Healing

The weather recently has been unbearably hot and fiery, but this being Malaysia - the dry spell's occasionally broken by a crazy downpour at the most inopportune times.

There's a traditional Chinese believe that rain on a hot day is a sure-fire way to fall sick, and I've fallen casualty to it.

Nursing a cold during one of the busiest periods at work is no fun.

Words don't flow as smoothly, I'm sensitive and cranky, my judgement's impaired, and the usual gung-ho attitude I have to assignments - near back-to-back loans, interviews, events, photo shoots and all - has taken a beating.

Truth be told I'm exhausted and starved of inspiration.

So as usual when I desperately need my own version of chicken soup for the soul (blatant motivational and self-help mumbo jumbo irritate the hell out of me), I've turned to Owl City for healing.

Super Honeymoon // Owl City

West Coast Friendship // Owl City
Works all the time; don't know what I would do without.

OC's almost my religion.

Musings

Melina Marchetta's Jellicoe Road has been my bible of late, as Jonah Griggs reminds me very much of a certain someone I know.

In a way, you could say I've been drawing comfort and strength from how familiar Jellicoe Road has become over repeated readings.

Almost like the close friend you no longer keep secrets from - except I can't really confide to mine because I've just come to truly appreciate the brevity of "it's complicated".

I'm both terrified and happy. Anxious - when am I ever not besieged by some form of anxiety anyway? - yet content.

It's a strange but euphoric medley of emotions, which I'll be cradling close to me for as long as I can.

Please don't wake me up just yet if I'm dreaming.

Diane Young

Diane Young // Vampire Weekend
Don't you think Diane Young channels Peggy Sue? The vibe's definitely a lot more contemporary but stylistically, (I'm convinced) Vampire Weekend borrowed a page from Buddy Holly.

Which is rather ironic as Diane Young's a very clever camouflage for 'dying young'. Mmhmm.

Or is it all merely in my head?

Peggy Sue//Buddy Holly

Vices & Virtues

Sometimes when the going gets tough and it feels as though life passed me the shorter straw, my mantra's: "good things come to those who wait."

It's true. Just that waiting sucks too.

But patience, my young padawan. Patience... Alas, a virtue I don't always have.

I know, however, that I'll never need designer togs and totes to feel happy. Now, you wouldn't hear me complaining if they were to fall into my lap under legit circumstances, but honestly I don't think I could justify spending (very) good money on unnecessary luxuries.

Being practical is a virtue I have too much of.

Except when it comes to salon maintenance of my hair.

Catch-22

I have this tendency of setting the bar very high for myself. The problem with being so single-minded and goal-driven is the very real danger of developing tunnel vision, the symptoms of which I'm now wiser at recognizing as a warning bell of worst to come should they be allowed to fester.

Sometimes I find myself so terrified at falling short of expectations, real or perceived, that I freeze up and allow myself to be consumed by the black tendrils of doubt. There are times too when I mercilessly dawdle on past episodes and pick on my naivete and lack of finesse till I'm black and blue within.

Someone once said to me, "You're quick to make excuses for others and overlook their shortcomings, but you're so hard on yourself." Maybe. I stopped blogging for a bit and quietly removed all links leading here from Facebook and Twitter one evening after re-reading my previous posts.

To say I was appalled at some of the typos and grammatical errors I had made would be an understatement. What's more, I felt many of my posts had no real value to anyone else but me, as a chronicle of my (oft painfully awkward) journey growing up.

Writing isn't just my passion and therapy - it's my bread and butter. Editorial work for a magazine, which pays my bills and keeps me from being a starving wordsmith, feels very much like a dream job at the moment. So perhaps you're able to imagine my terror at someone googling my name, finding this blog, and using it to judge my skill as a writer.

I love the joy in stringing words together and making sense of them as a whole, but I do have to work hard at it. I'm doing it professionally 5 days a week for most of the day, that when I get home and blog I just want to express a certain thought or feeling without overthinking it. I do very little self-editing here and most of what I choose to publish is done at the spur of the moment. My inner critic squirmed nevertheless and I promptly pulled the plug.

But I miss blogging on the fly and sharing random bits and bobs I come across on my exploratory tracks through the net. We'll see how this goes.

Weekend Playlist

Don't Kick The Chair // Dia Frampton Everything's gonna get better :)
  Buddy Holly // Weezer Happy Days. Weezer. 'Nuff said.
Top Girl // G.NA Perfect for getting in the mood... to dance, haha.
Closer // Tegan and Sara Another reason to love NYLON. Discovered them from within those glossy pages.

Girl Saves Boy

Book blurb here: http://www.stephbowe.com/p/girl-saves-boy.html

Steph Bowe's earned a solid place in my list of authors whose works I'll pick up in a heart beat, no questions asked. Girl Saves Boy is that good, and perhaps even more. I wish I'd written it in my teens (Steph was 16 when the book was published), but I would have certainly lacked the skill and maturity to produce something of this calibre.

Often, after reading a brilliantly constructed, incredibly breathtaking passage, I'd pause in wonder - not just at Steph's age, but for the fact that many older authors I've read aren't half as elegant. And Steph hits the nail on the head too with many of her observations on society, living, and life at large. Her's is the sort of talent many authors twice her age would kill to have.

I could even overlook the insta-love bits, which to me seemed a lot less contrived upon taking into consideration Sacha and Jewel's devastating circumstances. When two people who have been through so many personal tragedies meet at the hands of fate, you don't really have to scrutinize too hard or question too much the whys and hows; they just become. In a way that somehow, strangely, feels right.

 For a meatier (and more coherent) review, Shirley Marr has written a fantastic one here, which pretty much echoes what I think of the book anyway.