About Bubbles (or is it?)

I told this story to a friend of mine and apparently it's got a very interesting allegory in it. Or maybe it's just him:

Soap bubbles entice me in a way that nothing else can.

First of all, I think it's because we rarely get to enjoy a lot of free floating objects. A balloon floating in the air, for example, does not invite that much awe, but more on concerns over which poor 5 year-old lost their grip. On that note, a hot air balloon is another equally magical thing, maybe because it served its purpose as being entertaining just by floating around freely.

So among those few entertaining floaters, soap bubbles are perhaps the most (literally) down-to-earth, since everyone can make them. I think this fact made me appreciate them even more - the moment that soap film curved into a round shape, then as we snapped the wand to let go of the bubble and it became ovale-shaped for half a second before it bobs beautifully right on your face. As you look at the light colours and extremely light movement, a bubble as good as any other, you wonder in your insecure childhood mind : "How did I make THAT?"
I honestly think it's the closest thing to pure magic I will ever witness.

Now.

As I've repeatedly argued, being "grown up" does not mean you forget your childhood dreams. Being an adult should empower it. And so one day I realized I can do just that - now that I've grown, I should push to grow the size of my bubbles too. Maximizing what my college years had taught me, I looked for the most logical solution and googled "how to make giant bubble".

Fate brought me to Professor Bubbles, where I learned the serious art of bubble making. The fact that it was serious enticed me - I must be on for more magical moments! - so I obediently boiled my tap water (this is called "soft water", as I'm told), looked for the recommended soap dish brand (nothing made for machine use - too harsh) and persuaded my parents to prescribe a bottle of glycerin from the hospital. I have no idea how these three ingredients can make any difference to the store-bought mixture, but as I learned later, there are much more than just putting three strange elements together. In the next couple of weeks, I tried my luck at the mixture, failed, and repeatedly went back to Google only to find "how did I miss that?" tips.

This site told me that, when mixing, I have to stir very very slowly, as suds and foams (which ironically are little bubbles) are bubble busters. If I stirred too quickly and found suds, "carefully spoon them away from the surface". These additional-tips websites normally add some learning values to this, such as "explain to your children that in this game, patience is very important", which is sort of depressing to read for a 23-year-old.

Bubble Town, which I think is the most helpful site overall, stated that it's best to let the solution sit overnight. Upon further searches to back this tip up, I found consistent disagreements in whether the solution should be left uncovered or sealed. Deciding there was no way I would know better, I tried both.

And then there's the wand itself. I learned that straws, pipe cleaners and cookie cutters are all acceptable, but for giant bubbles, consider the classic wire hanger - turned into a ring shape. I experimented with all sorts of sticks, picking some off the streets, bending and polishing them, experimented with different ways. But no matter how I blow out of them, it's not giving the satisfying effect. The bubbles are mediocre.

I didn't want to resort to this because I know what will show up on Google, but I realized I had to master the trick of blowing. Remember: always specify the blowing skills you wish to look for. After being educated in ways I could never think of, I found that ultimate professionals, those who measure their bubbles in meter, often rely on wind. Wind-blown bubbles are usually supported by a special wand, made of sticks and three pieces of strings. Looking at the 8 steps needed to make the wand (and still not knowing how to use it), I realized this was getting way too serious for me. I had to settle for the paper cone version - which was complicated enough.

On top of everything, I also had to learn to control the bubble. Bubble Town suggested I started practicing in a closed space with no wind, as "big bubbles are harder to control" (I didn't even realize this was a bad thing), which I think kills the magic, so I ignored it. Then I found out that the correct way to blow a bubble is to do it horizontally first (so your cone is facing down) because you want the bubble to drip off any excess solution. Once it's the size intended, start tilting the cone upward and carefully flick the bubble to freedom. It's important to flick instead of just pulling the wand away. Not even Cosmo can give a more precise how-to-blow guide.

After 2 months of concoctions, experiments with wind and wands, and practicing my blowing technique, I finally nailed it. The bubbles weren't as big as I dreamed it to be, then again I've dreamed it to be at least half as big as me. It's liberating to know how many people are as into bubbles as I am, and it's scary to know just how many people are serious about their giant bubbles - World Record is 2.98 cubic metres. I guess when I've acquired the skills and professionalism necessary, I'll get to enjoy bigger sizes too.

I've said it before and I'll keep saying it again.

I'm sick of feeling lonely but I don't know how to make it go away. Obviously this isn't some form of isolated-lonely, since I go to work and interact with people every day, all day, nor is it a form of boredom-lonely, because I've done enough sudden road trips or self-pampering to know that excitement can easily come from watching a Scrubs marathon. Incidentally, that's what I'm doing right now.

I guess I just feel lonely at heart (whatever that means). And look, I've thought, talked and written about this for many times, and I still don't know how this came to be. I've had people telling me that I got stuck feeling lonely because I LIKE feeling lonely. And like any self-deprecating individual, I understand where this is coming from, but how would I know for sure if I really subconsciously want to feel like this or not? It's called subconsciousness for a reason.

And you know what, I don't care. Maybe I secretly enjoy feeling sorry for myself, or maybe years of being antisocial has finally left me with no one. Whatever the reason is, I don't want to feel lonely anymore. I hate it. It makes me sad and needy, and I look sad and needy, and neither can be good for my social life.

So I ended up feeling alone again, for no particular reason, and I got up and tried talking to someone for a change (instead of sulking in the corner, which I used to resort to) and sometimes, I'll just have the pleasant surprise of finding out that people just don't give a crap. I can see it from the way they start uhh-ing and ahm-ing when I started talking. A few words of kindness. A sincere explanation that they really have to go. And off they went. I swear, nothing will reduce you more than realizing that people close to you are in fact too busy for you. It screws with your mind because they're your good friends, you thought you can afford being selfish, then you realized you're being TOO selfish because let's face it, even your close friends have issues of their own, and you can't demand their full attention to you. No matter how much you want it. If you didn't get it, you didn't deserve it.

And no, I do NOT think all of my friends are like that. I've had times when someone really did cheer me up, to which I'm eternally grateful, but here's the news : they're rare, and most of them are too compassionate to be listening to someone like me. They're much much better off being with people who can give them as much attention as they're giving out, because they deserved it.

This sucks.

On Taking Deep Breaths

I'm sick of doing it.

It sort of symbolizes me wanting to be strong (which I'm not) through these very hard times (which I often conjure up myself) while still allowing me to feel sad and pathetic over the whole situation (which I often am).

I'm typing this on my last day at this gorgeous office, knowing full well that I may never again get a chance to see this much fireworks from atop.

Then again, maybe I will. We really are not able to signify our situations proportionally - there are thousands of people out there going apes over a change in time (for God's sake, I'm standing on level 40 and I can here people counting down on the streets), and there are thousands sleeping at home, having no business over how time changes. This is my last day at work and I'm barely thinking about it, but I know there may be a time later when I'll wail about it. This moment could be everything or it could be nothing. And there's no way you can tell.

I don't like the fact that I think everything is important. It tips off my balance. I can't stay sane if I think all moments are precious, and I should hold on desperately to each one of them until they're all snatched away from me. Refusing to let go is what keeps me fighting, and I know I have to fight for what I want, but this is crazy. Am I really going to be able to do this?

No. This is important for me. I'm staying.

I'll just hope I'm not the only one holding on.

The Clock is Ticking

I want flexibility. I want to know that I'd be able to do whatever I think is most important, at precisely the right moment.

I want to feel that I've not wasted my life.

I want my friends to realize just how intensely I've fallen for them.

I want to see if they would do a remake of Friends.

I want to live sufficiently, enough to bask in the materialistic goodness of this world.

I want to always stay fascinated by soap bubbles.

I want to learn to juggle balls. Relating to that, I'd like to continue passing off casual but figuratively-misleading statements.

I want to learn to live like I was raised another way.

I want to be able to define my relationship with chocolate.

I want to stay comfortable with the fact that I'm not perfect. Having said that, I'd like to try making a better first impression.

I want to always believe that honesty is the best policy.

I want to be able to just..move...on.

Now that I've learned it, I want to use the word "floccinaucinihilipilification" casually and regularly.

I want to do everything I feel like doing, because asking "Why didn't I?" is much more painful than "Why did I?"

I want to fall outrageously and madly in love with someone. Actually, I would want to fall outrageously and madly in love several times, before I found someone who's willing to fall just as outrageously and madly in love.

I want to find out how I got this American accent.

I want to experience the world instead of seeing it.

I want to be able to give a compliment to anyone, anytime, preferably in front of other people, without making the person feel uncomfortable in any way.

I want to be able to handle pressure.

I want to try moving out and see if it really is the answer.

I want to stay surrounded by people who continuously puts me in awe.

I want to understand my own mind.

I want contentment.

I want to find and enjoy fantastic ideas.





I don't want to be alone.

How do you know?

I'm one of those people who use the term "love" quite loosely, and I feel quite justified to do so. We don't have a standardized definition of love anyway, so nobody can really criticize me for being contextually wrong.

So I realized that I tend to use the word on something I get really excited about. That can be just about anything, and I don't even need to have a constant excitement about it, but whenever I feel that emotional jump, the word just comes out. When a bowl of spectacularly hearty pasta with chicken & mushroom was put in front of me, accompanied with heavenly-soft bread, which I ate with succulent tomatoes from the dish, I exclaimed that I love Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf (I should note here that I've been disappointed by it - their waiter once insisted that sushi should be served at 18 degrees Celcius. Probably my fault for ordering sushi in a coffee place).
The thing is, that pasta looks and tastes so good that during those moments, I forgot about the sushi incident, or how they don't take my debit card because they made an arrogantly exclusive deal with another bank, or how they don't have electrical plugs for my laptop in the non-smoking section. That pasta made me forget about all that, and for a brief period, I love the restaurant.

Another thing about "love" - by my definition at least - is that as it excites you so, you normally can't keep it to yourself. You just want the whole world to know...although that probably have something to do with me being a girl : expressing emotions through words. That's how I often find myself in outrageously excited conversations, larger intensity if I found more people in love with the same thing, but still quite intense even if it's just me blatantly describing affectionate things to anyone who's listening.

The last odd thing about my definition of "love" is this : as much as you want to be out spoken about your feelings, sometimes the only subject unaware of it may be the object of your affection (linguistics, linguistics...). This remains to be a mystery to me, but my best guess so far (as I've found from my muses) is we don't proclaim it in front of them because, of all people, we fear the reaction from those we love.

So I guess for me, that rush I get when I encounter something wonderful, so amazing that I'm willing to set aside everything else, deserve to be labeled "love". I may be on a limb here, but it's probably because my normal self is so obsessively analytic (can't stop thinking about every little thing and how they're intertwined) that I enjoy moments when I'm allowed (in fact, I'm disallowed to counter) to think about just one thing. That's when the world is wondrously simple, because it's just about a single thing that's making you happy. Nothing else matters.

And so even though I'm terribly furious at him, even though I hated him for abruptly tossing me to the side, blatantly disregarding what he himself has built up in three weeks - just like what his ex did to him, only it's seven years - and as I've built an immense dislike for him for the simple reason of making me feel bad about myself,

I forgot about all that when I'm in front of him.

You know when you're so mad at someone that you plan to say all these mean horrible insults to them, and you think about how good it would feel to be able to hurt them as much as they've hurt you? You always think "I'm not going to forgive them, no matter how they ask for it!"

And yet, magically, it all disappears at a sudden. They don't even need to do anything. When they're right there in your face - bowl of gorgeous pasta, romance interest, a wonderful performer - the only thing you can think about is that they're in front of you.

I'm furious at him, but I can't be furious when I see him.
And that's how I know.

So now I'm hearing that he doesn't have an answer, which I find odd since it really seems like he does have an answer - he just can't bring himself to say it out loud. But even if he really is confused, and if he is wondering if he's currently doing the right thing, then it's actually quite simple, because you almost don't need to think on this. The whole thing controls you - it controls your mind. And I guess just as my mind is controlled forcibly to think only about him, what should happen is whenever he sees her, anything about me (and everything else) should completely disappear. If it doesn't, then he's going the wrong way.

And that's how he'd know.

It's a bit of a mess, which incidentally is what I'm stuck in.

One of the most interesting thing about my childhood is that I spent most of it in hospitals. See, both my parents are doctors.

Thankfully, or perhaps consequently, I've never been afraid of those long dim hallways, that sterile smell or gloomy rooms with sterile colors. I actually find them quite comforting, in fact, in the manner of a small child who recognizes the environment where her parents are nearby. And as I grow up, I had quite a bit of fun watching other people coming to hospitals feeling very vulnerable, and how they associate hospitals with pain because, well, pain is either the reason you came in or something you undergo while you're in.

Anyway, having spent a lot of time in hospitals and clinics, I had to grew interested in this whole process of treatment, healing, medication, etc. And it is pretty interesting, actually, looking at how people heal. The way people change gradually, physically and mentally (just playing with languages here) is quite heartening.

One subject I'm particularly fascinated about is the whole "self-healing" theory of the body. This, I'm guessing, came from the simple question of "how did people survive before modern medicine was found?" and from this you conclude that man may just in fact be perfectly capable of healing one's self without any external assistance. We don't really know how, but tales of survivals and miraculous recoveries have shown us that the human body may be more self-sustaining than we thought. Take the placebo effect. Your mind, apparently, can treat your illness just as effectively as a "real" drug can. Physically, there are more amazing feats - broken bones are naturally mended, a liver completely able to regenerate up to 50% of its damaged parts, etc.

I marvel at this because not only do these prove just how well we are designed, it also kind of made you wonder: so why do we bother with modern medicine, then? (Mind you, I probably shouldn't question this too much, as modern medicine is where my parents found their bread & butter)
I guess like any other inventions, modern medicine was made for convenience - shorter time, tangible progress, credibility, etc. So we sort of understand that the body can look after itself independently, but we still like some extra help. Just because feeling rotten is such an unpleasant feeling, such that we would like to get rid of it as soon as we can. Our loss here, as we've yet to realize, is that as our diagnosed illnesses are conveniently and swiftly treated, our tolerance for the undiagnosed ones diminishes. We understand, physiologically, that all of our pains - physically and, yes, mentally - can naturally be healed, but we're not accustomed to letting nature to do its work. We don't want to wait. It's too painful.

And so when they tell me, quite frequently, recently, that time heals everything, I actually believed them. But as I struggled through my aches, I'm left wondering why we can't find an easier way.

Thanks A Lot, God.

Shouldn't man feel really, really blessed that they continue to exist despite the fact that most of them have no idea why they existed in the first place? Whatever it is that created our existence must either have an undeniable faith that humanity will eventually understand their purpose or simply has a lot of fun watching us struggle with it.

It's those overbearing moments when you're sitting somewhere quiet, minds wandering off, when you started asking yourself, "Why am I here?"

Last time I had that moment, I was sitting on the side of the street in Ho Chi Minh, waiting for a ticket box to open. As I was drinking the questionable bottled water that I bought from some guy off the streets, I wondered how in friggin' hell did I get here, and what the heck am I here for?
Of course at the time, that last question was pretty easy: I was there to visit the museum.

I doubt that one can really understand why they exist. Furthermore, I doubt that one can really understand why they're set to exist in a particular place. Why was I born here? How did I end up being in a completely different place? Why do I have a certain kind of family, and a certain set of friends? Why did I meet the people I meet?

When I was about 14, I had concluded that my purpose in life was to be quantified by how much I impacted people around me. This was a great source of distress, because I really didn't matter to people around me. I contributed bits and pieces to my social circle, but in the long run, it would not have mattered whether I existed or not. So eventually I gave up and decided that my purpose in life was to sit in the corner and watch carefully as other people's life unfolds. At the very least, it's good entertainment. It was a revelation that I was forced to be content with.

Now, after 8 years, after being exposed to numerous personal developments and a small group of inspirational muses...I still find it hard to argue with my 14-year-old self. It's ridiculous. Here I am, with a completely new life attitude, a good set of logic, and I thought this would surely bring a new perspective of why I'm here. It just can't be that pathetic. And yet, over and over again, life has shown me that I am created here, in this world, in this situation, in this circle, to sit in the corner and watch. I wanted to argue with this fact, a lot, but this fact just kept on proving itself logically true. And again, it's a revelation that I am forced to be content with.
Source of distress? You bet. Would I change it? Yes.

But now that I seemingly understood why I exist, the next question would be : can I really change what I'm here for?