The Religion of the Ring

There is a ring, and there are people inside it. You are inside it too.

I'm standing outside the ring and watching everyone inside the ring. I'm wondering whether its better to be in a ring or out of a ring, and I decide that I'm better off outside. The ring looks like a happy place to be at first - the people inside it feel a sense of camaraderie and belonging, and everyone feels as though everyone is a part of a large family.

But a ring has boundaries. If a person is inside a ring, he stays there. He feels emotionally tied to the ring, and physically, it becomes a burden to force a foot to step on ground outside the ring.

I'm not in the ring. I walk alone and that gives me the freedom to watch other people in other rings, and learn about them. I am an observer.

I used to want to be with someone in a ring. I was attracted to the matter-of-factness and straightforward ideas of this someone. Then I discovered that, possibly, this person, however perfect he seemed, is confined in a ring. I do not want to love a ringperson. He does not appreciate the freedom to roam.

He does not desire what I desire. I want travel, spice, romance, boldness and passion - I want big stories and big achievements. I want the kind of events which swell your chest up with all kinds of uncontainable emotions. I want to ride a rough journey and face a dazzling finale to it. I don't need to belong. I need experience.

To you

I wish I never met you. Because then I would not feel this way - everytime I see you in a chatroom and offline on MSN messenger, part of me feels like I'm used to it and I'm over it, and another, larger part of me feels like I've been stabbed repeatedly in the places it hurts most.

Little things hurt the most. The way you greet me, versus the way you greet someone else. Being online at the same time as you while not chatting with you, and watching you chat with other people. Thinking you're so beautiful and amazing and feeling like a small piece of smelly sock - and a stupid one at that.

I feel like I'm not the kind of person you want to talk to anymore - I feel like you're avoiding me and I absolutely hate it. I feel like a weak, desperate person in your presence - I don't feel intelligent, creative or talented; I feel like a wreck. I don't know what to do about it. I just want to stop thinking of you like this, I don't want to care about what you think of me.

I'm going to try my best to cut you out of my life - it just hurts too much. And deep down I know you don't care about me - you've never really shown you cared, and its painful to admit, but that is probably precisely what I was attracted to in the first place. There's something obviously very wrong with me.

Maybe

Don't talk about sex, boo. Don't.

Because he'll think you're a dirty little slut who has nothing else in her head.


Sometimes, Boo feels like there is no other way to express herself but sexually.

Few people understand this :

Pain ripping through a body - something deeply emotional translating itself into physical pain.
Not being able to sit still because of everything that is going on inside the mind. Bones feel itchy that that part of the body just has to be physically moved.
Trembling not because of cold but because of accumulated pressure, like a container too full of air.

Boo feels this a lot but she ignores these situations most of the time. She can because she has music, she has logic, she has common sense, she has a hold on reality.

But sometimes all of what she has is not enough. Because what she has involves herself only. She needs another person to help her to deal with her situation because what she has is not enough. She's actually so scared that she needs to confirm that someone has something that she doesn't so that they can deal with it together.

Sex is the only way she knows. She would love to know more ways. She wishes she did, because she doesn't want to be so dependent on sex so much.

Today she went on her own to the concert hall and played to herself there. It rested her a little.

Last night she told someone of her need for sex. It made him angry, and he told her never to discuss it with him again. It made her so sorry that she told him.

It made her feel so dirty and bad. She felt so ashamed, like he caught her stealing something from him. She would never want to steal anything from him.

She does want him to like her and respect her and think that she's a nice person. She does want to be his friend. She needs to find a new way to express herself. She will.

She feels a bit better now. She misses Katie and still wonders about her. She wonders what was going through her mind. Why she had to do what she did. She'll never know.

Maybe Boo needs to stop thinking so much.

Maybe Boo should care less.

"I'm sorry," said Boo. She smiles genuinely although it hurts a little to do so, and gives him a peace offering and watches him smile back at her as he takes it from her. She learns that maybe if there is that (what she later learns is called understanding), she's found her new way. Maybe not with him, but he's definitely shown her the way to find it.

She thinks of how good he is and admires him from afar. She runs off at high speed, laughing, and runs into a massive metal lamp post. She falls to the ground and life flees her body instantly. It happened so fast that it almost seems as though she is still laughing - her face certainly seems like it could break into a smile very easily.

Its a good ending.

Worry

I hate worrying.

But its one of the things I do best.

Today I'm worried about :

My trials

Returning my library books late and having to pay a fine

Tony and how that's all going to go

My laziness

My procrastinating

Someone I have a crush on

Erik (always always always. When will he ever get out of my mind)

I go to bed with a black cloud hanging over my head. I hate it. I absolutely detest it.

I hope one day there will be a time when I don't have to worry about similar things anymore.

Soon, hopefully.

I have a feeling its got something to do with my character and personality and my laziness.

Change, boo. CHANGE.

Friday Night

Everyone loves Friday night.

I am consumed with guilt because I face trial exams in a week and I have not started studying seriously. All I think about it how much I don't want to study and how much I hate doing whatever I am doing.

I suppose it doesn't help at all that I litter the surroundings of my desk with pictures of places and things that I love and want. Concert halls worldwide, horizons, paintings, buildings - anything that touches my heart is on my wall.

I have gotten quite obsessed with the idea of photography these days. I have begun to pay attention to things that I neglected previously - mostly details, but somehow I focus on the existence of a few everyday things that have becomoe somewhat of a necessity for most young people (and older people) these days. Things like technology, and photographs.

I was just telling V the other day about how I appreciated technology. V is an older man who lives in America, and I am a freshly-turned eighteen-year-old living in Asia, and an internet connection connects us (and many other people in the world) - miraculously sending words and emoticons (even animated ones, imagine!) through invisible lines that whizz by the Planet Earth.

And Photography - we can't all be expected to remember every little detail of every little important moment that we have in, perhaps, a week. Have you ever seen a photograph that remind you so distinctly of a time or a moment, or an event, or a person that it is almost as strong as (if not stronger than) the memory that, say, a scent drags back. In that way, a photograph is so important. Because a picture really is worth ten thousand words.

Above are two different pictures of the ceiling decorations of a restaurant I frequent. I never noticed the creative decorations of this restaurant until I cast my eyes upward on the 12th of september, at night.

Always pay attention to details.

On the Move

I keep telling my friend Melissa that she should stop moving blogs : she creates and cancels and re-creates blogs nearly every week and keeps notifying me, and I keep teasing her about it. But guess what, Iss - I can't speak for myself.

Your Daily Mints is a stab at regulating a proper, regularly-updated, taken-care-of, interesting, original blog. That's a whole lot of criteria to meet but I will do it! Says she, always on the first blogging day. I will keep it up for one week, max, then something will happen and I will lose interest, or forget, or get lazy - I'm sure you know how it all goes. Its the ebb and flow of amateur, average blogmanship. Yes, that's a word.

Today, someone shook my hand. It was the most perfect handshake I'd ever gotten - not too weak (the ones that make you feel as though your hands are disgusting and sweaty when they're not) and not too strong (you're not doing business with them, no). It seemed as though his hand fit mine perfectly and the handshake was surpringly well-timed. Whatever I mean by that.

I also met eclipse. Eclipse is a box of mints created by Wrigleys and I saw three flavours in the shop - I got my favourite: Spearmint. The little metal box is green. I like it partly for its metal box, apart from its colour.

I'm going to go back to Japan this November, after the Finals for SAM. I hope that I will get on that plane content that I did my best and I could do nothing more. I do look forward to going to Tsukiji (a huge fish market the size of a small town, with lots of fresh sushi, especially in winter). My cousin Chisato is getting married to a lovely, family-approved man (at last...) called Taku -chan. His real name is Takuya, I think. I'm happy for her. Their wedding is in November.

I'm going to post pictures of my new violin in my next post. Well...Don't know yet if its going to be mine - I haven't made up my mind to buy it, but its quite possibly mine-to-be.

Now I shall return to my desk to flip through my Economics textbooks and marvel at the pictures...