my sanctuary…

A Somewhat Shocking Revelation.

I really should be sleeping. Why am I not letting myself sleep??? >.<

Had a good chat with my cousin over Skype a while ago for more than 2 hours. =P

Among the things I found out from her was the fact that one of our close relatives is actually gay (“gay” actually sounds a little derogatory to me, but I can’t for the life of me find a better sounding word >.<).

Wow.

I thought I heard her wrong when she mentioned “…his boyfriend…”.

I only realized the stark reality when she said that grandmother asked her dad to persuade the relative to not to continue with the relationship anymore.

I had never in my life pondered about knowing anyone who’s homosexual, or even being near anyone who is. Much less a close relative. It just didn’t cross my mind before.

Well, I don’t really have anything against gays or lesbians, although I must say that it is indeed against my religion. In this part of the world, no, in my world, they only existed in news and articles before. All of a sudden, boom… Reality never fails to surprise.

I wasn’t actually too shocked, frankly speaking. I think it’s largely due to the fact that I’ve only met him once in my whole life so far, thus the connection’s practically not there at all. And given the fact that he’s been living in a modern and developed city for so long where people are more open-minded, I guess that it’s just as well that he accepted himself as he is without that much scrutiny from the people around him, compared to the people in this part of the world who are still pretty much conservative in some ways.

Had he been here all this while, I wouldn’t even want to imagine the kind of socially and personally inflicted stress that he would have to endure, especially if he’s not strong enough…

I’m glad that grandmother didn’t disown him or anything, though I do wonder how did she feel when she first knew…

Being who I am and what I believe in, however, there’s a tiny hope in me that wished he was heterosexual though, that he’d had found in himself that he’s not gay after all. That’s one for wishful thinking, but still, there’s no harm to hope.

Perhaps I’ll pay them a visit someday.

Little Sweet Surprises In Life.

Finally back after more than half an hour. Yeah, it was a frail attempt indeed. But I shall not give up!

Sweet Surprise #1

Got back in touch with my uncle’s family through MSN last night (all of them living in New Zealand for more than 20 years now), my cousin asked my youngest sister for my and the rest of my siblings’ MSN contacts. The last time I saw them, especially my aunt and two adorable cousins now all grown up, was more than 10 years ago! My cousins were just kiddos then… And now they’re actually in their 20s!

I feel so ancient… >.<

Anyway, we chatted via video call on MSN. My uncle and aunt still looked pretty much the same, perhaps a wee bit older and also rounder, haha, but my cousins, my, they’ve really grown! And I thanked my lucky stars that something was wrong with the connection between my laptop’s webcam and MSN which disabled the webcam from functioning on MSN. I could see them, but they couldn’t see me! *big grin*

Sigh, avoid as much as I may, I better fix myself up before anyone who hasn’t seen me for a long time sees me again in my current state. Nothing serious actually, just that sleep deprivation, unhealthy diet and some other not-so-bad-but-not-so-good-either habits has taken a toll on my body, giving me a pale and older-than-my-age look almost all the time. *big sigh*

That aside, I was really elated even though there were some lapses when we didn’t really know what to talk about =P I look forward to more exchanges with them and hope to visit them one day too. =)

And I hope that doesn’t remain a hope only too. *cross fingers*

Sweet Surprise #2

Two petite middle-aged ladies made room for me in the electric train when I was on my way home from work. I had just managed to get right in front of one of the seemingly full train’s doors when I stopped in my tracks after deciding not to squeeze into the train after all (the trains can get really full before and after working hours, sometimes with people squeezing in desperately for a spot that might not even fit them, sigh… can’t really blame them when trains do not arrive promptly even during peak hours, sigh…), ready to wait for the next train when the two ladies shifted and gently prompted me to get in anyhow.

I was really touched. Honest. You don’t get much of that often around here.

And I did got in, haha, laptop and all. Well, it wasn’t really that full. *big grin*

And… I somewhat felt ashamed of myself. I would usually silently, uh, scold those who squeeze in, regardless there were still room or not. I don’t particularly recall stepping aside like what the ladies did for me.

Hmmm… Maybe I did too. On the good days. =P

8 More Minutes..

..and I’ll be off to wash the cup, brush my teeth, wash the clothes and take a shower.

I’ll be back in another half an hour after that to do another update.

And I’m done for now. Only 6 more minutes to laze around. This is a rather frail attempt to instil punctuality in me.

3. Can’t believe it took me 3 minutes to come up with that sentence!

I’m outta here!

The Bucket List.

Almost ended up with The Budget List as the title. Talk about frugality. >.<

A movie I came across in JoMel’s blog. I’m not too good with summaries… Well, in conclusion, it’s a movie about two dying men fulfilling their last wishes.

It’s not as awful as I made it sound. Honest.

In fact, I loved it. I laughed and cried with it. The sarcastic and witty exchanges captured my heart so much that I laughed out loud, as did the underlying message of the movie manage to squeeze the tears out of me.

Okay, I wasn’t exactly hysterical or sobbing, but I really loved the movie. =)

One question that struck out to me, the very question that compelled me to blog about this movie right after I watched it… Given the choice, would I want to know the very time and day, or even just the very month or year, that I would die?

No.

Ask me the same question few years back, I’d have offered a totally different reply.

Guess I’m just scared that the fear of death would rob me of the joy of living (not that I’m a joyous person by nature, but still…) if I were to know. I do realize that there’s actually nothing to fear about death anyway anyhow, after all, it’s something everyone faces eventually, young or old. But somehow, I can’t really deny that I fear it.

I used to think that I could deal with death anytime, the what’s-the-big-deal kind of attitude. Nothing significant happened to change my thinking (at least none that I could recall of…), except the fact that I sort of slowly grew up. It’s a byproduct of growing older for me, I guess.

Or perhaps it’s just a matter of refusing to know too much. As the saying goes, ignorance is, well, bliss. So to speak.

Maybe I’ll change my mind again. *shrug*

— — — — — — — — —

I’m staring at the computer clock ticking away, yet I’m still here typing away. This is going to hurt so much when I wake up 4 1/2 hours later for mass. I am so going to fall asleep during mass again. @.@

But I’m still getting myself a watch.

On A Lazy Saturday Afternoon…

I always run out of things to blog when I’m right in front of this clean Edit Post page. *left hand holding chin, right hand drumming fingers on the keyboard*

It’s a beautiful Saturday afternoon. Here I am, all alone in the house, savouring all the peace this quietness has to offer. It’s a great feeling, this feeling of being all with myself at home.

In a few hours the skies would darken. In fact, it already has, with the sun hiding behind hovering grey clouds. A gentle breeze is blowing outside, tree branches swaying in accordance with the wind’s soft touch.

It’s a whole different feeling all together, the day bathed in sunlight, and the night hidden from its rays. One gives the feeling of hope, where time seems to stretch into oblivion, as if there’s time for everything; the other signals an ending, where the day seems to end one second too soon, and it’s time to tidy up, rest and be prepared to face another day.

It is on afternoons like this that I tend to sit quietly in my chair and watch some movies or dramas, or just do nothing. Of which I would regret later for not using the time to tie off loads of loose ends, i.e. work, personal matters, plans, etc… Oh well, I’m learning to take it one at a time while crossing my fingers and telling myself that it’s a good thing. >.<

There are a lot of things on my mind. There always have been, after all, I’m the type that thinks too much for my own good. For anyone’s good, for that matter. >.< I'm tempted to blog them all out right here and now.

*struck by the blue screen of death*

I hate Windows Vista.

I also hate Internet Explorer 7. Never bothers to automatically save my opened tabs for me. #@!&#$^&@!!!

— — — — — — — — —

It’s a sign. *dramatic background music*

— — — — — — — — —

I want to get myself a watch.

Lazy Bum-Bum.

Am rather sleepy.

True to the title of the blog, I haven’t updated this blog since its grand inception five days ago.

I am truly sorry and ashamed. Of myself.

I am. (!)

Nothing much happened, and I didn’t quite make anything happen too, of course. Well, you can’t really expect much from a lazy bum, can you?

Hmmm, maybe there would be times when you actually can…

Anyhow, if only I was slightly not so lazy, I would have updated this blog at least twice for the past few days.

Honest. But since I didn’t, there’s not much to say. Of course I can always back date the posts… But… L-A-Z-Y.

Whoa, just found out something utterly surprising. But it’s a secret, so if I am to blog about it, it will be a private blog entry anyhow. Duh.

… … … … … … … … …

Maybe I can draft it into something public somehow.

My thoughts have been rather jumbled up lately, I am having quite a hard time organizing myself actually, both my thoughts and my actions. Sigh, same old problem of bad organizational skills. Hope reading Daniel Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence helps. Somehow.

Another New Beginning.

Few weeks into subscribing a webhost service for myself, I had the slightest regret. If I were to suddenly drop down and die a famous blogger from this website, who on earth would bother to continue to renew my subscription so that my website would continue to be accessible? Even so, how would my blog continue to be profitable if I’m no longer updating it? I feel the need to make it up to my beneficiary, webhost service ain’t cheap to begin with… If there wasn’t a 52% discount, I would’ve procrastinated for a while more…

What a morbid way to begin a blog’s first post.

Okay, so it’s September 9, 2009, or better known as 09/09/09, the perfect and absolutely memorable date to do something, to start something. And it has the fortunate honour of having yours truly launch a blog on this very day!

Yay.

Yeah, it’s another new beginning for me, which is not quite surprising because I’ve had tons of new beginnings. I have this itsy-bitsy problem of persevering, of continuing the effort once I’ve started something… Well, alright, it’s a serious problem for me. Therefore, if I’m still updating this website, this very blog, diligently even after half a year, I’d be owing myself an extremely big favour.

I don’t have a clear direction for this website or blog yet. For the moment, my only intention is to earn extra money from blogging. *big grin*

As such, I’ve totally run out of things to write. Which is also an excuse for me to pen off now because I’m too lazy to think of anything solid to write about…

Whatever. Good night.