I'm pretty sure I'm upset. I can't write elegantly, or maintain any frame of thought for very long. I think I almost cried a moment ago. I'd say I hate it...except I don't have the energy. So I'm just going to ramble here. Wait a while longer for a more intelligent post.

I just had a dinner date. Earlier today I was as happy as I had ever been. Hanging with my little dance crew, sucking down chocolate thickshakes in some absurdly expensive deli, looking forward eagerly to a dinner date. I love staring into a persongirl's eyes while we talk.

Gosh she really took the wind out of my sails. I can scarcely write but I know I have to save these thoughts somewhere before I lose them forever.

I saw her beautiful little workplace. Her beautiful little coworkers. I watched her give her perfect advice to her -boss- as we left the building.

Dammit I can feel something in my chest. Have to keep writing.

We walked to dinner, I wanted to eat at Shogun. My strength was waning. She said she'd eaten here before. Of course.

Why the hell did I say I thought she was perfect?

How many more girls do I have to fight and lose to before I win?

I wonder if she lied?

Fuck, I feel so weak. I can't write anymore.

Gosh emotions are fun. I've complained to my few close friends on a number of occasions about how few emotions I seem to feel...my spectrum of emotion is not so colourful. You probably have all kinds of colour in your spectrum. Like:

Purple: Creative
Pink: Fun and cute
Red: Anger/Passion
Yellow: Happiness
Green: Jealousy
Dark green: Fear
Blue: Sadness
Grey: Stoic, cold
Black: Sexy/Moody

I don't seem to get many of these...mostly Grey/Stoic with flashes of Yellow/Happiness and Red/Passion. Whenever I talk to other people, they seem to feel so much more.
Purple? Pfft, I'm a fiercely logical thinker, which is an enormous dampener of creativity.
Pink? Pfft, heterosexual men are not allowed to be cute.
Green? I don't get jealous. I either get Red/Angry and try to acquire this thing that I don't have, or I sit back and admire the Yellow/Happy splendour.
Dark Green? Hmm, I do feel this occasionally, but only when I look for it, which seems unintuitive since real fear is about the unknown and not being in control.
Blue? What makes people sad? What makes people feel anguish? Those are both genuine questions...I don't know the answer. I haven't shed a tear since 2000, when I was upset because I was forced to go to a school to learn vietnamese. I don't fully understand why I was crying then either.

Why don't I feel any of these fun emotions? I thought that it was because that I'm some kind of freak, who simply lacks these emotions. I read up and watched media with psychopaths like American Psycho, Dexter, Death Note, Silence of the Lambs and many others, hoping to find clues as to why I might be so odd. This was my personal quest for a couple of years, and I considered my quest completed some months ago.

Until yesterday.



A few days ago, I sat down to watch a spot of TV with a housemate. I don't know why I did - I usually find TV so terribly mind rotting. Ah, I remember - I had a friend over who was in the bathroom and I was waiting for her return. Anyway, my housemate pointed something out to me - a judge on the panel for a stand up comic competition had a resemblance to someone we both knew - Valentine's Day. I saw the resemblance right away - not just her appearance, but her mannerisms and energy - the things I'm most attracted to - they were all the same. I instantly realised how much I missed her, and arranged to meet up with her yesterday.

I may be giving her too much credit here, but I think women are diabolically clever in making us wait. It's an amplifier - it makes us that more excited to meet people we like, and also many times more hateful of people we don't. I waited somewhere around 25 minutes for her.

Then I finally saw her. Well, she saw me. She always reacts the same way - she sees me at a distance, and runs up to me with her tiny statured steps and hugs me. Every time. There's something safe and comfortable about people with unique habits. I'd blog about that if I wasn't late for a dance meet right now.

Then there's the way she treats me. I've blogged about how much I dislike extroverts before. Another reason is that many extroverts I have met are incredibly weak people - that is, they seem to cower and "walk on eggshells" around me. I've been told that Valentine's Day can be incredibly insecure, but that was not the impression I got from her yesterday. She was bold, bolder than my male kung fu students who fear me greatly, she challenged me! She challenged my worth and such as a person and I buckled. I went home yesterday feeling a strange kind of emotion. Like anger, but without hatred. It lasted an hour or so - I tried to prolong it with music. It faded, and I then felt something a little more familiar...I'm crazy about her. What is more maddening is that I know she doesn't feel the same.

She makes me feel things I don't normally feel. It's occurred to me that I'm probably not a freak who lacks emotions at all - I probably just lack the exciting stimulus.

It was a good day. :]

Extroverts - people who grow sad when left alone.
Introverts - people who are happy and content in their solitude.

I'm an introvert. A real one. I notice that extroverts love hopping on bandwagons - if at a party, someone says they like something, EVERYONE likes that. If I say I'm an introvert, suddenly everyone is an introvert. Uh huh. This is potentially good, and bad. Good, in that people tend to feel happier when they find people that are like them. Bad, for people like me, because we can see right through the transparency, and feel more alone. We also less special because everyone claims to have what we have, and our uniqueness is what we often take the most pride in.

Not only that, but extroverts believe there is something sad about introverts - that we need to be "fixed." People think that by meeting many people, you can take and share a lot with them and make yourself a richer person than otherwise. I would never choose this kind of life. The life of an introvert is one of unique niches that no one else can do better. By being an extrovert, you become assimilated into a collective. In some way, you resemble your peers. An introvert resembles no one.

I studied martial art once. To some extent, I resembled my peers, shaped by them and my instructors. I saw something wrong with the way of martial art, and I left. I now teach a small class of my own. I shape myself to teach what I wanted, so I resemble no one. I offer something unique and valuable.

I played a game called DotA once. To some extent, I resembled my peers. I picked up the lingo, the attitude, the religious fervor for becoming a stronger player. I saw something wrong with this, and left to teach DotA on my own. I shaped myself to become a teacher I wanted to be. I resemble no one. People flocked from around the world to learn from me. I offered something unique and valuable.

Only in introversion can you create unique value. This is why I'm an introvert, and will never, ever, "fix" myself by becoming extroverted.

But, that said, get a load of this:
"women do twice as much housework as men on average. Mums do an average of five times as much with their children as dads."

I do at LEAST four times as much housework as both of my housemates combined. I put the real number at about 6 times as much. You are probably thinking "that's garbage, sif you do that much." Well, when you do the dishes, take out the trash, and clean ALL the time, you will ALWAYS notice when you don't have to do it.

Imagine working 7 days a week. Or going to school 7 days a week. Doing something, anything, 7 days a week.

Then imagine that on the seventh day, that you don't have to work because it has been done for you. You can relax.

You would fucking notice. And I did too. I -do- notice when work is done without me. I do four to six times, perhaps more, housework as my housemates and I fucking know it. I fucking know it because the kitchen cannot withstand a half hour of their presence without getting messed up again.

I am suffering some sleep deprivation. Last night I stayed up doing some fucking dishes and cleaning the kitchen because it was a fucking PIG STY. I cancelled on going to dance classes tonight, and I'll have to cancel on performing in 3 weeks time as a result - to catch up on sleep. I woke a few hours ago to see the kitchen messed up again. For. Fucks. Sake. I then see them blissfully relaxing in front of their computer, my computer, enjoying their free time. Blissful ignorance of any work that should be done.

I left the kitchen. I clean it anyway because cleaning is what I do, but I don't do a perfect job. I'll save the perfect job for my own bedroom which won't get spoiled as long as I keep the door closed. There's only two creatures in this world I let in there - my friend Alix and the housecat Vala. More on them some other time.

I signed on to MSN. With hardly any wait, I get a message. It's from my bestie, Babs, down in Melbourne. All anger disappears. It's like I've been this giddy and happy all day.

I sign on to facebook. One of my crushes is online. I asked her if she'd like to check out the local dining - I figure she'd surely like something more interesting than Subway now and again. She said yes :]



I desperately need my own space, my sacred time -alone-. My time to shape my own being. And I need people. Just enough to keep my demeanour bright and shiny.

I feel like I'm at quite a turning point in my life now. It doesn't seem like all that long ago that I'd go to school, stomp my homework into oblivion then spend endless hours playing Ragnarok Online and Counter Strike. Now though, I can't stomp my commitments into oblivion. A commitment takes days, weeks, months...serious decisions have to be made about what commitments I can and should take on.

I seriously considered quitting martial art again. I had quit once before in 2007 disappointing many people in the process. The decision then was so easy, I only practiced seriously because of the playfights I got into with my friends at the time, which I always lost. We grew up, grew apart, and without them, why bother comtinuing? But now, 2010, with two students of my own, the decision was not quite so simple. I talked about this last night with my only female student Alix. It was clear to me that the mental debates I was having with myself were too complicated for her, so I stopped for a moment, listened only to her problems, her goals. She had struggled to find physical disciplines that would stick to her in the past, but she was finally sticking to martial art with me because of my teaching method. I thought for a moment - if she continues training with me, she still won't achieve her fitness goals. My training does not build muscle or kill much fat - it builds technique and a fiery demeanor.

Then it occurred to me. I wanted to quit martial art because I was not getting enough out of it compared to dance. But, I can easily change the martial arts training to better suit Alix and her needs...I could just as easily change the training to give myself more value as well. There's no need for me to give so much that I bleed myself dry - I can grow in these sessions as well.

I'll remain Kung Fu Hung-Su, for now. :]

Then there's other people. I'm told that my mother's been terribly upset with both the men out of the house; my father's run off to another city and I've moved out of home. My autistic brother is chaotic and uncontrollable, and my sister can't seem to offer any comfort - she tells me that sometimes mother would call out my name, and be disappointed to see my sister at the door instead. So, I am required by moral law to do something about the situation. It's so strange. I feel an enormous need to help people - I teach for free, do a great deal of 'professional' work and chores for free, but feel no need to help my blood family. I don't know why I am this way, and for now, am not about to dive into why.

Then there are people who I do care about. Today was the day I'd finally see Valentine's Day again. Almost 3 months since we had last really spoken. Drawn out so long, I somehow felt no excitement when I woke that morning...then I got a message from her asking if I was still coming to see her - somehow, everything streamed back :] I imagined her sweet smiling face, her little voice, her tiny stature, her big beautiful mind, I was excited, wondered what I would wear, how I would do my hair, all these needless details you'd wonder if she'd even notice.

I can't remember if I have ever been somewhere last. For as long as I can remember, I always find myself waiting for other people to show up. I remember cursing my poor vision as I tried scanning the crowd for her face, then seeing her standing on top of a flight of stairs, in her little skirt, leggings and fluffy scarf...it's so strange. There was a time when I would have sprinted up the stairs, picked her up and swung her about, but I felt reserved. I remember after I kissed her that night so long ago, that I had to find a way to not love her too much - I think I succeeded.

I certainly enjoyed my time with her :] I wasn't even all that bothered by how hard she was to read, I only enjoyed her wit and her marvelous energy. I find it a wonderful coincidence that her name sounds like the word for "fireworks" in another language...she really is like a firecracker. Little and innocuous, it makes wonderful explosion when given a tiny little igniting spark. Just the same, she is little and innocent, but with something as little as me hitting the dance floor, she screams with delight, something I will never tire of. I, love her company. I love her long stares into my eyes, I love her love and concern for my madness, I love teasing her endlessly about everything, I love our mutual taste in movies, I love her design flair, I love her need to produce as well as consume life, I love that she's as utterly bizarre as I am, I love her incredible awareness of every detail about me, I love the person I become when I'm with her.

Why the hell am I considering dating someone else?

In the past 24 hours I've had a lot of rest and a lot of pain.

• I taught my first hip hop class as mentioned in the last post - I've had some feedback from the students; people were really happy with my teaching style and would love to see more :]
• Spent another hour rehearsing for a performance, making friends with some really bright, funny energetic dancers ^^
  
• I've had 3 martial arts training sessions, with two guys and one girl, total of about four and a half hours of training
  
• watched Iron Man 2 in Dendy Premium with a delicious chocolate platter and trio of dips
• and watched How to Train your Dragon in 3D.

All fantastic, a very eventful 24 hours :D

And also, a mysterious call at 1am this morning. My sister crying. My older brother smashed her laptop in a rage and she has an assignment due on Monday. Drama drama.

Now for my own mini dilemma. Check out that bruise there. Vicious right? Can't really tell, but it's about the size of a big tablespoon of strawberry jam. My second student, Alix did that to me today - I told her to use two different types of kick on my shoulders. This bruise is on my left shoulder, from her right leg. But that's not important.

What happened next is important. Alix has been having trouble placing pressure on opponents - this is important as a fighter. So I told her to simply beat me aruond the head and body, and I would not defend myself at first, but would slowly start to fight back, and she would have to maintain the same level of pressure on me even as I resisted. In hindsight, this was far too much of a psychological burden on her, but that is what hindsight is. After doing this twice, she was exhausted physically and emotionally, she was in tears. It didn't occur to me that this would be so difficult - my other student had taken to this very quickly, but he is male and also a rugby player who is OK with dispensing pain.

I discussed this a short time ago with a friend before watching How to train your dragon. He suggested that we just move to pads to ease the burden of punching a friend. His wife suggested we just go to the gym.

I had another thought - I could just teach her dance instead. Plus gym maybe. It may be time for me to quit martial art for good.

Martial art has a number of useful upsides though. The physical strain is enormous - only breakdance, acrobatics and gymnastics match it for intensity in my opinion. The emotional strain is enormous - I can't think of any skill that is taxing in the same way - to win fights, you have to be INTENSE and full of fire! A lazy fighter who doesn't care will always lose. If you learn to fight with fire, you can learn to dance with fire, design with fire, many things!

But, I already know this stuff. Don't need to learn again. So, my next problem is breaking the news of my "resignation" to everyone, and also figuring out how to teach people to dance with fire. Stay tuned :]

Why the heck is nothing getting done? This is how much I have on my plate right now.

IT. The career path I spent so many years earning a degree in. The work I do keeps calling me, though the pay is peanuts.

Design. The career path I want to chase, leaving IT mostly behind. I have a a bunch of design jobs on right now - a logo for a photography studio, the dance club website, a Dragonball Z game website and a logo to represent myself. As non designers you may not understand how much time is required to complete a design of any kind - believe me, like any artwork or work of passion, it's never really finished, only abandoned.

Dance. I've been dancing in bits and pieces since early 2008, since age 21. I'm 23 now, and have helped start a dance club at a university of academics, with no love for dance, where there was no dance scene before.

Let me just stress how hard this is. Yes, this is a university, which is full of older teenies and twenty-somethings. But these are all smart kids, academics. Many have never taken formal dance lessons, never mind something as carefree and creative as hip hop. This university had virtually no dance scene or love for dance at all.

It's early 2010 now, and the dance club is now blossoming into something enormous. People are showing a love for dance now, but to keep up with this demand, I will have to learn/choreograph a new routine for these peeps until I decide I no longer love dance. Which, probably won't happen. I also have to practice for a performance in two weeks time. No one will rise to a leadership position, so that leaves me. This means I have to learn more than anyone else. Also as leader, I have the "privilege" of being the star of the show with a 20 second solo. As a true introvert I'm not sure if I want the attention.

Martial Art. The hobby I abandoned in 2007 because I wanted to pursue dance will not leave me alone. I have a protege, who is strong enough and skilled enough to defeat me, but will not do so. I want him to hurry up and beat me, so he'll feel compelled to move to a stronger teacher, but I think he fears he will not be able to find another. In addition, word spreading of my (limited) talents keeps attracting new potential students, and I'm having trouble saying no to them. I have to seriously consider quitting martial art for good (again), if I'm to ever achieve anything.

Driving. Or lack thereof. I have 5 months to go from a learner driver to provisional, or one who can drive without supervision.

Busy. Busy. Busy.

It's been just over two weeks since I've moved out now...it's about 11km away from my old home, and it's interesting to see how different things are! My old home was next to a little Chinatown, and for me, it was really perfect! (I'm completely asian in case you've all forgotten!) My new home...is in bogan central. I was at a carnival yesterday, and I've lost count of the long stares and gawks of the locals. Not sure if it's because of how I look, or my ethnicity! Yes, there is a difference. :]

As for my place of residence itself...someone once told me that home is where the heart is. This place has a while to go. I am -real- worried that I'm going to be doing all the dishes for the rest of my time here. I recall one time when I had visited, there was two weeks worth of dish-washing sitting in the kitchen that remained undone. These two -really- hate doing chores. I'll have to talk to my housemates about this soon. I'm also rather concerned about hung up they are about money. We grabbed groceries today and the guy was a little concerned that he still owed me $1.35 for the milk…it's no big deal. =T What I'm more worried about though, is what would happen if they ever get anything for me? Would they string me up about it all the time? For now I've made it a point to never ever ask for anything when they go for grocery runs.

And, mess. In case you guys don't know already, I love clean spaces. I'll give you guys a preview of my room.I LOVE clean space! I've made it a personal point to only clean my own space, plus the bathroom, and kitchen when I have time. I can't clean fast enough for 3 people, but I can for myself plus a little bit more. Hopefully over a long time I'll be able to make a difference, and hopefully some of my habits rub off onto my housemates.

And get a load of these two.

Innocent looking. Both independent, and I don't have any allergies to them. Vala is very sweet, and brings me treasures from the garden, like leaves and crickets! I even tried talking to her once.
Me: You're not much for conversation are you?
Vala: Meowww!!!
Me: Haha ok, sorry!

But Kisa...she pees on my stuff! I have to close the door to my room before I go to work each morning, else I can expect to have some rather aromatic laundry. >:O

Besides having to do the dishes a lot, cleaning more than I'm used to and remaining vigilant of urinating felines, the place isn't so bad. Speaking of my room, that's the one upside I have to living here from my old place.

This is my little room. It's red! :D I'll get some red linen to match the room as well. This will be the most asian room ever :D

The home of everything I love. Very very asian DVDs (just need some more Police Story and Bruce Lee :D) On the left is some soap I got from Melbourne...I left it there cos it smells nice :D That thing on the right is my uni degree...haven't decided where I'll hang it yet.

Wanna buy a nice rack for all these CDs :D Look how asian it is :D

Still some stuff I have to find a place for. Nearly done though!

I like to sit and listen to music right here. :3

My most frequently worn shoes, kept in easy reach :]

My overflowing wardrobe. Still want a lot more =T One day, I'll live somewhere with a walk in wardrobe. :D

That and my housemates have decent taste in TV and movies. I watched Daybreakers, a wicked and bloody vampire flick the other day with the Dude; oh, I have two housemates, a guy and a girl. Let's call them Dude and Girly :] And with Girly, I've been watching Glee, Skins, and Project Runway. Project Runway has been interesting...it's a TV show about runway fashion design, but oddly I've been hearing lots of concepts in the show that I want to take to web design. I might even make a post to show how that's going in the future, stay tuned!

So. I went out for a friend's 23rd birthday party Saturday night. Sunday morning. Whatever. It ended with me taking abuse from a stupid leather skinned creature with blood of ethanol. You may know them as "bogan bitches". About 5 minutes later I was thinking of all the witty lines I would have liked to throw back at her, but of course that's too slow. Like a hermaphrodite snail. The french call this problem "L'esprit d'escalier".

I'm no party animal. I'm a social introvert, I'm about to graduate from a Software Development major, the majority of my life I lived as a VietCatholic of imposed rules of purity. Teachers loved me, kids went to me for homework answers, y'know. I'm an Asian Geek. For others, when they are invited to go out, they think "yeah! Sounds fun, see you there!" For me, I perceive it as almost an experiment, a chance to observe social interactions, a test of the adequacy of my so called social skills.

I'm not horrifically socially inept, as I found. Just a little uneducated when it comes to the laws of clubbing, as they apply to me. For one, in a club full of beautiful people, unless they talk to me first, don't bother! Shoulda known that from watching 10 Things I Hate About You. Ah, that movie has so much wisdom.

Seriously though, it bothers me a little how the rules of social interaction, completely change when you add night, music and alcohol.
It bothers me a little that if I start feeling up a girl without an invitation she'll just laugh and give me drinks, but if I start talking to get to know her she dances with someone else.
It bothers me a little that if a girl traces her fingernails all over me, runs her hands through my hair, feels my pecs, scratches my abs, etc, etc, that it's not actually sexual. It's just like saying hi I suppose?!

It doesn't bother me in the sense that I'm upset. It bothers me in the sense that I wish I had learnt more of this earlier. Gotta think about going clubbing some more I guess!