stagnation – a negative post about feeling discontent with oneself

i am a little over 2 months into my 8-month break from university and already i feel like my brain is rotting.

i feel no motivation to do anything; anything other than lying on the living room couch and staring at the rotating ceiling fan feels like too much effort. netflix is no longer the treasure chest it once was when i discovered it just before my year-end exams. the books lying haphazardly in my wardrobe are suddenly too bland, too unfulfilling. studying for university feels like a task too far away, its consequences not in the horizon of my sight. my trips to tokyo and pulau redang happening in the next couple of weeks are no longer exciting prospects. the lives of my friends and acquaintances seem to be a world's distance away from me, after i decided, one day, that facebook and instagram and twitter disgusted me with its shiny, lacquered film of perceived glamour, the scent of desperation and desire to impress. i feel isolated, despite spending all of my days eating and sleeping and breathing in a house with 7 (and sometimes more) relatives.

in the past, i escaped discontentment by filling my days with shows and books about people unlike me. now, even escaping is too tiring.

it's absurd how, even after deactivating my social media accounts, trying to bathe myself in the ignorance of what my old classmates are doing, trying to revel in a blanket of disinterest, i still feel so discontented with what i am doing (or not doing) with my life. although i no longer see smiling pictures of gatherings i am not at, my mind keeps wandering, when i am lazing around the house, to how i'm just wasting my life away, whilst everyone else is living it up every day, making new friends and laughing at new jokes. whereas once i compared myself to an image others had created for themselves, now i compare myself to an image i have created for others, and my self-loathing multiplies: i want to stop this incessant comparison, and i also want to use my life for something useful so that i will no longer feel the need to compare.

every time i have too much time on my hands, my brain becomes stagnant, and, like stagnant water, it becomes an incubator for bacteria, parasites that leech any trace of positivity from my mind, leaving me with a stinking swirl of grey, poisonous thoughts. it's horrible.

what a year

my first year in uni has ended, and although part of me feels like i haven't achieved anything i had planned to before moving to london, another part of me is also really proud of the fact that i have survived a year of adulthood.

i'm happy to be back home, breathing in that familiar sweet scent of smoggy air, but i also miss the independence and the flurried life that i've come to associate with london. i miss being able to stay up and talk to friends about Life until the wee hours of the morning; being able to get turkish food, vegan ice cream, and egg tarts all in a 30 minute trip from my room. this constant movement is what i reminisce about in boredom-drenched days, as well as the wholesome (as mariana would put it) friends that i've gotten to know.

so – cue awesome segue – i have compiled a whole bunch of photos from the year to feed this nostalgia and to escape my current lacklustre state of mind.

brick lane vintage market

rough trade

mariana

zaana

kyoto garden, holland park

yvonne

v&a museum

over and out,

new year new me???

wowz it's 2017 already. it feels like just yesterday when i posted my 2016 bucket list (of which i merely completed two things), and now i'm here to write another list of things i will do in 2017 – if only to just leave and never accomplish them.

2016 was full of hectic ups and downs. my hair turned grey over exams, i graduated, left my home of 10 years, and experienced painful homesickness for the first time in my life. i learnt how to become more comfortable with being alone. i began to skip classes. i became more independent. i cried more than i've ever cried, but i've also laughed more than i can remember. i can't say 2016 was a good year, because i am a pessimistic person and nothing is ever really good enough, but it's changed me into someone i'm happier with.

but i want to grow more, to be the best person i can be. i want to be less guarded, less judgemental, less angry – more appreciative, more dedicated, more productive.

in 2017, i will...

...read 15 books.

upgrading from last year's resolution to read 10 books (which i only barely accomplished, reading 12 texts), i vow to myself that i will read 15 novels. will i succeed? we shall see in 12 months' time.

(i am a pathetic excuse for an english student.)

...journal.

ever since uni life started and i became inundated with work and inexplicable mood swings, i've neglected the one thing i used to really love doing: journalling. for some reason, it gradually turned into a sort of chore rather than a cathartic experience, and as a result, i just stopped. but seeing stephany's instagram post yesterday made me realise how much i miss the process of looking back at pages i wrote months ago, reliving joyful / painful memories and scoffing at my (or other people's) ignorance. so in this new year, i'll try and fill up the remaining pages of my moleskine.

...take more photographs.

i have five cameras sitting in a suitcase under my bed and i really need to use them more.

...get out more.

i have the privilege of spending my uni days in london, the "flower of cities all", yet i'm positive that i've spent 85% of my first semester cooped up in my room watching youtube videos and k-dramas. this is a city with so many markets that i can't even keep track of them all; a city with so many theatre productions and museum exhibitions happening every day. in this new year i will try and brave the shitty, depressing weather and explore the city more than i have the past three months. there are cafés to be discovered, vintage stores to be browsed, bookstores to be drooled over. oh, and i need to stop skipping seminars.

over and out,

just floating

i was walking down holborn a few days ago, invoking my inner virginia woolf and observing the hustle and bustle around me (funnily enough, i was heading towards the virginia woolf building for my seminar).

for the first time in two months, i realised why i've been feeling a sort of unease in my surroundings – i don't feel like i belong anywhere.

i've spent more than half of my life in china, but i've only ever had two chinese friends (actually, 'friends' is probably too intimate a term – i think of them more as acquaintances) because i've never really had any opportunities to befriend the locals. here, in london, i pass by so many students from china as i approach LSE on my way to class, with their arms intertwined, in their big winter coats reaching down to their calves, and i catch snippets of their conversations and it sounds like home. i recall the loud laughs down the streets of my childhood, as well as my inner monologue of adolescent frustration as i try to push past them. but now, having been separated, for almost half a year, from the cacophany i associate with that country, i don't push past. i walk by and i try to enjoy the familiar intonations and inflexions as long as i possibly can. yet although i miss china, and although i've come to discover how much i think of the place as home, to say that i feel (or felt) completely comfortable in their culture is a lie, because i don't understand chinese culture enough. i know nothing about their politics, their media, their slang, their economy. the only china i truly understand is my china. the country i have experienced with my taiwanese friends and malaysian parents.

i always thought, back in those days before graduation, that when i left for london i would feel right at home. if i didn't fit in fully in china, if some of their more traditional ideas irked me, surely london would fit me like a glove. but i think one of the biggest reasons why i was so unhappy in my first few weeks here was because i felt so odd where i was; i didn't feel like i belonged. it was hard, and it still is hard, because i struggle to talk to the people on my course (the vast majority of which are british). there's a sort of gap that i feel between me and them. it's the trivial things – the volume at which they speak, their stance, the words they use. i've found that here, it's normal to just join in on a conversation, and oftentimes strangers converse like they've known each other for months. back home, that would never pass. there would be an initial tinge of awkward formality in conversations and interactions. back home, even when i've known someone for years, i sometimes still speak to them with reserve.

or maybe i'm completely off-track and it's just my problem.

the other day someone in my seminar said that she doesn't understand why some people feel so much pride in their national identity, and why there are people with such strong patriotism. and i thought, "you don't understand, because you're white and you're from england. you've never been colonised by anyone else, and you've never felt oppression due to your race. you don't understand, because you've never felt that your culture was inferior to someone else's. you don't understand, because you've never had to feel a sense of shame when you speak your own language and people look at you like you've done something wrong. for someone who's been through all this, to be able to embrace their national identity and revel in that golden goodness is monumental, and they should strive as hard they can to not lose that". there were arguments against this claim, however, and i know this view isn't representative of all white britons, but i still feel like it exists subconsciously in people's brains, just in varying degrees of intensity. and although i know that the chances such topics will come up in social situations is very slight, these kinds of ideas and perspectives on the world still seep into other parts of life. and this is the gap i feel with england.

i introduce myself to people i meet as a malaysian. but to say i'm malaysian, i've realised, is to just mean that i have a malaysian passport. i feel pride in my country, yes. but akin to china, i only know malaysia as my malaysia. i don't understand the politics. the racial tensions don't feel as real to me as they should, and i can't even speak my national language. i don't know most of the places my malaysian friends here talk about, and even if i do know them, it's a superficial kind of knowledge, where i only know vaguely where it is and what's vaguely in that area.

i feel that, as an international kid, i should be able to integrate myself seamlessly into whatever culture i'm thrown into. rather, all i've experienced so far is a sense of detachment from the cultures i've been exposed to, and an acute awareness of the fact that i'm just floating.

over and out,

canvas // blackout poetry

i tried to do a little blackout poem for my uni's english literary journal.

starting afresh

this post is going to be one of wild ramblings.

i've been thinking lately about why i am so inconsistent with posting on this blog. whilst i haven't been loving this space here in the past, i also haven't been hating it. sometimes i think, "if i delete the blog, maybe i'll feel less resentment at myself for my lack of commitment at everything i do", yet i can't bring myself to actually do it.

i think one of the reasons why i don't post as much as i want to is because i have this perpetual thirst to be everywhere on social media, but at the same time, i also find social media to be quite irksome and unenjoyable. perhaps it is the pressure of our generation to be ever-present on the internet. or perhaps it is my own desire to create a persona that is unlike who i really am, living a life that is unlike my own, because sometimes i wallow in disappointment at the monotonous humming of my life. i created a youtube account and posted two videos on it, sparked with excitement at the prospect of documenting my days using a new medium. then the reality of how "the subscriber count shouldn't matter to you" is easier said than done set in, and the realisation of how i am unable to reach the audience i desire has extinguished that initial spark. and so my channel sits there, temporarily abandoned.

i fantasise about creating perfection. even though i know that that is forever unattainable, as i will forever be imperfect. and i don't think someone who is imperfect can produce something perfect. in my struggle to create this illusion of perfection, i have been trying so hard to sound more intelligent, more refined, more subdued on this blog than i actually am. i think that the reason why i don't post as often as i would like to is because i try to write like somebody other than me when i enter this blog.

mostly, i'm afraid of posting uninteresting things about my mundane life because it pales in comparison to the weekly escapades, and runway-worthy fashion, and mouth-wateringly beautiful cuisine that so many other bloggers on the internet partake in.

well, fuck it. i'm starting afresh. this is my space. i will not filter myself. i will post whatever i want, even if it's just a rambling post about a topic nobody else is interested in but me.

over and out,

2016 bucket list

this post pretty much sums up my thoughts about 2016 so far. just a trial month. 2016 actually really begins next week.

seeing as how i'm now 18 and an ADULT and can do things like vote and drink legally and get a credit card and have a job, i've made a vow to myself to make 2016 a year as full as it can possibly be. i will do everything (or most of the things) i've wanted to do since i was a young teenager.

and so, a bucket list for the new year, to be completed before this year ends:

i. get a septum piercing

i became somewhat obsessed with septum piercings this past summer. i love because it just looks really fucking cool. it's awesome how you can wear these rings with such intricate designs for special occasions whilst other people are just wearing fancy necklaces or dangly earrings. you instantly stand out. it's great.

ii. get a tattoo

i think tattoos are beautiful. it's the most personal form of self-expression (it's on your body – that's as personal as you can get), and it's also an amazing way to decorate yourself. the permanence of it is what i love most – the fact that despite whatever you go through in life, it will always stay on a your arm, or leg, or back, or chest. i have a penchant for saving photos of tattoos i like, just for future reference, and i've realised that most of the tattoos i've saved are really simple ones. i've been following stanislava's tumblr for quite some time now, and her 'home-made tattoos' are pure beauty.

iii. read at least 10 books

i have so many books sitting on my bookshelf that have not been opened even once. i want to read them, but IB + my laziness has meant that i haven't done much reading the past year. so this year, i'm trying to change that. i'm going to read those novels on my shelf.

iv. travel the world during the summer

i want to travel after i graduate from high school. i want to revisit seoul and tokyo and sydney and paris, and fly to toronto, then boston, then argentina, then hawaii. also india! india seems a wonderful place.

over and out,

halloween '15

mes amis and i dressed up as bank robbers for halloween. or rather, we tried to. we ended up looking like a mere sextet wearing matching striped shirts. we were missing those scary ski-masks that bank robbers of the cinema wear in action, as well as actual bags of money. but hey, we tried.

it was my last halloween with these idiots – it feels like a routine now, checking off everything one by one off this list of last things i will do for a long, long time.

i keep thinking how this time next year, everything will be different: for the first time in 10 years, i will be in a different country when school starts, surrounded by people i have never met, living by myself (and having to feed myself, eek!), and going through an entirely new routine. no more waking up at 6:15 am every weekday to shower and eat and get on the bus at 7:30 to head to school. no more eating questionable cafeteria meals with my friends at 13:05 every monday-friday. no more returning home to my parents and relating to them everything that happened that day in school, significant or not. this is scary. so scary. i'm excited at the change that will happen, but also scared.

i hope this fear goes away soon.

over and out,

alexius.

hat-shit crazy

lately i have been nursing an unhealthy obsession with headgear.

i tend to have strange, fleeting obsessions, and sometimes they last for weeks, sometimes they last for days. this headwear fixation has been fully fledged for a month now and i am curious to see how much longer it can last.

here are some hats that i am really liking:

soft loafer cap

cherry + strawberry pink cap

niles cap

fishing cap

i've begun to realise how random this blog is becoming. i dedicated a post to japanese cars and now i've created an entire post about hats. this space is turning into such an accurate portrayal of the inner workings of my mind.

over and out,

alexius.

big bang - made world tour

on july 24 i saw big bang live in kuala lumpur and it was a beautiful night.

i have been waiting for a really long time (3 years) to see them in concert and i've always missed it because if they were going to china, i wouldn't be in the country, and it was the same with if they were in malaysia. but when i found out that i'd be in malaysia at the same time as them i freaked out and just had to buy tickets (much to the sadness of my dad and his wallet).

i watched it alone, so it was a different experience from the three previous concerts i've attended before with my friends. yet it wasn't just the fact that i was by myself that made it a different experience - big bang's stage presence is unlike any other. i love how they alter their songs to make it different from the original, track version. i love how colourful their set is. i love their energy, the vibe they give off. it's indescribable.

daesung is adorable.

the section where i was seated was actually pretty decent, and i'm really happy with how my photos turned out. but when they would come over by the side-stage-thing, the people in  the first row of my section were the luckiest, as they were on the same level as the band memebers and could make eye contact with them (!!!)

after the concert the taxis started charging us (parents + i) crazy prices for a not-so-long ride home, and a girl and a guy who were together approached us, asking if we wanted to split a cab. naturally, we said yes as we were desperate to escape the liverpool crowds (there was a liverpool game happening in the arena just beside us). the girl was in the rock zone during the concert, and were crazy close to big bang, and she airdropped me a whole bunch of g-dragon photos (because we both love him very much). we fangirled over the concert and the band and had some pretty interesting conversations and it was really nice to be able to bond with a stranger over a mutual love for five korean guys.

  

it was the best night of my life. and i'm not exaggerating when i say that.

over and out,

alexius.

also, i apologise profusely for that horrendous, lopsided layout above. i'm a nightmare with html (meaning: i don't understand jack about it) and i do not know how to solve this problem so bear with me.