Wendy It's You

watched this awesome drama this week. I will prob call it "Mosca", cos i dont know what its real name is (literal translation is "The Fly Woman in Love"). Going by the poster and the name... really not something i would watch for its own sake... -_-||||

but because this time watching OD and realising the actor who played Shinjo-sama was so good, I've been curiously exploring his other shows, and came across this one. (don't even know his name... let me check...Toshio Kakei...now i will remember *nod*)

it turned out to be the most touching drama i've watched in years. and its short, only 6 30min episodes but really carefully thought through. i seriously recommend it, esp watch it around the 29/30 year old mark, it recharges you.

SPOILERS AHEAD: over the years terminal illness dramas have become so vulgar i dont even want to hear about them. this one however made me cry for the whole of the last episode (even after reading the massive spoiler before I started)... and then burst out into laughter in the last 5min, and entirely not because the sadness of the story was denied or cast aside, very impressed.

and it did a parody of Masha which was hilarious~  i think thats one reason why i really identified with 小守絵美 but more her experiences too...

end of the day, i also was pulled from an insightless and silently despairing state, likened to the brink of death, back into life.
and God did the pulling, which made it infinitely awesome.

like the ending theme too, but more importantly, after this show, I won't be able to look at Nandos in the same way again... LOL

the last little bit about Sherlock... and Frozen, and morbid dreams

Why does fate play such tricks with poor, helpless worms? I never hear of such a case as this that I do not think of Baxter's words, and say, 'There, but for the grace of God, goes Sherlock Holmes.'.

I've read Sherlock ever since I was a kid, but it took me such a long while to realize he actually said this.
How very lovely! reminds me of James 4:15.
as to the contemporary godless cluster B bores... you are really not very cool in comparison.

now, I finally watched Frozen recently.
I really don't know what to say about those "church" accusations about it promoting yuri, and this other Christian article I read literally went into a panic and warned "letting it go like Elsa is dangerous!" and called audience to model themselves more on Anna's bravery and demonstration of love.

to be quite honest I don't know if the author has any insight that Anna also is the type of girl who's easy to spot in church, who loves and falls out of love passionately and brings a new boyfriend to service every 3 months and to the aunties' horrors it then turns out that a couple of them have never been Christians... then the gossips and feigned concerns start and before long people are plotting in what kind of longwinded passive ways they can get her to read a copy of "I kissed dating goodbye" because everyone is worried about the way how she's going...

I find the story so simply and deeply psychological if not spiritual. and if church leaders are thick enough to not use it to their advantages, well, tough luck. I truly think, the fact that Elsa and her song have been so popular is really because---
the concealment of our darker sides is well and truly a universal issue.
seriously you really don't need to be yuri to identify with it... -__-|||| it's more of a problem that some of us get stirred a little bit, but like to think we are all fixed and not concealing anything. in fact we just hide the dark stuff deeper, and attribute "let it go" to yuri or other kinds of inappropriateness.
No, just, not relevant to ourselves.

what is ironic though, is the fact that when Elsa sang "Let it go", she wasn't letting it go at all. Instead, she ran from the prisons others built for her only to establish a bigger prison of her own. Her initial letting go was but a sham.
Only later, her true liberation came about.
That first step, that desire to "let it go", however, was an essential step to this process.

I guess I only have myself to reflect upon. ever since the start of camhs middle last year the crumbling of external strongholds that  has previous held me has not stopped, and the rapidity of the process esp in the last couple of months has been beyond expectation. I've been feeling rather homeless, and stranded at sea. Lately I've been frightened to sleep as my frequent nightmares all had some sort of a morbid quality to it. yesterday I was staring at an XR of an elderly who swallowed a light bulb out of spite for everyone and the day before I was enthusiastically inviting my dead colleague to join us for study group... @.@
its like I've somehow switched on a horror channel and couldn't find a way to switch it off...

but at the very same time, it just came to me a few days ago, that I no longer hold my longstanding morbid and bleak outlook about life...
for some mysterious reason, never before in my life have I felt so happy about being alive.
Now that really is something different.

so, everything is a bit funny at the moment. I think I am perhaps at the stage desperately trying to build my own stronghold after losing the old external ones (despite knowing logically I don't need to) and haven't really sunken in His perfect love to do otherwise yet.
But He has taken me on this journey, and I trust He will finish the work.
In the meantime, I most likely will still take wrong turns and make mistakes.
but He will take me there.
and because of that, I am happy to stare and not cringe at my insomnia and morbid dreams, till the day He restores my rest.

I will end with Mark Galli. there are bits and pieces in his email newsletters which are simply glowing...

"The idea is that the more we ponder our sin, the more grateful we'll be for grace. I wonder, though, if it doesn't work the other way around: The more we ponder God's grace, the more we'll grasp the depth and darkness of sin.

For one thing, we won't have the courage to peer into the darkness within until we're assured that no matter how black the cave, God's light will still shine. For another, it is the inconceivable and unexpected nature of grace that suggests something must have really gone wrong for God incarnate to die in order to fix it.  "

the man of mercy

amazed by this:
Sherlock Holmes and the Problem of Evil
never before imagined Sherlock Holmes can be linked with such a theological position... *感动*

i think the problem really has been - while i complained with fervour about the ridiculous contemporary parodies, i myself havent flipped open the original canon in years.
to the point that when i first saw this quote below again, my immediate thought was "huh? is Sherlock actually capable of this??" 囧

“What is the meaning of it, Watson?” said Holmes, solemnly, as he laid down the paper. “What object is served by this circle of misery and violence and fear? It must tend to some end, or else our universe is ruled by chance, which is unthinkable. But what end? There is the great standing perennial problem to which human reason is as far from an answer as ever.”

and i end up loving the rose quote even more.

“There is nothing in which deduction is so necessary as in religion,” said he, leaning with his back against the shutters. “It can be built up as an exact science by the reasoner. Our highest assurance of the goodness of Providence seems to me to rest in the flowers. All other things, our powers, our desires, our food, are really necessary for our existence in the first instance. But this rose is an extra. Its smell and its colour are an embellishment of life, not a condition of it. It is only goodness which gives extras, and so I say again that we have much to hope from the flowers.”

a really genuine merciful kind of guy isn't he?
SO NOT Cluster B. (and i so want to highlight this and make it into a poster and hang it on the wall of whoever came up with the contemporary parodies *speechless*)

maybe i shouldn't be so critical. i need to go back to the books and refresh my memory too. :(

Sweet Dreams

I had a meltdown last week. It started off as hearing that one of my discharged patients had a single vehicle accident.  that same night I dreamt of another patient jumping off from a high building and as he hit the ground his blood and brain mush splattered all over me.

the next day I was meant to review and discharge the very patient who appeared in my graphic nightmare. I totally chickened out and couldn't bring myself to work and hid at home bawling my eyes out about the imaginary blood and cerebral tissue. I was somewhat surprised at how much self loathing I was capable of. it was almost like--

if a patient of mine goes ahead doing something of a single vehicle accident or the like, I feel I myself have utterly and absolutely fallen out of His grace.
In such a moment, it is as if He's never been there, punishing me for something very very terrible.

If I had any bits or threads of my senses left this notion would have come across as plainly ridiculous, but no, rational thoughts were probably all out of the window. and then later with swollen eyes and dehydration I felt even more guilty about my lack of faith for not being able to get to work etc.

maybe to a certain extent I could have blamed rapid mental state deterioration in such contexts on anxious departmental high powers habitually acopic with any risk issues or adverse events, or angry family's incriminating and suspicious stares at the coroners court, or inter-hospital colleague frustrated at extra work later in the day and vented by demanding to know why a whole range of random unnecessary tests were not done at the patient's last admission, or Buddhist parents who subconsciously delight in such occurrences and see these as best examples of karma to prove to me that they are right and I am wrong...

but, end of the day, acopic high powers, suspicious family, hard-driven colleague and karma-loving parents are all but mere projections of myself and the ungodly burdens I've collected over the years. in a way I almost felt God wanted to say to me:
"you really think I don't know what kind of person you are?"

So, I go back to that old difficult question. Is it really God who has broken my bones, or in fact I have been sadistically breaking my own bones and pulling my own guts out, and blaming it on God?

it's still a battle. one day He will let me work it out. not pulling my guts out for it now.

I went back to revise my favourite show for the past week for recovery. in recent years i've been following the movie sequels but havent rewatched the original 97 series for a while now.
i think OD is really something one loves more and more as one grows older, when I first watched it I found it so boring! lol It really grew on my over time and now even the minor characters and baddies have become so loveable~ :D
now that i am of the same age as Aoshima, and understand a bit more of the word "organisation", i think it has just become more special in many ways.

Aoshima-san, when i was young i was grandiose and delusional and thought that when i get to your age i would never be so silly and immature like you. thought i was going to be wise and make the right choices and avoid all your unnecessary troubles. how wrong i was. I am really no better, and there is so much more i can learn from your fighting spirit.
and your "事故体质" really comforts me. good to know I am not the only one.

Mashita-san, your unintentional humour and juvenile sleaziness brighten up my days.

Dear Sumire-san, I got palpitations this time watching your repeated contemplation to quit being a police. indeed, this is all so awfully hard. i think i am somewhat seeing myself in you.
but i shall not be distressed about this. as you looked so happy eating your kimchi 2min noodles, i felt very happy too eating my own.

Dear Muroi-san, the older I get the more beauty i see in you.  your clear eyes and furrowed brows spoke a thousand words and more. and when you softly said the words "this is all my responsibility." i just dream that one day you can be my boss and teach me your ways. *hearts*

Shinjo-sama, I am much better with mental states now. you are really not mean and nasty, just repressed. all those awkward looks as you said mean things really spoke of I-really-feel-for-you-and-I-prob-feel-the-same-if-I-am-you-but-i-really-don't-know-how-to-get-my-empathy-across-so-i-am-just-going-to-be-harsh-and-get-you-angry-at-me-and-hope-you-will-suffer-less-next-time.(really gd acting!) I don't want you as my boss. looking at you from the side is awesome enough. XD

and dearest Superintendent Okita, you are still my dream and my cup of tea. its getting harder these days in my world to come across a girl in high position so smart and spirited, insisting her ways and facing up to her mistakes rather than superficial meekness and apathetic passive aggression. definitely would do anything if I can work for you and see your beautiful smile (or angry face) everyday. *faints*

Now, that's sweet dreams. ^_^
and i am still not sick of Yuji Oda's theme song.
When I hear this playing, everyday is Christmas Day.

your shade at your right hand

A little over a year ago, a one-time colleague of mine died, although I can't say I knew him well. He was older than I am, much older, and his tenure at the college where I teach had ended many years earlier. The psalm he wanted read at his funeral was 121...

--The Professor's Death Song by James Calvin Schaap

I've been reading my favourite story again. This time round, these opening lines have also taken on much more personal relevance for me.
I've already heard Psalm 121 once in a funeral. I wonder how many more times would I hear it being read again in funerals?
and, at the end of the day, would I want it read at my own?  (I know, I am being morbid again)
Strangely, every time I read this story again, there is something new I can take home.

I've been working amongst a much more elderly population lately and in many ways I am frequently reminded of the professor, of the fragility, the fall, the sweet disposition, of stoicism and mantras to make everyday a beautiful day.

In fact their histories are often so vague that they resemble obituaries. even the medical histories are hardly ever complete. As I tried hard to find out from that sweetly smiling elderly man sitting across the room why on earth could he have diminishing renal function and ongoing hematuria without a past history, his daughter called eureka:
"yes! i remember he had this thing with his kidneys 30 years ago..."
with my own diminishing medical knowledge I never managed to find out what that "thing" with his kidney was. His GP 30 years ago almost certainly have long rested in his grave. My patient had a transient expression of slight annoyance as he really couldn't understand why I made such a fuss of nothing as he was feeling fine and surely his kidneys shouldn't cause anybody else so much trouble...
then he went back to smiling sweetly at me.

I could not recall how many psych histories I took lately which contained the following lines "happy childhood and upbringing" "very good marriage" "supportive children". it is almost as if unless they grew up in an orphanage or the husband/wife committed suicide or the children have SCZ themselves--
such are the only appropriate and right things to say.
when they were not able to smile so sweetly I looked at them in their pitiable prostrate states, with outpouring of tears which spoke of intense emotional pain. They were often greatly anguished that they had no idea why they were crying so much. They also invariably felt the strong need to reiterate to me multiple times through their tears that "there is really nothing in my life that I should be depressed about"---and I watched on as my consultant dispensed amounts of benzos which I was not entirely comfortable with--
I think I felt a similar anger to that felt by Prof Schaap as he heard his colleague's obituary.
There was so much in their lives that needed to be said, and acknowledged, which wasn't.

Just as how Prof Schaap came to a turning point in his thoughts when he heard the funeral preacher read Eugene Peterson, In a similar way, I think the Lord also wanted me to hear something to soothe my anger after all. some time ago some thoughts from a 前辈's blog reminded me of how Jesus spoke about the return of the unclean spirits:

When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first. That is how it will be with this wicked generation.  -Matthew 12: 43-45

I do not wish to go into the links of spiritual evils with mental turmoils but here I am merely drawing a parallel of things frightfully similar.
I am just amused that throughout the ages, there probably has not been a shortage of busybodies like myself.
and that inappropriate unsurfacing/cleansing of deep buried secrets and pains at inappropriate times (esp with busybodies barging in and prodding around--) would have similar disastrous consequences.

This is very convicting for me, but at the same time, liberating.
then I remembered, what Prof Schaap was really trying to say...almost paradoxically, with this story about his colleague, the devil in the details, and the death song.

no, my own experiences need not be compulsively generalized to others and it is not my call of duty to go around shaking secrets out of my poor patients' aging bones.
I am to have the confidence that He will indeed watch over their struggles as they carry on their hard work of dying. their brokenness and woes may one day securely go down with them to their graves, and then, to Him.
and at the very same time, i am not to shrink away when i am called to play a part in anyone's unravelling, trusting that He has prepared me(and will continue to do so), personally and professionally, enough for whatever arduous journeys ahead.
but most importantly, that regardless where we are at, He is and will always be our shade at the right hand. He will keep us from all evils and preserve our lives, for the sun not to harm us by day, nor the moon by night.
How He fulfills these promises for all who come to Him, in this wicked generation, remains a beautiful profound mystery to me.

I finally memorized Psalm 121, on the train on my way to the coroners. Heightened agitation i think really helped me coming to terms of the sheer weight of these words.
Though I really pray that in this season I can rejoice in the Lord more as He has commanded. quoting Mark Galli, less of this Brothers-Karamazov-brooding-making-me-feel-I'm-being-profound-business~ lol (have a feeling tho it will not completely go)
and pray I do not need to hit another point of utter desperation like training in to the coroners to love His words enough to memorize them.

Psalm 121

I lift up my eyes to the mountains—
    where does my help come from?
My help comes from the Lord,
    the Maker of heaven and earth.

He will not let your foot slip—
    he who watches over you will not slumber;
indeed, he who watches over Israel
    will neither slumber nor sleep.

The Lord watches over you—
    the Lord is your shade at your right hand;
the sun will not harm you by day,
    nor the moon by night.

The Lord will keep you from all harm—
    he will watch over your life;
 the Lord will watch over your coming and going
    both now and forevermore.

secrets in comics

this is the strangest saturday night reading I've had in a while...
my stomach now feels funny.
and my sinues are sore.

but in some ways I felt "led" to it, just like how I was led in recent weeks to multiple verses and writings about rejoicing in the Lord. (there is really no doubt now that this is the command for this season!)

From Serge Tisseron: Family Secrets and Social Memory in Les aventures de Tintin:

"But why did I embark on such an analysis, with what ulterior motives, and what hopes?"

"Tournesol's deafness is a way of saying that no one is guilty of having hidden anything from him since it is he himself who doesn't hear anything! Such a prohibition can turn a child into
an idiot, but it can also make him become a "scientist," i.e., someone who chooses to devote his life to the only line of work where searching for the truth is not only a recognized right, but even a duty: the pursuit of scientific knowledge. This way the child who is forbidden to search for the family truth can still preserve the idealized image of his parents along with the quest for truth that motivates him."

"And, as in a fairy tale, everything around it was also frozen, yet with the secret and mad hope that, someday, everything might be set in motion again-history, the ideology that went along with it, and
the hidden secret."

there are much more i want to say on this topic, so i may vent more in a few days time.
and if you are curious enough but can't find a way access the full article, PM me~ :)

misty lamps resemble a string of stars

while i waited around for my turn yesterday and had nowhere to go in a state of terminal agitation i went exhibition hopping.
i went through the asian art and script exhibit in melb uni, and then hopped on a tram and got to NGV, at one stage got a bit ambitious and hoped to get Piranesi from state library out of the way as well but no... someone or rather took pity on my waiting and let me have my turn in the arvo...

well when i got to ngv i realised with a bit of delight there was a free chinese art and calligraphy exhibit going on and managed to kill quite a bit of time there.
over the years i realised for me whether an exhibition is good or not depends not so much on the goodies they have but how well the captions/labelling were done. i still remember the time when Love and Devotion from state library and Napoleon from ngv were on at the same time and i totally did not enjoy Napoleon because the captions were so bland in comparison to Love and Devotion.

but labelling for this chinese exhibition were very very well done. the artworks were a bit obscure but what was written about them really brought out the best in them.

sorry about bad photography but i think such a caption makes any art piece mesmerising. I later tried to google the artist and his poem in chinese but i think he's so obscure (and really not much of a poet anyway) i just couldnt find it.
to be quite honest i dont think the original poem would have been that impressive. its the english translation that made the whole thing very very beautiful.

and i must confess i have never really been a fan of chinese art (and a majority of chinese poetry for that matter). that habitual romantic escapism so strongly present in whichever style makes any emotions they try to convey somewhat irrelevant to everyday life-
almost to the point of being nihilistic.

but i think it was that familiar sense of nihilism which acted as an anxiolytic for me and calmed me that morning.
i really entertained the thoughts that i just want to give up my career and pick up a history/language course somewhere and i really would love doing such a job translating nihilistic chinese poems and making them beautiful for museum exhibits for the rest of my life.

anyways on another note i managed to watch a couple of things today which i've always wanted to watch for the last little while.

Saint Oniisan


in one line this is about Jesus and Buddha taking a holiday in Japan and becoming roommates. i actually dont find the notion offensive at all. in fact when a secular artist paints a picture of religion in such a gentle humorous positive light, i think its really lovely.
though i did find the buddha bits slightly funnier than the Jesus bits. i suspect the author didnt know Christianity or Jesus that much more beyond the superficial to be able to make the bits funnier which is a pity.
but still Jesus from this story is so cute (~~>_<~~) - an anxious otakuish oniisan who loves watching all the evening jap dramas (and watches all the channels simultaneously in his omnipresence) and then promptly blogs all his drama reviews on the same night and gets a huge fan following...
awwwww~ can i have your blog link Jesus?~~~~ which dramas are you watching now?~~~~~  *sniffles + starry eyes x 1000*

and i finished watching August: Osage County. over recent years i hardly watch any western films but think the poster of this one just grabbed me.

i think it looks like one of those paintings from the romantic era. def getting the dvd.
the movie wasn't bad. lots of candid things brutally said and masterfully acted out. i just found julia roberts a bit weak towards the end. yes she was very good with the yelling and swearing, but wasnt great conveying the concluding strong and complex emotions via looks and facial expressions.
but BC was a delight, delievered his character with such steadiness and power. i still have very fond memories of him playing William Pitt in Amazing Grace, and his character this time brings back some of those fond memories and my respect for him as an actor. i am sorry, i just never managed to see him much as Sherlock... and Parade's End (and the praises BC sang for it) made me more speechless for quite some time...

anyways, end of the day i just want to say how much i enjoyed this movie reminded me of how much i love people -
all the horrendous pathetic monstrous bits of it.
so, i don't quite want to take off and go and translate nihilistic poems just yet.

Almost Human

(have already recorded this on my chinese blog but just want to say a bit more...)
a little while ago there was once i listened to Masha's CD in the car and found him very very annoying.
everything just became not right.

gosh the voice was so irritating.
sick and tired of all the songs.
such a horrid looking ojisan. (believe or not i never really found Masha really good looking. Fell for the character prof galileo first, then the lyrics and the meaningful things he said in the magazine interviews... then liked his songs, then liked his face... 囧)

just had enough. it was probably time for the 7 year itch, about time for it to end.
i switched him off, took the CD out, and listened to something else.

to be quite honest i even had a 7 yr itch thing with God during internship yr so this is hardly surprising.
its just these not too frequent moments of ill-founded malice usually catch me off guard and make me very uncomfortable.
whats wrong with me????

so~ you dears with children... if i in the future ever endeavour to enthuse your flesh and blood:
*aunty YN coming to bring you gorgeous little ones to the Melb Show~~*
think thrice before handing them over. (or at least double check first whether or not i've got a coroners case lined up)
seriously if this is what i can feel and think and say to the star i've literally idealised for the last 6 years(and someone I've always called role model/inspiration), God knows what i am capable of saying to defenseless little ones entrusted to my care~~~ -__-||||

anyways Masha's new album rescued me from myself. lol
there is this really touching song... with translation I've linked here.
but thats not it... the new album is titled "Human".
and he's used his own MRIB as its CD cover.
(*Angel! Angel! can you read the film for me and tell me if his brain has any special bits????* :D)

everytime just looking at the CD cover makes me wanting to sniffle more than a little.
over the years I think he just gets better with conveying meaningful messages with simplicity.
all the superficiality and embellishments and fake niceness torn down more and more.

end of the day, i think my ill-founded anger and malice even towards Masha... just shows I am very human.
and admitting to it and venting it all out, make me feel better.

so yeh, now waiting for Human to be released so I can buy it and play it day in and day out in the car. :D

normally when i am stressed out i put Keshin on replay to destress...
but i do want to be a bit considerate to long suffering friends and not put you through another run of bikini-clad ladies wearing rabbit headgear and dancing next to a squatting toilet (yes the summary itself is disturbing enough...)
when I make a resolve to admit to my anger and malice in more open and appropriate ways, I think i actually much more prefer some TLC from Hotaru...

Wakin Chau concert~

so, very laid back concert which catered for an aging (and aged) population. lots of singing without too much talking. there were definitely more than a few white haired ojisan/obasans I saw there.

and 周华健 was very warm, and down to earth. :D even though you knew he was just doing his thing the warmth just exuded~ kind of expected that, nothing surprising. ^_^

tho i was too shy to run to the front and take pictures of him on my phone~~~ :(

anyways, when he sang this song i was very excited~
too many childhood martial arts fantasies came along with that~ :D



and i compulsively sing this one every time i go to k~ *still makes me sniffle a little from time to time*  lol



now my biggest wish is to hear him one day sing this following song again live. *starry eyes*
he hasn't been singing it much in concerts lately but in recent years this has really become my favourite.
to be honest i still haven't figured out why i like it so much. i didnt like the original mulan tv series, and found the lyrics a bit cruel (for the guy and the girl as well), and the mv is kind of...silly... 囧
but there is really something special about it that kept on grabbing me~  maybe the music? also maybe him warmly singing the cruel lyrics that made it just right?

two things

i recently had to do a consultation in SHnese. something I already knew but which became even more glaringly obvious was the fact that "love"  was just not part of the SHese vocabulary.
yes there is a pronunciation for the character, but no one ever uses it. it is not spoken.
and not only love. as I struggled to find my words explaining to the family what may help things to improve, I realized my mother tongue is simply devoid of a vocab that describes a range of positive feelings and acts.
yes its a very smart dialect and very amendable to western influences and never devoid of terms describing negative emotions and all that...
but you cannot use any of "affection", "kindness", "protection" or even just "support" even in professional conversation, without sounding like a pervert.
if there happen to be appropriate alternative ways of expressing the positive themes, please enlighten me. I would like to think maybe its only me who had a deprived upbringing.

and i found some new strength from reading inquest reports on the coroners' site. (only realised very recently that they are public documents and anyone can access them)
i like them. there are some awfully sad stories, in awfully sad details.
as if my job is not awfully sad enough and i am looking for more.
end of the day they don't only just satisfy my voyeuristic cravings but do provide some effective reassurances which i havent been able to access anywhere else.
i realized-
-in these things all perspectives are quite well covered
-the comments and findings are usually quite reasonable and nowhere close to my presumed "whatever has happened it just has to be the doctor/police's fault"
there you go. maybe the realisations are just enough to stop me from having a psychosomatic collapse in Feb. *kidding

As i like to think i still have some residual self respect left , i won't hyperlink the site here. 

Midsummer's Equation

Monsters
I havent trimmed my eyebrows or cut my fringe for a long time now. (you dont need know that, i know) shopping for outfits has also become a very conscious effort. reason for such slackness and internal resistance is rather apparent without need of much analysing:

if my self confidence will almost certainly turn into threads by the end of next month, why should i bother with stuff now?

i've been also having primitive nightmares. of jap monsters picking up the workplace building and go shake~shake~shake~ lol
(this one is cute. it doesnt have a neck. XD)

over last yr i have progressed from feeling too ashamed to tell friends about details to harrassing friends and now harrassing bosses...
...which actually means i'm hitting bosses' vulnerable spots... not very pleasant despite effort from both parties.
i am yet to harrass the boss who attends the same church. for weeks now i've been casting intense stares in his direction (lol) but havent dared to make a move yet. maybe i will, once i have a plan B (ie. another church i can potentially attend)
friends who do law also had to cop a bit of such intensity. these days the conversation topics go no beyond the desperate "hey write me a list of ur friends who do medical law and can cross-examine.."
sometimes i look at the me who's so expansively harrassing ppl... is this really... me... really?

half of my time these days i thank God for this long and painful opportunity for me to unravel, and the other half, i dont feel thankful at all. 
which means half the time i am all pumped and planning ahead and jumping on the treadmill and doing all the harrassing, and the other half i hate people and dream about destructive jap monsters and only violent computer games would comfort--

But honestly accepting all that, was probably a step. and with all the fluctuations, fullfill my duties everyday in a stable and consistent way.

Midsummer's Equation
so glad i got to watch Masha on the big screen~ :D
wasnt impressed about the plot but it actually pressed lots of right buttons for me. i've never liked children and felt rather awkward around them, maybe not to the point of getting hives, but for years going in in the middle of the night to assess a kid has been the most painful part of oncalls.
child and adolescent psych changed lots of things. watching Yukawa-sensei slowly warming up to that little boy as they did the groovy experiment together, i think i can really understand how he was feeling.
it is an awesome journey, don't you think so sensei?

The Song of Ascent
I got a very touching new year greeting the other day:

有时候觉得世事无常真是个有趣的词，这里的“有趣”不含褒贬，单纯是从属性上来说的。

我做梦也没想到我会被很多年前曾经沉迷过的东西再次击中死穴，而且老房子着火合该弃疗。具体时间不明，意识到这一点的时候我正在晋江上看一篇名为《觉醒》的同人，无CP无性向，甚至连友情万岁都算不上，只是讲了一个“人人被命运之轮碾压而过”的现实主义故事。对于宗教我的心态一贯是嘲讽多于漠视，可能对佛教还有点敬仰，对基督教就只能说呵呵了，可是这篇《觉醒》的后记里，作者录入了一段“上行之歌”——我翻出家里唯一的一本落满灰尘的《圣经》，里面该章节的名字是“上行之诗”，但我莫名觉得“上行之歌”更好听。

第一句说：我要向群山举目，我的帮助从哪里来呢？

好的，到此为止，再往下就不是我的菜了。就这一句，读来莫名让我震撼。【顺便说一句，我家那本《圣经》里“上行之诗”的译文是“我要向山举目”，少了一个“群”字这语感一下就泯然了……

为了后记，我给《觉醒》的打分再加一分。那段时间我的心情有点莫名灰败，结果看了这文之后又莫名振作起来了……虽然成效不是很大，但毕竟确实有所振作。

然后我就借着这文，以及这文的背景原著，以及原著更多的同人……度过了2013最后的两个月，并且感觉这两个月的心态和收效都要明显强于两个月之前。

我希望，并且，我会努力让这份心态在2014年继续保持下去。

to summarise for non-chinese reading friends: this lovely reader above who is not usually impressed by christian stuff read my story and got so impacted by the first line of Psalm 121 which i put at the end of my story and digged out a bible. and because of Psalm 121:1 I also got a bonus point for my story~ XD

i am greatly stoked by that. i guess i am never the sort of person who can do (or even believe) "yesterday i shared the gospel with x no. of ppl and y no. came to Christ and therefore God is awesome..."
i like the fact that "christian stuff" is actually not a matter of if you and I do and think and feel ABCDE within timeframe F we will reach outcome G.
how we can be stirred by Him and His words, is as much a mystery to you, as it has been to me.

Your Name Never Gone
i think my heart sank after watching Sherlock S3E1.
CAN YOU PLEASE NOT-----
there are lots of things i want to put in that blank. but if the most authentic of all these contemporary parodies have blatantly turned into a farce, i dont see much point filling in the blanks.
This age will kill my hero.
and unless i love him enough to want to write something for him, i better stop complaining.

Words
there are certain words I am clinging onto right now... maybe for life too.

From a boss:
"we are so naturally inclined to cast away our feelings with tough experiences once we are over the hump, but I want you to keep all your emotional memories afresh just as when it first happened to you. in this way, when one day you are in a supervising position, you can be of use to those who come to you. if one day your registrar approach you about a patient suicide and you breath a sigh of relief-- "Thank God no one ever died on me!" its really not going to go down very well...

From Hitomi Kuroki:
“然而最重要的就是：暴露出自己不好的一面，悲惨的一面，丢脸的一面所需要的勇气，产生这样的勇气所需要的气魄也是必须的，我当时第一次知道。
放弃无谓的羞耻心。
不成体统的自己，到头来也是自己。自己不想给别人看到的不体面的部分，想成是让得到的角色更能演得生动便行了。
但是，
 ‘我，就是享受着受虐的人生！’
自己能堂堂正正地笑看这件事，也许就证明了我已经成为了一名成熟的大人了吧。”

~喂，这么难的事情，完全做不到好不好~
but i must try.
and instead of retrospective entries, keep as much of a record of the here and now as possible.

i thought i will open the year again with another Masha song~ but no... this one just grabbed me:



He's got quite a few beautiful songs in this new album.
~~~~and i am going to his concert soon~~~~~ ^_^

(one day i will get to yours too Masha~ *nod*)

In My Case

today i realised there are some super awesome Christian bosses out there~
hearing them giving their spills on faith and psychiatry just makes me go hearts and flowers (and laugh too) and want to drop everything i do and go and stand in the snow somewhere (chinese allusion-sorry, can't help it~ XD)
but i should be confident... though there is really no snow around here, there will be many future opportunities... to hear and learn from their wisdoms.

my fav psychologist has been also active lately and posting lots. You can read his works here (sorry its all chinese and you do need a weibo account). just loved his take on antisocial PD~
i've been having a little dream inside me that one day i can do a diligent weibo or blog like his, filled with writings so professionally insightful, but at the same time so down to earth and accessible by everyone.

once in a while one also runs into unexpected meaningful words...
....ones you dont need to go to a shrink to access.
Thank God too for those words.

This year two of Miyuki Miyabe's novels struck a special cord in me.
From Nameless Poison:

If you want to know the names of the poisons of this world, you will have to find out yourself.
Unless you had really bad luck, and the poison even eroded you.
Living in this world, we are used to avoiding thoughts about poisons. If you want a peaceful troubleless life, that's probably the only way to do it.
But if we are only asking the questions standing where we are, we will never find a satisfactory explanation for such poisons.
No one will tell us where they came from, from what did they arise, and how did they spread.
And no one will tell us how to guard ourselves against them.
...just a little bit too full-on maybe~ :(

If Nameless Poison is still more for the shrink...
Then Somebody?----
---is for everybody.

I still go back to that most comforting line of all time.

But you will find happiness. Though relentlessly pursued by people, or things, and you hid yourself under the table screaming, sooner or later, you will have to crawl out from there.

Once you are out, the world is still here.

I remembered the distant past, the far recent, and my wishful thinking from the recent recent, of my morbid fears, of my desire to flee from most things, of my uncomfortable expectations of life (immature or not)...
the past issues above have all now eventuated in some ways though not yet with resolutions.
but they no longer have such mastery over me anymore.
despite the fact that i am still so abound in nervous energy about the impending doom, and can only expect the next 2 months to be worse and not better.
but I have CRAWLED OUT.
and no, I don't have to give up my imaginary friends in that process.
never expected that day to come for me.

and only now I know His presence was with me as much when I kicked and screamed under that table (for years maybe), as when He, as a good CBT therapist, stopped reassuring when it was time to reduce the pathological reassurance seeking.
Then, nothing of the external environment changed, and not really sensing God onsite or oncall under that table, with spiderwebs on head and dust in the eye, and sneezing and coughing and cursing and wailing and wiping snot on face and fingers... I crawled out myself.

Not a pretty picture, but I suspected... maybe I am the only one who's so embarrassed of myself by all that.
Nobody else was really looking.
and i am slowly beginning to think that He is very much in this process too of my life, as much as when i was in a more appropriately dependent, contained and uplifting form.
and He who knows me from the beginning is not ashamed of me, or whatever emotional equivalent of my snot.
He who carried me, also enables me.

despite the process being painful reassurance reduction and i had to do the crawling myself, i was never alone.
fav psych's weibo, Miyuki Miyabe, Masha's radio shows, Gintama, people who left long comments on my old stories, countertrasferences from seeing parents during child and adolescent psych + smart and lovely consultant whos so understanding of such countertransferences (while happily slurping on her 2min noodles), girly magazines from 2009 with Hitomi Kuroki's beautiful essays (and gorgeous dresses), coke, diet coke, coke zero, more coke... (ok better stop before i start to sound pathological~)

and my psychotherapist, who revealed to me how much my personal life can impact on the professional, who persisted and wanted to see the breakthrough in me... despite my lack of motivation and passive resistance and reluctance for disclosure... that went on for what seemed like forever.
and I have not mentioned that i got all this for free, completely undeserving.

Arigatou, mina-san.
and to God who crafted every person, word, occurence (and bottle of coke too) over the past few months, for them to come from different ends but all somewhat strangely end up vibrating on the same wavelength, to bring me to this point.

Words are the strongest friend for a fragile heart, as Hitomi Kuroki gently spoke. Going back to her beautiful essay "In My Case", I think I now finally undestand a bit of the weight of her words when she asked herself:
"Can I give myself a word of praise?"

to answer this question, in my case:
"All Yours, Lord."

stories

nameless poison
its not quite end of the year yet, but i've really been itching to say that the best thing of 2013 has been this book. (~its chinese version)
http://www.booksfromjapan.jp/publications/item/686-nameless-poison
maybe just with a tiny bit of melodrama, i think it has taught me more about psychiatry and the human condition than all of my exam studies put together. (looking back i really havent studied that adequately but thats quite beside the point. )
i have never before seen the concept of normal vs abnormal, or the essential lack of difference at their roots, being put in such straighforward but eloquent ways.
to the point it really challenged my own internal boundaries.

end of the day it was probably my own fault. when stuck in china i read two books around the same time: this one and another-
http://books.google.com.au/books/about/Soulstealers.html
They were both so powerful in their own ways, and became a deadly combination. on top of family stresses for a while literally i felt hundred years of human poison crushing down on me and wondered there must be something terribly wrong with me or this world or both...
everything became much clearer when what i have learnt were able to seep through at work. now at the other end of the tunnel (hopefully), what i managed to take away from it all, has been priceless.

legs
some of the familiar chinese tales i've read as a child now give me very uncomfortable feelings. i guess traditional chinese culture rarely showed any respect to individual emotions, and i am finding this aspect much harder to tolerate now.

there is a story about this man who found a rare jade stone, travelled to the capital and dedicated it to the king. The king thought it was a fake, got angry and chopped off the man's left leg. History repeated itself when the old king died and the man tried his luck with the new king and this time paid his price with the right leg.

with his legs gone but arms still holding tightly onto the stone, the man cried his eyes out, sat facing a mountain near his home. He came to authority attention when his tears turned into blood, and was then offered an opportunity to vent his grievances. there was a newer king on the throne now so he was summoned back, Expert jade masons extracted really precious jade from the stone which then became the national treasure. the end.

it aggravates me, where different versions of the story invariably ended.
i can't get over the legs, sorry.  i wonder if he needed happy pills for the rest of his life.

the last child
i decided to use up the last few days of my leave (before they get grabbed by anyone else or any other demands) so i can force myself to do some writing. i recently realised that there are still people reading my old stories. i felt quite stoked.

in fact if i am not slowly back on track and feeling more prepared to do this new one, i probably would not have the capacity to return and respond to whats happening with the old. over the years they have somewhat took on symbolic significance to remind me of stages of my own life, but otherwise, i think i have treated them almost like abandoned children.
because of the birth pains i wanted little attachment with them or hoped to not care about their progress after they came into being. 

i've never been comfortable tellling people specifics about them either. i dont know if its just projected rejection anxiety or it has been my way of keeping my east and west separate, my real and imaginary worlds separate.
or it is simply: *i-really-cannot-tolerate-thinking-what-other-people-could-potentially-think-of-me-after-they-see-this-ahhhhh....*
but i need to move ahead with the new. i will need to eventually get very comfortable of east mingling with west, and real mingling with imaginary.
and the psychological barriers too.

so, my favourite out of all my abandoned children (the others are closeby):
http://www.jjwxc.net/onebook.php?novelid=1387382
i guess there is a place even for a prodigal parent coming back.

Thank God you dears are back ~~~>_<~~~~

having one's imaginary friends back makes life much more liveable.

I don't know... for quite some time I have been internally feeling a bit like this, that almost everything and even small things can hit me hard: (sorry shinpachi~ lol)

I don't quite remember when I lost them... was it just too much real life worries taking over a few months ago, or did I subconsciously kick them out myself: exams... need priorities right... inappropriate and no time for you... out~

and no... the imaginary friends don't automatically come back to me once exam is over and other stresses subside. I guess different to writing fanfics... this time this group of ppl don't reside externally elsewhere and are much more difficult to retrieve once there are relationship breakdowns... *sob*

now... my feet are back on familiar ground. I've got my backbone back, and hopefully, less acopia in the real world too.
think a few days of watching gintama really helped...XD just reminded me how awesome a disturbingly random imaginary world can be...
but... they are another person's imaginary friends~
no matter how great they are to me, I still need my own imaginary friends.

so, don't be angry with me. Lets walk.

the death song...and unwinding plan

I will lift up mine eyes unto the mountains: from whence shall my help come?
My help cometh from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.
He will not suffer thy foot to be moved; He that keepeth thee will not slumber.
Behold, He that keepeth Israel doth neither slumber nor sleep.
the Lord is thy keeper; the Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand.
The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night.
the Lord shall keep thee from all evil; He shall keep thy soul.
the Lord shall guard thy going out and thy coming in, from this time forth and for ever.

yesterday i heard Psalm 121 being read at a funeral. it reminded me of my favourite story, as well as much of the here and now. a colleague suddenly passed away, and the funeral was Jewish. Hearing the very familiar death song at a rather unfamiliar setting was really a bit too much for me. it caught me off guard, and i struggled hard to fight back tears.

...then the rabbi moved on to Psalm 130 which made it even worse. despite not sniffling away internally i felt rather out of control and just wished i could crawl away quickly from the scene to some dark corner to process my own emotions... (how inappropriate) -__-||||

i've been doing the freudian slip multiple times and wanting to call it a Jewish wedding, and i was not the only one. deep down we felt strongly we should have been invited to a wedding and not a funeral. in a somewhat more disturbing sense, i regretted that there wasnt a chance for me to speak ignorantly out of my gentile xenophobia, an opportunity to gossip excitedly to others that i went to a Jewish something and "did you know they read the Psalms too and its the same Psalms as our Psalms?"
(how more inappropriate)

----------------------------------------------
marissa and kim strongly felt i need to address my despondency and really should make an effort to celebrate my passing of exam instead of the current pitiable state of going straight from one stressor to the next.

thank you 前辈们~ i really value your professional opinions... (and have taken them on board)

i've thought about what i want and would consider a celebration:

1. away from helicopter parents (getting away in an amicable way too)
2. stress-free socialisations
3. give me a day of no commitments whatsoever... but instead able to curl myself into a ball on the couch for the day, accompanied by unlimited champagne (the alcohol free type.. how sad), ice cream, and... Gintama.

i think that will make me alright.

"Did you have a good break?"

leave (at least the SH bit) was so emotionally exhausting... to the point i feel so greatly comforted to be back at work.

giving professionally appropriate answers when people ask me how my leave went,  is prob the only difficult part. 

i must confess... i was nowhere close to 100% before i went off so it really isnt all its fault.

it just sapped me more, and my psychogenic polydipisia got worse (which...kind of made sense). its pathetic to admit these days i still take my stress out on large quantities of coke...(yes and i am still in need of an eye-opener in the morning... -__-|||)
but... i just stocked up on ice cream today... the morning coke habit may potentially shift.

221B

they've recently opened this sherlock holmes themed cafe/bar in SH. i was intrigued. at least i thought i should go and have a look.

well, i did go and look. the familiar looking door numbered 221B was enough to make me excited. with a reverent heart, i took a photo.

the reverent feeling sadly didnt last long. through the glassy bits on that very door, this frustrated looking SHnese lady behind the bar was staring at me angrily... for perhaps me entertaining myself with her property and not really contributing to her business...

i took one look at her, and fled.

soy sauce colesaw

direct flights to and fro SH are usually horrendous... (with warm fruits and juices and soft drinks which i am used to) it just got more ridiculous this time...

the salad bowl had a layer of colesaw... with two pieces of SHnese deep fried fish soaked in sweet soy sauce on top of it.

the fish was tolerable... given i was native, but fish flavoured sweet soy sauce tinted colesaw was still too much for anybody to cope with...

seriously why would anybody in a right state of mind think making soy sauce colesaw for international flights is ok behaviour...?

results

i've been having vivid nightmares about results.

and i've been drafting in my mind what to say in individual smses to friends if i fail -__-||| (...and am finding it really hard! its been many days, still haven't figured out what really to say).

in the past i've also been really bad as a rule in comforting others about unhappy results. it often reaches a point that the other party feels obligated to comfort me instead: hey i am actually ok... *pat pat*(maybe in between the lines: not even your results, stop looking so distressed and pathetic! 囧)

how would i like to be consoled by others when i get unhappy results? good question. i don't really know that either. >.<

(...this is all very embarrassing... so shhhhhh.....)

masha again

i am still going through Masha's old files... lol now and then so amazed by how he can be so psychologically minded and insightful without any psych training... *in awe*

the comments he made about Zankyo made me cry a little. it happens to be translated in english...
http://mashaheart.net/2009/07/03/ann-tamashii-no-radio-zankyo/

i really like these 2 bits too. They need to be read together.
"words of weakness"
"after 30"

the bit about the pig and the bear is soooo... cute. awww.... :(
"childhood memories"

At the hill a moon shines tonight

the tomorrow of tomorrows

Got the email that it has been delayed till next year.

I felt funny, in fact I still don't know what to feel or think. for four months it has mobilized and consumed whatever faculties that is in me and forced myself into a rigid fighting pose, I guess I am really not prepared for this (apparently delay is really common tho), and have no idea how would I fare in another however many more months to come.

strangely I am not agitated as I thought I would be, even with other persistent stressors going on. I can only attribute it to God, thought I don't feel I can happily boast that His peace is in me. the maybe very Godly process of having all aspects of control over your circumstances slowly chipping away for me really is not a pumped crusading journey into the holy land...

it in fact feels very terrible. in a sense I cannot verbalise at all how uneasy I feel, all this while trusting and confirming something entirely external and not of my own is indeed whats holding me firmly in place.

maybe I should sound more uplifting, but I guess I will be honest for now.

dear Masha...and Midori

so this site will prob close down and be no more, together with yahoo blogs...
http://hk.myblog.yahoo.com/dpanhk

I am grieving. it is where the I-finally-found-my-role-model business all started. though Midori-san hasn't been updating for a while and I really have no idea to her whereabouts... it always felt to be a base I could return to.

its prob a good thing. otherwise i dont imagine i would go bk and carefully regurgitate through all the posts (....which is what i've been doing... -__-||||)

new discoveries this time (am sure i will discover more):

"the ideal adult"
"fears"

i think masha has verbalised my fears.
"一寸長的蟲，也有五分的靈魂"
I may want to put this line somewhere in my office.

My fav christian ojisan writers 3

when i am stressed i regress and prefer much more to read chinese than english... in fact i can tune out these days even reading FB updates more than 4-5 lines long... funny i can still write tho.... hmm...

Seriously Funny 2 is prob the only english book i managed to finish over the past few months, not only that, it even made me laugh out loud on a train. i certain hope Adrian Plass and Jeff Lucas can be blessed with longevity so they will produce Seriously Funny 3, 4, 5 etc in the days to come.

The first book was funny enough, but the second one was even funnier... and the two ojisans got a bit more disinhibited with each other, talking about orgies in one chapter and contemplating a communal shower together in another--with their wives and dogs joining in as well (yes it was a decent christian book from a decent christian store)

despite the bad portrayal they are both lovely ojisans...  very honest and insightful, and seriously, very funny. because whatever they have talked about is so relevant for my life, many things hit home. i guess i've read a bit more of Adrian's writing than Jeff's, but recently got to watch a sermon by Jeff during which he said something along the lines of "sometimes i don't want purpose, and i don't want to be driven, i just want life!"

lol.

that was very lovely. looking forward to opportunities to read/hear more.

therapy

well... what needs to be done has been done. when its time to dip again i can dip again. but in the meantime i probably should curtail a bit of my paranoia and ruminations.

after all getting intermittent spontaneous flashbacks regardless of time/place/occasion about what happened in the distant past (followed by a repeated fumbling through the same medical records for the Nth time...)
....is really a less than optimal way to function.

been reading lots of chinese lately. there is this rather odd book with a name that literally translates as "Village South Record of Neglecting Farming" (what the....) half history half gossip. hard to read, but as i need to use my brain for it, strangely calming.
and gossip is still gossip, and fun, no matter how ancient they are. (yah...why were ppl 700 years ago also so gossipy? lol)
there is this hilarious story about a mummified ojisan... -__-|||| apparently, out of altruism for the human race, the ojisan decided to eat nothing but honey and also bathed himself in honey. a few months later he started to urinate honey and then quickly died (well thats diabetes~ not altruism) his body was then dunked in a coffin full of honey and sealed for a hundred years before opening up, and people came from all around to break off bits of his honey-saturated (sure its not ants-saturated? maggots-saturated?) corpse and ate them to heal all kinds of diseases 
(...really?) lol.

anyways.... ewwww......

and i only recently discovered this band... seriously... every single one of their songs is nice.

sequel 2

it has really crossed the line.
I want to vomit blood. I seriously want to vomit blood.
even the fear that I may have failed my exam is paling to this.

I am not your property.

and I am not one of you.


this is however not the first time at the start of a rotation I work myself up to a state of terminal agitation, desiring wholeheartedly to be elsewhere and not here.

but its not terminal isn't it?

I should vomit quietly in a corner, and get on with it.

despite the vomitus of blood and venom, I want to see how God writes the ending of this story.
more so than ever.

PS. there is a deeper issue beyond all this. I fear such confirmatory outcomes to my inappropriate psychoanalyzing/overinterpreting. it is just positive reinforcement of bad behavior, all previous work done to shift it now in vain.

fav stars not doing too well...

(...let me pretend writing blog is some form of a practice for critical essays...)

*cough* with quite a bit of guilt i am going to admit that my fav star/role model/inspiration is really not a great actor... :(
in a way it is a relief to realise that i didnt enjoy Galileo 2 because it was so bad and not because i was too stressed out or depressed a couple of mth ago to the point of anhedonia. (phew)
I think Masha just crumbled... with a bad script, bland charactering, co-stars who were not particularly compatible, and the expectation that he's the one who could salvage it all...
thought i should at least try to appreciate the ending. after all Amami Yuki made guest appearance...
well there wasnt any chemistry at all, between her and Masha.
thats fine, i never thought they had similar vibes or expected them to create much spark anyway...
but watching Masha's face going into some silent tense spasm because there was absolutely no chemistry and he was trying his hardest to squeeze out some ... was just painful...(and hilarious too) -__-|||
*but you are an actor! can't you put on a show???*
~sigh~
i guess Salvation of the Saintly woman was a bad story to start off with...after reading that i stopped reading Keigo Higashino altogther. found it just the author's poor attempt imitating the Devotion of Suspect X, which was really the height of his own achievement...
~sigh more~
well... i should just get over it and let you continue to inspire me in whatever usual ways you inspire...
and you look so comfortably natural in the movie that won some prize at Cannes... playing a dad~~
want to watch that~~~ ^__^

and Lee junki is filming this new series now(not the SH fighting one *cries*)... some lone hero battling time to save his daughter etc... the plot sounded so typically korean it was quite a turn off...
and i really dont think i fan him enough to want to give it a try...
managed to catch a glimpse of photos of him on the set... gosh... even worse.
i think his BMI has gone bk on the elevation trajectory and he had this really thick curvy fringe that made him look like he had no eyes...囧
i will just go back to stare at old pictures. ~~>_<~~~



he's got such beautiful eyes... and seriously looked his best at his simplest...
...with army uniform and short hair and no eye makeup covering up fine lines and no fancy styling whatsoever...
~sigh~
when do i get to see you beautiful like this again? ~~>_<~~~

so the boys are not much to look at these days and i am trying hard to understand stats with minimal gains and everything is a bit miserable at the moment... :(
but thankfully some of my fav gals are in this season's dramas~~ *sniffles* following them wkly and wondering why aren't there more episodes each wk...

Gekiryu~

i like Rena Tanaka and Rie Tomosaka alot.. watching them in the same scene (and playing good friends) can really make me happy.
and really like the way how the two are dressed in the show... quite a few styles i want to try to copy~~ XD
the story reminds me a lot of awakening~ lol i guess with this type of growing up stories... no matter how many i read/watch/or write myself... i just don't get sick of them.

Nameless Poison~

M2!!!! *hearts*
she is 49 now... and still so pretty~~~ *starry eyes*
well she is the main character in the 2nd half of the series... so really just waiting for her to appear~
but it is a dramatisation of Miyuki Miyabe's books... worth watching from the start.
i am fond of one particular line from the novel of the first story:

But you will find happiness. Though relentlessly pursued by people, or things, and you hid yourself under the table screaming, sooner or later, you will have to crawl out from there.
Once you are out, the world is still here.

God enabling, one day i can crawl out.
and i probably wouldnt care how dishevelled and pathetic i will look then.