The sweet Dentist
Mood:  cheeky
Topic: Life in Aussie

Doctor G got fairly excited when he saw a Chinese girl walk into his office. Good on him, he was able to tell straight away that I was ethnic Chinese, not Japanese/ Korean/ Vietnamese. During the ten minutes I spent telling him the long story of how I ended up at his office, he managed to slip in the fact that he’s spent 7 years in Hong Kong (which explained his excitement on seeing me). I didn’t think he was bragging nor was he a boastful man, but he seemed genuinely unaware of the potential implications of the words he was churning out of his mouth at 300 sentence a minute.

 

I spent a total of around 150 minutes at the dentist’s office and let’s see how many Asian/ Chinese clichés I had been dealt with then…

 

·        You root canals are so tiny… it reminded me why I didn’t stay in Hong Kong to be a dentist as Chinese teeth are smaller and…

·        I can’t read your fortune, I’m a dentist. If you need your fortune told you need to use that bamboo thingy at the temple

·        How on earth did a girl at your age managed to crack her tooth so badly? You must have had one too many chicken bones. It’s the Chinese diet isn’t it?

·        I appreciate your feeling – in Hong Kong if the dentist doesn’t give the patient treatment at the first visit they’ll probably never return

·        I’m sorry you must be used to the Asian style of doing business when everything happens so fast and quickly

·        I think in Singapore they’re trying to flood the market with dentists too, like the rest of Asia. In this way all dentist will have to work longer hours for less money

 

Don’t get me wrong, the dentist was such a amiable and endearing fellow, but it was deeply ironic that throughout all most of the time spent on the dentist’s chair I had my mouth wide open but was completely incapable of rebuking the clichés nor attempt in any way defend myself. If I wasn’t so caught up in the miseries of having a major root canal treatment on a tooth that went bad purely due to bad luck (those who had lived with me would know the amount of time I spent looking after my teeth daily), I would have been laughing out loud half the time.

 

Before I left, I returned my share of irony/ cliché to his practise. I gave the dentist a box of sugary biscuits.

Can't get food out of my head
Mood:  hungry
Topic: Life in Aussie
In preparation for my Mt Everest Base Camp trek mid October this year, I have increased physical activities substaintially in my life recently. I had hoped that it will result in a positive spin off of losing that 8 KGs I gained 4 years ago which I never seem to be able to shed, but instead I simply eat more to make up for the increase in calories output. In fact, not only am I eating more I can't seem to stop thinking about food...

Long live Frequent Flyers!
Mood:  vegas lucky

I have 200,866 miles on my frequent flyer programme. 39,133 miles more, and I’ll be able to book on a round-the-world ticket on business class! I can’t think of anything else in the immediate horizon of my life that can potentially thrill me more than the prospect of that stupendous free-flight redemption.

Mood:  don't ask

Somebody shoot me please!

Random words
Mood:  down

Each time I plan an entry to this blog I force myself to think happy thoughts. It appears to me that all desires to write creatively simply do not thrive on positivity. During the period where my blog entry was dry and minimal I was busy having the time of my life. Now as each night I crawl back into my nest licking the wounds of the day in the cold comfort of solitude, I type out my misery and post it to the void hoping that someone out there actually reads this and for that split second of their life feel sympathetic towards my sorry self.

 

“I do not envy your position at all,” she said as I poured out woes of my employment to a new found friend. I told her more. I unleased all my recent thoughts on Ben, how resentful I feel towards him for having so little courage. A flood gate opens and I yabbered on and on and tried the patience of a person whom prior to this evening knew little of my private life. I managed to hold myself when I thought about the disappointment I faced since returning from Egypt. “We’ve got to have faith you know. It’s so hard; it’s like having an endless stream of bad dates then you find yourself hitting the jackpot with this dude only to find it an anticlimax,”

 

Tomorrow there will be a new guy in my life. He is young, driven, well groomed and attractive. Much as I would like to say that I was describing a new love, he is in fact a new employee. I’m placing all my hopes on this young fellow that perhaps in months to come he’ll have the guts to take on my position giving me finally the opportunity to plan a good long escape to the arms of this wonderful world. I don’t want to be stuck to this stupid lousy job no more. I want to leave; I want to see more parts of this beautiful planet; I want to fall in love with new people. So tonight I go to bed in hope and only time can demonstrate what other anticlimax there is in-stall for me.

For Robot

I felt a rush of something

It could be precious it could be nothing

But it brought me back to the living

And my heart begins desiring

 

He was a stranger in passing

There was no time it was not promising

But I gave in when I wasn't guarding

He was beautiful when he was smiling

 

I felt a rush of something

As I stood there I watched him leaving

I resent myself for yearning

In the end it was just disappointing

 

Rip
Topic: Life in Aussie

I was first introduced to the idea of a 'rip' in Chile. Apparently there are certain ocean currents that can drag an entity suddenly and fiercely hundreds of metres away from the shore into the deep water.

Thank goodness I have never experienced this frightening phenomenon in my lifetime though I feel that a similar word should be created to define a more abstract form of a 'rip'. For example, I was caught in a mental 'rip' when my sanity departs me in a manner and speed that my physical being could never had anticipated.

Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto 2

The melody of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No 2 had been floating at the back of my mind lately. I really only like the first movement because it is the most melancholic bit of the entire composition and depicts my current state of mind to such perfection.

 

This morning I turned on the radio and not long after I heard that familiar bell-like tolls on the piano. Was it my imagination or ABC Classic FM had so kindly give in to my secret desire to indulge in self-pity?

 

Apparently Rachmaninoff composed this piece towards the end of his depression years. That would explain the gloomy overture of the concerto that ends in a somewhat triumphal orchestration. I wonder the intention of such a progression was but a simple documentation of his recovery, or in an abstract sense an encouragement to all fellow wretched beings that if you hang on long enough something victorias could await at the end.

Thai Boxing

"How was your day?" He asked

“Bad,” was my reply.

“Bad?” He sounded genuinely shocked, “Your day was bad?”

“Yes, very bad in fact,” I wrote an email earlier the day telling my boss exactly what I thought of him, “but you don’t want to know”

 

It surprised me that he found my reaction unusual. In a Thai boxing class, surely there are plenty of deeply frustrated souls trying to punch the light out of their invisible enemy. At least that was the big part of why I was there.

 

The torture began 6pm 15^th May 2008. I had not felt this challenged since 11^th July 1993. That faithful day, nearly 15 years ago was the first day I started training for martial arts under a sadistic Martial Arts instructor. Then my instructor said that he intends to push us to the limit of our physical tolerance and only the worthy ones shall last the full term. Being the rebellious (and stupid) teenage I was, when someone tells me that there is something I can’t do, I will rise above it and show him that I most certainly can do better. I lasted 4 years.

 

But yesterday, I can feel all the oldness in my body screaming for an early retirement. The only drive that motivated me through the 1 hour of agony was when thoughts of my miserable life takes over, my feeble arm that swing one last shot after another into the infinite brace pads of my training partner. “Just one more punch, you can do it,” howlers young and beautiful Katie.

 

The pain, oh the pain of morning after. I waddled to work and have trouble reaching for my tea mug. Part of me wondered if there was any chance for me to get my money back (now I know why they make you sign up for a 12 months membership), but on the other hand, this might be my shot to become that million dollar baby.

 

Kazakhstan
Mood:  irritated

The best way to get over a relationship is to plunge into a new one. In my case the best way to get over post-travel depression is to plan for the next trip.

I flipped through the world altas and wondered where I should go next. After going through the many regions I've yet to set foot on I settled on Kazakhstan since it sounds the most foreign in my mind.

Unfortunately Kazakhstan visa does not appear to be easy to obtain and given the schedule for the rest of this year it seems highly unlikely I'll be able to make the time to get the visa.

Too bad then. I need to think of something else now.

Rachmaninov

He is not a quiet person by any means. Shy perhaps but I certainly wouldn’t describe him as a man of few words. Having said that, in the first night that I met him the only word I remember him utter was his name when everyone was introducing themselves. Admittedly I didn’t find notice much about him then except that he smokes and drinks a lot, and plays professionally in a game I never could appreciate. I found his blog amidst his website fill with images of his youthful life and he writes all but 4 words there, “Nothing much to say.”

 

Then and now was in fact only under 2 weeks difference, but the reality of what happened seems no longer relevant to my existence today. This fixation I have now, this reluctance to let go of a strange and foreign memory, I can’t decide whether it is as a result of an obsessive compulsion or simply a desperate attempt to reject merging back into this infinite hole of routine life.

 

Rachmaninov is back, and it is not a good thing. When I first fall in love with Sergei I thought that was some world class cliché – lonely girl newly emerging in the big bad world feeling uncomprehended listens to some loony Russian dude hammering away senselessly at the piano. Not forgetting that the piano concerto number 3 is the theme song for the angst and wretched, in listening to a good round of a 45 minutes worth of desperation each morning I felt the slightest shiver that perhaps someone in this world, albeit dead and long decayed may understand the intense ennui I felt.

 

When he was 24 he drinks himself silly and bashes people up in a field. When I was 24 I listened to Rachmaninov. I think we are the perfect match.

Random Words

I am turning into an alcoholic. There is something paradoxical about this statement since people don’t consciously become alcoholics, just as one doesn’t deliberately become lunatic. Yet I am addicted to the idea of escaping into a world of spinning walls, heavy heads and that in getting drunk there is a remote possibility that life as I know it can be momentarily forgotten.

 

He said, “I have a habit of eavesdropping on conversations as no one normally talks to me.” I laughed. In that magical moment in my eyes he turned from a young punk to prince charming. I said “I find obsessing about you such a wonderful past time as it is so much more interesting than my miserable life.” He didn’t laugh, but I suspect that’s only because I never had the chance to say these words to him. It is but a mere shred of my imagination as I continue to fantasise about all farfetched opportunities in a life that could be based on this life that is not to be.

 

I’m tired of a challenging existence. I want an easy and comfortable life. Bring on the fine food, perpetual holidays, great mates and eternal sunshine.

 

Wait I’ve changed my mind. I’m tired of this meaningless life. I want to live a fruitful and rewarding existence. Bring on salvation to poor starving people, unwavering ethics and peace to all living creatures of planet earth.

 

Maybe I’m really tired of fighting alone. I want someone to understand my cause. Bring me my soul mates and bring on comprehension to those who fail to appreciate my struggle.

 

Ultimately I just want to give up and let go. I have tried and I had failed. I have tried and I had failed. I have tried I had failed yet again. I have tried and more failure waits. I keep trying and I keep failing. I try harder and I fail even harder. I try and try then I fail and fail. I stubbornly preserve and success still evades me. I sincerely wish to try one more time but right now my fear of failure had ripped apart all conviction.

 

Back in Melbourne and There Will be Blood
Mood:  d'oh
Topic: Life in Aussie

It was a fabulous holiday. Spending time in Europe made me realise what a small time person I've turned into. Spending time in Turkey and Egypt had made me remembered why I am working. Meeting new interesting people made me realised that there is life outside 630 Church Street, Richmond.

But I've returned back to this small pond to be a small fish. While the holiday had been great I've never lost sight of my work here in Melbourne and good lord the type of crap that had been accumulated in my absence. Now that I have returned, there will be blood!

Alone in my office
Mood:  on fire

I've turned into a BITCH.

Or maybe I have always been one, it's just hidden in a younger self with no cares, responsibilities or commitment and without stress my bitch found no excuse to manifest itself.

I watched his face turn from entertained to fear. Obviously my humourous nature had not failed to lower his guard but once he irritated me I turned from Jolly the Clown to the Bitch that Barks, Bite and Bludgers you to Bloody Bits. It wasn't even his fault - I was irritated with another person but since he was talking so happily I decided that when I'm not happy neither should you be.

This morning I saw an interview with Madonna. She's approaching 50 this year, still more beautiful than I am, 2 decades her junior. For a moment I thought my life was over. I'm heading to the dreaded age soon, soon to be a walking Bridget Jones cliche with no sight of her happy ending. Then I think of Madonna who had done much more and looks much better than me - I guess it's all a matter of determination and never-say-die!

Obssession
Mood:  caffeinated
Topic: Life in Aussie

I'm obssessed, I'm stuck to the idea, I am stubborn I simply refuse to let it go. God damn all those who don't lead life my way and damn you all who wouldn't give me what I want! I can't stop thinking of it. I need what I want and I want it now!