keep on plodding

Sorry, no intelligent post today, just me being shiny :] Took a day off work to chill out at uni and take some souvenir photos. Treated myself to chocolate cake with cold milk, best!! Also, observe - the cutest little tree ever! :]

Also, the uni has a cute population of crimson rosellas :] But, even cuter than the rosellas...

Amanda has the pink bottle. Alison has the happy face. Both cuties :] Both dancers. Both sweeties. And...single. hahaha.

Wasn't all sunshine and roses at this meeting though. I dunno about you guys, but when you -finish- something, you don't like it when it changes. If you finish washing the dishes, you don't want to come back in an hour to see a new pile of dishes that's just as big as the old one. If you finish cleaning a guest room to impress your visitors, you don't want to see it defiled with detritus, debris and other suitably messy sounding "de-" words!
In this case...I had designed a logo for the club. It had gone through 3 revisions and had so much tohught put in:
It was gender neutral - we welcome all dancers.
It works when it is very very small, like a business card, but also very very large, like a banner.
Someone who's never seen it before can take a good guess at what we're about :]
Look.We got some new hothead designer, who proudly proclaimed he was so good at photoshop and would be a great replacement for me. Judgment day came for him to reveal designs for a business card, and his -best- design...was my logo, copy pasted three times then squashed down 50% in height. You think you're better than me but this is all you can do are you kidding??? This makes me so mad!!! >:O

Spent a few hours at a local museum and gallery I had never visited before, I took about 250 photos there! Not only that, I must have looked very unusual with my big expensive looking camera, while wearing a muddy and sweaty black muscle top! Observe my reflection below...

I really love this photo. My reflection on the left mainly...it's quite faint, but if you look hard, I obviously look fit but the way I'm holding the camera, I somehow look childish and diminuitive also. Perfect reflection of me. :]

This is Ben and Alix. Alix dropped me a message saying she had a present for me, so I had to come visit. This is us putting some origami together, just chillin' out. Alix just had her last day of work, after 5 years!! It's good to escape the pressure of...everything.

Here's one of the resultant origami :]

As for my present, well...I mentioned once to Alix that I wondered what I'd be like while high. After seeing my bright and energetic self while drunk, Alix decided she must see what I'm like after a few puffs, and had acquired a couple of joints! What I didn't really realise was that the first time you try these, you don't really feel much. I had a happy laughing fit for a minute, but that was all...until next time!

Now, for the juicy news.

After my time with Ben and Alix, the guys back home had started a guys day in to play Street Fighter, drink beer and be male. As fate would have it though, we didn't have a copy of street fighter, and one of the guys decided to run home to get his copy and I went with him. Of course, I forgot that the girls were having a girl's day there, and I ran into the girl I kissed on Valentine's day today - over a month since we'd last seen each other! I remembered that I'd promised her that things wouldn't be weird between us, so I tried to talk to her. I have an image burned into my head of the moment I hugged her and her head turning away...and it was awkward. Not to be dissuaded, I tried to talk to her again as she retreated and distracted herself with a shiny iPhone.

Weird and awkward.

The guy found Street Fighter and we left the house, though I was feeling pretty pissed off. The last thing I said to her was "we'll have to meet up sometime" or something to that effect...we all know that's code for "I'm never going to call you again." I decided on the way home that I'd do something with one of the new girls in the dance club.

I got home, and was damn glad to be hanging out with the fellas to play some street fighter. My housemate's girlfriend left us to do our thing and went to the girl's day and stuff...I thought nothing of it.

She got back a couple of hours later...I sure was surprised to hear what she had to say. Valentine's day girl had bursted out to her that she was completely shocked by my visit and didn't have a clue what to say. What didn't help was that I "looked so hot" and managed to blank her mind out. Valentine's day girl babbled to my friend that she was immensely confused, that she had a huge crush on me, I was an amazing kisser, I was so different from the arseholes she's used to dating etc...but she thought - get this - that she'd be taking something away from me by dating me...what?

What?

What???

I talked this over with a lot of people. People were quick to point out that she ditched me in the first place, and also that if she has these kinds of communication issues, is that a person I really want to be in a relationship with?

That was two weeks ago now. I haven't decided to do anything with her...but for the heck of it, I think I'll ask her to high tea soon. Hmm...it occurred to me that I wanted to do high tea to avoid the stereotype dinner date, but is high tea so much better? Hah...

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!

I've had this weird obsession to try and force myself to cry. Being a male, crying is rather difficult. The fact that I'm jacked on lots of testosterone from crazy gym sessions makes that substantially more difficult.

Playing this game didn't make me cry, but I did feel something kick in my chest a little. So much so that I went and replayed it a half dozen times, and expect to do so many times more. See if it does anything for you.

http://bentosmile.com/2010/03/01/new-game-air-pressure/

Things are rather messy right now. I'm moving house tomorrow, into a house of people I'm not sure if I really care that much about, and far, far, far away from my workplace and any place I enjoy, like the dance studio. I haven't heard from my first kissee since the day, and I'm beginning to wonder if there really is any shred of friendship left. My housemates expect me to throw a housewarming, but I really have no-one to invite. I'm not one for throwing parties anyway, it's not my style.

No, there's nothing intelligent about this post whatsoever. This might come as a surprise, but an intelligent post takes an -alarming- amount of effort to conceive. Probably won't see to many of those for a while...

Back to cleaning my messy life until it's bright and shiny again.

No beautiful writing or poetry here.

As magical and perfect the First kiss sounded, it was only the first half of the story.

She said a lot of things to me. Things like:

"I've been waiting for so long for this!"
"Do you realise how adorable our kids would be?"
"Do you have any idea how adorable you are right now?"

Soon after though, she told me that she was not "girlfriend" material.

Mixed messages like this can completely screw a regular guy's mind. For little me after my first kiss, she may as well have written the instructions for a suitable way to commit suicide as well.

The past 3 days have been an emotional rollercoaster of emotion for me. You might already know what this is like, but understand something; on a "normal" day, my emotions are only "grayscale", i am either emotionless, or "fake happy". You know, the "happy" you use when someone tells a joke and you've long since stopped caring. My emotions are normally gray. To suddenly experience a complete spectrum - from bubbling ecstasy, raging and completely illogical fury to teary depression in such a short time is taking a toll on me.

I don't know what I'll do next.

Fuck. Fuck this. Fuck it. Fuck it. Fuck it. Fuck it. Fuck it. Fuck it. Fuck it. Fuck it. Fuck it. Fuck it. Fuck it. Fuck it. Fuck it. Fuck it. Fuck it. Fuck it. Fuck it. Fuck it. Fuck it. Fuck it. Fuck it. Fuck it. Fuck it. How do you like being a doormat? omg I JUST LOVE IT BRING ON THE PAIN BRING IT

I've always been comfortable with girls. Think about the guys these days - so many of them get "approach anxiety" just thinking about talking to a pretty girl. But me...having been raised by two older sisters - no male influence - I never learned to be anxious.

But!

Having been exposed to girls for so much time, I never learned to take things further with them. It never occurs to me that a girl could be my girlfriend. To all the girls who liked or might have liked me, they all thought I didn't like them. Or that I was slow.



It took one heck of a strong girl to break me of this habit :] She invited me out, just the two of us, the night before valentine's day. She's been hinting at me to make a move for a LONG time, but like always, I never noticed.

This night, she clasped onto my arm like a little japanese schoolgirl, and asked me to be her pretend boyfriend. Nothing from me. She kept moving to places where it would be easy for me to cuddle her to bits. Nothing from me. We found our way to a dark corner where she wrapped herself around me and we stared into each other's eyes, foreheads touching. Still nothing from me. (do you guys think I'm lame yet?? xD) We went out to the dance floor, where she had to stop dancing, stay on the side and admire my dance skills. She could have easily found someone else to make out with - I've seen her do so before of course. Still nothing from me.

FINALLY, we went to the soft little corner again *suspense* Amidst everything else, she laughed and said to me "any other guy would have kissed me by now."

I snapped. I rolled her over, stared at her really close, and said:

Strength is the one virtue that makes all other virtues possible.

You may disagree, but listen to me first; what does "strength" even mean? We use this word in so many contexts - obvious ones such as the strength of a structure, the strength of a man's muscle - and less obvious ones, like the strength of a man's integrity, the strength of a man's skills.

There are probably many definitions of strength, but this one I've found, I like the best.

There is a wonderful board game called Go. While I was playing a game of Go, I noticed that I was spreading stones across the board faster than my opponent, who took his time to build a strong Dragon - a tight arrangement of stones that could not be destroyed. Eventually, my weak pockets of stones that covered the board had to answer to the Dragon, and couldn't stand against it. Before the game was finished, I had already lost.

My opponent's strength was that he could influence me to change my actions, and this stemmed from his resilience.

This is the meaning of strength. To be unmovable by others, thus allowing you to move them.

For example, in the strength of your integrity, you should not be moved by the world's temptations, thus moving others to follow you. If you can resist the urge to eat that chocolate, your strength motivates others to not eat that chocolate as well. If you can't resist, there's no way you can convince other people to not resist - that's hypocrisy!

It is very important to note that to be strong, you are both unmovable and you can move others.
So if you completely believe that there is a flying spaghetti monster in my room but can't convince anyone else that it's there, that's weak. Sure, you're unmovable, but you can't move anyone else. If you're a boxer with a great knockout punches, but cannot even take a single jab from an opponent, you're weak. You can move others, but you're not unmovable.



Strength: Like a mountain. It never moves for anyone, yet people all over the world flock to try and beat it.