mum since she's always berating me for the music I listen to. Meh.

I loved how the crowd sang to The Veldt. Those few minutes were so ethereal, everyone was just so relaxed and in a happy trance.

Or maybe people were just high. I don't even know man.

FIRST DAY 15/10 WOULD GO AGAIN~

Of torrid heat.

The haze.

No , really. It's so bad it actually warrants a blog post waxing lyrical on how bad it is.

I didn't realize it got this bad until after my linear algebra tutorial. I came out of class and whoop de freaking doo, it looked like Genting Highlands except ridiculously hot [Eh, but Genting can be likened to a sauna nowadays anyhoo] and to make things worse, HUMID. MOIST. WET. HOT.

It's like I just described a less-than-desirable one night stand :(

AND, this is so strange but I actually realized that my mind has this odd tendency to subconsciously turn up the internal heat listening to specific songs. I know, I knowww, this sounds strange in theory but really! Aren't there songs you listen to, your brain automatically classifies them as "hot", "cold", "lukewarm"?

Take Kaskade. Kaskade's songs are almost always "cold" to me. Guns N Roses = HOT.  Madeon = Hot & sweaty ;_;



Guys, I think the heat is getting to me ):

Introduction to 2014.

So..it's 2014.

I guess one year /can/ pass in 24 hours.